Thursday, August 8, 2013

Everyone's favourite...

Breakfast for dinner! 

Today felt like the longest day, do you ever feel like that? I think I spent half my day texting Mike because every hour felt like time was slowing. Anyway, so I got through the day, finally... and had very little desire to cook, but I definitely didn't want take out. So, I figured since I feel like the weekend will never come, I wanted my mind to wander to Sunday morning breakfast. 

A few weeks ago, my sister, dad and I went to Cora's for breakfast. Have you been? I will try to sum it up... it is a more healthy version of your home town diner. They serve giant portions of fruit with almost everything on the menu and the decor fits the bill. Everywhere you look they have baskets of fresh fruit and sunbursts. 

Anyway, my menu item of choice was the 10-star skillet. I will admit, it probably isn't their healthiest item on the menu but it just tastes like comfort! 

Remembering off the top of my head, the skillet had potatoes, bacon, ham, sausage, Frankfurters, bologna, green onion, red and green peppers, Cheddar, served with an egg on top. 


With my day needing a little Sunday morning comfort, I set out to make my copy-cat version of the 10-star skillet with whatever I had in the house. Here goes:
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 white potato
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1/4 cup of red onion, diced
1 green onion, diced
1 pre-cooked sausage (I used a smokey cheddar sausage), chopped
1 tablespoon of butter or margarine
1/4 cup of shredded cheddar


Directions:
Melt a little less than the full tablespoon of butter into a pan, leaving some extra to fry your egg. Once melted. add the potato, celery, red pepper and red onion with some pepper to taste. Let that cook, you will need the potato to soften up. Just when you think you need to add more butter, toss in the sausage. Continue cooking until the potatoes are tender and add the green onion. Remove from heat and split the mixture into two dishes. Top with shredded cheddar. Next you will need to cook your eggs. You can do it however you like it, over-easy, sunny-side up, poached, etc and top your dish. 

Done!


Do you have any go-to comfort food dishes?

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Running Shoes

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend, I had a very relaxing weekend which is not usually the case for me, especially during these very busy summer months. Anyway, I got out for a couple runs this weekend and I think I finally got a little budget surprise.

If you recall, I participated in Tough Mudder last weekend. Well this is what my running shoes looked like afterwards:

And since Tough Mudder cleans up the shoes and donates them to those in need, I knew it was time. I did a mud run last year and cleaning my shoes after that was frustrating, I saw this as a great opportunity to take clean up duties off my shoulders.

Only because of all that, I found myself going for a run with a very old pair of running shoes. I usually only use these old runners for dog walks but thought, I paid almost $200 for them less than a year ago, they can't be that bad right?...

Wrong!

I couldn't figure out why after all of my Tough Mudder training going out for a light jog was so difficult. I couldn't keep a pace for more than 2 minutes at a time before my calves were on fire. I am pretty sure a guy walking even passed me at one point!

Well it turns out, that depending on how you land on your feet while running, a running shoe can wear down faster. Not to mention, those shoes saw me through my first half marathon race and the training leading up to it.

So I guess this runner needs to buy a new pair of shoes. Those old sneakers are good for dog walking but definitely not an afternoon jog. Just remember, don't blame yourself for poor running performance (it is easy to do) because sometimes it can be as simple as not having the right shoe.

A lot of companies do professional assessments of your running style to fit you in the right shoe, paying the couple extra dollars for the best shoe for you is important to keep your training on track and it will help the shoe last longer during your training so you don't have to keep going out and buying new shoes.

Have a good week!