Half Marathon #MY FIRST EVER

So on Saturday Morning at 8:06 am I did the unthinkable, I finished my first ever half marathon with a time of 1:49:59 (still in the 1:40’s right?). Lets back up to the beginning of the day that started in the wee hours of the morning.

9:30 pm (friday): bedtime after this feast of spaghetti squash (carb loading), shrimp, spinach and marinara with a generous helping of freshly grated parmesan.

3:30 am: My alarm went off and I jumped out of bed and started the most stressful part of the day. Seriously stressful because the weather was 45° at the starting line and drizzly. I had no idea what to wear. I am a naturally cold person so the idea of standing at the starting line and waiting for a half hour in shorts and a t-shirt was a little unnerving. So I layered and decided to make the decision once I got there. Procrastination never killed anyone, right?

3:55 am: Chris picks me up. We had packed our breakfast Friday night which consisted of 3 hard boiled eggs (1 for me and 2 for Chris, which he said he regretted later), toast, fresh whole foods almond butter (the best), and 2 bananas.

4:30 am: We arrive at the mall and try to figure out the bus situation, while staying in Chris’s warm car for as long as possible to avoid freezing.

4:45 am: we boarded a school bus that brought us to the starting line. I think I may have fallen asleep at this point. The bus was nice and warm and Chris’s shoulder was very appealing to my sleepy head.

5:30 am: We are now close to the starting line. We decided to eat our bananas and wait  with our sweatsuits on to postpone the inevitable cold.

5:50 am: As Chris told me “In 3 minutes, take your pants off” we stepped out of our baggy sweats and stepped into the racing area to check our excess clothing to pick up at the finish line. At this point the nerves are starting to kick in.

6 am: made our way through the aisles and aisles of porta potties. That was not a pretty smell, in fact it was pretty awful.

6:05 am: we lined up with only ten minutes to go and took this pre-race selfie with the starting line in the background. Love him!

6:15 am: THE RACE BEGAN

At mile 9, just powered through the infamous lemon drop hill.

Chris wearing a batman shirt and cruising into the tenth mile.

My parents went over and beyond (per usual) and drove up the north shore to see us run and I got to see them twice and Chris three times during the race. They got up almost as early as we did, to make our day even more special. Thanks parents, Love them too!

Post race:

So You Think You Can Cook…#2

Here is the unveiling of the second recipe!

Thanks for sending in all the recipes! If this is not your recipe, then not to worry there were some great ones that I am really excited about that will be coming soon! This recipe just fit nicely into my life this week. And come on who doesn’t love eggs!

Well without further ado….Mini Egg Bakes with a golden hash brown crust (aka amazing muffin cups)!

 

You can find it here.

The recap will be coming soon!

If you’d like to see a recipe you picked out here, send it to:

faith.hope.and.quinoa@gmail.com

I always love to hear from all of you.

~Alyssa

So You Think You Can Cook: #1 Hummus

So here’s the first recipe recap!

I made roasted garlic hummus this week following this recipe:

I followed the recipe exactly, which was surprisingly hard. I did not realize how often I kind of just throw caution to the wind and just do my own thing.

So lets start at the beginning with the ingredients. Let me tell you I was already struggling with the recipe just because it was tough finding tahini! In case any of you are wondering SuperOne does carry it, in the health food section. I barely found it.

So I first roasted the garlic:

I had no trouble cutting off the top and wrapping it.

While that was in the oven I squeezed the lemon and drained the chickpeas.

After 45 minutes of roasting garlic your house smells pretty fantastic. And the garlic looks like this:

The recipe said to let the garlic cool, but I was too impatient and ended up burning my fingers trying to squeeze the garlic out. But it actually came out quite easily and was pretty cool (needless to say Chris was jealous and if he was there probably would have proceeded to eat the whole head of garlic).

Now all I had to do was dump it all in a food processor and blend for like 6 minutes.

Now we don’t have an actual food processor we have a ninja blender type thing which is smaller than a food processor. I don’t know if the ninja is stronger or I just have a low threshold of creaminess, but I definitely did not need to blend if for that long.

Ease of following recipe: The recipe was very easy to follow and straight forward. I mean you can’t get much easier than dumping and whirling and really there was minimal prep work and cooking time. If you start roasting the garlic while you are preparing dinner, it takes like 2 seconds to throw everything in the food processor. The only down fall of the recipe is that I did have a hard time finding Tahini and now have a huge jar when the recipe only called for 4 tsp.

Overall impression: I had high expectations going into this recipe and I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I absolutely love hummus and I love garlic so I thought this recipe would be a no brainer. However I felt the hummus was overly lemon-y and I couldn’t even taste garlic. The recipe had good consistency but lacked the flavor burst I was longing for. Also, the recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of chickpeas, which is not equivalent to number of cans. So I was left with some leftover chickpeas I don’t know what to do with. Will all that being said, I did love the fact that it made a large amount and got me hooked into the world of homemade hummus that will hopefully save me some money!

Go-to or keep looking: While I am enjoying my pot o’ hummus, I do have to say that this probably will not be my go-to hummus recipe and I will continue my search to find a recipe that I love.

Things I would change: Add some raw garlic to really intensify the flavor, decrease the lemon juice, and increase the cumin.

Well I hope this helps! If I find a new hummus recipe I will update ya’ll. Until then send me a new recipe you’d like me to test and I will review it on the blog (preferably one with lots of quinoa).

~Alyssa

Wheat-less Wednesday: Cheesecake Edition!

Hello, Happy Wednesday, and buckle up your seat belts for a cheesecake recipe that will make you drool and leave you just waiting for an occasion to make it for a loved one! It’s that good!

But first I have to post just one engagement picture….. with more to come later. Eek I love them!

Admire the awesomeness, but back to the cake, as many of you know it was my mom’s birthday on Sunday. She requested a cheesecake for her birthday celebration, and I was more than happy to whip up a delicious, creamy, awesome cake for my mom. One problem, I was stumped about what to use for the crust. Most cheesecake has graham cracker crusts, and it is almost impossible to find gluten-free graham crackers. Also I was just in the mood to spice this cheesecake up a bit. So I decided to use ginger snaps! Brilliant idea that produced an awesome base for the cheesecake.

So here it is, Connie’s Easy Lemon-Breezy GF Cheesecake, is Martha Stewarts classic cheesecake, with fun and gluten free twist. I also substituted plain greek yogurt for the sour cream and reduced the sugar a bit.

	Ingredients For Connie’s Easy Lemon-Breezy GF Cheesecake
Crust
	5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted.
	8 oz gluten-free gingersnaps
	1/4 cup sugar
	1/4 tsp salt
Filling
	4 bars of 8 oz cream cheese
	1 1/4 cup of sugar
	1 tsp lemon zest & 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
	1/2 tsp salt
	4 large eggs
	1 cup plain greek yogurt (or sour cream)
	1 Tbsp vanilla

First preheat the oven to 325°. Then, start with the gingersnaps, dump them in the food processor and pulse for a few seconds. Then add in the melted butter, sugar, and salt. Mix together and press into the bottom and 1 inch up the side of a 9 in springform pan

Put the crust into the oven and bake 10-13 minutes or until the gingersnaps are just starting to get dark. While the crust is baking set a pot of water to boil (to be used later) and  start in on all that cheese for the filling! It is easiest to make if the cream cheese is at room temperature.

Put the cream cheese in the mixer and mix until it is “fluffy.”

Once you are satisfied with the fluffiness of the cream cheese, scrape down the bowl and gradually add in the sugar. Beat well and mix in the lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and vanilla.

Add in the eggs (these are our colorful farmers market eggs) one at a time, mixing between each egg. Last but not least, add the greek yogurt and mix one last time.

Surround the crust with aluminum foil and place it in a roasting pan. Pour your delicious filling into the gingersnap crust and then fill the roasting pan with the boiling water so it goes halfway up the cheesecake pan. The water insulates the cheesecake so it will cook evenly.

Cook for an hour and 45 minutes at 325°.

And walah! You have a beautiful and utterly irresistible cheesecake that tastes very light and refreshing.

Try this gingerbread crust the next time you make a cheesecake, you won’t regret it!

~Alyssa

New Things!!

So as I mentioned a few posts ago I have some new things going on. But first lets start with a quick recap of the weekend.

On Friday night Chris came back from his business trip and we had a date night. We picked out our wedding bands and went to a nice dinner at the Duluth Grill where I had the most delicious salmon burger.

It came with grilled and marinated kale with a curry sauce. Yum. Chris couldn’t get over that he thought the Kale looked and tasted like grass.

He was content with his mexican omelette and fruit.

 

Then on Sunday was my mom’s birthday and Father’s day! Happy Birthday mom and Happy Father’s day dad! There was just a lot going on at our house.

Ok on to the new things, one of them is this awesome computer! Up until a few weeks ago I’d been plugging away on my laptop from 2008. Needless to say I was very grateful for the upgrade!

I know that’s exciting for me, but what is exciting for all you all is a new feature to the blog! It will be called So you think you can Cook? Inspired by one of my favorite summer shows (So You Think You Can Dance). I will be picking a new recipe every week, making it and critiquing it! So send me recipes you are dying to try or even some weird ones you found on Pinterest you think are interesting but are scared of  trying.

Send your recipe ideas to: faith.hope.and.quinoa@gmail.com

Now I will only make gluten-free recipes so keep that in mind if you would like to submit a recipe, with that being said I can make some substitutions to make it gluten-free but I would like to follow the recipe as closely as possible to have an accurate review!

Here is the recipe for this week (I have never made humus before):

 

Stay tuned for the recipe review on this weeks So You Think You Can Cook?

~Alyssa

Bridal Shower Blitz!

This weekend officially kicked off the wedding season with Linda’s bridal shower and bachelorette party packaged into one wonderful weekend!

For those of you who don’t know Linda is one of my longest friend and we have known each other since Kindergarten. And because our houses were pretty much a block apart we were inseparable and joined at the hip getting into shenanigans left and right. I love her so much and was beyond excited for the two parties!

My mom convinced me to not wear a dress because it’s Lindas party (Linda is a sweatpant-wearing, ponytail-fixin, no fuss type of girl). We arrived and were a little underdressed, the place settings and dishes were so pretty and fancy! I knew we were in for a good time.

The bridal shower kicked off with a round of introductions that had me tearing up. Her mom and my mom started talking about our intertwined childhood and I started remembering just all the great memories.

We went on many a camping trip….

 

We went to 2 proms and 2 snowballs together and were the life of the party!

 

We graduated from high school and went our separate ways, and finally were reunited this year in our tiny Minneapolis apartment.

Food-Time: They were so sweet and had tons of gluten-free options. There was a great spinach salad with fruit and goat cheese (I think), mediterranean inspired meatballs (with QUINOA- I was in heaven), meat and cheese tray, fruit kabobs, bbq weenies (linda’s fav). I didn’t  get any pictures because I ate it all too quickly. The desert was homemade ice cream and stole the show! Peanut butter, raspberry and chocolate fro-yo, and ye ole vanilla.

And come on look at that presentation!

It was great to see her so happy and I cannot wait for the wedding! Only a couple more weeks!

Up next is Linda’s Wedding, than the lovely Anna’s Bridal shower, My bridal shower, and Anna’s Wedding! Bring on all the love!
~Alyssa

Wheat-less Wednesday: Brown Bagging It

So I am now in my fourth week of my internship at the hospital! Oh my goodness things are flying by, and I figured I would have SO  much free time this summer,  but so far it’s been pretty jam packed! I do have some exciting new things coming to the blog super soon though so stay tuned!

Ok so back to my internship and working full time….and FOOD! So St. Luke’s has a cafeteria but due to my student/engaged financials I choose to brown bag it! Wohoo you can tell I am going to be a Dietitian because I spend WAY to long making my lunches. Like there are the most involved salads ever, but hey who said brown bag lunches need to be boring!

I have been into putting cottage cheese and balsamic vinegar on my salad with some chopped grilled chicken, red peppers, and spinach…YUM.

So in my brown bag adventures I stumbled across a gem that I just had to share with you all! These little babies:

They are individual guacamole packs with only 170 mg of sodium. Not bad for pre made guac. And the best part is they are so portable and the perfect thing to add to a taco salad to bring to work.

You can also put them on tacos like we did for dinner…

So much flavor and deliciousness wrapped in one little pouch. You can’t beat that. I believe it was around $3 for 6 pouches. That’s almost cheaper than buying avocados and making your own. Plus I always use half an avocado then forget to use the second half and it goes to waste. So this is the best of both worlds.

Try out some guacamole pouches to dip veggies, top the perfect taco salad, or scoop chips to spice up your lunch.

~Alyssa

Volleyball Season!

Hello all!

Today marked the ceremonial start of the 2014 summer sand volleyball league. I have played 2’s with my dad since I was in 11th grade, and I believe that volleyball especially 2’s volleyball, is like cheese, you really do get better with age/ the longer you play.

 

Here I showcase my great form…NOT.

 

Getting serious with our pro volleyball shades.

And we even play in rain where the court is basically one puddle. Soo cold!

And now that I have experienced the world of 2’s, I can never go back to sixes. 2’s is my jam and I start to feel claustrophobic with 5 other people surrounding me.

We did win our first match, there was much room for improvement, but it felt great to shake the cobwebs off!

I hope you enjoyed this throwback thursday past with all the pictures throughout the various years of my legendary volleyball career.

~Alyssa

Race Training: Attack of the Killer Mosquitos

Good morning and happy Tuesday!

I am going to give you a race training recap, but first I have to share my wonderful dinner with you, from this weekend. No mayo avocado salad atop a bed of spinach with feta cheese, crustinis (from nature box), red peppers, green onions, and many many banana peppers.

It was too pretty not to share!

 

Just looking at it makes me hungry!

So as many of you know, Chris and I are running Grandma’s Half marathon on June 21st! And as I am now realizing that is approaching rather quickly. I will give you a glimpse into the struggles and lessons learned through this training. At the beginning my first move was to print out the novice training schedule, back in March, when we got in to the race. I was immediately and severely overwhelmed with the schedule and idea of running 6 days a week. I mean I am a novice after all and my longest run ever,  was 5.6 miles!

So obviously, I  made my own training schedule (because of my distance running expertise..NOT) which consisted of running 3 times a week. I started small and now I am doing 2 four-five mile runs during the week and one long run on Saturday. This Sunday 10 miles was on the agenda. And let me tell you I felt every mile. First, we ran after eating brunch.

It was greasy and delicious going down but oh man it sat like a rock in my stomach pretty much the whole 10 miles.

Then we got attacked by mosquitos! They were just awful…maybe I wasn’t running fast enough or maybe due to their huge nature this early summer they have super mosquito speed. I’m going with the latter.

So overall how did my first ever training for a half marathon go? That is a good question. And here’s my answer. Growing up I was never a runner and especially not a long distance runner. I am a volleyball player with huge thighs, not a long lean runner. I think more than my physique my mindset was what was holding me back at the beginning. I was horrible at pushing myself and taking myself out of my comfort zone. Now I now that my body can do way more than I imagined and that if you just put one foot in front of another while listening to the eye of the tiger (or your pump up song of choice) you just might finish your training. I still don’t think I would say that I enjoy long runs, in fact I can definitively say I despise them. But the satisfaction after finishing is a great feeling.

We have one more long run this weekend, and then it will be tapering for the big race. Ok there actually won’t be any tapering because I don’t know what that entails, I just wanted to say that to impress all my swimming friends. But anyway, I can’t wait to finish “training”, and run the race. With that being said, please keep us and all those running Grandma’s in your prayers.

Also I am in desperate need of revamping my running playlist for the race. Please help me out if you know some good pump up jams!

~Alyssa