I ♥ summer thunderstorms!

It was crazy beautiful (and HOT!) in the Midwest today, but as soon as 4:00 came around, the clouds started rooooollin’ in.

I made a dash for my trail and pounded out 3.5 miles in 30 minutes before the sky began to rumble, and the rain began to fall. I think it was the fastest I’ve run since making the transition from treadmill to trail earlier this Spring!

Perhaps it was because I was so hot – so insanely hot – and just wanted to get home. We’re talking the kind of hot where your brain can’t quite comprehend what your body is feeling, and starts getting a little cracked out. Like laughing out loud cracked out. It wasn’t so much the sun, since it was under a thick layer of clouds, but the humiditywas killlller!

At any rate, I’m alive. And I just finished enjoying some Indian food for dinner. Palak Paneer, anyone?

Ok, I know. I know that this is one of the most atrocious looking things I have ever put on the blog – I was very suspicious while preparing it – but it turned out to be an ugly duckling dinner!

For starters, I barely had to cook a thing because I used this pre-made Palak Paneer from Trader Joe’s!

Palak Paneer is a traditional Indian dish made with slowly simmered spinach, ginger, garlic, tomatoes and onions, which is combined with blocks of pressed cheese that are almost tofu-like in texture.

The dish has some great nutritional stats (a little high on sodium),

but the ingredient list was what I was really pumped about. Love the looks of that!

The meal came in an astronaut food-type pouch, that I emptied into a microwave safe container and nuked for 2 minutes.

When it was warm, I combined it with some freshly sautéed baby spinach and served it over some brown rice. Cooked homey style, of course…

Ok, DEFINITELY ugly, but DEFINITELY delightful! This rather unfortunate looking green mush blossomed into a spicy, creamy dish that had layers and layers of flavor.

I would definitely add some freshly sautéed spinach to it, or something, because the sauce alone is pretty thin. Other than that, the flavor was spot on and the cheese texture was fabulous. That’s important in a paneer!

I’m going to go watch the rain, me thinks. Other than that, I have nothing else to do with my night. How did that happen?!

Good night!

~~~~~

What are some “ugly duckling” foods that you eat?

I’d say the green monster is rather frightening to look at, if you don’t really know what it is!!