Category Archives: chicago

Monday Things {10-29-2012}

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1. After an incredibly chaotic week at work, Ian and I went out to sushi on Friday evening. We decided to try sushi x in River West [again] because neither of us could remember if we really liked it the first time we went (over a year ago and I think pre-blog).

We both really enjoyed it! To start I had their salad with ginger dressing and Ian had hot spinach with peanut sauce and then for our actual sushi, we split a caterpillar roll and an order of white tuna and hamachi nigiri, I had an avocado roll, and Ian had their omega roll. It was delicious!

2. Saturday morning I woke up super early and got my long run on. Before I headed out I had a rice cake with sunflower butter, raisins, and chia seeds and then during my run I had a mocha clif gu shot (1/4 at mile 10, 12, 14, & 16). This way of fueling really seemed to work for me and I could see the difference in my mile splits! Most importantly, it was absolutely gorgeous out and I had a wonderful run. I can’t wait to get out there next Sunday!

3. When I got back from my run, I refueled with an amazing smoothie. I blended 1 frozen banana with 1 scoop protein powder, 1 cup almond milk, 1 big spoonful of chocolate peanut butter, and maybe 2 T oats to thicken everything up. It was awesome!

I also made a veggie hash to hold me over until book club at 2:30. I pan-fried a sweet potato, onion, and mushrooms and then added lots of spices and tomato paste. I topped the hash with TJ’s fat free black bean dip.

4. We had our book club meet-up on Saturday afternoon and Diana was sweet enough to host this month. We feasted on lots of fall dishes: maple butternut squash casserole, apple butter, hot cider, and pumpkin hummus [...to name a few] and attempted to actually discuss last month’s book Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (author of Gone Girl). We all really liked it and some of us liked it even more than Gone Girl. It’s definitely worth reading!

5. After book club, I met Ian at Hackney’s to watch the Michigan-Nebraska game. I don’t have much to say about the game but we did enjoy a nice, light dinner.

I wasn’t too hungry after book club but I figured I should eat something to help my muscles recover so I ordered a glass of wine and a garden salad. Ian also ordered a wedge and some fries for us to split. Fries covered in ketchup seriously have to be my favorite “junk” food. Yum!

6. Sunday morning I woke up early to eat breakfast before heading over to the Thriller in Schiller. I had two buckwheat & chia waffles topped with sun butter, pumpkin mixed with pb2 and pumpkin pie spice, and a drizzle of maple syrup. This hit the spot and was easily digested before the 5k (10 am).

7. The Thriller in Schiller was an absolute blast! Our costumes were silly (Kelsey, Emily, and I dressed as coneheads) and the course had just enough obstacles to make it challenging but not too intense. I’m going to do a race review/recap tomorrow but all I can say is that I had so much fun and I am seriously considering running the Schiller Chiller 10k on December 1st. Hey, maybe I’ll even wear a costume to that :) .

8. I didn’t have coffee before the race and I felt awful/tired/sick afterwards. I went home, ate some soup, and parked my butt on the couch for a few hours. Much needed!

9. After running some errands (including grocery shopping!), I made this awesome salad for dinner.

I’ll admit it would have been better had I made the tofu included in the recipe but as I don’t do soy I skipped it. Next time I’d make the tofu glaze and use it on salmon or something else to add another flavor/texture to the dish.

10. Ian and I spent our Sunday night catching up on our DVR. It was just what I needed!

11. My appetite has been off the past few days (and my throat hurts so I hope I’m not getting sick!) so I decided to keep breakfast light today and have some cereal. I mixed 1 cup puffed millet, 1 T walnuts, 1 T pepitas, and 1 T raisins and topped it with about 1 cup almond milk, 1 small banana, a sunflower seed butter spoon, and a little honey.

Delicious!

12. Ian just told me the market is closed today because of Hurricane Sandy and he has the day off. Everybody on the East Coast keep safe!

What did you do this weekend?

Five for Friday {10-26-2012}

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1. As nice as the random burst of hot weather was, I have to say I’m glad that it’s cooled off. See our apartment building turned off the air conditioning on October 1st and as we’re one of the top units on our side of the building it tends to be warm in our apartment during the winter (heat rises yo!). The return of hot weather has made our apartment more than a little uncomfortable and unfortunately we can’t open the windows because a certain furball likes heights/danger and we don’t have screens.

2. The presence of Naturally Nutty in my fridge has me craving breakfast quesadillas again. Why is pepita butter so good with melty banana?

Everything is always better with HUGE grapes.

3. Runs this week are going well. After my tempo 10 miler on Tuesday, I ran 4 miles recovery-style on Wednesday and then yesterday I ran a general aerobic 11 miler and ran into Emily! [I love running into people I know on the lake path, it definitely makes me feel less crazy for being up and running at 5:30 am!] Today I ran a general aerobic 7 miler with 8 x 100 m strides, tomorrow will be my long run (18!), and then Sunday is the Thriller in Schiller. What a fun week of running.

4. Last night I made this soup recipe and it was awesome! I really really liked it but I was a little impatient in waiting for the soup to be done. I tried to taste some and I ended up burning my lip pretty badly. Let’s just say I’m sporting a nice blister today. The soup was so good, it might have just been worth it?

5. I can’t wait until it’s officially the weekend! Not only has this week been BUSY but my weekend looks so fun! Ian and I are going out to dinner tonight, tomorrow I have my long run + book club, and then on Sunday I’m running the Thriller in Schiller with a bunch of my friends. Can it please just be 5 o’clock already??

What do you have planned this weekend?

Catching Up {10-16-2012}

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1. Hey guys sorry for being MIA yesterday. After a busy Sunday that ended with a beer tour (more on that later) I convinced myself that I would be able to write a post Monday morning before heading out to the burbs for a work meeting. Obviously my logic wasn’t great because I had to be up and out the door by 6:15 a.m. and no post happened. Yikes.

2. Let’s back it up to the weekend. A busy Thursday and Friday led to a pretty low-key and chill Friday evening and Saturday. My day and a half can pretty much be summed up by wine, oats in a jar, scrounging up leftovers, and pb toast before bed.

There was also some football, Bossypants reading (finished), Joy Yee, Freshii (our fridge was bare- I needed my veggies!), and a short run thrown in there.

3. I spent Sunday morning logging 16 miles on the treadmill. Don’t even get me started on the fact that the rain stopped after about 5 miles but I was too lazy/annoyed to get off the treadmill, walk home, and then head back out to finish my run. The good side of the story is that I caught up on my news, caught some Tool Time (ha!), and tried a GU with no problems (although I took it bit by bit). The bad side? I was on the treadmill for over two hours and now I’m really sore, not from the distance or the pace, but the fact that I was striding differently. Ouch.

x2.

4. On Sunday I grabbed lunch with Katie at Bountiful Eatery, a completely gluten-free & healthy restaurant in Lakeview.. I hadn’t seen Katie since our last book club and I’d missed her at the marathon so it was great to catch up for a bit! Of course we forgot to snap a pic of us together, I need to get back on my game!

In full disclosure, Katie was asked to come in and check out the gluten-free restaurant and she was sweet enough to invite me to tag along. Fortunately, I came hungry because they definitely let us try a lot of menu items :) .

We each started with one of their soups of the day. Katie tried their vegan spinach and I had their vegan squash. It was fabulous!

Next I tried their kale veggie wrap (kale, chilled medley of roasted zucchini, summer squash, red pepper, and onion with balsamic dressing) only I had the wrap in sandwich form on a gluten-free & egg-free bread. I’m so glad they were able to make the substitution for me (the pita had egg in it but looked fabulous), the bread was amazing! I also had a side salad.

Lastly, they were nice enough to bring out a gluten-free and dairy-free dessert from Rose’s Bakery (Bountiful Eatery carries their products). We both sampled the raspberry tofutti bar and enjoyed it but after soup and a sandwich we were pretty stuffed and hardly made a dent!

Bountiful Eatery is definitely worth checking out. Their food is good, healthy, and does not taste gluten-free (and I mean that in the best possible way– you can’t tell everything is gluten-free). They also have an extensive smoothie menu, I can’t wait to go back and try one!

5. After leaving Katie, I met up with Ian to go on a beer tour through Lakeview. The tour started at Harrigan’s then went to Bodega Ramos, Paddy Longs, and Delilahs all in three hours. Over that span of time we were each handed 16 tastes of beer. Needless to say we all got a little silly. It was even more entertaining that three of the men on our tour were frat brothers celebrating a 40th birthday. Pure comedy.

Paddy Longs is a beer and bacon bar so with every pour they brought out a different kind of bacon. I was planning on just giving my pieces to Ian but the bar decided to really hook me up. Free hummus platter? I’ll take it!

6. Walking Dead started Sunday night yay! Unfortunately because of the above beer tour I only made it through about half of the episode before falling asleep on the couch. Walking Dead airs at 8 pm CST by the way. #oldpeopleproblems.

7. Mondays are the only days during the week that I sleep in past 5 am. Unfortunately, yesterday I had to wake up before 5 am– Molly I don’t know how you do it! I also knew that I’d be in a meeting from 8-1 without any known breaks so I made sure to eat a big breakfast.

This is 1/2 cup oats, 1 1/2 cups water, 1 tsp chia seeds, 1/2 scoop protein powder, a little more than 1/3 cup pumpkin, banana slices, and walnuts. It was hard to get all this down so early but it held me over until 12:30 pm. Not too shabby considering I ate breakfast at 5 am.

8. Unfortunately I ended up having another meeting after my meeting and my “lunch” consisted of an Enjoy Your Life Sunbutter Bar. Let’s just say by the time I got home at 3 pm I was not only tired but also hangry. I knew I couldn’t wait until dinner to eat but I also didn’t want to snack the afternoon away so I ended up enjoying a kale waldorf salad and sweet potato soup for “linner”.

The salad was phenomenal by the way and I’m sure you could make it with any greens if you’re a little wary of raw kale.

9. “Linner” actually worked well until about 8 when I started to get hungry again. Enter my kindergarten snack plate: celery with hummus (x2) and sunflower seed butter (x1) and almond butter and jelly toast.

10. Now tell me, what have you been up to? I feel so detached after being away for one day :P !

Monday Things {10-08-2012}

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1. First of all congrats to the Chicago Marathon runners. You guys did great!! Now it’s time to relax, recover, and sign up for your next one :) .

2. On Friday night, Ian and I tried out a new sushi place, Union Sushi + BBQ Bar. We were both hungry when we arrived, so Ian was happy when our server brought us complimentary edamame just after sitting down.

I passed on it and ordered their roasted cauliflower salad instead. The salad was awesome, I could have eaten a larger version of it for dinner and been happy.

We also ordered their oysters on the half shell. They were pretty good and came with a japanese cilantro ponzu sauce.

And lastly we had some sushi. Ian ordered half of the old city market roll (big picture – spicy tuna, seared salmon, spicy ponzu, cilantro, green onion, crispy onion + wrapped in collard green), we split a tsukiji market roll (albacore, salmon, red & green onion, cilantro, burdock root, wasabi tobiko, ponzu sauce + wrapped in radish sheet), and then we ordered fluke + super white tuna nigiri.

3. I totally messed up my weekend by doing my long run on Saturday morning. It just felt so weird. I know a lot of people like getting their long run out of the way on Saturdays but I’ve always liked running long on Sundays after a day off from work and hopefully two nights of good sleep. Fortunately, I got to see a lot of marathoners and wheelchair cyclists out along the lakefront which kept me motivated to keep running and not curl up in a ball along the path and take a nap.

4. Ian wanted me to show you all his breakfast on Saturday morning. It’s pretty much a monstrosity that is sweet enough to give Bongo Room’s menu a run for it’s money. It is a waffle stack with marshmallow fluff and sliced banana in the middle and it’s topped with a pumpkin pie glaze and a few left over banana slices. So. much. sugar.

5. Kelsey and I decided to go to the Chicago Marathon expo on Saturday afternoon to check it out and see if we could score any free samples. Unfortunately, we each only walked out with a bag of chips and a few mini Larabars- BUT we did see Hal Higdon and request a picture with him. I don’t think he was nearly as excited as we were.

6. After the expo I met up with Ian and some other Michigan transplants to watch the Michigan vs. Purdue game. I’m always happy to see Michigan look awesome and they ended up beating Purdue 44-13. Woohoo! We also tried out a new Michigan bar and I got to shove my face full of complimentary chips and salsa. I was a happy camper.

7. Unfortunately I never got to sleep-in this weekend because on Sunday I had to wake up early check in at my volunteer spot for the marathon. Knowing that I was going to be on my feet for almost 6 hours, I made a breakfast that would hold me over for a long time- cinnamon apple oats.

8. Volunteering was fun? I really liked seeing the elites come by along with cheering for all the runners and the people I saw that I know BUT I felt kind of useless as a volunteer. I was basically spectating in a super sexy getup and hat. It was also freezing. I think it could have been better if the volunteer system was more organized but I really felt like I was thrown out there with no idea what to do.

9. When I got home from volunteering, I scarfed some lunch, attempted to make bagels (flop), and then headed back into the cold to go shopping. I really should know better than to walk into lululemon and expect not to spend money. I ended up only buying two things because the store was pretty picked over from the marathoners. I bought the run swiftly tech short sleeve shirt in grey and then the aphrodite crop. I’m wondering if I should take the crops back and exchange them for something run-specific. Has anyone run in crops from lulu that were designed for something else?

10. Last night, I met up with Kelsey, Kim, and the running legend Skinny Runner to grab dinner and drinks at Bar Toma. We chatted, noshed on salad (for me), a goat cheese spread, and margarita pizza. I can only speak for the salad but it was delish.

It was definitely a fun way to end the weekend and it was so nice to meet Sarah!

How was your weekend? Did you run the marathon?

Monday Things {10-01-2012}

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1. After a good but busy week, all I wanted to do Friday night was relax. I went for a run after work, watched Arrested Development with Ian, and I cooked for the first time all week.

And yes, if you’re wondering OhSheGlows’ Cozy Millet Bowl with Mushroom Gravy and Kale is every bit as good as it sounds.

2. On Saturday I was pretty excited for sleep in until 7:30. My life is sad. Getting back from my run at 8:45 felt really really wrong. How did I used to sleep in so late?

3. I tried something different for breakfast this weekend. On Friday I mixed 1/2 cup oats with 1 cup almond milk and set it in the fridge overnight. On Saturday morning, I took it out, gave it a stir, and added some salted pecans, banana slices, and then a blob of fig jam. It was a nice alternative to overnight oats (inspiration here).

4. After breakfast, Ian and I headed over to Green City Market. I picked up some swiss chard and cucumbers and Ian got some cheese curds and apple cider. On our way out we passed a stand that was selling dead sunflowers, any idea what you do with these?

5. For lunch on Saturday I sauteed a bunch of veggies (cauliflower, japanese eggplant, and peas) in TJs curry simmer sauce. It was super easy and really tasty, I definitely recommend the curry simmer sauce for when you want a quick but tasty meal!

6. Saturday evening I went into full on baking mode. I made the treat that I brought to book club on Sunday (more on that in a bit), Katie’s No-Bake Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies, and Starbucks Clone Pumpkin Scones for Ian.

The cookies were really good and will make perfect snacks to take with me to work this week.

The scones became a huge mess- the dough was sticky and it got everywhere! Luckily, Ian says they taste good even though they don’t look too pretty.

7. I’ve started buying TJ’s chocolate almond milk to use in smoothies. One of my favorite creations is frozen banana, peanut flour (or PB2), and chocolate almond milk. So simply but so delicious!

8. Speaking of smoothies, they have become my recovery beverage of choice. On Sunday after my 14 miler, I tried this hot apple pie smoothie and it was so good!

9. Has anyone else seen My Cat from Hell on the Animal Planet? I was watching it when I was home alone Saturday night and wanted some background noise and I saw the most disturbing episode. This lady had two small dogs that were supposedly being attacked by the cat. However, when the cat guru shows up at her house, he finds out that the lady puts clothes and diapers on the dogs, paints their toenails, feeds them out of a bottle, etc. It was sooo creepy (the casting video is here). You know it’s bad when you’re uncomfortable watching it from home!

10. I started reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Saturday night and I can’t put it down! I’m so intrigued and want to find out what happened to the girl so badly that I do not want to stop reading. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you check it out!

11.. On Sunday, the Chicago HLB had our monthly book club meeting. This past month we read MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend. The book was good and not something that I’d normally seek out. The content also rang true for many of us who are newish to the Chicago area and finding out how much harder it is to make friends post-college. It was so nice to see everyone, meet some new bloggers, and try all the delicious food.

I ended up making OhSheGlows’ Peanut Butter, Jam, & Banana Breakfast Pizza. It was good but very sweet, I’m glad I made it for a crowd and not just for Ian and myself!

12. After another hour or so of reading, I decided I should probably make dinner. I made a big pot of sweet vegetarian chili and my new go-to cornbread recipe (in case you’re not vegan/gf my old go-to cornbread recipe is Daily Garnish’s White Cheddar Yogurt Cornbread and it’s soooo good).

13. The highlight of dinner was this hot sauce Ian picked up. For being Tabasco this stuff is soo good and we haven’t been able to find it anywhere. Turns out the little convenience store down the street carries it :) .

14. Ian and I have almost finished season 1 of Arrested Development. Whoever originally recommended the show to me, thank you. We are both hooked!

15. Today is my first day off from exercising in 2 weeks and I celebrated by sleeping in (a little) and making some cinnamon raisin oats.

That little pat on top that kinda looks like butter is actually cashew butter ha.

16. I’m off to try to squeeze in a chapter of Gone Girl before I head off to work! Have a good one!

What did you do this weekend?