Wilde Week #9

1. Being a child of the nineties, there are so many things to miss! I really miss #23. Remember those tiny floaty bubbles in Orbitz? They were awesome.

2. I'm spending the weekend in Amherst, NY! It's not only my dads birthday, but I was invited to Perry's ice cream to be a taste tester! I brought my dad with me (As his birthday present. I'm cheap!) and I'm also enjoying all the foods that Western New York has to offer!

Izzy and Bella say hi!

Dad and I spent a few hours with Perry's ice cream taste testing the new flavors!

A quick stop at Watson's chocolates is always necessary!

Ted 's versus Theodore's?  Each local has their opinion.

Bella is ready for Easter!

3. Eight miles to run today, I hope it stops snowing!  I am ready for the cold weather with my new hat, but slogging eight miles over snow covered streets doesn't really appeal to me!  First week of springing Buffalo and three inches of snow fell yesterday. I met someone at the airport who was also flying to Buffalo. He asked how warm it would be this weekend and was surprised when I told him it would be just above freezing. But it's spring!  He said. I laughed and told him spring starts in Mayin Buffalo. The businessman across from us laughed. He knew. 

4. Let it be known BF took this weekend of me being away to go and visit his parents. In Florida. He keeps posting pics on facebook of sunny skies. I'm super jealous/hate him. 

5. I've got nothing else today, I'm so full of ice cream and hot dogs!  What do you like to pig out on when you visit your hometown?  I'm looking forward to a chicken finger sub this weekend! 

Lightened Mac'n'Cheese

Tuesday I told you about my treadmill running.  Today, I'd like to discuss running outside!  Long runs are best done outside. The monotony of the treadmill would make any run longer than four or five miles a chore. Boyfriend prefers running outside.  Mostly because he falls off the treadmill.  His legs are too long.  He also likes running in the rain and cold.  Something about "earning it."

My 8am, 6 mile run this Saturday took my from my apartment, down a wide street and through the park. It was exactly six miles, an out and back run with a loop through the park. On my outdoor runs, I keep track of my pace and mileage with MapMyRun+ on my iPhone. It tracks me with satellites and records my route down to the closest 1/100th of a mile.

The nice lady in the app tells me when I reach each mile and how fast I'm going. I know that if my pace drops below nine minutes per mile, that I need to pick up my feet for the next mile. The mile callouts are helpful when I'm doing an out and back run, rather than a loop.

When my workout is over, the app shows me my splits for every mile I ran, along with a terrain map. That way I can tell that lost a minute from my pace when I was heading uphill.

This weekend I'm heading to Buffalo to visit my parents and the Perry's ice cream factory. This means that I will be doing my long run in the Buffalo cold. I bought a hat and gloves just for the trip! I will even show my mom how to track me on her phone, just so she can make sure I didn't slack off and stop at my brothers house for a break!

Three and a half weeks until my half marathon and I'm looking forward to it! We'll see if BF joins me on my run, he's been too busy to train with me! Silly work is getting in the way. Now I just have to find the perfect running outfit and I'll be ready to hit the starting line.  I can tell you one thing, it will be neon and you'll see me coming!

Today I made you something ahead of time!  I've been spending a bit of time each Sunday, preparing a meal that BF can just put in the oven.  This way dinner can be on the table when I get home, with minimal work from either of us.  Starting in April this will be a biweekly post, so stay tuned for Make Ahead Mondays!  This week, I made you some lightened mac'n'cheese.  Yum.

Homemade Thin Mints

My marathon training continues as it seems to be getting easier to run these longer and longer distances. This weekend was my first "long run," with me logging six miles on a chilly Saturday morning. The training program that I am following gradually increases the weekday runs, from 2 miles to 5 miles, while the long Saturday runs increase by two miles each weekend.

During the week I like to use the treadmill. Especially since I run either very early in the morning (like my 5am, 4 miler yesterday) or late at night (I have a 5 mile run set for 9pm tonight). Right now it's dark outside at those times of day!  Though the best thing about running on the treadmill are speed intervals.

My usual running pace is between 8:30 and 9:30 per mile. I can run at this pace very comfortably and breathe normally. On the treadmill, I tend to get bored about a mile before I hit my goal distance. What do I do? I increase the speed until I'm breathing heavily and have to work hard to keep up with the belt. Yesterday I maxed out at 7:00 per mile.

Speed intervals not only help me bust out those last quarter miles in no time, but they also train my legs for the faster speed. After a week of speed intervals on the treadmill, I find my overall pace when running outside has improved!  Then I come back to the apartment and have a few post-run cookies!

Wilde Week #8

1. Three books this week! Mostly because I neglected to tell you about my book of the week last week. They are all pretty quick reads, so load one onto your kindle and cozy up with a hot drink.

Book 1 - Culinary Reactions - The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking by Simon Quellen Field.  I was so disappointed in this book.  I got this book as a Christmas present and have been waiting to read it.  I thought it would be fun and interesting to learn the science behind cooking and baking.  Sadly, I'm not quite sure who this book was written for.  For someone with a PhD in organic chemistry, this book was a bit too simplistic.  For someone with no chemistry background, this book is too complex.

Book 2 - Bonjour 40 by Karen A. Chase.  Another blog turned book, but I really enjoyed this one.  It made me want to travel to Paris again, but stay for a month of my own.  I do this a lot with travel essays.  They give me wanderlust and I find myself looking at flights on kayak for the next week.

Book 3 - before i fall by Lauren Oliver.  Yes, I have a problem and I love reading teen lit.  Don't judge.  A story about a mean high school girl who dies in a car accident, but that's just chapter one.  Then the day happens again.  This book is probably a great read for any high school student to help them reflect on bullying and how they treat people around them.  Personally, it depressed me and made me not want to have kids that grow up into teenagers.  Great story though, I'd totally recommend it.

2. This Friday at work we had our annual Pub Quiz. Although due to new company rules, it was an alcohol free pub quiz, which I think is just called trivia. Nonetheless, I'm apparently stupid. No really, I thought I knew random things? Nope, I'm a big ole dummy. You want to know which question I got right? Name one president, other than Lincoln or Kennedy, that has been assassinated. McKinley. Boom, I know stuff. The other thirty-nine questions? Yeah, I'm gonna pass on those.

3. I should also confess that I regularly play trivia with BF... We spend most Friday nights out at dinner, playing Sporcle on the iPad. Want to waste a few hours of your life, testing your general knowledge of useless things? Go here, you'll totally be sucked in. Don't say I didn't warn you.  Still, this weekly trivia did not help me at work.
4. Marathon training continues around here. This week I was on my own an in the gym because 1. BF had major work this week and couldn't come with and 2. It's been cold out. So far this week I've run ten miles with my big six mile run coming up later today! I'm thinking I need to get some new running shoes. Hot pink ones, like this. I will look really fast in them.

5. Can you believe that next week is the season finale for Pretty Little Liars? I feel like it just started back up a few weeks ago! And there has been so much going on this season, I'm so glad that I'm not one of these girls. My high school life was comparably boring! Don't watch PLL? You should. It's silly and suspenseful and dramatic and I want to dress like these girls, even though I'm 31.

6. I think I'm obsessed with marshmallow treats. I made a batch last week with biscoff. This week I turned a box of Lucky Charms into squares. Now I'm thinking of taking these freeze-dried raspberries and mixing them with marshmallow and cereal. Help me! I have a marshmallow addiction!

7. Nail polish of the week? I'm a little boring this week. I'm sporting haymarket by nails inc. LONDON under a layer of beyond cozy sparkle polish by essie.  My nails are so sparkly!

8. Are you ready for St Patricks day?  If not, head here, here or here and get inspired!  I'm going to put on my green pants and maybe make some more Lucky Charms treats!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

I usually don't do holiday posts, but I had to make these.  I don't really celebrate St. Patricks day in the traditional sense either.  You know, the whole - wear green, drink a copious amount of green liquor and stumble home in the early hours of March 18th.  It's not really my thing.  What I do love to do is coat cereal in marshmallows.  Then dunk the results in $10/pound Belgian white chocolate, you know, to class them up a bit.  After I tinted the fancy, Belgian white chocolate green.  They're super classy marshmallow treats.  Go make them and celebrate like the Irish cereal-promoting leprechauns celebrate March 17th.

Lucky Charms Marshmallow Treats

6 cups Lucky Charms Cereal

1 10-ounce bag Jet-puffed marshmallows

4 tablespoons butter

1/2 pound white chocolate

Green food coloring

Melt butter in a large pot.  Add marshmallows and stir until melted.  Add Lucky Charms and stir to coat. 

Coat a 9x13-inch pan with cooking spray.  Pour marshmallowy cereal into the pan.  Coat your hands with cooking spray and gently press marshmallowy cereal into the pan.  Let set for at least 4 hours. 

Turn pan upsidedown to release marshmallow treats.  Cut into reasonable sized bars.  Melt white chocolate in a bowl set over simmering water (or in the microwave).  Add a few drops green food coloring and stir until evenly colored. 

Dunk cereal treats in the chocolate and place on wax paper to set up and harden the chocolate.

Restaurant Wars - Red Lobster

I have two complaints when it comes to Red Lobster.  First, the wait.  I have never once walked into this restaurant and gotten a table right away.  It could be three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon and you could walk in to find a forty minute wait.  Second, the service.  I'm sure it stems from the really long wait and all the people wanting to sit down and eat, but the service you get is more along the lines of - sit down, eat your food and get out.  Red Lobster isn't the European, sit as long as you'd like, linger over a cup of coffee and dessert, kind of place.  Don't take your time, eat your food and give up that table!

The reason we come to RL?  The cheddar bay biscuits of course.  Isn't that why everyone goes there?  That and I don't cook a lot of fish at home because someone won't eat it.  Eating out is the best way for me to get my lobster, fish and shellfish fix.  When ordering out, I get to order the shmorgasboard of shrimp, lobster and fish meal! 

So after waiting almost fifty minutes for our table, Boyfriend and I ordered.  He got his favorite chicken linguine dish and I loaded up on broiled fish and shellfish.  I was trying to order something that wasn't super greasy, apparently broiling also requires heaps of butter, because my dinner was still floating in oil.  To was Boyfriends pasta, but that's just the way he likes it.  We ate lots of cheesey biscuits and had almost all of our dinners to take home.

For our Red Lobster dinner at home, I had to split it into two nights.  There was no way that I could make a pasta dinner and a fish and shrimp dinner at the same time.  As much as I would like to tell you that Boyfriend helps out in the kitchen, his kitchen skills begin and end at heating.  He's had a few culinary masterpieces, but for the most part he's a prepared food preparer. 

Sunday night we had spicy chicken linguine with my own take on cheddar bay biscuits.  Monday night I threw some chicken in the fridge for Boyfriend while I prepared myself some lemon tilapia and shrimp scampi.  I'm in love with the way the chicken and pasta turned out.  It was much lighter than the restaurant meal, but so full of flavor.  It's perhaps because I used an aged parmesan cheese that was amazing.  I wanted to eat it by the chunk.

Monday nights fish dinner was a little tricky to pull together, mostly because fish cooks so fast.  The fish was ready to go much faster than the shrimp and I wasn't ready to juggle all these things (I was also preparing broccoli, stuffing and Boyfriends chicken!).  The shrimp scampi was much lighter than what I got at the restaurant, mostly because I cooked the shrimp in half butter/half olive oil.  My tilapia was simply cooked in a little butter and spritzed with some lemon.  Simple and delicious.

If you only make one thing from this post, make the biscuits!  Oh man, I think I ate four or five of these Sunday night.  I totally deserved it after that long, four-mile run.  There are many recipes for these biscuits online, but they almost all utilize Bisquick.  I was looking to make them entirely from scratch.  With a little tweaking, I think what I came out with was amazing.  If you aren't a salt freak like I am, maybe cut the garlic salt in half.

Photo an Hour - A Wilde day in the Lab

I saw this a few weeks ago and had to give it a try myself.  It was hard to remember to take a picture every hour!  You should give it a try too, it was fun.

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Cake after workout is always a good idea.

I think I'll do this again on a weekend day, that way I can enjoy the contrast!

Thai Chicken Lettuce Cups

Dinner last night was messy.  I blame Shoprite.  It's all because they didn't have the lettuce that I wanted, that Boyfriend and I wound up with sauce all down our wrists.  All I wanted was bibb lettuce, with its nice cup-shaped leaves.  But no, Shoprite had to have romaine, Boston, iceberg, spring mix, everything but bibb lettuce.

Even with all the juices running down our hands, this dinner was delicious.  I always like adding fish sauce into my meals, mostly because it starts out smelling so discusting, but lends such fantastic flavors to my meals.  It's such an amazing transformation!

I wanted a light, yet flavorful dish because I still had three miles to run after dinner.  These lettuce cups were just the perfect dinner to have before hitting the road.

Then I came home and had some chocolate cake.

Wilde Week #7

1. MetroMint Water is my new favorite drink to bring to the gym.  When I try to describe it to people as water with a hint of mint, and chocolate, they think it sounds gross.  But it's not!  It's so refreshing.  The chocolate mint water doesn't really taste too much like chocolate, I swear it's not that strange.

2. My new favorite show is Funny or Dies - Billy on the Street.  While randoming flipping through channels (as men so often do), Boyfriend happened upon FUSE network and Billy Eichner.  Last week he ran around the streets of New York offering people prizes if they could guess their price.  If they guessed wrong, he smashed the prize on the ground.  Wonderful, crazy, fun.

3. Our new office dress code was recently put on the company portal and I decided to sit down and read through it, you know, to see if I'm blatantly ignoring it or not. Apparently the company is quashing all of my plans to be super cool at work. Here are some of the awesome things I'm not supposed to wear to the office...
- Leather pants (there go my dreams)
- spaghetti strap tops (although considering we all use space heaters year round in our office, I'm not too sad about this one)
- Sweatpants (feeling like not changing out of your pjs today? Too bad! Put on some real pants!)
- T-shirts with cartoon characters on the front (what about the back?)
- Work boots (it's a good thing I threw out my timberlands in the ninth grade)

So really, they seem pretty reasonable for a casual work environment, but seriously, no leather pants? Way to destroy my dreams work, way to go.

4. I ran a lot of columns this week at work.  All my fellow chemist friends will understand the pain and suffering involved in running columns.  Luckily I have a robot that runs them for me, but there is still a lot of rotovapping involved.

5. Apparently no one likes to go to the NJ Devils hockey games.  This was a bonus for BF because he was able to score two tickets for less money than we paid on parking and food.  That's right.  Two tickets for $30.  We weren't even in the top deck!  Personally I can do without all that hockey being played on the ice (though I am totally impressed with their ability to skate backwards), I attend sporting events for the food.  Specifially, the nachos.  Oh yeah, salty, cheesey and delicious. 

6. This necklace is totally adorable and it's on its way to my apartment as I type this! Hoot hoot!

7. And the Nail polish of the week?  "Baker Street" from nails inc, LONDON.  Or as I like to call it - TARDIS blue.  (I get almost all of my nail polishes at Sephora)

8. I'm loving these Lucky Charms treats.  I didn't get fancy marshmallow-laden cereal that often when I was little.  After I moved away from home, I was free to buy all the terrible cereal that I wanted and I wanted marshmallows shaped like stars!  Nothing could be better than coating the cereal in marshmallow and dunking them in white chocolate, yum.

Biscofferoos

Several years ago, I ate almost an entire pan of scotcheroos at a Super Bowl party.  And I didn't even feel guilty about it, because they were delicious.  Luckily this was before the start of WITK.  I wasn't obligated to recreate them in my kitchen and share them with you.

Little did I know that scotcheroos were a fairly common dessert treat and that you could find on the Rice Krispy website.  It was only recently that I learned the name of the bars that I devoured in between watching SB commercials and gabbing with my girlfriends.  It was at that same time that I picked up a jar of Biscoff spread from Fairway, fate seemed to have forced my hand to make these - Biscofferoos.

I thought I was being all creative, as all we bloggers think we are, until I checked the internet.  Apparently I was almost brilliant, except one person beat me to it!  So close.

Were these just as addicting as the original scotcheroos?  You bet your cutest pair of shoes they were!  I ate so many of these.  An unhealthy amount of them.  Then I brought them to work and fed them to my unsuspecting coworkers.  Mostly just one guy.  He ate 90% of them.  I ate the rest.

Side Note: Thankfully I made these before I began my marathon training, because I would have found myself sitting on the couch eating them and not lacing up my sneakers to hit the treadmill.

Chicken Florentine with Pasta

If you've been a long time WITK reader, you remember my early days in Colorado.  I was a year into my Postdoc and was also working as a fitness instructor.  After my move from Colorado to Connecticut, and subsequently to New Jersey, I haven't had the free time necessary to teach classes at the gym.  And I miss it so much! 

I was teaching nine classes a week when I was living in Colorado.  Bodystep, bodypump, bodyflow, TurboKick, bootcamp classes, it was all so much fun.  I had my regulars in each class and the people I gave a hard time when I didn't see them week after week.  We had a party everytime I stepped foot in front of the class, I had a great time making fitness fun with my gym friends.  Maybe some day I'll find the time to teach again.

It's been a year and a half since I started working here in and I've found my groove with work and the commute and I've started exploring the different gyms in Montclair.  And let me tell you, there are a lot of gyms in Montclair!  We have a fitness center in our apartment, it's the group fitness experience that I miss.  You know I've started taking Crossfit classes (and they are so much fun!).  This week I took advantage of an Amazon local deal and got a Barre fitness membership.

If you are a former dancer, cheerleader, baton twirler, you should really give bar classes a try.  There was totally a former ballerina in the back of the class I took this Saturday.  She was making us all look bad!  The bar class I took was a cardio and strength class.  We lifted weights, used slide boards (which I haven't seen in years!), did core work and worked our balance.  It was great and I felt taller and stronger at the end of class.  Plus, it's so fun to work out with a group of ladies and just have fun.

And...  I've signed up for my first HALF MARATHON!  Yikes!  I've got six weeks until I loop around Central Park in the More/Fitness Women's Half Marathon.  Are you in NYC?  Why don't you come out and run with me?  It will be fun... I swear...

I'll be following a fast-paced six-week training program to ramp up my distance to 13.1 miles.  It incorporates running along with crosstraining, so I will still have days to hit the Crossfit and Barre gyms.  To keep myself on track, I've added a fitness link up there at the top!  If you are looking to run a half or just want to workout with me (c'mon, it'll be fun!), follow along and we'll all be on our way to a healthier summer.

Wilde Week #6

1. Boyfriend had to go out of town this week for a dinner and meeting. This left me all alone for one night. What did I choose to do? I went back to Brooklyn and made cookies at Momofuku! Then I proceeded to eat way too many of them. So glad I went, now I finally understand all the nuances in the Milk bar cookie recipe! I was doing it all wrong!  Stay tuned for some delicious cookie recipes in the near future. Coming to NYC anytime soon? Sign up to go to a class yourself! Great way to spend a weeknight!

2. Books of the week Crossed and Reached by Ally Condie. Yes, I finished both sequels to Matched this week. I told you they were quick reads. Perhaps it's because I'm reading a bit below my age bracket. Whatever, they were fun books. The second book, Crossed, was a bit slow at times and didn't always feel like it was part of the same story as the first. book. The final book, Reached, was fast paced, interesting and a good way I finish the series. There were a few things that I wish Condie would have explained (like where in the world was this supposed to be set? Which country fell?) but all in all this was a fun series to read. Going on a beach vacation? Bring these books.

3. Crossfit this week - It was benchmark week, which is something they do every few months to give you a sense of how you are improving. Now I know I can row 2000 meters in 9:02 minutes and that next time I have to crush that time! Last Sunday we did pull-ups and on Monday I realized that I haven't done pull-ups in like fifteen years. OUCH!  I could hardly raise my arms to wash my hair!

4. Is anyone else glad Community is back on tv? They teased us so long about when it was coming back and now we've got Halloween episodes airing near valentines day, Christmas episodes airing near Easter and a fear that there won't be another season! C'mon NBC, I just want to watch funny TV!  I just can't wait to see what Chang is up to now.

5. Nail color of the week?  Swiss Cottage from nails inc LONDON.  It's green from one angle and blue from another, very fun.

6. I'm so ready for summer now. I've been searching for a cute bra, that doesn't look like a bra, to wear with backless shirts. Victoria's Secret Pink to the rescue! They have tons of these pretty lace bralets that look just adorable peeking out from under a shirt. Can't wait for warmer days!

7. Our verizon fios box needed replacing a few weeks ago because someone couldn't watch HD hockey.  So they sent us a new one.  When we finally got around to hooking it up and sending the first one back, the second one once powered up had a loud, insessant and annoying squeak.  Grr, constant squeaking couldn't be put up with.  I sat online with customer support for an hour to confirm it was broken and they sent me a new one.  Guess what, this new one doesn't work either.  It refuses to comply with the remote controls commands.  It's like the 1800's in here and we have to change the channel with the buttons on the box!  This box is going back as soon as I can get someone at Verizon to talk to me in their online chat support.  Let's say I'm a little peeved, I just want to watch House Hunters.

Restaurant Wars 2013 - Olive Garden

The biggest problem with going to Olive Garden? Getting a table. It seems no matter what day of the week you go, you will be waiting for a table unless you arrive at three o'clock for dinner. Yet for some reason, people are willing to wait over an hour for soup, salad and bread sticks. Well wait no more, make it all at home.

In order to test out the OG, boyfriend and I ventured out to dinner on a very specific night. February 13th. This year February 13th was both the day before Valentine's day and Ash Wednesday. When we arrived at 7:30, we were escorted right to a waiting booth. That's a first in my book.

The person who really likes OG in my house is BF. He calls it classic Italian comfort food. What you would want your bowl of carbonara to look and taste like. The dishes are all simple, straightforward and require no fancy words to describe. It's not the food your Italian grandmother would prepare, unless she was cooking for two dozen. 

To keep with that classic OG menu, BF and I both got simple dishes. BF went with a chicken Parmesan and I decided on a chicken and shrimp carbonara. Both meals came with the traditional OG soup/salad and bread sticks, and I ordered a cherry Italian soda to round out my meal.

First, do not order the cherry Italian soda unless you have a real love of children's cough syrup. It was dead on in flavor and probably had twice the amount of sugar. I took a sip and ordered a water as replacement.

Next, the general rule with the bread sticks is a follows - eat them before they get cold or prepare to sword fight with them. Once these little gems cool off, they take on a other worldly strength. I had ideas on how to avoid this issue at home.

Our meals were just as expected. BF dove into his chicken Parmesan whole heartily, until he realized he ate too many bread sticks and couldn't eat anymore. My carbonara came out looking creamy and delicious, and incredibly oily. I found out the next day as I had my leftovers just how much oil was in my dish. I love carbonara and this was good, it's just not something I could eat on a regular basis.

The plan for home. Recreate the OG experience from bread sticks to salad to main course. Lighten the fat load and try to maintain the flavors. 

Olive Garden salad at home is pretty easy.  The salad itself is just lettuce, pepperoncini, black olives, red onions and croutons.  Black olives are gross, so I omitted those.  It's pretty true to when I go to the restaurant.  The dressing has quite a few copycat recipes online that I based my final recipe on and apparently those are very similar to the actual OG recipe (I couldn't believe that they actually use mayonnaise in their recipe).  Where I took a big left turn is with my carbonara recipe.

Want easy and delicious bread sticks?  You need two ingredients.  Pizza dough and garlic salt.  I used a pre-made pizza dough from the grocery store and cut in into eight pieces.  I rolled each piece into a bread stick-like shape and spritzed them with cooking spray.  After a light sprinkle with garlic salt and eighteen minutes in the oven, we had bread sticks that didn't harden up in two minutes.  A little denser than the OG variety, but BF and I both liked the pizza dough sticks better.

The OG carbonara dish I received was covered in cheese and dripping in oil.  I made a simple and classic carbonara with grilled chicken.  BF was a little sad that my version wasn't under a layer of cheese, but it was something I could actually have before going to the gym.  After our dinner at the OG, we went home and melted into the couch.

Next time you want some Olive Garden and don't want to wait for a table, just pick up a few ingredients and make it at home!  Or you could sit in the bar area, they serve the full menu at the bar and the wait is usually much shorter!