The Simplest Kheema and some Olympic Lifting

Kheema beef with peas

I cooked tonight! I know, I know, I cook most nights. But I’ve been revisiting some of my favorite pantry and freezer meals for the past few days, and this one made me proud of myself – long on flavor, short on effort. My friend AA is moving back to Colorado, and thus I managed to inherit a large haul of freezer and pantry items. Bittersweet, but getting the spoils of a sad situation is enough to perk me up a little bit. Plus, these friends are food lovers, so we’re talking homemade frozen Momofuku buns, honeymead, a black truffle, a full jar of maple syrup…

Before we get to dinner, here are a few of the things I ate today. In the morning, I made myself an aeropress of a wonderful coffee – espresso from Karma Roasters. It was a splurge at Whole Foods, and I don’t regret it one bit. It’s a stellar coffee.

Morning Black Coffee in Muji Cup

For lunch, I cracked open some of the home made liverwurst from my Walden Local Meat share. I’m always looking to add a little offal to my diet – it’s highly nutrient dense, and delicious! Given that I prefer my food as would best be presented to a five year old, I opted for little cucumber boats.

Cucumber Boats with Liverwurst

In the afternoon I was hungry, so I roasted a delicata squash from Volante Farms. Delicata are by far my favorite of the fall squashes! They are super sweet, and I personally have no problem eating the skin.

Delicata Squash from Volante Farms

Roasted Delicata Squash

In the late afternoon, I headed to the gym for Olympic Lifting class. It was the previously mentioned AA’s very last Wednesday Oly class before she moves away, and I didn’t want to miss it. Plus I’ve been out of the gym for so long with marathon training, that I was itching to get my hands on a barbell and lift something heavy! I hopped on the rower to warm up, and we ended up having a lot of fun in class – practicing clean complexes and working to some max heavy cleans. I was pretty sure that I was going to have to drop some serious weight from my usual bar, but things actually didn’t go so badly, all things considered. I worked up and got in multiple lifts at 95, but couldn’t for the life of me break the mental hurdle to get past 100. The worst part is that my lack of being able to make this lift is 100% in my head. I can lift the bar easily. I can high pull and just hold it there. I can’t for the life of me drop under the bar. Despite my frustration, I left thrilled to have gotten sweaty, and it felt so good to be back in the gym.

At home, I set to work cleaning my kitchen, as it was needing a little love. I cleaned and seasoned a cast iron, and the wok (see the top picture) that I inherited, which was looking a little rusty. Dinner needed to be something easy, and I always love some basic Indian spices in my cabinet for making something warm and comforting. I opted to do a really simple kheema – ground beef and peas – which requires little more attention than browning the beef, stirring in the rest of the ingredients, and letting things simmer.

Bowl of Kheema Beef with Peas

Simplest Kheema (Ground Beef with Peas)

1 pound ground beef (highest quality you can get)
1 tablespoon fat (olive oil, ghee, or coconut oil)
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons curry powder (I used Trader Joe’s Curry Powder)
a knob of ginger, minced
1 15 oz.can diced tomatoes, and their juice
pinch of sugar (optional, but helps reduce acidity of tomatoes)
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup low sodium chicken stock (homemade, preferable)

In a large skillet, heat the fat, and brown the ground beef with a big pinch of salt and pepper. When beef is almost browned, add the curry powder, and ginger, and cook for two minutes. Pour on can of diced tomatoes, peas, chicken stock, and stir. Bring to a simmer, and cook, partially covered (leaving an inch or two for steam to escape), for 10 minutes. Top with a spoonful of yogurt if you’d like.

Bento Lunch

Since I’ve been working mostly from home over the past several months, I haven’t had any reason to pack a lunch, so I was thrilled to pack my very first bento today for Startup School. Although the offices downtown are conveniently located in proximity to lots of good food options, I’m going to still make it a point to bring lunch as often as possible.

On the left is sliced chicken thighs, and on the right, roasted delicata squash and parsnips. And an apple for snack. I suppose I’m missing something green, but this hit the spot.

Benchmark Retest + Super Batch Cooking

Seven weeks. It’s been seven weeks since I started the gym challenge, and today was the day I headed back in for the re-test of our power benchmark. I can’t express how proud I feel at how much I’ve progressed in nearly two months. But it’s significant. It feels really good. I was excited to get back in the gym today even though I’m still feeling a little sick and weak from this long cold. It’s good to be there, accomplishing things. If you had told me last year that I’d be doing handstand pushups, dead-lifting more than my body weight, or running races, I’d have laughed in your face. But here I am. And it feels great.

Strength:  Back Squats –we’ve been working nearly every week on back squats. At the beginning of the challenge, I got to 95# for two lifts. Today, I hit a brand new max weight of #125. I attempted #135, but it was a little bit too much for this tired body of mine. That’s 30 pounds heavier than six weeks ago, not too shabby!

Benchmark WOD 1:  “Fran”
21-15-9 reps for time:
Thrusters 95/65
Pull-ups

The prescribed weight for Fran for women is 65, but because I had to re-test with the same as six weeks ago, I loaded up to 45 pounds, and subbed jumps for pull ups. I eeked things out at the initial test in 9:40, and wanted to die. This time I improved my time by 10 seconds. Which… was a little disappointing. But 10 seconds is 10 seconds, and I’m looking forward to seeing how much I can improve in the next few months.

When I got home, Devon had picked me up a Barbacoa Bowl from Chipotle – meat, vegetables, pico de gallo, hot tomato salsa, lettuce and guacamole.

I then set to work doing a massive amount of cooking for the week.

I roasted parsnips in coconut oil with salt and pepper, I did the same to a delicata squash, sliced into rings. And while I was at it, I roasted a whole spaghetti squash. I also roasted a piece of lamb liver, but forgot to take a photo of it – a little too much juggling in the kitchen!

And then I made a big pot of Mel’s Chocolate Chili. The whole batch this time instead of being stupid like last time and making a half of a batch. Next time, I’ll double it.

Then, I took a dozen eggs and I baked ’em! I popped them in the oven at 325F for 30 minutes, sitting in one of my madeleine tins. You can place them right on the rack, but this makes it a lot easier!

When they were done, I put them in ice water for 10 minutes to cool, dried them off, and popped them back into their carton.

Then, I put together another braise – Maple Cider Vinegar Braised Beef.

I seared some beef shank meat in coconut oil, removed it from the pan, and then added onion, garlic, and shallot. I let it cook for a few minutes, de-glazed the pan with a quarter cup of maple syrup, a quarter cup of cider vinegar, and a cup of homemade beef stock. Nestled in a few bay leaves, and the shanks, covered the pot, and braised the meat for 2.5 hours, turning the beef every half hour or so.

After two and a half hours, the meat was tender and falling apart, and the liquid had reduced to a sticky sweet and sour sauce.

I took out the meat, reduced the sauce for another 15 minutes or so on the stove top, and put it away for a meal later in the week so the flavors would continue to meld.

Last but not least, dinner!

I pan fried some chicken thighs with salt and pepper in my cast iron, and made salads with avocado. Light and fresh! We devoured it in front of the TV watching old episodes of Dexter.

What are you cooking up this week?

A Trip to Volante Farms

Quiet mornings. I love them.

After downing my cup of coffee, I headed over to CRCF for a morning workout. I hadn’t been in for almost a week because of my race on Monday, and was excited to do some lifting. Less excited for the jump roping. I still feel like an uncoordinated five year old when you hand me that particular torture device.

Wednesday WOD 10/10/12

Strength
A.  Power Clean – 10 minutes to a heavy set of 2 (I worked up to 75#)
Rest 5 min.
B. Press – 10 minutes to a heavy set of 3 (I worked up to 65#)
Rest 5 min.

WOD (Workout of the Day):  “Forrest Gump”
10 min. running clock
Complete 100 Double Unders then with remaining time:
Ladder up of:
Deadlift 225/155 (I used 125#)
Deficit Push-up (25lb Plates) (I did strict pushups)
*Start with 1 of each, then 2, then, 3, etc.

Result: After spending 4 minutes to get to a whopping 32 double-under attempts, Coach Steve kindly let me continue the rest as single-unders to 150 jumps. I then managed four rounds of the ladder + 2 lifts.

After the workout, I spent a few minutes practicing our challenge skill of the week: pull-ups. After months of subbing jump-ups in workouts, I’m ready to master a new skill. I have the next week to get the longest unbroken set of pull-ups I can, using my scale-sanctioned light green band. So far? 3. Gotta work on that technique!

Finally, I headed over to Starbucks for my post-gym reward of iced tea and dried mango. I love these Peeled Snacks unsweetened organic dried mango packs!

After drinking my body weight in tea, I headed over to Volante Farms to pick up some of my produce for the week. Volante Farms is a great family farm in Needham, and their farm stand is full of beautiful produce, much of which they grow on location or source from local farms. They also have a deli, ice cream, and dried goods, as well as greenhouses with plants galore. I’m never there with my camera because I’m usually picking stuff up right out of the gym, but now that I have this new fancy-pants iPhone, I thought I’d put it to good use.

Here are some scenes from the farm:

 

I ended up coming home with spaghetti squash, ambercup squash, a cauliflower, a romanesco, parsnips, three different varietals of apples, and some Komatsuna, a leafy green similar to bok choy.

For lunch, I decided to make a stir fry of the Komatsuna with leftover ground turkey, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, coconut aminos and sesame oil.

In the afternoon, I roasted a delicata squash. It was going to be for dinner, but I ate the entire thing while getting some work done on my computer.

For dinner, I braised lamb shanks from M.F. Dulock with tomato, eggplant and anchovies. Devon got his off the bone over some spaghetti with parmesan, and I got both shanks, extra eggplant, and a garnish of parsley. This meal was a keeper! I’ll be posting the recipe soon. {Edit: recipe here!}