Day: January 23, 2010

First Run in the Cold + The Giving Tree

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I’m not a runner, but I am occasionally known to go on a jog.  I usually prefer to do so with someone else, a running buddy if you will.  This morning, Rhoda told me she was going for a run, so I tagged along!

I was a little concerned because the last time I ran outside it was 65 degrees (few weeks ago in California).  This morning when I went for a run, it was 17 degrees… kind of cold.  Rhoda is a pro.  She trained for a marathon in Michigan in the winter so she gave me some pointers.

1.  Dress in layers.  I wore a shirt and a jacket with slightly below the knee running pants (I really should invest in full length pants for this weather!).

2. Wear gloves and something to cover your ears.  Forever I had no idea what those big headbands were for.  Guess what?? They cover your ears!

Do you have any tips for running in the cold?

So I headed out and met up with Rhoda.  Honestly, it wasn’t bad at all.  I didn’t feel cold throughout the entire run.  At one point I even pushed my ear warmers back to let my ears breathe a bit and removed my gloves (though only for a few minutes because the back of my hand started to get REALLY cold).

I didn’t really get cold until I was walking home after having cooled down.  Then I was sweaty/wet and in below freezing temperatures.  See the problem?

It was great though!  We did 4 miles and chatted the whole time!  It was also beautiful!  I forget how picturesque it is here, especially in the winter.  I wish I had brought my camera to take pictures!  Oh well, next time!  Thanks for letting me slow you down, Rhoda!

After lunch, I came home and showered then met up with some people for lunch at a new cafe in Ithaca called The Giving Tree.  The cafe is a local, vegetarian place.  Very cozy and cute with mismatched chairs and such!

At this point (around 1:30pm), I hadn’t eaten since breakfast at about 7:30am; I was ready to chew my arm off.   I had a really hard time choosing what to order, because the entire menu was vegetarian so there were a ton of options to choose from!  I got some coffee and a plate of eggs, home fries and toast, which is probably my favorite food on the planet! A bit boring, I know, but I had to go with an old favorite.

Coffee was served in local Syracuse China.

Only made better with Rhoda there to pour the cream in the coffee

As you can see, I hated it.

My friend Celia got a delicious tofu scramble with vegetables!  I had a bite.  I would definitely get that next time!

Delish!  I can’t wait to go back!

Today has been a great day!  Thanks friends for making me smile today!

The rest of the day, normal eating will resume, and I will enjoy my time watching movies (I have two from Netflix that I’ve been putting off).

Hope you all have had a fantastic Saturday so far!

Protein Pancakes My Way

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I usually eat the same thing everyday for breakfast: oats with banana and some sort of nut butter.

This morning, I woke up at 6:00am with nothing to do.  I decided to spice up my life.

Not like that…

Rather, I decided to stray from my usual breakfast into something fun and amazing!  So I did the usual blog perusing and remembered Jessica‘s Vegan Strawberry Cream Pancakes that look divine.  Then I remembered I don’t have fresh strawberries and thawing frozen ones would take too long.  So those will be made at another time.

As a kid I hated pancakes because my mom used to make them from Bisquick, which is just disgusting and salty and not delicious.  Then I grew up and tried real pancakes.  I realized how beautiful life could be and how good legit pancakes are.  So pancakes it would be for breakfast!

Then I kept coming across Heather‘s Protein Pancakes on my pancake search.  The dilemma here is that I don’t buy protein powder.  So I moved on to search through old recipes I had made on SparkRecipes and found an old recipe I had added for Cottage Cheese Protein Pancakes, so I figured why not?

I honestly can’t remember where I got this recipe from, maybe somewhere on SparkRecipes?

Now that I’ve taken you through my thought process (haha sorry about that), here’s the recipe I used:

Cottage Cheese Protein Pancakes

1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese
2 egg whites
2 tbsp whole wheat flour
dash of cinnamon

I combined all the ingredients.

Then threw them in the blender.  This is where my Magic Bullet that I left at home would come in handy, since it splattered all over, basically half the ingredients didn’t make it into the pan, but oh well.

I made one mondo beast of a pancake and topped it with some Hungry Jack Lite Syrup (1 tablespoon to be exact). This puppy has about 26g of protein!  Crazy!

I enjoyed this with a tasty Green Monster (kale, spinach, 1 banana, 5 frozen strawberries, ice and water).

The first bite wasn’t that great, but the subsequent bites got better and better.  I think I may have undercooked this a bit or maybe it’s just the nature of the beast.

Did it taste like a pancake?  A little bit, syrup helped.

Was it the texture of a pancake?  No.

Was it tasty?  Sure!

Would you make it again?  Why not!  Easy enough!

My protein packed breakfast was pretty good overall (31g of protein in one meal!  Woah!  That’s half a day’s worth!)

In other news…

This weekend is my last relaxing weekend!  Classes start on Monday 😦 Not excited, but it’ll happen.

Have a great Saturday!

Any exciting weekend plans?