Category Archives: Recipes

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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What’s Better Than Breakfast for Dinner?

Posted on January 4, 2010 | 11 comments

Weekend Recaps – In Case You Missed It:

Friday: Great Start to 2010
Saturday: I Love My Garmin!!
Sunday: Slowly Recovering…

Happy Monday – I’m pretty sure it’s not too happy for anyone. Back to the grind. At least the next day off isn’t too far away. And I’m excited because I have a bunch of fun things happening in January: 5 mile race, broadway show, bachelorette party, half marathon and a wedding! This month is going to fly by.

Ok – let me recap Sunday’s eats before I get any further: I woke up feeling much better on Sunday morning – 10.5 hours of solid sleep really helped with that. I was feeling less congested and my throat wasn’t sore. I started off with a nice warm breakfast of oatmeal with apples and agave. I had a side of Emergen-C, my norm as of late.

Then the cleaning fury commenced. Hubby and I did a bit of cleaning throughout the weekend (packing up Christmas decorations and vacuuming), but Sunday was all out cleaning mayhem. We cleaned the place from top to bottom.

Around 1:00 I was feeling hungry so I had a light lunch of Chobani vanilla yogurt with a crushed granola bar and choco chips:

And I also had the rest of my breakfast apple with some cheddar cheese, and carrots and grape tomatoes with garlic organic hummus.

At 4:00 we hosted a board meeting in our newly-cleaned apartment – Hubby is the co-op president. It was a good meeting and we made plans to take care of a bunch of building “must-dos.” It was almost like our co-op resolutions. Hopefully we can stick to our plans.

After the meeting I had the urge to bake. I had some sort of bread stuck in my mind – thinking maybe banana bread or something with apple. But upon asking Hubby what he would like, he reminded me that he basically doesn’t like any fruit in his bread – not even raisins! After scouring http://www.cookinglight.com, I settled on this recipe for Coffee-Nut Scones.

Recent baking experiments have revealed that our oven is essentially a super oven and cooks everything twice as fast as a recipe states. So I ended up cooking the scones for only 10 minutes to be safe. They turned out pretty good (of course I had to try one when they were still warm)…but would have been better with some fruit!

For dinner we did the “breakfast for dinner” thing. I love doing this. I am such a breakfast lover that I could probably eat it for every meal. The Hubby whipped up the remaining venison sausage and I paired it with some organic waffles. I topped the waffles with a homemade blackberry spread. I used the remaining blackberries, added a bit of water and heated them in the microwave for 1 minute 15 seconds. Then I smushed them up and added 2 packets of truvia. It was the perfect topping. Lastly, I had one clementine with my breakfast dinner.


What about you? Are you a fan of breakfast for dinner? What’s your favorite (eggs, pancakes, french toast, waffles, etc.)?

Finally, I had a nice cup of Sugar Plum Spice tea while I read before bed.

I am feeling much much better today. It’s funny, a blog friend said yesterday that she feels like I’m always sick. The truth is, I rarely actually get full-on sick. Even this weekend, I felt pretty awful, but I still didn’t feel like I was totally sick. I wasn’t bed-ridden and could still kind of function. A lot of time I think I start to get the beginnings of a cold and I just medicate the heck out of myself and that makes me very tired. I may have had a full-blown cold this past weekend, but what was very clear was that I needed a lot of rest. I also tend to take it easy even if I think a cold or illness might be coming on. That’s probably what I should have done on Friday, rather than going for a run. Live and learn.

What about you – how do you cope with an impending cold? Do you let it hit you and take its course or do you fight it with all you’ve got like I do, or somewhere in between?

Have a nice Monday everyone!

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Happy Snowy New Year’s Eve!

Posted on December 31, 2009 | 14 comments

Happy NYE everyone! Guess what – I have to work on this day too and everyone else seems to have it off. Oh well, such is life. I’m sure the office will be very quiet. And it looks super wintery outside with lots of snow.

The good news is that today is a short work day – I’m out at 3:00 p.m.; the bad news is that I fear I may be getting a cold. But, I am taking all the necessary preventative measures, here is my arsenal of weapons:

Not pictured is the chewable Zycam (gross) and vitamin c tablet I took this morning. There is nothing I hate more than being sick. So, as soon as my throat started feeling scratchy last night I was on high alert.

Speaking of last night, here are yesterday’s eats:

Breakfast was boring old Kashi Heart to Heart cereal with skim milk – not almond milk in the house. I originally had apple cider when I took this photo and then I tried it and realized it had gone bad, so I switched to orange juice.  

When packing my lunch yesterday, things were looking bleak. No leftovers and not too much to choose from. So I ended up making some tunafish and bringing it in to put on Reduced Fat Triscuit crackers. I had two clementines as well.

Afternoon snacks were walnuts and raisins and a strawberry Yoplait yogurt with granola. I was really missing my Greek yogurt. Darn you bad Oikos yogurt!

Toward late afternoon I started to notice the scratchiness in my throat, as well as some congestion in my nose. Thoughts of hitting the gym started to fade fast, although in retrospect it might have been good for me to sweat out some of those bad germs.

Around 4:00 p.m. my boss told me to go home – not because I was sick or anything – just because it was soo dead. On the way home I picked up a few things to make dinner. I was in the mood for some comfort food. So here’s what I made:

I adapted this recipe  (Rotini and Cheese with Broccoli and Ham) from Cooking Light, to be:

Penne and Cheese with Broccoli and Sausage
Yields 3 servings

Ingredients
2  quarts water
1  cups  uncooked penne (about 8 ounces corkscrew pasta)
1/2  (10-ounce) package frozen chopped broccoli
1/8  cup  all-purpose flour
1  cups  fat-free milk
3/4 cup cubed cheese (cheddar)
1  teaspoon  Dijon mustard
1/2  teaspoon  salt
1/4  teaspoon  garlic powder
1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
1/2  cup  chopped vegetarian sausage

Preparation
Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Add pasta; cook 5 minutes. Add broccoli; cook an additional 5 minutes or until pasta is done; drain.

While pasta cooks, lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Place flour in a medium saucepan; gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat 8 minutes or until mixture is thick, stirring frequently. At the same time, microwave vegetarian sausage and cut up into bite size pieces.

Remove from heat; stir in cheese and next 4 ingredients (cheese through pepper). Combine pasta mixture, cheese sauce, and sausage.

I really liked this dish and the sauce, even though it’s not the healthiest of choices. Hubby liked it as well. I will definitely make this one again.

After dinner, I made some tea to calm my throat a bit.

This flavor was decent, but what I really wish I had was this:

I can’t find this flavor anywhere! I’ve gone to about 5-6 stores in the city and it’s never there. Sadness. I’ve also tried to win this flavor on several blog give-a-ways (but I never win anything) to no avail. But I’ve built this flavor up in my head so much, I’m sure I’ll be disappointed. I just can’t give in and order it online. I won’t.

P.S. – Hubby thinks I have a tea problem. I am always bringing home new flavors and he claims I am bombarding the cupboards with tea. But it’s tea and I love it! (And he secretly does too).

Other evening happenings. Murphy tried on his sweater again…yup it’s definitely still too tight.

He looks like a fat cat in a little sweater. We’re going with dog clothes next year. Bill weighed him last night and he actually weighs less than his norm. He’s usually around 16 pounds, but now he is a svelte 14 pounds.

Hubby and I also watched one of our Netflix movies – UP! I never feel excited to watch Disney kids’ movies, but then he convinces me and I love them. And I loved this movie so much! If you haven’t seen it, you must.

It is stinking adorable and there were definitely moments when I was teary-eyed.

Have you seen UP? What did you think?

Our plans for NYE tonight are going to be very low-key. I don’t feel like fighting city crowds or traffic and not feeling 100% is also adding to my desire to chill. I plan on making us some risotto for dinner (I’ve never made it before), drinking some champagne and maybe some wine, getting a fire going (ok, Hubby will be handling that), and cozying up with my two boys to watch the ball drop on t.v. from our apt.

What are your NYE plans? Has anyone ever done Times Square? Would you ever?

I have no desire. The whole being trapped and not having any bathrooms thing sounds scary. One of Bill’s friends (who shall remain nameless), actually wore a diaper to Times Square once because he wanted to drink. And yes, I think he used it. Gross, right?

Well, wherever you are tonight – I hope you have a very Happy New Years and a great start to 2010! Talk to you next year! 🙂

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Party, Pizza Dip and Peanut Butter Balls

Posted on December 28, 2009 | 14 comments

Good morning blog world. It’s Monday again and I’m heading back to work [groan]. I know that a ton of people took off from Christmas through New Years and I’m very jealous. I’m headed back to work and dreading it.

So I was a bad blogger and was MIA on Sunday. The party on Saturday night was a ton of fun and Sunday was mostly spent lounging around, doing laundry and packing for the trip back to NYC. The Hubby convinced me to relax instead of going for a run and testing out my Garmin – darn him! But it was nice to just hang for a bit.

So here’s a quick recap of Saturday. I pretty much took no photos on Sunday – so it will be considered a lost day. But here goes Saturday.

Breakfast was an English muffin with peanut butter and topped with a banana. Side of cranberry juice.

My mother and I got out during the day to run some errands and brave the shopping crowds. It was a quick trip, but on the way home I had a Gingerbread Latte craving. It was only my second of the season – they are so darn expensive.

I snacked on a few other things during the day, but this was the only thing I managed to capture: Greek yogurt with Kashi cereal.

We headed to the party around 7:00 p.m., so I didn’t really eat a “full dinner” beforehand. I had some cheese and crackers, leftover from our Christmas day appetizers. But the party had plenty of food! I also made my pizza dip to bring along.

The party was a blast – thanks go out to Jenny and Kevin for hosting. I love their house and they are such great hosts. Here are a few pics from the night.

A few apps on the pretty table.

All the girls gathering for a group photo. I thought the stairs would be a perfect spot, but turns out we had a lot of girls and things got a bit squished.

I still think it’s super cute, even though a little tight. There were also lots of yummy desserts. And you know I can’t say “no” to desserts.

My favorite were the peanut butter balls.

Sorry for the terrible pic! I mainly snacked on veggies, taco dip, and a few desserts. I had one scoop of my pizza dip and then went back for more and it was gone. I guess that is a good thing. I had two glasses of wine and one beer throughout the night as well.

Toward the end of the party some meatballs came out and I couldn’t resist them!

They were goood! Hubby and I had such a great time. Before we knew it, everyone had left and it was time to go. Here we are together at the very end of the night.

Wow – I need a haircut!

And now I will leave you with a photo of Mr. Murphy sporting a bow-tie that I bought him from Target after the sweater didn’t fit. Doesn’t he look regal?

Mr. Murph didn’t travel so well in the car on the way up (he got sick), so we had to give him half a Benadryl for the trip back. My mom got that tip from someone who works at Petsmart, but the Benadryl should only be 25 milligrams and then cut in half. Mr. Murphy seemed a bit groggy on the trip back, but we made it home with no sickness, so I consider it a success.

Does your pet(s) travel? Do they like it? Any traveling tips?

I’m planning to hit the gym today after work to burn off some of those holiday calories and get back into the swing of things. It’s time for me to start thinking about my 2010 goals. I’ve seen them posted all over the blogosphere, so I suppose I should give it a whirl.

What’s your biggest 2010 goal?

Have a great Monday everyone!

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Introducing Mr. Monkers

Posted on December 17, 2009 | 7 comments

Good morning and happy Thursday. This post will be brief because I am feeling very tired again today and I have been running late with everything this morning. I even forgot to bring lunch and snacks with me to work today, so it should be interesting to see how I cope when hunger strikes.

BTW, before I forget – check out my most recent Examiner.com article: Give the Gift of Healthy Cooking .

Breakfast yesterday was oatmeal with banana and agave and a side of orange juice. Nothing crazy, but the banana and agave made this delish.

Lunch was lazy – I didn’t have any leftovers on hand, so I popped out to pick up a salad. Romaine lettuce, cheddar cheese, walnuts, carrots, cranberries and chic peas.

Snacks for the afternoon were Greek yogurt (strawberry flavor) with granola and a small bags of walnuts and raisins.

I left work and headed home to finish up the cookies I started the night before. Here is the final result!

And here is the recipe:

Saucepan Fudge Cookies

 Ingredients
1/4 cup butter
3 squares (1 oz. each) unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar  –  plus 3 tablespoons, divided
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 chopped nuts
1 cup flour mixed with 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
In a 3 quart saucepan over low heat, stir butter and chocolate until melted and smooth (turn off burner but leave saucepan there to get a little of the residual heat) and stir in 1 cup sugar, the eggs, vanilla and nuts  til blended.  Stir in flour mixture til well blended.  Cover and chill 1 1/2 to 2 hrs. until dough is firm enough to shape.  Roll into 1″ balls, roll balls in remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar (add more sugar if needed).  Place on cookie sheet and bake in preheated 300 oven for 20 minutes.  Remove to rack to cool.  The cookies can be frozen.

They came out a little flatter than what I’m used to, but tasted good. I did discover, however, that the bottom rack of our oven is much much hotter than the top, so when I bake, I really need to use the top shelf rather than the bottom. The cookie sheet I placed on the bottom rack had some tougher cookies than what they should have been. I noticed this before, but this reconfirmed my suspicion. Annoying.

Does your kitchen have any quirks for you to contend with?

Bill decided to make us dinner last night. He is a HUGE fish fan. He loves it. I don’t really like am not such a huge fish fan. Last night he made haddock and that is one type I can tolerate. I do hate how it stinks up our apartment though – yuck.

Are you a fish eater? If yes, what’s your favorite kind?

Apparently, Bill also ordered a bunch of “holiday” movies from Netflix and they started rolling in yesterday. So we watched “Four Christmases” last night. Can you believe that I made him come see this with me in the movie theater when it came out last year? I really like Vince Vaughn, but I also kind of have a girl-crush on Reese Witherspoon (Natalie Portman is my other girl-crush). Reese been one of my favorites since I first saw her in: The Man in the Moon, way back in 1991.

Sorry to hear that she and Jake Gyllenhaal are dunzo. Oh well – I’m sure another gorgeous man will be falling at her heels in no time.

You probably think Hubby and I are movie-obsessed, but seriously these phases happen every now and then. It’ll probably fade out soon.

Final thought and photo from the night: Hubby did this to Murphy.

How unamused does he look? Actually he looks downright mad. That’s his buddy Mr. Monkers. He’s had that stuffed monkey since he was a few months old and it goes everywhere with us. He also bathes it like its his child and then attacks it and beats the heck out of it. Sometimes I think Murphy needs a little brother or sister…but our apartment is too small. So Mr. Monkers will have to be it for now.

Murphy seems to show up quite a bit on my blog – sorry about that! Sometimes I think he’s just too cute. I’ll try to control my Murphy picture-taking and posting from now on.

Happy Thursday!

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Movie Mania Continues

Posted on December 14, 2009 | 2 comments

Weekend Recap
Saturday: Cold Weather Weekend Warrior
Sunday: Not Such a Warrior

Happy Monday. I can’t believe it’s here already. My weekend didn’t fly by as fast as usual, but they are always too short to begin with anyway. I can’t believe it’s already mid-December!

As I mentioned, on Sunday morning I was supposed to go for a fun run with some local bloggers, but I wasn’t feeling great and didn’t want to chance making it worse. So I went back to bed and slept until about 9:30. Then I got up and had a breakfast of oatmeal with apples, pumpkin butter and cinnamon with a side of orange juice and cold medicine. Lovely.

After breakfast I popped out to the store and picked up some ingredients to make sugar cookies. I’ll be bringing these to our holiday potluck on the 21st, but I wanted to make them now and freeze them until the night before. I used my mom’s recipe:

Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup butter   (softened)
1/4 cup Crisco – regular or butter flavor (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix together Crisco, butter, sugar and vanilla.  Add egg, beat till light and fluffy.  Add dry ingredients and blend into creamed mixture. Divide dough in half, wrap in glad wrap and chill for 1 hour.

On lightly floured surface, roll to 1/8 inch thickness, cut in desired shapes and bake on cookie sheet at 375 for approx. 6 to 8 minutes.  Cool slightly and remove.  Cool completely before frosting.

For frosting the cookies: confectioners sugar, a pinch of salt and milk.

I was so busy baking that I didn’t really stop for lunch. So when the baking was done, this was my “lunch.”

Dinner was much better than lunch. I was craving soup, so I tried Amy’s Tuscan Bean and Rice soup and it might just be my new favorite. It was so yummy. I also had a side salad with romaine lettuce, grape tomatoes, goat cheese and walnuts with balsamic drizzled over it.

Finally, I needed something sweet to end my night, but I also wanted something that might help thwart an impending cold. I had half a grapefruit with one packet of Truvia sprinkled over it.

The best part of my Sunday was when Bill arrived home earlier than expected and we decided to watch another movie together. We’ve sort of been on a movie kick lately. I think we’re subconsciously trying to get the most out of our Netflix subscription.

Last night we ended up watching “Notorious.” I know what you’re thinking – it must have been awful. But actually, I was somewhat surprised with how decent this movie was. It was a solid 2 hours, but it didn’t feel like it was dragging and it never became too much about rap. I mean, it definitely was about rap, but I was never overwhelmed. I thought the actor who played Biggie was absolutely great and the little boy who played the child biggie was really good as well. Come to find out, he’s actually Biggie’s son! The resemblance was uncanny.

Anyway – I wouldn’t rank “Notorious” as a favorite by any means, but it certainly was a decent, different kind of movie. If you’re looking for something to mix up your movie line-up a bit, I would recommend it. 

My final comment: the guy who played Puffy looked nothing like the real Puffy. For the first few minutes he was in the movie I kept telling Bill there was no way that this “Puffy” character they were talking about was supposed to be Sean Combs.  The casting on that one was way off.

Have a good Monday everyone!

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Posted in Bloggers, Dessert, Recipes, Running, Uncategorized

It’s Beginning to Look a Bit Like Christmas

Posted on December 9, 2009 | 4 comments

Hello Wednesday. I must say, after last week’s all-over-the-place schedule, this week’s “normal” routine is feeling sluggish. I’m ready for Friday already. Although I did just get a ton of work, which is sure to make the rest of the week fly by – I hope!

BTW – check out my latest Examiner article, inspired by my great run at the gym yesterday morning:

Taking it to the treadmill and thriving

So who watched The Biggest Loser finale last night?! I did, I did! It was amazing. Everyone looked soo different. I have to say that Danny, Rudy, Tracey and Rebecca all blew me out of the water. I’m almost inclined to say that Tracey and Rebecca might have gone a bit too far. I hope they reached that weight in a completely healthy and appropriate way.

Spoiler Alert: Stop reading if you don’t want to know who won.

I am THRILLED that Danny won! I was almost certain that Rudy was going to take the crown, but I’m really glad Danny walked away with it. For some reason, Rudy bothered me. He was always preaching the “anyone can do this, I want to inspire others” rhetoric. What I really wanted to hear was: “I am doing this for me, for my health and for what I’m going to gain from this experience.” It’s great to be a role model, but come on, we know why you’re there.

What was your reaction to the finale?

So onto yesterday’s food.

Breakfast after yesterday’s run at the gym was sort of pathetic: a banana and coffee. As well as a bottle of water (not shown).

It was the best I could do in my scramble to get out the door in the morning. Miraculously, it held me over until my 11:00 a.m. granola bar snack.

Lunch was a bit later than normal and consisted of a salad with romaine lettuce, cheddar cheese, carrots, chic peas, walnuts and dried cranberries. Yum!!

My snack later in the afternoon was Greek yogurt (honey flavored) with granola and an apple.

As the day came to a close, I began to look forward to dinner and the chance to prove myself after yesterday’s crock pot disaster. I chose to make this simple recipe, adapted from one I found on allrecipes.com

Spinach and Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta

  • 1/2 (16 ounce) package uncooked penne pasta
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 1 clove of chopped garlic
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 1/8 cup of frozen spinach
  • 1/2 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
  • 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 chopped roasted red pepper

 Directions

  1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Place penne pasta in the pot, cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente, and drain.
  2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and cook the garlic until lightly browned. Mix in lemon juice, stir in the pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes. Defrost spinach, drain, add and cook for 1 minute. Toss in the cooked pasta and feta cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

It was really good and light. The hubby seemed to like it as well.

My mini dessert:

And then after dinner – we decorated!! I feel bad, the Hubby had to do some digging in the basement to get out our big holiday container and he was none too pleased. But I think it was well worth it (although he may not). Here is our mini tree! Our apt is too small for a full-sized tree. I managed it our first year in the city, but quickly gave up the large tree idea the following year.

And here is our fireplace with our stockings! And Murphy’s!

And here is Murphy biting the tree. I’m sure I’ll find stuff on the floor when I get home this evening.

I was very satisfied with my minor decorations once everything was complete. I need to have a little something up. I then sat back and watched the end of the Biggest Loser while sipping on this tea.

And with that, my night was complete. I failed to mention that I was doing laundry will cooking and eating as well. So a night filled with laundry, delicious dinner, decorating and Danny winning The Biggest Loser. Awesome!

Until tomorrow – Happy Hump Day!

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Posted in Holidays, Recipes, Uncategorized

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!

9 Comments

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

Is it Really Monday?

Posted on November 30, 2009 | 4 comments

Good morning. It’s Monday – ugh! Back to the grind again. I promised a race recap yesterday, but I didn’t end up having a chance to post at all. So here it goes:

2009 Troy Turkey Trot
Since high school, my friend Lauren and I have run the Troy Turkey Trot together every Thanksgiving. From 2006 through 2008, I took a little break and didn’t run it. This year was my triumphant return!

Lauren picked me up on Thursday morning around 8:30 and brought my race packet with her. We headed into Troy in search of parking. This year, the race course was changed a bit and the starting place was different. We found a spot and started jogging in the direction of the old start. After jogging for about 5 minutes, we realized everyone else was running in the opposite direction. So we turned around and followed the masses to the new start. Oops! 🙂

After finding the start, we hung out for a bit and ran into a bunch of people from high school. We also met up with our friend Kelly, who was running the race unofficially, or as a “bandit.” We headed to the starting line to find her dad and a few other of her family members. Miraculously, we found them standing at about the 9:30 minute mile pace area.

We started chatting and then before we knew it the race started. It was PACKED!! Apparently, this was the largest ever Troy Turkey Trot. We were all crammed in trying to move, but it was a slow start. I had a slight goal in the back of my mind – to beat 24 minutes, so I started getting a little annoyed with the slow start.

Lauren and I tried to stick together and manuever through people, but it just wasn’t happening. So after about 5 minutes, we got split up.

In general, I will say this was a frustrating race. It might have been less so if we had started closer to the actual starting line and I didn’t have to spend the majority of the beginning of the race trying to weave my way through runners.

I was concentrating so much on not running over people, that I was shocked to find myself at the halfway turn-around point! I had already been running for a little longer than 12 minutes. That’s when I realized that I needed to pick it up a bit.

I started increasing my speed and then all of a sudden I saw a HUGE hill in front of me. Everyone around me starting groaning and some even cursed in anger. This was certainly a new addition to the course.

I made it up the hill and was finally almost done. My watch time was very different from the clock time, so I tried to pay attention only to my watch. It was getting close to 24 minutes, so I knew we were almost done. I spotted the finish line and starting kicking it in and sprinting to the finish. I knew it was going to be very close… and it was. I finished the race in 24:03. Sooo close to breaking 24 minutes! 

I felt great after the race and was shocked at how quickly it went by. I can’t wait to run another 5k soon and try to break 24 minutes again.

Has your 5k time improved since running longer races, like 10k, half marathon, marathons?

Here’s a photo from the finish of myself, Lauren, Stephen and Stephanie. I look like a midget next to these tall peeps! 

So that was my race recap – now I’ll try to give a consolidated recap of Saturday night and Sunday.

Saturday night I hung out with Becky and Josh and Chrissie and Dan. Becky, Chrissie and I went to high school together. We tried a new restaurant in Saratoga called The Irish Times. We started off with some appetizers, including nachos, spring rolls and wings. Here are the nachos and spring rolls:

My dinner was a burger (boring) and the picture I took came out terrible, so I’m leaving it out. After dinner, we headed to The Parting Glass for a few drinks. Ok – maybe more than a few:

And then we marvelled at how mini my hands look compared to Josh’s.

It was a fun night in Saratoga!

Sunday morning I was up fairly early, so I headed to the mall to finish up some shopping crowd-free.

Did you shop during the long weekend? Or will you be partaking in Cyber Monday deals?

When I came home I had a multi-grain English muffin with peanut butter and banana. Lauren and I had planned to go running in the early afternoon, so this was also my running fuel.

Around 1:00 Lauren came to my parent’s house and we headed out for a nice run. The weather upstate was gorgeous! A little brisk, but not freezing. We probably ran about 5.5 miles. I haven’t used mapmyrun.com to calculate the route we took yet, but we finished at around 52 minutes. We also challenged ourselves by taking on two big hills during the run. It felt great to finish.

After our run, I had this for lunch and then again for dinner! So only one picture:

My mom made this soup and it was FANTASTIC!! I will definitely be making it. She got the recipe from the Food Network, here it is:

Tortellini Tomato Spinach Soup
 
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup minced onion
1 clove garlic, minced
4 to 6 cups chicken broth (can also use vegetable broth)
1  14 oz. can whole tomatoes, crushed through your fingers  (I used a little more)
1  9 oz. package fresh tortellini or dried tortellini
1/4 cup of red wine
Salt and Pepper to taste
Dash of Parsley and Basil
6 oz. package fresh baby spinach – tear into pieces
Parmesan Cheese
 
In a 3 quart soup pot, heat olive oil over med. high heat and saute onion for several minutes then add garlic stirring for few minutes then add broth, wine and tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper;  turn heat up to high and bring to a boil – add tortellini and cook according to package instructions. When tortellini is almost done, add spinach.  Cook for a few minutes until spinach is wilted. Once you dish soup into bowls, shave parmesan cheese over the top and serve. 
 
It takes about 10 minutes to prep. and approx. 20 to 30 minutes to cook.

It was soo yummy. Bill had some of it when he came to pick me up to head back to NYC and he said it was very good as well. Then we set off for home. Along the way, I don’t know if my allergies were acting up or what, but I started to feel a cold coming on. EEEKS! I hate being sick.

When we got home, I took some Severe Cold Sudafed, a vitamin c tablet and ate a clementine. Then I went straight to bed! This morning, I am feeling much better (knock on wood). Hopefully, if it was a cold, I kept it at bay. But I have a feeling it was just my allergies.

What are your “secret'” tips for killing a cold quick?

Happy Monday blog world!

4 Comments

Posted in Recipes, Restaurants, Running, Uncategorized

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Posted on November 23, 2009 | 8 comments

Good evening. It’s Monday night and I’ve finally found some time for a Monday recap. First, Happy Birthday Hubby!! I miss you and hope you’re having fun upstate. Can’t wait to see you on Thursday.

Second, I have to admit that I am still exhausted from my busy, busy weekend and I did NOT make it to the gym this morning. I don’t know why I keep trying for these early-morning workouts, it really doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. And then I lose an hour of sleep when I keep hitting snooze over and over for an hour.

Do you prefer to work out in the morning or at night?

Breakfast this morning, after I didn’t work out, was oatmeal with Flax Plus Pumpkin Granola and pumpkin butter.

In retrospect, I probably should have grabbed a coffee on my way in today. I was dragging all day. And I was ravenous all day. I ate my mid-morning snack (granola bar – no pic) at 9:30 a.m.! Way too early for me. I think because I ate way too SO much food this weekend, my body was in devour mode and was ready to keep on eating at my weekend pace. I ended up eating my afternoon snack before noon as well! Walnuts and raisins – and I didn’t snap a pic until almost halfway through the gobble:

I didn’t plan anything for lunch and the cupboards in our apartment are nearly bare! I’ll be gone from Wednesday through Sunday, so I don’t really want to stock up much. That means that lunch ended up being a salad today with Romain lettuce, carrots, cheddar cheese, dried cranberries, peas and chick peas.

A little while later I was still hungry – so I had some greek yogurt with oats.

And then about an hour after that some chips.

As you can see, I was on a rampage. I left work and really wanted to go to the gym for a quick run, but I had a bunch of errands I needed to run and I wanted to throw in a load of laundry. I love holidays, but it also means I have to squeeze some of my weekend cleaning and organizing into the week. My hope was to get enough done tonight, so that I can hit the gym for a bit tomorrow night.

I came home after running a few errands and threw together dinner with the remainder of last week’s Sweet Potato.

I made a nice little Sweet Potato Veggie Mix-Up that consisted of the following:

Ingredients

1/2 large sweet potato
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup carrots – chopped
half of a green pepper – chopped
1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock
4 veggie sausages
tablespoon of soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Soften the sweet potato in the microwave for 7-8 minutes – place in a bowl with the chicken stock. Meanwhile, saute the carrots, onion and pepper in olive oil. Remove the sweet potato from the microwave and place the veggie sausage in the microwave for 45 seconds. Remove the sausages and cut them up. Place the sweet potato with stock and veggie sausages in the pan with the other veggies. Add a tablespoon of soy sauce and cook together for approximately 7 minutes.

After dinner I was still a little hungry. I intended to only eat half of this Pecan Pie Larabar…but I ate the whole thing. It was just a hungry, hungry day.

Interesting in the News:

Eat and Drink Your Way to a Healthy Colon?

I have to travel for work next week, so this was interesting: America’s Healthiest Airports. Sadly, neither of the airports I’ll be visiting were listed in the top 10 – oh well, I’ve survive.

Good night blog world!

8 Comments

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized