What I'm Craving This Month (June 2018)

Our garden is in full production mode, and results in many, many fresh vegetables and blackberries!  I eat a lot of produce year-round, but this makes me up my game.  I also took pictures of most of the meals I ate on our vacation, so this post is mainly "what I eat from our garden" and "what I eat at restaurants".

When we eat something like this, Jon says, "I'm going to live forever!"  Beets and spinach from our garden, plus herb-roasted salmon and a cinnamon topped baked sweet potato.

Kale chips from garden kale.

I mentioned my experimentation with easy healthy tuna salad recipes last month, and here is my winning formula:  tuna, plain greek yogurt, finely chopped crunchy veggie of choice (sugar snap peas, celery, carrots, etc.), finely chopped sweet addition of choice (raisins, red onion, red grapes, etc.), garlic salt.  I measure nothing and just put the amount that looks right.  Sandwich on whole grain bread or in a whole wheat pita for a perfect summer no-cook meal!

Smoothies are still winning!  This one had frozen mango, frozen banana, garden spinach, almond milk, and peanut butter protein powder.

My favorite protein powder.

I ate a lot of homegrown beets this month.  Beets are really good for endurance athletes!  If you've never eaten fresh beets before, read about beeturia before you do...if you don't inform yourself you might think you're dying!  This happens to me and my family members every time we eat more than a couple fresh garden beets, but if we have canned beets it doesn't.

This tastes far better than it looks - it is a red lentil vegetable curry.  If you've never tried red lentils you should; their flavor is amazing!  Use full fat coconut milk in the curry to boost your healthy fats and the satiation factor of this type of dish - not to mention it also tastes amazing.

I should have written down the names of the restaurants we ate at on our vacation, because I don't remember any of them!  This was a lemongrass veggie, chicken, and rice bowl that was super heavy on brown rice under the top ingredients you see here, and was therefore perfect for carb-loading on the Thursday evening before my Saturday marathon.

This was my post race lunch at a Thai restaurant near our Duluth hotel.  The place looked a bit sketchy on the outside, but had fantastic food!  I took away leftovers from this one; post-marathon and after some really long runs I get full really quickly somehow (not my normal, but Jon says my body is too tired to digest much, haha!).

One of two plates at the Grandma's Marathon VIP reception.  My favorite part was the artichoke dip (in the middle on a cracker), but the peanut sauce (covering veggie spring rolls) was to die for, and I think this was my first time eating a torte (top left-hand side of plate).

The day after the race I was craving a big piece of chicken/turkey/fish, which never happens.  I ate both of these chicken breasts, covered in a cranberry sauce (served with a salad that isn't pictured), at a mom and pop joint in Grand Marais on Father's Day.  Jon and my dad got ribs!

The picture doesn't do this sandwich justice - it included cubed chicken with pesto sauce and melted fresh mozzarella, along with some fancy arugula and roasted tomatoes

 My first fudge kabob did not disappoint, nor did Lake Superior in downtown Grand Marais!

I craved a lot of protein and baked potatoes in the days after the marathon; this was another meal where I ate two chicken breasts (under broiled Swiss cheese and mushrooms).  The veggie of the day, plain corn, was disappointing.

French-Canadian split pea soup with multi-grain bread.  This was probably the largest bowl of soup I'd ever had.

Our second meal in Canada was Thai, because we were exhausted and it was connected to our hotel.  The portions did not disappoint.  I ate the salad before I remembered to take a photo, but the first photo shows edamame (soy beans in pods, you do not eat the pod part), some type of thin soup, and the remainder of my salad dressing.  The second photo is my green curry entree.  I carried out leftovers from here, which is rare.

And one can never go wrong with a veggie omelet!  I ate this out of a to-go container while Jon drove, after I closed our car trunk with the keys in it and the doors locked while in a zombie-like tired state, and then dealt with getting getting the car's locks popped while Jon and Albani ate on our drive home.

Final Chinese dish of the trip, chicken and veggies sauced with enough sodium to last a normal person a month.

And back home we were overrun with yellow squash and kale and out of most groceries, hence an omelet made with yellow squash and topped with kale chips.

Blackberry smoothie with fresh blackberries from the garden.  It took me several tries to find a really good combination for this recipe, but we had enough blackberries to make hundreds of them!  We froze what we couldn't eat fresh, so I'll be consuming many blackberry smoothies.

Roasted summer squash and zucchini was plentiful.

Jon made this salad and it turned out really well.  It contains cucumber, red onion, and tomatoes (all fresh from our garden), and the dressing contains olive oil, vinegar, and a little sugar, salt, and pepper.  I am too lazy to make anything like this but I ate a lot of fresh cucumbers and tomatoes!

Anything with peanut butter and sugar constitutes a preferred dessert for me.  These peanut butter covered grahams and peanut butter malt balls from the bulk bins at Lucky's (a local grocer) were amazing and something I can't truly buy in bulk!