Weekly Food

It's Friday!  This iweek went by really quickly.  I'm not sure why but I'm not going to complain about that :)  I hope everyone else had a good week!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and share the food we ate this week.

We kept the food pretty simple this week.  We started with brunch over the weekend.  We had ordered some fresh bagels (they were so good!) so I had a breakfast sandwich on a bagel with vegan cheese and avocado. 

A friend cooked dinner for us at the beginning of the week and it was a pasta casserole with plenty of spinach.  It was delicious and we had it with salad.

Then there was fried rice with sesame roasted broccoli.  This was pretty basic and I didn't even use a recipe.  I kind of just threw things in until it tasted the way I wanted.  Thankfully that worked out really well this time and everyone was a fan :)

Our meal for the weekend is going to be cauliflower tacos, I'll report back on those next week.  We're also treating ourselves to a special take out deal.  A local catering company is doing curbside pick up for meals as a pivot since there aren't really large events going on.  We have a 3 course meal ordered tonight and it was only $22 per person.  I'm looking forward to it!

I'd love to hear about any fun meals you all have tried recently :)

 

Weekly Food

It's finally Friday!  This is another week that seemed to drag and just take forever.  I hope everyone else had a good week!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up.

 

I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about our weekly food again.  Thankfully, we didn't have any food fails this week :)   We continued our weekend brunch tradition on Sunday and since we had tomatoes that needed to be used up, we made a bravas sauce to go with the potatoes.  And Mike had made little mini biscuits we had frozen so we baked some up for this meal.  It was delicious!

And since we had bravas sauce left over, we used it for our Spring Vegetable Buddha Bowl the next day.  I mostly followed the recipe but just used the bravas sauce instead of the sauce in the recipe.

We kept the middle of the week easy with a couple nights of make your own pizza and salad.  I was trying to use up some random stuff so my pizza was vegan cheese, broccoli slaw, onion, jalapenos and avocado.  Sounds really strange but it ended up being pretty tasty.

And then it ended up being really warm today.  To celebrate the Summer  feel, we scrapped our plan for peanut stew and made a vegan nicoisse salad (chickpeas instead of tuna) instead.  This was pretty easy to throw together and really good.  We skipped the beets since we didn't have any but I think we pretty much followed the recipe for everything else.  I can see us making this several times over the Summer.

So those were our meals for the week.  It was all delicious and pretty easy for the most part.  I hope you all had some great meals too!

 

Weekly food

I hope everyone had a good week!  I'm happy that it's finally Friday.  I don't know why but this week really seemed to drag for me.  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up.

 

I'm using this time to talk about food again.  Though we only had two dinners made at home this week given that we had a snafu with one of our planned meals. We had planned on eggplant parmesan at the beginning of the week but the grocery store was apparently out of eggplant.  So we didn't get any in our delivery.  Sadly, we didn't notice the eggplant was missing until right as we were about to make dinner.  So we ended up ordering from a local restaurant instead.

But the other meals we had this week were pretty delicious.  Mike grilled one day and they had steak while I had a beyond sausage.  We also grilled veggies in a foil packet and had corn with a lemon thyme butter to go along with it.  It was a delicious meal!  And I had the leftover beyond sausages for lunches throughout the week.

We also made another grain bowl.  This one was roasted sweet potatoes, chickpeas and kale with a tahini maple sauce.  I used this recipe from Mimimalist Baker as a starting point, served it over rice, and everyone seemed to love it.  This sauce is definitely a keeper.

I'm pretty happy with how food is going during the self isolation.  We've settled into a good routine of everyone on their own for breakfasts and lunches.  That generally means oatmeal and avocado toast for breakfast for me and hummus sandwiches for lunch.  And Sunday brunch of eggs and potatoes (which are an opportunity to use up any veggies that need used up), something Mike bakes, and mimosas. 

And we've still been finding interesting recipes to try out for dinners so we haven't gotten bored yet.  And given that it's been almost two months, I'm pretty happy with that!  I definitely think we're going to be able to keep up with more dinners at home even after all of this is over, which is a positive. 

I'd love to hear of any changes you've made recently that you think you'll be keeping!

Weekly Food

Forgot it was Friday again but hey, I remembered before the end of the day!  That means it's still Friday and I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up.

I only have two dinners to share this week.  I haven't made the third meal yet so I'll share that in next week's food post.  But the good news is that the two meals we made were super delicious!  Breakfasts have been oatmeal or avocado toast for me.  And lunch has been hummus sandwiches or sandwiches with chao vegan cheese.  This is my first time I'm trying chao and I'm amazed and how much they taste like cheese.

Our first dinner for the week was bbq tofu bowls.  This was sooo good!  We used this recipe from Pinch of Yum as the starting point.  And we used the honey mustard sauce they recommended.  The flavors all worked so well together!  We had rice, bbq tofu, roasted sweet potatoes, slaw, cucumbers, radishes and the honey mustard sauce.

The second meal of the week was somehow even more delicious!  It was polenta slices topped with spring vegetables.  I didn't really have a recipe for this, I just kind of made it up as I went along.  And I kind of regret that because I didn't write anything down and that means I probably won't be able to recreate it.  It was basically onions, peppers, radishes, green beans and mushrooms cooked in white wine and then I added the left over honey mustard sauce.  I added some fresh thyme at the end.  It's so simple but everyone ended up loving it.  We served it with a salad on the side.

So that was it for the week!  I hope you all had a week full of delicious meals too!

Weekly Food

It's Friday!  And that means time to share what we ate this week.  I hope everyone had a good week.  This week went pretty slow for me for some reason.  I'm not sure why but the days seemed to crawl by.  And this is the end of 5 weeks of social isolation for us so that may be part of the reason time seemed so slow.  But thankfully it's finally Friday so I'm also joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up.

Meals turned out pretty well this week and thankfully there were no mess ups or duds.  There were a couple things we had to improvise on but it all turned out ok.

The week started out with burrito bowls.  The base was rice and black beans cooked with onions, peppers and corn.  Everyone had the toppings of their choice.  There was no recipe for this one, we just winged it.

We had initially planned on more barbecue tofu during the middle of the week.  But we weren't able to get tofu.  And for some reason, we got twice the number of eggs we were expecting.  And we still had pitas that needed to be used up.  So we went with a weird mash up of a banh mi style egg pita sandwich.  And we served it with some frozen onion rings that we found deep in the freezer.

And the last meal for the week was a vegan mac and cheese.  Originally we had planned to include broccoli in the dish but the broccoli had gone bad :(  Oh well, it was a dinner without veggies but it was also really delicious.  This is the first time I tried to make a vegan mac and cheese and I was surprised how easy it was and how delicious it was.  Both Mike and Joy felt like it tasted like the real thing.  The sauce was a little gritty so I think the only change I would make next time is adding some non-dairy milk when blending the sauce to smooth it out more.  But this is definitely a keeper and I'll be making it again.   Hopefully with the broccoli next time.

So those were our dinners for the week!  And they all made enough to have leftovers for dinner the next day.  I appreciate not having to cook dinner every day.  How were everyone else's dinners this week?
 

Weekly Food

I hope you are all doing well!  We continue to stay at home for the most part and it's hard to keep track of the days.  But I just realized that it's Friday!  I'm keeping with my recent weeks and sharing what we've been eating this week.  I'm also joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up.

We've gotten into a tradition of making brunch for Sundays at home.  This week was vegan pancakes, scrambled eggs and roasted potatoes.  We were out of sparkling wine so we went with screwdrivers instead of mimosas. We also had some pizza delivered form a local pizzeria on the weekend.

We started out the weekdays with Barbecue Tofu pita pockets.  These were delicious, and pretty easy to make.  Get a good barbecue sauce because that the main flavoring. We had them with tater tots because tots are always a good addition.  We've been making everything with enough for two meals so we cook every other day and have leftovers on the non-cooking days.

Then we had pasta with mushrooms and kale in pesto, served with a salad.  This was delicious and there's no recipe.  Just saute the veggies, cook the pasta, and combine it all with some store bought pesto that we already had.  Added benefit, it was about to pass it's use by date next month so we used it just in time :)

The plan for the weekend is a cauliflower curry, no photos to share of that one yet but I'll share it on next week's post :)

So that's my week in food!  I hope your week was delicious too.

 

Weekly Food

It's Friday, finally!  This week has felt like it's lasted forever. I'm keeping with the trend of recent Fridays and sharing what we've been eating this week.  I'm also joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up.

 

It's been another week of staying home for the most part.  I've only been out of the house once, in order to get allergy meds since that's become a necessity.   I've also been out for walks or runs in the neighborhood.  The lack of commuting time helps with time to cook :)

I baked a vegan banana bread over the weekend.  I added chocolate chips and it turned out delicious!  The weekend also included a fancy brunch that we made for ourselves, complete with mimosas.  We had also ordered delivery from Nando's to indulge with a meal we hadn't cooked ourselves.

For dinners, there was a chickpea and pasta dish that was super easy, pretty cheap, and had just a few ingredients.  I was surprised at how delicious it ended up being!

We also made a lentil and sweet potato chili in the slow cooker.  This also turned out delicious, and it was probably one of the last weeks that it won't be too warm to eat this type of food.

We also had some meals from a meal kit that the friend who's sheltering in place with us contributed.  We were able to add salads and stretch them from 3 meals to 2 meals pretty easily.  It included a pasta dish that I was able to use some leftover spinach in and burgers for the meat eaters (I have veggie burgers in the freezer for my part).

So that's it for this week!  I'd love to hear about any fun recipes you've used recently :)

 

Gym alternatives

I hope everyone has had a good week!  For some reason, the week has felt really long for me.  But I'm glad it's finally Friday!  And I'm taking the opportunity to join up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up to talk about alternatives to the gym.

I've mentioned before that the branch of the gym that was closest to me closed at the end of December. The good news is that there are still three other branches relatively close.  But I've explored the other branches and haven't loved them.  2 of them don't seem great about upkeep.  The third one is really nice but it's just a little bit further and parking isn't as easy there.  So I'm contemplating whether to make some changes.  Here are some things I'm considering.

1.  Continue with the same gym membership and just suck it up.  I can go to the nice branch and it's really not that far.  It's 20-25 minutes instead of 10 minutes away.  I do like that they have a variety of fitness classes as well as being able to use the treadmill or the elliptical.

2.  Put together a home gym.  We could look into getting a treadmill or maybe a peleton bike for the house.  Mike said that all he uses the gym for is the treadmill anyway.  He doesn't use any of the classes.  And there are plenty of yoga and strength training videos I've found online that I can use that for my extra workouts.  The advantage with this option of course is that you can't beat the convenience of being able to work out in your own home!  It would be nice to be able to just go to the basement and not have to worry about driving to the gym.  But I might miss the option of the classes.

 

I did enjoy the peleton the couple times I tried it at hotel gyms

3.  The third option is look into studio classes.  I enjoyed the Zengo classes I was taking for a while and there is a new Orange Theory Fitness studio coming to my town.  The advantage here would be variety and the fun classes.  But the disadvantage would be that I would be tied to the studio's class schedule and couldn't work out at a time it was most convenient for me.  Also, I wouldn't really have a treadmill available when I just needed to get in a run during bad weather.  Plus, it would be a more expensive option if both of us wanted to do this.

 

I also really liked the fun classes at Zengo

I could also do a combination of 2 and 3, I guess.  We could set up a home gym and then I could just pay for an individual class when I was craving some sort of group fitness option.  I tend not to really do classes when I'm training for a race anyway and do them more often when I'm not training.  And I don't know that Mike would be interested in the classes.

But the good news is that I have plenty of time to decide.  There's no rush and the gym option works fine for now.  I want to research all the options that are out there before really deciding.  If you've set up a home gym, I'd love to learn about how you decided and what you outfitted the gym with!

 

 

Gratitude

One of the things I wanted to make sure to do this year is take note of the good things in my life and pay attention to all that I have to be thankful for. I'm joining Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up to talk about things that have happened this week that I'm grateful for.

 

1.  Mike put up this display of my marathon medal and I love it!

   

2. Mike also won free tickets to a screening of Birds of Prey.  It was a fun movie, though the violence level was a little graphic for me.  

3. I'm thankful for my dodging skills.  Shelby pushed a knife off the counter yesterday and it almost hit my foot!  I'm not sure if she was aiming for me or Perry.  Thankfully, we both escaped without injury :)

4. There's a new Star Wars app that came out that let's you make silly photos with Star Wars characters and I've been having a lot of fun with it :)

And I'm thankful that it's almost the weekend!  It's been a hard week at work so I'm especially glad for a bit of a break.  Anything you're really thankful for this week?  I'd love to hear about it.

Winter Hains Point 5k

Well, I posted a couple weeks ago that one of my goals for 2020 was to do more local races.  And the first one was supposed to be the Winter Hains Point 5k on January 26th.  Sadly, the race didn't happen but I did want to share the experience.  I'm joining Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up to talk about how the morning went.

So we had found a cheap hotel room downtown and stayed there Saturday night.  This was Mike's first 5k that he had trained for so I wanted to make it as easy as possible.  We had an early dinner and an early night so we would be refreshed for the morning.

 

And some wine tasting with dinner

The race started at 8am and was only a 10 minute Lyft ride away.  We got up at 6:30 and called the car at 7:15.  So we were at the race start by 7:30.  There was no packet pick up in advance so we had to pick up that morning.  But it went smoothly and we were able to get our bibs and shirts with no problem.  Of course, we had no where to put the shirts so we just wore them over our existing shirts and under our jackets.

 

The shirt design is pretty cute, with runners going past the Lincoln Memorial statue

It was cold that day but not too bad.  It was in the low 30s but with a feels like temperature in the mid 20s. The race was a 5k and 10k, and I had looked up the course in advance so knew that the 10k was just 2 looks of the 5k course.  We realized that something was probably wrong when we saw the police talking to the race organizers right at the 8am start time.  Long story short, it turns out that the course was flooded from the rain the day before.

The race organizers knew that and had planned an altered course to avoid the flooded area.  This would have been a shorter course that would be 2 loops for the 5k and 4 loops for the 10k.  It would have been kind of congested but fine.  Unfortunately, that's not what their permit was set up for.  The police were indicating that they couldn't let the race go on the altered course.  This was all explained to the runners at 8am, i.e. the time the race should have started.

 Pretty sunrise while we waited

The organizers were trying to work with the police to get approval from their supervisors for the altered course.  But there was still no answer by 8:20.  And by that point, we had already been waiting in the cold for 50 minutes.  We pulled up Google Maps and saw that it would be about 2.5 miles back to our hotel in a pretty scenic part of the city.  I realized we could just add some more scenic sections and make it our own 5k while heading back to the hotel.  So that's what we decided to do.  And we ended up throwing out any thoughts of racing for time given our cold muscles and the fact that I knew we'd have to stop and check the map a couple times on the way.

So we just had fun, took photos, and enjoyed the morning as we did our own, personal 5k.  We did pretty well with the course as we hit 3.1 miles when we were only 4 miles away from the hotel. And then we still had plenty of time to get dressed and make it to our brunch reservation in time!

 

Yum!  The brunch buffet had lots of salads as well as grapefruit brulee, and roasted carrots

We definitely made the right decision because the race did end up cancelled after they were not able to get approval to change the course.  The race company did email us a code that we could use for free registration at one of their other races this year so that wasn't a complete loss either.

Here are some photos of the sights we saw during our run.

So even though the race didn't work out, I think we made the best of the situation and still had fun!  And I guess that's a good lesson for Mike as someone new to races. You can't control all the factors on race day but you can make the best of what the day gives you.

2020 Races

One of my goals for the year was to get back to doing more races, especially local and/or low cost races.  So I've begun researching for the first half of the year to get some races on my calendar. 

I'm joining Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and talk about what I have so far!

January - 2020 Winter Hains Point 5k.  The first race will be next weekend!  It's a local 5k that was only $25.  It's in DC and down by the river so hopefully it will have some pretty scenery.  Mike and I are doing this one together since it is at the point in his training plan where he's gotten to 3 miles.

February - Kensington Park Run.  I've discovered that there's a park run really close to me!  So I'm planning to check them out some point in February.  It is a 5k every Saturday and it's free. 

March - Montgomery County Road Runner's Piece of Cake 5k - I did this one several years ago.  It's hilly and often rainy but it's  a fun race.  It's also the club's anniversary so there's always cake afterward :)  It's also free for club members.

 

 

From when I did this race back in 2015

April - Star Wars 5k and 10k at Disney World.  This is the big race Mike is training for!  This one, of course, is neither local or low cost but I'm sure it will be lots of fun.

I'm also doing a 10k for time in April, the Pike's Peek 10k.  I did this race a couple years ago but the course has changed a bit since then so I'm looking forward to it.  It's really close to my house so the logistics shouldn't be too bad, even though it's a point to point.  And they always have a fun after party with lots of food.

 

 

2015 is the last time I did this race too

May - Memorial 4 Miler - This is another road runner's race that's free to members.  It's also less than half a mile from my house.  I did it a couple years ago and just jogged over to the start as my warm up.  

June - Suds and Soles 5k - This is a local 5k that I haven't tried yet!  I've always been out of town this weekend for some reason but I should be in town this year.  This is an evening race and has lots of local craft breweries at the after party.  

So those are my race plans for the first half of the year!  I'd love to hear what you have coming up :)

2020 Goals

The first full work week of 2020 is almost done!  It's seemed like a long week but I did take some time to think about my goals for 2020.  I'm joining Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and talk about how my plans for 2020.

1. Half marathon - I haven't run a half since December of 2018, more than a year!  I want to get back to half marathon shape and run one this year.

 

Fun half in Baltimore in December 2018

2. More local races - I hardly did any races at all last year, to be honest.  I did the Disney Marathon in January and the 10k in Annapolis in June.  That was it.  And I think that was the right choice for me last year, but I know I've always enjoyed the race atmosphere.  I want to get back to doing more races this year.  And that doesn't mean spending a ton of money.  I have several low cost or free local races that I should take advantage of.

 

May 2018 was the last time I did a local race!

3. More blogging- Yikes!  Work has been pretty busy and for a lot of last year, I only had one blog post per week.  And that's just been my weekly review.  I want to get back to posting 2-3 times per week this year.

4. 6 non-fiction books - I've been doing this one a couple years in a row but I really like it so I'm keeping it for 2020.  It motivates me to read more non-fiction then I would otherwise read.  I'm currently working on reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.

5. Continue food prep and record recipes - I was pretty good about food prep toward the end of last year and I want to continue that this year.  I also want to make sure I start posting about recipes I like so that I can find them again in the future.  I would like to post a recipe to the blog at least once per month.

So those are my goals for 2020!  The start of a new year is always exciting and full of possibility, I hope to keep the motivation going throughout the year :)  I'd love to hear about any goals you have for the year.