Back in Action

I'll just be honest here.  I am not very good at managing stress.  I happen to enjoy something about the thrill of stress, and I work incredibly well under it.  In fact, I've probably produced some of my best work during the all-nighter time crunch.  However, I do not do well when this type of work is demanded of me two nights in a row, let alone two weeks in a row.  What I'm really getting at is that I have been incredibly stressed at work, and I really allowed it to billow out to most other areas of my life.  My plan for the next couple of weeks is to slow down, make game plans, and allow myself to enjoy life outside of work.  Which will involve not working after work.  Sometimes I have to set fake deadlines for myself in order to get things done quickly, and I think that might need to happen this week.  I just can't mentally afford to have dreams about test script numbers, which, mind you, is how I spent my nights this weekend.

This will also involve COOKING.  Both for my health and for my personal enjoyment.  Last week I was in Dallas, so cooking wasn't an option, but I'm relieved to back in control this week, working from home.

I promised some of my recipes from 2 weeks ago (eeek, that's not good), so here we go.

1. Polenta with broccoli rabe and shrimp

This is hardly a "recipe," but I cooked some garlic, onions, and red pepper in EVOO, and sauteed the broccoli rabe in EVOO in a separate pot until it wilted down.  The I added the greens and the shrimpies (frozen, pre-cooked) into the pan with the onions/peppers until the shrimp were cooked through.  At the end I added some red pepper flakes and a drizzle of honey.  Broccoli rabe can be tricky, because it's so bulky until it wilts down a little.  Sometimes it helps to add a little water to kind of faux-boil it and speed up the cooking process.  As a side-note, I think broccoli rabe is AWESOME.  It's bitter, meaty, and texturally all over the place.  Try it.

2. Curried salmon salad

I started buying canned salmon in addition to tuna, for some variety.  Canned salmon sometimes comes with the bones and skin, which I personally find revolting.  I know... there's great calcium in the bones, blah blah blah.  It's gross.  No go.  Trader Joe's has a canned salmon that's bone-free, skin-free, and fat free, which I guess means you're also not getting the omega-3s goodness, but same idea as tuna, I guess.  (Wait a second... how DO they do that? Tuna and salmon are both fatty fishes... I'm confused.)  And now, to just really throw a wrench into things, big bad BPA is back.  You may remember BPA from its infamous takeover of the Nalgene industry, and the subsequent sky-rocketing of the Sigg bottle.  But BPA got fed up with water bottles, and is now dedicated to ruining beans, soup, and tuna for innocent people everywhere.  Bummer.

OK, regardless, I mashed up the salmon with a little mayo, curry powder, black beans, onions, (ginger?), and red pepper and served it over fresh arugula with chopped tomatoes.  The black beans were a great addition.  A very filling lunch.

3. Mark Bittman's sweet potato salad

I made some tweaks, based on what I had handy, but I kept the flavors the same.  I had to use lemon juice instead of lime, and I didn't have a jalapeno, so I just used some red pepper flakes.  It was missing something but I couldn't put my finger on what, exactly.  Maybe it really needed lime and not lemon.  Fine, it wasn't even lemon... it was that lemon juice that comes in a little lemon-like bottle.  I'm ashamed.  Don't tell Mark.  I ended up taking a large portion of the salad with me to the airport last week before my flight to Dallas.  And, somehow, I was so tired that I slept for most of the flight and didn't even eat it until I got to the hotel.  It held up very well, and wasn't even smelly, as I thought black beans might get.  Definitely trying this one again.  It reminded me of a chili I sometimes make, which, speaking of, should go on my fall recipe to-do list.

4. Berry Berry Oatmeal

Um, would it really be my blog if I didn't have some oats lurking around?  Certainly not.  This batch of oatmeal was particularly colorful due to the addition of frozen fruit!  Microwaved frozen fruit, to be exact.  When you zap 'em, there's always a little juice puddle in the bowl, and I usually just scoop out the fruit and dump the juice, but I was feeling like it might be fun to have purple oats.  It was.  Topped with a few salted peanuts.  Lately I've been feeling like, while effective in theory, adding peanut butter to my oatmeal doesn't actually hold me over any longer than plain old oats with some fruit or raisins.  I've been just adding a few nuts now and I think it works just as well for my protein-psychology.  It gives some nice texture variation without the same amount of calories as a tablespoon of nut butter.  I just figure if I'm gonna be hungry at 11am either way, then why bother?  That said, it does taste like heaven, so I'm going to try to keep the PB/AB thing to just workout days.

5. Dessert Oats

Sometimes it is necessary to have dessert for breakfast.  Last Saturday (er, 2 Saturdays ago...) was one of those days.  I ran the Nike+ Human Race 10K in the morning in Brooklyn (aka the other side of the earth when you need to be there at 8am), and was so dehydrated and exhausted afterward that all I wanted was a big ole bowl of mushy sweet fillingness.  I made an oatmeal/oatbran combo cooked stovetop with paper-thin banana slices and cinnamon.  Then topped with raspberries and... chocolate chips.  Completely necessary.  And incredible.  Breakfast, dessert, whatever you want to call it... I will be doing this again.

Now if you're really paying attention to my food philosophy, you are asking a very important question right now.  WHAT, you are asking, are fresh raspberries doing on your oats at the end of October?!?!  I can guarantee you that (good) raspberries cannot be bought locally at this time of year, so the answer is: they were given to me, and since "not wasting" trumps "eating locally," I ate them.  And I enjoyed them (shhh).  But raspberries will not be making any more appearances in my oats until it's warm again.  Promise.  Bananas, on the other hand, will be making constant appearances in and out of my oats.  That's something I'm just not willing to give up.  Maybe I'll build a greenhouse.  Right, in all my spare time.

My goodness, there is even MORE to share, including 2 cooking classes, some more Dallas travel, and my discovery of kale, but I have to leave you wanting more, no?