@vazquezmom7 ... good for you for trying the staris thing ... I won't do it myself. There is a reason live in a house with no steps or stairs, no attic, no basement ... walkers don't do well on them! Does a local nearby school have stairs? Are all your malls one story?

However, to everyone who can use stairs, good luck. 82 flights is an awful lot of stairs to climb up ... and coming down is not really any easier on your joints! ... When I do not have my walker, but am using a cane, there is a little mantre I say in my head to keep the worst knee from getting injured ... 'up with the good, down with the bad' and it reminds me with which leg I should step up or down first and let the other follow.

@vazquezmom7 good job with finding stairs! too bad you can't just go to the movies everyday!
We have a lot of hills here so finding stairs is not a problem. I went up a big flight on my run yesterday, 84 total (7 flights), I did it twice so that really helped my stair count!

I turned on the stair counter on my fitbit but I'm not sure it's working properly, it said I went up 9 flights around 5pm yesterday. I was cooking dinner in my kitchen, no stairs there! So I'm going to try to remember to keep count during the day.

[quote="laurab384"
We seem to be down to 11 team members this week. And with over 6642 miles to go that's 604 minutes each! I know we'll have to dig deep to reach that goal but I believe in us! Remember activity doesn't just have to be a killer sweat session. A 15 minute walk at lunch or 30 minutes of yoga after dinner all count. Let's all try to fit a few more activity minutes in wherever we can! [/quote]

600! That's not easy.
Could I count the minutes of a challenge as activity minutes too? E.g., the 20 minutes of belly dancing?

Yes the activity challenges count toward your minutes so be sure to include those when you add to the spreadsheet!

I go grocery shopping on rainy days cause I can get my walk in by walking all over the very large store, and i get to push a big and heavy cart instead of my walker ... and I get to flex my muscles from lifting the bags out of the cart and into the car trunk, then out of the car trunk onto the garage floor, then from there to the front door, then into the front hall, then into the kitchen and finally to put everything away ... By the time I am done, I've done a lot of exercise!

Yes ... I have been eating Egyptian food this week, and have played around with using more spices that are not commonly used in Western cooking. Even bought some eggplants to day to make my favorit Baba Ganoush and will make my own Eqyptan flat breads to eat it with over the weekend!

Yesterday it was a rice stuffing dish for tomatoes. A couple of days ago it was a falafel wrap with tahini salad and pickles.

Hope you enjoy the soup ... I have yellow and red lentils on hand to make one of the Eqptian style lentil soups.

@laurab384, I think I'm a bit late in my reply, but try Mouloukhia (can be a meal if you add chicken or as traditionally made in egypt, with rabbits!!), or as Nikion901mentioned lentlils' soup. I'll post the recipe if you wish.

Personally, I've eaten the following:
Bamia (Okra stew), Kushari (rice, pasta, brown lentils, tomato sauce, fried onions), and baba ganoush.
Ah yes, and bites of basbousa, um ali (teeny bite!) and wara enab. (Didn't make myself, were presented in a buffet of a large event).

This was the list I made for myself as a quick reference. I've only added the foods that are practical (for me at least):
Side dishes/breakfast: Foul (cooked fava beans with olive oil, yum!), hummus, Baba ganoush, fried (grilled) eggplants, falafel, shakshouka, wara enab (like dolma).
Dishes: Mousakka (tomata sauce), bamia (okra), moloukhia, stuffed vegetables, kofta, kebab.
Desserts: Roz be laban (rice pudding), mohallabia. (Do not even think of anything else

There are many, many delicious foods. But I didn't include them in my list because they're so rich (or too difficult to make). Traditionally, Egyptians cook with a lot of lard, ghee and butter. The same goes with sweets too, where many have a sugary sauce, and frequently cream too, but are sooo tasty!

@sukkara ... I would like your Egyptian Lentil soup recipe ... the one I was going to make is from Epicuris web site and I always much prefer recipes from cooks who are making the foods as I find I like the 'home cooked' taste of them better than printed recipes.

@vazquezmom7 I did make it, it was pretty good! It's not how I usually cook with red lentils so it was nice to try something different.

Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ancho chile powder
1 lbs tomatoes, seeded and diced (I used canned diced tomatoes)
2 cups dry red lentils
salt
plain yogurt, lemon wedges and warm pita, for serving

1. In a large pot, melt the butter. Add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, 5 min. Add the cumin, coriander and chile powder and cook until fragrant, 3 min. Add the tomatoes and cook just until softened, 2 min. Add the lentils and 8 cups of water and season with salt. Simmer over moderately low heat until the lentils are very soft, 30 min.
2. Working in batches, puree the soup. Season with salt and serve with yogurt, lemon wedges and warm pita.

Happy weekend everyone!

Please be sure to add your minutes/challenges to the spreadsheet. It looks like a lot of people are working hard to get the minutes in, that's great! Keep up the good work everyone!

The stair climbing challenge has really made me think about how many I use during the day. I'm still having some issues with my fitbit (I think it's confused my the elevation changes in my neighborhood) so I've been trying to keep a running tally in my head. I haven't tried the belly dancing videos yet so I'll have to check those out today.

Good morning team 9!
Those belly dance videos were harder than I was expecting! I knew I'd have trouble with the coordination but I really felt it in my hips and core!

Today is the last day of our Egypt week! I'm going to make falafels for dinner. It's not a strictly Egyptian recipe but I figure it's close enough.

I'll post the recipe (I was going to put it in this post but it was getting really long!), it's from the Oh She Glows Cookbook which is a vegan cookbook of a blog (ohsheglows.com) that I would definitely recommend! The recipes are really good!