Category Archives: NYRR

Enjoying Some “Choice Eats”

Posted on March 23, 2010 | 10 comments

Good morning all! How is your Tuesday going so far? Mine is already busy, busy. I also have a feeling the rest of this week is going to be a little bit crazy.

But first, let me do a quick recap of my busy day yesterday. After missing my morning run, I finally dragged myself out of bed and ate some Kashi Heart to Heart Cinnamon cereal for breakfast.

My workday was very busy – I was tying up loose ends and prepping for a big training later this week. What I’m trying to say is that I forgot to take photos of my food throughout the day. I know – I’m a bad blogger. I had a granola bar as a my mid-morning snack, my regular salad for lunch and a pomegranate Chobani yogurt for an afternoon snack.

But the monotony of my daily foods was soon overshadowed by my “dinner” fun. After work I met my friend Katie and we headed to the Village Voice’s Choice Eats Tasting Event. This event featured 50+ restaurants and food from over 35 nations, including Vietnamese, Italian, Uzbekistani, Brazilian, Cambodian, Russian, Tunisian, and Cajun/Creole among many others.

Katie and I dove right in and tried so many things. Here are just a few snapshots:

This meatball, mashed potatoes and drizzle of cranberry sauce was delicious and came from Smorgas Chef.

We then had some delicious mac n’ cheese and I forgot to write down where it was from.

One of both of our absolute favorites was this mini salad with sweet glazed pork on top, along with pickled shalots and cilantro. Yum! This was from Xie Xie:

 I took this kind of cool action shot while we were walking around. This place was über crowded.

 
Despite the many, many vendors and food options, there was a clear winner in our book. We tried a whipped cheesecake with blueberry on top and it was divine. In fact, we went back to Spot Dessert Bar’s table twice! 😉

Yes, technically this was a sweet, but it was eaten for the sake of taste testing.

All in all, Katie and I had a great time. The event went until 9:30 p.m., but they began to run out of food around 8:00 p.m. At that point, we’d had our fill anyway and couldn’t eat anymore. I also sipped on three mini cups of wine…seriously mini. There were tons of beverage stations as well, but we were more focused on the food. Here we are at the end of the night:

There were definitely some way-too-crowded moments with a bit of bumping and pushing, but overall the amount of people was tolerable. I definitely think I’d hit this event up again next year.

One of the best parts about the event is their charitable partner: Slow Food NYC. “Slow Food NYC is the local chapter of a national association that is part of an international movement. Slow Food USA, with over 200 chapters in the USA, is dedicated to achieving a good, clean, and fair food system, where good means food that is real and culturally rooted, clean means food that is produced sustainably and humanely, and fair means that those who produce our food are treated fairly and that everyone has access to good, clean food. 

A portion of the Choice Eats ticket sales will be donated to Slow Food NYC. The donation will be used to maintain and expand these important Harvest Time Programs.”

Have you ever attended a tasting event like this?

This event was absolutely huge, but also a lot of fun.

I headed home in the pouring rain – not fun. I made it home by almost 9 p.m. and watched some of Dancing with the Stars and then headed to bed.

I expect a busy day today and then probably a 5-mile training run on the treadmill since the rain has continued. I’ve got a 15k race coming up this weekend which I’m pretty excited and nervous about. I won’t be racing it, but I’ll run it as a training run. I need to run 18 miles this weekend, so the 15k will be the first 9.3 miles of that long run. Fun, fun – right?

Have you ever run a race as a training run? I’ve seen a few other bloggers mention doing this (like this lady and this gal). And they are both pretty darn speedy, so maybe there’s something to the idea. I just have to focus on not running it too hard and getting caught up in the racing atmosphere or else my long run will turn into a painful run.

Have a nice day all!

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Posted in Bloggers, NYRR, Races, Restaurants, Uncategorized

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Wave to the Camera!

Posted on January 29, 2010 | 11 comments

Good morning and happy Friday! I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a seriously stressful week and am ready for a nice weekend. And the best part is that my friend Kelly is getting married tomorrow, so the weekend is sure to be a blast! Congrats Kelly and Jerry – I can’t wait to celebrate with you tomorrow!!

Yesterday was definitely a less stressful day and I was very grateful. I started the day off with a great breakfast of oatmeal with almond butter and tons of blueberries. I love blueberries!

Around 10:30 a.m. I ate a banana – I was ravenous for some reason. Then we had a work meeting and it just so happened to be my co-workers birthday and my boss had purchased giant cupcakes for everyone. Now, those who know me well know that I simply can not pass up a cupcake. And I didn’t. Not only that, I chose the worst one: carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting (sooo good!). These cupcakes were from Zeytuna and they were enormous. Seriously out of control…and I ate the whole thing. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It was awful.

Needless to say, I was pretty full and felt gross for the rest of the day. And I also got a terrible headache (probably from such a huge rush of sugar) and then felt sleepy. Awful! Where was my self-control on that one?

Can you say no to sweets – especially when it’s your very favorite? It’s obviously something I need to work on.

The rest of my afternoon involved little food – some Triscuits with laughing cow cheese and a Chobani yogurt with Kashi Go Lean cereal.

In the afternoon  I received an email from the NYRR photographer site notifying me that the pictures from last weekend’s half marathon were ready. I always check them out just to see how terrible I looked. There were a ton of pics of Lauren and me. Some were pretty awful, but then I came to this one, which made me laugh out loud:

I actually remember doing this. It was at the very beginning of the race, maybe at the first mile marker, and I saw the photographer right in front of me. But there were so many people taking pictures that day, that I didn’t think the guy was definitely one of the event photographers – umm yeah he was. Ha!

Anyway, I digress. I made it through the work day in a slight sugar coma (actually is was really bad). And then I trudged to the gym after work. This week has been terrible as far as my marathon training goes. I am supposed to finish up at 22 miles for the week and I’m at 11 right now. And I will not be running 11 miles tomorrow – maybe 6-7.

Anyway – I hopped on the last available treadmill and pretty much told myself I’d have to stop at 4 miles because people would be waiting. Miraculously, after 2 miles, the treadmills cleared out and I was able to run 5 miles (43:03) without feeling guilty.

Then I did some ab work and some arm free-weight exercises with a 5-pound weight.

I left the gym feeling much better (sugar coma gone) and started walking home and holy coldness!! The temperature had dropped tremendously! I got home, did the dishes, vacuumed and tidied up and then made some dinner. I already had some cooked pasta ready, so I just added a ton of veggies and stuff to it: cucumber, carrots, grape tomatoes, cheddar cheese and apple. I then drizzled it with Newmans’ Light Balsamic vinaigrette.

Perfection! Dessert was the second half of my grapefruit with a packet of Truvia on top.

I also had a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips as well.

I was considering getting up early today and hitting the gym for a 4-mile run to make my weekly mileage total, but my legs were feeling tired and so was I last night. I figured why push it? If my body was telling me to rest a bit, then I would. That way, I’ll be extra rested for my cold run upstate on Saturday morning. I don’t even want to check what the temperature will be – it will certainly scare me. I am simply preparing to layer-up like crazy.

And then after that it will be party time!! Do you have any fun plans this weekend or will you just be trying to stay warm? 🙂 Have a good one everyone!

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Posted in Dessert, NYRR, Running, Uncategorized

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Good Weekend, Great Race!

Posted on January 24, 2010 | 15 comments

Good afternoon – sorry for the lack of posting this weekend. It’s been a busy weekend and I’ve just now had time to take a break. Well, actually I’m currently doing laundry as well as blogging. I definitely want to share a recap of our great NYRR Half Marathon today (YAY), but let me do a quick run-through of Friday and Saturday’s eats – I’ll just give the highlights.

On Friday morning I made Tina’s 3- minute breakfast cookie for the first time and it came out great! I substituted raisins with dried cranberries and used Truvia instead of brown sugar.

It was a really yummy breakfast and something new to break up the monotony.

Lunch was my usual salad (not going to list all the stuff), follow-up by a Chobani yogurt with granola. I’m not posting pics in the essence of time and so as not bore you. But I did enjoy my afternoon snack, which was a KIND bar in a new flavor.

Mango and Macadamia Nut was amazing!

After work I skipped my 3-mile training run for two reason: 1) I knew I’d be running more than 9 miles this weekend (which was the required long run) so I would be making up the mileage, and 2) I wanted to go pick up our race packets. When I got home, Hubby was busy making some venison meatloaf. Yup, venison – in case you missed it – check out this post which talks about my Hubby’s hunting hobby and why I support it. The dinner was amazing.

After dinner, we watched Casino, but I fell asleep about half-way through (it’s a lonng movie).

Saturday was a busy day, with cleaning in preparation for Lauren’s visit and cooking. I started the day off with another breakfast cookie.

I made it larger than before and kept me well-filled throughout the day. For lunch, I had a Chobani yogurt with Kashi cereal, a few pickles (I know – gross combo) and some Triscuits. I didn’t document my lunch.

Lauren arrived around 7:45 and we searched for parking until about 8:15. Then we came home and had some pre-race dinner.

For dinner, I tried making this recipe, (Chicken and Broccoli Mac-N-Cheese) from a site my friend Jess emailed me. I changed a few things up and didn’t buy the pre-packaged broccoli with cheese, but made my own instead. It came out okay, maybe a little more bland then I would have liked.

I may try making another recipe from the site another night though. They had some good ideas. After dinner we just hung out, drank lots of water, watched the SAGs and went to bed early. And now for the NYRR Manhattan Half Marathon Recap:

NYRR Manhattan Half Marathon

I had a kind of restless night of sleep and was not feeling so optimistic about the half marathon the next morning. But, we left the house around 7:15, met up with Katherine, and took a cab to the start. After hitting the porta-potties, we found our corrals and lined up. It was about 38-40 degrees outside, but it still felt chilly.

Finally, the race began and it took us a solid 3 minutes to reach the start. The course was essentially two full loops – starting around West 63rd street and finished at the 72nd Traverse. Exciting and interesting the course was not. But at least you knew exactly how much you had left.

Overall, Lauren and I did very well. We stayed together the whole time and definitely had some ups and downs. Both of us experienced a rough patch around mile 10, but we powered through. The hills in Central Park felt especially large and never-ending today, and even the slighter “rolling hills” were excruciating. But I am extremely proud of our times, here are our stats:

Mile 1 – 8:08
Mile 2 – 8:13
Mile 3 – 7:52
Mile 4 – 8:16
Mile 5 – 8:26
Mile 6 – 8:00
Mile 7 – 8:20
Mile 8 – 8:16
Mile 9 – 8:09
Mile 10 – 8:23
Mile 11 – 8:38
Mile 12 – 8:02
Mile 13 – 8:05
.1 (which was actually .31) – 2:19
Total of 13.31 miles in 1:49:14

As you can see, we ended up running way more than 13.1 – the reason was because it was nearly impossible to keep to the inside of the course, so we were constantly passing and running around the outer edge, so we were running more than we needed to. My Garmin would beep a solid few seconds before we would hit each mile marker.

But overall, despite the extra mileage and cold, we had a great race. Now I’m off to finish laundry, relax, eat more (I’ve already eaten a ton of good stuff …more to come on that tomorrow), and read my book.

Have a great Sunday everyone – and Lauren thanks for a G-REAT race! 🙂

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Posted in Bloggers, NYRR, Races, Running, Uncategorized

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Easing Back Into Healthy Habits

Posted on January 19, 2010 | 14 comments

Good morning all. Happy Tuesday – back to work for many of us who enjoyed an extra day off yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I definitely enjoyed it and needed it.

I started the day yesterday with a breakfast of Kashi Autumn Wheat with almond milk and light cranberry juice. Please forgive my atrocious bowl.

For lunch I snacked on some Garlic Herb Triscuits (these can be a bit much if you get a really seasoned cracker). When Hubby went to the store a little while ago, they only had flavored Triscuits – so I gave these a shot. They weren’t too bad. I also had an apple with peanut butter, a big glass of water and some raisins.  

After lunch I finished up two loads of laundry and then decided it was time for a quick run. My marathon training plan only called for a 3-mile run, but I ended up doing almost 4 miles. Here are my stats:

Mile 1 – 8:10
Mile 2 – 8:30
Mile 3 – 8:51
Mile 4 – 8:13
Total of 3.97 miles in 33:46

After my run, Hubby came home from his trip upstate and I helped him unload the car. Chobani yogurt was on sale for 99 cents in Albany (whoohoo), so I had him stock up! Dinner was lazy – I ate more triscuits (not pictured) and had a few pickles and a yogurt with granola.

After dinner, I reluctantly turned on The Bachelor. I swore to my friend this weekend that I was done watching it and that I had only watched last week’s episode to see what the “big drama” was. But alas, Hubby and I wound up sitting through another two hours of the show. I thought Elizabeth was the prettiest on the show (Hubby called her “Megan Fox-esque,” but I agree that she was playing games with him. Bet she regrets that now.

Anyone else out there still watching The Bachelor?

There were definitely two girls I didn’t know at all – one of them was eliminated (the long dark hair), but who the heck is that short girl with dark hair (I think she was wearing a sparkly dress)? She keeps making it through and I never see her at all. She’ll probably win. I am glad that crazy Michelle is gone though. And wow – I can’t believe I’m still talking about this show.

Moving on…

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I had a ton of fun and am soo looking forward to Kelly and Jerry’s wedding in less than 2 weeks! I did eat and drink a bit too much, so it’s back to my training schedule and healthy eating for me this week and hopefully from here on out. Plus, I’m running the NYRR Manhattan Half Marathon on Sunday! I’m excited and nervous. One of my best friends is coming down to run it with me, so that should be fun!

How do you get back on track after a weekend of less-than-healthy living?

I’m kind of easing back into it – Monday wasn’t the healthiest of days as far as eating goes, but I did get in a run and I drank a good amount of water. Today will hopefully be much healthier though.

And lastly, here are a few interesting health stories:

Exercise protects and improves the aging brain

Mediterranean diet protects against stomach cancer

Hope you all have a healthy and happy Tuesday! Yay for short weeks.

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My First Race of 2010!

Posted on January 9, 2010 | 21 comments

Good morning – happy Saturday! I’m back from my first race in 2010 and I have to say it went surprisingly well, much better than I expected. I was very nervous last night and slept terribly – I was actually up before my alarm even went off. So I got up and had some breakfast before the race.

Then I commenced with the layering. I had spandex pants with knee-high socks on underneath. On my top half I had a Nike base layer, a long sleeve shirt and an outlayer jacket. I also had a hat, neck warmer and gloves. I was very hot by the end of my layering.

I headed out of the house around 7:30 and got to the start right around 7:50 a.m., which was perfect timing. So here’s the race recap:

Race Recap – Fred Lebow Classic (5 miles)

When I got to the starting area up near 98th I looked for my corral. They had asked what our fastest mile time was and I had put down 7:45. I found my corral, which was closer to the start than I expected, and then I got nervous that perhaps I overstated my capabilities and everyone in my corral would run me over. I tried not to worry about it too much. After much talking and singing of the national anthem, they finally started us.

Even though I was closer to the front than expected, it still took me about 1 minute to reach the actual starting line. And then it was really time to run. I started my Garmin and got to work. It was COLD! I totally forgot to mention that. When I left the house it was 21.6 degrees outside. But I quickly started to warm up as we started racing,

At 1 mile my Garmin beeped and I looked down to see that I had run the first mile in 8:29. Not too bad, but I wasn’t sure if I maybe wanted to go faster. So I started to pick it up a bit during the second mile. The second mile flew by and so did the third. But, as I got to the fourth mile things started to get tough. We were on the East side and things started moving up hill. We hit the BIG hill around 73-79th Street and it was HARD. I was thrilled when we reached the top and hit mile 4 at just about the same time.

From 4-5 I was able to pick things up a bit. I checked my Garmin and saw that we had hit 4.5 miles and so I really kicked it in. Finally, I hit the finish and felt wonderful that the race was over and I could head back to a warm apartment. Here are my race stats:

Mile 1 – 8:29
Mile 2 – 8:01
Mile 3 – 7:57
Mile 4 – 8:10
Mile 5 – 7:51
Total – 5.04 in 40:44

Yup, my Garmin said I actually ran a little over 5 miles. I didn’t stick tightly to the inside of the Central Park loop, so I can see how that would be right. So overall, I’m pretty happy with my times. It was the first really cold, winter race I’ve ever run and it didn’t feel awful. It at least makes me a little more confident that I’ll be able to finish the half marathon in two weeks. I’ll have to check the NYRR site tomorrow to see what my official time was.

I’ll just do a quick recap of yesterday’s eats and then I want to relax a bit!

Breakfast was oatmeal with raisins, almond milk and agave with a side of light cranberry.

Lunch was leftovers of the previous night’s Ham and Brussels Sprout Bake:

As well as Chobani yogurt with granola.

Later on I had a Larabar – the Banana Bread flavor. I really liked this flavor.

After work, I picked up my race packet and came home and made some dinner.

Pasta with carrots, goat cheese, artichoke hearts, grape tomatoes, raisins and walnuts. YUMMY!

So that was my night, then I headed to bed early for my race. Now I’m going to go enjoy my Saturday afternoon and a fun evening. Have a great weekend everyone!

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The First Tuesday of 2010

Posted on January 5, 2010 | 11 comments

It’s the first Tuesday of 2010, which means we made it through the first Monday of 2010!! Hopefully this week will fly right by. But that means my first race of 2010 will be here before I know it. Eeeks!

I’m running the NYRR Fred Lebow Classic 5-miler in Central Park this Saturday and am a bit nervous because of the frigid temperatures predicated and my lack of recent good runs. Is anyone else out there running it as well?

I’m going to try not to think about it or worry about it too much till Saturday. So let’s recap yesterday’s eats:

Breakfast was boring old Kashi Heart to Heart cereal with almond milk and a side of light cranberry juice.

I was pretty busy at work on Monday considering the amount of vacay time we’ve had lately, so I squeezed in a mid-morning snack of a Coffee-Nut Scone around 11 a.m.

I got pretty busy and then all of a sudden at 1:35 I remembered that I had a phone interview scheduled for 2:00. That wasn’t going to leave me much time for lunch, so I decided to eat my snacks first.

I had a strawberry Chobani yogurt with granola and some carrots.

Then around 2:45 I was finally able to have lunch and I had leftover venison chili.

After work I hurried over to the gym to try to beat the after New Year’s rush of people. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad. However, they were giving a lot of tours, which tells me the onslaught is coming soon. I hopped on the  treadmill and ran the following:

4 miles in 35:05

Definitely not my fastest, but I was still a little stuffy in my nose and congested in my chest.

Then I did some abs: 75 crunches; 50 twist crunches; 15 leg lowers

I stopped at the store quickly on the way home to pick up a few things for dinner and was overwhelmed by how busy it was. Note to self, Monday is not a good grocery-shopping day.

For dinner I adapted this recipe for a Crustless Spinach Quiche. The red text and cross-outs show where I added or made changes:

Crustless Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

3 ounces reduced fat free cream cheese, softened
1 cup fat-free milk
1 cup egg substitute
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 ½ cups shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese
1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
½ cup of frozen broccoli, thawed and well-drained
½ cup of grape tomatoes, halved
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup of fresh mushrooms, sliced

Directions

In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese. Add milk, egg substitute and pepper; beat until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients. Transfer to a 10-in. quiche pan coated with nonstick cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

The result:

My first piece – I had two pieces in total.

The recipe was very good, but I used a smaller dish than recommended, so it took longer to cook, which was annoying because I was hungry. But all in all, a good dinner.

And then dessert was another Coffee-Nut Scone, but Hubby suggested maybe adding some frosting to the remaining scones. I gave in and it wasn’t too bad actually.

The rest of my night was very quiet, I read a bit, watched part of a football game Hubby was interested in and I’m ashamed to admit I also watched part of The Bachelor. I had to turn it off at one point because it was so awkward and the girls were terrible. It was kind of funny at the same time though.

Health in the news…

Sleep loss may affect health by curbing exercise – Better get that rest to keep up your workout schedule.

Five ‘eating better’ foods to slip into your diet in ’10 –  A lot of this is common sense stuff, but it does remind me that I need to drink more green tea.
 
Study Says Women With Mate Get Heavier – Essentially the study found that women living with a man (married or not) gained weight after co-habitating, and if they had a child, their weight went up even more. I’ve heard from people that they gained weight once they got married (although I don’t think you can state this is the norm), but this sentence made me laugh out loud:

“This does not explain the still larger weight gain in women who became pregnant.”
 
Did they not get the memo that a woman’s body changes after she has a baby?
 
I don’t put much stock in these kinds of studies, but it does raise some interesting questions:
 
Has your eating changed at all since living with a significant other (either currently or in the past)? What about after marriage?
 
I can tell you that I weigh less now than I did when I met my husband. I think I’ve actually started to eat healthier foods and exercise more since we’ve been together. It helps, of course, that he is an active person who also eats well. I wonder if things would be any different if he weren’t that kind of person. Food for thought…
 
Have a great Tuesday everyone!

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An Official New York Road Runner

Posted on December 1, 2009 | 9 comments

Good morning blog world! It’s Tuesday – we made it through Monday – yipee! I was pretty darn tired yesterday and was still wondering if I was actually going to get sick. I woke up yesterday feeling a little bit better and hoped it was just a nasty allergy attack.

For breakfast I had 1/2 cup of oats, tsp of pumpkin butter, handful of raisins and a splash of milk.

It was really tough to get moving and get out the door on time. I had to stop and grab a coffee to help keep me sane and awake. Monday mornings at work are typically pretty busy for me, so I knew the coffee would help.

I was surprised that the day actually moved along pretty quickly. I ate my morning granola bar at 11:00 and then the one or two new projects I started to work on kept me occupied and before I realized it, it was 1:45 and I hadn’t had lunch yet!

I trudged out in the rain and got a salad from across the street. The usual stuff: romaine lettuce, peas, carrots, cheddar cheese, walnuts and craisins.

My camera was a little off, so pics are looking blurry. :-/

After lunch, I went onto the New York Road Runners site and browsed some races. I decided I wanted to sign up for two in January. And then I just bit the bullet and became a member. It’s about time I started running races in NYC and not just upstate. I typically try to run all my races with my running buddy Lauren, but as my hubby said yesterday, “she’s not always going to be able to run with you.” Sadness. So I signed up for these two races:

NYRR Fred Lebow Classic (5M)
NYRR Half-Marathon Grand Prix: Manhattan

Lauren WILL be able to run the Half Marathon with me!! YAY!! I will tackle the Fred Lebow 5 miler on my own – just call me Miss Independent. Unless my hubby surprises me and decides to run it as well. 😉

Any other NYC bloggers planning on running either of these?

I am generally NOT a winter runner, but this will be my attempt to keep running strong throughout the winter. If you’re a runner, do you still race in the cold weather?

My co-worker tells me that she actually runs better in the cold. Not me.

Later on in the afternoon yesterday I had some Greek Yogurt with granola and oats and two clemetines (gotta get that vitamin C to stay healthy!).

BTW – today at noon you can sign-up for the NYC Half Marathon Lottery .  Can you tell that I have racing on the brain after my Turkey Trot? It’s an addiction.

I didn’t work out last night after work for a few reasons: 1) I was tired, 2) I’m going away on Wednesday morning for a business trip and needed to run some preparatory errands, 3) I haven’t actually hung out with Bill in a while, 4) I was tired.

So I left work, picked up some traveling necessities and headed home. I made this quick and easy dinner:

Here is my made-up recipe for it.

Asparagus Chicken with Roasted Red Peppers

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup chicken broth
  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 1/3 cup of diced onion
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 6-8 stems of fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
  • 1/2 (7 ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup chopped grape tomatoes
  • 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, or to taste
  • 1/3 cup shredded parmesean cheese

Directions

  1. Heat the broth in a large skillet over medium-high heat with the garlic and onion. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and place in the skillet. Cook 15 minutes, until chicken is almost done.
  2. Place asparagus and red peppers  in skillet. Continue cooking 10 minutes until asparagus is tender. Place tomatoes in skillet during last 2 minutes of cook time. Sprinkle with vinegar. Top with parmesean cheese and serve.

It was yummy and the husband rated it as “pretty good.”

After dinner I had a small piece of the white cake with white frosting that Bill’s sister Christine made for his birthday and brought to Thanksgiving dinner. I was shocked that Bill was willing to share his cake. But then he told me that Christine made him promise to share with me – figures! It was great.

The rest of my night was quiet and I went to bed pretty early. However, Murphy decided to try to wake me up pretty much every two hours during the night, so I’m a bit tired again today.

I’m starting to get a little nervous about traveling tomorrow. I’m one of those people who is always afraid of missing a flight or forgetting something important or losing my luggage. Generally – just not a very relaxed traveler. Hence, I start prepping 2-3 days in advance.

Are you a good traveler – what are some of your helpful tips or tricks?

I AM excited about the possibility of running while we’re training in L.A. The weather there is looking nice and warm. I could certainly use a nice West-coast run. 🙂

Last note – I want to say congrats to my friend Becky for starting her new blog: Write On!! I’m so happy she is proactively seeking new creative outlets and will be able to share her passion and wonderful insights with others. Becky is one of the people in my life that I always “talk books” with. We typically like the same books and are ALWAYS asking each what the other is reading and for recommendations. Now I can just check out her blog and see that, as well as her feedback and reviews. I’m so excited – so be sure to check it out. She’s also on my Blogroll! 🙂 Love ya Becks!

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Posted in Bloggers, Dessert, NYRR, Races, Recipes, Running, Uncategorized