In the midst of marathon training, I did not have the energy to worry about dinner and healthy eating. It was definitely a struggle this year, but Mike and I got through it! Here are a few examples of some dinners we threw together when we were short on both time and kitchen space.

My favorite meal, by far.

I’m going to go ahead and start with my favorite meal of the three – this salad pictured above! It was filled with arugula and spinach, black beans, marinated artichoke hearts, sauerkraut, cherry tomatoes, and Daiya Blue Cheese dressing. The very best part of this salad was the warm tempura cauliflower from Trader Joe’s. It comes with a Kung Pao sauce, but we used Frank’s Red Hot instead for buffalo cauliflower. The tempura does add more calories and fat, so a healthier alternative would be to roast plain cauliflower and then mix it with buffalo sauce.

This one may have been Mike’s favorite!

We not only needed meals that were easy to prepare, but also easy on our bank accounts! Enter this pasta with roasted broccolini and garlic. I simply roasted the broccolini with whole cloves of garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. I then tossed it with spaghetti noodles, with more olive oil, some Earth Balance for a buttery flavor, plus salt and pepper to taste. It was simple and fresh.

Easy and tasty!

During this period of time, I also discovered that Frank’s Hot Sauce on anything makes it “buffalo flavored”. Above you will see roasted broccoli and brussels sprouts with brown rice and Frank’s!

So, here are a few examples of what we ate during marathon training season to keep me going through the long training runs, with little time and money to spend on more extravagant meals (my favorite kind!). I hope it helps to inspire you on those days when you need to eat, but cooking sounds just exhausting!