Grilled Chicken with Mushroom Rice Pilaf

Chicken, Rice and Peas

I've fried lots of chicken in my lifetime. But these days I prefer to grill it. It saves on fat and starch from the breading. And it's generally healthier that way. Marinating chicken before you grill it really helps enhance the flavor. It also moistens the chicken so it doesn't get so dried out. I often do a southwestern style marinade seasoned with chile powder, oregano and garlic and perhaps other herbs and spices. But I found a great recipe on the New York Times that will give a different flavor and decided to try it.

Chicken Marinade

I won't give the complete recipe here, but it includes lemon, honey, Dijon mustard, soy sauce and garlic. And I needed to grill some chicken for my dinner on Sunday, so I went shopping. The recipe is sized for 2 pounds of chicken, but my package of boneless chicken breasts weighed in at about 3.3 pounds, so I doubled the recipe. 

I let the chicken marinate for about an hour. Then I set the rack on the second level from the top, set the broiler on high, sprayed cooking spray on my grill pan, placed the breast pieces on top, and placed them in the oven. I grilled them for five minutes on a side before turning them. I checked the temperature at about 20 minutes. The safe temperature is 165 F and they were about 145, so I gave them another 5 minutes and they checked OK. I set them aside for the meat to rest and then cut a few slices for my dinner.

While they were cooking, I made rice pilaf.

Mushroom Rice Pilaf

Ingredients

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup diced onion

4 ounces coarsely chopped mushrooms

1 cup Basmati rice

2 cups water

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp dried oregano

Method

1. heat oil in a 1 quart pot over medium heat for a couple minutes. Add the onion and saute for about 4 minutes.

2. Add the rice and stir it with the onions for a few minutes until it starts to brown.

3. Sprinkle on the spices, add the water and heat to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low and let it cook for about 15-20 minutes.

4. Add the mushrooms and stir them into the rice. Cover the rice and let it finish cooking for a total of about 30 minutes.

Serving Suggestion

Serve with grilled chicken and peas as a side dish.

This makes plenty of rice to serve with the chicken or some other dish like poached fish.

 

Sweet Potato Stir Fry with Chickpeas and Prunes

Note: this is an old post that apparently I had neglected to publish. It seems OK, so I'll go ahead and make it available.

Much of the joy of cooking comes from experimenting with the ingredients and sharing the results with friends and family.

My friend and I started with a recipe for braised eggplants by Antony Worrall Thompson, but our eggplant had gone bad.

So, we used a sweet potato instead, added a couple different vegetables (carrots and asparagus), and turned it into a stir fry.

She and I both liked it, so we thought we’d share it with you.

Here is the result:

Sweet Potato Stir Fry with Chickpeas and Prunes

Ingredients:

1 cup dry chickpeas or 1 15-ounce can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and sliced

1 + 1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger

1 Tbsp finely chopped garlic

1 medium onion, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 large carrot, peeled or scraped and sliced diagonally

4 oz asparagus, cut into 2 inch pieces

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 Tbsp sesame oil

1 Tbsp light soy sauce

1/3 cup vegetable or chicken broth

3-4 oz pitted prunes, cut in half, then chopped into smaller pieces

2 tsp cornstarch, mixed to a paste with ¼ cup water

Directions:

1.       If using dry chickpeas, soak them overnight in 3-4 cups water. Then heat to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 3 hours or until they are tender, but not mushy.

2.       Toss the sweet potato slices in 1 Tbsp vegetable oil in a shallow baking pan or cookie sheet and spread in a single layer under a preheated broiler. Broil for about 10-15 minutes, turning and shaking occasionally, until they start brown and soften.

3.       Heat the other Tbsp vegetable oil in a large wok over medium-high heat and add the ginger, garlic, and chopped onions and cook for 2 minutes, stirring often. Add the carrot slices and stir-fry for another 3 minutes.

4.       Add the sweet potato slices, chickpeas, asparagus, and celery and stir-fry for another 3 minutes.

5.       Add the sesame oil, soy sauce, chicken broth, and prunes and bring to a boil.

6.       Reduce heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes.  Separate the vegetables in the middle of the wok, add the cornstarch and stir into the broth to thicken.

7.        Serve by itself or over cooked rice or quinoa.

 

Greetings to any of my previous readers who are still connected. And welcome to anyone who stumbles across my little blog. I hope you enjoy reading it and trying some of my suggestions.

It's been a long hiatus. Life has taken me through several jobs that didn't give me time to keep up with this sort of writing. But I am alive and well and entering a new stage of my life. I plan to resume sharing some of that with you. Last month I helped prepare a special meal at a local resource center. For my part, I made a large version of a recipe by Lauren Miyashiro for her Classic Green Bean Casserole

It seems we are both updating the recipe, since the version I saved a couple years ago called for 1 pound of green beans, 1 onion and 8 ounces of mushrooms. My impression from that was that it didn't have enough green beans. Her recent version has 2 pounds of green beans, 2 onions and a pound (16 ounces) of mushrooms. So adjust those if you like. I triple the beans to 3 pounds, left the onions and mushrooms the same, and doubled the sauce. And I think that came out about right. So that is what I specify in this recipe.

And I recommend adding 1-2 Tbsp of seasoned salt to the milk mixture before it cooks up and thickens to give it an extra flavor touch. I have been testing a special mixture from a cookbook by a friend that should go into print later this year. But until that is available, choose your favorite salt mixture.

Elevated Green Bean Casserole

Based on a recipe by LAUREN MIYASHIRO

UPDATED: Jan 10 2024

 

YIELDS:

Ingredients

• 3 lb.            green beans, trimmed
• 10 tbsp.      butter, divided
• 1                 onion, sliced into half moons
• 8 oz.           sliced mushrooms
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1-2 Tbsp seasoned salt
• 2                 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 c.          all-purpose flour
• 6 c.             whole milk
• 3 c.              French's fried onions

1.      Prepare the green beans. Wash them. Trim the ends. Slice into two or three pieces about 1-2 inches long.

 

2.     Slice and dice the onions. Slice the onions, then dice them into smaller pieces.

 

3.      Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare an ice bath: In a large pot of boiling water, add green beans and cook until bright green, about 6 minutes. With a slotted spoon or tongs, quickly transfer green beans to ice bath to cool, then drain and transfer to a large bowl.

 

4.     In a large ovenproof skillet over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until mushrooms are golden, about 5 minutes more. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute, then transfer mixture to green bean bowl. Divide these into 2 disposable aluminum pans.

 

 

5.     In same skillet over medium heat, melt remaining 8 tablespoons butter. Whisk in flour and cook until golden, about 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in milk and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook until thickened, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat, then pour over the green bean-mushroom mixture and toss until evenly combined.

 

6.     Bake until warmed through and bubbling, about 30 minutes.

 

 

7.     Top with fried onions and bake 5 minutes more. 

Here is the nutrition information for the original recipe. My version will be similar:

Nutrition per serving: 323 calories, 7 g protein, 24 g carbohydrates, 3 g fiber, 10 g sugar, 14 g fat,  14 g saturated fat, 431 mg sodium

 

Here is one of the finished meals we served to everyone who came.

Special thanks to all the people who contributed food for this event and the many people at the 

Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico for all the services they provide to our community.

Happy New Year to them and all of my readers.

Joni

Chillin' in the Kitchin'

Does anyone want a hippopotamus for Christmas?

I celebrated the end of my second week in my new job by spending most of the day cooking up holiday treats.

I started with a batch of fudge using some Lindt Supreme Dark chocolate in the standard marshmallow creme fudge recipe with chopped pecans.

I made the jam thumbprint cookies again this year as well. I used the cactus marmalade for a very dark "wish it were" green. But, I used raspberry jam instead of strawberry for the red this year.

These are basically a sugar drop cookie rolled in chopped walnuts with a little thumbprint depression for the jam.

I used the leftover walnuts from rolling the cookies to make regular chocolate chip cookies.

Then, I finished off with some gingerbread cutouts.

I'm seriously out of practice with cutout cookies. My daughter has the cookbook with the old recipe and the new recipe turned out way too soft and wet. After kneading an extra half cup of flour into the dough, I got the texture about right for the rest.

I thought about decorating them, but will probably just let the boys finish them off as is.

It's good to be back at work again. Unfortunately the first paycheck doesn't roll in till after Christmas.

Wish I could share some of the goodies with all my special friends online.

But I'll just wish you all a happy holiday and a very pleasant year in 2015!

Cheesy Quinoa Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Cauliflower

Stuffed Poblano or Pasilla Pepper with Broccoli Cole Slaw

I've been using quinoa quite a bit in my cooking lately. It has more protein than rice, but can be substituted for rice in many dishes like stuffed peppers. Also, it cooks up a bit quicker than rice. So, swapping the starch for protein can help diabetics like my honey manage their blood sugar a little better.

And, for ideas on how to use quinoa, I follow Alyssa Rimmer's blog, Simply Quinoa, where I found this recipe for Cheesy Broccoli Quinoa Stuffed Peppers.

But, I often like to adjust her recipes a little to suit my personal tastes. So, instead of the almond milk, butternut squash and goat cheese she used (which I didn't have anyway), I mixed some of my standard macaroni and cheese sauce with butter, milk, and cheddar cheese.

And, since the last of our broccoli had gone into the large batch of cole slaw we made, I roasted and chopped a little bit of cauliflower to stir into the quinoa-cheese mix. That seemed especially appropriate because one of our regular dishes when I was growing up was a baked cauliflower covered in a cheese sauce!

Lastly, her recipe calls for Poblano Peppers, which can be a little tricky to shop for here in the U.S. as I discovered. At our local grocery, I saw some "Pasilla" peppers which looked a lot like the Poblano peppers she used. A bit of Google searching and reading in Wikipedia showed that they are the same, at least north of the border.

The true Pasilla pepper is the dried form of the chilaca pepper, which is too narrow for stuffing. But, in the U.S., fresh Poblano peppers are often sold as Pasilla peppers such as I found at the store. The dried form of these peppers are called Ancho peppers.

All these varieties are low to medium in heat and comparable to the Espanola, Hatch, Big Jim and several other varieties grown here in New Mexico. But, they are generally milder than the jalapeno, chipotle and Sandia varieties for example.

So, they are a good choice to substitute for regular bell peppers that will let you give your food more zest without overwhelming the taste buds.

Cheesy Quinoa Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Cauliflower

Ingredients

1 cup dry quinoa

2 cups water

1 cup cauliflower florets

4 Poblano (or fresh Pasilla) peppers

2 tablespoons butter

1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 cup diced onion

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 Tbsp flour

2 cups low fat (1%) milk

1 cup grated cheddar (I suggest medium or sharp)

 Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. Spread the cauliflower on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray or lined with a silicone liner and bake for 10 minutes.

3. Cut the Poblano peppers in half and remove the stems and seeds.

4. Combine the quinoa and water in a small to medium sized pan (about 1 1/2 quarts) and heat to a boil. Reduce heat and boil for 20 minutes.

5. While the water is heating, melt the butter in a larger pan (about 2 1/2 quarts) over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and onion and saute for about 5 minutes.

6. Stir in the black pepper and flour and stir these thoroughly to make a roux.

7. Gradually add the milk, a little at a time. After each addition, stir the mixture until it has a smooth consistency (except for the onions). 

8. When it starts to simmer and thicken slightly, add the grated cheddar and stir it into the sauce until it melts.

9. About five minutes before the quinoa is ready, stir the cauliflower into the cheese sauce and heat it to a boil. 

10. Spread the Poblano peppers on the cookie sheet.

 

11. When the quinoa is cooked, stir it into the cheese sauce.

12. Stuff the peppers with the cheese-quinoa mixture.

13. Bake the peppers in the oven for about 30 minutes until they are bubbly and the top has turned a darker golden color.

14. Serve the stuffed peppers with a non-starchy side dish like a tossed salad or cole slaw or some cooked green beans.

This makes four servings of two stuffed pepper halves each.

Happy eating!

Ham and Bean Soup with Green Chile

When I was growing up, one of our regular family dishes was a sort of soup made with a ham bone and some chopped up ham and butter beans. I'm not sure what my mother seasoned it with, except probably more salt. But, I didn't particularly like it, perhaps because the main flavor was the beany taste of the butter beans.

Beans are an excellent and cheap source of protein. But, they are not a good source of all nine of the essential amino acids (which your body cannot synthesize from other foods like carbohydrates or fats). You can complement them with nuts or a grain like oats or quinoa.

But, commonly they are combined with fish or a meat product like ham to give you a complete, high quality protein source in your diet.

A good tip for beans is to season them with cumin, which adds its own flavor and neutralizes the characteristic bean taste. So, I try to use it in most of my dishes with beans.

This is really a two part recipe. First, I'll give you a simple recipe for cooking up dry beans for use in other dishes. Then, we'll add the ham and other ingredients to make the soup!

Basic Chile Beans

1 pound dried beans, such as pinto, black beans, Great Northern, etc.
water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground chile, such as Chipotle or Sandia Red

1. The key to cooking good beans is to soak them properly first. So, rinse the beans 2 or 3 times to wash off any dirt. Then put them in a large pot and cover with water about 2 inches higher than the beans. Cover the pot and soak the beans overnight.

2. The next day, dump the rinse water and cover the beans again with water. Put the pot on medium-high heat.

3. Add the salt and spices. Stir the mix together and heat the beans until they come to a slow boil. Reduce the heat to medium or medium-low so that they are boiling slowly and steadily.

4. Cover the pot with a lid and let the beans simmer for about an hour and a half. They should be tender, but not mushy. They also should not be mealy, with a harder, courser texture. Generally, this comes from not allowing enough time for the beans to soak.

5. Generally, I drain off all the cooking water and set it aside for use as a broth. (I like to put a little on my dogs' food when I feed them!) Then, you can keep them in a container in the refrigerator for a week or so and take out one or two cups at a time to use for various dishes.

6. However, for tonight's soup, only drain off about half the liquid so that you can see the liquid among the beans in the pan.

Ham and Bean Soup with Green Chile

1 whole recipe of Basic Chile Beans (you can scale this down if you wish)
1 pound ham, cut into small chunks (use a bit more if you like)
1 ham bone (if available)
1 large onion, diced
1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 7 ounce can mild diced green chiles

1. Cut as much ham as you can off the bone. Add the bone to the beans. Add the diced onions and stir them into the beans.

2. Cut the ham into chunks and add to the beans and onions.

3. Add the diced tomatoes and green chiles. Rinse the cans with a little water and add this to the soup.

4. Heat to a slow boil again, and simmer for about 3-4 hours. It actually should be ready to eat in about an hour. But, the flavor will develop better if you let it cook longer.

Enjoy it with a flour tortilla or a hard roll for dipping in the soup.

A good salad or cole slaw goes nicely with this, as well.

Twice Baked Yukon Gold Potatoes

It's Friday night and time to relax as I slip into the weekend. Since I gained weight yesterday despite going for a walk and doing my calisthenics, I got more serious today and skipped all the sweetened drinks.

And when supper time arrived, I wanted something light but didn't feel like poking through the leftovers (which are plentiful).

So, I found a recipe for Twice Baked New Potatoes and decided to tweak it a little for my own preferences.

Ingredients

6-7 Yukon Gold potatoes, about 2-3 pounds
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup diced green onions
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp smoked paprika
3/4 cup shredded medium cheddar cheese
2 slices bacon, diced and fried till crisp but not dry

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Scrub potatoes thoroughly with a brush. Mine weren't quite as new as when I bought them from the vendor for a local farm, but they still had dirt on the skin. Fortunately it had dried and washed off easily with just water. Pat dry with a cloth or towel and wrap the potatoes in aluminum foil.
2. If there is a large size difference, put the largest potatoes in the oven first and set the timer for 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, add the rest and reset the timer for another 45 minutes. Take the potatoes out and check one of the large ones for doneness. Mine were still a little hard, so I kept the small ones out and put the large ones back in the oven for another 10 minutes.
3. Cut a slice off the top of each potato. Peel the skin off this slice and put the potato in a large metal bowl for mixing. Discard the skin. Using a melon baller or small ice cream scoop, remove most of the potato from the middle and add it to the bowl. If any potatoes had to cook longer, take them out and do the same with them.
4. Using a potato masher or electric mixer on low (I actually used my pastry blender), gently mash the potato pulp. Add the sour cream, green onions, mustard, salt, paprika and blend into the mashed potatoes. I used a wooden spoon for this step. Then add 1/2 cup of the grated cheese and blend it in as well.

5. Set the scooped out potatoes on a baking sheet. Spoon the mashed potato mixture into the potato shells. Place them in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes.
6. Sprinkle the remain cheddar on top of the potatoes and bake for another 3 minutes to melt the cheese.

7. Top with the bacon bits and enjoy with a light side salad or cole slaw. Our recipe uses a boiled vinegar and oil dressing, which lasts much longer than the more common mayonnaise dressing and saves on the fat!

We especially enjoyed these. I'm glad I decided to use green onions instead of the chives, because they gave a nice onion flavor to the potato filling. Also, the cheddar cheese and paprika added a slightly darker color to the natural yellow color of the potatoes themselves.

And, my exercise app estimates the total calories for the whole meal at less than 400!

Certified Job Hunter

It's been a busy summer and I haven't written up a post for longer than I had realized.

As I mentioned in one of my first blogs, I have been going back to school to update my computer skills. I was only attending part time so that I could work and continue my class schedule. Fortunately, things have come to fruition and I completed the series of courses from Cisco, who makes about 80% of the switching and routing equipment that connects computers together.

This prepared my to take the exam to qualify as a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), the entry level for working configuring and managing this equipment. And, after two tries and untold hours of study, I passed the test and now have a certification to put on my resume to show, "Look! See! I really can do this!"

Hence, I am now spending lots of time poking over the results of computerized job searches and applying for a job to start working and put those skills to use.

I can't pretend to have really figured out the modern job market. But, at least all those internet web sites let me look for jobs across several states without spending huge amounts of money and time on the road.

And, searching for a job as a "network engineer" gets results that are better targeted than looking for jobs working with computers, which is pretty much everything these days. But even something like "technical support" can turn up some weird results.

For instance, did you the know that the person who cuts, shampoos and styles your hair (otherwise known as an Associate Salon Designer ) is really working in technical support?

Or, if you're looking for a Computer, Information Technology and Mathematical Job, perhaps you'd like to work for commission as a Lady's Shoe Sales Person? Of course they have to check my email address every time I visit, so it helps to be a little bit tech savvy. Maybe I should have gone to cosmetology school?

And, another one that showed up from one of my searches was a Sephora Product Consultant. I noticed from the job descriptions that, if you work your way up to Sephora Senior Education Consultant, you will need a working knowledge of Microsoft Word which was part of one of my classes.

And, although it may seem so, I'm not trying to poke fun at the people who spend long hours working in these jobs. I need and use their services myself and have spent several years working in retail.

I think primarily it's just a symptom of the vagueness of word search algorithms. And, it's probably better to err on the side of including things the person searching is not looking for rather than leaving out things which they are seeking.

But, it would be nice if the job posting sites could be more specific about the job requirements and let you  focus your search a little bit tighter! It certainly seems feasible from all the questions you have to answer when you actually apply for a position.

Lest you think I have been starving all summer since I haven't posted any recipes, here is my breakfast special this week.

When I was growing up in Oklahoma, I learned to make biscuits and gravy by helping my grandmother roll out the dough on the counter in her kitchen and cut the biscuits with a circular cutter. Of course, that meant there was left over strips of dough from between the circles you cut out. This dough had to be reshaped and rolled out again for cutting.

But, thanks to the power of geometry, we know that a hexagon is a very efficient space-filling shape. So, with this Stainless Steel Hexagon Cutter, you can cut out six biscuits at once with no in-between strips! (There's still the strip around the edge, though.)

So, Monday morning I got ambitious (or perhaps just more interested in cooking than in reading about Microsoft Server 2012) and mixed up some baking powder biscuits with the recipe from my Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook.

Meanwhile, I browned some sausage and made a little basic white gravy with butter, flour, milk, salt and pepper. I liked the results and one of my sons must have agreed, because he finished off the leftovers!

Pedicures and Push-Ups

I have this habit of remembering things by connecting them with something that happened about the same time. For instance, my first visit to Las Vegas was the summer I was working on my Master's degree and drove out to Albuquerque for a class tour of Kirtland AFB. I was on leave, so I took a few extra days to drive west to see the Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, and Hoover Dam.

I brought one of our dogs, Violet, home the last spring I worked at a specific Pizza Hut after a girl who had worked for me wasn't allowed by her parents to keep her because she was the wrong breed!

And, about a year and a half ago (in October), I started doing two things to take better care of my body.

One of them was to take better care of my feet and particularly my toes. My feet have endured various insults over the years from dropping often heavy things on them when I wasn't always wearing steel-toed boots. Sometimes, I've just neglected them. And, it's awkward to get your hands into a good position to care for them properly, especially if you're as overweight as I was three years ago.

So, as a result, the toenails weren't growing in properly and the large toenails especially were so thick it was impossible to trim them. I went to a regular nail salon for a pedicure, but the girl working there could only take care of the smaller toes. The big nails were too thick for her equipment. Still, it was a pleasant experience.

So, I got an appointment to see an orthopedist. He offered to eliminate the problem by removing them completely, but I declined and chose to let him trim them. He then referred me to a woman he said does a good job of taking care of people's feet, doing the routine care for less than he charges, and spotting problems that need his professional treatment. He gave me a card and I called for my first appointment.

Unlike the previous salon, which was in a moderate sized shopping center on one of the busier streets in town, this location was in a small strip mall just off a semi-major street a few miles south of my house. She did good work over several sessions and, after the first couple sessions in particular, I noticed my feet felt noticeably better for a day or two after my visit!

Now, it's a special chance to relax my tootsies and chat with a friend.
And, the results are showing up. The toenails are growing in properly, not ingrown or overgrown. A split in one of the big nails has completely grown out. And, the shoes I've been wearing lately (mostly boots) must be good because some calluses on the tip of my toes have gone away.

And, as I said, I also do some calisthenics. I got a roll-out floor mat. So, it's cheap and easy to set up a little place to do some stretches, squats, leg lifts, sit-ups and push-ups for about 15 minutes either by itself or after I get back from one of my walks.

And, adding this exercise to my aerobic routine has helped in several ways.
The muscles are stronger, so I can walk much faster.

When I got these boots, they fit but were tight. Now I can fit my hand inside!

..........................
A few days later...
I got interrupted and let this sit for a while. Ironically, I've been able to do a lot of walking but have mostly skipped the calisthenics the last couple weeks :(

I have a lot of studying going on to prepare for the Cisco CCNA exam and will start more classes tomorrow.

But, I'll try to sneak a few posts in from time to time.

Hope you all have a good summer or winter.

Sunday Walkabout

I've been walking somewhat regularly to improve my cardiovascular fitness and help lose weight for about 3 years now. And, for much of that time, I've made my Sunday walk a little bit longer to help build up my endurance and burn a few extra calories. For much of the last couple years, that has meant getting out of my neighborhood and hiking out around the nearby Albuquerque Academy.

But, this year I've started getting out there 2 or 3 times a week, so it's not such a stretch any more. Recently I discovered a good walking path around the Arroyo del Oso Golf Course south of my house. So, today I decided to head down a bit further south than I usually go and swing west to check out the route.

On the way, I spotted these flowers growing on someone's concrete block wall by the sidewalk!

A small park at the corner of Osuna made a convenient stop to drink some water and munch on some dried cherries. The park has a little demonstration xeriscape garden, but I couldn't see most of the labeled plants. I'll try again in a couple months and hope they have been set out. The yuccas you can see in this picture don't need much help. I have a few in my front yard.

This park near the Arroyo del Oso (Bear Canyon) has several soccer fields and tennis courts. They have added this walking bridge to cross the arroyo.

The path is used by walkers, joggers and cyclists. I saw an older couple in matching yellow outfits on bicycles today!

The golf course is open to the public and has a nice view of the Sandia Mountains to the east and north.

After circling the golf course and taking another bridge back across the arroyo, I headed up a side street towards home. Unlike my usual route, most of the last mile and a half on this course is up hill! That made it a bit tougher than I would have guessed from the slight extra distance. My thighs didn't hurt, but weren't really up for more calisthenics when I got home!

Whether by intent or otherwise, several homes now feature large growths of prickly pear cactus in their landscaping!

Not much to look at, but this picture shows (sub)urban renewal in process. This chunk of land a little west of my house is a half mile long and perhaps a quarter mile wide. It used to have mobile home spaces, but the renters were not allowed to renew their leases. That makes it one of the few large spaces in the area available for development. Now, the western end has been rebuilt with new apartments. You can just see the tops of them in the back of this picture. Some of this eastern part will be redeveloped into an assisted and senior living center.

Another "not much to see" picture, but this concrete lined arroyo is where I had to retrieve one of our dogs a few times after she sneaked out the front door to go exploring! After greeting several of the neighborhood dogs, she would slow down when she got stickers in one of her paws and I would have to climb out on the ledge to pick them out and bring her home.

Fortunately, she always made it home successfully and is a little less adventurous now. But, she still likes to greet the neighborhood dogs!

International Tabletop Day - Better Late Than Never!

One of my Google+ friends posted a notice a few months ago about International Tabletop Day. Having played a lot of games over the years with my fellow students, co-workers, siblings and children, I decided to use this as motivation/excuse to dig out one of my games and play it with my son. A lot of my games are buried away in boxes and some of the ones that are accessible take a long time to play.

But, I was able to find a couple starter packs for the original Star Wars trading card game. So, I dug them out and opened them up to enjoy with my son.

Like most kids in the 90's, my kids played several of these games, especially Pokemon. But, I particularly enjoyed playing the Star Wars game and the Lord of the Rings game that came out later. Star Wars is a one-on-one game, but I particularly enjoyed it because you could build customized decks for different locations and sets of characters. This gave each deck a special set of possible strategies for winning and made it interesting to pit them against each other. The game could however take a lot of space for all the locations in play and, if there wasn't a good match up between the decks, it could turn into shadow-boxing with the sides never directly confronting each other.

The LOTR game was more suitable for a small group since multiple players could play at once. The strategy was more of a race to get to the final location first, assuming your ring-bearer survived!

And, the rules for these became quite extensive and I paid for a lot of library printouts to keep up with the changes since I didn't have an internet-capable computer at the time.

But, for this fun session, we just used the basic rules that came with the game decks and fumbled our way through!

My son played the Light Side while I played the Dark Side!

We fumbled around, made some mistakes, gradually figured out the main rules and just had some fun together. It was a close finish, but I won.

Today was back to studying as we move into the last week of class work and then Finals Week!

Do any of you still have any collectible card games?

Are there any other tabletop games you particularly like?

Thanks to all of you who stop in and check out my musings.

National Walking Day

Today is the American Heart Association's National Walking Day.

As someone who has been walking regularly to improve their general fitness and help lose weight for a few years, I like this day!

Unfortunately, this is a class day so I usually limit my walking to a 10 minute stroll between the parking lot and the classroom before and after class.

But, since the challenge is to get out and just walk for 30 minutes, I may try to sneak in another little stroll some time.

Aerobic exercise such as walking has many benefits including improving your cardiovascular fitness such as improving lung capacity and strengthening your heart. These help lower your blood pressure and reduce your resting pulse rate. They also reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

So, as someone who wishes all my friends could be healthy and live longer, I think this is a good idea!

 There are lots of good ways to get aerobic exercise, but walking is cheap, easy and convenient for most people. And, it's easy to start out walking a short distance a few times a week and gradually build up your strength and endurance by adding a little distance to your walk every week or two.

Eventually, you'll find you feel better and look better and have more energy.

And, you don't have to do it every day. But, about five times a week is good. If you miss a day, don't stress out and worry about it. If you don't have time or energy for your usual long walk (which I often don't), just do what you can. A little bit is better than nothing.

Or as the Texas Tornados put it:

A Little Bit is Better Than Nada!

And, since I ate two enchiladas for lunch, I'd better have two little bits.

All the best to each of you!

Walking off the Guinness!

We bought a six pack of Guinness Extra Stout last week to be prepared for today, but weren't quite sure what to cook up with it. A run down to the base to get honey a new ID card gave us an excuse to do a little shopping and we found some Kerrygold Dubliner cheese from Ireland to enjoy as a little side snack.

But for the main course, we opted for this Guinness Pork Stew.

I started with a Lamb Stew recipe from Closet Cooking. But, we didn't have lamb and I didn't want to take the time to run around looking for it. So, I pulled a chunk of pork roast out of the freezer and came up with this.

Once I had the pork and onions simmering, I took off for a walk around the Academy near our house, about 5 miles total.

I got home a few minutes before the stew was ready to add the carrots and potatoes. After stirring them in to the stew and bringing them to a boil, I hit the shower to clean up and got back just in time to catch the timer and check the potatoes. The potatoes were fine, but the carrots which I added at the same time as the potatoes were still a bit crunchy when we ate.

But, overall we really liked how this stew turned out. The bottle of stout and the beef broth deepened the flavor so it didn't have quite the usual pork taste. In fact, we both thought it was delicious!

Usually, I would make an Irish Soda Bread as well. But, since it was just the pair of us dining and we don't need the extra starch, we just enjoyed a slice of dark rye bread to dip in the broth.

Guinness Pork Stew

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons oil

2 pounds pork, cut into small chunks or bite-sized pieces

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped (about 4 teaspoons)

2 Tablespoons flour

1 12 ounce bottle Guinness Dark Extra Stout

1-2 cups beef broth

1 teaspoon dried marjoram

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1/2 teaspoon pepper (or to taste)

6 medium or small red potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces

4 carrots, cut into bite sized pieces

1 handful fresh parsley, chopped

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add the pork and brown on each side, stirring several times.

2. Add the onions and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes.

3. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute.

4. Sprinkle in the flour and stir thoroughly to make a thick mixture. Add the bottle of Guinness and 1 cup of beef broth to cover the meat and onions.

5. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the pork is fork tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

6. Add the carrots and simmer for about 15 minutes. The carrots need a little more cooking time than the potatoes, at least if you cut them in fairly small pieces like I did.

7. Add the potatoes and some more beef broth, up to 1 cup to cover. 

8. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium or a bit lower and simmer until the potatoes and carrots are tender, about 30-40 minutes.

9. Serve the stew in a bowl and garnish with the fresh parsley.