I really can’t believe it’s March. It’s still cold. And snowy. I mean, I know they say that March “comes in like a lion” but I’m ready for at least 30 degree temps, especially on my weekends!

It was cold and snowy this weekend, which meant it was a perfect weekend to stay in, bake, and eat comfort food. So that’s pretty much what we did.

On the schedule for Saturday (I just started my training plan for the Cleveland half marathon) was an easy 5 mile run (hooray for “long” runs under an hour!), and because I haven’t been too brave or running outside lately, the 13 degree temps (feels like single digits) didn’t sound appealing to me so I decided to run inside on the treadmill. It went by fast, and with a warm up and cool down and some walking while B ran, I got in more than 7 miles. (Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Training Tuesday and I’ll share my entire week’s schedule)

It was also a cold day, perfect for some baking. I first made some peanut butter chocolate chip cheesecake bars. I had found a few recipes, but none of them were exactly what I wanted so I pretty much decided to just combine 3 or 4 recipes and keep my fingers crossed that they would turn out. And they did. Definitely sharing the recipe soon.

This weekend was also our monthly Ladies Craft Beer Society meeting – I look forward to our get togethers every month but especially this month: our craft was BAKING! We gathered at Nicole’s apartment and made homemade salted caramels, vanilla honey marshmallows and almond marshmallows. Oh, and of course we had plenty of snacks to enjoy while we were baking. And craft beer.

I loved making the caramels! They were so delicious when they were done and after wrapping them they were pretty cute looking.

To keep up with the theme of comfort food, B and I went out to dinner for a belated Chinese New Year feast at one of our favorite local Chinese joints, Wonton Gourmet. And feast we did – we got Chinese broccoli, Szechuan fish, crab rangoon and lomein. I think B has gotten more adventurous in his eating after our Asia trip which is great. Oh and other good news? I wasn’t too hungry after all the glorious food at Ladies Craft Beer Society so we have plenty of leftovers. Yum!

Sunday, B and I woke up to a snowy slushy day. Ick. I had a cross training or rest day on the schedule, so somehow I managed to convince B to take a walk. When it’s a nice day, we like to run the bridges, a 4 mile route downtown, so instead, we took a walk – stopping along the way for coffee, tea, and groceries.

Even though the weather was messy and the roads were in no way clear, I’m so glad we got out there – I still managed to hit my fitbit 12,000 step goal even without a run or elliptical workout and felt good about not sitting around all day and not moving (which very much could’ve happened with the snowy weather we were having).

Sunday night, we enjoyed dinner with B’s family – they had pork, quinoa and Brussels sprouts. I gave up meat for Lent so filled up on the other goodies. And of course – dessert!

How was your weekend?

• What’s your favorite food at Chinese restaurants?
• What’s your favorite type of Asian food?
• What’s your favorite herbal tea? Usually anything with ginger. I love the turmeric ginger that Cleveland Tea Revival has!