by Sam Tackeff | Oct 3, 2012 | Eggs, Pantry Staples, Quick and Easy, Soups
I woke up under the weather. It was grey and raining, and I had a headache and that thing where your body says “Hey there, you better rest and take care of yourself or I’m going to make you miserable. Oh yes, you think I’m teasing you, just you wait.” I’m really, really hoping that I can shrug this before it turns into something. I’ve been resting and taking hippy remedies (spoonful of cider vinegar here and there, and crossing my fingers). In lieu of a photo of myself unwell, here is my friend Oso. This is what the morning looked like.
Very little work, movement, or life happened in the morning.
In the afternoon, I went to my kitchen to fix myself lunch. But first I set about on a little project – Nom Nom Paleo’s Magic Mushroom Powder. It’s a wonderful salt mix with porcini mushrooms and special spices, that makes things taste… magical!
I ground up a bag of dried porcini mushrooms in my spice grinder (a.k.a. coffee grinder, I swear I wash it in between uses). Then I added the special spices, and salt.
Mixed it all up, and voila! This stuff is going right next to my salt collection, and I’ll be putting it on almost everything. Chicken, pork, fish, in stews – it’s the perfect spice mix to add that umami flavor to your dishes.
I won’t post the recipe because it’s not my own to post, but you can find it on her awesome iPad app! Highly recommend it.
For lunch, I made a bowl of pork, pumpkin, and greens soup. It seemed very Southern. You may have noticed that I like soups, and I try to make them as often as possible because soup is one of the best ways to get in your nutrients, and hydrate yourself. Rather than making a big pot of soup, I can put together quick soups nearly any day of the week at lunch using a basic method that usually works.
Super basic soup for 1 or 2:
1. Season 3-6 ounces of meat with salt and pepper. Cook in a little bit of fat on the stove, until the meat is cooked through. (Or heat up some leftover meat.) Chicken, pork, cubed meat or ground all work fine. (Today I used some fresh ham with marrow bone.)
2. Add 1-2 cups of vegetables of your choice. I’ll usually use some greens (even mixed frozen greens), leftover roasted vegetables, and whatever is seasonal. (Today was a combination of greens and cooked mashed pumpkin.)
3. Top with just enough liquid to cover. You can use chicken or beef stock, or even just water! (I used water.) Season with a pinch of salt and taste. I usually like it just slightly less salty than I’d like the finished soup to be. Bring to a boil, then down to a simmer for 20-40 minutes, until your vegetables are tender, and a little longer if the flavors need to meld more.
4. Take off the heat, and gild the lily. Swirl with a little olive oil, a squirt of lemon juice if it needs a little acid, a spoonful of pesto or a grating of cheese.
In the late afternoon, I had a snack: some cooked butternut squash topped with walnuts, cinnamon and coconut butter.
Before dinner, I decided to take a very short walk to air myself out. Just for half an hour, and it felt good being outside. By dinner time, I was exhausted, so I made my best last minute comfort food “Faux-Shakshuka”. Shakshuka is a wonderful Middle Eastern dish of eggs poached in tomato sauce, usually with peppers and onions. For this dinner I opened a can of Rao’s Marinara, dumped in three eggs, and that was it. No apologies, it’s pretty much the best quick meal on the planet.
After dinner I had about a cup of pineapple, and was asleep by 10pm. Because I’m an old lady. Crossing my fingers that this’ll go away soon!
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 2, 2012 | Challenge, Local stores, Running
October 1st. Before we go on, please click this excellent piece from McSweeney’s about decorative gourds, and read it when you are done with my rambling. Or you can just go ahead and read it now. Yes, go ahead, I’ll wait.
Today I took several quite excellent morning still life shots of my coffee, my banana and my morning reading. Without the memory card in my camera. The last time this happened was when I sat with my mother to divvy up the first installment of our Year of Beans from Rancho Gordo. Hundreds of beautiful shots that exist only in my own memory.
To console myself, I headed out on a morning run. My almost always trusty Garmin was having trouble with the overcast sky reading satellites, so I started the timer without the gps, and turned on my Runkeeper app on my phone. Almost as soon as I headed out, I got a call from my mom who was on the way to buy new sneakers at one of my favorite running shops. Having never actually run while talking on the phone, I was surprised to find out that this was a good way to pass the time, and that my Runkeeper app worked beautifully coaching me as I chatted away. Until, of course, my phone just shut off completely. Upgrading to a new phone is looking more and more exciting.
Fortunately, I had arrived at Heartbreak Hill Running Company, which was almost exactly 2 miles away. I stood outside drinking from their igloo cooler for runners, and then wandered in to pick out something to reward myself with when I complete my very first 10k on Monday! New shoes? A foam roller? Cold-weather gear? I haven’t decided.
Speaking of heartbreak, I noticed this on my way back. This is spray painted on someone’s driveway. Actually, I don’t even want to talk about it. I’ll say this – I may have never been so excited for the start of basketball season in my life.
My run ended up being 4 miles in just over 45 minutes, and an extra half mile of walking in order to get the 30 consecutive minutes on my Runkeeper to make my gym-pact.
Lunch ended up being extra good. I seasoned some fresh ham steak (from M.F. Dulock) with salt, pepper, and Herbes de Provence, heated up some roasted butternut squash, and served it with a salad of mixed baby greens and lemon juice. It took 10 minutes to put together, and felt mighty fancy.
In the evening, Devon and I had a date night at Target. This is a close second to our other favorite date – IKEA. Except IKEA has Swedish meatballs, dollar cones, and sofas we can sit on and pretend we are relaxing in our own home on. There we were, milling about minding our own business… Romance! And then I saw this:
I mean, I thought I’d seen it all before. “Lose 20 by New Years!” , “Lose 10 pounds this month!” but 47 pounds by Thanksgiving? I feel like we all have to say a collective prayer for humanity.
For the record, after having a near tantrum of disgust in the store, I went home to look up this magazine, and I found this on their Facebook page. “FIRST for Women is a national consumer magazine that delivers positive info on everything from health and nutrition to beauty and fitness to home and family. Look for it at the grocery store checkout and in superstores like Walmart.” I call bull-shit.
Moving on to happier things. Like this dinner.
Ground beef with cumin, chile, a tomato, and some zucchini/garlic/tomato/onion from the Whole Foods salad bar again topped with some tomatillo salsa I picked up at Trader Joe’s. I ate mine with half an avocado, and Devon got his with some re-fried beans.
After dinner we lounged around watching Breaking Amish on TLC, and reading before bed. I won’t lie, after assuming that this series would be exploitative and cringe-worthy, I’ve found myself impressed by what seem to be a bunch of (mostly) thoughtful and likeable young men and women tackling big life questions. On that note, remember when the Real World used to be a good show on MTV? It’s been a while.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 21, 2012 | Challenge, Photography
Today’s Happiness Booster: Evening Walks. I remember when I was a teenager spending the summer in France, we used to go for evening walks. Usually before dinner, or in between dinner and dessert, we’d head out as a group, sometimes just the kids, sometimes the whole lot of us, and stroll through the neighborhood. There was always a lot of smiling, laughing, waving to people eating in their gardens or doing the same as us.
This is a practice that I’ve been longing to make a habit of, but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve been doing it. You get rewarded at that time of day, the blue hour*, when twilight hits and the sun has set and things all of a sudden become magical. (*Also, love this blue hour.)
I took these tonight, on my phone, as the light was fading on my evening walk.
Today was an odd sort of day, trying to fit a few different things into my schedule that I hadn’t planned for. I decided at the last minute to go to the gym because I’m committed twice a week, and although I usually go on Friday or Sunday, I wanted to give myself enough rest for my little road race this weekend.
I had half a cup of coffee, and headed to the gym on an empty stomach, because of my last minute judgement. Although having some food is better than none, if I don’t leave several hours between eating and my workout, it becomes uncomfortable and “an issue”. I’ll leave it at that.
Today’s workout was called “Tarpit“.
AMRAP 20 (As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes):
200m Run
16 Lunges
8 Push-ups
4 Pull-ups (Jumping pullups for me!)
If this looks painful, well, it was. I got in an honorable 5 rounds plus a run. (Three rock stars in my class got 9 + change. Crazy!) To reward ourselves, we did 8 sets of 20 seconds of situps + 10 seconds of rest in between. I did a less than honorable 52 situps. Eek!
Before heading home, I stretched for a good 15 minutes, and swung by the Needham library to flip through a cookbook of mine that is stuck in a box. They have this fantastic statue outside that I just love.
When I got home, I set about making a simple soup of leftovers that turned out better than expected. Butternut squash, roast beef, a few handfuls of baby spinach, and the last bit of homemade beef stock I made last week. I seasoned it simply with salt and pepper and a little bit of Turkish urfa biber (a deep oily red pepper flake).
Later in the afternoon, snack was an entire half pint of raspberries, and some iced tea with coconut milk. I had a heck of a time trying to photograph the milky tea, the camera just didn’t want to do it. It was good, I promise.
In the early evening I headed off to M.F. Dulock again in Somerville to pick up some pasture raised and freshly butchered meat for the next few days. Having a great source of high quality, humanely raised meat is so important to me – leaving my meat c.s.a. in the Bay was really hard, and I just can’t say enough about having access to this stuff. I picked up some beef shanks, beef stir fry meat, fresh pork sausages, lamb shoulder chops and goat! Variety is the spice of life!
After my evening walk, I set about making dinner. First I gathered vegetables to make my salad. 
I chopped up the tomato and cucumber, and tossed them in a bowl with a little bit of salt and thyme, and let them sit while I prepped everything else. This allows the juices to puddle at the bottom, and all you really need is a little bit of vinegar and a spoonful of olive oil to finish it off.
The goat meat I had picked up at the butcher had already been seasoned – salt, pepper, garlic, onions and parsley – pretty much exactly what I do to my ground meat to make Turkish köfte – convenient!
I formed the meat into little balls, and fried it in some tasty lard in my cast iron. Goat is a very lean meat, so a little bit of extra fat was welcome here.
I was surprised at how much they really crisped up in the pan. I made Devon a salad with a little bit of Caesar dressing, sliced up an avocado to share, and made up our plates. This is his, mine had just cucumber and tomato salad without leafy greens for no good reason other than the fact that I had put away the greens before making my own plate and forgot.
And wait! Dessert! Before my walk, I managed to cut up a melon and put it in the fridge. I ate several cupfuls mindlessly while watching “Breaking Amish”. And to think I had seriously contemplated giving up fall TV…
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 19, 2012 | Photography
Today’s Happiness Booster: Photography Practice. This afternoon I was talking to my good friend Sondy about my desire to improve my photography. I have this phenomenal camera that I don’t know how to use, and find myself frustrated when photos turn out better on my phone than they do on the Nikon. I know that there are a few things that I really need to do – read my manual, take a class, but most importantly, spend more time shooting. So she sent me on assignment to Fresh Pond, in Cambridge. It’s one of my absolute favorite places in the city.
Here are a few of my shots from the evening.
I have to do more of that.
As for today, I started out with a very small cup of coffee. And a few spoonfuls of unsweetened Sunbutter. I don’t think I like it very much, it’s a little bit bitter, but I’ll see how it works for cooking.
After my snack, I headed out on my run. This was my last planned run before my race on Sunday! I walked the mile down to the Charles to do this loop – it’s a nice 5k, but not my favorite in the neighborhood, because the paths aren’t as kept as other parts of the river, and you really need to watch out for tripping hazards.
After my run, I hit up Starbucks for some iced tea. I took a picture of myself sweaty, with tea, but decided I’d spare you for this blog.
I was starving by the time I returned, so I put together this big plate – leftover roast beef, roasted eggplant with parsley, a chopped orange bell pepper and a dollop of homemade mayo to dip. My lunches tend to be simple, but I try for lots of colors and textures. This was so good!
In the early evening, I went to Fresh Pond to take photos at sunset, and ate my snack – an apple and a handful of almonds.
I came back to start dinner. My plan was to roast a spaghetti squash, and serve it with a quick meat sauce – the pork I had cooked a few days ago with Italian seasoning, and some Rao’s Marinara.
And then I realized that the spaghetti squash that I was so excited about… was a butternut squash. This almost caused a meltdown, but I was determined to be positive about the mix-up. So I renamed it “butternut squash “faux-cchi”, topped with meat sauce”. And you know what? It was surprisingly good! I cooked the squash in the microwave for 10 minutes (gasp!), put together the meat and sauce and simmered it, and cooked Devon a little pot of farfalle. I then spooned out the squash in gnocchi size, and ladled on my sauce. Here was my dinner.
