High Tea at my House

So we've begun the month of December and in with it comes the season of parties and eating - at least for me it seems.  I'll post more about my thoughts on the food workout balance during this time of year later this week.  Today I have a post for an awesome - but admittedly high fat and not very nutritionally dense treat but it is very delicious.  It is after all just that a treat.

Two things motivated this recipe for me.  The first was my visit to Langdon Hall last month where I had the most amazing scones.  My favourite was the maple scone with honey butter that felt like it melted in my mouth.  My second inspiration was at a recent get together I attended at my friend Gina's house.  Here's a shot taken by Dan.  Can you guess the secret ingredient?

If you guessed the wine - you'd be close.  Just kidding I'd rather drink it that bake with it.  The cranberries.  And Gina was coming over this afternoon to discuss something rather big coming up for both of us in the near future that I'll post about soon. (No - its not baby related). 

This afternoon I attempted to recreate the scones I had at Langdon Hall with my own twists added.  I have a go-to tea biscuit recipe I use all the time so I modified it.  I used real butter instead of margarine, added vanilla and cinnamon, and substituted some of the sugar for maple syrup.  I think next time, I'd substitute out all of the sugar for maple syrup.

Maple Cranberry Scones

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup butter milk (or sour milk add 2 tsp lemon juice to 1 cup milk)
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 cup chopped fresh or frozen cranberries tossed in 2 tsp of sugar (do not thaw if frozen)
cinnamon sugar for sprinkling on top of scones

Directions

In a bowl whisk together dry ingredients.  Cut in butter.  (A lot of recipes say to use 2 knives.  I've never figured out how to do this.  I find a fork works better).  In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients.  Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the wet in.  Mix together until just combined.  Mix in cranberries.  I think the key to light tasting flaky scones or tea biscuits is to handle this dough at little as possible.  Form into a circle and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  Using a pizza cutter or a large knife, cut into 8 wedges.  Separate and bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes.  Let cool.  Serve with honey butter and marmalade. 

Greece Wrap Up

It has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would to go through the pictures from Greece and create this post.  Between a sick child requiring multiple visits to the doctor's office and a vehicle that has been parked inside a mechanic shop for awhile I haven't had the time I'd like to pick a few pictures from our vacation.  Almost all of these were taken by my official race photographer - my hubs.

It was really nice to go through these photos again especially when this is what my front yard looked like this morning...

Baby its cold outside.

Without further ado.... I present GREECE!

Look I'm tiny ;-)

This is not Greece.  This is Rome on the tarmac where we landed after flying from Toronto.  We had to take a bus, go through crazy Roman security, race to our gate, get on another bus which dropped us off at the same spot we had gotten on the first bus.

 

This was what most of the streets around our hotel looked like.  I think this terrain actually helped my legs recover faster after the marathon.

On our second day in Greece, we went to the acropolis and wandered around through the Plaka district and the Roman Agora.  This is me at the acropolis or more accurately the Parthenon.

This is a view of Athens from the acropolis.  The city sprawled as far as you could see on all sides.

Here are some restaurants and shops in the Plaka district

 We took this boat to Hydra.

Shots of Hydra

We went out West a few years ago and drove through the Rocky mountains.  We didn't see any mountain goats there ... but they were on Hydra

Our Hydra tour dog - Tropha

The day after we went to Hydra, we took a tour to Delphi to see the Temple of Apollo.  I didn't find the Oracle, but we had fun.  At this point in our vacation, another couple had also joined us - Brad and Carey.  The tour group was a little slow for our pace, but the bus ride to Delphi was quite nice.

I think at this point Brad & Carey are the only ones in our group still paying attention.

Tracey & I

The stadium at Delphi

Tracey taking a picture (obviously) me - not sure what that's about.

After we went to Delphi, we went out for dinner at a restaurant called Strophi.  Tracey & I are drinking ouzo the proper way - over ice and sipping it. Opa!

Another shot from the restaurant.  You can see it has a great view.

After we ran the marathon we went out for dinner at a place that had Greek music and dancing.

Other amazing shots

Oh... and these pictures too.

Temple of the Olympian Zeus these are the tallest columns in Greece at 54 ft!

The reconstructed ancient agora

The Roman agora

There were so many shots I'm missing.  But its wayyyy passed my bedtime.  I have gone on a few other vacations with great pictures that I think I will post on.  Look for New York in the near future.  Sadly I have yet to run there... but someday!

Sweet Potato Soup with all the fixin's

I love soup.  In the fall and winter I probably make soup at least three times a week.  In fact I have converted my husband a soup hater into a soup lover!  When the weather gets colder its one of my favourite meals to have after my Saturday morning run.  Of course when I sit around and have coffee for an hour after I run for an hour and a half, its almost lunch time.

There is a great shop next the the store I run from that makes the most amazing bread.  Check them out - http://www.frabertsfreshfood.com/  Sometimes I'm lucky and get to Fraebert's shortly after they have taken their bread out of the oven and bring it home when its still warm.  Its the perfect accompaniment to any type of homemade soup.

Here is the soup that I made this Saturday after my run.  It really doesn't take long to get this soup on the table.

Sweet Potato Soup

by Denise Boyd Dunlop

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Keywords: soup/stew vegetarian

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the Soup

• 1 small onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 sweet potato peeled and diced
• 1/2 can of black beans drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup frozen corn
• 3 cups vegetable soup stock
• 2 tsp Mexican seasoning
• salt & pepper to taste

For the Guacamole

• 1 avocado diced
• 1 tbsp olive olive
• 1tsp sea salt
• 1 clove of garlic minced
• juice from 1/2 lemon

Instructions

For the Soup

Heat oil in a pan. Saute onion until transparent. Add garlic and seasoning, continue cooking until fragrant. Add soup stock and sweet potato. Bring stock to a boil and cook until sweet potato is soft. Remove from heat. Puree soup with a hand blender. Stir in corn and black beans. Add salt and pepper to taste.

For the toppings

For this picture I topped this soup with plain Greek yogurt, chopped tomato and simple chunky guacamole (the recipe below). This soup is also good with shredded cheese.

For the guacamole

Toss the above ingredients in a bowl. Let sit for 15 minutes to allow flavours to combine

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Reflections on the Athens Marathon

Its been almost two weeks since I ran the Athens marathon.  I'm over the jet lag from being in Greece (which lasted much longer than I thought it would).  I'm still figuring out a running and workout schedule.  And  I still can't stop thinking and talking about the marathon.  Its is strange for me that the race was my slowest marathon and probably the slowest minute per kilometre pace I've ever ran in a race and yet I wouldn't change a thing about the way I ran it.

Almost everyone I talk to gets the sense of accomplishment as well.  For me this marathon wasn't about running it in a specific time or running the marathon distance or even establishing myself as a marathoner.  It was about running for the sheer enjoyment of it.  Very rarely does running for fun happen for me.  There is a point during a run when the pain or fatigue of running kicks in and I want to quit.  Most of the time I push through it or the discomfort fades and my endorphins kick in and I carry on.  On some runs and especially races, the duration of the pain lasts much longer and I give up.

I know the reason why the marathon in Greece felt so amazing was because it was in Greece.  I gave myself permission to rest when I needed.  I didn't look at my watch to check my progress.  I simply allowed myself to be present in the race.  As a result, I will always remember this marathon and have feeling of accopmlishment with me.  For the first time since I have started racing I finally get the fact that I don't have to prove myself to anyone but me.  It only took 3 marathons in just over a year and travelling across the world to find it... but I get it.

Does this mean I'll stop racing - hell no!  I've ran 9 races this year and I'm seriously contemplating running this one http://www.boxingdayrun.ca/.  To make it an even 10.  My competitive edge is always just under the surface and I want to be the front of the the pack in pretty much every run.  But I'm learning I don't have to be first in every single time and some days the best runs are when you can be with your girls and chat.

After all of these deep thoughts I'll share my finish line shots from Athens.  These are the pictures my husband took. The first shot, I am just coming into the Olympic Stadium.  I was 5 minutes faster than when I had told my husband I would be in, yet he was optimistic that I would finish faster than I had thought.  I was also running on my own.  I had lost Rick and Tracey and there should have been three of us coming in together.  So the fact that he saw me at this point is pretty amazing.

 Here I am running in on the Olympic track.  To me this was pretty phenomenal that I was running on the same surface world class runners had competed on.

 In this shot, I have just heard Dan yell my name.  It was the first time I had heard English spoken in quite a while and the first time I heard someone cheering my name.

 I really wanted a shot of me with my arms in the air.  I haven't had the best luck with race course photographers, so I turned around and ran backwards so Dan could get a picture of me.  After the shot, I danced my way to the finish.  This, my friends is what running should feel like.

Running for the Fun of It!

The hardest thing about finishing a training program is staying motivated.  For me, I usually make sure I have another race planned a few months after I race the one I'm training for.  I was too busy as the Road2Hope approached to get anxious about not having a race on the horizon after I finished the half and took off for Greece.  And for the most part I am still riding my post marathon high and have been able to fight off any urges to train for something "big".  I do get an addict-like feeing when I hear people talking about training for Around the Bay; knowing that I won't be running or training for the 30k race this year.  I have decided to run as a 3-person relay.  But it is hard to not have a plan in the works.

On Saturday I went out for a fun 7k girl power run with Gina and Katherine.  We ran and caught up.  I think I mostly talked about my trip and race.  I yesterday - just a quick 5k for no other reason than I wanted some fresh air.  Today I missed my planned gym workout so I went for a 7k run.  I will take tomorrow off from running.  I will be back to my intense yoga class so I will need all the energy my body can muster for the evening. 

Plus three days in a row of running is tiring even when you are not still recovering from a marathon.  But I think its like anything in life when you don't have to do it, whatever it is is that you don't have to do is that much more appealing.  Something great did happen during all of these non-required runs - and its something I'm rather embarassesd to admit to.  Here is a picture of my watch from today's run:

If you check out my best pace, you will notice that its in minutes per km.  No biggie you might think... well... I just figured out how to switch that from km/h to km/minute.  Duh - I am coming clean on the fact that I didn't know how to switch my watch to that setting.  I'll admit that I didn't read the instructions, but I work on a computer all day - I'm supposed to be technically savey.

Anyway this setting will hopefully help me run at the pace I need to in order to reach my goal times and help me stay on pace in races.  One of the things that the Road2Hope taught me was that I need to use this watch more than I have been.  I need to feel what running at a 5:14 minute/km pace is really like.  This also means something else, my husband was right about my training.  He kept asking when I was going to wear this watch and how was I planning to run a half marathon in a specific time if I didn't know what my pacing was in my training runs.  He was right.  Man that's almost as hard to type as it was seeing the clock at the finish lline reading 6 minutes more than my goal time.

High Tea at Langdon Hall

This afternoon my mother-in-law took my sister-in-laws and I to tea at Langdon Hall in Cambridge as an early Christmas present.  My mother-in-law's friend and her daughters and daughter-in-law were also there.  The ten of us were seated in a room by ourselves and served this menu...

We were served scones first... someone pinch me.  These were amazing. 

The scones were followed by this...

I loved the desserts on the top part of the tray.  It was perfect little bites of everything.

I owe a huge thanks to these two ladies...

My mother-in-law on the right and her friend arranged for this tea and it was a wonderful afternoon to sit around and visit with my sister-in-laws.



Soup for the Soul

It snowed today.  Not piles of snow, but thick flurries that made seeing a far distance difficult.  It was the type of snow that made you realize that winter is coming and there isn't anything you can do about it.  Luckily for me yesterday I had made soup, so today it was perfect.

I make soup a lot and a different kinds of it.  But the soup I had for dinner tonight I've named Soup for the Soul.  You can add whatever variations of beans, vegetables and grains you're in the mood for or have on hand.  The rice can be exchanged for barley or farrow.  The mung and adzuki beans can be exchanged for black beans... you get the idea.

The wonderful thing about this soup is it makes you feel nourished and cared for. 

Its the type of soup to eat when you are struggling to return to normal routines after a vacation. 

Its the type of soup to eat when you skip a run because its too cold outside.

Its the type of soup to eat when your mechanic tells you your vehicle still is not ready to be picked up.

Its the type of soup to eat when its cold outside and you need comfort food.

And its perfect for toady.



Soup for the Soul

Ingredients

1/2 cup of mung beans picked through and soaked for 2 hours and drained
1/2 cup of adzuki beans picked through and soaked for 2 hours and drained
1/2 cup brown rice
1 onion chopped
3 stalks of celery chopped
3 carrots peeled and chopped
1/2 turnip peeled and chopped
1 cup of frozen peas
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon oregano
salt & pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cups soup stock
water as needed

Directions
Heat oil in large pot.  Saute onions for about 2 minutes.  Add celery and carrots and continue cooking for about 2 more minutes.  Add garlic and saute for another minute until garlic becomes translucent.  Add tomato paste, stock, beans, rice and turnip and bay leaves.  Allow soup to simmer.  Cook for about 1 hour until beans and rice are cooked adding more water if needed. Stir in peas and oregano.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Note: I served this with garlic toast, but its good on its own and even better the next day after the flavours have blended a bit more.  Like I said earlier you can use what ever combination of vegetables, grains and bean you have on hand.  I usually add spinach to this soup, but I didn't have any in the fridge tonight.