i'm still alive!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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.

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! :-)