November 2010 – Yellowswirl

I’ve officially got only 11 weeks to go in my marathon training, and I am officially freaking out. I was training pretty good until the week before Thanksgiving. Yes, I blame it on that. We went out of town and then came home with the sniffles and the wheezers and the snotties. Of course I couldn’t run, because I felt a little bad. And I had to take care of the family. Mommy’s the anchor, you know.

Honestly, I really couldn’t breathe, I could barely talk, I went through at least 6 boxes of tissue, and 3 bottles of NyQuil.

I’ll use any excuse to get out of the 17-miler I’m supposed to do. It’s pretty intimidating. The longest I’ve ever run is 13.1 miles. I know, 17 is only 4 more than 13, but I’m a scaredy cat.

Meow.

I love me some red beans and rice and it’s taken me a little while to come up with a pretty yummy recipe (I can NEVER follow a recipe, but have to make it somehow my own.)

only one problem….

My beans are never soft enough. There are always a handful that are still crunchy in the middle and I think that totally messes up a good batch of beans and rice. Anyway, for this meal, I soaked them overnight (20 hours to be precise) then simmered them for 3 hours, and the little buggers were still crunchy. So I had the brilliant idea to throw them in the pressure cooker….for 7 min, then for 11min, then finally for 7 more minutes.

There was no rhyme or reason to my selection of time, I just didn’t want them to turn to mush. But the little bastards were still a little crunchy. I had to serve it, because we were all so hungry I thought we might turn into monsters if we didn’t eat. And by we, I really mean me.

Next time I think I might just buy canned…..