Her recipe also is inspire by Iowa Girl Eats.. It was super easy to put together and my whole family devoured it – not a morsel left!

I had lime rice on the bottom, topped with black beans, the seasoned chicken and cheese!

For the chicken, I made a rub from these ingredients:

1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

In a cast iron skillet, I added 5 cloves of garlic, sliced, 1/2 a white onion sliced and sauteed that for a few minutes. Next I added 1 jalapeno – seeds removed and cooked for another minute. Add the juice of 1 lime and the zest of 1 lime.

I added the chicken (however much you need to feed your family), then the seasoning (a few tablespoons) and cooked that until the chicken was no longer pink in the middle.

Meanwhile I cooked some brown rice. I used a quick cooking version of brown rice that’s ready in 15 minutes. Cook the rice according to your package directions. Once that is done, then I squeezed the juice of 1 lime and the zest of 1 lime into the rice. I unfortunately didn’t have cilantro .

For the black beans, rinse 1 can of black beans and I added 2 tsp. of the seasoning I used for the chicken and cooked that in the microwave for a minute so it was warmed through.

Next – build the bowl. I put the rice on the bottom, then the black beans, the chicken and topped with a little cheese. The only thing I really missed was not having any avocado. BUT, for making this with what I had on hand – I thought it was pretty deluxe!

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So tomorrow my husband and I are going to be running on the Lakefront for Team in Training. We are running the Christy Clinic Illinois marathon (I’m doing the half). My run tomorrow is 6 miles, my husband has to run 10!!!

We are raising money for The Leukemia And Lymphoma Society – we have started a $5.00 buck Friday – do you have an extra $5.00 to spare?

HERE IS OUR DONATION PAGE – PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN

I just read an e-mail from one of our coaches that there is a half marathon on the Lakefront path tomorrow with 1,200 participants, so that should be interesting! We will probably cross paths at some point.

Have a great weekend and HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

So quick and easy!

I made this quick and easy recipe last night for dinner and it turned out great. All it was was turkey kielbasa, potatoes, peppers and onions and put on Kabob! Since it’s colder than heck here in Chicago, there was no outdoor grilling, but your broiler can work in a pinch!

I didn’t peel the potatoes, I used red potatoes and just washed the skins really good. I cut those into quarters and cooked in a pot of water for about 20 minutes or until they were cooked through.

Since the kielbasa is already cooked, you just need to cook these for about 5-7 minutes per side until it’s heated through. Just watch it if your broiler is really close to the flames and maybe place it lower so they cook and don’t get charred.

I will definitely be making these again soon.

Now on to my Half Marathon training. My husband and I are raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. If you can make a donation – here is our fundraising page – no amount is too small! THANK YOU FELLOW BLOGGER FRIENDS LORI AND JOANNE WHO HAVE MADE DONATIONS!!! I REALLY APPRECIATE IT

On schedule this past Saturday was a 6 miler for me and 8 miles for my husband who is doing the full marathon. We opted out of the group training, since we had a lot of snow late into Friday and it would be super cold at 8:00 a.m. we thought the path wouldn’t be cleared by then. So we had to train by ourselves. My husband runs way faster than me, and the thought of running laps at the local high school didn’t seem too fun, so I went on to Map my Run and mapped a 6 mile loop from my house.

To be honest, after sleeping in and hanging out in my jammies all morning, the thought of getting bundled up and running by myself did not appeal to me AT ALL! I really wanted to just blow it off, but I have to run another 6 this weekend and already 8 miles the weekend after that, so I can’t miss the long runs. I think that’s how I was able to finish both marathons I did, I didn’t ever miss a long run.

It took me a long time to finish – because some of my neighbors hadn’t shoveled their walks AT ALL from the day before. So I would run a half a block, climb over snow, run a block, walk a block over snow pretty much the whole way. But, I thought about all the people we’ve met dealing with cancer, and other people in my life who are in poor health and I thought about how lucky I am that I am healthy and I can do it – so that kept me going! And in reality, once I got started I wasn’t cold at all and it was 22 degrees outside!

So, my work out area in my basement is now all nice and clean. Thanks to my son Mark for hooking up the VCR – I bought one at Good Will for $2.50 so I can play my VHS work out videos. When I brought it home, he said “where are the cords for the TV?” Ummmm… I don’t know – it didn’t come with that! So he went digging in a basket where we have all sorts of cords, found one that would work and set it all up for me! It pays to have a teenage son who can figure all that out for me!

Over the last 2 weekends I bought about 9 more work out videos so I won’t get bored. Taebo, The Firm, etc… most were 3 videos for a dollar, so you can’t go wrong with that.

Have a great day everyone!

This pesto is AWESOME!

This pesto is made with almonds and peppers and is delish. A little goes a long way, so you don’t have to use that much to add flavor to what you are making. Last week I made lunch with it a few times.

I used a cooked potato, mixed veggies, green onions, peppers, a scrambled egg and added some of the pesto and a leftover Target Chicken sausage – cut up. It was super filling and yummy!

Filling lunch!

But onto the RIck Bayless sauces! You can now buy in the grocery store some of his signature sauces. To be honest I wasn’t quite sure how it would taste – but was pleasantly surprised that these tasted so good! Definitely worth it to check out. I got the taco sauce and the enchilada sauce.

With the enchilada sauce I cut up some chicken, added a bag of frozen peppers from Trader Joe’s and cooked that until it was done. In a separate pot, I cooked up some orzo and drained that. I added the orzo to the chicken and peppers and used 1 packet of the enchilada sauce. Dinner was done in less than 30 minutes and there was no leftovers – so I consider that a hit!

Orzo, peppers, chicken and enchilada sauce

So thanks to my brother Charlie and his family for giving us such great gifts in our Christmas basket this year – we really loved everything!

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And on the Team in Training front, my husband and I went to the kick-off at Eduardo’s pizza in Skokie, IL on Saturday. Basically it’s a getting to know you, meet the coaches, go for a short 30 minute run, come back, eat pizza (nice!) and then we had a clinic about what to wear when it’s cold outside and layering from 2 men from Fleet Feet running store in Chicago. Although who needs that advice now since today is going to be in the 50′s again! Winter hasn’t really come yet this year – which is fine with me!

We got some stuff too – 2 new Team in Training shirts, the white one is for being alumni since this is my 4th event with the Team. We got water bottles and reps from FRS which is a company that has sports drinks for athletes, so we got to take some samples of that too.

The loot we got at the kick off!

It was a great time – we saw some team members from when we did our last event back in 2007 – and met Doug a patient honoree who is battling lymphoma – but also raising money and running events with Team in Training – I always get choked up meeting people like that.

So, our fundraising page is open for donations – no donation is too small – it all adds up!

Have a great day everyone!

Well, I had an idea of a recipe today that in my head sounded amazing, and I just went with my instincts. How did it turn out? Fabulous!

This recipe serves 7 servings

1 package Jennie-O Turkey Kielbasa
1 package egg noodles
1 tablespoon butter
juice of 1 lemon
5 oz. fresh shrimp
5 green onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
2 1/2 cups chicken stock, divided
1/4 cup all purpose flour
zest of 1 lemon
4 tablespoons fresh parsley
1/2 cup shredded Asiago Cheese

In a large pot, bring water to a boil and cook egg noodles according to directions, drain and return to the pot.

In a large skillet, add the 1 tablespoon butter, the garlic and green onions and cook for about 2-3 minutes. Add 2 cups of chicken stock. In a small bowl add the 1/2 cup of extra chicken stock with 1/4 cup flour and stir. This is going to help thicken the sauce. Add that to the skillet and cook on medium heat for 3-4 minutes until thickened. Add the shrimp, the cut up turkey kielbasa, the juice and zest of 1 lemon and add the parsley. Heat until the shrimp and turkey kielbasa is heated through.

You can sprinkle some more Asiago cheese on top before serving.

I entered the calories in www.caloriecount.com and for each serving it’s only:

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 246 g
Amount Per Serving
Calories 240Calories from Fat 77
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 8.5g13%
Saturated Fat 4.2g21%
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 83mg28%
Sodium 674mg28%
Total Carbohydrates 22.9g8%
Dietary Fiber 1.3g5%
Sugars 2.0g
Protein 20.0g
Vitamin A 9% • Vitamin C 15%
Calcium 11% • Iron 13%

I loved the sauce the best, it was lemony, but enough sauce so the dish wasn’t dry. I will definitely make this again and for my family of 5 – no leftovers! So I always take that as a good sign

Are you more comfortable cooking with a recipe – or do you just throw things together that sound good??

And – my husband wrote a great post about our Team in Training for the marathon and half marathon we are doing the end of April – it talks about where the money we raise goes for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Check out his post HERE to learn more about that.

And if you can spare any amount – no matter how small, our Team in Training Donation Page is HERE.

There are literally 20+ places within walking distance to eat by my office so when we were talking about where to go and she suggested Penny’s Noodles, I of course jumped at the chance. I know there is a location in Chicago, but there is also a location in Oak Park. They have pot stickers, fried rices, noodle bowls, etc…

I usually get fried rice but decided on trying something else. I got this:

Egg Noodles with Barbecued Pork
Sliced BBQ pork served over egg noodles then garnished with bean sprouts, green onions, cilantro, and ground peanuts.

It was so good! And I was proud of myself that I only ate half! So with the other half I decided to make a soup out of it. I brought 3 frozen pot stickers from my house and some frozen carrots and peas. I have chicken base powder at my office so I could make chicken broth and in less than 5 minutes I had this delicious soup!

And the best part was I could only eat half of this bowl, so now I’ll have a 3rd meal out of one restaurant meal!

I am happy it’s Friday! What’s everyone’s plans for the weekend?