Quick Beef & Broccoli

Last night was an unexpected night on the town, and since I’m a homebody most of the time, was quite the adventure! After leaving work a little early, we went hunting for goodies at the record store in Allston (we left with some Dave Brubeck), and then headed back to the Waterfront for dinner.

After taking part in the Lamb Pro-Am this summer (and winning! yep, I’m a lamb-pion), I’ve been pining to head back to the DiBiccari brothers’ Tavern Road for dinner  and finally got the chance to. The restaurant is a great addition to the Fort Point Congress street corridor of the Boston Waterfront, and it’s a shame that more people don’t know about it! The food is excellent, well priced, and there’s some forward culinary thinking going on. This time around, I had the bluefish pâté to start, which comes with these salty-crispy buttery homemade crackers that were the perfect spread vehicle. (Bluefish pâté is one of my favorite New England foods, and I try to treat myself whenever I see it on a menu. Theirs is a winner.) Devon had the duck prosciutto, which was a little small portion wise – only a few slices, but quite good. (If you get a chance, Ruhlman’s duck prosciutto is a great home curing project.) They serve these delightful warm rolls, with some unexpected whipped citrus butter, which I’d eat by itself by the spoonful. For dinner, our friend Allison got the citrus marinated smoked chicken, Devon got a bowl of meaty bolognese with perfectly tender pasta, and I went with the harissa-rubbed roasted lamb, with roasted hubbard squash, silky squash puree, and Marfax beans.

We left full and happy, and stumbled out across the street to Drink to assess our luck with the line. The wait didn’t seem too bad, and we happened to be in line in front of the Scott Caan/Ryan Gosling look-alike who works in the Waterfront, so I didn’t mind waiting for a bit. (Yes, seriously, this guy looks just enough like Ryan Gosling that I usually do a double take when I see him crossing the street.) By 9:15, I hadn’t ordered my Ramos Gin Fizz yet, and was starting to get a little bit cranky. Allison mentioned unbaked cookie dough in her freezer, and so we gave up our spot, and made a b-line to her apartment in Charlestown. The evening ended with warm cookies, Ghostbusters, and me passed out on her couch.

We got home sometime past midnight, and today ended up being quite the lazy Saturday, as I missed my alarm for the gym… Instead, we ran errands – the bank, the post office to send in Devon’s passport application, brunch, and a long nap. In the early evening, I went for a manicure at Miniluxe, had matcha at Peet’s, and headed home to cook this up for dinner:

Not your regular beef and broccoli – I’m always nostalgic for takeout style beef and broccoli, but I prefer a lighter, brighter sauce, more like what you’d find in Vietnamese cooking: meat flavored with lime, and fish sauce, rather than your average thick brown slurry. Poking around my fridge tonight, I found some beef stir-fry meat from the butcher that I needed to use, and some broccoli that was on the edge of leaving us. I steamed the broccoli for 6 minutes in the microwave, got my cast iron pan nice and hot, added a good glug of oil, tipped in my beef, and spread it about my pan so it wouldn’t be crowded and steam. I didn’t touch it for three minutes, so the bottom would get brown and crispy. While the meat cooked, I made my sauce – the juice of one lime, about a tablespoon of Red Boat Fish sauce, and a teaspoon of piloncillo (brown sugar), to round things out. I flipped the beef, cooked for another minute until it was just cooked through, added the now-steamed broccoli, poured on the sauce, and tossed. After tasting, I finished with just a sprinkle of Maldon salt, and we had a feast. The sauce was just enough for about 3/4 lb. of meat and a 12 ounces of broccoli, but I’d double it if you have any more meat and veg than that.

Tavern Road
www.tavernroad.com
343 Congress Street
Fort Point, Boston

Drink
http://drinkfortpoint.com/
348 Congress Street
Fort Point, Boston

An unexpected loss.

I have a lot of thinking to do in the next few weeks – and by thinking, I mean putting myself out there and making things happen. Getting started is usually my weakness. Once I commit to something I’ll charge forward with full force, but determining what I’m actually going to get started on is always a challenge.

Fortunately, starting my morning is less of a challenge. This one commenced with coffee, spiked with a little bit of eggnog. I’ll be sad when Crescent Ridge eggnog season is over, but I’m probably better off without it! After several months of successfully drinking black coffee to start the morning off, it’s fair to say that I’ve regressed, and I blame it all on the nog.

Brunch was a banana pancake. It’s been several weeks since my last, and I was craving it so much that I actually defrosted a frozen banana as we had none fresh in the house. I topped it with some chocolate hazelnut butter for good measure.

Here’s a little trick for you – after making some chicken stock last night with the bones from our dinner, I woke up this morning and strained the bubbling broth in my french press. It works well in a pinch!

It was a quiet sort of day. I worked from home getting some errands done, progressing, and took a Skype call with a start-up in Brazil. Don’t get excited – I’m not moving to Rio anytime soon, but it was nice to make the connection!

Here’s some of the afternoon light in my apartment.

After working on my growing list of to-do’s, I headed to an early evening Crossfit class. It’s so nice to be able to make it in on weekdays again! The workout of the day was split (like usual) into a strength component and a more traditional circuit workout. We warmed up with a rotation of jumping jacks, leg-overs, squats, and various stretches, and practiced our lifts with PVC pipes before getting to the good stuff.

A.  3 Push Press + 2 Push Jerk + 1 Split Jerk
Build to a max in 15 minutes

For this one I shared a bar with Alexann, and we started working up the weights – first a set with the bar (30#), and then a set with 60 pounds, and another with 70. After that, I’m not sure what happened, but my brain got in the way – four lifts into the #75, I just couldn’t quite do it anymore, so after a few more goes, the #70 was my max. I’m certainly strong enough to lift heavier – just have to retrain my mind to get me there!

B. 2 x AMRAP (as many reps as possible) in 8 minutes
5 Handstand Pushups, 6 Pistols, 7 Pull-ups. Rest 4:00 between AMRAPS

Apparently, lifting was making me tired! For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing great with handstand pushups. I have a bit of a challenge though, because I have a hard time kicking up to the wall without my glasses falling off. I have no problem taking my glasses off and doing it, but if I’m doing it quickly in a workout, it gets disorienting not actually being able to see. My “solution” is keeping my glasses on for a WOD by pushing up from a headstand. It’s tiring and not very efficient. I managed a measly 3 rounds the first 8 minutes, and 2 rounds the second – the pushups were killing me!

Despite a pathetic score, this workout was great.

After all of the fun, I headed home to make dinner – gingery beef, broccoli and carrots. No real recipe here – I simply heated some coconut oil, cooked a little garlic, threw in some thinly sliced sirloin with some Red Boat fish sauce. Once cooked, I took the beef out, added the broccoli and carrots to the pan, and a little bit of chicken stock, and steamed the vegetables. While they were cooking, I made a sauce of stock, garlic, ginger, lemon juice, red pepper flakes and coconut aminos. I added a little bit of sahlep (orchid root powder) as a thickener. It works just the same as cornstarch! When the broccoli was cooked, I tossed the beef back in the pan, and added the sauce and cooked it just for a minute or two.

For dessert, I served myself a little cup of Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Caramel Buzz, a leftover treat from New Year’s Eve. Along with the eggnog, once this is done I’ll be taking a break from the stuff for a while!

*          *           *

Finally, one last photo. This is Jim, a.k.a. “Hoff”, one of the lovely folks I’ve had the privilege to get to know over the past many months at Charles River Crossfit. I found out tonight that he died last week, at 61,  and it was a true shock. Jim was one of those people who always had a smile on his face, and a kind word to say. He’d come to the gym in his flip flops, and power through any workout with everything he had. He’ll be so deeply missed.

Charles River Center 5k – My First Race!

Three weeks ago, in the middle of the night, I had an idea. I was going to run a road race. My first road race. (Unless you count participation as getting kissed by sweaty runners several years in a row at the 13.1 mile mark of the Boston marathon, in which case, I’ve done lots of participating.) Somewhere around 12:35 a.m., I registered for the Charles River Center 5K Run/walk.

I should make a point here that at the time I signed up, I had been running little more than 200-800 meters at a time at CrossFit. So I devised a fancy training plan: run a few 5k training runs each week. That’s 5000 meters, or 3.1 miles. Because I’m obsessive, the morning after that middle of the night, I drove out to the race course and ran the course to see if I could do it without embarrassing myself totally. I had not up until that point actually run a 5k in more than a year. I then ran four more 5ks in the following two weeks, each run progressively slower. This was a little disconcerting, but I pressed on.

On Saturday morning, I picked up my race packet, there was no backing out now! My swag bag included a t-shirt, free toothbrushes, chips, lip balm, and a mini foam football. I will not lie, I was pretty elated.

The morning of the race, I woke up and googled the number 244. Not the most significant historical occurrences, although Alexander may or may not have been born this year. I took comfort in the fact that it was an even number. I opted for my typical morning pre-exercise fare of a cup of coffee and a banana with almond butter. I went for half of the banana for fear that something disastrous would happen to my stomach before the race. It did not.

We drove out to Needham where we parked at Olin and took the short walk to the race course. The Charles River Center supports children and adults with developmental disabilities, and I was thrilled at the turnout for this worthy cause – lots of families, everyone happy and smiling.

I was not at this point nervous. I took one last port-a-potty run (possibly the cleanest port-a-potty ever), and Devon snapped this photo of me.

I then took a photo of my trusty (re: old) Mizunos before lining up at the beginning of the race. Documenting your sneaker choice is apparently important to me.

Before lining up for the race, I ran into my challenge team-leader Kati! I was thrilled to see a familiar face. We lined up together and saw a few more of our gym-mates. There were tons of folks of all abilities at the race, and a good number of families running and walking together. Devon left us as we listened to the slightly inappropriate emcee, and a keyboard rendition of the national anthem. I turned on my Pandora, and my Runkeeper app, set up my Garmin, and then we were off!

My goal for the race was to finish. Seriously. My second goal was to do so in less than 34 minutes. (Keep in mind that a) I am slow, b) I take walk breaks c) I did not train for this.) Next year when I’m running a half marathon at a pace two minutes faster than this, I shall not laugh at myself.

The first mile of the race was largely down hill, which was pretty thrilling. I was surprised at how much faster I was running than normal, and surrounded in a sea of happy runners, it was actually quite easy to keep up a good clip. I started following a fit woman about my age, and took my first walk break near the end of the first mile for a minute. (I was a little emotional and choked up here.) I finished my first mile in 9:36, including the walk break.

We then ran through a little residential cul-de-sac, and there were people on the side of the road cheering! At 1.25 miles, we had our water break. I actually stopped on the side of the road and took thirty seconds to drink my water slowly. I had not practiced the “drink water while running”, and was convinced that I’d drink too quickly, choke, or give myself a stitch.

The next three quarters of a mile were largely down hill. At my halfway point, this guy came in before they had even finished setting up the finish line stuff. In 16:50. That’s a 5:25/minute per mile pace. That, my friends, is fast.

My second mile was 10:13, winding past the Babson campus, and by the Wellesley country club. I paced with what appeared to be an 9 or 10 year old girl for a few minutes, followed a mom running with her son, and a few parents pushing their disabled child in a jogging stroller. (Seeing these kids beaming made this race so worth it.) I opted not to take a walk break other than at the water station.

My third mile was 10:53, taking three short walk breaks, and by the end I was thinking that I would like to be finished with the race. We ran past Volante Farms, and around the corner to the finish line. I saw a few gym folks near the finish line, and was pretty excited.

Here I am coming up the final hill!

Here I am realizing that I’m about to be smoked by an 11 year old, and should maybe push a little harder!

In the end, I finished in 32:14, a 10:22/minute per mile pace. Not horrific for my very first race with zero real training! (I kept on feeling shocked that fit people were finishing after me!)

Here I am a happy red-faced runner!

After the race, we walked up to the after-party where there was free Sam Adams, pizza, hot dogs, and Crescent Ridge ice cream. None of which did I eat, alas – sticking my guns to the challenge. Here I am slightly incredulous at turning down the free ice cream and re-fueling with an apple! Thank you Whole Foods!

I didn’t have to feel sorry for myself, because I got to partake in the best reward of all – free post-run massage and adjustment with Dr. Adrian of Granite Family Chiropractic!

After the race, we headed home, making a pit-stop at Chipotle. I had a bowl with lettuce, carnitas, pico de gallo, hot salsa and guacamole.

When we got home, I snacked on a cashew cookie LÄRABAR (just dates and cashews), and took a long hot shower. For dinner, I put together a beef and broccoli stir fry, and ate the extra cabbage from the previous dinner.

Feeling pretty good about things, and looking forward to the next race already!

Do you run races? Want to? (You should!) Do you remember your very first race?