Lemongrass ice cream

I just had to share this recipe with you guys because it was so wonderfully delicious! CP and I were making Vietnamese food this weekend anyway and we had leftover lemongrass (recipe found on allrecipes.com).

Lemongrass Ice Cream

Ingredients

2 cups light cream
1 1/2 cups fat free sweetened condensed milk
3 stalks chopped lemon grass
2 egg yolks

Directions

Heat cream, condensed milk, lemon grass in a saucepan over medium heat until mixture steams. Remove from heat before the mixture boils and allow to steep for at least 30 minutes, up to 1 hour and 30 minutes. (Note: I steeped the mixture for 1 hour)

Reheat the cream mixture over medium heat until it begins to steam. Whisk egg yolks in a small bowl. Temper the egg yolks by pouring a small amount of the hot mixture in while whisking constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs. Pour the warm egg mixture into the cream mixture. Continue to cook and stir until the mixture is able to coat the back of a spoon. Strain mixture through a sieve to remove the bits of lemon grass. Refrigerate until cold.

Pour the chilled mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's directions until it reaches "soft-serve" consistency. Transfer ice cream to a one- or two-quart lidded plastic container; cover surface with plastic wrap and seal. For best results, ice cream should ripen in the freezer for at least 2 hours or overnight.

The result? Absolutely AMAZING. The ice cream is super creamy and the flavor is fantastic. I can't wait to have another bite for dessert tonight!!

No expectations

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been talking too much about getting pregnant recently. I throw it into a post or two when talking about the future, but there are only so many ways to say we failed yet again. And I guess when/if it happens it is just going to be more of a surprise, instead of being expected.

I continue to chart so that I can show my doctor what is going on. But my mind is not completely focused on I MUST GET PREGNANT. I can’t change the fact that it hasn’t happened yet. I’m not sure that we will be able to change if it happens in the future. I’ll discuss our options at my doctor’s appointment next month.

This isn’t meant to be a downer of a post. I am intentionally focusing on other things. Training for the 10K. Eating healthy. Continuing to grow the friendships I have made with ladies from my town. Cursing the sky for dumping so much snow on CT this year (ha!). If I don’t focus on these other things then I might go crazy.

Despite the fact that I am not pregnant, I am happy. I still get to drink wine, eat soft cheeses, drink caffeine and run to my heart’s content. And while I wish that things were different, I am enjoying my life as it is right now.

Blood drive

Last night I headed to a blood drive to donate my blood. Not only is a great way to lose a pound (too bad it comes back), but my blood could help save a life! Hopefully I never need someone else's blood, but you never know.

Because of the snow/ bad weather, the Red Cross is having problems getting enough donations this winter. There were a few of us in the room that were donating after work, but I was hoping to see more people.

In law school I always used to try to get classmates to sign up for blood drives…the number one reason people said they didn’t sign up was because they were afraid of needles. I’ll admit, I’m not a HUGE fan of needles, but giving blood doesn’t bother me. Maybe it is because my mom used to take me and my sister to blood drives? Seeing her eat red meat before appointments (she is borderline anemic and sometimes is turned away because she doesn’t have enough iron in her system) and then calmly give blood was just something she did. So to me it is perfectly natural to sit down and have people take blood out of my body.

So as soon as I was old enough to give blood in high school, I signed up. I haven’t always made the smartest choices after giving blood. One blood drive in high school was a few hours before a track meet. I almost passed out after my 200 meter race. Whoops! Nowadays, I give blood and then I wait 12 hours to exercise. :-)

As usual, last night I “competed” against the other donors to make sure that I filled my bag the fastest. Even faster than some people that started before me! Go me?!? My competitive streak is a sickness, a sickness I tell you. I mean, who “competes” to bleed faster than other people in the room???? (The person helping me said that if you drink a lot of water, you donate faster. I do drink a lot of water….)

Do you give blood?

Upcoming races

I’ve made my decision and I have even posted my intention on Facebook for all to see (and keep me accountable). I will be running in a quarter-marathon (6.55 miles) on April 2nd! :-)

Last week was my first week to train for the race and it went well (week #3 on the schedule). I will be using the Galloway method, which means taking short walk breaks on the long runs in order to recover faster. Has anyone used this method before? If so, what did you think of it?

So my training schedule is here. I will most likely be moving my off day to Friday and my long runs to Saturday. I worry that if I don’t get some of the longer runs out of the way on Saturday, I will put them off and end up not doing them. Plus the race is on a Saturday.

I’m pretty excited about the race because it is going to be at the reservoir where I was running in the fall. I know the “course” and will be able to practice on it almost every weekend. As long as it is warm enough and not raining out, I will be out there. And when I have enough daylight to run there during the week I am going to do that too.

I'm hoping that by actually TRAINING for this race, I will beat my previous 10K time of 80:08- even though the distance of this race is a little longer. That time is from 2008 when I ran/walked the Bolder Boulder (for those of you in CO, I would highly recommend this race- people line the streets and you finish in the CU stadium). I will be in better shape this time and out of the altitude, so I should run a faster race.

In other race news, I’m thinking about signing up for the Tackle the Tower stair climb. Have any of you ever done a stair climb before? It’s kind of fun. I first did one when I was living in Chicago. The Hustle up the Hancock was a stair race up the 94 floors of the John Hancock building (there is also a race up the Sears Tower). You would think that the race would be awful, but it’s a great workout- I did the race in 19 minutes! This building is shorter which means a faster (and easier) race, but I am hoping to recruit a few people from work to do it with me. If you have a stair climb in your area I would highly recommend doing it!

My only worry is that the stair climb is a week before the 10K. Do you think this will be a problem? I’m supposed to run 4 miles the weekend before the 10K so should I do the race and then try to run afterwards? Help!

The good and the bad

Good: I had a great workout on the treadmill before leaving for NH on Saturday morning. I felt strong while running which doesn’t always happen.

Bad: I might have done something to my left hamstring after the run. When heading up stairs all weekend I kept feeling something funny back there. Time to stretch!

Good: Overseas friends’ first birthday party for their daughter. It was interesting hearing stories about their time so far in Guyana. It is the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere (Haiti is #1), so they said that living there is pretty difficult. They were VERY happy to be back in the US for a long visit. We got to meet their daughter, who just turned one. She was a little wary of all of the new people, but was pretty darn cute. We also got to hang out with a bunch of NH folks and their kids. It’s nice when we can all get together. We got to meet a new girlfriend who was really nice and seemed to fit in well. And another guy recently lost 40 pounds after a health scare so he is looking much better.

Bad: We left Fuzzy Britches in the car because we didn’t have time to drop her off at CP’s mom’s house before we saw friends (don’t worry- she is well equipped to handle the cold weather). Unfortunately, she maybe ate too much snow when playing outside or something because when we got in the car, she looked sheepish and there was diarrhea in the back seat of my car. EWWWWW. The stench was awful. Luckily I had seat covers down on the seat, but not on the back of the seats. So I cleaned it up the best that I could with paper towels and then used a steam cleaner yesterday. Needless to say, I am looking into getting my seats professionally cleaned because it was NASTY. Thanks FB!

Good: We went candlepin bowling and I beat CP in both games. YAY! (I really need to get a handle on my competitive streak.)

Bad: Although I beat CP both games, I came in second overall in both games. Booo.

Good: I think that my employer FINALLY figured out my promotion/raise because my paycheck today is right around what it should be with the raise. Now to see about getting back pay for the two weeks that they messed up…..

Bad: Nothing. We really needed the money from this raise! Especially because CP’s mortgage company out west hasn’t called him back regarding the two different notes and what they are going to do. And because we got an email from our renters out west and they have decided to start looking for a place to buy. They don’t want to buy CP’s place, so we are going to have to find new renters in a few months. THIS IS NOT WHAT WE NEED RIGHT NOW. Ugh.

Good: The Packers beat the Bears! Despite the fact that I am from Chicago, I HATE Jay Cutler. Plus it makes the Eagles look better that they were beaten by a team that made the Superbowl.

Bad: That the rapist-led Steelers won over the Jets. I hate the Jets too, but I REALLY hate the Steelers. So, GO PACKERS!!

What was your good and bad this weekend? Who will you be rooting for in the Superbowl?

Almost the weekend

Wow I feel like I haven’t been at work all week. Monday was a holiday, Tuesday we had a snow/ice closing, Wednesday I worked from home as usual and then today we had a two hour delay because of the new snowstorm that just came through. I definitely can’t complain- except about all of the snow shoveling. That, I am not quite a fan of. At least it is good exercise!

Tonight CP and I will be making shrimp, eggplant and mushroom stir fry for dinner. The best part is that we grew the mushrooms ourselves! For Christmas I found a mushroom growing kit through Gardener’s Supply and gave to CP as one of his presents. Since we can’t grow any other veggies during the winter and our perennial herbs don’t do too much, I thought that the kit would be fun. It promises a couple of large crops and last night we picked our first batch!

Can't get much fresher than that!

Even after picking a bunch we have more growing!

Tomorrow we are headed up to NH to see our friends that are visiting from Guyana. CP and I would LOVE to visit them down there as they are only stationed there for a year or two, but based on our money situation, I don’t think that it is going to be possible. But it will be great to see them and I can’t wait to hear all of their interesting stories!

I have then been promised a trip to the candlepin bowling alley. I think that CP truly believes that he is going to be able to beat me (he grew up on candlepin bowling), but I’m going to try my best to embarrass him. :-)

Do you have anything exciting planned for this weekend?

Amazon.com deal

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I'm kind of in a funk right now. I don't know if it's the rain outside or what, but I have major writer's block. Boooooo.

Looong weekend

It's currently snowing/freezing rain here so I am enjoying my FOUR day weekend because yesterday was a holiday for me. Yay! I had a great long weekend because J flew up from DC! It was great to show her around our house and town- she last visited us when we lived out west, but I told her not to visit when we lived in bumble MA because there was nothing to do. Now that we live closer to civilization it making having guests so much easier. :-)

On Saturday night we headed to a wine bar and small plates restaurant. While we snacked on a cheese plate, we were able to order quarter, half or full glasses of various wines (a machine pours the glasses). Most of these wines you would only find sold by the bottle at restaurants, so it was nice to get to taste a few different wines between the three of us. For the most part they were all delicious (CP had one Pinot Noir that tasted like a Cab- eww). My favorite red wine of the night was the 2007 Liberty School Cuvee. I had never heard of it before, but if you like Pinot Noirs you will LOVE this wine.

I can definitely see taking our parents to this place- if you are not careful you could spend a lot of money on wine though!

Fuzzy Britches was excited to sleep in the downstairs guest bedroom. Once again she completely ignored us when it was time to go to bed and instead plopped herself in front of the guest bed and slept there all night. WE are just too boring for her when we have guests. :-)

In other news, there is a quarter marathon (6.55 miles) happening in my town in the beginning of April. I am going to wait to sign up for it until it gets closer to the event because I obviously won't run it if I get pregnant, but it should be a fun race to run! I checked out a training scheduled for a 10K race (close enough) and I should have just enough time to prepare since I already have a 5K base. Yay!

What are you looking forward to?

Bullets

We are trying to dig out of 20+ inches of snow right now, so all I have are bullets!

*Yesterday I was out sick from work because I woke up at 6:30am with a splitting headache. I took two Extra Strength Tylenol and went back to bed, thinking that my headache would get better by the time my alarm went off at 7am. Nope. I wanted to cry my head hurt so much. After calling out of work, I took a Tylenol PM and half slept/half wanted to shoot my brains out because of the pain until noon. NOON! I finally got out of bed, but the headache continued until 4PM. It was awful. I hope that never happens to me again.

*CP received paperwork from his mortgage company regarding his home equity mortgage. The mortgage company sent a 30 yr fixed rate note signed on March 15. March 15 was also the closing date on his condo. The mortgage company ALSO included a noted signed on March 17- that is the 5 yr balloon payment that CP doesn't remember signing. It has been 5 years so he can't remember if he had to sign papers two days after the closing, but WTF??? The whole thing is soooo sketchy. Meanwhile, they want him to apply for a new loan at 10% APR. That's higher than his current crappy rate, and while I understand that at this point it is an investment property and not our primary residence, that is RIDONKULOUS.

*Meanwhile remember that promotion I got right before Christmas? Well, I was surprised when my paycheck was only about $100 more once my promotion kicked in. Well it turns out that HR told my boss that my promotion was approved, but didn't change my title and screwed up my raise. So now I have to deal with that. Fingers crossed it gets fixed soon because we need the money!!!

Can someone tell 2011 that I would like this year to get better? NOW???

Weekend WINs and FAILs

This weekend we had a couple of wins and a couple of fails.

WIN- We found not-too-expensive curtains at Crate and Barrel, bought them, and installed them in our living room and dining room. The previous homeowner left the curtain rods and brackets so we saved money by not buying new ones.

Our new curtains.

FAIL- While we were at Bed, Bath and Beyond getting curtain tie backs, I noticed a contraption called the “Flush Right.” Once installed, you could either flush the top button (if you went #1 and didn’t need much water) or the bottom button (if you went #2 and needed a regular flush). Fantastic! CP and I already try to conserve water in our house by not flushing every time we pee. It may sound weird, but we just don’t flush if we go #1 (only if we have houseguests). Why waste water if we don’t have to?




So while CP was installing our kayak hangers in the garage, I tackled the Flush Right install. The box did say that if you could change a light bulb, you can install the product. And I did! I am not handy in any way, shape or form but I was able to install the product. The only problem? It doesn’t work because our flush valve (ahhh the terms you learn) is too close to the control button that you put on the inside of the toilet. They are mashed together so the flush value can’t go up and down like it is supposed to. So this was not a fail on the product’s part- if we had different toilets I would totally install the product. This is a fail on our toilet’s part. But I would totally recommend this product to anyone that wanted to save water (and money)!


WIN- Also while we were at Bed, Bath and Beyond I saw a product called “Miracle Hand Repair.”



It’s fairly early into winter here in CT and my hands are killing me. Especially on my right hand, I have cracks on all of my knuckles. It hurts to make a fist, the dryness and cracks get caught on clothes when I am putting them on (GROSS!), and it just looks disgusting. So here’s hoping this product works. It’s a WIN so far as my hands are at least not as dry…..

FAIL- The Eagles comeback yesterday against the Packers. I started to get a stomachache part of the way through the 3rd quarter because of the stress. With only a few minutes left in the game I started pacing, completely confusing Fuzzy Britches. In the end, the Eagles got lucky too many times this season and were due a loss. We will be back next year though- older, wiser and hopefully better!

I was joking with a friend that my fertility has surely been hampered by the stress of the down-to-the-last-minute Eagles games. Now that their season is over, I'm sure to get pregnant! (HA)

Did you have any WINs or FAILs this weekend? What do you use on your hands to keep them from cracking?


Note: Just my opinion on these products. I was not paid nor asked to do a review of them.

2010 running

I love my Nike+ sensor for many reasons. Whenever I am running I am able to press a button and find out my pace, distance, and time. But the Nike+ website has a great feature too- it gives me my totals for the year. Here's what I found after logging in today:

2009- I ran a total of 117 miles.
2010- 108 miles.

2009- I ran 3 miles per week.
2010- 3 miles per week.

2009- My average pace was 13:03/mile.
2010- 13:12/mile
(I'm guessing this is because I don't pause my workout when I walk. And sometimes I turn it on when I am just out for a walk so that I know the distance. I try to stay around 10:30-11:00/mile when running.)

2009- 13,934 calories burned
2010- 16,058 calories burned

In 2010 my best month was November when I ran 21 miles.

Clearly I have some months where I run 2-3 times a week, and then I have other months where I don't run at all. I hope to be more consistent this year.

I have already made it a goal to run 30 times by 2/23. Since I made that goal last month I have run 11 times, with only 19 more to go.

I'm not making any resolutions, but boy do I hope to blow these numbers out of the water this year! That is, unless I get pregnant....

2011 mess

We currently have quite a mess on our hands right now. Yesterday CP got a letter from his mortgage company for the condo that we still have out west (that we are currently renting out). It said that his home equity loan (i.e. second mortgage) is maturing in March and that we owe $24,000.

Ummmm WHAT???!???!!

CP called customer service and they seem to think that he got a 5 year home equity loan with 95% of the loan due in a lump sum payment in two months. Meanwhile, we tore through all of CP’s closing documents- and found a note for a 30 year fixed rate loan……but it is not signed. It does have his account number on there, but still not signed.

*Bash head on table. Repeatedly.*

All of the mortgage companies are so busy with foreclosures and modifications that this could turn out to be quite a mess. We don’t have $24,000. We won’t have $24,000 in two months. I am at a complete loss. CP NEVER agreed to a balloon payment.

His mortgage company is sending us the paperwork that they have. We are trying to contact the Title Company to get the signed paperwork that CP was supposed to get 5 years ago.

This is not how I wanted to start 2011.

Favorite gifts

Did you receive everything that you wanted over the holidays? I was pretty excited about Christmas myself. I thought that I gave some really good gifts too.

The joint gift that I am most excited about is our new composter. Every time we throw away vegetable scraps, fruit rinds or coffee grounds, I feel awful. But now, thanks to my parents, we can start composting again!

You know you are old when you are excited about

getting a composter for Christmas.....

I know that you are not supposed to buy yourself things over the holidays, but the day after Christmas we went to REI. When my sister lived in LA, she left a big North Face jacket in Chicago. I figured that she didn’t need it in LA, so I ended up taking it out West, then to MA and then moving it down with us to CT. I had been wearing this winter until she visited. Not that she lives in Chicago again, it was only fair to give her the comfy, warm jacket back. So when I saw the North Face Atlantic jacket at REI? I knew that it would be a great (albeit expensive) replacement.

Ahhhh warmth

But the best gift that I received over Christmas is a Bodybugg from CP. Yep, I have the device that contestants use on the Biggest Loser to track how many calories they have burned and the number of steps they have taken in a day.

As soon as I opened it I joked with CP, “Are you saying that I need to lose weight?” Ha. Of course I do. The smart man kept his mouth shut.

So far it has been great. I wear it everywhere- even to sleep. I forget that it is on my arm most of the time. When I am at the gym I push myself even harder than usual and work out longer so that I have the satisfaction of seeing how many calories I have burned once I plug the system into our computer. In addition, the program has an extensive list of food items so I add my food intake into the program to make sure that I hit my calorie deficit for the day.

I am hoping that the Bodybugg helps me lose the weight that I lost for the wedding and have since put back on again. Must. Stick. With. This. Program.

What was your favorite gift from the holidays?


*Note: I was not asked to talk about these products nor compensated from any of these companies.

Holiday wrap-up

Happy 2011! Did everyone have a good New Years Eve? I might as well wrap up the last week or so since I haven’t been around.

Christmas was great. My parents and sister flew out from Chicago to check out our new house. We showed them around our town, took a walk in the cold at our local park, played Cribbage and Scattergories, and ate a lot of CP’s yummy food. We also went duckpin bowling, which is like regular bowling but with shorter pins, a smaller ball, and you get three tries every frame instead of two. I won both games!

Duckpin bowling

Fuzzy Britches was SO EXCITED to have houseguests. They brought treats to put in her stocking and all three of them tried their best to fatten her up while they were in town. She basically ignored CP and me the entire time, even sleeping with my parents in the guest bedroom every night.

The only frustrating thing was the fact that my Mom can’t slow down. I understand when she is home in Chicago- my father doesn’t exactly help cook, do the dishes, or even clean that much. And my sister has enough trouble keeping her tiny one bedroom apartment clean so it’s not like she is going to help when she is over at my parent’s place. But my Mom was on vacation. And I know that she is Superwoman, but RELAX WOMAN. Let me do the dishes. Stop asking to help me make the bread, or asking CP to help make whatever dish he is working on. Go read a book. Watch tv. Or just sit and talk to us while we work.

I mean, I think that it’s great that my Mom can’t slow down. Better than a lazy Mom. But when she would help with dishes or do other household things....I felt as if she thought I wasn’t doing it correctly so she needed to do it. I know that was not her intention at all, but at times I just wanted her to SIT DOWN. But that being my only frustration meant that it was a great long weekend until they left on Tuesday.

I then had one day of work (Weds), then used a Groupon for a 90 minute deep tissue massage. Ahhhhhh.

I took Thursday off of work so that I didn’t have to head into the office at all last week. Instead I took Fuzzy Britches to a vet appointment where she had to have a lump checked out. We are crossing our fingers that it is just fatty tissue and not cancer….she isn’t exhibiting any signs of being sick but we wanted to get it checked out anyways. Hopefully we hear back soon.

The vet also advised us that FB probably has a sprained front leg from when she fell in the drain right before Thanksgiving. She is not allowed to go on any walks or runs for at least a week in hopes that it gets better. Poor girl. She has been a little bonkers (even at 7 years old!), so hopefully the rest of this week will go by quickly for her.

Our too-big-for-our-living-room Christmas tree is out of the house. The holiday decorations have been put away. All of our thank you notes have been written. And the Eagles are in the playoffs (although seeded #3)!

Anything exciting happen in your world?