savory roasted veggies with maple agave syrup.

I’m having the hardest time eating socially acceptable portions these days. I was in my element on Thanksgiving when everyone was eating monstrous, heaping plates of food and returning for seconds and thirds, but Nov. 27 hit and suddenly I look greedy. To be fair, those baked goods were not going to eat themselves. I usually budget for one or two sweets a day, but that week was lady balls to the wall. Chocolate peu de creme? Hit me. Pumpkin ice cream? You only live once. Now I’m feeling all kinds of tubby. Thanks, Thanksgiving.

I ran around my favorite lake a handful of times during my week-long stay, but a few miles weren’t much of a match for the lady balls on the wall. Gross imagery? I’m just trying to prove a point here.

Upon my return, I’ve been attempting to shed the excess with some healthy foods and way too much gym time. Running has been my main/only source of cardio these days, so I’ve been forced to up the ante with the treadmill. This past week, I’ve been increasing the incline for the last half mile on each tenth of a mile. By the time I get to .9 of a mile, I have increased the incline to 5 until I reach a mile. It’s considerably harder than it seems, and when I’m done my skin is a pretty shade of fuschia and my quads have had it. This has been going on for a couple of weeks already, so eventually I’ll be running on an incline for the whole mile(s). Believe it.

In the hopes of fast-tracking a Miss Fitness America-worthy body, I’ve decided that vegetables are my world. This past week, I loaded up on cauliflower, brussels sprouts, butternut squash, mushrooms and parsnips. My dad made this roasted vegetable dish with many of those for Thanksgiving, and he actually used maple syrup to flavor. Amaazing. I had about three helpings the first time we met.

I started my version with the aforementioned veggies, which I cut into pieces that are roughly the same size. You want them to cook evenly, so as not to confuse the toaster oven:

I tossed them in some olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper, and then roasted them for 20 minutes at 400 degrees in the toaster oven. I then opened it, tossed them around some more, covered them in maple-agave syrup, and then roasted for another 20 minutes. They were insaaaane. Repeat for two nights.

On the third night I was a little bored with the formula, so I decided to make it more savory. I left out the rosemary, and instead used cumin and curry powder with the salt, pepper and olive oil. It’s pretty much the easiest recipe of all time. Maybe this is my 10 p.m. dinner speaking, but it really fills me up until breakfast. Also, there’s so many veggies that I can eat for days until they rot. Best poor man’s food ever.

See below:

risotto.

Every time I go home to Florida, I make it a point to borrow a car from the fam and go for a run around this three-mile lake. The length is just challenging enough for a half-glute runner like myself, and the scenery makes me so damn Zen. Really, I start using words like “sun-dappled” in daily conversation, and everyone thinks I’m majorly cracked out. It’s a good thing I’m 1,200 miles north of the lake for the majority of the year.

Now that it’s nice out, I totally want a little Zen in the northeast. Considering my gym addiction, I can’t handle the impracticality of outdoor workouts, and my vocab is not in the market for more “sun-dappled”-like words, but sometimes I need a fix. I’m talking just the tip. Lately, I’ve been putting the treadmill on “all terrain,” and walk/jogging on extreme inclines. I’ve taken half-glute to the extreme.

Today, my roommate came in from an hour long run outdoors, and my jealousy was visible. I was, like, radiating inferiority. Point being, I’m going to try this whole “running outdoors” thing on for size.

Meanwhile, I made my first ever risotto while my roommate was out being superior. It was the antithesis of a light summer meal, but it came out all delicious like. I started by chopping a yellow onion, and sauteeing it in a tablespoon of butter. Then, I added fava beans, a teaspoon of thyme, and some shitake mushrooms:

shrooms

Aren’t they kind of hideous? They really are. I heated some vegetable broth on the stove top, and then I added it a cup at a time. The rice has to absorb the liquid, so when all was said and done it was about 30 minutes of stove top time and 3 cups of broth. The rice got a little bloaty from the broth, but I’m pretty sure it was supposed to look even less hydrated.

I added a little bit of cream and grated some white cheddar cheese up in there, and then stirred until thickened. I then added some rock salt, and it was time to photograph.

I’ll preface this by saying that one really shouldn’t judge food at face value. If that were the case, what reason would any of us have for eating coconuts, hmmm? Those are downright grotesque, but they taste pretty ok. I wouldn’t kick them out of bed.

I’m not sure what I expected, since I had the aforementioned shitake shrooms and fava beans to work with, but see below for the end result. I had a much too generous portion while my roommate did lots and lots of crunches, and then followed with an extensive free weight routine. The risotto did not disappoint, though. See below:

risotto with shitake mushrooms and fava beans

Ahi tuna.

My roommates and I hosted a rooftop bbq yesterday to celebrate 303 years of freedom from the Brits. Good thing we don’t have high tea and all that dry comedy, right? It’s such a relief. We made the most adorable patriotic foods. For instance, we had red cole slaw, blue terra chips, and I made a red and blue mixed berry dessert with homemade whipped cream. It was my first time whipping, and I must say, I whipped it good. It’s really the easiest thing in the world; mix 2 cups of heavy cream with 1/4 cup of sugar and a little vanilla extract, and whip with a hand-held mixer until stiff peaks form. People were pretty into it. I tend to behave like a fat kid at the school dance during dinner parties, so once everyone had their fill, I scooped up the remaining cream onto Baked Lays and really enjoyed myself. Don’t knock it.

True to form, I took not one picture of the event. I’m useless during group things. Due to my sub-par  photojournalism, I’ll have to focus on last week’s meals for the purpose of this entry.

It started with a massive Ahi tuna steak I bought for like $3.30 at Trader Joe’s. The only downside to TJ’s cheapass seafood is that it’s always frozen, so I had to defrost it in the microwave pre-searing. When I went to sear it in olive oil, the insides were pretty much cooked through. The end result was about 85% cooked tuna, 15% raw interior. So not ideal.

On the side, I chopped a couple of cloves of garlic and 1/4 a red onion, and sauteed in some butter. I chopped a bag of brussels sprouts in half, and tossed those into the mix. I was pretty brazen with the butter, so the apartment refrained from reeking of – for lack of a better word – butt, while I sauteed the sprouts. It was impressive. I added in about 1/4 cup of bread crumbs about midway through the sauteeing. About 10 minutes later, I served my tuna and sprouts alongside honey mustard and a slice of ciabatta bread. It looked like this:

tuna and brussels

It tasted like love, and also a little like Belgium. Weird.

Although I got up early today to work off my whole “eating with reckless abandon” thing I called the Fourth of July, I was still feeling guilty come dinner time. Actually, I hate to gloss over the morning after.

I woke up at 9ish and made some espresso, and I denied myself the little piece of bread and butter I usually eat to fuel the morning workouts. I headed off to the gym, and proceeded to run two miles, all the while watching Ina make some amazing looking buttermilk cheddar biscuits. I then did every arm and back machine ever, like, including the rowing machine which I kind of loathe. Then, I did CRUNCHES. Lots of them. Gross.

I thought about making risotto for dinner, but I decided that’s a dish best earned with good behavior. And I have basically been the kid who never does her homework and disrupts class, like, daily. No one rewards that kid. Instead, I made a little salad with some of the leftover tuna from the night prior. I started with spinach, and then added the tuna, some marinated artichoke, and white cheddar cheese. I then added balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and served with a teeny piece of baguette. It was no risotto, but I was actually pretty impressed with how it turned out. See below:

Ahi tuna salad with artichokes and white cheddar