Monday, February 22, 2016

Getting Warmer....

Well hello hello.  I started this post last week then....snowmageddon happened.  We are pretty well versed in the white stuff here in western NY but we got something like a foot 2 hours...during rush hour.  Yikes.  add in another foot and a half over the day, and we were totally buried.  Perfect weather for....

Baby snuggling.  Treadmill running.  and soup.  and while I am a bit late to the party a week later, it's a balmy 25 out here right now so...soup it is.  I found some kale on super sale at Tops last week, and while I love the stuff as "chips" (google it, its a pretty awesome way to eat your greens), I seriously had a 3 pound bag of the stuff.  What to do?  Pretend we are going out for a night on the town and make homemade Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana (with ingredients from my pantry, natch.).  Super Easy,  Check it out.


Glaser Zuppa Toscana (serves 4)

4 cups kale, rinsed and rough chopped, stems removed
4 Italian sausage links - roughly half pound (I used turkey)
4 cups diced potatoes (I kept skins on)
1 med onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups chicken broth
2 cup water
1 cup sour cream OR sour cream veggie dip (my "pantry clean out")
1 tbsp each garlic salt and black pepper

Brown sausage with garlic and onion until cooked through (I used water to simmer, but olive oil would work too).  Let cool and cut sausage into bite sized chunks.  Load up the crockpot with onion, garlic, sausage, potatoes, chicken broth, water, salt and pepper.  Cook on low for 6 hours.  Add in kale and sour cream/dip and cook for 30 minutes.

I wasn't sure how it would turn out with the dip (I used marzetti veggie dip I had leftover) but it was freakin delish.  Served alongside some crusty bread for a meal that was toddler and adult approved.

 Mmmmm....up close goodness.

Biz also approved.  (Ok, of course we didn't really feed it to her.  Man, she was pissed.  Sorry kid, it's all about applesauce, carrots n rice.)
For what it's worth....we did go out on Saturday to the real OG (thanks so much for watching our littles, Liz :-)) and had a great Valentine's Day dinner.  Greg and I have so much to celebrate this year, and it was awesome to just sit for an hour and enjoy each other.  We are so lucky.

And on that running front...I re drew the MTD plan AGAIN.  I know, I know.  I realized that it probably is the dumbest thing I could do to try to do a 100k race 8 months PP with a two year old...so I re drafted my expectations.  I'm still gonna give it hell on race day but my training plan is a bit more reasonable now.  Going for 40-50 mpw, and a long run each week of at least 16 - which might be broken up into 2-3 segments.  I have 4 long runs on the calendar of 22-32 miles that will be done all at once and those are marked in our fam calendar as "Moms day off"(don't worry...I reciprocate lol).  I seem to find this less stressful and am actually looking forward to running now without worrying about "the plan".  For a ridiculously type A racer like me this isn't easy...I have my doubts about how prepped I will be, but it's a worthwhile experiment.  after all, Meb hasn;t called me to be his running partner yet (Or Desi....OMG girl crush) so I suppose it's still....just a hobby.  Repeat times a hundred.

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