February Goals Update

Hi Friends 🙂

How is your weekend so far?

Yesterday I ran a glorious 8 miles! (on the treadmill!) It took me about 1.5 hours – I walked every couple of miles or so. My new shoes are fabulous – my feet had plenty of room to move in them, but they gave me support and felt great! To be honest, the last few times I’ve ran I’ve had bloody feet afterward – my toes were pinched in my old shoes  😦  Not any more!

I also tried out the orange sport beans and boy do they taste good! No stomach issues either, which was great. I had an America’s Next Top Model marathon to keep my company at the gym, so I was good to go!

I thought I’d give a little update on my February Goals:

1. Train for Grandma’s Marathon – I have followed my plan and I’m motivated to keep on going!

2. Read 2 books. I am finished with Love & Respect and I will have no problem finishing In Defense of Food before the end of the month. I’m loving it so far!

3. Try 2 new recipes per week. YES I have actually done this:

Week 1 (Feb 1-5):

                Microwave Banana Cakes

      Spinach Pancakes

                Orange-Cilantro Black Bean Salad

Week 2 (Feb 6-12):

                Salmon Patties

      Quinoa Burgers

Week 3 (Feb 13-19):

                Vegan Alfredo

                Eggs Baked in Tomato Sauce

                Egg Souffle (see below!)

4. Stay on budget – YES! Even with an impromptu visit to Trader Joe’s, we are on track for the month. What helped me was making lists before going to the store, planning meals, and using up ingredients I already have!

5.Blog more consistently – YES! I have blogged every day since my Feb Goal post on Feb 2^nd (except I skipped Feb 3 to get on a more regular posting schedule…)

I definitely consider this month a success so far – I need to keep up on a few things, but other than that I’m feeling good!

Here is the Egg Souffle I made on Friday:

I followed Beth’s recipe…except I couldn’t find my electric beaters, so I used a whisk. I don’t think that whipped up my egg whites good enough. But it still tasted fantastic!

Click here for Beth’s recipe. The only change I made was using Garlic/Herb goat cheese instead of plain, and I didn’t add any dill to the eggs. Jason and I loved the texture of the eggs and I will definitely make this again (once I get new beaters!)

Today’s plans include some stretching/foam rolling, laundry (!!!), blog updates (blogroll, recipes, etc), relaxing, reading and resting. It should be a good day!

*Plans for the day?

*Do you make goals? (weekly/monthly/yearly) How are you doing?

*Are there any recipes you made this week that I should try this week? Feel free to leave a link!

~Holly

Eggs + Tomatoes

Hi Friends  🙂
 
Going back to my movie review yesterday, I did want to make one “warning” – the beginning of the movie shows a 12 year old girl who wants to get (and ends up getting) liposuction. Those scenes were hard to watch (ok I didn’t watch, I covered my eyes until  Jason told me I could look) – I could never work in health care, I cannot watch any type of surgery (real or fake!). 
 
It was a beautiful day in MN today! But the forecast shows that it will be cold again this weekend – boooo!!!!! I never made it to Running Room to get refitted for shoes, but I’ll go Friday night. Friday is a rest day for me so I’ll have plenty of time after work. 
 
Thursday night I did get out and run 3 miles – it felt great! I went to the gym and it wasn’t super crowded. The only problem is that my left knee really started to hurt about  a mile into my run — I’m hoping new shoes will help. It almost feels like my knee is full of fluid? I stretched and foam rolled after my run, but it still feels kind of strange. I will definitely need to monitor that!

For dinner, I knew I wanted eggs  🙂  When do I not want eggs? So I went to my fellow egg-lover friend Matt’s blog and used his recipe for Eggs Baked in a Spicy Tomato Sauce.

 
Click here for the recipe. I followed the recipe, although I didn’t blend the sauce, I left it chunky! – and I reserved a bunch of the sauce in the fridge and only made 2 servings with the eggs (I only had 2 ramekins and now it is ready for breakfast in the morning!)
 

 
I never was a big fan of tomatoes or salsa with eggs, but I am starting to love it more and more. Matt this tasted fantastic! Jason loved it too and it was a very satisfying meal. And seriously, any meal with a runny egg is a good one!

I hope you have a Happy Friday! I’ll leave you with a picture of my sister Myra’s new dog:

His name is Peter Sam and is named after a train from these stories.

 Myra, her husband Tyler and Peter Sam live in Texas so I will not get to meet Peter Sam for a few more months  😦
 
*What are your plans for the weekend?
 
*Do you have any pets? What are their names?

Enjoy your weekend! ~ Holly

Recipe Fail: Eggs to the Rescue

Hi Friends 🙂

The weekend is almost here!

Have you ever seen someone that you SWEAR you know – but you can’t figure out from where? There is a girl at my gym that I have seen twice now – and I know I know her, but I can’t place her. Did I work with her? Is she one of my sisters’ friends? Or does she just look like someone I know? If I see her again I will ask her, even though I feel really creepy just thinking about doing that.

Has this happened to you? How did you deal with it?

Since I’m trying to keep track on the blog, here are my treadmill stats for the day:

On Wednesday night the plan was to make dinner incorporating a new recipe from this cookbook:

The recipe is called Roasted Cauliflower with Dates and Pine Nuts.

Sounds good, right? Here is the picture. I thought it looked really delicious:

And here is how my attempt turned out:

It turned out horrible. I burnt most of it because a glass fell (as I was putting clean dishes away) and a piece of glass fell near my foot, cut through my sock and into my foot. At first I thought I only cut my sock but then I looked down and saw my bloodstained sock and ran upstairs to get a bandaid – it took me a while to hop on one leg up the stairs (didn’t want to stain the carpet, but I did anyway) and then by the time I got downstairs the sauce had burned and there was nothing I could do. AAHHHHH!!

I needed something for dinner, so I turned to my stand-by: EGGS. I made a eggs benedict type of dish, almost like a deconstructed spinach omelet (who has been watching too much Top Chef? ME!) It only used 4 ingredients:

Tomatoes

Garlic Gold Olive Oil

Spinach

Eggs

Salt/Pepper (on the show 5 Ingred Fix, salt/pepper is a freebie, so it doesn’t count!)

First I roasted up my tomatoes in the Garlic Gold oil:

Then I wilted my spinach and cooked my egg. All together now:

I love eggs and I love any excuse to make them. Even if it involves wasting forty minutes on a recipe that ends up burning on the stove. 😦

What do you do when a recipe doesn’t turn out quite right? Do you try to fix it or do you pitch it and move on? For me, if it burns or way overcooks, I pitch it. Otherwise, I put on a happy face and eat my meal anyway.

Have a great day!

Holly

Breakfast for Dinner

Good Morning!

Yesterday J and I were at a local parade near our city. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. Check out these great floats:

A huge mosquito – only in MN!

The “Up” house – it was a float for a guy running for Sheriff — the slogan was “things are looking UP in MN”. Dumb I know, but that movie makes me cry so I liked it.

This guy had a GREAT time — as you can tell.

hahaha – did you own Zubaz as a kid? I can honestly say I didn’t. Thank you Mom and Dad for never buying me any!

I was so tired from walking around at the parade (we walked non stop, back and forth for over 2 hours) – so I skipped my workout. I needed the rest, but today I am back to TurboFire.

Remember all of my Farmers Market veggies from Saturday? When I bought the kale I KNEW I needed to make my first batch of Kale Chips:

They turned out really well. Even J ate some! They really were crunchy and salty like good potato chips.

Last night at dinnertime I was craving breakfast foods — specifically this:

Denny’s Heartland Scramble: Two scrambled eggs with bacon, country-fried potatoes, green peppers and onions and Cheddar cheese

Instead, I made my own without all the cheese and deliciousness grease.

Couch Potato Scramble

Ingredients:  Italian sausage, eggs, onion, green pepper, red potatoes

Start by washing, cutting and roasting your veggies:

(I roasted them with canola oil, salt and pepper for 30 minutes at 350 degrees)

After veggies are done roasting, turn oven off, but keep veggies in there. Brown crumbled sausage pieces in a skillet, and cook eggs over easy in another skillet. Arrange ingredients this way in a bowl: first layer veggies, second layer sausage, third layer egg.

This was a really filling meal and very easy to make. Next time I’ll mix in some mushrooms and tomatoes. The best part was cutting into the egg and letting the yolk ooze out onto the veggies. Egg yolk is good on just about anything.

Question: Do you like parades? What is your favorite part? I love seeing the unicycles, or the little kids doing karate moves. I also love the food and beer gardens that usually accompany parades…