Zucchini Pizza

Pizza Dough

2 tsp yeast

7 oz hot water (120 degrees)

garlic powder

oregano

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 c whole wheat flour

2 c white flour

1 tbsp olive oil

Toppings

marinara/Basil-Cashew Pesto mix

sliced tomato

spaghetti-ed zucchini

fresh basil

colby jack cheese

Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes

Deliciousness.  I had some salmon on the side, extra deliciousness.

Cumin-Rubbed Beef

Step 1 : Mix together cumin, mustard powder, garlic powder, sea salt, sage, and bread crumbs.
             Heat water for pasta, add pasta when the water boils.  Try to time it so pasta is done around the                    same time as the beef.

Step 2 : Coat pieces of eye of round beef with the seasoning mixture, then brown them on each side.

Step 3 : Pour red wine into the pan, just enough to cover the beef. 

Step 4 : When the beef is about halfway done, add vegetables to the pan.  

             I used cabbage and carrots.  I also grated some ginger into the pan. 

Step 5 : Remove the beef from the pan when it is done.  Once the pasta is drained, add it to the pan with the              vegetables and sauce, mix well. 

Step 6 : Eat.

Making Progress

So far so good! I have been running every 2 or 3 days, and the foot feels pretty good. I have been doing a pretty flat loop, usually 2 miles, but today I added just a little bit extra. ( it turned out to only be an extra .2 miles... I thought it would be a little longer than that) My first 3 runs were increasingly faster, with the third at a crazy 6:39 pace.  I was all warmed up from a bike ride and that's how fast my legs wanted to go. My lungs were struggling hard to keep up. Today's jog after a 40.5 mile bike ride was considerably slower. Again, my lungs were dying. I'm not sure when I'm going to start adding hills, but I can tell it's going to be rough when I do. Still hoping my lungs will figure it out and start working again soon!

In biking news, after 2 low mileage weeks to help my back recover from the Wheels of Hope ride, I had my highest-ever mileage this week, with 135 miles. I had 3 rides of 30 or more miles this week, which was also new. Not sure what's going to happen to my exercise routines when school starts this week. I find biking after a long day of work to be much harder than runing. Running always re-energized me. Biking requires so much more energy and calories, I don't see myself getting in 20-30 miles after a day at school. Hopefully it will work out! 

Update

I am more sore from yesterday's two mile jog than I was after a 58 mile bike ride.  I felt the soreness when I got up this morning, and it wasn't too bad.  Not bad enough to stop me from biking 32 miles anyway.  And I really didn't notice it at all during the ride.  But as the day wore on, the soreness increased.  And then this evening I discovered that I have shin splints.  I am super not-happy about that.  I planned on jogging another 2 miles tomorrow, now I'm not so sure.  I do not want to be adding shin splints to my list of grievances!  Decisions, decisions.

Zucchini Scones

A friend gave me a gigantic zucchini the other day.  She told me as long as you didn't use the inside portion where the seeds are, the zucchini is perfectly edible despite its gargantuan size.  So I pulled out one of my favorite kitchen gadgets and went to work on the 1/3 of the zucchini.

I had some of this zucchini spaghetti with last night's delicious dinner, but there was still some left over.  (Not to mention the 2/3 of the zucchini still uncut...)  Today I decided to bake something with the remaining zucchini spaghetti.  My first thought was chocolate chip zucchini bread, but the recipe calls for 3 eggs and I wanted to do something that required fewer eggs.  Then scones came to mind.  I found this recipe online, and then adapted it.  Because we all know I hate following recipes.

Zucchini Scones

preheat oven to 400

1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 1/2+ c white flour

1/2 c sugar

1 tsp sea salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c butter

1 c spaghetti-ed zucchini

1 peach, chopped

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 c almond milk

bake for 20-25 minutes

I mixed the dry ingredients together in my stand mixer.  I used a pastry cutter to cut in the butter until it was in small pea-sized lumps.  I dumped the zucchini and peach on top of the dry ingredients, then, after mixing the wet ingredients separately, I added them and let the mixer do it's work.  The dough was super sticky, so I added flour 1/2 c at a time until it was...less sticky.  I added at least another cup.  Then, I floured my silpat and transferred the dough.  It was still too sticky to spread well, so I sprinkled more flour on top.  Then I was able to pat it down to about 1/2 inch thick.  I cut out the scones and transferred them to a greased cookie sheet. 

The scones were tasty, but not nearly as flavorful as I was hoping.  If I make them again, I will increase the amounts of cumin and cinnamon, and see what happens.  Also, I was going to put chocolate chips in them but I forgot...so that might happen next time too!

Cumin-Rosemary-Ginger Pork

This is the first time I cooked pork in the oven instead of in the crock-pot or on the stove-top.  I had originally intended to stick the 1 1/2 pound tenderloin in the crock-pot to make some of my delicious apple-cider cinnamon pulled pork, but I never quite got around to getting out the crock-pot.  So, I decided to use the oven for once.

I coated the pork with ginger, cumin, and rosemary, and stuck it in the 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Then, I flipped it over and cooked it for another 30 minutes.

I had some for dinner along with zucchini spaghetti (sauteed in olive oil with garlic and ginger) and quinoa. 

It was delicious.  

I went for a run and I didn't die

I was holding off on running as long as I could, to give my foot as much time to heal as possible. Yesterday marked 75 days since my last run. As of yesterday, I had biked 80.6 miles that week, and only taken 1 day off. I usually take 2 days off per week, but I also usually bike closer to 120 miles a week. Last week I did shorter rides because I'm trying to get my back to stop hurting. I've been feeling pretty good with the shorter rides, and could have done another yesterday, but I wanted to save my back for a longer ride. The real deciding factor, was the weather. I had given my bike a thorough cleaning after a wet ride on Saturday, and the weather was similar yesterday. I really didn't want to get the bike filthy right after I cleaned it. So, I decided it was time to try a run.

There is ONE loop I can do straight from my house that is relatively flat terrain. So that is what I did. The main loop is about a mile long, and By looping through downtown (also pretty flat) at the end, I ended up with 2 miles. I kept the run as slow and steady as I could. I didn't have trouble breathing, but I could feel that if I tried to go any faster, my lungs would protest. It will probably take them awhile to get up to speed. My legs on the other hand, were ready to race and begging for speed. As for my foot...I think it was ok? I think there was a tiny bit of an ache during parts of the run, but I was so focused on looking for it,  i'm hoping I just imagined it. I iced it afterwards just in case. And stretched it. And rolled it on a hot water bottle later in the day. 

Oh, and I ran that 2 miles in 15 minutes. So relieved I can still jog below an 8 minute/mile pace! 

I'm still not sure exactly how I'm going to go about this return to running...but I think I'm going to try to start by doing that 2 mile loop every other day and see what happens.