1. Debbie and Gibbs joined Diane and Sue on Diane's front porch and watch runners dash down Main Street as they completed today's Jackass Half Marathon.
I brought out Copper and Luna, put down my exercise mat, and worked on stretching muscles and building strength in my legs and strengthening my core with about 90 minutes of different exercises.
I have low level pain in my upper left leg. Maybe I should call it hip discomfort.
These exercises help relieve that discomfort. Soon I'll be adding more exercises that target the hip area itself -- I'm already doing some of them.
2. I got to thinking about what food we have on hand and wondered if I might be able to make a HelloFresh pasta meal for dinner without the convenience of the HelloFresh bag.
The HelloFresh menus are posted on the World Wide Web. I remembered having made a zucchini spaghetti dish sometime in the past, so with a minimum of effort, I found the HelloFresh recipe I vaguely remembered.
It calls for mushrooms. We didn't have fresh mushrooms on hand, but I knew we had a half a jar of dehydrated mushrooms. They need to sit in warm water for thirty minutes, so I got the mushrooms hydrating.
I chopped an onion. I chopped a zucchini. I made a pot of salty water to eventually bring to a boil to cook the spaghetti in.
I didn't have fresh tomatoes on hand, but opened a can of delicious fire roasted diced tomatoes.
I dilly dallied a bit, waiting for the mushrooms to be ready, and then I heated up a large pan, added olive oil to it, and started cooking the salt and peppered onions.
After a while, I added the chopped zucchini and I drained the mushrooms and added them to the pan.
I put the pasta in the water and cooked it. When I drained it, I saved the pasta water.
After the zucchini, mushrooms, and onion cooked for another, oh, seven minutes, I added in the tomatoes, some tomato paste, dried basil and oregano, a healthy sprinkle of fennel seeds, some smoked chili flakes, and garlic powder.
After this all cooked for a couple of minutes, I added a plug of vegetable Better than Bullion and about a cup and a half of pasta water, stirred it, and simmered the sauce for 7-8 minutes or so.
I liked how this sauce had cooked up.
I added a small chunk of butter to it, let it melt, and then worked in the cooked spaghetti.
I grated Debbie and me some Parmigiana Reggiano cheese, served us each a bowl of zucchini mushroom spaghetti topped with the cheese and let me tell you, we began eating this combination of savory mushrooms, licorice-y fennel seeds, some heat and smoke from the chili flakes, and the fire roasted goodness of the tomatoes and believe me:
It worked. (Really well.)
3. Since Gibbs went with Debbie to watch runners, Copper and Luna strolled out into the living room to be with me.
I think today was the first time I've ever had a cat -- Luna -- resting and purring on my chest while I did leg lifts.
Luna's slight weight on my chest was reassuring and motivating at the same time.
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