WIAW Two Weeks In A Row…

I am managing to do a WIAW post two weeks in a row this time! AND I actually have some food that I ate, and I thought I would throw out a soup recipe that I am loving because it is Freaking Freezing here today! Seriously, it was almost 80 degrees on Monday and it was 22 degrees when I got to work this morning. It’s like Mother Nature is bipolar!

A couple of weeks ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to make macaroons. I made up a batch of dark chocolate ones with chocolate ganache filling and realized I had NO IDEA what they were supposed to taste like. Don’t get me wrong, I think they tasted fabulous, but I also think that chocolate ganache would make cardboard edible.

After a little research I found Dana’s Bakery and ordered a dozen macaroons for taste testing.

These were good, but I wasn’t a big fan of the sweet potato. (Crazy, I know!) I can’t wait to do a little more experimenting with macaroons.

On the advice of my sister, Josh and I started reading a book called The Fast Diet. If you aren’t familiar with it, you fast two days a week, and on the fast days you consume 500 calories (600 for men). While I am not done reading the book, I am fascinated with the science and the benefits to things like cholesterol. I inherited high cholesterol and I am willing to work hard to lower my bad cholesterol if it means I don’t have to be on medication the rest of my life.

This is one of my 500-ish calorie meals, veggie soup with a grilled cheese. This happens to be one of my favorite meals of all time. Soup and grilled cheese.

I was in the mood for sliders the other day, so I whipped up a batch of sweet potato/quinoa/navy bean burgers. Perfect with a little pickle and tomato.

One of my favorite things right now is being able to just grab homemade soup, or beans, or orzo pasta right out of the freezer and throwing it in my lunch in the morning.

This is my favorite soup right now, and I am about due to make another pot to throw in the freezer. It’s so easy and so tasty.

Sweet Potato, Barley and Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Sauté onion, carrot, celery, red pepper in a little olive oil. Add some garlic and chopped sweet potatoes. Sauté a few minutes more and then throw in veggie stock (I usually do two 4 cup boxes). Bring to a boil and simmer until the sweet potatoes are nice and soft. Add either navy beans or chick peas (I usually do a couple of cans.) and then blend until smooth. Simmer a little longer and then add a cup or so of barley. Once the barley is cooked, add some roasted cauliflower.

I like to simmer it a while longer, because who doesn’t love the smell of homemade soup simmering on the stove? I divide it between individual sized Tupperware containers and throw them in the freezer. I either pop one in the fridge the night before I want it, or just throw it in with my lunch in the morning and microwave it when I’m ready. Couldn’t be simpler!

So there you have it, I’ve had some good eats this week! I thought I would leave you with Rocky, looks like he was laying down when he was eating his dinner the other day.

It’s a rough life!

On The Road...

Blogging from the road. We have been on the road for approximately 16 minutes and we are already on the turnpike. 

We are headed to Tulsa tonight to drop off this guy. 

He is being amazingly calm with his sister Penny. They are going to have their own vacay at the Doggie Do in Grove with Aunt Connie. Fun times!

There is also a concert happening tonight that we are getting to see. Two birds and all. More on that tomorrow. 

For now its the open road. 

Well keep your fingers crossed its all open. 

Cheers to vacation and the next eleven days with the family, Wilco and the beach. 

I wonder if we forgot anything. 

These Dogs Cannot Camp...

I was at work Friday morning and Rochelle texted me to see if I wanted to go camping. It is widely known that I am not much of a camper, but sometimes you have friends that make anything sound like a good time. After some talk we decided that we would go, and I met Josh at Academy after work and we bought a new tent and some other camping supplies and came home and packed up and headed down to the Wichita Mountains.

We got to the campsite a little before 8, and got our tent set up.

I do love a good campfire. Austin was manning the fire, and managed to not burn himself or anyone else.

Camy was almost smiling for this picture.

We bought a six person tent this time, and once we put it up we realized that our queen air mattress and two twin mattresses would not all fit comfortably. So that was our first mistake. We did have a second mistake.

This is Rocky.

This is Penny.

Penny was trying to attack my iPad when I was trying to take this picture. She is crazy.

For some crazy reason, we thought it would be okay to take these two crazy dogs camping with us. I don't know what we were thinking. Rocky was terrified from the moment we got there. When the girls andI decided to go to bed, we took the dogs with us. Rocky just paced around and around in the tent and didn't settle down until we put him in his kennel. Unfortunately, his kennel was on some uneven ground and the kennel shook everytime he moved around, all night.

Penny, on the other hand, is convinced she is a watch dog. All 20 odd pounds of her. When Josh walked up to the tent a little later she was barking and growling, I guess it was good that no one was asleep yet. After that, she kept me up all night. She moved around the tent the entire night. A while later, she was getting after something that was near my bag which was right by my air mattress. After she spazed out for a little bit, I finally turned on a light to make sure there wasn't anything dangerous inside the tent. There was a big black bug on top of my bag, I ended up brushing it off my stuff thinking that Penny would let it go.

I didn't know where the bug was, and that kinda freaked me out too. Instead of Penny settling down, she went hunting for the bug. Then she went back to crawling all over the tent, from one person to the next, she did actually suggle up with me for about 20 minutes or so and I thought I was going to get some sleep. No such luck. Sometime later Penny peed in the tent, on my running shoes. She is a fabulously stubborn, crazy wanna be watch dog.

After no sleep, I was up at 5:45 so Rochelle and I could go for a run. More on that later.

It's hard to tell but this was a frog in the bathroom on Saturday night. The girls thought it was really funny.

We camped in the wildlife refuge, so we got to see buffalo and longhorns right on the side of the road.

We packed up pretty early on Saturday, with Josh in his boot because of his injured ankle, and we didn't really plan far enough ahead to go for a hike or anything. Plus the dogs had had enough.

We did drive to the top of Mount Scott before we left. Josh didn't want to get out of the car, not sure if it was his ankle or his fear of heights.

Camy spotted this huge caterpillar when we got out of the car. It was moving pretty fast so I didn't get a very good picture of it.

Such a beautiful view. I did a fantastic job of getting my finger in the shot.

The girls didn't complain and even smiled for me here.

It definitely was an adventure. I would definitely go back to the Wichita Mountains. Next time we will take two queen air mattresses, and leave the dogs at home. So, who wants to dog sit?

 

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Longer Run Tuesday...

My friend Sarah is training for the Go St Louis Marathon next month. Because of that, and because of the undetermine length of my next race, we decided to do a longer run this morning. We have been doing six mile runs on the week days, but we decided to run eight this morning.

The thing about running more than six miles in the morning, is that it involves meeting at 5am instead of 5:15. That fifteen minutes doesn't seem like it would make that big of a difference, but it means that you get in your car when the clock still has a 4 at the front of the time.

NPR isn't even playing Morning Edition at that time, it's still on the BBC World News. 4:30 really seems so much earlier than 4:45.

We did a loop around the Y, something we haven't done in ages, and then meet back in the parking lot to pick up Anne for our usual out and bak six mile route. Our first three miles were pretty speedy. Those splits all started with and 8 and were followed by numbers less than 30 for the first two, and then one that was slightly over 30 for the third one. We settled into a ice 9 minute or so pace for the rest of them.

We did 8 miles in an hour and 12 minutes. It was one of those great Oklahoma mornings, it was cold, but there was no wind.

After work I headed to yoga, now it's about bed time.

My pedometer got quite a workout today. Add in the steps I earned for yoga and it was a 30,000 step day.

This is what I feel like.

Rocky is dog tired. Can you call it dog tired if you are actually talking about a dog? Maybe it would be better to just say tired. Whatever, I am dog tired.

 

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Sick Day, But Not For Me...

My Thursday started off with hill repeats; brutal, horrible, I can't breathe hill repeats. We only did 3.79 miles by my Garmin and I was so glad when we were done. It was weird to be home by 6:00.

Camy was't feeling well ls night a she was already awake after I got home and was still not feeling well. We decided that I would get her into the doctor and let her get some sleep today.

I had breakfast before I took Carson to school.

Chocolate Frosted Mini Wheats with a banana and almond milk.

While Camy took a nap, I snuck out to a hot yoga class. I love when I can take a class at a time that I normally can't. I don't think I have ever sweat so much in my life. After how horrible the hill repeats were it was nice to feel amazing after yoga.

I went and got Camy some chicken noodle soup and 7-Up, because that's what you need if you aren't feeling well. Unless it's the stomach flu, then you need 7-Up and jello.

We had a little time to kill before we went to the doctor, so we watched a movie.

I had not seen the remake of Footloose, and Camy had not seen the original, so we decided to watch it. I can't decide if I liked it more than the original, but Camy did like it. There were some differences, but overall I thought they did a very good job.

Then we headed to the doctor's office.

She doesn't look that sick.

She was smiling before they came in and did the strep test. No flu, no strep, looks like it is just a cold. We went to Target to get a humidifier and some Mucinex. We picked up some ice cream, and these...

Not too bad.

Rochelle texted me a beautiful picture last night, and I just had to go see for myself.

The new Brooks Ravenna 4, they weren't supposed to be out until February. They are so cute! I haven't bought them yet, I had to get them put in the budget. I am excited to have two pairs of shoes to rotate in my training. I am totally a Brooks girl, but I have been happy with the New Balance shoes I have been running in for the last month or so.

I could probably tell you what model of New Balance these are, but I just don't know. I do like these shoes though. I had one small issue with a blister on the inside of my right foot but my favorite shoe expert made me an insert that has helped eliminate that problem. I am still very excited to get my new pair of kicks.

I almost forgot something funny that happened yesterday morning. We told Penny to get in the kennel, but then we couldn't find Rocky anywhere. Then we realized what had happened.

Penny got in the same kennel with Rocky. Good thing we were paying attention because Rocky isn't one to complain much. Oh yeah, and there was this...

I love my girls.

 

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Manic Monday...

I got up early and was off to work before anyone else was up. The only benefit of having to work on a holiday is that traffic wasn't bad.

I looked at the calendar and had a mini freakout when I thought I only had three Saturdays left before Cowtown. It was brought to my attention that I have four Saturdays, so I can delay the freaking out for another week or so. What a relief. I fully intend to get registered this weekend.

I got home and decided I needed to do a little baking. Does it count as baking if I didn't actually turn the oven on? I found the recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Bars on the Brown Eyed Baker's website, I tried to include the link but my iPad doesn't seem to want to cooperate.

Basically, melt butter, add powdered sugar, graham crackers and peanut butter.

Spread into an 8x8 pan.

Melt more butter, add chocolate chips and spread over the top.

Pop it in the fridge to set. Camy said they are amazing.

Dinner was black bean sliders with sweet potato fries. I will be giving the Peanut Butter Cup Bars a try shortly.

On a completely unrelatd note, I don't think my nose will ever stop running. Where is it all coming from?

I included a picture of Penny the poop dog last night, so I thought I would include a picture of Rocky tonight. He is the sweetest dog ever.

What do you think of my awesome socks? I can't decide if my feet look huge or if Rocky looks small in this picture.

I wonder if I can get someone to bring me some dessert.

 

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Poor Little Rocky

So Rocky, my Boston Terrier, and I had our third obedience class tonight. He has taken the entire class with Josh already, this is our second time through.

We worked on walking on lead outside in the parking lot. Rocky did pretty good, we do alot of walk forward and then when Rocky decided to small something or to try to go after something we get to turn around and go the other way. He is a very hard worker, he just gets interested in other things.

We worked on "Come" which Rocky did pretty well with. We ended the class with "Wait". When it was our turn to try we went to stand by the door and I said "Wait" and opened the door a little bit and had it come back when he tried to go out too quickly. I heard the squealing sound and it didn't register at first that it was my Rocky crying because his front paw got stuck in the door. We got him out of it and he didn't want to go on. He just laid down in a ball and was ready to quit. He took a little coaxing but we got out and Jackie, our teacher, checked his paw out and he's fine. He was never big on going through the door to leave, we usually have to drag him out of the room, but tonight it was even worse.

Poor little guy, he's okay though. We have some work to do this week.