I must read too many blogs

Weight and fitness have always been an issue for me.  I’m 5’2”, and I love to eat.  Those two things can often be a bad combo, and I’ve been overweight before.  When I decided to do something about being overweight (Winter 2005), I made a promise to myself never to get back to that point again.  I didn’t really make that promise because I was “that big” or because weighing 20 pounds more than I do now is “that bad for you”.  No, unfortunately, being that heavy was an outward sign of a whole lot of inner turmoil manifesting itself.  So, while trying to cope with and change the parts of my life that cause me to be unhappy and in that state of constant turmoil, I tackled the more tangible pounds in the process.  I find that very often, if I’m putting on weight these days, I’m very likely dealing with something that has not a darn thing to do with food!  

Nonetheless, I still find tackling excess poundage to be therapeutic and a way for me to feel like I’m making positive changes in my life instead of focusing on the negative.  

So, in that spirit, I’ve decided to tackle something that I never, ever thought I’d be interested in doing.  I’m going to run a 5K!

Okay, some of you out there might have just gone “you’re making this big a deal out of running 3.1 miles?”.  Um…..yes.  See, I’m not a runner.  AT ALL.  I barely ran around the track with I was a kid (they thought I was asthmatic and would get shin splints, so they let me walk a lot).  So running, even a mile, would be well above and beyond anything I ever thought I was capable of.  

Then I started walking Riley, and one day, she took off in a run.  I had her leash.  So, it was be dragged, jerk the dog, or run with her.  So, I tried a little sprint.  Hmm….not so bad.  Now, I still haven’t done all out run, run, run.  That seems a bit hasty!

The running seed was planted after a week of on-and-ff sprinting with Riley.  I read a lot of healthy living blogs, and they all run.  They make it look, dare I say, fun.  Plus, I am really sick of the gym.  I’m still not comfortable there.  So, I thought that this is a good way to keep moving but not be so dependent on the gym.  After reading up on being a beginning runner, I decided to do the Cool Runnings Couch to 5K plan.

I did my first “training” session today!  I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

Vroom!

Okay, can anyone tell me where my weekend went?  Apparently having two three day weekends in a row distorts how long you expect you normal weekends to feel. 

We had company all day Saturday, which was a lot of fun.  We had football and puppy class on Sunday.  Then, as I cooked dinner on Sunday, I realized that I hadn't done my weekend chores!  No laundry got done.  No lunches prepped.  No granola bars made.  Ummm....oops?

So, weeknights this week will be spent making up for the fact that I didn't get a three day weekend.  You'd think I felt entitled to them or something!  Heh.

Have a good, productive Monday all!

GO COLTS!

I am SOOOOO excited!  The Colt's first game of the season is at noon!  I have to go grocery shopping before the game since we had a guest in town staying with us till yesterday evening.  My husband requested potato skins for the occasion, because really, good food is his only motivation to be even in the house while I watch my football games. He still hates football!  I give him props though.  He watches the games that are important to me.  He'll even take me to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the ones that aren't televised in this area.  He even helps me pick my yearly Colt's Shirt. 

He picked this one this year.  I got it a few days ago, and I think it might be my favorite yet!

I feel so bad for my husband though.  He had something he was really excited about too.  For me, this weekend was about football.  For him, it was about D&D.  They haven't played in a month, so I know he was anxious and excited to advance his game.  It's only had one session after all!  But on top of that, an old college friend came up from SEVEN hours away just to play with us.  Well, if you've read my husband's blog at all, you know he uses a lot of technology to make this happen.  Two of the players are in Colorado, and they video conference in.  First their internet wouldn't agree with their PC, so we had to configure their college-issued netbook.  Yeah, that didn't work well at all, because netbooks do not have the same capacity of a real processor.  Then.....the construction crew a few streets over cut a line to our cable internet an hour after we got the netbook to work (which took an hour).  Our internet stayed out for three or four hours.  Our guest had to leave by then.  We never really got to game at all!  I felt so bad for my husband and his friends because this was so highly anticipated for them.  I hate it so much when my husband is disappointed.  I hope next time is glitch free. 

Back to the happiness of the first Sunday of the football season though.  I hope you all eat something decadent and enjoy your favorite team.  Let me know who you're rooting for (or if you don't give a flip about football but like the food!). 

At-home parties

So, most people know that I sell something that usually gets sold at at-home parties.  I don't really do the parties anymore, but I still make periodic orders for my loyal customers.  But when I started, I DID PARTIES.  Then I stopped.  Then a layoff happened (years ago, a completely different life than I have now), and I started doing to parties again.  About 4-5 every weekend.  And they paid my mortgage for a few months.  So, overall, I'm grateful for the party option and am whole-heartedly willing to support them.

I say all of this because I went to a fantastic party last night.  My best friend's baby sister just started a Pampered Chef business, and we were her first demo!  I got WAY over-excited about going to this party.  That's because, one I hadn't seen my best friend's mom (a.k.a. my other mom) in years, and she was going to be there.  Two, it's Pampered Chef!  It's cooking gadgets and cooking demos!  I have not once been invited to a Pampered Chef party, and I never really understood that.  Um....I cook.  Lots!  Yeah, very exciting stuff for me.

The demo was this glorious candy-bar-brownie thing that instantly sent me into sugar overload, but I ate it anyway.  My friend's sister did a great job on her first demo.  She knows everyone in the room really well, so she was doing out-loud critiques of herself the entire time, which cracked me up.  I've done that.  Anyhow, I think it was a successful first go at her new endevour, and I think she'll be great at it.  She's entirely bubbly and performs cooking "shows" in her kitchen.  A perfect fit for this enterprise, don't you think?!

I'll be hosting a party for her soon....so that I get to eat more good food and hang out with fabulous people.  I mean, that's why you host, right?  If anyone is interested in coming, please let me know!

And yeah, I'm excited to get the gadgets I ordered.  What, even my little ole cheapskate self can't walk out of those parties empty-handed!

Have a great Saturday!

Food in Review

Our meals this week involved pre-cooking, left overs, and a little bit of laziness!

Saturday: Since we were camping, we found it appropriate to have a meal that you could throw in a fire.  In comes Johnsonville!  Now, I prefer to get turkey smoked sausages, smoked pork sausage from Rehoboth Ranch, or the lovely raw chicken beauties from Central Market, but those weren’t what “camping food” called for.  We wanted classic camp food.  So, we debated between franks and smoked sausages, and the smoked sausages won.  We picked the cheddar jalapeño variety on whole wheat buns.  I wrapped the sausages in foil and into our lovely fire they went for about 20 minutes.  They actually went on top of a hot stone in the fire so that they heated gradually with minimal burnage.  We paired these bad boys with baked Kettle salt & vinegar chips.  I gotta say, I’m going back to the original on these too.  The baked ones tasted a little like freeze-dried potatoes.  There were no complains though, as we dined at twilight in the woods with a fire.  

Sunday: We ordered a take-n-bake pizza from Papa Murphy’s.  If you guess this was the lazy meal, you’d be correct.  It cooked in our oven, and I had to cut it.  Yeah, I don’t think that counts as a home-cooked meal!  We got the bbq chicken delite, and it was delightful!  I highly recommend this place.  We haven’t had a bad one yet!

Monday: It was time to pull out the slow cooker!  I didn’t make it to the farmers market due to our camping outing, but I still had Rehoboth Ranch ground beef in the freezer from a few weeks ago.  One and only one thing came to mind for it: meatballs!  Now, again, I usually use turkey for our meatballs (my poor husband occasionally deserves so REAL beef, right??), but I don’t feel so bad using grass-fed, local beef.  The stats are way better than just any ole mass-produced stuff anyhow!  Into the cooker went the sauce first which consisted of two cans of diced fire roasted tomatoes, a small can of tomato sauce, and a can full of dry red wine plus the typical onion, garlic, salt, red pepper flake, and oregano.  Then I assembled the meatballs: ground meat (beef this time), oregano, garlic, diced onion, oregano, an egg, plain bread crumbs, and parmesan.  Mix with the best tools God gave us and form into balls.  This batch made 14 perfect meatballs and cooked for about 6 hours on my countertop.  I put them atop some toasted buns with oven fried okra.  In case you’ve never tired it, breaded frozen okra works brilliantly in the oven.  Just spray them with olive oil cooking spray, crank the heat to at least 400-450 and cook for 20 minutes turning once.  Totally rivals any greasy okra you’ve ever had.

Tuesday: Leftover day!!!  We had the rest of the Johnsonville sausages with Bush’s bourbon baked beans.  Somehow, this meal felt totally decadent.  Probably because of the oodles of fat!  Oops.  But who am I to let food go to waste?!

Wednesday: Repeat of Monday but with corn on the cob.  I love it when you can just pull containers out of the fridge and have an effortless meal in mere minutes.  

Thursday: I had a lovely eggplant and spaghetti squash dish in mind, but I felt too busy to make it.  So, instead, I made (um....heated) a cowboy casserole from Central Market.  Yeah, I know, more lazy.  My house needed to be cleaned for a weekend guest, and I just couldn't juggle everything I wanted to.  Hey, occasionally, something has to give, right?

Friday's Riley Attack: Riley at the dog park letting an adorable Australian shepherd mix named Isabelle "win".  

Granola Bars - Attempt #6

I set to cooking on Labor Day.  I was inspired by two recipes on The Chic Life by Diana.

First, I made her Green Monster muffins!  I used the vegan recipe but regular yogurt....so they still weren't vegan.  I just like the idea of using yogurt instead of an egg.  I also used half sucanat and half brown rice syrup for the sugars.  Then I made an error.....I read TABLESPOONs instead of teaspoons on the baking powder.  I quickly realized my error and scooped all the powder out that I could and remeasured.  This error left the muffins just slightly more potent than they should have been.  I still love them though! I will be making these over and over.  So dense and moist....and good for you!  The lemon zest (which I didn't measure, just zested a whole large lemon) is probably my favorite part....aside from the beautiful green color. 

Next, I made Chic Bars!  I followed the recipe almost to a T.  I had to omit the cinnamon for my hubby, so I added just a touch more vanilla.  They have a lovely vanilla aroma and smell thanks to the extra half teaspoon.  I also added some pepitas (because I had them and love the color of them!) and swapped the whole flax seed for ground.  That's it!  I love the texture of the finished product.  They are chewy, crunchy, and not too sticky...which a lot of the other bars I've made have been. 

 These are great recipes that I will be making again!  I hope you do too. 

All the pretty things

We saw some gorgeous things while camping.

Pretty things.

There were also so not-so-pleasant things that I chose not to capture on film.  These happen to be the rabble-rousing drunkards and illegal mesquite tree harvesters that kept us up ALL NIGHT.  Don't get me wrong, we had a beer with dinner.  We also gathered mesquite FROM THE GROUND for our fire.  We also didn't expect everyone to be as sleepy as we were and go to bed before 10.  But when we woke up at 12, 2, and 4am from the sounds whooping or an electric saw, we were no longer happy campers.  We were dang tired campers!  This might just be further proof that we're old, but I don't think it's absurd to think that people should be sleeping after 2am.  Or at the very least, not be harvesting anything from the park! 

This is the last of the photos, I promise.  See you tomorrow with my goodies from this weekend's baking!