Vegan Recipe Review: Red Lentil Dahl

A quick explanation of this series of posts: I started eating a vegan diet in January 2022 and instead of preparing the recipes from my heritage cookbooks like I did in 2021, I decided to try out some vegan recipes and write about them (honest reviews). Readers may suggest them to me or I may find them online, but I basically just pick a recipe that sounds good and I cook it (without alterations or substitutions) and write a simple review. I ask the opinions from my family as well (who are not vegan).

Anyway, this week I chose Red Lentil Dahl. I love lentils and after I made a Lentil Bolognese last week that I didn't care for, I was hoping for a better outcome with this recipe. I like trying different ethnic foods, but I had never tried a recipe for dahl (or spelled dal, daal, dhal) but I see tons of recipes on Pinterest for various versions. I found a good explanation of dahl on Taste Cooking:

"What’s up with dal? A good question. In India, the term (also spelled daal, dhal, and dahl) refers to pulses (dried legumes that include beans, lentils, and peas) and is also used to refer to a stew made of said legumes. It can get a little confusing, but trust me: The confusion is worth it.

For centuries, dal has been an essential part of India’s rich culinary tradition, served at just about every meal. It’s nourishing, inexpensive, healthy, protein-rich, and, most important, harmoniously balanced when infused with herbs and spices."  (source)

Since I love lentils and peas (I eat a lot of beans, too) I was surprised I've never actually tried a dahl recipe before. The spices in this particular recipe sounded good to me and I actually had all of the ingredients on hand. I "warned" the family that I was making a vegan dinner (hahaha!) and prepped the ingredients that I could do ahead of time.

Tip: In the mornings after preparing breakfast and my cold oats for lunch, I take an extra few minutes to mix together spices or sauces for that night's dinner--that way, when it's time to cook, I already have the spices mixed or the sauce ready to pour into the pan so I don't have to pull out all the little jars of spices and seasonings. I just use mason jars to throw the ingredients into and then I shake it up. Here is my spice mix for this recipe:

Anyway, this recipe is super straight-forward with no "weird" ingredients. I know I mention this frequently on these vegan recipe posts, but I (at least right now) prefer to use ingredients I'm familiar with. Someday maybe I'll experiment with making things like "cheese" out of cashews (?!).

This recipe involves red lentils, carrots (or sub with sweet potato, which is what I decided to do because I don't love carrots), bell pepper, onion, garlic, ginger, vegetable broth, canned coconut milk, cumin, curry powder, sweetener of choice (I ran out of maple syrup, so I just used regular sugar), turmeric, paprika, and crushed red pepper.  (For the actual recipe and measurements, check out the recipe post at Ela Vegan. I'll link to it again at the end of the post.)

I was surprised how much carrot was called for in the recipe (it said one large--200 gram--carrot). I had a lot of baby carrots but definitely not 200 grams. I had a large sweet potato so I used that instead--half of the sweet potato was 200 grams. Then I diced it very small:

You can see the other half of the sweet potato in the background; it was pretty big!

This morning, I mixed all the spices together in a small mason jar and gathered the other ingredients to set on the counter for when I was ready to cook. I am MUCH more likely to cook if I have things prepped already.

The blob of brown stuff with the lentils is just the vegetable broth base that I mix with water. I don't mix it directly into the water so that I can save having to wash a dish ;)  (The measuring cup that the water was in)

Basically you just sauté the onion first and then add all the rest of the ingredients except for the coconut milk. You cook it for 10 minutes or so and then add the coconut milk and cook for another 5 minutes until heated through. Simple!

Then you serve it with basmati rice, potatoes, or naan (flatbread). I adore basmati rice and I haven't had it in a long time, so I chose to serve it with that. And then if the kids didn't like the dahl, they could just eat plain rice for dinner ;)

(My kids teenagers are picky and if something even *sounds* unusual to them, they immediately think they won't like it. So when I say they like something, it's a big deal! Jerry, on the other hand, is happy to try anything and even if it's not his favorite, he never complains about it. When I ask for his opinion on these new recipes, though, he knows I want an honest response.)

The spices smelled so good while it was cooking! I felt like there was a LOT of water when I first poured everything into the pot:

I set the timer for 10 minutes and when I went back, I was shocked that there was no water left and if I left it any longer, I'm sure it would have burned to the bottom of the pot.

But 10 minutes was perfect. After adding the coconut milk, the consistency was exactly what I imagined. Looking at the pics from the original recipe makes me think that it is supposed to be a little thinner? But I felt like this consistency was right on for serving over rice. (No, it doesn't look appetizing here...)

I put one cup of basmati rice and one cup of the dahl in my bowl and it was the perfect size.

It made six servings that ended up being one cup each.

I have to say, using the sweet potato instead of carrots was absolutely the right call! The sweet potatoes added an amazing flavor.

The overall thoughts about the taste? Jerry and I loved it! We both agreed it's a recipe we should add to the dinner rotation, especially considering it's so quick and easy. As far as the kids, well, it's not at all what I expected. Eli wasn't enthusiastic about trying it, but he said it was good and he was going to eat a bowl after he goes fishing. I kept telling him that it's important to tell me what he REALLY thinks and he insisted that he really likes it. And for Noah, who is not a fan of spices like cumin and paprika, said "It's just okay." And he chose not to eat it. 

I swear, my kids weren't picky at ALL when they were little! But there is still hope; there are foods that I love now and I didn't eat when I was younger. Bell peppers are one of my very favorite vegetables, but I really disliked them until I was pregnant with Eli and I started craving them all the time! So weird how our tastes change.

Anyway, this recipe was fantastic! If ELI liked it, then you know it's got to be good. Definitely give it a try (whether you're vegan or not). It's always fun to try new things :)

Here is a link to this recipe for Red Lentil Dahl on Ela Vegan.

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My April DietBet Weigh-In

Like last week, I forgot about trying out a new recipe to post about today. So, I'll do that tomorrow.

If you missed Wednesday's weigh-in post, it was not a good week as far as the scale goes. I had gained nearly five pounds, bringing my weight up to 154.6. Considering I gained that much so quickly, I knew most of it was water weight, but it was discouraging to see that.

Knowing that my DietBet weigh-in for April 1st had to be 150.3 or lower, I realized there was pretty much no way that I would hit my goal.

If you're not familiar with DietBet: You basically make a bet on yourself that you'll lose X amount of weight in a particular amount of time. There are 4-week bets that are usually $35-100 to lose 4% of your body weight, and there are 6-month bets that are $175 (or an option to pay $35 monthly). I won't get into the math here, but you place a bet that you'll lose the weight and then if you do, you split the pot with everyone that met their goal. You are guaranteed to win your entire bet back if you meet your goal. (DietBet takes a large cut of the pot before paying out, so your winnings aren't as much as you might think in the beginning.)

I've said before that I'm not a big fan of DietBet in general for a few reasons--mainly that they take a HUGE portion of the pot--but I've been using the site since last May when I started losing weight. The monthly "official" weigh-ins have helped me. (You have to take photos to prove your weight.) I'm currently in the middle of a 6-month bet that started on January 1st. I have to weigh in at a particular goal on the first or second of each month in order to win. The final goal is to have lost 10% in 6 months.

Anyway, my official starting weight for DietBet was 163.4 pounds. (Keep in mind that I wear light clothes for the weigh in photos, so the official weight is slightly over my usual naked weight in the mornings.) I hit my February and March goals, and until my weight gain last week, I was on target for my April goal. DietBet gives you until midnight PST on the 2nd of the month to do an official weigh-in.

Jerry did his weigh-in yesterday and hit his goal with a little room to spare. Last month, he had to work HARD to drop the weight within a week's time because he slacked off the first three weeks. I told him to make sure he doesn't wait until the last minute to lose the weight again. Well, that came back to bite me this month, because I was in that same situation.

Weighing in at 154.6 (154.2, really, but holding my phone for a picture adds 0.4 to my weight--this is relevant, I'll get to that soon) on Wednesday, I wasn't even sure if I should try to hit the DietBet goal or not. Getting down to 150.3 (with clothes and holding my phone), I would have to be just under 150 or so--naked--at the most for my weigh-in. That's a five-pound drop. Highly unlikely!

On the 31st, I was at 153.6. Yesterday, I was again at 153.6. I was super bummed that I was going to lose this month's bet--not just because of the money, but because I was under that goal just a week ago.

I ended up deciding on a Hail Mary effort--drinking lots of water and fasting all day yesterday. I was so sure it was impossible that I had a hard time deciding if it was worth it.

This morning, no matter what the scale said, I planned to eat like normal. I wasn't going to try to fast all day and weigh in tonight. Anyway, I got up at 3:30 (yes, my wake-up time seems to be getting earlier and earlier) and stripped down and hopped on the scale. I was at 151.4. Naked. I put my pajamas back on and did the Wordle for today and read my book for a little bit. Was able to pee just a little before trying the scale again. 

(Yes, I realize how stupid this whole scenario is! It reminds me of the days at Weight Watchers when I'd see women remove all of their jewelry, shoes, belts, anything they possibly could before stepping on the scale.) 

I put on the absolute lightest clothes in my closet (a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top--no bra or underwear, hahaha) and tried again. It was 150.2! I was under the goal by just 0.1. HOWEVER... when I pick up my phone to take a picture of the scale, it adds 0.4. So, I needed to get my clothed-weight down to 149.8.

By this time, it's 5:00-ish AM and I just went about my usual morning routine feeding the pets, hoping I'd be able to pee once more.

And it worked!! I was able to weigh in at an official 150.0--0.3 pounds below the goal. I couldn't believe it.

This is another reason that I have reservations about DietBet, though. It's super common for people to drop as much water weight as possible just before weigh-in. If I hadn't been at goal just a week ago, I wouldn't have even attempted it. But since I knew most of the gain last week was water weight, I figured I could try it and see what happened.

Next month's goal is 148.7, and I know I can do that. I feel really motivated having lost the weight I gained last week. I'm expecting it to be back up a little tomorrow now that I've eaten, but I don't feel the pressure anymore. At this point, I feel like it would be nice to lose half a pound a week!

I've never had a DietBet weigh-in that was such a close call; usually I have at least a couple of pounds of leeway. I definitely don't want to let that happen again. I'm going to work hard on consistency this month; March was all over the place as far as my eating habits go. One of the benefits of the last few days is that I got in the habit of drinking a ton of water again!

Here is today's random fact of the day:

I think this is so cool! A quick Google search brought me to this:

"Back in 1964, The Beatles made a career-defining decision to aid fighting racial segregation in the United States by refusing to play a concert at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida.

The gig in question had been segregated without the bands’ knowledge. Upon discovering that the racial segregation was taking place, The Beatles threatened to cancel the performance."  (source)

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Friday Night Photos

Happy Friday--and April Fools' Day! I probably share the same April Fools' Day story every year, but I still laugh about it and can't help it...

My sister, Jeanie, always liked April Fools' Day when we were kids; and when my kids were little, she thought it was fun to teach them little pranks they could pull on Jerry and me (harmless things like replacing the cream in an Oreo with toothpaste). She would usually call the kids on March 31 and remind them that it was April Fools' Day the following day.

I didn't know about this prank until after it happened... Eli was in preschool (four years old) and the class went into the cafeteria for lunch. The teacher (bless her heart!) had the kids form a line to get their food. While in line, Eli just dropped to the ground--totally limp and unresponsive. His teacher, feeling panicked, rushed over to him and kept asking if he was okay. Eli remained unresponsive. Just as she was going into full-on panic mode, Eli popped open his eyes and said, "April Fools'!"

His poor teacher was NOT amused and she explained the prank to me when I picked him up. Of course I talked to him about appropriate jokes to play, but I couldn't help laughing at his cleverness. When we played hide-and-seek at home, Eli would get way too excited while hiding and shout out, "I'm right here!" so I wondered how on earth he managed to keep a straight face like he did with his teacher. Hahaha, I have no idea where he got the idea to play the prank he did, but I love to remind him of it every year.

Anyway, here are some photos for Friday night :)

Phoebe looked SO sweet here I had to take a picture. Her favorite place to sleep is right in front of the vents because she loves the warm heat coming through. She's such a tiny cat--she only weighs 6 pounds while each of the "kittens" weighs over 12 pounds! (And yes, we still have the heat turned on, unfortunately; we actually have snow flurries happening at the moment.)

Speaking of the kittens, they are still obsessed with that dumb little tent thing I bought at the thrift store! It's so funny; I buy them fun new toys that they play with for a couple of days and then lose interest (there are a couple they still love, but most of them just collect dust). Jerry even gave me "the look" at the thrift store when I said we should get it--he *knew* they wouldn't play with it. Well, it's literally their favorite form of entertainment right now and has been for the last couple of weeks! Here is a short video clip of how they play in it (Chick is inside and Duck is on the outside).

The play so hard with the thing that it ends up rolling around the house--with or without a cat inside. When Duck was tired out, he decided to hang out inside of an Amazon box while Chick took a nap in the tent. I love how you can see Duck in the background of this picture.

Luke and Riley stayed the night at my parents' house last weekend and I brought over Luke's birthday gift. I got him a nutcracker and a bag of walnuts, hahaha. Odd gift for a five-year old, but he loves to crack walnuts when he comes over and he's mentioned a few times that he'd like to have his own nutcracker and walnuts someday.

I think I posted a photo of this mermaid tail sleep sack thing that I bought at the thrift store for Riley. I washed it, of course, and then gave it to her when Luke got his gift. She looked adorable in there! And she loved it. 

When I babysat them at their house recently and I braided Riley's hair, I looked everywhere for a barrette to hold her hair out of her face. Becky always does Riley's hair super cute, but Riley said she didn't know what a barrette was. So I bought a pack of these simple ones. She wanted to put all of the colors in at once (as I'm sure all three year olds would want) so I lined both sides of her head with them. (Clearly I took this picture after she rolled around in the sleeping bag.)

Remember the jeans I said I just *had* to buy at the thrift store even though I knew they'd be too big? I had been planning to put darts in the back of the waist to take the waist in, but it's a LOT of work and it's very tedious in order to make it look natural. I watched some YouTube videos for alternative ways to take in the waist of jeans and some suggested using elastic inside of the waistband (which didn't make sense to me because I didn't want the waist to look gathered). However, it seemed like a much easier solution, so I tried it--and it's amazing! While they're lying on the ground here you can see that the waist looks gathered, but once I put them on, they look flat--and they actually stay up without a tight belt!

I also altered the bottom hem. The jeans were too long, so I let out the original hem (just because I like how it looks) and then I shortened the length just above the original hem. So I was able to cut a couple of inches out of the length of the jeans and now they fit great :)

Below is a thrift store find as well. I went to Salvation Army a few days ago because I was desperate for a couple of pairs of running capris. I haven't had luck finding any. While I was there, I noticed this pair of Lululemon pants--for $1! They are in perfect condition. I had no idea if they'd fit, but I figured that I could at least resell them for a profit if not. They actually fit really well and are super comfy. Out of curiosity, I looked them up on the Lululemon website and they are $118 new. Crazy, right?!

Oh! And the white streak on my mirror in front of my shirt? Well, it's not actually on my mirror. After I took the picture and was changing my clothes, I realized that I'd dribbled toothpaste down the front of my shirt when I was brushing my teeth, haha. I always try to multitask while brushing my teeth and it ends like this sometimes.

This meme could not be any more true! 

This one made me laugh, too. When Jerry and I start a new season of a show, I feel like I've never seen the show before and he spends 30 minutes explaining it all to me. I prefer to watch shows that are done and over with so I don't have to try to remember everything!

And I'll end with the last couple of facts of the day. I wanted to include yesterday's because I find it so interesting! I think a lot of libraries are underutilized. I live in such a small town that I'd never heard of or imagined that libraries like this Sacramento one exist. Have any of you ever used "The Library of Things" to check out something other than books? That would be a fun way to try out different hobbies.

And here is today's random fact of the day:

That's all for now. Have a great weekend! xo

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Return to Running Recap : Week 44

I don't have much to recap on this post because I didn't do much running last week! Jerry and I both agreed to take the second half of the week off and then start it all over this week.

We were working on Week 6 of our training plan, but we each had problems with it--mine being my left knee. It doesn't really feel like a "real" injury, but it bothers me the day after each run for some reason. It doesn't hurt while I'm running, but the following day it hurts. And it's not terrible pain, but more of a nagging pain. It almost feels like the top of my tibia is bruised (I know that's very specific, haha).

Anyway, I had been skipping one run per week due to my knee anyway, but when Jerry suggested taking a few days off and then repeating Week 6, I thought it was a good idea. I hoped that the extra few days would help my knee to quit bugging me.

And thankfully, it seems to have worked! I'm going to continue to run just three days a week instead of four, at least until after the race. I really don't want to risk having knee issues come race time. So, I'm going to skip the Thursday runs. (I wrote in the plan that if you have to skip a day, the Thursday run is the best one to skip.)

That means I only have one run to write about today, and unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess), it's not very eventful!

Tuesday - Tempo Run

Tuesday's run was a tempo run; since I'm repeating Week 6, this is the same run I did a week prior:

Run 5 minutes easy; Run 15 minutes at tempo pace; Run 5 minutes easy.

I liked that this was only 25 minutes total! ;)  I looked at what I did the previous Tuesday so that I could run at the same speed (or possibly a little faster) this time. I read my book while I ran, but the run felt hard--which was good, because a tempo run isn't supposed to feel easy. 

Summary: 5 minutes at 10:58/mile, 15 minutes at 9:02/mile, 5 minutes at 10:48/mile. Total of 2.59 miles in 25:08.

Since I got the new Garmin and spent some time messing around with it, I decided to try something a little different. I changed the heart rate zones to the default (percentage of heart rate reserve) rather than using the MAF heart rate formula. I'm not heart rate training right now, but I am curious to see where my heart rate falls under the default settings.

Percentage of heart rate reserve (HRR) is more accurate than using a percentage of maximum heart rate (MHR) because it takes your resting heart rate into account as well as your maximum. Lately, my resting heart rate has been about 70 bpm. 

I don't know my *actual* maximum heart rate, but using the well-known formula of 220 minus my age (40 years), I get 180. This method has been shown to be pretty inaccurate and gets less accurate as you get older.

There is another method called the Gulati formula that is just for women and it's apparently much more accurate. Your maximum heart rate is calculated like this: [206 - (0.88 x age)]. That would make my maximum heart rate 170.8 (we'll round up to 171 bpm). That seems a lot more likely than 180 for me--even when I run my very hardest, it's hard to get to the high 160s. 

So, I'm just going to go ahead and set my maximum heart rate at 171 bpm. So here is what my heart rate zones would look like when using the heart rate reserve method:

It took me forever to find a good chart for the descriptions of the zones using heart rate reserve, but here is a great one from RunBundle. You can put your own numbers in and it will calculate everything for you, but here is the description of the zones themselves:

This only lists four zones, so Zone 1 on the Garmin would basically be "Zone 0"--useless as far as this training goes. I marked the chart with red to reflect the zones on my Garmin. So I would basically run in Zone 2-3 for easy runs, Zone 4 for tempo, Zone 5 for intervals.

Like I said, I'm not training by heart rate right now (although my runs lately seem to fall into those zones) but after the race, it might be fun to try training with these zones for a change. I always like trying something new to keep things from getting boring!

I had no intention of turning this into such a long post about heart rate stuff (in fact, I think I said I *wasn't* going to write about heart rate stuff during this training period, haha!). Since I only had one run to cover on this post, I figured it was a good time to mention it, though.

Let's hope my knee holds up okay this week. Four miles tomorrow and then five on Sunday!

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Wednesday Weigh-In : Week 44

I really don't want to write this post. Like, I've been coming up with a million excuses in my head not to write it. However, whether or not I write it doesn't change anything, so I might as well be vulnerable and honest. 

I'll spoil the ending right now--I had a terrible week as far as my weigh-in goes. After last week's gain, I was super motivated to have a good loss this week. My weight has been bouncing between 147 and 150 for what feels like forever (in reality, it's been about five weeks).

I don't know what happened this week, but I suspect that since I haven't seen much progress even when I try really hard, I just let loose and figured it wouldn't matter anyway. (This wasn't a conscious thought; I just imagine that's what was happening in my brain.)

First, my weigh-in for today:

Last week, I was at 149.8 (which was already a gain from the previous week). And today? I was at 154.6--a gain for 4.8 pounds! In a week.

I know there are lots of reasons that this could have happened, and I also know that I didn't gain nearly five pounds of FAT--a pound of fat is about 3,500 calories, so that would mean I'd have to have consumed an EXCESS of 16,800 calories, or 2,400 calories per day. I know that I didn't do that, so I know that this may just take a couple of days to drop the water weight.

However, I *did* eat a lot of excess calories, so some of that weight may very well be fat. I shouldn't have bought a big container of roasted cashews because I have a very hard time just eating one portion (or even two portions--they're so tiny!). I also went overboard with peanut butter. Nuts are healthy when eaten in normal quantities, but the calories can add up super fast and it doesn't even feel like you ate that much.

I also decided to change up my lunch this week. I actually did that with the hope that it would help the scale start dropping again. Instead of my usual cold oats, I've been having a sandwich: Dave's Killer Bread (it's the one with the yellow label with lots of seeds--so good!!) with vegan mayo, avocado, tomatoes, and pickles. The calories are about the same as my oatmeal, but the volume is bigger and it has less fiber. I'm not saying this is a factor in gaining weight; it's just something to note.

Another problem was that I ate "convenience" foods for dinner several times this week. It's been a busy week and cooking a meal has been a challenge (everybody has different schedules). I ate vegan "chicken" nuggets, a veggie burger, or just several snack-type foods to make up a meal. These obviously have more sodium, which could result in water weight gain. It's also a lot less fiber.

So, I could keep listing little things that could have caused my weight to go up so much, but like I said--it's not going to change anything.

However, I am really feeling the pressure now because I have to weigh in for my six-month DietBet in two days! At this point, I highly doubt I can drop five pounds by the time I weigh in, but my plan is to drink a TON of water, drastically reduce my sodium, increase my fiber, and eat the healthy foods I was eating before. I am also going to write up a dinner plan this week so that I'm not relying on convenience foods.

If I manage to reach my weigh-in goal, awesome! If not, then I'll just have to work harder to reach it next month. What bothers me the most is that I had already reached April's goal over a month ago! And in one single week, I went nearly five pounds over my goal.

In the past when gaining a significant amount of weight, I tended to quit my Wednesday Weigh-Ins because, well, it's embarrassing! But I really don't want to do that this time, even if I continue to gain weight. It happens, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who can manage to gain five pounds in a week. (It's certainly not the first time--or even the tenth!--that this has happened to me.

Okay, this post was hard to write. And I really, really hope that I don't have to write the same thing next week! (I appreciate how supportive SO many of you are--and I write this before I even publish this post, because I've always felt the support when I have a rough road. So I thank you--truly. xo)

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Transformation Tuesday #65

Happy Transformation Tuesday! I had taken several "before" photos last week and posted a couple on Friday Night Photos. The rest are still in the "before" phase, hahaha. I did do a quick before and after of vacuuming this rug, though! Joey sheds like a beast a couple of times a year and this was from one afternoon of him lying/rolling around on there. It doesn't matter how frequently I vacuum, his hair is like a magnet to that rug.

My mom and sister each had a transformation to post this week, and I have one from a reader as well! Here is Jeanie's (my sister's):

I have always had very light blond eyebrows that were very hard to notice unless they were tinted or I used a colored eyebrow pencil to darken them. Tinting eyebrows is pretty expensive (about $20 each session) and during COVID I found out I could tint them on my own using Just For Men beard dye.  It worked out great for self-tinting and saved a ton of money (about $10 for about 12 applications).  

I then heard about Microblading, a more permanent eyebrow solution. It is kind of like a "tattoo" of an eyebrow but it is done by a special make up artist.  I did quite a bit of research and found an artist in my area (Chicago Microblading by Brows Beauty Couture) who had excellent reviews. I made an appointment and had the first session completed. A follow-up session is needed 4-6 weeks after the initial session to complete the process.

Although a little uncomfortable for the actual procedure and tender around my eyebrows for a few days after words, and it can be pricey ($500-$750 total) but I believe you get what you pay for (there are some horror stories online of Microblading gone wrong... choose your artist carefully if you do this).  She helped me picked the shape and color and I felt very comfortable that she knew what she was doing. I am very happy with the results! I wish I would've done this along time ago!

-Jeanie, Illinois

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Next up is my mom's back room. My parents' house is a very spacious ranch-style. The back room/family room is huge and open; the previous owner had restored old cars and he used that huge room as a garage (in addition to the two other garages he had!). My parents remodeled it when they moved in and had carpet laid down. That was 20+ years ago (I was a high school sophomore when we moved in there).

Because the room is so big, there isn't a lot of natural lighting from windows and it can look kind of dark. (It's kind of like a basement in that way.) It's a great room for entertaining, though! Anyway, my parents just got new carpet in there and it made a HUGE difference in the whole feel of the room. They My mom chose a plush carpet with a nice padding underneath, so it feels amazing. And the color lightened up the room a lot!

The "before" photo is a few years old and not great for seeing the carpet (I actually had to lighten the picture a bit), but it's the best pic my mom could find of it.

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I go to antique shops as a hobby and I had been looking for a decorative lamp for my buffet. I came across this rooster lamp and it was so unique, I had to have it. But it was a bit too roostery. My decor is more French country than country, so I painted it to look like a garden statue and made a lamp shade. Fun project and I just love it!

- Valerie, Oklahoma

Valerie, I'm so impressed with the lamp shade that you made! It matches the flowers next to it so well. And I think the choice to paint the rooster gray to look like a garden statue was clever--it looks great! -Katie

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Thanks so much for sharing the transformations! If anyone has a transformation to share, please do--I am always looking for more. Just send a before photo and an after photo to me at: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com and don't forget to include your name and a description of the transformation! I'd love to see what you come up with :)

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A New Garmin Forerunner! (Warning: Nerdy Stuff)

I started to write this post before I wrote my running recap for the week, so some parts may be a little redundant; I don't want to rewrite it though because I was nearly done with this post! As I said, I got a new Garmin Forerunner so I wanted to write a little about that. Or maybe a lot. You know me. (This is not a sponsored post, by the way; I paid for the Garmin with my own money and I'm just writing this for nerdy fun!)

Just for fun, here is a collage of my previous Garmin Forerunners.

Garmin Forerunner 205, 305, 910xt, and 620

The top left is my very first one that I got in (I think) 2007 to train to walk the Indy Half-Marathon. It didn't have a heart rate option, so I eventually used the red one (top right) that my brother gave me. And I thought it would be fun to send the 205 around the country to any readers who would want to try it out for two weeks and then mail it to the next person. I think about 20 people ended up using it! 

When the red one died, the generous people at Garmin actually sent me that black one (the 910xt) as a gift!! (Probably because I give them so much free advertising, haha. They also sent me one to give away on the blog, which was fun.) In 2013, the 620 was released (the bottom right). It had all sorts of really cool features that the previous Garmins did not, so I bought that one (Jerry used the 910xt and then I gave it to my brother when he started running).

Moving on...

I'd been really frustrated with my Garmin Forerunner 620 for about the last year. It's the model from 2013(!) so it's definitely up there in age. It works, but trying to upload my runs or creating and sending runs to my watch was really sketchy. I also had to download updates by plugging it into the computer, which is a pain in these days of bluetooth technology. The watch will work, but it takes FOREVER and in the amount of time I spend working on it, I could have finished my run.

Since I've been running regularly since May of last year, I finally decided that I was going to get a new Garmin. The problem is, I didn't want a "smart watch" or an all-day fitness tracker. I have no interest in an Apple watch or anything like that. I just wanted a watch that I could wear only for my runs--tracking my pace, distance, interval training, etc.

Unfortunately, these watches are practically non-existent now. Most newer watches have so many bells and whistles that aren't necessary for old-fashioned me. The one thing I *really* didn't want was to have phone notifications sent to the watch. It drives me completely crazy when I'm having a conversation with someone and they are constantly looking at watch notifications. It's as bad as looking at their phone.

After reading a ton about different fitness watches, I realized I was just going to have to get one that works like a smart watch--it was inevitable unless I got the absolute basic model and there was a bit more I wanted than that.

Also, I wanted a touchscreen. My 620 is a touchscreen and I couldn't imagine going back to using the side buttons for navigation on the watch. However, that's another feature that is hard to come by on the Forerunners now! I was really surprised. (You can still find older models with touchscreen.) So, I figured I'd try a non-touchscreen watch and see how I liked it.

After reading about a million reviews, I finally decided to get the Forerunner 245 (without music). The 245 has two options: one stores all of your music, which I don't want; the other is $50 cheaper and it doesn't store music. (They are $250 for the non-music and $300 for the music one). (I'll link to them at the end of the post)

I wasn't a fan of the wrist heart rate monitor (chest straps are more accurate) but the wrist monitor is another feature that is pretty standard now. I wasn't sure how accurate the wrist heart rate monitor would be, but I noticed that the 245 allows you to turn off the wrist monitor and add a chest strap if you'd prefer.

Anyway, I received the Forerunner 245 last Friday night (the 18th). I skipped Friday's run because I was hoping to use the new watch and I was waiting for the delivery all day. It didn't get here until 8:30 PM, so I decided to do my run on Saturday instead so that I could use the new watch.

When I first started messing around with it on Friday night to get it set up for my runs, I really had a hard time getting used to the fact that it's not a touch screen. After reading through specs of other watches, I saw that it's actually really common not to have touchscreen. It took a little getting used to, but I got the hang of it (the 620 was actually my only touchscreen watch; my previous Garmins were not).

I was excited to try it out! I wanted to test it outside and on the treadmill. I was very curious to see how it would measure my distance on the treadmill. While on the treadmill, the 620 always reads that I'm going quite a bit slower than I actually am--and that's even with a foot pod (a little clip you wear on your shoe that gives you the info you'd normally get outside with GPS).

I know I've written this ten million times, but here is a quick explanation of the problem I have on the treadmill with my Garmin...

1) The timer on the treadmill is too fast. When 10 minutes pass in "real life" time, the treadmill reads something like 10:08. So, I couldn't rely on the timer and I used my Garmin for timing my runs (the Garmin is perfectly accurate as far as the timer).

2) The Garmin just doesn't accurately reflect my speed. When increasing or decreasing speed, the Garmin 620 doesn't really register that change on the treadmill.

3) The distance on the Garmin 620 is very inaccurate on the treadmill. After bitching for years about the inaccuracy of using my Garmin on the treadmill, I finally did a great calibration test that I discovered via DC Rainmaker. I used a measuring wheel, which is very accurate--they are used to measure race courses--to figure out if the distance on the treadmill was correct. You can read how I did it on this post. 

But basically, the treadmill's distance is inaccurate as well. After doing the accuracy test with the measuring wheel, I learned that when you run a mile on the treadmill (when the treadmill reads 1.000) the ACTUAL distance run is 1.059. Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but for a 3-miler on the treadmill, I'm actually running 3.177 miles. Not only does that affect my distance, but my pace as well.

However, it was too annoying to recalculate everything after every run, so here is how I logged my runs: I used the distance from the treadmill reading (knowing it was less than I'd actually run) and I used the timer from the Garmin (knowing it was accurate). That way, I wouldn't be cheating myself.

Okay, so I was kind of excited to try out the Forerunner 245 on the treadmill to see if there was an improvement in the accuracy since 2013 (hahaha!). I still used the foot pod because it gives other running dynamics like your stride length and things like that. I'm actually not sure how the Forerunner 245 does without the food pod--I'm going to have to test that as well!

I usually don't even look at the Garmin while I'm on the treadmill (other than my heart rate) because I know that the distance and pace are way off. When trying out the 245, though, I glanced at it every so often to see what the speed reading was. I moved the speed up and down a little on the treadmill to see if the Garmin would reflect the change--and it did!

At the end of the run, my Garmin read 2.54 miles in 25:00 minutes. The treadmill read 2.40 miles in 25:17 minutes. (For clarification, I ran an actual *real time* of 25:00 minutes--I started my Garmin and the treadmill at the same time--so the treadmill timer was 17 seconds fast).

So, going by the accuracy test that I'd done with the measuring wheel, I multiplied the treadmill's distance of 2.40 by 1.059 to get the *actual* distance I'd run--I wanted to see how it compared to the Garmin. And you know what?

The actual distance was 2.54 miles, which is EXACTLY what the Garmin read! All of this nerdy stuff is basically to say that my new Garmin 245 had perfect accuracy on the treadmill. I was elated! I know it doesn't make any real difference in the grand scheme of things, but this was way too exciting for me.

This is the summary after the run, which is the same as the 620. (The only reason my pace was so fast is because it was my tempo run!)

Obviously, this was one single run so I can't say it will be forever accurate. But I've never had this happen before on any of my calibration attempts. I'll keep trying it out. I'd like to try the indoor and even outdoor track as well.

The reason this is even relevant to me is that all along through my training, I've been running significantly faster than I logged. Normally, when running on the treadmill at 5.0 mph, for example, a 3-mile run would be 36:00 minutes--12:00 minutes per mile. When considering the accuracy of the measuring wheel, while the treadmill said I was running at 5.0 mph I was *actually* running an 11:20/mile pace (or about 5.3 mph).

It's no wonder that it felt harder! This makes sense why my pace is faster when I'm outside. I might be running at the same effort but my pace is faster because I'm used to the treadmill telling me that I'm going slower than I am. When I run outside at a pace that "feels like" the treadmill, it's usually faster; and now I know why. 

Okay, I realize this is a SUPER nerdy post. I know a lot of other people have issues on the treadmill as well, so I wanted to make sure to mention all that.

For the less-nerdy stuff, I wanted to do a quick rundown of what I've noticed/liked/disliked about the Forerunner 245:

*You have the option to turn off all phone notifications, so I don't have any of that coming through. Definitely a positive.

*The wrist-based heart monitor is surprisingly accurate. I don't like that I have to wear the watch above my wrist bone (and of course it has to be on bare skin; in the winter, I would usually put my watch over my outer layer so I could see it).

*Using the buttons instead of the touchscreen felt very awkward at first, but it doesn't bother me at all now. The set-up process is very different from the 620, and I admit, it took me several hours to get it all figured out and set up. However, I learned a lot about all of the features from doing that. There isn't really a reason to mess with the screen now.

*I like that there is an option for "Treadmill" when choosing a workout. On the 620, my options were Run, Bike, and Race. Each of those just simply means that you can change what info you see on the watch face. When running, for instance, I want to see different info than I would for biking (for example: for running, I like to see minutes per mile; for biking, I like miles per hour). So you can set up profiles for those. With this Forerunner 245, there are a few extra profiles to use, and one of them is Treadmill. Again, I like to see different fields on the watch face for treadmill running than I do for outdoor running.

This is on my Run setting--I can see my route. You can also use the map in real time to see where you're going, but I haven't done this yet.

*You have the option to turn off activity tracking (I only wear the watch when I run, so I don't need it trying to track my steps, heart rate, sleep cycles and even menstrual cycles--yes, you can track that--and all that stuff).

*It's extremely fast when syncing to my phone. I barely blink and it's synchronized. I can create a workout on my phone and instantly send it to my watch. With the 620 model, it was about a 50/50 shot of having it sync to my watch. And if it did, it took at least a dozen tries--turning the watch on and off over and over. I've had no problems at all with the 245.

*You can see on the watch face the heart rate zone graph that I normally like to look at on my phone app.

I also really like that I can see my heart rate per split on a single screen (I couldn't do this with the 620):

*The race predictor on the watch is much more realistic than before. It used to give me predictions like 24:00 for a 5K or 3:50 for a marathon, etc. There is NO WAY IN HELL I could run those times without training like a beast for at least a year or two. This predictor was definitely more realistic.

This Forerunner 245 has all of the cool features that the 620 has, but there are a TON of new features as well. If you're super interested, I'd check out DC Rainmaker's review (he reviewed the Forerunner 245 + music model). But overall, I am really happy with the new Forerunner and I think it was the perfect choice for me :)

Here is a (Amazon affiliate) link for the Forerunner 245. (An affiliate link just means that if you buy it through that link, I may get a small commission, but it costs you nothing extra.)

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Vegan Recipe Review: Vegan "Meat" Loaf...?!

I feel like "Vegan Recipe Review" sounds better than Vegan Recipe Taste Test, so I'll switch that out from now on.

I wanted to do something a little more adventurous this week. I'm still not interested in trying the "weird" vegan foods (I hope it's obvious that I don't mean for that to be offensive!) like tempeh and tofu, seitan and  and stuff like that. (Maybe someday, but I'm keeping it simple right now.)

I chose this recipe because meatloaf is a very traditional dish--ground meat with some chopped veggies, herbs, and spices. Most of the vegan versions I've seen are made with lentils, and I've actually made a lentil loaf once before. I don't remember much about it, but I know that it wasn't a big hit with the family.

When I saw on Pinterest a vegan "meat" loaf made out of chickpeas, I thought it would be fun to try. And I happened to have all of the ingredients at home already! You can find the recipe at Running on Real Food.

There are a LOT of ingredients so it looks intimidating, but they are all simple things that you may already have at home: onions, celery, carrots, garlic, some common spices/herbs, oats, flaxseed, soy sauce, ketchup, balsamic vinegar, and maple syrup. (The last three are for the glaze.) There is an option to make it with nuts or with extra oats; I chose extra oats to save a bit on calories.

I can say the one thing that turned me off to this at first was that it was going to take up a lot of dishes--I always hate using so many dishes! Jerry and I have a deal that if I cook, he washes dishes; still, I feel bad using so many. But, I was excited to make this so I just let Jerry deal with it ;)  (He honestly doesn't mind and he's always telling me that, but it's just habit for me to use the fewest dishes possible.)

Anyway, first there was a lot of veggie chopping. Thankfully, I had celery leftover (like I said last week, I am not a celery person). I chopped up the onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms, and garlic and threw them in a pan to cook until soft while I prepped everything else. 

The mixture was a little dry and I didn't want to burn it, so I turned the heat down to low. When the veggies are soft, you add the spices. Adding these REALLY dried out the mixture and I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be like that, but I went with it.

While those were cooking, I got started with the food processor. You're supposed to put the oats and flaxseed in there and then blend until it's a fine powder. Well, I didn't read it carefully enough and I added the chickpeas in with the oats and flaxseed. Before I started mixing it, I realized my mistake and pulled the chickpeas out the best I could.

Once the oats and flaxseed turn into a flour, you add the chickpeas and pulse until they are chopped very fine but not totally pulverized. This took a while and a lot of scraping down the bowl, but it finally looked how I imagined it was supposed to. The problem was, the mixture was SO DRY. I kept feeling like I was missing something but I looked over the recipe again and again and I followed it perfectly.

When that was ready, I dumped the mixture into the veggie mixture and combined it all. It was very crumbly and dry, but I hoped that when I pressed it into the pan it would stick together better. Like last week, I had to line a loaf pan with parchment paper. Thanks for the tips on that, by the way! This time, I cut the strip smaller so that it only hung over the longer two sides (this is how the recipe specified).

I thought there was no way the entire mixture would fit in the loaf pan, but it did when I packed it down. I packed it pretty firmly.

Then I mixed the glaze: ketchup, balsamic vinegar, and maple syrup. I usually just use ketchup for meatloaf, so I was a little nervous about adding the balsamic vinegar, but I always like to follow the actual recipe if I'm going to review it.

I poured that over the loaf and baked at 350 F for 60 minutes per the recipe. It smelled really good when it was cooking!

When it came time to take it out of the pan, I got nervous. I was expecting the whole thing to stick in there and then fall apart when tried removing it. You're supposed to let it cool for a while and the longer it cools, the better it holds together.

Fifteen minutes after taking it out of the oven, I used a knife to loosen the sides and attempted to remove it. It worked perfectly! It came out in one piece and it looked really good.

As far as the taste? I was very surprised shocked at how much I liked it! I figured it would be a "eh, it's okay" type recipe, but I really liked it and it's something I'd definitely eat again. Eli's girlfriend was over, so I brought them each a bite when it was done and asked them for their thoughts. Right away, they both said they really liked it. (I always tell my family to be brutally honest--it's not my recipe, and it won't offend me if they don't like it!). The fact that Eli liked it blew my mind. Jerry really liked it, too, and said he'd definitely eat it again. (Noah was at work.)

So, overall, this recipe was a success! I love meatloaf and ketchup, so I did add more ketchup while I was eating it, but that's normal for me. I made some of my crispy potato halves to go with it.

Again, you can find this recipe on Running on Real Food.

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Altering Clothes

Normally, I would post a recipe today (or a vegan recipe "taste test") but I didn't make a new recipe during the week and today I was very busy. So I'll post that tomorrow and today, I'm just going to make this a short post.

I had a pile of clothes (mainly jeans) that have piled up in my closet waiting to be altered somehow--hemmed or patched or taken in, or just repaired in some way. So, I pulled them all out and tried them on, then pinned things that needed altering. I sat down and got to work ripping seams, pinning hems, etc.

I had a couple of pairs of jeans that were a little too short for my liking, and instead of adding a contrasting fabric to the bottom or just donating them, I ripped out the hem and then ironed them totally flat with a raw edge. I have a pair of jeans like that that I absolutely LOVE and I think it makes the bottom look really unique. Here is a pair that I did today...

On the left is the regular hem and then on the right is where I ripped the stitches from the hem and then unfolded and ironed it flat. The edges will fray a bit in the washer, and I really like how they turned out. Let me see if I can find a pic of my other ones that are like that...

Those were from Salvation Army, so I'm not sure if they were meant to be like that or if someone just did what I did with the hem, but I really love them.

I really don't like straight-leg jeans (my calves are enormous and they look terrible on me) so there are a couple of pairs that I'd like to flare out the legs at the bottom somehow with contrasting fabric. They may not turn out, but they are from the thrift store, so if they don't work it's not big deal.

Anyway, now I have all the clothes pinned and ready for the sewing machine, so I'll work on that tomorrow (after I make a new recipe!). 

Here is today's random fact of the day weekend:

The only thing I really know about ostriches is what I saw on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, haha. He had to try to "catch" an ostrich and it was terrifying to watch! He had to try to slide a hood over the ostrich's head which apparently makes them docile. Even Mike was very skeptical about trying to do it! It's crazy how fast they can run.

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