Smart Food
To celebrate our successful hill-taming ride yesterday (more details in a bit!), I made us a fantastic summer dinner.
We picked up bison burgers from the Farmer’s Market this weekend, which I grilled with some Garlic Gold Nuggets and served with some Jalapeno Raw Milk Cheddar, lettuce and ketchup on Nature’s Pride Whole Wheat Buns. I’ve never had bison before, but liked how lean and flavorful it was!
The Garlic Gold and buns were sent to me by the companies for review. I LOVE the Garlic Gold nuggets…they added a bit of CRUNCH to our burgers. I’ve been eating them on popcorn and salads as well. So delicious!
We enjoyed the buns, and the ingredients list wasn’t too long. Unfortunately, they went bad really quickly (probably because our kitchen was so hot and humid this weekend?), so we won’t be able to eat the rest. 
I served the burgers with some roasted broccoli (sprinkled with some more Garlic Gold!) and
some Pesto Potato Salad. I boiled and chopped 2 pounds of potatoes, and mixed in Angela’s Garlic Scape Pesto. I made a few modifications from Angela’s recipe: basil instead of spinach, real Parmesan cheese instead of vegan, and added some sunflower seeds. We loved the spicy garlic zest of the pesto…YUM!
As Dan put it, “Garlic was the shoestring of this meal” because it tied everything together. 
With some Sam Adams Cherry Wheat beer (opened with our cute mystery wedding gift… we couldn’t find a card or tag for this one!)
Smart Fitness
Ithaca is surrounded by hills. And I don’t mean little rolling hills. Oh, no. I mean huge, mountainous hills.
As you can imagine, this makes long cycling training rides a bit of a challenge if you are intimidated by hills… you run out of places to go!
Yesterday, I faced the infamous hills for the first time. And I conquered all 3 of them that I tackled!
Dan rode alongside me the entire way, encouraging me to keep going. Couldn’t have done it without him.
We stopped around the 10 mile mark for a little picnic by the lake.
All-in-all, we rode 20.5 miles in about 1:52. And I’m not nearly as sore as I expected to be post-hills. Wheeeee!
Smart Life
We’re starting to see some growth in the garden, so expect a progress report tomorrow!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Way to rock the hills Julie! Mixing the pesto and potato sounds genius… Chris doesn’t like mayo and I love potato salad, so maybe this way we can both be happy
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Pesto potato salad sounds wonderful!
Very impressed with the bike ride too!
I’m so proud of you! Especially like Dan’s jersey
Scapes! I work on a organic farm and we produce scads of scapes (hehe). I spent about an hour bunching an entire giant bin into bundles the other day and couldn’t get the smell off my hands for a long time. But I still like them! Must make that pesto ASAP.
Way to rock that bike ride! You and Mr. Savvy are too freaking cute.
Thanks!
And yes, you MUST try the pesto soon! Other ideas of what to do with them?
Scape butter (or cream cheese)! Mince a bunch of them and mix them into softened butter or cream cheese for a garlicky spread. Or you can do it in the food processor.
That sounds AMAZING!!
Per your suggestion, I made scape cream cheese. Soooo good!
i want to hear more about this cream cheese.
Heather: garlic scapes + neufchatel cream cheese in a food processor/blender. Garlicky, spicy perfection.
looks like a wonderful meal! Curious about those garlic nuggets. I remember one restaurant that put them in their olive oil/balsamic mix and it was great with bread! Awesome ride!! I need to work on my hills big time. Chris loves hills, but I tend to dread them lol
Lovvvve the Garlic Gold Nuggets!
I still dread the hills, but I know they will make me stronger!
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