I’m somewhat of a cookie monster.

Not that I have to have cookies to live or anything… but I just really and thoroughly enjoy a good, home-baked (or small bakery-baked) cookie. They are certainly one of my favorite things, and we might have consumed the final cookies from this batch last night while watching our regular Sunday night television shows.

Other favorite things today include:

Puppy snuggles.

Boy’s “Little Numbers” single that is so catchy! so fun! and so danceable!

Planning for not one, but TWO half marathons in the fall/winter of this year. (Because I am awesome/crazy. But hopefully more on the awesome end of the scale.)

Getting ahead on all kinds of work and being incredibly productive on a Monday morning.

These Toasted Almond Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies, while a considerable tongue twister, have been hitting the spot recently, adding a little toasted crunch into my normal Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Here’s how you make ‘em:

Happy Monday, y’all!

What are some of your favorite things today?

YOU GUYS. I hadn’t tried rainbow chard until, umm, a month ago, and I’m wondering where the heck it has been my ENTIRE life and why 2013 has been the year of me discovering new vegetables.

Yes, I like it that much.

Yes, I’m trying to eat all I can before it goes out of season in Texas. (Which should be soon-ish, assuming the cold front that came through yesterday and gave me a headache is the last one of the season… even though I’d like for the chillier weather to stick around for a bit longer.)

And yes, I realize I’m being a bit ridiculous.

But it’s just so good.

Our CSA bag has been full of leafy greens and scallions recently, so this recipe is my attempt to use some of the goodness we received this week.

This recipe isn’t a fancy one, by any means, but it’s fabulous, delicious and filling.

In fact, we ate a substantial portion of it last night for dinner… and we were beyond happy with the way this frittata turned out.

This is how you can make a frittata of your own:

Do you like rainbow chard like I do?

What new vegetables have you tried this year?

Last year, y’all might recall how I may (or may not) have purchased, umm, several flats of strawberries and basically gorged myself on the fruit last spring.

In case you didn’t know it, newsflash: I freaking LOVE strawberries.

As evidenced by last year’s craziness, I enjoy them with most things. I like them by themselves. I like them in baking. I like them in salads. Heck, I eat them most mornings for breakfast in my daily smoothie.

The time has come again for strawberries this year, and I am so thrilled to finally share this recipe with y’all. It’s one that I adapted last year in Baton Rouge, and it is working like a charm on those locally grown berries we’ve been getting in our weekly baskets.

This syrup is sweet — but not so sweet — and it’s good on many things, including bread and ice cream and pretty much anything in between that needs a healthy dose of strawberry-ness in it.

And it’s pretty darn simple to make, too!

What is your favorite fruit? Are you like me with fresh strawberries?

Instead of focusing in on one meal in particular during my Southern California trip, I decided quickly that I needed to basically share everything I ate because it was ALL amazing.

No, really.

I consider myself so lucky to have been able to take this trip in the first place… and all the incredible food I got to eat during my time out there was basically like a huge, delightful cherry on top of an already amazing sundae. (Y’all get what I’m saying, right?)

So let’s begin, shall we?

Once I arrived in town on Thursday morning, Nicole, Doni and I co-worked from Nicole’s kitchen table until it was lunchtime. And then she took us to her favorite restaurant, Cafe Gratitude in Venice.

We started off with the I Am Comforted (baked rosemary yams with a mint coconut dipping sauce). I ate the I Am Awesome as my meal, which was Eggplant Parmesan on grilled panni bread with marinara, cashew ricotta, heirloom tomatoes, arugula and basil… and hemp seed pesto (!!!). And then Nicole treated us to a sweet treat after — the I Am Kind Quinoa Crispy Treats… a wonderful sweet that I’m going to have to find a way to recreate in my own kitchen.

All in all, a delightful vegan meal to start the trip off right!

Then we all ran the Ragnar and ate nothing but apples, bananas, nut butter and trail mix for, umm, 37 hours straight.

But the morning after we crossed that finish line?

#smugbrunch happened at The Lobby. (It’s now officially a thing. And those sunny side up eggs with a whole freakin’ loaf of bread, homefries AND bacon were basically the best thing ever after Ragnar.)

We came back to L.A. that Sunday, and I headed on over to the center of the city to hang out and stay with one of Nashville friends, Sarah.

Sarah wanted to know if I was an adventurous eater… and I said I’d give anything a go. After discussing dinner options with her boyfriend, Cary, and their friend, Mike, a decision was made, and we headed out to Sugarfish in Beverly Hills. I ordered the Trust Me… and I will never look at sushi the same way again.

It was that good.

We ended our Beverly Hills culinary evening at The Ice Cream Lab, which is owned by some of Sarah and Cary’s friends from college.

… And if there were a way for me to eat ice cream from The Ice Cream Lab daily without having a horrible adverse affect on my health, I’d totally do it. This ice cream was phenominal, and my personal favorite flavor was The Salt Lick, which was a combination of caramel, pretzels and sea salt.

So delicious, y’all.

The next day, I went exploring by myself sans car. (This is apparently really challenging in L.A., but I lucked out and was staying within walking distance of so many incredible places that it wasn’t an issue for me.)

I ended up at The Original Farmers Market for lunch… and I had a Nutella Crepe from The French Crepe Co., realizing very quickly that I was the only person in the place who ordered something decadent, then shrugging it off, justifying my sugary lunch choice with the fact that I’d run about 20 miles in the previous two days.

I moseyed on over to The Grove after enjoying my meal, and there, I went window shopping and saw A.C. Slater, my first official celebrity sighting!

I also walked over to the LACMA and spent, oh, five hours in the museum. Three were spent in the Stanley Kubrick special exhibit, and if you live in the L.A. area, I insist that you go check it out if you haven’t already.

… Hi, I’m an art nerd.

You shouldn’t be surprised by this at all.

That evening, Cary, Sarah and I drove downtown to Botegga Louie, another one of their favorite restaurants, for some delightful Italian cuisine.

We started off by ordering a few sides: the Brussels Sprouts and Pistachios (OH SO GOOD!), the Burrata and Roasted Vine Tomatoes (which came with a delicious pesto sauce, too!), the Tomato Soup (delicious!) and the Mediterranean Mussels (I’m not much of a fan of these… so I didn’t try them, but Cary enjoyed the dish!)

Then for our meal, we had the Caesar Salad, the Tagliatelle Bolognese (reminiscent of my time in Italia!) and the Artichoke Pizza, topped with roasted artichokes, chèvre, mozzarella, tomato sauce, cherry tomatoes, Italian parsley, fleur de sel and extra virgin olive oil.

I sipped on a Ward 8 specialty cocktail, which combined rye whiskey, lemon juice, orange juice, grenadine, club soda and mint leaves. I don’t know what my deal has been recently, but I’m into whiskey. A LOT. And this drink was a perfect balance with the whiskey and the other ingredients, none overwhelming the overall flavor, and I tried to savor it.

And then we stopped by the dessert counter on our way out, grabbing a few different treats that looked too good to pass up.

The next morning, I had a solo breakfast at Breadbar while I was waiting for the mall, then the Annenburg Space for Photography to open. Little did I know that the museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays… and I disappointingly started walking back to Sarah’s place when she and I decided to have a lunch together.

(Sidenote: The next time I am in L.A., I am going to that museum, and I am going to geek out so hard it’s going to be incredible.)

Sarah directed me to Greenleaf Chop Shop near her office, and we both ordered the Antioxidant Orchard salads, which are chock full of fruit and leafy greens.

The salad was much needed after the heavier food we’d eaten during the previous two days, and I was inspired in that moment to make a funky salad dressing featuring a fruit (perhaps raspberry?) to go on top of some of my homemade salads this spring and summer.

My friend Laura came and picked me up on her way home from work, and we grabbed some drinks at the Culver Hotel in Culver City before my sunset running photoshoot with Nicole.

While we were sipping our chardonnay and enjoying some spinach-artichoke dip, Laura and I caught up… and she taught me the history of the hotel, which is apparently where the munchkins from The Wizard of Oz stayed while the movie was being filmed way back when.

Crazy/cool, huh?

And then after our shoot that evening, Nicole and I stopped by Tender Greens to grab dinner. She had the arugula salad and a side of their fabulous whipped mashed potatoes while I got the special of the evening — pork ragu with potato gnocchi and asparagus with a side salad.

We had a fabulous time. Fabulous. (And then I met up with Angela, visited a crazy/cool speakeasy that’s hidden behind a barber shop in her neighborhood, then headed back to L.A. to hang out with Nico and Patrick… and ended up at a 24-hour diner called Canter’s to cap off the trip.)

…

Needless to say, not only was the food I ate while visiting California pretty fantastic, but the company made it all the better. And I cannot wait to go back to try some different places and see more friends!

(Fair warning before we begin: There is NO FOOD in this post. So if you’re looking for pretty food photography, you’re gonna have to wait until tomorrow. You’d be thanking me, though, because the food I ate during this race? Trail mix, PB sandwiches, apples, and raisins. THAT’S IT. NOTHING ELSE except maybe a few Goldfish and pretzels and Shot Bloks. And thankfully, there are no photographs of these lovely/disgusting culinary combinations because an image of them might just turn my stomach a little.)

You may or may not know 10 friends and I collectively ran around 200 miles together last weekend.

Yes, I realize this sounds crazy.

Yes, I know 200 miles is a LONG WAY to go on foot.

And yes, I know it’s something you probably don’t want to do ever in your entire life. (I get it. I’ve been there. And yes, I changed my mind enough to do not one, but TWO of these relays. And I’m already planning on doing another next year with this group.)

But you know what? It was pretty amazing… and it all boils down to the people I was with and the time we had together. (Want a snippet of this? Check out our team hashtag, #glitter200, to see all the awesomeness that went down.)

My team, Mr. Bear and the Honey Badgers, was the best group of friends I could have asked for to experience this relay with.

Running 200 miles isn’t an easy task.

Heck, running the 18.4 miles I was given (which subsequently turned into 19.5 due to wrecks and bad directions) isn’t easy, either.

Add in things that can go wrong — broken vans, lack of course signage, a severe lack of sleep, a 101° heat index and running in the hottest point of the day — and it’s even more of a challenge.

However, in the face of everything that could — and DID — go wrong for our team, we banded together, hopped into our one working 15-passenger van, and completed the course.

There was a ton of laughter throughout the night and day. There was a ton of encouragement readily available for someone who needed a little pep. And there was a lot of love and mutual respect that was apparent as we slowly wove our way from Huntington Beach to San Diego.

In between legs, copious amounts of nut butter sandwiches and trail mix were consumed. (I don’t think I’ll be eating peanut OR almond butter for a long time… and I don’t think I’ll ever look at trail mix the same way.)

We visited the beach at one exchange, and we took ridiculous photographs of ourselves jumping in the waves. And my toes touched the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

We bonded over the little things. (You know, like puking and rallying and how you can DO THAT in distance running.)

And we moved forward, step after step, stride after stride, toward that finish line in San Diego.

And it was OK. Because we were there together. And because we were doing the whole thing and not giving up.

In fact, giving up wasn’t even an option any of us mentioned when the bad things occurred.

Because Honey Badgers don’t quit. (Or care, for that matter.)

While the sun was setting last Saturday, Swapp, Ameena and I ran the final leg together for the Honey Badgers, weaving our way through beautiful downtown San Diego, and when we reached the end of the chute toward the finish, our entire team joined us, and we crossed the line together.

Words cannot describe how incredible that moment was, and I am so thankful I experienced the SoCal Ragnar Relay with this fantastic group of friends.

One week later, and I’m still blown away by this accomplishment and so inspired by what we did that I cannot wait to start training for my next race. (What this race is, I have no idea, but I’m busting out my running shoes tomorrow and just running.)

… You may think it was crazy, but I had a great time. And that, my friends, is what counts.

…

What did you do last weekend?

I’m sometimes not as eloquent as I would like to be, especially during moments of stress or doubt.

I’m a mess sometimes.

It’s true.

… And so is my house occasionally. So is my life. But I like to think that we all have these jumbled moments in our lives because, ahem, life is MESSY sometimes. And we are given the opportunity to make the most of these messy moments.

I’m working on capitalizing on these times.

These tacos are kind of like me — they aren’t necessarily eloquent. They’re kind of messy.

But you know what?

They’re pretty darn awesome once you get over the mess and lack of eloquence they offer.

While these tacos lack the panache of some other recipes I’ve shared, they’re just as tasty and perfect for dinner… or breakfast or lunch, depending on my mood. And since we’ve moved to Texas, I have noticed an uptick in our consumption of tacos. No, seriously.

Here’s how you make ‘em:

Yum, yum, yum.

Boston has been on my mind and heart since Monday, and I’ve taken several moments in the days between then and now to pause and reflect.

It breaks my heart that someone felt compelled to plan and execute something so horrific. It breaks my heart that people have lost their lives and been injured; that people have lost loved ones, friends and family members; that others have lost limbs and their livelihoods.

It breaks my heart that we live in such a broken world.

However, there are so many uplifting stories that have come out of this tragedy that I can hardly mention them all in this simple blog post or even keep track of the GOOD that has come out of the bad. This includes people offering up rooms, rides and food to displaced runners, so many people donating blood that the blood banks in Boston could take on no more, the bravery of individuals in the face of crisis. It’s inspiring stuff.

As a runner, I can tell y’all that running is more than just something you do — it’s a community. A tight-knit one, at that, and one where runners support each other from all over the world. You make friends running, and the runners I know are some of the best people around. And as I’ve moved around, I have continued to keep in touch with those pals I made while running.

Running is an individual sport, but the community is what keeps me coming back time and again. And I know, in the face of this travesty that happened in Boston, we will come together and lift one another up. We will support one another. And we will continue running.

Today, I am sharing a runner-centric recipe with y’all.

In fact, as you read this, 10 awesome friends of mine and me are participating in a relay from Huntington Beach to San Diego. We’ll each be running three legs, covering between 12 and 24ish miles a piece over the course of the next 36 hours. (If you really want to follow the details, follow my personal Twitter account.

Yes, I realize this kind of relay sounds crazy to non-runners. Yes, I sometimes think I’m crazy for doing things like this. (See: The Rouge-Orleans last year and the day we finished before I had time to reflect and decide that, yes, it was a good experience even though it was tough, and yes, I’d like to do another relay one day.) But it’s awesome and oh-so-much fun after you get over the fact that you’re running a ridiculous distance AND essentially living in a van for the entirety of the relay, and I cannot wait to report back to y’all on how it went.

This recipe is one that I make most mornings before I head out for a run or for my workout. It’s a random combination of flavors, but I absolutely love it, and it definitely starts my day off on the right foot.

I present: The Strawberry-Spinach Breakfast Smoothie.

Are you a runner?

Do you make your own breakfast smoothies?

I never thought I’d become the cook who makes everything myself.

As a matter of fact, I always found those people kind of annoying.

We’ve all been there: You go over for dinner, and you are munching on a delicious something that usually seems incredibly intimidating to make at home, and you ask the cook where they got it… and they say in a proud tone, “Oh, I made it myself.” Like it’s no big deal that they whipped up phyllo dough for their grandmother’s baklava recipe, then put it all together successfully, and it was the most delicious thing you ever ate.

It’s frustrating but kind of awe-inspiring at the same time, right?

Let’s be clear: I’m not making fun of these people. I am one of these people. And as much as I’ve fought it, I have finally given in and jumped on the most-everything-from-scratch bandwagon. And while it certainly takes more TLC, I’m enjoying it, assuming I have the time to pull it all together.

The more I learn about food, the more I want to make everything at home. The food industry scares me, y’all, and I’d rather be 100% certain what is going into my meals by controlling how I make them from scratch. Which basically means I’m going to eventually be that mom who tells her children that she’ll make them their own WonderBread instead of saving myself time and stress by just buying a damn loaf at the store. I’m calling it now. (And should my future children someday read this post, I’m sorry I’m not sorry, kiddos.)

So, that being said… this recipe is one of those seemingly hoity-toity made-from-scratch ones.

And even though you’ll feel a little obnoxious telling your friends you made the seasoning when they come over for a fiesta, this mix is good enough to feel a little obnoxious. And the bonus is that it’s super simple to pull together, doesn’t require any complex kitchen skills, and it comes together in 10 minutes or less.

That’s a win-win in my book!

Have you made your own seasoning blends before?

Do you make a lot of things at home like I now do?

I spend a lot of time in the grocery store purchasing all kinds of lovely fruits and vegetables to bring them home and not use them for anything… then scrambling to find something to cook before they go bad.

Hi, I’m the queen of random organization and even write out a detailed meal plan every week, and yet, we always have leftovers and extras that I am always left flailing, wondering to do with specific ingredients that I ended up with too much of… or purchased because they looked particularly lovely that da… or because the particular item was on sale.

Let’s be real: This mostly has to do with sales.

This particular recipe comes from a week where avocados were advertised 10 for $10.

Being the bargain hunting diva that I (sometimes) am, I was like, ‘How can I pass this awesome deal up? Avocados are generally way more expensive than this!’

I failed to realize that 10 avocados is a lot of avocados. And while I certainly love guacamole, salads topped with avocados and several other avocado-centric dishes… that affinity my husband and I both share didn’t translate to being able to consume 10 almost-ripe avocados within the span of a week.

In fact, a few (almost too) ripe avocados were on the counter by the day when I realized I desperately needed to do something with them before I wasted the beautiful fruit.

So I did an internet search… And then I made something in a last ditch effort to enjoy the grocery item that was such a bargain, I had to purchase them all.

This particular morning, I was intrigued by the notion of baking an egg in an avocado, and even though the thought of baking an avocado made me nervous, I did it anyway. Partly because I didn’t think I would be eating anymore guacamole or a salad topped with more avocado slices. And partly because I wanted something a little different and out of my comfort zone.

Surprisingly, a warm avocado is a good thing. And these eggs, sprinkled with Cajun seasoning, salt, and pepper, meld pretty wonderfully with the avocado.

And scooped out on toast, they’re a pretty fabulous, decadent, rich breakfast that’s chock full of the good kind of fats avocados are known for.

Are you like me and end up with lots of (sadly, unnecessary) items that you scramble to cook/bake/make recipes with?

Have you tried something like this?

You know when you suddenly have an intense craving for no reason whatsoever?

… That happens to me about once a week.

I know what you’re thinking, and no, I am not pregnant. This is just the way I am, for whatever reason. I sometimes cringe when I think about what my cravings will become when I actually am with child. (Let’s not think about it too much right now, mmmkay? Even if we have laughed about this quite a bit because I will definitely be that pregnant lady who wants a mayonnaise and pickle sandwich in spite of my current dislike of both.)

And since I generally like to listen to my body, so long as its requests aren’t too strange, I will generally give in.

This was a lesson learned a LONG time ago at the beginning of college when I had the hankering for a shudder-inducing babysitter night staple from my childhood: fish sticks and macaroni and cheese. I talked about it for weeks. WEEKS. (Literally. ) Finally, one of my girlfriends told me calmly that if I was craving it so much, that maybe I needed to listen to my body and give in.

I did.

And I haven’t eaten fish sticks since. (Thank goodness!)

So, anyway, back to that initial line about a craving that just hits you upside the head all of a sudden…

A few weeks ago, I had a mid-evening crazy hankering for caramel corn. We’d already eaten dinner, and we were settling down to watch the first few episodes of House of Cards (which is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, in case you haven’t seen it and/or were wondering my opinion.) I began searching caramel corn recipes, stumbling upon an awesome one within minutes.

Within ten minutes, my version of that very popular recipe was roasting in the oven.

And an hour later when it came out?

Let’s just say I’ve found a winner. And I may or may not have made it at least five more times over these past few weeks because, umm, it’s that good. And because, clearly, I have no self-control.

Do you have these intense cravings, too?

Are you a Caramel Corn fan?