Saturday, January 15, 2011

tag!

Today M and I had our first "long" run of the year.  We went 4 miles around campus.  It was SO NICE to be outside after two months of being almost entirely indoors on the treadmill.  We did run into a few icy patches, though, so I think we still have some indoor runs in our future.  Anyway, it was a very slow run, as I am still getting back into the swing of things after far too long of a running hiatus.  But we did it, and that's what matters!  4.06 miles in 48:54; average pace 12:03 min/mile.  (We did 10 min running 2 min walking intervals, too).

I also made a salad today... but sometimes photographs of salads just aren't pretty!  It had shrimp and mangos and lettuce and a delicious Asian dressing, and looked almost nothing like this:
Meh, Betty has a professional photographer.  Mine still tasted delicious.

Susan tagged me in a survey, and I decided it might be a fun thing to do to spice up the content on the blog!

1. Four TV shows that I watch
  • Glee
  • The Jersey Shore (it's television crack - so bad, but I can't stop)
  • Family Guy
  • Entourage (but we don't have HBO, so we watch it when it comes out on DVD)
2. Four Things that I’m passionate about
  • Psychology (I'm a nerd)
  • The Redskins & The Terrapins
  • Cooking delicious food
  • My friends
3. Four words/phrases I use a lot
  • Whoa
  • Nnnno!
  • I can't think of anything...
  • Hi.
4. Four things I’ve learned in the past
  • Anyone can learn to run.  Seriously.  I was terrible when I started and was in pain every I went until I got the right shoes and learned to pace myself.
  • "There are only a handful of things one can control in life. The rest is a decision in how to react to each possible experience." -My friend RM
  • "You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think." -stolen from Susan, but it's true!  And you won't know it until you try!!
  • Two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.  And it doesn't make either of them wrong.

5. Four places I would like to go
  • Hawaii
  • Australia
  • Costa Rica
  • Spain
6. Four things I did yesterday
  • Searched online for wedding venues
  • Ate delicious food at Q Shack
  • Ate delicious food made by amazing friends
  • Had someone toast to me!
7. Four things I’m looking forward to
  • Running the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in April
  • Getting married! (in 2012)
  • Working on my master's project (slash, progressing through graduate school)
  • Fun trips... hopefully visiting Susan in NYC and going to 8 weddings!
8. Four things I love about winter
  • I don’t like winter. (stolen from Susan)
  • My Redskins sweatpants and my slippers
  • Pretty snow & watching people walk on lakes when I'm visiting New England
  • Hot chocolate!
9. Tag four people to play along (sorry if you’ve done it already!)

Friday, January 14, 2011

working out resumes

Thursday morning it was time to get back to running.  Of course, the sidewalks here are still a liiittle icy, and I am super paranoid about slipping and falling in the ice.  So to the treadmill we went!  The schedule told M and I was had 3 miles to run.  Sounds fine right?  Oh wait, I haven't run at all in several weeks.  Oops.  This was definitely a hard workout.  But that's to be expected.  We powered through and finished in about 33 minutes.
Then, in the evening, I did something a little crazy.  I went to spin class.  On the same day I went running.  Does this make me insane?  The thing is, between running, boot camp class (starting next week - more on that later!), spin, and our schedules, it's what made the most sense.  I can run in the AM on Thursday, spin in the evening, and then Friday is my rest day.  Any other day I went to spin, I'd have to run the next morning, which I think is much worse.  We'll see if I can stick with the schedule or not, but I'm feeling pretty good this morning!  Sore, of course, but after a three week hiatus I think that's to be expected :-)

After my insane day of working out, I was ready for some delicious dinner: a Ham and Swiss Bake.  This was another Bisquick recipe, but it had honey mustard mixed into the crust, which made for a great flavor!  After baking the crust, I added the ham mixture, which had green onions, green pepper, and sour cream.

Then, the whole thing was topped with swiss cheese and baked a little longer.
I really liked this.  It has such interesting flavors with the honey mustard in the crust, and the green onions in the filling.
Scott liked this but didn't totally love it (he said he'd eat it again, but maybe with as much enthusiasm as other things, haha).  It also lends it self to lots of different toppigns-  you could do chicken or tofu instead of ham, other veggies, other cheeses, etc. :-)

chicken enchilada pie

Wednesday was my first night back in my own kitchen, and so after stocking up on groceries I was very excited to get cooking!  I was craving Mexican food when I made the grocery list, so I decided to try Chicken Enchilada Pie.  First, I made the filling of chicken, enchilada sauce, and green chiles.  I actually didn't have quite enough enchilada sauce so I added in some salsa as well.
Next I worked on making the crust.  Betty Crocker loooves her Bisquick, and this was pretty basic; egg, milk, and Bisquick.
But then, a slight twist.  The corn for the recipe was mixed into the batter to become part of the crust - not part of the pie filling.  Interestingg.
Kind of looks like cream of corn soup, right?  Anyway, I baked this sucker for about 27 minutes and then was puzzled by the next instruction: Put shredded cheese on top and let it sit for 5 minutes.

I just did not believe that the cheese was going to melt simply by sitting on top of the pie.  No. Way.
I was wrong.  I was so excited about how perfectly melted the cheese on top was!

This dish is fairly spicy, but I really enjoyed it and it definitely helped with my Mexican food cravings!

Happy Friday, by the way :-)

Thursday, January 13, 2011

winter break review

I'm alive!  I was fortunate enough to be able to take three weeks off over the break.  During my break, I ran ... zero times and cooked... twice!

Meal #1 was Shrimp Bow-tie Casserole.  I made this for my mom, dad, and I right before Christmas.
It was a little soupy, but otherwise good.  Except I made one fatal error.  I had gone to the grocery store for my parents and gotten onion soup mix as well as ranch dressing mix.  And then, when it was time to make the sauce, somehow I ended up using the ranch dressing instead of the onion soup.  So the flavor (while still enjoyable) wasn't qiute... right.  Haha.  Will have to try this one again.


After Christmas, while we were in Maine, I cooked Scott, his cousin, and myself dinner.  On the menu: Easy Turkey Club Pie.  This was a very delicious Scott-friendly meal: no veggies, lots of meat and cheese.


In other news, over Christmas, I got a very exciting gift from my parents... NEW POTS AND PANS!  I am super excited about them, because they are everything I want.  Stainless steel with clear glass lids.




Now that I'm back home, I will be resuming the running and regular cooking... but with a slight twist.  Stay tuned for more details :-)