Friday Five - trip to India

Wow, this week has flown by and it's been pretty busy catching up at work after being out of the office for more than 2 weeks.  I am so happy that it's Friday and am definitely looking forward to the weekend.  But first, it's time for the Friday Five link up with Cynthia, Mar and Courtney.

 Since I haven't had a chance to write about my trip yet, I thought I'd take the Friday Five to do just that.  So here are 5 things that stand out about my trip.

1.  Time hanging out with family - I have a lot of family in India and since this trip was for a wedding, it was a great opportunity to have time to catch up with everyone.  Almost all my cousins were in one place at one time, which is a rare thing.  I also got the chance to meet some spouses and fiancees that I hadn't met before.  Lots of fun ensured including multiple late nights staying up talking and playing games.

And of course, lot of selfies being taken :)

2. Bonding with kids - I also had the opportunity to spend time with several of my cousins' kids.  I really enjoyed this time bonding with the next generation!

3.  Great food - So much amazing food everywhere!  At one point my brother mentioned that he felt like we were eating every hour and he wasn't necessarily wrong.  There was a lot of amazing food associated with the wedding but then we also went out to a lot of really great restaurants.  And the food at the hotel in Goa on the beach was amazing!  The executive chef introduced himself to us the first evening and sent out special vegetarian food made for us every evening.

4.  Wedding festivities - weddings in India are multi-day events and it was so much fun to be a part of that.  I haven't been to a wedding in India since I was a kid so it was fun taking part as an adult.  Here are some photos of wedding fun.

 

Me and my brother waiting for the wedding to start

 

 

The groom in his horse drawn carriage, with a glimpse of me across from him

 

My mom and I showing off our henna

 

Pre-wedding dancing

 

Male cousins posing during the wedding

 

 

My cousin, my brother and I at the reception

 

The bride and groom walking into the reception

And I even had 15 seconds of fame with my photo ending up in the newspaper! That's me in the pink and green.

5.  Relaxing at the beach - As fun as the wedding was, it was really hectic.  It was a lot of late nights and early mornings.  So it was great to go with some cousins to Goa after the wedding.  Goa is mostly known for the beach and this was a relaxing vacation.  Carnival was going on while we were there so we also took some time to go see the carnival parade but other than that, it was mostly hanging out at the pool, the beach, and the spa.  There was a lot of drinking local wine, local beer, and indulging in the aforementioned food.

So that's a glimpse into my time away.  I'm excited for this weekend coming up since I'm trying aerial yoga for the first time tomorrow (!) and doing my first double race on Sunday, a 5k and 10k themed for St. Patrick's Day. Hopefully both will be fun.  I hope all of you have a great weekend too!

Weekly Review RnR DC - Week 10

I'm back from India!  I flew back to DC Saturday afternoon and it was an interesting experience since we landed in a snow storm.

Coming from this

To this was a bit of a shock!

The pilot was great and the landing was surprisingly smooth.  Unfortunately, they had a difficult time getting the bags to the terminal so that process took an extra couple hours. And it took Mike 4 hours to get to the airport when it should have taken an hour at the most. We ended up deciding to get a hotel room near the airport instead of dealing with the drive home during the storm.

I'll do a review of my trip later but here's a summary of my training while I was gone.  Sadly, I didn't get any long runs in but I did ok given how hectic the trip was.

The first week we stayed at a place that was similar to a country club so it had both an outdoor track and a gym.  I managed to get in a short track run, a gym session where I did 20 minutes each on the treadmill, elliptical and bike, and a Jillian Michael's yoga session in my room.

The second week was at a resort on the beach.  I got in two treadmill runs, swam laps in the pool one day, and got in another Jillian Michael's yoga work out.

Surprisingly, the pool was often empty so it was easy to swim laps in it.

Sunday was supposed to be back to my training group for a long run.  But they ended up cancelling it due to the weather.  And I probably wouldn't have been able to make it anyway since we had stayed at a hotel by the airport.  So it was another short run on the treadmill instead.

I hope everyone had a great couple weeks!  I'm looking forward to getting back to my routine and catching up with everyone's blogs.

Tasty Tuesday - Indian Spiced Cashews

Last week I talked about the healthy dips we made for a party.  One of the other things I made was some spiced cashews.  This was super easy and tasted amazing.  And the best part is that you really can tailor it to your choice of spices based on your tastes and what you have on hand.

A spice blend I always have on hand is garam masala.  It's an Indian spice blend which contains things like cinnamon, cloves, and peppercorns.

I mixed together 2 cups of cashew with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon of garam masala, 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika.  I also added about a teaspoon of salt.  Mix together until the cashews are well coated and spread on a baking pan.

Bake in 325 degree oven for 30 minutes, taking the pan out to mix every 10 minutes.

We also had a cheese plate and a fruit plate out to round out our party offerings.

I'm linking up with Lean Lena for Tasty Tuesday and will be linking up with Deborah and Tina for Meatless Mondays.

Tasty Tuesday - healthy party dips

We had a party a couple weeks ago and while it wasn't a dinner party, we wanted to have some nosh-y foods available, with plenty of healthy options. When I think of party foods, dips come to mind.  So I found some recipes for healthy dips from Cooking Light and altered them a bit.

The first dip was sun-dried tomato, roasted garlic and white bean.   

1 whole garlic head

1/4 cup water

Sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil

1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 (15.8-ounce) can Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained

The first step is to roast the garlic.  Pre-heat the oven to 375. I cut off the top of the head of garlic, leaving the whole thing together. Then I wrapped it in foil and put it in the oven for 45 minutes. When I took it out, the garlic was soft so we could squeeze the cloves directly into the food processor bowl.

While the garlic was roasting, I rinsed and drained the beans and put them in the food processor bowl.

Then I took out the sun dried tomatoes from the oil and put them in the food processor bowl along with 2 tablespoons of the oil left in the jar.

Put in all the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Add water as needed to get to the consistency you want.

And voila, the end product!

The other dip was a green goddess dip.   

2 cups spinach

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves

1/4 cup canola mayonnaise

1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1/2 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

Sriracha sauce to taste

This one is super easy.  Just toss everything into the food processor and blend until smooth.

Both of these are best if they're made at least a couple hours in advance and chilled so the flavors can meld. I served them with raw veggies and chips.  And don't worry, we didn't limit our guests to just healthy foods :) Mike baked cookies and brownies as well.

I'm linking up with Lean Lena for Tasty Tuesday and will be linking up with Deborah and Tina for Meatless Mondays.

Flying out

Today's the day I'm flying to India!  I'm spending the day at work and going straight to the airport so hopefully I'll be tired enough to get some sleep on the plane.  I've scheduled some posts for while I'm gone but I might not be around much online until I'm back in the country.  I look forward to catching up with everyone then :)

Here's a photo of Mike and I on our last trip to India.  Mike's staying at home with the kitties this time.  I'll miss them but I'm also looking forward to the trip.  I hope you all have a great couple weeks!

Tasty Tuesday - Apple Nachos

We had a couple people over to watch the Super Bowl. We made nachos, standard game food with black beans, cheese, and a bunch of fixings.  But we also wanted something sweet which wasn't going to be super unhealthy. So I searched the internet and I learned about the concept of apple nachos. This sounded perfect!

If you haven't heard of this, it's basically apple slices serving as chips and topped with your choice of sweet additions. We went with peanut butter, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and chopped pecans.  The only part that seemed difficult was getting the apple slices to be a consistent size that would serve well as a chip.

So we pulled out the mandoline.  We out it at the 1/4 inch setting and Mike went to work making the slices. We used 4 apples since we were going to have 4 people.

We had also set up a mixing bowl filled halfway with water and the juice of half a lemon.  As Mike finished the slices, he tossed them in the lemon water so the apple slices wouldn't brown.

Once the slices were all in the lemon water, we heated 4 tablespoons of peanut butter in the microwave for about a minute so that it could be drizzled over the apples.  We arranged one layer of apple slices, drizzled on some peanut butter, and tossed on some chocolate chips and butterscotch chips. 

Then we kept layering until the apple slices were done.  We topped with the oceans and it was delicious!  I was surprised at how well the apple slices worked as the chips.

I'm linking up with Lean Lena for Tasty Tuesday and will be linking up with Deborah and Tina for Meatless Mondays.

Weekly Review RnR DC - Week 7

This week started out well but kind of fizzled at the end :(

Monday - rest day

Tuesday - strength training (jumping jacks, squats, calf raises, clam shells, planks, glute bridges and side planks)

Wednesday - track workout with the running group, this was a great run though cold.  We started with a mile warm up, a 400, an 800, a 1200 and a 1600.  I was trying to turn my watch off during the recovery and I forgot to turn it back on, I think on the 800.

Thursday - I ran on the treadmill after work and felt pretty good.

Friday - rest day

Saturday - DDP Yoga, Below the Belt

Sunday - I skipped my long run Sunday morning.  I was super congested and felt like I was having a hard time breathing.  I slept badly and actually had to get up in the middle of the night to take a puff of my inhaler.  So when my alarm went off at 6am, I just couldn't do it. But I did feel better in the afternoon so I managed to get in some time on the elliptical.

So the plan for this week is a run on Monday, yoga on Wednesday, and the track on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are travel days so not much activity. I'm hoping to manage yoga on Saturday and then a run in Sunday.  I'm hoping to do 10 miles since that's what I should have done this week.  I might only get to 12 miles before the RnR half but hopefully that will be enough. This training cycle hasn't gone as I wanted given the foot problems earlier and today's missed long run.