Forward Motion

I finally managed to get up early enough to go for a walk this morning before I had to get ready for work. It wasn't a very long walk, but I'm inordinately proud of myself nonetheless. There are a lot of birds in the neighborhood and they were up and chatting. Loudly. I cut through on the path through the open space behind my house. There is a pond back there with quite a few ducks, who madly raced from one side to the other too get away from me as I walked around it, muttering. (The ducks, not me). There was also a heron.
Funny aside: last summer a house which backs up to the other side of the open space was for sale. The real estate sign said Lakefront Property. Seriously, it's a POND. Kids fish there and catch little sunfish, ducks swim on it and muskrats swim in it. It's a pond. I can only imagine some prospective buyer not familiar with the area getting all excited until they got into the back yard.

And sometimes you stretch.

I've been taking this yoga class for a couple of months now. It's about the only physical thing I'm doing these days. I really like the teacher, and the focus of the class, which is Wellness Yoga. I looked at a lot of different classes before I started, and I learned some things: 1) Most yoga studios (in Boulder, at least) cater to people who don't work or who don't work an 8-5 job. 2) Hot yoga sounds like exercising in Hell. 3) Most yoga classes cost way more than I want to spend.

My teacher, Heidi, doesn't spend a lot of time maneuvering us through a bunch of poses with weird names. Well, maybe she does, but she rarely mentions the names. We stretch, a lot. We do things that make muscles I've forgotten I even had hurt for two days afterward. She's Danish and has a really cute accent. She talks about activating the belly and makes it sound like "belleee."

She was gone last week and her substitute teaches in a very different way. I'm sure she's a great yoga teacher, but she assumed that we knew all those weird names, and not just in English, but Hindu, maybe? I don't know the language for sure. We didn't stretch at the beginning of the class. She didn't take time to offer alternatives for a position for people in the class with certain physical issues, like shoulder problems, because she doesn't know the people in the class. I think if she subs again, I will skip that class.

I started taking yoga because, well, I'm almost 50, I'm WAY out of shape, I like to eat food and I hate to exercise, there's heart problems in my family on both sides and diabetes on one side. I thought I'd better do SOMETHING. I'm not having any great epiphany like in Eat - Pray - Love. While I appreciate the spiritual aspect of yoga, I'm not looking to make it a religion. Which is good, because according to my daughter's older sister, if you meditate, you empty your mind and the Devil can get in. It's our standing joke: "What are you doing?" "I'm on my way to worship the Devil."

Greek-ish chicken soup and Strawberry Shortcake Cake

The other day, I had Greek chicken soup at the Sun Rose Cafe. It was really good and I thought, "I should find a recipe like this." I started a search in my go-to for all things food, footnetwork.com. I only found three recipes and none of them really had the ingredients I was looking for. I decided to try and invent my own. I have this all-purpose Greek seasoning so I figured I'd start there. During the process of trying to achieve the flavor I was looking for (which of course I can't really describe), I turned to a Google search of Greek spices. As I ran down the list of spices typically used in Greek cooking, a few things caught my eye: coriander, cumin, cinnamon. I added those and I think I'm closer to where I'm trying to be.

The Greek seasoning mix, Cavender's (I know, that doesn't sound like a Greek name to me either), is not so helpful as the label states An Ancient Greek Formula and at the end of the list of ingredients is "five other spices." Presumably the spices that make it anciently Greek.

Here's what I ended up with:

Greek-ish Chicken Soup

Ingredients
2.5 pounds boneless chicken thighs (because Bobby Flay has taught me that's where all the flavor is)
32 oz chicken stock (I started out with an extra can besides but the pot got too full)
16 oz carrot chips (because I didn't feel like chopping carrots)
3 small zucchini, sliced 
2 bell peppers (I used a green and a red for color)
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup Cavender's Greek Seasoning
1 T dried oregano
2 T cumin
1 t ground coriander
1/2 t ground cinnamon
2-3 T minced garlic (I didn't measure, kind of dumped... I like garlic)
2 T ground black pepper
salt to taste

Rinse chicken thighs, put in a crockpot with the chicken broth. Cook on low for about four hours.
Add the vegetables and the spices. Cook for an additional 2-3 hours. Add lemon juice at the end and stir.






I think it turned out really well. Of course, I'm going to have to go have that soup again at the cafe to see if I can figure out what flavor I may be missing.

I've been following thecountrycook.net because of a recipe my sister-in-law posted on FB one day. Brandie has some great recipes for comfort food, and her specialty is taking cake mixes and transforming them into these really yummy desserts. I follow her page on FB as well, and one of the things she posted this week was the recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cake. I decided I had to make it. Strawberry shortcake always makes me think of summer, so I'm jumping the gun a little (we just had 6 inches of snow last week). Brian asked me if we were celebrating something. I replied, "No, I just want to eat this cake."

http://www.thecountrycook.net/2012/03/strawberry-shortcake-cake.html 

 

And on a completely random note, my desktop background today is Sam and Dean Winchester. Good choice, Webshots!