roasted veggie and basil chicken

Mike and I have been having a hard time coming up with meals lately. Usually, I have plenty of time to research and make up ideas during the day, but lately, I haven't had a plan before the drive home.

Yesterday, I had taken out some chicken so that we could make something with that, but I wasn't in the mood for a simple piece of grilled chicken with veggies and a starch on the side. After a quick survey of our fridge and pantry, I just started throwing some stuff together that actually turned out really awesome.

After chopping up some veggies, I threw the onions and a few cloves of garlic in a pan along with some olive oil. I let each of those soften up a bit before I added the chicken until it was cooked through.

While that was all going, I coated the rest of the veggies in olive oil and sea salt, and roasted them in the oven for about 30 minutes until they were tender.

Once the chicken was cooked through, I added a little sea salt, pepper, chopped sweet basil (from Mike's garden), 2 tablespoons of skim milk, 1 oz of cream cheese, 1 tablespoon of plain greek yogurt, and about a tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese to the chicken and allowed to simmer and thicken up.

After everything was finished, I put the chicken over some cooked quinoa and added the veggies.

It was really rich and creamy with a ton of flavor. I had the rest for lunch today and it was just as good as last night. I love when a meal comes together well!

--

I didn't get a run in today, since I woke up to pouring rain outside. I have absolutely zero interest in running on a treadmill these days, so I will try again for tomorrow morning. I really need to get on it, since I ate pretty awful last weekend and am still feeling heavy from it.

Hope everyone had a good day!

the crystal coast

I guess since I have to do a lot of real work lately, I will have to try to squeeze in my posts at home. :)

We decided to stay at home last Friday night before heading to the coast for the weekend. We just wanted a night to take our time getting our things packed and relax before a packed weekend.

While we packed and finished laundry, we made ourselves a delicious and easy dinner. We grilled some chicken on the grill in bbq sauce, chopped up a few veggies, and threw everything on tortillas and sandwich thins to make some small personal sized pizzas. They turned out super good.

Along with our pizzas, we enjoyed some white wine.

When we woke up on Saturday, we packed our things and headed to New Bern, where my mom and her boyfriend live. We hung with them for a while, enjoying the back patio and then heading to the riverfront for some lunch.

It was really windy on the patio of the restaurant we went to, but the weather was so nice, and the food was amazing. We had a few beers, so I decided to have Mother Earth's kolsch style beer, Endless River. It is made locally in Eastern N.C., and I really like it.

I went with the fish tacos and they were the best fish tacos I have ever had in my life. They tasted so good! The fish was perfectly seasoned and cooked, and I loved them.

The place we went to was called Persimmon's and I highly recommend it if you are ever in the New Bern area. It was so delicious and has such an awesome view.

After lunch, we headed further towards the coast to meet up with my brother and his family. We all hung out for the evening at a corn hole tournament before Mike and I went on to the house we were staying at. We were pretty tired, so we went to bed relatively early.

We woke up on Sunday and headed out for a run. We had wanted to get a long run in, but the weather was really humid and hot, even for 8 am, so we just did 3 miles. Luckily we got to run around water. :)

Mike and I were so hot and miserable, but I am glad we went. Considering we didn't run any more last weekend, it was the only amount of exercise we got.

My shin is still bothering me a little, but all in all, I think the break helped. I hope that when I go for my run in the morning it is feeling even better, but we will see.

We spent all of Sunday on the beach and we are paying for it now. Even with several applications of sunscreen, we both still got burnt quite a bit. :( I wish I had a picture of how we looked, but I forgot. Sorry, I wasn't really in blog mode down there.

The sun was HOT!! My family all met us down there and we just hung out and caught up. After the sun started to set, we headed in to have a cook out. It was a great day.

Since we were off on Monday, we had lunch with my brother and dad before driving back to Raleigh. I picked up a 4 hour shift at the hospital last night, since they always need help on holidays, so we had to head back kinda early.  It was a pretty easy and quick 4 hours, and I am glad to already have my shift over with for the week. When I got home after my shift, I was starving. I didn't really eat dinner because I was still full from lunch, but running around the hospital worked up my appetite.

I didn't want to eat a full meal when I got home, so I whipped up a little snack. This is my favorite bedtime snack after work. PB & J crackers with milk. :)

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend too!

G'night!

a stocked fridge

I love when we go on a big grocery shopping trip. It feels so great to have options to choose from for breakfast and lunch. I love having plenty of snacks throughout the day to keep me from eating crap or starving.

We started our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, which is always wonderful. We always try to get as much at TJ's at possible, since it is usually very reasonably priced and the options are so much better than traditional grocery stores. We usually have to go to another grocery store after Trader Joe's since they don't have everything we need, but luckily we only had to get a few things last night.

I was starving after we left the grocery store. I knew we had a ton of food, but all of it would require cooking, and since it was almost 8:30, cooking was not something I was interested in. Instead, we decided to be bad with our eating and went to a food truck.

There are always food trucks by our house, and they always look so good. They have been around for about a year and they are always packed, so we have been wanting to give one of them a try, especially the Mexican food truck. You know it must be good when the menu is written completely in Spanish.

I decided to go with the chicken quesadilla and Mike went with a few chicken and a beef taco. When we got home and I had my first bite, I knew it was an excellent decision.

The shredded chicken was seasoned perfectly (and obviously full of salt, but I didn't care). It wasn't dry at all and it was so full it had to be eaten with a fork. Luckily, I had over 1,000 mg of sodium left in my daily allowance, so I didn't worry about it nearly as much as usual.

Mike and I both agreed that the beef was the best. It wasn't ground beef, it was chopped chunks of delicious beef that were seasoned and cooked to perfection. They also gave us 3 different types of salsa and they were all homemade and super spicy, just the way I like it.

In a way, it probably was a bad thing to try this place out. It is really close to our house and I can totally see us stopping by there more often in the future.

--

This morning, we woke up and packed our lunches before starting to get ready for the day. Mike and I were giddy with how many options we had for snacks and lunches. We are nerds...

I packed up some plain greek yogurt with some honey on top (current yogurt lurve) instead of fruit. I had never bought any honey flavored yogurts before because I didn't think I would like it. Boy, was I wrong! It is so delicious! I tried some at my sister in law's last weekend, and now I want it all.the.time!

Lots of snack options for my day!

While we packed lunches, Mike fried us each some eggs and I made us some toast. Since I wasn't going to the gym today, I could eat a full breakfast, and it was really great.

I wound up still going to they gym yesterday since Mike had to be at work early, and I didn't have anything else to do. I didn't do any running though, since my shin has been bothering me. I actually think I am going to rest it today and possibly tomorrow too, and give running a try on Sunday. Hopefully by then it will be all better.

Poor Mike forgot his lunch today, so he doesn't even get to enjoy his monster sandwich and wonderful snacks that he made this morning. :(

We are off to the beach this weekend to see some family and friends. Should be a fun weekend and we are both pretty excited to go running at ANOTHER beach this weekend. May has been a pretty awesome running month with all the different places we have gotten to run.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday weekend!

Yesterday's Stats (had to guesstimate a little):
Calories (-) 510
Sodium (+) 400?
Protein (+) 12

does a body good

Last night's dinner was AWESOME. I couldn't get over how good it was, combining two of my favorite things; eggs and roasted veggies. I got the idea from a blog that I follow - peanut butter fingers. She frequently tops her salads and veggies with a fried egg and I have always thought it was interesting. Now that I have tried it, I can assure you it will be happening way more often.

We were pretty much out of everything, so we made a quick stop by the store on our way home from work. We quickly grabbed some eggs, milk, and brussel sprouts, and headed home to make dinner. While Mike mowed the grass, I started roasting our veggies.

We had the sweet potatoes and russet potatoes on hand, and they were starting to look a little old, so I used everything up with our meal. After roasting them in olive oil for about 45 minutes (stirring in between), I fried up 2 eggs for each of us and put them on top of a bowl of the veggies.

I must have said how good this meal tasted 100 times last night. The mixture of the yolk, egg, and oily veggies was just amazing. I want more, and I want more now.

If only I could fry some eggs at work, I would be having a repeat of this for lunch. Instead, I will have to settle for the veggies alone with a pb & j sandwich thin. Still a pretty rockin' lunch if you ask me.

While waiting for our dinner to cook, I snacked on some chips and salsa and drank milk. Can I just tell you that I am slightly addicted to milk. I seriously could drink milk at every meal if I allowed myself. I love it so much. I try to keep my intake to a minimum, so that I don't go way over in calories and sodium from just milk alone, but then I get into these kicks where I can't stop myself from drinking it. I think since I restrict myself, I over-indulge a bit.

I only drink skim milk and I love for it to be ice cold, without adding any ice. But, if it is not cold enough, I will certainly add ice. Mmm, I want some milk right now. Instead, I will continue to sip my peppermint tea. :)

--

This morning, I dropped Mike off at work and then headed out for my run around his office. I like that run a lot. It is exactly 3 miles and I feel legitimately worked when I am through. The hills and turns create a great work out that leaves me feeling sweaty and tired... both good things to feel after a run.

Over the last week, I have noticed a pain in my shin when I begin my runs. It is only on the left side and it runs up my shin along the bone. It seems to subside after I get about a mile in, but I can feel it anytime my foot pronates inward. I usually don't pronate when I run, but sometimes when I get tired, my feet just get lazy. It really isn't bad enough to where I can't run, and I don't feel it any other time in my day to day life, but I am a little concerned since it has been going on for a week and at every single run. I think I will take tomorrow off and see if that helps at all. I really don't want to get injured since my running has been really consistent lately.

I also love this trail because of the fun things you get to look at. There are always birds, squirrels, and bunnies just hanging out.

This guy got a little scared as I got closer to him and ran into the woods... Can you see him??

My only complaint about this run is the hills. I guess that is probably why it gives me such a good work out, though, so I shouldn't complain. This one is a beast and I always hate when I approach it.

I was glad to be finished and was pretty happy with my pace the entire time. I felt like I was really pushing myself, so that is always a good feeling.

When I got to my office, I dug into my overnight oats (in a pb jar). This is also an idea that came from a blog that I read. Carrots N Cake always talks about doing this and it is an excellent idea. When you are just about finished with a peanut butter jar, and there is not enough peanut butter to do anything with, but enough to keep the peanut butter flavor, add your overnight oats to the jar and enjoy the deliciousness the next morning. I added oats, skim milk, frozen mixed berries, and chocolate protein powder. With every bite you get a bit of peanut butter and it tastes absolutely incredible.

Time to tackle the day! Have a good one!

Yesterday's Stats (thanks to my milk obsession):
Calories (+) 351
Sodium (+) 103
Protein (+) 1

new path

I am always looking for new places to run, to keep my interest and shake things up a bit. I noticed that around my gym, there was a trail that went behind the building, so I decided to try it out this morning. I really had no idea where I was going, and I only got about 2.5 miles out of it, but it was definitely something different. It weaved me in and out of a bunch of office buildings and then took me through some woods. It wasn't anything spectacular, and I doubt I will do it many more times, but at least I know it is there.

After running, it was nice that I could head straight into the gym to finish up my work out without having to drive anywhere. I did my push ups and ab work out and then got ready for work. I have pretty much decided that my focus will be push ups and abs until later on in the summer. I might throw legs in every once in a while, but I have very little interest in being indoors or doing any other type of weight training right now. The push ups will give my back, arms, and core a good work out and hopefully the ab work out will tighten everything up.

I do feel like I am getting much better with my push ups. I am still doing the girl version, but I feel like I am in much more control when doing them now than I did before. I hope it is giving my arms and back a good work out.

This morning, after eating my overnight oats, I had some tea and chocolate covered sunflower seeds. I am loving the peppermint tea right now. It is so refreshing for a summer morning and it smells amazing.

It is looking like I will be called into the hospital tonight, and I am not too excited about that. I am still holding out hope, but they are pretty short handed from what I can tell and I am sure they are going to call me. I guess I just need to get excited for it, so that I won't be too disappointed when it happens. I am also working tomorrow night so this week will be kinda busy. Luckily, I got to sleep in until 7 (!!) this morning. I guess that is sleeping in these days. Ugh.

Last night was Italian themed night at our weekly bible study. I made sure to only get a small portion of each item, but everything was so delicious. I had a quarter serving each of pizza, lasagna, penne rosa, chicken Parmesan, butternut squash ravioli, and salad. It was still a ton of food and we were completely stuffed, but it was awesome.

I hope you all have a great Tuesday! Hopefully I can squeeze another post in tomorrow!

Yesterday's Stats:
Calories (+) 175
Sodium (-) 165
Protein (-) 3

100 miles

Hey there! I am going to try my hardest to post everyday this week, but I have a lot on my plate, so we will see if that happens. :)

I know I have been running long before March 5, but that is the day that I used the Nike+ GPS app for the first time. Since then, I have been hitting the pavement with that app and it slowly counted up all the miles I have completed. On Friday morning, when Mike and I went for a pre-work run, I hit the big one.

In a little over 2 months, I put 100 miles on these legs of mine. That is certainly something I can be proud of. :)

We ran the route over by his work and decided to reverse it this time. Bad move by me. The hills were 10x worse going the opposite direction that we usually go. It was rough.

We only did 3 miles, since we both planned to get a long run in on Saturday up in Virginia. We headed to Virginia Beach on Friday night after work to celebrate Mike's sister, Haylie, and her fiance, Tim, at their wedding shower.

Saturday morning, Mike, Haylie, Tim, Jay (our friend), and I headed out early in the morning to go for a run. Or in Haylie's case, a "blading session."

Mike and Jay made a lot of fun of her for roller blading, but she took it pretty well. At least she came with us!

We went running along the waterfront of Virginia Beach and it was so gorgeous. Running is so much easier when there are new and exciting things to look at and take pictures of. :)

Along our run, we went past an aquarium so, of course, I had to stop in to see the seals.

It was awesome to see them swimming around in the open tank. They are so adorable!

Since Haylie and I stopped to see the seals, the boys left us. It was fine with me since they had planned to run 11 miles that day and I only wanted to get in 5. When we got to the aquarium we were right around 3 miles, so Haylie and I turned around and headed to the boardwalk to finish up.

We ran along the boardwalk for a little while before we finally hit 5 miles. Then we enjoyed the beach for a few minutes.

It was quite windy, so I was getting pelted by sand in order to get this picture. When I got home, I had sand all throughout my scalp.  Oh the things to get a blog photo...

It was a really fun run and I am so glad the weather allowed for us to enjoy it. It was nice to catch up with my sister in law too.

We did about a 2 mile walk after this to get back to the car, so my legs were nice and stretched by the time we got home. I actually wasn't sore at all on Sunday either.

When we got home, I had to rush to get ready so I could help set up for the shower at one of Haylie's friend's houses. I was in charge of the chalkboard signs and paper poms, so once I was dressed, I hurried over there to get started. Those poms take forever to puff out!

The backyard was perfect for hanging poms from the trees and everything turned out so nice. The food was also amazing. The party was thrown by myself and two of Haylie's bridesmaids and I think we did an awesome job.

Those spicy thai noodles were banging. Yesterday, after we got home, I couldn't get them out of my head, so I tried to re-create them with stuff I had on hand in the house. They didn't even come close to tasting like the noodles at the party, but they were still ok.

Since Tim's family is from England, we tried to sneak in at least one element for their sake. The host of the party found a recipe for a traditional drink that is called "Pimm's Cup." It uses Pimm's gin and fruit juice, along with fresh fruit, mint, and rosemary to make a sangria-like drink. It was really tasty.

The favors were mason jars, so I had mine in one of those. There is something about a drink in a mason jar that just makes me so happy. Especially being outside with paper poms hanging all around.

The party was a lot of fun and I think the bride and groom really enjoyed themselves. We had a blast getting to know their friends and hanging out with the family.

Of course, Mike and I had to get a photo together. It is mandatory.

We all passed out at roughly 9:30 pm after the party. Running + a few drinks + entertaining others = exhausted.  Oh, and I forgot to mention we had to clean up a huge mess from my little puppy dog who decided he didn't want to stay in his cage while we were at the party all day. He somehow wedged himself out of his cage and tore up the entire house. Needless to say when we went out for lunch on Sunday, we had to get creative.

Little punk...

Have a good week!