Day 36 - May 30 - Colorado

"Ears burnt like corn on the barbecue"

Hi, and welcome back to my bike blog.

A Day in the Office

Today was a very productive day. Not in terms of biking, well, that too, but in terms of life. I was on the phone most of the day today. I talked to Sarah about the end of the summer and next academic year, I talked to my dad and Ethan about nothing in particular, I talked to my mom about next year, and I talked to another Mathcamp staff member about a class we'd like to teach together. I answered important e-mails too, all from the comfort of my bike seat, in the middle of the New Mexican desert.

It's strange to think of it that way, but this is really what I wanted the bike ride to look like when I started. I wanted a quick ride in the morning, and then work in the afternoon. Somehow it seems like time just gets filled by bike stuff and vacation. There have been so many unmet expectations in this bike trip. My single goal was to hit the four-corners monument, and now I'm skipping it in favour of spending a day at the Arches National Park tomorrow. I wanted to visit churches, but by the looks of it, the only church I'll be visiting is an LDS temple.

Such is life, such is me. Can't always get what I want, but I get what I need. On a completely unrelated note, does anyone know how fast earlobes heal from intense sunburn? I seemed to have picked a bad day to get a haircut.

A Recipe

Yesterday, I made dinner at Teesie's house. It was a special request, since it's been so long since I've used a cutting board, and I really missed it. I made a dish that I really like, and thought I'd share the recipe with you. I think I've named this dish before, but I forgot the name, so from now on, it will be known as "High Desert Stew." Be warned, it's a very Assaf recipe, meaning that the ingredients are vague, the instructions are unclear, and the final product is not well-defined.

Ingredients

The following vegetables, in whatever ratio you have on hand, or whatever ratio you like best: carrots, zucchini, broccoli, onions, hot peppers.
Chick peas (canned is fine)
Crushed tomatoes (half of the amount that would have been required to cover the vegetables)
That really cool colourful quinoa that costs more than cocaine and is as difficult to find in the grocery store
Spices. More specifically, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, a bit of cinnamon, and more cumin

If you want actual amounts, I used 2 carrots, 3 zuccini, a head of broccoli, 3 onions, and 4 hot peppers that were actually not hot. I used about a cup of chickpeas, one can of crushed tomatoes, a can of diced tomatoes, and plain quinoa. I never measure spices, but I think I used about a tablespoon of paprika, two tablespoons of cumin, salt and pepper to taste, and just a dash of cinnamon. Okay, maybe like a teaspoon of cinnamon. Maybe a bit less, I don't know.

Cooking Instructions

Cut the vegetables to small pieces, like you're making a soup or something. About 1 inch cubes.
Add the carrots, onions, zucchini, and hot peppers to a pot of heated olive oil.
Stir the vegetables so they don't stick, and cook them until the onions taste good
Add two cans of tomatoes, refill one of the cans with water, and empty that into the pot too.
Stir, and add the spices and the chickpeas.
When the mixture starts bubbling, turn the heat way down, like almost all the way down, and add the broccoli and the quinoa.
Quinoa expands like peeps in a microwave, so don't add too much. I really don't know the amounts here, but if you add too much, you can always just add water later and keep cooking until the quinoa is soft
When the quinoa has absorbed all of the water, and is fully cooked, remove from the heat, and serve.

The end product should have the consistency of soup with lots of couscous, because that's pretty much what this is. The dish is very forgiving, the only way to screw it up is by burning the bottom, or undercooking the quinoa. In its current form, the dish is vegan, but if you want to add meat to it, I suggest cutting up and frying some Italian sausage, and mixing it in at the very end.