Apple & Pumpkin Season!

Even as the weather continues to hover in the 90s in Fort Collins, the growing season ticks on. Peaches are ripening, the transition from summer squashes to fall squashes is in full swing, and pumpkin beers are dominating the shelves at beer stores. Fall is tangibly working itself into the air - I couldn't be more excited for chilly nights, frost-tipped grass to run through in the mornings, hoodies, hot tea, fleecy blankets, and good books. Most importantly though, pumpkin spice lattes have hit the coffee bars at Starbucks all over the country.

Although I spend a lot of my time running, food and nutrition pretty much top the lists of my other passions. Fall foods are hands down my favorites too.

The pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks is my favorite guilty indulgence. But since I'm still not running much in my post-Leadville recovery, I'm delaying my first PSL of the season. To quell my cravings though, I opened a can of pumpkin puree the other day to make my own (slightly healthier) version of a pumpkin spice latte. Combine 1/2 C almond milk (or whatever your milk of choice is), 1 tsp of sugar, and 1.5 TBSP pumpkin puree in a 16 oz coffee mug, heat it up, and top it off with 10 oz of dark roast coffee. A sprinkle of pumpkin pie spices to top it off, and you basically have heaven in a (ceramic) glass.

Then last night I had dinner with a friend. I had a pound of pork loin in the freezer, and couldn't decide what to make with it. So I went to trusty ol' Google for some answers and found, and slightly modified, a recipe for Pork & Apple Curry with Coconut Rice. I don't love coconut, or coconut milk, in general but coconut rice is one of my favorite ways to cook rice. The coconut flavoring is just subtle and creamy enough that I can totally get on board. Prepare yourself for some pure awesome.

Pork & Apple Curry (serves 4)

• 1 pound boneless pork loin
• 1 apple, peeled and diced
• 1/4 C OJ
• 1/4 C chicken stock
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 small onion, chopped
• 1 TBSP curry powder
• 1/2 tsp ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp  cinnamon powder
• optional post-cooking addition: toasted coconut flakes

Throw it all in the slow-cooker on low for 5-6 hours. Prep time of roughly 5 minutes - so easy!

Coconut Rice

• 2 C rice
• 1 3/4 C water
• 1 C coconut milk

Either mix all in a rice cooker (easiest way!) or bring water to a boil in a small pot, then add the rice and coconut milk, cover, and let cook approximately 20 minutes, or until all liquid has evaporated and the rice is tender. 

I ended up with extra pumpkin (though my pup has been enjoying a spoonful in her chow every morning this week) and extra coconut milk. I decided to make a really simple pudding-like dish for dessert this evening. I combined 3/4 C coconut milk, 1 C pumpkin puree, 1 TBSP sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder, & 1/4 tsp nutmeg (serves 2). Boil until it thickened, and enjoy! This might be my new fave fall dessert. 

Hooray for Fall!

What Happens When I Sleep Through My Morning-Run Alarm and Decide to Work from Home

I have been having a very odd couple of weeks where I just literally canNOT wake up before 7AM, which is very odd for me. I'm usually awake, of my body's own volition around 5AM. Which thus allows me time to run, work (non-grad school job), shower and play with my dog (not a euphamism...sorry...bad joke) all before my usual 9AM graduate school work-day start.  Sometimes I even get laundry and/or dishes and/or vacuuming done too. I'm a morning person. Until 2 weeks ago. When I stopped being a morning person. I don't like sleeping in this late. I feel lazy and unaccomplished. So when I slept through my 5AM...and 5:15...and 5:30...and 5:45AM alarms this morning (I mean I slept through my alarms, as in did not even consciously flit my eyes open to drowsily peer at the alarm clock blaring at me, slept through my alarms), and woke up at the late late time of 6:47AM...I decided my run would wait for warmer hours and I would just get some school work done. 45 minutes of that, and a pot of coffee later, I decided it was time to make sunflower butter. Totally normal behavior...yeah.

I didn't follow any real recipe, but instead dumped 4/3C (I actually thought it was 1 C and I was using 1/4 C measuring cup, but my only-one-pot-of-coffee brain forgot that the 1/4 C measure was in the dish rack) of roasted unsalted sunflower seeds into my food processor, turned it on, brewed another pot of coffee, and watched. The sunflowers seed flaked apart like a cornmeal, then ever so slowly began to oil up and almost melt together. I added in a dash of salt, a pinch of cinnamon, and a drop each of honey and olive oil. It's pretty delicious. I don't think I'll ever buy nut butters from the store again.

When that was finished, I decided to give a go at a pie recipe a friend had shared a week or 2 ago. The original recipe is found here: Mocha Silk Pie. I made a few alterations. For starters, I cut the recipe in half. Except for the nuts in the crust (but I used walnuts instead of pecans - I forgot to buy pecans at the store) and the kahlua - I used the full amounts of each of those with half the rest of everything else. Oh and I used 2 ounces of chocolate instead of the halved quantity (1.5 oz) for the filling. But basically this is the most delicious creation that has ever graced the face of this planet.

The crust ingredients: finely chopped walnuts, grated chocolate, brown sugar, and a touch of kahlua

That same crust, mushed together into a pie dish

The start of the filling: butter, sugar, instant coffee granules

Blending up the filling with another bit of Kahlua...yummm Kahlua 

Beating in one egg at a time, 5 minutes a piece. Trust me, it's worth the energy

The finished project. I ate the remaining chocolate or else I might've added some chocolate curls on top.

Stranger Interactions

Yesterday, I took a break from working mid-way through the morning to walk a few blocks away and grab a coffee. Oh who am I kidding, it was less than an hour after I got to my desk at the early ealry hour 11:30AM. I threw on my 2012 Blue Sky Marathon hat, permanently dirt-stained pink puffy vest, and grabbed my travel mug.

As I trotted across the street to the sidewalk, a guy did the same, from the opposite direction, on the other side of the street as me. Wearing an orange puffy vest. And a 2011 Blue Sky Marathon hat. And Carharts. That last part isn't totally relevant, but in my mind, the wearing of Carharts signals you as a specific type of person who tries to pose as a respectable employee (he was coming from the direction of the physiology building, so I'm guessing a professor or researcher?) but bounces out of work suspiciously early each Friday to backpack, rock climb, or mountain bike all weekend.

Our eyes locked for a second from across the street, and we exchanged a knowing smile and nod, before continuing on our own ways. 

Styrofoam'isms

Today, on the drive back from Sterling, CO after a day of administering nutrition education materials to Kindergarden and 1st graders (gah that phrasing sounds so sterile, like injecting some kind of vaccination, when really we just jumped up and down in front of a bunch of kids and raved about Marty Milk), we stopped at a gas station to grab a pick me up cup of coffee.  I picked a cup off the stack to pour some Mountain Coffee (ironically produced in Nebraska) and realized it was styrofoam. Immediately plopped it back on the pile and grabbed the car keys to trudge back into the wind and cold and dig out the travel mug I'd discarded somewhere in the back of the car under a pile of baskets, papers and posters, because ya know, I can't drink out of a styrofoam cup.

Environmentalism aside, though there is that as a factor, I just cannot stand the taste of styrofoam and coffee. It's nasty and I somehow always end up lightly gnawing on the cup and sucking coffee through the styrofoam. So if I'm going to drink some coffee, be it a craft-brewed latte from Grumpy's in NYC or some swill off the freeway halfway between nowhere and anywhere, I'm not going to risk it touching styrofoam. Though I'll gladly eat up a hearty portion of lentil and sweet potato stew on my walk to class piping hot out of a plastic freezer bag. Because that kind of behavior is acceptable and normal. It's kind of the same way that my dog won't walk through a puddle on the street, but you can put her on the muddiest wettest trail you can find and she is happy as, well, a dog in the mud to splish splash her way along.