Coming Home to Internet, and Foody Stuff

We did make it home after all. The flight manifest was mercifully empty the morning after my last post. I would not have minded having to stay in our hotel just a tiny bit longer, though...

The best thing about coming home, though, was the discovery that we have internet in the house again. It's not amazing, but at this point, I will take any speed. I expect us to continue to have problems, but hopefully never as bad as it was right before we took our trip. I did learn a lot about my own internet habits, and have adjusted my behavior. Hopefully, I won't waste so much time doing nothing anymore.

As for our trip, I just had a couple things to say. Well, maybe more than a couple, but we'll see how far I get before I am bored.

We did head to the States with business in mind. The most important thing was to go food shopping. I can make do without a lot of things, and there is nothing I can do about the produce situation as no fresh food can come back with us, but there are still things that I refuse to live without. Like raw brown sugar, which is so much better than the processed stuff I don't know why people still buy it. Or certain spices.

Basically, I go to Whole Foods and go crazy. This time around, I was on a bit of a mission because I'm getting a lot more serious about running. As in, I'm learning what intervals are, how to speed train, and the fact that I'm most likely using the wrong shoes at the moment. I wasn't interested in adjusting our diet because I feel we eat pretty healthy as is, but have realized I need to pay a little more attention to it in order to get myself where I want to be. So, I bought beans. Lots of different kinds. We don't eat a lot of meat now due to price, but now we're going to eat even less. Which is so okay with me, as I was a mostly-vegetarian when I met Oliver and have slowly changed my eating habits over the years. I'm glad I have a reason he can't ignore as to why we need to eat less meat!

Here's my first new dish, a mix of Flageolet beans, onions, and fresh mushrooms, sauteed in butter with cumin and coriander (hello, where has coriander been hiding my whole life? awesome stuff!!):

I know, I know, it looks like garbage. Oliver took one look at it and told me he hoped I'd used a recipe to make it. He always says this when I make something he doesn't like the look of. I'm a bit of a free-spirit in the kitchen, so it's not completely without merit...

Anyway, it turns out, everyone liked it. Including both boys, which was a bit of a shocker. I have a tough crowd to please. They are all over the map with food, and rarely agree. Between Wyatt's love of Brussels sprouts, Oscar's willingness to eat fish, and Oliver's dislike of beans, they are a tough crowd to feed. This dish is going to be returning. That is, if I can get fresh mushrooms and onions at the same time again.

Not pictured is our adventure with quinoa, which I cooked up and served with a stir fry the next day. It has a very distracting crunch to it, but it's pretty mild in flavor. Oliver was okay with it, which made me glad because he hates, hates brown rice. Quinoa is a good substitute.

And here's the part where I get bored and sign out. Maybe I'll finish tomorrow, maybe not. I'm not so good at keeping blog promises...