It can’t get any easier than this!  I’ve said before that I love casseroles and I usually have the ingredients on hand to make this one.

Well since I have all this kale hanging around my house I was thinking last night that I needed something else to make with it.  Wouldn’t you know that I got this recipe in my inbox this morning in my Runner’s World email.  How weird is that.  This recipe comes from The Athlete’s Palate: Dan Barber.  I had never heard of that cookbook, but I think I am going to buy it on Amazon. 

Tuscan kale thrives in cooler months and is packed with vitamins A and C as well as cancer-fighting phytochemicals called glucosinolates. If you can’t find this slightly sweet-tasting variety, use the small, tender leaves of regular kale.

2 tablespoons dried currants
7 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar, divided
1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 bunches Tuscan kale (about 1 pound), center ribs and stems removed, leaves thinly sliced crosswise
2 tablespoons pine nuts, lightly toasted Parmesan cheese shavings

Place the currants in a small bowl; add five tablespoons of the balsamic vinegar. Let them soak for at least one hour or up to overnight. Drain the currants.

Whisk the remaining two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, honey, oil, and salt in a large bowl. Add the kale, currants, and pine nuts; toss to coat.

Let marinate for 20 minutes at room temperature, tossing occasionally. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese shavings over salad. Makes six servings.

CALORIES PER SERVING: 110
CARBS: 14 G
PROTEIN: 4 G
FAT: 6 G

On deck today is a run at some point.  Hopefully outside b/c it is a balmy 39 degrees out there!  It’s amazing how good the 39 can feel after suffering throught the teens and 20s for a few weeks.   Fonzie needs it too, he was up looking to play ball like 3 times last night. I need to wear his butt out. Howeve,r I can feel that my gut is a little funked up from all the fiber yesterday. I forgot that I also had a GNU Fiber bar at one point in the day. Uh oh Houston we may have a problem. I cannot run with a funked up belly I will be pooping my pants 1 mile into the run.  Good times. 

This recipe comes from my lovely sister Tina, she is one hell of a cook.  I haven’t personally had this, but made something similar this weekend.

2 cups dry wild rice or brown rice cooked in chicken broth.
after rice cooks, mix in:
2 Tbs. non-hydrogenated buttery spread like Smart Balance
1 Tbs. tangerine or orange rind (I didn’t do this)
juice of one tangerine or orange (no more than 1/3 cup)
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/4 cup slivered almonds, roasted (I didn’t roast them)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Doesn’t that sound divine!  Go make it and let me know what you think.  Couldn’t be any easier and according to my brother in law Tim, this rice dish is DELUXE!!!!

After I got back from yoga this morning I was hungry!  I never eat much before yoga, who wants to do a twist with a belly full of food, so I had some carnation instant breakfast.  Gary was still sleeping when I got back so I decided to surprise him with brunch!  I made a crustless quiche. It was totally an experiment, I just threw some stuff together and hoped for the best. 

I got out the cuisinart and chopped up some onions, mushrooms and spinach and then sautéed them in olive oil until the mushrooms got mushy, the spinach wilty and the onions opaquey.  Don’t you love my technical kitchen terms!

When done I mushed them down into the bottom of a pie pan and topped with some microwavable bacon.  Gourmet, I know.

From there I sprinkled on some garlic salt and poured the eggs over top. I used 4 eggs and 6 egg whites.

Next I shook on some progresso bread crumbs.

I was a little heavy handed b/c as you can see in the finished pic the bread crumbs didn’t soak up completely, but I am glad I added them b/c they gave it a nice texture.

I topped mine off with a half a slice of Havarti cheese.  Yums.

This afternoon our neighbors, who have a 5 month old daughter, graciously offered to watch Harper so Gary and I could go on a date!  We decided to go with the ultra romantic movie “The Road”.  We had both read the book.  The romantic comment is sarcastic of course, there couldn’t be a move depressing book.  The movie was really good, very true to the book.  Surprisingly it left out some of the more gory scenes from the book, like the people melted into the road and the baby that was cooked on the fire.  This surprised me b/c very little happens in the book, so I thought the movie would cover everything that did.  Sorry for the spoilers.  Despite the sadistic gore, it really is a good, powerful book about the love between a man and his child and I suggest you check it out.  Or just see the movie.  Since we were on  date we made sure to make out through half the movie much to the chagrin of the elderly couple seated next to us.

Now that I am done reading The Road, I need a new book, what do you recommend?

Fonzie and I had a crazy 3 mile run in some serious snow this afternoon.  It was up to my knees in some parts so my running looked more like high stepping. Tomorrow I will be hurtin for sure.  I definitely wanted something easy for dinner.  I picked up something new at Whole Foods the other day and decided to give them a whirl tonight.

I’m trying really, really hard to only buy meat from organic farmers who let their animals eat grass and roam. After seeing the mandatory dark “growhouses” that Tyson uses for their chickens, I think this is important for everyone to do.  Of course being a vegetarian is even better, but for those of us who aren’t, we have to be more responsible with what we buy. So, anyway, this company allows their animals to grow at their own pace in the open air.  And these meatballs are FABOOSH!  Yum.  You can really taste the fennel and they are totally juicy and taste like they are horrible for you (in a good way!). I loved them and will buy them again and will be checking out their other products next time I am at Whole Paycheck.

We had a ton of pork left over from dinner yesterday. Damn you Costco and your giant portions of inexpensive, quality meat!  So, Gary took the helm and made us a taco bar for dinner.  We used up the leftover pork sautéed with onions and these goodies:



I hadn’t had this salsa before. I am a huge salsa fan and enjoy buying different kinds. It was spicy and not really that exciting. I didn’t think it tasted like tequila or lime.  However these kettle chips are the bombdiggity. I’ve written about them before, they are super salty and beany.  Good yums.  I took a picture of my finished taco, it was really pretty!  My camera ate it somehow.

I know I shouldn’t post a picture of my kids dimeslot, but come on how funny is this pic.


I went out into the sub artic temperatures and ran around the yard with the dogs after dinner.  I made it back inside without frostbite or upchucking my dinner from the frolicking.  I am bummed that I didn’t go out for a walk today, the snow is really deep. It would have been a good workout.

Being that it’s a new year, my gym has come out with a new schedule!  I am so pumped, I love when they move the classes around.  I have spent way too much time studying the schedule and here is what I think I am going to do.

Sunday: 9am power yoga, PM run with Fonzie 4-6
Monday: Weights on my own at gym,  PM run with Fonzie 4-6 miles
Tuesday: 10:00 Absolutely abs and then 4-6 mile speed work on dreadmill
Wednesday: 10:30 Beamfit (awesome pilates/yoga class on balance beam) and if I can get Harper to bed early 7:30pm power yoga
Thursday:  6 -8 mile Run,  Yoga at home
Friday: 9:15 Urban Iron
Saturday: Long run 8-13 miles

Now this is a perfect world schedule. I will obviously not always get these workouts in. Running is the main focus and I need to get 4-5 runs in a week, Yoga is next and I need to do it twice, then the Friday weights b/c I need to make sure I lift at least once.  How about you lovely readers?  What is your most important workout each week, which one do you put before all others?

Since the weather outside is frightful I had to settle for yoga at home today.  Nothing wrong with yoga at home, it’s just that I adore the Sunday yoga class at my gym, the teacher is amazing, its very rare that you can get a real yoga workout at the gym.  I scrolled through my options from Exercise TV and ended up with this:

Hmmm…oddly enough you don’t even do the that twist during the workout!  It was a pretty good DVD, 51 mins, nothing too difficult or new to me. It breaks the workout into segments – cardio and slow burn.  During the cardio you go through various vinyasa’s quickly to get the blood flowing and heart rate up, during the slow burn you hold poses longer.  I was impressed by how well the instructor explained the moves, very descriptive.  Nowhere near as good of a workout as I would have gotten at the gym, but most of that is probably due to a 8 month old hanging on me and a dog at my feet.


After I was done I was starving and was craving some comfort food. I really wanted tuna noodle casserole, but we were out of noodles. So, I threw 1 can of Campbell’s healthy request cream of mushroom soup, 1 can of tuna, 1/2 cup of Uncle Bens Whole grain brown rice and a couple handfuls of organic frozen veggies from Costco into a bowl and microwaved for 5 mins.  It turned out wonderful.


I wanted a little something more so I had some of my favorite chips.




Have you ever tried these? They are seriously delicious.  So good you don’t even need to dip them in salsa. 

Last night Gary and I watched:
I disagree with the headline, it’s no where near funnier than Borat, but it is 115 mins of non stop laughs. Mostly in horror. Lots of penis in this movie people and many, many butt sex jokes.  We definitely laughed a lot though.  Watching Paula Abdul sit on furnitue that is really mexican dayworkers had me in stitches.

Since it was so short, we also watched
I really liked this movie.  It was the right combo of suspence and action. I love me some Denzel.  He can do no wrong in my eyes.  John Travolta is hit or miss in my opinion. You forget that he is a really good actor b/c he goes and does such shit movies like Old Dogs or Wild Hogs. He did great as the villian in this movie.  Two thumbs up.  I hear the original is much better, I will have to check it out.

I’ve only been without sugar for a day and I am already missing it.  Gary is eating peanut M&Ms, grrrrr.

Tonight’s dinner was a big ol’ experiment. First I put a pork loin in the crock pot with some mushrooms and this:

Nothing else, just the beer.  I put it on high for 4 hours. Normally I like to cook on low for 8, it is a slow cooker after all, but I didn’t have time. 

I bought this brussel sprout stalk at Trader Joes, I don’t know if it really makes a difference in any way, but I like looking at it! 

I cut some off, cut them in half

And put them in a big baggy and tossed them in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, kosher salt and celery seed.  I then let them sit in the fridge a few hours before cooking at 400 degrees for 20 mins.

Yum!  Everything turned out fantastic.  The pork and mushrooms really took on the flavor of the ale. You have to try this at home. It was so simple, yet so tasty. I think any dark beer will turn out great.  I would like to try this with Newcastle, Sierra Nevada blue label or any seasonal pumpkiny ale!

And my first roasting veggie endeavor was a success. All the flavors worked together like magic.  You could taste them all, I especially think the celery seed was a stroke of genius.

Added in some mashed sweet potatoes, Harper’s favorite.  I normally would have put some brown sugar or maple syrup on them, but not tonight. And you know what? They tasted just as good.

Fonzie says – Where’s my pork n sprouts Sucka!

Gary took this pic of Harp and me tonight and you know what?  Her lovely, chubby, squishy, physique looks pretty much how I looked when I came home from the hospital after having her!  So glad I was able to get the baby weight off!  That was my biggest fear about having a kid, but it only took me 5 months.  Thank you marathon training and breastfeeding.

After all the junk I consumed over the past week I was ready for some veggies, so I decided to make a veggie lasagna for dinner tonight. 

First I put down a layer of lasagna noodles. On top of that I poured a can of diced tomatoes (the kind with oregano and basil in it) and chopped mushrooms. I put the mushrooms in the Cuisinart b/c I hate chopping veggies.

Next I took a small container of light ricotta cheese and added 1 egg, garlic salt, oregano and diced dried onions and mixed together.

I then layered the ricotta cheese mix on top of another layer of noodles and added some spaghetti sauce.

Next I chopped up some artichokes hearts in the Cuisinart.

Layered the hearts with some defrosted frozen spinach and added some light mozzarella cheese.

Next another layer of noodles and I added on zucchini and summer squash.

Last another layer of noodles and some more cheese.

I then put the lasagna into the oven for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  You know its done when you can stick a fork through the squash easily, that’s why I always put the squash layer (or sometimes I use parsnips too) on top.

While the lasagna cooked Gary and I did a yoga DVD.  We got all the way through it, but Harper kept trying to play along too.  She was under me for all my downward dogs, pulling on my legs   Ignore Gary’s shirt, he likes to wear his tshirts until they fall apart.


The final product turned out really well. 




Gary and I are snuggling down to watch Food Inc now. I am prepared to be depressed.  I have tried to be a vegetarian before, but I really am going to make more of an effort to eat a lot less meat in the new year.  Everyone in the US needs to be forced to watched this movie and Fast Food Nation.  It’s crazy what has become of our food.  Ugh.

Speaking of depressing. I read The Road:

Ack. On one hand I loved it, I read the whole thing in one day, but on the other hand I just hated it. It is so so so sad. It just devastated me.  Have you read it? Have you seen the movie? I wanted to see the movie really badly, but I am totally haunted by some of the cannibal scenes in the book and I’m not sure I want to see them played out on screen!  If you’ve seen the movie, let me know what you thought.  I also finished Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane.  It was really trippy and I can’t wait to see the movie adaptation.

What’s the best book you’ve read lately?

I wanted something easy to make for dinner and something I could share with Harper, as G was out playing golf.  I looked in the freezer and found this:


Perfect!  I like to buy the loins b/c the gross brown bottom part is usually not on there. I take these frozen and put them right into a skillet.  I usually just cover with orange juice and a few sprigs of rosemary.  I had to improvise, I was almost out of orange juice, so I used lemon juice too and I didn’t have fresh rosemary, so I used dried.

I cover and cook on low heat for about 4 mins on each side, but you can tell when its done when it gets flaky. I usually flip once.



Fini!  Topped with Newman’s pineapple salsa on one and TJ’s black bean salsa on the other and topped off with 2% extra sharp cheddar, side of mixed veggies.  Yum. 

Harper ate corn while I cooked, corn is her favorite!

Big thanks to Foodbuzz! I am now a featured publisher, so please check back often. I plan to try and blog 2-3 times a day.  Every week I will try a new recipe and do a few food reviews.  I also hope to havea giveaway at least twice a month.