My day in food

Today was one of those where you glance down at the bottom right corner of your screen and think, WTF? How did it get to be 7:53? P.M.

Seriously. The entire world decided to need my attention TODAY. I know, I'm very important.

How does any of this relate to my post? Not at all. But hey. It's my blog, and if I feel like venting, I'm gonna vent.

At any rate. I've been wanting to do one of those "day in food" type posts for awhile now. I see them on lots of other peoples blogs. And while I don't really feel like I need to keep myself "accountable" or have some AMAZING recipes and step-by-step instructions to share, I still thought it'd be fun. If you think so too, comment!

If not, I'll know by your radio silence that no one really cares how delicious tempeh can be or how fast soup can be made when you're famished after Spin.

Without futher adieu, breakfast!

(whole wheat english muffin, tofutti cream "cheese" mixed w/ cinnamon, raisins, walnuts, a side of protein-yogurt w/ half a banana, and my favorite Chai green tea)

Seriously, SO delicious. Sadly, the english muffin did not tide me over to lunch. Fail. I guess I need more volume in my breakfasts...

Lunch:

(enormous salad. I eat some variation of this basically EVERY day for lunch and it NEVER gets old. In the mix: spinach, baby lettuce, shredded cabbage, carrots, brocolli, roasted kabocha squash, sugar snap peas, fat free feta, and some homemade miso dressing. With more of the crack tea. Who needs coffee!?)

So. This tempeh. (The stuff that kinda-sorta looks like taco meat.) It is AMAZING. I wish I could take credit for the recipe. And I CAN! (At least, for the modifications I made to the original.) Go see Mama Pea for the real deal.

What did I change? Left out the agave & lime. Added 1/2 cup salsa and 1 tsp smoked paprika. I like to call this version: Enchilada Tempeh. Tastes like it was marinated in a bottle of enchilada sauce. Way, way healthier enchilada sauce. Seriously so good - even the husband likes it this way!

Moving right along. I had my (hopefully) last PT appointment this afternoon and a date with a Spin bike (and running buddy Laura) afterwards, so I knew I'd need a snack to tide me over:

(fat free ricotta, greek yogurt, protein powder, Libby's pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, blitzed in the mini prep. like puddin'. and yes, I ate it out of the blender bowl. why dirty a dish?!)

I saved half of this for dessert and it is CALLING to me from the fridge right now!

When I finally made it home from Spin, I was exhausted. And NOT in the mood to 'cook' anything. Enter - lazy girl's soup for one (husband is working late...):

Start to finish this soup definately took less than 30 minutes. What's that? You'd like the recipe? Of course!

1/4 C french (green) lentils, dry
2 C vegetable stock
1/4 C quinoa, dry
1/4 onion, diced
3-4 small carrots, diced
s & p to taste

1. Throw lentils & stock into pot over medium heat.
2. While lentils simmer, dice onion & carrot, and saute in a spritz of olive oil over medium heat, just until soft, about 5 minutes.
3. Add onion & carrot mixture, quinoa, to lentils. Reduce heat to medium low.
4. Set timer for 20 minutes and hop in the shower.
5. Check soup after 20 minutes. If your lentils are tender and carrots are almost (but not quite) mush, it's done.

Yours might end up looking a little dry like mine (above). You may also be STARVING as it is now going on 8:15. (I'm just saying) If this happens, add more (cold) veggie stock and/or water. For the added benefit of having some broth, and, you know, not searing your tongue. Hello, blisters.

(much better with broth)

Also consumed but not pictured: A Siggis yogurt w/ blueberries & flax, about 87 cups of herbal tea, 1/2 a pack of Orbit peach gum.

So there you have it! A whole day in food.

Now where is that pumpkin yogurt and my book....

2011 - the year of the hamstring

So, first things first, a VERY belated happy new year to all my friends! (Well, all 9 of you who actually read this anyways...)



I'm almost embarassed that this post is so belated, but, uh, you see I was out of town last week, with not a second to spare for posting. And, I, uh, had a case of blogger's block.

Ok, ok. The REAL reason for the delay is that I hadn't really come up with any blog-worthy New Year's Resolutions to post.

I know, I know. I don't HAVE to post a resolution. And I have plenty of smaller and more personal resolutions that I'm not sharing. But, I really did want to have SOMETHING to be held accountable to this year.

Well, this morning, I finally figured it out.

Friends - welcome to the year of the hamstring.

I went back to yoga this morning. For the first time in nearly a month. And you know what? It Sucked (with a capital-S). It was hard. I couldn't even touch the floor in forward fold. I needed a block. I felt like a January Joiner. (Not that there's ANYTHING wrong with that, go JJ'S!! But when you've been practicing yoga for 8 years, you'd kind of like to get some street cred for that, you know?)

And that led me to think, "WTF is going ON with my hamstrings!? When did they get so TIGHT!"

And THAT led me to think, "I should be practicing yoga more often".

When I got home, I sat and thought on this one for awhile. And friends, I have a confession to make.

(I don't really like yoga.)

Yoga is my spinach. It's that thing you do because everyone tells you how good it is for you, and you know you're supposed to do it. But, if I'm really honest, yoga just doesn't do it for me. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike it, I just don't get excited for it the way I do other activities.

Take running. LOVE. LOOOOOOOOOOVE. Not enough "o's" in the world to express the looove. Spinning? Adore it. Everytime a great song comes on the radio, my first thought is, "This would be SO FUN to Spin to." Seriously. Not dance to. Spin to. Pilates? Love it so much I wish I could afford to go every day. Alas, the Super Lotto has not come through for us just yet...

But seriously, back to the topic at hand. I just don't GET that blissed-out, zen, bendy, clean, amazing feel that I think I am SUPPOSED to get from yoga. And I think I know why. I think...it's my attitude towards it.

You see, I'm not good at yoga. And, as a general rule, I don't like things I'm not good at. (Yes, I too have character flaws.) In the spirit of full disclosure though, it's kind of my own damn fault that I'm no good at yoga. Since I don't like it, I don't TRY that hard to improve.

And that brings me back to the title of the post. My goal is to IMPROVE at yoga this year. I plan to measure it by how much flexibility I can gain, and how I feel towards my practice. Here's how I plan to accomplish my goal. By:

1. Going to classes consistently. Like it or not, I just have to accept that flexibility is clearly something my body needs more of, and yoga is the path to get there.
2. Pushing myself a little harder. Feeling comfortable in that child's pose? I don't think so. I make too many excuses for myself during class (ahem, who's that sneaking out to the bathroom whenever an inversion is coming up? Yeah, that's me. Oh, the shame.)
3. Being more fearless. (Goes hand in hand with #2 - there is a good reason I sneak out during inversions, I'm afraid of falling over!)
4. Doing the poses that are hard for ME daily. This would include all manner of hamstring stretches, Pigeon, Squats, that god-awful foot stretching one, and chest openers. Sadly, I tend to back away from doing the hard stuff when I practice on my own.
5. Practice somewhere relaxing. I love the studio in my gym. But for those short practices at home, I'm thinking I might head out here:

(weather permitting, of course)

I really hope this works. There was a point in my past where at least I used to LIKE yoga. And even if I don't ever fall in LOVE, hopefully I can at least get back to liking it.

If I can learn to love spinach, I'm pretty sure I can learn to love yoga too.

Race Recap - Venice Christmas Run

I realize I'm a bit late getting this post up, but it's the holidays. Everyone gets cut a little slack during the holidays, right?

I've been having some knee pain recently (another post, another day) and was really nervous about how this race was going to go. I knew I had it in me to reach my 55:00 goal, but, I was so, so scared that my knee was going to give out during the race.

But, on Saturday morning, I got up bright and early to make the 20-mile trek across town to the race. At 6:30 on a Saturday morning, I figured 30 minutes was plenty of time, right?

No. Wrong. First the 110 was closed. Detour.

Then the 405 was closed. Detour.

Then race parking was a zoo. I had at least expected as much. So, my trusty sherpa (ahem. Albert) dropped me off half a mile from the start, with less than 2 minutes til the start of the race. I jogged to the start line (nice, warm up!) With a brief detour through the porta-potty line, natch.

I found my sister and her husband, who had picked up my bib and t-shirt for me (thank you!) Also around this point, I heard the emcee wish the runner's good luck, and I vaguely remember a starting horn? But....my sherpa was nowhere to be found.

I frantically searched around for race registration, hoping I could leave my goodie bag and t-shirt with them, because I was NOT running 6.2 miles with a plastic baggie in my hands. Uh uh. Not gonna happen.

Thank goodness for chip timing and long corrals. After I finally got situated, I hopped in the corral and took off about 3 minutes after the start of the race.

I spent the first mile or 2 dodging slow pokes, walkers, strollers, and a guy in a red-unitard (no, seriously. I think he was supposed to be "Santa". Right.) and settled into a comfortable, if not ambitious, pace.

At this point I was really worried whether my knee was going to start bugging me. I felt that familiar twinge around mile 4, so I backed off a little bit, but at mile 5 I realized my knee was going to hold out for the last mile, and pushed it to a new personal record....drumroll please...

51:43~! (Official chip time, 8:20/mile pace)

I was in shock. I knew I had been running fast, but I was trying to pace 8:50 miles, to meet my 55:00 goal, so imagine my shock when I got in under 52:00!

This is what happy looks like:


(My awesome sister PR'd too.) We smashed this race!

I will definately be back next year...maybe a sub-50 is in my future...? I have a whole year to train...

Big winner

There are certain validating moments in a blogger's life that make us realize that we're REALLY a blogger.

For example, getting your first comment from a stranger. (Someone else is reading this, Mom!)

Or, more recently in my case, winning your first blog giveaway! WOOT!!

I won this:


From here. Thanks Hilary!

And if I do say so, I'm pretty sure there is no better prize up for grabs online these days. I hit the blog-giveaway jackpot!

Now, any ideas how I'm gonna use all these up? Please send recipe suggestions!

The Great Pumpkin

Pumpkin.


It's EVERYWHERE. And I couldn't be happier about it. Truth be told, I've been putting pumpkin in pretty much everything since it appeared on Whole Food's shelves in mid-August (smoothie's, yogurt, oatmeal, spooned directly into my mouth you get the picture).

I've always loved pumpkin, but until this year, I chalked it up as just another one of my strange tastes. Don't get me wrong, I know most people love the pie, but I figured that was pretty much the only reason anyone was buying the canned stuff.

Oh, I was wrong. Seems there is a whole bunch of healthy-living bloggers (here, here and here, for example) who are just as obsessed with the pumpkin as I am. And here's another funny thing - they're all shockingly brand loyal to the Libby's.

I didn't get it. Sure, I'd HAD Libby's, but I figured all canned pumpkin was created equal, no? Glance at the ingredients list. There is precisely ONE ingredient in all the major brands - pumpkin. So what difference does it make, right? Wrong.

Inspired by Libby's mania, and determined to see what all the fuss was about, I grabbed a super-size can as soon as it appeared on the shelves of my neigbhorhood Fresh & Easy (shameless plug, Kiki) and stockpiled it away with the rest.

And, inspired by Emily's post I decided to do a little pumpkin-off of my own.

The contenders:

Trader Joe's Organic - last purchased at TJ's for $1.99/15 oz.
The verdict: What was I thinking? Watery, runny, mushy and BROWN. How did this used to be my go-to pumpkin?


Farmer's Market Organic - last purchased at Whole Foods, for $2.39/15 oz. (on sale)
The verdict: Better. Orange (at least) and generally less watery. A good fall-back plan.


Libby's - last purchased at Target, for $1.29/15 oz. (on sale)
The verdict: I finally get it. Of the three, this tastes the most like PUMPKIN.


(And yes, you read that right, $1.29 at Target as of last night week. I made A buy me 7 more cans. And then carry them home.)

So I guess Libby's can add 1 more convert to their cult-following. I still don't get WHY it tastes so much better, but it SO DOES.

Salted caramel hot chocolate

Ever since I saw this on the Starbucks holiday drink menu, I've been wanting to try it. I mean, come on? How many perfect elements can you fit into ONE drink?!

Until, that is, I looked up the nutrition stats online. 450 calories, 16g of fat? Um, no thanks.

So, tonight, I decided to made up my own (much healthier) version:



Healthy Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate for 1

Ingredients:


In a small saucepan, bring 1 mug of almond milk to a low boil. Add 2 tbsp cocoa powder and 4 tbsp sugar-free caramel Torani syrup. Whisk together, until smooth. Add Splenda and sea salt to taste.
Sip, and enjoy guilt free. This version has 80 calories and ZERO grams of fat.

Give Thanks

I first saw this lovely idea over on Melanie's blog and thought it would be a fantastic way to start my Thanksgiving morning. (Well, that and a 10 mile run to make room for all the TURKEY!)

So today, in no particular order, I am thankful for:
My husband and best friend:



My healthy and supportive family:

(I'm thankful for Mom too, but she wouldn't get on the swing...)

Wonderful friends
Long runs:


A body that LETS me go on long runs
My job, especially in this economy
Pumpkins:


COFFEE!
Sunshine
My treadmill:


Wine :)
Eclectic 24 and good music in general
A warm (well, not so much lately), safe place to call home
Curling up with a good book:


Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea
My yoga practice (which I promise to stop neglecting)
Spinning classes with Sami - Hooooo!
Modern Family
Blogs
Candles
Persimmon:


Chocolate
Fall colors
Cookies
Long talks with old friends
This amazing life

That's it - 4 minutes, and so very much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone - gobble gobble!