Weekend cooking

God, I love the weekends. And farmers markets. And talking for a half-hour about raw milk and pasture-raised turkeys. And cooking and pureeing and freezing pumpkin. And eating soup that I made and know exactly what went into. Suffice to say, I had a great weekend.

25. Learn to cook 52 new recipes and organize them in one place (52/52) -- accomplished

Woop woop! I went down to Central Market Thursday and Saturday and bought out the whole place, essentially. So Friday night I made apple-pear sauce, which I might have overcooked but it's still out-of-this-world delicious. I chopped 14 pears and I think 12 apples, so I have lots left over to freeze.

Then last night I made the potato-zucchini soup that we had at Healthy World Cafe for the Harvest Fair. We didn't follow the recipe too closely for the event, so I tried to mirror our changes instead of following it directly. One change we made was to swap out the chicken broth for water, to keep it vegan. When I did this at home, I wasn't sure how much to use and was more than a little nervous that my soup just looked like vegetables in hot water (Read: I called my mom in a panic and woke her up from a couch nap at 8:30 p.m.). But it turned out delicious, and I'm really excited about the sodium I was able to eliminate by using water.

Today I peeled, cubed and boiled a 7-pound neck pumpkin to puree and freeze for recipes that called for canned pumpkin. And I was left with just less than a half-cup of pumpkin seeds, which I tossed with a little butter and Worchestershire sauce and salt and then toasted. I am eating them now and they remind me of popcorn. Also known as out-of-this-world delicious.

Tomorrow I plan on using some leftover carrots and zucchini from the soup for a muffin recipe. So I'm counting it as one of the 52 and declaring myself accomplished! I'm not much of a weeknight cook, but I really enjoy these kind of weekends.

32. Attend at least one sports event a season (9/12) -- in progress

I went up to Harrisburg with Travis again yesterday to watch the Cougars play. It was kind of a sad game -- mercy rule went into effect as the second half began -- but it was also their homecoming weekend, and watching the band perform was really fun. Like really fun. Like I might've paid more attention to them than the game.

56. Exercise 2-3 times a week (62/143) -- in progress

Chugging along, although I'm a bit frustrated. Our instructor tore something in her knee, so she had surgery Wednesday. For the past few weeks and our class Friday, she's been half-leading, half-sitting and calling out the steps or exercises. She's the only salaried instructor, so I know they don't want to pay for subs all the time, but it gets frustrating sometimes to not feel like we have a real leader as we're working our booties off.

72. Attend at least 10 free community events (9/10) -- in progress

I didn't think about the fact that the films I've been seeing at York College count for this. I saw "The Future of Farming" and "Fresh" in September, and then last Wednesday I went to a lecture by a journalist who wrote a book on the ethical and environmental implications of a globalized and consumer-driven society. She focused on clothes and specifically denim, and it was interesting, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the two films because I didn't feel as if she offered a viable solution. I left feeling kind of confused and defeated. But the two farming and food-related films were awesome -- a brochure at the first event was how I found Healthy World Cafe.

That's all folks.

True life: I am still alive

I promise.

25. Learn to cook 52 new recipes & organize them in one place (48/52) -- in progress

I have been going buck wild with anti-recipe fury recently. Last week I was too lazy to properly measure things (dirtying all the measuring cups / spoons and then having to wash them seemed like a big deal at the time, OK) so I pulled out the steak marinade recipe and gathered the ingredients and then kind of eyeballed the measurements. It turned out totally fine, although I think I could've used less overall marinade. Perhaps a waste not to measure...

But then today I made some banana bread muffins with blueberries, and they called for applesauce but I didn't have it and then I briefly Internet-searched and AS is typically used in place of butter or oil but I just couldn't stomach a whole stick of butter in these muffins -- so I also kind of made up the muffin recipe as I went along -- omitted the AS / butter and only used about half the flour... and they turned out the bomb diggity. Which was a miracle, considering how exact baking is supposed to be -- and how straight awful I am in the kitchen. See here for multiple examples.

32. Attend at least one sports event a season (8/12) -- in progress

Since August, I've been to a Pirates game, a Harrisburg High football game and a Notre Dame football game. All three were fun -- ND probably the most. I've realized one a season is unlikely, because I am not a fan of basketball. But there have been plenty of opportunities in the summer to make up for that!

47. Save another $10,000 in my bank account -- accomplished

Not sure when this officially happened, but according to the numbers, it did. Turns out rarely buying things and freezing my booty off last winter turned into some sweet savings.

50. Put up curtains in Sunchase & next apartment -- accomplished

This is fudged, I admit. I never put up curtains in Sunchase or Carlisle and there were already curtains here. But: I have made a feeble attempt to decorate both this and the Carlisle apartment, so I am counting it as a win. I pretty much just need my friend Kelly to whip me into shape every so often and amp up my decorating motivation. A photo below of the fruits of my past visit to Winchester / a half-hour's worth of work yesterday:


56. Exercise 2-3 times a week (60/143) -- in progress

Yep. Every week since I last posted. I am in a good routine, even though some / most days I hate waking up at 7 a.m. and I've really not been feeling the locker room showers recently. They need fluffier towels.

72. Attend at least 10 free community events (6/10) -- in progress

Realized I forgot to blog about the Antique Baseball Tournament in Gettysburg in July. I took my mom and Adam down and we spent the afternoon there. It was hot as could be, but it was a lot of fun to watch them play in their 1865-era uniforms with those rules and no gloves. And Adam loved it -- he got a player's baseball card and his autograph, which was all he could talk about when he called my dad that night.

73. Volunteer for 50 hours (17/50) -- in progress

I got plugged in with a group called Healthy World Cafe, which is in the process of raising funds and support for a community kitchen in York. So we had a pop-up event at the Mother Earth Hands On Harvest Fair this weekend where we sold our (delicious, delicious) local food. So I spent four hours Friday night chopping veggies and fruits and tearing chicken from the bone... and then five hours Saturday serving food and hanging out. It was awesome. And I honestly can't get over how wildly delicious the food was.

80. Go to two alumni functions at JMU (2/2) -- accomplished

While I have not technically attended events planned for alumni, I have returned to JMU twice -- once last October and once last weekend. Last year was a very different experience because I still had friends in classes there. This year I just went down for breakfast at Little Grill and to see the campus. But I loved both trips -- and I still love JMU to death.

88. Make three new friends in Carlisle (2/3) -- in progress

It seems silly to list friends I now have, but I'd like to amend this to share the fact that I have been much better this year about expanding to circles outside of my work friends. With Healthy World Cafe and my membership at the gym and the church I've been to twice, I feel like a more well-rounded person -- not one who works and comes home and watches TV and sleeps and wakes up to do it again.

All in all, I am pumped for the month of October to see what else I can get in to.