Since the marathon, I haven't really been motivated to run... but I cooked a lot today

Today was actually one of the first day I was really motivated to do much of anything. I was going to do a long(ish) run, then have a beer and watch the game. Alas, it is not possible to buy alcohol in Minnesota on a Sunday. (I know. It is ridiculous.) So I had no need to run to burn of calories in anticipation of alcohol. I was additionally confused by this whole fall back an hour thing. I spent most of the morning laying on the couch instead. (Win.)

I got up long enough to go to the Co-op where I dropped over $60, mostly in produce. Among other things, I bought fresh tomatoes. What's that? Oh look, a pig flying by... I then spent an awesomely productive day cooking. I'm not going to document it here. (Although, if you like reading about those things and finding new recipes, may I suggest my friend Chris' blog.)

What did I make? I was jonesing for some soup. A lot of times at work, if I eat soup I don't eat anything else so I need a hearty soup with protein and carbs.

First, I made White Bean and Vegetable Soup. I made it basically as described there.I used the blender to puree about eight cups of the soup, as opposed to the two recommended in the recipe. That's more a texture than a taste thing. Also, I will reheat these in the microwave so it's better if the ingredients are a more uniform consistency and size.

Tomato Soup was a late addition to my menu but I badly wanted some. This recipe looked good as it included lentils, meeting my protein and carb requirements. Plus, cooked tomatoes are like the healthiest thing in the world. Obviously, this was the reason for the fresh tomatoes I bough. This one, well, you would recognize the ingredients from the recipe but not much else. I used big tomatoes (not cherry tomatoes) because they were the only ones I could buy that were grown locally. All I know is they were "from the vine" and they were the round red ones. (People tell me there's a difference between roma, heirloom, cherry, etc, but raw tomatoes make me shudder so I've never done a taste test.) I roasted the onion with the tomatoes. After the roasting, I pureed the tomatoes, onion and garlic, and then cooked them with the lentils. I don't know why I wasn't in the mood for pureed lentils. Perhaps it was all the pureeing with the other soup. I think I used way more lentils than were called for, but yum nonetheless. I confess, I did have to add a bit of sugar to the soup to cover the recognizable bitter tomato taste, but dude, I bought fresh tomatoes and actually turned them into something I will eat.

Last, I made roasted vegetables which is so much my specialty there's not even a recipe I can refer you to. Today, it was roasted broccoli, cauliflower and edamame. (Firefox doesn't think "edamame" is a word, but I am spelling it correctly.) I always toss the vegetables in olive oil, salt and pepper, and then pick any additional flavors. Today, I added sesame oil and lemon juice. Apparently, there's a roasted edamame recipe for every day of the year. I highly recommend them. They're yummy and have iron, which I always have trouble including in my diet. Next to Brussels sprouts, edamame is my favorite thing to roast.

I know. We should all send winter coats down to Hell and tell the air traffic controllers to look out for flocks of pigs when I willingly by Brussels sprouts and tomatoes. Also, seriously, I did not know "Brussels sprouts" was spelled with an "s" at the end of the first word. The co-op today did have Brussels Sprout stalks today, which I'd never seen before.

Last night, I cleaned out my freezer, which was pretty depressing. There was a whole bunch of food I cooked that I wound up not eating. Those included paad thai with the wrong (and consequently overcooked) noodles, an early attempt at roast vegetables which did not go so well, and some quinoa thing I should've made a lot less of to begin with.

Happily, the freezer is now full of stuff I am much more likely to eat. About eight single serve containers of my white bean soup, three of my tomato soup, and three of my roasted vegetables. Nom nom nom.

Now that I've got food for the entire month of November, I just need to run so I don't embarrass myself in the Dreidel Dash. By the way, Beth, on numerous occasions, has told me the course is totally flat. Here's the route. However, turning on the elevation feature of Gmap Pedometer reveals that Beth is smoking something good. It's ok, I need to learn to run UP hill in a 5k.