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sara hall

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Surviving Cross Training when Injured

January 2, 2019

This was me…

close up portrait of noble sled dog a Chukchi husky breed laying on its doghouse

Ryan and I had the chance to go dog-sledding in Norway, something I greatly anticipated because I knew, as a husky owner and an athlete, I’d appreciate it even more. When we were getting ready to start sledding, the dogs hooked to the sled started barking with excitement and anticipation. But it was the dogs who were about to be left behind, chained to their little wooden box homes, that were actually barking the loudest. I imagine they were protesting not getting to do what they were created to do-run. “I feel you”, I thought to myself. Having just been through an injury, the pain of not getting to do what I love and instead being chained indoors to some machine, was fresh.

My inflamed peroneal tendon started inconspicuously as just a nagging pain, something that felt a bit sharp after performing a routine calf exercise in the weight room and in the days following just seemed a little tighter than usual. I’m usually good at nipping things in the bud but didn’t think much of this, nor did my therapist, until the race was nearly here. It was getting increasingly painful the last few days before the race, but I figured when I got out there and warmed up and had the race endorphins, it would be fine just as it had always been in training.

It was anything but fine. The pain intensified early on in the race, and I knew I was favoring it. But I was still on pace for a big PR, so I resolved in my mind that I could handle whatever pain I faced. But soon after the halfway point, my limp turned to a hobble and my ankle started giving out, causing me to slow.  It was a strange feeling to step off the course, but once I did, I immediately couldn’t put any weight on it-or for the 2 weeks following (it’s amazing the amount of pain we can run through when we set our mind to it).

About 2.5 weeks in, I was able to start some light cross training- both a blessing and a curse. It felt good to get the heart pumping a little again, but most cross training activities are not things I enjoy, and it’s mentally draining to have to motivate yourself every day.

For those of you also in cross-training purgatory, I compiled a few tips that helped me survive it and come out sane and stronger: 

  1. Fill your sports bra with your kids Halloween candy. Eat at 5 minute intervals or as desired.
  2. Music is everything. This is not the time for hipster indie tunes. Fast tempo and as loud as possible is king. I often default to Ryan’s “Together Forward” playlist on Spotify. Blast your favorite dance/house music, and if biking, bust your best arm-only hip hop moves. I do not recommend this on the elliptical (from personal experience). Current favorite to dance to- DJ Snake & Lil Jon “Turn down for what”
  3. Download a lighthearted upbeat chick flick you haven’t seen (*note “download” and not “stream” because when you’re in cross training purgatory, the slightest thing like frequent buffering can push you over the edge.)
  4. Adopt 4 kids and field their constant requests for “how do you spell…” while exercising at home.
  5. If cross training in solitude, you have the benefit that you can sing out loud/yell/grunt/cry/dance. But it sometimes helps to have company, like spin class, others sweating it out around you, people you can pretend to compete with to get those juices flowing.
  6. Book travel. It may be trips you actually take or fantasy vacations, but most flights you can cancel within 24 hours. So hunt away…
  7. Cover the clock. You wouldn’t do a long run staring at your watch the whole time, would you? Watching each second tick by is miserable. Cover it with a towel and tell yourself, “Just make it to the end of the next song…”
  8. Cross train only if it isn’t going to prolong your injury. Work with a therapist to identify what activities to avoid and pay attention to your pain during and after.  I try to get as running-specific as possible. With this injury, I could only tolerate the recumbent bike at first. Then the upright bike, then the elliptical. The more upright you can be, working the same muscles as you do running, the easier your return to running will be. 
  9. Give yourself an off day. I never struggle with motivation running, but I never DON’T struggle with it cross training. It’s emotionally taxing, and every so often you need to cut yourself some slack and go to brunch with friends instead.

Expect your first runs back to be awkward. You may even feel like you forgot how to run. It will come back quicker than you think, though. There will be a day you cry happy tears mid-run because you feel like your old self, and it will be sooner than you think.

Lastly, remind yourself that it will make you stronger. Every time I come back to running, it feels so much easier. It still hurts when I run hard workouts, but it’s a movement I enjoy, so there’s an ease with it. You strengthen muscles that have been neglected in running-only training and have a refreshed and hungry perspective. And like the sled dogs, you are ready to get out and grind with wild-eyed excitement, fully present in doing what you were created to do.

musher dogteam driver and Siberian husky at snow winter competition race in forest

Photo credit: TC Marathon
sara hall

Strength Training Your Way To Faster PRs

February 12, 2018

I’ll admit it: Strength training is my least favorite part of what I do. A lot of people ask me, “How do you motivate yourself to train when you just don’t want to run?” Truth is, I don’t struggle in most aspects of my job—I love lacing up and taking to the open road. But one area that takes discipline (and one I rarely feel like doing) is strength training.

Recently I’ve been logging 120 to 125 miles a week. When I’m not running, I try to expend as little energy as possible—largely so I can spend time with my kids. But I do currently carve out two to three hours a week for strength training because I’m absolutely convinced the benefits outweigh the extra energy expenditure—especially when done correctly.

What are those benefits? Well, to start, getting in the weight room has made me a more efficient runner. I’m now able to expend less energy while running at the same speed. Muscles also hold glycogen, so the more muscle I have, the more glycogen I’m able to store and the longer I can run before hitting the wall. Having a strong midsection helps keep your body from collapsing like an accordion. I’ve noticed that when I spend time strengthening my core and gluteal muscles, I actually feel like I can engage them as I run, taking some of the load off my lower legs. And lastly, I’ve found that strength training is hugely important for injury prevention.

Sold? Follow the rules below to start strengthening your stride.

1. Lift For Your Goal
When lifting, make an effort to prioritize exercises that have a direct impact on your performance. When I’m in the weight room, I’m not doing bicep curls or hopping into a fitness class just to get a good burn. Everything I do has a specific intent. I’m focused on making my running form more powerful and efficient. I’m thinking about the drive I need to sprint uphill and the strength my quads require to weather all the downhills of my goal race, the Boston Marathon.

Since I know I’ll be dealing with many eccentric muscle contractions, which involve the controlled lengthening of muscle under tension, I give a big eccentric load to my squatting. I’ve been using an exercise device that helps give my workouts a quad-heavy focus. I also tweak other strength exercises to force more load on my quads while alleviating the pressure on my heels.

2. Train Your Weaknesses
Back in 2012, I had surgery to repair a tendon in my knee that was sliced through by a rock. I was in a brace for three weeks and, during that time, my leg atrophied. It took years to get my left quad as strong as my right. I now work with a chiropractor/massage therapist to address my trouble spots and work on becoming more symmetrical. It takes a conscious effort to decrease that imbalance little by little in the weight room. When it came to lifting, I did extra exercises on my left leg. Generally, I continue to work on the weakness of my quads with eccentric movements: back squats, back squats with heels elevated, and single-leg squats. I also integrate hex-bar deadlifts, front squats, and the occasional spin class.

Where do you have room for improvement? Tailor your weight training to strengthen those weaknesses.

3. Go in a New Direction
You’d think that since running is a forward-moving sport, you should only do things in that plane, but the opposite is true. Movement patterns fall into three groups: sagittal (forward or backward), frontal (side-to-side), and transverse (rotational). To build a balanced body and help prevent injury, you need to perform a variety of different exercises.

I do lateral shuffles and band walks to develop my quads and glutes, which helps make my stride more stable, and use a rotating platform to work deep intrinsic muscle fibers that also help with stability. Why is this important? Well, the more stable our stride, the more efficiently we move and the less we’re prone to injury.

By strengthening the intrinsic muscle fibers deep in my glutes, I’ve noticed a big difference in the power of my stride and I’m coming off workouts feeling less beat-up than usual. My last running-related injury was the dreaded IT band syndrome, so I have been focusing on the main way to prevent it by strengthening and stabilizing my hips.

Reminding myself of these benefits helps motivate me to peel myself off the couch after a hard 24-mile run and head into the gym to keep making gains. Evolving into a stronger, more efficient, more balanced runner is the goal, but staying injury-free and getting to do what I love is enough to make the time spent well worth it.

sara hall

How Running Partners Gave My Training a Boost

August 11, 2017

Though running at its core is an individual sport, ever since I began running I have thrived and benefited from having running partners. I consider myself a “social exerciser.” I would much rather be running in a group, sweating it out alongside other people, than inside on a treadmill. This is partly because I find it more enjoyable and partly because I know it will help me get the most out of myself.

Running Friends With Benefits

Training with others gets your competitive juices flowing. In seventh grade, my first year of running competitively, my coach had me workout and race with the boys to challenge me. I thrived on beating all but one of them and enjoyed having people to chase rather than winning the girls’ race by large margins.

In high school I continued to train with the boys varsity team, and though it was frustrating to see the same boys I beat in middle school gradually get faster with less effort simply because their bodies were maturing, I enjoyed the camaraderie and challenge. If I had stopped running with them, I may have gotten complacent in my ability to win the women’s races by large margins, and would have never known my full potential. Instead I had fun competing alongside people and finding out what I was made of.

Another advantage of training with others is being able to feed off their energy and vice versa. When I was recruited to run in college, it was very important for me to choose a program that had a healthy team dynamic that was both challenging and encouraging. I wanted to be an excellent runner, but I didn’t want to be in a toxic, “win-at-all-costs” atmosphere.

Stanford University’s team turned out to be everything I hoped it would be. I had women at my level to train with day in and day out whom I looked up to and who made me a better person. We genuinely wanted to help each other, often holding back in workouts or races to keep the other from falling off pace. There were three of us that often finished races in the top three side by side, having run the whole race that way.

I remember days that I struggled physically. Having my teammates next to me feeding me encouragement helped me hold it together and finish strong. There were also times when I felt stronger, but, rather than exploit their weakness, I’d do my best to pull them along in return. If you choose your running partners wisely, all the hours you spend training become fertile ground for developing beautiful relationships and having the positive character traits of others rub off on you.

Now as a professional, I don’t have as many training partners available to me as I did when I was on a team, but I do seek out running company when I can. It simply takes less effort to do workouts with someone than alone. Having a “target” to focus on, whether it’s someone next to you or in front of you, often saves you the mental energy of constantly analyzing the pace or having to be the one to initiate it. You can turn your brain off and follow or lock into the rhythm of that person for periods of time, which conserves energy. My husband will often ride his bike next to me while I run, or I will go out of my way to meet up with a friend because I know I will have a better workout than if I were out there alone.

Running Partners Get Results

This winter while training in Ethiopia I chose to join a team’s practices rather than stick to my own schedule. Some of Ethiopia’s best marathoners were there and I enjoyed the challenge of keeping up with them at a grueling altitude of 9,000 feet. Although the runners typically train in silence (unlike in the US where we like to chat between intervals), they would often encourage me with a quiet “Berchi!” which means “Be strong!” It was all I needed to snap out of feeling sorry for myself and get back on pace as we climbed a steep hill. It added such a fun spontaneity to my daily routine that I felt really rejuvenated and got in some of the best training I’ve ever done.

The training differed from how I typically train and I even disagreed with some elements, but I felt being in the atmosphere of the team more than made up for it. The result was a new personal record at the Tokyo Marathon (2:28).

There is definitely a time and place for learning to push yourself while running alone—and I incorporate that into my training as well—but if you’re looking to make your training more enjoyable and effective and to have more support when you hit rough patches, I’d suggest finding some running partners to share the road with.

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Keeping Your Peace: Ethiopia

July 19, 2017

By, Sara Hall

A good chunk of 2017 I have been back training in Ethiopia, a place that started to become home while frequently visiting our kids in the orphanage during our adoption process and simultaneously preparing for our races in the same high altitude places as some of the world’s best runners.  There are many fun, beautiful things about training here, but being back after an extended time away has reminded me how nothing about training here is comfortable. At home I log my miles on the perfect surfaces of the uninterrupted bike paths of my hometown in Redding or the endless even dirt roads of Flagstaff. Everything is very predictable, controlled, set up for the optimal conditions to prepare me for my goal race.

Training in Ethiopia on the other hand is wild and unpredictable. The extremely high altitude and uneven surfaces are just the beginning.  Running on the roads for long runs and tempos is never a relaxing experience where you can just focus on your effort and pace. As with most things in Africa, “personal space” is a lot smaller than we are used to in the west, and when it comes to drivers it’s no exception. On top of this, you have to watch out for horse carts, donkeys, stray dogs, meandering villagers, and occasional unruly youth throwing rocks or cracking their whips to scare you.  A large percentage of vehicles envelop you in a cloud of black smog (no smog checks here!) so I debate what’s better, holding my breath at 9,000 ft. where air is scarce or breathing it in.

When I was training with a team here going into Tokyo Marathon, I never quite knew what to expect on any given day. It may be an “easy training” day, but the pace would quickly progress to low 6 minute miles on a rutty grass field at 9,000 ft. (which was not easy for anyone).  Workout times and distances were often lost in translation, and I knew just one thing- that I better bring my A-game and keep going until the group stopped.  I was training with Olympic gold medalist, world record holders, and people that far out-classed me, but I loved the challenge of seeing how long I could keep up.

There are very few foreigners in Ethiopia, so as a white person I am definitely a spectacle, especially in the rural areas.  I can’t run anywhere without everyone staring at me unabashedly.  Quite often the ensuing comments are encouraging, like “Berchi!” and “Aizersh!” which basically mean, “be strong, good job!”.  But almost as often I get someone yelling “CHINA! CHINA! CHINA!!” at me (the few foreigners that are here are usually Chinese, contracted to build roads and other city infrastructure, thus it’s assumed that anyone white is Chinese).  I usually ignore this good-naturedly, but sometimes I can’t help but playfully respond “Habesha!” (which means “Ethiopian!”) to hopefully show them how silly it is to yell someone’s nationality at them (all with a smile of course!)

As much as these challenging aspects can wear on me, I also feel that they have made me a stronger runner mentally and physically.  A friend once told me as I was heading out to a race “No matter what, keep your peace”.  It has really stuck with me and is something that I draw on constantly.  No matter what my external circumstances, it is up to me to keep my peace internally. Rest is not just the absence of work, you can be very busy but be at rest and not stressed internally, something I have to remind myself as a mom.  No one or nothing can take your peace if you don’t let it.

Similar to training here, races are not perfectly controlled environments with someone running exactly the pace you want to run. They are wild, there are unexpected distractions and things threaten to knock you off your game. In the marathon, you go through good patches and bad patches, and you have to stay calm no matter how you are feeling in the moment.  So now when I’m suffering at 9,000 ft. up a hill, trying to keep my pace, and donkeys are cutting me off and people are yelling “CHINA!” at me and a bus wooshes by me from behind, I am practicing keeping my peace.  And then when I head off to race, like recently when I ran the ASICS Gold Coast Half Marathon soon after 3 bouts of bacterial/food illness and traveling 23 hours, I chose to keep my peace, and was rewarded with my 2nd fastest half marathon to date.

My pastor once said “The storm you can sleep in is the storm you have authority over” (Bill Johnson), referring to Jesus asleep in the boat while they were sailing through a storm (Matthew 8:23-27).  The disciples were freaking out and couldn’t understand how he could be sleeping.  But the Prince of Peace knew the end from the beginning, and that he had nothing to fear.  With authority he spoke to the storm and said, “peace, be still”.  And so can we to whatever storms are in our life when we choose to keep our peace.

 

 

recipes

Raising Healthy Eaters

March 20, 2017

When I envisioned myself as a mom before becoming one, I never thought I’d be one of those bone-broth-making super-healthy moms that takes away the hard-collected Halloween candy or brings in rice cakes to class for their child’s birthday.  I am not like that myself so why would I impose that on my kids? I wanted to be the fun mom who wakes the kids up in the middle of the night to go out for ice cream! (Now this seems ridiculous on many levels)

But as with many aspects of starting my family that were different than I originally envisioned, here I was with kids that were essentially like a blank slate when it came to food.  They had only eaten a few (very healthy, plant based) things and no sugar their whole lives (until the orphanage when they occasionally got sugary treats from American visitors, which usually shocked their tastebuds and they threw out).  Despite never brushing their teeth, their first trip to the dentist showed no cavities simply from eating lots of plant-based foods and not eating sugar or fruit/juice.  It changed the way I thought of nutrition.  All of a sudden I was thinking, “what are we doing to our kids feeding them stuff that is making their teeth rot and making them obese!”  I felt like it was up to me to keep them from being corrupted by America and acquiring a taste for all the foods that so easily become a part of our diet.

But try as I might, it was an uphill battle in our culture where it is always someone’s birthday with cupcakes, some holiday with desserts, or they are daily being rewarded for completing a low-bar task with candy.  It wasn’t long before they developed a sweet tooth as well as a love for American junk food.  However, as a parent I still can help them to crave healthy things because what you eat often is what you are going to crave, and teach them to enjoy the other things in moderation.  And so far, I have been delighted that each time I serve them one of these super healthy meals that took 5-8 minutes to prepare, they act like I am Julia Child.

Each meal we serve either with Salad or Steamed/Roasted vegetables.  Our kids had never eaten a raw vegetable before coming home and were very confused why we eat “leaves” (they have a point, that’s exactly what Spinach and mixed greens are!). So we took advantage of an Ethiopian tradition of feeding each other with your hands, typically done to show affection, but for us it served to stuff the spinach leaves into their mouths.  But now, the trauma has subsided and my little 6-year-old’s favorite thing in the world is spinach salad, I have to actually hold her back from just eating seconds and thirds of it because her tummy is so small that she will just fill up on it.

Figuring out what language to use when we educate our kids about food has also been something we have tried to be intentional about, as we do not want to overemphasize it and draw away from the fun and experiential part of eating, but also realize that just as we educate them about every other area of life, it is up to us to teach and model what is best for them as far as nutrition.  Rather than framing foods as “good” or “bad” we talk about “strong food” that is going to make our bodies strong to do what we want it to do, and food that is “not as strong” and OK in moderation. We talk about eating food close to the form God originally made it. We applaud them for making good choice and don’t guilt trip them when they don’t.

I also decided long ago that I was not making “kids meals” and adult meals, that we were not going to have picky eaters. As my pastor says “what you tolerate will grow” and since we nip pickiness in the bud when we see it it’s amazing how quickly your kids catch on and end up eating and liking absolutely everything. Here are 8 Super-Healthy Recipes our whole family adores, as well as one not-so-healthy one that is a must-make as well:


1) Ryan’s School Day Pancakes: Every single school day Ryan gets up early and makes the kids pancakes, and usually a chocolate Teff one for me (recipe below).  He even will put in a daily “secret ingredient” that the girls have to guess, ranging from a tea-infusion to lemon zest.  No joke, we are spoiled!

But these are not your average Bisquick carb-bomb-comma-inducing ones, these are super healthy and super-fast to make.  We throw everything in a blender and use a large griddle to whip them out.  They are full of fiber, protein, and some healthy fat to keep our kids alert at school without the sugar crash from cereal and milk or other common go-tos. Plus our kids love to roll them up and eat them with their hands like they do the spongy injera bread that is a staple in Ethiopia! Note: these are thin, makes 2-3 large pancakes per person

Recipe:

(one serving- we multiply x 4!)

1 cup of oats

1 scoop Muscle Milk Organic Vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

dash of sea salt, 1 packet Stevia (optional)

1 Tablespoon coconut oil

3/4 cup water


2) Super Pizza: My kids at first abhorred the sight of cheese, but now they are pizza-loving Americans and as much as I don’t want to overdo dairy I am not about to deprive them of this civil right.  But we typically make our pizzas at home, thanks to a little mini pizza oven appliance Ryan gifted me for an anniversary. He knew one of my favorite things in the world is wood-fired pizza, and one day though I’d love to have a brick oven on our backyard, this one gets up to 700 degrees and does the trick pretty well.  We use healthy tortillas that are high in fiber like the Ezekiel brand, which also make nice thin, crispy crust like I love.  Just top with organic pizza sauce, organic mozzarella cheese (there is no replacement, do NOT use fake cheese, just don’t) and whatever else your kids want to decorate it with and you’re done! Because they are thin you often need more than one (bonus!)


3) (Bean) Pasta Marinara/Bolognese: I recently discovered all of these super awesome pastas that are made out of only lentils, or a combo of beans and lentils.  I was skeptical, but we made it and it was unanimous- everyone agreed they tasted exactly like wheat pasta! It is pure magic! Perhaps there will be a lawsuit eventually for false advertising, but for now we can’t get enough of this stuff. It has a ton of protein naturally so we often toss it only with a good quality, low-sugar tomato sauce, but you can also add in a bit of grass fed ground beef for texture. (Lentil Pasta can be purchased at Costco, Amazon.com, Trader Joe’s)


4) Enchiladas: These are my kids’ favorite thing ever and when they asked me to show them how to make them I almost didn’t want to show them because they were convinced I spent all day lovingly rolling them.  They are super saucy, which they love as Ethiopian food is all about salty stews.  We prefer to use mild-flavored white fish like Alaska Cod or Halibut over chicken because chicken is super inflammatory, and non-organic chicken is basically the devil (I will never forget the documentary I watched about how diseased chickens just get chucked in the processor along with the rest…)  Cook the fish and mix in  some raw onions, black beans, and roll in whole wheat tortillas.  Drown in tons of Enchilada Sauce (this Trader Joe’s brand is our favorite) and sprinkle a bit of cheese on top for looks if you desire, and bake at 350 til they look done.


5) Alaska Salmon Burgers: Available at Costco in the frozen section or online, these are a huge crowd pleaser and surprisingly healthy. When soccer takes over my life, these are my go-to. They just need to be heated basically and grilled is the best way.  At first I was skeptical of them, but then I saw that all they contained besides wild Alaska salmon were a little oil and spices. Serve in a bun or with a side of rice, and you’re done. Multiple days a week our kids even take these in their lunches for sandwiches (don’t get me started on how gross lunch meat is! Plus these are cheaper per pound that that nasty pressed together stuff).  When I have a bit more time I like to make my own out of canned salmon (recipe here: http://www.wildalaskaseafood.com/recipe-listing/feed-your-fitness/)


6) Yum Bowls: Basically a free-for-all rice bowl of whatever is in the fridge but typically either Mexican or Asian in flavor profiles.  In an ideal world, rice, black beans, cabbage, cilantro, multiple salsas, stir-fried veggies, grilled Alaska salmon or halibut, avocado, and jalapeno but we are pretty liberal with what we throw on there.  Just grill some Alaska fish filets, make rice in a rice cooker, and let your kids go crazy with toppings.


7) Ethiopian Food: We try to keep up their culture in many ways, including food, which is fortunately super healthy.  They use a ton of spices which are very anti-inflammatory, and staples that include kale sautéed in garlic and onions, lentils cooked with garlic, onions and ginger, and “shiro” a powder of different beans and legumes that you throw into boiling water and salt to make a delicious spicy, salty stew.  Here is one recipe for a split pea stew:

Ethiopian “Aterkerk” (yellow split pea stew)

Ingredients

4 medium onions
1/4 cup olive oil
1 16 oz. bag yellow split peas
1 T turmeric
1 tsp. ginger
1 T minced garlic
1 tsp salt

Instructions

In large, heavy pot, cover peas with 3” water and boil. Cook until tender

Meanwhile, chop or puree the onions in a food processor. Cook into oil until they’re and light brown. Add the spices and salt. Add the cooked split peas (water included) to the onion mixture and simmer.


8) Brownie Bomb Pancakes: **NOTE: These contain caffeine and I would NOT feed these to your kids, because does anyone want caffeinated kids?! **  I couldn’t write a food blog without including this recipe that makes me bounce out of bed every morning with excitement.  Too good to be true that they are healthy, but once in a while something actually is!  The base is teff flour (available from Bob’s Red Mill or on Amazon.com) the Ethiopian super grain that the runners swear by that’s super high in iron, fiber and gluten free.

1/2 cup teff flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder (or over 1/4 of a cup as I love! The darker the better!)
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash Himalayan sea salt
1 scoop Organic Muscle Milk chocolate protein powder
Stevia to desired sweetness (taste the batter before you make
it- I use 6 1g packets)

Add water and mix til you get a slow drip… Pour onto heated nonstick fry pan.  Makes one large pancake.  (We eat it straight out of the pan so that it stays hot and doesn’t get soggy! With at least 1 Tablespoon Kerrygold butter, which we use to top each bite with a little bit)


9) Pure Heaven: Our Wedding Pie

Because life is too short to live in deprivation, I bring you the closest thing to heaven you will ever experience on earth- my mom’s Swedish apple pie.  This is not your typical pie, it’s like a large deep dish cookie with a bit of apple.  So good that we made 30 of them for our wedding instead of cake!  Don’t even think about substituting anything to make it healthier. It is super easy to make and have not met anyone who doesn’t like it, so next time you need to impress people, here you go, you’re welcome:

 

Swedish Apple Pie
“makes its own crust”

4 cups sliced, peeled apples
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup butter (MUST be butter!)
pinch salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Fill a 9-inch pie pan with apples. Sprinkle with brown sugar and
cinnamon. Mix butter, salt, sugar, flour, egg and nuts together;
sprinkle on top of apples. Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Serve warm with
vanilla ice cream.


For more kid-approved recipes we created using Alaska seafood, check these out: http://www.wildalaskaseafood.com/recipe-listing/feed-your-fitness/

You can also get a free hardcopy of these in cookbook form mailed to you by emailing “Fitness” to FeedYourFitness@alaskaseafood.org

Would love to hear some of your family’s favorites as well! Enjoy! Xx

~ Sara