Back at it. Again.

It’s springtime here, and I’ve been trying to tend to my plants, and by extension myself, better. I recently started a tower garden and now I have so much kale and fancy lettuce I’ll have to freeze a lot of it. Or have a kale-themed smoothie party. Kale, yeah!

Anyway, tending to one thing often leads me to discovering many other things I’ve neglected. This page is one of them. It’s right there, on my list of things to do (#47), being ever so patient.

Today I remembered that sometimes information needs to be updated or they turn things off. So I logged in, and was immediately scolded: “You were unable to log on due to inactivity on the site.” (Do you log in or on? I can never remember)

After a few moments of panic, I clicked “continue”, and now, here I am, writing this missive to you, dear reader.

So, here, for now, is a photo of the plants I started from seeds. I’m almost as proud of my human babies. (jk.)

Stealth Zen / Salad Bowl

i hadn’t done any meal planning or prepping and i was hungry. very hungry. the kind of hungry that usually sends me straight to a box of cereal, or bag of some other processed crap. 

and i was staring at a pile of beautiful produce, freshly harvested from a local family-owned farm. it was Wednesday, farm box day and my goal to actually use the bounty instead of letting it rot away in my refrigerator was fresh in my mind. 

in the fridge was not so much food but ingredients to make food. 

there would be labor involved. decisions would have to be made.  focused attention paid. a level of detail and precision i wasn’t sure i could muster.

so i did. muster, that is. i spent twenty minutes slicing tomato and peppers and onions and did a few other simple things and then sat down to a healthy nutrient-packed meal. 

and now i feel better. go figure.

Get Saucy!

Always get the special sauce.

I am always trying to get more vegetables into our meals, and I don't always know what to do with the beautiful produce that grows in my homeland. We got lots of bok choy in our farm box recently, and this is the beauty that my husband created with it.  

The labor involved was minimal, especially since we had pre-chopped veggies left over from another recipe.  Salads are great- whatever sounds good gets tossed in the tub.  Here, tomato, cucumber, parsley, and pine nuts join the sliced bok choy.  Then for the special sauce, in this case a very basic vinaigrette, with rice wine vinegar and sesame oil.

It was pretty good that first day.  The next day it was even better.  I've been talking about it for a week now.

This one goes high up in the rotation!

Stealth Eats: Chicken n' Beans

Dinner!!

Super easy and delish. Coconut oil, chicken. Onion/garlic, green beans, lemon juice. Salt as you go.

Stealth Eats: Parmesan Crispy Kale

Snack time!

Kale+oil+parm in a hot oven. Easy peasy healthy goodness!

Stealth Eats: Turkey Zucchini Boats

Talk about a boatload of goodness!

Here, I've sautéed the guts of zucchini, onion, and garlic with ground beef. Perfect for shoving into the zucchini shells, or a hollowed-out pepper, or tortilla, or straight into your tummy! 

Stealth Eats: Rogue Veggie Turkey Saute

Sometimes I follow a recipe...

...and sometimes I go rogue! Random veggies (onion, garlic, red cabbage, broccoli) and ground turkey in a hot pan with some oil and seasoning... with roasted asparagus and broccoli in the side.

Stealth Eats: Springtime Vegetable Soup

The soup obsession continues! This time, roasted asparagus and romanesco joined mushrooms, onion and garlic in a steamy bath of vegetable broth. Then the immersion blender turned it all into a wonderful, slightly chunky bowl of springtime! 

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Stealth Eats: Easy Tomato Soup

Soup’s On!

Cold, dreary winter days are just made for hot tomato soup.  Just a few ingredients tossed into the blender can be transformed into a steaming bowl of pure sunshine!

 1. Roast some tomatoes! Here, I’ve halved some Roma tomatoes and tossed them in EVOO and salt.  Sometimes I add some onion. Hot oven for an hour

2. To your blender, add some carrot, celery, garlic, basil, and stock.  I like vegetable, but chicken is fine too.  Blend it to your liking; I splurged on a VitaMix last year, and it has a soup setting.  At this point, I simply push “start.” It runs for about 7 minutes and I have hot soup at the end, blended to the perfect consistency.  If you don’t have a fancy heating blender, just heat it all on the stove (bring to a boil and simmer for ~20 min) and blend carefully a small bit at a time, or use a stick blender.

Lunchtime!  It’s not much to look at; the color isn’t what I expected, but it was delicious! And as you can see it made enough to save. Super convenient to take to work and reheat in your coffee mug.  Adding some protein (or even better: a cobb salad) rounds out the perfect lunch.

Stealth Moves: #33–The Toddler

For about two or three weeks, Lex very diligently practiced walking.  She spent hours doing laps around the apartment balancing, stepping, bending, and mainly traveling.  She only required one thing (well, two): each of my index fingers in each of her hands.  I’ll bet I could have logged two miles a day walking around in a one-half squat.  It’s only slightly more embarrassing to do at the playground; a cute baby takes the focus off the crazy lady walking around with her ass sticking out.  I don’t recommend doing this on a crowded sidewalk, however.

Stealth Moves: #6–The Fussy Baby

When Lex was very little (the whole first three months), she was pretty cranky.  Not too much so, but she let me know–clearly–when she was uncomfortable.  I quickly learned that motion was usually the thing that would calm baby, and even lull her to sleep.  In the first few weeks I spent hours pacing the apartment with a burrito-wrapped bundle bouncing around.  This turned into many sets of standing lunges, in all planes of motion; walking lunges, with and without twists; and squats-with twists, with kicks, with bounces.

Just like in the gym, I paid careful attention to my form: Feet parallel, knees stacked above feet; hips square, back straight; chest open, baby ‘weight’ secure and centered.  This is great for cardio as well.  After about five minutes of this I’m sucking wind.