Weekly Round Up: They All Laughed

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I explored pumpkin cuisine to the great amusement of my family.  The joke ended up being on them when I whipped up a delicious cake.

My husband detests pumpkin in every form.  Period end of sentence.

I like the occasional pumpkin goodie, but I'm very picky about it and also it's not the top priority in my life.  To my husband's point, there is a lot of pumpkin hype that all too often turns out to be that someone added a smear of pumpkin and a ton of cinnamon to something.  Case in point: all pumpkin beers with the exception of Southern Tier's Pumpking Ale.

However I've been working up a pumpkin craving for a while and this week I finally scratched my itch.  My household consumed NEARLY ONE ENTIRE 15 OZ CAN OF PUMPKIN PUREE and when I say "household" I mean that 87% of it was eaten by yours truly.  Here's how it went down:

It all started when Jenny wrote about a pumpkin pasta that she'd made and my first thought was "I'll have what she's having".   Seriously, click the link and drool: dreamy pasta in a creamy orange sauce, a crisp green salad, and a luscious slice of garlic bread.  I was serious enough about it to get a can of pumpkin puree and then forgot all about it.  Meanwhile every food blog in the world posted a pumpkin pasta recipe.

Finally this week From My Bowl's Creamy Vodka Pumpkin Sauce got my attention and I got down to business.  It was on a night when the kids had a late afternoon activity, so I started cooking before they got home so that I would be done with the kitchen by the time they got dinner together.  The hubs asked what I was making and was predictably horrified.

When the boys got home they rushed into the kitchen and wanted to see the strange and bizarre phenomenon that their dad had described to them in the car.  Stepson #2 got as far as saying that he'd be interested in trying it but passed when I offered him a taste.  I forget what they had for dinner that night, but I joined them with my dream plate of pasta, salad, and bread.

I only made half of the recipe since I wanted "some" but not "a ton", and observant eyes will notice that I failed in the "creamy" part of the recipe.  Presumably I cooked the sauce down too much so it's more on the chunky side.  But still, it was very good and exactly what I wanted. 

That left me with half a can of pumpkin puree to do "something" with.  In the meantime every food blog in the world moved on to posting pumpkin cake recipes and I had my answer.  Again, I wanted "some" but not "a ton" so I turned to my favorite source for small batch recipes and made a small pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.  That used up most of the rest of the can of the pumpkin.

The hubs was again horrified but the boys were drawn to the kitchen like a magnet.  I told them "no one HAS to eat pumpkin cake but if anyone WANTS to eat pumpkin cake they can have a piece".  They took me up on the offer.

All kidding aside, this was very easy to make and +++delicious so if you're in the market for a small pumpkin cake, I recommend whipping this up.  The recipe is designed for a 6" cake pan, which I do not have, but the internets told me that a 4x8 loaf pan is the equivalent so that's what I used and got six decent sized pieces out of it.  Spoiler: if you'd like a preview of my upcoming dessert plans, I'm most likely going to be making more tiny cakes.

Workouts

All good things must come to an end, and I finished the Iron series this week.  Current bullet points:

• Yes I absolutely positively recommend it.  It's hard but not too hard, the workout format keeps me engaged, and it's very easy to modify the moves to make them harder or easier depending on your individual fitness level.
  
• Biggest improvement: renegade rows.
• Biggest boo-yah: on the final full body workout, I found myself reaching for 20# dumbbells for the first time in a long time for chest press and dead lifts.  When I started the series I was mostly using 8# and 10# dumbbells.  At this point I still use 5# for most shoulder exercises and biceps, and on the heavy side I occasionally bring in my 25# kettle bell for squats.
• Biggest "duh that's obvious but I'll say it anyway": more isn't always more.  While I *can* use 15# dumbbells for lunges, I've found that if I use 10# that I can put more effort into getting deeper into the lunge instead of just reacting to gravity.
  
• My new toy: this 5 minute push up workout.  Circling back to what I said about not being able to do pushups within a workout, I've started doing as many pushups as I can and then dropping to knee pushups to complete the set.  I think that if I drill this workout a few times a week instead of just trying to remember to do pushups outside of workout time that I'll improve.
  

• Interest in cardio beyond the 15-20 minutes of incline power walking that I do after strength workouts: zero.  When I started my plan was to build the walking time up to 30 minutes and now I'm just like "nah".
  
• Interest in running: very low but not quite zero.  My right knee has been a bit tweaky for the past week and if it continues I might bring in some short runs because I think that will help.  IMO running is gold for keeping knees happy.
  

Next up: I have a very hard fitness challenge for the week ahead, so hard that I'm writing it here for accountability.  I am going to take three days off!  No weights and no treadmill on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  I've heard that you're supposed to take deload weeks from lifting to keep things fresh, the exact same concept as cutback weeks in running.  The internets is divided on whether you're supposed to not workout at all or just lift lighter weights, so Ima split the difference by making it less than a week but taking it totally off just to give myself a little recharge.

Watching

Another 80's movie that I feel that everyone saw back in the 80's except me...Big.

What I was expecting: a cheesy cringy mess

What I got: an excellent movie.

I think that it matters where you are in your life when you see something, so I'm happy that I didn't see this movie until now.  Back when it came out I was a 13 year old girl who wouldn't have been able to relate to a 13 year old boy.  In the recent years I've had two 13 year old boys living in my house, so there's a little bit more of a connection.  In particular, if stepson #1 totally could have made the transition from a 13 year old to a [however-old-Tom-Hanks-is-supposed-to-be] year old without skipping a beat.

Reading

Last week I was pretty sure that Stay Awake by Megan Goldin was going to be a way better than average little thriller and now that I've finished it I can officially confirm and recommend that you pick it up and check it out for yourself.

There is a nit that I need to pick however and I'll say as much as I can without spoilers.  Once I'd finished and processed everything I realized that (1) um the murder plot was quite elaborate considering the reason behind it and (2) the book doesn't really give us the killer's motive for the first murder besides that the victim did them wrong.  I mean, no one wants [whatever the first victim did to the murderer] but just sayin that most of us get over it and move on with life instead of going to all of that trouble. 

The murder setup kind of reminded me of an Agatha Christie novel where the killer wants to kill someone but doesn't want to get caught so they kill someone else who they have no reason to kill and once the police start investigating they then kill the person that they wanted to kill all along and make it look like it's connected to the first murder so that everyone investigates the fake setup until Miss Marple comes along figures it out.  But hey I love my Agatha Christie and now I love my Megan Goldin so it's all good.

That's all for this week!