Meal Prep 9/24/18

We found ourselves with about 45 minutes of extra time between breakfast and leaving for church yesterday morning, so we decided to see how fast we could get lunch made.  This left us the entire rest of the day with nothing on the to-do list but to run.  It was so nice to have the whole afternoon and evening to just spend time together!

Boneless chicken thighs (8) : season to taste and bake at 425 for 30 minutes

Pasta (1 lb) : cook according to directions on box, mix with olive oil and about 3 tbsp of pesto

Broccoli (2 lbs) : steam in a large pot

Sweet onion (1/4, chopped) : saute until turning brown then add...

Carrots (5, large, chopped) : add to brown onion, saute until cooked through then add...

 12 oz frozen artichoke hearts, 12 oz frozen peas : steam/saute until done.

We used a 1/2 c measuring cup to portion out the meals, each meal got 1/2 c each of pasta, broccoli, and veggie mix, plus a little bit more.  8 meals got chicken, 1 of those also got a little bit of salmon because the piece of chicken was tiny, and 2 meals each got a big hunk of salmon.

We got all that done and made it to church on time.  Might have to see if we can get lunches done before church on Sunday more often... They were too hot to put in the fridge, but we put them in the garage fridge with no lids so that they wouldn't sit out on the counter the whole time we were gone.  (There is nothing in the garage fridge that we had to worry about if the food raised the temperature too much.)

Training Tuesday : Update

I submitted my registration for Boston on Friday!  And now I just wait to hear if I got in or not. I had a buffer of just over 5 minutes for the qualifying time so hopefully...

I've been slowly trying to get my mileage up, after a rough time returning to consistent running after the Pittsburgh Marathon in May and a very busy summer!  I finally made it to 10 mile runs a few weeks ago, and then backed back off to 8-9.  Two weeks ago I had a total of about 34 miles for the week which was much higher than I had been doing (usually 20-25).  I also re-started my after school fitness class last week, so my legs were beat by the end of the week!  I kept the weekly mileage under 30 since my legs were beat, but hope to reach 30 again this week, as well as getting my long run back to 10 miles. 

I made the decision not to run the Bluegrass 1/2 at the end of September this year.  I think it will be better for me to continue training until the Haunted 1/2 at the end of October and not tire my body out with a race so soon.  I remind myself that Boston is the goal and I can't be hurting myself just when I am picking my training back up!


For the last two Saturdays, I was lucky enough to be able to do my longer run for the week with my 9 year old step-daughter!  We bought bikes for the girls earlier this summer, and she has been zooming around the neighborhood so we decided it was time to take her on the Creeper Trail.  Two Saturdays ago, we went out and back from Watauga for a total of 9.2 miles.  It was getting tough for her by the end, but she did awesome and was excited to do it again.  So this Saturday, we did a point to point from Abingdon to Alvarado for 8.6 miles.  This time, we only made 2 brief stops for water, and our overall pace was just under 8 min/mile, compared to above 9 min/mile the first time.  I was super proud of her for doing so well, and love having her with me on my run!  She will be getting stronger as my long run distance increases, so the only thing standing in the way of having her on my run each weekend will be the cold weather!  We'll be working on outfits to keep her toasty warm...

Meal Prep 9/17/18

2.5 c brown rice

pork loin

1 package frozen peas

2 lbs carrots

5 mushrooms

onion

garlic

Place rice, 5 cups water, salt & garlic powder to taste in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, then cover and cook on low for 45-50 minutes.  

Cook the pork with barbecue sauce and a can of Guinness in a crockpot set on high for 5 hours, then shred using two forks.  After shredding, I used a knife to cut the strips into bite-sized pieces.

Chop about 1/4 sweet onion and brown in some olive oil.  Add minced garlic and chopped carrots.  When carrots are almost cooked, add the frozen peas.  When peas are almost done, add chopped mushrooms.  

I made 10 lunches.  Each got 1/2 c rice, 1/2 c pulled pork, and 1 c vegetables.  There was some pork left over.  

Meal Prep : 9/10/18

24 oz jar of Prego Fresh Mushroom Sauce

2 lbs ground beef (1 @ 93/7 and 1 @ 85/15)

1.5 lbs rainbow rotini pasta

2 lbs broccoli

1/4 sweet onion

4 carrots

minced garlic

Dump the jar of sauce into a dutch oven, then add ground beef.  Cook covered on low-medium, stirring occasionally.  Chop and saute onion and carrot, then add to sauce.  Cook the pasta according to directions on the box.  Steam/saute the broccoli with some garlic.  When the pasta is done, mix it into the meat sauce mixture. 

For 10 lunches, each will get approximately 1 cup of broccoli and 1 cup of pasta.  There will be enough pasta left over for several more meals. 

Meal Prep 9/3/18 : When life gives you bread that won't rise

...turn the dough into crackers!  

Leeks were on sale this week and caught my eye, so I decided to make potato-leek soup for lunch.  I had made rosemary bread a few nights ago with fresh rosemary from my garden and it was soooooo good I decided to make bread to go with the soup.  For protein, I took some of the leftover pulled pork barbecue from our wedding out of the freezer.  I also sauteed some brussels sprouts and cauliflower for extra veggies.

  For some reason, the dough refused to rise.  I have never had this happen before, so I have no idea what went wrong.  I did open a new jar of yeast, but I hope it's not full of dead yeast!  I guess I'll find out next time... I even tried mixing more yeast/warm water into the dough (using a different yeast) but that didn't work either.  Some google research revealed that I might be able to save the dough by turning it into crackers, so I decided to try it. 

I pulled a big handful of dough off, rolled it out, and used a very thin knife to cut it into rectangles.  I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper and placed the crackers on it.  They were very sticky!  I sprinkled them with pink sea salt and garlic powder, and baked them at 450 for 12 minutes.  For the second batch, I floured my work surface first, and then rolled out the dough.  No more stickiness, but the crackers were completely coated with flour.  I found the parchment paper was completely unnecessary with the floured crackers. 

Thankfully, the crackers came out pretty delicious, so that unrisen bread dough did not go to waste!  And instead of bread with our soup, we will be eating tasty crackers.  Maybe someday I'll make crackers on purpose...

pre-bake sticky crackers

post-bake cracker deliciousness