Sorry for being MIA yesterday! I had a lot of things around the house that I really needed to work on before my work-week starts. Only 2 days left before I have to go back to work :(
Lunch yesterday consisted of leftover Lentil Loaf, Sour Cream and Onion scalloped potatoes and turnip greens.
I was a sweet wife and let the hubby have the leftover Indian food from the night before. What can I say? It was my one good deed for the day.
Mondays are usually rest days for us, but we decided we’d like to go to a Spin class since we haven’t been in atleast a month or more. Tim and I both fell in love with Spinning when we first started exercising. We’d go to the YMCA and do spin classes every Tuesday and Thursday and we’d usually do back to back classes on those days. I would always get the crockpot going sometime around lunch time so that when we got home we had a home cooked meal waiting for us.
Yesterday was no exception. Tim gave me a recipe for Red Beans and Rice that he wanted me to make for dinner and I adapted it for the slow cooker. I’ve been really digging cooking with dried beans lately, they are sooo cheap and it makes so much food! I soaked the beans overnight and then I used this recipe as a guideline (of course leaving out the meat items). I got everything going in the crockpot about 3:00 and put it on high for 4 hours.
Tim ended up having to work late and wasn’t able to go spinning afterall. I dropped Lincoln off at his Gran’s house so that I could go to the Y alone. I told her I was making Red Beans and Rice for dinner and invited her over (Tim’s family is from Louisiana). She declined, but gave me a can of beans that she swears are the “best red beans you can find or make” just in case mine didn’t turn out.
I hit the elliptical machine for an easy 35 minutes before my Spin class started, my heartrate never got above 135. I usually like to keep it above 150 for cardio workouts. But it was a nice easy workout and I was able to read some of my newest book, Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. If you’ve ever considered getting a Amazon Kindle, but haven’t because of the price … I assure you it is worth every last dime.
I’m always surprised, as a runner, how difficult Spin classes can be. My heartrate never gets where I’d like it to, but my quads sure do feel the burn. I always think of runners as having very strong legs, but I’m always knocked back a bit when I do a really hard spin workout or lots of lunges/legwork and then I’m sore the next day. It must be a different group of muscles at work. Either that or my body has just memorized how to run so efficiently that it really isn’t putting forward any muscle effort, muscle memory I guess. Or maybe I’m just making shit up! Who knows!?
Either way … After the elliptial and spinning I was HANGRY! I ran to the grocery store to get some french bread and green onions to go with dinner and headed home to get the rice going. When I walked in the house smelled soooo delicious! I ran over to the crockpot, lifted the lid, spooned up some beans and tasted them … and spat them out. They were hard as little rocks! Oh well, thank goodness for Plan B. I heated up the can of beans from my mother in law instead. You win some, you lose some.
I continued cooking my beans for an additional 6 hours and now they are delicious. We might just be having Red Beans and Rice two nights in a row. Would that be so bad?
Today is the last day of the Pledge to Be Veg challenge. I’ll discuss later where I’m going to go from here and review some of the meals I made in the last 30 days. But for now my little man is calling for his mommy :)
