Oh the places we'll go! And the recipes we'll try!

I feel like I'm in college again.  I'm hanging out with one of my absolute favorite people ever at Mozarts, in Austin.  I haven't gotten to just hang out at a coffee shop and drink an iced latte and kind of sorta do nothing in forever.  I wish work had an espresso machine, because I love it so much more than coffee! Well, actually I don't because then I would drink espresso all  day long.  It's been so nice to get out of Houston and my to-do list not follow me.  My body is exhausted from being on the go all day long for the past couple of weeks, but that's okay...I'm having a good time, so I'm not worried about slowing down.  But these dark circles under my eyes and my dependance on caffeine is saying the exact opposite.... House sitting next weekend will be such a wonderful chance to be by myself and will slow me down a little!! And a jazz band just started playing at Mozarts, perfect!

Last weekend took me to College Station to see good friends and have a good time.  It was nice to get to run with a girl again!!!  But I also had to remind myself that working is starting to wear me down, I'm def not used to staying awake past 10pm anymore!  And two trips to Fuego.  Perfect! I miss breakfast tacos so much, and am obsessed with scrambled eggs! OBSESSED.

I'm very excited about a recent purchase of mine :) a DONUT PAN!! Yippee!! :)  I immediately tried out a vegan donut recipe that turned out amazing!! I cannot wait to use my donut pan more :) I figure it'll work perfect for mini muffins (seriously only ~12 cooking time?!?!), maybe meatloaf donuts with sticky rice in the middle? Anyone got any other good ideas?! This donut recipe, is easy, fast, and does not make a big mess! Winner!  I plan on trying a chocolate donut with orange icing recipe on Sunday hopefully.  Maybe those special architects I used to work with from Skyscraper 1 will get to try them out on Monday!

Vegan Maple Donuts with Sprinkles

Ingredients (Yields 10 to 12 donuts)

For the Donuts:

• 1 c. unbleached flour  *I only had a 1/2 cup unbleached flour so also used regular all purpose flour to make up the difference
• 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 T. baking powder
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/2 t. nutmeg
• 1/4 c. melted vegan margarine (i.e. Earth Balance) or coconut oil *I used coconut oil
• 3/4 c. non-dairy or organic milk
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 2/3 c. organic sugar *Really...organic sugar isn't necessary...

For the Maple frosting:

• 2 T. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. vegan margarine (i.e. Earth Balance)
• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1 t. maple extract *I used maple syrup
• 1-2 T. non-dairy or organic milk
• smoked sea salt and/or sprinkles *I think sprinkles are a must. They make life so much better!!

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.
• In a small bowl (or just in your liquid measuring cup), combine melted margarine, milk, vanilla and sugar. Mix until sugar has dissolved.
• Add milk mixture to flour mixture and stir until just combined.
• Pipe or spoon batter into a donut pan that has been lightly greased or sprayed with cooking spray.
• Bake for 11-13 minutes or until donuts are firm to the touch. Allow donuts to cool in pan for approximately 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
• For the frosting, beat together brown sugar, margarine, powdered sugar and maple extract. Add as much milk as need to get the desired consistency.
• Frost your donuts generously and top with smoked sea salt and/or sprinkles.

Okay so donut pans are only about ~$12 and Target sells them.  Def a must have for any kitchen!  You could use a muffin pan for this recipe, just alter the cooking time to about 18-22 min, but that's not as much fun!  The donuts themselves are not very sweet, the icing gives a lot of flavor to this recipe!  You can always use any kind of extract instead of maple in the icing, lemon extract or vanilla extract always make a yummy icing!  

This past week at work, I had my first deadline for the project I'm currently working on (A rubber plant in Saudi Arabia).  Although the for real big deadline is on the 27th, we had to finish everything early to be checked.  Apparently I was also the only Structural Designer not working overtime...oh well! All of my work got finished on Thursday and it wasn't due until Friday, so why spend more time at the office than is necessary...  Well on Wednesday, I got to my usual 9 hours and then said to someone "okay, I can do that super fast in the morning" The response I got was "Oh so you're not working overtime?" ummmmmm no. The next same day the same guy comes into my cube and says "So I heard you run marathons" my next thought: ummmm yea. that's why I'm not working overtime, I'd rather go train! With swimming with Fort Bend Masters I've started taking my breakfast to work with me, there's no way I'm giving up my scrambled egg habit! :) And I don't plan on buying whatever fake eggs they make downstairs... I don't think I'll tell them that I wake up at 4:30 to go swim and then head to work after that!  Being the only girl on a team of 15 other structural engineers and designers is enough on a daily basis that I don't need to separate myself even more from them!  I seriously wish there were more girls on the team, but I'm so thankful to have some awesome girlfriends at work!  Although I leave everything work related at the door when I leave every afternoon, my friendship with them is welcome to come anywhere with me!

Got that little gem at work the other day :)

Seriously chocolate always has the answers.  Not that I've been feeling lost or anything, but it's always nice to hear a reassuring voice saying everything is okay!  Even if it's dove chocolate telling me.  What a perfect message to get right before 40 days of no chocolate!!  Oh, and that cute little valentines bag my pen pal sent me was a sweet thing to be left at my desk when I went to pick something up from the printer! What a sweet little girl! And her birthday is next week! So excited to meet her at lunch at her school on Thursday!  

This weekend I'm hanging out in Austin just for a good time!  The Austin marathon also happens to be this weekend, but I got my fill of running at the beginning of the year at Houston marathon and am back to the track on Tuesdays and training for Galveston 70.3!  We still had some time to go to the expo and I saw one of the guys I run with at the track.  He's going to kill the half marathon tomorrow, and I can't wait to hear how his race went!  It's been so much fun getting to visit Lauren and just getting to bounce around the city with her!  This afternoon I got to spend with a very close friend from the sorority the three of us were in during college, a hang out that was long overdue! We spent the ENTIRE afternoon at Whole Foods catching up and wandering around! I could spend hours at WF!  I only live a mile away from the WF in Sugar Land, but still ended up doing some grocery shopping in Austin anyway! Including some local tea (loose tea leaves!!) that I'm excited to take to work with me to work on Monday!  Annnnd a tea by The Republic of Tea that's supposed to be really good for your skin...so I had to get it...pretty impulsive, but I'll always try anything!  Yesterday evening when I got into town, Lauren and I cooked such a delicious dinner!  I've been aching to try a stuffed pepper recipe!  This morning we went for a run (Lauren's last long training run before her marathon next weekend!!) by Barton Springs and along Town Lake.  It turned more into an adventure of a run, jumping over puddles and hills. Oh my goodness, I am not used to hills! There weren't even that many on our route, but they still got me!

SOOOOO DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!

Stuffed Green Peppers with Brown Rice, Italian Sausage, and Parmesan

1 C long-grain brown rice
4 large green bell peppers, bottom trimmed, cap end cut off and diced, and seeds removed
1 large onion, diced
2 tsp. + 1 tsp. olive oil
2 links (about 8 oz.) turkey Sweet Italian Sausage
1/2 tsp. ground fennel
1/2 tsp. dried Greek or Turkish oregano
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Cook rice according to package directions, or using a rice cooker.

Preheat oven to 375F. Trim bottom of bell peppers so they have a flat surface to stand on. Cut off a fairly generous amount of the stem end of peppers, then remove seeds. Place hollowed-out peppers in a baking dish that you've sprayed with non-stick spray or olive oil.

Remove stem part from the pepper caps and trim off any white membrane, then dice pepper caps and the onion into fairly small dice. Heat 2 tsp. olive oil in a large skillet, then saute diced pepper and onion for 3-4 minutes, until they are starting to soften but aren't browned. Remove pepper-onion mixture to a bowl, add 1 tsp. more olive oil, then squeeze sausage out of the casing and cook until it's lightly browned, breaking apart with the back of the turner.

Put the onion-pepper mixture back into the pan with the sausage, add the dried spices, and saute 2-3 minutes to blend the flavors. Then add cooked rice and Parmesan cheese, season the mixture with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste, and cook just long enough to warm, about 1-2 minutes.

Stuff the filling mixture into the hollowed-out peppers, using a spoon to press the mixture down so it's tightly packed into the pepper shell.  Bake peppers for 30 minutes, then remove from oven and put a generous pinch of grated mozzarella on top of each pepper. Put peppers back into the oven and bake about 10-15 minutes more, until cheese is melted and lightly browned. Serve hot.

Seriously. Cook them. Eat them. Love them. Make them again and again and again!  You can put absolutely anything you'd like inside stuffed peppers! I'd love to try them again maybe with a mix of: cous cous, red onion, different colored bell peppers, tomato, asparagus...mmmm any other suggestions?! Maybe scrambled eggs....?  The possibilities are endless!!

Tomorrow I'll be heading back to Houston, early enough to take care of a couple of to-do things before starting the next work week (a short work week, yippee!!) I'm hoping to take care of a couple of things tomorrow  :)

• a long ride, and if there were enough hours in the day I'd love to hit the pool, but that won't happen!
• grocery store
• going to mass
• dinner with one of my best friends since high school...and an overdue glass of wine!
• making a layered salad that should hopefully take care of all of my lunches for the week
• that chocolate donut recipe?? *GOTTA do this one asap since lent starts on Wednesday!!

Okay. So I kind of have a pet peeve. Stress. It bugs me. Yes I get stressed when I know a deadline is coming up. Yes I get stressed when my to-do list is longer than it should be. Yes I get stressed when I feel like I'm going around in circles and not getting anything done.  And Yes. I get REALLY stressed when the collision center takes an extra week to get the dents out of my car (that weren't my fault...seriously how did she not see me in her rearview mirror!?) and then doesn't fix my car right...It's not that hard to do your job the right way, is it?  But oh wait, don't all those things come back to decisions that I make?  I decide what is on my to-do list, and whether I believe it or not I can control my stress at work as well, and I guess I can't do anything about the collision center (well I did pick this collision center though) but...I could just not care. I did start to miss my car after driving a gas-guzzler for a week and a half!  Stress should just leave everybody alone. Nobody likes it.  Doesn't it know it's not wanted and it's bad company?  Maybe I should be stressed out that I'm 5,000 miles over my oil change (oops! I'm using the excuse that I have a synthetic oil filter and I should be able to go longer w/o an oil change!) I guess I'll go hang out at the service center on my next day off and get that oil change done! Maybe... Could be a good chance to finish my current read! (I have finally moved on from Twilight!)  But, I try to never say that I'm stressed out but m&m's sure do know how to listen well.  But sometimes I don't want to hear that other people are stressed...but only because everybody is stressed, and there is always somebody who has it harder out there.  And somebody really does have something bigger than I do to worry about.  Maybe it's just because I don't like listening to people complain.  Or negativity.  But then again I'd also like a lower tax rate, a better health insurance plan, and oh yea maybe to just quit my life and go live in Costa Rica for a year?  But I'd totally like to keep getting my pay check every other week while I drop everything to go back to Central America.. And maybe 2 more hours in the day would be nice too?  Well, until I can have all of those things I'll just stick to the life I have, I like it pretty well :)

Starting next week I will.......

• Finally make the time to give the magic bullet Santa got for me a try.  Lauren made the most delicious smoothie for me after our run this morning!
• Try to get myself into using my g-mail calendar so I can have it on my phone rather than take an actual planner with me everywhere.  I guess if it's through g-mail I can't lose it right?
• Start some kind of recipe book.  Online or paper? I don't know!  But I need some way to keep track of all the recipes I'm trying!
• Stop listening to my Adele CD so much...because Adele is stuck in my head all the time now
• Say good bye to chocolate for 40 days (this is going to kill me!!)
• Make this blog a little cuter...my high school java class is clearly doing me no good here! 
• Find a method for world peace

Okay...maybe world peace will be next month... Until then I'll stick with peace with myself and those I'm surrounded by :)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

This weekend was full of such fun with good friends :)  I am so happy I got to visit College Station this week, and get away from Houston for a little while!  It's so nice to get to leave my to-do list behind in Houston and just enjoy life a little bit :)  SO excited to be headed to Austin next weekend!  I am going to need a major nap (borderline coma) after all of this!

I always forget this.  If I would remember not to fix what isn't broken I would have so much more time on my hands.

My favorite example:
My mother has been making the exact same banana bread muffins for the past 25+ years.  NOT kidding.  The recipe made the move with she and my father from Kilgore to Houston before my sister and I were born.  Over the past year I have tried multiple different recipes, trying to find another one that is equally as good, or one that has some special zing that will fill some void in the banana bread that isn't even there.  Well, one evening my mom and I decided to have a bake-off.  I made one recipe and she made another.  Naturally, she finished in half the time it took me since she's memorized her recipe.  And of course, her recipe was still better.  I have since given up on ever trying another banana bread recipe.

Dear Bobby Flay,

Please come have a throw-down with 

my mother.  Somebody needs to . 

Love,

Kelly

For the past couple of months I have learned a huge long overdue life lesson:

If you're happy.  Don't worry about it.  If you're not happy.  Something needs to change.

I'm making one change currently.  Swimming with a masters swimming group.  I still love swimming, and although I don't swim nearly as much as I did in high school (and do not miss waking up Saturday mornings...oh wait almost every morning and some times again in the afternoons of senior year to do 100 fly repeats) I still enjoy going to the pool and seeing what I can do.  I am hoping that getting up at 4:30 in the morning a couple of days a week and swimming before work will leave me more time in the evening to enjoy other things.  

Sooooo waking up at 4:30 am tomorrow please work out as well as you did on Friday! But I could go past the whole waking up at 4 am and being antsy for 30 minutes about sleeping past my alarm clock!  I need to catch up on sleep here!!

I've already decided what's coming up next.   Beethoven Sonate Pathetique 2nd movement  I've always wanted to learn this movement on a better level than I already know it.  The Pathetique Sonata is one of my favorite pieces to play on the piano.  I've already learned the first movement, and although I can easily sightread the 2nd movement, working on technique would do me some good.  And with how much it is raining I need something to do inside!!  And I can't play claire de lune forever.... And it's probably a good idea to refine some other hobbies besides triathlon and running.  I don't even talk that much about how much time I spent at the piano.  It always seemed as if I could spend soooo much time practicing but somebody else would out-practice me, there wasn't a big feeling of self accomplishment in piano for me when you're being critiqued by judges all the time.  And I still stand behind wondering why it was important for me to be ear trained, because I seriously haven't used that skill in a solid 7 years..it def didn't improve my car-singing... If anything I'm just overly sensitive to noise now...

So about 6 weeks out from Galveston 70.3.  I'm guessing I'm pretty well trained, and am excited for this race!  After a ~60mi ride this weekend and feeling good enough to run strongly after, that's gotta be a good sign!  I know that I need to ride more though.  I am starting to enjoy riding so much more than I used to, but have 6 weeks to see what else I can do before the big day!  Sounds like some more upcoming changes!!

The past few months have been full of ups and downs and challenges for myself.  But for once, I am completely at peace with all of the overall aspects of my life.  I don't have lingering questions in the back of my mind and know that I am headed in the right direction.  It's a different confidence that I haven't always had, but am loving it!

Tomorrow starts another long work week.  44 hours (to cover part of next week since we work 9 / 80s) and possible overtime since we have a deadline coming up.  But pay day is Friday too!! Seriously, I sometimes think I'm insane trying to keep up training for a half iron (or marathon since that just passed) and work so much and keep a social life.  A nice long spa day would be quite nice!

Now I just need to find a recipe to try out this week...

Life is good.  

You have to start somewhere.

Every adventure starts with a beginning.  Hobbies, School, Jobs, Workouts.  The beginning of something is always my favorite part of an adventure.  Which makes me super excited to start this blog!  It's so easy to get lost in the rush of everything if you don't keep your goals in check and continue to motivate yourself.  I'm hoping for this blog to help me keep track of everything that is going on!  Within the past 8 months I've had a couple of new beginnings:

• I started a new job after graduating from college
• I moved back to Houston...this time as an adult making my own money
• I started a twitter account...Seriously I always told myself I would never tweet!
• I began (and have already completed) my goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon
• I rekindled my love for yoga after losing touch with it for a while

Throughout college I learned how important it is to goal set, and how it is impossible to get through the beginning of a project if you don't know where you are heading towards.  Currently I have a couple of Monthly and a few longer term goals going on to keep me motivated. I won't go too into them right now as there are probably too many...one including to dry my hair every morning! I think it's most important to write your goals down so you can see them.  I like to write my weekly goals in my planner so I see them every time I open it, my monthly goals on my bathroom mirror and my longer term goals in the back of my planner in the notes section so I remind myself of them frequently and so they're always in the back of my mind.

• Longer term: I'd like to train towards breaking a 2:30 Olympic Triathlon and when marathon season comes around again next year I'm aiming for a low 3:20 marathon...if not faster!  I've ben blessed to have wonderful people to help me train and look forward to more PR's to come!!
• Short term: Try at least 1 new recipe per week for the month of February; I used to bake and cook all the time and be so excited to try something new, since beginning my job I've abandoned this a little and would love to rekindle my love for baking and experiment around with new recipes again!

Which brings me to.......................

Vegan Lemon Chia Seed Muffins

I've tried multiple times to cook gluten free, vegan, this, that, whatever it is, I've tried it! And I'm never too impressed with how whatever I'm baking comes out.  These I LOVE! They're unbelievably easy to make, and using Chia Seeds means extra nutrients!  (Even though I try to stay away from fad foods...and this is 'the new super food') And no worries if you have to take a drug test for work since there are no poppy seeds! (A very specific episode of Sienfeld comes to mind!) This recipe, (used from www.peasandthankyou.com) was a great start to trying some vegan recipes and makes me excited to try some more!!  I even took a couple to work to share with some of my friends, and was so excited to tell them how proud of these I was--and I'm usually not one to say how good something I bake is!  Maybe a modification of this to make it gluten free will be next, although I love baking with whole wheat pastry flour!

Ingredients (Yields 12 muffins)

• 1/2 c. non-dairy or organic milk
• 1 1/2 t. lemon juice
• 1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 c. unbleached organic flour
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/4 c. chia seeds
• 1/3 c. coconut oil
• 2/3 c. agave nectar and/or maple syrup
• 1/3 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 T. lemon extract
• 1 T. lemon zest

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Combine milk and lemon juice and set aside.
• In a large bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and chia seeds.
• To the milk mixture, add coconut oil, agave or maple syrup, applesauce, vanilla, lemon extract and lemon zest.
• Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just combined.
• Fill each well of a muffin tin that has been lightly greased or line with muffin cups 2/3rds of the way full.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes, until slightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Thank goodness it's only Friday and the weekend hasn't quite yet started.  Although I could go for a rainy weekend to keep me inside and cuddled up in bed with a good book (currently reading: Twilight; Breaking Dawn....yes I'm still reading Twilight) I'm looking forward to getting up early to ride with Sugar Cycles and get a good ride in before the rain is supposed to come!  Hopefully I'll get the best of both worlds and after riding can curl right back up in bed and look for something yummy to bake for the Superbowl!