Taps, Part 2 and a Recipe

Yesterday we woke up to running cold water but no hot!  But we knew what to do - crawl in the attic and warm up the pipes with the blow drier...  I left this job to my husband because I didn't want to miss my Body Balance class at the gym (and possibly get a shower there if we didn't get the hot water going).

Well, when I got to the gym, the class was cancelled because the teacher was sick.  Darn!  So I did the workout I would have done on Thursday instead - my upper body weight circuit, an interval run on the treadmill and 25 minutes on the elliptical.

When I was done I had a text from my husband saying the warm water was back - yay!  So I headed home for my shower. 

After lunch it started snowing and snowing - the really pretty kind of snow with big flakes.  I decided to try out a new recipe I saw in Vegetarian Times: Spicy Sweet Potato and Spinach Soup, because it looked so warming.  And it was delicious!!!  I highly recommend it - it was easy to make and nice and spicy.  It used a new ingredient I had never used before: harissa.  I found a tube of it at my grocery store in the spice section for only 63 cents!

We ended up getting a good 5 cm of snow, and the weather forecast said it was going to be really cold again, so we did something we really didn't want to do - we left a dribble of cold and hot water going all night in sinks on all three floors of our house, so we wouldn't have a third morning with water issues.

This worked - we had water this morning.  Thank goodness.  But it sucks to have to waste the water.  We are looking into a longer term solution - the plumbers are suggesting a sort of system that will warm the pipes electrically if it gets too cold again...  Sometimes being a homeowner sucks!

Taps

PANIC! We woke up to no water coming out of any of our taps this morning. This is a disaster when you have a 17-year-old who has to get ready for school, not to mention the vital need for coffee when facing these domestic surprises...  And it also completely threw my day off - first the guy from the local water company had to come and see that it wasn't a problem with the water not coming into the house, and once he determined that that was not the problem, we had to phone the plumbers to see when they could come out to see what was going with our pipes.

Thankfully, my husband was home to take charge for once - what a relief!  And the plumber came just before lunch, and told us that most likely we had a frozen spot somewhere (we had extremely cold temperatures last night - I should know, I was out to the theater with Linda and it was awful coming home on our bikes), and so my husband got to crawl into the attic and heat up some pipes with a hair dryer (boy, did he earn major brownie points today).

We were just having a lame cup of instant soup for lunch and feeling rather desperate when the kitchen tap started to dribble and then the water came back in a gush - YAY! 

Conclusion of the day: with all the upheaval I never managed to get to the gym, but I got all my nervous energy out on cleaning once the water came back.  You never realize how great it is to have hot and cold running water at your fingertips until it's been taken away from you for half a day - so that even cleaning feels like a privilege!

Bitter Cold, Bad Air and a Strong Butt

In spite of the gorgeous sunshine outside the window, I knew it wasn't really a good idea to run outdoors today - along with the bitter cold temperatures the air quality is very bad right now - lots of that fine dust I mentioned a while back.  So I decided to take my run to the gym and do it on the treadmill.

I warmed up 5 minutes on the bike before doing two leg strengthening exercises I have been trying in order to strengthen and engage my glutes before my runs: Bridge Marches (on your back with your hips lifted up in bridge position, alternating lifting one leg up at a time as in "marching" while keeping your butt lifted) and Single-Leg Reach (kind of like a one leg deadlift where you reach down to the floor with the opposite arm as you bend over).  I got these exercises, by Rachel Cosgrove, from the November/December 2011 issue of "Women's Running Magazine" (which my sister sent me - thank you, Jenny!).  The idea is that our sitting culture causes tight hip flexors and "gluteal amnesia"where the brain forgets to switch on the glutes, causing us to rely instead on our quadriceps muscles to do all the work when running.  This made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to give her program a try to see if it improves my leg strength and helps some of the hip issues I have been having. 

I couldn't find the article on the Women's Running website, so I scanned the page for you so you know what I am describing; there are also several other leg exercises in this program, but they recommend specifically to do these two before a run, and that is what I am doing for the time being.

My hips and legs are my weak spot and I have to be careful what I do and not to do too much at once or I get pain and problems... Today was my third time with these two exercises and so far, so good!

So after doing the two exercises, which really don't take more than five minutes, I got on my favorite treadmill and got going on my run.  It felt good and I did 42 minutes at an easy pace. 

It's a quiet afternoon here now - my oldest just left for three hours of judo (he helps teach the first two hours with the younger kids) and the two youngest are on a school trip to the Netherlands to do indoor skiing, so they won't be home til late...  Honestly, it is very tempting on such a cold day, feeling comfortably tired from my run, to sneak upstairs to the warm and sunny back bedroom and take a little nap!  Just might have to consider that...but first I need to put my warm clothes on and walk to the bakery for bread and the local Turkish market for bananas - the one inconvenience (for me personally) from Monday's strike was that my grocery store had no bananas when I went yesterday.  

Strike, Snow, 500 Calories, and Soup

Belgium is on strike today - no trains, no metro, no school, no mail (although our mail carrier, who must be a rebel, just delivered to our box - unfortunately it was a pile of bills)...Except for my husband who had to get up early and drive the car to Brussels instead of taking the train as usual, we all slept in.  What a luxury on a Monday morning!  And when I woke up and finally came downstairs and pulled up the shutters - what a surprise - it is snowing!  There is a very light dusting on the sidewalks out front and the patio out back.  I was debating about waking up my boys to tell them about the snow, but decided that my three teenagers would probably rather sleep in.  So I am enjoying the quiet all by myself.

Yesterday it was so cold and gray out but I have been so lax about my running over the past few weeks that there was no way I was going to skip my run.  So I decided to go to the gym where I could get nice and sweaty without all those layers.  My goal was simple - run until the treadmill told me I had burned 500 calories!  I've definitely gotten slower - it took me 52 minutes and 7.6 kilometers to do it, including three short walk breaks.  But it felt good - as it always does.

It is still snowing so perhaps I will brave the cold today and go for a short run in the snow before it all melts away.  And then I am going to get a pot of this soup going on my stove:  pasta e fagioli, which has become one of my favorites for the winter - it is so yummy and comforting and warming....mmmmm! This is my simple version, based on Mark Bittman's recipe.

1 T olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove chopped

1 can chopped tomatoes with juice

1 t. dried rosemary

1/2 t. dried oregano or summer savory if you have it

1/4 t. dried thyme

2 cans of beans, drained and rinsed (I like to use cannelini and borlotti beans)

8 cups of vegetable broth

1/4 pound of small pasta

salt and pepper

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil over low heat in a soup pot until softened, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, herbs and beans and continue to sauté until everything is warm. Add broth and bring to a gentle boil, then let simmer for about ten minutes. Finally add the pasta, simmer until the pasta is al denté, about another 10 to 15 minutes, add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with some good rustic bread to sop up the juices and enjoy!

Happy birthday to my mom

Happy birthday, Mom - you are the best.

I'm sorry for all the sad things overshadowing your day, but that is what life is all about, good things and bad things all mixed together.  What matters the most are the memories we have of the good things (and I sure do have a lot of those with you!) and, when bad times do come along, the support we can give to those we care about.

(Thanks, blog friends, for your support this week.)

My Uncle Brad lost his battle with cancer on Sunday.  Having kept in touch with him over the years meant a lot to me and I will miss him.  As will a lot of other people who loved him,  who are in my thoughts right now. 





Friday Night is Pizza Night!

Well, I haven't done much this week - between having kids at home sick and feeling a bit under the weather myself, it was one of those weeks... Thank goodness it's Friday and we can look forward to a relatively easy weekend to recuperate.  And homemade pizza for dinner to start the weekend out right!

I often make homemade pizza on a Friday night.  It's just so much healthier than frozen pizzas and not really difficult at all if I remember to mix up my dough early enough in the afternoon.  I finally found a recipe that works for me and my family likes it a lot, so I thought I would share!  This makes three large pizzas (enough for two parents and three hungry teenage boys).  You will need to mix up your dough about 2-3 hours before you actually want to eat, but once you’ve done that, the rest is hardly any work at all.

For the dough:

25 g fresh yeast
2 tsp honey or rice syrup
500 g flour (you can do half whole wheat if you want)
Olive oil
2 tsp sea salt

For the sauce:

1 can chopped tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste (about 3 T)
1 tsp each basil and oregano
a pinch of sugar, salt and black pepper

Toppings:

Your choice!  We do mozzarella cheese (3x  125g balls of fresh mozzarella for this recipe), fresh basil, sliced red pepper, sliced fresh tomato, a bit of salami and parma ham (for the meat eaters), rucola (added after baking), black olives, … be creative and use what you like!  You can also leave the cheese off and load it up with veggies if you want to avoid dairy products.

You’ll need three large pizza pans or cookie sheets. 

Crumble the yeast into a large bowl.  Add the honey, about 150 grams of the flour and 375 ml of warm water; mix well.  Cover the bowl with a towel and leave it in a warm place to rest for about 30 minutes, or until the yeast begins to work (it will foam up and increase in volume).

Add the rest of the flour and 1 T of olive oil and knead until you get a smooth dough.  Add water or additional flour as needed to get a soft, sticky dough that is not too dry.  Add the salt and mix well.  Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

Grease the pizza pans with olive oil.  Divide the dough into three portions and spread each portion out in one of the pans.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t spread easily at first, press it out gently with your fingers and leave it to rest a few minutes from time to time, until you are able to press it to the edge of the pan.  This should take about 15 minutes. 

Cover each pan with a clean towel and let them rise in a warm place for 60-90 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 225 C (450 F).  Puree the tomatoes, tomato paste, herbs and seasonings for the sauce.  Spread a thin layer of sauce on each pizza, and garnish with toppings as desired.  Bake the pizzas 10-15 minutes until the crust is golden brown.  Cut into slices and enjoy!