Well things have been super crazy around here. It is Spring Break and I am just now sitting down to get some blogging in! I have been busy traveling the state of Kansas since last Friday. It seems like the week has just flown by! I got my El Ranchito fix (a few times!) and got some qt in with my family before coming back to Kansas City on Wednesday. I had big plans on getting some things done in Amber’s Craft Studio and here I am on Saturday and it is the first time I have even had a chance to log in!
Tracey and me at last year’s Diva Dash 2012
This morning I ran the Diva Dash with some of the Turner Elementary Crew! I was a bit nervous about it because I have not gotten hardly any runs in since I was sick right after conferences (Valentine’s Day). I was not too worried about it, but the runner in me wishes I would have been more ready for the race so I could have challenged my time from last year. Last year I ran it in 27:34. I may have been able to do that a month ago when I was doing really well with my running schedule. Today I ran it in 30:21 and I will take that! Next year though it is on!
Turner Elementary DivasLOVE the bibs this year! Too Cute!Got a rockin’ Diva Finishers Medal this year! I will hang that up next to my Warrior Dash one from last year!Got Our Bling!
Had a blast with the Turner Divas today! We are hoping to schedule some more races soon! It was cold but we made it!
I have officially registered for my first half marathon for May 18th! I will be running the Go Girl Half Marathon in Olathe. I was supposed to run one on May 5th with my bestie for her 30th birthday but her hubby accepted a job in New Mexico this month so they will be busy getting moved. I hope to run one with her soon! Let the training begin…Again! Let’s hope I don’t get sick so I can get back into the grove of things. I am using Couch to 13.1 app by Trish Blackwell on my iPhone. I got sick around Week 6 so I am planning on jumping back into Week 5 starting Monday. That will give me a full 8 weeks of training before the run in May. Wish me luck!
Coming home from work today, I was trying to decide what I was going to make for dinner. I wanted something easy but since I had a PB&J for lunch I was hungry for something hearty! Sloppy Joes made the cut tonight and I figured it was the perfect time to blog about one of my favorite side dishes. This side dish is inspired by my amazing step dad Troyboy! Troy is a pretty mean cook and makes the best cowboy taters that he makes almost every time I am back home. I have been making these for awhile but since I am trying to eat clean, I wanted to see if I could tweak it to save some calories. I decided I would call them “Cowgirl Taters” since they are made with sweet potatoes!
Troyboy and I out and about in KC for my 29th birthday!
I have blogged about how much I love sweet potatoes before and I meant every word of it! They are so good for you and packed full of Vitamin A. It is funny because I am amazed at how much my tastebuds have changed over the years. (Alex would beg to differ because I do not always like to try new things but I get braver the older I get!) I eat a lot of things these days that I would have never ate as a child. Mushrooms, onions, peppers, avocado, and sushi to name a few… If you were a picky eater as a child, I challenge you to try new things! You may surprise yourself!
It seems like the sweet potatoes we always get are HUGE! One is plenty for the 2 of us but if you are cooking for more you will need to double it. Also, I only used about 3/4 of the onion. The rest I threw in with the Sloppy Joes.
Ingredients
1 large sweet potato
1 medium red onion, minced
2 minced garlic cloves
olive oil
salt & pepper
Instructions
Chop up the sweet potato and toss into a med/high heated skilled with a drizzle of olive oil. Toss in minced onion and garlic along with some salt and pepper. Saute uncovered until potatoes are thoroughly cooked. Enjoy!
Who doesn’t like a good old fashioned plate of spaghetti? It was always one of my favorites growing up and I still make it a lot today. My mom makes a killer spaghetti cheese bake that I will have to blog about sometime. I, however, cannot make it like she does no matter how hard I try! My mom loves watching Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman and is always telling me about recipes that she sees on her show.
Love my mama!
I have made her lasagna a few times and it is killer! I have never made sauce from scratch before and she has perfected it! It does take some time but if you are looking to impress…make it! It is fabulous! I have always just grabbed a can of store bought sauce, but when I tried Ree’s lasagna sauce I was overwhelmed with flavor. I used her sauce ingredients for inspiration for my supreme spaghetti sauce. I did add some green peppers and mushrooms to give it some color and spice it up a bit! I wanted to make sauce from scratch, but I did not necessarily want to have to spend 2 hours simmering the sauce. I love using my crock pot, so I decided to try to make a crock pot spaghetti sauce. I I vow to never use a can of spaghetti sauce (unless its an emergency) again! This sauce turned out even more delicious than I would have imagined. It is super easy and full of flavor.
Supreme Spaghetti
If you have never cooked with fresh garlic…you are MISSING out! I was always scared to but it is so easy and keeps for a long time. These days if I am cooking and out of garlic, I cringe at the thought of using that dreaded garlic powder!Look at the color here! I had already threw the onions in before I decided to saute these. Next time I will saute them all together!Toss them all in the tub!I used turkey sausage and hamburger because that is what I had on hand. I would definitely use ground turkey instead of beef for an even healthier version! The turkey sausage is on the right…look at how much leaner the meat looks!Brown all the meat together with some salt and pepper!So full of flavor!
Ingredient List:
1 lb hamburger
1 lb Italian turkey sausage
1 fresh green pepper, diced
1 white onion, diced
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 large can stewed tomatoes (32 oz)
1 can tomato paste (12 oz)
1 can tomato sauce (12 oz)
1 tbsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
2 bay leaves
olive oil
whole wheat spaghetti noodles
Instructions:
Throw stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce and spices into the crock pot on low. (I used a potato masher after a few hours and mashed up the stewed tomatoes to break them up a little bit.) Brown hamburger and sausage in one skillet. While the meat is browning, chop the onion and green pepper. Mince garlic cloves. Saute the veggies in some olive oil. Add the meat and vegetables to the mixture and cook on low. Make the spaghetti noodles when it is about time to sit down to eat and top them off with the sauce!
Toss on top of some whole wheat spaghetti noodles and even a sprinkle of parmesan cheese!
This sauce was amazing and so easy. There is nothing I like more than a good crock pot recipe. I love the ease of throwing everything in and having a deliciously hot homemade meal ready when I get home from a long day of chasing around my 23 wonderful 2nd graders! I told Alex that I was going to call it Supreme Spaghetti and when we sat down for dinner he told me that was the perfect name for it! It was exploding with flavor! The recipe made enough for 3 different meals throughout the week! One night we put the leftover whole wheat noodles in a glass pan and topped it with a layer of mozzarella cheese before covering it with the sauce. Last we topped it off with some grated Parmesan cheese and baked it for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. It was an entirely different meal! I even thought pepperonis would be a good touch to add to it!
Layer the leftovers in a glass pan with some mozzarella and parmesan cheese to make a spaghetti supreme bake!
I got Alex a pizza stone for Valentine’s Day to use on our Traeger grill and have been wanting to break it out so I decided that the supreme sauce would be delicious thrown onto a pizza crust. I ended up making a crust that did not call for yeast because we did not have any in the house. The crust was alright but nothing special so I am not going to post the recipe for it. When I was at Hyvee, I contemplated grabbing an already made crust and by the time it was ready to make the pizza and didn’t. I wished I would have gone ahead and done that for the convenience factor. It was fine once I got it finished but next time I am going to look for a really good crust recipe.
When you cook with a pizza stone you must preheat the oven with the pizza stone in the cold oven before you even turn it on. This helps the stone heat evenly and prevents the stone from cracking. I ended up doing this in the oven because we were in the middle of a blizzard when I made this! The pizza stone worked out really well! It was definitely worth it!
Throw the sauce on top of a crust with cheese and you already have toppings in the sauce!So good!
I had a blast with this recipe and loved how I could stretch the sauce out to make different meals out of it! I think that may have been one of the best parts next to the ease of the recipe! Check it out and leave me a comment to let me know what you think!
So here I am on my 4th snow day in the past 2 weeks. I miss my kiddos and I am starting to get a bit stir crazy so I have been getting a lot of cleaning, Pinteresting, reading, and blogging done! I woke up early and did Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. I have been doing it for the past week and really liking it. I had to put the half marathon training on a small pause since I have been so sick. My lungs just haven’t been ready. I actually got a treadmill workout in too this am. I ran a mile and then ended up putting it on an incline at a fast walk.
Snow Day!
After my workout I took the girls outside to run around a bit while I scooped the fresh snow off the driveway…(Mind you all of this is happening before 7:00 this morning!) When I came inside Alex was getting around for work and I was on my way upstairs to finish my spring cleaning I did yesterday. (You would not believe how many projects I had going yesterday! AND today for that matter! Keep your eye out for a Spring Cleaning blogpost!) When I finished cleaning I decided to shovel off the back porch since Alex had done that twice already. I started with the porch and made my way down the stairs.
I got to thinking about something one of my students said to me coming back from our first 2 snow days Monday, before Blizzard of Oz Part II. I check my kids in every morning before school. I always have a little conversation with each kid before they start their day. I like to ask them what they did over the weekend or how their night was. One of my kiddos said that he made a snow fort and he was super excited about it. While I was scooping and scooping I thought to myself…When was the last time you played in the snow? I honestly couldn’t recall. It was before middle school I am sure. I used to spend hours playing in the snow as a kid. I tried to get Alex to build one with me yesterday and he wasn’t having it. We had two good 30 minute shoveling sessions of the driveway within a 4 day range and he just wanted to be done. I get it…but today I wanted to do something fun!
Took me 2 hours and I had such a blast! When I came in I was freezing and wet but I felt great!
So I decided to build a snow flip flop! It was very therapeutic for me as I have had a lot going on in life lately. Working out is a great outlet for me but punching and sculpting the snow was even better! I have been freaking out about my 30th birthday lately and stressed out about money (as usual) and wearing myself out in the snow reminded me just how creative I can be. How cool will it be to show the kids the flipflop that I created right in my backyard. I tell them all the time they can do anything if they put their minds to something and I need to remember to tell myself that too. I really want to get my blog out there and start getting some revenue from doing all of the things that I love. If you have not read my letter to Ellen that I posted last week click here. I also tweeted her to try to get her attention. As I formed my snow sculpture I thought well I could always keep tweeting her to see if she notices me! I can tend to be very determined when I set my mind to something so I figure I will keep it up. Thats what social media is for right?!
