BUSY

Oh man, life is so busy right now. I'm trying to get into the swing of starting culinary school, continuing with my marathon training, having company in from out of state, house sitting, and now going to get my GED.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks since all of this has been going down, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Well kind of. We have a friend staying with us this week and then we are house sitting next week and then it's back to semi-normal life.

I am really enjoying having people here though. I have missed familiar faces more than I realized and I love seeing James and Greg. If only more people would come out (family, ahem)

I ran a 15K on Sunday and did really well. I was proud of myself. 9.3 miles in 1:19 for an average pace of 8:30. 53rd out of 282 in my age group. I'll take it!

I'm struggling a bit with finding time to get my long runs done on the weekends. I guess I'm not making it enough of a priority. This week I have 17 miles on deck and we have all these plans to go to the coast and the gorge. Ugh. We shall see how this goes. I really want to run the Eugene Marathon May 1st and it's coming up to fast, so I need to get my focus on!

Greg is making us scallops this week, and I'm pretty excited. The only time I have ever had scallops was not a very good memory, so I have faith he will be able to change my opinion about them.

This was a random post, but it's what has been going on. I will leave you with some photos! Till next time!

We have been doing a lot of good eating lately. Yesterday we had brunch at Produce Row Cafe and I got a veggie scramble, honey wheat toast and the most delicious bowl of grits ever. I LOVE grits now. Must. Recreate. Soon!
We also hit up Voodoo Doughnuts. Sugar rush! This would be an apple fritter, peanut butter oreo donut and vegan plain covered in chocolate sauce. Yumm.
Last Saturday, Eric and I decided to bike everywhere we needed to go. A good decision except that it was 30 degrees and windy out. We rewarded ourself with lunch at Vita Cafe.
I had the three been chili, corn muffin and super grain salad. The chili was really good, the corn muffin was pretty dry. It seemed like it had been left in the oven to long? Because the bottom of it was really hard and brown. The salad was weird. So many flavors going on, and I don't think they worked together. It was lettuce, quinoa, guacamole, pepitas, currants and carrot ginger dressing. I like all of those things individually, but just not together in a salad.
Eric got the buffalo tofu wrap which was excellent. There was another half to it, but by the time I took the photo, he had already devoured it. Also unpictured was a big 'ol basket of fries which were thick and crispy. Delicious.
After lunch we swung next door to check out the Dovetail bakery. We split this chocolate covered sticky bun and some Kombucha.

Needless to say, we have not gone without a good meal in a long time. All the more reason I love Portland!

Banana Scramble

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I LOVE it. Sometimes I lay away at night thinking about what I'm going to have for breakfast the next day. I think I might have shared these on here before, but this morning I was craving a banana scramble. I have taken bits and pieces from different recipes to make my own.

I started making this before I remembered to take photos. You start by mashing a banana till eggish texture. Then I threw in chia seeds, flax seed, oats, peanut flour, cinnamon and soy milk.
Mix it all up till everything is nicely combined and then let it sit for a few minutes to get a little thicker.
Then drop half (or all if you have a big enough pan) into a nonstick.
You want it to get a slight crust on it, kind of like pancakes. They will never firm up like pancakes though so just wait until it's at a stage that you can flip it.
I think it took around 5 minutes to get to that point. Then cook the other half if you need to and serve.

Today I topped mine with strawberry jam on half and a little greek yogurt on the other half. I am trying to up my protein intake. I have been sore for the past few days from weights and yoga and I'm hoping adding more protein will help.

This recipes makes a lot. I usually serve these on a toasted english muffin, so if I'm doing that, I will half the recipe. But if I'm just serving it straight up with no other sides, I can easily eat all of this.

Banana Scramble

1 banana
1/2 c rolled or instant oats
1 tbs chia seeds
2 tsp flax seed
2 tsp cinnamon ( I love cinnamon so you can add less if you don't)
6 Tbs soy milk, or your milk of choice.

These would be really good if you added different spices, or added less banana and subbed in some applesauce. Or used a muesli mix instead of just straight rolled oats. Lot's of possibilities. Oh, and here is the nutritional breakdown before the toppings.

Happy Friday!

House sitting

We have been house sitting for some friends this weekend. I absolutely love their house. And they have the best view on a clear morning.

Yup. Gorgeous right? We took advantage of their car and drove to Astoria OR to visit. Not much going on there except some small stores and a delicious brewery. We might go back for the beer alone. =o) Here is their kitchen that just so happens to be the size of our entire studio. No, I am not exaggerating.

They were supposed to fly back in last night but got stuck because of the weather, so Eric and I had to spend another night here. Oh bummer. =o)

This morning I drove him to work. He hasn't been biking because he has been sick with a cold and biking to and from work is the last thing he needs right now. Afterwards I paid a visit to the gym. I took Friday-Sunday off completely from exercise and I was going a little crazy. I missed my daily sweat. I felt like my achilles tendon was feeling so much better, so I jumped on the treadmill. After a mile I knew I needed to stop. This aching pain will just not go away! I resolved myself to the elliptical which is soooo boring. 9 miles later, I was done.

I hurried home to shower and ice my ankle.
And I just made an appointment with a sports medicine doctor to have him take a look and make sure nothing is really wrong with it. Well nothing besides what I think is just the tendon. We shall see. It's looking like I won't be running the marathon in April though. More on that another time.

I'm off to make myself some lunch in this beautiful big kitchen!

Happy Presidents day!

Nursing

I'm still nursing this stupid tendinitis. But becuase I can't run outside I'm forced to look for ways to cross train. I swam a little last week, and even tried biking inside (which I hate btw) but the thing that seems to work the best for me is an elliptical type machine.

I like it because I can set the resistance and the cross ramp. So basically hill climb plus resistance. I usually do it on 10 cross ramp (20 is the max) and resistance around 8 (I'm not sure how high the resistance goes.) I know it's not exactly running because there is no impact but I'm hoping it will allow me to keep in some kind of running form.

Monday I covered 12 miles, Tuesday 6 and today 12 again. I feel like I can go a lot longer on this than if I was actually running because it's easier on the body. There is almost no upper body swing if your holding on...I try to pump my arms though.

It's also really nice that our gym has a tv attached to the front of it and you can plug in your headphones. All the being said, I'm really missing running. I get bored very quickly at the gym so it's a struggle to stay there for the 1.5+hour it takes to get higher mileage.

I'm hoping to get some kind of run in this weekend. Since I had to skip last weekends long run of 18 miles, this week is supposed to be 12. I hope to be able to accomplish that, but we will see. I might be readjusting my goal time for this marathon. I refuse to give up the idea of running it.

Pray for me to heal!

My valentines day

 

Lately I have been getting up with Eric at 6, eating breakfast and leaving when he leaves. He heads to work, I head to the gym. Ever since my tendonitis last week, I have been trying to put in a solid two hours a day at the gym. Usually 1.5 hours spent on some kind of cardio machine (except treadmill) and .5 hours spent weight training. Can I tell you how much I hate being on the elliptical for more than an hour? It’s so mind-numbingly boring, but I really don’t want to loose the muscle or stamina that I have worked so hard to build up.

So that’s how my Valentines day started. After stopping at the dollar store to pick up essentials like a red tablecloth, spatula, tin foil, I headed home to showah my stinky self. I guess the plus of working out at the gym is climate control, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get all drippy sweaty.

Lunch was something yummy.

1/2 frozen banana, 1 c. soymilk, 1 packet Amazing meal powder. 1 LARGE handful spinach. Blend, blend blend and top with granola.

Amazing meal is basically a packet filled with vitamins and protein powder. I had the mango flavored one and it was really, really strong. I should have halved the packet. I didn’t even really care for the flavor. Next time, I will stick with the chocolate flavor.

I also had two slices leftover homemade pizza that I topped with zucchini. I love zucchini so much. Yumm.

ha. See the bite marks? I should have eaten red food for Valentines Day but green was the color of the day!

Eric brought me home these gorgeous flowers. He picked them all out himself. I’m very impressed and so blessed.

Come on! How beautiful are those!?

We debated going out, but since we are trying to save money I decided to cook dinner in.

First course was a spinach salad with pears, strawberries, blueberries and almonds. Topped with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Can you tell the grocery store was featuring berries? I know they are not seasonal and this goes against seasonal eating but sometimes you just was some darn berries in the middle of winter!

Second course was homemade black bean burgers with guacamole and veggies and a side of roasted broccoli (that I forgot about in the oven and they got a little over done. Oops!)

And for dessert we went out to a local brewery and split a chocolate chip bread pudding that was out of this world good. I also sipped on a small pour of a delicious orange cream ale.

All in all, I had a wonderful day filled with love. I know you should show your love every day but sometimes its nice to do extra special things!

Unfortunately  I seem to be coming down with something? I have a really bad scratchy throat that I am trying to nurse with some hot tea. Here’s hoping it helps!

Feb 14th

Happy Valentines Day!!
From two very squinty eyed people!