Category Archives: Recipe

Quiet Christmas

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Lee | 11 Comments

When I tell people that I’m not doing anything for Christmas because I don’t celebrate it, a lot of people will ask me why I don’t do something anyway, why I don’t take the time off to spend my family even though I don’t celebrate the holiday. And the answer simply is because they live far away. Jason’s family lives closer – about two hours – but he didn’t have the day off so we celebrated with them last weekend. I mean, sometimes I go visit my family. I think I went to DC last Christmas, in fact. For a while, I thought about going to visit my father and stepmother in Florida (my stepmom does celebrate) but Jason’s schedule didn’t allow it and I didn’t want to go without him. Anyway, that was a very long-winded way of saying that I had a very quiet Christmas. I also used the word “celebrate” way too many times.

I decided, however, that I needed to make a nice Christmas breakfast. Nice Christmas breakfast = egg scramble. Special because there is a potato in there. It’s the little things, right?

Egg scramble

Egg Scramble
Serves 1

Ingredients

1/2 small russet potato, diced
1/2 small green pepper, diced
1/4 tomato, diced
1/2 cup egg beaters
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

1. Coat a pan with cooking spray and cook potato for about 10 minutes on medium, until soft.
2. Add diced pepper, and cook an additional 5 minutes or so.
3. Add tomatoes and spices and mix.
4. Add egg beaters and cook until done, about 2-3 minutes

I should always put a potato in my eggs. After eating and hanging out with Jason for a while, I decided to give Murphy a Christmas present and take him for a run with me. Really, I wasn’t intending to but he saw me getting ready and demanded to come. Let me tell you, my dog is my best buddy, but he’s not my best running buddy. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a boy, but he has to stop and sniff everything. And when I say stop, I mean fully brace his legs so he cannot be moved. This happened approximately 2700 times on our two mile run.

Lee murphy

Someone is camera shy.

I might have taken a Christmas nap before indulging in a traditional meal.

Chinese food

Totally serious. I have had Chinese food every year on Christmas like forever. We went the healthy route this year and got the majority of our entrees steamed.

Chinese food2

We split a veggie and tofu soup.

Tofu veggie soup

And two entrees – steamed shrimp with veggies and steamed tofu with veggies. I requested white sauce on the side instead of the normal brown that comes with it. I like it better. Don’t tell me there’s chicken broth in it. Ignorance is bliss.

Steamed chinese food

Add a little rice and you have a nice Christmas dinner. Hope you had a Merry Christmas if you celebrate or a Merry Tuesday if you don’t.

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Bullet Points

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Lee | 9 Comments

• I sometimes tend to use my blog as a space for me to reflect upon my thoughts and so sometimes things get analyzed more here than they do in my actual life. In other words, despite how my last post sounded, I’m not, in fact, sobbing in my sushi. You can ask my sushi dates. There was no sobbing. I really am feeling better about everything. Not all better, but better.

• I made Chinese Braised Mushrooms with Tofu for dinner tonight. Normally, recipes with corn starch kind of freak me out because I always manage to turn the sauce into a gloppy mess somehow, but this one worked out.

Mushroom tofu

• I think I’m ready to start running again. Between everything that’s happened, I haven’t run in a month and even before then, it was sporadic. One of my favorite 10Ks is in February; maybe I’ll start training for it.

• I’m taking tomorrow off and we’re going to one of my favorite cities: Asheville, NC.

Asheville

• We got new living room furniture. It got delivered at 6:55 this morning. I’m not even joking. But I am tired.

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4-Day Weekend

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Lee | 4 Comments

Don’t you think the world would be a happier place if every weekend was a 4-day weekend? I’ll even venture to say that it would be a happier place if every weekend was a 4-day weekend. Now it’s coming to an end, but having 4 days off, especially since I just stayed home was a good way to recharge. Now if only it could be 5-day weekend.

Friday was spent eating pie:

Pumpkin pie

Jason was not a fan of the crustless pie concept, so he took it upon himself to build a crust under his with graham crackers. Ha.

Pumpkin pie crust

And also going to the gym and doing some potential living room furniture buying. Although we didn’t end up buying anything. We got hungry, instead, and went to Lee’s Bakery, which is a Vietnamese place that has, in additional to the regular kind, vegan pho.

Vegan pho

On Friday night, we went to this bar that’s near our house for trivia. We were kind of excited when we realized that there were only three teams playing because it gave us a better chance to win. Excited until, after three questions, the manager of the bar got on the microphone and cancelled the trivia because there were only three teams. Fail.

Saturday included more gymming and then a nap and grocery shopping. Jason really wanted to watch the USC vs Clemson game. At first we thought about going somewhere to watch it, but didn’t exactly know where and I wasn’t thrilled about going out to eat again, so ultimately we decided to just watch in our living room. I promised to make healthy, or somewhat healthy, game day food and decided on a 7-layer dip.

7 layer dip

Healthier Vegetarian 7-Layer Dip

Ingredients

1 can refried beans
12 ounces soy crumbles (we used Morningstar farms)
1/2 cup salsa (divided)
shredded lettuce
3 small tomatoes, diced
2 avocados, diced
1 container of plain Greek Yogurt (we used Chobani 2%)
1/2 cup low-fat Mexican cheese
1 TBSP taco seasoning

Directions

1. Heat the soy crumbles up in a pan. When they are heated, add taco seasoning and 1/4 cup salsa.
2. Mix the remaining salsa with the yogurt.
3. Spread the refried beans on the bottom of a large baking dish.
4. Layer the soy crumbles on top, then the yogurt/salsa mixture, lettuce, tomatoes, avocados and finally the cheese.
5. Serve with chips.

7 layer dip chip