C is for Cooking

That's good enough for me. This summer, Meredith and I have made an effort to do more cooking at home. Unlike previous attempts, it's been quite a success! Just to give you a rundown of some past adventures:

2006: Chicken and dumplings. Also known as "Chicken, chicken, chicken, and DUMPLING". We attempted this in the crockpot. It looked like chicken soup on the bottom, and one giant gooey mess on top. Pizza was ordered.

2007: Coq au Vin. This actually didn't taste too awful, but the meat ended up sort of a deep burgundy color that wasn't especially appetizing.

But now? Now the tide has turned! Over the last few months, we've had some very good food. We've discovered that we don't NECESSARILY hate fish if done right, and how to cook a pork chop so that it doesn't end up the consistency of running shoe sole. Yesterday was a braised pork chop recipe with apples and potatoes that was a step down from recent efforts, but still rated a solid B+ for "filling, tasty, but a little bland".

Do you have any good recipes, preferably on both the healthy and tasty side? We'd love to hear them.

Yesterday I also tried out some flip turns for the first time since CDA. They didn't turn out quite as well as the food. Maybe a "C". I did flip over every time, and there was no water up the nose, but on no turn did I actually manage to kick off the wall. Oh well. There's no walls in open water, right? :) However, I do have some goals for the indoor tri in February. It's a 300 swim, and I'd like to shoot for sub-5:00 (1:40/100m pace), and maybe even 4:30 (1:30/100m pace). I did a 1:40 pace for 600m in an indoor tri this year, so I'd like to think I can step it up a bit for half that distance. All I know is that the thought of racing is giving me butterflies again, and that's a good thing.