Spiralizer...

Meet my new (borrowed) friend: The Spiralizer.  Gretchen let me borrow this and at first it was VERY annoying but once we got spiralizing, it was totally worth it.  And by "We" I mean Dave.  Now usually I don't like Dave to help me with dinner, but I tried this thing out last nite and had very little success getting it to work.  My hubs is a "I can fix anything," "I can figure out anything type of guy" so I thought he would have no problem.  Unfortunately at 7:45pm being hungry and tired, this was the last thing he wanted to do.  He tried to give up, but I made him keep going, knowing eventually these zucchini's were going to turn into noodles.  I just knew it was going to work.  10 minutes later and three zucchini down, we had noodles and I was able to make  

Zucchini Pesto Noodles with Shrimp and Goat Cheese from Cara's Cravings.

Ingredients:

1 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves minced garlic
1lb precooked shrimp, from Trader Joe's (deveined and tails off)
freshly ground salt & pepper
14oz can diced tomatoes
pinch of crushed red pepper
3 medium zuchinni's, spiralized (did I make up that word?)
3 oz goat cheese
Home-made Pesto (2 handfuls of basil and argula mix, 1/8 cup of pine nuts, 1/8 cup of parm cheese, 1/4 cup of EVOO)
Instructions:
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the onions and saute for about 5 minutes, until softened. Add the shrimp and garlic. Cook the shrimp for about 1 minute on each side, until just warmed and cooked through. Remove the shrimp from the pan. Add the tomatoes, crushed red pepper, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the zucchini and saute over medium heat until slightly softened, about 3 minutes, then add the shrimp and heat through, about 1-2 minutes more then mix through the pesto. Serve with crumbled goat cheese.

I still can't get over HOW GOOD this dish was.  I know I say a lot of dishes are good, but this was nice and light and filling at the same time.  I did go back for seconds and maybe even thirds but I was still able to put a scoop aside for lunch tomorrow.  Already can't wait to eat it again! Make this people!  And thank Cara for another awesome recipe!


Backtrack to workouts.  Monday I went to Physical Therapy.  Tuesday I did a speed workout on the treadmill.  I was going to do 400s but decided I wanted to do something longer so I did the 1600 1200 800 400 400 workout. 

1.40 Mile Warmup (switched treadmills at the .40 mark since my favorite opened up next to me - I know I'm crazy)

1600: 7:26

1200: 5:40

800: 3:35

400: 1:34

400: 1:35

.60 Cooldown

6 Miles 56 Minutes

Incline of 1.0, Warmup and Cooldown at 6.0MPH, Walk/Jog 3.0-5.5 quarter mile in between each.

Today I did 30 minutes on the BIG Step and 15 on the Arc Trainer.  Both are machines I don't normally use.  Both kicked my butt!


Top Chef, nite!

*Sidenote- my friend Anne, after years of blog-stalking, has finally started her own blog!  Anne is hysterical so please click her name and check it out!