Valentine's Food & Races!

I know Valentine's Day gets a lot of crap. But I love cheesy holidays, hearts, romantic dinners, and chocolate so I'm all in. My parents are the best Valentine's, and they always send me something tasty. This year, my dad picked out two boxes of Sjaak's Melk and Dark Chocolate Caramels from Vegan Essentials and had them shipped to my house. I've been enjoying these (only one a day so they'll last!).

My mom sent Paul and I a check to pay for our Valentine's dinner, so we took ourselves out for a nice meal at The Nine Thai Sushi on Saturday night.

When we arrived, we had the place to ourselves, which was a little weird. But it started filling up 30 minutes or so later. We realized we'd shown up a little early for dinner (5ish), but we were hungry!

I started with the Crispy Spring Rolls. I tried to order the rice paper rolls, which they do serve (we've ordered them before), but they're not on the menu. And there was a language barrier, so I ended up with these. They were tasty though very tiny.

For my main, I went with the Tofu Pad See Ew (hold the egg). I thought they only gave me three pieces of tofu when this was delivered to our table, but I did some digging and found lots hiding under the noodles. It was very good pad see ew! So good that, the next day, Paul asked if he could trade me his Tofu Panang leftovers for my pad see ew. I enjoyed the panang as well, so I made the trade.

Oh, and I should have mentioned earlier that day, on Saturday morning, my friend Megan and I ran the Cupid's Dash 15K at Herb Parsons Lake in Collierville. My friend Peter race-directed this Valentine's Day trail race, and we had a blast. Peter always provides Fireball at his races (and vegan-friendly snacks!), so we did a post-race shot together (and enjoyed lots of peanut butter pretzels and pickles). Here's a fun pic of us from the race, taken by Mark Ogletree.

The next day, Sunday, was Galentine's, and my gal Megan and I ran another race! This time, it was the non-Valentine's-themed (but still relevant cause it fell on Galentine's!) Stanky Creek 8K trail race in Bartlett. This was a fun one, but we were both pretty tired from the day before.

On actual Valentine's Day (do you like how I drag holidays out?), Monday, Paul and I made his and hers lasagna. His had meat and dairy cheese, but mine was made with green lentil lasagna noodles, Nabati Foods vegan mozz, homemade tofu ricotta, and some tasty mushrooms that Paul sauteed for us. We enjoyed our dinner over a movie — King Richard with Will Smith — and it was lovely.

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day weekend!