Productivity Tuesday - COOKING!

No running or working out becuase I'm still recovering from that really long run I took on Sunday.  But I did find time to get all kinds of stuff done.

Seen on my daily stretch walk.

 
Breakfast - A productive day always starts with a big breakfast.  Hello bacon!  I had bacon and eggs.  And then promptly fell asleep on the couch.  All is right with the world.

The view of south Minneapolis - not from my couch, but close.

All morning - This was not the productive part of the day.  I stayed on the couch all morning where I belong and had a big smoothie for lunch.  Our work crews drove me nuts all morning with those big leaf blowing machines that make ten times more noise than a truck.  Get a rake or something.  When I headed out for the afternoon I was greeted by an impressive pile of leaves.  No really, it's fine, who carEs about handicap parking anyways?

Massage - This afternoon I headed out to my first massage.  It was wonderful.  It was good when I was all "I just ran a marathon, fix me" and she knew what that meant.  Seriously.  I'm relaxing just thinking about it now.  This morning I was all "I'll never exercise again" but after that, I'm feeling like I could go for a little run tomorrow.  Good thing too because I have Team:Work

Shopping - I don't know if I mentioned I'm doing this challenge thing (I should really have a more complete understanding than I do) and it involves personal training and nutrition so this week I'm supposed to go on a modified cleanse.  Apparently it's modified to include solid foods.  I'm not totally on board with it yet, but am willing to at least give it a try.  I headed over to my trusty Co-op for fresh ingredients.  The rules are basically:

• Dairy: bad
• Meat: bad, but you can have chicken or fish for three meals, not on the same day
• White starches: bad.  No noodles, no rice, no bread.  I have no idea what I'm going to do.
• Slow starches including legumes, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes yes!: allowed, but not to be eaten within four hours of bed time.
• Sweeteners, alcohol, all of my favorite things: bad
• Nuts: Very good, especially raw or nut butters or nut milks like almond milk.
• Fruit and vegetables: Excellent

Seen on the way home from the store.

Cooking - I spent several hours on my feet cooking.  My tupperware drawer is now totally empty which means I don't have to cook again until I eat a bunch of this food.  I'm really excited about some of the stuff I made.  It's not 100% following the cleanse, but quite close.

• Lentil Burgers - I thought these would be foul and I'd just have to stomach them.  I had one and can't wait to make them again.  I used canned lentils instead of cooking my own and only made half a batch.  I found I had to cook them more like pancakes than to actually mold them into a patty.  They taste so good.  They're not strictly a cleanse food because they have bread crumbs (I used ground oats instead) but close enough.
• Hard boiled eggs - I hope I did it right.  I have a history of screwing them up.  No.  Seriously.
• Sauteed mushrooms - I used crimini, button and shitake and threw in some sesame seeds with them.  I'm sure the butter I used isn't on the cleanse diet but I'll deal.
• Collard greens - again, bacon is not on the menu but I used a very small amount for flavoring so again, I'll deal.
• Roasted potatoes - Om nom nom nom nom
• Roasted carrots and zucchini - this is a new one and we'll see how it turned out.  I forgot that roasted carrots are super sweet.
• Roasted cauliflower - this is the first time I've roasted the cauliflower without the broccoli.  Broccoli smells funny when it cooks so this may be a good idea for the future.
• Concord grapes -  I didn't do anything to them, but my Co op has them now and if yours does too, go out and buy buy buy.

That was a lot of cooking.  I watched Midnight in Paris which was stupid and a few old episodes of Warehouse 13 which were less stupid.  After all that cooking, I still have no idea what I'm going to take for lunch tomorrow.  I'm having a "too many options' moment.

Feeling slightly more human than yesterday.

Cleaning - Cauliflower is messy.  Of everything I did, the cauliflower made the biggest mess.  While the last of the veggies were in the over roasting, I thew the dishes in the dishwasher (best invention ever), swept the kitchen floor, and once the oven was off I took out the trash.  (Fire safety is important kids.)