Tapas, Sangria, and Cruise Planning

Since Terry was still playing in the water today, I had most of the day to myself to get a few things done around the house. I powered through my third long run, which took me through campus and Westwood on a beautiful morning.

Without Terry, I thought the run would feel long or extra tough, but it wasn't bad at all. I'm starting to think this half marathon won't be so impossible after all! I felt I deserved a serious vegetable-packed breakfast (well, brunch - it was a slow start to the morning). I sauteed 1/4 onion, 1/2 bell pepper, 3 ounces fresh spinach, and feta with three eggs to make a huge scramble. I actually only finished about two-thirds of it and kept the rest for Terry to eat tomorrow morning.

Veggie-loaded brunch 

This afternoon, to honor my prize for the HIMYM trivia challenge, I baked some cookies for Heidi. A little trip around the Google world brought me to Honest Cooking's Salted Triple Chocolate Chunk cookies. I think the cookies tasted delicious, and I hope Heidi feels the same way!

Click here for the recipe

Gooey chunks make chocolate even better.

Sea salt + chocolate = bliss

Other things I did today:
Stopped by a used book store and found this awesome collection of fitness books:

I am sort of regretting not purchasing one of these.

 Also, I broke a glass.

Our first broken glass from the set we got for our wedding. :-(

After I picked up Terry, we ventured up to meet Heidi, Ed, Katie, and Corey for tapas, sangria, and cruise planning. The six of us are going on a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean during my school's spring break this year! We decided on a few excursions, caught up a bit, and enjoyed some really yummy sangria. In an effort to  find more food, we wandered around, discovering that most places close by 9 pm on Sundays. Fast food was almost an option, but luckily we found a much more suitable legit restaurant down the street. Then we all pulled out our iPads and smart phones to research our cruise. We can't wait for our big trip!

Ed, Heidi, and Corey

Katie, me, and Terry

Hope you had (or are still enjoying!) a great weekend!

Saturday Night Recipes

Tonight, as Terry continues his adventure scuba diving in Catalina, I'm drinking a spectacular glass (or two) of wine and watching Julie & Julia, one of my very favorite movies. I suppose it's no surprise, considering it involves Julia Child, cooking, blogging, the 1940s, Paris, two love stories, and lots of butter.

This movie gets me so fired up. If you haven't seen it and are even remotely interested in any of the topics above, I highly recommend it! If you're in LA, I'll invite you over for a watching party and we can devour some chocolate mousse pie together. It always makes me excited to cook or bake (hence tonight's blackberry buttermilk cake, below) and, of course, to blog.

Julie Powell, the modern day character in the movie, says a lot about her blog that I've caught myself saying. When she gets her first comment, it's from her mom, so her excitement diminishes. Not to say that I don't love when my parents comment, of course. :-) One day she gets 12 comments and high-fives a coworker. If I ever get 12 comments on one post, I'll be high-fiving strangers. I'd love to be a little more like Julia Child, though (at least her persona in the movie): energetic, optimistic, charming, open to absorbing everything she can to learn as much as possible about cooking. But I have the same Le Creuset dutch oven as she does, and my mom gave me a Julia Child cookbook, so I'm getting there, right?

Prior to my mellow night, I tackled a pretty mellow workout. I did 40 minutes on the bike and these ab and bicep exercises.

Note: I keep my shoulder exercises very light due to an old neck injury, but feel free to pump it up!

Tonight, I made a new recipe! I wanted lots of vegetables with my pasta. I created a pizza-inspired pasta dish with loads of vegetables.

Pepperoni Pizza Pasta

Serves 2

Pepperoni Pasta

• 1/2 pound whole wheat pasta
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 onion
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper
• 1/2 orange bell pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3-4 ounces fresh spinach, chopped
• 1 cup marinara sauce
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 12-16 slices of pepperoni
• 2 ounces fresh mozzarella

Set a pot of water to boil and cook the pasta according to the package directions. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a medium pan while you roughly chop the onion. Add the onion to the pan with the salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender, about 3-4 minutes. Meanwhile, chop the bell peppers, add them to the pan, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the spinach, oregano, and garlic powder, and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 4 minutes. Add the marinara and red wine, and cook under reduced by about half. 

Chop the pepperoni and mozzarella and add to the sauce, cooking just until heated through, about 3 minutes. Add to the pasta and serve hot.

Lots of vegetables, as ordered 

Spicy pepperoni adds tons of flavor 

And gooey mozzarella to top it all

And finally, tonight's schedule finally allowed me to bake a cake I found in Bon Appetit magazine last year (yeah, I'm old school like that). It's technically a summer cake, but who's counting?

Blackberry Buttermilk Cake
Requires a springform pan.

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the pan with cooking spray and dust lightly with flour. Layer the bottom of the pan with 10-12 ounces of blackberries.

Blackberry layer

Step 2.

Beat 3/4 cup of room temperature butter and 1 1/3 cups sugar until light and fluffy, about 90 seconds.

Step 3.

Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Step 4. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and the zest from one lemon.

Professional tip: Try to avoid dropping the lemon into the batter. 

Excellent chance to taste the batter.

And make a creepy face for the camera.

 Step 5: In a separate bowl, measure out 2 1/3 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Beat in one-third of the flour mixture.

Adding the flour mixture.

 Step 6: Measure out 1 cup of buttermilk. [Note: If you want to lighten up this recipe, substitute 1 tablespoon lemon juice + 1 cup milk.] Add half the buttermilk and beat again. Add another third of the flour mixture, beat, then the rest of the buttermilk, then the last third of the flour mixture.

Action shot

Step 7: Pour the batter over the blackberries and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Pre-baking

Post-baking

Step 8: Cool on a rack for 15-20 minutes, then remove the sides of the pan and invert the cake to cool completely.

Blackberry buttermilk wonderland

Gorgeous cake!

Moist and light

This cake would be perfect for a spring bridal or baby shower

Definitely an easy cake and a great way to greet Terry when he gets home tomorrow!

What's your go-to movie for at-home Saturday nights?


If you could be a character in a movie, who would you be?
I would choose Julia Child in this movie or something where I get to be a superhero. Like Mrs. Incredible.

My Most Embarrassing Moment

I'm not easily embarrassed. (This is not to be mistaken for the fact that I do, in fact, easily embarrass other people.) I dance in grocery stores, I sing in my car with the windows down, and I proudly strike outrageous poses for the camera. But last year I experienced what is now, hands down, the most embarrassing moment of my life (thus far).

Last April, for Terry's birthday, I bought both of us a Groupon deal for scuba certification through PCH Scuba. We started with educational materials, learning about the equipment, process of diving, and potential risks. Then we spent a weekend in a "classroom" setting, reinforcing our new scuba knowledge and asking any questions, and finally we tested out our skills in a pool.

Scout checking out this new hobby

Breathing underwater felt uncomfortable at first, but I learned to handle it calmly and breathe fairly regularly. The skills made me nervous; we had to take off our masks and replace them underwater, remove and recover the regulator (breathing device), and learn how to keep ourselves underwater. At the end of the first day, I felt a little shaky. Terry built up my confidence for the second pool day, but as we put on our suits to get back in I was doing everything in my power not to panic or cry. After that moment, though, I did fine in the pool and passed all the skills without issue.

Next up: open water certification. We took the ferry to Catalina on a Friday night and woke up early Saturday for the dives. We would complete four dives to achieve our certification, demonstrating the same skills we had done in the pool. I was in the same group as Terry, but we weren't buddies, because instructors generally don't like couples pairing up for certification dives. (The concern is that if one person were to panic, he or she would go to the significant other instead of the instructor, which leads to more serious problems.)

Gorgeous Catalina Island

After a quick briefing and gearing up, I was selected to be the first into the water. I walked shakily down the steps, sat down, and scooted into the ocean - and panicked. Within seconds, I was hyperventilating as I swam out toward our instructor. He calmly instructed me to slow my breathing and chill for a second while waiting for the rest of the group to get in with us. But I couldn't calm down. I couldn't slow my breathing. Terry got out to us and asked if I was okay, and I could only shake my head. But still, our instructor, Mike, kept eye contact with me and finally got me to breathe normally.

And then we got the signal to go underwater. I emptied my BCD (let the air out of my vest) and pulled myself under, but I just couldn't do it. About three yards down, I panicked again, pulled myself to the surface, and finally convinced Mike that I was, in fact, not going under. At that point I was grateful to be in the water so Mike wouldn't be able to tell I was crying, but I think my panicked gasps and 4-year-old-style sobbing kind of gave me away.

I looked so good! I don't know what went wrong...

Rhonda, another instructor, got to help me out of the water and could not have been nicer. I calmed down almost immediately after deciding not to complete the dive, and we climbed back onto the shore. Brett, the owner of the certification company, was waiting for me with a big hug.

I wanted to crawl into a hole. I have never been more embarrassed than I was that day. I could not be more grateful that the instructors were patient and calm with me and that everyone acted as though I hadn't just completely made a fool out of myself. As though I wasn't the only one out of the dozens of new divers who couldn't do it.

People ask what happened. It doesn't really make sense: I've spent my whole life in the water. The house I grew up in has a pool and I've been a water skier since I was about 5. I've always lived within 45 minutes of the beach and spent countless hours swimming in the ocean as a kid. But obviously scuba diving is different; you're much deeper in the water and asking your brain to ignore the fact that you're breathing like a fish.

People also ask if I'll ever try it again. To be completely honest, as much as I would like to say yes, I'm very strongly leaning toward no. The idea of it still makes me a little panicky, and I can't imagine putting myself through that stress again.(My husband, on the other hand, now has 25 dives under his belt and is working toward his Master Diver certification.)  I'll stick with snorkeling, water skiing, tubing, anything else. 

My stud muffin of a scuba diver

But at least I finally have a good response for Truth or Dare when people ask for my most embarrassing moment.

My new favorite thing about Catalina: Big Olaf's ice cream (on dry land!)

If you are interested in scuba and are located in Southern California, please check out PCH Scuba for your certification. The instructors and staff provide a safe, supportive, thorough certification process. They also offer advanced diver certification and organize scuba trips to exotic locations, such as Belize!

What "Listen to Your Body" Means

First things first: The winner of the HIMYM challenge is Heidi! Congrats! I'll be in touch to get you your goodies. :-)

Today I learned what it means to listen to my body. I've been running around all week, going to sleep after 11 pm every night. Despite having the day off this Monday, it still felt like a crazy week. Maybe it was Valentine's day? Regardless, I've been beat by the time I get home every day. Today was no exception.

After leaving work later than expected, tackling the Trader Joe's parking lot for some grocery shopping, cleaning out our fridge and restocking with , and playing with the kitten, I finally decided to skip my workout. Ugh. I felt super guilty for about an hour, especially when my husband came home all exhausted from football practice. I was exhausted, too, but not in the just-had-a-great-sweat kind of way, so I got a little jealous - and then I got over it.

While I had planned to work out today, I also had to listen to my body. People say it all the time, and I read it on blogs constantly, but my judgment sometimes gets clouded with the feeling that I need to push through my workout. Tonight, like the rest of the week, I was purely exhausted, and I needed a break. Now I'll be more refreshed when I am ready to work out next time. I feel good and relaxed and ready for a good night of sleep.

So once I accepted my night off from working out, I prepared a pretty delicious meal, if I do say so myself. The star of the show? My roasted red potatoes. :-)

Bruschetta appetizer

Grilled chicken atop mozzarella and spinach

The full meal

Roasted Red Potatoes
Serves 3-4

• 12 small red potatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cut the potatoes into quarters. On a baking sheet, toss the potato wedges, olive oil, and spices. Bake the potatoes for 25-30 minutes, turning once. The potatoes should be tender enough to pierce with a fork easily.

Roasted red potatoes

These potatoes made the meal! They had a nice bit of crunch on the outside and were delightfully tender inside. They complimented the chicken and tomatoes perfectly. 

Classroom Workout and WIAW

Crazy hectic day! Work flew by in a whirlwind of paperwork, e-mails, lesson planning, grading, quiz writing, and coaching. Oh, and teaching.

Since we had a playoff basketball game tonight, I couldn't come home for my usual workout. Instead, I waited for the rain to die down and squeezed in two miles on our school's track. Running on a track is not fun, but somehow it made me go a little faster. Maybe I just wanted to get it over with? Either way, I'm very happy with my 8:45 mile time!

Afterward, I wanted to throw together a little arm workout, but my classroom was the only option for a makeshift gym. While I thought it might be weird for a custodian to find me doing push ups, but my no excuses motto won out. And this workout is totally doable in an office. Who cares if your coworkers think you're weird for doing jumping jacks in your cubicle?

Three times through took about 25 minutes.

What I Ate Wednesday
Around the blogosphere, healthy living bloggers like to participate in What I Ate Wednesdays, where they recap everything they ate one day. I love the idea of sharing what I eat, so starting with one day per week is a perfect opportunity to put my money where my mouth is.

6:30 AM: 2 fried eggs, whole-wheat English muffin with raspberry jelly
10:15 AM: 6 oz. 2% plain Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup applesauce, 2 teaspoons honey, sprinkle of cinnamon
12:15 PM: Sandwich with 1/2 avocado, 2 tablespoons cream cheese, 1/2 cup raw spinach on honey whole-wheat bread; 1/2 cup carrots
5:00 PM: 1/2 cup pecans-cashews-dried cranberries mix
7:15 PM: Peanut butter and honey sandwich on honey whole-wheat bread
9:45 PM: Slice of cinnamon toast, 12 oz. milk

While I ate a good amount of healthy foods today, I was really lacking in fresh vegetables and fruits. Having to pack four of my little meals makes it tough, but I know I can do better. Looks like I'm in need of a trip to the farmer's market this weekend!

Hope the second half of your week is awesome! While I'm bummed our team lost tonight, I have to admit I'm pretty excited to have my weeknights back. Hopefully I can avoid going to sleep after 11 pm - starting tomorrow, perhaps?

In case you missed it, you can still participate in my HIMYM trivia challenge! I'll choose a winner tomorrow evening.

HIMYM Trivia Challenge

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Hope you had a wonderful day. Anyone have special plans? I love hearing what folks do on holidays, especially traditions. Terry and I don't have a Valentine's Day tradition yet, but this year involved pizza and television...

Speaking of which, I need to make an addendum to last night's post. In it, I included a How I Met Your Mother trivia challenge, but I wasn't very clear. So here it is again:

How I Met Your Mother Trivia Challenge

(souce)

1) Click on this link.
2) Comment below or e-mail me with the name of the episode that the link's website comes from. [Note: I'm not referring to my blog's website; you have to click on the link above!]
3) If there are multiple entries, I'll select a random winner to receive a free batch of homemade goodies! 

After sitting in way too much traffic on the way home, I didn't have time for my three mile run. Instead, I walked the mile to my hair salon and back. Then, tonight, since the pressure was off for Valentine's Day, we walked the 1.5 miles out to Westwood for some pizza and ice cream. I'm still sore from yesterday's awesome lower body workout, so a mellow day felt fine for my aching muscles.

New York style pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and green peppers.

Handsome hubby

Sportin' my bear hat with attached gloves!

Diddy Riese!

We kept it super low key in an effort to avoid traffic, crowds, and overpriced menus. Luckily, Enzo's Pizza was just the ticket! As was falling asleep on the couch.

Articles for Your Consideration

• Five Foods You Should Never Eat Again (Huffington Post)
• A Report on Low-Income Families' Efforts to Cook Healthy Meals (The Atlantic)
• The 50 Best Workout Songs of the Year (Daily Spark)

Early Valentine's Day

Last night, Terry and I celebrated Valentine's Day a little early, as a lot of folks seem to be doing this week. I agreed to make seafood, Terry's favorite, because - let's be honest - I was really focused mostly on the dessert and champagne. But actually, the meal turned out to be delicious!

I bought fresh wild cod from Costco last week, froze it for a few days, then let it thaw in the fridge for two nights (it was still a little frozen when I prepared it). We rarely buy fish because it's pricey and I'm intimidated by the idea of cooking with it, but I'm gaining confidence. So last night I created this recipe and highly recommend it to fish-cooking novices! Note: I call this recipe Almond-Crusted Cod, but you could use any nut and any mild fish. I just thought "Nut-Crusted Mild Fish" didn't sound quite as fancy.

Almond-Crusted Cod

Serves 4

Almond-Crusted Cod

• 4 fillets of fresh wild cod or other mild white fish 
• 1/2 cup raw almonds or other nut
• 1 egg
• Cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prepare a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray; set aside. In a food processor, grind the nuts until very fine, about 45 seconds. You will scare everyone in your house, including animals, with the volume of this process, but just go with it. The texture should be about that of bread crumbs. Once finished, transfer the ground almonds to a flat bowl or plate. Meanwhile, crack the egg into a flat bowl and whisk it with a bit of water to create an egg wash. Dip the fish into the egg wash and then into the nuts, coating completely. Place the coated fish into the prepared baking dish. Bake the fish, covered, for 25 minutes, or until the fillets are flaky. 

How easy is that? (Hi, Ina Garten!) (<--Do you guys think she reads my blog?) (<--I don't think so.) (But I love her.) It took me about 10 minutes to prepare the fish, and then I was free to cook the rest of the meal. We ate our fish along with quinoa (it was my first time and I loved it!) and Mom's recipe for brussels sprouts. Super healthy meal - until dessert. :-) We made a chocolate-hazelnut fondue and dipped strawberries, banana slices, and chunks of cinnamon swirl bread. YUM.

We also enjoyed a bottle of champagne that we purchased in France during our European Christmas trip. We were supposed to drink it on New Year's Eve, but a certain incident prevented that from happening, which made for a super romantic Valentine's Day.

And of course, we had a few gifts for each other. Actually, we normally don't do gifts for smaller holidays like this one, but we agreed that our first married V-Day deserved a little acknowledgment. I gave Terry an alarm clock (I swear he really wanted a new one), the movie Midnight in Paris, a shirt and tie, and an insulated UCLA cup that he can use to drink smoothies on the go. He gave me three Bic Bands (super cute headbands designed for workouts), Season 6 of How I Met Your Mother (<--if you're the first person to give the name of the episode where this website comes from, I will send you a batch of cookies!), and Happy Endings Season 1 (I'm definitely loving this new-ish show and highly recommend it!). An awesome first married Valentine's Day, indeed!

I had the day off today for Lincoln's birthday (obviously), so I kicked things off with breakfast for Terry and then tackled an awesome leg workout.

*Calf raises were as follows: 1) Feet together, toes forward; 2) Feet apart, toes forward; 3) Heels together, toes pointing out (first position for ballet folks out there); 4) Feet apart, toes pointing out (second position).

After some solid stretching, I showered, got some blog work done, and then picked up Terry for an appointment with our tax lady. We feared for our lives bank accounts, because we'd heard that filing as a married couple for the first time can be brutal, but we lucked out! We can still afford to eat! Thank you, tax gods! Since the appointment was in Orange County (not as close to LA as some might think, especially with traffic), Terry decided it wouldn't make sense to go back to work for such a short time, so we got to spend a little more time together than planned. Nothing could be better than that! I even convinced Terry to stop at Islands for a late lunch.

I'm a lucky lady :-)

Pineapple burger for Terry

Delicious grilled veggie tacos for me

When we finally got home, I puttered around the house, crossing things off my I've Been Meaning to Do These Things for Awhile list and watching my newly acquired Happy Endings DVD.

One of my tasks: Hanging some wedding photos (7 months later...)

Also, Scout chilled atop a newspaper.

Then I made the following 15-minute meal using last night's leftover fish (I baked some fish without the nut crust and simply used a little olive oil, salt, and pepper).

Cod Stir Fry
Serves 2

Stir Fry with Fish

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup broccoli florets
• 2 fillets of cod, baked with olive oil, salt, and pepper
• Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
• 2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce
• 1 cup cooked quinoa

Heat the olive oil in a medium pan over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the bell pepper and broccoli florets. Cook another 5 minutes. Add the teriyaki sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then roughly chop the fish (or simply break off pieces with your fingers) and add to the pan, along with a few tablespoons of water. Cover and cook another 3-5 minutes, until the fish is heated through.

Serve the stir fry atop the quinoa, and enjoy! Super easy, tons of nutritional value, and a perfect weeknight way to use leftovers. This meal would also work with chicken or beef, but you'd need to cook the meat a little longer.

Now I'm blogging at Starbucks and waiting for Terry's football game to start. (By the way, there's a guy and a girl here who are clearly classmates in graduate school, and the girl very obviously has a crush on the guy but he appears to be either oblivious or uninterested. I think the latter, but he hangs out with her because he feels bad and because he's not good at saying no. Also he has a girlfriend but things aren't going well.) (The girlfriend thing may or may not be true, but it certainly makes the story more interesting, doesn't it?)

Terry actually played football throughout high school (and was apparently quite the stud) and walked on to UCLA's football team his freshman year. He was on the football team the same year I was on the UCLA Dance Team, but we never met until after those endeavors. It would've been cute to cheer for him, but I'm excited to see him play for the first time ever tonight. I'll tell you what - he'd better live up to all these rumors about him being amazing, or I'll have some serious second thoughts here.

Just kidding. :-)