Sorry for the blurry pick.  I was moving and am not sure what the gym’s policy is on taking photos, so was in a hurry.

I was tired today and a bit sore from yesterday’s workout.  Today I had planned to take a Yoga class and a weight training class.  However my back hurt bad.  Instead I opted for cardio.

I got on the treadmill and had it in my mind I would walk at a good steady pace on a 2 incline for 10 minutes.  My legs got tired at 5 minutes and I was thinking the elliptical sounded much better.  However, at 10 minutes I really got into a good pace and even opted to run on and off.  I stayed on for 30 minutes and went over 2 miles.  It is a good first start.

Then I was going to go swim in the pool, but when I got out there they had swim lessons.  I sat in the hot tub for at least a half an hour, it felt so good.  Later I drank a lot of water to replenish.

I am not doing the best workouts of my life, but it is a start.  I am trying to ease into it gently as I know I am good at pushing myself once I get a good routine going.

Tomorrow I am going to do the Yoga.  I really want to try and do Yoga at least twice a week.

Accountability:  Not doing so well with tracking food on Sparkspeople.  The idea is great and they make it so easy.  I have an app on my phone and if I ate mostly the same thing every day I could sort it by groups.

Breakfast I ate coffee and a peanut butter and honey sandwich (don’t judge.)

Lunch:  homemade hummus w/ whole grain crackers and a plum.

Dinner:  Taco Salad:  Turkey meat, multiple types of lettuce (including arugula,) salsa, cheese (small pinch,) refried beans, green onions, and radishes…..Oh, and a side dish of green beans and leeks sauteed in olive oil.

Looking at it all, I think I am okay calorie wise, but am just too tired to plug it all in….tired from the gym.  I want to think in a month this will get easier, but I will be going to school and there will be no easy.

Really, it is easier to track foods if you eat processed foods and can say, “I ate 3 cookies.”  When you cook most dinners from scratch it is hard to then go back and write it all down (or enter it in.)  Maybe this is lazy.

Finally, school is back in session and I can have gym time.  It was so awesome!  I road the bike for 10 minutes, then did some leg work, back, and arms (light.)  Then I followed it with 10+ minutes on the elliptical.  I was there an hour.

Tomorrow I am going to take a weight and yoga class.  Love it!

I totally failed in providing a picture to this week’s farm share.  :(  I took the kids to the park yesterday, then stopped by the farm.  Farmer Tom was there and the girls ran off and played with his daughter while I talked with him and loaded up the car.  We spent probably 30 minutes or more at the farm and then I rushed home.  We had very little time to get everything bagged up and in the fridge so I could go to the Farmer’s Market and get a few things that I needed.  One of those things I needed was honey.  I have been buying local honey and this guy comes every 2 weeks.  I was out, too.  So if I missed the farmer’s market I would have to buy store bought honey.  I have been trying to eat local honey to help with my allergies.  The flavor of his honey is so good.  I don’t want store bought.

At the farmer’s market we spent some time talking to the hippy cheese guy.  I have yet to get his name, total oversight on my part.  He is a really nice man and the girls and I have enjoyed talking with him.  I buy bread from him that I love.  He gets it from a local bread bakery that supplies to just a few stores and to him.  The bread has no preservatives.  It doesn’t need any, I will eat it all in less than a week.  I also buy his Parmesan Cheese.  Once you try the cheese, you can never go back to store bought cheese.  It is so good and I only put a little bit on salads or on top of sauteed green beans.

Also at the farmer’s market I bought Green Leaf Lettuce (noticed a lot of farmers did not have lettuce,) Red Onions, Portuguese Kale (is a flat leafed kale that looks like Collard Greens,)  Dino Kale (what can I say?  I love Kale,) Scallions, and Pluots (mix between a Plum and an Apricot.)  Yum!

From memory in our farm share we got Red Leaf lettuce (small heads,) Potatoes, Arugula, Spinach, Chioggia Beets (told they have a large bulls eye in them,) French Breakfast Radishes, Japanese White Turnips, Chard,  Basil, Green Beans, Pickling Cucumbers, Strawberries, Raspberries, and Padron Peppers.

Today I put the Padron Peppers in a bowl of olive oil and then grilled them and topped with salt.  I fed them to my spicy hating children and my husband and they all loved them.  Most were sweet, but every once in awhile you get a spicy one!

This is called Tatsoi.  It is an Asian green.  They are high in vit. C, vit. K, antioxidants and beta carotene. 

I made this salad:  Wilted Tatsoi Salad  I pretty much followed the recipe.  I didn’t have ginger, so omitted it, which is fine as my husband isn’t fond of ginger.  I also used honey in lieu of sugar.  My husband loved this salad.  He said it reminded him of Korean side dishes.

I put the salad in the fridge to chill and I started on the Asian Cabbage Rolls.   I used this recipe as a guideline.  I decided to precook my ground turkey, just put it in a pan and cooked it on the stove with a spatula, like I was making taco or spaghetti sauce meat.  The reason I did this is that I have had problems waiting for the turkey to cook in the oven and figured this would ensure it was cooked.

I took garlic, onions, carrots, leeks, and cilantro and sauteed them lightly.  Then I added them to the soy sauce/sesame oil/egg mixture.

I added the precooked ground turkey and the black japonica rice  that I cooked.  I added the cabbage to it that I soaked and the pepper.  I didn’t have mushrooms, those would have been great in this.

I then precooked the cabbage leaves for about 10 minutes in boiling water.  I didn’t time them.  I just guessed.  I also didn’t have Napa Cabbage.  It would be better as they are larger, but this worked okay.  I got these small cabbage heads in my farm share.

I spooned them in the leaves and then closed the leaves shut and placed the seam down in the pan.  There wasn’t enough cabbage to fold them up.

Here they are in the pan.  Some of the contents spilled out during the cooking.  We eat that, too. 

Kind of homey.  It works for us.

My dinner.  It was so good.  This must be in my top 5 dishes.  I will definitely be making this again.  The nice thing is you can prepare the cabbage rolls the night before and then cook them the next day.  I think you can even freeze them, it just suggest doing so without the sauce.

Finally, our dessert.  Yes, we have dessert.  It is called fresh organic fruit.  Tonight we each had a Santa Rosa Plum.

Okay…this is Finally, I don’t think I put too many photos of myself on here.  I got a hair cut today.  It feels great.  I feel great.

Today I went over to Santa Cruz to their Farmer’s Market.  Their market is a decent sized market.  I love that it is on Wednesday ans sometimes we need veggies and have run out from our Friday farm share.  I still have lots of veggies from our share since we were out of town this weekend.  I just didn’t get any lettuce in our share and really was craving a wonderful salad with my dinner.  I want greens and salad more than anything.

I have changed for sure.  Nothing seems as satisfying as a nice green salad with lots of veggies in it.  I just use a vinegar/olive oil dressing and sometimes will change it up by adding some mustard or honey, depending on what is in the salad.
I also bought some blueberries, shown in the brown paper bag and black berries, Tony has been wanting those.  Oh, and a few onions as Tony asked for onions for the salad and they did taste great in them.

This seems to be our usual weekly dinner.  It is either tacos or tostadas.  These are ground turkey.  Calorie wise each tostad is under 200 calories.  Our salad had raspberries, carrots, red onions, radishes, and 3 different types of lettuces.  Our dessert was a mixed fruit salad.  It was blueberries, black berries, and strawberries.  All of the veggies are from either my local farm share or the farmer’s market.  The only processed food is our tostada shell and then the lean ground turkey.

I do have my feelings against turkey meat, but am not going to go vegetarian.  It is just one of those things at the moment.  I think I try my best, but know it could be better and a lot of that has to do with the cost of food.  It is like pastured eggs, trying to afford a dozen eggs for $7.  I really digressed there, sorry.  I am looking for organic taco shells.  I think they have those at Trader Joe’s.  It is nice to not have to depend so much on the grocery store for my food and more for the farmers in my area.  It really just makes me want to be a farmer and have my own chickens.  I know it is a lot of hard work, we had a large garden when I was a kid and so I understand the concept of it, I just want it.  If I could go back in life and start over I think I would strive to have my own farm.

Finally, this was my dinner at the Green Valley Grill.  It is one of the nicer restaurants in town.  I can’t remember what this is called, but it has Ahi Tuna and Shrimp with Fettuccine.  The weird part, and really what made the flavors of this taste so good is that it had cilantro in it, Parmesan cheese, basil/pine-nut pesto, garlic, and I think soy sauce.  It was Asian and also Italian and then with the cilantro…just very interesting.  I loved it.  Sadly, the glutton in me tried to drink the broth with my fork, but I really just wanted to pick up the bowl and drink it.  I didn’t, but I wanted to.  I tried to remember every flavor to one day go home and make it.  I guess it is considered a fusion dish.  I love it.  It probably is a million calories.

I wanted to get out and exercise today, but I still have a bad sunburn and a cut on my foot.  I realize these are all excuses.  I guess I am in that phase.  I am not without exercise, I just am not in a routine and I haven’t been doing weightlifting or running.  Being without kids for a couple of weeks, I should look into the exercise classes in my gym and go there not just to get fit, but perhaps to meet a few people.

I got my sneak peek into Friday’s farm loot!  Arugula, Asian greens (Tatsoi), Beets, Carrots, Cilantro, Green beans, Kale, Baby leeks, Potatoes, Radishes, Spinach, Summer squash or cucumbers, Strawberries, Raspberries,  and Santa Rosa Plums.

I am excited to be getting plums, yum!  We will be getting a lot of green beans, that is new.

I did some terrible eating over the holiday weekend.  Ice cream cake dessert and big juicy steaks.  I excused it because I don’t eat like that daily.  On the way home, my husband and I “junked out” on chips and candy.  We came home feeling terrible and I woke up with the worst back pain, dehydrated and feeling hung over.  I had a junk food hangover.  I am looking forward to healthier eating this week with a lot of greens.

I might stop at the farmer’s market in Santa Cruz tomorrow to buy some salad greens and supplement what I haven’t been getting in the box.

I have noticed a few things.  The first is bad eating occurs around holidays.  The second is that bad eating occurs when I am around my family.  The third is when I am on a long car ride and have not prepared myself with food for the ride.  I can evaluate and learn from it.

I am kid free this week.  Tomorrow I am going to head to the gym and enjoy a workout without kids.  I would go today but my back is killing me, I am sunburned and badly dehydrated.  This is just a bad combination to workout at the gym.  I will be ready tomorrow.  I am looking forward to it.

I didn’t make this tonight, but wanted to share what I made back in January, called Mizutaki.  I think the real version is chicken cooked in “dashi” which is a fish broth made from dried fish flakes and seaweed.  I used canned low sodium Chicken broth.  In the future I will probably use a homemade vegetable broth and cook the chicken breast in the broth, skimming pot.   This is what I did in January:

I took 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts and sliced them thin.  Then I cooked them for about 30 minutes or longer in the chicken broth.  I used 2 cans.  After they looked nice and cooked I added lots of asian vegetables.  You can really use your imagination on this.  I put in nappa cabbage, baby bok choy, wild arugula, green onions, baby and baby carrots.  Then I took some extra firm tofu and cut it small and sauteed it in some soy sauce and a small (tsp) of miri, which is a sake wine.  I then added the tofu to the pot.

For Mizutaki you make the chicken soup type dish and then people are suppose to dip it into a soy sauce dipping sauce.  I decided that my family is not really the “dipping type.”  So I just took 1/2 cup of soy sauce, 1/4 cup of squeezed oranges (I had to use cutie’s, ha ha!) and a tablespoon of sake and sake wine and just dumped them in the pot.  I think the dipping sauce was suppose to have chili pepper in it or something spicy.  My kids won’t eat spicy so I omitted it.  Basically, it is an Asian style Chicken Noodle soup.  Oh, speaking of noodles, I soaked rice noodles for 10 minutes and also added them to the pot.  You can add whatever type of noodle you want to this, like an udon would be nice or a bean straw.

My family loved the Mizutaki.  Best part, besides how good it tasted was the calories.  One bowl of the Mizutaki is 278 calories, 2 grams of fat, 21 g carbs (7 g of sugar), and 40 grams of protein.  Yes, you read that right…it does say 40 grams of protein….hello between the tofu and the chicken and I guess the broth, it just adds up!  Of course the other best part is that you can guilt free eat 2 bowls of this and be around 500 calories.  It is quite filling!  It is no wonder the Japanese diet is the way to go.   I forgot the shiitake mushrooms.  I bought them, just forgot to put them into the pot.

The downside is that there is a lot of sodium in soy sauce and chicken broth.  You can fix this by using less soy sauce, using low sodium soy sauce, and by using low sodium chicken broth, adding more water, or making your own chicken or veggie broth.

I steamed the broccoli, then baked the squash in some onions, garlic, and olive oil.  I mixed the eggs with a little milk and cheese.

I put everything in the French oven and cooked it on the stove and then broiled it.

It was still a little moist in the middle because I don’t have a cast iron skillet.  So the cheese browned a little bit before the eggs cooked.  I also think omitting the milk would have helped.

It turned out great!  The kids loved it.  Tony wanted his to be cheesier.  I think the problem was I didn’t salt or season it.

I liked it, but I had seconds on salad.  Sierra makes the best salad, dressed so light with olive oil and vinegar.

Our after dinner walk, we all really enjoyed and needed.

On our walk, we found a neat path behind the berry fields.  We came across some cool trees with flowers.  It was a fun surprise considering it is in a deserted area behind a school next to agriculture.  It was a nice 30 minute walk.

Tonight I made a stew in the old way.  I saved my veggie scraps from last week in the freezer.  I boiled the scraps in a pot full of water.  The scraps were things like large broccoli stalks, ends of carrots and the peel, ends of onions and cleaned skins, radicchio we thought was too bitter, etc.  It made a really nice looking broth.  It wasn’t purple or red like the last one, but instead a  golden brown.

Then I cut up squash, carrot tops, the tops of the radishes, carrots, red potatoes, sweet potatoes and cooked them in the broth.  I then took chicken from last night’s dinner, cut it up and added it to the pot.  It reminds me of how our ancestors use to cook.  It was a mish mash of veggies and whatever meat I had, like the old way, but in our ancestors case it is whatever they could shoot.  It made a really flavorful stew as a lot of the broth was lost in the potatoes.

I then made some homemade bread.  I didn’t let it rise completely on the second beat down so we had a nice dense bread for soup sopping.  It was so good.  I should have taken a pic of the soup and the bread, but the soup wasn’t real pretty after I cooked it and the bread got ate up, ha ha!   As we are trying to make our food stretch further and further, I am thinking the Monday stew/soup isn’t a bad thing.  The family loves it and it is very filling.  Plus, it is so healthy!  Just like the old way, stretching the food to make it last.

I haven’t been doing so well with exercise.  My muscles in my foot still hurt.  It had gotten better for a week or so and then started to feel bad again.  I was in denial for awhile and now there is no denying it.  The muscle damage is still there and in the evening my foot aches so bad.  Between the foot hurting and no daycare to go to the gym, I have just been feeling out of any type of routine.  I need to get into a routine of stretching and working out at home.  I need to do things that will not aggravate my foot and things I can do in my house or at the park.  I know enough about fitness to do this.  I just need to get motivated and get out of the slump of waiting for my body to feel ready.  The fact is that my body might not ever feel ready.

I did get out and hiked in Big Basin on Sunday.  We hiked over 3 miles.  It was great.  I loved being in the outdoors and breathing the fresh air.  I love feeling the dirt under my feet and sweating.  It was great to experience it with my family and I have a lot to teach them about the outdoors.  I think the girls and I might try to hike a few times a week.

This felt good! 

Big Basin is beautiful and I hope we go back soon.  Our next park we will visit is Big Sur.  We just really need to explore the outdoors in the area and I can use it to inspire myself to get outside and move.

My daughter is the master salad maker.  I have allowed her, at newly 10 years old to chop veggies with a knife, a small one.  Yes, small knives can still cut hands.  I have cut mine cooking.  Heck, I peeled the top of my knuckle off last week.  I am probably more accident prone than she is. 

Last night she used 2 types of lettuce from our share, English breakfast radishes, arugula, cherry tomatoes, and strawberries, dressed in olive oil and vinegar.   It was so good.  Arugula pairs well with fruit.  The pink in the dressing was a little bit of the olive oil dripping from our baked beets we ate as part of our side dish.