Teaser

OK. It's been a long, indulgent week and a half of wonderful time with my Mama - who is also my best friend - traveling the Midwest and the South, creating new recipes together, road tripping, and eating some very authentic Korean food. However, all good things must come to an end, and this morning I'll be taking my Mom to the airport and coming home to catch up on a number of job-related tasks that built up over the last week. 


As promised, the triple chocolate toffee cookie recipe is coming - I've made it twice in the past week for friends and family, but as I was making it with some of our friends, I was more focused on the cooking part than the "taking pictures" part. Nonetheless, I will still post the recipe and some great tips. 


I also took some great shots of the mountains in Georgia, where I was able to do quite a bit of running and hiking.  The altitude wasn't nearly as severe as Colorado, but it was still enough to give me just a little more of a workout than I'd get at sea level.


With all of that, I'm going to leave you with this picture for now - something my Mama cooked that was amazingly simple to make, but more flavorful than anything we'd have ordered in a restaurant :)  Recipe to follow...New York Strip with lemon pepper char and chipotle shrimp :)

Been too long!

OK - so I'm usually pretty good about updating this blog, but between doing a ton of Air Force stuff this week (note to self: service dress blues simply will never look, fit, or feel the same way as a civilian business suit, and one should not be crestfallen one when looks into the mirror and admits this fact after 2 years out of the uniform), having my Mom come into town, and heading out on a girls' road trip, it's been crazy!

However, a few things: one, I started back up on my training for my next race and it's going smashingly. Sometime after finishing my last race, I realized that I have no excuses to stop on a run - unless I'm injured or sick, obviously - because I've proven to myself that I CAN do it, and therefore, owe it to myself and to my training to finish what I start. This "mental breakthrough" of sorts has been instrumental in me succeeding at my first bout of speedwork for this next race, and I intend to write much more on the topic.  My first experiments with speedwork have been doing one-mile 5K pace repeats...as a 5K race pace is much, much faster than a half-marathon pace, these have really been helpful.  Next up - fartleks.  Might be a word you don't like to say out loud, but they're great for picking up the speed :)

Secondly, I've really started getting into the creation of new desserts, so I will be posting a great recipe on how to make triple chocolate toffee cookies - they're the size of bakery cookies and just as delicious, and very easy to make....you just have to buy a lot of ingredients, because like the name says, they use three different types of chocolate.  I'm also experimenting with shortbread - it's the kind of cookie where you can make a ton of different flavors with very basic core ingredients of flour, sugar, and butter, so I'm looking forward to posting about that here. 

Now you can see why I have to counteract the cooking of the blog with the running of the blog, yes?  

Food Blog: Chicken Cordon Bleu Redux and Asparagus with baby Portobellos and sun-dried tomatoes

Today's blog focuses on a complete meal - Chicken Cordon Bleu (adapted from Tyler Florence, I admit that I take it easier on the butter and olive oil than he does to cut fat, and I use a little less cheese as well), along with my own creation of fresh asparagus stir fried with fresh baby Portobello mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes for a punch.

Food Blog: Sun-dried Tomato Marinade

As promised, there is a marinade recipe that goes along with the post from this week's pasta dish.  As I had already made it and had the chicken soaking in the marinade, I didn't have any pictures, but I thought I would still go ahead and post the recipe.  Here's what I used:

Food Blog: Penne with Butternut Squash, Goat Cheese, and Walnuts

OK - so while I mentioned long ago in this blog that I absolutely love to cook, I noticed that I have yet to write about it.  I think food is an important part of this blog, however, for one of many reasons - as a runner, I love to eat. I follow a fairly specific diet to fuel myself for each run (especially the long ones and the races), and so I'm always looking for healthy, light, complex-carb laden meals that will actually taste good.  Every now and then, I create a new recipe, and I will feature one of those later on this blog.  

ZOMG I love racing!

Sometimes, there aren't words for how awesome something is. However, I'm going to attempt to use words here to describe how incredible my race was yesterday.  As those of you who read this know, I signed up for the Notre Dame Holy Half Marathon and ran it yesterday. So, this blog details what it was like, as well as three very memorable TODs that kept me going.  Truth be told, my entire playlist was on fire, I put all of the songs in a perfect order the night before and they all played right on time and as I thought I'd need them throughout the run...but there were, of course, a few standouts. 

Track of the Day

Yesterday I went for a nice 4.5 mile run on the treadmill due to lots of wind and rain outside. I don't mind running in the rain, per se, but I'd like to avoid it in this last week before the race just in case I get myself sick.  I'm hoping that next Sunday yields some of the gorgeous weather we've been having as of late, but now that it's April and spring is in bloom, I fear that there might be some rainstorms in store for me - there certainly were last year, according to the photos I've looked at of races past.


Running on the treadmill has become very routine for me - I think I would have gone much longer, but the combination of having a smoothie from Steak n' Shake and just being bored made it a shorter run than I was thinking it'd be.  Also? It's hard to find a TOD when you're already motivated. Therefore, I'll just say that the TOD from yesterday was a song I love to listen to when I'm running, and be thankful for the fact that I didn't need any additional bursts of energy to get through the run itself.