First things first, my husband is an amazingly easy person to cook for.  Pretty much anything I set down in front of him, he’ll eat.  When he asks what’s for dinner and I tell him it’s lentils or chard or vegan or full of nutritional yeast, he generally replies with something along the lines of “cool, sounds good.”

But sometimes, there’s a comment a little like this.

“Um, Cate? I really appreciate that you cook amazing dinners every night.  But is there any way we could maybe have a dinner that doesn’t include kale?”

I have to admit, I did go a little overboard with kale recently.  So I planned a whole week of things I knew he’d love: sandwiches, spinach lasagna, loaded baked sweet potatoes, and curry.  The man LOVES him some curry.

He also loves chocolate chip cookies, and since Tuesday was national chocolate chip cookie day, I finally got around to trying Alton Brown’s “The Chewy”

I’m not sure if they were the best chocolate chip cookies ever, but they were VERY good.  I love that the recipe is written with ingredients by weight, because I’m fully obsessed with using my food scale.  I am ready to make another batch!

This curry recipe came from JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER Heidi Swanson, but I decided to leave the potatoes in chunks, and I added a basic cucumber-ginger-lime raita on the side (I also served it all over quinoa).  Kale-free, Mike-pleasing, and delicious, plus it makes enough for plenty of leftovers for lunch!

(adapted from 101 cookbooks)

Anyway, we had a lot of meals out this weekend, so I was pretty excited to put together a week full of good, homemade dinners.

I pretty much consider Beth my food twin. We definitely have very similar taste, and when she posted this sandwich I knew I would make it. I just didn’t realize it would take me this long.

It’s not exactly the season for apples, but the Fujis at my favorite grocery store are still completely delicious (especially with melted cheddar cheese on sourdough).

I added some sauteed shallots (and Mike added a bunch of HP sauce) and it was fantastic. Thanks (as always) for the inspiration, Beth!

Even though I started Saturday morning with a four hour math test, I grade this weekend A+++.  Perfect weather, good coffee, lots of time with Mike and Ellie, a run and brunch with good friends, and a lot of time in the kitchen; that’s pretty tough to beat.

We went to Hayes Valley on Saturday afternoon and got lattes at Ritual 

The people watching (and the DOG watching!) was fantastic and as always, the lattes were divine.  I’m not sure what Ellie was so focused on, but there was definitely a lot to look at.

Sunday morning started with a trip to the East Bay to meet up with a bunch of my favorite people for a run followed by brunch.

6 leisurely miles with Courtney felt a lot harder than it should have (and my right knee/hip were a little cranky) but it was soooo nice to run in the warm sun for a change.  I’m going to spend a lot of quality time with my foam roller this week, and within the next few weeks, I need to start a training plan for the San Francisco Marathon 2nd Half.  I’m hoping to smash my PR (1:39ish right now), but I haven’t picked a plan yet.  Anyone have suggestions?

I’m making the most of asparagus season, buying a bunch of it every week and roasting it to either eat plain or incorporate into our dinner.  I made this dish with whole-wheat orzo cooked like risotto (by adding a ladle of broth and stirring until it was absorbed), which is a little time-consuming but totally worth it.  A little lemon juice and zest, and a bunch of roasted asparagus make it perfect for Spring.

It’s great alongside my new favorite salad: lettuce, toasted almonds, red bell pepper, and goat cheese with a simple vinaigrette.

(adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian)

This is my take on yet another amazing recipe from Plenty.  I roasted the mushrooms instead of marinating them (because even though I don’t consider myself a picky eater at all, I just can’t do raw mushrooms).  I also omitted the fava beans because I really don’t care for them (so maybe I am a little bit of a picky eater?)

I was all set to serve it as you see it above, but then Mike brought out some lettuce and it became abundantly clear that lettuce wraps were the way to go.

A brilliant move on his part.

I went for my first post-marathon run today, and given how shredded my quads felt on Sunday, it was surprisingly enjoyable.  I know this is when I’m most likely to get injured so I’m going to stick to the every other day plan for at least a week or two.  After all, I don’t have any races on the schedule until July, so there’s really no hurry.

Then I came home and Ellie helped me fold laundry.

I seriously had no idea it was possible to love a small human this much.

Here, I added some red cabbage, sliced carrots, sauteed portobellos, blanched broccoli, avocado and fried tofu and tossed it all with a very simple miso and sesame oil dressing. Delicious!

In other news, we’re giving the state tests this week at school. I could rant for DAYS about my feelings on testing (and public education in general), but this is not the time or place. Instead, I’ll just say that no matter what our scores are, my kids this year have completely blown me away. I have students from Burma and the Philippines who’ve been in this country for just a couple years but can write a lab report with precise details and thoughtful conclusions. I have a student who asks the most awesome and insightful questions every single day. I have fantastic models of organic compounds built by the kids. I have their work all over my walls and I hear their thoughtful discussions every single day, and THAT is what shows how amazing they are , NOT a pick-the-best-answer-and-fill-in-the-bubble test.

I’ve been turning to kitchen therapy a lot this week. Not because work is stressing me out, but because I’m hardly running so I need somewhere to focus my energy. I bought some caperberries at the grocery store last week because I’d never seen them before and was curious.

They taste like a cross between a green olive and a caper (two flavors I love), but they have weird little grainy seeds inside so I think I’ll stick with either olives OR capers from now on. I did use them to make a pasta dish with roasted cauliflower, though, and THAT was pretty good.

Happy Friday!

So I’m running a marathon on Sunday,  my seventh!  I’m incredibly excited, even though I know there’s pretty much a 0.000032% chance that I’ll PR.  It’s okay, though.  I signed up way back in August when I had no idea what life with a baby would be like, and figured that it was a good goal to have for 7.5 months after having a baby.

On my 5ish mile run yesterday, my legs felt SO fresh and ready to run that it took some serious willpower not to just keep going.  I gotta save it all for the race, though.  I only did one 20-miler this training cycle, so there’s a pretty good chance I’ll crash and burn hard somewhere around mile 22 if I go out even a little bit too fast.

I’ve done a lot of runs on the treadmill lately but the weather has been better the past few days, so I’ve been running outside more.  It’s kind of nice to go from zoning out, staring at a TV playing the news at 5 AM to fresh air and great blue herons in the nice afternoon sun. I’ll take a little more of the latter.

We have a big bag of these little egg noodle nests in the cupboard, which I know are not the healthiest choice, but I love them.  They require a decent amount of oil to avoid turning into a giant yellow clump, so I don’t cook with them too often, but when I do, I try to add a lot of vegetables so there’s at least something  a little healthy going on. We’ve had a bunch of broccoli stalks sitting in the produce drawer for a couple weeks, and I’ve been promising Mike I’d use them and wooohoooo I actually did.  Finally.  I also roasted an eggplant, fried some tofu and sliced up a red pepper, so there was a pretty nice variety of flavors and textures.

Ellie and Mike impatiently watched my pre-dinner photo shoot.

Ellie REALLY wanted to try some of this, but she’s still doing mostly purees at this point.  They’re exciting purees, though! Red lentils with tomato and coriander, carrots with dill, and cauliflower with cumin – and she loves them all.  But she still was very intrigued by our food.

So, Black Bean Bulgur Burgers.  Yep, that’s some nice alliteration.

I’ve been trying to figure out ways to make bean burgers without filling them with breadcrumbs and bulgur did the trick! I also think one key to these is letting them bake long enough. Baking time will depend on thickness, but these were in the oven for about 20 minutes on each side, which is much longer than I usually cook bean burgers (and then I wonder why they’re still mushy inside).

My favorite way to eat these is over a bunch of vegetables (like red butter lettuce!) with an ample serving of guacamole on top.

I know it’s a totally overdone and annoying blogger move to complain about how busy you are. But it’s my blog, and JEEZ I’m busy right now. I have a marathon in 2 weeks, a huge and difficult math test to take in 3 weeks, and I’m trying to get all my kids ready for state testing at work. Plus there’s that little girl I live with who I kind of like to hang out with sometimes. I’m feeling more than a little overwhelmed right now, but I’ll get through it. Baking helps. So does beer.

I’m incredibly grateful that it’s asparagus season, even if a bunch of organic asparagus costs as much as two lattes, I think I honestly get more enjoyment out of asparagus. At least for right now.

I pretty much never buy fresh dill because you have to commit to SO much of it, and I hate it when I only use a tiny bit and find brown slime that used to be dill in the back of the produce drawer a few weeks later. But this time, I planned ahead! I have dilled potato salad in the works which will involve all the dill leftover from this dish!

Speaking of this dish, it’s another one inspired by Super Natural Every Day. I’ve heard that if you change at least three things, you can call a recipe your own. I’m not sure if that’s technically correct in every case, but I did change the protein, the vegetable, some of the fat, and the method of cooking of one of the components, so at least a bit of this is my own (if we’re keeping score).

It’s hard to beat leeks cooked slowly in butter. They kind of smell like In-N-Out (which I guess could be a bad thing, but in this household it’s definitely a good thing). When you combine those with roasted asparagus and fresh dill, you end up with Spring in a bowl, and it’s really quite lovely!

Then we put her in her Easter dress and had a photo shoot in the front yard.

I think she likes dressing up.

We had the most relaxing Easter ever. I woke up and ran six miles, we hung out around the house all day, took a walk before dinner, and then I made this because it uses up hard-boiled eggs (I know I’m not the only person who has tons of those lying around right now).

Originally the recipe called for spinach and slivered almonds, but I swapped those out for chard and hazelnuts. I think it would be delicious either way, but I absolutely loved the strong flavor the hazelnuts added. I served it over quinoa with a little fresh mint and preserved lemon stirred in…definitely a filling and delicious dinner.

Also, I’ve been pondering lately.  Which is worse, a blogger who posts too many pictures of herself, or too many pictures of her baby?  Because I feel I’m dangerously close to too-many-pictures-of-the-baby territory.  But I guess that’s better than a million pictures of me, right?  Or I could always go back to just pictures of the food like I did in the early days, but that wasn’t very much fun, so hey, here’s another picture of Ellie!

She’s wearing the hat I made for her this weekend from this pattern. Cables are fun.

The giant wall of pasta at my favorite grocery store has SO much good stuff. This week we picked up some really cool-shaped farro pasta.

I browned some onions, added garlic, white beans, kale, raisins, and pine nuts, then tossed it all with the pasta and a generous sprinkle of grated parmesan.

And in case two days of kale in a row is too healthy for you, I have some awesome cookies ready to share next!