I say go for it! I love goals like that…and just think of the sense of accomplishment you’d have upon reaching it! I learned that Hal Higdon also set a similar goal calling it the 6/6/60 goal where he did 6 marathons in 6 weeks prior to his 60th birthday. Pretty cool huh?
.-= Josie´s last blog ..Run for Music 10K – WOW! =-.

High five for the bike ride over the weekend! Hubby and I got ours out too but I don’t think we did more than 5 miles (and I ran for 2 miles before we started biking too)~~I forgot how much fun biking was!
.-= Brenda´s last blog ..5# Kettlebell =-.

4 cups chicken stock
4 cups water
1.5 cups lentils
1 28oz can tomatoes
1 oz pancetta
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
2 bay leaves
1 large onion
3 cloves of fresh garlic
nice pinch each of chopped basil and thyme
nice pinch of kosher salt
nice pinch of black pepper
1/2 cup quinoa
1.5 cups of greens (kale, chard, whatever makes you happy)

Because I struggle with making soup that tastes good, I went all in with the best ingredients I could think of. I use Lucina’s extra virgin first cold pressed olive oil. I used all organic produce with the exception of tomatoes: I never buy fresh tomatoes at the store. I’ll either use farmer’s market tomatoes, grow my own, or use canned. I’m very picky about canned tomatoes: I only use imported italian Carmelina San Marizano tomatoes. The basil and thyme were fresh. The pancetta is imported italian (I only used a couple slices of it to add extra fat for frying).

I didn’t make my own chicken stock: I didn’t have time this weekend, so I cheated and bought some organic chicken stock. Note that 4 cups is about the size of one of the rectangular boxes of chicken stock they have in the store.

Making it is easy, just some chopping work.

1. Chop the celery, carrots, onion, herbs. Finely chop the garlic. Chop the pancetta. Chop the tomatoes (this is a little messy but easy).

2. Fry the onion on about medium/medium high heat in the pancetta and olive oil. Maybe 5 minutes: stir it a lot and NO BURNING please.

3. Add carrots/celery/garlic. Fry for a couple more minutes.

4. Add herbs, tomatoes, water, stock, lentils. Bring to a boil.

5. Bring down to a simmer and cover it: simmer for about 1.5 hours.

6. Add the quinoa and greens to the simmer, and in about 15-20 minutes it should be ready.

This made a ton of soup and was really good with fresh italian bread and red table wine.

Buon appetito

** A note on ingredients: personally I think using “organic” is really optional, but I haven’t resolved my issues with organic food for the time being. Ideally, as the weather gets better, it won’t be an issue because I’ll buy it from local farms. The tomatoes are the only thing not to skimp on. If you were to simply open a can of Hunt’s tomatoes and pour it in a bowl, and open a can of the Carmelina tomatoes and pour it in a bowl, just the difference in how they look and smell is self explanatory.

Thanks for stopping by.. I replied to your comment.
.-= John´s last blog ..Cook 1 – 0 Spudman =-.

The ice cream turned out awesome, I’ll post pics tomorrow. I can see why the Xanthum Gum is there. Had it sat in the fridge for a few days I bet it’d get kinda icy. Since I served most of it after dinner it was perfect though. Thanks for answering my Twitter shout out!

40 races by 40 would certainly be a lofty goal, but I think it’s definitely doable!
.-= Brandon´s last blog ..100 days of healthy living =-.