This Week’s Food Highlights

Hey friends – happy Friday, and get ready for a random post full of lots of food highlights and goodness! First up, for those who celebrate Easter, or who just like yummy picnic/brunch/egg dishes, I wanted to share a few of my faves here on the blog for some weekend inspiration!

Sweet Potato Hash with Poached Eggs (good way to use up leftover Easter ham, or you can skip the ham!):

Healthy Deviled Eggs (I looooove deviled eggs and seriously think they they taste better with yogurt + dijon vs. mayo!):

Crustless Quiche with Spring Veggies (great brunch for a crowd! and yes I know crustless quiche just = frittata, but don’t you think crustless quiche sounds fancier?):

I also thought my friend Julie’s recent Chilled Quinoa Salad recipe sounded delicious – would be a good potluck side dish!

Anyway – here are some of this week’s food highlights! Today’s breakfast was cottage cheese, berries, slivered almonds, and a crumbled pumpkin muffin of deliciousness (<- click for recipe, which is an old fave – and thanks to my mom for making those and giving me some)!

As for yesterday, I was working downtown following a fun workout at Urban Athletic Club via ClassPass with the ladies! I love our workout dates so much – they always put me in the best mood. While waiting for the shower post-workout, I snacked on a couple of my peanut butter power cookies (<- gluten free + vegan recipe).

And then on my walk to the office I stopped by Starbucks for a flat white (basically a whole milk latte) and a protein box as part 2 of my breakfast. Yummy!

For lunch yesterday, I was excited to finally catch up with my co-working space buddy John Kelly, who was the sole finisher of the Barkley Marathons this year! That’s the insanely hard trail ultramarathon in the mountains of Tennessee that has a Netflix documentary entitled “The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young.” Yeah, it’s that intense. Not only are you covering well over 100 miles, but it’s all in the woods, involving navigation both during the day and at night, and you are extremely sleep deprived. And this year, there was also insane fog during parts of the race, which created a lot of disorientation and chaos among participants.

Anyway – John and I became friends a couple years ago because we were sitting near each other in the coworking space, and he would always come in in running or biking clothes (he uses his commute to work as his main method of training – smart!), so we started talking running/racing. It has been fun to grab lunch with him every few weeks or so to hear about his latest training adventures (he’s an ultrarunner first, but he’s also an (awesome) triathlete – he’s going to Kona later this year). We hit up Greek Deli for lunch yesterday, and I got the “chicken on pita” which is chicken, tomato, lettuce, feta, and tzatziki sauce on pita bread. I had them add hummus too! We took it to go and ate outside because it was gorgeous out.

He’s still refueling from the race madness and wanted to go to Shake Shack for ice cream on our way back to the office – don’t have to ask me twice! Milkshake for me + ice cream sundae-ish thing for him. Yum! I only made it through half of the milkshake because I was already pretty full from lunch, but it was delicious.

John said it’s been crazy since he successfully finished the race – he’s done nearly 30 interviews with media outlets and has been getting an amazing outpouring of congratulations all over social media, too. I told him not to forget us little people now that he’s famous. ;)

Anyway! For those who were also following his race adventures, his full Barkley Marathons 2017 recap is now live. Click here to visit his blog and read all about it – it’s extremely well written and I think really captures the true spirit (or at least what I imagine to be the true spirit) of the race. It’s not you against the others – it’s you against the course, and your own sleep-deprived self. Congrats again, John! You’re an inspiration to us all. :)

As for dinners recently, we are still on the Sun Basket (<- affiliate link for 3 free meals) train! As you guys know, I’m doing a sponsored partnership with them for a few months (we are still paying for our meals every week, but I am compensated to do these reviews).

Sun Basket is a weekly healthy meal kit delivery service; each Monday we receive a box of sustainably sourced, organic ingredients and easy, delicious recipes to make 3 meals. We started using the service last fall when Matt’s doctor suggested he go gluten-free for the meantime because Sun Basket has a ton of great gluten free options each week!

One meal we enjoyed recently was this Almond-Crusted Trout with a Cucumber Olive Salad (it reminded me a lot of my Almond Crusted Tilapia). Sometimes I have to add more carbs to their paleo recipes, but this one was actually quite filling between the nuts, olives, etc!

We also enjoyed this Jerk Chicken with Creamy Slaw and Quick Pickles that Matt threw together for us one day. I like the thumbs up picture he got for me, lol.

And as for last night, we had the Braised Chicken and Artichokes (we just swapped out the all purpose flour for almond flour). I love artichokes, especially with tomato-y sauce!

If you’ve been thinking about trying Sun Basket, use my Sun Basket affiliate link for 3 free meals on your first order!

And now, I think I’m going to treat myself to a solo run! I was going to go this morning when I got up at 7, but decided I would rather get cracking on work and go mid-morning as a nice break instead. I’m excited to get out there – looks like a really nice day!

Have a great weekend, my friends, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

What’s the best thing you ate this week?

Would you ever do an ultramarathon (or have you already done one)? I think I’ll stick to the regular marathon distance and below for now, but I would love to get more into trail racing – seems like a fun way to mix it up from the road races!