Dirty Girl Mud Run and Other Food Fun

I did my first obstacle/run 5 K-The Dirty Girl Mud Run.  It was fun in the sun and mud for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.  I am feeling a bit sore now, but it was worth it. I also had to wash my hair 3 times just to get all of the mud out.

I had a yogurt parfait for breakfast.  I used homemade granola, ff plain greek yogurt and blueberries for a filling breakfast. Finding a granola recipe I liked proved to be difficult, so here are a couple that I combined and modified to my liking  recipe / recipe.  My modifications:  no juice, I used less syrup/brown sugar- 1/4 c brown sugar, 1/8 syrup.  I used 1/2 c toasted wheat germ and 1/2 c flaxseed.  I only used 1/8 c oil and used both cranberries and raisins.  I used 3 c rolled oats as used in the Food Network Recipe and cooked it for 1 hr 15 minutes-stirring every 15 minutes. It is still plenty sweet even with using less sugar/syrup.

For dinner we had grilled lamb loin chops with rosemary and balsamic vinegar, grilled baby potatoes with rosemary, and a salad with jicama, cucumber, pineapple, and mango with a  cilantro, sriracha, cayenne pepper, cumin dressing-topped with paprika.

I had a similar salad at Frontera Grill, so was trying to mimic it.  I used this recipe as a base and added a couple more things.

All in all a good and busy day with tasty food and fun!

One Pan Dinner

I took a quick trip to the Farmers’ Market today, but didn’t stay long because it was HOT!  I got a zucchini, patty pan squash, lettuce, and cherries. Today purchases$7.50

I stopped on the way home and purchased salmon.  I put some hot and spicy mustard on the salmon and a little olive oil on the veggies.  Everything went on the grill on a grill pan.  Only a small pan to clean up and dinner was ready in less than 20 minutes!  Then I had cherries for dessert!

The other plus is that I kept the house cool by cooking on the grill.  You’ll notice a trend grill in the summer and crockpot in the winter!  Cheers!

Grilled Pizza

Tonight we made pizza on the grill.

It was awesome-picked up a good flavor and it looked cool with the grill marks.  I found a few different articles online and realized I would just have to watch the grill to see when it was done. I purchased some whole wheat pizza dough at Whole Foods for the crust. We rolled it out and put olive oil on one side.  Then it went on the grill for 3 minutes and we put olive oil on the other side and flipped it over.  We put a little mozzarella cheese on the bottom to make the ingredients stick.  Next we put tomatoes, basil, and goat cheese on top and closed the grill lid. It cooked for about 5 more minutes.  This is faster than the oven or carryout!

Some tips for next time-make the crust a little thinner it was good, but I think I would have liked it a little crispy.

We also had cucumber and onion salad (with parsley, 2  TBSP of white wine vinegar and 1 tsp of olive oil and I sprinkled some paprika on top). Edamame was the other side dish and dinner was served.

Where Does a Week Go?

Wow-has it really been a week since my last post?  I still have so much to fill you in on, but it has been super crazy between traveling, work stuff, volunteer stuff, and more. I decided to do a quick post on some of my plates while I was home.

Tonight we made open-faced turkey burgers (with basil, gorgonzola cheese, and garlic) topped with lettuce, tomato, and avocado. We also had grilled green beans and sweet potato. Pretty tasty-Chef Josh prepared dinner while I was working on other stuff.

Last week before I left for Florida, I made a simple dinner mahi-mahi (seasoned with rosemary) with zucchini.

On one of the days where it was almost at 100 degrees, I made a quick tuna salad with onion, cucumber, herbs, and lime juice.  I stuffed it in a tomato (I like the whole tomato, so I made some slices half way through so it could stuff it, but I still got to eat the whole tomato).  Quick and easy and no “cooking required”.

Breakfast after a trip to the Farmers’ Market included scrambled eggs with spinach, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and herbs.  We also had bison bacon and strawberries (everything was from the market).  Bison bacon is interesting. It has a nice flavor, but wasn’t really crispy (we didn’t want to burn it).

We also tried out our  rotisserie  on the grill and made rosemary, garlic, paprika, and lemon chicken. We had greens (prepared in our cast iron skillet with onions,herbs, pepper, and vinegar), and grilled mango along with our chicken.  Tasty!

The chicken was definitely prettier with the skin, but tastier and healthier without it!

There is my quick update, but  I still have to tell you about chocolate class and flavor tripping!  Check back soon for more fun stuff.

Feast for Father

We enjoyed a great feast to celebrate Father’s Day!  Yesterday afternoon we decided to have ribs and realized it wasn’t an original idea.  After two stores (and getting the last of the ribs at the second store), we were able to get started on the same recipe that we made a few weeks ago. Josh’s parents and grandma came to our house and enjoyed a yummy lunch!  Shadow enjoyed laying by his “grandpa” while they watched some golf.  I didn’t think to snap a photo at the time, but it was super cute!

Today’s feast:

• BBQ Ribs: Still just as tasty as last time and I think I’ve perfected the bbq sauce- I used our cast iron skillet this time!  See the posts for the recipes.
• Grilled Shrimp with the Spice House salt-free Florida seasoning
• 
• Two Potato Salad : This was a fun spin on potato salad. It used sweet and golden potatoes with a Dijon mustard and vinegar/oil base
• Sautéed Bella Mushrooms- I used a little garlic olive oil and on the grill it went.
• Wedge Salad- Josh’s mom brought makings for a wedge-lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, blue cheese, and topped with balsamic dressing
• Strawberry Sorbet– This was refreshing!
• Watermelon-No explanation needed!

It was an awesome Dad’s Day to celebrate with family.

 Happy Father’s Day to every dad!!

His ‘n Her Steaks

Tonight we made steaks on the grill, but of course mine was a salmon steak and not a cow steak..mooo.  I really haven’t ever liked beef and Josh doesn’t like fish, so it is a his ‘n her grill night. On a side note, these were the smallest steaks available-another more is better concept.  This is where sharing could come in handy, but nope!  Neither of us actually finished them, but at least they were on sale.

We had grilled asparagus with our respective steaks. I’ve been into balsamic vinegar lately, so I  used that along with lemon juice and spices for the asparagus.  My salmon steak had lemon thyme (from my herb garden).  I also used the California blend from the Spice House that I got during Bitchin’ Nutrition’s Olive, Spice and Wine-Oh My! Tour a few months back. I also used the California blend for Josh’s steak- I love that it is versatile!   I cut up some fresh radish and Josh decided he didn’t like it, so he tried feeding it to Brownie. Yep, he did this.

No plate photos tonight because I didn’t clean them up well enough…steak is juicy and the photos didn’t turn out :(.

Anyway, you can get a visual from the grill and the radish that the cat is licking!

I also made a treat using the chocolate mint from my herb garden.  We enjoyed Chocolate Mint Pudding. YUMMO! 

Frontera Farmers Foundation Supports Midwest Farmers

Last Sunday, my neighbor and I attended the Frontera Farmers Foundation Garden Fiesta fundraiser.  There was also an evening dinner, but the entire day was to raise money to support  grants given to midwest farmers.  These farmers provide locally grown produce to the restaurant, local farmers’ markets, and other areas.  An article reported great successes from the day and I enjoyed every moment.

Essentially, there were food stations set up with the farmer/grower there to talk about what they do and how the grants had helped them in the past.   I absolutely loved chatting with them farmers!  You could purchase produce, along with trying great samples of dishes from the restaurant.  I came home with some awesome vine grown tomatoes, a pepper plant, and wild arugula.  There were also some great silent auction items and raffles (but I didn’t win any of those).

Rick Bayless did a cooking demo in his test kitchen where we sampled a greens taco with spicy salsa. 

We were stuffed to the brim with yummy food like:

• Smoky Pork Ribs with Guallijo BBQ Sauce, Mahi Tacos with Poblanos, Tomatillos and Key Lime, Black Bean Mushroom Salad with Little Gem Lettuce, Tomato Arugula Quiche, Collard Greens in Garlic Scape Mojo de Ajo, Smoked tomato with Cilantro Chimichurri, and a yummy fried cheese with green salsa ( I can’t remember the real name and the photo was blurry) 😦  I hope I spelled everything right!
• Dessert type dishes included: French Toast Bread Pudding with Maple Syrup, Classic Tres Leche Cake with Strawberries.
• We also drank to our hearts content.  There was an amazing strawberry margarita with rhubarb, Marisol beer from Goose Island Brewery, and a red and white wine from a local winery.

Pretty much an amazing event with an awesome cause! So many photos to choose from!  If I would have been thinking, I would have gotten the farmer in the photo too :). Next time

Of course, I had to take the opportunity to have my photo with Rick Bayless.  Read more about the farmer foundation.

Thai-Be-Tasty

Hello friends:

It has been a couple of days since my last post and I still owe you a post on the Frontera Farmers’ Market Fundraiser, but this week is loco!  We celebrated my mom-inlaw’s birthday yesterday with yummy Italian food from Bravo. 

The rest of the week I am working on 2 website redesigns and we have our Scientific Advisory meeting the next two days! Busy week and I’ll be ready for my half day Friday!

Tonight we decided to use our basil from the garden box and make Thai Chicken with Basil recipe from Food & Wine.  We served it with sautéed green beans/mushrooms and whole wheat couscous.  This recipe was a first for us and it was really tasty!  Next time we’ll spice it up even more!  Apparently, there is holy basil (thai basil) so Josh said maybe we could bless the regular basil :).  We used ground chicken (the owner at our favorite Thai restaurant said this holds the best flavor).  I think she is right!!  This is going on our regular list.

After dinner I went for my run and it was a hard run today :(.  When I got back we attempted peanut butter ice cream with melted dark chocolate.  It was pretty soft, but it tasted yummy.

Bowl It Up

I’ll start out this blog with a shot out to our friend and seasoned blogger, Mara.  She helped me find a more appropriate layout, figure out some quirks, and even provided me with the photos for my homepage.  I definitely need to take more food and wine photos!  Be sure to check out her blog.

It was a beautiful, but hot day so salads were on our plates (bowls).  When we bought our new dishes a few months back, I actually resisted Josh on buying these larger bowls.

I just envisioned him putting chips or other snack foods in them and eating the whole thing-telling me it was ok because he put it in a bowl (selective hearing). Now, they are my favorite salad bowls because you can see all the great veggies!

Anyway, for lunch I had a salad with veggies, a little fat-free feta topped with a little Meyer lemon olive oil and pomegranate balsamic vinegar.  I also had some berries and fat-free greek yogurt.

I took advantage of Josh working and prepared salmon, along with spinach salad with beets and goat cheese for dinner.  Josh doesn’t like fish-one day I’ll tell you a story, but I can’t use all of the best stories in the first week.

We do eat salads fairly often. It is an easy way to get different veggies in the diet.  You do have to be careful with salad dressings, but I usually use olive oil, some sort of vinegar, and spices. I’ll do a future post about homemade dressings in the future.

If you do use a bottled dressing look for one with less preservatives/additives.  They may not last as long, but have a food label you can recognize.  Do not worry about getting “fat-free” salad dressing-just look at the ingredient lists one day and you’ll see why.  Also, some fat is good for you because it can help you absorb the vitamins in the veggies!  Remember with salad dressing it is easy to get carried away, so be mindful not to go overboard with the portion.  I actually measure my salad dressing to ensure I don’t go crazy!

Have you had your veggies today?

Shake It Less

Shake your body more and the salt shaker less. I’ve had a couple of friends ask me recently how to cut back on salt.  The easiest thing to do is to use salt shaker less when eating or cooking, however that often may not be enough.

Restaurant foods have high amounts of salt.  I suggest you start looking at online menus and just see how much there may be in your favorite choices. Sometimes, the day’s allotment for sodium is in one food item.  CRAZY!  There is no need for all of that salt.

Another culprit is packaged/convenience foods.  The more fresh foods and basic home cooking you can do, the less salt you’ll typically eat. I’ll keep providing you with these types of  food/meal ideas in future blogs.

When looking at food labels try to aim for something that has less than 200 mg/serving and stick to less than 2300 mg/day (for healthy people).

Use spices to flavor food!  I call my hubby a “flavor whore” – he tends to throw together whatever he can find (and I mean things that don’t go together) expecting it to taste good. I on the other hand, mindfully flavor with different spices.  Experiment but don’t throw the whole pantry in your meal!

Some of my favorite flavoring herbs/spices are planted in my herb garden.  I also enjoy flavored olive oils, balsamic vinegar, fruits, and more for great taste.

Mayo clinic has some nice tips here as well.

Just a quick blog tonight..I’ve had a strange headache all week 😦  Have a Happy Weekend Friends!