Have you ever heard of Home and Garden Party?  I think it’s called Celebrating Home now. Anywhoo..its like AVON or (insert your favorite multi level marketing scheme here) and it’s one of the many ways in which I made money back in my late 20′s…which was like last year.

Home and Garden Party gave me the opportunity to hock these ceramic bean pots. Needless to say, I ended up with one of them.  As a means to sell more of them, I compiled a list of recipes that could be made in the pot and this “Pot Roast to Die For” is one such recipe.  If you don’t have a bean pot you can use a dutch oven or anything similar in shape.  Here’s what my pot looks like…

This is a dish that my husband loves and one that I made back when I was doing no carbs…I would just pick the taters out.  It’s deelish!

Start with a rump roast. You can use any cut of beef really. I just like the rump shaker booty rump. I’ve used thick steak before. Place that in your pot.

Next peel your carrots…on the smallest cutting board known to man. Make your kid pick up the carrot peels to feed your rabbits out in back.

Chop em up on a diagonal while pretending you’re Julia Child.  Or buy baby carrots if you’re a lazy cook.

throw em in the pot.

Speaking of throwing things into a pot… When Travis and I first got married, he told me a story from ye ole bachelor days about something he called ‘Fire in the Hole”. Have you ever heard of this? You throw everything in your fridge into a pot. Heat. And eat. And he wonders why he weighed a buck twenty five when we met.

Next up is an onion. I use Vidalia. I’m Southern.

Skin it. Quarter it and …”Fire in the Hole!”

Next, cut up some celery. I don’t always use celery, but I am trying to get in more greens and avoid potatoes so I needed another veg that could handle a long slow cooking time.

Add that to your pot.

Wash, peel and quarter your taters and try and stuff them into the pot. I always handle these last cause they tend to turn brown after peeling if you don’t get em in the oven soon after that.

Next its time to chef up the gravy for your roast. This is gravy for dummies. No joke.

Grab a cup o water in your four cup measurer.

Then grab your holy trinity of flavor envelopes.

Rip em open and pour them all into your measurer.

whisk

This will eliminate any lumps.

Pour your special sauce all over your pot roast fixins.

put the lid on it and place it in the oven and four hours later you’ll be ready to eat! Caution: you may want to leave the house while this is roasting…the aroma will drive you mad and your mouth will salivate.

This company Mile 22 can take your bibs and turn them into custom bags including backpacks, purses, totes, duffels, cross body, messenger and even diaper bags!

What about you? Do you keep your race bibs?

I start near this…a Dead End…that drops off into a canal. My neighbor put his truck and boat trailer there…I’m assuming because too many cars flew off into the water in the middle of the night. I don’t know that for a fact, but it sounds good

I live in a weird area.  We’re on a lake bordered by a nature preserve and a Mormon Ranch.  The area is a kind of rural retiree fishing community. Lots of streets named after fish. Oh..and there’s a police shooting range a few miles away so we get to hear gunfire on the regular.  It reminds me of the Beverly Hillbillies. On one side of the street you have lakefront homes and on the other side of the street you’ll find small cottages and fixer-uppers on dirt roads.

After the first quarter mile or so is the public boat ramp.  It was dead yesterday so you get a nice view of the lake.

This is one of my favorite houses…and it’s not on the lake side. I just love how it has lots of trees and is always perfectly landscaped.  Who can deny the beauty of a Grandfather Oak?

My road has big…long…stretches in it.

and snake carcases.

and headless cow mailboxes

and lighthouses…on the non-lake side mind you.

There’s a $#!t ton of these birds too. They’re Sandhill Cranes. Rednecks call em Whoopin Cranes because of the sound they make. Whoop! Whoop!

Nearly half of my run is done in this neighborhood.

It’s got four cul-de-sacs  and the HOA here must be a bear cause the houses and yards always look pristine.

Here’s their private boat ramp.

They’ve also got a tiny nature walk. I’m always tempted to run it, but it would slow my pace and Sasquatch could be waiting for me in there.

I see tons of planes. We’re right in the landing path for Orlando International Airport (MCO). Lot’s of families coming to visit the Most Magical Place on Earth!

Here’s a house I like alot. It reminds me of my grandparents’ house in West Virginia. You don’t see to many brick homes in Florida.  And this one hasn’t quite made up its mind if it wants to be brick or siding.

and here’s one I don’t like alot..or a little. Pink and gray. I kid you not. Reminds me of a baby shower. I wonder if Mary Kay lives here?

This dead tree is an accident waiting to happen. Mayhem is everywhere. I’m always looking over my shoulder to see if Dean Winters is going to push this dead pine on top of me. It’s right on the property line of two homes. I wonder if they have Hatfield and McCoy convos about the tree. You cut it down. No YOU cut it down. Pew! Pew!

You know the guy who gives out pennies on Halloween? Yeah.  That’s this guy.

and there’s a real bitch sourpuss who lives in that house behind the bushes. When my daughter and I were training for the Inaugural  Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10 Miler, we would drive our car down to this neighborhood to run at night.  ToT was a night race and we wanted our training conditions as close to the real thing as possible. This is the only neighborhood that is lit well enough for us to feel safe.

We parked the car on the shoulder the first night and started out on our run until the lady who lives here popped out of the bushes and told us we couldn’t park our car there cause the grass would get smushed. Mind you, we were on the public road side and not in front of her house.  I moved the car to the opposite side of the neighborhood in front of the boat ramp and we restarted our run from there. By the time we had gotten back over in front of this lady’s house she was still standing there like a creeper in the dark. I told my daughter, “Watch…I bet she called the cops”.

A few miles later and we were coming up to our vehicle by the boat ramp and what did we see? Yep. Two cops shining a flashlight into the car. We ran up to them and were told in not so many words that the roadside was public property and we could park where we wanted and there was nothing they could to to stop us. =) Take THAT sourpuss!

That’s the last house I see before leaving NorthShore and hooking a right back onto my road.  I’ve seen this squished pink tampon on the ‘regular’ and  I don’t like it…’period’.  But it does signify the end of Mile 3.

and there’s this dog. You know…that scary’ish dog who is just dying to jump over the fence and rip you to shreds run with you.

and that pretty much sums it up. That’s what my daily run consists of.

What do you see on your neighborhood runs that stick out in your mind?

Oh wait…you wanna disguise yourself as Mexican food. OK. I take you back.

This is a spin on a recipe that I got from the South Beach Diet Book.  I love making these cause they are perfect individual serving sizes. You can meal prep them and even freeze them and then just pop em in the microwave for breakfast. Top with some plain Greek yogurt or sour cream and you’re good to go.

I started by chopping up my veg. You can use whatever veggies you like. I used shredded zucchini, chopped mushrooms, chopped red onion and sliced black olives.

Next you’re gonna crack some eggs in a medium sized bowl and then you’re going to beat em. You’re violent!

In a large bowl you’re going to place your veg, cheddar cheese and Mexican Cotija cheese.

and mix it all about…

pour in the abused eggs.

Mix that concoction up and then decide that you want to turn your dish into a spicy Mexican concoction by adding a can of RoTel. If you’re not into spice you can just add a can of petite diced tomatoes instead.

Grab some jumbo foil baking cups and line em up on a cookie sheet.  I like these cause they free stand. No need to put them in a muffin tin. Make sure you spray your baking cups with non-stick cooking spray.

I use a large scoop to get the mixture into the baking cups.

Pop the tray in the oven and you’ve got breakfast covered for the next few days.

Life and diet are all about balance. If I didn’t have cheat days I’d surely lose my mind…and my motivation to make healthier choices on my non-cheat days.

Saturday night the hubby and I had some friends drive down from Savannah, GA for their anniversary and we headed out to Walt Disney World to celebrate with them. The photo above shows you just a lil bit of what cheat day looked like. My friend from GA actually got up at the butt crack of dawn and pounded out 16 miles before schlepping through Epcot with us. He is training for an ultra and is great motivation for me to get out there and exercise 5 days a week. I’m hoping that he will sign up for one of the races that I’m going to do this year and maybe slow down his pace and run with me. #PipeDreams

Since my last post, here’s what the workout schedule has looked like:

• Wednesday – 3 mile powerwalk on the treadmill cause my shins were hurting (why risk injury?)
• Thursday – 9 holes of golf on the Walt Disney World PALM Golf Course (Mexican cheat meal at Abuelos)
• Friday – 4 mile run
• Saturday – 4 mile walk through Epcot (cheat meals all day)
• Sunday – rest
• Monday – 4 mile run

Here are some of the clean eats I had this week…

Asian Inspired Salad

I’m not to keen on salads, but this one was pretty good. It was composed of mixed baby greens, wasabi peas, sunflower seeds, chopped chicken and mandarin oranges. I poured a little of the orange juice over the greens as dressing.

Spicy Guacamole with Celery

I used a spice mix with two haas avocados and incorporated diced grape tomatoes, cilantro, red onion, diced fresh jalapeno and cotija cheese.

Veggie Flatbread

Store bought whole grain flatbread topped with mozzarella cheese, diced petite tomatoes, parsley, onion, artichoke hearts and mushrooms. This meal is so easy to throw together!

Open Faced Lox and Dill Snackwich

I toasted two sides of whole grain sandwich thins, smeared them both with plain Chobani yogurt and topped them with smoked salmon and fresh dill from my daughter’s herb garden. Delish!

Quinoa Pilaf

Today’s lunch was quinoa pilaf. Quinoa is a seed that is super high in protien and cooks up in 15 minutes and is similar to rice. I cooked mine with spices, diced carrot, onion, zucchini and then folded in some golden raisins and sundried tomato. Served up with a side of mandarin oranges, it was delicious!

Do you have cheat days? What do your cheat day meals consist of?