Our First Homebrew: Everyday IPA

A few months ago, my boyfriend had a birthday.

And I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty good at gift giving. It helps that T-Man is pretty easy to shop for. But I’m pretty good at gift giving. 😉

This year, I bought him a Home Brewing Kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop to make his own Everyday IPA. (I also got him this mug which is perfect if you know T-Man and his liberal, ACLU-loving ways.)

For it being an IPA, it was a much easier process than anticipated. T-Man decided it was a two-person job, so I got to help! (read: I hovered over his shoulder and took pictures. And now you all get to benefit!)

Here’s how we did it:

Superbowl Weekend in Photos

So many photos….so little time.

Another busy Monday at the office! Even if I feel like my head is spinning out of control, at least I’ve got this nice view to calm me down:

I’ve also got memories of a sunny weekend to tide me over for the next 5 days. Chiggedy check ’em out:

Friday Happy Hour at Dive Bar (um, I didn’t know they served free food with a HH drink purchase…score!) — Watching Downton Abbey — My new squirrel buddy. This lil guy was sunbathing for a good 40 minutes on our balcony!

The aftermath of a snacky picnic in the park with Carly. She brought homemade Larabars, omg — went to Target for 3 things, left with…..6. I think that’s a pretty good show of self control. — dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. What an experience! I was the only one without a huge crab bucket in front of me, but it was fun watching the others!

We finally tasted T-Man’s beer! Expect a full report later this week 🙂

Went on an awesome bike ride on the American River Bike Trail with Mikhail and Matt on Sunday pre-Super Bowl. We rode for over an hour (Matt and I on our cruisers, ha) and it was so gorgeous outside! The high temperature was actually more like 65 degrees by the time we finished.

Aaaand of course, the Super Bowl. I am not big on football, and I usually have no interest in either team competing in the Super Bowl so I don’t feel much attachment to the actual game play…but the fact that the 49ers were in the Super Bowl this year had everyone in Northern California pretty excited! Except for the Raiders fans of course, haha.

Highlight for me was definitely Beyonce’s halftime show. It was short, but AWESOME. Our host Scott’s puppy, Scout, made an appearance, and the game got super close in the 3rd quarter. Unfortunately, the Niners couldn’t pull it out, but it was still an exciting game!

Who were you rooting for?

And how did you burn off your Super Bowl calories??

Cooking Bucket List + Fitness Goals for 2013

Generally, I don’t make New Years resolutions. I like to set goals for myself throughout the year, and I’d like to think this blog keeps me pretty accountable for those goals.

The cool thing about having a blog is that even if I don’t make a resolution, I have historically wrote some kind of symbolic entry around the New Year. Take this post from 2011, for instance, which I wrote just weeks before I landed an internship in a state senator’s office. And there’s last year’s sappy post about how I love my boyfriend and stuff, ha.

This year, I’m in the midst of participating in Elf for Health, which has set daily challenges for the holiday season. I admit I haven’t been participating 100%, but today’s challenge is to Set a New Fitness Goal.

Well Elf for Health, I’m going to one-up you. I have a couple of fitness goals, but something I’ve also wanted to do for a long time is make a Cooking Bucket List. Inspired by Emily’s Food Bucket List, I made a list of things I’ve always wanted to cook from scratch. She and I even have a few in common 🙂

Fitness Goals

• Run a 5K race
• Start weight training again (and eat more protein!)
• Be able to do a 2 minute plank and 2 minute leg lifts
• Run 25 miles in a month (several times if possible)

The biggest goal is to run the 5K race. I have run 3+ miles a good handful of times, and I have all but signed up for 5K races several times before…but I never actually registered. I have already ran 25 miles in a month before, but not since I broke my hand in June.

Cooking Bucket List

• Chicken Tikka Masala
• French Onion Soup
• Cheese (Ricotta and Mozzarella)
• Homemade pasta and/or ravioli
• Crackers
• Breakfast Quinoa
• Roasted Chickpeas
• Macaroni & Cheese
• Use cauliflower as an alternative for potatoes (like here, here or here)
• Bagels (preferably with some kind of cheese broiled on top!)
• Donuts
• Arroz con Pollo
• Traditional Lasagna (I’ve only made a vegetable one, with zucchini/eggplant “noodles”)
• My Great Grandma Rose’s famous New York Coffee Cake
• Beer

I’ve already got a head start on that last one! I bought T-Man a beer brewing kit for his birthday and we decided New Years Day was as good a time as any to get started.

(Drinking beer while we make beer…typical)

It was a pretty long process (it took us about 3-4 hours including set up/sterilization) but hopefully it turns out! It’s bubbling away in a box in T-Man’s closet as we speak. Hopefully in about a month we’ll have a delicious IPA. I’ll be sure to tell you all about it 🙂

Tomorrow’s Elf for Health challenge is to eat 3 food groups at every meal. I’m having (very minor) surgery early in the morning to get a mole removed from my scalp, so I’m not sure how I’ll get in 3 food groups while that is all going down…but lunch and dinner should be no sweat! On Friday the challenge is to run a mile the fastest you can…I’m aiming for 8 minutes (my all time best is something like 7:50) but we’ll see how it goes!

Hope everyone had a happy new year!