Weekend Recap: Music and Miles...

First, the music. When I moved to Memphis, I never would have guessed that I would be able to find any live music that I would really like. In my head I had totally picked out Memphis as being the home of blues, jazz, and lots of country. Luckily, it draws quite a bit of Indie/Alternative Rock/Pop. On Friday, we headed to this fun little venue in Cooper-Young called the Young Avenue Deli for Devon Allman's (son of Greg Allman, you know who that is... I didn't!) band Honeytribe. It was fun to chill, eat some sweet potato fries :-), and listen to them rock it out on stage.

There he is!

Second, the miles. As I shared in my last post, I slogged through the Forrest Spence 5K on Saturday morning. Afterwards, I hit up the market, and said "hi" to Will and the doggies at the pet-sitting tent. :-) Late in the afternoon, we met up with our friend Sandeep and started our great "bike-venture". We rode through town until we met up with the head of the "greenline" bike trail. This trail takes you all the way from town out to the lovely park, Shelby Farms. At one point, we stopped to drink some water and I saw a perfectly good banana just laying on the trail...apparently someone had dropped it while biking along. So Will and I split it. Haha.  In the end, I think we did almost 30 miles of biking. After all that exercise, I slept like a baby that night!

The sweaty trio!

Today, it was back to work! First stop was the donut shop to pick up some breakfast treats for staff meeting (it took every ounce of self-control not to eat them before my run!), then off to meet my fellow StarRunners in Overton Park at 6AM for a 4 mile jog before speeding over to the VA to shower and spend my day trying to convince our vets to eat healthier! This week should fly by as I'm in mentoring/coaching training at work all day Wednesday and part of Thursday. Then, on Friday morning I'm flying out to meet Will in Albuquerque! Should be fun times! I'll be sure to keep y'all updated.

PS- I totally just had to look up how to spell Albuquerque...

Confession Time...

This Saturday, I just thought I'd share a few random thoughts with y'all. :-)
1. I somehow (although not totally my fault!) killed the plant I bought at the greenhouse this spring. When I brought it home, a bunch of bugs had hitched a ride on it and ate it all up despite my efforts to get rid of them. It just couldn't handle it. :-/

Poor thing. :-(

2. I seriously can't wait for fall to be here! Cooler weather, jeans, sweaters, hot chocolate and pumpkin spice lattes. Mmm! (Wait, does that happen in Memphis?!) So, when I saw apples at the market this morning I got super excited thinking fall must be on it's way! To my disappointment, those are definitely "baking apples" and not the crisp, sweet "war- fuzzy-fall-feelings" apples I was looking for. :-( Guess I'll be making apple crisp this week!
3. I tried to make hummus from scratch... and I failed. For some reason, I still haven't mastered the art of cooking dried beans and the chickpeas I had used for this recipe were dried. The hummus, in turn, came out a little dry as well. I think I needed to be more patient about letting my beans reconstitute more!
4. Despite my long legs, I've realized I'm just not a fast runner. Although I really wish to be! I ran the Forrest Spence 5K in Overton Park this morning and was pretty disappointed with my time - 28:47. Ugh. Hoping I can make up for it in 2 weeks at the Cooper Young 4-Miler though!

Modeling the t-shirt post race shower. You didn't want to see my sweaty self before! 

5. I never quite finished the "21 Days of Yoga" I had set out to accomplish. I was doing so well for about 2 weeks and then I just slacked off. I think I'm going to try it out again soon though. I feel like the stretching is definitely good for running injury prevention.
6. No matter how many miles I am able to run, the walk up the 4 flights of stairs to my apartment never seems to get any easier. What's up with that?!
7. I realized I have no 5 year plan. I need to fix that. I need some goals in my life!
8. Even though it is my job to talk to people all day, sometimes I just wish I could sit in my office and not have to interact with new people all the time. (True confession of a shy girl...)
9. I've had the most incredible craving for a donut from this place called Donald's here in Memphis all week. Wasn't my degree in nutrition supposed to get rid of that type of thing! Haha.
10. I'm terrible to try to get a hold of on the phone and I don't mean to be! I can seriously have the thing practically attached to my hip all weekend with the ringer on loud and still miss phone calls. :-/ Therefore, I've missed talking to one of my best friends on the other side of the world!

Miss you Charis!!!
So there you have it. Now, I've got to get ready for my bike-venture to Shelby Farms this afternoon. :-)

Wednesday Rewind

Whew! This week has been slipping by me before I realized it! Here's what I've been up to the past few days... (Sadly, I major failed at taking enough pictures!)
Road Trip! Will and I drove out to Branson, Missouri for the weekend, but before we hit the road, we stopped at Huey's to refuel (our bellies!). I had heard rumors that this place had some of the best burgers, which includes black bean vegetarian-friendly! burgers, in town so I had to try it out. Conveniently, there's one downtown not far from my apartment. It was such a fun place! Not long after we were seated I looked up and realized that the ceiling is covered in toothpicks - then I promptly got hit with one. Lol. Apparently, people use their straws as a sort of dart gun to shoot toothpicks into the ceiling and they have an annual contest to see who can guess how many toothpicks are up there - how clever! Also, I'm happy to say, I was definitely pleased with my Southwest black bean burger. :-)

Now, back to why we headed to Branson, MO. Will's sister Jennifer and her family had spent the week in Eureka Springs, AR and were heading to Silver Dollar City on Saturday. Since, she was going to be in the area, Will and I made the trip to go visit and enjoy the amusement park of course! It was definitely an enjoyable time. :-)
Before we headed to the amusement park, Will and I went to this kitschy little breakfast place and shared a veggie omelet and some fantastic French toast. They are seriously generous with their coffee and they serve it in mismatched mugs. Which I love. I happened to get this one... lol.

Don't worry, I didn't get hitched this weekend! But perhaps someday I can deserve a similar mug. Haha.

.After the amusement park, we went to this restaurant called Lambert's which a few of my patients had recommended. They serve freshly baked rolls, only instead of serving them alongside your dinner plate, they throw them to you at your table! It was highly entertaining! Especially for Will's niece and nephew. :-) Oh, and I figured out why my vet's love the place so much! The portions are huge!! Plus, they have not only the roll throwers but also other servers who constantly round the dining room egging you on to take some of their tasty fried okra or fried potatoes or black-eyed peas.

Watch out for flying carbohydrates!

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. I am definitely missing my weekly farmer's market trip as my produce this week from Easy-Way just isn't the same. :-/ I'm so spoiled! The other night, I finished this book called The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It's the next book we'll be going over in book club. Basically, it follows one adolescent girl's fight for survival in these "hunger games" where she has to fight her peers from other "districts" to the death in this wilderness. It sounds intense, but it's not as gory as it sounds! Honestly, it took me a bit to get into it since this genre of literature is so out of the ordinary for me!

Cup"Cake"!

Lately, I've become a bit of a pinterest.com addict. I don't even know why I'm so mesmerized by this site, but I am. The other day I was seriously craving some chocolate and remembered seeing someone "pin" a cake you can make in a mug. Bingo! That's exactly what I needed. Here's the results:

It doesn't look like much... but it's good!

Cup"Cake"
Adapted from recipe from this blog
Ingredients:
-2 tablespoons flour
-1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
-2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
-1/4 teaspoon baking powder
-1 teaspoon leftover brewed coffee
-Pinch salt
-2 tablespoons milk
-1 teaspoon oil (I've been using canola)
-Drop of vanilla extract
Directions:
1. In your favorite mug combine the flour, Splenda, cocoa powder, baking powder, coffee crystals and salt until no lumps remain.  Stir in the milk, oil, and vanilla until smooth.
2. Bake in the microwave on high for 35 seconds.  It should look "set" on top and will still be gooey on the bottom. :-)
Top with whatever your little heart desires. I picked peanut butter (shocker! lol) and soaked it in a bit of milk. (I am so obsessed with soaking baked things in milk lately!) It's not going to taste exactly like a carefully prepared cake... it's kind of a cross between a cake and a brownie... but regardless, it still hits the chocolate-spot!
PS- Just for fun (since it's Friday!)...

I could totally see on of my patients doing this!

Ratatouille on Repeat

Ratatouille is a dish I've been wanting to try to make myself forever. I mean, it just sounds cool doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so. This weekend, I had bought a boatload of veggies from the market, so I decided to go for it! (With a bit of help from Will of course...)

Mid-Summer Ratatouille
Adapted from Mark Bittman's recipe in his book How to Cook Everything
Ingredients:
-1 medium eggplant
-4 small/medium tomatoes
-3-4 small summer squash
-1/2 large purple onion
-1 green bell pepper
-A couple of leaves of basil, chopped
-About 1/2 cup of olive oil
-Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place cast iron stock pot in oven to warm. Use a mandolin or your awesome knife skills to thinly slice all the vegetables so they are all about the same size.
2. Pull the warmed stock pot out of the oven and swirl a couple tablespoons of olive oil on the bottom. Add the veggies in layers (whichever order you like!).
3. Press the veggies down in the pot. Add the chopped basil, S+P, and the rest of the olive oil. Bake for up to an hour until the veggies are softened and nice and bubbly.
We served ours up with toasted pita spread with goat cheese. Yum!

Now that I had lots of leftovers from that big pot of ratatouille, I spent the rest of the week packing them in my lunch... in jars. :-)

Oatmeal in a jar, now ratatouille in a jar! I just have to come up with a dinner to cook/eat in a jar! :-)
In other news, I'm looking forward to this weekend! Will and I are going on a mini-vacation to Branson, MO. His sister and her family are going to be in the area so we are driving out to meet them and head to Silver Dollar City amusement park on Saturday. Fun times. Woot, woot. Hope ya'll have had a wonderful week!

Weekend Highlights

Here's a recap of a few of the things I did this weekend (plus a new recipe or two!):
-Attended my first bachelorette party!!! Which included one of my first rides in a limo. High rollin'! (Totally kidding.)
-Pet sitting as usual. :-) We had a lot of little yippy toy dogs this week. (Think Pomeranian and chihuahua.) Remind me never to buy a little dog. Ever.
-Farmer's market shopping! Will picked up this fun little fruit - called a "banana melon". We had it after dinner on Saturday. Honestly, it tasted just like cantaloupe... but it sure looked cool!

-Took a couple long, much-needed naps.
-Tackling a mountain of laundry.
-Met Emily to run on Mud Island and the streets of downtown.
-Completed an R-athon... ie. a (bike)Ride, Run, and Rollerblade! Yep. That's right. I said rollerblade! Will found a couple pairs of cheap rollerblades on Ebay a week or two ago. (And the funny thing was that mine had all the pads included!) On Sunday, I "padded up" with wrist, elbow, and knee pads and we hit the parking lot (feeling a lot like Young Frankenstein... or maybe that little kid that's all bundled up in The Christmas Story). Luckily I had no falls, but I do need a lot more practice! Will was so patient with me. :-) I'll have to get a picture of my "get-up" next time. I'm sure I looked hilarious.
-Watched The Help (based on the book I had blogged about a few weeks ago!) with the girls from book club. This movie was fantastic. Seriously.  I had trouble holding back tears for what felt like half the movie, it was that touching. Definitely one I'll want to see again!
-Shaksuka! Will introduced me to this hearty dish in Cleveland. At first I was skeptical. Eggs in tomato sauce? Umm... eww. But I was soon won over! On Saturday, we used a few of our market tomatoes to whip up a batch. Here's the recipe...

Shakshuka
(Inspired by this recipe from Smitten Kitchen)
Ingredients:
-4 medium-sized heirloom tomatoes
-1 medium yellow onion, chopped
-2-3 cloves garlic, diced
-2 tbsp butter
-2-4 dried adobo peppers (per your spicy-preferences)
-A few tsps of curry powder, paprika, adobo pepper powder, S+P (per your taste preferences)
-2-4 eggs
-Goat feta and fresh chopped basil for topping
Directions:
-For the tomatoes, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Cut out the tough top/middle of the tomato. Next, make 2 slits in the shape of an "X" on the bottom of the tomato with your knife. Plop your tomatoes in the pot of boiling water. Fish them out when the skins start to peel back from the cuts you had made. Place them in a bowl of ice water to chill a minute. Drain the water, then peel the skins from the tomatoes. Now, the fun part! Squish the tomatoes between your fingers until they become a soupy-like mess. Set aside.
-While you are boiling water for the tomatoes, heat a cast iron dutch oven over medium heat. Melt the butter in the pot. Add the chopped onion, garlic, and assorted spices. Cook until the onion is translucent/tender.
-Add the tomato "mess" to the onion mixture in the pot. Simmer until it begins to thicken.
-Once the sauce has been simmering/boiling for a bit and is seasoned to your liking, grab an egg. Crack the egg and gingerly drop it onto the surface of the sauce. Repeat with all of the eggs. Continue to simmer until the eggs start to poach on top of your sauce.
-Once the eggs have "poached" - grab a bowl and a spoon and enjoy!! We topped ours with a bit of goat feta and chopped basil. So delicious!

Hope y'all had a fun weekend! One more recipe to come tomorrow (I didn't want to share all my good eats at once!). It looks like this is going to be another busy week!

Breakfast for Dinner - Elvis Style!

Howdy!!
As I was driving home from work today I was thinking about what I wanted to make for dinner tonight and I had the worst craving for pancakes!!! Why not?! Breakfast for dinner. Heck yes! Plus, I had to top with bananas and peanut butter, it's Elvis Week after all. So, here's what happened...

I whipped up a few whole wheat pancakes and topped them with sliced bananas and a sweet yogurt-peanut butter "sauce". Now let me explain this sauce... I was feeling not so creative when it came to our last potluck so I just took fresh fruit and this dip which was super easy to prepare and sooo delicious!
Peanut Butter Yogurt Fruit Dip/Sauce
Ingredients:
-1/4 cup plain nonfat yogurt
-1-2 tbsp powdered sugar
-1 tbsp creamy peanut butter
Directions:
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and whip together with a whisk. Dip bananas, strawberries, apples, or whatever fruit you have on hand!

Hope you all have been having a great week! I know I have been having a busy, busy, busy one at work - but I like being busy!!! This weekend looks to be a fun one! I am going to my first bachelorette party - watch out Beale Street! Haha.

Eating Local Means Being Flexible

As the summer progresses, the offerings at the farmer's market have seasoned as well: spring greens, kale, raspberries, nuts, and plums have given way to sweet corn, squash, eggplant, figs, peaches, melons, and tomatoes! Therefore, my meals have had to adapt with the season since I have been trying to buy all of my produce (minus bananas!) at the market. Since salad greens can't take the heat, I had to come up with something to replace my usual lunch salad. Will had mentioned making a cucumber-tomato based salad so I ran with that idea yesterday. Here's the result. :-)

Dinner is Served!

Mid-summer Tomato-Cucumber Quinoa Salad
Ingredients:
-2 small cucumbers, chopped
-2 heirloom tomatoes, chopped
-2 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
-1/2 cup quinoa, cooked
-3 tbsp. balsamic vinaigrette
-2 tbsp. olive oil
-1 clove garlic, chopped
-3-4 fresh basil leaves, chopped
-Salt and pepper
Directions:
Combine all the ingredients well in a bit happy salad bowl and enjoy! It gets even better the next day after everything has had time to marinate together in the fridge. :-0
Now, I have a super easy lunch ready-to-go for me all week! Boo-yah!

Weekend Recap: 7 Things

1. Happy hour pretzel with queso + Cape Cod + a new sundress(!) + Art + Muddy's Cupcakes = Perfect recipe for a lovely Friday evening.  :-)

2. Running group on Saturday morning really kicked me the "arse"! Somehow, on runs, I have found myself at the front of the group. I know I'm not a fast runner, at all. I think it just happens to be that the group dynamic is such that the majority of people there are newbies, so I have a little bit of an advantage. Anyways, this Saturday I was at the front with one other girl named Sara and one older guy that is pretty fast. Sara and I assumed he knew the route, but we were wrong! We ended up making a few wrong turns and did a longer route at a pace much faster than I am used to. There were points when I seriously felt like I needed to slacken my pace or I'd keel over, but I stuck it out. In the end it felt great! I've been feeling for some time now that I need to be more challenged in my running - well Starrunners has given me that!
3. Playing couch potato with some good chick lit and HULU!!! With Will's laptop, I am so happy to have Hulu back in my life. I'm hooked on this new show called Love Bites.
4. A Southern meal I can actually enjoy! Last night, we made okra, BBQ catfish, and baked sweet potatoes. YUM! Compliments of the Memphis Farmers' Market of course. :-)

5. Red Velvet Cupcake yogurt at YoLo. Heaven in ice cream form!!!
6. Committing to do yoga everyday for the next 21 days... (more on that later!)
7. Enduring the Southern summer heat and humidity! I'm not kidding, some days I feel like all I do is get sweaty and shower, get sweaty and shower - a 2 shower day means I'm doing good! Haha.
Hope things are well with y'all and you are enjoying your weekend too!

I'm a "Star" Runner

As I may have mentioned briefly before, (but have failed to commit a whole post to) I have taken up running with this group in town called StarRunners.  There's about 50ish people (including me!) who signed up to train for the Cooper Young 4-Miler Race in September. The coach, Star, developed a training plan to transition a couch potato into a runner in about 8 weeks. It's been a lot of fun! I signed up mostly to have to opportunity to meet some new people and perhaps make some friends (like Emily. Hey Girl!). The one thing I didn't fully consider when I signed up was how much of a commitment meeting 5x's/week to run would be! The early morning runs are tough to wake up for, but I feel so great the whole day afterwards that it makes rolling out of bed at 5:15 AM a little bit better... maybe... The evening runs are no easier because you have to contend with the savage heat and humidity that is a Southern summer. Oi! Yet, despite it all, I really do enjoy myself!

Heat index of 105F? Bring it!

The only thing about these runs is that of late, I've been struggling with a bit of arch pain. :-( I had to buy a new pair of shoes and finally say goodbye to these guys...

You mean, your toes aren't supposed to poke out the side?!

I splurged a little and bought a pair of Saucony's since I know I'll be getting a lot of miles out of whatever pair I invested in. Plus, I thought spending a little more money might ensure that I'll be better protected against injury.

Guess I was wrong! These new shoes didn't have the support I needed, hence the development of achilles fascinitis (if I may self diagnose), so I had to invest in some fancy insoles as well. Oi. Star showed me some exercises to ease the pain and make sure to stretch my arch well. Rolling my foot over an iced water bottle has been the best at relieving the achiness! Slowly, it's been getting better! I've also been trying to take it a bit easier on my runs/rest times too. Trust me. I want to be injury free and ready to run the Cooper Young 4-miler! (And the St. Jude Half Marathon in January!)
Now it is off to work for me!!! TGIF!!

On the Menu

I thought I might catch you up on a few of the tasty things I have been munching on of late. :-)
Carrot Cake Overnight Oatmeal

It may look boring, but let me tell you, it's sooo tasty! You see, I had shredded too many carrots when I made those fiber-licious muffins I had told y'all about earlier. I saved the extra shreds and had a revelation when I opened my fridge later in the evening.I was staring at my leftovers trying to come up with "mix-ins" to put in my oatmeal for the morning. Lightbulb!!
In this bowl:
-1/4 cup of shredded carrots
-1/4 cup yogurt
-1/4 cup skim milk
-1/2 cup oats
-A few raisins
-A sprinkle of cinnamon
-A bit of honey swirled on top!
Yum, yum, yum!

Magical Color Changing String Beans

From Purple....

TO

Green!!!

I picked up these beans at the market the other week because... I mean, who wouldn't want to try purple beans? Plus, it's so much fun to see them change color as you steam them!

Thai-Spice Infused Curry!

Will picked up some new cast iron cookware this weekend and he invited me over to try out his new stock pot with a bit of curry. As usual, this one was chock full of veggies! This time around we included eggplant, green beans, red onion, and zucchini. Delish! 

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Zucchini (What?!) Bread

 I had picked up a few zucchini at the market the other week and they were neglected in my vegetable drawer because I just couldn't come up with anything creative to do with them whenever I was cooking dinner. So, I made them into dessert! :-) Of course! I used this recipe I found on tastykitchen.com. 

Ingredients:

-3 eggs

-1 cup vegetable Oil 

-2 cupsGranulated Sugar

-1 TablespoonVanilla

-2 cups Shredded Zucchini 

-1 ½ cups All-purpose Flour

-1 cup Whole Wheat Flour

-½ cupBaking Cocoa

-1 teaspoon Salt

-1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

-¼ teaspoons Baking Powder

-1 teaspoon Baking Soda

-1 cup Chocolate Chips

Directions: 

In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Stir in zucchini. In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and add it to the zucchini/egg mixture. Mix well. Pour into 2 well-greased loaf pans. Bake at 350F for 1 hour or until bread tests done.

Simple Spaghetti Squash Saute

I wanted to experiment a bit this week with a different veggie, so this little spaghetti squash caught my eye. :-) Here's how I fixed it!

Directions:

Cut spaghetti squash in half and place in shallow glass dish. Microwave for 6-8 minutes (or however long it takes your microwave to soften the squash). Remove seeds from squash. Use fork to scrape the insides of the squash, separating the "strands". Heat up a tablespoon (or so) of butter in a skillet. Add a clove of chopped garlic to melted butter in pan and cook a few seconds until fragrant. Add, squash strands to pan and saute until butter and squash are incorporated together. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and shredded cheese.  Enjoy!

PS- Want to know something wonderful that has made my life (and blogging especially!) so much better?! Will "indefinitely" loaned me one of his older laptops! (He's so sweet!) Let me tell you, it is infinitely better than mine! No more will I have to cross my finger while I am working on my computer hoping it doesn't overheat! Yippee!