Tag Archives: Food

COOKIN’: FEBRUARY RECIPE ROUND-UP

February 21, 2013

Not to detract too far from training, let’s talk about something that kind of goes hand-in-hand: FOOD!

I’m one of those people that posts some of the better food that they’ve just made on Instagram. If you hate it, whatevs, you don’t have to follow me. But I just can’t help being proud of the fact that my zero cooking skills actually resulted in something delicious. It’s a feeling of accomplishment and down right satisfaction. Plus, I usually get a few folks asking for the recipes. Thus, instead of sending them all one by one, I thought I’d do a round up of some of the winners I’ve made recently.

Mexican Quinoa Salad with Spicy Chicken

Stop what you’re doing and go make this salad. Actually, I don’t even like calling a salad. It’s a bowl full of health perfection topped with a flavor-punch of protein. It’s colorful, filling and a combination of two recipes I found online.

First, the Mexican Quinoa salad (the dressing is what sets it apart). Then, I simply sautéed two chicken breasts with the following spice mixture:

1 tbsp. chili powder
½ tbsp. paprika
¼ tsp. garlic powder
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
½ tsp. sugar
½ tsp. salt

Top the salad with the dressing (that you hopefully made ahead and refrigerated) and then your chicken. I prefer the salad chilled, but it was great with hot chicken on top as well.

Dairy-Free Banana Pumpkin Oatmeal Honey Bread

Whew! That’s a mouthful — and it is in more ways than one. Over-ripe bananas? No problem. Throw them in with what I would guarantee 75 percent of us have in our pantries right now for a hearty, delicious bread that will keep you fed for breakfast for the entire week. You can find the recipe here.

Orzo Vegetable Soup with Pesto

After cooking quite a few soups this season, I have found that I love when they have pasta in them as it helps fill me up a bit more. However, the noodle size was never quite perfected…until I tried orzo in a soup. It’s hearty enough, but not too much. This soup was a winner because it introduced me to my new soup BFF, but I would just go ahead and add the pesto in instead of dolloping it on top. You can find the recipe here.

Cheesy Broccoli Quinoa Casserole

If you can’t tell already, I’m slightly obsessed with The Garden Grazer. I’ve tried three of her recipes thus far and not one has failed me. This one was the double agent of recipes: on the bottom it’s all, “Oh hey. I’m so healthy and will hashtag the hell out of how healthy I am.” But then on top, BAM, cheesy goodness that I broiled to be just slightly crunchy but fully flavorful. You can find the recipe here.

Other recipe winners that I’ve encountered over the month but failed to take a photo of include Baked Gnocchi with Ricotta and Marinara, Slow Cooker Taco Chicken Bowls, Spaghetti with Artichoke Hearts and Tomatoes and Quinoa Stuffer Peppers (all of which I’ve linked to on my Pinterest account).

Now if only I actually had good food blogging photos…

Any great new recipe discoveries you can share?

Happy Running!

11 Comments | Posted in Cooking, Food

Baby-Oh-Baby, It’s A Baby Shower!

February 4, 2013

It’s after weekends like these that remind you no matter how much your family can drive you crazy, family is a beautiful thing.

I headed to Reno this weekend to throw my little sister’s baby shower and I was ecstatic to celebrate her and soon-to-be nephew, Kaleb. The theme was “chalk” with burst of baby blue, complete with a lunch, dessert, mimosas and more.

I kept the games to a minimal amount: yarn around the belly, plate on the head to draw the baby’s face, babies in ice cubes and guess the baby’s stats.

The boys also celebrated with their own “diaper party” – bring a package of diapers and play poker.

Happy baby shower, Caroline, and we can’t wait to meet you baby Kaleb!

Baby blue game prizes that read: Baby-Oh-Baby, You’re A Winner!

Chicken salad sandwiches, Chinese chicken salad and veggie pasta salad.

Delicious lemon blueberry cupcakes made by my cousin, Jacqueline. Other desserts included peanut butter blossoms, rice krispy treats, banana bread, brownie bites and milk shots.

Let’s revisit these sandwiches for a second because they were simply amazing. With chicken, cranberries, celery, green onions, and sweet pickles, mixed in a dressing with the perfect secret ingredient: curry powder. I’d highly recommend these for any party. (Recipe Via)

One of the games: freeze little babies in ice cubes. The first person to have their baby melt (without cheating) and shouts, “My water broke!” wins.

The favors – small flower bulbs are in the mini jars.

Caroline’s depiction of her soon-to-be son.

Flags with trivia about Caroline as a baby in each of the vases.

Love you, Caroline!

8 Comments | Posted in Family

Fueling Like A Fool

February 26, 2012

One of the biggest struggles I have had throughout all of my athletic adventures has been fueling appropriately. It’s either been too much (ehem, LA) or too little (ehem, New York), and unfortunately I still don’t have it down yet. Thankfully, I have my trusty Coach now and as we are getting into longer rides, here was his early fueling advice:

For a 3 hour ride, you should be eating 200-250 calories/hour beginning about 15 minutes into the ride. From a hydration standpoint, you should be drinking about 24oz. of fluid per hour. Had the temperatures been over 80F, you would have had to increase that fluid intake to 30+oz./hour. Play around with different calorie and fluid amounts on your long rides and runs to see what works best for your body.

With an almost four-hour/55+ mile ride on tap this weekend, I knew that I couldn’t wait any longer trying to practice and find my perfect fueling strategy. Some quick mental math indicated that for this ride, I should consume at 800 – 1,000 calories and drink about 96 oz. of fluid. 1,000 calories? What?! It seemed like an extraordinarily large amount to me.

I laid out some new fueling options I had shoved in my fuel box and even with all of that food, I was only around 600-700 calories. I thought that there was no way I would eat more than that on the ride. I grabbed one more pack of ClifBlocks and thought that should suffice. What an idiot.

I’m pretty sure Saturday’s ride was worthy of a new nickname. Perhaps, Butter Fingers? I ended up dropping the entire pack of ClifBlocks, turned around to get it, and dropped it again. I muttered a few expletives and said, “Forget it.” To add to my cycling shame, I’m still too much of a Fred to smoothly drink on my bike and I barely finished my entire bottle in the four hour ride – which includes dropping it once as well.

In addition to my inappropriately timed slippery fingers, I also was trying new types of food. I’ve never had something as solid as a ClifBar on a ride before, nor had I ever had a Stinger Waffle. Two hours into the ride when I tried the waffle, I thought to myself, “What the hell is this?” It’s like a cookie with a hardened Gu waffle on the inside – weird. But around three and a half hours, I gave it another try and you might as well told me it was one of these it tasted so good:

Chicken Face’s Valentine’s Day Surprise: Sprinkles!

The pure deliciousness of the waffle was a sure sign that I was starving and not fueling appropriately. Needless to say, I have a lot of fueling practice to do: getting enough in to sustain my energy and, well, just holding on to the damn things.

What is your long ride/run fueling strategy? What’s your fuel of choice?

Happy Running!

19 Comments | Posted in Training

Cookin’: World’s Easiest Vegetable Lasagna

March 9, 2011

I posted my first recipe (Cauliflower Mac ‘N Cheese) a week or so ago and was nervous about adding food to the blog. Would they like it? Should I keep it to running only? When I asked, you answered, and it sounded like you all were in support of this addition. Thus, I’ll be sprinkling in a few of my favorite recipes here and there. But please note: I’m not the best chef nor am I addicted to gourmet ingredients, so the recipes you see here will be simple, tasty and budget friendly. Here we go…

I don’t know where I got the original recipe, but it’s a classic that Chicken Face and I have been making since we were dating, and now I want to share it with you! Rest assured that my “world’s easiest” title is no façade – the only thing that could be easier is a frozen lasagna.

Chicken Face’s Easy Shmeezy Veggie Lasagna

Ingredients (w/ notes)

8 oz. reduced fat cream cheese THAT’S THE WHOLE BOX

15 oz. part-skim ricotta cheese THAT’S AN ENTIRE CONTAINER

1 bag frozen bell peppers and onions HAVE YOU SEEN HOW EXPENSIVE BELL PEPPERS ARE LATELY?! SAVE MONEY AND GO WITH FROZEN

1 bag frozen artichoke hearts ANY FROZEN VEGGIE WILL WORK, I JUST L-O-V-E ARTICHOKES

8 no-boil lasagna noodles

1 jar spaghetti sauce THE SAUCE I USED IS FROM TRADER JOE’S AND IS CRAZY GARLICY. IF YOU HAVE REGULAR SAUCE, I’D RECOMMEND CHOPPING UP SOME GARLIC AND THROWING IT IN WITH YOUR FROZEN VEGGIES.

Mozzarella cheese to sprinkle on top

Italian seasoning

Salt & pepper

Olive oil for baking dish

Directions

Preheat over to 425. Lightly oil your baking dish.
In a medium bowl, stir the cream cheese and ricotta; season with my good friends salt and pepper. Make sure to mush out all of the lumps – it helps to bring the cream cheese to room temp first.
In another bowl, combine your frozen veggies (make sure they are defrosted) and Italian seasoning.
Now lets layer! Spread a light layer of sauce on the bottom of the dish, then a light layer of veggies. Spread your cheese mixture on top of the noodles (nope, yo
u don’t have to boil them – hence the “no-boil” – and think of it like you are icing the noodles), then plop it on top of the veggies. Then complete this pattern until you run out of veggies: veggies, sauce, noodles w/ cheese, veggies, sauce, noodles w/ cheese…etc.
The final layer should just be veggies and sauce. Then top it off with your mozzarella and presto! You’re practically Italian…err…maybe not.
Cover your baking dish with foil and bake until cheese is bubbly and noodles are tender (about 30 – 35 minutes).
Remove the foil and bake until golden brown. I like mine extra crunchy on top so I left it in for 20 minutes.
Eat your face off.

Happy eating and happy running!

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Day 68: Sick
Day 69: 5 horrible, still sick miles

8 Comments | Posted in Cooking, Food

Cookin’: Cauliflower Mac ‘N Cheese

February 25, 2011

It’s pouring. I kid you not, p-o-u-r-i-n-g here in California and makes me want to do nothing but stay home and bake, watch more Mad Men and cuddle on the couch. Although I got my cooking fix with the lemon artichoke pasta and oatmeal raisin cookies I made last night for dinner, I keep dreaming about the cauliflower macaroni and cheese that I found in Runner’s World and made a couple weeks back – a deceptively healthy concoction of downhome goodness.

You may have heard me tweet about it, but I thought I’d share the recipe here with you and how I “Pageified” it. It looks like a lot of ingredients, but most of it is stuff you probably already have in your pantry.

Runner’s World & Mark Bittman’s Cauliflower Mac ‘N Cheese

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken stock – I USED CHICKEN BROTH

2 bay leaves – I TOTALLY DID NOT USE THIS. CUTTIN’ COSTS WHERE I CAN

1 cauliflower, cored and cut into large pieces

8 ounces whole-wheat elbow macaroni – I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY GOT AWAY WITH ONLY 8 OUNCES. I USED 16 OZ. (I.E. A WHOLE BOX) OF BIGGER, CURLY PASTA

1/2 cup grated cheese (such as sharp cheddar, Gruyere, or Emmental, or a combination) – I USED SHARP CHEDDAR CHEESE THAT WAS ON SALE. ENDED UP USING ABOUT A CUP

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg – CAREFUL WITH THIS ONE. YOU CAN REALLY TASTE IT IN THE PASTA SO MAKE SURE YOU MEASURE THIS EXACTLY

Salt and black pepper

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup whole-grain bread crumbs – I ENDED UP USING A BIT MORE TO ENSURE THAT IT COATED THE ENTIRE TOP OF THE DISH

Directions

Heat oven to 400° F and simultaneously boil a pot of water for your pasta.
The recipe originally calls for fancy heating of the bay leaves and chicken stock. I skipped this entirely and just warmed the chicken broth in the microwave for a bit.
In a separate pot of boiling water, cook the cauliflower for 25 minutes; you will want in soft. Then put cauliflower in a food processor. Yes, it will end up looking like baby foot, but that’s a good thing.
Cook your pasta, drain and rinse so it cools down. Then put it in a greased baking dish. I like to use a bigger baking dish so there is more crunchy goodness on top.
Process the cauliflower some more with broth, cheese, oil, mustard, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. There is A LOT so you may have to do it in batches depending on the size of your processor.
Finally, pour this “cauliflower sauce” over the pasta, toss and top it off with the parmesan, a little extra sharp cheddar and the bread crumbs.
Bake for 20 minutes then put it on broil for three minutes for that nice crispy top.

Served Chicken Face and I four three, happy, healthy days.

I’ve never posted a recipe on here before so tell me, would you like more recipes or keep it to running and Lola news?

Happy running!

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Day 59: 8 miles