All the food at Rise. Run. Retreat and Chef’d Giveaway.

Laughing in the kitchen cooking with friends. This evening was a perfect night for me. I love to cook. And getting to cook a new dish that you have never made before with friends couldn’t have been anymore fun. There was lots of laughter and teamwork in the preparation as we were broken into teams of 3 and 4 to make our dishes.

This is how we prepared our dinner on the second night of Rise. Run. Retreat. Sarah and Jes, the organizers of the retreat had arranged to have 3 meals ready to be prepared to be shipped to us that day from CHEF’d a meal service where you are able to select carefully curated recipes to prepare. CHEF’d shares recipes from famous chefs that range in difficulty in preparation which you then select and order.Then you receive fresh high-quality, pre-portioned ingredients with step by step recipe directions that include pictures (a plus!). This is a great way to do dinner if you are very busy or are in a cooking rut and need some new recipes to try to inspire your culinary adventures. We have used CHEF’d before in our family and have loved it. One of the great things about CHEF’d is that you can arrange for more than one meal to be sent or you can just order a single meal and you do not need to sign up for this as a recurring service. This is nice because it allows for some flexibility unlike other meal services where you need to sign up for a plan.

We made three different meals from CHEF’d: Mediterranean Penne with Sun-dried Tomatoes, Basil Chili Chicken Stir-Fry, and Arugula Salad with Gorgonzola Vinaigrette. I was on “team chicken” (most appropriate for me) with Allie and Angela. We divvied up the jobs for prepping the food and got to work whipping up our dish in the small kitchen in the awesome log cabin where we were staying for the retreat. “Team Salad” took over the dining room table for salad prep and as it turns out they may have had the more difficult dish as it included making your own croutons and baking potatoes (the salad could have stood on its own as a meal). That left 6 of us to maneuver around the kitchen sharing the limited number of pots and pans and utensils. Somehow we all managed to work well together and shared many laughs (and fake laughs too, ha!) as we cooked. It was fun to work in smaller groups to get to know everyone a little bit better. This would be a great way to do a dinner party with friends at home! There may have even been some wine shared while we were prepping (shocking, I know!)

When we had finished cooking, we carefully displayed the meals and then had the necessary food photo shoot (as all blogger must do) before settling in to enjoy our feast! The food was amazing and may have even tasted better because it was made with friends and of course we all love to eat to keep our bodies fueled for all of the crazy training that we do.

“People who love to eat are always the best people.”– Julia Child

More food and drink too!

Besides the amazing food from CHEF’d at the retreat, we were also treated to food from Fiiddleheads Cuisine, a natural chef service located in Moretown, Vermont. The food from this fab caterer included dishes such as Kale Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing (lately I have been hooked on Kale) and Mozzerella, sun-dried tomato, and pesto sandwiches on foccacia bread.Fiddleheads provided us with dinner the first night as well as a catered lunch that was planned by Inside Tracker to include foods that help you as an athlete to optimize your health and performance and recovery as an athlete. This lunch also included a talk from Jonathan Leavitt from Inside Tracker about how they use science-based blood analytics, tailored just for you and provide you with personalized nutrition and lifestyle recommendations. Inside Tracker takes bloodwork a little bit further than just giving you results and works with you to help you to look at different health biomarkers and to help guide you to make changes to improve in the recommended areas. Several of the women at the retreat including Allie, Sarah and Kara have all been working with Inside Tracker.

We also enjoyed an incredible Wine/Beer and Cheese pairing led by Cabot Creamery Registered Dietician Sara Wing (who would later cheer us all on at the Leaf Peepers Half Marathon). She introduced us to several different types of Cabot Cheese including my favorite, the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. She had also paired them with several local beers and wines including a new favorite Sip of Sunshine IPA. We all loved this portion of the day, it was informative yet also fun and how could you resist all of that cheese and even some chocolate too. We were also each give a bag of the Cabot Creamery Whey Protein to take home and try.

Our breakfasts were provided by Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs (Hooray Pete and Gerry’s! If you didn’t already know it, this is my family’s business and I am always so proud to share our eggs and our story with others!), Blissful Eats also a family owned business started by blogger Nicole Culver.

All of their granola and goodies are non-GMO, gluten free, and kosher. I had never tried this granola before and now I am hooked especially on the Maple Nut Crunch Granola. Their was also copious amounts of Stonyfield Yogurt to eat which paired perfectly with the granola. The Stonyfield Organic Grassfed Vanilla Yogurt was a perfect match!

For snacking we had Garuka Bars which are made in Vermont. The ingredients are simple and perfect for endurance athletes who are always on the move. Here is what’s inside: Vermont raw honey, dry roasted peanuts, dried cranberries, peanut butter, 7 whole-grain flakes, and brown rice puffs. They are made with raw honey because raw honey is a very effective pre-exercise carbohydrate.

Propel Water with Electrolytes and Gatorade Endurance also kept us hydrated throughout the weekend. I was intrigued to try the flavorless electrolyte water from Propel because I often don’t like sweetened drinks. This was a great way to get some extra electrolytes into my system especially since when I exercise I sweat quickly and I sweat a lot so electrolyte loss is often an issue for me.

Oh and of course who can forget, we took a trip to the Ben and Jerry’s Factory for a sweet treat! Ben and Jerry’s was actually right down the hill from where we were staying so we made sure to make time to enjoy some of Vermont’s famous ice cream. I of course enjoyed my favorite Chocolate Therapy which Angela and Allie had to have too. I could always uses a little chocolate therapy.

A CHEF’D Giveaway

As you can see, this weekend wasn’t actually about running at all, it was all about the FOOD!

And now since I have you drooling over all of this good food I have a surprise for you! I have a $75 GIFT CARD from CHEF’d to giveaway! If you are the winner you will be able try out CHEF’d and to select your own recipes to try! To enter please check out the giveaway below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What is your favorite thing to eat when you are on a vacation or a retreat? If you could order a meal from CHEF’D what would you pick?