Ok, I am a complete cheeseball with the title of this post (yes I know that this is completely incorrect English), but whatever – I ran EIGHT miles yesterday!!!!!! It was a really fun run too. Just wonderful. I mentioned that I met Molly at Vinalia a few weeks ago, and that she was running the same 1/2 marathon race as me. Well we’ve been talking about maybe going for a run sometimes and yesterday was finally the day. What better way to get to know each other than go on a long run? We were chatting nonstop the entire time and the run just flew by. I was starting to get a bit tired when I realized that we had only 1/2 mile left, so instead we both picked up the pace. It’s a lot harder to run and talk so our pace was slower than we’re used to (a little under a 10 minute mile… around 9:50 or so), but it made for a really pleasant run. I can’t wait to do it again!!! Thanks, Molly, for being so awesome 
So yeah, I pretty much felt like a million bucks for the rest of the day. Long runs on a late Sunday morning are becoming my favorite thing. They just make me feel like I’ve really accomplished something, and also give me an excuse to veg out for the rest of the day (with packing and whatnot I couldn’t fully take advantage of my right to veg, but I still did some serious R&R). Onto food…
I started the morning with a simple breakfast/snack – 1 organic spelt toast with Barney Butter, blueberries and coffee. I was out the door in about an hour. This was the perfect fuel for the run!
After the run and the shower, Adam and I decided to go grocery shopping. I knew I haven’t eaten enough at this point, so I created a little tasting plate of my new dessert hummus with some Kashi honey-wheat crackers.
These do not taste like hummus (thankfully since although delicious, hummus is not dessert 
) but are called hummus because the base is chickpeas. The consistency is kind of of a drier hummus but the flavor is spot-on whatever it’s called – like pumpkin pie tastes like pumpkin pie, maple walnut is exactly that (and is awesome!), peanut butter has a strong pb flavor, etc. Check out the Crazy Camel website for all the flavors they offer. I love that it’s a small local company with a unique product – I mean who’s ever heard of dessert hummus?! I also love that a serving is about 60 calories (like regular hummus) but you can make some pretty indulging tasting desserts. For now I love every one except for the toasted almond – tastes like marzipan. Chuck sent me a list of tasting combo recommendationa so I can’t wait to experiment/get a little more creative with these guys. There will be apples, red grapes and maybe graham crackers involved
After a trip to TJ’s, it was time for lunch. I got some sweet pea leaves at the farmers market last week and could not wait to make a salad with them. Have you ever tried sweet pea leaves? They have such a sweet flavor with just a hit of sweet pea taste. Very cool. This was my first time trying them and they made for a great salad base. I hear they are also great sauteed with some EVOO and garlic, so that’s what I’m trying next. I love discovering new veggies!
In the salad: sweet pea leaves, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, blueberries, goat cheese and pecans. This was perfect drizzled with some strawberry balsamic vinegar – nice a summery.
After hours of packing I finally started to get a bit hungry. These guys were the stars of the (dinner) show. The colors and shapes of the veggies are just so cool!
I was craving a harcore vegetarian dish and found this recipe for eggplant stew over couscous from Cooking Light. I omitted the onions, added mushrooms, and doubled the amount of eggplant since the comments on the website mentioned that there wasn’t enough of it. The commenters were right, because even after doubling the eggplant I couldn’t taste it. It basically dissolved in this dish, which by the way was delicious!!! Adam kind of hates eggplant and zucchini but I thought with enough tomato sauce and cheese he could enjoy this, and he did. I loved it too. My only complain is that this picture sucks 
And then there was dessert. I love baking once in a while because then I have something to look forward to in the treats department and my stuff is much healthier than anything I’d buy. I found this recipe for fudgy mocha-toffee brownies in an old Cooking Light magazine, and after realizing it was their “best bar cookie of all time” I couldn’t wait to get to baking! I used peanut butter chips instead of toffee chips (all I had on hand) and added a few walnut crumbles to the top. Here is the result:
Mmm, definitely fudgy.
I had 1 piece (1/16 of the pan) after dinner.
Yum! A perfect healthier treat – definitely something to look forward to with a nice cup of tea. 
I also got a bit hungry towards the end of the day and had a few small handfuls of raw pecans (unpictured). For some reason on my long run days I’m not particularly hungry but I try to remember to still fuel myself. How was your weekend?
