The Dog Days Are Over…

I cannot BELIEVE the holidays are almost over! I had a pretty fantastic Christmas, cannot believe that winter break is almost over though. The Christmas tree and decorations have been put away, we are back to eating core friendly, and I am back to 10 hours of sleep a night.

We went to my grandmothers house for Christmas Eve dinner–and my family does not mess around. Ive mentioned before that my uncle is an award winning chef. Between him and my grandma we had a top notch meal! Prime Rib, twice baked potatoes, popovers, and veggies:

(I am literally drooling looking at that picture. Not the best idea reliving that after 75 minutes of hill bounding!)

Amongst the awesome things I got for Christmas (a wireless printer/scanner/fax–can you believe we didnt have a printer?, slippers-which I was in desperate need of, Home Depot gift cards, a math shirt, gift cards to the Boynton, Brew City, Chipotle, and a panini press!), my in-laws got me a Kitchen Aid Mixer. Totally surprised me with it. Check out this baby:

Because I am six years old, I felt the need to open and use it right away. So yesterday I made pizza dough, breadsticks, and my infamous nutrient loaded pizza sauce (that take a food processor though, not a mixer!!)

The recipe for the dough was simple–a typical recipe. 1 package yeast (I used rapid rise) mixed with 1 cup of warm water and a teaspoon of sugar. In the mixer went 2.5 cups of flour, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, a sprinkle of garlic powder, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Added the yeast and then turned the mixer on!! Let that spin (with the dough hook–important!) for 8-10 minutes, then let the dough sit for 20 minutes. There you have it!

I put the dough on some cornmeal before baking to give it a little extra crisp–it was amazing (insert amazeballs, the bomb dot com, the bees knees, other blog cliches here).

And I made a different–more veggies–version of my Nutrient Loaded Pizza Sauce. This sauce had:

-1 bunch kale
-1 head broccoli
-1 bag baby carrots
-1 green bell pepper
-1 onion
-1 can beets
-4 cloves garlic

It made enough for 10 pizzas! Frozen into individual pizza servings now.

I am trying to do a LOT of running this week–luckily I still have 3 days of vacay to squeeze in the miles!
Monday-60 minutes
Wednesday-105 minutes with 2×15 intervals
Friday-120 minutes–75 min with 5xhill bounds (with Meg!) in the am, 35 min recovery PM
Saturday-70 minutes
Sunday-93 minutes with 30 min interval at the end, 30 minute recovery

Hoping for at least 55 miles, and some bike rides squeezed in!!