Good Eats: Fall Banana Skillet

I can't remember where I first encountered this recipe (somewhere on the Internet) but it was probably around 4 years ago and I have to admit, I was skeptical. Besides banana bread, I'd never eaten hot bananas. (Since then, I've taken to putting 1/2 a banana and a scoop of peanut butter into my plain oatmeal. So good.) But, I had some leftover cooked sweet potatoes that needed to be eaten so I gave the recipe a try.

I told my great aunt Dorothy about this recipe and she, too, thought it sounded a little odd. So did my mom. I couldn't make believers out of them, seeing as how they must've shared some recessive anti-hot-banana gene, but I just cooked  this recipe for the second time for breakfast so at least I convinced myself. I didn't have the recipe in front if me but its such an easy concept even I could wing it. 

This dish is a quick, tasty, belly-warming breakfast when you have geriatric bananas on your counter and cooked orange fall vegetables. It's a good alternative for when I get tired of eating oatmeal every day. It might also be good stirred into oatmeal, other cooked grains, creamy polenta, or grits. I've used baked sweet potatoes and baked butternut squash leftovers, but pumpkin or another winter squash would probably work well, too.

Fall Banana Skillet

1. Make your pan non-sticky. Teflon, cooking spray, oil, butter--whatever you choose will work. I use a small skillet because I just make one serving. 

2. Heat up the pan to around medium while you peel your banana and slice it in half and lengthwise. 

3. Arrange banana and cooked sweet potato/orange squash in pan. I put the banana around the edges and fill the middle with sweet potato/squash. 

4. Let it cook, about two minutes per side. 

5. Season with anything from the pumpkin pie spice family, if you want. I don't think I used any spice last time but this time I used cinnamon and ginger because that's what's in my spice drawer. 

6. Eat. I like mine with some hot black tea, spiked with a scoop of Russian Tea mix. My mom makes us our Russian Tea mix, but it's basically instant lemon flavored sweet tea, Tang, sugar and some spices. 

Running Recap: Longer, Smarter, Faster

Total mileage this week: about six (Two miles on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday)

I feel pretty good about this week of running because I adapted. Sunday I was at the Lake with Tim's family but I ran anyway. Tuesday I felt worn down, achy, and generally off my game so I skipped my run. But instead of skipping it all together and the tempting thought of doing it a tomorrow that never comes, I ran Wednesday and Friday. I think my motivation has a lot to do with my COA goal of running 37 miles in September. I did skip a strength session, though. 

Longer: I didn't have a route mapped to go exactly 2 miles at the Lake on Sunday, so I just planned to go by time. I ran longer than I have since I started to try to make sure I got in a full 2 miles. 

Smarter: On my Wednesday afternoon run, I came up with an idea to support my community and promote the nonprofit that I work for. I love it when running sparks a creative solution to something. 

Faster: I ran my fastest two mile loop this morning without even trying. It was much cooler so that helped. I'm still slow but I'm getting quicker. 

Running Recap: Milestone Music

I started back running this week. My ultimate goal is to run a marathon in St. Louis in April 2014, but I'm going to take it slow and just try to hit little goals along the way.

Total mileage this week: 6 (2 miles on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday) It was really hot this week so I'm glad I didn't have a lot of miles to put in. I definitely started SLOW. Despite my turtle's pace, I still collapsed on the driveway for a bit when I got back from my run.

That first run back was super tough. My internal monologue alternated between a couple of "mantras" and an idea to motivate myself to keep running all the way home. One mantra that popped into my head while I was puffing up a long but not particularly steep incline was, "If my lungs can carry me, my legs can carry me." It can also work in the opposite, depending on which part of me is struggling. (It's usually my legs, though.) My other mantra is something I picked up from a Runner's World magazine. It's "You always have enough left to make it up the last hill." This helps mantra comes to me often when I'm struggling up the steep penultimate hill that is less than a half-mile from my house and finds its way into most any route I run from home.

While I was jogging my first two miles in a while and in between mantra-ing myself on a few more steps, I had an idea to mark each extra mile I pick up in my training. Milestone music. Every time I graduate to a mile longer run, (and actually run the whole way), I'll buy a favorite song from iTunes to add to my running playlist. (When I'm training, I like to set a playlist and keep it mostly the same all the way through. It's a comfortable routine for me. I'm not someone who likes to hit the "random" button and see what comes up.) I knew halfway through my first run, that if I made it home, I was going to buy Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" live at Budokan. (And yes, it had to be the live at the Budokan version.) Now, everytime I'm crossing the two mile threshold, I'll know it...whether I'm finishing my run or have 10 more miles to go.

An added benefit to this idea is that I get to mark progress in my pace as well. I always wear a stopwatch when I run, but I usually don't look at it too much. So even though I know when I get home if I ran a route faster or slower than the time before, I will also be able to tell based on my milestone song. In fact, on my third run this week, I never made it to Cheap Trick. I ran my two miles a whole song faster than I did on my first run. I get to move my two-milestone song up in the playlist order. That's a milestone in itself.

Good Eats: Watermelon Salad and Mustard-Bacon Potato Salad

One of my summer aims is to not let the CSA produce overtake me. Sometimes this is a tall order because my parents foist corn, tomatoes, and zucchini on me whenever I see them in addition to the regular CSA. Here are a couple of recipes I've made lately to use up the bounty.

Watermelon Cucumber Salad

Cut up about the same amount of watermelon and cucumber into small, bite-sized pieces. Add onions (and green peppers if you want.) Cut them up smaller than the watermelon pieces. The proportion between watermelon/cucumbers and onion/green pepper should be somewhere between 4:1 or 8:1. I don't know because I didn't measure anything. It's not science. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Dress with a 1:1 mixture of white wine vinegar and olive oil. 

Mustard-Bacon Potato Salad

Cut up new red potatoes and boil in salted water. Drain when fork-tender. Fry some bacon, cut into bite sizes pieces. Drain on a paper towel lined plate. Sauté onion and green pepper in bacon grease. Drain that. If there is a lot of grease left in the pan, pour it out until a little bit remains. Deglaze the pan with a generous pour of vinegar. Keep the heat low so it won't stink up your house like you're dying Easter eggs. Add some fancy mustard: grainy, honey, Dijon.  Add salt, pepper, sugar, curry powder and maybe a splash of olive oil to taste. Mix everything together. If the sauce seems too thin, like it isn't coating the potatoes enough, add more mustard. Best if served warm. 

Six Impossible Things before Breakfast

There is a nursery rhyme that you may not know. It isn't as popular as, say, "Hey, Diddle Diddle" or "Hickory Dickery Dock." In fact, there are no nonsensical word in it at all, which is the mark of a poor nursery rhyme, if you ask me. It goes a little like this (maybe not exactly like this, I'm relying on memory, not the infallible Google):

There was a little girl

Who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good,

She was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid.

As with all nursery rhymes, I'm not sure what the intended effect of this rhyme was supposed to be, but my 5-year-old self adopted it as a mantra. It seemed a perfectly sensible way to go about my business. I even tried--at least on one occasion--to fashion my hair after my imaginary life coach. I think this was after behaving horridly...why not go all in, right? My hair could mark me as someone not to be trifled with. 

All this backstory is to say that my weekday mornings seem to follow that little girl's pattern. I have plenty of mornings that are just "meh," but the high are very, very high and the lows are horrid. 

There is another story about a fictional girl that might provide a better model for my mornings. In Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen advises Alice to try to believe "six impossible things before breakfast." 

Here is my list so far:

1. I can make the day longer. I've been getting up at least a minute earlier every day for awhile now. I've added 37 minutes to my day so far. 

2. I can read and write during my commute. I've been composing bad commuter poetry to post to my Tumblr using the voice recorder function on my phone. Also I'm working my way through my library's collection of Agatha Christie audiobooks.

3. I can be stronger than I was yesterday.  I have some back and core exercises that my AR therapist gave me to help with a "bulging disc" in my lower back. I have a hard time remembering to do these, especially once the pain subsides. With all those extra minutes, I can squeeze my strengthening exercises in during the morning. 

4. I can run a marathon. Woof, I have a long way to go to get there. The aforementioned derailed my training program, but get there I will. My new training will start the morning of the 24th. 

5. I can survive without coffee. Double woof. Actually, I usually switch to tea (black, green, and eventually herbal) in the winter. I'm starting the switch tomorrow instead of November or December because I ran out of coffee grounds and don't want to buy more. 

I haven't decided what my sixth impossible thing to believe will be. Should it be something to inspire concrete action? Should it be something that will motivate me? Should it be something to generate positive self-talk? ShouldI start wearing my hair like the White Queen?

What about you? What impossible thing do you believe to have a very, very good morning?