I’m really not sure what I’m going to do with myself when cherry season is over. I’m actually kind of shocked I managed to restrain myself enough to have a few to bake with, because normally cherries don’t even last 24 hours around here. Anyway, if you find yourself with uneaten cherries and a desire to bake, this is a pretty excellent choice. I happily ate it for breakfast and snack for a few days and am ready to play around with other fruits (the original recipe was made with blueberries).

I’ve continued my pursuits of domestic arts this week – currently laundry is hanging on a rack in the living room, I made crepes for dinner last night, and I made this hat and booties yesterday for Mike’s boss, who’s having a baby boy in about a month.

I may be starting to realize that having summer off is not such a bad thing after all! The gym is empty when I go around 1:30 PM, I can grocery shop any time I want, I can hit up the mid-week farmers market (well, I could, but I haven’t yet… it’s on the list. And it’s also on Thursday mornings which means I just missed it yet again. Oh well.)

Recipe:
(adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates via Eat Live Run)

streusel topping
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp chilled butter, cut into small chunks

cake
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter, softened (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
3/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups plain yogurt
2 cups pitted and quartered fresh cherries

To make the streusel: Combine all ingredients except almonds and butter in a medium bowl. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or rub between your fingers until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the toasted almonds and mix well.

To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 13 x 9″ baking pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts

Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the yogurt, mixing gently after each addition. Fold in the cherries.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan and top with streusel. Bake for about 55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before cutting into squares.

I was initially doubtful when I looked at the recipe because I’m completely lame when it comes to combining new flavors. Since I’d never seen this combination before, I just didn’t know what to think. I’m so glad I tried it though. It was amazing on its own last night for dinner, and just as good today for lunch, tossed with fresh spinach.

The best thing about this salad is the roasted tomatoes. I love that it’s tomato season and I wish it could last forever. As tempting as they are plain…

tossing them with oil, a little sugar, and a pinch of salt and baking them for about 40 minutes elevates them to a whole new level of buttery sweetness.

I am slowly starting to love having time to do domestic things like roast tomatoes in the middle of the afternoon and make breakfast for Mike in the morning.

Fried eggs + avocado + hot sauce on toasted wheat bread.

I even packed his lunch.

We were joking last night about how I’m turning into a housewife. I don’t think I could ever actually be a full-time housewife but it’s kind of fun for right now. I’m hoping that the online course I’m taking for professional development helps prevent my brain from atrophying.

Recipe:
(adapted from Super Natural Every Day)

1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
2-4 tbsp olive oil (eyeball it – a good drizzle is fine!)
pinch salt
2 tsp sugar
3-4 cups black beans (2 cans, rinsed and drained)
crumbled feta (about a handful)
toasted sliced almonds (about a handful)
juice and zest of one lemon
fresh spinach (optional)

First roast the tomatoes: Toss the tomatoes, salt, sugar, and oil together and bake on a rimmed baking sheet at 350 F for about 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.

In a medium bowl, toss beans, feta, toasted almonds, lemon juice and zest, and cooled tomatoes together and adjust ingredients to taste. Toss with spinach if desired.

This weekend is kind of a big deal for me. In 24 hours I will be getting ready to start my first ultramarathon. 50K (31 miles) of fun…and I have to finish it in under 9 hours. It’s also supposed to be raining the whole time. Glorious. And THEN on Sunday morning I fly back to Portland for a few days!

Recipe:
(adapted from My Kitchen Snippets)

2 cups of flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 eggs
½ tsp almond extract
1 cup whole almonds – toasted in the oven for about 10 minutes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

Combine flour, salt and baking soda together.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until well combined. Stir in the almond extract.

Gradually stir the flour mixture into the egg and sugar mixture until dough forms. Stir in the almonds.

Flour your hands, and divide the dough into half. Shape each half of dough into a log.

Place the logs to the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 3 inches apart, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until firm to the touch and lightly brown.

Remove from oven and let the pan cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.

Transfer the logs to a cutting board and use a serrated knife to slice each log into 1/2 inch thick slices.

Put the slices on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, turn slices over, and bake another 10 minutes or until lightly brown and crispy. Remove from oven and let cool, then store in an airtight container.

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, this was a dinner experiment that turned out to be a total win. Even though I spent all day thinking about a salad I could make with the whole wheat couscous I was sure I had in the cupboard, only to come home and find we were in fact out of whole wheat couscous, it didn’t stop me from forging ahead with fine bulgur in its place. I think I actually like it with bulgur better than I would have liked it with couscous, so that’s awesome.

And the bad news is my right knee. 2 weeks before my first 50K, it is NOT a happy camper. I ran 6.5 miles last night and felt completely amazing…except for my stupid knee, which felt like it was going to explode. I’ve had tons of IT band issues in the past, but this is a completely different pain so I have no idea what it is, but I’m icing and ibuprofin-ing like a champ in hopes that it will magically heal itself as soon as possible. I think my weak quads are to blame because I haven’t lifted a single weight in… um a year? Not good.

Anyway… about that glorious run. It was SO GOOD to be back out there! I missed you, Lake Merced.

An no, that’s NOT how the image looked straight out of the camera. I’ve been wanting to try HDR lately, so this morning I spent a little time with GIMP, LuminanceHDR, and this tutorial and learned how to do this:

(The picture is from Si Phan Don in Southern Laos).

Sometimes I think it’s a little too Tomas Kincaid-ish for my tastes, but it’s fun to experiment with.

But back to the run…look! Somebody was feeling festive in the parking area. I LOVE seeing Christmas decorations in unexpected places.

After the run, I was definitely ready for a healthy, filling meal. I pulled a completely random assortment of ingredients out of the fridge and cupboards (broccoli, tempeh, fresh cranberries, mustard, maple syrup, almonds…) and got to work. There’s kind of a lot going on here, but it all works and as a bonus, it’s pretty healthy. Fine bulgur is one of my favorite grains to cook with because you don’t even have to cook it! Just soak in water for about 15 minutes and it’s ready.

Recipe:

salad
1 tbsp olive oil
8 ounces tempeh, thinly sliced
3 cups broccoli florets, steamed until crisp-tender
1/2 cup fresh cranberries, chopped
1 1/2 cups fine bulgur, soaked in 1 1/2 cups water for about 15 minutes
1/4 cup diced red onion, soaked in cold water for about 10 minutes, then drained
3 tbsp almonds, finely chopped

dressing
1 tsp dijon
1 tsp grade B maple syrup
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt

To make the salad:
Heat the oil in a wide skillet over medium-high. Add the tempeh slices and cook on each side for a few minutes, until golden brown. Set aside.

Fluff the bulgur with a fork and combine with remaining ingredients.

To make the dressing, whisk the oil, vinegar, mustard, syrup and salt together. Add as much as desired to the salad and mix well before serving.

It was the night before our third wedding anniversary and I offered to bake Mike whatever he wanted. He requested peanut butter cookies, but we only had a few tablespoons of peanut butter left. So he suggested almond butter cookies and I had one of those “you’re a genius! Why didn’t I think of that” moments. I did a little search and found this recipe, which I thought looked amazing. Sweetened entirely with maple syrup, no butter, and no white flour?! PERFECT! The dough tasted amazing and I could hardly wait until the cookies came out.

When they were done, I was pretty pleased with myself. Sure, they’re not exactly healthy, but they’re much healthier than your typical cookie, have a soft but slightly chewy texture that I adore, and they are vegan! Mike didn’t share my enthusiasm, though. He was thinking I’d keep the butter and sugar and all the unhealthy goodness of a peanut butter cookie, just using almond butter in place of peanut butter in my usual recipe.

“Did you healthy these up or something? Is there even sugar in here?” He asked as he tasted one. I tried to explain that maple syrup was even better than regular sugar, and that spelt flour was much healthier than white flour. He wasn’t sold, so now I owe him real peanut butter cookies. But for me, these are ideal, and if you like almonds, I think you’ll love them. They’re not overly sweet, but they do have a delicate maple flavor and as I said before, the texture is just about perfect. I’ll definitely be making them again, and I guess I won’t have to worry about sharing them!

Recipe:
(adapted from Sweet and Natural)

1/2 cup natural almond butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup spelt flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a few cookie sheets with parchment or Silpats.

Beat the almond butter, maple syrup, vegetable oil, and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth. Gently stir in the flour, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low. Stir in the chopped almonds.
Drop by rounded tablespoon onto the baking sheets and bake until just set, about 10 minutes.
Let cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

One of the first things we made in that class was stir fry. And for months, I stuck with the recipe I learned. It was good, but basic, and it got pretty old. That’s one of my gripes about stir-fry. Too often, it’s just the same mix of vegetables with the same flavor of sauce.

But with my extraordinarily limited batterie de cuisine, stir fry is one of the things I can actually make, so I have made it my personal mission to come up with more interesting stir fry. Like this one.

I love the broccoli and almond combination, and I dressed it up with a lemon-based sauce. It’s a great, simple stir fry, and it’s just crying out to be served over brown rice.

A little note about lemon zest… I do not have a zester. I don’t even have a grater. But I improvised a little and came up with passable zest using just my knife. Check it out!

Cut thin pieces of peel, avoiding the white part as much as possible

Cut those pieces into thin strips

Chop the strips into little pieces. It doesn’t look as pretty as lemon zest, but if you chop the pieces fine enough, you get the flavor and don’t notice that you’re eating lemon peel.

Recipe:
Sauce:
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbps broth or water
1 tsp cornstarch

Whisk together all ingredients and set aside.

Stir Fry:
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 lb boneless-skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 a small yellow onion, chopped
2 tsp minced fresh ginger
1 large head broccoli, cut into florets
1/3 cup almonds, cut in half lengthwise

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat.
Add the chicken, onion, and ginger, and cook, stirring, until chicken is cooked through.
Add the broccoli florets and a few tablespoons of water. Cook until broccoli is crisp-tender.
Add the sauce and almonds, and stir until sauce has thickened and coats the chicken and broccoli.
Serve over brown rice.