My Sunday

Not a lot to blog about, my friend. We are busy getting ready to leave on our several-month-long trip in one week. Very excited. Still, I had a very eventful day.

Again, the weather is simply unbelievable. The sky is so clear and so blue. Temperatures into the 60's. Certainly too nice to use the treadmill this morning... so DT and I drove over to a nice soft barked trail for our runs. I started on my three mile run, only to stumble a bit and tweak my knee. Just a bit. Nothing serious, but I didn't want to risk landing oddly on the leg again, so decided to finish my jog on the nearby (flat, even surfaced) track.

This track is sometimes used by some of the elite athletes residing in the Portland-Metro area. I was hoping only old fat joggers would be there today. Unfortunately two (extremely) elite athletes were working out on the track.

Rat farts.

Nothing makes you feel old, fat and slow like having to work-out next to this --->

Kara Goucher is so nice, so pretty, so talented, so fast and so friendly. Everyone loves her. Including me!

My knee is fine, by the way. Just in case you were worried. Stop looking at her abs!

I have abs just like that. I do. They are just hidden under a foot of flab. This afternoon was a little better. I started on Phase 2 of the closet purge. I took 3,482 bags of too-big-for-me clothing to Goodwill.

On to dinner... since no one brought Kung Pao Chicken to the Lunar New Year festival last week, I have been craving it all week. Tonight was the night. My Kung Pao Chicken recipe is easy, fast and delicious. You can substitute beef, shrimp, tofu... whatever... if you choose. Just make sure you prepare all of the ingredients in advance - because the dish goes together very quickly.

Kung Pao Chicken - chicken thigh, dried chilies, peanuts & green onion

You will have to trust me on this - Kung Pao Chicken does not include carrots or celery!

As long as I was destroying the kitchen stir-frying, I decided to also make a batch of Dry Sautéed String Beans (sometimes called Twice-Cooked Green Beans). I will not be posting this recipe. It is delicious, but it creates such a mess! I would never attempt this in my RV kitchen.

First, you fry green beans until they are blistered and browned and drain the hot beans on paper towels.

Then you quickly stir-fry a mixture of ground meat (pork is traditional; I used turkey), soy sauce, sesame oil, sherry/rice wine, and chopped ginger - before tossing the cooked beans back into the wok and tossing it all together.

Wowzer.

I was in the kitchen for thirty minutes degreasing cleaning up... but it was worth the trouble.

Until my next update, I remain, your busy correspondent.