Yesterday was my birthday and I celebrated by taking Cowboy to a Trail Trials clinic at Skyline Park in Napa. Laura and Dexter were also there. Laura and I had a great time. The weather was gorgeous, the people were nice and the horses performed reasonably well. Not sure the horses enjoyed it as much. Dexter is always unhappy when he's out of his comfort zone, and Cowboy was feeling rather full of himself and the clinic did not move nearly fast enough to suit him. I've been trying to keep weight on him by feeding him corn oil and beet pulp and it is giving him a bit of an attitude. The clinic was also held in a very grassy area and I was not letting him graze with wild abandon, which made him quite angry at me. So I was dealing with a hot horse all day. But we still made it through all the obstacles reasonably well, although we did back through one at hyperspeed. He was even trying to rear several times, which is new behavior for him. Bucking is his favored form of expressing anger, so the rearing was a bit different. I believe we got that one straightened out in short order.
I'm still working on fitness and diet. Although I stated at the beginning of this post that, unlike my "Julie and Julia" inspiration, I would not be cooking my way through anybody's cookbook, I did buy the Cooking Light cookbook and I'm going to try as many recipes as possible to save myself from fast food and popcorn dinners. The other night I made Gruyere, arugula and prosciutto-stuffed chicken breasts with caramelized shallot sauce and it was delicious. Interestingly enough, I bought that cookbook based on reviews stating that the recipes usually used ingredients that most people have on hand. Don't know about you, but I rarely have gruyere, arugula, prosciutto or shallots on hand, although now I do. It was kind of fun working with a lot of new ingredients, but I think I'll look for some recipes that involve less shopping. The problem with cooking for one person is that most recipes, including the ones in this book, make from 4 to 8 servings, so you have to either cut them down, freeze the excess, or eat the same thing several days in a row. If you cut them down, it's often hard to find the ingredients in the small amounts needed so you wind up with excess (like now, I have a lot of leftover Gruyere, prosciutto and shallots). Not that extra Gruyere and prosciutto are a hardship! I'm sure I'll find a use for them. The next recipe on the list, once I've eaten my way through the chicken, is London Broil with Texas Toast and Red Onion Jam. Yum, yum!
