indian food truck.

I meant to make a plan for dinner during work today, and then grocery shop on my way home.  But things don't always go as planned, and at 7:15 when I was still in my office, I realized I was not picking a recipe, nor was I going to the grocery store, and thus, I couldn't cook.  That's okay, because one of my friends had been telling me that I absolutely HAD to go to the "Indian food truck" aka Indian Food on Wheels, conveniently located less than 2 blocks from my office.  So, to the Indian Truck I went.

(Pictures from the Herald-Sun and Yelp.)

I ordered the beef with a side of spinach and potatoes.  My favorite Indian dish is Palak Paneer, which is a spinach dish with cheese.  This spinach and potato dish (apparently called Aloo Palak?) may have just beat out Palak Paneer for most delicious Indian food.  The beef was also made in a fantastic sauce.

Basically, I think I know what I'll be getting every time I don't want to cook for the entire school year.  It was that good.  Better than the Indian food I often splurge for on campus.  Yum.  Ok - goal for tomorrow: cook something to share with ya'll... haha

Trashy TV Tuesdays & More

First of all... producers of the Bachelorette: PLEASE make this show a little less predictable.  While I would have been really sad if one of my favorite guys had a girlfriend, it was sort of annoying that the jerk that no one liked, shocker, had a girlfriend.  Although I will say that the scene of him walking away and the voicemails he was leaving for his girlfriend playing was hilarious.  But, beyond that, the most eventful part of last night's Bachelorette was the previews for the upcoming episodes.  It was obvious that she didn't feel chemistry with Craig and felt only a friendship-vibe with him.  Seriously, though, the previews MADE EVERYTHING SO OBVIOUS. So now instead of wondering who the top 3 are, we know with certainty.  Thanks.  I can't believe my fave is not making it.  Unless they did some wacky editing, I know already that my favorite is not going to win Ali's heart.  SAD.  Fingers crossed that he'll be the next bachelor?

Full disclosure: I also watch The City. I'd buy Whitney Eve's entire line if I were super rich.  I wish she would be friends with, but not work with Roxy, because I'm always terrified Roxy is going to mess something up - they have different styles, and I can't see it working.  I flipping hate Olivia, but of course the show is designed to be that way.  Of course, I've made Tuesday Trashy TV day, meaning it's an entire week after a new episode when I finally post, so not much to say.

This morning M and I started transitioning from "run/walk" to just running.  We went 1.5 miles at a pace of about 11:50 min/mile, and it wasn't so bad!  I'm super excited, as that's the longest we've gone without a walk break.  The rest of this week are run/walk work outs - which honestly is good because after only running for 17:47 I don't really feel like I did enough cardio today (I came home and did strength stuff after the run, though).  The next two weeks our weekday runs will be distances, and our weekend runs will be longer interval runs.  After that we will officially be starting an 8k training program!  Woohoo!  We went with the 8k program because honestly, after the interval training over the last few months, the 5k programs looked lame.  So, although we have yet to pick a race to run, we will be training for an 8k and then finding either a 5k or 8k race to run in mid September.  Anyone know of a good 5k or 8k race to run in mid September?  We're open to suggestions!

Time to get to work for the day - and at some point I also need to decide what I'm making for meals over the next few days so I can go to the grocery store and get cooking tonight!

two small dinners is better than one large dinner?

Wondering how my Italian Chicken Bracciole was for lunch?  IT WAS FANTASTIC.  To know whether or not you would enjoy it, let me tell you what I am starting to learn are the keys to a delicious (Italian, in this case) dish for me:

1. Fresh garlic, chopped and cooked in a pan (possibly garlic powder works just as well, but I like to use fresh garlic).  I also like to include other Italian seasonings.
2. Cheese (Usually Parmesan and/or Mozzarella).
3. Bacon (I use low-fat turkey bacon).
4. Diced tomatoes - fresh or canned - cooked so they become more of a chunky sauce.  This is so much better than marinara sauce in a jar, I don't think I'll ever go back.  Yum.
5. Cooked onions (gotta be chopped up small and cooked through).

Delicious. This recipe also had bread crumbs, another love of my life.  This would have gone well with pasta, but instead I had it with a side salad.  On to dinner.  I am definitely in a cooking funk this week - I am just not motivated to go to the grocery store or cook.  But dinner must be consumed, so I have to push through!

I had one piece of pork yet, so I made a fairly simple recipe: Pork Medallions with Hot Pineapple Glaze.  I don't like pineapple, and this recipe said to use either pineapple or orange marmalade spreadable fruit, so I went with the latter.  Even the orange marmalade flavor isn't my favorite, but it's definitely better than pineapple!  This recipe was quick, simple, and tasted good.  However, I could not for the life of me think what vegetables go well with orange marmalade, so I ate it solo and decided to eat two small dinners instead of one big dinner tonight.

After dinner #1, I knew I needed to find a way to use the asparagus I had leftover from last week.  I found a recipe for Halibut and Asparagus Stir-Fry.  I didn't have halibut, nor did I need another serving of meat/protein right after my pork, so I basically made this recipe sanz fish.  It was pretty good, but not spectacular... although I feel like I have to try this again when I have some halibut.  Also, I didn't chop up the asparagus spears very small, I think that would have helped.  The mushrooms, onions, soy sauce, and garlic were a great flavor combo, though!

Err... no plans for lunch tomorrow and nothing much in the fridge to make... we'll see what happens.  Still in a funk, not really excited about cooking or going to the grocery store.  It would be a miracle if I avoided fast food even for the rest of the night, haha!  What do you do when you are just craving fried, unhealthy, greasy fast food?  Hopefully having my eyes glued to the TV (BACHELORETTE!) will prevent me from going out.

60 recipes completed!

All day today I was craving unhealthy food that I couldn't make in the kitchen... but given that I had a huge plate of nachos yesterday while watching the World Cup, I knew I needed to resist the urge!  I was also really not in the mood to go grocery shopping, so I had to figure out what I could make with what I already had.  Despite those delicious nachos, I was still in the mood for Mexican, so I whipped together Salsa Fiesta Chicken.  I love the fluffy texture of Bisquick, but the last time I tried a recipe with a Bisquick baked bottom, it turned out to be a bit of a mess.  However, I also forgot to spray the bottom of the pan last time, so I thought that was to blame.  This time, the crust came out of the pan more easily for the most part, and was only a little bit of mess:

 Unfortunately, I'm not sure Mexican and Bisquick's fluffy crust really go together.  I felt like the recipe ought to be with marinara sauce instead of  of salsa.  And of course, now that dinner was sub par, I'm going to want something else.  Bah Humbug!

While my dinner was baking, I made Italian Chicken Bracciole.  Of course, I didn't have any chicken thighs, so I used chicken breast instead.  This means that my stuffing is mostly just on top of the chicken instead of really stuffed into it, but that's ok. 

 Mmm, lots of diced tomatoes.  Stay tuned to see how it turns out after I eat it for lunch tomorrow!

sleepy running

Anyone who knows me in real life probably doesn't believe that I go running in the morning, or they at least are a little skeptical.  And if you told them that on top of that, I went running on a WEEKEND morning at 7:30am, they would laugh.  Why?  Because I hate the morning.  I love to sleep in.  And I love to nap.  This is a well known fact.

One of the reasons I love sleeping in is because I've always been a night owl.  So after sleeping in a bit on Friday morning (no run scheduled), I knew it was going to be a challenge to fall asleep early on Friday night in order to be well-rested for my Saturday morning run.  10:30 sounded like a good time to go into bed, so I turned off the TV and climbed under the covers at about 10:45.

I usually like to fall asleep to an episode of a show or something, so I geared up some netflix.  But I didn't fall asleep, and then it was 11:15.  And 11:45.  Then, Susan came home from work and was on gchat, so we chatted a little.  1am.  Oops.  Say goodnight, return to sleep attempt - this time without any background television, since it wasn't really working. 1am became 2, put the noise back on... 2 came 3, and then... yes, 4am.  Shortly after the clock glared 4:01, I think I fell asleep.  So the 7:00am alarm was... less than pleasant.

M only fared a little bit better, clocking in at 5 hours of sleep.  Neither of us have particularly good explanations for this.  Oh well.  We were, however, a bit of a mess.  My driving to campus was questionable, and just as we pulled in I realized I forgot my watch.  I almost turned around to get it, but it seemed too far.  So for the first time ever, we set off for a jog with no clock and no particular goals.  Given our exhaustion, we opted to run two shorter loops instead of one longer out and back.  While I have no idea what our time was, we went 3 miles total, and ran about 2.4 of the 3.

Came home and did a very abbreviated version of strength training - just a few crunches and situps and whatnot.  It's crazy how awake I feel after morning runs, even on only 3 hours of sleep!  Now I'm off to run some errands before meeting up with friends to cheer on TEAM USA!

spice overload

The Asian Pork Salad I had for lunch today turned out spicy, but not too spicy for my tastes, surprisingly.  I ate it slowly to avoid spice overload, and ended up enjoying it quite a bit.  I think the black beans helped tone down the spice.  This is definitely a salad I'll make again!

Tonight for dinner, I made Cajun Smothered Pork Chops for dinner (online recipe slightly different).  I did something dumb though.  Even those this recipe calls for one "jalapeño chile, seeded, chopped," I for some reason decided I didn't need to seed it.  So I chopped up the whole jalapeño chile and added it to my skillet.  This is possibly the worst thing I've done so far in my cooking escapades.  THE SEEDS ARE THE REALLY REALLY HOT PART.  And an entire jalapeño chile is too much spice for me.  My mouth was burning!!! I managed to move most of the pieces of jalapeño to the side and finish the pork chop, but oh man... it was spicy.  Definitely will have to re-make this recipe at some point, jalapeño's seeded!

Does that salad on the bottom half of my plate look familiar?  Well, I had lots of leftover cole slaw mix, so I re-made the dressing from the Asian Pork Salad (but with a little less chili puree!) and had a side salad!  Delicious.  Now it's time to get ready for an early Friday night bed time - we are running at 7:30 tomorrow morning!  Wish me luck :-)

back in action.

Yes, I realize I was out of commission for less than 48 hours.  Whatever, I'M BACK, and I'm sure you are excited about it.  So, the first thing I did when I got home from work today was COOK!

First, since I wasn't starving, I threw together lunch for tomorrow:

Hello, Asian Pork Salad.  Looking at the recipe,  I was really excited to make this... but after having a small taste, I'm not sure sure.   The dressing is so, so spicy!  It has "Chili puree with garlic" - which I had to use last week and couldn't find at Kroeger... so I just substitute chili puree and chopped up garlic.  This week I went to Harris Teeter and found a bottle of this:

Which may or may not be what Betty & Co. meant.  A google search for chili puree with garlic comes up with a bottle of that and similar things, so I think it's what I'm supposed to use.  And it's SPICY.  This is coming from a girl who likes spicy food.  Anyway, I'll let you know tomorrow how it actually tastes.

After whipping together my Friday lunch salad, I moved onto dinner: Chicken with Carrots and Mushrooms.  This is a very basic recipe, which is nice, although I was skeptical: do carrots and mushrooms really go together?  The answer: they go together just fine - although I wouldn't say they are my favorite combination.  This recipe was a solid meal.  My favorite part was the sauce, which tasted like a nice, light gravy.  The chicken was also good, although as per usual I could have cooked the chicken for less time and it might have been even better.  One day, I will learn to cook a chicken breast in a pan without letting it get dry.

Other than that, I'm feeling good about my run this morning, and the plan is to do some strength training with NMTZ tomorrow.  Then we have a long run on Saturday.  Tonight's plan: white wine and chocolate with a friend!  Nothing beats a glass of cold white wine on a hot summer day.  What are your favorite summertime beverages?