Thanksgiving Recap!

Hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving with your loved ones and ate a belly full of good food. I sure did. Our family gathering was smaller than usual but still carried on our usual family traditions. Eat Thanksgiving lunch like you've been starving and then graze through the rest of the day. Repeat at dinner. :-)

One notable part in the evening was during the blessing of the food. An uncle who speaks passable English with a thick Korean accent was chosen to say the prayer and here's a snipet (which I remember quite clearly): ". . . Thank you for the family that gathered here today and for those that prepared the food, please give them big breasts . . ."

Um, yeah, you can imagine the stifled giggles and squeaks that escaped out of my young cousin's lips. Especially the uncle's daughter who is in her mid 30s! What he MEANT to say was "blessings" but maybe in his nervousness it came out as "bresses" which REALLY did sound like "breasts"!! (My uncle is not a pervert! At least, not that one...) At the "kids" table, we all had a good laugh. I really hope God hears my uncles prayers and grants them to me!!

Which is quite a good transition because I actually prepared 2 dishes! The Low-Carb Pumpkin Cheesecake and Sugar-Free Cranberry Chutney did turn out really well! For those of you looking for the recipes, here you go!

Low-Carb Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe
Sugar-Free Cranberry Chutney Recipe

And also, photos to show you what the final product looked like!

This looks like it came out of a food magazine, doesn't it? ;-)

Camera setting not so good on this one...

I wasn't able to find any whole frozen or canned cranberries so I used a whole cranberry sauce that comes in a can. I didn't realize that the sauce has sugar already! Good thing I decided to use very little sugar substitute, instead of what the recipe recommended. So, as you can imagine, the chutney turned out a bit too sweet but still good! The cheesecake was really really good! And considering half of the adults in my family are diabetic, the cheesecake turned out to be a great alternative to regular pumpkin pie!

On a side note, this whole cooking thing is a big deal for me. I mean, I don't cook. God bless (or breast) my husband who does most of the cooking!!

Me and my proud Cranberry Chutney!

Oh and the smoked turkey also turned out wonderful!! Here's Duane prepping the turkey and wrapping it in foil for the BBQ...

Duane buttering up the turkey midway through... (Then he covered it with the lid.)

All done and yummified!

I had no idea you needed to cook the turkey all wrapped up in foil and via indirect heat. While we were gone during our Turkey Trot, my dad to had to check in on it every 45 min to an hour to make sure the coals were ok and still hot. Apparently, you have to add some to make sure they were going strong. That turkey must have been on the BBQ for good 7 hours! The smoked turkey was one of the best I've ever had. Super juicy and tasty! Thank goodness Duane likes to cook because he also contributed the stuffing and the ham.

My mom make her famous Crispy Chicken, Korean BBQ and Japchae, along with the usual Korean side dishes. Yeah, we get the best of both worlds! My mom thinks I got helluva husband. ;-)

Oh and the SV Turkey Trot 10k run recap will be in my next post...

Insert Witty Post Title Here

So here's what happened yesterday and today:

Monday: Elliptical for 20 min & Spinning for 50 min
Tuesday: Lunch time 7 miler @ 9:28 min pace

I haven't gone spinning in a really long time and I forgot what tough workout it can be. I sweat so much when I go spinning, too. Last night was no exception! I got to the gym a little early so I also hit the elliptical machine for a little bit. As for today, it felt so good to run at lunch time. It's a pain to change, shower and get ready AGAIN but it was totally worth it. (I'm not the au-naturale kinda gal. I'm all about full-on make up and hair kinda chick so anytime I get sweaty is a huge issue.) Good thing it's a slow week at work!

Here's what's up for the rest of the week.

Wednesday: Track Workout!
Thursday: Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 10k
Friday: Rest & Recover!!
Saturday: 8 Miler... somewhere
Sunday: 6 Miler or Cross Train?

I am totally looking forward to the smoked turkey that Duane is planning on making!! I am also contributing to the Thanksgiving faire by making Sugar Free Cranberry Chutney and Low-Carb Pumpkin Cheesecake! Part of my low-carb endeavor to shed unwanted pounds. I'll report back on the food later. Especially since I don't cook very much it will be interesting to see how these turn out! We're doing Thanksgiving Potluck at my parent's house in San Jose this year and I can't wait to show off my "new" cooking skills.

Also, if any of you are planning to send out photo holiday cards this year, I have a Friends and Family coupon code for Tiny Prints for 20% off! Type in "FAM121" without the quotes when you check out. Seriously, they have the cutest cards! I just ordered ours today... Here's our holiday card preview. Too bad we did not have any good running photos together!

The message says: We went "green on our honeymoon and
planted a tree in Costa Rica! (Duane did all the work! Phew!)

Love, Julianne & Duane

Of course, if you're like my super duper crafty friend Heather, you can make your own but I'm not really a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) kind of a gal. Also, if you're looking for an amazing photographer for your special event in IDAHO, you should check out her photography blog!

Happy Turkey Day tomorrow everyone!!

Great Running Week!

I was really happy with my running last week. With the belated 20 miles on Tuesday and with my 12 miler yesterday (along with the rest of my midweek runs), I reached 50+ miles this past week! I haven't run 50 miles in one week since July when I was training for the SFM. I ran my last of double digit run before the CIM yesterday morning with my training group and so glad that is over with. I ran my 12.5 miles at 9:44 min pace, finishing at 2 hours. Not the greatest pace but I'm happy with it.

This morning, I met up with Aron around 7:30am to get a good running start to the week... Had planned on an easy 8 miler but ended up (what felt like sprinting) running a tad faster than normal. I was huffing and puffing for the first half of the run. (Also, it was much cooler than I had expected! It must be in the low 50s. Hello, winter is upon Northern California!) That's what I get for trying to keep up with a faster runner. I will consider that my speed work for the week. Honestly, if Aron wasn't waiting to run with me today, I may not have gone running at all! I ran an average of 9:14 min pace for the 8 miles! Phew, no wonder I was so tired after!

I ended last week with 50.25 miles! Woohooo!! It's definitely taper time!!!

Happy Thanksgiving week to all! Duane and I have a Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 10k this Thursday... and then, I'm all over the low-carb Thanksgiving meal that day. We're planning on smoking our whole 20 lb turkey on the BBQ. I'm not quite sure what that entails but I hope to have some pictures of the bird later this week!