Surprise in the Kitchen Revealed!

Good evening! How was your Tuesday?

The weather was slightly misleading today – it’s bright, beautiful and sunny out – but really windy with gusts up to 30 mph! However, I said screw it and headed outside for a run. The first half went really well – the temperature was perfect, the breeze was light and I even sprinted up a steep hill at my half way point! When I turned around from that hill to head back…well you know those 30 mph gusts? They hit me like woah. Then my calf cramped up and I got a wicked headache – but in the name of stepping it up – I perservered and finished a 5.14 mile run averaging 8 mins and 45 seconds. I felt pretty proud seeing as how I wanted to quit at mile 3!

Warning: what you are about to see does not fit under the “Eating Well” category, but is extremely delicious…you were warned…

Remember when I told you last week that I was working on something in the kitchen,  but I couldn’t tell you what it was? Well, I can tell you now – I was making Maple Cinnamon Drizzled Oatmeal Fig Cookies!!!! I entered them in the Pillsbury Bakeoff Contest - winner gets $1,000,000 – can you imagine? So anyways – the cookies! For the contest you had to use a certain number of pre-determined ingredients to use in creating an original recipe. The ingredients I chose were:

• Pillsbury pre-made sugar cookie dough
• Fisher chopped walnut pieces

I added in some cinnamon and oatmeal, topped with half a fig, then made a maple cinnamon glaze and baked…ok seriously…seriously – these were the best cookies ever. When they were warm and drizzled with the maple cinnamon glaze…MMMMMMM!!!! You’ve got to try this recipe – it’s so easy!! Needless to say I had, ahem – several, when I made these babies last week, but I say it was all in the name of quality control I find out this fall if I made the Top 100!! Wish me luck (and make these cookies)!

For dinner tonight I made seared, butterflied pork chops with roasted asparagus and “faked” potatoes (“faux baked” – as in, made in the micro ) with a little parm cheese. I roasted my asparagus with about 1 tsp of extra virgin olive oil, garlic powder and S&P at 450 degrees for about 8 minutes, shaking the pan halfway through. I could literally eat roasted vegetables all day long… I topped my pork chops with some grill seasoning and let ‘em sear and sizzle on my flat top skillet for about 3-4 minutes a side (pork shouldn’t be rare, but dry pork is just the pits) and let it finish with the asparagus in the oven for about 3 additional minutes. This whole meal was extremely satisfying, quick and very healthy (the pork was extra lean.)

By the way – my first experience with a Bosc Pear was a great one!! I always see people eating these in the movies, so I felt a little extra special eating mine It tasted pretty similar to the yellow “regular” variety, but was a little more firm – in a really good way! I’ll definitely be picking these up more often!

Well it’s Tuesday and I think you know what that means…Biggest Loser night!! So excited!

Oh also, check this out – I get a daily quote email and today the quote was:

“Work hard to improve your mind and body. Nourish your spirit. Do the things you fear.”
-Robin S. Sharma

I thought this was really crazy to get after I just posted about pushing past the limits we set for ourselves.  Weird huh??