Hey friends! Happy Friday. :) Matt and I are both sticking around town this weekend for the first time in over a month and looking forward to it – especially since it’s going to be sunny and warm in DC! It’s supposed to be almost 70 degrees, which is very strange especially since at yesterday morning’s track workout it was snowing?!
Seriously, though – weirdest winter ever.
We had a good workout yesterday, running between snow flakes – it was about 30 degrees and not too windy so actually a nice morning for a run. (p.s. check out this old post on How to Dress for Cold Weather Running for some tips!)
Also – it’s starting to get lighter in the mornings again which is awesome! Instead of it being totally dark when I arrived the sun was just starting to come up – yay!
It ended up turning into a STUNNING sunrise (so colorful!) that we enjoyed while doing a 10-12 minute tempo run warm up. No picture sadly because by the time we finished the sunrise colors were gone! After the tempo run, we headed over to a nearby hill for hill repeats – oof. We did 2 long hills and 2 short hills. Hills = so hard. My watch includes the tempo run and the hills, but not my 1 mile cool down jog, so I did a total of about 4.5 miles. Nice!
As for recent food highlights, we are still absolutely loving Sun Basket (<- affiliate link for 3 free meals) – so much so that I signed on as a sponsored brand ambassador! We’ve been using Sun Basket, which is a weekly healthy meal kit delivery service, for 5 months now – we first signed up when Matt went gluten free (for medical reasons – more on that in this post) because they offer so many great gluten free (and paleo) meal options.
Pictured above: Roasted Pork Chops with Sweet Potato Hash and Cilantro Pesto
Each week we receive a box of sustainably sourced, organic ingredients and easy, delicious recipes to make 3 meals (2 servings each – they offer a 4 serving option too, as well as a family plan). No meal planning = happy Anne!
Pictured above: Sicilian Chicken Breasts with Broccolini, Red Pepper, and Almonds
You set your profile to a specific setting (e.g. paleo, gluten free, vegetarian) and they will default you to those meals each week, but one thing I really love about Sun Basket is that all the meals are the same price ($11.49/serving on the 2 or 4 person classic plan, and $9.99 per serving on the family plan) so you can mix and match easily with their other offerings. Want to get steak AND one of their vegetarian meals? No problem. They actually offer breakfast meals as well, although we haven’t tried those yet.
Last night for dinner we had a really good Gingered Turkey Meatballs in Japanese Mushroom Broth. Delicious – the meatballs were made with coconut flour to keep it gluten free!
They offer a lot of great fish recipes, too – earlier this week we had a really good Padang Salmon Curry with Jade Rice. I’d never seen jade rice before – it’s actually green! How cool! Apparently it has been infused with bamboo extract – interesting.
You cook the salmon right in the pot with the curry and veggies – very unique (and easier to clean up)!
This Salmon with Orange Jicama Salad and Roasted Cauliflower from last week was also really good – better than it looks in our dimly lit dining room!
As you can see, Sun Basket meals feature a lot of creative, healthy, high quality ingredients and lots of veggies, which is awesome. Our other dinner this week (a really good seared lemon chicken) featured roasted fennel, which I love!
If you’ve been thinking about trying Sun Basket, do it! We love it. Having the ingredients and recipes to make 3 healthy dinners show up on our doorstep every week is the best thing ever. Makes our lives so much easier. :) Use my Sun Basket affiliate link for 3 free meals on your first order!
And a hot tip for my fellow cat owners: turn the box into a cat fort! Matt created this for Zara and she loves sleeping in it. :)
Have a fabulous weekend everyone!
And p.s. – For my Winter Shape Up friends, the week 4 meal plan is live so you can shop this weekend! I can’t believe we’re about to start the final week of the challenge – time flies, right?! Thank you to those of you who joined us – Gina and I hope you have been enjoying the workouts and recipes!