goodbye fish, hello pork!

Saturday, M and I decided to try running a little later in the morning - we knew we'd have increased temperature, but the decreased humidity was enticing.  Unfortunately, the humidity didn't decrease all that much, but the temperature was about 10 degrees warmer at 10:30 than it would have been at 7:30.  We've been doing relatively short runs lately - 30 minutes - so we wanted a nice long work out for the weekend.  We picked out a 5 mile course with the goal of finishing it in about an hour.  We decided to run for 2 minutes, then run the rest of the mile.  This worked for about the first two miles (although M had to encourage me quite a bit at the end of mile 2), and then I was exhausted.  I had plenty of water and breakfast before the run, so I think it was mostly the heat affecting me.  I can't remember the last time putting one foot in front of other was so hard!  We stopped to walk a little bit until I felt slightly better, and then switched to intervals of 4 minutes running, 2 minutes walking.  We made it about another 2.5 miles, and then walked the last 0.5 miles back to cool down.  Even though we only ran a little more than 35 minutes total, I was proud of us for doing that much, and for going the whole 5 miles.  Lesson learned though: heat is a killer!

For dinner on Saturday, I made Shrimp Scampi and had it over pasta.  It was good, but I think I should have made more of a sauce for the pasta (instead of just more of what the shrimp was cooked in).

And so ends Pescatarian week.  This week I am making several pork dishes (and a few chicken)... which is a little bit terrifying to me.  I HATED pork chops growing up, but as an adult, I learned that my dislike for them was mostly due to my family often overcooking them, resulting in dry, chewy pork.  Now that I know pork chops can be so delicious, I'm determined to learn to cook them well.  I'm just a little scared that I might overcook them the first 27 times.  So, attempt #1 was Peppered Pork in Mushroom Sauce (don't ask me why the online recipe name is slightly different - the recipes are identical except that my cookbook doesn't suggest specific brands for the broth or flour).

This turned out decent... but the pork WAS slightly overdone.  I definitely cooked it less than the suggested 13-15 minutes, but the pork was probably done after only 5.  So, the meat was slightly chewy, but at least it wasn't dry!  I'll just have to be more careful with the next pork recipe!  Other than my slightly overcooking the meat, this recipe was deilcious - the sauce was gravy-esque, but light, and the flavor was very good - just kind of mild.  There wasn't much pepper taste, so I think next time I'll have to put more pepper on the pork... probably a few more drops of balsamic vinegar too.