The Run, The Birthday, The Mailbox

What happens when the sun is shining and the weather is hot and you’re in a mini workout rut and you are pumped with a sudden and unexpected jolt of inspiration?

You tie up your running shoes, pop in your headphones, close the front door and hit the pavement for your first outdoor run EVER. And by your I mean my. And okay, not my first EVER. I had to do mini runs on my own time for gym goals way back in the beginnings of high school and I’ve done a couple short-lived night runs in the not-so-near past but this was my first full-fledged, solo, outside of my immediate neighbourhood, “I feel like a real runner” run.

It was hot, it was sweaty, and it was glorious.

I’ve been a dreaded prisoner of my treadmill for far too long, and although it has served me well and will continue to do so often, I needed to overcome my (ridiculous and unnecessary) fear or taking my strides outside and somehow, some way, I was finally ready for it. And I did it. And it wasn’t nearly as scary or as difficult as I thought it would be. I only went for about half an hour but I was really HOOFING it and it was really hot out. And I had no idea how long my intended route would end up taking (since, you know, I’d never actually ran any kind of outdoor route before) but I plugged it into mapmyrun and got a good 4.5 miles in so… Go Me!

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Aside from all that running excitement, there was another very important event that went down this week –

 My Mom’s Birthday

This special lady turned the ripe young age of 35 ( or somewhere around there… ;) ) on Tuesday and our mini fam jam celebrated with what else but pizza and cake.

The pizza was compliments a tiny local restaurant with a menu chalk full of delicious gourmet thin crust pizzas.

My choice: whole wheat crust topped with tomato sauce, goat cheese, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes and asparagus.

Mom’s: Whole wheat crust with pesto, feta, sundried tomatoes and olives. Perfection minus the olives.

Broski: Chicken parmesan with not-so-tasty spaghetti that was sweet and tasted like black licorice. Weird?

And for dessert?

Rhubarb Upside Down Cake with rhubarb fresh from the garden. Rhubarb desserts seem to be popping up left, right and centre at the moment so clearly we had to take part in the rhubarb loving mayhem.  

Not complete with cool and creamy vanilla ice cream of course.  

Happy Birthday Mom!

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Another thrill of the week – A special delivery in my mailbox. Who doesn’t love those?

A little while ago I found out that I was the receiver of a bit of joyous luck. I won Miss Chocolate Covered Katie’s $50 iHerb shopping spree!

No way? Yes way!

Considering that decision making happens to be a great weakness of mine, trying to decide on the many many MANY product choices on the site was quite the task. But I tackled it with vigour and picked out a few items that I’ve been wanting to try for a while now.

Amazing Grass Green Super Food, Bob’s Coconut Flour, Yogi Tahitian Vanilla Hazelnut Tea, Clif ZBars (hehe), Biochem Whey Protein in Vanilla (had to try after all of April’s hype, though they had none of her fav chocolate in the smaller container!), plus a few free goodies thrown in.

I have to say, shopping with iHerb was a joy! Aside from the overwhelmingly lovely selection, they were super helpful and the delivery was quick and painless. So a huge thanks for Katie for hosting the giveaway (you’re a doll!) and Abby at iHerb for all of the help!

 

And all that other food stuff

When you order massive sized gourmet pizzas all for yourself on your Mother’s birthday, you end up eating a lot of cold leftover pizza for the next few days at pretty much every meal.

Even breakfast. Along with egg whites with spinach, hot sauce and guac; leftover rhubarb slivers; banana.

Snackalacks. Am I alone in my addiction to wasabi peas? Because serious nose burn and all, I can take down fistfuls of these with no problem.

Anyone remember fruit leathers? I used to eat these at recess in elementary all the time. Sticky, icky and sweet. I found this probably 5 year old Fruit To Go in my food stash. I brought it for a work snack. Surprisingly great appetite quencher for 50 cals of miscellaneous fruit concentrates.

 

Now this is a good Kashi granola bar. Kashi Pumpkin Pie. Granola bar base, sweet chewy date topping. So delicious.  

Almost as delicious as my Brown Rice California Roll lunch. As much as restaurant sushi takes the cake, fresh grocery store sushi is still incredible, I’m not above it! You have to cover it in wasabi and ginger though, BEST way.

 

Hmm… what else was good this week?

You know those oats in a jar things? I ate one of those, only the improved version… OVERNIGHT oats in a jar.

Yes with Kraft Light. Don’t be hatin. Be lovin, very much.

Oats, almond milk, strained plain yogurt, blueberries, strawberries, flax, jam. PB on the bottom. Food love allllll the way through.

 

A word of recommendation. Don’t try to make hummus in a Magic Bullet. It’s very very difficult. Use a good processor or a heavy duty blender. I think I almost ran my Bullet right into the ground with this batch. I had to water it down a lot to get it to blend, which kind of killed the flavour. I might add some more spices and reblend later on.

I used this recipe. Even though the blend was a tough job, Greek yogurt ( I used strained yogurt) is a great idea!

Watered down hummus on my salad. And there’s that leftover pizza again.
(I wear my sunglasses at night lunch, so I can, so I can…)

Another recommendation: Top your steamed broccoli with salsa and feta. No explanation needed.

A third (and final) recommendation for the day: Make raspberry cake. Make it with the intention of giving it away to the staff at your mom’s work. But do not do so without ensuring to have a sample (or two or three) for yourself.

Old school recipe. Very simple. Not very healthy. Very tasty. We used to make this at my grandparent’s cottage a lot since we always had the ingredients on hand. Oh childhood memories.

Raspberry Cake

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup raspberries
• 1/3 cup milk

Mix butter, sugar, eggs. Sift flour and baking soda together and mix with batter. Mix in milk and raspberries.

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes in an 8×8 pan.

My mom whipped up the icing so I’m not quite sure what was in it, but I know there was icing sugar and butter. Any vanilla icing would do. Or no icing at all!

 

*I finally published a Rainbow Cake Page from my rainbow caked up birthday way back in March so be sure to check that out.

 

I hope you’ve all been enjoying this May 24 weekend!