Greetings from Lisbon! Time is flying by here – I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already.

The weather has been beautiful here, sunny and gentle every single day. Generally it’s been warm, in the 60s, but the past two days it’s gotten really cold. Of course, not as cold as Boston, where we unfortunately had a pipe burst only a few days after leaving (and we left the heat on). But as I write this I’m huddled around the little electric heater in our Air BnB, which is doing double time by also drying our laundry.

Breakfast here is typically a pastry and an espresso while standing at the counter of a pastelaria. It’s delicious, but with the cold this week, I could definitely do with something heartier. I made this whole grain porridge just before leaving, and it got me through that first week of January cold and snow. I used a mix of quinoa, farro, oats, and semolina to prepare it, and then topped it with apples stewed with maple syrup and fresh cranberries. It was delicious.

Trevor objected to my use of the word porridge (“what are you, Goldilocks?”), but I can firmly state that this porridge is just right. [Edit from Trevor: “it’s a stupid word, it’s a stupid food.”] It’s also much better than oatmeal. While oatmeal is convenient and easy, it can get thick and gloppy, especially if rushed. This porridge was much creamier and more varied in texture. Not to mention it was healthier with four different grains. I made a big batch, portioned it out into five tupperwares, and was ready for the week.

If you’re somewhere cold, too, I hope you’re staying warm!

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Whole Grain Porridge with Poached Apples and Cranberries

A comforting, creamy whole grain porridge perfect for chilly winter mornings. Topped with stewed apples and cranberries and lightly sweetened with maple syrup.

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 6

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup stone cut oats
• 1/2 cup farro
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 3 cups milk
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup farina (Cream of Wheat)
• 4 apples, peeled and cut into wedges
• 1 cup of fresh cranberries
• 1 1/2 cups apple cider
• 3 TBS maple syrup
• fresh pomegranate seeds, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

1. Place the quinoa, oats, farro, water, and 2 cups of the milk in a large non-stick saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer over low heat, stirring frequently. Add the cinnamon stick and salt and simmer until all of the grains are tender, about 30 minutes. Add some of the additional milk as needed to keep the porridge loose and creamy. When the grains are cooked, add the farina and the remaining milk (1 cup or whatever you have left from the original 3 cups) and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, until the porridge has thickened slightly. Remove from the heat.
2. Prepare the apples while the porridge is cooking. Add the apple wedges, cranberries, apple cider, and maple syrup to a medium saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the apples are tender and the cranberries have softened and slumped, about 10 minutes. Simmer for another 5 minutes to reduce the sauce to a syrup, then remove from the heat.
3. Serve the porridge warm, with additional milk if desired. Top with a few spoonfuls of the apple-cranberry mixture and fresh pomegranate seeds.

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April’s goal was my least successful so far. It turns out that cumulative goals are much easier for me than daily goals, where you have no room to recover from a bad day and make up for it later. 8,000 steps a day seemed like an easy target, but weekends in particular – my sore spot to begin with – proved much more challenging than I expected. Some of the 11 days that I came in under 8,000 I’m excusing myself for: there were a few days where we spent all day outside in the garden, and although walking up and down a hill with watering cans and shoveling compost for hours may only count as 5,000 steps, it’s certainly more active (and exhausting), then taking a walk through the park. Other days I think my tracker app was a little glitchy – like when it thought I slept at the liquor store and drove for the entire 15 minute walk to the train. But really, I don’t want to make too many excuses. I just didn’t quite succeed, and I need to recognize that.

But failing doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good goal – on the contrary, it means it was a hard goal and therefore a great goal. There’s no point in setting your sights too low. So although I have a new official goal for May, I’m not taking the 8,000 steps off my list, either. I know I won’t get it every day, but having it in the back of my mind makes me so much more conscious of how active I’m being, and even on the days that I fell short, I made an effort to get out at lunchtime, or walk through the park on my way home. So I want to keep doing that, and I’m considering ordering a real tracker to help with the technological frustration piece. Although, the idea should be the movement, not the number. We’ll see.

Moving forward… it’s May! How on earth did that happen so fast? I think my problem is that I spent so much of January, February, and March yearning for the next season, and then you get here and realize that the year is almost half gone. I’ve been doing a good job keeping up with my running, getting faster and feeling better, and I’ve been toying with the idea of making this summer another racing season (it’s been over a year since my last race). What I haven’t been doing so well with is my cross-training: I’ve only been to ballet twice in the last six weeks and I’ve completely abandoned my Nike Training Club strength workouts. And once you stop doing those, it’s really hard to start from scratch again. So that’s my goal for May, to work that stuff back into my routine, without letting the running slip either. Specifically, I want to do 180 minutes of NTC workouts this month: ideally, I’ll be building in 15 minute sessions to the end of my runs, but in case that isn’t working out for me, I can also do more intense 45 minute sessions once a week. I know the first few sessions are going to be killer, but it will be so satisfying to feel toned again.

As for this month’s healthy recipe, Trevor and I are arguing about what to call it because I wanted to call it a “bounty bowl,” which he insists is vomit-inducing (his suggestion: “It’s A Fucking Salad, Get Over It.” So crass, that boy.) As you can see, we’ve compromised with Warm Arugula Salad (boring). But it doesn’t matter what you call it – what matters is that the maple-mustard dressing is so addictive, I would eat anything that you put underneath it. That said, I highly recommend this particular combination of ingredients: spicy arugula, warm crumbled Italian sausage, wheat berries, goat cheese, and roasted asparagus. It’s got spring freshness and zip from the arugula and asparagus, but with the warm sausage and wheat berries it’s hearty enough for chilly nights.

Past Fitness Challenges

January: 10 Visits to the YMCA; Recipe: Gluten-Free Olive-and-Feta Corn Muffins
February: One vegan meal every day; Recipe: Pakistani Chickpea Pulao with Sweet-Hot Date-Onion Chutney
March: Run 40  miles in 20 days; Recipe: Chocolate-Dipped Almond Butter Cookie Bites
April: Walk 8,000 steps a day; Recipe: Herb-Flecked Spring Couscous

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Maple-Mustard Bounty Bowl

Serves 2.

• 2/3 c. wheat berries
• 2 c. chicken broth
• 1/2 bunch thin asparagus
• 2 TBS olive oil, divided
• sea salt
• 1/3 lb. hot Italian sausage
• 4 c. fresh baby arugula leaves
• 2 oz. soft goat cheese
• 2 TBS mustard
• 1 TBS white wine vinegar
• 1 TBS maple syrup

1. Add the wheat berries and the chicken broth to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and cover pan, and simmer for 40-50 minutes, until wheat berries are tender. Drain and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Remove the stem ends from the asparagus and discard. Chop the asparagus into 2-inch lengths, then toss with 1 TBS olive oil and sea salt. Place on a baking sheet and roast until bright green and tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.
3. Heat a small frying pan over medium heat and squeeze the sausage into the pan in small pieces. Break up further with the back of a spoon, and cook, stirring frequently, until cooked through and browned all over, about 5-7  minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Assemble the salad. Toss the arugula with the wheat berries, roasted asparagus, and warm cooked sausage. Divide between two bowls, and dot each bowl with 1 oz. of goat cheese. In a small bowl, whisk together the mustard, white wine vinegar, maple syrup, and remaining 1 TBS of olive oil until smooth. Drizzle the dressing over the salads and serve.

The post Monthly Fitness Goals: May // Warm Arugula Salad with Maple-Mustard Dressing appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

Last week I wrote about a new little thing I’m trying – making a week-long resolution relating to health and trying to stick with it all week. The trick is that you have to make the resolution specific enough that it’s not mentally daunting, e.g. “No chocolate from the candy box at work” instead of “No dessert at all.” Doing something for a week is challenging enough to feel like an accomplishment when you’ve finished, but not so challenging that you give up after three days. If, at the end of the week, you’re glad that you were able to keep your resolution for the week, try to keep that one going for another week and add a new one as well.

So far, I’ve completed two weeks of these little resolutions, and I’m feeling pretty good about it so I’m going to try and keep it up, at least for a little while. This week, I’m going to try and do 10 minutes of strength training and stretching every day. Strength training is something I do sporadically, at best, but I know that doing it regularly will both help me feel better about how I look, and help my balance and coordination in ballet. If you’re interested in joining me, I’d love to hear your own resolutions in the comments – and if you commented last week, let me know if you were successful!

To keep track of my resolutions so far…

1. Week one: No chocolate from the chocolate box at work – Success for week one and week two! This is huge.
2. Week two: Walk to or from Park St. to work at least once each day – Success! I even went in the rain.
3. Week three: Do ten minutes of strength training/stretching every day

And now for the food. Trevor and I took a trip to Wholefoods this weekend and, silly me, I went without a list. This resulted in a lot of impulse purchases, like camembert, Haitian mangoes, blackberries, satsuma oranges, and clementines. None of it local, all of it too tempting to pass up. I was originally tempted to use all the fruit in a mango-cream tart, but since this week is such a big eating week, and since I had just made a batch of chocolate cookies, I managed to talk myself into a healthier option – mango, satsuma, and black rice salad.

When I realized that I had bookmarked this salad from multiple sources, I knew it was about time that I tried it. Strangely, this salad seems both like summer food and winter food – summer food because it’s light and fruity and healthy, and winter food because it’s bright and citrusy and nutty. I doctored the original up a little bit, adding sour cherries and increasing the amount of orange. Feel free to play with the ratios to get it the way you like – an extra handful of peanuts, all scallions instead of the red onion, etc. It’s an easy and forgiving recipe!

Mango, Satsuma and Black Rice Salad

Adapted from Bon Appetit. Serves 4-5 as a side.

• 1 1/2 c. black rice, rinsed and drained
• 2 c. water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 satsuma tangerines or 1 c. canned mandarin oranges, drained, plus 1/4 c. of the drained juice
• 3 TBS fresh squeezed lime juice (from 1 large lime)
• 2 TBS canola oil
• 1 mango, peeled, sliced, and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1/2 c. fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 c. red onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 c. roasted salted peanuts
• 4 scallions, white and dark green parts removed, sliced
• 2 jalapenos, seeded and finely chopped
• 1/4 c. dried cherries

1. In a medium saucepan, combine rice, water, and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer until water is absorbed and rice is tender, about 25 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 15 minutes longer.
2. If using fresh tangerines, peel tangerines, remove as much of the white pith as possible, and separate into segments. Using a small knife, carefully slice along the skinny length of each tangerine segment, then use your fingers to remove the skin/membrane of the tangerine. Save the membranes with the little pieces of fruit attached (some staying attached is inevitable). Squeeze the membranes over a bowl and collect the juice – you should have about 1/4 – 1/3 of a cup. If you have less, squeeze one or two of your tangerine segments into the bowl to make up the difference. If you’re using canned mandarin oranges, you can skip this step, just be sure to save 1/4 c. of the juice.
3. Whisk together the tangerine juice, lime juice, and oil. Pour over the black rice and let cool.
4. Stir the tangerine segments, mango, cilantro, red onions, peanuts, scallions, jalapenos, and dried cherries into the salad. Taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt or lime juice if desired. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

The post Monday Morning Resolutions & A Mango, Satsuma and Black Rice Salad appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

Last Tuesday, when it was rainy and gray and I wanted nothing more than to snuggle up in bed with a bowl of soup, well, that’s what I did.  Mushroom and farro soup, to be specific.  And as I was making the soup, which only dragged me away from Up All Night for 10 minutes, including dish-washing, I thought “Why haven’t I done more soups for Greatist?”  Seriously, soup is the perfect quick, healthy food.  It can taste amazing with only a handful of ingredients, and after making a few batches while following a recipe, you’ll likely have it figured out to the point where you can take whatever you have in the fridge and throw together a comforting, veggie-centric dinner.

Speaking of veggies, mushrooms are one of the vegetables I find myself wanting all of a sudden once the cool weather hits.  I have a feeling this soup – which, by the way, is maybe one of the best-smelling soups I’ve made in years (it also tastes great, but the smell really got to me) – is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the mushroom recipes I’ll be making this season.  Since mushrooms are a pretty healthy choice, what with their immune system benefits, cardiovascular protection, and low-calorie-but-fill-you-up benefits (come on, you know what I mean…), this is good news for my taste buds and my skinny jeans.  While it’s on my mind, I thought I’d do a quick round-up of mushroom recipes – both those I’ve featured here in the past, and those from elsewhere that I hope to be making in the near future!

Check out the recipe for this soup over at Greatist, and get inspired for more mushroomy meals below!

More mushroom recipes from here…

• Mushroom and Olive Veggie Burgers
• Ricotta Gnocchi with Mushrooms, Corn, and Sage Butter
• Mushroom and Lentil Pot Pies
• Hungarian Mushroom Soup
• Chicken and Mushroom Fettucine in Mustard-Cream Sauce

…and around the blogosphere:

• Crusty Chicken Thighs with Mushroom Sauce – from Ezra Pound Cake
• Lemony Mushroom and Pine Nut Stuffing Muffins – from Bon Appetit
• Mushroom Lasagna – from Picture Perfect Meals
• Mushroom Biryani – from Ami’s Vegetarian Delicacies
• Creamy Prosciutto and Porcini Penne – from Every Day with Rachel Ray
• Mushroom Pierogi – from Sabrina: A Food Blog

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