Getting frisco-y

Place the top cookie and you've got yourself a Frisco.

What a difference a week can make! I'm halfway through my 2x/wk x 3 weeks of ART. I've had another PT evaluation. And, perhaps most news-worthy, I'm attempting another return to running number. Comeback number three. The new additions to my rehab include low-dye arch taping (below), ultrasound, and a tweak to my calf stretch to avoid compensatory eversion and keep my posterior tibialis happy.

I also have a better understanding of why my foot and ankle share the hurts. And have resolved to wear a shoe or tape (no bare feet) at all times until my foot pain is a distant memory.

I'm not getting my hopes up too high and I'm not going to be pushing the limits, but I am feeling good about this.

Wrinkles. What happens when you tape your own foot.

As expected, with the potential for running comes an increased loathing of cross training. So, Saturday I headed to Velocity Cycle Studio in Powell for a great 60-min spin class.The studio is in the back of a personal training gym and has about 8 bikes.  The class was great! Exactly what I needed to break up the monotony. The teacher warned us that interval training was on the menu. I wasn't intimidated. After one-song warm-up, the intervals set in. About halfway through song number two, my heart rate was high and I was thinking, "I am SO out of shape." But much to my surprise, without too much coaxing, almost naturally, my thoughts turned into "Wow, I haven't worked this hard in a while." My heart rate has stayed in the 150-160 range for most of this cross training quarter. It is no wonder why I felt uncomfortable when my HR was pushed near its maximum. I haven't training like this, via running or cross training in over three months! As I said, the class was great, but really the highlight of Saturday was this quick and subconscious change in mindset. Tayler has told me all along, "your foot is pissy for a reason." Maybe cross training will teach me something after all.

Enough mushy mush stuff. The real reason you visit this blog isn't to hear of my petty foot drama. It is for the food. Am I right? Today I set out to make another version of gluten free deep dish pizza and some carrot cake cupcakes to celebrate a belated birthday with... myself. I ended up with an extra flax egg. Not a bad problem to have. So I ended up making some peanut butter cookies. They reminded me of the peanut butter cookies at Pasquale's Italian Restaurant, specifically of the delicious cookie they use to make a Frisco. What is a Frisco, you ask? It is a Reese's Cup/Peanut Butter Blossom combo on steroids. More specifically, it is creamy peanut butter and melted  chocolate (that has solidified) smashed between TWO peanut butter cookies and drizzled with more  melted chocolate. It is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. And it will cost you about half the amount of dessert at any other restaurant. Needless to say, I have missed Pasquale's and their Frisco since going dairy/egg/gluten free. I have been meaning to recreate it, but hadn't made a peanut butter cookie worthy of the name. Until today.

Gluten free, vegan peanut butter cookie:

1/2 c oats
1/4 c coconut flour
1/2 c coconut sugar
1/2 c creamy peanut butter
1/4 t baking powder
1/8 t baking soda
1/4 t vanilla
1/4 c non-dairy milk

1/4 c add ins, if desired- chocolate chips, raisins, peanuts, etc

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine all ingredients. The peanut butter can be hard to blend in, so you may want to plan on being patient or just use a hand mixer. Scoop onto cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes. Cool completely.

Delicious vegan, gluten free peanut butter cookie

To make the Frisco-
1-2 T creamy peanut butter per person. I love Trader Joe's creamy.
melted chocolate (did you know Trader Joe's chocolate chips are vegan?) OR homemade vegan, loaded chocolate (recipe below)

Homemade vegan loaded chocolate:
Coconut oil
Chocolate greens powder (Barleans, Amazing Grass GreenSuperfood, etc)

Melt coconut oil and mix in chocolate greens powder. Put it in the fridge to harden 10-15 minutes. Melt ever so slightly again, if needed. You want the chocolate to be slippery enough to get out of the bowl but it can still be in hunks.

Melty and delicious vegan chocolate sauce.

To assemble to Frisco (first in words, then in pictures)

1. Turn your cookies upside down
2. Spread chocolate on the bottom of one cookie.
3. Spread peanut butter on top.
4. Add more chocolate on top of the peanut butter
5. Top with another cookie

Voila! Best dessert ever. And save the rest of that chocolate sauce for your Strawberry Chocolate Chip Milkshake. You'll be glad you did!

Vegan hot chocolate

What do you prefer with your peanut butter? Jelly or chocolate? Tough decision.  So, this morning, at breakfast, I had both. PB&J Pancakes and Vegan hot chocolate.

Vegan hot chocolate with PB&J pancakes in the background.

At some point, I saw Alton Brown do something like this on Good Eats. I think. It was a vague and foggy memory, but something in my brain suggested, "mix the cocoa with oil so it isn't gross and powdery." I listened. Good choice.

1 t coconut oil (melted)
1 t cocoa powder
1/2 t coconut sugar
1 cup non-dairy milk

Combine melted oil and cocoa powder until smooth. Add sugar. Add milk, heated to the temperature you like to drink and stir vigorously. If you have the ability to shake, or even blend/pulse it in a blender. I'd even suggest that. If you experiment with that method, use fridge temperature milk and heat up the suspension once it is... suspended.  I only stirred mine so you can see the teeny tiny chocolate particles. I don't have issues with food textures, so it didn't bother me.  If you have a texture issue, I'd recommend an OT evaluation using the shake/blend/pulse method. Though I should have used my immersion blender.

Vegan, Grain-Free and Nut-free Chocolate Brownies with Mint Topping

Next week is Golden Gopher's birthday (henceforth referred to as GG or Geej). But today was the last day we would both be at work before her birthday. So we celebrated today. Geej loves the chocolate mint brownie from Sugar Daddy's, so I have started a tradition of chocolate mint creations when celebrating with her.

Now, creating treats for co-workers has become a challenge. Moreover since my cleanse, but even before. You see, Tiny Dancer is allergic to ALL nuts and eggs. Meanwhile, Crunchie Bar and I are still holding strong with gluten-free and dairy-free eating.  The challenge was to make a delicious, chocolate-mint creation that was (deep breath) gluten free, dairy free, egg free, nut free and free of all products processed in a facility with nuts. Oh, and it meant I couldn't use my food processor or blender, which have weekly, if not daily, contamination with nuts or nut products.

Challenge accepted.

I scoured the net. I really wanted something without tofu since I didn't think I could get it creamy enough without electricity. I couldn't find something that didn't have nuts as a substitute for grains. Or eggs as a substitute for flour. Or dairy in the frosting. I was also afraid black or garbanzo beans wouldn't mash up without a blade.

So, I decided to try an original creation. Chocolate brownies with white beans with avocado mint chocolate chip frosting and a chocolate shell. The result? Complete indulgence.

I wanted to use a sugar with a lower glycemic index. I ended up using white sugar out of necessity when I noticed my date sugar had a nut warning on the label as I was filling the measuring cup. Phew!

Here is what you need:

6 T pumpkin

3/4 cup white beans soaked and cooked

6 T melted coconut oil

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup cocoa (Hershey's, to be nut-contaminant free)

1" of a vanilla bean, scraped or 1 tsp vanilla extract

2 avocados

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp mint extract

1/4 cup + an extra 1 cup "Enjoy Life" chocolate chips

In a ziplock bag (or in your food processor if nut contamination is not a concern) mash beans and pumpkin. I did this with a rolling pin and then with me hands. Pour into a bowl. Add melted oil, baking powder, sugar, vanilla and cocoa and stir until combined. Spread into greased 9x9 baking pan or muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes (baking pan) or 15 minutes (muffin pan). Cool completely.

In the meantime, peel and mash the avocados in a bowl. I used my hand mixer. The beaters had been removed and cleaned compulsively. Gradually add 2 cups of powdered sugar while beating. Stir in extract and chips. When brownies are cool, spread with mint frosting. If you are worried about the frosting browning, don't be! It doesn't! But if you are, add 1 T cocoa and it will be brown from the start.

Melt the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl 3 x 15 seconds, stirring between intervals. Spread on top of mint frosting.  I think the extract prevented the avocado from browning.

The frosting is a bit more like a mousse because it is rather runny I read something about adding melted coconut oil to solidify the texture but I forgot to add it to this batch.

Everyone LOVED these. Well, Crunchie Bar, Tiny Dancer and I did. Geej thought the flavor was good but wasn't sure about the texture. Two out of three ain't too bad. My other two Wednesday co-workers were out sick today (not at all related to brownies) so they didn't get the change to weigh in. We will see what the Tuna has to say!

Brownie pan at the end of the day. Looks like success.

Variations of this recipe are definitely in my future!

In other news, I am contemplating calling Tiny Dancers and Crunchie Bar Juniors' allergist for some testing. Details to come, as available.

Monday Pick-Me-Up: Microwave Cake for One!

Today was a remarkably good Monday. I noticed that when my days are slamma-jamma busy, it puts me in a good mood. Weird. But the big reason it was a good Monday was that I was able to run 12 glorious minutes at the Monday Night Run!!

I've been in a melted chocolate and peanut butter on fruit kick the past three days, trying to finish up some left over fondue. Today was day one without fondue. I needed something to fill my chocolate peanut butter void.

Enter: chocolate peanut butter cake for one. Vegan and gluten free.

Ingredients:
1 T coconut oil
1 T pumpkin
2 T garbanzo bean flour
1 T rice milk (or other non-dairy milk)
2 T date sugar. Or you could use 2 T any sugar, to taste.
2 tsp agave
1.5 tsp cocoa powder
Crunchies as desired- I used about 1/2 T "Enjoy Life" chocolate chips
1 T peanut butter

Here is how it went down.
1. Melt coconut oil in a bowl in the microwave. 3 x 15 seconds ought to do the trick.
2. Swirl oil around to coat bowl
3. Add all ingredients except peanut butter and mix
4. Add dollop of peanut butter in the middle
5. Scrape down sides of bowl with spatula and cover peanut butter with batter
6. Microwave 2 x 30 seconds
7. Eat out of the bowl or invert onto plate and eat

In college, my bestie Jen-Jen and I would add a splash of milk/non-dairy milk to all our baked goods. Probably to make up for the lack of fat. So, I added a splash of rice milk to the top, which is why this photo looks glittery. And festive on a Valentine's Day plate! Also left over from the fondue/party.

Even better: a brownie recipe for an allergy-free crowd...coming soon!

Priorities, perspective.

Sundays are habitually a day of reflection for me, a hybrid of the diminuendo of the preceding week and the crescendo into Monday and the warp speed of the week. I do a lot of talking to myself on Sundays. Literally, I will have a conversation with myself. Out loud. I'm not sure what it is about the thinking process that is enhanced for me with just spoken word, but no matter the context, problem solving happens for me most efficiently if I explicitly say out loud what it is that I have, where I want to get, and then stumble along various paths until I find the right one.


I've decided that life is just one big balancing act-or perhaps more like a continuous series of balancing acts one after the other separated by little blips that might shuffle the positions of priorities on their totem pole of utility. There are two tricks, then, that we need to be able to identify: the first is actually deciding what our priorities are and which ones are most important. The second is then teeter-tottering appropriately given the leaders on the priorities totem pole. The second is tough, but nearly impossible if you can't explicitly identify what is truly important to you. The more I ponder this, the more I realize that many people are trying to do just that: run the balancing act without the proper weights installed on either end.


We, as people, are so aware of so many things, including the other people around us and those that are far away from us no matter what distance metric you use. We're aware enough of the moon and its properties, which is over 238,000 miles away, that serious consideration of colonizing it has been tossed around. Why, then, is awareness of ourselves so elusive? So elusive, in fact, that the lack of self awareness is not even a second thought to the majority of us? It requires an extra muscle, an extra oomph to shove us into a perspective that lets us see what we're doing in a way that makes us ask why we do what we do and how what we do effects everyone else around us. It requires work, and that I think is the answer to the previous question-why so many of us don't do it.


I've never been an unhealthy eater. I've always been into the idea of taking care of myself above the average maintenance standards that most would agree are "normal." However, it wasn't until becoming a mostly-vegan and a 90-100 mile/week girl that I became immensely aware of my eating habits and how I made food decisions on a day-to-day basis. I am certainly not perfect, nor do I expect to be, but each day I feel like I get better and better at being completely aware of what I'm putting into my body and why. Most people would say that running 100 miles in a week is grounds for being a garbage disposal-any and every food is fair game. The reality is precisely the opposite: my body undergoes far more stress than the typical person, making it even more important  that I flood this thing with as much nutritional value as I can given the amount of food I can comfortably take in on a daily basis. 


Running is a funny thing. Some days, running dropkicks my appetite into full gear, but if the exercise bout is intense enough, it really does a lovely job of pissing on all my desires to ingest solid food. The idea of choking down a bowl of oats with nut butter and fruit is enough to make me dry heave immediately (or even an hour after) some of the mid-September 20 mile marathon work days. It's then that you have to plan: I can (have to) stomach liquid. What can I get in that can be liquid form? Later in the day, I have to ask what did I not get in earlier that I need to have now?  I stumbled on this article on http://www.seriouseats.com. A meat-eating manly man takes a "30-day vegan challenge" and kept a daily journal about his experience. It was clear from his writing that he very much intended to go back to his burger-and-wing lifestyle after the challenge and that the challenge wasn't going to do any magical transformation and veggie enlightenment. However, I found great pleasure in reading this statement he makes on day 6 of the challenge:

"Veganism has forced me to be constantly aware of what goes into my mouth and this has consequently resulted in a big decrease in calories that I consume and an increase in the regularity of my meals."

I don't believe veganism is for everyone. If you're cool with eating hormone-free chicken, then by all means, nomnom on some of that.  I'm completely cool with eating some forms of seafood. But I will say that it unquestionably benefits everyone to be aware of what you're eating, when you're eating it and why. The relationships that people develop with food are extremely interesting to me. From a biological point of view, food is simply the fuel we put into our bodies to live. Ben Franklin was the one who said "eat to live, not live to eat."  Most people don't have an emotional attachment to the unleaded that they throw in their car. I also don't think that one should sacrifice flavor, taste, and the occasional indulgence for optimal nutrition. It all goes back to balance and moderation-that annoying teeter-totter. 


I don't have time to cook is something I hear all the time, and I'm here to tell you that you don't have to spend tons of time on a meal for it to rock your tastebuds and be good for you. I'm constantly eating on the move; I'm a grazer and eat fairly constantly all day long rather than eating separate, designated meals. Cue breakfast on the go:




 Red Velvet Cake Smoothie, v2.0


Ingredients


1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 swiss chard leaf (or your favorite green)
1/4 cup roasted beet puree
1/4 summer squash
1 scoop chocolate protein powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp ground flaxseed
1 tsp coffee grounds
3 oz. silken tofu (I just used 1/5 of the package)
pinch of sea salt
tsp vanilla extract


Combine all ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth.






One of my favorite snacks doesn't require a recipe, but it's genius:

PB&J Boats


Ingredients


1 medjool date
1 tbsp peanut butter


Cut the medjool date like a hotdog bun; remove the pit. Stuff with peanut butter. Inhale. Repeat.









I like to eat a reasonable combo of carbs and protein post-workouts. No, I do not bring my food scale and make sure I'm eating a ratio of 4:3. If I'm in a reasonable neighborhood of that ratio, I'll chalk it up as a win. These dudes taste so good, I feel kinda like a rebel eating them right after I've stepped off the track:

White Chocolate Pistachio Protein Bars
Inspired by Chocolawtay


Ingredients


For the shortbread layer:
1 cup GF oat flour
1 1/2 scoops vanilla protein powder*
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 1/4 cup brown rice syrup
1/8 tsp sea salt
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract (or just more vanilla)
2 tbsp stevia powder





For the pistachio layer:
1 cup pistachio butter* (no salt, no sugar added)
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp honey
2 medjool dates
3 scoops vanilla protein powder*
pinch sea salt


For the white chocolate layer:
2 tbsp almond butter
4 oz. white chocolate
tsp honey


1 scoop = 30g


Line a 9x9 inch pan with parchment or wax paper.


For the shortbread: combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor. The consistency will become that of stiff dough. Press the dough into pan and place in freezer to set while you prepare the second layer.


For the pistachio butter layer: to prepare the pistachio butter, place 1 cup of roasted pistachios in food processor and process until butter has formed. Since the oil content of pistachios is lower than that of most nuts, this may take a while and you may have to stop the processor and scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times. If necessary, add 1 tbsp of coconut oil to help develop butter. Once the pistachio butter is prepared, add the remaining ingredients to the food processor and combine. This dough will be looser than the shortbread layer. Press the dough onto the shortbread and place in freezer to set.


For the white chocolate layer: place all the ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 10-second increments until the chocolate is melted and ingredients are combined. Spread onto the chilled bars. Work quickly, as the chocolate sets fast on the cold surface. Refrigerate until the chocolate has just barely hardened and remove and slice the bars. Store in refrigerator and remove ten minutes before noshing to soften. 

Monday Pick Me Up: Bug Bites?

Last night, my husband was enjoying my previously favorite chocolate, Ghiradelli. I was disheartened when I flipped over the wrapper to see it contained milk. Sad face. I looked into it a bit more, and all the varieties of Ghiradelli contain milk. Sad face with a tear. I love those little squares!

Luckily, I found a new favorite vegan chocolate square! Bug bites! I'll admit, it is a bit weird to open the wrapper and find a picture and description of an endangered bug. But the dark chocolate is delightful and an educational opportunity never hurt anyone.

I am glad I only bought two squares and not the Bug Bites volcano box shown below!