Track Meet Weekends

I love James and the 6 wonderful months we've been married. I would be lying if I didn't admit that one of the things that attracted me to him was that he was a Division 1 collegiate athlete. It was always a little bit of a let down when a guy wasn't as athletic as me, and I knew that wouldn't be a problem with guys that are college athletes. What I didn't realize was now I feel very nonathletic in comparison and when you date and marry an athlete you spend quite a few weekends without them and that they are usually VERY unproductive weekends.

This week James left Wednesday morning, so I had a long week ahead and it started out bad. Work as been very stressful because there is construction, shifting of where we do certain tests, upgrades in software that are not running smoothly and multiple not-so-happy people and I get to help in the solving all of these problems and to top it off I got a mild case of food poisoning  from my lunch on Wednesday. I haven't been sick in a while and it wasn't very fun being sick by yourself, although since I didn't really eat anything until Saturday it solved my dilemma of not having the motivation to cook when James is gone. However what saved my weekend was ultimately track. Earlier in the week I had decided to invite the wives of James's teammates over on Saturday. This would give me motivation to clean my house (which needed to be done) and cook a nice meal. Only two of them were able to make it, but we enjoyed our time together just chatting and that kept us from sitting on our couch all evening watching Food Network by ourselves. I made a gluten-free meal because of some of the wives and I was really pleased with the results. We had coconut pineapple curry, fresh fruit, cranberry lemonade, apple crisp and homemade ice cream.

I never ate curry growing up, apparently my dad didn't like it. About a year ago I had a roommate that LOVED curry and she wanted me to try it. Since she had many types she shared what her favorites were and they were really good. I think a lot of people don't like curry because they have had bad curry. I have had a couple curries since and I kind of made a mix of what I liked with each of them. I've made it a couple times and it's never been the same each time, that's what I get for not using a recipe or the same ingredients. This time I went to an Asian market and got a yellow curry paste but in the past I've just gone to a normal grocery store and picked up a mild red curry paste. If you are GF than you want to make sure there are no gluten products in the paste. My roommate liked vegetarian curry which usually uses potatoes which I love. I like meat and didn't want to give up the potatoes so I used both. I used 2-3 red potatoes, 2 B,S chicken thighs (you can use chicken breasts, I just like the flavor of thighs and then you don't have to worry about the chicken being dry because of the fat on chicken thighs), 1 onion, I like onion so I used a large one and 1 bell pepper. I saute the potatoes and chicken in some olive oil and Curry Paste, I wish I could tell you how much I used but all of the recipes I used for reference has the amount in grams and so I just guessed. Start with less then add more if needed after the chicken and potatoes have cooked some I add the onion and bell pepper for a few minutes and then add 1 can Coconut Milk (I always get whatever coconut milk is the cheapest and so it's always different, but I stay away from Lite because right now I don't really care about calories and I worry about it being thinner than regular) I simmer until the potatoes are soft. Then I had a 1/2 to 1 can of pineapple (chunks or tidbits depending on how large you want your pieces and how much pineapple you want) and serve over a bed of Jasmine rice(it's more expensive than plain white rice but it really makes a difference in texture and flavor).

I have been doing Community Coop (which is similar to bountiful baskets). Melanie told me about it and so far I've really liked it. Their standard box comes with 2 lbs Bacon, 2 lbs Chicken breast, 2 lbs of ground beef, a loaf of whole wheat bread, 5 vegetables and 5 fruit. So far I rotate between a Standard box and then a produce box which only has the fruits and vegetables. I have gotten apricots that I love to snack on, avocados, kiwi, honeydew, watermelon, strawberries and apples. So I served some fresh fruit with marshmallow creme and cream cheese fruit dip. And made this apple crisp with some homemade ice cream. It was a great way to end the night.

I love all of the opportunities James has running at BYU and his teammates and their families. It's so nice having such great friends that support each other.