Army Run

Sorry it's been a while since I have put up a new post. Been really busy these past few weeks, with our baseball tournament, then we went to Sudbury for a wedding, and last weekend my cousin came down from Sudbury, and we did the half marathon.

Now do note that with our not so great year, we struggled with training for this half marathon, but we still did it, and finished it!  We also didn't have the best weather, it rained most of the time. We ran about 1/4 of the race, and walked the rest, and it took us 3 hours and 49 minutes.

Might be a bit hard to tell from the photo but we are soaked! Although the weather wasn't nice and we got bad blisters on our feet, so exhausted, and were muscle sore for a few days, we did have a good time, we chatted most of the way and we finished a half marathon!  We are very proud, and we did this race for my mom, our aunt and grandma.

This event is set up every year in Ottawa, and it's so great to help our members. For the 5 km race there were 13,000 people, and for the half marathon (21.5 km) there were 12,000 people.

This weekend I finally had some time to get busy in the kitchen, and I did a lot of chopping, but all my vegetables will be easy to grab during the week. I also decided to make banana muffins, and I took the recipe from Anna Olson's book, back to baking, but make a few changes to the recipe. Instead of using brown sugar, I used coconut sugar, and instead of white flour, I did a bit of a mix of 2 tbsp of coconut flour, with some oat flour (took rolled oats and put it in my blender to turn it into a flour), and also some spelt flour. The recipe was for a banana loaf, but I decided to make muffins instead, makes it easier to grab and eat as a snack at work. They turned out really great!

Long weekend

This long weekend, we ended up staying home because I needed some time to get busy in the kitchen, and to also relax and sleep in. I was feeling quite run down, and this weekend at home was just what I needed.

After getting the house cleaning done, and laundry, I got into the kitchen on Saturday and prepared a butterless pie crust which I got from my friend's blog, and I followed her recipe and it turned out great.

I put those in the fridge, then made some guacamole, and a healthy salad dressing. I used 2 avocados (should have only used one, two made it to thick), I added some anchovy paste (about 4 tsp), juice of 2 lemons, a splash of red wine vinegar, one garlic clove, and touch of salt and added some pepper and a few fresh basil leaves, and turned on my blender and streamed in some olive oil.

Turned out nice and green, but it's really good. So now I have lots for salads this week.

Then I ended up making a batch of cookies, and also finally decided to make the black bean brownie from the Joyous Health cookbook, and they are good! Very easy to make, and there's no flour in this recipe, and love the idea of putting cocoa nibs at the top, like she suggests in her book.

For our lunch I prepared a taco salad. I put in some romaine lettuce, spinach, yellow pepper, a few grape tomatoes, some red onion, and I cooked up some ground bison and added lots of chilli powder, a bit of cumin and a bit of chipotle pepper (ground), as our salad dressing, I used some salsa, guacamole, and for the hubby some sour cream, and topped it with a little bit of grated cheese.

It was delicious! We usually don't have cheese in the house, but a friend came over and brought a bag of grated cheese and told us to keep the rest.

For supper I roasted a whole chicken, which I got from Aubrey's and I marinated it with Dijon mustard, and sprinkled on some epicure spices (the turkey seasoning), and to go with that, I made some mashed potatoes, and roasted some carrots. Supper was really good, and we even enjoyed it with some red wine. The left over chicken was the perfect amount for me to create my chicken pot pies which I made yesterday. I created 3 pies, which I doubled the dough recipe twice. I had some dough left over, but didn't do anything with the rest. I also made a different batch of cookies, and for supper we had one of the chicken pot pies, and I froze the other two, which will come in handy when I don't have time to prepare anything.

Here's my recipe for the filling of my chicken pot pies:

4 carrots, diced
4 celery stocks, diced
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Thyme
Salt & Pepper

Saute in a pan until soft, then add shredded chicken (I had about 2 cups), add about a cup of green peas, and then add some chicken stock until it just to say covers everything. Bring to a boil, then add 3 tbsp of arrowroot (you can use cornstarch or flour as well) which has been mixed in a bit of chicken stock. Simmer for a few minutes, then let it all cool down. Add some to each pie, and cover leaving the top vented. I cooked it in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes.

Today I am taking it easy since I have gotten a lot accomplished this weekend. Although I did step out for a run. I ran and walked a few times in between therefore took me 1 hour and 7 minutes to do 9 km. So I'm quite out of shape, but felt good to be out there. I ran along the bike trail which there are some wooded areas, but you still get the view of the road, which makes it safe for me to run along since I was alone. Now I will relax the rest of day, but I will be making fajitas tonight for supper.

Hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend!