I'll Take S'more

I've got a laundry list of reasons I love to run. Personal growth, challenging myself, having an outlet, being outdoors. But the most fun thing about running to me is knowing that after a hard workout I can pretty much eat what I want guilt-free. Let's be real, I'm pretty sure I would devour 20 of these whether I ran that day or not. But a good hard run earlier in the morning makes me feel like I deserve to eat 20 of them. My track coach, however, might disagree... let's hope he doesn't find my blog :)

Nothing says summertime like S'mores and these little guys are insanely quick, easy and addicting. I love that I can keep all the ingredients on hand so I can make them at a moments notice and I love that the kids can help make them.

Mini Muffin S'mores

(Pampered Chef Recipe)

7 Honey Graham Crackers

6 tablespoons Butter

1/4 cup Powdered Sugar

12 marshmallows

2 Hershey's chocolate bars

First preheat the oven to 350. Then melt the butter in a large microwaveable bowl (about 45 seconds)
While that is in the microwave, use a meat tenderizer or a rolling pin to finely crush the graham crackers

I don't know who's more excited, me or them...
Add the crushed graham crackers to the butter
Add 1/4 cup powdered sugar
Mix well

Scoop about a table spoon worth into every tin of a mini muffin pan
Like so
use a tart shaper to press these down WELL
Ready to go... stick them in the oven for just 2 minutes.

WARNING: Once I made these and put them in the oven for 5 minutes. I may or may not have started eating the leftover graham cracker/warm butter/sugar mixture and completely forgotten all about the ones in the oven. They burned, and they sucked. So... 2 minutes!!

WARNING 2: Another time I made these I decided to skip this step altogether and the finished product was all crumbled , so the moral of the story is... do as I say, not as I do.

On this occasion they worked out, and if you're wondering yeah I made these 3 times in a 2 day period, get over it.

In those 2 minutes, use some shears to cut 12 marshmallows in half
And get the chocolate ready to go
did I mention already that if you have extra time while the graham crackers are in the oven stay far far from away from the leftovers
When they come out of the oven, add one chocolate square to each tin
then top with one marshmallow
annnd back in the oven for 3 minutes

You MUST let them cool for 10 minutes before you pop them out or they will fall apart. But, really, how CUTE are these???
Bite-sized

The kids plus my nephew helped make them on father's day. This is the night I skipped the first bake and they fell apart... we ate them anyway. :)

Chicken Pineapple Quesadillas

I'm always on the hunt for a meal that I can get all 5 of us to eat without anyone whining at me. I Saw this on Pioneer Woman's blog a few weeks back and figured it might be a meal that fit the bill. Of course I had to leave out the cilantro and jalapenos for Superman, but all in all it was a meal everyone could get into.

Now that it is grilling season, I like to make sure we grill a little extra meat on the weekends to use throughout the week. This is a great way to put some leftover grilled chicken to use!

Grilled Chicken and Pineapple Quesadillas

1 pineapple, grilled

1 to 2 chicken breasts, grilled

Monterey Jack or Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese

jalapenos (jar or fresh)

handful of cilantro

flour tortillas

any BBQ sauce

First I pounded out the chicken breast because I grilled this inside using a grill pan and press, so I wanted to be sure it cooked evenly.

A little olive oil, salt and pep on both sides and then to the grill pan for 5 minutes on each side. Next time I did this I marinated it in BBQ sauce and then grilled... much better
While that's going, I sliced the pineapple. Take off the top and bottom...
Slice into quarters
Then into 8ths
And then cut down both sides so that just the sweet tender part remains

Chicken is done!
While the pineapple grills, make a little assembly line.. rub olive oil on one side of each tortilla, then layer cheese on the other side of half of them

The rest of the assembly line ready to go; sliced grilled pineapple, grilled chicken, and chopped cilantro
On top of the cheese layer the chicken, pineapple, cilantro, jalapeno, and drizzle the BBQ sauce
Transfer to a warmed skillet or saute pan (olive oiled sides out) and brown on both sides. The flip will be tricky, but you have to let the cheese get melty enough to hold everything together, and then flip

Served it with some straight up Greek Yogurt. Yum! Love the combo of spicy, salt and sweet.

HungrySister Presents: Iron Chef - Honey

HungrySister hijacks the blog while HungryMom's vacationing!

The first Monday of every month, my account team's Games and Recreation Committee releases a 'secret ingredient' for the monthly Iron Chef competition. We have a week to plan our entries for the great unveiling of our dishes the following Monday, where we reserve a conference room so everyone can sample each other's dishes and vote for their favorite. The winner receives a cooking tool and a trophy (and glory). As you can imagine this makes the first week of every month way more awesome. Spoiler alert - I've lost both competitions so far, but my day will come...eventually.

May's secret ingredient was honey. I decided to make a baked brie because it is fairly simple and a crowd-pleaser. Looking back, I should have used WAY more honey. Refer to the pictures below as a starting point and then just go ape-wild with the honey.

You'll need:

1 sheet puff pastry. Puff pastry needs to defrost for 40 minutes before you use it, which I learned the hard way.

1 wheel of brie

1 bee hive or 1 c or so of honey

1/2 cup walnuts/pecans/almonds - whatever you happen to have. I used walnuts because I like the texture!

1 egg, for the egg wash

2 tbsp sugar to sprinkle on top

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut the wheel of brie in half and proceed to fill the brie with an unnatural amount of honey (about 1/2 to 3/4 c honey). I attempted to do this here but was wildly unsuccessful.

Add the nuts - more or less, depending on how nutty of a person you are. Roll the puff pastry out on a floured surface and place your honey brie sandwich in the middle. now ADD MORE HONEY! Imagine this with honey all over the place. Wrap the puff pastry up like a present. I wish I had a more instructive way of saying this, but all the recipe just said 'like a present,' so there you go. Make the egg wash by mixing the egg with a little water, and then brush over the pastry. I don't have a pastry brush so I had to use my hands, which was less than ideal. Sprinkle the top with the sugar. Cover a baking sheet with tin foil (unless you love scrubbing dishes like I do, apparently) and place the brie in the center. Bake 15-20 minutes, or until golden. Behold, my losing entry! Let me know how it turns out with the extra honey! I think it could also be delicious with a little cinnamon or nutmeg sprinkled in the center, or chopped dried fruit.

Not For Wimps!

I wanted to squeeze in a post before Kevin and I take off for a kidless vacation to Colorado in 48 hours to celebrate our 6 year anniversary and Kev's 30th. If you're a burglar reading this, save yourself the time, you won't find anything here but lego Batmen and goldfish crumbs.

Organizing childcare was no small feat, and this trip is possible thanks to three wonderful, brave women, two of whom are watching MY kids, in addition to their OWN kids, at different times in different places! Such an undertaking is NOT for wimps!

We have vacationed to Colorado several times before to visit Kevin's sister, Kelly (who is coincidentally my best friend) and something I love about it out there is that we spend the entire vacation being ACTIVE and OUTSIDE. Hiking, biking, walking, running! Cause that's just what you do there. That is the one thing that makes me want to uproot our family and head West.

Lucky for me, the training plan for my September marathon kicks off this week and I will get to do my first long run in the beautiful mountains of Boulder! Sounds picturesque, and it will be, but running at 5,000+ feet elevation is not for wimps! Kelly will have to escort me just to ensure that I don't pass out on the trails!

Sticking with my theme today, here's an aweeeeesome recipe, although not for wimps. And by wimps in this case, I mean kids. Too spicy for the little people, but sooooooo yummy for the big and brave.

I love having an EASY new crock pot recipe for my repertoire, especially since I now have about 6 minutes between when I put Sage in the farthest corner away from the stairs, and she ends up here:

Spicy Shredded Beef (Not for Wimps)

adapted from Sunset magazine on Myrecipes.com

2 1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck (Buying meat with weird names like "chuck" and "round" usually intimidates me but I just walked up to the counter and asked the butcher to find it for me)

6 oz of jalapenos

1 onion

3 cloves garlic

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 tablespoon chipotle chili powder (recipe called for chipotle sauce but that was impossible to find. You can get chipotle chili at any grocery store)

1 tablespoon honey

2 tsp cumin

2 cups of beef broth

Kaiser rolls, red onion, greek yogurt, tomato slices, and cilantro for serving

First chop up the garlic, jalapeno, and onion. MMMM you know it's going to be good when you start by chopping up 6 oz of jalapenos!!
Did that in a bowl with my salad choppers, then added the can of undrained diced tomatoes
Then one and a half cans worth of beef broth. Recipe called for 2 cups but I ended up doing more like three.
Then two teaspoons of cumin
1 tablespoon of chili powder
The chipotle chili powder
Annnnd the honey
Mix it up, and dump it on top of the beef in the crock pot!
Cover and low for 8 to 10 hours! When it's done, I took it out and rough chopped it all up
Then added it back in with the sauce until it was ready to serve
Toppings ready to go
Toast the buns
Annnnnd put it all together. INCREDIBLE. One wasn't enough for HungryMom so I did my second one open face and it was fab. Kevin had about 15.

One Shoe

It's been an insane May. We have about 200 family celebrations in May and I love every minute of it. Well, in complete honestly, some years on May 1st when I look at my calendar for the month my heart starts palpitating. But all in all I DO love celebration after celebration. Just this past weekend we partied it up for the last of our May celebrations; my husbands 30th, our 6 year anniversary, and Batman's 4th.

One event in May I always look forward to is MOTHER'S DAY! Love Mother's Day. It's a day where I know I can guarantee that I get quality time with my little family of five, and I can ask Daddy to change diapers, do dishes, make dinner, and pick-up totally guilt-free. :) Maybe it's the Catholic in me, or maybe it just comes with the territory of being a Mom, but I always feel a bit of guilt hanging over me about leaving my family for whatever reason. Running races is definitely one of those times. I feel guilty leaving the kids before they wake up. I feel guilty spending a weekend morning running a race instead of having quality family of five time. I feel guilty spending money on a race entry.

On Mother's Day I decided instead of sleeping in, I wanted to start the day doing something I love, totally guilt free. I entered a local 5K with some other mommy running friends. On the way there we laughed about the fact that we must be a little crazy to choose getting up early to run over sleeping in on a day that is devoted to us.

A part of me wanted redemption at this 5K. I was still a little bitter that the last 5K was short, making my finish time not all that valid. From the second the gun went off I knew it was going to be a bust. My Garmin didn't start. Shoot. I heard Meredith next to me say, "Forget about it, just GO." In a 5k, there really isn't time to stop and think. It's over before it even starts, so I just forgot about the watch and started running hard. About halfway through the first mile I noticed my shoe was untied. Okay, no big deal, I kept going. Then by midway through my second mile my shoe was more than untied, it was falling off. For a minute I was pissed. Is this really happening? Then I started laughing to myself. Oh hey God, there you are, just messing with me a little. A little reminder that I don't run and race for redemption, or to win, or to have some personal glory, I run to enjoy the gifts that He gave me.

I'm a mom. I'm a mom who can run. I'm a mom who can run with her friends.

I dragged my foot on the ground through the rest of the race just pondering those blessings and laughing about how things never go as planned, but sometimes they go better.

The last .1 I decided just to run without dragging my foot, and my shoe came flying off. I finished the race with one shoe. I had such a fun morning with my friends who all did amazing, just laughing about how I ran with one shoe, and how the course was way hillier than we thought it would be, and how we all had a great time just enjoying one another's company.

In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm running through life right now with one shoe. We are entering the crazy time of life. Little kids running around with lots of different schedules to coordinate, very little time to ourselves, a calendar so packed it makes my head hurt a little, a constantly messy house, way too much work and way too little sleep, and a To-Do list that never shortens. I feel like I spend half the day running around like a crazy lady with one shoe. And I'm pretty sure it's only going to get more chaotic from here on out for the next few years. The shoeless race was a little reminder to enjoy these days for exactly what they are... crazy, unexpected, and great memories I will look back on one day and both laugh about and long for.

And what would a running story be without a recipe, especially since I've been ignoring recipes on this blog lately. Just a quickie I've been making a ton, courtesy of Breanna Doyle.

Black Bean Salsa

1 can of Corn

1 can of Black Beans

4 roma tomatoes (I prefer roma over the grape I used here)

half an onion

1 seeded jalapeno

juice from 1 lime

cilantro

3 garlic cloves

salt

Rinse and drain the corn and black beans and place in a bowl
Oops skipped some steps, but I just put the tomatoes, onion and jalapeno in a food processor and chopped well. Then add to corn and black beans and mix well.
Forgot to put cilantro in the food processor! I used salad choppers to chop those up into the salsa after the fact.
Add lime juice and pressed garlic and some salt to taste. YUMMY.

I usually serve it as a dip but this would be awesome served over grilled chicken or fajitas!