On a date with Jack and Jeremiah Johnson

What a whirlwind weekend!  After a wonderful Team in Training run with my South Boston running team on Saturday, I drove home to celebrate my sister's 19th birthday! (Here is a picture of her to the right, photographed with the leather purse I got her in Sorrento, Italia!)

Let's first talk about my running for the week, shall we?  I haven't been following the training program as of yet, because I have been running since the summer and have my basic skill set and mileage down.  So this week, I ran 5.5 miles on Tuesday, 5 miles on Wednesday, 3 miles on Thursday with 10 minutes of crosstraining as well as weights, a 6 mile easy run with my team on Saturday, and 3.5 mile speedwork run by myself after I returned back to the city on Sunday.  I also did a nice training run with my mom on Saturday, which lasted about 2 miles because she's signing up for her first race and 5k for May 8th! GO mom go!

Now, let's talk about celebrations and food!  On saturday, I arrived home to be greeted by my sister, dad, mom, and Ghita doggie.  After I watched Court tear into her presents, and completed my training run with my mom, the family headed to Albany to meet my brother, Michael aka Jeremiah Johnson, his girlfriend Victoria, and my grandparents for dinner at Lombardo's!  After having dined in Italy, you become very aware of how Italian fare is completely 100% different from Italian American fare.   Regardless, my family enjoyed bread, calamari, salad, and our own individual meals, which none of us even ate half of.  I wound up ordering the Rigatoni al Forno; rigatoni pasta with diced eggplant and mozzarella cheese, tossed and baked in a marinara sauce.  I usually don't get straight up pasta, but saturday I was feeling a little...crazy.  I also enjoyed a glass of Pinot Noir; a lauren and michael richmond favorite.  Below, is my brother, his girlfriend, and myself at dinner.  Michael, for some reason has grown a full on beard, for absolutely no other reason than for the sheer delight of stroking it and driving my parents crazy.  He kind of looks like Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson; a mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit.  Except a dirty Jeremiah Johnson. Sigh.  

After a delightful time with my family, I headed back to the city today, and stopped by Trader Joe's (obviously) on my way home.  I picked up a few essentials, including spinach, broccoli, bananas, cranberries, and dressing.  I also bought multigrain baking and pancake mix after coming up with a stellar idea to make Banana Pancakes!  YUMMYYY.  I guess if I can't have Jack Johnson make me pancakes, I'll just make them for myself.  Jessica still supervised the kitchen, as it was my first time making pancakes as an adult (we make pancakes for the kids I work with when camping at Adventure Camp, yet somehow I'm never allowed to cook the food).   Can I just tell you, they were awesome!  I made four pancakes that were pretty thick, but gave my extra one to Jessica.  

Here's the recipe! Yields 4-5 pancakes.

Mix: 1 cup of pancake batter

1/4 cup of egg beater or egg substitute (1 egg)

1/4 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or regular milk)

Less than 1 tablespoon of Olive Oil (I was out of canola)

a sprinkling of cranberries

1 whole banana

Add a tiny splash of sugar free syrup and enjoy!