Fuel Up:Sausage and Orzo Stuffed Peppers

In an attempt to be more frugal and healthy and avoid eating at Buffalo Wild Wings more than once a week (don't judge), I've been really making an effort to actually do meal planning instead of just daily trips to Wal-Mart.  I tend to only plan one meal at a time, which involves looots of annoying trips to the store, which leads to spending more money and/or getting annoyed and just going out (to Bdubs).  It's hard to fit in running/workouts if I have to go to the store too.  To help me with this and to keep me honest, I'm going to try to share some of the recipe successes, and maybe some of the struggles I have with this as well as all my running fun.  I do eat to run and run to eat after all!

This is a recipe I adapted from a flier at work that our wellness coach brought in. I took the general concept and changed the ingredients to what I thought my husband (picky eater!) and I would like.  I was really happy that it changed the mind the Mr. Skeptic, it almost tasted like a jambalaya in a pepper!  The cook time can vary depending on your oven.  I used sausage, but I think this would be good with ground beef or chicken as well.

Sausage and Orzo Stuffed Peppers

4 bell peppers, any color

3/4 cup orzo

ground sausage, your favorite variety (I used a mild breakfast sausage)
half cup of corn: frozen, canned, or fresh

8 oz. jar of salsa

shredded cheese, cheddar and mozzarella blend

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1.Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit

2.Brown sausage and prepare orzo according to package directions.  Drain both well.

3.While orzo and sausage are cooking, prepare the bell peppers.  Wash and dry thoroughly, then cut the tops off of the peppers.  Scoop out the ribs and the seeds inside

4.In a bowl mix the sausage, orzo, corn, half the salsa, chili powder and garlic salt.

5.Scoop into peppers until full.  Place in a baking dish.

6.Bake for 15 minutes and check if peppers are starting to soften.  Bake for another 5 minutes if needed,  top with the cheese.  Put back in oven for another ten minutes until cheese is melted and peppers are soft.

7.Enjoy with the rest of the salsa if desired.

I hope you enjoy!  Let me know what you think.  If anyone has any tips let me know, this is a learning process:)  Have a good week everyone!

Long runs and new shoes and creepy bears, oh my!

I finally found a USB cord so I could upload my photos from my iPod to my laptop, so I've been failing at blogging lately. Here's a brief round up of what I've been up to:

1.  Long runs and new shoes

I forgot how much I missed my early Saturday long runs.  As much as I hate getting up early on one of my days off, I love getting to see the city before everyone else (besides all the other crazies out doing the same thing).  My friend Martha is training for the Marine Corp Marathon, and she is adding miles to the Team 13 training runs, so the last 2 weekends a few of us joined and made the 6 and 7 mile runs into 10 and 11 milers.  These runs have been great, it's been cool and not humid that early in the morning so I can actually breathe.  For the 11 mile run I broke down and bought new shoes the day before since I pretty much wore my Ravennas down to the foam and they were causing me some serious calf pain (note for new runners, don't be too cheap with shoes, they make a huge difference).  It was nice running without pain and I'm sure everyone with me was glad that I wasn't whining! My new shoes are Mizuno Wave Inspire 7s.  So far so good!

I prefer eating Jelly Belly Sport beans to eat during long runs, but since they are available aaaaalll the way the way across town I've been trying various kinds of gummy stuff.  I found you get strange looks at Thornton's when you are buying Swedish Fish at 5:30 in the morning.

Creepy Bears and Wine Monkeys (if I had a band, this would be the name)

Driving home from the run on Saturday I came across this:

That would be a polar bear in a Sulley costume pointing the way to a yard sale in my neighborhood.  Creepy, yet effective.  I probably wouldn't have noticed the yard sale sign otherwise, but seriously...


And then there was this...

Words can't describe the awesomeness.

Random question of the day:
Does anyone else find Swedish Fish to be kind of creepy and disturbing?  Like fish that got run over.

Strawberry-Lime Nuun Slushie

I'm going to post a real update sometime soon (the Olympics is sucking the productivity from me), but in the meantime I made this slushy to rehydrate after my sweaty sweaty run today, since one can't watch the Olympics without the proper fuel.  I used pink lemonade nuun as the liquid, but you could probably substitute water or juice. This is not a super sweet slushie, which is how I like it, but a little honey or sweetener could be added if that's what you're into:)

Strawberry-Lime Nuun Slushie

1 Nuun tablet (pink lemonade)

16 oz of water

juice of half a lime

3 or 4 mint leaves (didn't make it to the picture)

frozen strawberries (enough to make it is as slushie-ful as you prefer)

Drop the nuun into the water, I used cold water from my fridge.  The tabs take about 2 minutes to dissolve and don't require shaking or stirring (I really like that about nuun)

Add the lime juice, strawberries, mint leaves and nuun juice to the blender and blend, adding more strawberries or ice if needed.

Take outside to photograph because the lighting in your kitchen sucks.

Drink while watching the Olympics with a cat that really couldn't care less!

Like I said, this is not a sweet gas station slushie, but I think the iciness and the fruit and mint are refreshing.  

I love slushies, so if anyone has ideas/recipes, please share!