A Produce Adventure

A week ago someone gave me some Swiss Chard from their garden and I wanted to use up before it went bad. Chris left a couple days ago for work so I wanted to go check out some things around Lubbock. I was watching Rachel Ray yesterday and saw them make some pasta bakes, and I found some creamy swiss chard recipe's online and thought I could combine these recipes into one big one.

I decided to check out our Farmer's Market in the depot district. It was small but very cool, I walked away with a head of garlic, 3 lemons and a cafe americano!

My next stop on my adventure was to run out to the Idalou Apple Butter Festival. I didn't go last year and even though Chris was gone I thought I should go check it out. FYI, wearing my 5 fingers was a HORRIFIC  idea. Unfortunately I am the only person on the planet that can attract 100 stickers in the half mile walk from where I parked my car to the actual festival.

I walked around the orchard and picked plenty of apples. I got some Granny Smith Apples, some Golden Delicious Apples, and some various Red Apples of which I'm not sure if they are Gala, or Pink Lady's or what. Here is my collection of apples I got for $10, I'm pretty sure that they were charging $1/lb but i'm not entirely sure.


Then I ran to Sprouts because I wanted some cheese so I got some Parmesan, Romano, and Ricotta.

Here's the recipe (ish):
1 heaping pile of roughly chopped Swiss Chard (1-2 in chunks) with the main vein removed. About 2 cups but it could use more. You can use Spinach too instead of swiss chard, I just had swiss chard lying around.
1/2 a stick of butter (melted in the pot)
3 heaping Tablespoons of flour (or as much as needed to make it as thick as cookie dough)
Lots of milk
1 lb of rigatoni pasta (cook it 3 minutes shorter than the bag says)
0.2-0.25 lb of Parmesan and Romano each (set a little bit aside to sprinkle on top)
     I added Ricotta but it's really not necessary
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon Parsley (You could easily use up to 1 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon Oregano (You could easily use up to 1 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon Thyme (You could easily use up to 1 tablespoon)
a dash of cinnamon
a dash of salt
2 tablespoons Red Peppers (I used 2 packets of Papa John's red peppers)
zest from 2 lemons
GARLIC!!! I totally forgot to add 2 cloves of garlic but you should NOT forget, it would add the perfect touch!

I started with making a Roux, Melt the butter in the pan and add the flour so it's very thick. Drown it in milk then add all the seasonings, including lemon zest and Swiss Chard. Let it cook down on medium and add more milk if it gets to thick, think of it as a creamy sauce that is thicker than ranch dressing and less thick than molasses.

While the sauce is cooking down bake the pasta, remember to bake it 3 minutes less! Preheat your oven to 350.

Just before the pasta is done add the cheese to the creamy sauce and let it melt.

After you drain the pasta mix it in with the creamy sauce and pour it into a 9 X 13 baking dish. Sprinkle the top with the Romano and Parmesan that you set aside. Bake it for 8 minutes, let it rest 1 minute before serving then spoon into bowls.

Here's what the finished product looks like:


It made 6 servings for me. It would make about 4 for very hungry boys. If you wanted to add a little bit of a crunch you could put panko bread crumbs or toasted pine nuts on top just before putting in the oven. If you wanted to add some meaty protein in it a spicy italian sausage (cased and sliced) or some finely chopped bacon would be perfectly delicious!

This was a very fun Saturday and i'm grateful for years of helping my mom in the kitchen so that I can look at multiple recipes and combine them into one amazing one.

Run 2 Rescue & Llano Wine/Clay Festival

Today Chris and I participated in the 1st annual Run 2 Rescue. Their goal is to raise awareness about human trafficking and raise money to help stop it! This year they raised over $15,000 and there will be more donations coming in within the next week. It was a great experience, it was my first 5K and Chris' first 5K since high school (I was a sprinter in high school, only crazy people ran long distances!). Chris and I ran together for the first half mile then I needed to walk a bit. Chris continued running the whole 5K! GO CHRIS!!! I did run/walk intervals since that gave me time to catch my breath and I'm still getting into the whole running thing :-)
Here is our pre-race photo:

Chris' basic stats are:

Distance: 3.06 miles

Total Time: 30:45

Avg. Pace: 10:03min/mile (he was hoping for 10 flat as an average but I still say he did great!)

Here is the link to his full info:
https://motoactv.com/public/show?workoutActivityId=CnwyQX87SqCbsUUZw16DDg%3D%3D&activity=1

Mandy's basic stats are:

Distance: 3.07 miles

Total Time: 34:19

Avg. Pace: 11:11min/mile (I was happy to be lower than 11:30 as an average!)

Here is the link to my full info:
http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/arpepper/1amnp5o92tegsucn

Here is our post-race photo:

After we made our very own peanut butter cup blenders and relaxed on the couch until our good friend Liz texted us and asked if we wanted to go check out the Llano Wine/Clay Festival. We decided to go check it out and there were some AMAZING works of art there. Clay, glass, beading, rocks, painting, and I'm sure more that I'm forgetting. The pottery work was amazing and we saw plenty of things that we wanted to take home! Afterwords we ended up running out to Pheasant Ridge winery and tasting wines out there. There wines overall really are drier than Llano but they're good and Chris liked them so that means that they can't be too dry ;-) They're decently priced and I'm sure that sometime we'll run out there and get a bottle or two!

Finishing a 5K and drinking wine with friends makes for a GREAT Saturday!

Little Learning Moments

Chris and I we had just finished skyping with mom and dad and were talking about how i was feeling stressed (no the two are not related). It was the end/beginning of the month which meant bills, and my advisor was back in town which meant more work added to my to-do list. It was all feeling overwhelming and I felt like last year we had started making financial progress but this year I've felt like we were in a vice grip and couldn't quite figure out why, it was driving me nuts, making me feel like I've been wasting money. It was bothering me so much that I couldn't get comfortable and fall asleep. I was feeling like a profound failure and on top of that still trying to figure out what I want to do school/career wise later in life. I finally did the math of what we made last year and what we're looking at for this year and realized that we're down to 82% of what we made last year. I thought, ok... I'm not crazy! Yay!!!

But it did nothing to ease my feeling of stress and my anxiety. I still was having a hard time falling asleep and my next thought was to pray about it. I know people have been able to "pray away" asthma attacks, life-long dizzy spells, cancer, etc. So I prayed for clarity in my future and peace about our finances, a release of my sadness that Chris was going to be leaving again and for a sense of calm, knowing that I needed to get up early the next morning to take care of my mice. When I was done praying I felt the same, and actually a little more anxious, it angered me. I thought, "If someone can pray about and be released from any of these other ailments, why can't I?! I do my best to thank God every chance I get for all the things that he's blessed me with, why won't he answer my prayer for my needs?" Chris even said to me, "Mandy, I can't fall asleep." To which I answered, "I can't either." I finally fell asleep, feeling angry, useless, and still full of anxiety.

It wasn't until the next morning, when i got a call from dad, that I realized that my anxiousness wasn't for my needs, it was for my mother. Her blood pressure had skyrocketed and dad took her to the ER where they ended up giving her nitroglycerin and then admitted her to the hospital for testing and observation. I talked to dad, got the facts and then took care of my mice. It was while I was weighing out their feed that I realized that I was so focused on myself and decided to just be angry that I didn't say, "God, what are you trying to tell me?" I didn't feel like a failure then but thought of Samuel, "Then the LORD called Samuel. Samuel answered, 'Here I am.'" (1 Samuel 3:4, NIV).

Next time I feel my anxiety overwhelming, especially after praying about it I'll think to ask, "What Lord?"

Turns out her thyroid is messed up, so they put her on thyroid meds and that should help everything.

Workouts

I've been using Pinterest to look at online workouts and found some good ones for April (halfway through the month). I'm a little disappointed in what I found for May so I have decided to be proactive and throw something together for June.

I have been following the Self.com Drop 10 diet which has lots of great food suggestions.

They have it structured so you do 3 High Intensity Interval Training sessions a week and 2 sessions of 8 Easy Toning Moves per week.

I decided that I needed to add something extra, I like a better full body toning so I made a months workout with changing up the weights/toning moves. Three exercises per day with one day abs, one day legs, and one day arms, rotating through out the month with weekends as rest/cleaning days. Some might say this is a bad idea but I don't like having to do the same thing every day for the entire month.

Now... Here it is!

Enjoy!

Avocado Pasta

This year has been quite a change for the two of us. Chris' travel schedule changed from being gone on weekends to being gone for weeks at a time. We've both been logging our food and trying to eat healthier. Chris has had a lot of digestive problems and once he started logging what he was eating he realized that he was eating only 1000 calories a day and starving himself practically. Now that he eats enough he hasn't had as many tummy troubles. I dropped 10 pounds really quickly and then plateaued so I've been looking for ways to eat yummy, healthy food. Chris really doesn't like avocado so this is something I make when he's not around. I call it Avocado Pasta, and here's my recipe:
4oz (dry) Whole wheat spaghetti (cooked according to package directions)
1 cup Baby Spinach

For the Sauce:
1 small Avocado
1/4 cup Fat Free Milk
1 oz Greek Non-Fat Plain Yogurt (I like Chobani)
1 Tbsp Low Sodium Soy Sauce
4 Tbsp Lime Juice
3 Tbsp Garlic Powder

I used our magic bullet to blend the Sauce, it needs the milk to thin it out so it can blend properly but i wanted some good protein so that's why I added the Greek Yogurt. Truthfully you can probably up the amount of pasta and turn it into a 3 or 4 person meal b/c there is a lot of sauce!

Enjoy!

Serves: 2 (I like to save the other half for lunch the next day!)
Calories: 376 per serving
Total fat: 7.6 g
Saturated fat: 0 g
Monounsaturated fat: 2.2 g
Cholesterol: 0.1 mg
Potassium: 507.8 mg
Total Carbs: 58.4 g
Dietary Fiber: 8.5 g
Sugars: 5.1 g
Protein: 13.5 g
Vitamin A: 28.2% of your Daily Value
Vitamin C: 7.8% of your Daily Value
Calcium: 10.9% of your Daily Value
Iron: 19.9% of your Daily Value

November in Lubbock

Well it's now November and so many things I never thought would come, have. We had my parents out last week for a visit. We got to see so many parts of Lubbock and the history behind it. We ate at a bunch of places, some AMAZING that I will go back to, and others not so amazing but it's always nice to finally get to venture around your new home. They also bought us a stand up freezer :-) It's SO nice to have some freezer space and actually be able to save money by buying things in bulk!

Sadly Nick could not come down with mom and dad but that was fortunate for me as I reach my next subject. I submitted my thesis on time and it was officially accepted! I needed someone to pick up my signature sheet from the Animal Science building and hand it off to the Graduate School before I could electronically submit my thesis and Nick stepped in and took care of it for me! I only have a few more details to wrap up by the end of the semester but then I'll be officially done with every aspect of my masters and can concentrate solely on my PhD. Perfect timing really because it appears my PhD project will be starting up after the first of the year. Everything was a bit anti-climactic but I'm glad to have it done and over with.

Chris and I are getting to spend more time together and loving it. We are really liking our church and we found a Sunday night group that meets for dinner and a discussion that we really like. Oddly enough we found this over the summer on our cruise in Greece. I was wearing a Texas Tech shirt and a lady came up to me in the dining room and shared that she lives in Lubbock and would love to meet up with us once we moved down. As such, it's not associated with our church and Sunday nights are bad times when Chris is traveling but it's great to have for now.

I'm still not happy with the apartment complex we live in. We're the last building to get painted, half the fences in our little grouping are not going to get fixed because the fencers were not getting paid and they walked out, NOTHING that was on our list of broken things when we moved in in August has been fixed and they have had multiple visits from us, including a new list. While mom and dad were here we stumbled across some houses that are well maintained and decently priced at 59900 and I'm not sure how long we're going to be here but even over 4 years it would EASILY pay for itself... I don't know, it's just a thought. Any of the places to live around here that aren't sufficiently ghetto and run down are EXPENSIVE, it's ridiculous! This is supposed to have a lower cost of living but rent is huge and food is more expensive (there are no stores with loyalty cards) and honestly most of the city is in poverty. I guess I just don't see how it's so sustainable that way? OK, vent done.

I know Chris will have to spend more time in CO now that he has less races but with our bikes making the trip back with mom and dad he will have a constant mode of transportation around Fort Collins. We have great friends in Fort Collins who just bought a new house and have offered their new guest room as a place to stay. It will be nice that Chris doesn't have to crash only on the couch at Nick's place. However, I'm looking forward to more time on the weekends with him :-)

The weather is finally cooling down and I'm looking forward to a winter here :-) I'm looking forward to truly making Lubbock our new home and embracing everything it has to offer us (at least for the next couple of years).

Stresses of Life

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Chris has been gone a lot for work and I have been very busy with school and work. The past two weeks have been very challenging for us, I won't say we got through unscathed but we got through it together and that's what matters. Chris loves his job and while I'm sad that he's gone when he is I love getting to spend time with him when he's home and I'm happy that he loves his job and what he does. I am very happy to be in Texas and getting deep into lab work and school work. I'm finding my place on campus and making friends and my advisor has all of these great potential opportunities for research projects that I can get involved in. One in particular deals with lab rats and testing out a peanut based protein that has been formulated to feed children in third-world countries that are malnourished. As of tonight (9/25/11) I have sent my thesis off to my primary masters advisor for final approval. The steps following will be to make any corrections he gives me, get my formatting perfect (something i'm really good at) and then get my paper crushed down into a journal article size and ready for submission. Then I can officially submit my thesis submission form (yes I know this sounds redundant!) and then I can electronically submit my thesis and I have officially graduated and only have to worry about my journal article submission! November 4th, here I come!!!!! This is the final date for submission for graduating this fall.

I am a little disappointed in how my assistantship has turned out, financially, but with Chris' job being great we're doing well and we have figured out how to make it through the tough winter months!

We both got flu shots this year, every winter I am out of Colorado I get the flu so I thought maybe I could fight the inevitable and with Chris traveling as much as he does we thought it might help get us through those tough winter months ;-) haha

We really miss our great friends and family from back in CO but look forward to the time that we get to spend with them in CO or here in TX. Chris and I finally got to attend church together and we think we have found our new church home. This means that hopefully this winter when he's not working much we will have time to find a small group and get involved. I'm looking forward to having a support network down here to help me with my sanity!

Overall we are happy, the cats are happy, and we love our new adventures that we get to embark on together!