Cowboy BBQ Chicken Pizza & Running!

Today, I made my boyfriend and I Cowboy BBQ Chicken Pizza for lunch!  He got me a baking stone for Christmas, so this was a chance to not only use his gift, but try a new recipe!  It was DELICIOUS.  The crust is so light and tasty, the bbq chicken (which was store bought, but whatever, that's what the recipe said to do) was tasty, and I love, and I mean LOVE, cheese!  The only problem is, the crust kind of stuck to the pizza stone!  So it was challenging it get the pizza off the stone and onto our plates.  But we did alright.  Plus, once it was cooled it was a lot easier to get it off the stone.  I'm not quite sure why it stuck - I put some flour on the stone before i put the pizza crust down.  Anyway, it came out well for the first attempt and we both thought it was delicious! I'm having leftovers of it for dinner :-)  Sorry the picture is blurry - I snapped it real quick as we were about to dig in!

Note to my local readers: I now feel like I MUST perfect this pizza crust.  So if you are interested in eating pizza - I have 3 vegetarian and 2 chicken recipes! 

Later this afternoon, M and I went for a run around East Campus.  We did 1 minute walking / 3 minute running intervals for 44 minutes - go us!  We made it around the track twice, for a total of 3.4 miles, which means that our average pace was just under 13 minutes miles.  I never know how slow we walk during our 1 minute walks, so I have a hard time guessing how fast our running pace is.  We definitely don't keep a brisk walking pace, so it's got to be closer to 17-20 minute miles I would guess?  Anyway, if we were walking 16 minute miles, that would mean we were running on average 12 minute miles, but if we were walking 20 minute miles, we would have been averaging right around 10:30 minute miles.  I'm pretty happy with that - we don't have time goals yet, we just want to actually get ourselves running.  We are going again on Monday, so I'm trying to ice/stretch a lot between now and then!  After running, we went swing dancing, so my muscles are definitely exhausted.  Time to pop in a movie and head to bed early :-)

Fried Mac and Cheese Squares!

So for a friend's end-of-the-semester party, I decided to make Fried Mac & Cheese Squares.  Note: this is not from Betty Crocker's healthy recipe book.  I made them once  before and they were a big hit.  Basically, you make mac and cheese as normal, and then put it into a shallow pan to refrigerate.  Then, you cut up the mac and cheese into bit size pieces:

And then freeze.  When you are ready to make the Mac and Cheese, get a deep frying pan and put about 3 inches of oil in it (I use vegetable oil); heat (to about 350 degrees).  Take each ball, dip it in flour, then dip it in egg, then dip it in bread crumbs:

Then, place the mac and cheese balls in the oil and fry for about 3 minutes:

Mmmm, frying!  Haha.  Then, it's best to serve them hot.  Sometimes I eat them plain, sometimes I like to dip them in marinara sauce.  Your choice!

Yum!  The party was a ton of fun, and I think everyone enjoyed the mac and cheese.  I also made some gluten-free (Amy's makes a brand) and some lactose-free/gluten-free for my friends with dietary restrictions.  Fried food for everyone!!  I have to post about the lunch I made today as well as my run, but I'll have to do that later!

Citrus Salmon

Tonight, I made citrus salmon.  I forgot how freaking delicious salmon is! YUM!  The salmon was cooked perfectly in my opinion, and I had brown rice and veggies as my sides (shocker, I know, but it's easy):

I only wish I had more of it, haha - but it was super easy to make.  I got prepackaged fillets, so i just had to put the seasonings on and pop it in the oven.  I think in the past, I have never known what to season my food, other than salt, haha.  If I'm making italian, I have a good idea of what to do, but otherwise I don't know!  I'm hoping that as I cook through this book, I'll get a sense of what spices/seasonings go well together and what they go well on!

Today for lunch I enjoyed the salad I made last night.  I have to say, even though it wasn't bad, I'm sick of lettuce!  The fruits, nuts, cheese, and dressing were great, but I don't want anymore salad!  I have some to take for tomorrow, but next week I'm taking a break from salad for sure.  I found a place I can microwave food in the hospital, so now I can bring things that need to be heated up instead of sticking to salads and sandwiches.  And, in a few weeks, I hopefully will be done with my study and not have to be in the hospital all day - back to my lab, where I definitely have a fridge/freezer/microwave :-)

Stay tuned for FRIED MAC AND CHEESE tomorrow.  Yum!

salads with fruit make me happy.

Today, I had originally planned to cook dinner and make lunch for tomorrow, but I was enticed into spending Cinco de Mayo at a bar with some classmates, and can't bring myself to refrain from eating dinner with them!  But no fear, because I still had to make lunch for tomorrow/Friday.  Today I made Chicken and Fresh Berry Salad:

It's got raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and feta on top.  It called for just "vinaigrette dressing" - and in my fridge I had Balsamic Vinaigrette and Raspberry Vinaigrette, so for Thursday's lunch I'm having the Raspberry - and maybe Friday I'll try the Balsamic?  It looks so yummy, I am really excited for lunch tomorrow!  And the mixed greens (also from Monday's Kroeger trip) look good!

Question for anyone out in blogland.  I have been taking my lunches in gladware containers the past two days, and  both days it leaks out a little, causing stuff to get sticky.  Not cool when I'm traipsing around the hospital all day!  Maybe my gladware stuff is just too old - but does anyone know of specific types of plastic wear I can get that won't leak out in my backpack?

running AND meal #3!

Today, M and I tried out the Al Buehler Trail.  A few months ago, when Susan was visiting, she went for a run on this trail and blogged about how hilly it was.  Well, I'm here to confirm - it is VERY hilly!  My Achilles' was definitely killing me whenever we had to go uphill - so much so that 35 minutes in we had to stop running for a while - in fact I thought I needed to stop running for the whole day, but we decided to walk for a while and after 15 minutes I felt up for a bit more running, so we did intervals for the last 5-7 minutes.  In total, we went about 3.7 miles over the course of 55ish minutes, so that's an average pace of 15.4 minute miles.  Given how much walking we were doing and the pain I was in, I feel fine with that!  It's weird how my Achilles' hurt so much more when I run up hills than when I run flat or downhill - is that normal?  I think it's because it's stretching the tendon out more?  I wonder if there is anything I can change about my form or whatever to alleviate that... thoughts, anyone?  Anyway, we've definitely run places with hills before, but the Al Buehler Trail hills are a new level of hilliness that I'm not quite ready for!  I also went into the day still feeling sort of sore, so that didn't help.  We probably won't return to that trail for a little while - but it's SO nice, and in the shade, so maybe when I'm pain free and a bit stronger we can try it again :-)  The OTHER strange part was, after my 15 minute walk break, I had significantly less pain while running all the way to the end... maybe I just need to be pushing through more when I'm in pain?  Or maybe the longer break allowed my tendons to calm down a bit and be ready for more?

For those of you who were dying to know, M used a program called Audacity to make the play list where she mixed in songs with a recording of her voice, telling us when to start walking or start running!  The funny thing is - I had NO IDEA it was HER voice telling me to walk or run... she sounded very different on the recording.

Anyway, I need to be better about stretching over the next few days in order to make sure I'm not in any pain for our next run - which is tentatively scheduled for Friday, but might get pushed to Saturday afternoon depending on pain levels / other factors.  For the time we did walk/run today, we did 1 minute walks and 2:30 minute runs - and aerobically felt pretty good (especially when there were no hills), so next time we are upping it to 1 minute walking, 3 minutes running!  If we keep upping our intervals of running by 1 minute each week, until we get to 1 minute walking and 10 minutes running, we should be in good shape to run a full mile without stopping to walk by the end of June.  The first week of July tentatively begins our 5k training, which starts of with 1.5 miles of running.  So, I'm feeling pretty good about that!

Alright - onto food!  The salad I made for lunch today was delicious, other than the spinach which was eh.  I think I discovered a new love for pecans, so that's exciting!  Then, tonight I made Orange- and Ginger- Glazed Chicken, which I had with steamed broccoli and (leftover) brown rice:

The glaze was deeelicious, although it was almost TOO sweet, and I probably didn't put enough ginger in it.  I have never cooked with ginger before, so I'm not sure how it would have tasted with more/less.  Oh well!!  It was still good, and I put some of the sauce over the broccoli as well to spice it up!  YUM!  I also bought some mac and cheese today (including gluten-free, lactose-free mac and cheese for my friend who is allergic to both, yikes) so that on Friday, I can make FRIED MAC AND CHEESE.  Doesn't exactly fit in with my healthy living plan, but I made it once for friends in the fall and they've been begging for more ever since!  One of my friends is having an end-of-semester party Friday, so I'm going to make and bring some delicious fried treats.  Yay for my favorite things (that I shouldn't eat): fried food and food with cheese, haha.

Alright - that's all for today - thanks for your comments so far!  3 meals down, 297 to go, and 341 days to do it :-)

cooking, day number 1!

I've just finished up dinner!  Tonight I made Honey-Glazed Chicken  Breasts from the cookbook, and supplemented the chicken with a small side salad of spinach and almonds and some brown rice.  The chicken turned out pretty good - a little bit dry, but the flavor was great!  I think it was dry because the recipe was for 6 chicken breasts and I was only cooking 2, so I should have taken it out earlier.

Along with cooking dinner today, I made Gingered Chicken and Fruit Salad to take for lunch the next two days.  Things I learned while making this salad: (1) NEVER AGAIN will I buy salad stuff from Kroeger, the spinach is not appetizing whatsoever!!  (2) Mangos are hard to cut.  I realized I'd never bought or prepared a mango before.  So that was... a little challenging, haha.  But, hopefully it tastes delicious despite the iffy spinach. (From now on, I know Target produce is pretty good, or if I have to, I can go to Harris Teeter or Whole Foods).

So, 2 meals down, 298 to go, 342 days to get it done!  Tomorrow I'm running with M and then cooking another delicious dish for dinner (which I will probably have with leftover brown rice and some sort of vegetable side).  Now, it's time to get some work done!

MY COOKBOOK IS HERE!

I'm such a nerd - at 11pm tonight I logged into amazon.com to see where my cookbook was, and sure enough, I find out that it's in my mailbox.  (I'm not good at checking the mail every day.)  So, I went and got it and started looking through it!  It's got 10 sections: 1) center of the plate, 2) savory skillet meals, 3) casseroles and pot pies, 4) meatless main dishes, 5) sandwiches, salads, and pizzas, 6) soups, stews, and chilies, 7) slow cooker suppers, 8) grilling good and easy, 9) 30 minutes or less, and 10) cooking for two. Now, I thought about buying a whole cookbook that was "cooking for one"/"cooking for  two" since I live alone, but instead I'm just going to halve recipes when I need to and have leftovers!  So, of course I've been up for the last 2ish hours planning out what I'm going to make this week!  Between now and Saturday lunch time, I am planning to make 7 recipes: 4 dinners and 3 lunches.  Two of the lunches I will make in the evenings and pack to take for the day, and one I am going to make on Saturday for lunch, when my boyfriend will be visiting!

I'm not going to reveal to you what I plan to make - I'll save that for post-cooking.  But, I have my grocery list made and I'm super excited - so excited that i stayed up 2 hours later than I meant to and had to write about it!  YAY!