Sunday, April 29, 2012

Epic Fail

Yesterday was great, VERY relaxing - I ran my second to last "long run" before the Cleveland Half Marathon!! We did 11 miles and I truly felt AMAZING, never better it was an AWESOME run and I did it in JUST under 2 hours!  Which is VERY fast for me!  Next week is 12 miles, then the following week we rest and do 6, then RACE!!

Today was AMAZING.  Totally beautiful day.

We planted an Azalea today :) on our quest to transform our front yard into gorgeousness :) I will post FULL pictures when we are done - I think we are going to get a few more.... Our backyard is turning out nice too - we planted some Hosta - still have a few more things to do though!



Tonight for dinner I tried to make crab cakes.... EPIC FAIL!  I am going to attempt again next week....

Have a great Monday!

XOXO

Monday, April 23, 2012

Monday :)

Monday, Monday, Monday :)

About to hop in bed, but wanted to share, before I did.  Work was great today, I launched a project I have been working on for a while, and boy does it feel good :). 

I am a little sore today from my run yesterday.

Zoey is doing great, she is getting bigger every day.  She is learning her basic commands "Come, Sit, Off, Down".  Her teacher gave us homework to work on "come" because it's the most important command for a dog to learn, it could potentially save her life...  I am so excited for her to go to her second class tomorrow so we can show her teacher "Sue" what we have been practicing :)

Tonight - I made a great new dish for dinner.

Colorful Chicken Dinner
Package of boneless chicken thighs (I bet bone-in would be great too)
1 orange pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 red onion
1 bottle of your favorite Italian dressing

mix and bake for 1 and half hours at 350.

For dessert, I made a fresh berry syrup & served over vanilla ice cream :) MMM






Fresh Berry Syrup:

3 cups of your favorite fresh berries
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
corn starch to thicken if you want :)

boil water/sugar - once boiling, add berries and stir until cooked to perfection.... the corn starch will thicken the sauce - and be AMAZING, I just didn't have any....

XOXO

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Rainy Weekends

Simple rainy weekends are beautiful - as unproductive as they are :)

Had my last class Saturday morning for the semester and now done with school for the summer...

Ran some errands with Kevin...

Played with Zoey...

Made "zucchini boats" RECIPE  is from "Proud Italian Cook" blog - which I love.  Here are my pictures





Last night we had dinner at our house with my father in law & Uncle Shawn - we had salad, grill, my famous turkey burgers* & grill veggies.
This morning I ran 10 miles!  We ran between and 10 and an 11 minute mile.  Felt great at the time and then I totally crashed when I got home...

Watched Moneyball - LOVED it.

*Turkey Burger Recipe
1LB Turkey
1TBS McCormick's Steak Seasoning
1TBS Worcestershire Sauce
1TBS Yellow Mustard

Mix and make patty's

XOXO

Friday, April 13, 2012

Easter Brunch

Sorry it's a little bit "after the fact" but it's been pretty crazy in Hagenhaven.  Zoey is certainly a lovable handful, as well as an increased workload at school has made it tough to blog....  NO EXCUSES - school is over next week and I am back to blogging :)

I wanted to share some of my Easter brunch pictures and recipes :)

What I made:

Spiral Ham - I used 10lb's for 15 people.  It was perfect, and I had plenty of leftovers for ham salad and ham soup.  I wrapped it in foil and heated for 2.5 hours.  Nothing special here, I just glazed with the packet it came with



Homemade Granola - GOODNESS, was this a hit!  As much as I want to, I certainly cannot take credit, I took the recipe from southernliving.  Honestly, try it - it was AMAZING and EVERYONE loved it.

Here is my parfait set up:



Quiche - This recipe I found and then tweaked with the help of my mother.  It was a HUGE hit so here is the recipe:




1 9 inch pie

1/2lb of ground sausage (I used sweet)
1 1/2 cup of chopped fresh broccoli
2 tablespoons of butter
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
salt/pepper to taste
4 eggs
1 can of evaporated milk
pie crust

In one pan heat up butter, onions and broccoli until veggies are soft and in a separate pan, cook ground sausage.  once everything is cooked put the sausage with the veggies and add the garlic at this point.  In a bowl beat the eggs and evaporated milk until very frothy and mixed.  Put the pie crust around the pan and add the veggie and meat mixture and then add the egg mixture.  Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until solid and browned on top.

I made birds nest cookies :)




~ Recipe (from a friend)

1 bag of M&M's Speckled Eggs
2 sticks of butter
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups of flaked coconut
1 container of white incing

preheat oven to 300.  Spread coconut on a non-greased cookie sheet.  Toast in oven stirring occasionally until it turns light golden (about 25 minutes)

Remove and set aside - increase temp to 350

in a large bowl mix your wet ingredients and sugar and in a separate bowl mix your flour/salt - and then blend

form dough into balls and roll heavy into coconut (I should have made mine MUCH more coconut).  Place on pan and make an indent with your thumb.  Bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown.  let cookie cool completely and then add icing and m&m

I made packages for our family with granola and a cookie :)



My mother made me homemade napkin rings - check em out :) - these are her pictures because I didn't get a good shot of them on my table - you can kind of see them in the basket on our dessert buffet table






This is my favorite Easter picture :) - to me it represents everything simple, this is "grandpa"



Here are my other random pictures from my very first EASTER Brunch :)







XOXOXOXOXO

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Goodness, Zoey!

This week has been crazy/fun, as we have had friends in from out-of-town.  Zoey had her first experience with a baby and she did SO well.  She was so happy and playful, no biting or barking or jumping.  Actually, up until yesterday, I have never seen her "bark" or "upset" at all.

I can't figure out why yesterday she was so bad....  here was our run-down.

6:00 - took her out to pee
6:10 - fed her medicine & breakfast/water
6:30 - Put her back in her crate so I can get ready
7:15 - Kevin takes her out and she goes to the bathroom, "potty" is our word
7:45 - Goes back in her crate so Kevin can get ready for work
11:45 - Kevin takes her out and plays with her etc
12:30 - Goes back in her crate
4:15 - I take her out and play with her, she goes "potty"
4:45 - Feed her
5:15 - I put her in her crate so I can go to speed training (best workout ever)
5:30 - Kevin takes her out and plays with her she goes potty
6:00 - she is acting like a crazy animal.... barking biting walls and everything in sight, snapping at...
7:30 - I get home and NOTHING has changed, she was acting crazy.... when we sat down for dinner she was BARKING SO LOUD and snapping at us and jumping on us and going NUTSO.... biting EVERYTHING in sight.......

This is the FIRST we have EVER seen this behavior.... the ONLY thing we did differently yesterday that we hadn't done before was not give her wet food - only her dry.... but she ate it just fine....  it was the first time she actually FINISHED all her food....

Not exactly sure what to do... hopefully she has a better day today.  I think we need more chew toys...  We are going to start reading a book lent to us by a friend and hopefully it was give us some pointers....



Everything online says to ignore her behavior - but when she is chewing our walls and snapping at us it's hard to ignore....

My RUN on the other hand was amazing.  I did 4 miles - 3 of which were a series of 400 and 800 sprints on a track (1 loop = 400 or 2 loops = 800)...  then a one mile normal run on a trail...  I am slightly sore but not as sore as I should be.... it was taking me roughly 2 minutes and 3 seconds to do a 400 and 4 minutes 20 seconds to do an 800....  Hopefully over the course of the season that will improve...  I will keep you posted.... shoes were still amazing.  I really need new running support though for my chest...  I am going to go sometime next week and try to find something....

Lots to do this weekend to prepare for Easter at Hagenhaven.  I am trying some new fun stuff, I will keep you all posted!

XOXO