Rest Day Ramblings

Hey, do you think someone was a bit pouty when she realized I took a shower to start the day instead of getting on my running clothes?

She's really going to be annoyed tomorrow when I put on the running clothes, but she won't get to come. I meant it when I said I learned my lesson: Elly's a 3-miler, and that's it!

On this Rest Day, I feel compelled to give a from-the-kitchen update. You might recall this disaster:

Sweet potato "Mom" fries meet their demise when the tops cooked,
the bottoms didn't, then they suddenly hit their burn-up point. Such
a pity.

I'd been successfully making the Mom Fries in our toaster oven, but for four people, it takes forever. Making them in the regular oven didn't work (as you clearly see above), but we surmised the burn-up happened because we were baking on a stone pan rather than a metal one, therefore, the bottoms just didn't get the necessary heat to bake such a wet, fleshy veggie. Last night, we got out our only metal pan, put down a piece of foil (but we're not sure why ...), and voila!

Sweet potato perfection. AND the cooked
spices taste like those off of an everything
bagel ... mmm!

My next venture in the kitchen was to try something I'd read on this blog. I check this one out pretty often to see what's new in the author's world of running. She and I have very different goals and very different lifestyles, but she does a great job with her site, so I like to see "what else" is out there in terms of detail to see if there's something cool to incorporate into our world. She often talks about having oatmeal and peanut butter at breakfast ... what a great morning fuel with slow-release energy in the oatmeal and protein in the peanut butter! But ... drum roll, please ...

Yuck.

What you see above is 1/3 cup oatmeal, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup milk; I cooked it up and added a heaping tablespoon of natural peanut butter. It just did not work for me at all. Yes, I did mix the peanut butter in. I kind of tried to swirl it, but that didn't work, so I ultimately mixed it entirely. It was just too thick for me. Brick mortar comes to mind. And, the truth is, I like my oatmeal without stuff in it. I never liked mixing my foods when I was little, I still don't like mixing them up, so I'm not sure why I thought this would work well.

Then again, I never thought I could run 2 consecutive miles, so a girl's gotta try! She has a bunch of other oatmeal-related ideas, so I'm going to check 'em out. See you after the a.m. run! And, if you try something new today, may it be a success!