Adventures in Baking, Etc.

Sometimes recipes don't go as well as planned.  I have a whole bunch of ingredients in our pantry I've been trying to use up including flaxseed meal, coconut oil, and a can of pumpkin.  Two weekends ago, I found a recipe that used these.

Here are all the ingredient.  Minus the walnuts.

Here is the concoction plopped into lovely muffin tins.

And here are those muffins after they were in the oven for -- wait for it --  over 45 minutes.  Seriously.  I thought it was some kind of joke.  Or that I didn't have the oven on (I did).

The recipe said these should be in the oven for 25.  I kept checking them and they never rose.  And even after 45 minutes, they still looked like they weren't done yet in the middle.

They ended up tasting ok... we ate them.  But knew that they were more like a dense pumpkin bar in muffin cups.  Not at all a pumpkin muffin.  I'm not sure what went wrong here.  The recipe called for whole wheat flour, which might explain a denser end result...yet the muffins pictured with the recipe are light and fluffy.  Someone brought to my attention that if your baking powder is a little older, your baked goods may not rise.  But this same baking powder has not failed me in other recipes (banana nut bread, oatmeal butterscotch cookies).

The verdict is... I might think about trying to make this again, but I would sub in all-purpose flour for half of the flour in the recipe.  When I typically take a recipe that calls for all-purpose flour and sub in whole wheat, I usually only do up to half whole wheat.

To redeem myself, I made oatmeal butterscotch cookies later in the week and succeeded.  It's just the recipe on the back of the Toll House butterscotch chip bag, but I use half whole wheat flour.

And because I am easily excited by all things related to food, I will share some recent purchases.

Left 2 from Trader Joe's; Dannon's stepping up their Greek game w/a new flavor.

The key lime Greek yogurt is pretty delicious. Perhaps because it's not the nonfat kind.  I'd buy it again, regardless of its 4.5 grams of fat.

Had this at a friend's house, had to stop myself from downing half the jar.

How badly can I mess up this recipe?

Not as protein- and fiber-ful as Kashi's TLC bars, but a good tasting crunchy granola bar.  Or more like a crunchy chocolate chip cookie. 4g protein, 3g fiber per 2 bars (1 package)

Have any good baking disaster stories?  

What's your favorite thing to bake?

Oh. and PS...

I don't really know what to do with this.  I bought this MLO brand brown rice protein powder.
I can't remember if I picked it up at Wegmans or Trader Joe's. 

Regardless, after trying it in 2 smoothies, it's not my cup of tea, but I feel like I can't throw away a nearly full 24 oz canister (minus 4 scoops). That's like 22-23 servings left.  

It's vegan.  I'm not, but I thought I might prefer something without a lot of added sugar or other flavors.  But after buying a couple brands, I find that I prefer a protein powder with flavor (i.e. chocolate).  This one tastes kind of like flour if you don't blend it well.  

Ringing endorsement, I know. 

I don't know if this is weird, but if someone wants it: claim it, and I'll mail it to you.  Seriously.  

If there are no takers, I guess I'll toss it because I don't know what else to do with it, and I'll feel bad.

Recipe: Red Quinoa-Avocado Salad + Recap: Training Week 12.

I made this Red Quinoa-Avocado Salad the other night after seeing it in my Wegmans Menu magazine.  It was easy-peasy.

1 pkg (7 oz)  Red Quinoa, cooked per pkg directions, chilled
1 pkg (12 oz) Just Picked and Quickly Frozen Super-Sweet Corn, thawed
1 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup green onions, thinly sliced on the bias
2 plum tomatoes, 1/4-inch dice (about 1 cup)
2 avocados, peeled, pitted, cubed small
1/2 cup  Lemon Vinaigrette
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

There's not much to report in the way of process-photos because I basically just precooked some red quinoa, then mixed that in a giant bowl with all the other ingredients.

My modifications:

• Didn't add any salt.  Didn't think it needed it.
• I used more like 2/3c. green onions, not 1 cup. I think that was plenty of onion taste.

Note: This makes a ton! 10 - 1 cup servings according to the magazine.

While I think this is meant to be a side dish, it is very filling.  I had this for a lighter dinner one night with half a bagel.  I also had it for lunch two days this week.  I will add this recipe to my repeat list, but could probably even cut back more on the green onions.  Depends on how much onion you like.

Week 12 Recap...

Training Plan:

12  3/28-4/3

Spin  +abs

4 mi  easy

30 min  tempo

Boot   Camp

Rest

Rest

Half!  13.1 mi

What I did:
Monday 3/28: 1 hour of spinning
Tuesday 3/29:  Easy Run = 4.80 miles+ 150 crunches
Wednesday 3/30: 30 minute tempo run = 3.03 miles + 150 crunches
Thursday 3/31: 1 hr of Bootcamp: usual core stuff, plus lots of leg stuff (uh oh) like lots of squats and lunges- on the ground, on the stepper, and an the bosu ball.  Some wall sits. Not so much of the arm/chest stuff.
Friday 4/1: Rest Day; Ate half of peanut butter cup brownie.

Saturday: Rest Day (Expo/Packet Pick up!)
Sunday: Bucks County Half Marathon.  Currently Sunday is the little ray of sunshine in an otherwise rainy forecast:

 Anyone have fun weekend plans?

Recipe: Grasshopper Cupcakes

Way back on Tuesday, I said I'd post a recipe for a delicious treat.  Here it is, Saturday!  Yikes.

I'll save my workout recap for tomorrow when I review **Week 10** of my half marathon training.  Holy Smokes.

So Wednesday night I made some delicious cupcakes that I guess I first learned about 3ish years ago.
Back in the day before I had even run my first race (a 3k) I stumbled upon this blog because of knitting (a hobby that seems to have been replaced by running).  While I was there for knitting, I came across some fantastic pictures of cupcakes (pictures no longer there).

Here's the cupcake post.

And here are my cupcakes.

 I resisted temptation while unwrapping all these peppermint patties...

 Thumbs up for Butter Cream Frosting.  Whipped.

 I only had neon green food coloring, so the frosting's a little bright.  

There's peppermint extract in there too.

Peppermint patty surprise in the bottom!

These are always a hit both at work and at home.  If you like chocolate +  mint... I highly recommend.

Today I did a 5 mile (half marathon) pace run.  Goal pace was 10:23-10:42.

Range was 10:06-10:34.  Success!

Though I did feel sluggish at the beginning.  And I had to stop during my warm up mile to fix my mp3 player and to get a pebble out of my sock.  Then for the first 2ish pace miles I was running into the wind, and mad that I didn't put lip balm on before I left.  I got out of my funk though.  Not sure why I was flying for mile 5... I slowed myself down to 10:06 half way through when I saw I had been running around a 9:45.

After my run I had a large glass of chocolate milk.  It was delicious.  After making myself presentable, we took a drive up to our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant.  Sad they were out of our favorite appetizer, the babaganough...but we got falafel instead.

(after eating two of them)

Then we got pitas (hummus for me and kufta for hubs).  Not much to see, because they were wrapped in foil, and we scarfed them down quickly.

After that we walked around and got coffee.  And checked out the Delaware River which floods often.  And after all the rain we got over the last two weeks, the water level is really high.

This picture is actually further down the river, where we stopped on our way home this afternoon (and a little history tidbit: it's where George Washington crossed the Delaware!)

{source}

Anyway, we had ourselves a nice little Saturday.  Tomorrow I'll be doing my second to last long run before my half marathon!!!  I can't believe it's almost here.

I know I posted earlier about picking up some Clif Shot Energy Gels...but for this half marathon, I decided I'll be sticking with what has worked for my past several long runs...Gu.  I can experiment with the Clif brand after April 3rd.

Friday after work, I swung by a local bike shop to pick up some Gu in favorite flavors.  Much to my dismay they did not have the mint chocolate that I loved so much.  But I picked up a couple in Espresso Love, AND they offered to order the mint chocolate for me, which will arrive by the middle of this week.  Hooray!

Happy Weekend everyone!

Recipe: Olive Oil Pasta with Walnuts, Lentils & Red Peppers

Monday was an unplanned rest day because my gym = a university gym, and because it's spring break this week, there was no spinning on Monday.

I thought about running, but I got stuck at work for about an hour and a half later than I had planned.  Then I had to swing by the grocery store on my way home, then I made dinner.  Suddenly it was 8:00!  I did approximately 100 crunches on the living room floor so I wasn't completely lazy.

Dinner was a recipe from the blog Oh She Glows: Olive Oil Pasta with Walnuts, Lentils, and Red Peppers.

Here are the ingredients for a large serving, check out her blog post linked above for the cooking instructions:

• 1 serving (3oz) spaghetti (I used Kamut pasta)
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, dry toasted
• 1/2 cup + 1-2 tbsp medium heat salsa (I used Simply Natural brand)
• 1.5-2 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
• 2-2.5 tbsp nutritional yeast (gives it a creaminess)
• 1-1.5 tbsp ketchup
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder, or to taste
• 1/2 tsp dried basil (fresh would be lovely!)
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
• Pinch red pepper flakes
• 1/4-1/2 cup chopped red pepper (optional)
• 1/2 cup spinach
• 1/3 cup cooked lentils

My modifications:
-No idea what kamut pasta is.  I used whole wheat spaghetti.
-Couldn't find nutritional yeast at my store, and I'm not vegan, so I found an asiago cheese described as having a nutty flavor to substitute.
-I skipped the ketchup because we don't own any, minus a couple packets from take out food.
-I multiplied the recipe by about 4 so we'd have leftovers.  And we've each had 2 meals out of it...with more left in the fridge.
-I added 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes...holy hotness. Husband loves it; I need a large glass of water.
-I didn't have pre-cooked lentils, so that added to the prep time.  I think I had this whole thing ready in about 45 minutes.


It was a pretty good protein-packed pasta dish.  Husband gave it a thumbs up too.

Here are some photos from the process.

Finished Product

(I don't know why the spacing is off, I tried to but cannot fix it).

I think Daylight Savings time is evil!  It is making it harder for me to leave work on time, because it's still so bright out, so I think it can't *possibly* be time to leave work yet.

Today I stayed at work later too, because a meeting ran way longer than expected, but at least I didn't have to go to the grocery store, and dinner tonight was leftovers from last night.  So after work I got in a 5.5 mile easy run...in daylight.  Amazing!

Wednesday I'm planning to do some kind of speed work, then make some fabulous St. Patty's Day-colored baked goodies to bring into work on Thursday.  I'm helping it will improve the tone of my Thursday meetings :)  I'll share the recipe & pics after I make them!

How are you adjusting to Daylight Savings Time??

Recipe: Carrot Cake Muffins

I made these little beauts Sunday night:

 

Carrot Cake Muffin recipe from the NY Times.  Recipe found here.

My modifications:

• Didn't have turbinado sugar, so used regular brown sugar (is turbinado just courser?)
• Apparently we've been hitting the cinnamon a little too hard, because I only had 1.5 tsp left, even with trying to tap out the last little specks of cinnamon from the shaker.  So I came up 1/2 tsp short on the cinnamon.
• Used golden raisins, not pecans.
• Didn't have buttermilk. Found substitute using milk + lemon juice.
• I ended up with 18 muffins, not 12.  I would say each muffin hole in our muffin tin is about 2" across.

The recipe was mostly easy, except for the part where we didn't have pre-shredded carrots on hand.  I wasted far too much time trying to shred baby carrots over a grater. 1/2 cup's worth.  Then realized I could throw those baby carrots into our food processor instead.

They're not so bad for you either (and with 18 muffins from the same recipe, that makes my muffins more like 160 calories a piece):

Nutritional information per muffin (based on 12-muffin yield):
239 calories;
1 gram saturated fat;
2 grams polyunsaturated fat;
4 grams monounsaturated fat;
32 milligrams cholesterol;
38 grams carbohydrates;
4 grams dietary fiber;
323 milligrams sodium;
5 grams protein.



Do you like muffins? 
What's your favorite kind of muffin?

PS,

Running Warehouse on Facebook is advertising that they are selling select winter stuff at an additional 20% off through the weekend.  See here.  

I am not affiliated with RW, I just appreciate a good sale.  I picked up my first pair of winter running tights at my local running store way discounted at the end of season.  It's a good time to buy stuff!

Recipe: Spicy Roasted Garbanzo Beans

Sunday I finally tried this recipe I bookmarked from FitSugar.  We have a surplus of garbanzo beans in the pantry because I always pick up a can at the store with the intent of using them on salads, forgetting that I already have 4 cans at home.

It was super easy.

Ingredients

1 - 15 oz. can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 tsp spice mixture (a curry, Morrocan, or Mexican spice mixture work well)

Heat the oven to 400.  Un-can the beans.  Drain.  Pat dry.

Put olive oil, spices, salt in a bowl.  Add beans.  Stir.

Put on baking sheet. 

After 30 minutes in the oven:

I snacked on them as is.  Hubs threw some on his salad.  For this batch, I used a “Moroccan spice” that came straight from Morocco courtesy of a friend who traveled there!

The recipe warned “Make sure the chickpeas are completely dry after draining and rinsing them. Otherwise they'll end up chewy and soggy.”  Most were crunchy, some were a little chewy.  I thought I had these dried out well enough, but clearly not (or maybe they needed to spend a few more minutes in the oven?) 

Verdict:  Not bad! As the Mr. said, they taste like dried garbanzo beans with spices on them.  I’d make these again, and I would probably leave them in the oven a little longer (or shake on the tray mid-baking a couple times instead of just once).

Recipe: Vegetable Frittata and a Snow Day

To prevent this from becoming my 24/7 weather blog, I will start with the recipe first.

New recipe tried from the January/February 2011 Food Network Magazine: Vegetable Frittata.

 please ignore the tiny piece of food that got stuck in the crease

• 3 large eggs, 3 egg whites
• 3/4 cup 2% reduced fat cottage cheese
• 4 oz smoked gouda cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
• 1 tsp minced fresh rosemary
• 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 16 ounce pkg of frozen mixed veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots) thawed
• Kosher salt
• 2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
• 1 scant teaspoon paprika
• 4 slices multigrain bread

A few things--
I used 1% milkfat cottage cheese, small curd.
I used a couple sprinkles of rosemary from a container, not fresh
I did not use Kosher salt (or any added salt)
I didn't buy a loaf of multigrain bread; we had a piece of wheat toast with it though.

I realized after I made this when it didn't look enough like the picture that I shorted myself on the egg whites... whoops.  Apparently basic math is hard at 8pm.  I think I needed the equivalent of about another 1-1.5 egg whites.  Oh well.

It tasted good, and it had lots of veggies in it, so that has to count for something.


But I have one major beef with this recipe:  It calls for a 10-inch nonstick ovenproof skillet.  (The photo also shows it being served out of a fabulous Corning Ware French white casserole dish, which it clearly was not cooked in, and it would never transfer so nicely into another dish like that).

I have a 10 inch nonstick skillet; but our Calphalon items are only oven safe to 350 and this requires the oven to be preheated to 450.  This means I made it in the 10" skillet, then slopped it over into a 10" Pyrex pie dish when it was time to transfer it to the oven.

After yesterday's post where I mentioned I couldn't believe we did not have a delay with my crazy commute...we had a snow day today.  We ended up getting about 12" of snow overnight from about 7pm until ... sometime over night.  I got the call from work at 11pm last night. 

Hubs and I walked the dog at about 6pm last night, and it was some kind of snowy, freezing rain, sleet mix.  There was also thunder and lightning!!!  (Thundersnow!?) I don't remember ever seeing lightning in the middle of a snow storm.  Then it turned to all snow, and it kept coming down.

I slept in til 8:30, made coffee, and got back in bed to read until the coffee was done.  It was warm in there!  Molly joined us.  Hubs got up and got me a cup of coffee. niiiice.  Molly loves snow days too.

And after I got out of bed, Molly stayed there.  Greyhound burrito:

This is what it looked like out our front window this morning:

And this is what we found on our 2-ish mile snowy dog walk later this morning:

The walk was actually a decent workout...we cut through the nearby park, which had not been plowed, and did not even have any existing footprints through it.  I took Molly into the deeper drifts and we ran through them - I was out of breath!

The roads were a sloppy mess though (see above packed snow, or below- frozen/wet):

After that we worked on digging out our cars so we'll be ready for work tomorrow.  That was quite an adventure too.  This was a much wetter, heavier snow than we've had lately, so it's not as easy to brush off the car (and to get out from under the car, so you can back out of your space).  I think that counts as a little bit of a work out too. Then we moved our cars so the plows could clean up those parking spots the next time they came through.

Lots of snow in the parking lot:

Anyway, the snow day made this another short work week... which means I have about two days of work to do in one day tomorrow...ack! 

I'm going to do an OnDemand video in lieu of boot camp at the gym tonight.  I'm also hoping to run tomorrow after work since I did not run last night or today.  I think the hill behind our apartment is looking to be mostly cleared off, so it should be in good shape for a hill workout tomorrow afternoon.

Recap: First Two Weeks of Training + Sugar 'n' Spice Cookies

Half Marathon Training, Week 1 - in Review.

The schedule:

1  1/10-1/16

Spin  +abs

3 mi   easy

5 x 400   @5k pace

Boot   Camp

Rest

3 mi  pace

5 mi  long

Here's what I did:

Monday: Spinning
Tuesday: 3.13 mi run
Wednesday: 3.65 mi run
Thursday: 1 hour bootcamp + 15 minutes on spin bike
Friday: Rest!  But I did 150 crunches and a total of 7 x 12 reps of various lower back exercises on my stability ball (I did all the ones featured on that site).
Saturday: 4.09 mi pace run incl. warm up and cool down
Sunday: 2.5 mile dog walk (pushed back long run to Week 2)

Week 2 Schedule:

2  1/17-1/23

Spin  +abs

3 mi   easy

30 min   tempo

Boot   Camp

Rest

3 mi  pace

6 mi  long

 
What I actually did:

Monday:  6.22 mile long run (from Sunday of Week 1)
Tuesday: 1.56 easy miles + 45 minutes of kickboxing
Wednesday: 25 minute/2.17 mile tempo run on ice.
Thursday: 55 minutes of the super-intense beyond-boot camp class
Friday: Rest day
Saturday: Another Rest day...it was freaking cold, and my quads still hurt from Thursday. Seriously.
Sunday: 7.58 mi long run


I expect some deviation from my official plan...Hoping to stick to it exactly when other things come up is just setting me up for failure/disappointment/whatever.

Saturday, after going to see Harry Potter (good movie, but really dark-- people and creatures died on screen-- I was really surprised so many people brought their small children) and eating half my weight in popcorn (haven't gotten movie popcorn in a really long time!!) we came home, it was 6pm, dark and 17 degrees.  Additionally, my quads were still sore from Thursday night and my arches were sore (wahh, I know I'm whining). 

So I chose not to run.  My leg muscles were sore just sitting down and standing up. Instead I did a bunch of stretching for my legs. Luckily, my super awesome husband offered to rub my feet! It felt fantastic.

Sunday, I went for my long run. My plan called for 6 miles, but I had energy from not running for 3 days.  So I did a little over 7!  (Also, prior to my training plan starting, my long run was up to about 5 miles.  During Week 1, I did a 6 mile run when the plan called for 5. I decided to up my long run by one mile for now, giving me some added flexibility in my training - I can build up to 13 before the half if I'm feeling up to it, or I can take an extra week to build up later on, if needed).

It was about 23-25F for my run, and especially cold when my route took me through some open fields and I caught a strong breeze.  At least it was sunny!

And, now, so I can include some pictures in this post... Sunday night I made cookies!  I'm not sure where this recipe is from, but my mom has made these cookies at Christmas time for as long as I can remember.  When trying to google the recipe, it seems there are some variations floating around out there.

Sugar 'n' Spice Cookies

3/4 cup soft shortening (butter)                 2 tsp. soda
1c. sugar                                                1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg                                                      1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 c. molasses                                       3/4 tsp. ground cloves
2 c. flour                                                  3/4 tsp. ginger

Mix together shortening, sugar, egg and molasses.  Add dry ingredients mixed together.  Mix thoroughly. 

Super moist dough.

Form into small balls the size of a small walnut.  Place 2 in. apart on greased cookie sheet. 

Bake at 375 for 8-9 min. 

Notice someone (ahem, hubby) took one before I could even photograph them!

Roll in confectioners sugar while still warm.  Makes approx. 4 doz.  

I made the third sheet of dough balls a little bigger than the first two; we ended up with 43 cookies.

Perfect!  I had three or four last night just for quality control :)