Category Archives: Vegetarian Meal

I Ran Before I Crawled Before I Slept

Posted on April 10, 2011 by inmytummy| 27 Comments

Even though I know that I don’t need to carbo-load before a 5K, I like the tradition of eating pasta the night before. And I know that Jason likes it when I cook pasta, so I made Ellie Krieger’s Pasta Primavera on Friday night.

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I used zucchini instead of asparagus and penne instead of spaghetti. We ate it with some Alexia garlic bread while we watched the movie An Education, which was very good.

I was up at 6:45 am yesterday to drive down to East Atlanta to run the Run Before You Crawl 5K. I’m always paranoid about getting to races late, so we ended up being 45 minutes early. It was warm out though so it wasn’t a big deal.

My friends Joan and Randy were doing the race too, but walking because Joan hurt her foot, and my friend Darin had texted me earlier in the week saying he was going to run it also. The race was pretty small, maybe only a couple hundred people. It went through a bunch of neighborhoods in East Atlanta. Like most races in Atlanta, this was another pretty hilly course. And like most races that I run in general, I started off too fast.

By the time I got to mile 2, I made the decision to take some walk breaks. By 9am, when the race started, there was a good amount of humidity in the air and I just wasn’t feeling like pushing myself. I did a run/walk combination for the last mile and ended up finishing the race in 30:08. Not bad considering the walking.

The pub crawl was after that race, not part of it. All of the runners/crawlers were divided into five teams. (You could pick which team you were on.) All the teams would go to five different bars, but in a different order so the places didn’t get too crowded. You were supposed to stay at the bar for 45 minutes. Our team started out at So-Ba.

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From there, we went to the Midway Pub and met up with a friend of Darin’s. It was around 11:30 at this point so we all got some food. I had the veggie burger and some fruit.

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Then we went to Holy Taco.

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Then the Flat Iron.

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And finally, the Earl.

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Yes, I went to 5 bars during the day time. After the crawl was over, we went to Darin’s house which was nearby. I fell asleep on his couch.

Yesterday was fun, but it’s not something that I want to do again for a long time, maybe ever! I don’t really drink that much anymore. I rarely drink during the week at all and if I go out on the weekend, I’ll usually have two, maybe three drinks. While my 25 year old self loved to do drinking activities like this, my nearly 33 year old self really does not. I have the tendency to feel guilty about nights (in this case, days) like this and this time I’m not going to let myself feel that way. I once asked one of my friends, who is seven years older than me, if he feels guilty if he goes out and drinks a bunch. He said no because it doesn’t happen very often. So that’s how I’m choosing to feel now. Instead of worrying about the calories that I consumed (which is what I feel guilty about), I’m just going to say that in order to lead a healthy life, it’s okay to be unhealthy on occasion.

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Posted in Atlanta, Beer, Races, Vegetarian Meal

Farmer’s Market Grain Dinner

Posted on April 6, 2011 by inmytummy| 27 Comments

In all the times that I’ve tried to explain the Farmer’s Market and how it’s not a traditional farmer’s market, you’ve probably wondered why I didn’t just take some pictures of it. There’s a reason for that. They are very against photography in the market. Seriously, there are signs all over the place that say no photos. They are super strict about their rules. They’d probably kick me out if I tried to take a picture. I went on to the website to see if I could just grab a few from there but what do you know? They are all moving pictures and impossible to grab! But if you want to take a look for yourself, click here.

Besides produce, I like to stock up on grains at the farmer’s market. Currently, I have six different kinds at home.

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Israeli couscous, milllet, buckwheat flour (for those buckwheat bakes that I’ve been reading about), split lentils, spelt flour and popcorn (which actually has almond meal in it but five containers looked uneven.)

Dinner tonight was split lentils. From this:

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To this:

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I used the Red Lentil Curry recipe from Allrecipes.com.

While the lentils were good, I think I prefer my curry to be vegetable based. So it was no surprise that my side dish really stole the show.

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Sauteed Swiss Chard! I’d never even had swiss chard before and I think I might have found a new #1 veggie to replace Brussels Sprouts. So good.

Have you tried any new vegetables lately?

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Posted in Dekalb Farmer's Market, Vegetarian Meal

Produce and Puppies

Posted on April 5, 2011 by inmytummy| 26 Comments

I had a very productive Sunday. After our run, I managed to do several loads of laundry, talk Murphy on a walk and go grocery shopping. I went to the Dekalb Farmer’s Market and decided to have a little photo shoot with my produce afterward. Totally normal, right?

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I bought these chia seed muffins at the Farmer’s Market and made the mistake of eating one on the way home. Only a mistake because it made me incredibly full and not interested in dinner at all. I am usually a pretty hungry person, and can often eat when I’m not hungry, so when I say I was too full for dinner, you know those were some seriously filling muffins.

I had a list of four things that I wanted to make for the upcoming week and decided to go with the lightest one for dinner – Mexican Bean Salad.

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By the time it chilled in the fridge, I was somewhat hungry again. This was good but the dressing was a little too strong. If I made it again, I think I would half the dressing amount, like some reviews suggested.

Instead of going into the office this morning, I got to play with puppies! Jealous? I work for a kids book publisher and spent the last couple of weeks basically emailing any puppy breeder within a 2 hour radius of Atlanta to see if we could take pictures and film the puppies for a project. I went with my boss and the guy who does all the photography for the company. I didn’t really know what my purpose there was besides setting it up, so I brought my camera along too.

First we went to Loganville, GA, about 35 minutes away to shoot some Great Dane puppies.

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Then off to Hull, GA, outside of Athens to shoot some Goldendoodles. I somehow convinced my skeptical co-workers that we needed to have lunch at The Grit in Athens. Such a good vegetarian restaurant. They were a little nervous, but I think they liked it.

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Photographing puppies is seriously hard. They are so squirmy. I took like 400 pictures and maybe 20 are usable. I’m assuming that Brent’s (the photographer) pictures are much better than mine!

Thanks for all the compliments about my hair, by the way.

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Posted in Photography, Recipe, Vegetarian Meal

It Runs in the Family

Posted on March 31, 2011 by inmytummy| 21 Comments

A few weeks ago, I won a cookbook called Table For Two from Emily.

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Even though I feel like I “know” lots of bloggers, I actually do know Emily! She’s my cousin. It’s fun to have another food blogger in the family. As far as I know, it’s just Emily and I who blog, but who knows, maybe I have another blogger relative that I don’t know about.

I thought this cookbook was perfect since it’s just me and Jason here. I like leftovers as much as the next person, but after I eat something for dinner one night and lunch the next, I get a little bit sick of it. So a cookbook filled with recipes that only serve two people is perfect. No math to do!

The irony here is that I made Crispy Tofu sticks and doubled the recipe!

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The recipe called for half a block of tofu. I decided to cook the entire thing because I know myself and I know that if I have half a block of uncooked tofu in my fridge, it’s just going to go bad. The recipe ended up being pretty good. I served it with Brussels Sprouts which are quickly rising to the top of my favorite vegetable list.

I think the secret to good Brussels Sprouts is to char them a little bit. I used a bag of Brussels, cut the ends off and cut them in half and sprinkled them with sea salt. Then I heated 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan on medium and threw the Brussels in them. I let them sit, untouched, for about 5 minutes and then stirred them a bit. When all the Brussels had a nice char to them, I turned the heat off and added a little bit of a three cheese blend (asiago, parmesan and something else that I’ve forgotten.)

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And more good news on the Peachtree front – I got an email from a reader named Whitney who said that her husband got a number but he isn’t able to run so Jason could have it! Thanks Whitney and husband.

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Posted in Vegetarian Meal

What I Do After A Half-Marathon

Posted on March 22, 2011 by inmytummy| 22 Comments

The Day of the Race:

1. Take a nap, preferably with husband and dog.

2. Move from bed to couch, stay there for several more hours.

3. Walk dog around the block in an attempt to loosen up legs.

4. Walk dog around the block again in an attempt to tire out dog.

5. Eat many Cadbury Mini Eggs

6. Go back to bed.

The Day after the Race:

1. Go to work. In a perfect world, this wouldn’t be number one, but I have to conserve my vacation days and besides, I’m going to Florida this weekend.

2. Get pedicure during lunch break.

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3. Realize so-called cold is probably allergies since the pollen count is like 2500 or some ridiculously high number.

4. Meet Jason for sushi.

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5. Drink beer.

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Two Days After the Race:

1. Take allergy medicine.

2. Decide that it’s warm enough to grill out. Grill leftover pizza crust from last week’s two pack.

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3. Admire grilled pizza. This pizza had goat cheese, mozzarella, Morningstar Farms Fake Sausage crumbles, onion, mushrooms and green peppers.

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4. Eat pizza outside.

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5. Sign up for another race (with Tina!) I’m actually planning on doing another 5K the weekend before, but I haven’t signed up for that one yet.

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Posted in Races, Vegetarian Meal

Outside Pizza Pi

Posted on March 14, 2011 by inmytummy| 38 Comments

Losing that hour was rough this morning, but being able to eat dinner outside at 6:30 pm made it well worth it. Today was a repeat of yesterday, weather-wise, in the low 70s and sunny.

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Being Pi (3.14) and all, we decided that a homemade pizza was in order. We used a premade whole wheat crust that I bought at Whole Foods. We put sauce, cheese and roasted peppers and onions on top. I had two pieces with a side of broccoli topped with nutritional yeast.

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Then I went back for a third piece.

Murphy really wanted a piece.

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Gimme that pizza!!

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It was really nice to be outside. I still think that we could have another cold snap but it really does seem like Spring is here.

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Does it feel like Spring where you are?

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Posted in Murphy, Vegetarian Meal

Craving Pho

Posted on March 10, 2011 by inmytummy| 25 Comments

There’s an area of Atlanta called Buford Highway that has a ton of ethnic restaurants, primarily Asian and Hispanic.When I say they are ethnic restaurants, I mean that they are authentic and not Americanized versions. I found that the best way to figure out if there will be something that I can eat is to look up the restaurant on Yelp and do a find for the word vegetarian. It’s a little easier now that I eat fish and seafood, but there’s always still a fear that there will be some sort of beef or chicken broth in something that appears to be vegetarian.

Last week, I went to Lee’s Bakery with some co-workers. It was recommended to me by a friend, near my office and got good reviews on Yelp. What really appealed to me, though, was the promise of a tofu bahn mi sandwich.

Said sandwich was in fact on the menu and was good. And guess how much this bad boy cost? Three Dollars! I’m not sure that you can tell from the picture, but it was pretty big.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed my sandwich, I was a little jealous of my co-workers who got giant bowls of pho. I didn’t even think to ask if they had a vegetarian version. Midway through my meal, I noticed a whiteboard with specials written on it and one of them was vegan pho!

I couldn’t stop thinking about the vegan pho and wishing that was what I ordered so I did the next best thing; I made it at home.

I used Mama Pea’s recipe and while it wasn’t quite as gigantic as my coworker’s bowls, it was very good. Jason was a big fan too. I’m always pleased when he likes something that I’ve cooked, especially when it’s vegetarian, or in this case vegan.

Big bowls of soup have always been one of my favorite meals. When I was in high school, one of my favorite meals was the soup at Taipei Tokyo Cafe. I used to call it the soup in a bowl as big as your head.

In non soup related news, I am getting pretty sick of half-marathon training. My race is in a week and a half so this is really my last week but it’s getting to me. I forced myself to go to the gym tonight and run. I had six miles on the agenda but immediately started trying to bargain with myself to run less. I ran into Tracey there and told her that I was running six miles and that motivated me to actually do the entire six. Thanks Tracey! Of course, now I’m really glad that I did it because tomorrow can be a short three mile run and then I can take Friday off.

Have you ever trained for a race and felt burnt out by the end of training? This always, always happens to me. My training plan isn’t even really vigorous but I’m just getting sick of running ruling my life. Of course, I’ll run the race and immediately sign up for another. That’s just how it goes.

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Posted in Atlanta Restaurants, Recipe, Running, Vegetarian Meal

Rainy Saturday

Posted on March 6, 2011 by inmytummy| 12 Comments

My weekends right now pretty much revolve around my long run. With only two more long runs until the race, I’m in the home stretch. However, those runs are 9 and 10 miles long which are distances that I have to plan for. My planning is pretty basic; I look at the weather forecast and see which day has better running weather. In some cases, I’ll revolve the run around other plans that I might have ie: a party on a Friday night or whatever, but usually it’s just based on the weather.

Since today’s forecast called for rain all day, we decided to do our long run tomorrow instead. Which meant that I had all of Saturday free. I’m not sure how I manage to spend the entire day doing nothing, but I’m pretty good at it. Actually, that’s not true. I went to Home Depot (I practically live at Home Depot), painted the trim in the hallway, took Murphy for a walk and then got to do something fun.

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I had a gift certificate for Massage Envy and decided to use it. My left shoulder/upper back is always bothering me and I wanted a professional massage. Turns out, there is nothing wrong with my shoulder that they could find (another masseuse has told me this before too) but I have lots of trigger points in my lower back and butt, especially on the right side. Weird.

I like Massage Envy just fine but I always feel like they’re trying to sell you a membership which is annoying. However, one plus is that it’s in the same shopping center as Whole Foods. Oddly enough, this is the second time that I’ve been to this shopping center in 24 hours and I live like 25 minutes away.

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Obviously, I had to stop in and stock up on random stuff that I don’t need. Duh. I came home, starving, and decided to make a quiche. I meant to make it earlier in the week but never got around to it.

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Unfortunately, I got a little too hungry while I was waiting and ate a bunch of snacks. It looks pretty though, right? I had to taste a little bit just to be sure. I took a risk and used unsweetened vanilla almond milk instead of regular milk because that’s what I had. I hoped that the vanilla wouldn’t be noticeable. Fortunately, it wasn’t and the quiche was really good.

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Lentil Quiche
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup dried split lentils
1 cups water
2 cups broccoli florets
1 cup canned diced tomatoes
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk (i used unsweetened vanilla almond, you can use whatever)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

Directions

1. Cook lentils in rice cooker. Or, you could cook them on the stove top for about 20 minutes in water.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
3. Heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Cook onion in oil until starting to brown.
4. Steam broccoli for about 5 minutes or until bright green.
5. Transfer the lentils, broccoli and tomatoes to the pie plate with the onions, and stir to evenly distribute each item.
6. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Pour over the ingredients in the pie plate.
7.Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the center is firm when the quiche is jiggled. Cool for a few minutes before slicing and serving.

Not the most interesting of Saturdays, was it? I guess you can’t win them all. At least I’ll be rested for tomorrow’s run.

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Posted in Recipe, Vegetarian Meal

Big Green Salad

Posted on February 23, 2011 by inmytummy| 24 Comments

While a big salad is often my go to entree when I go out to eat, I don’t eat a lot of salad at home. When I go grocery shopping, I usually buy most of my produce for specific recipes, so aside from lettuce and maybe carrots and peppers, which I like to have on hand for snacks, I don’t have a lot of salad ingredients. A lettuce salad equals a boring salad. I don’t know if I was subconsciously craving nutrients when I did my last grocery shopping or what, but I discovered that I had a ton of vegetables in the fridge and they needed to be used.

That would be lettuce, bok choy, broccoli, portobello mushroom, brussels sprouts, tomato, cucumber and avocado. Yup, I think that’s enough for a big restaurant style salad.

I’m not a fan of raw broccoli and I don’t know if you are supposed to eat brussels sprouts raw, but I can’t imagine they taste good if you are. So I decided to roast some of my veggies beforehand.

I combined the mushrooms, brussels sprouts, broccoli and bok choy with a tablespoon of olive oil and then seasoned them with Emeril’s Essence. I roasted them at 385 degrees for 20 minutes.

When the roasted vegetables were ready, I put them on top of lettuce, cucumber, 1/4 avocado and about a 1/4 cup of shelled edamame. Then I topped it all with a little bit of Ginger dressing and some nutritional yeast!

Just like a restaurant style salad, only better. By the way, roasting bok choy isn’t the best idea. It got really limp. (TWSS?)

Going along with my green theme, I had something green for dessert.

Guilty pleasure. Seriously. My name is Lee and I’m addicted to low fat ice cream treats. We can’t all be perfect, right? And if this is my downfall, I’d say I’m doing pretty well.

I keep forgetting to mention this, but Tina and I are arranging an Atlanta Blogger Dinner on Saturday, March 12th. Email me if you are interested in coming. We’re trying to get a final headcount by the 5th.

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Posted in Blogger Meet-Up, Vegetarian Meal

Kitchen Sink Curry

Posted on February 16, 2011 by inmytummy| 21 Comments

In theory, today was the perfect day to do my 5-mile tempo run. I have dinner plans tomorrow night and I’m doing my long run on Saturday, so doing the 5-miler tonight would have spaced things out perfectly. I was tired all day. I’m not sure why. I didn’t go to bed any later than normal nor did I have trouble sleeping, but I was tired. I drove to the gym after work. Usually it takes some willpower to actually drive to the gym instead of home, but once I’m there, I’m fine.

Not so much tonight. My dad called while I was in the car and I sat in the parking lot talking to him for like 10 minutes. Then, I went in the gym, changed and hopped on a treadmill. I ran for 4 minutes before calling it quits. And I went home. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever done that before. I’ve aborted a run and gotten on the elliptical, but I don’t know if I’ve ever just straight up gone home.

Of course, I’m feeling a little guilty about it. Now I’m going to have to do the 5 mile run on Friday, my long run on Saturday and what was supposed to be Friday’s 3 miler on Sunday. So that’ll be a lot of running this weekend. I hope it’s worth it. I was just so tired tonight. I think that my body was asking for a break.

I had some spinach and tomato in my fridge that I needed to use. After looking at Super Cook (which is the coolest website – why didn’t I invent that?), I found some curry recipes and decided to make curry for dinner based on what I had already at home. This was definitely an everything but the kitchen sink curry! It was tasty though. I think once you have the sauce down, curry is a pretty hard recipe to screw up.

I based my sauce on the Spicy Curry from Skinny Bitch but then changed it up quite a bit.

Everything But the Kitchen Sink Curry
adapted from Skinny Bitch
Serves 4-6

2 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 tsp minced garlic
1 can light coconut milk
1.5 cups water
2 tbsp miso
2 tsp mild red curry paste
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup spinach
1/2 can diced tomatoes
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1. Heat 1 tbsp grapeseed oil in pot over medium heat. Saute garlic for 30 seconds. Add next five ingredients. Bring to a boil and then turn heat down to low and cover.

2. Meanwhile, heat other tbsp of oil in large pan. Add onion and broccoli. Cook for approximately 5 minutes. When onion and broccoli are tender, add spinach and cook until wilted.

3. Add onion, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes and chickpeas to curry sauce. Continue to let simmer for 20 minutes. Add salt to taste.

Now I’m off to curl up on the couch with my new Cooking Light subscription. My sister-in-law Natalie got it for me for Christmas and the first issue came today. Good night!