A few favorite recipes

So I've been promising recipes, and I've been extremely lazy about it, so here goes:

Butter bean, asparagus, and shallot salad

Some canned butter beans
Fresh asparagus, 1 bunch
Shallots (1 or 2 cloves)
salt
olive oil
balsamic vinegar

Wash the asparagus and trim the ends if you so desire. Steam for about 10 minutes, depending on how thick the spears are. Cut into 1-inch long pieces and chill. Open the can of beans and rinse well. Peel and slice the shallots into very thin slices. Mix the asparagus, butter beans, and shallots together in a bowl. Add salt, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar to taste, and voila! Salad without lettuce, yum!

Black bean quesadillas

These are delicious and low-calorie to boot

For one serving:
2 small corn tortillas (I prefer blue corn)
2 ounces monterey jack cheese
1/4 cup canned black beans
a small amount of butter for cooking (or oil, if you so desire)
Some tomatillo sauce

Melt some butter in a pan, and place one tortilla in the pan, on medium heat. Crumble or slice half the cheese and add to the tortilla. Add half the black beans. When the cheese starts to get gooey, fold the tortilla in half. Flip frequently to avoid burning, until the cheese is entirely melted. Cook the second tortilla in the same way. Add some tomatillo sauce. (To make tomatillo sauce, de-paper the tomatillos and wash thoroughly. Boil for 10 minutes, then drain. Mix by hand or in a blender or food processor. And that's it!)

Everyday life?

Wow, my everyday life seems to boil down to diet, exercise, and cats. How boring! I have plenty of other stuff going on in my life, and I feel like I should make a distinct effort to mention it...

First, I'm studying Italian. It has been extremely slow going, which is frustrating. I would love to be able to actually spend some time in Italy studying, or just living and learning. Unfortunately, here in America we believe strongly in debt, and my student loans prevent me from doing anything really cool for the next 2o years or so. That being said, I'm currently taking a conversational Italian class at the nearby Italian Cultural Society.

Second, I rock climb. I've probably mentioned this before, and while it does (kind of) fit into the category of exercise, it's also tons of fun. And yesterday I got my butt kicked by a 5.10C/D, which is kind of embarassing.

Third, I love to cook! I've been making black bean quesadillas with blue corn tortillas and homemade (and homegrown) tomatillo sauce this week, and they have been fabulous! I'm planning quiche for Easter dinner (which I've also mentioned) and I'm hoping to experiment a bit more in the coming months as I grow more vegetables (my beets look great! And my shallots!)

That leads me into my fourth topic, which is gardening. I love my garden. I wish I had more time to spend there, which makes me think I need to reassess my priorities a bit. I'm planning to plant all sorts of thing in the next few months, and I can't wait to get started. This storm we're having is definitely putting a damper on those plans, though.

OK, that's pretty good for now. Litter boxes are calling me!

A good Monday

Finally, I've had a great day. It's amazing how I feel like I can accomplish anything after some good exercise. Today, I did a 1-hour spin class and then climbed for about 45 minutes. While my climbing skills have been somewhat lacking lately, I did finish a 5.10C that I'd been worried about because of a rather tricky part. While I didn't do it perfectly today, I figured out what I did wrong so I can do a better job the next time. My plans for the rest of the week include a short run tomorrow (20-30 minutes), a flag football game, runnning stairs (twice to the top of the local parking garage), and some weights for the arms on Wednesday, another short run on Thursday, and some bouldering on Friday. Sounds like a good plan for this week...

Food has been an interesting topic for me lately. My local co-op has been having "recession fridays", with 10% off of everything the first friday of every month. I have now decided to only shop once a month, and supplement with occasional trips to the farmer's market, which in Sacramento is a thing of beauty. This has been great for me in two ways - it's forcing me to plan my meals well in advance, which helps my time management and means I waste less food, and it also means I'm spending less every month on my grocery bill. However, I'm going to have to get a bit more serious about really planning meals. And this is going to have to be my long-term memory for food planning and recipe storage. So I'll get started with April!

The plan is to make two different dishes every week, with each dish providing four meals (I'm single, and I tend to make foods I love and don't get sick of). The remaining meals during the week will consist of either a frozen co-op meal (Amy's Indian!), a tamale from Primavera Tamales, or the occassional meal out (Daphne's!). On weekends, I'll scrounge the pantry or share meals with friends. March has turned out fabulously - I spent $80 on the first recession Friday and another $10-$15 at farmer's markets. I will finish out this week with homemade whole wheat bread and salads picked fresh from the garden, with lettuce, carrots, and radishes grown in my community garden plot, and canned beans, which I'm trying to incorporate for more protein.

April is the next one to plan. I'll definitely have some polenta with some kind of topping, perhaps some more salads, bean and vegetable soup (recipe to follow soon), bean and vegetable pot pie (recipe also to follow soon), and black bean and cheese quesadillas with tomatillo sauce (made fresh with tomatillos from my garden last fall and frozen for just such an occassion!). I also have some frozen zucchini soup that will need to be used up soon. I've become a huge fan of freezing vegetables. I rescued some vegetables from a friend's fridge while he was on vacation, chopped them up, and froze them in zip-loc bags (which I rescued from people at work who were going to throw them away). So those will go nicely in my soup. I'll also be making an asparagus and leek (and maybe mushroom?) quiche for Easter dinner. Yum! I'll have to remember to get some cheese for that at the co-op this Friday.

I'll get some recipes up soon. In the meantime, happy eating!