March 25, 2006

• Schedules and Swiss Chard

  Some girls like to indulge by painting their nails, shopping, and going to the spa. I hate the feel of nail polish crudding up my hands, I equate shopping with a trip to the dentist, and spas irritate me (massages in particular make me feel like a tortured piece of chicken pillard). So what’s a girl like me to do to splurge? Give me a clean schedule to write a blog, scribble in my journal, work on my fiction, and read a good book (and if the weather is nice to take a cool dip in the lake or a nice bike ride) and I am a happy, indulged woman. Getting my schedule clean is the hard part. The following outlines my activities this past week.

  Monday: Worked a pleasant 9-5. Exercised. Rehearsed for Wednesday Presentation.
  Tuesday: Got my vote on. Worked ten hours.
  Wednesday: Rocked a presentation at the Conference on College Composition and Communication called Passing the Pen: Introducing Students to the Not-So-Secret Community of Writers that I co-wrote. Our presentation expounded upon the chapter that I co-authored for a book on Writing Center practicum, scheduled for release this summer. Life-Changing. Perfect. Exhausting. Celebratory pizza/beer outing at Piece with Shaun afterwards.
  Thursday: Exercised. Worked 13 hours. Cooked and devoured a new hillbilly-inspired recipe for Trout Hash.
  Friday: Exercised. Worked a pleasant 9-5. Cooked a new recipe that has given me a new favorite food (see below for details). Watched Gilmore Girls on DVD while devouring dinner. Collapsed from the exhaustion of the week around 8:30 pm.
  Saturday: Sleep! Get bagels for breakfast! Blog! Read! Exercise? Work 4:00 pm-9:30ish.

  This week’s go-go-go schedule is indicative of most weeks for me lately, a fact that I hold accountable for my lack of “indulgence time.” I realized yesterday that I haven’t touched draft #2 of my short story in nearly a month. The book that I am in love with, The Known World only sees my affection on my train ride in to work. And I’m not complaining—lord knows that plenty of people are WAY busier than me and I have kept much busier schedules in the past, but more so I am realizing that the activities I care about most in this world—literature and writing—are not getting the attention they deserve. I have allowed a life for myself that they are very separate from most days. This week I was lucky enough to devote Wednesday to the world of writing with my presentation; the way Wednesday made me smile from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair made the absence of this feeling all the more plain to me once Thursday hit. This is obviously a larger question unfit for a blog, but it is churning in my mind. For now, I’ll just say that I am grateful for this weekend, for a chance to dust off my short story, update this little blog of mine, and finally polish off the remaining 70 pages of The Known World and get to the little stack of New Yorker’s I’ve been ignoring.

  Before I get to all that, I’ve got to share with you, my lovely reader, the recipe that I cooked up last night that is now one of my favorite foods. It’s so simple and super quick but yet it is so satisfying, especially if you are a freak like me who adores veggies.

  My New Favorite Tacos
  Adapted from this month’s issue of Eating Well Magazine

  1 12-oz bunch of Swiss Chard or Spinach or a Mix of both
  1 tbs of EVOO
  1 large red onion, sliced
  3 cloves of garlic, sliced
  A healthy amount of crushed red pepper flakes (I like 1 tbs, but the recipe calls for 1 tsp)
  1/2 cup chicken or veggie broth
  Pinch ‘o’ salt (I like to use sea salt)
  Your favorite tortillas (I like to use wheat ones, but what ever is your fancy)
  1 cup of queso fresco cheese or feta cheese or goat cheese
  Smoky Chipolte Salsa (The brand I like is called Frontera)

  1.) If you are using Swiss Chard, cut it up a bit.
  2.) Heat oil in a large skillet and add the onion until it is warmed up but firm; not slithery and gross and snake-like. Add garlic and crushed red pepper and stir around a bit until you can really smell the garlic—it should only be a minute or less.
  3.) Add broth, whatever greens you are using (Chard or Spinach) and pinch ‘o’ salt and cook, stirring, until the greens are wilted. This is 4 minutes tops.
  4.) Scoop that glorious green loveliness into your tortillas and sprinkle with whatever cheese you are using and a smokin’ spoonful of chipolte salsa. If you’ve got sour cream around you can add that too, but no worries if you don’t.
  5.) Eat it while it’s hot! MMMM!!!!! DELICIOUS!!!!!!!

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  What do you do to indulge yourself? Any new recipe’s making you smile as of late?

  • 12:14 pm
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