I am so excited to tell you about this recipe!!    I pinned this recipe awhile ago and have been meaning to make it to compare it to the other buffalo chicken salad I made before from Ellie Krieger.  I found this recipe from the blog, Smells like Home. It blew the other recipe out of the water.  This came out SO SO good!  I finally found the perfect way to make crunchy baked chicken tenders…. I have played around with a bunch of different techniques in the past but this way has resulted in the best chicken tenders so far- so even if you arent a buffalo chicken salad fan, you can use the chicken prep part of this recipe (minus the buffalo sauce of course) and whip up some awesome “healthified” chicken tenders and baked old bay fries…now we are talkin’!

Oh and if you have a Wegmans nearby…use this stuff for the recipe.  SO GOOD!

Hope you are all having a nice week so far!  I am excited for this coming weekend.  Friday night my family (+ the boys) are going to a wine tasting/dinner at the golf club that my daddio belongs to and then my sisters and our best friend, Lauren, and I are going down the shore for the weekend! I cant wait…it will be soooo relaxing…even if it does rain! Have a great day!

how cute is this?!

Last Sunday was the Broad Street 10 mile Run.  Christina wrote her recap already, but I wanted to give my two cents as well.  This was my fourth time running Broad Street.  It is a very well organized race  especially considering the 40,000+ participants.  I have looked forward to this race for the past four years as it has always been a fun-filled day with friends, running, and food.  This year was no different.  I had a bunch of friends running this year and they all did an absolutely amazing job.  I am very proud of all of them and I am so glad that I have friends who enjoy running just as much as I do!

By the way, lots of people wore red “sox” to support the people of Boston.  The sale from the socks that I bought went towards One Fund Boston.  Pretty cool if you ask me!

Anyway, as Christina explained in her post, we ran Broad Street together.  Going into the race I planned to enjoy the run and not go for a PR.  Honestly, I didn’t think that I could have beat my personal best, 1:11:09 (7:06/mile)  and I wanted to enjoy the race with my sister.  Christina, however, wanted to PR.  She has not set a personal record in a while so she was kind of feeling defeated (I know how it feels!).  So we decided on a race plan to run 7:35/mile so she could finish in 1:15, which would be a 1 minute PR.  Well, we started off faster than we had planned, sorry T!  In fact, most of our miles were well under our 7:35 goal.

Tina ended up crushing her goal pace and ran a 7:17/mile finishing in 1:12:55!  She fought hard and pushed through the pain.  Although it probably makes more sense to start off slower and increase your speed with each mile (aka Negative Splitting), we got the job done!  The race starts on a downhill and with all of that adrenaline it was hard to control the pace.  I am so proud of Tina for pushing through it.  It definitely wasn’t easy.  About halfway through the race she kept mumbling things like, I don’t think I’m going to make it and other stuff like that.  I knew it would be difficult for her but I had no doubt in my mind that she couldn’t finish off the 10 miles strong with a PR.  As we were nearing mile 8 I told her she had to push with all she had and to not give up, that the end was near.  As we crossed the running clock at mile 9, I was unsure how close we were to beating her PR and I didn’t want to take any chances…I thought we had to run a low 7 minute pace for her to PR so I told her we had to pick up the pace now and that every second counted.  I kept reminding her of her PR and that she didn’t come all this way and work this hard to miss beating her PR by 2 seconds.  I kept a bit ahead of her to push the pace and tried to get her to speed up to run next to me to match my pace.  At one point she said, I’m maxing out!…which made my laugh and I knew it was true.  Anyway, sorry  for putting you through this long story.  The bottom line is, I am proud of my sister.  It’s so fun to PR and I know the sense of accomplishment that she feels right now.  It’s fantastic.  Something that she never thought she could possibly do, she did.  Although I was there to encourage, motivate, and pace her along, she had to work her tail off to get her butt across the line.  I’m glad I could be there for her to help show her what she is capable of.

As for me, this race showed me that I definitely could have set a PR myself this year…which was a surprise to me.  I couldn’t believe how good I felt.  I guess I just thought that I wasn’t in nearly as good shape as I had been for the past two years coming right off Boston Marathon training.  Well, I guess I was wrong.  Although it would have been nice to PR, I am glad that I decided to run and finish with my sister.  There are plenty of other races!

Afterwards, we went back to my older sister, Danielle’s, apartment and we all helped make brunch.  I had such a great time and it was nice to be with my sisters, Todd, Harry and JR.  We had all sorts of delicious food…eggs, toast, croissants, fruit, potatoes,cinnamon pull-apart bread and a delicious banana split (yogurt, fruit & granola) thing Danielle made!  May be my new favorite brunch item!  Thanks, Danielle!

I had so much fun this weekend and now I’m craving some more races!  Good thing I will be running the Brooklyn Half Marathon in about a week and a half with one of my friends!  Very excited to run a race that I have never ran before!

Any races coming up for you?

What is your favorite brunch item to make and/or eat?

This week was a very busy week…in a good way!  I had my the last few days of my ER rotation, my little cousin’s confirmation, my thesis presentation, ER end-of-rotation exam, babysat, shopped (so stressful haha) and ran the broad street with my two sisters! (more on that later)  One day this week I took a little bike ride down to the schuylkill river (side note: I NEVER can spell “schuylkill… you think I would have had that down by now!).  It was such a BEAUTIFUL day…I was so happy out there and it was so relaxing.  I watched some crew boats row by and reminisced about my crew days for a bit…and then quickly realized that I was happy that those days are no more! haha

I have not been able to PR in quite some time. It has been getting a bit frustrating for me… made me feel like I was getting slower instead of progressing with running and kinda made me lack some confidence.  I know I was busy with PA school and such for the past 2 years but that’s not an excuse…life will always be busy!  So anyway- when I signed up for Broad Street this year I decided I wasn’t going to just run it for fun but I was going to try as hard as I could and run as fast as I possibly could in an attempt to get a PR.  Mary (who is faster than me) said that she would help me attain my goal (Danielle was going to run with us too but her and her bf got lost at the start line…).  It wasn’t easy and I felt like quitting about 20 different times but I dug in and with Mary’s help I finished in a time of 1:12:55 (7:17 min/mi).  My previous PR was 1:16- so I broke it by 3 minutes and 3 seconds….WOOHOO!!!!! I was SO excited about this PR and so pumped after the race.   Mary was running ahead of me for most of the second half of the race because she was trying to push the pace so that I wouldn’t quit. She kept saying “CMON T…push it. faster faster! get that PR!!!” and I just looked at her and screamed “I AM MAXING OUT!!!” hahaha I was going as fast as I could go and was giving it my all.  and I couldnt be happier with the results… for once, I am PROUD of myself! Thank you so much for pushing me and believing in me, Mary!

Afterwards, Danielle & JR had Mary, Todd, Harry & I over her apartment in the city to clean up.  She made an AWESOME breakfast for us…everything was delicious!  We had a lot of fun.  Overall, it was a great day with the sisters and boys!

Okay, so lets talk about food.  I made an AWESOME recipe the other day. It was so easy and came out SO GOOD.  I am not a HUGE chinese food fan, but I was sick of making the same old same old kind of foods and saw this on How Sweet Eats and decided to give it a try.  I made it with steamed broccoli and brown rice.  I also bought the thin sliced chicken so the 1 hour cooking time would be less if you used the same chicken that I did.

photo from How Sweet Eats

Ingredients

• 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I bought thin sliced)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup cornstarch
• salt & pepper
• 1/4 cup canola oil

 Ingredients for Sauce

**note** I doubled the recipe as I felt that a single batch didnt make a ton.  You can even triple or  quadruple the recipe and save extra sauce for another day! 

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons ketchup
• 1/2 cup vinegar (I used cider vinegar)
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon garlic salt (or powder…doesnt matter)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Cut boneless chicken breasts into chunks. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Coat chicken in egg and then in cornstarch.
4. Pan fry in oil until golden brown, but not cooked through. Place in a single layer in a baking dish.
5. To make the sauce (you can do this first): Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and simmer until thick.
6. Pour sauce over chicken.  Bake chicken for 6o minutes (or less depending on chicken thickness), turning every 15 minutes. (I probably cooked it for 30)

We also had the two pups- Andie and Bradley- over this weekend.  This is them after Mary gave those two rats a bath…. they look like two little pathetic losers. hahaha.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed this beautiful weather!

This past weekend was wonderful…the weather was beautiful and it was full of fun!  This Saturday was Meghan’s, my friend and co-worker’s, birthday so last week I made her cupcakes using the recipe for my favorite chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting!  I made lots of extras, so we both got to enjoy them through the weekend! mmm.

Saturday was a fun day spent with my sisters and Mom.  My sisters and I all went for a run in the beautiful weather and then got brunch and did other fun things with my Mom!  My sisters and I also went out to Earth, Bread, and Brewery and got ice cream at my favorite place ever, Handel’s.

Sunday, Todd and I went for a bike ride.  It was so nice to be out in the beautiful weather.  Once we got home, we made a great brunch complete with eggs, toast, and a delicious fruit salad with grapes, mango, watermelon, and strawberries.  I love fruit and am so excited that watermelon is starting to come back into season.  I can’t wait for Jersey strawberries, blueberries, and peaches!

For dinner Sunday night, I tried a new recipe by Giada De Laurentiis.  Pasta is one of my favorite foods.  This dish is perfect for the spring and summer time.  It was light, fresh and healthy.  I chose to use fresh linguine, but you can certainly use boxed dry linguine as well.  I love arugula and I don’t always use it in cooked dishes, so I really enjoyed that aspect of the dish.

I have a lot of exciting things going on in my life lately so the blog has taken a bit of a back seat; I apologize for the sporadic postings!  We still have been doing the usual things just havent been able to write about them on here!  I am so excited that the weather is going to be nice this weekend….I would say it is here to say but lets be honest…it will for sure get ridiculously cold 3 weeks from now and we will all be moaning again…that is such a pessimistic way to think!  oh well!  Tomorrow, my sisters and I are going on a nice 13 mile run together in the morning and then going to brunch and having a little spa day with my mom I cant wait! it will be nice to be all together.  Next weekend is Broad Street. My speed in the past couple of years as definitely gone down and I havent had a PR in quite some time. and to be honest, im sick of it!  I have been really working to get my mileage up and am hoping next weekend goes well for me.  We will see what happens. I will certainly give it my all!    …and hopefully not pee myself like I did in the Philadelphia Marathon in the fall…hehe.  I put some pictures on here of some of things I have been doing in the last few weeks.  The picture above is of Ventnor, NJ.  Mary and I went on a run a few weeks ago…absolutely beautiful and so so peaceful down there.

Don’t be fooled by the cute, innocent face. She killed a baby rabbit and then threw up animal parts the next day. I dont want to talk about it.  Bad girl, bad girl.

One of my best friends, Drew, and I at the Manayunk StREAT festival 2 weeks ago.

Pretty flowers I bought myself from wegmans.  Flowers make me so happy.

Anyway, a LONG time ago Harry made me this AWESOME flank steak salad. He is a really good chef, if I do say so myself.  He did it all by himself, too.  Everything about the salad rocked.  The dressing was SO good, the glazed walnuts were seriously the best glazed walnuts I ever had and the steak was SO juicy. Do yourself a favor and just make this recipe.  Please and thank you. P.S. He found the recipe from the blog Crumb

Serves 6 as a starter or 4 as a main course

Ingredients

Peppered Flank Steak:

• 1 lb flank steak, about 1-inch thick
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cracked peppercorns

Salad Mix:

• 1 small head radicchio
• 2 Belgian endives
• 2 cups escarole or frisee
• 4 cups baby arugula
• 4 cups Bibb or Boston lettuce

Toppings:

• 1 1/4 cup Honey-Balsamic Walnuts (see below)
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1 cup Buttermilk Blue Cheese Dressing (see below)

1. Preheat the broiler (or grill). Pat the flank steak dry using paper towel. Sprinkle both sides with salt, then press in the cracked peppercorns to make a crust. Transfer to a broiler pan and place under the preheated broiler to cook for 4-5 minutes per side, until cooked to medium-rare or a meat thermometer registers an internal temperature of 165F. Tent with aluminium foil and set aside to rest for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, prepare the salad greens. Tear radicchio leaves into bite sized pieces, discarding the core. Strip the endive leaves off the core, and chop into inch-long pieces; discard core. Combine radicchio, endive and the remaining greens in a large bowl
3. To assemble, toss salad greens with 1 cup of blue cheese dressing until evenly coated. Divide the greens across six small salad plates (or four large dinner plates). Top each salad with a scattering of honey-balsamic walnuts and crumbled blue cheese
4. Cut flank steak into thin slices across the grain. Arrange a few slices onto the top of each salad. Serve immediately.

Note: Steak can also be prepared on the grill in warmer weather. Simply cook the steak on a preheated gas or charcoal grill for 4-5 minutes per side for medium rare, then proceed as usual.

Honey-Balsamic Walnuts
Makes about 1 1/4 cups

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Pinch cayenne
• 1 1/4 cup walnut halves

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2. In a small skillet set over medium heat, stir together sugar, honey, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and cayenne until sugar is dissolved. Continue cooking, stirring frequently, for 2-3 minutes or until the syrup begins to bubble and thicken.
3. Stir in walnuts. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5-6 minutes or until the walnuts are coated with a thick and sticky glaze.
4. Turn out onto the lined baking sheet. Using a silicone spatula, spread the walnuts out into a single layer, separating into individual pieces as much as possible. Let cool completely, then transfer to an airtight container lined with paper towel. Walnuts can be prepared up to three days in advance.

Buttermilk Blue Cheese Dressing
Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 3/4 cup creamy blue cheese (like Gorgonzola or Blue d’Auvergnes)
• Salt and pepper

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together buttermilk, sour cream, mayonnaise and vinegar until combined. Crumble blue cheese into the bowl, and stir until blue cheese is incorporated. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use, preferably for at least 24 hours. Dressing can be made up to three days in advance.

This picture is from last week..wearing my boston 2011 shirt and 2010 shorts.  Mary and I went on a run on the night that a bunch of people in Philly were meeting up together to all run for boston.  We couldnt go to the run because we were going to the Flyers game but we went on our own run beforehand.  All of this Boston stuff has really left me feeling sick to my stomach.  It is so heart wrenching.  All I can say is that it is pretty empowering seeing how the running community, the boston community, and the entire country can come together during times like this and has not be brought down by this tragedy.

Well anyway, have a nice weekend.

So a lot has happened since the last time I wrote a post.  Although I don’t like letting all of that time go by, it’s sometimes inevitable as life gets busy sometimes.  Hopefully I can get myself back into a somewhat regular routine again.

Last week, I was cleaning my room in my apartment and noticed that Todd had piled clothes upon clothes forming a small mountain.  When I was walking around some stores in the city, I came upon these sticky notes…I think I need to invest in these.

Todd & I went to the Phillies first home game win of the season.

and, of course, I’ve been eating lots of ice cream…

my favorite ice cream from Handel’s…Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie & Graham Central Station.

I’ve also been cooking a lot.  Most recently, I made this Lemon & Asparagus Risotto with Pan-Seared Scallops.  I have to say, it was amazing and perfect for springtime!

On a more serious note, I’d like to acknowledge the running community…especially all of those directly involved with the 2013 Boston Marathon and the families who were directly affected by the unthinkable events of Marathon Monday.  Ever since last Monday, I have not been able to stop thinking about what happened.  It’s very scary to think that I ran Boston for the past three years and how easily I could have been there this year.  I am so thankful that I did not run this year and that my family and Todd were not there spectating.  Here is a photo Todd snapped of me when I ran the Boston Marathon for the first time in 2010…directly in front of the terrible events of this years marathon.

Last week, I wore my jacket from 2011 to support the Boston and running community.

I was happy to hear that everyone I knew running and spectating were safe.  However, others were not as lucky and those families are in my thoughts and prayers.

sign at the London Marathon this past weekend.

One more day until Friday! It seems like this week flew by, doesnt it?  I am not complaining about that.  I am not going to write a long drawn out post today…just wanted to pop in and share a delicious new soup that I made on Monday- Creamy Tomato Orzo Soup. I know you are thinking…how could CREAMY = HEALTHY?! Instead of the usual heavy cream that is used in creamy soups, you use plain greek yogurt instead.  The orzo gives this soup substance and bulk.  It is so delicious and took me no time at all to whip up. Who doesnt love meals that are quick to make during the week…and healthy and delicious?!  We  had it with crusty bread but I think next time grilled cheese will be served with this   P.s. the recipe is from Two Peas and Their Pod

Serves 3 (serves more if you serve this with grilled cheese or something else)

Ingredients:

Directions:

This morning my sister, boyfriend, and I went to a 5:15 AM spinning class before work.  Sometimes it is hard to get out bed that early, but after working out, I always am so happy that I did it!  The class was almost full, too!  The instructor was AWESOME and we all had a great workout….my buttocks and hamstrings are so sore now!  I am definitely a morning workout type of person- it helps me start my day on the right foot.  Are you a morning or afternoon exerciser?  Tonight, my sister and I are getting massages/facials (me-facial; mary- massage); she got me a gift certificate to a spa in Manayunk for my birthday.  Then we are getting sushi!  Kick-butt workout in the early AM, work, facial, and sushi…can this day get any better!?  Well, I guess I could have done without work.  Have you ever had a facial or massage? Which do you like better?

Before the weather turns warm I have one more soup recipe to share with you!  This one I found from the blog LiveLovePasta.  I couldnt find the mafalda pasta that the recipe called for so I made do with farfalle pasta…it worked just fine!  This soup hearty and warming to the soul, perfect on those cold nights where you are exhausted and just want to cuddle up on the couch   I made a big batch of this for my boyfriend when he was away on a rotation living out of hotel for 6 weeks.  He loveddddd it and wont stop asking me to make it for him again! It will definitely be added to my recipe repertoire!

Lots of great recipes to come!

Hope you have a nice night