Scenes from the Weekend

Friday's work session with my English department:

Impromptu lunch date with my hubby on Friday.

Yesterday Jenn took me to tea at The London, a fancy hotel in West Hollywood with a lovely upscale restaurant.

The tea was Rose and French Vanilla--very fragrant indeed. 

Scones, sandwiches, and desserts to accompany our tea. Plus excellent conversation, of course!

Homemade calzones with mozzarella, zucchini ribbons, and Parmesan, plus marinara on the side for dipping. 

I used Lisa's whole wheat pizza crust recipe and Smitten Kitchen's calzone instructions (in her amazing cookbook) to make this bit of magic happen!

In the spirit of the holiday, I spent a little time in the kitchen baking up a batch of Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes from Smitten Kitchen.



Plus menu planning, of course!

• Monday: Out for a dinner meeting
• Tuesday: Greek salad
• Wednesday: Out for a UCLA meeting, but I'm thinking of cooking up some veggie quesadillas beforehand
• Thursday: Breakfast for dinner--waffles, pancakes, or crepes with fruit
• Friday: Pasta with goat cheese marinara to fuel up for our 10K!

I skipped this weekend's workouts and long run in an effort to battle off whatever bug is trying to get me. I am feeling more energized this evening, so hopefully I'll be back to 100% tomorrow. But of course, that means I missed my last long run before next weekend's race. I'm a little nervous about feeling less than prepared, but on the other hand perhaps some rest wasn't the worst idea.

Anyway, if all goes well, here's this week's plan:

• Monday: 4-mile run
• Tuesday: Lower body strength and incline walking
• Wednesday: 2-mile run
• Thursday: Upper body strength + stretch
• Friday: Rest, stretch, and foam roll

I hope you have a spectacular week!

What are the plans for your fitness and food this week? 

Busted Lip and Sore Hips

Sunday night, we meet again. But I have a feeling this week will ride along much more smoothly than last, thanks to some prep work today.

Tuna salad for lunches this week

Farmer's market haul, which was so fun. We had exactly $16, so we ran around from stand to stand trying to buy as much as we could. We also bought our first batch of farmer's market eggs! I'll let you know what we think.

A few other errands, including buying new dish gloves for this guy.

I wanted to make these bars, which called for granola. So.... 

Homemade almond butter granola

And raspberry crumble bars!

But let's get to that busted lip, shall we? I'll spare you the gory photos, but yesterday we took a lovely walk and run into our friend and his dog. I got the puppy a little too excited, and she jumped up to my face, which resulted in my tooth chomping down right into my bottom lip. A little blood, some swelling, and now just a bit of soreness. I'm just hoping it'll be unnoticeable by tomorrow so my students don't ask about it a million times. 

Speaking of soreness, Terry and I finished our six-mile run this morning, and my hips are achin' big time. We foam rolled last night and loosened up with a walk this morning, but my hips still really tightened up during the run. I managed to shake it off, and I spent a little extra time stretching after we returned. I need to aim for more stretching every day, especially hip openers. Julie from Peanut Butter Fingers has a great post on helpful hip stretches if you're interested. Otherwise the run felt good, and we think we're right on target for our goal time of a 9-minute mile.

Other highlights of the weekend included this leg workout Friday afternoon,

time with Terry's family, a date night on Friday night at a new-to-us restaurant and bar, and plenty of down time together to gear up for another week.

What's your usual prep work routine to get ready for the week? We try to tackle menu planning, grocery shopping, laundry, and other household chores so that the week is more manageable.

Adventures in Bread Baking

Awhile back, when I first tried Great Harvest's Honey Whole-Wheat sandwich bread, I absolutely fell in love. But the only two local options were at least 30 minutes away from our home, which presented a pretty big problem. Who is going to drive 30 minutes for bread? (Okay, I would, and I have, but I try not to spend time in my car if I can avoid it.)

Luckily, for a long time, Great Harvest had a stand at our local farmers' market, so we could buy our bread within walking distance. Sadly, that all changed recently, and no more walks to get bread. Also one of the two bakeries "near" us closed, so we're down to one option, 45 minutes away, closed on Sundays. We tried to buy regular wheat bread again (there are several pretty non-processed options out there), but the flavor just didn't compare.

So then I got to thinking--maybe I need a bread maker. I even researched options before stumbling onto several recipes online that don't require any machines or fancy mixers. I used one bowl, a few measuring devices, a wooden spoon, a board, and loaf pans to make this bread. It took awhile, but mostly because there's a lot of waiting for the dough to rise, and you know I used that time for other fun stuff. Like laundry.

Waiting for the dough to rise (I read that it rises faster in warm areas, so I stuck it next to the crock pot).

For this first attempt, I used a recipe from AllRecipes.com, Simple Whole Wheat Bread. I liked the look of the ingredients (all real food), and I thought it seemed simple enough. Step by step, my results seemed successful along the way. At one point, though, when I was kneading the bread, the recipe says, "Flour a flat surface and knead with whole wheat flour until not real sticky - just pulling away from the counter, but still sticky to touch. This may take an additional 2 to 4 cups of whole wheat flour." What?! I made my best guess and probably added at least 3 cups of flour to the dough to make it sorta-not-but-still-kinda sticky. Perhaps it wasn't sticky enough? Perhaps too sticky? Perhaps sticky but not sticking to the counter properly? 

The only other tough part (aside from being patient) (and aside from determining appropriate stickiness) was figuring out how to divide the dough evenly into three parts. I realize now, of course, in retrospect, that I could have weighed each part. Also, the dough didn't want to rise once I divided it into the loaf pans and promptly deflated as I was about to put it in the oven. Not sure what happened there.

Still, I'd say it's pretty tough to make bread without making your house smell amazing. The loaves are definitely too short for sandwiches, but the bread tastes absolutely delicious. We may or may not have already eaten half a loaf. 

Well, if you had told me a few years ago that soon enough I would be writing an entire blog post about bread--especially making my own bread--I would have called you crazy. And perhaps I'm the crazy one. Let's not go there. I just want you to know that making bread from scratch isn't all that difficult, and even if it doesn't go perfectly you still get delicious, inexpensive, healthy bread that fills your house with glorious aromas. Much better than a 30-minute drive to buy a five dollar loaf, huh?

Have you ever made your own bread? Any tips for my rising problem? And what should I do with these too-short-for-sandwiches loaves (besides making French toast, which is already on the agenda)?

Also, feel free to link up recipes and/or stories of bread making disasters. Those are always fun.

Happy Tuesday!

A (Terrible) Night at the Theater

Miss me yesterday? I desperately needed to get to sleep early, so I hit the sack around 10, but of course I slept terribly. Oh, well, such is life. Let's get caught up.

Sunday night's dinner: [photos to come...later...]

Fish Tacos

Serves 2-4, depending on the size of your fish

For the fish:

• Wild white fish filet, such as halibut
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• ½ tablespoon butter

For the tacos:

• Corn tortillas
• Romaine lettuce
• Fresh tomatoes, diced
• Sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• Yogurt sauce (see below)

For the yogurt sauce:

• 2 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• ½ teaspoon dill (more if using fresh dill)
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• Juice from ½ lemon

To cook the fish, heat the olive oil and butter in a large pan over medium-high heat. Season one side of the fish with salt and pepper, then place (seasoned side down) the fish in the pan. Season the other side with salt and pepper. Cook about 5 minutes on each side, until the fish is cooked through and flaky.

To make the yogurt sauce, whisk all ingredients together. To assemble the tacos, heat the corn tortillas, then top with fish, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and yogurt sauce. Enjoy with grilled vegetables and cerveza!

These tacos rocked! We love Wahoo’s Fish Tacos, but these are an excellent at-home version. We bought our halibut at Costco, so it was affordable and there were plenty of leftovers. 

Last night's workout:

Tonight's dinner at Pinot Grille (a little stand outside the Ahmanson Theater in downtown LA, where we saw Follies tonight):

Veggie sandwich for me

Burger for Terry

The food was quite good, and corkage for our bottle of wine was free! Hallelujah! But we also noticed a lot of folks had just brought their own food, which seemed much more fun (not to mention healthier and more affordable). As I mentioned Sunday, we're heading back to the same area on Friday to see Swan Lake, so we've already decided to bring another bottle of wine and our own little picnic.

The play was only okay. I had never seen it before, but I wasn't a fan of the music (not sing-along music, that's for sure...but I sang every song on the radio on the way home to make up for it). We also thought the scene in "Loveland" was weird. But it seemed as though the audience was really into it; they applauded as each character made her entrance and got me all excited. We were extremely impressed by the talent of the actors and actresses and thought the singing was brilliant. But the show as a whole left us feeling underwhelmed.

Part of our terrible experience was the fact that everyone around us was being extremely rude. The guy to my right wouldn't stop talking (not even in a whisper!), the two ladies behind us had obviously enjoyed too much pinot at Pinot Grille and laughed uncontrollably through about 15 minutes of the show, and someone's phone actually rang. Not only that; they didn't shut it off once it started ringing. Terry even admitted it was the worst theater going experience of his life.

Tomorrow is the second to last day of school. Very bittersweet, but I'm excited to have lunch with two of my coworkers to celebrate the end of the year.  I hope you enjoy an excellent Wednesday!

Are you a theater fan? What's your favorite live show? 
Hands down, my favorite in-theater show is Les Miserables. Terry and I saw it in London on our honeymoon and were brought to tears because the singing was so beautiful.

Mother's Day and a Birthday Celebration

I wish I wish I wish I could have spent Mother's Day with my mom. I always miss my family, but I miss them more on holidays, birthdays, Tuesdays...yeah, all the time. I'm lucky to see them as often as I do (about six times per year), but more would be so much better!

Yesterday, for Mother's Day, Terry and I invited his parents and brother over for brunch, and it was great to be with my in-laws. We woke up leisurely and swung by the farmers' market to pick up some flowers and fruit. Then I prepped the rest of brunch and got ready by 11.

Goat cheese and tomato quiche

Sausage, spinach, and bell pepper quiche with ricotta cheese

Sourdough French toast casserole

Sourdough Pecan French Toast Casserole
Serves 12

• 3/4 loaf cinnamon swirl bread, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 loaf sourdough bread, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 5 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans

In a large bowl, whisk eggs, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Stir in the bread chunks until they're evenly coated. Cover the bowl with saran wrap and let sit in the fridge overnight (8-12 hours). In the morning, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray and pour the bread into the dish, spreading evenly. Sprinkle the pecans over the bread. Bake the casserole for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown.



It was a fun, relaxing morning with good food and a nice chance to catch up. I'm so grateful my mother-in-law (and father-in-law!) raised such a wonderful man. On a side note, she also taught Terry how to clean a room like nobody's business. :-) His wife is quite grateful.

After brunch (which may or may not have included three glasses of champagne), I didn't feel fantastic. I had a crazy headache and just wanted to nap. Instead, I thought I'd try a quick workout to zap the blues, but I skipped the 20 minute jog on this 100 workout. Nothing really worked, but we had big plans last night so I summoned my energy and got all fancied up for...

...Jenn and Justin's birthday celebration! Jenn and Justin are two of our very best friends, and we missed Jenn's birthday party two weekends ago. Instead, we opted to take them out for a fancy dinner at The Grill on the Alley in Beverly Hills. Oooohhh goodness, if you have one of these near you, find an excuse to go immediately! Delicious meat (Jenn, Justin, and I ordered filets and Terry ordered lamb) and seafood, fantastic sides (creamed spinach makes my tummy happy), and--we discovered last night--seriously phenomenal chocolate cake. I already miss that cake.

Fancy dinners with friends are so fun! Gotta do these more. Love you guys!

Chlorine, Corned Beef, and Cabbage

Is it me, or do the weekends go to fast? (<--Hello, Captain Obvious.) As I write more, I learn that I am a pretty intense person. I refuse to waste time. It's a sickness, really. Wasting time is not bad, and I highly suggest it. I, however, cannot allow a moment to pass without ensuring that I'm being productive. It's exhausting. I wish my cat - or my brother - would teach me how to live.

Priority: Finding the most comfortable spot next to a window.

Another priority: attacking his tail whilst upside down.

This morning, Terry was off for more scuba training(he's becoming a Dive Master), and I got to work on a) an egg sandwich, and b) work for school.

Honey whole wheat toast, fried egg, jelly, and Havarti cheese

After a few hours, I settled in with Scout to get myself caught up on The Biggest Loser, my favorite reality show. Yes, I had four weeks backed up in the ol' DVR, but I plowed through. Here's the key: Fast forward through commercials (5 arrows = about 7 seconds), and only watch the weigh-ins if you really need to know how the drama plays out. This technique cuts the two-hour show to about one hour. If you need any other TV-watching tips, please let me know.

During the show, I got to work on my third workout from Week 2 of Tina's Best Body Boot Camp. Yowza! Those Turkish Get Ups were no easier this week, but I love them. You will see them on this blog in the future. Don't worry. (I know you were worried.)

For lunch, I made some seriously delicious quesadillas that we scarfed down before I could snap a photo. Then we braved the cold wind for a long walk around our neighborhood and hit the hot tub. I love hot tubbing before stretching, because my muscles get super limber in the heat.

Scout, on the other hand, needs no stretching at all to be this flexible.

When we got back from the hot tub, Scout performed his usual post-swim ritual (no, he doesn't swim with us). He goes crazy for chlorine!

Nibbling Terry's toes

It would be cute if it didn't hurt so much

He goes through this little attack every time we come back from the pool or hot tub, so we had to look it up. According to the Internet, cats react to chlorine much like they do to catnip. The article makes it sound like Scout is going to exhibit some terrible behaviors, but he actually just bites our toes and wrestles with our feet. We just laugh.

For dinner, Terry gobbled up two servings of his corned beef and cabbage. We found the corned beef at Trader Joe's, and Terry threw roughly chopped carrots, potatoes, onions, and cabbage in the crock pot for eight hours on low.

Happy (belated) St. Patrick's Day!

I tried it, but I'm really not a big fan of this traditional dish, so I created my own little recipe.

It looks unappealing, but it was mighty tasty!

Gnocchi with Veggies and Cream Sauce
Serves 2

Vegetables

• 2 green vegetables of your choice (I used asparagus and broccoli crowns), chopped into one-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sauce

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon whole wheat flour
• 2/3 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese 
• 2 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Gnocchi

• Whole wheat gnocchi

You can find this gnocchi in the pasta aisle at Trader Joe's

Heat a small pot of boiling water and add two servings of gnocchi (about 1 1/2 cups). Boil the gnocchi until it floats to the top, about 2 minutes.

For the vegetables, melt the butter in a small pan, then add the veggies and salt and pepper and saute until ready, about 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the sauce, melt the tablespoon of butter and add the flour, whisking together until light brown, about 30 seconds. Add the milk and turn the heat down to very low. Once the milk is warm (but not scalded), add the cheeses and whisk until smooth.

Stir the vegetables into the sauce. Drain the gnocchi and combine it with the sauce-veggie mixture. Serve hot.

Delicious!

 Best served with champagne, especially if you're celebrating your husband's awesome performance at work lately.

Moet & Chandon

Terry made himself a Black Velvet - 1/2 Guinness, 1/2 champagne

During dinner, we watched 50/50, the movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. We really liked it, though we both cried. I definitely recommend it! It had been a long time since we watched a new movie, and it was so fun to relax and enjoy.

Hope you enjoyed a great weekend! Off to bed before another busy week. Only 6 days until our cruise!

Oscar Sunday

Happy Oscar Sunday! We stuffed our day (and our bellies) full today, starting with a kickass run.

Six miles felt very tough, but we pushed each other to get through it. Terry picked the route today, so I blame him for the almost-mile-long hill during mile 3. Ouch. Otherwise, we did alright and found some good grooves. I even ran without my iPod and felt okay.

After the run and a big breakfast (I had scrambled eggs, peanut butter and jelly on a slice of toast, a pear, and a glass of milk), we were off on a busy day. After church, we ventured out to Costco to purchase the entertainment center I found yesterday. I've been wanting a nicer platform for our TV for awhile, but they can be super expensive. Costco is a great choice for quality furniture at a decent price, and we both like the size, look, and storage in this unit.

But then came the task of getting it into our car (a very helpful Costco employee and Terry loaded it) and then into our apartment. Ultimately, we scored a giant piece of cardboard from the dumpster (I have no shame), which we used to reduce friction between the unit's box and the pavement. We scooted the giant, pre-assembled unit about 50 yards to the back of our complex and up exactly two stairs. Imagine, if you will, the scene in Disney's Cinderella when Gus and Jacques push the giant key up the stairs. We emulated those cartoon mice perfectly.

Luckily, our neighbors took pity on us and helped immensely. We made it into the living room without further incident, and then - while Scout explored his new "toy" - we headed off to our friends' Oscar party!

Oscar party or feast? Jenn and Justin know how to bring a group of people together! We enjoyed WAY too much food.

Justin, looking awesome as always

I will definitely learn what this dish is called, but I know it's Filipino 

Enchiladas with green sauce

Enchiladas with red sauce

Homemade pizza

Champagne

Some of the ladies

Captivated by Billy Crystal

My contribution: bacon-wrapped dates. I got the recipe from Terry's coworker, Cheryl, who brought them to the Super Bowl party we attended last month. Super simple and always a hit!

We stuffed some of the dates with goat cheese (slice one side of the date lengthwise and add the cheese)

Pre-cooking

Perfect bite-sized snack!

Simply wrap each dried, pitted date (available by the tub at Costco) in a 1/2 slice of bacon. Skewer the wrapped dates on a barbecue skewer. If possible, hang the skewers on a baking dish's edges so that the fat can drip off. Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes. I'm not sure if you're supposed to turn them, but I didn't and they turned out fine.

We actually had to leave the party early, sadly, because I broke out in hives! I have exactly one allergy that I am aware of: Ghirardelli dark chocolate. And I didn't eat that tonight, so I have no idea where this reaction started. So when we got home, we had time to tackle the task of setting up our new entertainment center.

What our living room looked like for about an hour

After!

Okay, I'm still super itchy all over, so I'm off to take some Benadryl and get some zzzzzs before a new work week!

What are your goals this week? A more nutritious eating plan? More workouts? 


If you're looking for ideas or inspiration for food and fitness, check out my updated pages!

• Better Food
• Better Fitness