Bad Weather, Good Food

By: Matt Frazier

Happy (rainy) Saturday, everyone!  I was planning to do a 13-miler today, as per my Week 1 training schedule, but I’m going to wait until tomorrow and hopefully find a dry two-hour window to get the run in.  I’ll do an indoor Core Performance Endurance workout and some foam rolling today instead (look for a post one of these days about the godsend that is the foam roll).

We got up early this morning to beat the rain to the farmers market, but alas, the rain prevailed.  We got soaked but we were happy to see that more and more new veggies are showing up at the farmers market.  New stuff today included garlic–we got some elephant, which is supposed to have a mild flavor–and fava beans.  I tasted a fava bean for the first time and it was very good, but really, five dollars for a little basket of them?  I could get a Big Mac and fries for that!

We were in such a rush to beat the rain this morning that our smoothie had to wait until after the market.  Today I made a chocolate one, using Chocolate Amazing Meal, which I forgot that I still had to try until I saw it on another blog (for the life of me I can’t remember which).  Here’s what I put in it:

I really hate old bananas, but they’re perfect in smoothies.  Cinnamon has become a smoothie staple; so has ground flaxseed.  Oops, this photo gives away a little secret of mine–when you see flaxseed oil that’s close to its expiration date and is 50% off, drive a pickup truck to the store, load it up until the truck looks like the Grinch’s sleigh, and freeze it until you’re ready to use it!

Anyway, the smoothie turned out to be just alright.  Tolerable, but I must say I prefer just using the plain Amazing Meal with my normal fruit smoothie.

Remember how I said that the Blueberry Almond FEED Granola had a little bit of an aftertaste?  Well, I got over it.  I tried a handful yesterday, one handful turned into two, and pretty soon I had gone on one of my half-bag binges!  I really ate way too much granola yesterday–at the end of the day I realized that I had eaten four of the five different flavors at different times!  Though I suppose that’s better than, say, hot dogs.

Root Vegetable Saute Recipe

I have a quick recipe for you today.  We ate this for dinner two nights ago, and it was really nice with some simple lemon-garlic wilted spinach.  Simple, humble food; my favorite kind to cook these days.  And it has a wonderful tarragon flavor.  If you’ve never had anything with fresh tarragon, do yourself a favor and make something with it.

Truthfully, this wasn’t the perfect dinner; it felt like there was no main dish.  I suppose the “square meal” bias is a relic from my meat-eating days; I’ve mostly gotten away from thinking in terms of main courses and sides.  But I couldn’t help telling Erin that I thought this would be damn good with roasted chicken!  Still, it was delicious without, though I think it would have made a better lunch than dinner.

Here’s the recipe; it’s adapted from one I found in Fine Cooking’s Make It Tonight.  One thing I’ve changed is the size of the chopped vegetables–I thought the small pieces in the original recipe cooked way too fast.  Enjoy!

Ingredients (for 2 main courses, or 4 sides):

• 1.5 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp canola oil
• 4 small leeks, white parts only, chopped into half-inch lengths and washed well
• 2 pounds of  mixed root vegetables, chopped into 3/4 inch chunks, should yield about 5 cups (I used carrots and white turnips, but I think pearl onions, potatoes, or parsnips would be good too)
• 2 Tbsp fresh tarragon
• salt and pepper

Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet over high heat (use a skillet that has a lid).  Add the leeks and root vegetables and cook them for just a minute or two to get them started.  Add some salt and cover with a lid; reduce the heat to medium-low for about 5 minutes.  Remove the lid, raise the heat to medium, and cook until tender.  For me it only took 10 more minutes, with the larger pieces I’ve suggested, it should take more like 15 or 20 and the vegetables will have time to develop some color and flavor.

Remove from the heat, stir in the tarragon and season with salt and pepper before serving.