Lasagna and A Tiny Surfboard

Greetings blog world...back for my once a week posting. Crazy busy week at work last week so nothing noteworthy to speak of.

Yesterday, I hang out with my sisters and we made a spinach/Italian sausage lasagna for dinner. Well, it was more like my sister made lasagna and I watched/helped a little bit. My sister is a lasagna making genius because this came together really quickly and it was super tasty. We enjoyed this so much that this may become a more frequent occurrence.

And for dessert...vanilla lemon cake w/ macerated strawberries and Cool-Whip!

In running related news, I have a race this weekend. It's been awhile. I probably won't die but 'first race of the season' jitters is starting to hit me. I'm really looking forward to adding another surfboard medal to my collection, so there's always that.

Shower and Awesomeness

It's a little over a month until my wedding and my sisters threw me a bridal shower this past Saturday. It was a fun day of fine dining and spa-ing. Definitely my kind of day. I love spending time with these lovely ladies!

Check out this cute dessert tray that the hotel sent over to the relaxation room for us! Massages and sweets...I can do this all day!

A big 'thank you' to my sisters for spoiling me and letting me act like a princess for the day. I finally got a chance to wear this pouf-y dress that has been sitting in my closet for a while now.

Later that evening, we made pizza for dinner. Sister K mentioned that she had made pizza the other night using some pre-made pizza dough that she found at Trader Joe's. We made a quick trip to TJ's, picked up a couple of items and an hour later...tada! This one is prosciutto and pineapple on garlic and herb crust. We should have used less of the prosciutto or regular ham because prosciutto gets salty when you cook it. We made another one that was rectangular and it was pepperoni and mushroom on a wheat crust. The pre-made dough was pretty good. My dough stretching ability was not so much.

Today was another fun day as I had a lunch date with my very awesome Ragnar van-mates sans Sandy (Becka, Julie, Shannon and Heather) and met blogger and Disney fanatic Krissy who was in town with her family for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend. Becka, Heather and Krissy ran all the Disney races this month so head on over to their blogs to check out all their cute fun photos. This is definitely going in the books as one of the best weekends ever!

Help Me Pick Out A Swimming Cap?!

Hello hello! I haven't blogged in about a week so it warranted two 'hellos'. I haven't blogged because all I did last week was go to work, recover from the race and celebrated National Running Day (June 6th) by going for a run and having dinner at Souplantation with some amazing local runners. And when I say 'amazing' it is because of the incredible amount of salads these ladies can put down. Overall, it was a good day.

Some time last week I saw Heather tweet about doing her last long run on Saturday, so I got the bright idea to go out there and keep her company for parts of it. I had a company picnic last Friday afternoon. Later that evening I had a bad stomach ache. I may have over done it at the picnic buffet line. I told Heather that I wasn't feeling well and wasn't sure if I would make it out the next morning. But the next morning I was feeling better. I got up later than I was suppose to but I was feeling better. So I laced up and went out looking for Heather. I had started about an hour later than her so I took lots of shortcut in hopes of catching up. But due to starting too late, maybe going the wrong route or running at a sluggishly slow pace, I never found Heather. But due to the June gloom, it was a nice overcast day for running.

After my run I went to the farmers market to pick up some produce for the week.

And it is officially cherry season. Get'em while the gettin's good!

And look Peonies! I love June! Overcast skies, Cherries, Peonies...

After shopping at the farmers market, I went to Salad Republic to get a Greek yogurt snack. It was amazing! This place boasts an impressively healthy and delicious menu. I joked on Twitter that I was going to be the duchess of this place on Yelp soon but I was only half kidding around. I think I am just going to give my 30-day notice and move right on in.

I hung out at the mall on Sunday with my family. It's been a really long time since I've been to a large mall. My niece dragged me to the Baby Gap to help her pick out a swimming cap because well you know...it's swimming season and she has to look her best. She wasn't sure about this one but I thought it looked adorable on her!

Running All Day...Errands That Is

Last night before I went to bed I wrote up a list of errands that I had wanted to get done today. It's been a while since I've had a free Saturday to run errands so I wanted to get as much of it done as possible. First up, I wanted to hit up the farmers market to pick up some produce for the week. I've missed the beautiful produce at the farmers market. If you like beets and Maui onions, you are in luck because they are in season now and they are huge! I saw some cherries but they are not quite there yet.

Next up, the OC Fairgrounds to pick up my race packet for the OC Half Marathon tomorrow. Really slow moving traffic into the parking lot of the fairgrounds. Thousands of people trying to get into a small area. Sucked! I ended up parking on a side street because it would have taken me two hours to get into the fairgrounds parking lot. There was a lack of signage so I had no idea where the registration area was located. There was a kids race going on near the Centennial Farm area so I just walked over there. I finally found the expo located in one of the buildings. I picked up my bib and shirt, walked around a bit and left. From there I headed to the car wash and then the grocery store.

This photo has nothing to do with errands, just some pretty flowers from Sister K.

Some beautiful produce I got from the farmers market that I will be cooking up for my pre-race carbo meal this evening. 

And for dessert...

Much Ado About Nothing

I've been really lagging on my blog posts lately. Hopefully, that will change soon as I slowly get my blogging mojo back. I have a couple of fun races coming up in April that will provide me with some materials to blab about. Also, my running injury is healing up nicely and even though I feel like a slug coming back from the ashes, I am happy to be able to run again.

This weekend I went out for a long run of 11.5 miles. I had meant to do 12 but underestimated the distance of my route. I've never been very good with directions and this is what ends up happening sometimes. It was a beautiful day for a run!

I am going to be running this race this coming weekend. It's on a Saturday. Weird because races are usually on Sundays. When I say "weird" I really mean "it sucks" because I am going to have to drive up to LA on Friday to pick up my bib. Plus, get this, the start time is 6am! -_-  Weird!!

In other none running related news...I got flowers this week!

I started thinking about packing for the 2012 SoCal Ragnar. I decided that I need more time to mentally prepare for the daunting task of packing. I'm really excited and wish that everything could just pack itself!

I helped Sister K move out of her apartment this past weekend. She is officially done with college! Woohoo! We had lunch at a cute little ramen place that I will talk about in a future post.

And finally, I haven't posted any photos of my niece lately but she will be 6 months old this coming weekend. She is just a doll! I've been so grateful that I have gotten so many opportunities to spend time with her. She makes my heart melt!

From Biking to Cupcake

Well I didn't go running this morning. Believe it or not my legs have been sore since Wednesday from doing wall-balls. I did about 150 reps using a 4-pound ball and I had a hard time walking down the stairs for the next two days. I haven't ran since Monday. So today, I took my bike out of the garage for the first time in a very long time. It had cobwebs all over it and I think it needs to be oiled. It was really windy and cold today but I managed to get in 17 miles.

Biking always makes me really hungry, so when I got home I ate some leftover chicken salad that I made the other night with some chopped apples, celery, chicken, walnut and light mayo. I had not blogged about this meal because I did not have time, plus this dish is pretty self explanatory. I made this dish as a challenge from Sister K. She challenged me to turn our Thanksgiving leftover chicken breast meat into a totally different meal. Challenge accepted! I got raves from the Mister for this salad. Now it it all gone!

A couple of hours later, we went out for a proper lunch at Side Street Cafe. I ordered the Lunch Special, which is soup and half of a sandwich. The soup of the day was Split Pea. This is my first split pea soup...ever! And I loved it! Nice chunks of carrots and ham but it would have been good all on it's own. The sandwich was just okay. I went with the Club which had turkey, ham and bacon. The bacon was good but I took out the ham and turkey because the ham was cold and the shredded turkey was really dry.

And since we were in the area we stopped by Susie Cakes where their bakers were busy bringing the holidays to life. Yummy edible life!

I did something unheard of, I got a mini instead of a regular size cupcake. I'm trying to be good. This was heavenly. It is just perfection!

Hawaiian Bread French Toast

I set my alarm for 7am last night with the intention of going out for a run this morning but somehow I ended up going back to bed. I'm not too worried as I will likely get a run in tomorrow for sure. Plus this is taper week!

When I finally got up this morning, breakfast was the matter at hand so I quickly went online to look for a simple french toast recipe. I found a recipe for Alton Brown's french toast. This recipe has close to 500 positive reviews AND it was super easy. You only need a couple of ingredients. I had to try it. Had to. Alton suggested using either challah or brioche for this recipe but I didn't have any on hand and neither did the local Ralph's market. For a moment, I thought about just buying a box of Eggo waffles and calling it a day. Then I saw this...

...sweet Hawaiian bread to the rescue! I separated the two halves of the bun and then used a knife to cut off some of the outer crust so that it would absorb the batter better.

About to go in the oven to get crispy.

Overall, I think the Hawaiian bread was a good substitute. Good to know in the event that you cannot find challah or brioche. The Hawaiian bread is a tiny bit sweeter than the recommended breads but I thought it made the dish better. Also, I baked these in the oven for 10 minutes instead of 5. I think I could have left them in there another 5 minutes to make them crispier on the outside. This is also the first time I made a french toast batter with half and half. The batter was custard-like due to the use of 3 eggs in this recipe. The final product was crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. Make this!

Summer in October

It's October 1st today but you wouldn't be able to tell by the 90 degrees weather here in the San Gabriel Valley. It dawned on me that it was already October today when I saw this outside of a Trader Joe's.

Brussels sprouts already starting to show up at the market. 

These were nice!

Side story: There is a billboard outside of this particular Trader Joe's with these exact pictures on it but no words and for many months now I've been meaning to ask an employee what the pictures meant. Then while we were in the frozen aisle today, Sister S spotted this sign inside the store that finally solved the puzzle. Of course we had been reading too much into this the whole time. We thought it was some clever inside joke. Maybe it is.

Dinner tonight was inspired by this healthy basil plant in my sister's yard and some ingredients requested by my sisters.

Sauteing some Cremini mushrooms, asparagus and chopped garlic...

...to add to this TJ's jarred marina sauce. Already added to the sauce but not photographed were some sauteed spicy Italian sausages.

Served over some tri-colored radiatore pasta! The basil was the star of the show. We also made some garlic bread with some mini french baguettes but I forgot to take a photo. It was delicious! You will have to take my word for it.

I was suppose to go for my final long run this morning but I didn't. I will try to get it done tomorrow. Long Beach is next weekend. It will probably be fine but I am nervous. I really should have ran more. After LB hopefully I can get myself back on track to train hard for Santa Barbara. I can't believe that I have just 2 more marathons left for the year. Seemed so daunting at the beginning of the year when I realized that I had signed up for 6 marathons in 2011. What was I thinking? Next year I only have 2 fulls so far and that seems just right to me for the time being. But we shall see! ;o)

Painting the Octagon

This morning M took me to Marmelade Cafe for breakfast because we always pass by this place and he happened to remember this morning that I had wanted to come here to try it out. Don't you hate it when you walk pass a restaurant and make a mental note to come back but then you forget until six months later when you walk by the same restaurant? No, just me?

M ordered Gilson's Scramble. Who is this Gilson?

I ordered the Egg White Frittata. 

Everything about this dish was uninspired. It was just ordinary and I'm not coming back here again.

After breakfast we went to help some of our coworkers decorate a coworker's office who's birthday is tomorrow. He is turning 50...thereby the Geritol, Ben-Gay and AARP logos...lol. They turned his office into a UFC ring. I was on the mat painting team and spent the day looking at this...

When we were done it looked like this. It took us 5 hours but it was so fun! I have to say that I work with some of the most amazingly creative and talented people anywhere. They never cease to amaze me.