This just in...a local 28 year old girl has just enrolled in Karate!

Have you seen that commercial? It makes me laugh SO hard!!

Well I've actually been taking Karate all summer! I started going just to hang out with Kristen and thought it'd be a good extra workout in my week...but I've really started to enjoy it! I feel super tough and really like learning the self defense portion...I DARE someone to try and steal my purse...and if you have a knife you are in SO much trouble! I'll send that thing flying out of your hands so fast you won't know what hit ya! :)

Next, on to my GREEN BELT! Watch out muggers everywhere...

When I'm not out fighting crime with my ninja-like skills I've been a bit of a Susie Homemaker around here! Well let me clarify, I'm way behind on the laundry, my gardens look awful with dead plants and weeds, and I STILL don't know how to work our iron we got 4 1/2 years ago, but I have been cooking some YUMMY dinners! Look to the right...in my profile...it says that when I find something I like I become obsessed with it...well i loooooove finding recipes and trying new meals right now!
It was a fiesta around here this weekend! On Friday I made Mexican Chicken and Avacado Soup:

It was really healthy and tasted awesome!
Then on Saturday I made a Southwestern Skillet! I put it on top of a baked tortilla, drizzled it with ranch, and added a side of salsa! aaaaahhhhh SO good!


Tonight I broke my mexican food streak and made Bourbon and Maple Pork Tenderloin with a side of garlic and onion sauteed green beans

...oh and lookie-loo what I found at the grocery store today...

mmmmmmmm! Tastes like a Flinstones Push Up!

Soooo, by this point have you gotten the idea that I LOVE FOOD!? :) Well I do and I'm proud of it!

Nice buns honey!

Oh.My.Goodness...I know I said I was on a quest to find HEALTHY recipes, but allow me to splurge just one more time! (Okay, nevermind, I won't make promises I can't keep) But this WILL be the last one for a while because my big bootie is feeling the effects of my cooking this weekend!
May I present to you, THE BEST CINNAMON ROLLS IN THE WORLD!

I have to admit I was pretty proud of myself to make these completely from scratch! The recipe takes a while, but oh man, well worth it!
Thank you Pioneer Woman for this fabulous recipe:
1 quart of whole milk
1 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup of sugar
2 packages Active Dry Yeast
8+1 cups of all-purpose flour
1 heaping tsp baking powder
1 "scant" tsp baking soda
1 heaping Tbsp of salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups melted butter
1 cup of sugar
generous sprinkling of cinnamon
Mix the milk, vegetable oil, and sugar in a pan. "Scald" the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point.) Turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour. When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but not hot, sprinkle in both packages of Active Dry Yeast. Let this sit for a minute. Then add 8 cups of all purpose flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour.

Add 1 more cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir mixture together. (At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it-overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to splurge out of the pan, just punch it down.)

Sprinkle surface generously with flour. Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape. Drizzle melted butter over the dough. Now sprinkle sugar over the butter followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.

Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Next, pinch the seam to the roll to seal it. Spread 1 Tbsp of melted butter in seven round, foil cake or pie pans. Then begin cutting rolls approximately 3/4 to 1 inch thick and laying them in the buttered pans. Repeat this process with the other half of the dough. Let the rolls rise for 20-30 minutes, then bake at 400 degrees until light golden brown, about 15-18 minutes.

Maple Frosting

1 bag of powdered sugar
2 tsp maple flavoring
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup brewed coffee
1/8 tsp salt

Mix together all ingredients listed and stir well until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm rolls. Go crazy and don't skimp on the frosting! :)
Okay, I promise, it's back to healthy...at least until I get my next crazy craving!!

On a different note, my little buddy Cooper Holloman (Kelli's youngest boy) was taken to the ER at the end of last week and his appendix ruptured! Poor baby! He's doing good and may be coming home today...fingers crossed! Kelli has been STIR CRAZY up at the hospital and has missed 4 days of training, which means MISTY has trained the last four days ALONE! YUCK-O! I didn't realize how much I needed my workout buddy until the last four days! I know you can't even talk during a 60 minute swim anyway, but just knowing she's in the lane next door somehow makes it easier! I can't wait for her to be back!!

Well, I hear kids screaming wild in the gym, so I'm off! :) I leave you with this...just a glimpse of the fun days of Summer 2010...which I'm sad to say is slowly coming to an end...

The Good and The Better...

I was going to say that I had a "good choice" recipe and a "bad choice" recipe for you...but at the last second I changed my mind and decided that no matter how bad it is, it is even BETTER! :) Make sense???
The other night I made Chicken Spinach burgers. I used a super extra lean ground chicken so it was really healthy! And since I'm trying to limit the amount of bread carbs, I didn't actually make it into a burger. I just topped it with some sliced tomato and a sprinkle of feta cheese.
I roasted butternut squash drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with a no-salt seasoning (also trying to cut down my sodium, which has made a HUGE difference for me!).

And of course in Misty fashion I had a giant Claussen pickle on the side, a cup of salsa for dippie, and a diet coke and I was a super-happy girl!
So we'll call that a good day...got some good workouts in and a nice healthy dinner....
THEN THERE WAS YESTERDAY...
I'm sitting at my desk, minding my own business, and what thought came into my head?? CUPCAKES!
I have no idea why! Cupcakes actually don't even usually tempt me that much, but I had an idea in my head and I couldn't focus on anything else. I made myself finish working on my Fall paperwork for Tumbling Stars and then cut out early...
I ran to WalMart and got my supplies and I was ready! I was kind of making the recipe up as I went along (a mix of about 5 recipes I'd seen), so I was just praying they'd turn out ok. I was pretty happy with the results!


The ones with chips on top are what I named Cupookies!! They are a chocolate and caramel flavored, but have a surprise ball of cookie dough baked right in the middle! :) YUMMY!! The others that have crushed candy bar on top are Snickers Cupcakes and have a miniature snickers bar in the middle!


So about 3 hours worth of work all so I could satisfy my craving for ONE cupcake...but it was TOTALLY WORTH IT! I'm finding that I really love cooking or baking, especially when I have someone or a group of people in mind that I think are going to enjoy it!

Cooking, Running, Puking....actually in that exact order!

So I'm obsessed lately with finding recipes that are AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS as well as healthy...IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?! Listen, I am a lover of food! Eating is a social event for me, food makes me happy, and if you ever want to see me rebel in a big way tell me I absolutely can't eat something. I don't care if it's something I don't even like...if you tell me i CAN'T have it, I will WANT it even more! :) I pride myself on having a stomach of steel (well, this morning was an exception, but more on that in a minute). Typically, I could eat mexican food for every meal of the day. Heck, I can walk straight out of a mexican food restaurant and go for a run and I'll feel just fine! I can hang with the big boys when it comes to eating and there's just really nothing dainty about me! However, you can see how all of this does NOT go well with a crazy/rigorous training schedule. So...I'm changing my mindset...food is FUEL. It's a necessity to live! EAT TO LIVE, don't LIVE TO EAT! If you know me at all, you know this new thought does NOT come naturally to me. So I repeat it to myself 1,000 times a day hoping that one day I'll believe it.
On my quest to find new and exciting recipes that are healthy AND yummy, I've found tons of blogs, websites, and discussion forums FULL of recipes! Some of them are SURE to end up being disgusting, I'm sure I'll ruin a few with my less than great cooking skills, but I'm hoping to come across a few "diamonds in the rough", if you will, when it comes to DELICIOUS, HEALTHY meals! And of course, I can't wait to share all of them with you...the successes and the failures!
I'd say last night's was a success. Don't get me wrong, I didn't lean back in my chair moaning with miserable satisfaction like I do after a meal at Pappasitos (you think I'm kidding? I know that sounded dirty, but THAT'S HOW MUCH I LOVE FOOD!), but it was good!
I made Chicken Roll Ups with a side of garlic green beans.

Flatten out some lean chicken breast, rub with spicy mustard, add one slice reduced fat cheese (whatever kind you like), celery and carrots, roll up and secure with toothpicks...

...spray with Italian Vinegarette Dressing (salad spritzer) and place on a greased pan/sheet and VOILA!

The green beans were just cut green beans sauteed in a skillet with some hot EVOO (as Rachel Ray would say! Extra Virgin Olive Oil) and some browned garlic! MMMMMMMMM!

While my dinner was cooking I decided to try one more recipe. I keep hearing how you should just AVOID the center aisles of a grocery store...if it has enough preservatives in it to allow it to sit on a shelf that long, it's not good inside your body! Well, I guess that does make sense! However, all of these protein bars, energy bars, and other things I supposedly should be taking in during a 2+ hour workout are on an aisle! So, why not make my own energy bars?? Like I said, I'll try anything once!

In a bowl I combined:
1 scoop whey protein
1/2 cup natural crunchy peanut butter
2 TBSP honey
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk powder
Berry of choice (i did mixed berries, but you could do just raisins)
Then I formed them into little logs...ok, I KNOW it looks like poo-poo...

...but most energy bars LOOK like it and TASTE like it too! I think these will be YUM-O! I haven't tried one yet, they are chilling in the fridge, but on my next long workout I'll have one and report back!

So, what a great evening, and I woke up feeling awesome! I got out of bed at 4:45am ready to teach my 6am PiYo (Pilates/Yoga) followed by a quick run (according to the tri calendar). Then I made my big mistake...I took a horse-pill sized multi-vitamin because LaLa (my second mommy) always gets on to me about not taking any. However, DON'T DO IT ON AN EMPTY STOMACH! I KNOW this rule...I actually sat there and debated eating something to go with it, but in a rush left the house and never got around to it. I felt great all through PiYo and even started off one of the best runs I've had in a while. I don't know if it was the new running shorts (a new running accessory always makes me feel fabulous), the new playlist on the iPhone, or the fact that my workout buddy is out of town and I thought if I ran faster I could get it over with quicker, but I started out at a WAY faster pace than normal! I could sit back all day in my lazy pace and run for hours...but I'm talking 2min/mile FASTER than I normally do! Pair this with the fact that it was, I swear, 150 degrees at 8:00am and I was DYING!! Being the stubborn brat that I am, I REFUSE to walk once I've set my workout. But let's just say you are FORCED to stop for just a second when you make a visit to the pukie club...yep, right there off of 518...2.5 miles away from my car. Oh well, what do you do? I popped in the spare piece of gum that I always have in my pocket, cranked the music back up, and finished the run! They say "pain is weakness leaving the body", well a LOT of weakness left my body this morning and now I feel great! It's 9:30am, the kids are starting to pour into the front door of Tumbling Stars and I'm off to start my Tuesday!