No Matter How Long the Winter, Spring is Sure to Follow

Awake, thou wintry earth –
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn

Has Spring sprung in your neck of the woods yet? Monday in Portland was sunny and cool, frost on the ground and little flowers poking out of the ground.

Crocuses and daffodils are some of my favorite flowers because they are the first to show up in Spring. It means Winter is almost over (thankfully!!).

Catching up on weekend posts? I ran extra long and hard on Saturday morning’s workout. I wondered if I would regret it the next day, regret pushing myself too far too soon.

The good news: I did NOT regret it! I woke up Sunday feeling great, went swimming with no issues and now on Monday I’m still not regretting running longer. Perhaps I am healing? Could that $3 plastic Heel Lift from my doctor REALLY be working?? If that was all it took to cure my ITBS I am going to be a happy camper.

Dinner was…interesting…Sunday night. We Meal Planned for pork chops and squash. Easy was key. I bought one large pork chop and Michael and I split it. That worked well for portion sizes.

First I baked the acorn squash. Michael was in charge of cutting it in half (I can’t be trusted with knives and things like that). Scooped out the guts and put the squash face down in a dish with water.

I’m sad to admit that I never ate squash until about a year ago. The reason: I had NO idea how to prepare it! Glad that has since been remedied. Michael turned the Convection oven on at 400 degrees as an experiment. We settled in to watch SNL because squash usually takes an hour to bake.

20 minutes later the house smelled like baked squash. I figured we still had about 30 minutes more at least. I waited a few more minutes and then decided to check the squash. Thank goodness I did! It was done! Not ruined, but very done. Apparently the trick to cooking squash faster is Convection.

I was really low on calories for the day and I found a canister of crescent rolls in the fridge leftover from Thanksgiving. It said to use by January 2011. Ooops. We popped those into the oven while the pork chop cooked. I also steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

I ate one cup of squash (about 120 calories), a serving of pork and lots of veggies. The pork was unfortunately not as great as it’s been in the past. I think it was thicker than usual and it took longer to cook so there were a few overdone parts. I don’t know that any of the dinner items went very well together. Oh well!

Speaking of food…a reader commented on my turkey post about how frustrating it is that the packages come in 20 ounce sizes. She wanted to know what to do with so much turkey. I have an answer!

A month ago I bought a TON of ground turkey at Costco as part of the Meal Planning experiment. Michael pre-makes the turkey burger patties and freezes them. Defrosting the patties takes a few minutes, the flavor & texture doesn’t get ruined and it’s SOOO easy on a busy night. It’s saved dinner many times.

We currently have several pounds of ground turkey in the freezer. Not all of it is formed into turkey burger patties. About half the turkey is still in it’s package and will be used as we need it. Like I said, it’s easy to defrost and great to have on hand for recipes.

QUESTION: Are you enjoying Spring weather yet or is it still Winter where you’re at? And what is your favorite way to prepare/use squash?