Circadian Rhythms

Life moves in cycles. A high energy week gives birth to lots of blog posts, creating new hobbies like "perfectionist packing," and coming up with exciting activities along the road. Those weeks usually give way to great weekends, then onwards to horrifically exhausted weeks. This is one of those weeks.

NOLA was a blast (and maybe I'll manage some real content on it in a day or so), but this week I'm crashing at 9:30pm and crawling out of bed at 6:45am. We have two crappy hotels this week too, which makes life just all the more depressing after the FABULOUS Westin in NOLA (yay hotwire!). My presenter has made it known that she likes finding fun things along the way, but there's just no way I want to "find" anything for her. Two reasons: 1. Pure exhaustion on my part and 2. She's about as interesting as a doorknob and has made some vaguely racist/classist comments. Basically, coming off of last week were I had a real connection with my presenter and had an amazing time, I'm just not interested in putting in any more time and effort with this lady than I have to. So it's time to get dinner alone, curl up with a good book, and recoup some of my introvert energies.

P.S. Yay for Tom Robbins and the ubiquity of book stores on the road. I'm only 10 pages into "Jitterbug Perfume" and I'm already amused.

Recipe, OR... How to Empty the Veggie Drawer

This one is especially for Maureen, since she insisted that I do actually cook every once in a while. So far this week, I've been really bad about clearing out the veggie drawer. One big salad and a lot of fruit got eaten, but the gigantic beets lurked in the drawer, taunting me with their foreign allure (I've never tried beets before, other than one rather unfortunate experience with Dad's borscht experiment). So today I decided to roast what was left.

Here's what I had for dinner (all veggies came from the Full Circle CSA):
2 large beets, peeled
2 large new potatoes (about the same quantity as the beets)
1 small red onion (could have used more)
1 crookneck yellow squash, medium sized
a handful of baby carrots

note: ANYTHING that you have can work here, that's the point of a "clean out the veggie drawer" meal. Broccoli tends to need more oil to not burn, but zucchini and brussels sprouts are divine roasters as well.

Chop everything to chunky, roasting sized pieces. Throw them in a bowl with a healthy (or not so much...) drizzle of olive oil and a nice amount of Italian seasonings, garlic powder, and black pepper. Toss with hands, and dump on cookie sheet. Place in oven (which I forgot to preheat) at 400 degrees, and let cook for about 30-45 minutes. Stir with spatula once or twice... or just forget about it all like I did and come rushing back into the kitchen muttering "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..."

Meanwhile, make some rice-a-roni. Another option would be to make some greens as a nest for the veggies (beet greens would have been a great idea on my part, but I forgot about them). A non-lazy person would grill a chicken breast or something else tasty like that, but I was kinda tired of cooking at this point. Remove veggies from oven when tender and enjoy. As I ate mine, I had another "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..." moment, but this time, one of purely surprised ecstasy. That shit was GOOD.

Now I go on my little high and mighty rant: If you want this to be extra good, get real carrots. Those little wooden sticks that come in bags at the safeway are nothing like the carrots that came in my box last week. Bear in mind, the carrots I got were the same size, but actually only grown for a few weeks rather than whittled down to cute size. They were as sweet or sweeter than the beets, which were insanely good as well. Sometimes I get carrots in the box that are only as tasty as the store ones, but when you get the good ones, they are melt-in-your-mouth amazing. They don't have to be organic per-say, just get the ones that look funky, like you grew them in your own veggie garden. The uglier the better it seems. K, I'm done :)