Archive for May 2011

The Week’s avocado affair

May 22, 2011 Breakfast, Dinner, Nutrition, Recipes, Salad, Week 19 6 comments

It may have all started with this weekend’s episode of This American Life. See, I caught that episode – centered on stories of infidelity, cheating, being unfaithful – while running errands on Saturday and barely 6 hours later, found myself in a similar quagmire. Now, I had every intention of staying true to my avocado vows for this week, extolling their virtues as healthy-fat-packed fruits. When I said, “For Vitamin K, folate and fiber richer,” I meant it.

I certainly planned to talk up my recipe for a quick, fresh, avocado and kiwi sandwich:

And this breakfast salad – which pairs avocado, tomatoes, basil and prosciutto, then tops them off with a fried egg – from Seasoned to Taste is so good, I could have devoted a whole post to it:

But those couldn’t hold a candle to a brand new infatuation. I’ve gone wildly off track, abandoning my responsibilities and caving in to seduction. How did it happen? Well, this walked into my kitchen:

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Speed freak: Eating The Week gets Superfast again

May 19, 2011 Beans, Breakfast, Chicken, Dinner, eggs, Fruit, Meat, Pasta, Recipes, Salad, Vegetable, Week 18 One comment

If that title made you worry that I’m going to bore you to death with more off-topic running/marathon nonsense, relax. This week’s speed isn’t happening at the track but in the kitchen, with a trial of seven recipes from Cooking Light’s Superfast collection.

I tried this before and found it was a fun way to explore new dishes and learn some quick-prep tips. So when Cooking Light (via Facebook and Twitter) put out the call for Superfast fans to potentially be featured in the magazine, I grabbed my pretend stopwatch (iPhone app) and got cooking.

In the spirit of Superfast, no rambling musing over each dish this week – just seven quick reports on time spent, changes made, and tastiness achieved.

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For the love of The Week, part 3

May 13, 2011 For Love of the Week One comment

Teh intarwebs are full of blogs, twitterings, and other resources on which I rely to find new recipes, learn some nutritional science, and just be entertained. For the Love of the Week is my way of sharing the wealth and giving these folks a deserved shout-out (previous posts here and here). This time, I’ve included several running-related blogs/sites along with the usual food and nutrition list.

Running:
Food to Run For (site, twitter) – came for the food, stayed for the running
One Bite World (site, twitter) – same as above
No Meat Athlete (site, twitter)
Midpack Runner (site, twitter)
Running From Nothing (site, twitter)
Races 2 Remember (site) – they did a bangup job making custom removable tattoos for Team Flail when we ran the half marathon recently
Runkeeper (site, twitter) – add me to your Street Team if you use RK (profile here)

Food and Nutrition:
Honest Cooking (site, twitter)
The Healthy Apron (site, twitter)
Nutrition Lately (site, twitter)
Small Bites (site, twitter) – Andy pulls no punches!
The Six O’Clock Scramble (site, twitter)

Several of the sources I follow are also on Facebook; you can find them under the “like” for the Eating The Week page (here). You can also follow several public lists I created on Twitter by going here.

*If you’re missing from thi s list, that does not mean you/your blog are not among my favorites. It just means …. I’ll do this again semi-regularly, and eventually will highlight everybody.

Praise for beige: couscous week

May 10, 2011 Chicken, Dinner, Meat, Pasta, Recipes, Vegetable, Week 17 2 comments

I was feeling ambivalent about putting couscous at center stage for this week’s theme. On its own, it just isn’t that remarkable:

But it really shines as a platform for tasty, healthy ingredients. This versatile not-grain (it’s a refined wheat product, basically pasta) can get mixed up with fruits, vegetables, meats, spices, or myriad other ingredients to create a seemingly endless catalog of recipes. You may not look twice at that plain bowl of beige, but you’ll probably stop to coo at the jaunty hats on these couscous stuffed tomatoes, right?

Or check out another eye-catching favorite of mine: cinnamon-lime chicken with raisin couscous. Here, simple couscous is the underpinning for colorful vegetables, fruit, and seasonings, making a subtly spicy, comforting bowl of food.

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Guest post and “limelight”

May 8, 2011 Uncategorized 3 comments

Consider this a prelude to couscous, which will be this week’s recipe theme once I have a chance to get to the grocery store. In the meantime, I wanted to quickly point you to a couple other bloggers who have been kind enough to feature Eating The Week.

Rob Masterson, an RD who is the brains/manager behind Nutrition Lately, has shone the “limelight” on me this month. The feature will be up all during May, so check it out if you’re interested to hear his interview with me about why I’m making the career change to dietetics.

While Erin Coates (also an RD) of The Healthy Apron was on a belated honeymoon in beautiful Hawaii, she invited several food/nutrition bloggers to guest post about one thing we do daily to maintain our health. In my guest post, I describe how I use the LoseIt app and website to track my daily energy balance, and how the data helped me get on track during my training to run the recent  half-marathon.

If you head over to the NL limelight and my guest post at The Healthy Apron, spend some time looking around their blogs. They’re both full of great information. Thanks again to Rob & Erin for the opportunities!

And I’ll be coming at you with couscous in a few short days, so stay tuned….

Sidebar: Half Marathon

May 1, 2011 Uncategorized 13 comments

Thirteen point one, baby! I ran my first half marathon today, and I’m still grinning like an idiot about it. Not only did I finish, but I managed to do it in just under two minutes (wishful thinking, I meant hours; official time 1:56:26). And not only that, but the whole Team Flail (my friends Adam, Drew, Matt, John plus me) finished in under two – well under, in Drew’s case.

Go Team Flail!

This post doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the usual food and nutrition stuff I write about, but I will share a little of how I ate pre-, during- and post-race. If you want to indulge me, head on past the jump here. If you don’t, bail now and come back later this week for some tasty usualness.

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