Back in the Bubble
Hi FitFeat friends!
What’s new in your piece of the world? I feel a bit out of touch again already, now that I’ve entered the “Homework Bubble”. When I enter that bubble, I have to get in my creative zone with no outside distractions from the internet, TV or radio. Yesterday marked the end of my delightful “homeworkless week”. Our next project is due the day we get back from the holiday break and as I’ve mentioned before, I’d really rather NOT spend all of my time off thinking about schoolwork. So I’m hoping to accomplish a LOT today, this coming weekend, and then no more than 2 days into break if I can possibly make that happen.
For me, half the battle is coming up with the ideas in the first place. Last time, we had to do six original recipes, each from a different region that we’d worked on during our Ethnic Cuisine module. This time around we are to pick a local organic farm, find out what’s in season on that farm, and then design six recipes built around those foods: two for breakfast, two for lunch and two for dinner.
Two of those recipes need to be raw as well. Basically in the middle of December in Colorado, here’s what’s in season: root veggies and winter squash.
Raw root vegetables, anyone? 
I have to admit that coming up with ideas for this assignment was much easier than it was for the Ethnic Cuisine one. Having a much more limited set of ingredients with which to work seems to boost my creativity, whereas having a globe’s worth of ingredients threw my brain into some sort of paralysis. I kept saying at class that I had “Recipe Writer’s Block”.
The good news is that I have brainstormed all six of my recipe concepts. Next I need to start detailing all of the ingredients, writing instructions, and testing a few of them.
An interesting thing I’ve noticed during this brainstorming process is how “out of season” I tend to eat. I have my favorites that I eat each week (like bananas, cucumbers and baby spinach in my smoothies), mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, etc . While I love potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, and the like, I find that I just don’t use them very often because they are dense, starchier veggies and naturally gravitate toward lighter fare when I’m eating vegetables. Plus when I’m practicing cooking grains for school, like I was around midterm time, the last thing I felt I needed was MORE starch.
Luckily my sauerkraut uses something seasonal: cabbage.
I finally had some on my dinner plate last night. Raw, fermented sauerkraut! YAY! Too bad I don’t eat hotdogs or sausage anymore! I’m going to have to come up with some sort of tempeh reuben sandwich now to use up my kraut supply!
I love the vibrant color having used red cabbage over green.
Today’s discussion question: do you feel you eat SEASONALLY for the most part? Personally, while I feel I have the organic part down pat, eating seasonally is definitely an area where I have a lot of room for improvement! Awareness is the first step toward change so now that I’m paying closer attention, maybe this will propel me to progress.
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DDSD update: my movement for today was “homemade” HOT YOGA, 45 minutes. By homemade, I mean that I turn on my electric space heater in front of my yoga mat (not TOO close, don’t melt your mat!) and do the standing poses of my Bikram audio. It may not be authentic ‘hot yoga’ in the over 100-degree room, but it feels AMAZING when it’s cold outside and this way I don’t have to pay any yoga studio fees!
OK blog buds, back to homework! Hope you are having a fabulous day!
– Shari B. =)