late night baking

In case you weren’t already absolutely certain about this earlier, let me tell you now about how ridiculous my life is. I stayed up past midnight on Friday night baking with my best friend Emilie. MIDNIGHT.

We played with science, xanthum gum, and wine to make gluten-free oreos for y’all. They are delicious and amazing and easy. And I had planned to post that recipe today, but I misplaced the recipe and instead found these pictures lurking on my camera from this weekend.

Come back tomorrow when I will have hopefully recovered the recipe and the other pictures on my camera. I promise you’ll like these cookies if I ever tell you how to make them.

scenes from the Farm

I arrived safely in Virginia and into my own little hideaway… Liberty Farms (built in 1795), aka the home of my Aunt Josette and Uncle Chuck.

While on the Farm, I did a little of everything including but not limited to: wrestling with duck fat, chopping down a Christmas tree,  falling for some puppy eyes, cooking with my aunt, driving a tractor, and being reunited with my mama!

After a lovely holiday dinner with everyone (Aunt Josette, Uncle Chuck, Josette’s mother, my stepdad, my mama, 3 dogs, 3 cats, and a partridge in a pear tree), we shipped out and I was whisked away to the mountains to hang out around my mom’s house for the next couple of weeks. It is so good to be home for the holidays.

you’re welcome

You’re welcome.

(And no, he’s not mine.)

beets, bears, battlestar galactica

Beets, bears, Battlestar Galactica…. and other important facts about my life:

My favorite cookie is a French macaron. I dream about these.

I eat breakfast in bed every day while watching “Saved By The Bell” reruns.

I don’t always wash fruit before eating it and usually just wipe it on my jeans and hope for the best.

I know how to open a bottle of champagne with a sword. (Yes, really.)

I watch Food Network pretty much constantly (unless “Saved By The Bell” is on).

My favorite animal is a shark.

I miss my best friends’ parents’ dog, Sophie.

And, I’m currently procrastinating a paper due tomorrow.

Edited to add:

I drink more water when it comes from small, plastic cups instead of grown-up glasses.

I don’t like Thanksgiving stuffing.

eat local & spin

I feel like that should be a motto… “Eat local & spin”. I want shirts & mugs with that printed on them.

So yesterday I spent some time lounging on the back porch to soak up some (SPF protected) rays and reading more of The Kind Life. I also ate.

Tofu & cheese on wheat with spinach & whole grain mustard; celery

Puppy envy: fuji apple with almond butter

I also had an unpictured bowl of Special K because dinner was going to be a little late. Jeff stopped by the farmer’s market and got amazing local, organic produce for dinner. Mona made a homemade pesto with all the herbs from our garden and Jeff and I worked on grilling up the veggies. Dinner was almost all local and organic! The only store-bought items at dinner: whole wheat pasta, olive oil, pine nuts (in the pesto). Everything but the pine nuts was organic! MMMMMM.

Whole wheat pasta with homemade pesto; grilled corn; grilled zucchini & squash!

The vegetables melted in my mouth! And the corn was so sweet I didn’t even need butter on it! We finished the evening up with dark chocolate.

This morning I woke up and had a whole wheat English muffin with some Smart Balance before heading to spin class at the gym. There is NOTHING like a spin class to get you sweaty and your heart rate pumping. And it doesn’t bother my knee! I left the gym an hour later covered in sweat and feeling great.

When I got home and showered, I made some homemade hummus and loaded up on it for lunch. I have an aunt from Syria so she taught me to make killer hummus. I rarely do because, let’s be honest, the tubs at the grocery store are convenient (Costco’s giant tub is the best, in my opinion). But homemade is so much better!!

Chocolate Pomegranate Green Smoothie; leftover grilled zucchini; homemade hummus; crackers.

I also made another Chocolate Pomegranate Green Smoothie featuring POM Wonderful. Missed my smoothie invention yesterday? You can find it in my recipes tab!

Off to get some laundry and other boring stuff done. Have a great Sunday!

TGIF

I love Fridays because I don’t work! (Trust me this won’t last for long… I have a summer job coming up and then graduate school. I enjoy it while I can!)

I woke up and made breakfast in bed

Sophie trying to steal my wheat toast with chocolate soy nut butter and banana¡

(Please ignore the mis-matched bedding… the real sheets were in the wash.)

After digesting, I headed to the gym where I did 35 minutes on the elliptical trainer, while reading a book! I can’t think of the last time I took reading material to the gym. I tend to get really focused and intense during a work out but I really felt like relaxing so I took my book and enjoyed it while getting my (major) sweat on. I also did some arm strength training before leaving.

On the way home I may or may not have stopped at Trader Joe’s because I was in desperate want of soy yogurt and spinach. And I had to pick up some tofu for dinner! I also made an impulse purchase of Greek yogurt, dark chocolate, and grapefruit. Don’t you love that my “impulse purchases” include a grapefruit?

Grapefruit; raspberry soy yogurt; sandwich thin with 1 slice light white cheddar, spinach, artichoke hearts, and kidney beans!

Sophie and I then spent a good portion of the afternoon in the backyard on a beach towel, me tanning in my bathing suit and Sophie eating bugs. I wanted to get a little color on me but I also love reading my book outdoors! I took a ton of cute pictures of the puppy on my new camera too! I’m paranoid about skin cancer, as my mom had melanoma, so no worries, the SPF 50 was slathered on heavily. I did get some color though which takes me from albino to a healthy alabaster. Improvement, right?

I totally killed my “limited dairy the day before a race” plan because tonight we had a Shabbat dinner and as soon as the goat cheese stuffed dates came out, I knew I was a goner.

Appetizers (I sampled a bit of it all)

Olives and goat cheese stuffed dates

The Shabbat is the dinner held on Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. I’m not Jewish, if you were wondering, but Mona & Jeff (my best friends’ parents/the people I live with and work for) are and they invited over their friends Fay and Charlie for Shabbat dinner (hi, Fay!!!!). Fay kindly explained some of the traditions and prayers to me. It is tradition for the woman to cut the Challah and say the first prayer at Shabbat (Mona clearly did this; my Hewbrew is limited to pretty much 1 or 2 words that I may or may not have just made up).

My wine & some challah

I had 1 glass of red wine over the course of the evening, wanting to partake but not wanting to over do it. Even though I’m running for fun tomorrow, I still don’t want to feel gross! After the challah was cut, we munched on the appetizers where I had 1 or 4 stuffed dates and some assorted cheese, crackers, and dried apricots. Then dinner came!

Veggies, roasted potatoes, mixed green salad, marinated baked tofu

Everyone else had steak and/or chicken so I used the chicken marinade (Soy Vey Very Very Teriyaki) to marinate my tofu. It was super yummy, I loved the marinade!!!

And then, of course, came dessert.

Cookies, whipped cream, and fruit salad

I can always get behind a fruit salad!

Well now it is late and I should be getting to bed for my 5k tomorrow morning! Jeremy isn’t actually running now because he waited too long to register and it closed But Mary Catherine is still coming and I’m so excited to share her first race with her! Tomorrow look for a race recap and some more race tips!

lazy afternoon

At some point today, I Tweeted that I was going to shower, clean my room, wash dishes, and do other such chores. Well, I did manage to wash some dishes and shower. A larger portion of my afternoon was spent cuddling with the puppy and watching “Shrek the Third” on DVR. Productive, yes?

Around 2pm, I made a small lunch. My oats held me over quite well but I did get hungry. 5 miles will do that to you.

3/4 cup TJ's 0% vanilla Greek yogurt, cheerios & flax bran; carrot; quesadilla (1 Laughing Cow wedge, a handful of spinach, and a whole wheat tortilla)

I love baby carrots as much as the next person, but it always makes me feel like the carrot has been wasted in turning it into a tiny size. Give me a real carrot! My mom & brother were never big carrot eaters, that I remember, but I very clearly remember my dad peeling up some carrots and eating them in front of the kitchen sink with me

Later in the afternoon, I snacked on half an apple and the rest of my rice chips.

1/2 red delicious apple

The last of the TJ's Sea Salt & Pepper Rice Chips

As I do most of the time, I sat on the floor to eat my snack (what? you don’t?) and I had a visitor join me in my lap!

Sophie says hello to the blog world!

Eventually it came time for dinner. There has been a pack of TJ’s Palak Paneer sauce in the pantry for a while now that i’ve been waiting to use. I finally decided to use it with the block of tofu I’ve been meaning to use, too. I decided to multitask and bake up the rest of the tofu to use all week. Plan ahead, people!

I pressed the block of extra-firm organic tofu for an hour and then cut it into slices for baking. I marinated the other slices to bake it but tried something fun with the tofu for tonight. I dipped it into a tiny bit of Egg Beaters and “breaded it” with a bit of panko before baking — my first attempt at breading tofu. I also cut up the other 1/2 sweet potato (leftover from last night), tossed it with curry powder, and threw that in the oven as well.

1/2 cup white rice with TJ's Palak Paneer sauce, Panko breaded organic tofu, curried sweet potato.

Next time I might marinate the tofu before breading it, but I liked the slight crunch it got from the Panko. Now I have a lot of baked tofu and a lot of the Palak Paneer sauce left! If you don’t know, this sauce is made of mainly of spinach and ricotta (in cubes, whereas I’ve usually had it blended it). It was spicy but amazing!

A short while later, I needed something sweet to kill the lingering slight spice from the sauce. Solution: banana whip.

Banana whip (1 frozen banana) topped with a handful of mocha madness trailmix.

Sophie wanted some, too!

See? It really does take on the texture of soft serve ice cream!

Dessert is inevitable so sometimes, I just gotta have that 2nd banana Better than a big bowl of ice cream right? To make this, simply freeze a banana (peeled and in a couple hunks) then run through the food processor for about 5 minutes, until it turns into the texture of soft serve ice cream. Note: at first it will sound like you are blending rocks, then get chunky, then form a big ball, then turn to ice cream. Seriously, it is just a banana, nothing else! Then top with whatever goodies you want!

Watching “The Tudors” and hanging out with my best friend, the dog. Have a lovely evening!

early start!

Well I had an early start to my day! How about you guys? Any one up pre-dawn?

Sadly mine wasn’t for fitness reasons but rather to drive Mona & Jeff to the airport. 5am came around too soon for all of us, Sophie included.

Even the puppy knew it was too early and wouldn't come out of her crate!

I had a black mango hot tea on the way to the airport and it was just what I needed to perk myself up to drive the car back home. Weirdly as I got off the highway, I started to feel really nauseous and was afraid I’d have to pull the car over. It was freaky! As I pulled in the driveway I started to feel better and sitting in the driveway with the fresh air through the windows for a few minutes brought me back to life. Weird, right? Well then I was voraciously hungry, being that it was the fun hour of 6am.

Ezekiel sprouted toast with 1 tbsp sunflower seed butter

The gym didn’t open til 7am so I killed time trying to watch TV. FYI: There is absolutely nothing of worth on TV at 6am.

Finally at 6:45am I left the house again and arrived at the gym. Me and the old guys stood out front while they unlocked the doors and got in. Somehow in the 10 seconds it took me to lock my stuff away in the locker room, my favorite elliptical was stolen from me. I settled for an elliptical-esque machine (no idea what it is actually called) and did 20 minutes of “random hills” on a high intensity. That got me nice and warmed up for the rest of my workout: abs and lifting. I’ve been neglecting abs a lot and recently have gotten my act together as far as lifting, so I did 50 crunches (with breaks), 20 leg lifts, 10×2 Bosu pushups, a few free-weight exercises, 2 leg machines and 2 arm machines. It felt awesome

I then went to the Starbucks 2 feet away to meet the lady I babysit for. We’ve been trying to get together all week so she could pay me, and this morning worked best for us since I was already up and she was on her way to the 9am spin class. We chit chatted for 20 minutes and on my way out I grabbed a Strawberry Banana Vivanno Smoothie with skim milk. I’ve never had this before, but with the whey protein added in I figured it was a better choice post-lifting than the caramel macchiato I used to order so frequently in my fat days (There is nothing wrong with a caramel macchiato… If you want it, order it! Just remember: moderation — something unfamiliar to me for a long time!)

I got home again, played with the (now-alive) puppy, and got myself dressed and ready to head out the door again. My stomach was rumbling around 10:30am so I smeared some AB & J on 1/2 whole wheat matzo and headed out the door for the next thing on my agenda.

1/2 whole wheat matzo with ~1 tsp jelly and ~1 tsp TJ's almond butter

I drove to Norfolk to pick up Mona’s mom at her assisted living home. Since Grandma’s real grandchildren (my two best guy friends, Harris & Jeremy) are away in college, I helped her out today by driving her to some errands. It ended up being a lot of driving since her errand was at Sam’s Club, which happens to be 2 miles from my house, and she lives in downtown Norfolk, but it was nice to have something to do! We both started to get hungry around 1pm and went to a Chinese restaurant literally next to the Harris Teeter I shop at. I’d never noticed it before, but it was a legit restaurant, not a dirty, greasy take out place!

Vegetable spring roll

Ma Po Tofu with steamed rice

I was adventurous and tried something new! I actually really wanted the General’s Tofu, which is General Tso’s with tofu, but I knew it would be fried and greasy so I opted for this instead. It was so yummy! It was (un-fried) tofu with mixed veggies, mushrooms, and this delicious spicy brown sauce. I ate about 1/4 of the rice, the tofu was filling on it’s own! I love that this restaurant had lunch portions because Chinese food portions are typically huge and this was just right (it would have been too much with ALL that rice, though).

Then I drove Grandma back to Norfolk, being sure to wave at the PETA head quarters as I went by

Oh hi, PETA!

Now I’m back home and so tired. This early morning and busy day lugging around Grandma’s wheelchair/pushing her in it has worn me out! I may take a nap….

tearful day

I hate emotions. Anyone else? It seems like some of them from yesterday carried on into today. Yesterday was more anger and annoyance, but today was a little different. However, I’ll give you the good part of my day, first, which happened first, too!

Got myself up an hour and a half earlier than my planned run so I could do my new run prep routine — it works like a charm for me! Basically I can barely pull myself out of bed so after I use the bathroom I get right back in with my computer, a snack, and a glass of water, and allow myself to wake up for an hour.

Mini Luna bar White Chocolate Macademia

I got a box of MINI Luna Bars and it was perfect! I am still trying to get my tummy used to running on food and this was the best size. I actually thought the flavor would be too sweet (like the cookie) but it was kind of salty from the nuts and was really, really good. New favorite!

Then I got all my stuff together for running. Jeez, I thought I had a lot when I was a swimmer! Runners have so much more gear!

Running stuff

Shoes, sunscreen (!!!), socks, sunglasses (that I didn’t actually wear), heart rate monitor, Garmin, and a hat. This doesn’t even include the clothes I was wearing OR my new Amphipod RunLite 4 hydration belt! I finally got an opportunity to test it out, but only carried 1 bottle and the gear pack on the belt since I had a short run planned.

I headed out to First Landing State Park in Va Beach, where I did my first trail run a couple weeks ago. Armed with my camera in the belt’s gear pack and 1 8oz bottle of water clipped to my side, I took off. My pace was way faster than it felt like! I rarely looked at the Garmin, and by mile 2 I was still running under 10 minutes/mile (fast for me). I took a walking break to gulp some water, turned around, and set off back down the trail a bit slower to finish 4 miles in total. At 2.5 I realized I had clipped the bottle back in incorrectly and had LOST it. I started walking back to find it, then remembered it would be quicker to find it if I ran (novel concept, I know). I found it and doubled back. With a couple walking breaks to adjust the belt — this thing is going to take me a while to get used to — and a hair adjustment (completely necessary), I did 4.15 miles in about 44 minutes. And the scenery was beautiful!

Cape Henry trail at First Landing State Park

Spanish Moss!

Southeastern VA is dripping in Spanish moss, and since I was a little girl I’ve always loved it and thought it was so beautiful! The trails at First Landing are, of course, full of the stuff so I found a particularly pretty “arrangement” to share with y’all

After I finished my run, I wiped the dirt of my ankles, got in my car, and drove to the Honda dealership to get my oil changed & a state inspection. This is where my day went downhill.

I got a lot of weird stares in the waiting room as I assembled, photographed, and ate my breakfast, but what do I care? Oh and maybe they were staring at me because I was straight off a trail run and gross? Just maybe.

Overnight Oats! (1/3 cup rolled oats, 1 tbsp Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain Hot Cereal, 1 tbsp TJ's chocolate hemp protein powder, 1 tsp flax seeds, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup milk, 1/2 banana, blueberries)

I still hate how I can never get my overnight oats to be less liquidy. I’ve tried adding less liquid (duh) but then they turn out like cement. However, it was, at least, delicious even if it attracted some weird looks.

Finally my name was called and I was told that my oil change had gone over well. My state inspection had not. Last year it failed inspection because my car had been vandalized and I’d forgotten that they’d also bashed one of my tail lights, leaving a small crack in it (yet the light still worked, so I thought it was okay). As some of you may know, my dad was a mechanic and last year was the first year he wasn’t the one doing the inspection. So because of the exorbitant amount of money they were charging to replace the tail light case and the fact that the sticker on my window with his signature was gone, I was a headcase. Well this year it went kind of the same. I hope this isn’t becoming a pattern. My exhaust system had a leak and they told me if I got it fixed through the dealership it would be $2000 for all the repairs. I was really impressed when they recommended I go to a muffler shop, instead, because it would be closer to $500. That was really nice of the guy helping me, actually, and I thanked him for his integrity.

So I left the dealership with a big old rejection sticker and called my mom to tell her the news. Then all my emotions hit, I started to sobbed, and wailed out “I just want Dad!”, something I haven’t said out loud in a while. It has been 17 months since he passed away and for the last 3 or 4 months, I’ve been handling things much better than before. But today just hit me again. I went home, (finally) took a shower, and collapsed on my bed for about 10 minutes in convulsing tears. But then I pulled it (sort of) together, called the muffler shop 2 miles from the house, and they told me to bring it on over and they’d have me done in an hour. WHAT? Where are all these nice people suddenly coming from??

I thankfully grabbed a Kashi bar and ate it while waiting for my car to be fixed but forgot to take a picture out of stress. The manager could clearly tell that I was having a bad day, as well as the other gentleman waiting for his repairs, so they were both really nice and talked to me and made me laugh. I have to say that if you live in the Hampton Roads area, I totally recommend Big Al’s (local chain) because they were so incredibly sweet to me today! Also, the cost of the repair was only $189 before tax. Where the heck did the dealership get $2000??????

I called the dealership and have an appointment in 30 minutes to have it re-inspected (ie, they stick a prettier sticker on my car) so it will all be done and over with soon. I know it seems ridiculous to cry over car repairs, but man my emotions just hit me today and really got me! Anyone else have triggers like that?? Little, minor things that blow up other emotions for you?

I just ate a quick, easy lunch…

Sandwich thin with 2 tbsp roasted red pepper hummus, squash, & zucchini; TJ's pepper & sea salt rice chips; bowl-o-berries.

Now I am going to play with the puppy for a few minutes to make amends for leaving her so much today. Before I go, please note the fact that all 4 of her paws are mysteriously green after coming in from the backyard…

What has she been doing??

The picture doesn’t do it justice… she is like glowing green.

got my sweatin’ done

I had a pleasant change of plans today that allowed me to get some quality sweat time in! I am in such a better mood now, it is amazing how much I need those endorphins sometimes

Today at the office I had packed a lovely sandwich. However it was poorly constructed and fell apart so I ended up eating it in pieces, but it was still super tasty and fresh.

Red pear; sandwich made with Ezekiel sprouted bread, mixed greens, 2 tbsp roasted red pepper hummus, asparagus, and zucchini

And for lunch’s dessert I had my 2nd to last 100 calorie pack of those awesome almonds!

Emerald Nuts 100 calorie pack of Cocoa Roasted Almonds

See, I told you that a pack has a lot of almonds! And SO tasty! Mmmm.

I was moments from leaving the office to head to babysitting when I, thankfully, looked at my phone and got a message that one of the twins just went home sick from school with strep throat. Needless to say, I was relieved of my duties. So I went home to grab a snack and then run a fun errand!

In between leaving work and snacking, I ran by the kennel to pick up Sophie who has been there since Friday morning when we went to court (we put her in early since we were leaving Saturday  morning anyways). Reunited with my baby! And something fun happened: someone who worked at the kennel recognized me from Daily Mile and from reading my blog!!! Hi, Nicole! Thanks for putting up with my monster

Kardea Nutrition Banana Nut bar

This was another of the 4 flavors that Kardea Nutrition sent me. I really loved the Lemon Ginger I reviewed yesterday because those are 2 of my favorite flavors. However, this Banana Nut flavor was even better. It truly tasted like a banana nut muffin (minus the bazillion calories) and still had that crunch from the oats. I was expecting it this time! It kept me fueled to go run a fun errand at…

Running Etc., the local running store! If you remember, I won a gift card to spend there when I won my age group at Saturday’s race. It wasn’t enough to cover the entire cost of my planned purchase, but it was nice to put it towards what I wanted… a hydration belt!

I got an Amphipod RunLite 4+ model that seemed to be the best value. I don’t think I’m in need of all 4 bottles now, but I can remove the clips and only carry 1 or 2 if I want! The guy helping me at the store (plus a very nice patron who owned one) were telling me the pros and cons and I was sold when I realized the bottles clipped into the holster and I wouldn’t have to wrestle with a strap mid-run. I’ll put up a picture when I try it out, I promise! Probably this weekend?

1/2 serving TJ's sea salt & pepper chips; strawberries

When I got back, I changed for SPIN CLASS and grabbed a quick snack, which probably wasn’t the best to fuel me through a class, but it was what I wanted (plus the strawberries needed eating). I was so excited to go to my favorite instructor’s class, I went all the time before the bathroom rennovation where I got out of the habit of going since I was gymming in the morning. Twas refreshing and I seriously sweat SO MUCH. To steal the technical term from Tyler, it was a “sweat factory”. 75 minutes later, I was tired and gross but loving the endorphins! I also did 20 minutes of arm weights before leaving the gym

I knew Jeff was going to the grocery store post-spin, but I was STARVING. I literally came home and went straight to the fridge. I didn’t snap a picture because I was about to gnaw my arm off but I had 1/2 piece of whole wheat matzo with a smear of natural blackberry preserves. Then, when Jeff got home with some produce, I made a real dinner!

Asparagus and celery with a Laughing Cow French Onion light wedge; sweet potato with 1/2 cup vegetarian baked beans

Now I’m chilling out on the couch enjoying “Dancing With the Stars” and snuggling with the puppy! Toodles