Foam rollin’ away

Hello All! Happy 4th of July holiday weekend! WooHOO! Even though this was a short week for me (I had Monday off as well) I still could not wait for today to sleep in and get caught up on reading, blogging, and just being lazy. I was even able to brew myself a cup of coffee which lately has seemed much too time consuming. It’s become “Hmmmm make a cup of coffee or make my train?” You see where I’m going with this…

So I finally got my foam roller and I am so excited to use it twice a day like I’m supposed to now. I picked it up yesterday and as soon as I got it home, I put it right to work. Then I went to the gym (twas raining yesterday…shocker) and I ran 5 miles on an incline between a 1% to 8%. It was hard, but again, those hills will not be friendly to me at the race, so I have to kick my ass to prepare for them.
Now I know I said I only wanted to run 12 miles this week….but since I didn’t run Wednesday and I only walked on Tuesday, I was needing a good burn. Today I am determined to get a bathing suit so I can swim tomorrow and run Breakheart on Sunday. That will actually put me a mile less at 11 miles. But that’ OK. I’m just trying to keep myself as healthy as possible right now.

After my workout and foam rolling, I came home to a pretty darned good home made Indian dish made by Dennis (I wolfed this down before realizing I didn’t take a picture….) But I actually thought this was much better than the take-out Indian we’ve been getting delivered here lately.

Dennis picked these out on his own and I got so excited when I saw Organic, vegan, gluten free on the Butter Chicken sauce (even though he used chicken, but you can still use it for veggies and tofu only) He said he figured the “organic part” would make me happy. He tries…he says he’ll never give up meat but he’ll do organic. He made these two recipes with Basmati rice. Yum.

Then I made a kick ass dessert that was also vegan, egg, and nut free (well, until I added butter to it…) I didn’t tell Dennis that I bought an all natural, dairy free, egg free cake mix so I didn’t want to skip the butter part and take away ALL of the taste…Holy crap this cake was really good.

It was also really super low in fat too. I added 1/3 cup melted butter (instead of margarine) 3/4 cup water and added the cake mix. That’s it. Blend on medium speed for 2 minutes and bake. The couple who created Cherrybrook Kitchen (Patsy and Chip Rosenberg) made these products since the wife (Patsy) has multiple food allergies. The ingredients to this cake include:

• Unbleached flour
• Evaporated cane juice
• Granulated brown sugar
• All natural vanilla flour
• Non-alluminated baking powder
• Sea salt

That’s it! No junk.
I also bought some all natural whipped topping since I looked at the ingredients of my Cool Whip container and almost had a heart attack.

This stuff is definitely different than Cool Whip, but used as a topping for my cake with strawberries---it tasted great. Dennis, of course, wasn’t having it. He had his normal Betty Crocker Vanilla Whipped frosting. And that’s OK with me, since he really liked the cake.

Looks like heaven! And my God was it good. The cake kind of reminds me of more of a biscuit…kind of like the old country Strawberry Shortcake recipes called for…but slightly sweeter. It was really good.

Sometimes I can’t but help to share the recipes I make when they’re this good!

I have some lentils in my fridge that I want to eat up today. I’m thinking of making a salad inspired by the lunch I had yesterday at John Harvard's (obviously in Harvard Square)with my co-worker Adam. It was yummy. More details later.

Until then I’m going to enjoy our three day Holiday weekend!! Next week at this time I will be driving home for my race! It’s so close I can taste it!!

OH! And if anyone can help me with this…since I ran my last long run last Sunday, my calves have been getting super tight after any activity. I’ve been stretching them out like crazy but they’re really tight. And one of my toes keeps cramping too. I know it’s not from a lack of potassium because I eat bananas like it’s the last food on earth. I’m wondering if it’s a lack of sodium? Or if I’m not drinking enough water? Please let me know if you’ve experienced this!