Leslie Blogs

Oct 16

Top Amazon Finds for Traveling with Dogs

Oct 16

The weather is finally cooling off and I’ve been taking advantage of it by adventuring with Finn. That means long walks to the beach, mornings spent in Southport around the waterfront, brunch outside, and hiking again!

Now that it is finally cool enough to adventure again, here are a few things I always have with us anytime we’re adventuring by car:

Fan for Kennel Even after it starts cooling off, I want to make sure Finn is comfortable in his kennel! I use this Ryobi fan – held on with a couple of bungee cords – to make sure the temp in Finn’s kennel is always cool!
Bluetooth Thermometer Speaking of cool, I want to know what the temp is in Finn’s kennel and this bluetooth thermometer makes that super simple!
Pet Travel Bag Even for short trips, I like to have supplies like an extra slip lead, paper towels (thanks to a puppy stint of car sickness), and a water bowl. This travel bag includes food and water containers and bowls is has plenty of room for all the other things we need to travel with!

(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Oct 28

Cook Once, Eat All Week Cookbook Review

Oct 28

For a couple months, I kept seeing posts on my feed about meals from a cookbook, Cook Once, Eat All Week (affiliate links used).

Although I have tried my hand at meal prepping in the past, I didn’t love it because I got tired of eating the same meals over and over again throughout the week. Even when I tried things like cooking several meals worth of chicken and seasoning it differently for each meal, it was still just….chicken with different seasoning. The intriguing thing to me about this cookbook was that although you had just one day of prep and you use the same 3 main ingredients, the recipes have a totally different take on how to use the ingredients so you get 3 really different meals!

I finally ordered the book a couple months ago and haven’t looked back since! The book is divided into 26 weeks of menus, with weeks focusing on either chicken, turkey, beef, or pork as the protein of each week. Each week provides a list of ingredients needed that will make up 3 dinners along with 2 optional bonus dinners (that may include seafood options) for each week.

Each week is set up around three main ingredients and starts with a shopping list for week as well as substitution options for each week. So for example, one of my favorite weeks is Week 10: Brisket, Bell Peppers, and Russet Potatoes. There are substitution options to make the week paleo, grain-free, or dairy-free.

So, here’s an overview of how each week works for me:

I pick the week I’m going with and add the ingredients I need to my Walmart Grocery order for the week (most of our meat comes from Butcherbox, so I choose meals based on what we have on hand from that).
After picking up the grocery order, I get started on the Prep Day tasks in the kitchen! For Week 10, this started with cooking the brisket. One of my FAVORITE things about a lot of the weeks is that at least one component can be cooked in the Instant Pot. This means hands-off time to complete other tasks, which I love!) Instructions are included for cooking the brisket in the oven, Instant Pot, or slow cooker and it is great to have choices! This week’s prep day also included baking potato wedges, cooking rice, making stir-fry sauce and dressing, chopping a few vegetables, and sauteing peppers and onions. Instructions are included for each of these tasks and tips for how to store and label each component are provided. Prepping all three recipes took under two hours!
At the end of prep day, you have three meals in the fridge pretty much ready to go!

The recipes for Week 10 are Philly Cheesesteak Loaded Fries, Pepper Steak Stir-Fry, and a Gyro Salad with Garlic Potato Wedges. Each recipe for this week yielded 4-5 servings, which meant that in my house, there were always leftovers for lunches. For each night, there was only a few minutes of prep and cook time to assemble the meals, since most ingredients were already prepped and cooked. For example, on the stir-fry night, I just had to crisp up the brisket and then combine with the veggies and sauce. In about 10 minutes, dinner was ready!

All in all, I’ve tried about 4 of the different weeks and we have enjoyed everything! There are a couple of recipes that weren’t my favorite (like the Cottage Pie from Week 5) but that is mostly because it was something that I just am not a fan of in the first place. There are a couple of weeks that I’ve already repeated just because they’ve been so good! Using these recipes has not only helped me prep and eat more “real” food but has also helped me branch out and eat foods that I normally wouldn’t, such as acorn squash or picadillo tacos. I can definitely say that in just the short time I’ve had Cook Once, Eat All Week, this has become the most used cookbook I’ve ever had!

Using ALL the containers for a week of meals!
The Chicken Broccoli Fried Rice was a favorite!
The Picadillo Tacos from Week 04 were great!
The Honey Garlic Pork Skillet from Week 22 is my FAVORITE so far!

So, if you’re looking for a way to make meal prep easier or want to try new recipes, check it out! If you have tried the book, which week is your favorite?

Oct 22

2019 Chicago Half Marathon

Oct 22

I spent the last weekend in September in Chicago. The purpose of the trip was to meet a friend to run the Chicago Half Marathon but since the race was in Chicago, it had the added bonus of meaning I got to hang out with my brother who lives there!

After a flight that was diverted due to a medical emergency and then delayed for hours thanks to storms causing a ground stop at both Chicago airports, I finally made it to the hotel late Friday night (or technically, early Saturday morning).

After a few hours of sleep, I was happy to meet up with Matt and grab breakfast! We spent the morning wandering around Chicago while I waited on Sam’s flight to get in. Once Sam arrived, we headed to the race expo to pick up our bibs. The expo was really well organized and in just a few minutes we had our shirts, bibs, and bags full of freebies.

After way too much walk walking and finally just deciding on ordering a pizza to the room for dinner, it was time for our 4:00 am alarm! Unfortunately, we woke up to pouring rain, thunder, and lightning. We made the 5 block walk to the shuttles in the rain and got there just in time to sit….and sit….and sit! The shuttles were supposed to leave at 4:45am but as you can from the screenshot, we were still waiting at nearly 5:30! We definitely appreciated being kept safe and once the storms finally cleared we were able to get to the race start and still started on time!

After a very muddy walk to and from bag check, we were off! It was rainy for most of the race and after starting in soaking wet shoes and socks, my feet were pretty much shredded after mile 3. That (and being undertrained) resulted in more walking and the slowest half I’ve ever run. I tried to take a few pictures along the way, but mostly kept my phone in a waterproof bag in the front pocket of my Nathan Hydration Pack so they’re pretty water spotted and not great quality! You can see the mud that the finish area was covered in and in the picture with that huge medal, that isn’t a brown sock, but yep! It is mud thanks to a fall on my way to grab my bag from the bag check tent.

Even with the horrible weather pre-race and the rain during the race, neither of which could be controlled, the Chicago Half was an amazingly organized and supported race! I would highly recommend this experience!

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