Today's Run & Food Talk

Today I woke up an hour and a half later than usual and for the rest of the morning I was sluggish and exhausted.  The outdoor temperature was in the 30s or 40s and I just didn’t want to run but I sucked it up, put on my snowboarding Under Armour, and ran in the park anyways.  I am so glad I did because I had an amazing run.  I ran a challenging trail and finished running up a steep hill.  I made it to 28 minutes today.  I must confess I did have one mishap.  While running a trail I didn’t see tree roots that were covered by leaves and I fell, well more like flew.  I hit my shoulder pretty bad but didn’t notice any pain until mid way through my cool down.  It was a pretty awesome fall though; first thing I did when I brushed myself off was check around to see if anyone saw.  Luckily I was in the middle of relatively unused trail and no one was around, so I dusted myself off and got right back into running.  Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about running and there seems to be one concept that keeps reoccurring and lately it’s been helping me to understand my own behavior.  The concept is that your mind will quit before your body does so it’s very important to train your mind as well as your body.  I love this idea and I find it to be very true for me.

 

Since I haven’t talked about food too much, I thought I’d talk a little bit about a few dishes I made this week.  Highlights of the week are Potato Tikka Masala with white rice and Naan, Chocolate Mango Sorbet with Coconut Flakes and Almond Slices, and Spicy Veggie & Tofu Stir Fry.  

A really easy desert to make is Chocolate Mango Sorbet with Coconut Flakes and Almond Slices.  I learned this desert from my days of raw food experimenting.  First, any fruit can be made into a yummy sorbet.  It’s very simple.  I like using mango but you can use any fruit.  Just slice it into chunks and put them on lightly oiled tinfoil and stick it in the freezer for a few hours.  Next place the frozen fruit in a food processor with half a banana and some agave if you would like to add some sweetness.  For chocolaty flavor add some raw cacao powder and top with whatever you like.  If you add cacao powder you will need to add a bit of sugar or it will be pretty bitter.

 

This week we also had a spicy stir fry.  Every time I make stir fry it’s different.  I like to experiment and try new things.  For the stir fry in the picture I used spaghetti, tofu, carrots, broccoli, orange peppers, garlic, broccoli, sesame seeds, green beans, onions, and baby portabella mushrooms.  This time I used a spicy stir fry sauce but my favorite sauce is Annie Chung’s Teriyaki.  Just as an FYI, I emailed Annie Chung’s to make sure its vegan.  It has an awesome sweetness to it.  My secrets to a good stir fry are to use high heat, stir constantly, and add in ingredients as I go so that the ingredients needing the longest cooking go in first. 

Another meal we had was the Potato Tikka Masala and white rice with Naan.  My husband love Chicken Tikka Masala and I was really trying hard to make something similar but vegan at home.  The meat substitutes never really worked for him, so I decided on using potato.  This led me to just modify an Aloo Mutter recipe.  Essentially, I just used that recipe as a base but added more tomato and water and at the end I used a ton of coconut yogurt and some vegan butter to give it a creamy consistency and taste.  It turned out pretty well.  The naan recipe I got from The Asian Vegan Kitchen.  It’s such an easy recipe that I use it every time, though I will say I usually end up adding a lot more soda water to the recipe.