IN WHICH The Girl Eats Quinoa

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I plan to eat healthier this year. I started this quest by completing Buzzfeed's Clean Eating Challenge. One of my friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, my very own Piglet [now before you get mad, I say this because Piglet is Winnie-the-Pooh's best friend, not because of any other connotation of the word], took the challenge several months ago and liked many of the recipes. You can see her comments about it on Antediluvian Salami. I looked it over and despite being on a website mostly known for funny lists and pictures of cute pandas, the plan looked healthy and achievable.

Essentially, the program asks you to cut out processed foods, keeping the focus on fresh fruits and veggies, lean protein, and gluten-free/low-carb meals for two weeks. It seemed to be a good way to reintroduce nutrients to my system after the holidays but still eat actual food - no juice cleanse for me. Testifying that most of the food was actually edible, my friend decided to do the whole challenge over again with me. Yay for moral support!

Shaved Asparagus Salad with Shallots and Fried Eggs. Yummy but shaving asparagus is a pain in the butt.

So now it's two weeks later. Overall, the challenge went really well. The majority of the meals taste wonderful, and the salad dressings are out of this world for being so simple. I've seen others complain that it's not enough food, but I was never unusually hungry. I cooked a lot of foods I've never made myself: quinoa, fennel, shallots, spinach smoothies, lentils, overnight oats, cauliflower steaks, and chia seed pudding, among others. This was a great introduction to new recipes that I may not have tried on my own. Some I will probably avoid  - the lentils didn't excite me and I reaffirmed by hate for Greek yogurt. Nevertheless, I will incorporate several items into my weekly meal plan from here on out, particularly the quinoa, spinach smoothies, and chia seed pudding.

Spinach and Banana Smoothie. Seriously, I wake up craving this deliciousness.

Since I love bread, chips, and other forms of carby goodness, I thought the low-carb and gluten-free aspects of the diet would be the hardest. Actually, I never really found myself craving carbs. The only times I felt really tempted by them was when others would place cupcakes or pizza in front of me and say, "Here!" While I did cheat in a couple of those instances, I stayed fairly true to course and am reassured that I can cut out many carbs at home from now on.

Turkey-Basil Meatballs with Collard Greens. Looks weird but actually quite good and filling.

The lack of my regular beverages killed me, however. I think the hardest part of the whole challenge was cutting out soda, and I definitely cheated a few times here. I know it's horrible, but I love Diet Coke. I'm not a crazy caffeine addict, but once a day I crave a drink with actual flavor. And then there's the alcohol. While I'm home by myself, it's easy to avoid wine and beer, but almost all social events involve drinks. I wouldn't want to be seen as unsociable.

Roasted Chicken Breast with Roasted Fennel and Spinach. Roasted fennel is excellent.

Two non-taste related issues came up as well: time and money. While not difficult recipes, most of these took a lot of time to prepare. Lots of chopping, mixing, and waiting for things to roast. I often spent an hour or two a day preparing food, which is waaay too much for me. While I was lucky and started this while still on my winter break, prepping food for workdays usually meant spending thirty minutes or more the night before getting breakfast, lunch, and a snack ready to go. In addition, healthy food is ridiculously expensive. I knew about the high prices of produce previously - and have even had my students write about this before - but I have never bought produce in such bulk before. It adds up quickly. Plus, some of the "superfoods" cost a pretty penny. A bag of chia seeds is usually seven dollars or more. Granted, they should last me a little while. I will be looking for ways to cut down on both the prep time and the cost in the future.

Greek Salad with Lentils and Lime Vinaigrette. Work lunch.

One challenge down for the year! I found the experience both interesting and informative, and I will definitely try to keep the clean eating idea alive in my cooking for the rest of the year, within realistic limits. I've already got a bunch of bananas and spinach in the freezer waiting to be made into smoothies this week!

Roasted Eggplant with Chickpeas, Cauliflower, and Lemon-Parsley Yogurt.
Chickpeas are wonderful legumes but this meal took forever to cook.

IN WHICH The Girl Ventures to Fantastical Lands

"I didn't know assassins like to read." - Throne of Glass

I'm not an assassin, though I certainly wouldn't tell you if I was. However, it turns out assassins are awfully fun to read about, at least kick ass girl assassins in young adult fantasy novels. Despite the fact that I never got into the Game of Thrones books, I've been steadily reading more and more fantasy novels over the last year. I particularly like the young adult fantasies (big surprise), which I found initially through reading The Midnight Garden blog that reviews young adult literature for adult readers. I love the total suspension of disbelief required in fantasy. If you want to forget the worries of your own life, why not jump into a world of magic, sword fighting, royalty, and a dragon or two?

Now to my understanding, there are many sub-genres of fantasy, but many of the ones I have read recently exist in completely new worlds, so the author must create an entirely new land and society for the reader, which essentially means anything can happen. The more successful novels do a good job of world building. My recent favorite is the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. Beyond focusing on a totally awesome assassin as the heroine, Maas establishes one land and set of characters in the first book, a good chunk for readers to swallow without choking on too much new information. She then continues to grow the story's world, in terms of both traveling to new and interesting lands and introducing a larger set of characters. As the series develops, the story becomes more complicated and compelling.

There also tends to be a medieval bent to many fantasy novels. They are set in warring lands run by monarchies, sword-carrying guards play a large part (and are frequently romantic interests), the non-magical fighting involves daggers, swords, and arrows instead of guns, and most characters must travel by walking, horse riding, or boarding a boat. Again, it is a world very different than our own today, even if these elements have existed in the real world.

And then there is the magic. Many plots revolve around how one country does or does not have access to magic. Gots to have the power! In Throne of Glass magic has been erased from one country and the characters must find a way to get it back. In Finnikin of the Rock an entire land is sealed off by magic for more than a decade, and in The Girl of Fire and Thorns a society of sorcerers invades the main land looking for the natural source of magic hidden there. Many of the characters have special abilities due to magic as well, though this often makes them outcasts. For example, in Graceling the heroine is born with a talent - or magical grace - for killing, making her a great assassin but terrifying to befriend. So many girl assassins!


The little feminist in me adores all the emphasis on powerful women in these novels, and I tend to read the ones with female protagonists, though Finnikin of the Rock's main character is male. I can see why so many young girls would like the focus on independent heroines who can protect themselves. At points, however, I'm a little worried about the focus on violence, but that is nothing new to young adult literature and honestly adds a lot of excitement to the story. At the very least, most of the characters aren't killers by choice. Lastly, the teenage girl in me likes the romances. I mean these leaders of the king's guard always seem pretty sexy. But practical things - like saving a nation - often get in the way of love, and I appreciate that romance usually remains a small portion of the plot and never becomes the sole focus of the story (take that Twilight).

Over the winter break, I read The Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy, which had a heavy religious focus that weirded me out a bit but was still a good story. Now I need to figure out what's next. I've got The Iron Trial on loan from the library at the moment and want to check out several others, including Shadow and Bone, The Winner's Curse, and The Raven Boys. I'll just continue this trek into nerdier lands.

IN WHICH The Girl Returns From the Dead

Happy New Year everyone! To celebrate, I'm returning after several months of absence. This bear needed to hibernate for a while - just slightly early in the year as I know winter is just now hitting full steam. Last semester was crazy busy and sadly left little time for any extracurricular activities. Luckily, my new year looks bright. This semester I will only be working at one college near my house with fairly normal working day hours! This is a first for me in four years of teaching. Yippee!! As a result, I will have a lot more time to grace you with my wondrous tidbits of information.

The new year tends to come with all sorts of resolutions. I usually avoid said resolutions because I never follow through with them - Winnie-the-Pooh never could keep his promise not to eat the honey. However, there are a few new things I'm excited to try as 2015 gets started.

First, I'm pumped to use the Fitbit I received for Christmas, so I'm attempting to be slightly more active (I know I know. So stereotypical. But also needed). Ideally, my new toy will inspire more walking each day, especially when I'm thinking that taking the train home from work would be easier than the mile walk. For example, right now I know walking to the grocery store would be a good way to add a lot of steps to the day (plus I need to buy some kale for some foods that terrify me: see next paragraph). However, it's also snowing pretty heavily. So not quite yet.

I'm also doing that other super stereotypical activity of trying to eat healthier. Therefore, I'm starting a two-week clean eating challenge today. My morning involved chia seeds, which is certainly a first. I have lots more to say on this topic, so I will save it for a different post.

Lastly, I'm doing one other challenge - the Goodreads kind. While I've certainly looked at reviews on the booklovers' website before, I've never made much use of my own profile on it. Each year I attempt to keep track of the books I read on paper on in Word, but it never really works. Turns out it's fairly simple to log your books into the Goodreads website and it will actually connect directly to your Amazon account if you use a Kindle. I set my challenge for the year at 50 books. I'm really not sure what the appropriate number of books for me is because as I've said, I usually lose track of my books somewhere in the middle of the year. It also depends on whether I'm going to count all the ridiculous young adult science fiction novels I read and the romances I go through fairly regularly, or if I will just count the "sophisticated" novels. Ah who cares. I might as well admit to being as ridiculous as I am. I highly doubt the two friends I have on Goodreads care.

So here's hoping I stick with a few of these non-resolutions. Good luck to everyone else out there challenging themselves this year. And if not, drink a glass of champagne for me (no alcohol for two weeks - what was I thinking??). Cheers!