Running with Teaspoons

finally!

2012-01-31T18:24:00.002-05:00

FINALLY, today, I had what I have been missing for almost two months: an enjoyable run!

This knee pain thing has really been getting me down. I miss running. I miss enjoying the runs I go on. So today after class, it was a beautiful 67 degrees out, and I decided to try my normal two laps around east, with my knee brace. I definitely tried to keep an 'easy pace' but I ended up running the 2 loops in 31:51 - a 9:23 pace - not something I think of as "easy." Although my knee is (very very mildly) sore now, it felt good throughout the run and I wasn't limping or in pain at all afterwards! I'm SO excited about this. I know I need to take it easy to prevent any further injury, but it's SO NICE to finally feel like I can get back to running!

New blogger Courtney wrote today about running goals and listening to your body. After the 15k I had all sorts of crazy ideas about running goals for 2012. I definitely want to improve as a runner this year, but I'm thinking I need to be a bit more reserved in my goals. For now, I think my primary goal is going to be to enjoy my runs. This will probably mean minimal speed work and low mileage for the next month to avoid hurting my knee any further. That being said, here are some potential upcoming goals:

-PR in a 5k. There's a local 5k in 2ish weeks that only costs $5, and money is tight right now so the $5 entry fee was enticing. My current PR (and only 5k time I have) is 33:21. Today I ran 3.4 miles in 31:51. So a PR is not really a big challenge. I would like to see how fast I can push myself, though. I'll have to think more about goals, but I am hoping I can finish in under 28:00.

-PR in the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in April. This should also be pretty easy, since my only prior time is 2:02:50 which is around a 12 minute mile. I have about two months to figure out goals for this, but again, I definitely think I can PR!

-Possibly PR in a half marathon. I'm thinking about signing up for a local half marathon in April, and/or one in June near where I grew up. This would definitely be the most challenging of my goals, as my prior half marathon time is from October when I was in great running shape, and I haven't gotten a whole lot speedier since then! But, it's something to think about!

All those PRs definitely make it sound like I'm going to be focusing on speed.... but I'm not going to! At least not yet. For the month of February, the name of the game is easy, comfortable miles, until I am sure that I'm totally healed.

What are your 2012 running goals?

update

2012-01-23T08:14:00.000-05:00

Man, I have been a terrible blogger. This semester is already really hectic and intense, so I really haven't had much time to blog the past few weeks.

In addition to not having much time, I'm not feeling too inspired! I have been cooking, but most of my meals have been repeats of past favorites (we eat a lot of oregano chicken) or random things thrown together (black bean burger served over rice with steamed veggies? sure). So, nothing exciting to share on that front. Meanwhile, running has been... frustrating! The foam roller has helped, and I probably need to be more disciplined with it, but I have still been having IT band / knee pain whenever I exercise. It's annoying because the pain isn't so severe that it interferes with my daily activities, but it's bad enough that I definitely do not enjoy running.

Last night in attempt to cross train and try something new, I went with some friends to swim laps. What great work out - I was EXHAUSTED after. Of course, then my leg was sore this morning and I didn't feel up to running. I feel really lame not running. I need to figure out how to get totally better so I can get back to enjoying my runs!

One fun thing I have been doing is a 25 push ups, 25 crunches challenge, which I started on January 13th and plan to do for 50 days. It's pretty simple: I try to do 25 push ups and 25 crunches every single day. So far, I have missed some days but have made up for them in the days following, so on the average, I am on track! I am getting better at push ups which has been fun, and I'm starting to see definition in my arms which is awesome! Ten days down, 40 to go!

welcome to 2012

2012-01-05T19:46:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! I just finished reading Susan's first 2012 post and I have to say, I am also struggling to get excited about New Year's Resolutions or many goals. She said " My goals as of January 1, 2012 really aren’t any different than they were on December 31, 2011" and I very much agree with her. So maybe I'll review some 2011 accomplishments in this post and then talk about what I hope to accomplish in 2012 in a later post?

2011: Things I Accomplished
1. Got to my goal weight. Okay, so I never blogged about the fact that I was trying to lose weight - because I didn't want this to be a weight loss blog. Alas, I had put on some pounds since college that I decided I didn't want to run half marathons with, so I got rid of them.
2. Ran a 10 mile race.. and then a half marathon! I think that's pretty spectacular, considering that in January 2011 the furthest I had ever run was 6.2 miles.
3. Got a lot faster at running. When I started this blog I doing 2 minute running / 1 minute walking intervals and averaging above at 12:00 min/mile, and one year ago many of my runs were around the 11:00-12:00 min/mile pace. My 10k race in late 2010 was a 10:54 pace, which I was very proud of at the time. About one year later, I ran a 15k at a 9:09 pace: 5k further and almost 2 minutes per mile faster!
4. Cooked some delicious stuff, including Chicken Enchilada Pie, Baked Ziti, Indian Cauliflower Stew, and other foods I failed to blog about.
5. Began to explore the world of baking - very fun (albeit not so healthy).

I also ended the year with some mysterious knee/IT band pain. Basically, every time I run, somewhere around the 1.5-2.5 mile mark my knee starts to hurt - on my knee cap, more on the bottom I guess. When I stretch, my IT band is really tight... it seems no amount of stretching can make me feel like I've totally worked out the tightness. Also, I have noticed that various other muscles/areas of my legs are more stiff/sore than normal. Some days it's my quads, some days my calves or even my groin and recently it's been everywhere. Fail.

So, I've been pondering whether or not to see a doctor, but I decided today to buy a foam roller and use that for a bit and see how it goes. Any foam rolling tips? One website I read said to use the foam roller on the target muscle for 60 seconds, 3x a day, 2-3x a week. Does that sound right? Should I do more, less, something totally different?

Happy 2012 - maybe in my next post I'll have some goals/things I'm looking forward to in 2012?

holiday hiatus

2011-12-23T10:19:00.002-05:00

I kept thinking about posting this week, but couldn't think of anything to post about. Why? Well, I haven't really cooked anything new or exciting since the Lemon Bars... just various types of chicken. Maybe I'll get to make some fun things over the holidays to share about, but I'm not sure!

The second (and more annoying) reason? My knees have been bugging me when I run, so I haven't been running much. It's actually making me really sad. I don't know how to describe it. Various muscles in my legs will hurt/ache/be sore throughout the day. Stretching them seems to help. Then, maybe the soreness will dissipate, but only 10 minutes into a run my knees will ache again. It sort of feels like my knees are bruised. But if I stop running after 10 minutes, my knees stop hurting. If I run more than 3 miles, they will hurt for a few hours and then be better. But then random soreness throughout the day still. It's a mystery. I'm hoping some longer rest periods and more stretching will help. Any suggestions out there?

So, blog posting might be light for the next 10 days or so - but I'll post if anything exciting happens! Happy Holidays everyone!

More Baking Fun: Lemon Bars!

2011-12-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

Continuing with the excitement of having a Kitchen Aid and other new kitchen toys, last week I made Lemon Bars for a girls' night / Love Actually viewing party. The recipe was also from my new book Good Housekeeping Best-Loved Desserts.
First, I made the crust. I lined a 9 by 13 inch baking pan with foil and grease the foil, then patted down the crust mixture and baked it:

While the crust bakes, I got started on the lemon filling. Grating the lemon peel was actually somewhat time intensive, but no one said baking was easy!

Next, I mixed the eggs, sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, & other fun things together:

Once the crust was baked and the lemon mixture was ready, I poured the lemon mixture onto the crust and baked it for another twenty minutes or so:

It looks kind of weird once it's baked. The directions said to bake until it is "just set" and the edges are starting to get golden-brown, which is what I did. Looking back I think 3-5 minutes more of cooking might have been a good idea.
Next, I let the lemon bars cool and added powdered sugar

At this point, I was pretty excited. WOW, I made lemon bars, and that was easy. No no. The next step: I had to remove the foil/lemon bars from the pan:

That wasn't great, but it's mostly in one piece. Next, I had to peel the foil down from the sides of the lemon bars and cut them up. This is why greasing the foil REALLY WELL is so important. I clearly did not grease the foil well enough, so I started to have a mess as I removed the foil:

Next I started to cut up the lemon bars. Honestly, it was kind of a mess.

I managed to get a decent amount of them looking edible / presentable enough to take to my party:

Buuut I also had a huge mess at the end:

The mess was for two reasons (I think): Foil not being greased enough for the crust to come up, and the lemon filling not being quite set enough. Lessons learned: grease the foil really well. Bake long enough.
The good news: they were a hit! Everyone seemed to like them. I'll definitely have to try this again some time!

Slow Cooking

2011-12-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today is my very first post that was by reader request! Reader Monica (okay she's also my friend in real life, as I think all of my readers are!) requested that I write a post on tips, tricks, and favorite recipes for the slow cooker. For those of you that have followed the blog for a long time, you know I've done lots of slow cooker recipes, mostly from Betty Crocker's 300 Calorie Cook Book: 300 Tasty Meals for Eating Healthy Every Day.

General Advice
-Don't open up your slow cooker to check on the progress - to much heat escapes. Every time you do this, it can add 20 minutes of additional cooking time!
-Things on the bottom cook faster.
-Veggies take longer to cook than meat, therefore, you usually want to layer veggies underneath meat.
-Liquid doesn't boil away in a slow cooker, so don't add extra water/liquids!
-Condensation will form on the lid, so be careful of that when opening the slow cooker! Life the lid straight up to avoid making a mess :-)
-Although it's best to just follow directions, in general, 1 hour on high = 2 hours on low.
-It's totally safe to leave your slow cooker on unattended. So, put everything in your slow cooker before work, turn it on, leave, and come home to a fully cooked dinner. Hooray! My slow cooker is programmable - it has a timer and a "warm" setting, which I find really useful.
-If you are in the market for a slow cooker, definitely get one where the liner/pot can come out and is washable and preferably can go in the dishwasher. Because that thing can be a pain to clean!
-Be careful with seafood. Usually you add it just for the last 30 minutes. Shrimp, for instance, can get rubbery if cooked too long.

Although I have many slow cooker recipes that I love, one of my favorite things to do with my slow cooker is to make a chili or soup out of whatever is lying around the house. A few weeks ago, I added celery, onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, kidney beans, baked beans, broth, and spices to the slow cooker and let it go for 6-8 hours on low. I had a great chunky vegetarian bean chili at the end! Try any combination of veggies and beans with some broth to make a great soup or chili! If you need some recipe inspiration, I'd recommend this if you like garbanzo beans, this if you like all sorts of beans and want a home-style feel, and this if you are looking for a spicy black bean soup type of thing!

For those of you looking for a more concrete recipe, here are a few of my favorites:-Indian Cauliflower Stew: a great vegetarian stew
-Cous-Cous Stuffed Peppers: seriously one of the best things ever.
-Barbeque Baked Beans with Turkey Sausage: an easy family-favorite
-Mediterranean Bulgur and Lentils: a favorite of my Duke friends - but I use quinoa instead of bulgur and crumbled goat cheese instead of feta (to meet the dietary restrictions of my friends - but I'm sure following the recipe would be equally delicious).
-Jambalaya: who doesn't love jambalaya? just don't overcook the shrimp :-)

The last thing I'll say is that most things I make in the slow cooker do not look particularly appetizing (see all picture above, haha), but it doesn't mean they don't taste good! Sure, everyone likes pretty food, but when you throw everything and the kitchen sink into a pot, you might not get beautiful results. Doesn't mean it won't be tasty!

I hope all of you with slow cookers enjoy some good winter chilis & soups! Also, although I haven't tried them yet in my slow cooker, I know meatballs and mulled wine are fun party foods for slow cookers! Happy cooking!

haiku for spin class

2011-12-14T20:10:00.000-05:00

wednesday spin class fun

lady gaga and allie

make me smile always

(the last spin class of the semester was today. i'm SO bummed, because i love spinning, i love seeing the regulars in our class every week, i love our teacher, and i might not be able to make her class next semester. so, if you ever read this blog somehow allie, thanks for being a great instructor!)

Hot Chocolate 15k Recap Part 3: The Aftermath

2011-12-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

So I know it's been a while now, but I wanted to finish recapping the Hot Chocolate 15k, share some thoughts/reflections, and start thinking about future goals!

When we left off I had crossed the finish line and my watch read 1:25:11. I was feeling so excited about that time, but it was immediate chaos at the finish. They had set up the water/Gatorade too close to the finish line, which caused a bottleneck of people. Some poor race volunteer had to stand at the finish line the entire race with a bullhorn telling people to keep moving to make sure that runners could actually cross the finish line - that's how crowded it was!

Anyway, I got a bottle of water, spotted future MIL and SIL, and then found a perch to stand on as I watched for M. I figured she'd be maybe... 3-5 minutes behind me? If she had been feeling terrible, maybe 10. So we waited... and waited... and then I had been watching the finish line for 20 minutes and realized I definitely missed her. Crap. I called Susan who was with our friend K and they found us. We remembered that we had vaguely discussed meeting by the hot cocoa stand if we got separated, so we headed over to the post race party area. We camped out next to the hot cocoa and started watching for M.

I'll interject to say that the hot cocoa and the fondue was delicious. I wish there had been more of it (or maybe they should have had "1 serving free, next servings pay") but it was yummy!

So, after what seemed like for EVER (probably at least another half hour though) I start freaking out. Where is M? She doesn't know my phone number and she doesn't have her phone. No one memorizes numbers anymore. What would she even do in this situation? Finally we have the idea to ask the DJ booth to announce her name. Of course, their speakers are broken for the next 20 minutes. AGONY. I was really thinking, how could this get worse? The race was a hot mess, it started an hour late, and now we've been at the finish for well over an hour, unable to find M. My car is potentially undrivable, over a mile away, and I need to get Susan, M and I showered and fed and up to Maryland for another appointment by 3pm. Crap.

Finally, the DJ booth works and they announce for M to come to the hot cocoa stand. Ten minutes later, nothing. Now I am seriously out of ideas. Just as I was about to have a panic attack, my friend Mary calls me and says she has M. This is amazing, because Mary has actually never met M!!! M went up to the DJ booth and said "I heard my name but not what you said about me" and Mary was like "I KNOW YOUR FRIENDS!" We went running and I think did one of those slow-motion reunited movie hugs.

Susan, K, me, and M!

Now that we finally had our entire crew, we decided we better start on the hike back to the car. Seriously, worst parking situation ever. I heard the shuttle buses had long lines / weren't the best either but I can't really comment on that. Parking though? Bad. We went to the parking office to tell them about my car, and the guy was like "well I can't help you because everyone is dispatched to help with the traffic." So I was like um, well, what about my car? And he just shrugged. Calmly (on the outside, on the inside I was screaming) I said "So, just to be clear, your parking attendants had me drive over something that damaged my car, and now you cannot help me and have no suggestions for what I should do?" And he just shrugged. Okay, bye. We walked the rest of the way to where my car was parked, and sure enough, a 3 foot metal pole was stuck under my car. I see a guy directing traffic that doesn't seem to be too busy, as we were in a lower-traffic area, so I go talk to him. He tells me to go to the parking office. I am in the middle of explaining to him that the parking office wouldn't help me when Susan gets the pole out from underneath my car. ROOOMIE TO THE RESCUEE!!!!! (yes, we call each other roomie. yes, it has been 4.5 years since we were roommates). Luckily, my car appears to have no damage and we are able to get out of the parking lot and drive back to Virginia without TOO bad of traffic. And that folks, is a the story of the hot chocolate 15k, in three parts.

I don't think I'll ever run this race again and I will likely avoid races put on by RAM racing. Sure, this might have been a fluke. Sure, they probably will do great races in the future. But other races I've run have gone much more smoothly, so I think I'll avoid the hot chocolate race and RAM racing for now. The director of RAM racing did send an "apology / explanation of why things went to wrong" e-mail. Some things are understandable, but it wasn't enough for me to really believe that it was "just a fluke". In other news, several people with Garmins said that the 5k was too long and the 15k was too short. Also not sure if that's true, but if you can't get the course length correct, that is just plain ridiculous.

At the end of the day, I got to do a race with great friends (even many who I never found, haha) and I was really proud of my time. 1:25:11 (if the course was the right distance) translates to 9:09 miles, which is way faster than I thought I could run. That's awesome! I feel like all of my training paid off: my speed work, my long runs, my weight training and my other cardio cross training! After this race, I feel stronger and more fit than I have ever felt, and that is awesome!

So, what's next? I feel like I always need a next race so I have training plan to follow! I think I will be signing up for a 5k in February - it would be fun to run a shorter race and see how fast I can go! I am also excited to let y'all know that I got into the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

I'm super excited to run this again! My friend Kimmy, who I ran with last year, also got in - so that will be great! Plus my fiance got in. He doesn't run right now, so we'll see how he does! I'm pretty excited about this race because it was so fun last year, and I know that it will be WAY better this year since I will have actually trained to run 10 miles!

I'm also thinking about running a half marathon in April, but that decision / announcement will come later :-)

and now, i can BAKE.

2011-12-12T07:30:00.000-05:00

Blog, meet my new favorite toy:

Oh yes. I have a Kitchen Aid. And she is red and beautiful, and entices me to bake. So on Saturday I decided it was time to give her a spin, and I decided to try Applesauce Spice Cake, from my new dessert book Good Housekeeping Best-Loved Desserts.

If you can spot the problem I was about to have making this from a look at this ingredients, I'll give you a gold star.

Yayy new toys (and if you are reading this and had a hand in giving me these gifts, THANK YOU AGAIN).
First, we mixed the flour and spices... (in my new bowl with my new whisk!)

And THEN we busted out the brand new Kitchen Aid (yep, new spatula to help me, haha). First I mixed the butter and sugars, and then eggs and applesauce.

Not looking so appetizing yet, but it will, I promise. Next we added in the flower mixture and raisins. YUM!

Looking delicious! Now, transfer that into the square baking pan (also a new toy)...

Then into the oven...

Let cool completely, then dust with powdered sugar

Cut, and enjoy

Verdict: deliciousness. Everyone who had it at the party loved it. Some requested that I make it again soon.
But, this is a blog about cooking (and baking?) so I have to critique it as well. The cake was very thick, so the pieces were huge. This is at least partially because I was supposed to use a 9 inch square baking pan, which I didn't have, so it went into an 8 inch square baking pan. Even so, I think it would have been really thick in a 9 inch square pan!
Also, if you saw above that I had two things of Confectioner's sugar, you might have wondered why. That's because I thought one of the boxes I picked up was actually dark brown sugar. Oops. That's not terrible, I just used light brown sugar and added some molasses to it. Until I realized I also SOMEHOW had no regular granulated sugar. Who doesn't have granulated sugar in their house??? So, I had to use, um, even more light brown sugar. No one complained, but I don't know how different the cake tasted because of this. The last thing I should note is that I found it really challenging to pour ingredients into the mixer while it was mixing. And then when I was done I realized that I had a plastic shield with an opening to pour in ingredients EXACTLY FOR THAT REASON. Kitchen aid 1, Sara 0.

Hope you enjoyed my first installment of "Sara learns to bake and plays with the Kitchen aid" because there is definitely more to come!

Hot Chocolate 15k Recap Part 2: Running

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

Finally, at 9:04 the race started. It took about 4 minutes for M and I to cross the start line. As you might recall, I was feeling pretty grumpy from the delayed start, standing in the cold, and potential damage to my car. Luckily, I really do love running, and about 30 seconds after we crossed the start line my mood improved dramatically.

Mile 0-1.0:
We crossed the start and made a left hand turn pretty quickly. As we turned, I saw my future MIL and SIL cheering me on. After seeing traffic, they parked on the VA side of the bridge and WALKED ACROSS so they could cheer me on. I'm so lucky to have such supportive future in laws!! Around the half mile mark there was a water station, which seemed early/weird, but since I had finished my Gatorade at like 7:30 and it was nearing 9:15 I figured I'd take some. Then a volunteer make a snarky comment about us needing a drink already. Um HI I finished my Gatorade at 7:30. It's 9:15. I'm thirsty. Rude. Anyway, right after the Gatorade we started running down hill... down an on ramp ... onto a highway? Wait, really, I'm about to run on Indian Head Highway? It's three lanes in each direction. So they closed two lanes - one for runners going out, one for runners going back, and left the third lane open. Umm. Strange. Anyway, we were feeling pretty good about our pace - it was challenging but not crazy hard. So I was pretty shocked when my watch read 8:30 at the 1 mile marker. Whoa, am I running that fast? I usually don't run that fast! Later, people with Garmins told me that the mile 1 marker was short. Yes, that makes more sense.

these photos don't necessarily line up to the mile markers.

Mile 1.0-4.0
This entire out and back I basically was thinking, wait, are we seriously just running on a highway? Even if people wanted to spectate, they couldn't. And we were right next to trucks, with awesome smelling exhaust. DC is so scenic and pretty... I do not understand. The only fun part to an out-and-back is seeing people you know that don't run the same pace as you. Susan spotted us as she was running back and called out to us, which was fun.
Somewhere around mile 2.4, we ran over a mat. I thought that seemed weird and then realized that if we had run over it on the way back it would have been at the 5k mark. Apparently the race volunteers had directed us to run out on the wrong lane. Superb planning once again. My first split time was 21:04, which for a 5k would be 6:47 pace. Clearly inaccurate. My actual pace seemed to be somewhere around 9:00 min/miles, although to be honest I wasn't paying close attention - I was just running at what felt good.

Mile 4.0-6.0
We ran back up the on-ramp (boo uphills) and I got to see my future MIL and future SIL again - hooray! I also handed off my cell phone (so annoying to hold), hat, and gloves... it was getting toasty! We got some gatorade, and soon we were running past the start line. This was kind of a huge bummer. The 5k was long over and I think the very first 15k runners were nearing the finish line... and I still had over 5k to go. Boo. We ran down a huge hill, and I realized that I would have to run up said hill at the end of a race. Also a huge bummer.

Mile 6.0-7.0
We passed the 10k split and my watch read 58:04, which is around a 9:20 pace. I wasn't capable of doing math that detailed at the moment, but I knew we were on track to finish in under 90 minutes. I couldn't believe that I was feeling this good at the 10k point - although we were running up a hill that wasn't too fun. Right after the 10k split (maybe at 6.5) M tells me she isn't doing well, and I left her behind. Poor M! I focused on getting up the hill, one step at a time. I was so grateful for the gatorade at the top of the hill and I walked for about 5 seconds while I drank it and prepared for the next few miles.

Mile 7.0-9.0
Now I was on my own, which is always mentally more challenging than running with M. I'm tempted to slow down or walk, and no one is there to yell at me not to! I just kept telling myself to find an easy pace and keep chugging along. We ran down into a gravel area with music playing and I heard some Ke$ha - who happens to be my favorite artist. The Ke$ha cheered me up and I saw M running into the gravel area as I exited it, so I was glad to know she was running again!
Finally we were running along the harbor... the only pretty part of the course! I tried to soak it in and keep chugging along. It felt like a lot of people were passing me and I just wanted to slow down, but I knew I was still on track to finish in under 90 minutes so I told myself to keep going. Until I remembered that crazy hill I was about to climb to the top...

Mile 9.0-9.3
My thought process through the end of this race was: 9.0, only 0.3 to go, time to speed up, oh wait hill. Hill. Hate. Hill. Die. Hill. I can't speed up for the 3ish minutes it will take to go uphill 0.3 miles, I can just barely WALK for 3 more minutes. Okay, don't walk just run slowly, up the hill, wait why are we turning? Wait the finish line is right there? Oh it's flat now? OH I BETTER SPEED UP FOR THE FINISH... but the crowd of people is making it hard to sprint and my legs hurt from that hill...
Then I crossed the finish line which was a mob of people not moving, but I looked down at my watch and saw 1:25:11 and FREAKED OUT. That was so good! How did I finish so quickly?

so happy!

I was pretty pumped about my time and found some Gatorade to watch for M. I found my future MIL and SIL quickly and they stood and watched with me. Stay tuned for the post-race craziness and other thoughts, but for now here at some stats:

Official Time: 1:25:11, 9:09 pace
Overall place 3372 out of 10150 (top 34%)
Age group place (F 25-29) 531 out of 1817 (top 30%)
Gender place 1961 out of 7450 (top 27%)

I NEVER thought when I started running that I would ever be in the top third of any race I ran. Or that I could maintain a 9:09 pace for 15k. So this was ridiculously exciting, despite the race antics!

Hot Chocolate 15k Recap Part 1: Expo and Pre-Race Shenanigans

2011-12-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

So, I'll be taking the next several posts to recap everything related to the race weekend for the Hot Chocolate 15k at the National Harbor on December 3, 2011. If you have read anything about the race, you know a lot went wrong. I'm definitely NOT trying to complain or have a negative attitude, but I am going to share my honest thoughts and opinions about the race weekend.

Friday afternoon, M and I headed north to the DC metro area for our weekend of fun. We made a quick stop to pick up Susan and my other friend K and the four of us headed to the expo. The traffic getting in to the National Harbor to park was horrendous! It took us at least 45 minutes to go basically 3 miles. Once we got to the expo, it was pretty standard - lots of vendors, pretty well organized, etc. We got our race numbers, made sure our chips worked, figured out parking, and then got our jackets. I have to say, the jacket was kind of a let down. It looked SO nice on the race website, but really it's a lightweight windbreaker. I guess I should have expected that. The jackets also ran quite small, but luckily it was simple to switch sizes!

After we got our jackets, we looked around the expo. K bought a few things, while Susan, M, and I just wandered around. I looked longingly at the Garmins and checked to see if they had any Brooks Adrenaline on clearance in my size (they never do - but it's nice to check!). It was getting late by then so we left the harbor to go to dinner. I had originally to get reservations at a restaurant in the harbor, but when I checked ~5 days in advance there were no tables anywhere! So, instead we went to Rustico in Alexandria - a good choice for our group because everyone likes pizza and they had gluten free crust for M! After we filled up on pizza we went back to K's house where we determined we had to set the alarm for 4:30am if we wanted to get to the race on time.

Saturday morning the alarm went off at 4:30am - yikes! Our plan was to leave by 5:00am, drop one car off at my future MIL's house that is only a few miles from the harbor, and then take one car over (since we had 4 people and 1 parking pass). Of course, I left the parking pass on K's kitchen table so she had to go back and get it... oops. By the time the four of us were in one car and on the way to the harbor it was 6:00am. Not TOO bad, since my future MIL lives about 15 minutes from the harbor without traffic. We had been told to arrive by 6:30 because there would be road closures starting at 6:30am, even though the 5k started 7:30am and the 15k started at 8:00am. Obviously, the traffic was already backed up all the way across the bridge by 6:10, so we sat in traffic forever. People started getting out of their cars and walking! We got across the bridge and near the harbor around 7:10 and saw a mass of people walking from the water front area over to our left - apparently to the start line? Not sure why the start was so far away from the harbor. Since we were parking in the opposite direction and we were worried about K missing the start of the 5K, we told her to jump out of the car and start walking. She texted us soon after to say the start was delayed.. whoops! At least she didn't miss the start?

Finally we got to the parking area, and I was directed to park in a grassy field instead of one of the parking garages. I was being directed to start a new row of cars all the way over to the right of the field when I heard a horrible scraping noise under my car. Umm WHAT? The parking people looked terrified. Apparently, they directed me to drive over a huge metal pole that had then gotten caught underneath my car. The parking attendant told me to back up to see if if would come out. Then, when it didn't, she told me it must be part of my car that had fallen off. I'm sorry, my car did not just spontaneously fall apart. No. Alas, it was around 7:30 and we realized we were at LEAST one mile from the start. So, we decided to deal with my car after the race.

Susan, me, and M walking to the start

We still didn't know where the start line was, and it was about 35 degrees outside, so we took our first opportunity to use a public restroom. Then we proceeded to walk down to the harbor, past the tents where the expo had been, and up a hill. FINALLY we found the 5k start line, which was packed with people waiting to run. We tried to look for some of our friends who were running the 5k, but no luck! We walked up to the 15k area, but since the starts overlapped (but faced different directions) they weren't really lining up the 15k participants yet. So we just kind of wandered around. Finally they announced that the 5k was starting around 8:15am, so we went to get in our corrals. It was funny because the guy was being strict about letting people in the correct entrances, but once you entered the corral, nothing was stopping you from walking forward to faster groups or backwards to the open/slower groups. Oh well.

At this point, I was getting grumpy and kind of thirsty - I had finished my Gatorade around 7:30! I also pondered whether or not to use the bathroom again. However, no one was able to tell us what time the 15k was starting, so I had no clue if I had time to find water or anything. People in the corrals were not happy. It was cold. Several people suggested we just start running... what was taking so long? The first ~10k of the course was the opposite direction of the 5k, so it's not like we'd run into them any time soon? I had no clue. Finally someone announced that the path of the 15k crossed over the traffic trying to get in to the harbor, so they had to wait for all of those people to get in and park. Course planning FAIL.

FINALLY, the race started - my watch read 9:04. 64 minutes late. This by far is the worst organized race ever....

Hot Chocolate 15K: Goals

2011-12-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

HAPPY DECEMBER! I realized after reading Sarah's post on Wednesday morning that I should think about December goals... but I'm drawing a blank! I want to stay in good running shape, work on my strength training, and cook/bake fun things... I also want to get a lot of work done on my next milestone since exams end Dec 9th and I'll have a bit more free time. None of those goals are very specific or measurable though... and they look very reminiscent of my November goals! So, I'll ponder and get back to ya'll :-)

Yesterday, I completed my last training run for the 15k! It's coming up so quickly! I'm super excited, because in addition to M running the 15k, I know about 5 other people running the 15k (including SUSAN!) and another 6 or so running the 5k! For one of my friends, it will be her first 5k ever - so awesome! So, the whole race should be really fun, and I'm definitely excited to get some delicious chocolate at the end. The weather forecast is also looking great - overnight low Friday 32, but high of 49 on Saturday... so cool, but not too cold!

Anyway, M and I have been training hard and doing speed training every week, so I figured it's about time to share my race goals with you guys. Similar to Susan's style of goal-setting, I have a few different levels:

A Goal: Finish in 1:30:00. I don't know quite when or how I got this in my head, but I REALLY want to finish in 90 minutes or less. I'm not sure how realistic that is for me at all - it is about a 9:39 pace, so about 30 seconds faster than I ran the half only ~6 weeks ago. But I've been training hard, so we'll see!!!

B Goal: Finish in 1:32:48, which I derived from the McMillian calculator. Based on my half marathon time, the McMillian calculator says I should be able to finish in this time, which works out to a 9:57 pace. I would be pretty pleased if my average pace was under 10:00 min/miles I think! 1:33:12 would be exactly 10:00 miles, so something like that would be nice to say.

C Goal: Finish in 1:34:54, which would be the same pace I ran the half in. With almost 4 miles fewer to run and some speed work under my belt, I should definitely be able to maintain this!

D Goal: Finish and HAVE FUN! I have, of course, figured out what a 10:30 and 11:00 min/mile finishing time would be as well, but I figure if the race isn't going that well speed-wise, it's better to enjoy myself than to fret over setting any records. Besides, it's my first 15k so I'll set a PR no matter what!

Black Bean Burrito Bake

2011-11-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope your Thanksgivings were just like mine: full with family, friends, laughter, stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey, and pie. We had 32 people at Thanksgiving dinner and 11 different types of pie at Thanksgiving... plus some cookies, dessert breads, and cakes. I might have tried 4 different kinds of pie. Whatever, that's showing restraint -- I had to pass on 7 pies!!!

While I was away for Thanksgiving (up in New England) I managed to get in 2 work outs - one was calisthenics and strength exercises inside, and one was a three mile run! We got 8-10 inches of snow on Wednesday, but that didn't stop me from running off some pie on Friday morning. The snow wasn't too bad to run in, but look at the elevation for part of the run I did:

That hill is not a joke. I had successfully avoided ever running up this entire hill before, but family member J talked me into tackling this beast for the first time. It was rough, but I can't wait to get back up there and tackle that hill again - maybe without on the ground?

Anyway, if you recall, I had the goal of trying four new recipes this month. Before we left for Thanksgiving, I managed to complete RECIPE #4!

Today's recipe was also from Cooking Light, and was another nice vegetarian meal - Black Bean Burrito Bake. I am kinda digging the "no meat at lunch" thing I've been doing lately (not totally on purpose, but it has happened that way). Don't get me wrong - I have no intention of giving up meat, but I kind of feel healthier if I don't eat lots of meet all of the time.

So, I'll go through this step by step, but I will say that I made one really big mistake while preparing this meal, and it made it infinitely harder to enjoy. Chipotle Chili Peppers are spciy, yes, but not that spicy. They get a 2,500-8000 on the Scoville Scale, which is like Tobasco sauce. I like Tobasco sauce, and I like spicy food. So I was not at all worried about the spice from the chipotle chiles called for in this recipe. I WAS WRONG TO NOT BE WORRIED. This s*** was SPICY. I don't understand. WHY? It burned. Burned SO BAD. I literally had to pick all the peppers out of the burrito in order to keep myself from dying. So sad. I don't know if all brands of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are this spicy or not, but here's a tip:
0. Don't buy this kind of chopped chipotle peppers unless you like dying.

Anyway, now that I've done my best to warn you about that stuff (my only friend of Mexican descent, when I showed her what I used, was like "YES, that s*** is spicy," so I must be right), I can move on to the cooking and reviewing of the recipe.

1. Mix chilis and sour cream, let stand for ten minutes... I had to use WAY more sour cream than the recipe called for in order to cool this down.

2. Mix black beans, corn, and sauce. Mmm black beans and corn! Okay, so this is obviously not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but just roll with it!

3. Put 1/4th of the mixture into each tortilla... again, it might not look pretty but I promise (once you remove some of the peppers) it is tasty!

4. Wrap and place in a baking dish seam side down... this pyrex baking dish from the grocery store was possibly the best investment I ever made - I use it every week I think!

5. Top with salsa and cheese... luckily I had medium salsa to top the burritos, so I didn't have to subject myself to too much extra spice.

6. Bake

7. Enjoy - made four lunches worth for me!

Optional: garnish with lime wedges and cilantro sprigs. Or, if you are me, squeeze on some lime juice over the burrito and sprinkle it with dried cilantro.

So, overall thoughts: This was SO EASY TO MAKE. Toss things together. Throw in oven. Done. I love how little time I had to spend making this! It was also really filling, which was awesome (for less than 400 calories!). In the future, I'd probably use adobo sauce with some hot sauce to go in the burrito, and maybe some cooked bell peppers instead of chili peppers? Or I could just find chili peppers that don't make me feel like I have fireball in my stomach for the next three hours. (I literally told my spin teacher "Don't be offended if I leave early, I had spicy food for lunch... luckily I did make it through spin!). In the future, I also might use a more fun salsa (instead of the medium generic store brand) to switch things up. Otherwise, stick to the recipe as is - it's AWESOME!

Thoughts on Greek Yogurt

2011-11-21T08:47:00.000-05:00

Note: no one paid me to do this review (um, I wish), but I'm doing it anyway. Why? Because so many people (and blogs I read) talk about how delicious Greek yogurt is. So today when it was on sale at my local grocery store I decided to finally give it a try after turning up my nose (for no legitimate reason) for so long.

Full disclosure: I don't really like regular yogurt that much. This is probably why I avoided trying Greek yogurt. I used to eat fat free strawberry yogurt every once in a while, but the texture just isn't my cup of tea. So I haven't had yogurt in about a year, until this experiment.

So, I purchased one small container of Chobani Greek Yogurt - Strawberry non-fat, fruit on the bottom, and ate it as a late afternoon snack. First thought: $1 for 1 thing of yogurt? Not a bad price for a snack, but probably more pricy than my other snacks (e.g. a piece of fruit, some nuts, etc.).... but, perhaps more substantial than those snacks? (BTW, I'm totally giving the cost of other snacks a ballpark - I know most fruits are less than $1/each but I couldn't estimate for my other snacks!).

Second thought: whoa nutritional stats - in particular, whoa protein! Not many (non meat) things that I eat have 14 grams of protein, and particularly not in only 140 calories! That's pretty awesome.

As for flavor... I'd give it a solid B? It reminded me a lot of sour cream. The fruit flavor was good, but I wish it had been... fruitier? Sweeter? It is definitely not as sweet as I recall regular strawberry yogurt to be. This was surprising given the 19 grams of sugar! I do wish it was a little sweeter - the aftertaste is very reminiscent of sour cream, and not strawberry. However, overall, I'd say I liked the flavor.

The texture also reminded me of sour cream... maybe a mixture of sour cream and regular yogurt's texture? I think texture was my main turnoff for yogurt in the past, so I imagine that I couldn't eat this every day or even every other day without getting sick of the texture. However, this might be something good to have 1-2x per week as breakfast or as a snack, especially when I'm not getting other sources of fruit (a problem in the winter when many fruits in the grocery store don't look good).

So, overall: I wouldn't mind eating this every once in a while. But, like regular yogurt, the texture is not my favorite and I doubt this will ever become a regular part of my diet.

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weekend workouts & thoughts
-friday night: i decided to show jillian who's boss and totally kick ass at banish fat boost metabolism. it went really well until my back and calves were really sore on saturday. i guess she showed me who's boss.

-saturday: 8.2ish outside. it was cold - 28 when we started! i guess it's good practice for the 15k. great run though, felt good pretty much the entire time, avg. pace around 10:47 min/miles.

-sunday: should be a rest day, but my friend A had just bought jillian's killer buns & thighs, so i went to her house to try out level 1.

-monday morning: despite it being 28 on saturday morning, it was 60 degrees this morning, so i HAD to run outdoors! we ran 3.4 miles total, avg. pace around 10 min/miles before going inside for some weight training. M made bench press the bar - 3 sets of 10 - but for one set, she added 2.5 lb weights to each side! woo! it was hard but great.

thoughts on jillian's killer buns and thighs: it was okay. jillian continue to be kind of annoying, but pretty hard core. some moves were SUPER hard, some i didn't think were very effective (but maybe i need better form or more weights), and other moves were just uncomfortable because we were on hardwood floor, haha. oh and because A's dog REALLY wanted to get involved in the work out. my house next time! :-)

we leave on tuesday for the holiday. i'm hoping to use some ideas from pintrest to figure out how to get in some good work-outs without going outside or having any equipment! ideas so far include combinations of jumping jacks, high knees, butt kicks, jogging in place, burpees, squats, lunges, push ups, crunches, planks, mountain climbers, and kicks/punches/kickboxing moves... any suggestions would be welcome though!

Italian Portobello Sandwiches

2011-11-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

This week I made a new recipe, Italian Portobello Sandwiches from Cooking Light: Weeknights. The cookbook was a gift back in January and so far everything I've tried has been great! I altered the recipe a little bit - cut up the mushrooms and onions into small pieces because it was just easier, used white bread and American cheese instead of sourdough and Provolone because that's what I had, and put them in my new Griddler to make them into paninis, because I'm still pumped about my new griddle/grill/panini maker. So, since I remembered to take lots of pictures, I'll walk you through it all step by step:

1. Saute mushroom and red onion. Really onion rings and big pieces of mushrooms were probably preferrable, but this worked out fine:

2. Mix mayo with basil and pepper, put mayo mix on bread - Basil and pepper! Such a fun way to switch up typical condiments. I must remember this more often!

3. Add roasted red bell pepper to the sandwich... I LOVE ROASTED RED BELL PEPPER!

4. Then some mushroom/onion mix...

5. Top with cheese (American instead of Provolone, still tasted great!)

6. Sandwich time!!

7. (Not shown) I put this in my Cuisinart Griddler and made it into a nice warm panini!

I honestly think having this served warm MADE THE MEAL! The melty cheese was amazing. The only negative I would say about this recipe is that you can't really "pre make" sandwiches. I tried, and they ended up way soggy. So, this is definitely not a lunch to pack, but rather one to enjoy while you are at home :-)

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Workout updates:
Wednesday: weights and spin class? check
Thursday: 4 mile tempo run on the treadmill because I'm allergic to rain? check
Friday: weights? check! Jillian DVD: this afternoon!

Big news from all of that? I CAN BENCH PRESS THE BAR. Two sets of ten today. I am damn proud of myself. Monday I'm going for three sets of ten. Woohoo!

I can't BELIEVE Thanksgiving is only one week away, and the 15K is two weeks from tomorrow! So many exciting things coming up! I'm currently trying to figure out how I will get workouts in while I'm staying in a house with 8 other people and have no exercise equipment and likely icy conditions unsafe for running... any tips out there? :-)

Whoaa, we're half way there

2011-11-15T19:28:00.000-05:00

I can't believe November is halfway done! I figure now might be a good time to review how my November goals are going.

Goal #1: Stick to my workout routine for the entire month. Here's the very detailed calendar with what I planned to do:

And as of November 15th, here is what I have done:

Yes, I made a colorful calendar for this. Yes, I should have been doing work instead of making the above calendar. Oh well.

Thoughts on my progress so far:
-All the work outs have been done, I have just had to shift them slightly some days (e.g. my long run happening on Sunday instead of Saturday).
-My Tuesday morning run is "3-5 miles" and every week I've done the same 3.4 mile loop (or rather, 2x of a loop). I'd love to increase the distance on this run, but it's hard because I have a 9am meeting!
-When M can't do our normal morning workouts, my whole day gets delayed. Example: Monday, we normally get to the gym at 7:30. M wasn't feeling well, and I stayed up kind of late, so instead of going at 7:30 by myself I slept in for an embarrassingly long time and then did my workout at home before heading to lab WAY later than I should have. I still got the workout done, but I wasted a lot of time (via laying in bed). I need to find a way to be motivated to wake up / get out of bed on time, even without my gym buddy!
-I am not loving my strength training program. I am getting stronger - I've moved from 8 lb to 10 lb weights for several exercises! However, I don't really look forward to strength training or feel excited about it. I need some way to get more motivated - a new routine for December? Perhaps tracking my exact reps/weights so I can really see myself getting stronger? Any suggestions would be welcome :-)

Goal #2: Cook at least four new recipes and blog about them. On Sunday I shared Lasagna Soup with you, and on Monday I shared Indian Cauliflower Curry Stew. Two down, two to go! I definitely find that my interest/desire to cook comes in waves. For instance, although I blogged about both of them this week, I made the soup, the stew, and one other recipe (chili) within the span of 2 days over a week ago... and then didn't feel like cooking much for the last week ish! I get to the point where the idea of picking a meal, getting the ingredients, chopping up veggies, etc. all sounds overwhelming. So then we eat frozen pizza, quesadillas, and sandwiches, or eat out. I think I just need more quick and easy meals!

Goal #3: Work on my research project. Shockingly, without concrete goals, this hasn't progressed as nicely as my work out & food goals. It is getting somewhat better, and I think I need to be much stricter about setting aside time JUST to do research and not allowing ANY distractions - whether they be classes, papers, clients, lab-related work, exercise, cooking, TV, or anything else. Starting... as soon as my two final papers for my two classes are written? Haha.

Indian Cauliflower Curry Stew

2011-11-13T20:09:00.001-05:00

Last week, I made Indian Cauliflower Curry Stew, which I got out of my cookbook Good Housekeeping Budget Dinners: Quick and Easy Everyday Recipes. I am definitely not a sandwich-for-lunch type of person, so I love to make casseroles or crock pot meals that I can bring for lunch. And, since Scott packs/makes his own lunches, I can be creative and make stuff he would never eat :-)

Sorry this post is light on pictures, but I made this in the crock pot so there wasn't a lot to photograph! Technically this is not a slow cooker recipe. - it says to make it in a dutch oven over heat, and it takes less than an hour. But I REALLY love my slow cooker, so instead, I threw all of the ingredients in and let it go for a few hours!

The rice cooked just fine in the slow cooker, although the cauliflower and rice were a bit mushy in texture. I can see some people not liking the somewhat mushy-ness of the dish, but it was just fine with me! This might also have been because I used frozen pre-cut crinkle carrots and frozen cauliflower.

My only real comment was that I added more curry powder than it called for, and I think that worked well. I tend to find that I always want more herbs and spices than recipes call for :-) Otherwise, I thought this was delicious, easy, and definitely something I'd make again. It was the perfect recipe for when you are feeling lazy (as long as you can wait for the slow cooker) because I literally put broth, uncooked rice, frozen pre-cut veggies, chick peas, and some spices in the slow cooker and walked away. Lazy person's heaven!

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recent workouts:
-sunday, i ran 5 miles with my friend K, avg. pace 10:23
-monday (aka today), i ran 2 miles in my neighborhood, avg. pace 9:38 + did strength training at home. strength training at home never goes quite as well as at the gym, as i only have 5 lb weights... but M wasn't feeling well and i couldn't drag myself to the gym this morning!

Lasagna Soup!

2011-11-13T19:24:00.001-05:00

Hello! I hope ya'll are enjoying this beautiful fall weather. Today I ran five miles outside with a friend who was in town visiting for the weekend. The leaves here are all sorts of beautiful yellows, oranges, and reds, and the weather was perfect - mostly sunny and about 46 degrees.

So, you might recall that I had a goal of trying 4 new recipes this month. New recipe #1 was Lasagna Soup, a recipe I found while perusing Pintrest. I love Italian food / pasta, so I was excited to try a recipe that had lasagna flavors without lasagna calories. Step one of this recipe was to cook the onion, bell pepper, garlic, and the Italian flavored turkey sausage. In order to make it Scott-friendly, I skipped the bell pepper. I also used chicken sausage instead of turkey sausage, because that's what I could find at the grocery store.

After about 10 minutes I added the broth, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and red pepper. I think I added too much red pepper, but this is probably because I failed to measure it and not because the recipe calls for too much. The soup ended up being pretty spicy. Scott didn't have any complaints and I actually like spicy food, but I just don't think lasagna-inspired soup ought to be that spicy. Anyway, after simmering for another 20 minutes, I added broken lasagna noodles. So, "broken lasagna noodles" is ambiguous. I broke each noodle into about 8 smaller pieces, but I think it must have been much smaller / bite sized.

After the noodles were cooked, I stirred in mozzarella cheese, basil, and Parmesan, and dinner was served!

So, overall this was delicious. It had some great flavors and was very filling, which I appreciate in a soup. I do wish it was thicker, though - maybe more tomato sauce or even tomato paste would help. Next time, I think it might be better to stir the mozzarella into individual servings so that it melts on top nicely - especially if you are going to reheat some servings later - just save the cheese for when you are heating it up! I also think more vegetables would be awesome. Yes, I left out bell pepper so Scott would enjoy it, but I think bell peppers, mushrooms, and black olives would be great additions to the soup! Overall, though, a delicious recipe I'd make again!

Cross Training

2011-11-06T22:08:00.000-05:00

First, to respond to my comments on the 15k: I find it so interesting that ya'll feel like it's easier to run faster outside than inside! Even with the 0.5-1.0% incline, I think it's so much easier to run fast on the treadmill than it is to run fast outside. I would love to have a phone with GPS or a Garmin to help me track my pace while I'm running outdoors, but for now all I have is my stopwatch!
Right now, we are trying to do most all of our tempo runs outside and all of our speed work workouts inside: the tempo runs are challenging but we are able to push ourselves to stay on pace outdoors - I'm not sure how successful we would be at attempting to hold a 9:18-9:00 pace outside without a Garmin/GPS/track to help us know how on target we are.

Anyway, today's post is about CROSS TRAINING! Woot! For most of the past year, my cross training has been spotty at best. I might say I'll go to spin class regularly (because spin class is my first true love in exercise), but in the spring 2011 semester I probably went a total of 3 times max. I talk big game about wanting to get stronger and lift weights, but until recently, my strength training record was worse than my spin class attendance!

After the half, I decided to get serious about cross-training, both with non-running forms of cardio and with strength training. For strength, we are going to the gym weight room Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. I did a looot of research, looking at programs from Women's Health, one of my favorite bloggers the Fitnessista, and other random websites, and combined things I liked to create my own routines. I have various workouts for legs (e.g. squats, lunches, calf raises, etc.), my core (crunches, planks, etc.), and arms (tricep dips, hammer curls, chest press, etc.). I'm only really on week three right now, so its definitely still a work in progress!

I also wanted to do some non-running cardio. I really like the Wednesday evening spin teacher at my school's gym, so I decided to commit to going every Wednesday evening to her class. Two weeks ago was amazing and INTENSE, perhaps the most intense class I've gone to ever! She's awesome. I also found a friend or two to go with me to help keep up my motivation.

My last cardio add-on is to do Jillian Michael's Banish Fat Boost Metabolism once per week, probably on Fridays. I did the video for the first time in a while two weeks ago, and I really liked it! When I first got it about 2 years ago, it was nearly impossible for me to get through. So, I was really excited that I didn't need to pause the DVD in order to make it through. I definitely worked up a sweat and felt like I got a good workout, but it isn't impossible anymore. There are a few moves that I dislike - they don't feel hard, so much as awkward/uncomfortable, so when they come up I either modify them or do jumping jacks / jog in place instead. Anyway, this is a nice way to get in some cardio without going to the gym, and my goal is to do it every Friday.

So, if you've been paying attention, you'll see that my workout schedule each week is:

Mondays: 2 mile run + strength
Tuesdays: 3-5 mile run
Wednesdays: strength + spin class
Thursdays: speedwork
Fridays: strength + Jillian's cardio DVD
Saturdays: long run
Sundays: REST!

Ambitious? Yes. Intense? Yes. Doable? I think so! I'm pretty excited about it. I've definitely learned that my mood and productivity is much better when I exercise regularly, so I think this is a good plan.

15k Training

2011-11-04T15:05:00.000-04:00

My 15k is less than one month away now, so I figured I should share my training program for the Hot Chocolate 15k!

I had a few criteria for a training program. First, I knew I wanted to run four times per week, but one of them needed to be quite short so I could run and do other exercise. Second, I wanted to have one long (5-10) mile run on the weekends. Lastly, I knew I wanted to focus on improving my speed, so I needed to do some intense speed work once per week. I used Runner's World's Smart Coach program and then tweaked it. Mostly, the tweaking was increasing the distance of the long runs, and then making the mid-week easy runs on the shorter end (to help with time constraints, etc.). Here's what I came up with:

Week of	Monday	Tuesday	Thursday	Saturday
Oct 17	Rest! (Post-half)	3-5 mi, easy	4 mi tempo, 2 mi @ 9:45	Long run: 6ish
Oct 24	2 mi, easy	3-5 mi, easy	4 mi speed, 2X1600 @ 9:18	Long run: 7ish
Oct 31	2 mi, easy	3-5 mi, easy	4 mi tempo, 2 mi @ 9:40	Long run: 9ish
Nov 7	2 mi, easy	3-5 mi, easy	4 mi speed, 2X1600 @ 9:09	Long run: 7ish
Nov 14	2 mi, easy	3-5 mi, easy	4 mi tempo, 2 mi @ 9:35	Long run: 8ish
Nov 21	2 mi, easy	4 mi speed, 2X1600 @ 9:03	Run if you can (Thanksgiving)	Run if you can (Thanksgiving)
Nov 28	2 mi, easy	3 mi speed, 1x1600 @ 9:00	Rest!	RACE IN DC!

So, what do ya'll think? It's going well so far. I have been doing a bit more on the treadmill than I normally would prefer, for a few reasons. One is that it's getting COLD and sometimes, I'm just not up for a cold in sub-freezing weather. But, the main reasons is ... I'm HORRIBLE at holding a steady pace!! I know I am capable of running a mile at 9:18 pace (as I did this past Thursday), but without the treadmill to keep me on schedule, I don't think it would be possible. Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone have a solution to it??

Along the same lines, I'm REALLY trying to make my "easy runs" an easier, more consistent pace. The Smart Coach program tells me that my easy runs and long runs should be veryyyy slowwww... as in, around 11:30 min/mile! Particularly if I'm running on a treadmill, that is almost painfully slow. However, there is apparently a lot of science behind the "run slow to run fast" idea (so I am told - I'm not personally familiar with the literature), so I'm attempting to follow it... at least somewhat. So far, my "easy runs" have been between 10:13 and 10:55 pace and my long runs have been 11:06-11:26 pace. Not terrible, right?

It's a bit unfortunate that Thanksgiving interrupts training. I'm going out of town, and it seems incredibly unlikely I'll be able to run Wednesday-Sunday of that week, but oh well! Missing two runs isn't going to destroy all the progress I make over the 6-ish weeks of training.

As for cross-training, I'm REALLY trying to get better, both to improve my running as well as for general fitness. I'll post again soon about my cross-training plans!

November Goals?

2011-11-01T08:25:00.000-04:00

HAPPY NOVEMBER! ... I cannot believe how quickly October went by. It was a great month: I ran my first half marathon and went on some fun trips, including a visit to Charlotte, NC and to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA!

One of my favorite bloggers Sarah has a habit of setting goals each month, although she has recently moved into focusing on one goal per month. Every time she posts about her goals I think, I should really do that on my blog! I advise a local chapter of my sorority here, and whenever I help the girls set goals we always make sure we set SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. So, keeping those in mind, here are some November goals:

1. Stick to my workout routine for the entire month (details of this plan to be forthcoming). This includes cardio 6/7 days per week and strength 3/7 days per week, with one rest day. I am going to say right away that I will NOT hold myself to sticking to this plan while I am away for Thanksgiving, but I will come up with a modified and more realistic schedule for those days.

2. Cook at least 4 new recipes during the month and share them on the blog. I'm taking suggestions - especially if you have ideas for healthy dinners to feed picky eaters who dislike most vegetables, haha.

3. Work on my research project. I don't even want to say this out loud, but I need to get more serious about my current milestone project. This has been failing because there is no current structure. I need to create some structure and then stick to it. I'm not even sure how to make this a SMART goal. Set a minimum time per week to work on it? A goal of number of articles read? A goal of having a more complete outline or certain sections read? Something must be done... sigh!

Is anyone else setting November or monthly goals? I like monthly goals so much better than New Year's resolutions - I can't even recall what my New Year's resolutions were this year, or if I even made any! Hopefully on November 30th I'll still remember what these were :-)

post-half-marathon thoughts

2011-10-31T15:36:00.000-04:00

So, sure, the race was a full two weeks ago, but I'm still going to recap all my thoughts about the race for you, because it's a running blog, and I do what I want. Also I have more pictures to share, because me in the same outfit sweating is obviously what you were hoping to see here today. In no particular order, I hope you enjoy the rambling below:

I am such a baller. I can't believe how fast I ran. Okay, yes, I'm bragging, but also... this was a revelation, because as you might know from prior entries, I'm generally real slow. To know that I can run a half at a 10:11 pace suggests I can do things I never thought imaginable. Maybe I could run my next half in under 2:10. One day, I might even break 2:00. That sounds insane and amazing all at once. ... and of course this generalizes to other (shorter) distances. If I can run a 10:11 pace for 13.1 miles, how fast do you think I could run a 5k/5 miler/10k/15k/10 miler? Oh the possibilities! (Time to get serious about speed work?)
I must do another half. Followed by several more. I'm currently in search of a half to run in the spring, but I'm having trouble finding one that is at a convenient time for me (read: one that I can run without having a long run the same week of my wedding). Still pondering. Also want to do the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler again... so with all that going on, I'm not sure when the next half will be. But no worries: there WILL be a next half.

mile 5, courtesy of Devin

Despite many people suggesting that after a half, I would want to run a full marathon, I don't. Sorry. Running for 2 hours and 15 minutes? Fine. Running for 3 hours? Ummm, maybe. Running for 4+ hours? No thanks. It's not that I don't believe I am capable of running a marathon. It's mostly that I don't have the time to train. Plus, that running for that long doesn't sound fun.
Speaking of fun, I can finally say with confidence that I find running to be more fun than it is not fun. Obviously not every minute of every run is fun, but I definitely think I like it more than 50% of the time. It took somewhere between 12 and 18 months of consistent running for me to feel that way. So, if you don't like running, try going at least 3 times per week for a year, and then let me know how you feel, haha!

somewhere between miles 9 and 11

I think my style with races is the bigger the better. I like the excitement, having other people around, and having at least somewhat of a crowd. The 2 races I have run with less than 200 participants have been my least favorite, and the 2 with ~1,800 and ~15,000 have been much more enjoyable. This shouldn't be a shocking revelation (and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way), but it will definitely influence what races I sign up for in the future.
Lastly, you might be wondering what's next for me? Well, that was decided even BEFORE the half had ended. I've already signed up for the Hot Chocolate 15K in Washington, DC. M is signed up, and so is Susan! Actually, a ton of friends are signed up - I know at least 7 people doing the 15k (including myself) and another 7+ doing the 5k! It's going to be a blast! M and I have already started our training program, and I'm REALLY pumped about this race! Hot chocolate and a chocolate fountain at the end? WIN.

mile 11.5ish - perfecting the jazz hands

I want to give a shout out to my sorority sister Danielle who just started a running blog! Danielle wants to run a marathon in every state. This makes her insane, but it also makes for a fun blog I think, so go check out her blog!

most attractive photo ever taken of me, woo!

right after M finished!

So blogland, I'm taking suggestions for half marathons to run in 2012 - sometime in April or beyond. Preferably within driving distance of Durham. Oh and it can't be April 21st or 28th weekends. Or May 19th weekend.

baking experiments!

2011-10-27T22:06:00.013-04:00

hello blog land!

this weekend my future mother in law is came to town and we had dinner with some other family members on saturday night. i was asked to bring a dessert, which gave me the chance to try a recipe i've been excited about for a while: salted caramel chocolate bars!

my friend allison has made these several times, and i always (a) eat too many of them and (b) get her to let me take some home! so, it was finally time for me to attempt them. first, the crust:

then, after that's baked for ten minutes, you just layer on chocolate chips, caramel topping, and more crust. i found it hard to get the second crust to crumble on evenly/well - maybe i had too much melted butter and thus it wasn't crumbly enough? or, it might just be that i didn't have enough crust overall and you need a bit more than it calls for. at any rate, i ended up mixing up just a little bit more to make sure it was completely covered before i baked for another 20 minutes:

before baking

after baking! yum!

side view - look at all the melty gooey chocolate and caramel!

I let them sit in the fridge for about 24 hours to make sure they congealed before cutting them up. The verdict? They were a total hit! The kids each ate three pieces (we cut them up pretty small, haha) and all the adults had at least two :-) In the future, I'd say you need way more salt than the recipe calls for. But, I'd definitely make this again!

Easy & Delicious Baked Ziti

2011-10-20T11:48:00.000-04:00

Hope ya'll enjoyed the race recap! I'm already gearing up for my next race and looking for a spring half marathon to sign up for! But, today's post is about cooking :-)

Earlier this month, I made Baked Ziti for Scott and I to have for dinner. This was a recipe from the Biggest Loser Cookbook and made 8 servings, each around 350 calories. It was actually my first time making baked ziti, but it was really straightforward! Step 1, cook pasta!

Step two, make the ricotta cheese filling... this one had ricotta and mozzarella...

Along with some garlic, red pepper, salt, and pepper...

Mix it all together...

Next, combine the pasta and the cheese mixture.

Now, take a 9 by 13 inch baking dish and coat the bottom with marinara sauce. The cookbook has a recipe for marinara that is pretty healthy, but if you don't feel up to making your own you can just buy a jar from the store!

Top the marinara with half of the pasta mix,

Followed by more marinara, more pasta, and the remainder of the marinara...

Finally, add mozzarella and parmesan cheese before baking!

So easy, and soooo delicious. This is another great filling, savory meal that isn't too high in fat or calories - great for cool fall days when you need something really filling!

We enjoyed this for several nights - usually with a side of veggies for me!

Ramblin' Rose Durham Half Marathon Race Recap

2011-10-17T16:00:00.000-04:00

I know ya'll have been anxiously awaiting my recap of the Ramblin' Rose Durham Half Marathon (aka my FIRST HALF MARATHON!), so here it is!!! Sorry if I am rambling at some points, but I am just SO EXCITED about this race and want to share every bit!

Pre-Race/Race Prep: Getting EXCITED!
Sunday morning, the alarm went off at 6am and I got out of bed, full of anticipation. First thing I did: put on a great playlist of music to pump me up while I got dressed and ate breakfast, which was Nature Valley Oats 'n' Honey Bars, some water, and some Gatorade. M showed up around 6:40am and we snapped a pre-race photo:

so excited!

We got to the start line around 7:05am - PLENTY of time before the 7:30 start. It was a little chilly, but we knew that we would warm up fast. The weather forecast for the race was PERFECT: starting out in the upper 40s, and should still be below 60 when we finished, with almost no wind and a decent amount of sunshine. We got a picture at the start line and said goodbye to Scott, who was planning to catch us next at mile 6.5.

We found the 10:30 pace sign and got in line a little behind it. Standing in the crowd definitely helped us warm up! Soon, we were listening to the national anthem (the singer was fabulous!) and crossing the start line.

Hi Scott!

Miles 1-3: What pace are we aiming for?
Mile 1 started off strong, but slowly. The race started on a slight uphill, but in all of the excitement I didn't notice! The road was also packed with runners, so we just sort of moved whatever pace the people in front of us were moving. It felt comfortable, and since we lined up by the 10:30 sign I figured we were probably right on track. But when we got to the mile 1 sign, my watch side 11:20. Oops! I told M it was okay for us to speed up a little bit if it felt comfortable. As the crowd started thinning we sped up and found ourselves some more open space to run. After the mile 1 marker we turned onto familiar territory: two streets that we have run on several times before during our long runs. However, we were running opposite of the direction we had gone in the past. Turns out when you run backwards, all the nice easy downhills become annoying uphills! Harumph! We got to the mile 2 sign and my watch told me that we were now averaging 10:30 again. I guess that makes our 2nd mile really fast? Oops. M and I are apparently AWFUL at keeping a steady pace, haha.

Miles 4-7: Friends are Fabulous (and make you run fast)!
Right after sign for mile 3 we turned down a street where our friend S lives. A group of about 5 friends had gathered at her house to cheer for us and drink mimosas! It was so fun seeing them (THANKS GUYS!). Next we ran back towards East Campus, which was also familiar territory - we run here multiple times per week! At the end of mile 4 we knew to look out for another friend J, and were delighted to see not only her, but three other friends! And J had signs! Running a race in the town you live in is great - we got so much support!
Around mile 5.5 we passed the first relay checkpoint. After the race, I found out that at the relay points, we also ran through a sensor that tracked our time. So, at mile 5.5 we were officially running at around a 10:02 pace. Faster than we had planned, but feeling great! We left East Campus and started down Campus Drive towards West Campus. It was eerily quiet! Luckily, Scott was there to cheer us on and snap some photos:

I fail at jazz hands, but at least we look excited!

Shortly after we saw Scott we had to tackle a familiar hill on Campus Drive. Halfway up, M remarked "this hill sucks" to which I replied "did you forget?" since we have run up it probably a dozen times. Luckily for us, some of the crew from mile 3 were waiting at the top of the hill to cheer us on! It was SO appreciated after the hill and they gave us a great burst of energy post-hill. Before we knew it, we passed mile marker 7 and I couldn't believe we were more than half done. We also that we saw our friend Devin again - who was at mile 5 with some friends - but then rode his bike to several locations later in the race. HUGE thank you / shout out to Devin, I'm pretty sure he made it to about 4 different spots!
The second relay checkpoint was at mile 7.5 (very random / uneven legs for the relayers!) and although I didn't realize it at the time, we FLEW from 5.5-7.5 Some quick math tells me that our overall pace at 7.5 was 9:43, meaning we ran miles 5.5-7.5 at an 8:49 pace? THAT IS CRAZY. It did not feel that fast at all.

Miles 7-11: The Friendly Hilly Neighborhood
Right around 7.5 we entered a neighborhood we had never been in before. The people in this neighborhood were great. There were random neighbors outside cheering. Two different families were handing out water. One of the girls handing out water cups was probably only 3 years old, and she was ADORABLE. Some parts of the neighborhood had put up funny/encouraging signs on the side of the road. On one particularly awful hill, the neighbors had written "keep going" and other messages in side walk chalk! Overall, nice neighborhood. BUT IT WAS REALLY HILLY. I think the neighbors knew how hilly and awful it was to run through their neighborhood, so they worked extra hard to keep us going, haha.
Other things I remember about this stretch: sometime during mile 8 or 9, a girl ran up next to us and says "we are on pace to finish in 2:10!" I looked at my watch and tried to figure out what that meant. My first reaction was "YEAH LET'S DO THAT" but then she passed us, and I decided that attempting to keep up with her was not wise.
Around this point, I started feeling quite confident that I could beat my "A" goal of 2:17:39 and started pondering what time I actually might be able to finish in. I started to wonder about 2:15 or 2:14 (2:15 because it sounds cool, 2:14 because it would put me in a better seed for my next race). Right before the mile 9 marker, we saw Scott again and he snaps a photo:

I look awkward because I had just finished my last energy chew and was throwing the empty bag at Scott so I didn't have to carry it. But again, I look happy! This is important because Scott told me that during the 10 Miler in April I looked miserable, and he wanted me to have fun. I WAS having fun the whole time, but I think I tried extra hard to smile for him when we passed him, haha. Anyway, right after we saw Scott, we saw Devin again. Hooray for support! Meanwhile, the rolling hills continued - a nice happy downhill at the beginning of mile 10 following by an evil uphill right after. As we get to the top of another terrible hill sometime between the mile signs 9 and 11, M tells me she can't keep up and we need to slow down. We slowed our pace for a bit, and I tried to yell encouraging things at her as we tackled more rolling hills, but she was falling behind me.Unfortunately, right after mile marker 11 she starts walking up hill and I keep running. I didn't see her again until the finish line.
Sidenote: While running with M, I don't usually think much about our pace. I try to run somewhere between "comfortable" and "a little bit challenging", and I use her as a marker... if she's struggling, I slow down. If she's pushing me to speed up, I do. Without her, I have to really think about whether or not I'm running too fast or too slow. So after we parted ways, I had to really to focus on running a challenging pace, but not one that I couldn't maintain for the remainder of the race.

Miles 12-13.1: Flying Solo
Before I hit the mile 12 marker I saw Devin again and tell him I lost M. Soon after, I saw the mile 12 marker and decided it was time to start pushing myself a little harder: only 2.1 to go! Around 12.5ish, I saw Scott for the last time, and he told me to enjoy the upcoming downhill, but not to go too fast because the race ends on a slight uphill so I need to save a little bit for that and really power through. He also informed me that I was ahead of my pace prediction and that he's proud of me. This gives me a HUGE boost of energy. I was feeling FAB as you can see in this picture:

About 2 seconds after seeing him I got to enjoy that downhill. I started to pass people, but kept myself from speeding up TOO much. Instead, I focus on picking out people I think I can beat and try to pass them one by one. As the seconds tick by I tried to push myself just a liiiiiiiiiitle bit harder. As I turned onto the last street I really began to push myself, knowing that I couldn't be far form the mile 13 sign. Finally I hit the 13 mile marker and I started to sprint.
I'm a TERRIBLE sprinter, by the way. I really have to focus every amount of my energy on reminding myself to keep running fast. At this point, my thighs were BURNING, and I felt like my legs might possibly buckle beneath me, but I could see the finish line and keep telling myself I can do anything for 60ish second. As I crossed the finish line, the official timer read 2:14:01 - but I knew I crossed the starting line late, so I can't figure out what my actual time was. Of course in my excitement I forget to press "stop" on my watch and didn't get to look at it, haha. I heard my name read over the loudspeaker as I finish (SO COOL) and was handed a water bottle and a medal. The women (Duke basketball players I think?) handing me these things kept saying "Congratulations Sara you did awesome!" which was fun - our names were on our bibs, so they knew my name!

I FINISHED
Official time: 2:13:14 - an overall pace of 10:11 min/mile!!!!
Right after the race I remember that my legs were SHAKING, to the point where I wasn't sure if I could stay standing. I also remember feeling like I might cry, but definitely tears of joy/happiness/sense of accomplishment. (For the record, I didn't cry). After about 20 seconds of that, I decide to go back to the finish line and watch for M, who finished about 3 minutes after me.
Devin appeared at the finish line to congratulate us, and I also ran into blog friend Sarah before M and I headed to the finishers area for post race snacks and to check our time. I had more gatorade, some orange, and a bagel before we go check our times on the computer. I finished in 2:13:14. SO RIDICULOUS.
After that we walked over to to a grassy field so we could meet up with Scott, stretch, and take post-race photos:

Do I look like I feel like a rock star? Because I felt like a freakin' ROCK STAR. After stretching, I of course had to get a a photo of me showing off my medal with our photographer/cheerleader:

I think I will do a whole separate post about post-race reflections sometime later this week. THANK YOU so much to all of my friends who supported me - by cheering in person or commenting on Facebook/etc. I am so grateful for all of the encouragement!

i'm ready....

2011-10-15T21:51:00.000-04:00

or, as ready as i'll ever be:

October and Fall Food

2011-10-13T15:04:00.000-04:00

With the cool weather rolling in, I definitely started to look forward to some great fall food. This month's issue of Women's Health had an entire article on various recipes you could make with pumpkin. I've never made anything pumpkin flavored before, but pumpkin spiced lattes, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin pie are definitely some of my favorite fall foods! So last week I decided to give one of the recipes a try: Pumpkin and Shiitake Risotto with Crispy Sage. Here are all the ingredients I started with:

I modified this recipe slightly: I had plain canned mushrooms on hand so I used them instead of shiitake mushrooms. I also used dried sage leaves to add flavor rather than frying up my own. So, I skipped steps 1 and 2 and started my risotto:

Making risotto is a time-intensive process because you have to continually stir the risotto to avoid it sticking. You also have to add the liquid slowly to allow it to absorb and cook correctly. But, risotto is also one of my favorite foods, so I ALWAYS find the time and effort it takes to be worthwhile!

After the risotto was cooked it was time to add the pumpkin, cheese, salt, and pepper.

This might sound silly, but recently I had forgotten how much salt and pepper can bring out the flavors in a dish. Although lots of different flavors added to the deliciousness here, I'm pretty sure that it would not have been the same without the salt and pepper!

This recipe made about 4 servings which I had throughout last week for lunch. The flavors were amazing - pumpkin, cheese, risotto, yum! It's also a very creamy, savory dish, so every day I felt really satisfied and full afterward eating lunch. I highly recommend trying this at home - it wasn't very difficult at all!

Happy Fall, everyone! What are some of your favorite fall foods?

last long run & goals for the half.

2011-10-10T22:31:00.001-04:00

i'm finally blogging in october ABOUT octobter - go me! so today's post is about my last two long runs before my half marathon!

sunday, october 2nd: 12 miles on the docket. the weather forecast, pretty much amazing:

Oh hello FALL WEATHER! Love it. Pretty soon it's going to be time to pull out the cooler weather running clothes! But not today. I have finally found the absolutely perfect thing to wear on long runs, and I now refuse to change it up. It consists of an American Apparel v-neck t-shirt and cotton shorts from Victoria Secrets. M had on slightly warmer gear when she met me at our usual spot at 9am, but after a few miles she agreed that shorts and a tshirt were perfectly find for the low 50s.

We ran a new route for the 12 miler, one that I had been itching to try every since my friend A told me about a local trail I had never run on. It winds through a few parks and changes name twice, but it's about 5 miles

long, so we started about 1 mile away and decided to do an out-and-back route.

Have you ever had a run where everything just seems to go perfectly? It's effortless, comfortable, enjoyable, even euphoric? That is how I felt about this run. I didn't look at my watch for the first time until 36 minutes in! We found a water fountain with a bathroom on the way. I was never too hot or too cold and I was energized the entire time! Oh, and we found a dinosaur:

This was also the first run I decided to try some sort of energy chew/gu/gel on the way. Per Susan's suggestion, I went with Power Bar Energy Blast Gel Filled Chews. Unfortunately, I read the label incorrectly and thought that a serving size was 1 chew, for 190 calories. So I took one chew with me (they are the size of maybe 2 fruit snacks) and had it 45 minutes in. I did feel great and energized the whole time, but when I got home I realized that the entire package of chews (9 chews total) was 1 serving for 190 calories. Energy fueling FAIL. Ah well, the raspberry flavor was delicious and I look forward to having them during the half!

The last mile of the run was a little rough, but we powered through and our time was 2:03:20 - which is a 10:17 pace overall. RIDICULOUSLY fast for us on any day, and ESPECIALLY to keep that pace for so long. Feel pretty spectacular!!! I can't believe we finished 12.0 miles only 6 minutes slower than we did 10.2 a few weeks ago. Not sure if it's the cooler weather, us getting in better shape, or both (okay it's probably both), but I'm liking it!

Anyway, 12 miles was the max distance we had planned to run before the race - which is actually a little on the high side for a beginning half training program - but I think it was perfect for us! I'm feeling very confident knowing that I only have to conquer an additional 1.1 on race day.

Fast forward a week to Saturday, October 8th: we are tapering!!!! I had originally planned to do 10 miles but Susan suggested 6-8 would be better. Since she has run 9 marathons I figure she knows what she's talking about, so M and I searched USA Track & Field's website for a good 8 miler. We found a good one around campus and set out around 9am. It was around 50 degrees and mostly sunny with very light wind - awesome! The run started out great and the first 3 miles zipped on by. Somewhere around mile 4 I started to hate whoever made this route - it was hilly! There aren't many hills in Durham so I'm not sure how the author of this route managed to find SO. MANY. HILLS. Even so, at mile 6 I remember saying to M "this time last week we were only half done - but now we only have 2 miles to go!" and a few minutes later "it doesn't feel like we've been running very long but it's been over an hour!". Unfortunately M wasn't feeling quite as perky as I was and around mile 7 she started feeling less than fabulous :-( Since this is my blog and now her's I won't give you all the details - the important part is we both finished 8 miles :-) And, just like it was a sick joke, the last quarter of a mile was a very steep uphill for about .10 miles followed by a less steep but steady up hill for the last .15. Not cool! Either way, I finished strong in 1:23:33 for a 10:26 pace. VERY pleased with these long run paces staying around/under 10:30.

So, we ran this morning (our usual 3.4 miles) and we'll run again Wednesday... and Wednesday will be our LAST run before the half on SUNDAY. Crazy. I think it's time to make my goals public and official, as Susan often does.

2011 Ramblin' Rose Women's Half Marathon Goals:

Goal A: 2:17:39. This would be a 10:30 pace. I would feel like a freaking rock star.
Goal B: 2:24:12. This would be an 11:00 pace and would make me feel like a respectable runner.
Goal C: 2:27:00. This would be an 11:14 pace and would qualify me for a Corral for my next race!
Goal D: 2:37:19. This would be a 12:00 pace and would be a slight improvement over my pace from the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in April.
Goal E: Finish and HAVE FUN! (and not get kicked off the course, which you will if you fall below 15:00 miles).

The race is only 6 days away... and advice for first half marathons?!?!?

September cooking, part 2!

2011-10-06T09:17:00.000-04:00

The second new recipe I tried during September was chopped pepper steak. This was also a biggest loser cookbook recipe. Fairly simply - it involved making "steaks" out of ground beef, rice, and some other ingredients. We had been eating a LOT of chicken in our house recently so I was grateful to find a new non-chicken recipe to try.
First, I made the mixture:

Looks awesome right? Okay no, raw ground beef never looks appetizing. Oh well. Anyway, next I shaped it into steak patties to cook:

They look like nicely shaped hamburgers in that picture, right? Siigh, if only they had stayed together that nicely. The ended up more like this:

This is actually a consistent problem with me trying to make any sort of hamburger, meatball, etc. If I'm supposed to shape meat to stay together, it WILL fall apart. I think it's probably a lack of practice.. I've probably made hamburgers/this type of thing less than ten times in my life. I will say that despite being a complete and total crumbly mess, the flavor was great! I served this with a side of rice and a mix of cooked peppers/onions.

So, there you have it - I managed to make two new recipes in September! I also ran really consistently. I use the running AHEAD Training Log on Facebook to track my runs (good to know when it's time for new shoes), and a looking back I can say:

I ran a total of 69.7 miles
I had three long runs: 9.3 miles. 10.2 miles, and 7.8 miles
I ran 16 times overall - which is basically every other day on average!
My pace varied from 9:08 on a 2.7 mile run to 11:29 on my 10.2 mile run
That being said, on most of my runs my pace was in the 10:20-10:40 range, which means I am getting faster over time (this summer it was more consistently around 11:00).

Well, it's 6 days into October, so perhaps I'll start posting about my October cooking and running soon :-)

September cooking, part 1

2011-10-03T22:47:00.000-04:00

I'm a terrible blogger. But, while I had a free moment, I did want to share with you some of the recipes I tried in September! The first new recipe I tried was BBQ Bacon Meatloaf from the Biggest Loser Cookbook. First step, cook some chopped onions and turkey bacon:

Next, mix some oats and milk and whatnot:

Then, basically combine the oats with garlic, Worcestershire sauce, ground turkey, and the bacon/onion mix. Put the mixture into a loaf pan, spread BBQ sauce on top, and bake!

The night I made this I wanted asparagus, but something beyond my normal (and fairly plain) steamed asparagus. So I used two of my favorite new websites to look for a recipe: GoJee and Pintrest. If you haven't seen GoJee, you basically type in an ingredient you are craving or that you have, and it will suggest recipes. It also allows you to input ingredients you don't have/don't want/are allergic to. It looks like their long term plan is to hook up with various grocery stores so that if you use your savings card and link it to Gojee, Gojee will know what's in your kitchen. Pretty cool idea, although it doesn't have my grocery store yet. Pintrest is basically a way to save pictures/links of things you like on a virtual pin board, and lots of people have "favorite recipes"/"recipes to try" as a board.
Anyway, GoJee helped me find a new asparagus recipe which I modified based on what I had an laziness and I ended up with delicious asparagus lightly coated in bread crumbs:

With a small side of (fake, out of the box, yet delicious) mashed potatoes, dinner is served:

The meatloaf was good, but I think it needed more Worcestershire sauce and more garlic in the base - the overwhelming flavor was the BBQ sauce on top. I like BBQ sauce, but it kind of left the middle parts of the meatloaf lacking taste.

I managed to try two new recipes during the month of September, so hopefully I will be able to post the second one soon!

happy september!

2011-09-07T09:18:00.000-04:00

Happy SEPTEMBER!

I started this post on September 1st, but got side tracked for seven days. Sorry blog! August was filled with long, hot, humid days, so although I love summer, waking up to the 1st day of September with cooler temperatures was nice! Even now at almost 9am it's only 68 outside. Amazing! I recall my September 1st run being very pleasant as a result.

Saturday M and I had our long run of 9.25 miles. As most long runs, it had ups and downs. I accidentally made a route that included a rather large hill in the first 5 minutes, so that was not fun. After getting to the top of the hill my calves were unhappy and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to recover and make it the remaining 8.75 miles. We stopped to stretch and walk a little around the 1 mile mark and after that things got WAY better. And by way better I mean we still run really slow but I wasn't hating my life. Miles 2-3 were fun because we were running along new roads with pretty houses that I wish I could afford to live in. Miles 4-6 were fine because it was fairly flat and familiar territory. Mile 6 was a hot mess: we ran into guys doing weed-whacking and I got grass in my eyes. Mile 7 was kind of tough because I knew at the end of the 7th mile was a hill I hated, even though it's not actually that bad. The beginning of mile 8 was terrible because we were running down a long (albeit flat and easy to run on) road and I knew we had to just turn around and come back and the ONLY thought I had in my mind was "if we turned around now we'd be done sooner". Luckily, as soon as we got to the end and DID turn around, I cheered up and even picked up the pace because I was so happy to be at the home stretch. The rest of mile 8 was pretty fabulous, and even the painful hill at the beginning of mile 9 was fine. The very last bit was rough. We ran to a traffic circle and then we just had a little bit of a road left to our finish line. That "little bit of road" was WAY LONGER than I thought. We'd never run down it before and driving it doesn't seem like a very long distance. It's 0.34 miles. I know, that's not very far. But I swear it dragged on for hours. HOURS.

Anyway, we finished up our long run in about 1:43:47 and I felt pretty good about it. With a few stops to walk and a few evil hills, an 11:14 pace is nothing to be ashamed about. This weekend we will conquer 10 miles, and so if we go even three steps farther than 10.0, it will be my longest run ever. Pretty excited (and maybe terrified) about that!!!

Lots of the bloggers I read were setting goals for the month of September, or listing what they were looking forward to. I kept trying to come up with a list of either of these things, but nothing too terribly exciting came to mind. Potential goals include: keeping up with running, doing more strength training, cross-training more consistently, and trying to cook new things. Things I'm excited about: trip in two weeks for a friend's wedding (wedding #8 of the year) and the beginning of FOOTBALL SEASON! What are you excited for this month?? Do you have any fun September goals? Perhaps ones that I could also adopt?

cardio dance.

2011-08-31T21:30:00.000-04:00

Hello! Happy Hump Day. This week has felt really long, but at least we are more than half way done!

On Monday M and I were supposed to run but my legs were tired from Sunday's long run, so we took a break. I went for a 2 mile walk and did some weight training at home instead. Then Tuesday I was just too sleepy to run... oops! So, I ran in the evening on the treadmill. I was really proud of myself - I finished 3 miles in 30:50! I wanted to run a bit farther/longer but people were waiting for treadmills and my foot kind of hurt. Luckily after stretching and an ice pack my foot feels fine, but I didn't want to push it.

Today I went to my very first cardio dance class. I'm trying to get better about cross training, so I asked my friend A if she would go to spin class with me tonight. She already had plans to go to cardio dance, so I went with her to that instead! It was fun and I definitely worked up a sweat, but I'm not sure if I would go regularly. I was worried there would be long and complicated routines, but the steps were easy and there weren't long sequences to learn. I managed to not care what I looked like and just focused on trying to get a good workout from it. The class is one hour long, but between stopping after every song (so the instructor could find the next song and allow us to get a water break) and warm up / cool down, I probably only got 30 minutes of cardio in. Also, the class was FILLED with freshman girls. One of them saw A's Wisconsin shirt and got really excited that she was from Wisconsin, until A had to tell her that she was in graduate school and they couldn't be friends... haha. I have heard other teachers are more intense, so I might have to look into them. A and I decided we might alternate spinning and cardio dance every other week and see how that goes.

Since I had some time before cardio dance I also did weights at the gym. I think I need to get a personal trainer, at least for one or two sessions. I have a routine of what exercises I do (mostly arms), but I am not sure I'm doing all of the best things or hitting all the muscles I'd like to be hitting.

The Philly Cheesesteak Casserole was not nearly as delicious as I recall it being from last time I made it. Reasons why: using milk instead of half-and-half, possibly using less cheese, and using ground beef instead of steak. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't as flavorful as I remember. I also think it might be because I mixed in the peppers and onions afterwards instead of baking them in. I did that so Scott wouldn't have to eat the peppers, but I think the flavors didn't seep in as much, if that makes sense.

long run conquered!

2011-08-28T15:56:00.000-04:00

This weekend M and I had an 8 mile run to conquer. We were going to go Saturday morning, but Hurricane Irene was making conditions less than idea. To be honest, we probably could have toughed it out - we live about 3 hours inland so it's not like it was dangerous. But 90 minutes in the wind and rain didn't sound fun, so we postponed until today. We decided to run on the American Tobacco Trail.

The first mile of this run was incredibly rough. I don't know why, but we just couldn't get moving. The ATT has mile markers ever 1/4 mile, which I can see being helpful. But getting to the one mile mark and seeing my watch read 12:26 was discouraging. I knew we were moving slowly, but, UGH. This is a mostly shaded flat trail, what is our deal? I think it took until about mile 3 to feel warmed up and ready to go. Yikes. But, I will say that once our legs were warmed up and we were 'in the zone' the miles went by nice and fast. I even had the thought that I could probably go 9 or 10 if we needed to. Alas, we stuck to the plan of running about 8.3 miles.

We finished our run in 92:32, for an average pace of 11:08. Pretty good considering our slow start! I don't have a Garmin so I can't do exact splits, but I do know that we ran the 2nd half WAY faster: at the half way point my watch said 48:55, which is an 11:48 pace, making the second around 43:47, a 10:31 pace. Whoa. Typing that out makes me feel pretty good about myself! That's FAST!

After lots of stretching, I attempted a second ice bath. This time I used all the ice in my freezer and a bag from the store. It was definitely colder, but I'm still not sure it had it's full effect. I feel like I need at least 20 lbs of ice or so. I do think I got SOME benefit from it, but I'm definitely still sore a few hours later. I almost got talked into a spin class this evening, but I think I'll choose rest instead :-)

Dinner tonight is going to be one of the Betty Crocker recipes I love: Philly Cheese Steak Casserole! I got bag of frozen onions and peppers to steam and mix into my servings so that I can let Scott enjoy his meal pepper free. I'm pretty pumped for dinner, I'm ready for something hearty after a long run!

sports

2011-08-26T09:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I overslept and didn't go running and I felt lazy and terrible about it all day. Luckily M was free and feeling better in the evening so we went for a run. We decided to do 4 miles around West Campus. It was HOT and humid, way worse than in the mornings. Note to self: only run in the morning until ~October. Without really meaning to for the most part, we ran REALLY FAST. Our average pace was somewhere around 10:17. I kind of wanted to keel over and die at the end, but in a good, satisfied kind of way. It's good to have hard runs!

We have an 8 mile long run this weekend, which is supposed to be on Saturday, but apparently Irene is going to bring us rain and 25-35mph winds. I'm on the fence. I've actually never run in the rain before, but I'm not opposed. I just think that 8 miles spent outside in windy rain might be miserable. It's hypothetically going to clear up on Sunday, so we'll see what makes the most sense.

I'm a bit of a sports fanatic. Especially when it comes to the Redskins. I think there are only 5 people who read my blog, and I think all of 5 you don't care about the Redskins... but I'm going to give you my play-by-play thoughts on the game anyway, because it's my blog and I'll write what I want. Here was my live reaction the game:

1st quarter
1. deangelo hall is the SHIT. interception return for a touchdown = love.
2. omg FIGHT? ... no penalties? meh okay.
3. f YES reed doughty defense awesomeness
4. i heart our defense
5. i dunno.. play #1 with beck > sexy rexy.. he might be getting the edge for the QB position
6. alright forreal i'm in love with hightower. in LOVE. my fiance's nickname is hightower. i don't care that he likes the patriots. we are getting him a hightower jersey asap.
7. "there's a new vibe and i can feel it" -announcer. yessss. maybe the redskins won't break my hear this year!
8. ryan kerrigan sack? i like you rookie.

2nd quarter
9. jim haslett and i might just get along this year.
10. yes, brian orakpo, i do still love you.
11. sack.. ouch.. shoulda gotten rid of that beck. lucky break on the defensive holding.
12. oh rookie kerrigan, behave.
13. the ravens look good all of the sudden. sigh.
14. finally i have fast forwarded my way to real time! (instead of dvr delay)
15. sexy rexy... not looking so hot. but then again, the o line might be at least partially to blame...
16. "false start... offense... the entire offensive line." haha! don't think i've ever heard that one before.
17. kevin barnes! go TERPS! i love when terps become redskins.
18. sexy rexy looking much hotter all of the sudden... what to make of all of this?
19. this rule.. i do not understand. he had possession in the end zone and then lost possession but he had already crossed the plain. what is that?
20. touchdown!!! thank god, after those incompletes!

3rd quarter
21. dear self, it's our 2nd string D vs. their first string offense. it's totally okay.
22. dear john beck, interceptions when you play vs. the 2nd string are not good.
23. "above the neck intelligence." lovely way to describe our QBs.
24. oh hey john beck, one day, i might love you... reserving judgment for now though...
25. "i've seen enough, i'm going on record tonight, that's the starting quarterback right there. john beck. he impresses me." - announcer. i think most of the Skins nation is leaning towards agreeing with you...

4th quarter
26. Tyrod Taylor!! Wooo! (my fiance went to VT so we like him. too bad he's wearing the wrong color).
27. .... i got bored and stopped paying attention.
28. Damn. We lost. Oh wait it's the preseason, I don't REALLY care.

Other sports notes:
-22 is not a baseball score. wtf. i HATE the yankees.
-Miami football: this is probably mean and self-centered but as a Terp alum I just hope those starters are all out for our Sept. 5th game against them! More broadly: was it douchy for Nevin Schapiro to call out Miami just because he's in jail? Yes. No one likes a tattle tale. That being said, I'm 99% these players are guilty of accepting improper benefits, and I'm sure they all knew it was wrong... so they deserve whatever punishment they get, most likely ineligibility in college sports. On the other hand, I would estimate that well over 50% of current NCAA Division 1 football players receive improper benefits. It's time for the NCAA to overhaul how they treat their athletes. I'm not say we should pay them, but there is so little incentive to stay in college sports once you are eligible for professional drafts, and many of these athletes are trying to support families. Something needs to be done. I don't have any suggestions.

cooking funk.

2011-08-23T23:15:00.000-04:00

So, who felt the earthquake today? It wasn't that intense here but it was surprising that I felt an earthquake that was so far away! I saw some crazy pictures of things damaged in DC from my friends there too!

I had Sunday, Monday, and today to come up with a grocery list, and I just could not come up with what sounded good to eat this week. I ended up getting the stuff to make a Philly Cheese Steak Casserole, from the book I cooked part way through last year. I also got some portobello mushrooms and hummus in hope of making some sort of sandwich. I want to try eating less meat for lunch since meat is almost always involved in my dinner, so it seemed worth a try. Does anyone have any great portobello mushroom recipes to share?

Running this week so far has been fine: I ran 3 miles on the treadmill on Monday afternoon and 3.4 miles this morning around East Campus, where I spotted the lovely Sarah from the SHU box! I knew I would run into her eventually since she lives nearby and we both run in the mornings. Speaking of East Campus, freshman move in has begun! It's sooo weird to have campus crowded again. I have to say, I kind of love the peaceful summer: no lines at the gym for machines, getting a seat on the bus, and just a general sense of calmness on campus. But, I am excited to start working with the sorority that I advise again and for the Great Hall to reopen... I cannot believe they close the best place to eat on campus for the ENTIRE summer. I miss my Chinese stir fry, Indian food, and salad bar!!!

Also, does anyone watch Bachelor Pad? OMG, I cannot stand Kasey and Vienna. I can't believe Kasey is staying. It kind of makes me want to cry. The ending was pretty weird too. I get how they were going for a dramatic Sopranos ending, but the cut wasn't quite right. Oh and yes, I just admitted to watching Bachelor Pad. Other favorites in this house: Jersey Shore and Rivals. We are so very classy!

Hmm, I think I need to make a list of fun things to blog about - I'm drawing a blank tonight! See ya'll later :-)

sometimes, I cook.

2011-08-19T11:15:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the comments on ice baths! I'll definitely grab a magazine or a book next time, Danielle :-) I wasn't actually all that sore after my 7 mile run, so I'm not sure it was totally necessary but I guess it can't hurt! Actually, I tend to be way more sore after speed work than I am after long runs... I wonder if I should try my next ice bath after speed work, even if it's only a short distance? We'll see.

By sometimes I cook, I mean like 3-4 times a week easily. It's just that my cooking has gotten... boring.

It's not my fault, seriously. My fiance moved in with me, and while I love every minute of sharing my life with him, cooking for him is not so fun. He is the epitome of a meat and potatoes boy. He likes most meat, but not fish. He likes most starches, if they aren't too crazy (white or brown rice, pasta, potatoes = good. sweet potatoes, couscous, wild rice = no thanks). And he eats basically NO VEGETABLES. Seriously. Vegetables he likes: corn, lettuce, cucumber, carrots, green beans. Vegetables he tolerates sometimes: onions and peas. Vegetables he dislikes: broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, mushrooms, peppers of any kind, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, olives.
So, it's definitely been limiting in what I cook. I know I can make things he doesn't like, but I feel silly cooking for myself and letting him fend for himself. So I often will cook us a fairly plain dinner and then steam whatever vegetable I'd like on the side. It works well enough - but I have a really hard time experimenting with fun new dishes... it seems like everything has either a flavor or a vegetable that he dislikes.
Anyway, here are a few examples of what I've made lately :-)

Mini cheesy meatloafs, before I cooked them

Meatloaf and mashed potatoes (Scott's plate - mine had veggies too, haha)

Chicken tamale casserole... sooo delicious!

Both of the above were from Cooking Light's website, and both turned out well! I loooved the chicken tamale casserole, but the chopped green chiles in the cornmeal crust were too spicy for Scott. I got so many cookbooks over the holidays, so I definitely will try to cook some new things and post about them soon! Happy weekend everyone!

long run: success. ice bath: fail.

2011-08-18T16:03:00.000-04:00

Today M and I ran 7.3 miles. It really wasn't bad at all! We stopped to stretch 30 minutes in, and then we had a 2 minute walk break around minute 55 / mile 5. Other than that, it was fabulous! We kept an 11 minute mile pace, which I'm super comfortable and happy with. It's not too challenging to keep the pace but it also doesn't feel super easy or boring, so it seems just right!
I was actually not that worn out or sore at the end of the run. I probably could have run further if we had needed to, which is an AWESOME way to feel. I knew I was likely to become sore though, so after we did some good stretching I decided to head home and attempt an ice bath.

Mistake #1: thinking that the water that flows into my bathtub might actually be cold. Even on the coldest setting, it was a pretty comfortable temperature.
Mistake #2: thinking that the ice in my freezer (we have an ice machine in there) was enough ice. It melted in approximately 2 minutes.
Mistake #3: thinking that 10-20 minutes was a nice amount of time to just relax, and thus not bringing my computer or a book or anything into the bathroom... so boring.
Mistake #4: not having scrubbed my tub immediately before and then seeing every speck of imperfection while I sat there with nothing to do.

So yes, with the ice the water got much colder, but definitely not cold enough. I put on a sweatshirt but I honestly didn't even need it! I guess I'll need to buy a bag of ice next time. After 10 minutes of boredom I got out and just put ice packs on my legs for a while before I went to work. I'm somewhat sore this afternoon, but nothing terrible that I can't handle.

Have you ever tried an ice bath? Did it help? How much ice did you use, and how long did you stay in?

i'm still heeerreeee....

2011-08-17T00:25:00.000-04:00

I miss blogging.

I have (mostly) accepted that I don't have the time to have the blog that I ideally envision: daily posts, frequent new recipes, recaps on races, details about training/workouts, etc. But I would like to do SOME blogging.

So where should I pick up? When I started this blog, my goal was to cook 300 recipes in about one year, and to go from not being a runner whatsoever to running the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler. In approximately 8 months, I cooked 175 new things. I'm still cooking. That will have to be another post entirely. As for running, I successfully completed my race - although my training wasn't as stellar as it could have been.

I should PROBABLY do a Cherry Blossom 10 Miler recap. I'll add that to my to-do list. For now, suffice to say I finished in 2:02, I couldn't walk for a day or two after, and it got me totally addicted to running.

So, RUNNING! M and I spent the spring/early summer trying to become more consistent with our runs - you know, 3-4 times a week, not bailing just because we wanted to sleep in, etc., and then signed up for a half marathon for mid October. I'm SUPER EXCITED for the half marathon, and am quite determined to do a better job training this time around. Right now we are running four times a week. Three of those runs are shorter: between 2.5 and 4 miles (we might get up to 5 closer to the race), and we usually try to incorporate speedwork into one of those runs. Then we have long runs once a week, which started at 4 miles and will work their way up to 12 before the race. Last week we ran 6.5 miles and it was actually not that painful AT ALL! This week we have 7ish to conquer, and I'm pumped. Or rather, I was pumped until we did a fartlek today. Now my legs are sore and I want to never run again. Sore as in, I'm up 1.5 hours past my bedtime because my legs ache so I can't fall asleep. Oops. I kind of want to experiment with an ice bath. Are they only effective right after a run? Also, how long do your long runs have to be before taking an ice bath is worthwhile? And should I buy a foam roller?

Running has gotten so much better over the past few months. I definitely had a time before the 10 miler where I told M that after the race, I was quitting running, because I hated it. And I meant it. But finally something clicked and running is starting to be way more fun for me. I mean, the first 5-10 minutes are never fun because it's usually 7:30am, I'm half asleep, and my legs aren't warmed up yet. But I can finally say there are moments (although they are often brief) during almost all of my runs where I genuinely enjoy myself. Weird.

I'm also trying to get on board with that whole cross-training thing. Apparently it prevents injury? Also, (although I seldom blogged about this, nor do I intend to) I like myself more on days I exercise. I'm also trying weight lifting. I'm getting married in just over 6 months and I want my arms to look spectacular in my strapless dress. Hooray motivation! So far, cross-training is rough. The elliptical is boring. The bike is boring. Spin class is at inconvenient times. I feel like a klutz in the weight room. But, a year and a half ago I felt like an idiot when I went running too, so I know it'll get better.

I think that's about all for my "first post back." I do hope to be more regular in my blogging... but who knows with school/etc. if that will happen!

Valentine's Day Dinner!

2011-02-13T22:53:00.000-05:00

So, you might have noticed that I haven't blogged in... oh.... a month. And that I have over 100 recipes left to cook. It's not going to happen. That's okay. Being in graduate school is simply too hectic for me to cook, run, and blog regularly. I really do love this blog, though, so while my goal of 300 new recipes in 1 year is no longer attainable, I do hope to share my experiences with both running and cooking with all of you - even if it's sporadically.

One of the determining factors in me 'officially' giving up on my goal of cooking my way through Betty Crocker's book was getting FOUR new cookbooks in December and January: 1 as a Christmas gift and 3 as engagement gifts. My friends know me well! With all these cookbooks, though, I just couldn't resist trying new things. Which brings me to today's post:

Williams-Sonoma's Bride and Groom Cookbook: Valentine's Day Menu
Starter: Tossed Green Salad
Main Dish: Rib-Eye Steak with Pan Jus, Ginger Carrot Salad, and (my personal addition) Rissoto
Dessert: Blueberry Fool
Wine pairing: ~~Cotes du Rhone~~ Malbec

Following W&S's plan, I began with the blueberry fool several hours ahead of time, simmering fresh blueberries and letting them chill for a few hours.

After the blueberries simmered, I left them to chill in the fridge and moved onto the carrots:

Carrots were put into simmering water along with some champagne vinegar and salt, and then once they cooled were mixed with olive oil, more champagne vinegar, and lots of spices! After the carrots were ready, I tried to continue on with the blueberry fool. My mission: take heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla and get it to be a whipped texture with peaks... and then fold in the blueberries. All I can say is, I failed.

At best, this was going to turn into blueberry ice cream. *Sigh*. Nearly a year into cooking and this was my first attempt at dessert... are we surprised that it didn't go well? Anyway, onto something I don't suck at. RISOTTO! First, I sauteed some onions and butter and oil to get ready for the rice:

Then, it was time to mix in the rice, wine, and broth:

Meanwhile, it was time to tackle the rib eye. Did I mention steak scares me? It's so easy to cook incorrectly... overcooked, undercooked, whichever.

Step one was to salt and pepper it and sear it for one minute on each side.

Then I popped that sucker in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes, while I returned to my risotto. 35 minutes of slowly adding broth and stirring, it was ready for some Parmesan cheese and parsley!

Meanwhile, I also had to work on the "au jus" part of my rib eye. This has to be stirred pretty constantly in order to avoid things carmelizing on the bottom of the pan.

Then I enlisted the help of the fiance to cut of up the meat while I prepared the salad.

Finally, after several hours in the kitchen, I was ready to put the plates together. I had just run the dishwasher, so the plates were nice and warm - which is highly recommended by W&S. (Warm food on a warm plate stays warm longer I think?)
Step one, rib eye, au jus...

Step two, add gingered carrots and creamy risotto...

Step 3, add in a tossed green salad and wine!

Hooray for Valentine's Day Dinner!

So, the meat was a little more rare than I normally cook it, but it tasted phenomenal! The carrots were quite spicy - perhaps a bit too much ginger. The risotto and salad, perfecto.

I can't say as much for the blueberry fool. Let's just say the blueberry fool fooled me, and we ended up having to make a Ben & Jerry's run to satisfy my need for dessert. Maybe next time I will figure out how to get fluffy peaks.

Hopefully it won't be an entire month til my next post!

tag!

2011-01-15T18:33:00.000-05:00

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!)

working out resumes

2011-01-14T16:10:00.000-05:00

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

2011-01-14T10:55:00.000-05:00

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 :-)

winter break review

2011-01-13T14:05:00.000-05:00

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 :-)

end of the semester fiesta!

2010-12-20T03:21:00.000-05:00

It's been a cold, snowy, icy and stressful finals week for me, so I slacked off on the cooking AND the running this week. M and I had plans to go Thursday and Friday and Saturday... and they all fell through. She was sick, the roads were icy, etc. I did manage to squeeze in one legitimate work out: I was about to head to campus to run on the treadmill, but the icy roads were too intimidating for me. So I popped in Jillian Michaels' Banish Fat Boost Metabolism and sweated it out in my living room. I seriously have a love/hate relationship with that woman.

I was feeling less than creative, and wanted more Loaded Baked Potato Casserole, so I made a modified version of Corn, Ham, and Potato Scallop to satisfy my craving. It turned out delicious. I want to make this over and over again. Scott enjoyed it as well!

I want this again. right now. immediately.

Then on Saturday, I had a dinner party planned with the ladies in my cohort to celebrate the end of a very stressful semester. The theme was "international" and we had quite an array of food. I made Chili Verde, but skipped the sour cream. I was running low on time, so Scott helped me chop of the veggies:

Peppers and potatoes and zucchini, oh my!

This was a ridiculously easy chili to make. I just threw all the ingredients in the pot...

...let it boil, and then turned it down to low heat for about 20 minutes. The result:

Steamy, spicy chili! Everyone at dinner loved it, and the best part: gluten free and vegan! So all my friends with their various dietary restrictions could enjoy it.

We have some vegetarian friends, some gluten-intolerant friends, and some lactose-intolerant friends (who can have goat's milk/cheese), so everyone always gets creative when we have pot lucks. Here's my plate, round one:

Gluten free mac and goat cheese, goat cheese enchiladas, and baked asparagus. Delicious. Later on, I also had some Pad Thai and some Indian food... I don't remember exactly what the dish was, but it was spicy and amazing! Thanks ladies for a great end-of-semester dinner.

Now I'm traveling to visit family for the next three weeks. It's going to be a little nutty, and I'm not sure how much cooking (of my own recipes, at least) OR running I'll get to do, but I'll keep you posted as much as possible!

delicious dinner party.

2010-12-15T00:22:00.000-05:00

This morning it was 16 degrees, so M and I planned to hit up the treadmills at her gym... only to find that every single one was broken. Ridiculous! I was quite annoyed, but we made the best of it and hopped onto the elliptical for 25 minutes. I haven't been on an elliptical in a while and it was... boring! Luckily, Saved by the Bell was on to distract us :-) It's going to be cold here for a while - so we need a new plan to stick with the running. What's the coldest temperature you'll withstand to go for a run outdoors? I think my limit might be 30, but then again, that means no running for the rest of the week! Yikes.

Lunch today was Double-Cheese Chicken and Vegetables. By "double-cheese," I mean that the recipe called for both cheese sauce AND shredded cheese. It was really good, but the consistency was a little bit... off? Anyway, it was basically like macaroni and cheese, but with veggies and chicken - yum! It was also ridiculously easy to make, so I definitely think I'd make it again. It's a good way to make healthier macaroni and cheese when you have a craving! (Sorry - forgot to photograph it.)

Tonight, Scott and I had our friends J & D over for a little dinner partay. I made Mustard Lamb Chops and green beans, and J brought potatoes. Let me start by saying her potatoes were awesome! They were red potatoes, cut into smaller pieces, and sauteed/cooked in balsamic vinegar, rosemary, thyme, cinnamon, garlic... I don't know what else, but it was delicious! The green beans were... meh, nothing special, but I like to have veggies at every meal if possible They were very crisp, which is the way I like them... hooray fresh veggies!

The star of the show was definitely the lamb chops. First, I spread the sauce/glaze on one side, which was made of Dijon mustard, thyme, and a little salt.

I broiled the lamb chops for 3 minutes, turned them over and put the mustard mixture onto the other side. Broiled for another 4 minutes, and done! They were cooked exactly perfectly, if you ask me (or Scott). And J & D certainly had no complaints :-) All in all, it was a fun night :-)

This was a definite success, and VERY easy to cook... if lamb were cheaper we'd probably eat it all the time!

and the cross training begins.

2010-12-13T23:29:00.000-05:00

I'm not big on new year's resolutions, because I usually have trouble coming up with them right around the new year. Also, once I've decided I want to try something new or work towards a goal, I want to start right. that. minute. None of this "starting January 1st" stuff, unless the idea pops into my head December 31st.

So, one of my "resolutions" is to get better at cross training. M and I have really stuck to our running over the past 8 months, but I've pretty much failed to do any other sort of exercise regularly. I know that I need to cross-train and do strength training - not only for my health but also because I hear it prevents injury! So today was step one. I went to the gym with my friend S who is way more into strength training than I am. We warmed up with 20 minutes on the incumbent bike. And by warm up I mean I totally sweated it out, because I thought a hilly course sounded like fun. It was fun, but it was a challenge!

Next we headed to the weight room. First, we did a few lower body machines: the leg press, hip adduction and hip abduction. Then we moved onto upper body: chest press, pull down exercise, bicep curls, and tricep extensions. Last, S introduced me to the "captain's chair." Neither of us knew what this was called, and I actually spent a good amount of time googling it to no avail before Susan came to the rescue. She has better google skills than me. In case you don't know either, it's this thing:

(thanks google images)

So, that was my first legitimate attempt at a weights sesh in a while. Hopefully we can keep that up at least somewhat regularly next semester! Anyway, after 50 crunches to the front and 20 on each side, I was ready to go home and EAT. Tonight for dinner was Hearty Steak and Potato Soup. I chopped everything up this morning, plopped it into the slow cooker, and then went about my day for 8 hours.

Oops, sorry that's really blurry. My photography skills have been lacking lately. Anyway, the soup turned out pretty delicious (Scott agrees), but the meat was a little dry. I wonder why that was - it was drenched in beef broth the whole time and I cooked it for a little LESS time than it recommended. Sigh. Anyway, it served as a fantastic and hearty meal after my awesome workout :-)

Again - this so does not look delicious... two explanations: (1) my photography lacks and (2) some food, while delicious, is not pretty. And you know what, that's okay! Off to bed for me - I have interval runs to do in the morning :-)

weekend cooking!

2010-12-12T21:24:00.001-05:00

I just finished the most DELICIOUS dinner I've had in a while. But we'll get to that in a little.

Friday night for dinner, I made a Scott-friendly favorite: chicken pot pie! This was super easy, and the star was one of my favorite ingredients: Bisquick. Seriously people, if you aren't using Bisquick, you are missing out.

Yesterday, M and I ran 4 miles on the treadmill. We did an "at tempo" run which means we did an easy pace for 1 mile, a slightly difficult pace for 2 miles, and then an easy pace for the last mile. It felt great for the first 3.25 miles, but I definitely started having some foot pain towards the end. After stretching and icing I'm feeling much better, though.
Later Saturday afternoon, I made Swiss Rye Strata for Sarah's blogger bash. I had so much fun meeting new blogging friends! Sarah's white chicken chili was so good, I'm definitely going to have to make it myself! Anyway, people seemed to like the strata, but it didn't turn out quite as good as my other strata in my opinion. Oh well! It's still pretty tasty and I have lots of leftovers.

This morning for brunch I made Tex Mex Scrambled Eggs... which I botched. Basically, I burnt the eggs. Can't win 'em all right?

Which brings me to tonight's dinner: Loaded Baked Potato Casserole. I told Scott that I "felt like I was cheating on my diet" while eating this. It's THAT delicious. He thinks it would be great football food. I think it's great any-time-you-want-cheesy-potato-goodness foot.

I put green peppers only on my half, since Scott turns his nose up at peppers.

Delicious! I am definitely going to bookmark this to make again :-)

spinach and crabmeat enchiladas

2010-12-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

Tonight for dinner, I made Spinach and Crabmeat Enchiladas. I had a hankering for Mexican food that was not completely satisfied by a burrito from Chubby's yesterday - so it was time to cook myself some Mexican delight. Note: this it not to say that Chubby's was not completely and utterly satisfying. It's just that I once again wanted Mexican food when it came time to eat today, but I thought it would be better to cook and eat something healthy as opposed to returning for another burrito approximately the size of my head.

This recipe was fairly easy. First, I made my own enchilada sauce out of salsa, taco sauce, chili powder, cumin, cilantro.

Step Two: break the crabmeat down into small bites - this is key because you don't want huge mouthfulls of chunky crab - you want the topping to be well mixed!

Once you've done that, mix together your spinach, some cheese, and a little bit of the sauce. I think I put way more spinach in than necessary... but it's better to overdo it on the spinach than to overdo it on the cheese, right? Haha.

Next, put some of the sauce down onto your 13 by 9 inch pan. Take a tortilla, put in some filling, wrap it up, and put it down on the pan folds facing down.

Once you have all of your enchiladas in the pan, smother them in the rest of your sauce, and top with cheese!

Bake, covered, for 35 minutes at 350.

The result: bubbling cheesy enchilada DELICIOUSNESS!

Delicious. I'm pumped that I get more for lunch tomorrow, too!!! Back to studying and working on finals :-)

i have been cooking!

2010-12-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

So it looks like I'm destined to be an "every once in a while" blogger. Maybe I should make my goal to post at the end of every week? Thoughts?

Here's the pesto chicken pizza I made last week, but had not yet uploaded the photo of:

Pizza=love.

Saturday after Thanksgiving I got back to running, after taking a week off after my 10K. I didn't MEAN to take a week off, but with Thanksgiving it just didn't fit into the schedule well. So, this week's theme has been SPEED! Saturday I ran 1.7 miles around the east campus track in 16:56 - less than 10 minute miles! Then, Tuesday M and I had planned to time our miles at the track, but it was raining. So we headed to her apartment complex gym and decided to run a mile as fast as we could on the treadmill. I managed to finish mine in about 8:58 - woo! I think I have it in me to go even faster, too... it wasn't my legs that were holding me back, but rather my lungs. By the end, I was huffing and puffing quite a bit. Thursday was quite chilly, so we headed to the treadmill again to do intervals. After warming up for 5 minutes we alternated fast for 2 minutes, slow for 1 minute, with our 'fast' ranging from 6.5 to 7.0 on the treadmill.

I think we are going to spend this month working on increasing our speed. Intervals, farklets, whatever else we can come up with! I don't have any dreams of being particularly fast, but it would be nice to increase what I feel is a "comfortable/manageable" pace before we start training for the 10 miler.

This week was also full of cooking! I made a nice big pot of Vegetarian Chili for myself to take for lunches a few days this week, and froze another 3 servings worth for future lunches. I kind of ignored the instructions on how to cook it and just threw it in the slow cooker... because everything is delicious in the slow cooker!

Dinner this week was full of Scott's favorite. First up was a Turkey and Mashed Potato Casserole dish. This was perfect to have right after Thanksgiving, because I was still craving all my turkey day favorites but had no leftovers! I know that the fake mashed potatoes you buy in the store probably aren't the best for you, but they are so easy to make and I must say... really delicious!

Plus, one serving of this casserole (which consists of turkey, veggies, turkey gravy, and mashed potatoes) is still only about 300 calories and fairly filling!

Next up, Lemon Chicken and Broccoli Casserole, which consisted mostly of noodles, chicken, and broccoli. Of course, Scott hates broccoli, and I love Scott, so I made it a Lemon Chicken and Green Bean Casserole. This was also quite easy and very much to Scott's liking.

Unpictured, I also made a chicken casserole type dish with chicken, chicken gravy, and veggies. For the veggies, I used celery and corn since that's what I had around. Then I made some risotto to go on the side... I LOVE risotto, even though it can be a pain to make because you have to continually stir and add the broth little by little!

Up next: Gotta make the grocery list and figure out what's in store for this week...

last week, in review.

2010-11-27T15:27:00.000-05:00

To finish up what I cooked the week of 11/15-11/19...

Caramelized Pork Slices: Scott really enjoyed this! It was pretty easy too. Brown sugar and molasses makes everything delicious. We had this with a side of rice and green beans.
Pesto Chicken Pizza: Yum! I really enjoy making these pizzas. This one turned out delicious - the right amount of pesto without overpowering the pizza. I'm finally getting the hang of making the crusts myself on the pizza stone ... I just can't seem to get my pizzas to be very round, haha!
Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary: Sad but true: I made this last Thursday night so we could have it for lunch last Friday and it's still in our refrigerator. I wanted Chipotle. My willpower isn't strong.

And, as promised, a recap of my 10K!
M and I went to Hains Point in Washington DC for our very first 10K. Our longest run during the training program was 5.5 miles, so we had another 0.7 to tack on, making it the longest run either of us had ever done. Based on our training, I knew I wasn't going to be able to run the whole distance without a walking break, so we decided to set my watch to do 10 minute running / 2 minute walking intervals.
The morning was chilly, and when I got out of the car in long pants, a t-shirt, and a track jacket I was feeling under dressed. I was wishing for gloves, a hat, or earwarmers... but we had none of the above. Luckily, I have felt this way before at the start of a run and I knew that after a mile I would feel appropriately dressed.
The race was a 5k/10k and the 5k started 10 minutes before us. I realized that this meant that anyone who wasn't 'serious' about running would be running the 5k... meaning there was a very legitimate chance we would finish dead last in our 10k. I reminded myself that we weren't trying to break any records, and that the goal was to cross the finish line, not beat anyone!
Before I knew it, we were off. I was worried about starting off too fast and losing steam so we were sure to not sprint away, and soon we were towards the back of the pack, but not dead last. The first 10 minutes felt great and I probably didn't need the walk break right then, but I also wanted to pace myself. After our walk break, we were fairly close to dead last. Oh well. We started running again and managed to pass some people that had jogged past us.
The course was basically 2 laps around Hains Point and as we neared the end of our first lap, there were people on the sidelines cheering us on - "almost done!" I wanted to hurt them. Haha. They didn't know we weren't running the 5k I guess, but we were not almost done.. we were almost HALF done. At this point I realized I had not been in any pain from my foot - AWESOME! I had been worried because on my run Tuesday and the prior Saturday (we took Thursday off) I had definitely felt significant pain in my right foot.
I was feeling awesome about our progress at the halfway point and we stopped for about 20 seconds to get some water. The next mile wasn't so bad for either M or I. I guess 4 miles is officially a "good" distance for us. Around the start of the 5th mile, M was definitely hurting. "I don't know if I can run for 10 minutes anymore" she said. Usually, M is doing just fine, I'm whining, and she has to be my cheerleader. This time I was feeling pretty good and tried to be a cheerleader for her. We were doing so well! We only had like 2 miles left! We made it to walk break #5 and I was so excited we had been going for an hour. Last push of running, I told her. We had less than 10 minutes of running left before we would be at the finish line.
So we started interval #6, and I immediately wanted to die. I was just done. My muscles were not listening to me as I told them to push on. I begged her for a chance to walk and she told me no. Finally, we saw Scott and my friends K and D (D had run the race to, but finished 10 minutes before us) cheering us on a little ways before the finish line. Usually, I like to sprint to the finish line and finish as strong as possible, but I really was spent. And then the unthinkable happened. As we ran towards the finish line, we saw that THE FINISH LINE HAD BEEN DISASSEMBLED! What the hell?!? I guess park police had come and told them there was some problem with their permit, and made them TAKE DOWN THE FINISH LINE. So we ran up to where the finish line had been, approximately. Talk about anti climatic!
Other than the finish line snafu, though, I have to say I was really happy with our time and the race overall! Hains Point is a beautiful, flat course, which I think might be part of why my run was so pain-free. And, what I know you are all curious about: my time was 1:07:34, which is about a 10:50 minute mile pace! Pretty awesome considering we walked 2 out of ever 12 minutes! I'm so proud of M and I and am definitely excited to sign up and start training for the 10 miler :-)

Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

keeping good on my promise!

2010-11-16T23:37:00.000-05:00

Hello!!! I'm updating - after only a few days instead of weeks! Here goes it.

This weekend's 5.5 mile run was... rough. M and I were both in quite a bit of agony by the end... but we survived! Luckily the soreness was gone by Monday and I was feeling good. Tonight we ran 3 miles on the treadmill since it was dark, gross, and rainy out. My foot pain returned, which is a little worrisome for this weekend. But hopefully it will subside through lots of stretching and icing and I'll be ready for Saturday's 10K!

I've been COOKING! Woo! Lunch the past few days was Chicken and Spinach Tortellini Soup.

A fairly simple soup with... well.. chicken, spinach, and tortellini. Add in some carrots and that's really about it! Next up on the menu this week was Monday's dinner: Cheese and Pesto Strata.

Can I just say, I LOVE french bread? It's so addictive. Scott thinks so too.. he finished the loaf that wasn't in the strata in one sitting, haha. This recipe turned out alright, but I think it's more of an appetizer or something to have in small doses - not really a dinner type of food.
Then tonight I made Chicken-Noodle Casserole. This was also super simple.

I left out the mushrooms to appease Scott, and he was very grateful. This recipe doesn't have any exciting herbs or spices, which I might have enjoyed, but Scott thought it was perfect - simple clean food that 'tastes like food should taste, not like the spices would make it taste' so says Scott.

not only am i alive, i run!

2010-11-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

Now that you are all up to speed on what I've been cooking, here's a recap of my recent runs:

10/23: I went to visit SUSAN in NYC and on Saturday morning we went running in Central Park with a running store running group. We ran about the first mile together - woohoo for our FIRST run together! Then we split off and she went with the speedy group while I picked a more appropriate group for me :-) I find a buddy who was at my pace level and we did a combo of running and walking 3.5 miles through Central Park, at an average of 10:52 miles.

After that run, I fell off the wagon. I didn't run for a week and a half! One day M didn't feel good, another day I was stressed, etc. Finally, we got back on track a full 12 days later. Oops.

11/4: M and I ran 2.5 miles in 27 minutes, for an average pace of 10:48. Pretty good for having taken 12 days off. This run was two firsts for me: my first run in the rain (it wasn't pouring - but there was a steady drizzle!) and my first run in my new shoes!
While I was in NYC, I asked the running store folks about my shoes. I'd been having more pain after running recently so I thought it might be time for new shoes. I tried on a few pairs at the store, and it came down to Asics Kayano's or Brooks Adrenaline. Susan recently switched the kind of running shoes she wears, and just happened to have a pair of Brooks Adrenaline in my size, brand new, that she had no intentions of wearing. So, of course I opted for the free pair of shoes! Anyway, 11/4 was my first run in the shoes, and they felt great!

11/6: Longest run ever but it felt SO GOOD! We went 5.38 miles in 1:03:11, which is an 11:45 pace. We decided that for long runs, we would go 10 min running and 2 min walking. It was definitely a slow pace throughout but I felt so good and strong after! It definitely renewed my confidence that I CAN complete my upcoming 10K!

11/8: M was sick so I went onto the treadmill for 3.0 miles in 31:48, avg. pace of 10:36. I think 3 miles is about the longest I can go on the treadmill without a good television show, haha.

11/11: Back on the road with M! 2.0 miles in 23 minutes which is slow, because we decided to walk up our least favorite hill, which was a solid 5 minutes of walking. Oh well :-)

This weekend (on Sunday) we have a 5.5 mile run! We are sticking with the intervals of 10/2 for now, and I'm really looking forward to the run. It's finally cooled down here, and last weekend when we ran it was about 45. This weekend is warming up again, but not too much - a high of 71. Should be good! I'll try to blog about it sooner rather than later :-)

no, really, i'm alive!

2010-11-12T19:19:00.000-05:00

All I can say is... grad school is busy! I've managed to keep cooking, but not at the pace I had hoped. Here's what I've cooked since I last posted:

141. Halibut with Potato Succotash (November 2, 2010)
142. Sausalito Chicken and Seafood Salad (November 2, 2010)
143. Orange Teriyaki Beef with Noodles (November 3, 2010)
144. Tortilla Soup (November 4, 2010)
145. Marinara Sauce with Spaghetti (November 5, 2010)
146. Ranch Tuna-Melt Pizza (November 4, 2010)
147. Tex-Mex Meatloaf (November 8, 2010)
148. Creamy Quinoa Primavera (November 9, 2010)
149. Easy Bake Ravioli (November 10, 2010)
150. Beef Tenderloin with Pear-Cranberry Chutney (November 11, 2010)
151. Chicken and Tortellini Salad (November 12, 2010)

I don't think I could possible recall and talk about all 11 dishes. Here's some highlights/lowlights:
#141: the suggested frozen potato stuff that went into the potato succotash was lacklaster. I had high hopes for frozen potatoes, but the texture and taste was... off.
#142: I loved this. I love avocado, I loved everything about this recipe.
#143: I made this with chicken instead. Definitely good.
#144: Putting tortillas in a pan to cook them and get them crispy was the best idea EVER. Yum.
#145: So good, and so worth the fact that it took 8 hours to make a sauce.
#146: I am becoming a pizza dough pro. This needed more cheese, but I ran out!
#147: This was good flavor-wise but it was heavy on the meat. Needed more bread/veggies - kind of felt like we were eating burgers!
#148: I love quinoa, and the cream cheese combo is stellar. Carrots don't really go though - I'd suggest zucchini or squash as your veggies.
#149: So easy and basic, but if what you want is cheese ravioli, this works!
#150: My first chutney! This was flipping AMAZING. I love pears. I love cranberries. I love pumpkin pie spice. Perfect fall dinner.
#151: Good, easy salad. I like the dressing quite a bit.

And now, I will give you a photo montage of the past month of food:

Asian rice and lentil burgers

Baked chicken and rice with autumn vegetables

Moroccon Skillet Chicken

Smoked turkey and couscous

Italian Chicken Pitas

Jambalaya

Lox and Cream Cheese Scramble

Halibut with Potato Succotash

Ranch Tuna-Melt Pizza

Tortilla Soup

Tex-Mex Meatloaf

Creamy Qunioa Primavera

Easy Bake Ravioli

Beef Tenderloin with Pear-Cranberry Chutney

Chicken and Tortellini Salad

i'm still alive!

2010-10-22T13:55:00.000-04:00

Ok, so, I'm still a bad blogger. I really really want to get back into doing this, but school has been ridiculous! Since I last blogged, I have cooked:

135. Italian Chicken Pitas
136. Baked chicken and rice with autumn vegetables
137. Smoked turkey and couscous
138. Savory Poached-Salmon Salad
139. Lox and Cream Cheese Scramble
140. Turkey-Mac Skillet

I'm getting so close to the halfway point! I won't make it by ,my goal date if I keep this slooow pace though, so something must be done! I have pictures too - just need to get them uploaded :-)

I'm not going to go into super details for each meal but I'll say (1) they were all good, at least solid B's and (2) The Smoked turkey and couscous is deeeelicious. So much that I made it twice!

Luckily, M has not let my running slack off :-)
Tuesday 10/12: 2.5 miles in 27:26, avg. pace 10:59
Friday10/15: 2.0 miles in 21:00 minutes, avg. pace 10:30
Sunday 10/17, 4.0 miles in 43:08, avg. pace 10:41
Tuesday 10/19, 3.3 miles in 35:15, avg. pace 10:49
Thursday 10/21, 2.1 miles, 21:45, avg. pace 10:34

To recap - Sunday's long run was good, but I did do most of it at 5 min running / 1 minute walking intervals. I knew (given how exhausted I was from a crazy weekend) I couldn't run continuously for 4 miles. So instead of setting an unrealistic goal, I decided I would go into the run with a plan of action of when to walk, so that I wouldn't just give up and walk a whole bunch! I was pretty happy with the turn out.
Tuesday's run was kind of funny, because the first half was super slow (since we were chatting) and the second half was much faster. It felt so good to feel FAST!

This weekend I'm heading to NYC to visit SUSAN! I'm so excited to see her place in NYC and catch up! I'm also going with her to a running group on Saturday morning. Of course, given that her marathon pace is 2 min/mile faster than my record mile, I will be running with a pace group more in my ability :-)

catching up.

2010-10-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I've been both a bad blogger AND a bad cooker. Sometimes, life just gets busy! Since my last post, I have made a few things:

130. Asian Rice and Lentil Burgers (September 30, 2010) Grade: B-

131. Jambalaya (October 1, 2010) Grade: B+

132. Italian Roasted Pork Tenderloin (October 4, 2010) Grade: B

133. Caribbean Pork Roast (October 10, 2010) Grade: B

The Asian Rice and Lentil Burgers: ...were not burgers. They fell apart completely. I couldn't get them to be a burger consistency, so it was just like a mash in my pan. On the flip side, they still tasted pretty good.

Jambalaya: YUM! I love shrimp. I love sausage. I love them together. This was so delicious and I can't wait to make it again!

Italian Roasted Pork Tenderloin: Quick, easy, delicious. And the fennel seed was actually great on this pork (coming from a girl who does not like fennel). I have to say I cooked this piece of pork perfectly. It was just-barely-done; not at all overcooked or dry or anything. Woohoo!

Caribbean Pork Roast: This was decent, but I wish it was spicier. I think spicy when I think Caribbean - is that not correct? Who knows.

And been for a few runs:
- Saturday 10/2/10: 3.0 miles scheduled... skipped it.

- Tuesday, 10/5/10: 3.0 miles in 30:58, avg. pace 10:25: ITS FINALLY COLD OUTSIDE. Well not really. It's cold ish in the mornings. And it totally makes running so much more pleasant. I am still wearing shorts and short sleeves, but I see long sleeves and pants in my future!

- Tuesday, 10/7/10: 2.0 miles, 20:26, avg. pace 9:59: Another cool weather run. This was super speedy, but both M and I were SPENT afterward. I think that's about the fastest I can run at this point, at least with the hills. We agreed that it's probably a bit too fast for us to realistically maintain, but that we wanted to keep up our 10:30-ish pace whenever possible!

And, as of last night, I'm hoping to get back on track with both cooking and running:
Step 1: GYM. I headed to the gym to run on the treadmill to make up for not doing my long run this weekend. 3.5 miles in ~36:25, avg. pace 10:20. It was definitely tough - the gym is so hot for some reason! The last mile was especially hard to get through mentally, but I pushed through and finished with a smile on my face! Woohoo!

Dinner was a Moroccan Chicken Skillet, which turned out pretty good. Lots of vegetables and very unique flavor - cumin combined with cinnamon is definitely unique.

I SWEAR I have pictures, and I'll insert them later today :)

good runner, bad blogger.

2010-09-30T08:40:00.000-04:00

Oh man, school and life have been hectic lately, leaving less time for blogging. But I have been running! This week started M and I's 10k training program. Tuesday morning started with a 2.5 mile run. I was trying my best to push us to go fast. When we got to where I thought was about 1 mile and my watch said 11:40something, I was so upset... if this was pushing myself to run fast, I was in trouble! Alas, after a quick break to stretch (I was still pretty sore from Sunday's race!) we pushed on. When we finally got to the 2.5 mile mark, my watch read 26:27 - hooray! I was actually wrong about where the 1 mile mark is on our run, and we ended up averaging 10:35 miles. I was so proud of us! It was definitely challenging, but also something I think I can keep up.
In between my running and other activities, I haven't done as much cooking as I would have liked. I had lots of leftovers to enjoy, and last night I just never got in the mood do make a real dinner... oops! But, Tuesday I made an Italian Garden Frittata. The star of the show was zucchini, and the dish was topped with mushrooms.

I generally don't like eggs - they've been making my stomach hurt over the past year-ish... so I was a little skeptical of how this would go. But, I used egg beaters instead and I think that totally helped. Still not loving the egg-y flavor, but it was decent!

This morning it was ridiculously muggy and humid outside, and also a little rainy. We've been lucky and not had to run in the rain yet, which I realize we will have to face at some point. But today it just was not in the cards. We headed to M's gym and got onto treadmills. We only had two miles to go, and it zipped by! When I'm on the treadmill, I like to warm up at a nice easy pace (like 11:30-12:00 minute miles) and then slowly increase my pace over time. I like "getting used to" a pace and then pushing myself just a liiiitle bit more. So that's exactly what I did! I finished my 2.07 miles in 22:21 for an average pace of 10:48. I probably should have made myself speed up earlier (M did most of her run at a 10 minute mile pace and then slowly sped up with me), but I felt great after this run... I flipping LOVE the treadmill! For all of my readers that are also runners, how often do you use the treadmill vs. running outside? How do you think this affects your training? Any recommendations for balancing TM use with outdoor running?

wrapping up vegetarian week!

2010-09-27T21:42:00.002-04:00

Sunday after the race I was pretty tired, but since I didn't cook on Saturday I had TWO more vegetarian meals to try! For lunch, I had Steamed Vegetables in Peanut Sauce with Rice. This was supposed to be served over rice, but I had some rice noodles that needed to be cooked, so I made a quick and easy substitution.

I immediately ran into a problem: I don't have a steamer! So I improvised. I took a pan and filled it with about an inch of water, and then placed my mesh strainer in it, resting on it so to speak. Then, I put on the lid to keep the steam in.

This worked out alright for the vegetables... but not for my strainer! The plastic handle ended up a little bit... disfigured. Oops.

Anyway. while the veggies were cooking, I mixed up the peanut sauce, which was delicious. Hoisin sauce is awesome!

Then, I just tossed it all together!

It wasn't really quite enough peanut sauce for my liking, so I added some extra for flavoring.

The dish turned out well, except for the eggplant. It was definitely not cooked enough, or something, and both the texture and taste were not exciting me. So while I ate all the rest of my veggies, I ended up with a pile of eggplant on my plate at the end of lunch.

I think in the future I would just forget steaming and cook the veggies in a pan like I normally do. Gotta make sure that eggplant is all the way done!

Onto dinner! I was excited about this meal ALL WEEK. I made Tortellini with Garden Vegetables (recipe is approximately the same). The recipe suggests broccoli, but I was all out - so I had peas and corn instead. Since this was just a "throw it all together recipe I don't have too many pictures, but here's what dinner looked like:

Even better, I had obviously bought a whole package of tortellini, so I had plenty of leftovers, which served as lunch today!

So, today I had more tortellini for lunch... and I think I have it in my head to "keep up the challenge" of vegetarianism - I've now completed day #9! For dinner, I made Cheesy Vegetable-Rice Skillet, which was so, SO simple and very delicious.

I love anything CHEESY!

And, again, since I had to open a can of vegetable broth and a package of long-grain and wild rice mix, I figured I might as well make it all ... which means leftovers for lunch tomorrow! Hooray leftovers!

This is probably the first vegetarian dish I made that "felt like" it was missing the meat. In fact, the dish very closely resembled a dish I made back in May, just with chicken added in.
So, while most of the week without meat I felt great and full, I have to admit though, I was hungry before bed last night and I'm hungry now!! I think these past few recipes have lacked protein, which means I'm not staying full as long. I might need to find a protein-heavy snack before bed! Although there's a vegetarian lunch in store for me tomorrow, I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep it up!

10K training officially starts tomorrow morning - let's hope my legs are a little less sore by then :-)

My First 5K!

2010-09-26T21:33:00.000-04:00

Hey there! So, this morning, M and I ran our very first 5K race! We ran the UNC Chapel Hill Alpha Delta Pi Ron-A-Thon on UNC's campus. I am an ADPi, so it was so special for me to support the Ronald McDonald House and race for ADPi's favorite philanthropy!

Luckily, the heat wave finally broke down here and it wasn't too hot today! I had a bottle of water and a slice of toast before we got to CH, and then some more water and a trail mix Kashi bar about 40 minutes before the race started... wanted to have plenty of fuel and be very hydrated! We got to CH around 8am to check in for the race and stretch before the 9am start time. M and I decided we would start off together, but split off if necessary. Neither of us really had any time goals, seeing as it was our first race! Ideally I just wanted to try to not walk at all.

Now, for some reason, I decided it would be better to NOT wear my watch while we ran. I think my logic was that I didn't want to get too caught up in the time. Unfortunately, there were also no markers along the course to tell me how far I had gone. So, after M took off (she is so much faster than me now, haha!) I had no way to tell how far I had been going OR for how long. I literally could not have told you if I had gone 1 mile or 2, or if it had been 15 minutes or 30! Yikes.

This lack of a sense of timing totally screwed with me. I was really struggling (probably because we started off way faster than normal) and so when I got to the first (and only) water station, I decided to let myself walk. Of course, my mentality was "now that I've walked, I guess I haven't succeeded at my goal :-( A few minutes later, my ankles started bothering me... boo! I ended up letting myself walk way more than I would have liked. Not only that, but without a watch, I couldn't keep track of intervals of walking/running either! Boo. The course was also really hilly, which made it even rougher both physically on my ankles and mentally!

So, I was feeling pretty bleh about the race, but finally I saw the corner that I knew signified the end of the race! I only had a block-ish left to go. I heard the crowds cheering, so I started pushing myself much harder. As I got closer to the finish line, I was astonished to see the time! I ended up finishing at 33:21, or a 10:45 pace! Woo! Considering our runs during the week tend to average between 11 and 11:30 miles, I felt good about running that quickly.

So, to be honest, my first race wasn't as amazing and exciting as I had hoped. I wish I would have pushed myself to stick with M longer (she finished in under 30 minutes!) and to have run longer. Next time, I'll remember to wear my watch so I can pace myself better. I also decided it might be time to go see a doctor about my ankles, and find out if there is anything other than icing/stretching that I can do to ease the pain.

To be fair, I don't stretch as much as I should, even now. And I'm not even great at remembering to ice (although I was today!!). If I want to stick with running, I need to get more serious about icing, stretching, cross training, etc. There's no way I can expect to build strong muscles and have less pain without all that stuff! I'm also thinking we might use the Galloway method (of doing run / walk intervals) - I've heard that it really helps people increase their speed (which I would love), plus sometimes I feel like walking, even for 30 seconds, helps ease the pain in my legs/ankles.

I signed up for our10K today, which will be on November 20th. The official 8 week training program starts this week. Right now, 10k seems insurmountably far. But I know we can do it if we stick to the plan. Wish me luck in getting more disciplined with stretching/icing/strength training/cross training! Any tips or suggestions for any of the above?

Tomorrow I'll let you know all about my post-run fuel and my 8th day of eating no meat!

Latin-Inspired Friday Food

2010-09-25T17:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, for both lunch and dinner, I had Latin inspired food. Lunch was Mexican: I had a Spinach Bean Tostada. I didn't really know what a tostada was before making this, but my impression now is that it's basically a pizza on a tortilla. YUM! First, I cooked veggies in a skillet for a few minutes until the spinach was wilty...

Then I basically made a pizza of refried beans, veggies, salsa, and cheese on a tortilla!

The only thing I didn't love about the recipe is that it directs you to cut the onion and bell pepper into 1 1/2 inch strips. Those are big strips to put on a pizza! I think it would have been much better if they were chopped up very small :-)

For dinner, I went Cuban and made Cuban Black Beans and Rice. This was an interesting recipe. The black bean sauce mixture was delicious - onion, pepper, carrots, orange juice, tomatoes, and spices.

Then, I added black beans and was instructed to blend part of the bean mixture? I ended up blending all of it, and don't really understand what the point of that was. Maybe blending the mix BEFORE adding the beans would have made more sense? Oh well. It still turned out pretty decent - served with brown rice and lime. I was supposed to put plain yogurt on top, but I don't LOVE yogurt so I skipped that part.

Today, although I had meals planned, turned into a leftovers day. I had plenty of leftover polenta, so I decided to reheat some of it for lunch. Then for dinner, I was all ready to cook one of my two recipes left for vegetarian week, but I was seriously craving a second tostada. So that is what is currently in my oven!

Tomorrow, M and I are running our FIRST RACE: a 5K in Chapel Hill. I'm both excited and nervous. Wish me luck and look forward to a recap some time tomorrow!

whole foods: beware of (and/or embrace) local vendors.

2010-09-24T16:35:00.000-04:00

So, when I went grocery shopping the other week, my normal grocery store had no polenta... meaning in order to make the Baked Polenta with Peperonata Sauce, I had to make a trip to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is always dangerous: hot bar, presliced delicious fruit, sushi, unique wine and beer! But this particular day, it was EXTRA dangerous. There were local vendors. Of all sorts. Promoting things THEY had MADE... for me to consume. First, I had Peggy Rose's hot pepper jelly, served on a cracker with some brie:

So good. I mean, it was fantastic. And Peggy Rose was so charming! So I picked up a jar. I mean, it was LOCAL and she was THERE and it WON AWARDS:

Whatever, an extra $4-5 onto my grocery bill is no big deal. Next, I walked by a guy who makes his own biscotti from scratch.

He told me about all the wonderful ingredients. And how he makes it himself. Naturally, I had to have some.

Okay, I told myself, you've now spent $9 extra. You're done. But then, there was the toffee guy. Oh. My. Gosh.

These little chocolate truffles, made only a few miles down the road, ARE AMAZING. $6 for the small package seemed steep, but... I couldn't resist. So what could have been my cheapest trip to Whole Foods ever, seeing as I ONLY needed a roll of polenta... quickly turned into $19.50. Oh Whole ~~Paycheck~~ Foods... how I love and hate thee all at the same time. So, friends, what have we learned? Whole Foods has delicious, local vendors, ready to sell you their amazing products. This is both awesome and terrible all at once... and if you are on a budget (like I am!) you need to beware! Good thing I only end up there about once a month! :-)

pizza and beyond!

2010-09-23T23:16:00.000-04:00

And the pizza continues! Last night after I finished making and devouring my cheese pizza, I prepared lunch for today. On the menu: Chilly Garden Pizza. The recipe technically asks for a prebaked thin Italian pizza crust, but I obviously wanted to make the crust myself, so that's what I did! Second time around, this Bisquick + water combo is AWESOME! To start, I baked the crust and let it cool.

Next, I covered the pizza with garlic-and-herbs spreadable cheese and topped it with a TON of veggies.
I was out of cucumber, but I had some bell pepper on hand, so I made a little switch.

The only negative to this recipe was my fault: I didn't chop up the spinach very small, so it kind of covered the pizza and made it harder for the other veggies to stick to the cheese spread.

This recipe definitely invoked some nostalgia. My grandmother makes a Vegetable Pizza appetizer when we visit her, which uses crescent rolls as the crust and an Italian dressing/cream cheese mix for the "sauce". If you are curious - I found an approximate version of what she makes here. It's definitely one of my favorite appetizers to share with her when I visit!

The chilly garden pizza turned out great, but it feels like more of an appetizer than a main meal. I definitely think I'll make this again - but probably to take to a party as a snack or something, not as a main dish.

Tonight for dinner, I got to work with a new ingredient: POLENTA! I didn't really know what polenta WAS before today. For those of you who also don't know, polenta is ground cornmeal that has been boiled in water. The recipe started with me chopping up THREE medium sized onions. However, after chopping two and seeing how much onion I had, I decided my onions must have been "large" and put my third onion back in my drawer.

After chopping up the onions I got to put together the sauce for the recipe, which was a peperonata sauce. Before today I also didn't know what a peperonata sauce was - doesn't it sound like it should have pepperoni in it? No? Anyway, instead of pepperoni, it had roasted red bell peppers, kalamata olives, and diced tomatoes... yum:

I actually didn't have as many olives as the recipe called for - but I think this was a good thing. My friend S came over for dinner and she commented that she usually finds kalamata olives to be too salty... so I was glad I didn't add more! Anyway, after I cooked the sauce, I piled layers of sliced polenta, sauce, and parmesan cheese into a dish...

And then popped it in the oven! With my friend coming over and all, I kind of forgot to take a picture... but we did have leftovers, so here is what it looks like after being in the refrigerator:

Hooray for dinner with friends! It turned out delicious - I'm really becoming a big fan of onions! The only thing I might change about this recipe for next time is to add more garlic... I think garlic is one of the most key ingredients to any Italian style dish :-)

pizza pizza!

2010-09-22T20:35:00.000-04:00

Last night, I prepared Veggie Pita Pizza for lunch. I really, REALLY love pizza, as does my boyfriend, so finding healthy ways to consume pizza is definitely a priority for me. This was a good and easy start - though not one I can ever see Scott enjoying (he hates almost every vegetable imaginable). So, first I had to chop up lots of delicious pizza toppings:

Next, I had to modify this recipe so that I could pack it and take it for lunch. So instead of cooking the pita with everything on top of it, I made pizza in pita pockets! Sorry the picture isn't the best - it was already packed up.

But after all the chopping, I was in need of a snack. So I baked a mini pizza on one half of a pita.

It was delicious as a snack AND as lunch for the next day. For lunch, I just put it in the microwave for a minute to melt the cheese. Yum!

Tonight when I got home for dinner, it was time to pull out my baking stone and try my hand at Family-Favorite Cheese Pizza (note, my recipe says "make fun shapes" out of the cheese - but the one I found online was Halloween-specific).

The last time I made my own pizza crust, it was delicious but messy. The crust stuck to the stone, and it was such a pain to scrape off! This time the, the recipe for the crust was slightly different: instead of Bisquick, sour cream, and water, it was just Bisquick and water. The crust was much less gooey and much easier to work with.

I knew I wanted some veggies on the pizza instead of just plain cheese, so I added some mushrooms and olives. Yum!

I also mastered the art of transferring the pizza crust from the wooden cutting board I made it on to the pizza stone, which was heating in the oven.

Then, since I didn't feel like getting down my cookie cutters and instead just put random pieces of sliced American cheese on top instead of fun shapes.

This pizza turned out great! The crust was delicious, and didn't stick to the stone at all! And I even had leftovers.

Three days, no meat, and I'm perfectly content :-)

in the mood for MEXICAN.

2010-09-21T19:07:00.000-04:00

I've had a headache for almost two days :-/ I'm pretty sure I've figured out why: On Sunday at Yoga, I decided to try crow pose:

(source)

And I fell forward onto my head! Oops. I just laughed at the time, but... now it kind of hurts! Advil doesn't seem to be helping all that much... I guess it's like any bruise, it just has to heal with time. Oh well!

Back to food! Apparently, cheese quesadillas I ate yesterday just brought out a craving in me for Mexican. Luckily, Vegetarian Week had plenty of recipes to oblige.
Last night, I prepared part of my lunch: Fire-Roasted Tomato Gazpacho. I've been looking forward to this recipe for a while. I considered making it back in the spring, but I lacked a food processor. Now that I have my awesome blender, I was better equipped to make gazpacho! First, I had to peel my cucumber, with my brand new peeler!

My peeler worked so well, it was so easy! Yayy! Next, I chopped up everything and threw it into my blender.

Puree for about 30 seconds, and you are good to go! I put my blender into the fridge to blend flavors before packing it up.

I was so excited, I had to have a taste as I was packing it up. It was deeelicious.

Of course, at 50 calories per serving, there's no way I could have gazpacho on it's own for lunch. Cue cheese enchiladas.

First thing to note about the cheese enchiladas: I think this is the first time I have ever eaten cottage cheese. I was always grossed out by the texture and look of it - so I assumed I wouldn't like it. Now, within one day, I think I'm addicted! It's so good - even by the spoonful!
Now, the cottage cheese was a good discovery, but it pales in comparison to the overall deliciousness of the cheese enchilada. When you look at the "food I've cooked" tab on my blog, you'll find my rating system for food. I try to give honest opinions about every recipe, and so over the past 116 recipes I've only given 6 A Minuses, 9 A's, and 3 A+. Because A is defined as "This is so delicious, I'm kind of pissed I can't just eat it for the next 6 meals straight." Ladies and gentlemen, these cheese enchiladas were a SOLID A+. I came home from school this evening and sulked over having to make anything BUT another cheese enchilada. The Taco Sauce is the jam. THREE types of cheese, including my new star ingredient cottage cheese. Overall, just, amazing.
Easy too. Chop up your ingredients, put everything in the tortilla:

Wrap it up, pour taco sauce on top, top with cheese...

and bake for 15 minutes. Oh man. It. Was. Incredible.

I feel the need to say that it was better than it looks... I realize now that this picture does not look as appetizing as I'm describing, but trust me, you wish you were eating one right now.

Alas, I have 182 recipes to cook and 194 days to do it... so it was time to keep moving. Tonight for dinner I made Fettuccine with Spring Veggies. Except - shockingly - I used spaghetti instead of fettuccine, because that's what was in the pantry. This is a great cold pasta for a hot day. It has lots of vegetables,

Woohoo, veggies! And the combination or pepper, oregano, and grated Parmesan gave it some great flavor.

Annnd a close up:

In other news, I went for a 2 mile run with M this morning. Although the daytime highs are still pretty hot, it's finally feeling cooler in the morning! I love not dripping in sweat 2 minutes into my run :-) We went fairly slow - 11:30 pace... but M is convinced that the hills on our morning running route really slow us down. Our race plan suggested we take Thursday off to rest before the race (we may cross-train with a walk or spin class or something else instead), so this was my LAST RUN before my FIRST RACE. I'm getting excited for the race!

Monday Monday

2010-09-20T22:19:00.000-04:00

Today for lunch, I had Curry Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole. I made it Sunday evening, and I was initially concerned that it looked... dry and overcooked! For good measure, I added just a little bit of water into it before storing it for the night. I'm not sure if it was legitimately too dry to start, but today for lunch it wasn't dry at all!

before

after

maybe a little burnt?

Although not dry, I have to give this recipe an overall grade of a C or C+. It was decent, but a little bit boring. The curry powder and raisins added some interesting flavors, but I was hoping for more. I think that perhaps I just don't love meals when lentils are the star of the show. For instance, I liked the Mediterranean Bulgur and Lentils because it had lentils, corn, and bulgur (slash rice), as well as lots of great flavors. But this casserole had lentils as the main player, and I wasn't as excited about it. Perhaps more soy sauce or more red bell pepper would have helped? Or adding something to make the dish creamier - like cottage cheese?

it looks very orangey, no?

That sort of makes me realize - I've totally been in the mood for creamy, rich foods lately. I wonder how much that contributes to my not liking this dish, simply based on its lack of creamy texture?

Good thing I was able to make myself a nice creamy vegetarian dinner! Dinner tonight was Cheese Quesadillas. The recipe technically just called for Cheddar cheese, tomato, green onions, and green chiles... but it suggested adding more veggies and beans.

So, I added sliced bell pepper and onion, and then a little cottage cheese.

I also had a side of leftover black eyed peas, mixed with some taco sauce to spice them up!

This turned out pretty good, and it was sooo quick and easy! Preheat your oven, throw ingredients on the quesadilla, bake for 5 minutes... and that's it! Although this was super simple and very tasty, I think I might prefer cooking quesadillas in a pan, though, as I did with the chicken quesadillas I made in August. Have you ever made quesadillas at home? If so, what is your favorite method?

my first risotto!

2010-09-20T22:07:00.001-04:00

Sunday night for dinner I made Sweet Potato Risotto. I have a friend from high school that is an AMAZING cook, and he has made me great risotto in the past... but this was my first time doing it on my own. I forgot it can take a REALLY long time to cook Arborio rice correctly, and this recipe took a bit longer than the time it said in the cookbook.

It was a challenge for me to mash the sweet potato! I've never mashed a potato before, and I don't own a masher. So, I cut it up into small pieces and then used a fork to mash it. The result was quasi mashed sweet potato with lots of chunks left in the dish. I'm sure it would have been much better if the sweet potato had been mashed and thus mixed into the dish more thoroughly.

Overall,. I think I wanted to like this recipe more than I actually liked it. I think it had too much nutmeg, and ended up being too sweet for me. I also forgot to add the Parmesan cheese until halfway through. I think a different, creamier/melty-er cheese (maybe shredded mozzarella or crumbled goat cheese) would have made the risotto's flavor and texture better. Something to try next time!

So, this recipe was good but not great - and I think with less nutmeg and creamier cheese it could definitely be awesome! I will also say that it was EXTREMELY filling, and after Day #1 I am not missing meat!

Welcome to VEGETARIAN WEEK.

2010-09-19T19:34:00.000-04:00

Welcome to VEGETARIAN WEEK here at Running with Teaspoons! I have an exciting menu of vegetarian lunches and dinners for every day this week! I also be having vegetarian breakfasts and snacks, though I don't tend to blog about them.

After Pescatarain Week back in June, I didn't think I could ever go completely without meat for a week! But, over the past few months, I've decided it's worth a try. So I've done my best to pick recipes that feel complete and look filling without the meat. In other words, I didn't want to cook something and feel like I just left out the chicken. I'm pretty excited about the menu for the week, and I hope I've accomplished that!

To cook off Vegetarian Week, I made Mediterranean Bulgur and Lentils in my slow cooker! Technically I made it Saturday and took it to a Break Fast with some friends, but I had leftovers for lunch today as well! Since I have two gluten free friends, I replaced bulgur with short-grained Arborio rice. I considered replacing the bulgur with quinoa, but I couldn't find any at my grocery store! Anyway, like many slow cooker recipes, this was super simple. I put the rice, lentils, corn, cumin, salt, and vegetable broth into the slow cooker and left it for a few hours. Then, I added diced tomatoes and kalamata olives and cooked it for another 15 minutes or so. Lastly, I substituted crumbled goat cheese for feta due to a food allergy in our friend group. I think the cheese is really supposed to just be sprinkled on top, but it ended up melting into the dish - making it even better, in my opinion!

I realize it doesn't look all that appetizing, but I swear this stuff is DELICIOUS! It got great review from my friends as well. I am excited to have lots of leftovers - although they are definitely tempting me in the fridge as I write this!

Time to get tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch ready!