{Scroll down if you aren’t interested in fitness enthusiasm and only care about food. It’s okay, I understand, sort of.}

I took this picture last weekend at the CrossFit New England Firebreather Festival of one of my fellow Charles River CrossFit members. I’d never been to an event like this before, but it was something like homecoming/tailgating, minus the massive amounts of booze and grilling. Although, I’m not sure why there wasn’t more grilling. B.Good had set up shop, but I find their burgers to be “meh” at best. Where were the delicious grass fed meats?

Seeing members of my own gym and my coaches killing it was a pretty awesome experience, and got me excited to get back into the gym and push my limits.

Inspired by the weekend festivities, I headed into the gym this morning excited to tackle this workout:

9/14/12 WOD (Workout of the Day)

Warmups: With a partner, switch off between 200 m. runs. While the other is running, we did a few minutes each of leg overs, frog steps, and a few other torturous moves. Nothing like working up a huge sweat before you even start the workout.

Strength:  Push Press – establish a 5 Rep Max.

WOD:  “Trenchcoat”

AMRAP 6: (As many reps as possible in 6 minutes of this combination)

6 Hang Power Clean 115/80 (I’m not quite at the women’s prescribed #80, but getting there!)

6 Ring Dips (I use a band to keep the rings together. It’s still hard.)

Today I chose a heavier weight than I’m used to, and thus made it through just over three rounds and some change before dying. It was fun though!

I’m growing rather fond of lifting in all forms, because I had no idea that a) I could lift heavy things, and b) how well it translates into the real life activities that I do all the time, such as bringing heavy groceries up three flights of stairs, or lifting ikea furniture, or come winter, shoveling massive amounts of snow. (Just kidding on that last one!)

On to the food!

After my workout, I had a sub-optimal post workout snack of a venti black iced tea at Starbucks. So sue me.

Once I had cooled down, I headed over to Volante Farms in Needham to pick up some fresh produce at their farm stand (which is really a small grocery). I ended up with their homegrown eggplant, zucchini, peppers, and a few pounds of tomatoes.

When I got home, I made a batch of roasted vegetables. I chopped up some of the zucchini and eggplant, drizzled them with olive oil, a big pinch of salt and pepper, and roasted them at 450F for about 45 minutes. I’ll eat them over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I was now starving, so I put together this simple lunch: sauteed zucchini, leftover roast chicken, and Rao’s marinara sauce. You heat them up together on the stove until warm, and eat!

It took me a long time to get through this bowl, and I ate while sitting at my computer getting some work done. Later in the afternoon I chowed down on a snack: a sliced banana with a spoonful of almond butter and a spoonful of coconut butter. After years of not eating bananas because they weren’t seasonal, I admit that I’ve succumb to the tasty fruit a little too often. In San Francisco, I always had delicious local fruit to eat – here, not so much.

In the early evening, I went for a short walk around Fresh Pond, and then headed out on my most exciting field trip of the day: M.F. Dulock!

M.F. Dulock is a local pasture raised butcher shop that just opened last week in Somerville. I was there on opening day, because, a grand opening of a real live butcher is a blessed thing indeed. I left last week with pork chops, beef, ground pork and Italian sausages, and everything was good. Meat that tastes like meat.

The cases are full of whatever has been butchered, and changes up every day. (Yes, those are bacon burgers down there.)

I ended up leaving with some ground pork, beef stew meat, ground beef, and a small amount of lamb liver. You’ll be seeing it around.

When I got home, I took out the ground beef – gorgeous large grind, a healthy amount of fat. So good you could eat the stuff raw. But I had better plans – a beef and carrot stir fry with Asian flavors.

I used this “Emergency Protein” as the basic template for the dish.

I blitzed an onion, ginger and garlic in the food processor, and softened them in the pan in a little bit of lard from Formaggio kitchen. I grated a carrot and added it to the pan, and then added my ground beef. I seasoned it with a few tablespoons of coconut aminos and a dash of fish sauce. When the beef had browned, I added in a cup of shredded cauliflower for bulk (you can’t really taste it).

I doused it all in a dressing of lime juice and fish sauce, added some chopped mint and basil, and served it with tomato wedges.

Ta da!