Miss Rachel

I am working 4 10-hour days this week, and then I’ll have Friday off. My department likes to have a couple people to answer phone calls after 5 so that’s what I’m doing. I still want to work out though so I got the crazy idea to work out before work on Monday and see how it went. I’m generally not a morning exerciser, but it just seemed to make more sense to work out then instead of going to work then working out in the afternoon: changing clothes and showering in the middle of the day and then going back to work. In case you’re wondering why I wouldn’t just work out after work, it’s because working this schedule I’m done at 7 so even if I felt inclined to work out at the hour (which I highly doubt), the gym closes at 7.  The way I did it I came to work in my work-out clothes, stopped at my desk, put my things away, put my food in the fridge and then went down to the gym with with my work clothes in my gym bag. Then I ran intervals on the treadmill – 3 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking for 25 minutes. Then I cooled down and stretched, took a quick shower, got dressed and was up at my desk by 9. It went so well I did it again today. And I think I will do it again tomorrow.

You know there are so many opportunities to make yourself feel bad, sometimes without even looking for them. For instance, I read a number of fitness and running blogs and people will say things about having trouble keeping up their 8-minute mile pace or one that said her friends said Runner’s World magazine is not for “real” runners – huh?   So there I was on the treadmill struggling through 3 minutes at a time at a 12-minute mile pace with Runner’s World magazine propped up in front of me.  Since I was running and walking I couldn’t really read it, but it gave me something to look at other than the machine.  And I felt good.  I have to remember that this is about me and what I’m doing and that I may be slow and that I may like to look at Runner’s World, and if some people who I don’t even know are critical of those things, then that’s about them, not me.

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In other news, I’ve been taking pictures of my food throughout the past 5 or so months, but not nearly enough of them have made it to this blog, and I think I need to change that. Therefore,  I’m thinking of doing a “meal of the day” or “what vegans eat” feature here  so I can start posting the pics of the ummy food I eat.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of the latest banana bread that I made.  This time I had 4 bananas  so I was closer to the right (2 cup) amount of banana pulp the recipe calls for, and the bread came out great, if I do say so myself. The thing is you have to bake it for a long time when you use that high an amount of banana pulp. The original recipe says 50 minutes, but I find you need to bake it for at least an hour so it’s fully baked in the middle.

It was delicious with some Earth Balance on it, but Blue proved it can even be enjoyed plain. While it was cooling on the table and I was out of the room, Blue managed to hop up and bite the corner off of it – !   I told him he was a bad dog, but he just wagged his tail at me.  Guess I have to keep a closer eye on delicious smelling foods cooling in the kitchen.

We’re having a cold snap here in Connecticut. The weather and the presence of over-ripe bananas seemed to indicate the time was right for making banana bread. Sweetie will often do me the favor of eating the over-ripe bananas (which are way too sweet and yucky for me), but this time I didn’t want him to so I put a note on the bananas in the morning before leaving for work.

After work, I came home and cooked up some red quinoa and steamed some beautiful asparagus for our dinner.

After we ate up that yummy goodness, I started in on the banana bread. I adapted the recipe from the Tassajara Bread Book. I just switch Ener-G Egg Replacer for eggs. It’s easily the best banana bread I’ve had, and it’s also quite nutritious. I admit only three bananas were not enough make up the two full cups of banana pulp the recipe calls for so last night’s loaf wasn’t quite as good as usual, but Sweetie and I managed to put away a good chunk of it anyway.