Tag Archives: holidays

Holiday Calorie Pile Up… and Burn off!

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How the HECK does one eat healthy during the holidays?!  Well, the answer for us normal people is… you DON’T.  You allow yourself to eat whatever you want to eat because its a special time of the year with amazing dishes that are only prepared during this season… and amazing bottles of wine that are only opened during this time too!  Are you really and truly going to prohibit yourself from indulging?  Well, if you are, than you’re a stronger woman than I (and I’m known by many to have pretty amazing will power).

The trick isn’t to abstain, its to MODERATE.  And, if you have time off like I do, just increase your physical activity.  It takes the edge off of all that family-time stress anyway    ;-).

Look at the delicious foods I’ve had the pleasure of stuffing my face with for the past week.

So, here was this week’s workout schedule to balance it all out:

Monday:  Run a fast 3 miles to start things off right.

Tuesday: Cycle 15 miles and register for swimming classes to assure I follow through.

Wed: Ran 6 miles on the morning of Christmas  Eve with my friend Jessica!

Thurs: Relaxed but felt guilty about for approximately 10 minutes before having a glass of wine and watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on the couch.

Fri: Ran 9 miles and hit the stores for some retail cardio: after-Christmas sales!

Sat: Light walk and clean the house.

Sun: Holiday 10K with my friend Caitlin!

Tap and Run Orlando 2013!

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So, we joined the “over the hill” costume category at the Orlando Tap and Run 2013!

Check out our amazing costumes!

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Amazing!! We had fellow runners take photos of us and with us! …..

Here’s how we did it: moomoos from thrift store, foam rollers, shower caps and glasses from dollar store, saggy boobs are loofas we safety pinned to our sports bras…. Fun times!

Crazy Costumes and Holiday Traditions

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My sister and I have created several traditions for ourselves around the holiday season. The newest of these is running a Christmas themed 5k in full costume (do you see a theme here? Lol). Last year, I went up to visit her in Orlando and we ran Mickey’s Jingle Jungle 5K at Animal Kingdom dressed as reindeer. Our costumes, I must say, were pretty impressive and we had more than a few fellow racers ask to take photos with us!

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This year, the pressure was on to top our previous awesomeness! The solution: Sexy Mrs. Clause!
Check out our photos from this morning’s Reindeer Run 5k at Seaworld, Orlando!

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But this isn’t the only costume race we’re doing today…. This afternoon we’re doing a “Tap and Run” with some pretty epic costumes….. Stay tuned for the hilarity!

Peaches and Creame

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Peaches and Cream:

This is yet another extremely easy holiday dessert in my repertoire.  It is so easy, in fact, that I don’t like to tell people how to make it so that they still believe me to be more amazing than I really am in the kitchen!  It boasts only 4 simple ingredients and is so delicious, I have NEVER had any left-overs when I bring it to gatherings.

Ingredients:

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1 block of cream cheese brought to room temperature

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 package of lady fingers

1 large can of quartered or halved peaches in heavy syrup

Directions:

Let it sit over night in the fridge so that lady fingers soften and flavors meld… absolutely divine!

Spinach Balls with Pine nuts

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Spinach Balls:
These are a delicious (but due to the high butter and bread content, not so nutritious) appetizer for any party.  We usually serve these along-side bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, a big ol’ plate of stinky cheeses with French bread, olives, charcuterie and other similarly amazing things that fill you up before you even sit down for the main show.
We’ve been making these for years.  The recipe was originally given to us by my Aunt Lynne who swears she doesn’t remember where she got it from.  Possibly a newspaper clipping or an index card from a relative… regardless the source, they’re great. 
The original recipe didn’t include pine nuts.  This is a little Mediterranean spin my mom added but has become an integral part of the recipe ever since.  Trust me, you NEED the nutty crunch it adds.
Ingredients:
2 boxes of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of all its moisture
3 cups of herbed stuffing
6 eggs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 small chopped onion (half a regular sized onion)
1 1/2 sticks of melted butter (3/4 cup)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup pinenuts
If butter is unsalted, add about 1 tsp of salt.  Omit if using salted butter.
Directions:
Mix all ingredients together and roll into walnut sized balls and place on a foil lined sheet.
bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
At this point you can either serve or freeze for later use.
Simply thaw out the day of your party and heat through.  Delish!!

Irish Creme Berry Trifle… Let the holidays begin!!

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The Holidays are a time for being with family, enjoying your friends and… eating. A LOT. And, as much as I love eating, I have to say that I almost enjoy baking and preparing holiday foods even more. I always loved helping my mom in the kitchen when I was younger and some of my fondest memories are those that include the amazing smells of certain dishes that MUST be served yearly in our household. Now, I love making those recipes myself (or heading over to mom’s and helping her out like the good old days).

Although I have been sworn to secrecy and have promised my mother to never divulge the details of our most prized recipes, there are some yummy things I can share with you. Namely, those things that I have created myself and have become NEW traditions. I’ll be honest, I can bake a mean cake from scratch by following a recipe but, I’m not a chemist so I’m no good at coming up with recipes on my own. I take recipes that already exist, add a few things, omit others and put my spin on them. A lot of times, they are “semi-homemade” but they are never “semi-good”… They’re always totally amazing 😉

The first yummy recipe I’m going to share with you is almost not a recipe at all. Its more like a set of directions on how to put together something that is both gorgeous and delicious: Irish Crème Berry Trifle. You are guaranteed “ooooohs and aaaaaahs” every time you bring this to the table and it is the desert that inspired my friend Kris to name me her “most Martha Stewart-y friend I know.”

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Ingredients:
1 box of prepared yellow cake mix (follow directions of your favorite brand)
Irish crème
I pint each: Blue berries, raspberries and strawberries
Small cool whip
1 box of vanilla Jello pudding prepared (I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to make it special)
Raspberry jam

Directions:
1. Slice the prepared cake into rectangular pieces and place one layer on the bottom of your trifle dish. (yes, you need to invest in a trifle dish to make this recipe. They’re really inexpensive and easy to find at discount stores like Marshalls, TJ Max, Homegoods or Ross.)
2. Drizzle ¼-1/2 cup of Irish crème over the cake so that it gets absorbed.
3. Spoon and spread raspberry jam over cake.
4. Carefully spoon pudding on top, making sure that the layer is clean at edges of trifle dish.
5. Layer berry mix
6. Layer of cool whip
7. Repeat until you are at the top!
8. On top of your last layer of cool whip, decoratively place some berries.

Let set over night so that the irish crème has time to absorb and the flavors meld.
Gorgeous!!

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Let the holidays begin!! More festive recipes to follow.