Baked “Fried” Pickles & 2-a-Days

I rarely eat fried foods (we’re talking once or twice a year), but if I did fried pickles would be one of my top picks (along with sweet potato fries and jalapeno poppers!).  We recently acquired a massive jar of pickles, and my husband had the idea to make baked “fried” pickles out of them.

Huge jar of pickles with 12 lb cat for comparison purposes!

This picture doesn’t do the finished product justice, but there were fantastic!  I honestly think they were better than the fried version, although my husband Jon would probably disagree.  All I did was coat the pickles in egg, dip them in fine breadcrumbs, and bake them on a cookie sheet sprayed with a little non-stick spray at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes.  These would be good as an appetizer for a meal after a hot long run where you sweat a lot!

Finished product, but I'm not food photographer

In running news, I ran my first 2-a-day today spontaneously.  I put in 10 base pace (7:34 average) miles early this morning with Missy in some CRAZY south wind!  We ran mostly east and west, but had a 1 mile straight that was south straight into it and that was tough.  Then while Albani was at Awana, I ran 4 miles (7:43 average) with Jon as an easy recovery run for me and a tempo run for him.  I didn’t need the extra miles necessarily, but tomorrow I was planning to run 4 outside followed by 8 on the AlterG, so I will probably skip the outside miles and it will all even out. 

Jon asked me to take him through the first mile just under 8:00, through the second around 7:55, and push him through the third (he did 3 to my 4). I helped him run 7:58, 7:54, 7:30 - so was proud of my pacing abilities!

 

I’m not much of a 2-a-day runner because I fear injury, and if I do a second workout it’s typically the spin bike.  I have noticed that I recover better and stay looser if I do a short spin (20-40 minutes) in the evenings, so I’ve been trying to do that a couple of times a week.  It takes creativity to find the time, but I can fit it in when my family is occupied by electronics or while Albani is in bath, or she can ride her bike on the trainer while I spin!  I think there is certainly something to be said for splitting recovery run mileage into 2 runs (such as 8 and 4 or 5 and 5), but as a full-time working mom it’s easier for me to just do it all in the mornings!