I have started this post in my head multiple times in the last six weeks and nothing seems right.

I mean, how do you write your last post on a blog you have loved, cared for, put a lot of time into and had so much fun with?

You may have noticed it’s been a bit quiet around here. Life has taken some exciting turns for me this past year. I’ve told you that I moved. What I didn’t tell you is that while we were buying a new place and renting the old, I was also going through an interview process. And guess what? I got the job. I’m so honored and excited to be the new Executive Director for the ALS Association Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota Chapter. I started at the end of November and it’s been an exciting, terrifying and awesome experience so far. There is a lot of work to be done in this role and I am so ready for the challenge. I get to work with amazing people who are dedicated to helping people LIVE with ALS and raise money to end it. I am pretty dang lucky.

Due to this change and the priorities I’ve made in my life, something had to give. So, this is the last post for Jen and Company. It feels like in some ways, Anne and I were writing the very first post for She Said. She Said. We wondered if anyone would ever read it. And you did!

Thank you for reading my (and all the contributors) stories on food, fitness, health and life. The past 3 1/2 years have been so much fun. I have made so many new friends all as a result of this blog and for that I am very grateful.

We will be keeping the site live so you can access recipes,etc. I’ve even re-organized the page so that it’s easier to find things. And let’s be honest, I need to be able to find these recipes! This site has been my own personal journal.

Finally, thank you to my friends who have been featured contributors. I so appreciated your time and effort to provide interesting content.

I wish you all good eats and a fabulous 2013!

We have been in our new home for 16 days and we LOVE it. Although we are far from settled and we haven’t figured out our new routines, it is home. I thought I’d share some of my random thoughts (since I don’t know how to be anything but random) about moving, renting our former place and the transition to condo living.

• Moving is a lot of work. Hiring movers was the best decision we made and I will never go back. Worth every penny.
• When we put our house on the market more than a year ago, we purged. We pitched, donated and gave away so much stuff. When we were finally ready to move, we got rid of a lot more. Now that we are in the new place, we got rid of even more things! Less is more people. You don’t NEED that candle holder you loved 8 years ago that’s been in your closet for the last 5. Not sure? Invite your 17-year old niece over for the weekend. She’ll tell you what’s what.
• We found renters for our old place using a rental company. Easy peasy. At least for me – Brette thankfully handled all of that. He also was smart enough to have them manage the property going forward. It’s a huge relief already.
• Living in a condo has its quirks. we can hear people walking in the hall above us. I’m used to it now but the first night freaked me out.
• Everyone is concerned about the dog. Lily was confused at first, but really is loving life. She gets to go to a dog park three times a day. Fetch. Sniffing other dogs. Wrestling with Colby the Golden Retriever. This is her life and she is thrilled.
• 5:15 at the dog park is doggy happy hour. The place is packed! I think someone should bring a portable bar out for the owners. And a coffee cart at 7:15. And a night cap at 9. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
• My new kitchen is big and spacious, but lacks storage space. Brette will be building an island (yay!) and we bought this to help with storage. It fits the industrial look of our space.

• Although we moved into a condo, it is more space than we had in our house (it was just a little guy!). It’s big and open compared to our small little rooms. It still seems a big foreign and we’re just not sure what to even do with it.
• Interior design and arranging furniture are not strong suits of mine. If anyone is interested in coming over to give me advice, I’ll happily hand you a beer or fill your wine glass.

That is it for now. Even though our new place has a long way to go before it seems “ready”, we’re open for visitors at any time.  Cheers!

So I’m sort of new to this group, but luckily they still added me to the invite when Jen put together a gathering for the ladies, and me. The theme, as Jen is wont to do, was soup. Being the lone male, and knowing these ladies are in favor of gourmet food, I knew I couldn’t go the easy route by bringing Campbell’s tomato.

I’ve been a big fan of fajita soup since my spring break trip to Mazatlan my sophomore year of college. Don’t ask me how, but my buddies and I met this widower who was basically retired in Mazatlan. We’d spend happy hour sharing buckets of Corona’s before we did what sophomore’s in college do in Mazatlan. At the end of the week she wanted to show us a different side of Mazatlan so she took us to her favorite restaurant, and they made some awesome tortilla soup. But I had never tried making it on my own.

I chose this recipe from epicurious.com. I was going vegetarian since Meghan was going to be there and I thought this soup suited it well. I actually just doubled it and planned to make one batch veggie, and one with chicken. Instead, Meghan stood us up and decided to look at leaves, and we all ate chicken tortilla soup.

Here are the ingredients:

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• 3/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 4 cups canned vegetable broth
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Spray large nonstick saucepan with vegetable oil spray. Add onion and garlic; cover and cook over medium-low heat until almost tender, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, cumin and chili powder. Add broth and 2 tablespoons cilantro; bring to boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer until flavors blend, about 15 minutes. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill. Bring to simmer before continuing.)

I did this part first because I needed to do it a couple days ahead. That worked really well and here’s what it looked like:

After cutting onions, garlic and cilantro, my hands had a very unique smell

• 4 6-inch-diameter corn tortillas, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips (don’t use these unless you fry them as all the reviews said all they do is get soggy and gross)
• 1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
• 2/3 cup canned black beans, rinsed, drained
• 2/3 cup chopped zucchini
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced seeded jalapeño chili

A few days ago:

Present day:

Have you guessed what we are up to?

After quite a long process, Brette and I have moved to downtown Minneapolis into a loft/condo that we are completely in love with.

When our wifi is hooked up and I can make my way out of boxes, I’ll be sharing more about what I’ve learned in this process.

So far, the family is adjusting well, dog included.

Will I ever get bored with the CSA? Doubtful. Boxes of beautiful produce area always welcome in my home.

This weeks devliery did not dissapoint. Surprised?

Here’s what the fridge looked like after:

And the countertop:

The yellowy tomato looking things are persimmons. My first one!

The Details:

Veggies:

• Portugese Kale – This is large and leafy. I don’t think I’ve had it before. Apparently the stalks are edible too if you peel them.
• Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes – I haven’t used my sweet potatoes from the last pick-up. I think I feel a pot of soup coming on.
• Brussels Sprouts
• Red Onion
• Red Russian Garlic
• Carrots 
• Broccoli
• Beauty Heart Radish
• Sugar Dumpling Squash
• Romanesco – more dinosaur looking cauliflower!
• Salad Mix

Fruit:

• Thomcord Grapes – a cross between a Thompson Green Grape and the Concord Grape
• Valencia Oranges – I hope these stop the cold I feel coming on!
• Fuji Apples
• Emerald Beaut Plums
• Persimmons – I have never had one of these. So curious. It looks like an orange tomato.
• Kiwi – How do you eat a kiwi? Brette eats the whole thing – skin and all – claiming it’s too much work to peel such a small fruit. I tend to peel and slice.
• Haas Avocados – I will never get sick of a big avocado supply.
• Warren Pears 

I had the pleasure of spending a long weekend in Montreal with my husband earlier this month. Neither of us had been before so we were eager to explore a new city together. We were also eager to lounge and relax, eat and drink, and restaurant hop. I did a fair amount of restaurant research leading up to the trip. While one of the things I enjoy about visiting a new city is stumbling upon a great place to eat, it can also get frustrating wandering around passing restaurant upon restaurant and wondering which one to try.

I had made dinner reservations for two nights, but unfortunately we didn’t make it to the one place we were really excited about trying, Au Pied de Cochon. After some stomach weirdness on my part, and some general malaise on Pat’s part, we didn’t think we’d enjoy the experience of poutine, fois gras, and a meat-heavy meal that particular night. So, we forfeited those reservations and had some small plates of Italian instead at Dolcetto. We sat at the high-top bar in viewing range of the kitchen and chatting range of the chefs. We tried a little bit of everything- a prosciutto and arugula pizza, an antipasto veggie platter, a creamy squash lasagna and tiramisu. It was a fun little restaurant, the food was tasty, and all those yummy carbs definitely hit the spot after a gorgeous fall day of walking around Montreal.

Due to a booking snafu at our hotel, we got to stay at two different hotels in the Old Town area of the city. At our first, we arrived late at night to this package of macarons and a free drink at the hotel bar.

Another place we were determined to check out was Olive + Gourmando. Luckily it was right in the neighborhood where we were staying so we were able to get our fix of incredible pastries and delicious coffee not once, but twice. Our first morning we went for breakfast and found out they don’t really serve breakfast, except for a heaping bowl of yogurt/granola, coffee, and pastries. I got the mongo-granola, which was hearty and awesome and filled with fruit, a brioche chocolat, and a latte. Pat had all of the above, minus the granola. And the brioche chocolat? Oh my.

We were back here the next day, after touring much of the city in the pouring rain. This time we went for their tasty paninis and soup, which hit the spot on that wet day. And then for dessert we had more pastries and coffee.

That night we dined at Brasserie T! (the other res that I had made ahead of time), and ate this:

(above: jambon la quercia and fondue parmesan)

(above: flank steak and frites. And wine.)

I liked this restaurant. They let us take our time, service was efficient but not overbearing, location was right next to a contemporary art museum, and they did a nice job with the food. Pat thought the flank steak “could have been better”, but I was very pleased with my meal. We had dessert too of course. (apple turnover and ice cream)

We had heard that Montreal is known for its bagels and were eager to try some, so on our  last full day we took a cab to Fairmount Bagel and picked up a couple sesames and cream cheese. Then we walked to the bike shop where we were joining a tour later in the morning. The bike shop wasn’t open yet, so we made ourselves at home at a next-door coffee shop with our bagels and cappuccinos.

And speaking of the bike tour… we’d like to sing the praises of Fitz and Follwell for providing us with an awesome morning of bike-touring around the city.

Pat, in front of an outdoor art installation made of milk crates

As part of the bike tour we visited an out of the way farmer’s market for lunch. We never would have found Atwater Market on our own.

We rode a total of 12(ish) miles, ate lunch in the sunshine outside the market, and then stopped for almond croissants on the way back to the bike shop. That there, people, is my kind of bike ride.

Three more places worth mentioning… we had a decent breakfast one morning at Le Gros Jambon; a tasty and reasonably priced lunch in a very crowded (read: popular) lunch spot called Le Marche de la Villette, and a nice, vacation ending dinner at Venti Osteria.

Montreal was the perfect destination for an autumn long weekend getaway. After just a two hour flight from Minneapolis, you can find yourself in a city that feels European, yet is very laid back, friendly, and English speaking!

Last weekend, we celebrated the fall at Gourmet Dinner Club with a Pumpkin Theme at Mike’s. We had a large crowd of folks (13!) who came with full appetites for what was an incredible meal. We also had a gorgeous table to eat at!

Let’s get the party started! I was in charge of cocktails and mocktails.

For my cocktail, I followed this recipe for a Pumpkin and Apple Cider cocktail. I didn’t actually have one since it was the weekend of the half-marathon, but from what I hear, it wasn’t bad. I don’t have a photo of it because apparently my camera ate some photos. Does this happen to anyone else?

My mocktail was a bigger hit. It’s called a Pumpkin Preggatini. I followed this recipe, making a few changes. I used my own pumpkin puree, vanilla almond milk for the regular milk, ginger snaps for the graham crackers and I made my own spiced simple syrup. These were delicious. This would be great at Thanksgiving or any type of fall cocktail party. You could add a spot of vodka for a spiked version.

During cocktail hour we snacked on Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds (recipe at the end) that Marnie brought. These babies were seriously addicting. Be warned.

Amanda brought a pumpkin marmalade (here’s the recipe!) and served it on baguette slices and a cheddar goat cheese (have you ever heard of that?) and it was also super yum. The citrus in the marmalade was my favorite part.

We then moved to the table and were served up so many tasty treats.

We started with Jenna’s Curried Pumpkin Soup with Cranberry Apple Compote (recipe at the end). It was velvety smooth and tasted like fall in a bowl. She topped it with crispy five-spiced apple chips using this recipe. I could sit down with a bowl just of the apple chips.

Lee made a gorgeous quinoa spinach salad with roasted pumpkin and pumpkin seeds.

Liza pulled of a beautiful Roasted Pumpkin Quiche. Transferring it seemed to be the most complicated but she handled it well. She used this recipe. I loved the use of phyllo dough for the crust.

Also on the plate was the main dish made by Mike. Of course, there is a story behind it and a pretty funny one at that. Here was Mike’s email just moments before our evening began:

See y’alls in a little bit!” 

Hilarious.

The verdict? The homemade mole was definitely better than the pre-made stuff in the jar. It did make a ton! The chicken turned out great. If you need some extra mole, just give Mike a ring. He can probably hook you up.

Then dessert. There were three of them. Yes, three! No one complained.

We had Henriet’s pumpkin mousse which I could eat a giant bowl of. Funny thing…Henriet is from the Netherlands and pumpkin is just not a thing there. It is so weird to her how gaga we all get over it. I’m not sure if we converted her or not. I’m definitely converted to the mousse which was made using this recipe. The toffee crunch was like crack. She made a few changes to the recipe: She didn’t freeze the mousse and she also substituted some of the whipped cream that needed to be folded in with whipped up egg whites.

Dessert #2 was from Kari who also used phyllo dough. This was a non-traditional pumpkin dish (at least for me): Kataifi with Candied Pumpkin and Yogurt. I really enjoyed the yogurt topping – way less sweet than a whipped cream. The tartness brought everything together.

Finally, there was Ron’s Pumpkin Flan. I went in with low expectations. I do not like flan. I can’t get past the gelatinous texture. I’m squirming just thinking about it. Well….I LOVED this flan. It wasn’t gelatinous! It was more of pudding texture than a jello texture. I don’t have Ron’s recipe but as soon as I’m able to hunt it down, I’ll update the post.

At this point, we were all definitely FULL. We enjoyed great conversations over our protruding bellies and rolled home in a pumpkin stupor. It was my kind of drunk. Any of these recipes would be great for Thanksgiving. Speaking of which….that is our next theme! In two weeks will be doing a spin on Thanksgiving dinner which will hopefully give you all some inspiration for your holiday gathering.

Recipes (I’m only including the recipes below that weren’t linked above):

Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

This past weekend I ran in my 5th half marathon. It was my 3rd time running the Mankato Half Marathon.

The execution of this race went exactly as planned.

We got to Mankato Saturday afternoon without a hitch.

We expo’d:

The expo wasn’t all that exciting. It was in a new location at the Field House at MSU. Brette commented that it lacked the energy of years past. The branded gear was meh, but I did buy a couple of Bondi Bands. The race shirts were black and I like them, but for the third year in a row, the small was huge and there were no smaller options. There are a lot of runners way smaller than me. I imagine they could use the shirt as a tent! One of these years, I hope they get that right.

We ate a great pre-race meal with my parents and my sister.Pasta, homemade marinara, chicken for some, salad with a balsamic vinagrette and sourdough bread. And my mom’s cookies. It was perfect.

We got to bed early and slept well.

We got up, fueled with our normal pre-race meals. Granola for Brette, oatmeal for me.

We lamented over our attire. Okay, not really a we. It was only me that lamented. Once we decided, we were out the door with the fam and dropped off at the start site.

Sporting one of my new Bondi Bands.

The weather was close to perfect. 45 degrees at race start, wind that was mostly at our back for the race and sunny.

We lined up in the coral with plenty of time. We hung out with the 2:10 pace group and planned on staying with them throughout the race unless I felt I could jump ahead after mile 10.

Everything about our plan was working great. The first miles went by very quickly. They didn’t seem hard. We saw my dad and sister at mile 1.5ish.

That would be me waving. Corn dog.

Click to enlarge

That was a great boost. All of the crowd support was great. The long down hill at mile 4 felt fantastic. The covered part of the trail was a breeze and I wished it would last forever. I made it up the Mount Kato hill without to much problem (other than the ability to talk). This was huge to me because the last two years, I had to walk part of that hill. This year, I just kept trucking. But it was getting harder. At mile 8.5ish, I needed to take a quick walk break, but at that point, I still felt I could meet that 2:10 goal. It was a short break. My heart rate was high, but I was hopeful I could sustain the pace.

That didn’t happen. We saw my sister and niece at mile 9 (Holler!), but after that things got tough.

Again, that’s me waving. You can click on the photo to enlarge.

I needed to take a few more breaks along the way. My legs could not sustain that pace. I got a bit whiny. Ask Brette. He’ll agree. I held back tears a few times and tried to just keep going. I knew I could still PR and that was very important to me.

My husband was amazing. He kept me positive even though he knew my pace was slipping. We could no longer see the 2:10 pace group. It turned into survival mode and if it hadn’t been for Brette telling jokes, stories, and encouraging words, I’m not sure I would’ve made it.

Miles 9.5-12.5 are tough. It is a loop through a park and residential area and I’ve struggled with it each year. There are a couple of uphills that just kill me. Coming out of the park, we saw Liza, who was in town and there to cheer us on. It was a great boost. We saw her again right before the finish and her screaming “Go Hjelle’s!” was extremely motivating. I picked up the pace as much as I could when I saw the finish. I “flew” past my dad waving his cap and crossed the finish line a nano-second ahead of Brette (cuz he’s cool like that). My official chip time was 2:13:59. My watch said the same time though measured a bit longer of a distance. No matter – still a PR!

Major accomplishments based on my goals:

• I set a Personal Record! I know this is huge and I’m extremely proud.  I cut off a minute and 20 seconds from last year and that is great.
• I did NOT dry heave like last year. Yay!
• I did say Thank you to as many people as I could when I had the ability to speak.
• I ran a race with my husband – which i never thought possible. I’m so grateful for his support.

I did not hit my big goal of having an average pace that begins with a 9. If I said I wasn’t bummed, I’d be lying. However, I executred my race strategy to a T and I gave it everything I had. If I pushed myself harder at most I could have made up a minute. I didn’t have it in me to go any futher.

I feel great about giving it what I had and setting a PR. I’m doing my best to focus on that.

What’s next? A much needed break. I’m going to take some time off from running and let my body rest. I’m really looking forward to that.

Somewhere along the route I told Brette I didn’t think I needed to do another 1/2 marathon. I may change my mind. Right now, I’m going to focus on the rest. I have plenty of time to think about 2013.

A huge thank you to my sister, Jackie, for taking photos. She had a great shot of the finish line. Unforutantely, orange shirt guy messed up the photo. You can see the top of my head behind him. Love it!

See that? That was my view for about four days a month ago. Pretty awesome I know.  The best way to avoid this: don’t get bit by the injury bug. I wish I could tell you I was PR’ing in my last race or doing a trail run for the first time, or even crashed my bike speeding down a hill at 50 mph. Unfortunately it’s none of those things. Instead, it was the result of poor decision-making. Here’s the set-up:

• Guys weekend with 14 dudes from work
• 36 holes of golf and the associated tom-foolery
• One dock, one lake, an amazing cannonball and two feet of water

The result was a torn meniscus.

I tried to ignore the problem by resuming regular activities including hockey, volleyball and a little spinning. For about six weeks I figured it’d just get better if I let it rest outside of those activities. It didn’t. Instead I got to skip the Minneapolis Du (lame).

The pain and the ‘locking’ worsened, and I eventually went to see my friends at TRIA Orthopaedic and ended up with a little clean-up surgery. Fortunately the folks at TRIA are pretty awesome and they knew just what to do and how to do it. I saw Dr. Steubs, who happens to be the same guy who does knees for most of the professional sports teams here in Minneapolis. The proof was on the walls in the form of signed jerseys (Johan Santana) and team photos (Minnesota Wild). The surgery was successful (once we agreed on which leg the surgery was going to be on) and they immediately had me doing physical therapy to return strength to the knee and surrounding muscles.

He even signed my knee. But I don’t think I can sell this autograph unfortunately.

While that’s all fine and dandy, for an endurance athlete, and I use that term in the most loose sense when referring to myself, those aren’t the kind of workouts I’m accustomed to. For about 10 weeks total the only time I got my heart rate up was, well, I can’t talk about that on the interwebs. But Jen did and you can make your own inferences after reading her story here.

Since then the rehab has been slow. My most recent run consisted of intervals of two minutes walking, three minutes running for 30 minutes. I’m still working my way back to running five minutes consistently, and then I’ll be cleared to run like I used to, assuming pain and swelling don’t return. Biking is fine, and was the whole time. The thing is I took this opportunity to pretty much quit working out all-together and eat whatever looked good. And it all looked good. The result of that: about 10 to 15 pounds of extra winter warmth way before I’d need it to survive the Minnesota winter.

Now it’s time to take it off. Watching what I eat, not just as it goes into my mouth, but thinking about what I’m eating ahead of time, will hopefully speed things up prior to the holidays, when we all know what happens (lots of food, cookies, family gatherings, and regular snacking). I’ll let you know how that goes.

Long story longer, it all comes down to this: coming back from an injury is a lot more painful than not getting injured in the first place. So if you want my advice, and why would you be reading if you didn’t, avoid shallow water and amazing cannonballs. You’ll thank me for it.