Are you here to see the giveaway winner? I’ll tell you, but also read about our Hanukkah dinner below.

The Dallas Run the Rock Half Marathon is on Sunday! I am super excited and nervous and just ready to do it. I have been doing a lot of yoga, CrossFit, spinning, and not running since my IT Band spazzed out. It has kept me pretty relaxed since I don’t have last minute leg pains. We’ll see what happens on Sunday. Your kind words and encouragement have been so great.

And the winner is…Comment #21 Tamara from The Stretch Jean Incident. I used a Random Number Generator to select the comment number. Tamara, please email  me your mailing address and I’ll mail you your prize!

It’s Hanukkah which means latkes and menorahs. And this year a half marathon sprinkled in? Ok, why not.

This year, we are celebrating with our families later in the week, so for the beginning, I didn’t want to make latkes. If you aren’t familiar with frying potato pancakes, it is a lot of work with lots of peeling, oil flying, and your house smells like fried potatoes for days. Not saying that’s a bad thing.

Regardless, this year we tried Linda’s Gourmet Latkes, named by Oprah’s Favorite Things as her favorite potato pancake. These little boxes are $8 per container! We had the original (150 calories per latke) and sweet potato (80 calories). It also comes in green onion flavor. Our review is that we thought they were tasty, but not extraordinary. And not worth over $1 per latke. I guess for one or two nights a year, we should make our own.

However, you pay for convenience with these so you don’t have to mess up your kitchen to get your latke fix.

We lit candles. Lily’s first Hanukkah.

And then we ate! I made homemade applesauce and you can too. I actually wanted to use store-bought, but when I opened the jar it was no good! I can’t eat a latke without applesauce, so I quickly diced an apple, sprinkled with cinnamon, brown sugar and lemon juice, added a little water, and zapped for about 3 minutes, stirring regularly.

Voila, the applesauce was perfect. Jeffrey approved too!

It was served with roasted green beans and carrots, following this recipe.

And chicken on a grill pan, marinated in whatever I thought looked good in the pantry.

Then I ate this guy for dessert.