TIRED

Next time I run a half marathon, maybe I should skip the hour long "recovery" run and 4 mile walk the next day :) My legs are toast and I am beat. But before I collapse into bed, a little rundown on today's meals. Be prepared, I broke from the boredom of the previous days today!

...Okay, I broke from the boredom for lunch and dinner. Breakfast was my same old shake. I am going with the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" excuse here. I have long had a history of meal "streaks"...once in college I ate the same kind of frozen pizza for dinner for over a month straight. This, however, may be my longest streak ever. I think I have had the same shake every day since early December. I am sure that someday I will tire of it and switch to another concoction, but for the time being I am far too content to rock the boat. (My dad has had the same breakfast shake almost daily for more than a decade, so maybe I should just take out stock in a spinach farm and admit that I am both a creature of habit and the offspring of same.)

Lunch though, was an entirely different story. My brilliant friend R. came up with the plan to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and walk from her house to our favorite sushi joint and back...2.1 miles each way. Her lovely nanny M. came along for the jaunt and the lunch too...it is a lot of fun for me to try to dust off my elementary and high school spanish to try to converse with her. She is a really interesting woman so it is always worth the effort! It was 75 degrees today so it was a perfect walk. Once we got there we had garlic edamame (edamame tossed in this sauce of roasted garlic and God knows what else. It is GOOD.), a green salad with some creamy miso dressing, a big plate of ahi poke with delicious daikon that had marinated in the poke dressing and a so-so roll that featured spicy tuna, crab and avocado. The roll was a bit too mushy for all of us so I only had 2 pieces, but the rest of the lunch was delicious. I think that if R. and I had our way we could eat sushi daily! After filling our bellies up we headed back home...another 2.1 miles, this time UP hill.

Between lunch and dinner I had to run to Trader Joe's and while there I picked up a honey yogurt peanut balance bar which I split with Z. I had just had lunch but was in dire need of a snack!

After lunch I was the very lucky recipient of a bunch of R.'s leftovers from her CSA box, so I brought them home and turned many of them into a tofu green curry stir fry for dinner. I first dry sauteed the tofu...I sliced firm organic tofu into thin (1/2 inch thick) slices and toasted them in a dry cast iron pan over medium heat until they were crisp and golden on both sides. Then I cooked up a big pan of green onions, green beans, carrots, sliced mushrooms, sliced cabbage, broccoli, edamame and the tofu. Once it was all sauteed I simmered it in a sauce made from 1 and 1/2 cups of light coconut milk, 1 tablespoon of green curry paste, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of fish sauce. I would have liked more curry paste but I wanted to make it mild enough for Z, so I erred on the side of mild. We served it over brown rice and all three of us gobbled it down. I was very proud of Z! I could tell he didn't love it, but we have worked hard to regularly expose him to new foods and simultaneously teach him that every meal need not be delicious...some are just passable but you eat them anyway. He does complain sometimes, but as long as he makes a good effort on a meal that he doesn't like then I will let him have some toast with butter or another easy snack to top his belly off after dinner. I will admit that tonight's dinner wasn't stellar, but both D and I were SO famished that I think we could have eaten cardboard and been happy.

Even though I had my fill of green curry and rice I was still pretty darn hungry (a delayed post-race hunger) so I finished off the day with a piece of bread topped with peanut butter and honey. I can't tell you when the last time was that I had a bread-y snack, but it was exactly what I needed tonight! Hopefully be tomorrow I will be feeling more recovered and less inclined to eat my hand.

I think I have some tasty (and easy) dinners planned for this week...so check back in a few days. I can certainly promise more variety!