Traveling and Running and Cooking Oh My

It's 4th of July week and I'm in Denver CO.  I've made one new recipe, and run 10 miles since the last post.  240 miles and 29 recipes to go.  

The runs have been a bit all over the place, but all in all I'm starting to feel good.  I ran to the seed store to buy soil for my tomato plants (Alysha thanks for watering them while I'm away!).  I ran to prospect park and through Park Slope on a great afterwork/evening run, and I've done two runs here in Denver.  Both have felt great, and Ethan joined me for the second one.  I wanted to make sure I went on a couple of runs to see how the altitude would feel.  In August, Ethan will be running the Leadville 100, an ultra-marathon in Leadville CO.  I have the privilege of pacing him for 6(ish) miles in his last 50, and helping crew for him for the rest of it.  There will be a great group of people in his support crew, and I'm really excited about being there to see him take this on.  On a separate note, I've registered for the Philly Rock-n-Roll half marathon on Sept. 15th, which will be awesome.  I haven't picked a full marathon yet, but I'm hoping to run one right around my birthday.  

On to the cooking... I made Charred Mexican Zucchini for a cookout last night (recipe was from Joy the Baker and can be found here). It started out a little rough because I completely screwed up the recipe, and then got a huge case of the grumps (Ethan mumbled something about me being so pleasant...), but they ended up great which got me out of my grumpiness.  

I used an instagram filter, I won't lie.

The lemon in the above photo is left over from something else I was making... you don't use lemon in this, but you use a bunch of lime, and it's delish (as citrus always is). First you carve out the seeded part of the zucchini.  I used regular green zucchinis, and smaller "mexican grey" zucchini.  

All carved up and ready for a party

After that you drizzle a bunch of olive oil over them, with some salt and pepper and grill them to within an inch of their lives (that's what the recipe calls for). You are supposed to use red pepper flakes, but I omitted that.  I like a little spice but not a ton.  

Getting ready to grill

While these are grilling, mix together a little bit of mayo with a bunch of mexican cheese.  I wish I could be more specific in the cheese description, but I can't.  I went to the store and asked for mexican queso and they couldn't help me either.  I just ended up finding a package that said queso in the cheese section and went with it.  I don't know what it was, but if you've ever made mexican corn, it's the same stuff.  So when they're all grilled up, put the cheese mixture in the boat part of the squash and voila.  

Grilled and filled.

Once they're all filled spritz a bunch of lime on top and sprinkle some chili powder and call it a day. This picture was taken before I put the chili powder on top, which would have looked cooler because of the red, but oh well.  Lesson learned for next time.  So there we have it.  Delicious grilled squash for the summer.  

So to recap, flew to Denver (YAY), ran 10 miles (woohoo!) got a case of the grumps... yea... and made delicious yummy charred mexican squash (major YUM).  Happy 4th of July everyone!!! xoa