Will Power is a Muscle

And mine has atrophied. I stuck to the 10k training plan for the first couple weeks (although loosely) and as of recently it has fallen by the wayside.  Alex and I took Julia to the rec center yesterday to go swimming with Stacy and her daughter.  The rec center is close to my house so I decided to after hitting the pool that I would run home.  It was a chill 50 degrees and raining and the run home was miserable.  It turned out that the distance from the rec to the my house if only 1.85 miles and I was so completely grumpy about being cold that I didn't even run up and down my street to round my mileage off to two miles.

I would be angry too if I didn't have a sports bra on...

Despite my mediocre run, I spent a delightful evening cooking dinner with my daughter.  Perhaps it's the parental controls that we are using on the TV or just a budding career in the culinary arts, but Julia's favorite channel is the Food Network.  It's so weird because I am not really one to watch that channel.  Or maybe Julia is getting tired of the meals that I cook and has decided to take matters into her own hands....

The highlight of the meal was green bean fries.  Hold on, they were good!  I promise.  Alex usually chokes down a vegetable or two but for the most part he tries to stay away from them all together.  He actually went back for seconds of these fries!  It was a vegetable miracle :)

Here's the recipe:

Green Bean Fries

8 ounces green beans, trimmed
1/2 cup wheat flour
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups Italian bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
salt
ground black pepper

I blanched the green beans (put in boiling water for 3 minutes, immerse in ice water, and dry with a towel) and then set up a three station breading area.  The first dish had the wheat flour, the second the eggs, and the final dish had the Italian bread crumbs, onion powder, chili powder, salt and pepper.  Once the green beans were breaded, I put them on a wire rack on top of a baking sheet and baked them at 425 degrees for fifteen minutes. 

They were absolute perfection when they came out. 


Anyway, I did some strength training this morning and have three miles planned for tomorrow morning :)