hello 2013

Some updates, of no particular relevance and in no particular order:

The fella and I rang in the New Year at his place, with my best friend Lydia and her boyf Brian who was in town. SO fun.

If you want to fondly recall 2012, listen/watch this wholly brilliant mashup of the hit songs of 2012. And then you can do as we did and watch 2011 and 2010. And then do the Gangnam Style dance repeatedly.

Steve made this yummy squash, corn, green pepper, mushroom chili. After this picture, he added beans, for good luck dontcha know.

 

Since I had gotten the COOLEST rice for Christmas, dyed GREEN with BAMBOO JUICE, I knew I immediately had to use it to make sushi (thanks Dena!).

See its cool hue?

    

Did I get a picture of the finished sushi? Of course not.

It was mostly plants. A vegetarian and a vegan were dining with us, after all. Ingredients included:
- veggies: long strips of cucumber, long strips of carrot, quick steamed asparagus, sliced avocado
- proteins: edamame, egg cooked into a tomato omelet by my talented boyfriend, cooked shrimp
- just for the hell of it: chopped almonds. Not bad with the asparagus.

I am *rawther* talented at rolling sushi.

We had plans to maybe go out to First Night Alexandria for New Years but it was coooold. And also we just didn’t care that much. So we played Taboo… and Karaoke Revolution! And Brian COMMITS!

From Revolution to Resolution…

(not awkward).

The fact that I stumbled upon this in my house makes me question the wisdom of dieting and making crazy fitness-related resolutions when we are clearly, in our basic and primal DNA, designed to hoard high-calorie food for the coming potential famine.

As evidenced by the fact that I discovered these in the cassette tapes case while cleaning out the basement:

My sister or my dad, I suspect. My dad hasn’t lived in this house since 1997, but who listens to tapes?!

My New Years resolution is to floss every day.

I cannot think of anything else (well, other than I guess go to the bathroom but that is hardly an accomplishment) that I could actually commit to doing every day. Eating healthfully, sleeping properly, exercising enthusiastically… all are things that are just a little tiresome to me at the moment.

That being said, if there are those among you who fancy healthier foods in 2013, may I recommend the following delicious sandwiches?

First we have Lazy Woman’s Falafel Plate

Take a whole wheat wrap/pita/whatever.

Cut up some broccoli or broccoli stems (I am on a crusade on the behalf of broccoli stems. Give them a chance). Toss them with the ingredients you’d put in a falafel sauce: lemon juice and tahini.

Dump the broccoli on the wrap, followed by some sliced pickled turnips (something you should really have in your house- we get ours at the halal butcher!), some microwaved Trader Joes’ meatless meatballs (the secret, and lazy, ingredient), and a dollop of plain yogurt.

Fabulous.

 

The other wrap was awesome- I actually managed to prepare something healthy in the chaotic days leading to our Christmas party. It all turned into kind of a mess (post to come).

Take a whole wheat wrap (incidentally, we get ours at Costco, keep ‘em in the freezer as they go bad rather quickly, and then thaw them super quick in the toaster oven).

Smear with refried beans (Trader Joes makes some fat-free ones that aren’t exactly thrilling, but they’ll do for the purposes of this). Mash some sweet potato (!) and put on top of the beans. Then put on some cheddar.

Stick in a toaster oven, or under a broiler, or whatever, til melty.

 

Then add a few handfuls of spinach, a bit of avocado, and copious amounts of Sriracha. Magnifique.

 

A few more random bits of news:

- Someone recommended Once Upon a Time to me. I watched one episode on Netflix and then watched the entire first season… in 4 days. It is SO EXCELLENT, GUYS. I told Steve he should watch one… the day before yesterday… and now we’ve watched six. I don’t at all mind watching it twice. Also also Snow White and Prince Charming are a thing in real life and that makes me so happy it’s ridiculous.

- I watched like six hours of football on Sunday. As you’ve probably deduced from the constant estrogen-ness of this blog, that is not at all typical for me. Thank God we were too late for the Bears game (Steve’s from Chicago… figure it out) but then we had to watch Green Bay (to see if they’d beat the Vikings, thus getting the Bears into the playoffs) and then of course being Washingtonians we had to watch the Redskins. It was pretty exciting… I really like RGIII. He just seems like a pleasant and wholesome young man. My sister’s analogy was that he seemed like a really enthusiastic guy from the blood donor center who’s like, “I’m so glad you’re donating blood today!” My analogy was that he was like the neighborhood Boy Scout who came to sell you mulch.

- Confidential to the lady readers (which is probably a lot of you. Or all. Except Steve.): I bought myself a Diva Cup as a Christmas gift to myself and it is AMAZING. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend this pretty definitive guide in Healthy Tipping Point. The comments are all great, too.

Finally, Steve and I took a lovely long walk on the Mount Vernon trail yesterday. As we neared the Wilson bridge, around dusk, we saw a single great blue heron sitting, solitary, on a rock out on the water.

Below is my attempt to capture that rather lovely moment.