Weekly Round Up: Now Everyone Wants Some

 

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I learned that everyone is really, really into one of my meal prep staples.

Last weekend I made up a batch of breakfast potatoes on a whim.  I've made them as a side for dinner before, and no one ever said boo about them but all of a sudden everybody wants some.  Stepson #2 had them for a snack the day that I made them, and on a night when the kids had dinner with their mom, hubs scarfed up the rest.  Don't worry I got to have several breakfasts of them before that happened.

This weekend I made another batch of breakfast potatoes, not on a whim.  Some of them went into breakfast burritos, a serving went into me for breakfast, and the rest are tucked away in the freezer.

My new recipe of the week was Toowoomba Pasta and I bet you won't be shocked when I tell you that the source is Cheap Lazy Vegan or that I got the idea because the video popped up in my YouTube feed.

I think there is a typo in the recipe because it says 100ml of coconut milk and 420ml of milk but in the video I'm sure that she used a full can and less milk than coconut milk - she certainly didn't use 4 times as much milk as coconut milk.  I took a guess and used a full can of Trader Joe's reduced fat coconut milk plus a full cup of milk and I've got no complaints with the end result.  Other things that I did differently: I couldn't find smoked tofu so I used non-smoked extra firm, I used more mushrooms, spinach instead of arugula, and as I've noticed before my definition of a serving of pasta is different than hers because there was lots more room in the pan so I used 8 oz of pasta (4 servings) instead of the recipe's "3 servings".  This one is a winner and I really don't hate that I got an extra serving out of it.  P.S. IMO it's not spicy and the flavors are perfect and oh yes it was very easy so this one is a keeper.

Workouts

I'm now halfway through Caroline Girvan's Iron Series and still loving it.  Here are some random notes:

• Last week I felt like I might have gotten a tad stronger and this week I feel like I definitely have some extra oomph.
  

• One thing that I like besides everything: the foot position that she uses for Bulgarian lunges.  I've always seen them done as shown on the left which IMO puts a lot of stress on the ankle and doesn't feel good so it's on my list of no-no's (I don't do things that make joints bend the wrong way).  She does them as shown on the right, with the foot sporting the leg which IMO is comfortable and lets me get deeper into the movement - I'm glad to learn that I'm not the only one on the planet who does them like this.
  

• One thing that I don't like: weighted hip thrusts.  I'll spare you a picture of my attempt to recreate this, but she puts a dumbbell on her pelvis which IMO is ungodly uncomfortable so I've put it on my no-no list.  I just do body weight hip thrusts and that's gonna have to be good enough.

• One thing that I can't do: pushups once I've done any other upper body strength move.  I can do pushups outside of a workout but not as part of a workout if that makes sense.  Anytime pushups come along I just substitute a different upper body exercise and then do pushups later in the day.  I feel like that's a better option than trying to do pushups on my knees, which honestly I don't feel does anything strength wise.

Watching 

I saw the first few seasons of Homeland a long time ago, and I kinda remember hearing at the time that it was based on another show.  Well, those rumors are true.  Hatufim (Prisoners of War) is the source material.  Three soldiers were held as prisoners of war for 17 years, and when the show starts they've just been released and get to come home - two living and one dead.  One comes home to a loving wife and two AWFUL kids who grew up without him, one comes home to his then-girlfriend-now-brother's-wife, and the third man's sister is having a hard time accepting that he's gone.  When the men are interviewed their stories don't line up and everyone says hmmm.  So yes it's is a bit different than Homeland but what the two shows have in common is me sitting on the edge of my chair trying to figure out what's happening next.

For date night the hubs and I saw The Lost City (recommendation from Life of a Doctor's Wife).  Sandra Bullock is a writer who feels that she's sold out as a romance novelist whose books are loosely based on a real legend.  Channing Tatum is the cover model for her books who thinks he's a real life hero.  Daniel Radcliff is the deranged billionaire who has found the real lost city and thinks that Sandra can take him to the lost treasure...and a series of hilarious events ensure.

#1 It's fun and silly.

#2 It's on Amazon Prime.

#3 I knew that Sandra Bullock is older than me and Channing Tatum is younger than me but I didn't realize how much in both directions.  Yay for age gap romances with older women and let's have more of that please.

Reading

I finished The Big Sleep and I've got my hands on the annotated edition.  I'm looking forward to flipping through it and seeing what other gems from this story that I can pick up on.  I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this one.