Zucchini Pancakes

For those that know a little bit about my home country of Belarus know that most, if not all of our national dishes are usually made with potatoes. That's right, I come from the potato land (and I love potatoes)! However, this year, once again, I let our first zucchini overgrow in our vegetable garden... to about 4 lbs!

What to do... I love potato pancakes, they are a staple in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian cuisine. Originally, my plan was to make potato-zucchini pancakes, but since I ran out of potatoes this weekend, it became just Zucchini Pancakes. They are sooooo easy to make and so quick that I didn't feel the need (and frankly, had no time) to make illustrations. I'm sure you'll be able to figure this out, it's that easy :)

Hubby had them with maple syrup. Being true to my Slavic roots, I had mine with sour cream.

Delicious Meatball Soup

Let me tell you - my kid LOVES soup! Sometimes she wakes up and her first food-related request is "I want soup". I admit that up until very recently I've mostly been buying already prepared soups thinking it saves on time and it's relatively inexpensive, even with premium brands.

But a few days ago I've decided that enough is enough! I gotta make my own soups: if I make a big batch, I can always take some as lunch or even freeze it. Frankly, having soup for lunch is a much healthier option than, say, a sandwich because soup fills me up, but I don't feel stuffed and sleepy afterwards. And a regular bowl of soup generally runs at about 200 cals per portion (provided it's not one of those creamy soup variety).

So anyways, my first "by the book" soup (as opposed to something I'd just thrown together). In English, I guess you could call it Meatball Soup, but we call it Soup with Frikadelkas (суп с фрикадельками). Even just hearing the name of this soup instantly reminds me of home, my childhood and of my mom making it because I just LOVE it (especially the meatballs, he-he)! It's light on the stomach & easy of the prep. So, here it is.

Yum!

Not a spring clean-up, but clean-up nonetheless

Looking back at some of the things I've posted over the years I've come to the conclusion that clean-up is required. I also considered switching blogging platforms... I even checked out a few others such as wordpress, posterous and livejournal. After giving it some thought, I've decided to stick with blogger, at least for now. So over the next little while I'm going to delete some posts, I'm going to stop numbering them, etc.

Stay tuned!

Yet another 5K run

Remember my post on My post-baby 5K run challenge last year? Yes, I did it again this year! :)

The course was the same (which was nice), but the amount of people was even larger! Imagine this - 42,000 participated in this year's two-day event, with about 8,000 runners/walkers doing the 5K race.

It's crazy to think that people finished this distance in 15:38.9, while I crawled to the finish line in 2345th place overall with a time of 32:17.2. I guess it's not bad considering that I was 135th among 588 females between the ages of 25 and 29 AND I placed 940th out of 4,907 women. :)))

Aside from being proud of myself and all of your encouraging comments, here's the real reason I do this - apart from the obvious health benefits of running, of course ;) - MY FINISHER'S MEDAL!

Oh and props to all of those men and women well into their golden ages who managed to not only participate, but to run and some finishing in less that 40 minutes! You are the real inspiration!!!

Cheers,

On the hunt for "PARABEN-FREE"...

So if you've read my last post, you know that I've decide to part ways with all things containing parabens, at least, to the best of my ability (because, let's be honest, there is no way to go completely paraben free since they put these preservatives in medication and other things...).

What the heck are parabens you ask? According to Wikipedia, parabens are chemicals used as preservatives in cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. Check your bathroom, as parabens are often found in shampoos, moisturizers, shaving gels, spray tanning solutions, makeup and even toothpaste! They are also used as food additives.The main concern with METHYLPARABEN, PROPYLPARABEN, BUTYLPARABEN, ETHYLPARABEN, and ISOBUTYLPARABEN is that these can mimic estrogen and can act as potential hormone (endocrine) disruptors. For me, parabens can cause contact dermatitis :( Apparently, some of these parabens can react with UVB (i.e. when your skin is exposed to sun) and can cause skin aging and DNA damage as well.

But enough of the scary stuff!