Month: June 2010

Iron Chef!

Looks like the Iron Chefs are back in town! I love these guys. We attended their dinner in 2007, and it was such a fun night. If you’ve got a silly amount of money to spend on a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I highly recommend it.

RunningBlog: Week 22

Another light week of running, mostly because the weather has been so completely miserable. It’s rainy and horrible and I just haven’t been able to drag myself out of bed in the morning. I did manage two workouts at Spudds though, where I am still kicking some major ass. (I’ve had double 100’s on the rower at my last four sessions now.) I also went for two easy runs around the neighbourhood on the weekend. The really amazing part is that the Snook came with me for Sunday’s run! He’s agreed to run the Elkhart 5K Race with me and Mom in July, so he needs to train a bit. It was so fun being out there with him.

May 29: 5.36km
May 30: 5.36km
Total this week: 10.72km (6.7mi)
Total in 2010: 437.84km (273.65mi)

To meet my goal of running 1000km in 2010, I should be at 423km. So I’m still ahead. I’ll ramp it back up slowly.

The other amazing news of the week is that @AirForceTed (of You Don’t Have to Run Alone) and @Passinthrough are both going to be running the Elkhart 5K too! It’ll be an International Running Buddy Meet-up of Epic Proportions. 🙂

Domain name woes

Domain name woes: I had some problems with my domain name not auto-renewing this week, so apologies if the site was down for you at all. If you’re reading this, then goodness and light have been restored to the world.

Zipper Bag

Zipper BagZipper Bag
Tonight was my second sewing class over at The Sewing Room. It was great! Zippers are kind of my nemesis, so it was good to get to focus on them. We started by doing a sample piece on calico showing how to place a trouser zipper (like for jeans). Then we started in on our project for the night: this handy bag/pencil case. It’s got a front zipper with a pouch inside, and a size zipper for the main pouch. Once again I was the Hermione of the bunch, zooming ahead and finishing early. It turned out pretty well! My sewing is a little wobbling around the zips, but good for a first attempt. And hey, I only managed to shatter one sewing needle! (I ran over the metal stop at the top of the zipper.) Good times.

Zipper Bag   Zipper Bag

Vegetarian Pastitsio

PastitsioVegetarian Pastitsio
We got a lovely big bunch of silverbeet in this week’s Food Connect box that I wanted to use up while it was still fresh. I also had a couple zucchini in the fridge from last week. A quick Google search on the bus home from work (thank you iPhone!) led me to this: Vegetarian Pastitsio. It’s a baked pasta dish with sauteed silverbeet, zucchini, and garlic topped with a nummy bechamel sauce. We had nearly all the ingredients already. “This dish is perfect comfort food during the colder months,” Peter blogged. Done and done!

The recipe isn’t terribly exact, but it was easy enough to follow. I separated the silverbeet stalks from the leaves and cooked the stalks first, reckoning they’d take a little longer. Then I threw in the zucchini, and then the chopped up leaves. I used two gloves of garlic, a pinch of dried chilli flakes, and salt and pepper to taste. (If you like a lot of garlic, maybe go an extra clove. I wish I did.) I used penne for the pasta, and I just eyeballed how much to cook. (It was probably about 400g or so.) The pasta and greens went into my baking dish along with a couple scoops of Greek yoghurt (I didn’t bother draining it), a beaten egg, some freshly ground nutmeg, and a scattering of cheese. While that was cooling, I made the bechamel and loaded that up with more nutmeg and cheese. The bechamel went on in a thick layer over the top. I baked it in a hot oven (probably about 190C) for about 30 minutes til the top went lovely brown and crusty. It made eight generous portions! Very tasty and warming on a cold wintry night…