Potage aux haricots

I leave Iowa on Saturday, so this is now clear-random-things-out-of-the-pantry time. In keeping with this, I made bean soup last night.

1 can Bush's navy beans, drained
2 small onions, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped (to taste)
Water
1 heaping teaspoon flour
1 pat of butter
Pepper, to taste.

Drain gelatinous stuff from can of beans, add to medium saucepan. Chop onions and garlic; add water to just cover. Simmer ~15 minutes. When about done, enrich with a small pat of butter. Add a heaping teaspoon of flour as a thickener. Add pepper. Eat. (I added no salt, finding the canned beans sufficiently salty, but others might like a little more salt, and you'd definitely want salt if you were cooking dried beans).

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do with a pound of ground beef that's been in our freezer for a few weeks? Other than hamburgers?

(no subject)

For the last two nights, I've been skipping dinner at Burge. We've had a spell of rather cool, dry weather, i.e. perfect running weather.

So I've been doing quite a bit more running than I've been used to these last two days; I get home from the lab, putter around for a little bit, and then head out around 7:00 when things are nice and cool. And then I come back and cook and eat.

Yesterday I just kept pushing south along the Iowa River. I wound up getting to a shadier part of the city, I guess, but I turned back towards downtown and was fine. There's some kind of dam or hydroelectric something, not large, and some US Geological Survey monitoring station along the riverbank. I went past this really architecturally nifty castle-like building (some kind of federal building, I think), through the Ped Mall, and then looped around towards the University buildings on the Pentacrest, with their Greek Revival architecture. I went past Schaeffer, past the Old Capitol, and proceeded to go past various other buildings including their stately chem building. A very nice run. UI really does have a pretty campus, with lots of scenic spots that would be perfect for a conversation.

Today I ran a hospital loop, going across the river to the UI east campus, perhaps a mile or so from the downtown area. There are some nice trails over by the UI hospital as well as a number of dorms. Quadrangle Dorm, and some of the other buildings there, remind me a lot of Princeton or Bryn Mawr. I haven't seen much of the "staunch and grey" architecture characteristic of Swat around here, though.

And tomorrow I agreed to go running with Kate Pacha, plasma undergrad superwoman/hard-core rugby player. I'm currently pleasantly sore; I may not be after tomorrow night. At least she said we'd be taking a long easy warmup because of her knee problems. We'll see what pace she goes at, and whether it'll be one of the most intense runs I've gone on or nice gentle LSD. Long slow distance, that is.