I want to eat this every day

And I would, too, if it wouldn't inspire mutiny (like the sweet potato incident of a few years ago). These recipes were snagged from a couple of blogs and tweaked to suit my evil purposes (lazy shopping and a fear of fermentation).

Fusion Tacos

Corn tortillas, warmed
Avocado, sliced
Lettuce, shredded
1-8oz pkg tempeh, steamed for 10 minutes, then sliced
2 scallions, cut into pieces the size of the tempeh slices

Lazy Ersatz Kimchi

1 lb pkg shredded cabbage (or cole slaw mix)
1 T Kosher salt

3 T cider vinegar
1.5 T chili paste with garlic
1 T chili powder (I make my own, recipe below)
1/2 T minced fresh ginger (I keep mine frozen and use a microplane)
2 scallions, sliced diagonally, including the green part

Salt the cabbage, then weight it down in a colander and set to drain for an hour or so. Mix the other ingredients together. Take handfuls of the cabbage, squeeze the cabbage dry, and add it to the sauce. Toss together. You can eat this right away, or put it into a container and let it ferment at room temperature for a day. It keeps in the fridge for quite awhile.

Chili powder

3 dried New Mexico red chilis
3 dried ancho chilis
3 dried chipotle chilis
3 dried arbol chilis
2 T whole cumin seeds
1 T whole coriander seeds
1 T oregano
1 T dried onion
1 t smoked paprika
1 t garlic powder

Tear chilies into small pieces. If you're afraid of heat, you're probably not making your own chili powder anyway, leave out the seeds. Put everything into a food processor and turn the thing on. Let it go until the mixture is as fine as you want it. I leave mine a little coarse. Be careful when you open the food processor - let the dust settle and don't breathe in.

Barbecue sauce

2 T chili paste with garlic
3 T turbinado sugar
2 T soy sauce
2 t sesame oil
1 t rice vinegar
1/2 t liquid smoke

Shake all ingredients in a small jar.

Stir fry the tempeh in a little oil until browned. Add the scallions and cook until wilted and a little blackened. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the sauce over the tempeh, stirring until it thickens and everything is well coated.

Make tacos! Eat them! (try not to eat them all) This amount of tempeh makes enough for two in my house, but I double it (and the sauce) when both boys are eating.

Dog school

Blue's first time at obedience was last night. The class has everything from a weirdly-groomed toy poodle to a grey and black harlequin Great Dane. Blue was the biggest dog until Moose lumbered in. He is a BIG DOG. Wow. Probably outweighs both of his humans and is all feet. Class went pretty well. Blue manages to pay attention much better when we're not outside. Our homework this week is to work on sit, stand and down. The sheet also has aspirations towards heel, but I'm not very optimistic about that one. I'll happily settle for no pulling on leash.

Blue and Dusty get along pretty well. There was communal napping this weekend while TODL and I read the paper. There was also a brief and scary dog fight over a ball that Dusty was really uninterested in and Blue was entirely too possessive of (love those dangling prepositions, don't you?).

As luck would have it

I have a couple of extra pix to post. This pic was taken after seeing The Runaways with TODL last weekend. We haven't been having typical March/April weather here in Minnesota. It's been warm, sunny and in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Weird. It makes for good running, though. I still haven't been able to manage getting up early and out to run, but the after work running has been going pretty well.

The only thing that's been bothersome lately is a headache that I've now had for a week. I found out yesterday that the headache does indeed go away while I'm running. I was a wimp and bagged a run on Sunday (replaced it with a nap). I went to a new chiropractor this morning. I'm a little out of whack (no surprise). My back made noises I don't think I've ever heard before. My neck was almost frightening. The headache went away for a brief period and it was like my head was wrapped in a warm, soft blanket. Mmmmmm. Nice. Damn thing is back again now, though. Dr. Diane was surprised to hear that I'm not having stress or anything right now. Then she asked, "What about like in the last six months or so?" Ummm... nothing bad. Everything good. Some of it amazingly and undeservedly good. (And yes, she got bonus points for believably feigning surprise when I told her how old my kids are.)

I'm running a couple of 10Ks this month after not having run one since October 2005. It should be interesting. But if not interesting, they will be fun.

Here's a shot of TODL smirking for the camera with a very shiny tractor. I've Warhol'd this to protect the innocent.

More Blue!

Blue is settling in. Luna and Tonks are getting used to her and we have more incidents of sassy cat paw batting and fewer big tails. There's less dog whining at the scary cats, too.

We are working on leash training. Well, Blue is working on training me and I am practicing being patient (trying, anyway). Our first couple runs together were great, no pulling on leash and our respective placement in three dimensional space was working for both of us. I think I inadvertently trained her to pull when I took her on trail and gave her more leash to work with and that set us up for lots of frustration. Well, I was frustrated. I'm not sure Blue cares as long as she's outside. We practiced loose leash work in the basement with no distractions but the cats (they were intrigued by all of this, yet disdainful) and Blue does great in a low-stimulus environment. Take her outside, however, and she's not even interested in treats. The squirrels and bunnies and anything that might be moving in a tree are so much more interesting than anything I have to offer.

We start dog school next week.