Running, you can be such a b*&$@.

Me and some of the girls (and guys) made the trip to the Windy City this weekend the Shamrock Shuffle 8k downtown. The race features an elite team competition with a big prize purse, and based on the results in past years, our team would've been right in the mix to bring home some cash.

You ever have an experience where you're just swimming against the stream the whole time? No matter what you do? Yep, that was my season opener. I had one of my best workouts earlier this week and had been feeling strong and fresh, and then on Sunday, I'm pretty sure someone traded my racing flats for cinder blocks.

I had a race plan; Coach and I talked mid-week about the smartest approach and execution. I've come to learn that we should never really expect anything to go exactly according to plan, and mental flexibility is necessary for success in any endeavor. So when the gun went off and I felt like a total piece of you-know-what, I knew that the plan was going to have to bend a little. Perfect execution: out the window. Here's my training log entry recapping how I felt and the accompanying thoughts:

4:30am: up to shake out and have breakfast. ate like an animal yesterday and still hungry like a crazy person this morning. i dont think i moved an inch from the time my head hit the pillow til the alarm, which, in retrospect, was not necessarily a good sign. felt god awful shaking out. i was hardly moving.

7:40am: rush to tent, get there later than i wanted, warmed up feeling pretty flat, resist asking Delilah for an autograph, throw the flats on, wait in line for bathroom, unknown man comes in and yells/announces that we have ten minutes til we have to be in our corral. I'm like "wait a minute, I thought we had until 8:20?" - which was ten minutes after he said we had to be roped in. went up to the corral to see that the only place to stride was a chunk of grass/sidewalk about 30 meters long. Did a couple and decided that it was worthless, said "fuck this" and ran outside and did 2 x 30 sec @ race pace, jog 30 sec. Hopped in the corral, stood around, examined tattoos, chit-chatted. 

Plan: Be conservative first 30% of the race, holding back aiming for 5:55-6:00 for the mile, and after 9 minutes or so, start hunting people down, and with a mile to go, haul ass for home. Negative split as big as possible.

Actual: Worse race reality, uh, ever, short of racing sick. Wasn't sick, but every step felt like it cost me what 3 normal steps should. went out in 6:04-5 and it felt like 5:35. I think "okay, you always feel better as workouts go along. Just hold out, you'll find a groove." Just tried to wait it out til I looked down and saw 9 minutes, and prayed that a change of rhythm would feel better. Tried to turn it over a little bit. People WERE starting to come back to me, some of the elite women, but mostly the stupid men in corral A who went out like idiots.

Hit 2 miles in 11:59ish. "Shit shit shit." About a half mile later, a girl in front of me stepped off the course. I wanted SO bad to follow and had to do some major major mental self-coaching. "You did NOT come all the way to Chicago to walk off the course. Steph is right behind you and you're going to fuck her over mentally if she sees you walk off." 

Keep going. "Put your eyes on that purple singlet." Girl looked REALLY familiar, but I don't know why I recognized her. Came up on her and ran beside her a little, gave her a little "Okay, let's move." She didn't come with but gave me a "good job." Miss the 5k mark-maybe a good thing, but maybe not. I was SURE I was running 7min pace a couple of times, but if I'd caught the 5k split I would've realized I wasn't really going backwards at all. I'm not sure I would've put a positive spin on that at that point in time, though. Hard to say.  Bounced between "holy shit, I'm dying" to "latch onto that singlet and cling. You're good at being annoyingly clingy."

Nick was at the 4 mile mark and I'm just wanting to die at this point. Goal went from hauling ass the last mile to just getting ass across the line. Clearly looked like shit because the only thing Nick could yell that was positive was "You're beating so many boys and I'm so proud of you!" I'm thinking "I don't give a SHIT about the boys, it's the women I want to be beating!" 

Didn't get a 4 mile split because honestly it would've required too much energy to look down, and I was going to need all the forward momentum I could get to get home. The one good thing about the last mile was that women WERE dying, so I had caught a couple from 4-4 1/2. Pretty much the only thing on my mind was how far I had to go once I crossed the bridge and U-turned for home. Remembered Brandon said 400 to go once you crest the hill on the bridge. Caught 2 women going up that hill, wanted to die hardcore, and then tried to not be going backward in the stretch. Pretty sure the only reason I didn't was because it was downhill. Clicked my watch at 29:57, but I haven't even looked at the official chip time yet, partly because I don't want to see team results and realize that if I'd had a decent race we would've been in the hunt for some $$.

Mile 4 deathwish

Kinda felt like I was running through sand the whole time. Honestly, if I had felt like that and run a crazy-fast out-of-my-mind race, I'd say that's probably what it needed to feel like, but yeah, not a time like that. Now laughing because I really did shuffle at Shamrock. Literally laughing out loud. Ahhhh. Running, you can be such a bitch!

There were probably a few more f*&!'s in sprinkled throughout that profanity potpourri, but you get the idea. I updated Liz post-race; she of course was very positive and encouraged me to take it as a learning experience at the very least. I'm still fuming, and of course I deem the race as just a giant clusterf*&$. Three days later, I'm still rehashing, but even that same afternoon after talking things over with both Liz and Coach, I started to take a few lessons away from it:

• I negative split the race even though I felt like I was going backward the whole time. Just because you feel like complete and utter shit doesn't mean you're necessarily running that bad.
• I wanted to quit. A lot. Multiple times. I'm totally willing to hurt, but there better be a reason for it. Hurting like hell to run slow is a double whammy. Runners aren't masochists; we like pain most usually only because it means we'll be rewarded fast times and good races. I learned I can hate every step of the way and keep going forward anyway.
• I don't travel well. Driving the day before an important race is the least ideal transportation situation for me, and I will avoid it at all costs in the future.
• I can't worry about everything and take care of myself the way I need to. As much as I hate the idea, I indeed have limits, and trying to exceed them will bite me in the ass. Hard. 8000 meters' worth.
• Holding my shit together is exhausting. I hadn't gotten too down on myself about the race and had tried like hell to brush it off, but I found myself sobbing like a baby replying to a simple email from Coach outlining the next month's training. I was just tired. After I leaked the tears, it was like someone pulled the gorilla off my back...and like I'd gotten stung by a bunch of bees and had a puffy-eye allergic reaction. Lovely.

I'm sure I'll add to that list as time passes still. Meanwhile, I'm eatin' on that sauce. No, not that sauce. This one. You can find the recipe over on Momma Pea's blog and had to make it. Follow suit. You won't be mad. I drowned a stirfry of spaghetti squash, sweet potatoes, and shiitake mushrooms in it. Winner winner tofu dinner.

Know thyself. And thy food.

I'm on the brink of week 13. Week 13 off from running. But also, week 13 free from dairy, gluten, and eggs. Except for a brief "challenge" with each. Banishing dairy, questioning eggs, and tabling gluten for a while.

So far, this year has been one extended learning experience. Suffice it to say, I did not envision 2012 panning out like this. The cleanse/food challenge was part of my 2012 plan. A resolution, really. To figure out what foods my body disliked. Although it was extraordinarily difficult for the first 4-6 weeks, I consider eliminating dairy the biggest success of the challenge.

The initial weeks of any big change are hard. For me, this was compounded when plantar fasciitis brought my running goals and training plans to a screeching halt four days before my dietary overhaul was set to begin. As I was introducing a new challenge (food elimination/testing), my outlet, my hobby, my social network had been taken away. It has been a very trying 13 weeks. Soul searching meets identity crisis. Lactose intolerance isn't the only thing I have learned. Here's a few of the high-lights.

1. I can wake up much earlier than I ever thought I could manage if it means getting in a workout (cross training). If I can set my alarm to 5:06 to get up and go to the pool when the temperature outside is <20 degrees, I can certainly wake up at least this early for a morning run. Duly noted.

2. I have improved my body awareness. I attribute this to swimming and strength training. I have a significant muscle imbalance right vs. left in my core and hips, despite diligently attacking these the past 12 weeks. I think this improved awareness has better helped me to understand compensatory motor patterns (something which the nerd in me loves) because I am living them. I'm doing many of the same exercises I prescribe for my kids.

3. I've learned to make better decisions about what I'm eating. The biggest dietary changes I've had to make in the past 13 weeks is eating less. Wait, should I not have said that? Try not to freak out. It is the truth and it's common sense. In order to fuel running 75-100 miles per week, most runners are eating all the time. I was. At 75+ miles per week, more often than I care to admit, I ended up eating the most accessible food. Now, cross training 60-90 minutes per day, I still get hungry. But it is different. It is similar to the plummet in hunger related to a marathon taper. But still different. After a longer cross training am workout, I still feel needs-immediate-attention hunger. But, if I treat that hunger the same as post-long run hunger, usually eating 2-3 spoonfuls of nut butter or a few handfuls of trail mix while waiting for last nights leftover's to heat up in the microwave, by the time the microwave timer sounds with my lunch, I'm not hungry anymore. My previous breakfast of a choice, a PB& banana sandwich (now on gluten free bread) has become hard to finish. And if I eat a 200-250 calorie fruit/nut bar when 10 AM hunger inevitably strikes, I'm not hungry for lunch at noon. This whole need for hunger management is a bit of a shock. I'm used to eating all the time. But I have found that my behaviors have adapted, almost subconsciously. One of the adaptations has been liquid breakfast. I think the calorie content is probably pretty similar, but by subbing in a fruit and almond milk smoothie for a sandwich at breakfast, I'm ready to eat at my scheduled mealtimes (which are very scheduled) without breakthrough hunger.

One of my new favorite, super-quick breakfasts is a two-ingredient blend of two of my new favorite products. So Delicious Coconut Kefir and Barlean's Chocolate Silk Greens. The greens are actually a cocoa-colored powder and come with a scoop! So I scoop some chocolaty goodness into a mason jar (recycled), pour in the Kefir, cover, and shake like mad. Top it with a bendy straw and you've got yourself a morning. I've also blended it with a banana and/or peanut butter when I have the extra 30 seconds to dig out my immersion blender. Put it in the freezer and oh dear. Dairy what?

And, yes I bought a package of bendy straws which I realize completely cancels out the recycled mason jar. However, the straw is a mood booster, something which I have needed many of this winter. It is like having an umbrella in your drink on the beach. Plus, the decrease in questionable gazes suggest that I look slightly less like a crazy person when drinking out of a jar with a straw vs without.

Bottom line: Whether you're running 100 miles a week or eating in your car between meetings. Think about what you're eating. Avoid decisions based on accessibility. Prepare for hunger. Stock your desk full of healthful snacks. Jar up some smoothies for the week on Sunday afternoon. Your body and brain are working hard. Reward them with fuel.

Fess-up Friday: Guilty Pleasures

I'm keeping my own words to a minimum today; the guilty pleasure this week is the cute boy who works in the coffee shop in my building. Ogling him has been much of the reason why I have been low on concentration while I sit working while sipping my morning coffee. Today, though, I did actually manage to keep my eyes from wandering long enough to read this paragraph from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Compensation."

And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, a wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius, for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It  permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances or and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who remained a sunny garden-flower, which no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to the wide neighborhoods of men.

The Cave and the Grocery Toter

I'm mentioned before my love for and slight problem with Amazon Subscribe and Save. Between that and my Green BEAN bin, I do almost zero in-store grocery shopping. I also rarely go more than 60 minutes without stuffing something in my face, so you should have a decent idea of how often one of Amazon's boxes with the giant smiley face shows up on my doorstep. Some days I arrive home to a stack of boxes and wonder what the f*#! did I order?! I came home to a single fat box today: two canisters of vegan vanilla protein powder, one soy and one pea and a 24-count box of silken tofu cartons. My neighbor across the hall had lugged it up the stairs for me from the stoop like usual.

I call my apartment The Cave. It sits at the end of a cute little cul de sac in a bustling hipster neighborhood, only a tiny hop from all the hustle and flow, but at the same time feels almost unbelievably secluded. It's small, but not too small for visitors thoughI keep the traffic through the door to a minimum. It's like my own secret hideout.

It is one of four apartments that comprise the old brick house just steps away from the old Wonder Bread factory. Each unit is a studio, and you could say that the landlord carefully selects his tenants. We're a quiet bunch-I'm not the only one who uses her apartment as a hideout. The apartment beneath me acquired a new tenant in October; I saw her for the first time last week. Needless to say, there aren't any jointly-thrown house parties or all-night raves happening here. The neighbor across the hall has appeared a handful of times, but still every week, he lugs at least 2 armfuls of food up the stairs for me.

Very technical mixing technique

I decided that I needed to feed the neighbor grocery-toter something, and it just so happened that Thing 1 and Thing 2 had a birthday this week. So I had not one, but two reasons to preheat the oven. Martha has a fabulous recipe for flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I also at one point had a mild obsession with the monster mix from Target. They parented the brain child that are these babies. The smashed m&m's are totally the confetti for the birthday.


 Flourless PB This & That Bars


Ingredients


1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup Stevia in the Raw
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 2 tbsp hot water)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups mix-ins (I used smashed PB m&ms, shredded coconut, and granola)

Mix your flax egg and sit aside to "gel." Preheat oven to 350 and line a 9 x 4 inch loaf pan with parchment paper.  In a large bowl, beat the sugar, Stevia, flax egg, and peanut butter until well combined. Add the salt and baking soda and mix until incorporated. Stir the mix-ins into the dough. You may have to get a little dirty and use your hands. Don't be afraid. Press the dough into the loaf pan and bake 16-18 minutes or until golden brown on the edges.

Gluten free deep dish pizza crust

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I've been inspired, nay intrigued, to make gluten-free deep dish pizza. Tuna and I LOVE Geno's East in Chicago. I mean, obsessed. So I wanted to recreate it in gluten-free fashion. With one half covered in vegan cheese.

A typical pizza dough is made of yeast+ water + sugar mixed with flour (usually 2.5- 3 cups) + oil + salt. Some deep dish doughs also call for corn meal. I figured I could sub in a GF flour or flour blend and leave everything else the same. But there are SO MANY varieties of GF flour in my cupboard alone. And I was also worried about maintaining the texture of the crust.

I searched a bit and found this great PDF with the weights of gluten free flours per cup. Regular white flour weighs 125 grams per cup. I chose sorghum flour and oat flour because both had weights similar to wheat flour. Other options were amaranth, millet, garbanzo, teff or buckwheat. I chose sorghum because i recently bought a GF beer made from sorghum and figured if beer could be created from sorghum, surely pizza dough could as well. Oat flour made the cut because I thought the sticky nature of oats might help the dough bind and stretch. I also wanted to use some potato starch for binding. And because i just bought it and was eager to use it.

Some quick math and I knew I wanted between 317 and 375 grams of GF flour. I set my kitchen scale to metrics and started measuring.

Vegan version

Deep dish dough/crust:
1 cup + 2 T oat flour
1 cup sorghum flour
3 T potato starch
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 packet yeast
1 cup water 90-105 degrees
1 T sugar- coconut, date, white, honey, just not artificial. The yeast needs calories!
2 T oil
1 tsp salt

Other stuff you need:
Deep dish pizza pan or a 8-9 in cake pan
Mixer with dough hook. Or patience and a clear surface to hand knead.

Mix yeast and water in a large bowl. Water should feel neither warm nor cool to the touch. Or you can measure temperature with a thermometer. Add sugar. Stir and set aside for about 5 minutes.

Measure flours into another bowl. Add salt and mix. Add yeast water and oil. Use a mixer with a dough hook to knead for 6-10 minutes. Or you can knead by hand. Like this (describes the method by which I learned from Edward Espe Brown's The Tassajara Bread Book and the documentary How to Cook Your Life. Both highly recommended). But you will need to knead (giggles) for at least 10 minutes.

Cover with plastic wrap on a greased baking sheet and set aside. I put my dough in my oven. Oven was OFF.

I let my dough rest 8 hours. I can not confirm that this is necessary. To be addressed in the next version.

Press dough out onto baking pan or counter to 1/4-1/2 in thick. It might be crumbly. Wet your fingers with water if needed. Turn cake pan or deep dish pizza pan upside down and press into dough. This provides a perfectly sized circle for the bottom of the deep dish/cake pan. Use a knife to trace the outline. Then use a spatula to transfer dough to deep dish. Press dough further, towards and up the edges of the pan to create the deep crust.

Top with pizza favorites. Traditional deep dish order is cheese, other toppings, then sauce.

Vegan cheese slices/shredded mozzarella topped with mushrooms

Then pepperoni

Then sauce and Daiya shreds, to identify the vegan side of things...

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until edges of dough appear crispy.

Tuna and I were so happy with the result! His primary complaints were more cheese and more sauce. This can only mean that the crust was great! I think it needs seasoning, either herbs and more salt in the dough. The current dough had great flavor when topped but i want to look forward to eating the crusts! I also think the addition of a wet binder like a flax egg or pumpkin to decrease the crumblies. Both to be addressed in the next attempt.

Pizza pie! Sans one slice:)

Zooey Kobayashi

Zooey and Kobayashi: they seemingly have nothing in common.

It's been a tired week. The accumulation of several tough, gray winter weeks, lots of miles, not enough sunshine. Fatigue makes people do crazy things. Me? My brain operates on about quarter speed. My body is about on the same clock, minus the twice-weekly workouts that require me to operate otherwise. Wednesday morning, I awoke an hour earlier than desired because a couple birds decided to bunk up outside my window and pretend they just nabbed the two starring roles on Glee. Those two f*&$ing birds did this to me all last summer, and now those little shits are back from their winter vacation. If I wasn't so tired and didn't have to get to the track to meet Thing 1 and VinoVino, then I would've gone sniper on them. I don't own a gun. I'm not sure if that a fortunate or unfortunate thing.

Being that tired turns everyday tasks into insurmountable challenges. For instance, walking out of my way to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy before going into the office feels like someone asking me to run a marathon. Carrying my backpack and purse, which serves basically as a giant lunchbox, up two flights of stairs is like scaling a mountain. You know how kids get when they're tired: they cry. They throw fits. They're whiney. Yeah, well the same thing happens to me, so I do anything I can to pacify myself when The Cranky starts to bite.

This is probably divulging a bit too much. I did laundry Tuesday night. After my chirping alarm clock went off Wednesday crack-of-dawn, I marched straight to the kitchen to put something in my stomach. I went to gather up my things to take to the track: spikes, Gu, flats, watch. I go to change and realize the clean laundry is still in the dryer, which is a trip downstairs and out the door. It's raining. I'm cold. Instead of doing what a normal human being would do and going and getting a clean pair of shorts, I avoid the stairs, rain, and cold and put on the shorts that I had worn for what would be the third run in a row. I know, I realize this is ridiculous. It continues.

After sucking in an enjoyable 5 x 1000m worth of dry indoor air, I proceed, as usual, with my typical sneezing fit followed by an uncontrollable running of my nose. The snotting will continue all day. As soon as we finished, my nose is running at top speed and I have to walk into the RPAC to shower before heading into the office. I am swimming in snot, but I got no tissues, no napkins, no nothin'. But I do have the smelly ass sock I just peeled off my foot before shoving it into my road flats. I have to approach another human being close enough to hand him my ID card to swipe. He's going to see this snot. All that snot. Yep. I did it. I flew my nose into that sock. All-time low? Desperate times call for desperate measures. My wardrobe has even been dictated by how tired I am this week: I've decided to forgo skinny jeans twice because my knee-high compression socks don't fit comfortably under them.

Comfort food is a controversial thing for me. On one hand, the concept of comforting oneself with food is a dangerous thing. I don't think food actually "comforts" anyone; it merely distracts them temporarily from the issue of concern, and no real coping mechanism ever develops. On the other hand, when you're running on average 15 miles a day, sometimes you just want to eat something a little sinful. And if you don't like cinnamon rolls, then you can just head back to communist Russia.

I'm currently typing between bites of one of these guys thrown into a mug and drowned in almond milk with protein powder. I woke up this morning before the usual 8am mass exodus from the Dublin store and whipped these up before I went. They were quick and easy-a good choice for my first attempt at cinnamon rolls.

My current food obsession is coconut: coconut milk, coconut cream, coconut butter, flaked coconut. You get the idea. This combination is amahhhzing:

Mix that biz (coconut cream and date paste) together and throw it on top of a coconut banana smoothie? Whoa baby. Then I discovered  this stuff and I made a new food boyfriend...and glaze for the cinnamon rolls.


Fast & Easy Coconut-glazed Cinnamon Rolls


Ingredients


1 cup GF all-purpose flour (I used Bob's Red Mill AP flour)
1/2 cup GF oat flour (I used Bob's again)
1/2 buckwheat flour
1 1/4 cups almond milk
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup coconut oil, separated
1/2 cup coconut sugar (sucanat or brown sugar would work as well)
2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup coconut cream
1/4 cup agave syrup (or maple syrup or honey)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk flours, salt, and baking powder to combine. Add 1/2 cup of the coconut oil and almond milk and mix until a stiff dough forms. You may need a hand mixer if you haven't been pumping iron. I did.

Flour a piece of parchment paper and roll the dough into a rectangle. You can just as easily use your fingers to press the dough into shape. Spread the remaining coconut oil onto the dough and then sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar evenly with your fingers, rubbing into the oil to create a paste on top of the dough. Roll the dough tightly from the long side. Cut into one inch slices. Grease a 9-inch pie pan, and nestle the rolls in and place in the oven for 13 minutes.

While the rolls are baking, combine the coconut cream and agave syrup. When the rolls are finished, pour glaze overtop, saving a spoonful. Eat spoonful. Now eat rolls.

Thai coconut cashew scones with peanut butter glaze

It's Friday! I'm still trying to kick the respiratory virus that has been hanging on the past few days. So naturally, my first thought upon waking is, "I need sinus meds." I venture to the fridge to find something to eat before I take said meds. Ponder. Ponder. Lentils? I could make pancakes with lentils. Tuna's left over curry from Thai Grille? I would be very cranky if someone ate my leftover curry. As if I'd ever have left over curry. My mind drifts to the previous days' of mindlessly zoning in and out with Food Network on the television. Ina Garten making maple scones. Scones. Bingo!

Now, I have never made scones. I have certainly never made vegan, gluten free scones. But I was feeling inspired by the Thai flavor palate. Here is how it went down:

Scone ingredients
1/2 cup coarse oat flour
1/2 cup cooked mashed lentils
1 T coconut sugar
2 T coconut
1 T cashew or other nut butter
1 flax egg
2 T non dairy milk
1/2 T baking powder
1 T grated fresh ginger or 1/2 T dried ginger
2 T coconut oil- COLD and cut into people sized pieces

Glaze ingredients
1 T coconut butter
1/2 T peanut butter
melted together with 1 pinch of cinnamon


First thing is first. Put some coconut oil in a freezer safe bowl and pop it in the freezer. Then make your flax egg (1 T flax seed + 2 T boiling water, stir and set aside).

As I mentioned before, my food processor is behaving poorly. I think I've dulled the blades with frequent pulverizing of Medjool Dates. So I blended everything together with my immersion blender in a big cup. First, I ground the oat flour. I recommend putting a towel over your cup whenever blending anything dry with small particles. This is a lesson I have yet to learn on the first attempt, so I usually end up with grain particles all over my kitchen until I remember my own trick. Add in all other ingredients, except for the COLD coconut oil.

I have vague memories of both my mom and Ina Garten telling me how important cold butter is when making pastries and scones. It is important for the butter to be cold so it can POP when in cooks and leave air pockets which result in flaky, delicious baked goods. I wanted to see if the same would be true with coconut oil, which, like butter is solid when cold but become liquid when heated. Suspense...

Now, If you're a scone fanatic, you put your scone dough in the fridge to chill to maximize the fluffiness factor created by cold butter POPPING. If you're hungry and impatient, you don't. So I didn't.

Once your scone dough is combined, remove the coconut oil from the freezer. Use a butter knife to cut the oil into pebble sized pieces.

Pebble sized pieces of coconut oil

Stir the pieces into the dough. Then use a cookie scoop or large spoon to place scones onto a greased cookie sheet. Try not to touch the dough because it will get warm and the butter won't POP. Bake at 375 degrees Farenhiet for 15 minutes.

Scooped out and ready to bake! Look at the gorgeous texture!

Once the scones are done baking, drizzle them with peanut butter glaze. Engage scones in a quick photo shoot before you dive in.

I know what you are thinking. Did she eat three scones? No. No I didn't. I ate two. At first. And then I ate one more. So, yes. I ate three scores. You would have too! These scones are delicious! And flaky!  I think the coconut oil had the same effect as butter. And I didn't even have to substitute 1:1 for the massive amount of butter usually in scones (usually, 8 T  or 1 stick!)The coconut and oat flour add some texture. The Thai flavors come together beautifully and the lentils keep the scones moist! They honestly don't even need a glaze. If I hadn't already named this post, I might not have glazed them at all! All this and they are gluten free, vegan and have almost no sugar! It's a win-win win-win-win!

BBQ lentil pizza pancake

I'm obsessed with pancakes. I believe we've already covered this. And this. Well, dinner tonight turned in one big pizza pancake.

The pizza pancake was inspired by a variety of recipes. First and foremost, by my mom's pork BBQ, which I adapted to the crockpot once I had more than one meal a week to cook. Translation: about midway through grad school. My second inspiration came from a recipe for BBQ lentils from Healthful Pursuit. Knowing that my carnivore husband, Tuna, would NOT be fooled into eating beans with BBQ sauce as a meal, I opted to make it into a pizza. And my lentils always seem to turn to mush. They never stay plump and pretty like in the recipe from Healthful Pursuit. Yet another reason to make them into sauce.

I've been searching for a good gluten free pizza crust recipe. Tuna and I made homemade pizza a few times a month before the cleanse. We have both missed it since I quit dairy and gluten. I've never been one for bags, boxes, or mixes. So I turned to the net. Edible Perspective had a recipe that caught my eye. It looked quick and by Wednesday, I'm pretty lazy. I love both these blogs so much. Sometimes I accidentally hybridize them into Edible Pursuit or Healthful Perspective. Ultimately, I usually find what I am looking for. Usually thanks to Tayler, Or Google.

So with dual inspiration, I set to making gluten free, dairy free BBQ pizza. Then I invited my brother, Master Splinter, who is vegetarian, further complicating the issue, as you will see later in pictures.

Here is what you need for the BBQ Lentil Sauce:
1 onion roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic
6 oz can tomato sauce
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1 T worcestershire sauce (mine was gluten free)
1-2 T coconut sugar or maple syrup
1/2 T cumin
1/2 T smoked paprika
2 cups of cooked lentils or other legume. (I'm trying it next with black beans!)
1-2 T pineapple juice- I used what was left in the container of my fresh, cored pineapple. Juice from the can or a few chunks blended up would work too.

For the Crust:
1 cup gluten free flours- my combo was 1/2 cup AP (Bob's red mill), 1/4 cup brown rice, 1/4 cup buckwheat flours
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp oregano or Greek/ Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic powder or garlic salt (omit salt below if using garlic salt)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup pumpkin
2 T coconut or olive oil
1 T coconut sugar
1 cup non dairy milk

Toppings:
Pineapple cut into tidbits
Bacon
Chopped onion
Pinch of cinnamon

Blend all sauce ingredients in food processor. My food processor had been on the fritz, so I've been using my immersion blender for everything.

Then, simmer sauce over medium heat on the stove top until thick.

Toss the pineapple with the cinnamon. Then add pineapple, onion, and bacon to a sheet pan. Unless you're feeding a vegetarian. Then bake them separately. Don't contaminate your dining partners' delicious pizza with a food they consider to be evil. This is not a way to make dinner friends. You will end up eating alone. Forever. Over-exaggeration? Yes. But you will likely not have a repeat dinner guest. I digress...

Bake the toppings (together or separate)  on a sheet pan at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes. 

I had to modify the pizza dough from Edible Perspective since the jury is still out on eggs. With my immune system already down with a virus that can only be compared to the mumps, I wasn't willing to chance it.

Mix all dough ingredients until combined. I love gluten free baking because I'm not concerned with over mixing, since there is no gluten to make the dough gummy, sticky or otherwise useless. Heat a large skillet on medium high with some oil for 3-5 minutes. Pour dough onto skillet. The dough is a little thicker than a "pour," so help it out with a spatula to form a giant PAN sized CAKE. Let it cook, like a pancake, for about 5 minutes. Little bubbles will form on the edges, just like a pancake. If you desperately want to avoid flipping the pancake, turn the heat to low after 5 minutes and put a lid on it. When the top isn't wet anymore, add sauce, toppings cheese and return lid to melt cheese 2-3 minutes.

If you're feeling brave, bored, or want to impress your brother with your mad culinary skills, or create unnecessary stress for yourself after a stress-free sick-day on the couch, try to flip the pancake. The process went something like this.*

Internal dialogue:

"Do I flip the pancake?"

"No, I'll put a lid on it. And steam it. Like an omelet. That will work."

Place lid. Watch pancake for a few minutes. Steam clouds the lid. 

"No, I want it crispy. I'm gonna try to flip it." 

Two spatulas in hand, Insert one under pancake. Try to flip.

"It's too wide! The pancake is too wide!"

Insert next spatula. Try to flip.

"It's cracking. Oh $#^%#^&%, it's cracking."

Call in reinforcements. Master Splinter. Give him spatula. Pancake now has three spatulas under it. Forming a peace sign underneath.

Dialogue now becomes external:

MS: "This is stressing me out"

Me: "I know, don't say anything!"

Much shimmying of spatulas. One failed attempt to flip. A edge piece of pancake breaks off. MS is whimpering. Concernedly. I shoot him a look that pierces through him. To the round pizza bake pan behind him. ALAS! I grab the pan, flip the 

Photo from amazon.com. And now I want a pizza stone. Blast!

pancake onto the bake pan. In one piece. YES! Then with MS whimpering, no.... cowering... in the corner of the cupboard, I heroically slide the pizza pancake onto the skillet to cook the other side. 1-2 minutes should do.

Top with toppings in any configuration necessary to please all dinner guests. Ours had 1/2 vegan cheese, 1/2 regular cheese and 1/2 of each 1/2 had bacon. Because I've learned that I can put together just about any crazy gluten-free, almost vegan concoction and call it dinner and the Tuna will eat it if there is bacon on top.

*This may have been a dramatization of the truth. But I feel it is justified. I've been couped up inside for too many days. Too many days being... two.

The verdict: 

The crust was not as crispy as I would have liked. But it was super easy and filled the pizza craving perfectly. And the way it slid around in the pan inspired me to try to make gluten free DEEP DISH pizza crust next. Ok. Truthfully, Tuna gave me the idea. But if I create a bombshell, I'm taking the credit!

And, I'll be trying the whole sauce/lentil combo in the crock pot. Since the lentils were cooked to softness the sauce became rather uniform. Come to think of it, I don't think I even told Tuna there were lentils in his BBQ sauce. What was that I said about disclosing all ingredients to your dining partners? I may have a tendency to break this rule sometimes with Tuna. But he doesn't have any allergies or intolerance. And it's a habit I am trying to break. Starting now.

We all scarfed it up. And I have some leftover BBQ lentil sauce which I am looking forward to eating with some tortilla chips for lunch this weekend!

Maple cinnamon rice pudding bars

I have a thing for rice. I've tried millet and quinoa and I even have some amaranth in my pantry. But I always come back to rice.  I ended up making about three times the amount of rice needed for dinner. So decided I would try my hand at a rice bar.

3 cups leftover cooked rice or other grain
1/2 cup nut butter- recommend coconut, almond or cashew
1 T cinnamon
1/4 cup almonds
1 T maple syrup

Pulse/blend the rice in food processor 30-60 seconds for sticky texture. Add all ingredients except almonds and blend again. Stir in almonds. Press into 9x9 baking dish coated in coconut (or other) oil. Bake on 350 about 20-25 minutes. Cool and cut into bars to enjoy all week!

Fess-up Friday: Guilty Pleasures

I roll over and look at the clock: 3am. Stomach growls angrily. It's the second time I've woken up this week because I'm ravenous. I know, this doesn't happen to normal people. Monday night and into Tuesday morning Stomach growled me awake at 3am, then again at 4am and 5am. And this is after I fed her a protein shake each time. She's high maintenance-the training cycle is starting to get to her.

Last night I decided to get up and not screw around with just almond milk and potein powder. I marched my ass to the freezer, pulled out two frozen bananas and threw them in the blender with protein, tofu, almond milk, and some cinnamon and ginger. Banana bread milkshake. The frozen bananas are magical; if you haven't tried putting them in a smoothie or throwing them in the food processor alone, you need to. I was amazed the first time I did it. In the food processor, they whip up to the consistency of Dairy Queen softserve. They turn a smoothie into something that one associates with health to something that tastes like pure gluttony. The smoothie turned out to be just enough to keep me asleep until I woke up, starving of course, to meet Iceman for some easy pre-race miles at 7:30. What the hell? Needless to say, the constant hunger has me a little...on edge.

Hunger, along the general fatigue that fairly intense 14-mile days wear on me, and after a while, it's possible you find me a little out of sorts. Today, I brought Meatball a pumpkin pie smoothie. Not being a fanatic about vegetable intake like myself, I opted to leave it non-greened and very normal-eater eyeball friendly. Apparently some coworkers thought it looked like "baby puke" when he pulled it from the community fridge. Had I put in some kale or spinach leaves, this probably would have been a fair assessment, however, the jar of  pureed pumpkin, spices, and milk was precisely the color of pumpkin pie. My mile- and hunger-induced irritability led me to decline his proposition that I defend my creation, because I'm fairly sure that my verbal filter has worn to nearly nothing at this point.

After the smoothie-criticism, I found in my inbox the 213847th email about picking up Girl Scout cookies that were ordered from a fellow grad student's kid. Stomach growls: I didn't order any effing cookies, so stop telling me to pick them up! And while you're at it, stop feeding those to your kids!

 Don't misunderstand me: I'm completely in favor of supporting your local Girl Scout troops. I'm definitely not against indulging in a cookie, but if you're going to indulge, I definitely believe that it needs to be worth it. Don't let those cute little faces distort your pallette. The cookies are mediocre at best. They sure are damn convenient, with them potentially being delivered straight to your door, but no way do they beat a homemade cookie. No way! I have a real weakness for little red-headed kids. I love them, so I'll admit that if one of them came to my door selling these things, despite not being able to eat a single bite of them, I'd still buy some. But the cuteness of the Girl Scout luckily does not permeate an email from her dad, so I didn't have to throw away any money.

Having a bit of a fetish for all things chocolate-PB and in addition all things coconut, naturally Tagalongs and Samoas are my favorite of the colorfully-boxed varieties. Earlier in the week after reading one of the cookie reminder SPAM messages, I decided that I'd make some of my own, sans garbage refined ingredients and with plenty of fiber and protein. The Tagalongs were the first to be born. After adding the 10th flour variety to my baking arsenal (via Subscribe and Save) and rising at 5am on Wednesday to meet Thing 1 at the track for some 5k pace work, I immediately used the time to kill to get to work on some coconut-ty copycats.

Aren't they pretty little things? Meatball lent me his fancy camera to play with, so the shots are a bit of a step up from the ones the Camera+ on my iPhone produces. This brings me to perhaps my guiltiest of pleasures:  paparazzi photography. I've grown quite fond of simply walking around campus, or anywhere else for that matter, with my camera out and  ready to shoot. It's invigorating to feel a little like a menace behind the lense.

 

Now, that I've teased you, I have to tell you something: I can't even count the number of times I've baked or cooked something using my own ad hoc "recipe" (i.e. throwing shit into various pots and pans using techniques only slightly more advanced than trial-and-error) and not recording exactly what I'm doing along the way. The Samoas are product of this method. They turned out quite well. Being entirely grain-free, I was worried about their texture being too dense; Bob's suggests replacing up to 20% of a recipe's flour with coconut flour and adding an additional equal amount of liquid. My worries were all for naught; their texture was rich and moist, but they were indeed a cake-like cookie. Baking powder and baking soda could rework the texture, but further experimentation will be needed for conclusive information.

Raw Protein Tagalongs


Ingredients


For the shortbread cookie:
6 large medjool dates, pitted
1/4 cup unsalted cashews
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp vanilla protein powder
1/8 tsp sea salt


For the peanut butter filling:
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp unsalted peanut butter (I used sunbutter which was just ask good)
4 tbsp date paste
1 tsp coconut sugar

For the chocolate coating:
10 oz. dairy-free chocolate chips (I like these guys)

First, prep the shortbread cookie base: in a food processor, process the cashews into a fine meal, being careful not to over-process and wind up with cashew butter. Pour into a bowl and set aside. Process the dates until they form a thick dough which will ball up and spin around the outside of the processor bowl. Break apart, and return to processor bowl, adding the cashew meal, protein powder, salt and honey. Pulse until all ingredients are combined and form a dough.

Place the ball of dough on a piece of large parchment paper. Fold the parchment over the top of the dough so that it is sandwiched between the parchment. Use a jar or rolling pin to roll the dough out until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Unfold the parchment, and using a cookie cutter (or a wine glass if you don't have a cookie cutter that doesn't resemble some holiday-inspired shape)  to cut out uniform circles. Place the shortbread disks in the freezer to set.

Combine all the ingredients for the peanut butter filling in the food processor until well combined. Spoon onto shortbread cutouts and place in freezer to set for a minimum of 30 minutes.

After the cookies are hardened, add the chocolate chips (I split them into 1/4 cup batches) to a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 15 second intervals, being careful not to burn them. Placing cookies on a clean sheet of parchment paper, spoon the chocolate onto each of the cookies, spreading evenly to cover one side. Once one of all the cookies are chocolate-coated, place in freezer until they're cooled. Remove, flip, and repeat to coat the other side. Cool in freezer again, or shovel one quickly into mouth. I think I like them better warm and messy and fudgey.