Weekly Eats: Mon May 14 to Sun May 20

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Gardening edition.

This week's adventures included: not eating a single avocado or breakfast burrito, Trader Joe's run, cutting back on running, and gardening.


Weekday Breakfasts

• 3x homemade Egg McMuffins (1 with turkey sausage, 2 with bacon)
• Cereal bar, string cheese, and fruit.  I couldn't decide whether I wanted a fig, strawberry, or apple bar, so I asked stepson #2 to help me decide.  His input was that all of those flavors are good, but that fig is always better.
• Scrambled eggs and cheese in a toasted tortilla with a mess of salsa and hot sauce.  By this point in the week I was really missing my breakfast burritos.

Weekend Breakfasts
Saturday: yep, another Egg McMuffin

Sunday: Coffee.  Slept in really late due to Saturday's long run, so I had an early lunch and called it good.

Weekday Lunches
M: The honey garlic shrimp that I made last week.  Unfortunately it didn't reheat very well, so this was a fail in the leftover /lunchbox department. 

T, W ,F: Sweet Potato, Corn, and Black Bean Enchiladas. If you haven't guessed, I'm just a tad bit obsessed with this recipe.

H: Spinach Artichoke Pasta

Weekend Lunches
Saturday: snacks and an early dinner
Sunday: leftover pizza

Weeknight Dinners
Monday (family meal): kids had hot dogs and noodles, hubs and I had the leftover Fettuccine Bolognese from last Sunday.  It's just an OK pasta dish, if I made this again I would add a bit more tomato sauce (yes I know it's bolognese but sorry needed more tomatoes)



Tuesday (family meal): I knew that we would be winging it, so I picked up a smoked salmon poke bowl at Trader Joe's.  Oh boy did I make the wrong call because husband had his act together and had the boys make grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Wednesday (date night): Chili mac!  With a ton of hot sauce, cheese, and sour cream added before eating.  Spice wise, hubs is mild and I'm wild.  The workaround is that I make bland chili and then add both ghost pepper sauce and "normal" hot sauce to mine to spice it up.

Hubs and I had the spice conversation on our third date, so we both knew what we were getting into early on.  There have been times when I've pushed the spice, and of course he'll eat it (or at least try to eat it if I've Gone Too Far), and there have been times when I've followed his lead and gone with mild (a girl can only go for so long without ghost pepper sauce).  While we can both expand our taste horizons (or in my case a lack of taste horizon), the fact is that we are what we are.  I wouldn't change him for the world and neither would he.

Thursday (fend for yourself night): snacks.

Friday (single girl night): Run fuel time.  A big ol'bowl of chili mac and a huge bowl of ice cream.

Weekend Dinners
Saturday: The men were away at scout camp, so I had the ultimate single girl night and whipped out the homemade pizza.  My dough (started in the early afternoon and left out to rise) plus Sally's Baking Addiction Spinach Artichoke Pizza!  I used frozen spinach and added a liberal dose of crushed rep pepper flakes.  It was heavenly.

I made a really smart choice for dessert.  Keep in mind that I'd run eight miles that morning, so I wanted All The Food.  A big bowl of Lucky Charms did the trick to get me refueled without over compensating.   

Sunday (family meal): our traditional way of celebrating the stepsons returning from scout camp alive.  Tacos!

Meal Prep
None!  I have one more serving of pizza and the men have tacos.  I'll be traveling next week (shenanigans are planned).





Gardening

I started our seeds this week and as of this morning they are off the charts.  I use the lights from an aerogarden to help them along.  The aerogarden was a flop in terms of giving me a year round indoor herb garden, but it was totally worth it because the kids loved it.

While we're waiting for the seeds, I grabbed a few plants to get started.  Tomatoes (gah, I haven't had a decent tomato crop in years, we're due for a good year), bell peppers, a cucumber, and herbs.

Last year I transplanted several volunteer dill plants from my single girl house, and I was so happy to see that they've continued volunteering.  Rock on guys!

Other
Workouts:
Last week I did a lot of running and not very much eating due to a stomach bug.  Yes I got away with it last week, but was feeling it this week.  I've started listening to the Strength Running podcast and Matt said something about you can increase mileage, you can increase speed, etc but you can't do all at the same time.  Yeah, that's exactly what I've been doing.  So I'm mulling over how I want to approach my training right now.

M: weights with coffee and and a really awful one mile treadmill run afterwards
T: off
W: off
H: treadmill intervals - I dialed the intervals back to 60 seconds instead of 90 seconds at 7.0.  My body isn't adjusting to the speed and I'm not quite sure what to do about it yet.
F: weights plus one mi treadmill incline walk
S:Finally the payoff for taking it easy, 8 miles outside.  This is the longest distance that I have ever run.  I knew that I could run 7 miles, so I planned the 8 mile run and told myself that there would be no shame in running 7 and walking the last mile if I needed to.  Well, no worries.  Everything was perfect about this run:

• 60 degrees and overcast, with a cooling breeze and a few raindrops here and there.
• My favorite park in the world is 3 miles away from home and it has a two mile trail (there and back plus the trail = 8 miles).  It has uphill.  It has downhill.  It has a lake with lots of wildlife.  It's everything.
• Mile 8 was one of the best miles I've ever run. 

Su: off

Watching (from the treadmill): A Place to Call Home (finished season 4),  and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (finished the show).

Watching (from the couch): Halt and Catch Fire,  Brooklyn 99.  Netflix has figured out that I like Australian TV and led me to Dr. Blake and The Letdown.

Reading: The Alice Network. 

Your Turn

• What are you cooking this week? 

• Do you have the same spice tolerance as your significant other/family?  If not, how do you deal with it?

• Fitbit users: I've been noticing that my fitbit invariably dies during long runs.  I never have this problem on the treadmill but I feel like there's something about running outside that kills it.  On Saturday I started with a full charge and the battery died right after I came home.  I'm not using the exercise tracker, it's just counting steps.  Anyone else having this experience?