Thursday Thoughts.
Sauteed Shrimp and Summer Vegetables
*4 bacon slices
* 2 cups fresh corn kernels
* 1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
* 1 cup zucchini
*1/2 cup chopped onion
*1 1/4 lbs. Peeled and deveined Shrimp
*2 tbsp. fresh basil
*2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
* salt and pepper, to taste
Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, crumble, set aside. Increase heat to medium high, add corn, tomatoes, zucchini and onion to drippings in pan. Sautee for 3-4 minutes until browned. Remove corn mixture from pan. Add olive oil and sautee shrimp for 2-3 minutes or until done.
Add corn mixture back into the pan with the shrimp. Stir in crumbled bacon, basil, and lemon juice. Serves 4.
Theres a reason I never post recipes. I don't really like to bake (though I will, on occasion. Mostly quick breads, homemade pizza, and pies or crumbles, because I'm at the point where I don't need to use a recipe for those few things as I've made them so many times.). For dinners? I just……cook. Tacos, homemade meatballs and gravy, stir frys, soups, dinners just generally come together. Sometimes I branch out and guess, trying to remember how my Mom made things (recent example was stuffed peppers, which I made with quinoa and ground turkey, they quickly became one of the kids favorites, delicious and so easy, holding up well for reheating too). Sometimes if I'm in the mood for something I haven't made before, I will google recipes, read a few, then just make it, taking a bit from this and a bit from that. I will probably do the same with the above, now that I've typed it out I have the jist of it. Basically? I don't like measuring things out, if it calls for 3/4 cup and the zucchini would make a cup, I'm adding a cup because who wants 1/4 cup of zucchini sitting in their fridge? and I probably have the worlds biggest authority problem, thus making recipes feel too……….bossy. Yes, recipes feel bossy. Which is completely ridiculous of course, but so is measuring out a million things when you know that just adding this and that will end up being exactly perfect. Everything can always be adjusted at the end after a taste, anyway. Thats the beauty of cooking, versus baking, after all!
Today is dance party (my last one, as of now!) then the kids have their sneak a peak at school, getting to see their classrooms and meet their teachers. Sweet Julia was busy laying out her outfit last night and was up at 6:30 (scaring me in the basement!) fully dressed, hair brushed, ready to meet her teacher (it is at 2 this afternoon). My child is so me in so many ways. Its so nice to see your good qualities in your own children (and so nice to NOT see your bad qualities in them……..can I just say that I Hope against Hope that her tendencies towards perfectionism and her desire to please never turn on her like they did on me? That Nate and I can help her find a way to balance her natural tendencies with an ability to laugh at herself? With a deep knowledge that her "performance" in life in no way defines her or impacts our love for her? That she is valuable and worthy, JUST AS SHE IS, and that we will love and accept her, always, win or lose, pass or fail, every day?). Obviously I never think about this stuff. ;)
I had an interesting class last night. One of the most intimidating things to me (that I didnt expect) was physical adjustments. I figured that since I have a background in massage therapy that I would have some measure of comfort in this area. What I forgot was that I did massage therapy about 20-16 years ago…..and that its still totally different than adjusting a person during yoga. You worry about hurting their ego, you worry about your approach, you worry about issues that they may have that you don't know about. You worry about being too soft/ineffective, or being too aggressive. Honestly? Most of the time I avoid them, using my words or most often just a super gentle touch to the area of the body if they still seem to not be connecting with what I am saying (i.e holding their neck tense in a forward fold or keeping their leg bent in triangle). I have realized that although I have taken one workshop on physical adjustments, I need to take another. Its a part of my teaching that is weak.
Do you like to be physically adjusted during yoga? How about during shavasana ~ do you like having your neck rubbed or being stretched in a laying down twist towards the very end of practice?
Hi Melissa....I make my stuffed peppers the same way and just a note, they freeze well. Not that you probably have leftovers in your house. I usually make a double batch and freeze half..that way we don't pig out and I get a free night when things are busy and can just defrost and go!
ReplyDeleteDuring class I am ok with being guided by the instructor. I've never had the instructor not ask first so that is good. I don't want to be touched during Shavasna. That's my personal time to chill and I want to lay there like I want to..whether that be all opened up or just flat out looking corpsish. My time before I go back to the world. Love and miss you!
My secret to cooking is that I don't, or that I rarely do. My husband is a much better cook, so he takes the reigns there. He generally cooks like you with whatever we have or whatever strikes his fancy at the market. He will use a recipe if he came across something he wants to try from his cooking magazines, but generally he wings it.
ReplyDeleteI actually appreciate a manual adjustment during class, if asked first. I don't always quite understand the adjustments when they are relayed verbally (I am one of those people that needs visual input), so the help is appreciated.
But please, don't touch me during shavasana. :) I agree with Dee, that's my time to lie there and just be in a position my body needs me in.
Hiya. I like being adjusted in shavasana. Justicia (you've come to her class with me) would often touch the area of my body that needed to engage and this helps turn the muscles on. Maybe something to consider. Hugs.
ReplyDeleteAmanda I follow her on IG and just this morning I was doing the twisted forward folds she was doing because of her feed. Literally ~ I distract myself while doing planks by looking at IG right now because its impossible to read a bool like 100 years while planking, so I was looking at her and got right up and tried to do what she was doing……….it took like 5 tries and I still couldn't really do it right. You know I have a huge girl crush on Justicia, right? Sue, my mentor, always does deep adjustments in twists, while gearing down a very physical practice. Oftentimes she will press you into a twist (hip and shoulder) on each side, then lay you into shavasana and give you a shoulder press, just pressing both shoulders down towards the mat ~ You know she is coming, you inhale as she approaches, and you exhale deeply as she presses your shoulders down towards your mat. For me? I love it. But? I trust her. Deeply. I know her. I know its coming. I WANT it. Now, I admit that there is a really intimate level of trust that I have with her, and I wouldn't have it with other teachers/people. So…..there is also the issue …….I have students who I know that I have that level of trust with. I have others who I don't have it with. I feel like I can't do a some/not others thing. Its a really interesting issue. Sue makes it work by being really funny/mean/silly…..my dynamic as a teacher is different. I thought that it would be like hers (because I love her so much) but as its gone on I've found that I'm different, and different in a way that I can't play off a silly/funny touch in shavasana like she can. Its hard to explain, as is the difference between the Y/Gym/Studio dynamic.
ReplyDeleteThank you Dee and Adrianne ~ I mostly feel like you ~ I've actually jumped when I've been touched in shavasana when i've not expected it ~ I once had a teacher grab a foot and pull it, then the other foot, but it was at a 6 am class and I was out there……totally took my by surprise and I hated it. Had another teacher rub lavender oil all over me? NO! Another one rubbed peppermint oil over her hands then rub them together really hard (right over my face) then try to place her hands over my eyes……….which….when I didnt know she was coming and then all the sudden someone was playing "start a fire" over my face" was super startling ~ I had been the first one in the class and I jumped up all scared and ended up getting stupid peppermint oil all over my face. So, I've seen it go really wrong.
Aaah, adjustments. I used to not give physical adjustments pretty much ever. I didn't feel fully confident, and I'd been warned about the transfer of energy that takes place - both from me to student and from them to me; you need to be capable of not soaking up any of their negative stuff, or of shaking it off. I've gotten more confident over time. I still rely primarily on verbal cues and sometimes visual ones (some are silent, eye contact with student and then exaggerate in my body the movement they need to make, for example in cobra doing a serious shoulder roll- forward, up, back and down and that is remarkably effective; sometimes it's a spoken one, "look here: LIFT blah blah"). But I tend to be like you said, using just a light touch or tap on the part of the body that needs attention for the most part.
ReplyDeleteGetting adjustments, I loved, from teachers I trusted deeply. Now it's kind of a funny thing; I pretty much only go to classes taught by someone who has been a close friend for years, my trusted teacher for years, and until recently she was my massage therapist as well. Now she's retired and living monastically in the ashram, and I miss HER touch. But maybe the time for that has passed.
I haven't gotten an adjustment in savasana in years, and that's ok; my Guru always says to just let people rest. Every once in a while if it's a student I know and feel like there's trust there and it's the VERY beginning of savasana, and I see scrunched up shoulders or something I might do a shoulder press. And in prenatal classes I do some shoulder pressing/gentle neck lengthening/maybe temple rubbing while they are in legs up the wall but really only with students I know well.
I totally laughed out loud over your peppermint oil story, I'm sorry!