A Week of Disney Recipes

Introducing a recipe inspired by The Coral Reef Shrimp and Scallops:

Recipe to come later... watching LOST!

New Look...

What do you think?! I think it's fancy. :-)
DH and I are watching the episodes of American Idol that I DVRed from this week. :-) It's such a sad thing that I have finally given in to this show after 9 seasons of not really watching... Oh well... It's Simon's last season... I guess I'd better watch this year. Haha. Thursday is our big T.V. night. Bones is on at 8, The Office at 9, 30 Rock at 9.30, and Pwoject Wunway (Project Runway) is on at 10... And of course I DVR Grey's. :-) That way DH doesn't HAVE to watch it... though he usually does. :-) The Mentalist is also on at 10, so that is also DVRed. I have about 5 to catch up on from this season, in addition to the first season I got on DVD for Christmas. The rest of the week is not quite as exciting T.V. wise... American Idol and LOST are the main grabbers... Desperate Housewives too, though I'm new to watching that, so I forget about it a lot. Haha. I wish I wasn't such a T.V. junkie sometimes... I promise I do other things! Like... um... um... Church! I go to church! ... I... WORK! ... When I can! And... Um... occasionally, I clean, cook, and run.

Speaking of running... I decided to push the three miler I was to do today to tomorrow because my knee was twinging a bit and my nose is a mucus factory at the moment. Sigh... I'm glad that I didn't push myself to go out today. I'll do the three miles tomorrow and it will be fantastic and then Sunday will be an actual 4 mile run... not 4.4 miles. Haha.

I am subbing for a High School Science teacher tomorrow morning, eating lunch at home, running, CLEANING, packing, and heading to Charlottesville with DH. My mother finally got a new TV (her old one is almost 30- yes 30- years old!) and had it delivered to DH's parent's house since she was going to be out of town for the delivery. So... long story not so short, we are all meeting up at my mom's tomorrow night, then DH and I will chill with his parents in town, then he and I will go over to my dad's house for the first annual family Olympics games... Think The Office Olympics that Jim and Pam orchestrated.
:-) It'll be fun!

I am extremely proud of myself for creating a meal tonight. DH told me that he felt that it felt like a recipe, not an experiment! He loved it and couldn't wait to have it for lunch tomorrow! :-) Neither can I, actually.

Hope you all have a lovely night and weekend (in case I don't write for a day or two!).

Mexican Pasta Bake

I didn't grocery shop for recipes this week... I challenged myself to come up with recipes to fit what I had. This is what happened tonight:

Mexican Pasta Bake

1.44 lbs 93% lean ground beef (It would take a small army to keep me away from red meat)
1 box whole wheat rotini
1/2 cup onion chopped
1/2 cup red onion chopped
1/2 cup green onion chopped
1 can white sweet corn
1 can green enchilada sauce
1 1/2 cups salsa
1 1/2 cups shredded part skim mozzarella cheese (I would have used mexican blend as I thought I had that in my fridge... but yeah... I didn't)
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp paprika
Black pepper to taste

Directions: Brown the meat with the spices. Meanwhile, boil water for pasta and cook pasta. Add the peppers and onion. Cook for 2 minutes, add corn. cook 2 minutes, add enchilada sauce and salsa. Let simmer for a few minutes.
Combine pasta and meat mixture in a greased 13x9 pan. Add half the cheese and combine well.
Bake covered for 15 minutes at 350*, uncover, spread the remaining cheese on top and bake for an additional 10 minutes, uncovered. Enjoy!!!

Not just a fail...

an EPIC fail.

I have been eating those Valentine's conversation hearts all day. I also drank a Coke... and ate a mini Reese's, a mini Butterfinger, AND a mini Hershey's Special Dark. So... I said to myself, "Self, go for a run. No, you haven't hydrated today... No, you're not going to stretch properly. Just go."

Dumb idea.

I took 10 steps and my knee started screaming. I ran about a quarter mile, turned around on a side street so I could start walking and no one would see my fail. I ran a little more on the way home, but it just kept hurting. Remind me to ice. Remind me to stretch. Remind me to strengthen. Looks like I need to start doing Yoga on days off too- more stability exercises. I'm icing right now, yogaing in a few... then showering and getting ready for church.

Sigh.

A whirlwind of a weekend!

So I guess I owe a recap of the past 6 or so days... :-)

Friday: Subbed 3rd grade and it went very well. I like third grade because they are much more independent than the younger kids. I went to Food Lion for some milk and ran into... DH! He was getting me a card for Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, FL failed in the card dept for both of us. When we got home, I made dinner immediately because we were both starving. It was 4.30 and we had WW pancakes and eggs. I went upstairs to change my clothes to go out and I found a suitcase on the bed with a note to pack for a night away... :-O Oh my! So I packed up quickly and we left for... Williamsburg!!! We went out shopping for the night at the outlets, went to the hotel around 9, then went to Cracker Barrel for a nightcap... meaning a kiddie meal hamburger for me and chicken fried steak for DH! :-) Love it!

Saturday: Great continental bfast at the hotel, then... SHOPPING!!! I got TEN tops at Banana for an AMAZING price because they  had an extra 60% off their CLEARANCE! And  no... I'm not the only one who got things! :-) We skipped lunch and went to an early dinner at Chili's because we had a gift card. They COMPLETELY messed up my order and gave me nothing for it. Boo Williamsburg Chili's. We then headed back to the outlets and I also got a KATE SPADE purse (okay...2) for... 80% OFF!!! Oh yes! :-)

Sunday: Church in the morning (finally a normal service schedule!), Chinese for lunch (Okay... So I ate TERRIBLY this weekend... but I made good choices for meals at all the restaurants, I promise!), three mile run, and then back to church for youth group.

Monday: I subbed Middle School English. The first class I had was primarily ESL, so it was challenging because all the different groups of languages sat together, so we had a lot of chatting problems. The second class was brilliant! Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. My last class was ATROCIOUS. I saw a side of myself I'd never seen: the mean teacher. Oh. My. Gosh. I wanted to strangle them all! DH had the day off, so that made it even harder to have a bad day in my own content area. We ate a delicious late dinner of steak (love me some red meat!), steamed broccoli, and skillet potatoes (deeeelish!).

Today: I spent a lazy morning on my couch catching up on Grey's reruns and dreading my 4 mile run. FINALLY around 3.30, I got my butt outside. I recently stopped doing a maze-like run through the neighborhoods behind my townhouse and started running on the main road, which basically goes like this:
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ (hill after hill after hill!). I had the road that marked my half way turn around point in my mind, but I never saw it! I saw the ones I knew were close to it, but no such luck locating the road. I looked at my watch after a little while and decided based on the length of time that I had been running that I had already hit the halfway point, so I turned around at the nearest main road. Turns out... I ran 4.41 miles. That's almost half a mile too long!!! How cool is that! I only need about one and three quarter miles left to add on to get to 10k!!! :-) So happy! Tonight's dinner was WW rotini with tomato sauce, romaine lettuce with parmesan cheese and blackberry walnut dressing, and sourdough artisan bread. YUM. Now I'm watching more Grey's reruns until LOST!!! :-) Love that show soooo much, even if it leaves me so confused and so angry that each episode goes so quickly!

Announcing... MY JEWELRY!

This blog is supposed to be crafty too, sooo...

One of my 101 in 1001 goals was to make 3 pieces of jewelry. Here those pieces are... and I made them 4 other friends!!!

(Necklace)

(Earrings)

(Necklace)

(Necklace)

(Bracelet)

(Necklace)

(Necklace)

I'm pretty happy with the results. :-)

Snow day!

DH didn't have to go to work today and I didn't have a subbing job (and the schools were closed), so we had a day for fun! We caught up on "Triple D" or Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives from the DVR. These episodes spawned a desire in me for a good grilled cheese, fancy diner style... which birthed...

FOUR CHEESE GRILLED CHEESE

I put about an ounce each of New Zealand Cheddar, Jarlesburg, Feta, and Smoked Gouda in there... and I had to put the Hawaiian Kettle Chips and pickles on to make it Diner-esque! SOOOO GOOD. Not low-cal, but WHO CARES sometimes!!

The husband of our neighbors who also moved here from Lynchburg with us works with DH (thus the move) and so they (he, his wife, and almost one year old son) came over for some Carcassone and Beatles Rock Band.

Well, we're off to a Mexican restaurant to meet up with some friends from church since there was no dinner/activities at church tonight. I've got some fun pictures to post as a surprise when I get back!! :-)

Tuesdays are good days

I'm sorry for the lack of update last night... We went shopping and then the interenet went out.

My run yesterday was wonderful! 3 miles, 36 minutes. Slow and steady gets it done. My treadmill didn't have book clips, so I had to watch muted ESPN (my gym's TVs only show CNN and ESPN) while listening to my Zune. I can't believe I did three miles without something to read or something interesting to watch! I cannot WAIT until the ice is off the roads and I can run OUTSIDE again!! Unfortunately, it is freezing rain/snow/sleet/nastiness tonight, so looks like running outside will take a sideline for a little while longer! I'm getting a little nervous about 4 miles on Monday, but I think I can do it. I have a 2 miler tomorrow and then a 3 miler on Friday.

I subbed today for Kindergarten, and I am now quite convinced that I do not want to do Kindergarten. Short attention spans, tattle tales, dependent... haha. They were cute but oh my! I sub on Thursday for 3rd grade and I think I'll like that a lot. Friday is Middle School/High School Strings. Easy. I may sub on Monday for Middle School English because a teacher requested me! It's a hard decision though because DH and I had V-Day plans for Monday because he finally has a day off.
:-/ Difficult decisions!

3 miles

DONE. W2D1 of 10k training DONE. It was slow, steady, and not too bad! :-) More later- gotta make dinner!

Finally getting to the point where I hate snow.

DH and I are supposed to go to an Iron and Wine concert in Charlottesville tomorrow night, but Charlottesville is supposed to get a billion inches of snow tomorrow morning through Saturday night. No bueno. I spent good money on these tickets for DH for Christmas and I really don't want to miss this concert as I think it will be positively mind-blowing.

Sending prayers for the snow clouds to not dump on Charlottesville until after we get the heck outta there!

NOT a fail. Woohoo.

So... I have a snow day off from school and I planned out my day to go to the gym (our roads are covered in snow/slush/ice/water) to run my second training run for my 10k in March so very perfectly. I ate a great breakfast with my workout in mind (bowl of Kashi Heart to Heart and a banana with peanut butter and honey) and drank a big ol' cup of water (a good 24oz). I gave myself time to let the food/water settle. I left to get to the gym at 12 (I usually eat lunch around 1.30). I got 18 minutes into the 20 minute journey and realize that...


I left my badge at home. Crap.

Turn around. Gas light comes on. Crap.

Get gas. Get home. Realize I forgot to put house gas bill in mail. Crap.

Paid bill. Grabbed badge. Went back to gym. Good.

It's almost 1.00 p.m. and I am getting hungry. Crap.

Had things gone according to plan I would have been done with my workout and on my way home at this point. Not the case.

I ran my 2 miles on the dreadmill, felt really crappy because I was hungry and no longer had enough fuel in my system, but I ran my 2 miles. Not a lot, but it's what the day called for today. I could have given up completely, but I didn't. I could have stayed at home when I came back, but I didn't.


I'm pretty proud of myself right now. :-)

Okay, AW done. And now I am sitting on the couch having enjoyed my two slices of Whole Foods vegan greek pizza (no cheese, olives, onions, tomatoes, and spinach). SO YUMMY. :-)

As promised yet again...

This is the last recipe of the week of wonders. I forgot to get the cream cheese, then the night we went to the store before the snow storm, we forgot to pick it up. SO we had to wait until yesterday to get it, but then the Chinese food came into our house and well... we started the week with an arriba!

Enchilada Lasagna

(no photo available... it wasn't "pretty")

1 1/4 lb. lean ground turkey
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green pepper, chopped
1 large red pepper, chopped
1 pkg (8 oz.) low fat cream cheese
1 tsp chili powder
1 can (10 oz) enchilada sauce
6 whole wheat flour tortillas (8 inch)
1 cup shredded reduced-fat Mexican cheese blend

Directions:
1. In a large skilled, cook the turkey, onion, and peppers over med. heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in cream cheese and chili powder.
2. Pour enchilada sauce in a shallow bowl. Dip tortillas in sauce to coat. Place two tortillas in a 13x9 inch baking dish coated with cooking spray; spread with half of the turkey mixture. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup cheese. Repeat layers. Top with remaining tortillas and cheese.
3. Cover and freeze for up to three months or bake, uncovered, at 400* for 20-25 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Serve with sour cream and salsa if desired.

To use frozen lasagna: Thaw in the fridge overnight. Remove from the fridge 30 minutes before baking. Bake as directed.

This was REALLY yummy. I might have to make one to freeze for later as an emergency meal. :-)

Day 1 of the Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10k Training: DONE

I have two options for training plans, but both start with the same mileage for week 1.

Moderate Training Schedule: (with X-Training and rest on S/T/Th/S)
M/W/F
2/2/2 (6 miles)
3/2/2 (7 miles
4/2/3 (9 miles)
5/2/3 (10 miles)
6/2/5 (Tempo) (13 miles)
6/2/5 (Speed work) (13 miles)
7/2/5 (Tempo) (14 miles)
2/5 (Tempo)/Race on Saturday (13.2 miles)

Hard Training Schedule: (with X-Training and rest on S/T/Th/S)
M/W/F
2/2/2 (6 miles)
3/2/3 (8 miles)
4/3/3 (10 miles)
5/3/4 (12 miles)
6/2/5 (Tempo) (13 miles)
6/2/5 (Speed Work) (13 miles)
7/2/5 (Tempo) (14 miles)
2/5 (Tempo)/ Race on Saturday (13.2 miles)

Not much of a difference. I'm going to try to do the hard schedule, but at least if I have a bad day in those first few weeks, I have the moderate schedule to fall back on. :-) Looking forward to finishing that 10k STRONG! Tonight's dinner is Enchilada Lasagna. Look for the recipe tonight or tomorrow. It looks delish in the magazine! :-)

Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10k Count Down

I signed up! I must be crazy!