Plagued by pain and frustration

First, let's get one thing straight: Mountain biking is my favorite sport. I love the challenge of it, I love how easy it is to see success and I love how, this year, I'm not crashing! Still...running has become my second favorite sport. I love to run alone on long runs, and I love running trails with Lynn and Elissa. There's something about just running and meeting each and every goal along the way that gets in your blood...the endorphins kick in, the adrenaline gets going, and you just feel so ecstatic...it's crazy and it feels wonderful.

It feels wonderful until, like me, you wake up the day after a long run with aching hips or shin splints...you get a sore knees 2/3 of the way through a run, or and this is the most bizarre, you wake up in the middle of the night with pain from a strained PELVIC JOINT. Yes. It's happened to me. Right now I'm dealing with some sort of tendonitis on the outside of my left ankle. It was getting better after 3 days of rest and then, like any runner, I went running. Let me stress that while running, my ankle did not hurt. I thought well great! It's getting better! Oh no. It was just toying with me. I woke up this morning and the pain was back, just as bad as Monday. Ibuprofen, ice, elevation...all seem to help a little, but MAN walking is painful. This is my foot, at my desk, in a slightly awkward position with a giant piece of ice under my ankle.



Look I understand that in running injuries are going to happen. I get that. It's a lot of pounding and blah blah blah. But do I have to get EVERY injury? Granted I only get them very briefly (the issue with my IT band lasted 2 runs), but still. It's frustrating when I want to train for the half-marathons and I can't.

On the other hand, it's a good excuse to go for some long bike rides! Maybe this weekend I'll bike here:


(Thanks for posing Tomas :))

I guess I just needed to rant. I've got a big bike trip coming up and more than anything I do not want this ankle to still be hurting. So I'll be good and I'll rest it and I'll sit at my desk in bizarre positions so I can ice it. Better to take a few days off now than a month off later.

Strawberry-Apricot Margaritas & Mahi-Mahi Lettuce Wraps

**I did not follow this recipe exactly. My substitutions are in italics! So this is my half-empty glass of strawberry-apricot margarita. It is refreshing and wonderfully cold in this 101 degree heat!

Strawberry-Apricot margaritas (originally just apricot margaritas)

1 & 1/2 cups of fresh apricots halved and pitted (or strawberries, or peaches, or any mix of these)
1/2 cup of tequila (or a little more)
2 tbsp of triple sec
1/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of apricot nectar (what I did as a sort of substitution for both of these was combine about 3 tbsp of sugar and 1/2 cup of water. I heated it on the stove until the sugar melted and then let it cool. I then added this to the blender.)
1/4 cup fresh lime juice or margarita mix
Fill the blender the rest of the way with ice. Blend until smooth. Of course you may need to adjust this to your taste with added sugar, tequila or fruit.

Mahi-Mahi Lettuce Wraps

For the fish: You can use Mahi-Mahi, Salmon, or even Tuna. Marinate the fish in a teriyaki marinade for about an hour. Grill over direct heat for approximately 5 minutes on each side or until it flakes easily. Flake it all apart on a plate or at least chop it up some so it's easy to put on your lettuce leaves.

For the condiments: You'll need easily wrappable lettuce leaves like the upper half of romaine leaves, butter or Bibb lettuce. Green leaf will work too.

Then create a plate of toppings like thinly sliced snow or sugar snap peas, cole slaw mix, onion, cilantro, and/or jalapeno.

If you can find it, mix some spicy peanut sauce with soy sauce for a great dipping sauce. Just plain soy will work too, or you can make your own mix with soy sauce, a little peanut butter thinned with water, and some cayenne pepper for spice.

Then you just assemble everything in a lettuce leaf and enjoy!

Apricot "wontons"

I chose this picture because I really think the rectangular "wontons" worked better than the triangles. This was a super simple recipe that could be adapted to any fruit in any season and probably could be done with several different types of pastry/crust/dough.

Ingredients:

eggroll wrappers (or wonton wrappers, or probably thinly rolled raw flour tortillas...)
about 1 cup of chopped fruit (peaches, apricots, cherries, apples, etc)
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar
Powdered Sugar
Oil

Put the tbsp sugar in a small mixing bowl.

Heat a pan over medium high heat with the butter. When the butter starts to melt, add the fruit and cook just until the fruit starts to soften a little. Once this happens, pour the fruit and butter into the mixing bowl with the sugar. This might be a little soupy, but that's fine.

Rinse out your skillet, then heat oil in the skillet--maybe 1 1/2 inches deep? Not a full deep-fry, but not a pan fry...somewhere in between.

Lay an eggroll wrapper on a cutting board or hard surface. Place 1 1/2 tbsp of filling in the center of the wrapper. Fold one side just over the filling, then fold in the ends and fold up the last side. Place the wontons in the pan, folded side down and cook for about 5 minutes or until brown on the bottom. Carefully flip over and cook a few more minutes until the other side browns.

Take out and drain on a paper towel. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with whipped cream if you like.

I didn't measure and didn't write anything down, but I think this one will be easy to follow/figure out/re-invent!

Maki-zushi / Futomaki

Tonight I made maki-zushi, futomaki to be exact, which is basically sushi with veggies instead of raw fish. Not that i don't like sushi, but when making it at home I don't really want to deal with the raw fish. I found some interesting ideas for veggies from this article on the NYTimes website. So off to the store I went!

I decided not to spend too much money because a few ingredients can go a long way with maki-zushi and sushi rolls. I got asparagus, cucumber, avocado and white mushrooms. I like creminis but for this I figured a lighter taste was better.

I cooked my rice:
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup rice
Boil 1 minute, reduce heat and simmer with a lid on for 15-20 minutes. Pour out of pan onto a plate or something to cool.

Mix 1/4 cup rice vinegar and 1/4 cup sugar and microwave for about 30 seconds to help dissolve the sugar. When the rice has cooled, mix about half of this vinegar/sugar mixture into the rice. Let set.

I cut off the bottom 1/3 of the asparagus stems and discarded. Then I cut the remainder of the asparagus into thirds and chopped the mushrooms into strips. I sauteed these together with some sesame oil.

I didn't do anything to the avocado and cucumber. I tried several different styles of rolls but I decided the basic, rolled with the bamboo mat rolls still worked best. You can usually find sushi kits in bookstores or kitchen stores like Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Of course I dipped my rolls in a mixture of low-sodium soy sauce and wasabi! Have fun!

Our "go to" meals

I'm here and I"m still eating! Life has been hectic lately what with it being spring and bike season! Also I'm in the early stages of training for a half-marathon so dinner has been pretty simple lately...so I thought a good post for today would be "go to" meals. You know, those meals you always have all the ingredients for...the ones you have probably at least once a week when you know you should stay in but you have no idea what to make!

Meal #1: Homemade pizza We almost always have a pizza crust or a pizza crust mix. And there's always mozzarella cheese and some assortment of sausage, artichokes, peppers, onions, basil, parmesan...well, there's always something suitable for a pizza!

Meal #2: Grilled chicken, tuna steaks, or pork, baked potatoes and salad. Come on...you know you always have potatoes at home. Some nights there's nothing better than pure simple baked potatoes. AND potatoes have lots of potassium!

Meal #3: Pasta and anything There are few things that don't go with pasta. It's rare that we don't have spaghetti sauce or at least the stuff to make our own spaghetti sauce, pesto sauce, or something to make a cheese or olive oil sauce. Then it can be as simple as adding toasted bread crumbs and green peas, shrimp, or even just broccoli.

Meal #4: Black bean quesadillas When all else fails, mix some salsa into drained and rinsed black beans, add cheese, place in a tortilla and get it all crispy and brown in a pan. Who needs Qdoba?

2 for 1!

Double Double Butter Cake
This past week I got the chance to go back to my hometown and see my family. My dad's birthday was Sunday so I helped my Mom bake Dad's cake while my sister was busy prepping for the rest of dinner--making salads! Mom read her recipe and mixed in the shortening and flour, and I cracked the 5 eggs (each one in the bowl, then in the mixing bowl...wouldn't want to have a bad egg!) After the 1 hr and 20 minutes that the cake was supposed to cook it was still soupy...hmmmm..."What did we do wrong?" Neither of us could figure it out, so we set the timer for another 30 minutes and went to the store. When we came back the cake had fallen--instead of being puffy and fluffy, it was sunken and lumpy. So Mom took it out and tried to flip the cake over onto a plate. It fell everywhere! The entire kitchen counter was covered with cake! Here's what you do when that happens:


So, we tasted the cake--it was still really good! We made the brown sugar glaze and poured it over the crumbled cake in the dish. It may not have been pretty but it tastes good. So what did we do wrong? Well, this sort of thing is what happens when you accidentally use TWICE the amount of shortening that you need. Lesson learned (MOM).

Going meatless

I like to have vegetarian days. I don't know if I could ever be a vegetarian 100% of the time, but I like to find other ways to get protein that just eating meat. Some days I do better than others. Yesterday at the airport I managed to find a great little sandwich shop with a fabulous "Colorado Sunshine" sandwich. Avocado, sprouts, cucumber, pickles, tomato, cheese, and lettuce make a great vegetarian sandwich! Today I wanted to continue the theme so for dinner I made mushroom and roasted artichoke pizza. It's not hard and it tastes great! Roasting is a fabulously easy way to cook veggies. All I did was drain about 5 artichoke hearts, cut them in half, drizzle olive oil on them, add salt and pepper and roast them at 450 for about 10 minutes. If you're cooking something tougher, like brussels sprouts, you'd want to use a bit of a lower temp for a longer period of time.

Anyway, we had some new store-bought pizza crusts that weren't fabulous...but they held the toppings :) Pizza is an awesomely easy way to go--you can put almost anything on a pizza crust and it will most likely taste great!

To Dine out, or not to Dine out?

Recently, after a bad experience at a new Chinese restaurant, I struggled again with a theory...food cooked at home (unless you're a really bad cook) is almost always better tasting and better for you than food cooked elsewhere. Now, I'll be the first to admit that's not true 100% of the time (hence the reason for the "almost" in my hypothesis). When it comes to pizza, Pablo's and the Hot Tomato here in Grand Junction and Fruita respectively will beat me every time at pizza. But Dominos? Pizza Hut? No. Mine tastes like I want it to and has probably pretty natural ingredients on it.

Chinese? Well, I haven't found a place that I just love for chinese here...Sushi, yes. Chinese--well, I think the Lemon Chicken I make at home is better! I know I can make crab rangoon, and I"m pretty damn sure I can make spring rolls and egg rolls. I make a tasty sesame noodle dish too--with WHOLE WHEAT noodles!

Still struggling with bbq, but this summer we'll perfect ribs for sure! All I'm saying is that sometimes, when you want some particular type of food-whether it's Italian, Mexican, or Thai, find a recipe online and try to make something yourself!

Here's a simple sort-of Thai recipe:

Cook any type of basic pasta (whole wheat is best): penne, spaghetti noodles, or rigatoni are best. Then chop and saute a chicken breast (free range or organic if you can get it) and veggies like snow peas, broccoli, pepper, onion...until done with some olive oil, a chopped clove of garlic and salt and pepper. Mix it with the pasta when everything is done and the pasta is drained. On the Asian food aisle of most grocery stores you can find Spicy Peanut Sauce. Shake it alllll over the noodles and mix it up! The more you add, the spicier it'll be! Sprinkle a little cilantro on top and you're good to go without the take out!