Weekly Eats: Mon Apr 30 to Sun May 6

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  5K PR/very special birthday edition.
So much to talk about this week...we ate good food, had a 5K PR, discovered foam rolling, and celebrated a very special birthday.


Weekday Breakfasts

Breakfast Burritos
Cereal bar, string cheese, and fruit al desko

Homemade Egg McMuffin with turkey sausage

Cheesy eggs with toast and green dragon sauce

Weekend Breakfasts
Saturday: Breakfast Burrito (pre-race day fuel)

Sunday: Avocado Toast with Bacon

Weekday Lunches
M, H, F: Veggie Burritos

T: Hybrid Chrissy Teigen's Drunken Noodles/Gimme some oven Korean stir fry.  It wasn't fazed one bit by its stay in the freezer.

W: Spinach Artichoke Pasta

Weekend Lunches
Saturday: California Pizza Kitchen Pizza Margherita Flatbread
Sunday: Snacks

Weeknight Dinners
Monday (family meal): leftover lasagna

Tuesday (family meal): Kids had lasagna, adults had chicken burritos with the Cafe Rio Copycat Crockpot Chicken that I made last Sunday.  Giving this recipe huge thumbs up and you'll be seeing it again.

Wednesday (date night): more Chicken burritos.

Thursday (fend for yourself night): this is what happens when you unexpectedly work late on the same night that you planned to start working on your stepson's birthday treats.  Dinner was a snack bag of flaming hot cheetos at the office and nibbles here and there of fudge sauce and a few oreos while making desserts.

Friday (family meal): Hamburgers via my hot husband.  I had a really hectic week at work and didn't lift a finger for this meal or the cleanup.  Reason #12,299,354 why my marriage is awesome.

Weekend Dinners
Saturday: Family birthday party for one of the stepsons! 

The meal:

• Sandwich tray
• Veggie tray
• Cheese and crackers
• Mac n'cheese
• Guac and chips (hello it was Cinco de Mayo and I want to shout out that the avocados were on point)
• Margaritas for adults (see above point about Cinco de Mayo)

The treats:

• Oreo balls.  I made the filling on Thursday and formed them into balls and let them freeze overnight.  I dipped them on Friday night and put them back into the freezer.  This time I got dipping chocolate (instead of using chocolate chips) and it made all of the difference in the world.

• Ice cream cake
• Thursday: made the chocolate layer and the fudge sauce/oreo filling.  The recipe says to layer on the fudge sauce and top it with crushed oreos, but the past two times that I've made the cake, the oreos separated from the fudge.  My solution was to mix the oreos into the fudge sauce, but it didn't work out as well as I hoped.  The fudge layer was super strong and hard to cut.  Not a deal breaker, but there's still work to be done here.
• Friday: made the vanilla layer.
• Saturday: in the middle of the 5k, it occurred to me that I had leftover ice cream and fudge sauce.  And I own a set of mini spring form pans.  Hmm...why not make a mini ice cream cake with the leftovers....
• Mid day Saturday: set the mini ice cream cake plan in motion and made the whipped cream frosting.
• Frosted the big cake in two stages, first pass was just to get a coating on it and let it freeze, 2nd pass was to build it up and do the final decorations.

• Completed the mini cakes.  Since I didn't take the time to properly freeze them, there was a lot of melting, as you can see in the cake on the right.  I used a knife, spatula, and paper towel to correct this, as seen in the cake on the left.

• The completed project with the leftover frosting.  Obviously I will never make a living as a cake decorator (good thing I've got a CPA license to fall back on), but the birthday boy was thrilled by the mini cakes and I was happy that the leftovers went to good use.

Sunday (family meal): hamburgers with our neighbors and leftover ice cream cake.

Meal Prep
Minimal, since we've got a sandwich tray to finish off.  I finished my stash of veggie burritos, so I made up a double batch of Sweet Potato, Corn, and Black Bean Enchiladas for lunches.




Other

Stuff on the internet that I tried IRL:

• simplehuman Touch-Free Automatic Sensor Soap Pump via Brown Eyed Baker's recommendation.  I'd considered getting one before but put it off because I wasn't sure how well the sensor would work and I felt like there were better things to do with $40.  Real life findings: I wash my hands a million times a day in the kitchen so this was definitely the place for a touch free dispenser.  The sensor seems smart (no misfires so far) and I like that you can set how much soap to dispense.  The stepsons like it and are possibly washing their hands more often, so it's a win.   
• Never ever had I foam rolled before this week.  Running outside vs on the treadmill gives me tightness/minor pain in my left hip and I was ready to try something new since stretching wasn't fixing the problem.  Yes the actual rolling hurts like no one's business but OMG it completely fixed the problem.

Workouts:
M: rest after last Sunday's 5k
T: ran six miles outside and it was incredible
W: off
H: treadmill intervals (1 mi warmup, 1 mi cool down, 5 x 90 seconds @ 7.0 with 2 min walking recovery, final interval was 2 min @ 7.0)
F: weights plus one mi treadmill run
S: 5k PR!  I got everything I wanted out of this race.  Official time was 31:11, 4th in my age group.  My strategy was:

• Mile 1: chill out.
• Mile 2: pick a running partner and run with them (without them knowing).  I picked out two guys who finished mile 1 just ahead of me and ran behind them.  They kept me going faster than I would have gone without them but also kept me from going too fast.  I passed them by the end of the mile.
• Mile 3: it's on!  Race someone (without them knowing).   At the end of mile 2 I saw a girl in a pink shirt somewhat ahead of me.  I picked her because she was ahead of me and I liked the shirt.  I passed her just before the finish line.
• Mile 3 to 3.1: all out.

Su: 4 miles outside, ran up and down a big ol' hill for the middle two miles.



What's next for running: looking forward to not having to run a race next week and just being able to run for fun.  I have a 10k in late June and will run on a relay team in a marathon in September.  Other races for this year TBD.


I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the extra running that I've done in the past few weeks comes with a side effect.  Remember that I was having problems sleeping a few months ago?  Not no more.  I sleep like a baby these days.


Watching (from the treadmill): A Place to Call Home, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Watching (from the couch): The last episode of Ash vs Evil Dead (snif, someone please pick this show up),  Halt and Catch Fire, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitt.

Reading: The Alice Network. 

Your Turn

• What are you cooking this week? 

• Runners: do you foam roll?  Thoughts?