Thursday Happenings

The upside to shifting from working days to nights is that it leaves me a full day to enjoy to myself.  One thing I haven't done a lot of recently is cook.  Last night I took the opportunity to put a little extra effort into dinner.  

I purchased several baby taro root last week at the farmer's market and they had been sitting in my pantry waiting for a creative recipe idea to strike me.  It seems most recipes involve frying the taro root, and I knew that wasn't in the cards.  Instead, I elected to incorporate the taro root in homemade chicken tikka masala.  For the taro root, I cleaned, peeled, chopped, and then boiled it for thirty minutes.  In the meantime, I sauteed onion, garlic, and bell pepper with salt and pepper.  After putting the onion mixture to the side, I sauteed cubed chicken breast in the same pan for a few minutes.  Then, I seared the previously boiled taro in a pan with coconut oil.  Finally, I combined the onion mix, chicken, and tarro in a saute pan and added a sauce of tikka masala spices + vegetable broth + cornstarch.  I allowed it to simmer for a few minutes to blend flavors and then plated it up.  

The verdict?  Taro root is rather flavorless.  

It has a similar consistency to sweet potato, but I can't say I'd purchase it again. 

My favorite part of my rare days off is the morning.  This morning I enjoyed a lovely nights sleep sans alarm clock and then laid in bed reading a book for an hour before prying myself from the sheets.  I mosied downstairs about 8:30am and prepared a lovely almond milk latte that I sipped while watching The Today Show.  What does everyone think about the Lance Armstrong accusations?  I really hate to believe that his successes could be marred by allegations of doping.  

Eventually, my stomach started to rumble and I set out to whip up breakfast.  This bowl included layers of yogurt (plain greek and lemon), cranberry granola, puffed kamut, pineapple, and blueberries. 

I enjoyed my yogurt bowl on the deck while admiring my vegetable plants.  They continue to grow like crazy!  I've been eating lots of cherry tomatoes, picked my first banana pepper yesterday, and am anxiously awaiting the baby squashes to grow a bit larger.

Baby Squash and Squash Blossoms.
I need a good recipe idea to utilize the squash blossoms. 

Banana Peppers

Cherry Tomatoes

Today wasn't all laziness and eating - there was work to get done as well.  Fortunately, I have a pretty good system of top to bottom cleaning and I cranked it out in less than two hours.

Mid-afternoon I spent an hour on the deck soaking up the sun and reading a new book - Cutting For Stone.  I contemplated passing out and napping, but knew I needed to get to the gym for a swim workout.  3000 meters later, mission accomplished. 

Now, it's suddenly 6:30pm and I have to be at work in 40 minutes.  Where did the day go?  So much for taking a nap.  Hopefully Charlotte will play nice tonight and avoid the shootings, car accidents, assaults, and falls so that I can catch a midnight nap.   Highly unlikely . . .