Happy Holidays!! :)

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you enjoy a nice holiday with family and friends! Don't forget to stay warm!! Thank you for your support this holiday season!! My gift to you is another throwback article, so here is an article I wrote over a year ago. Enjoy the cringe...

In Glasgow the representatives for team USA will be:

Simone Biles 
Gabby Douglas
Brenna Dowell
Madison Kocian
Maggie Nichols
Aly Raisman
MyKayla Skinner

Six of these athletes will be competing, one will be a traveling reserve. Non-traveling alternates are Bailie Key and Alyssa Baumann.


I am pretty happy with the representatives chosen. They are all very talented gymnasts, and I'm expecting to see very high scores from these girls.


- fan #1




I'm happy with the men's team. I hope they can medal even without Sam. Paul should help on high bar.

- fan #2


YAY! Brenna finally made the team!!!!! 😃 I've been waiting for this....

- fan #3



I wish Alyssa could be on the team with Madison. However, I'm sure the US can still do great even without Alyssa's beam work. Mykayla Skinner should also help on vault and floor. This is a great team that I'm sure will do great. I hope all of them can make some sort of individual finals. Good luck to them all!


- fan #4


All the athletes (men and women) work hard and are fantastic athletes.!

-fan #5





Thanks to all the fans who commented their ideas! :). 


If you would like to have your thoughts featured in the next "Fan's Thoughts" please comment below your ideas on the announcement of the worlds team. :)


Thank you all for reading and enjoy a nice rest of the holiday season with your family!! :)

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Swimming

For reasons unknown, I think it's still a good idea to go swimming in the middle of winter. The gym pool DOES have heating (so I'm not a complete madman) but it's still rather cold.

I dipped my right foot in. Fuck that's cold.

I hold onto the edge and lower myself in. Fuuuuuuck

Now fully in the pool, I've decided torture is not on the menu for today. 10 laps instead of 20.

I've never swum so fast in my life. In an attempt to warm myself up, I'm speeding freestyle across the pool.

Aaaargh my lungs, my heart. This is how I die...

Apparently when I swim fast I pretty much stop breathing.

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Easy week-night greens

I read this article in The Guardian the other day and thought that Eliane Glaser had a very good point. Sure, celebrity chefs do live in a bubble, and their culinary advice, as healthy and tasty and wonderful as they might sound, aren't always practical. But I work full time, I have two young kids, an overworked partner, no one around to give us a hand, and yet we cook dinner from scratch every single night. The kids and I get home at 6:30pm every week night and we are ready to eat dinner by 7:15. Dinners consist of freshly cooked vegetables, usually served with meat or fish (the type of recipes you read on this blog), then a dairy product (yogurt or cheese), and a fruit. Most nights we start with a salad or soup (made from scratch as well, including dressing). (For drinks: water.) So I know there is a way to eat healthy food even on a tight schedule, and I know that the food revolution isn't just a great big fat lie.

Well, that was my conclusion two weeks ago. Yesterday, I took this quiz by Charles Murray, on NPR.org, and had to admit that I, too, live in a pretty thick bubble. Hm... So... Err... Take my advice with a grain of salt ;-)

Here is one of my new week-night favorites. It works well aside grilled meat, baked fish, or a starchier vegetable dish (which can be as simple as boiled potatoes).

Serves 4

• 1 Tbsp olive oil 
• 1/2 yellow onion, coarsely chopped 
• 2 cloves garlic, halved and stemmed 
• 2 bunches swiss chards, or 1 bunch swiss chards and 1 bunch collard greens, or any other combination of green-leafed vegetables 
• 2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, cut into strips 
• salt, freshly ground black pepper 
• 1 tsp whole coriander seeds, crushed, or 1/2 tsp coriander seed powder 

1.  If you use swiss chards and the stems are large enough, use them. 
• Cut off the leaves close to the stem and reserve. 
• Cut the base of each stem without detaching it completely, and pull the fibers that come off. 
• Cut the stem again, 2 inches away from its base, starting from the other side of the stem, and pull off the fibers again. Repeat until you reach the tip of the stem. 
• You are left with 2-inch strips of delicious stem, free of the extra fibers that would make them chewy.
• Chop the stem strips. 
2. Wash the stemmed leaves and drain them the way you would wash and drain lettuce leaves. Take a few leaves at a time, roll them together along their longer axis, and cut into 1-inch strips. 
3. Heat up the olive oil in a sautee pan. Add the chopped onion, chard stems and garlic and sautee until translucent (1-2 minutes). 
4. Add the greens and toss until all the leaves are wilted, but still bright (another 1-2 minutes). 
5. Toss in the julienned dried tomatoes and seasoning. Serve immediately. 

Step 3 (with green onions instead of yellow, here)

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Pear-almond tart

I brought dessert to a party a couple weeks ago and everyone asked for the recipe, so here it is. :-)

For a 10" tart (plus some left-over pastry):

• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 125g sugar
• 250g flour
• 125g butter
• 2 or 3 ripe pears (d'Anjou or Bartlett)
• ground cinnamon
• almond powder or thin almond slivers (optional)

Prepare the pâte sablée pastry as follows:

1. Beat the egg, salt, and sugar in a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, until they become foamy and turn to a pale yellow. (Note: why use a stand mixer when you can have a free workout?)
2. Sift all the flour at once over the egg and sugar mix. Start mixing slowly with the wooden spoon, then use your fingers to mix all the ingredients. Rub small amounts of dough between your fingers or hands to turn the mix into a grainy "sand." (Pâte sablée means "sanded dough.")
3. Cut the butter into small parcels. If the butter is very cold, heat up in the microwave for a few seconds. Add to the mix and knead the dough with your hands very briefly, then form a ball. The dough should come off of your hands easily (add a little bit of flour if needed), but it remains a little sticky.
4. (If the dough feels really soft, or you are making this recipe on a hot summer day, or in a warm kitchen, you may want to cool down the dough in the fridge for a while. This step is optional.) 
5. Roll out the pie crust on floured parchment paper down to 3-4 mm in thickness. Press into the bottom of a 10" pie dish (mine is metallic). Punch a few holes in the crust with a fork.
6. Bake the crust at 350ºF (180ºC) for about 15-20 minutes. It should remain pale.

Cut two ripe, juicy pears into quarters. D'Anjou and Bartlett (Williams) work great for this. Peel and core, then slice thinly. Arrange the pear slices on the pre-baked pie crust, either in circles on in rows.

Dust with cinnamon (just a tad), then add a few tiny bits of butter and optionally sprinkle with almond powder (1-2 TBSP) or almond slivers. Bake for about 10 minutes at 350ºF (180ºC).

I brought a 10" tart to the party, but for the picture, I made the same recipe again, using my daughter's bakeware: mini pie dish, mini utensils... And we made animal cookies with the rest of the dough. They were delicious.

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Kale pesto tomato tart

The other day we made a delicious kale and walnut pesto based on this recipe by Shutterbean. We ate about half of it with fresh pasta (yum!), and used the other half for this tomato tart.

I used my beloved quiche crust recipe, but used whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose, and replaced the cream with water. Actually, I had made the dough in advance (I double or triple the proportions then divide the dough into small balls and freeze them), so I just had to unfreeze a ball of dough (20 seconds in the microwave), roll it out on parchment paper and voilà. I poked a few holes in the crust with a fork to let air go through and prevent the crust from bubbling up while baking, spread the kale pesto evenly, then laid thin tomato slices in concentric circles, starting from the edge of the dish. I sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, then baked at 350ºF (180ºC) for about 30 minutes.

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