Lost Weekend NYC Does Christmas with the Starbucks

Okay, so many of you don't have a clue what I'm even talking about.  Here's the run down.  My good friend owns a coffee shop in the Lower East Side of Manhattan called Lost Weekend NYC.  If you're reading this and are in New York go check it out after you visit one of this gals many yoga classes - shameless plug, I know.  It gets worse. 

Anywho... said friends are visiting for the holidays and happened to drop off a few stickers.  Which I then took and introduced them to our whirlwind Christmas festivities - Mom and Dad's house, Grandparent's house and finally in-law's house.  Well... I at least got the first part of our festivities, the glare from the sun as we were driving through downtown Seattle ruined the shot of the sticker with the Space Needle and then I ran out of steam (a.k.a. I fell asleep) so it doesn't capture ALL of the festivities but you get the point.

Holiday Memories

Now that I'm behind let me catch up.  The Christmas holidays to me mean - family, food, lights, presents, merriment with friends which normally includes merriment while imbibing, and kiddos pretending to open gifts and really just fascinated with Tupperware and/or the wrapping paper.

It appears I'm drinking alone in this picture... so much for merriment with friends.

Merry Martini Party - I <3 you.

Zoey 'stacking'

Cedar 'stacking' - Auntie Meghan is so creative with her gifts.

Sad to see them go but excited for the new year!

Homemade Apple Juice and Apple Pie Cookies

I cannot believe I haven't posted this yet!!!  Total fail on my part.

To finish out the year of 'harvesting' we (royal we which really equals Gabe) harvested apples this past fall.  Now, I'm not talking about just a few apples.  I'm talking barrels and barrels of apples.  This is all because of our recently acquired/borrowed apple press.  MUST .... MAKE ... CIDER.

Do we have apple trees?  No.  Do we have a recently purchased apple picker?  Why yes, yes we do.  MUST ... FIND ... APPLES.  Gabe, after purchasing said apple picker promptly set about canvasing the neighborhood for overloaded trees.  Stealing other people's apples - don't worry, he asked in most cases.  He even convinced our 80 year old neighbor to join in the efforts.

The outcome - about 12 gallons (that's right, I said GALLONS) of freshly pressed apple juice.  Some of which will become awesome hard cider.  Don't believe me - here's the proof.

Step 1: Place apples in crank area

Step 2: Crank

Step 3: Once the wooden bucket is full (obviously it's not in the above picture), place the wooden plate over the scraps and spin the press down to squeeze out juice into awaiting rubber container.

Step 4: Filter through funnel into awaiting jugs.

Step 5: Sit proudly next to jugs of juice.

Of course apple juice (soon to be cider) wasn't the only thing produced from the apples Gabe picked.  We had to BAKE something with them!  I came across this recipe for Apple Pie Cookies on Smitten Kitchen's blog and Gabe was sold.  My only request was that he help me make the dough.  The result - DELICIOUS.

 

It Tastes A Little Like Christmas

Well it DID until I forgot to post this before the actually holidays came and went.

What do you think of when the words 'Christmas' (or Holidays if your politically correct) and 'treats' are in the same sentence?  For me I really only think of my Mom's seven layer bars.  Sure, there are other things that she makes - ginger snaps, cherry bars, jam thumbprints, sugar cookies - but I'm ALL ABOUT the seven layer bars.  It's the one thing I OD on every year.  That said, when it came time to think up what cupcake flavor(s) I would whip up for the celebrations I went straight to Gingerbread, Eggnog, Peppermint (no, not all together in one cupcake - GROSS).  But then it dawned on me - why not make a seven layer cupcake (yeah, I'm a bit slow)?

So the weekend before last I set out to make the first of the four flavors - Gingerbread Cupcakes with Spiced and Spiked Molasses Cream Cheese Frosting.  I followed this recipe but spiked the frosting with a bit of rum...actually a lot of rum - I didn't measure.

Then, last Wednesday I took advantage of my 'rest' day from training and decided to go crazy making the remaining three flavors as a test run for all of our Christmas festivities.  The 'easy' part was the fact that all three flavors were based on a vanilla cupcake.  In theory I could make one batch and then divide it three ways and modify as needed.

I started with this recipe for 'moist' vanilla cupcakes.  I tweaked it just a bit - adding more milk towards the end because the batter seemed a little thick and my non-chocolate cupcakes always come out a bit denser than I'd like (I think this did the trick).  I separated the batter into three separate bowls.  For the Eggnog cupcakes I simply added Eggnog until it reached the consistency that I was happy with.  I didn't measure sorry.  And for the Peppermint I believe I added 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract to the batter.  For those two flavors that was all I had to do.  Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.  One trick that I picked up from the vanilla recipe was wrapping the cooked cupcakes in plastic wrap to keep them moist as they cooled.  I think this made a huge difference.

The Seven Layer Cupcakes were a bit more 'involved' obviously.  Layer 1: First I mixed crushed graham crackers with about a tablespoon of butter (I was only making 4 of this flavor for this test run so it was about 1/4 cup crushed graham cracker and a tablespoon of butter although I think I could have used a bit more melted butter).  I also added a splash of sugar.  Then I covered the bottom of the cupcake liners and patted it down - I used a narrow bottle from the refrigerator to pack it in.  Baked those for about 5 minutes at 350.

Layer 2: I sprinkled butterscotch morsels on top of the graham cracker layer.
Layer 3: Vanilla cupcake batter - cook for about 25 minutes at 350.  I think these could have used a bit more time in the oven in comparison to the other flavors.
Layer 4: I made a quickie ganache - melting chocolate chips with warmed milk and then dipped the tops of the slightly cooled cupcakes.
Layer 5: Sweetened Condensed Milk Buttercream Frosting adapted from this recipe (I didn't follow the measurements really and just winged it).
Layer 6: Crushed walnuts to sprinkle on top of frosting
Layer 7: Coconut flakes to sprinkle on top of frosting

These cupcakes are so decadent.  They taste EXACTLY like my Mom's bars but fluffy.  Ridiculous!

Okay, back to the other frosting.  Eggnog frosting - butter, eggnog, powdered sugar.  I randomly added eggnog until I liked the flavor.  And a few pinches of nutmeg.  I topped the whole thing in a dusting of nutmeg.  Peppermint frosting - pretty much the same as above just substitute peppermint extract and definitely in a small dose as opposed to the eggnog.  Again, I added to taste.  On top of those bad boys I crushed up candy canes (for the final version I actually blended in the crushed candy canes with the buttercream instead of coating it on top).  As you can tell by the picture below I didn't get all fancy decorating these with piped frosting because they were my 'trial' run cupcakes... but no one should be surprised that I didn't do any piping for the real batch either.  I mean a 17 mile run and then a day of baking the day before Christmas...there was no fanciness just mass production!

One last note - in case you've lost track these are numbers 26, 27, 28 and 29.  Only ONE more cupcake to go before I reach my 30 while 30.  I think the next one is going to involve a bit of champagne to ring in the new year.

Holiday Cards

I don't typically send out holiday cards, mostly because I'm lazy OR I don't think about it until it's the day before the holidays and I haven't done anything about it.  You pick the reason.  This year, however, I was inspired by Pinterest (of course).  There were some seriously cute ideas but mostly focusing on kids - of which I have none.  Instead, I honed in on my hound.  I spent one solid evening draping her in little white lights and trying to get cute shots.  I then created a fantastic card...of just my dog.  Yeah, that's when it was kindly pointed out to me that my collage of Charlie was a bit 'creepy' to say the least.  So I compromised and came up with a new collage highlighting our year.

So, from my family to yours Happy Holidays!  Oh yeah, and it's coming to you on the blog because I either don't know you, don't have your address or I'm lazy - again you pick the reason.

Heat Training: How to Acclimate to Warmer Climate Races

Or a better title, more suitable to my current form of heat training, would be 'Heat Training - How to be Lazy While Still Going to the Gym'.  This morning I went to the gym for the sole purpose to do a bit of heat training.  Otherwise known as, bring a book and sit myself in the sauna for at least 15 minutes, shower, and leave.  It's the best training ever!

Okay, so technically I'm not doing it right (here's an example of 'real' heat training) but at this point I'm just trying to get my body acclimated to warmer temperatures.  It's going to be a bit of a change when I head down South for this marathon and temperatures are closer to 70 than what I'm used to - hovering around the low to mid 30s the past few weeks of training.  Wearing layered clothing while running isn't going to cut it - I'm already as layered as I can get and I'm still freezing!  Training during the 'heat of the day' is also not going to work when the high is maybe 45.  So, I'm hitting the sauna.

I'm definitely seeing a difference.  When I first started (going in on rest days) I couldn't stand being in there.  I would get so uncomfortable just sitting in sweat and I couldn't breath all that well.  But, over the last couple of times I think my body has adjusted slightly.  I find myself getting caught up in a book and realizing it's time to get out before I pass out (maybe not a good thing).  I think the next step for me is taking a few pointers from folks that have done this kind of thing before - incorporating little exercises while I'm in the sauna (an example would be minimal core work), or doing an easy run on the dreadmill after the sauna.  Both sound exhausting but most likely useful.  

Let's be honest - I'm not doing the Badwater Ultramarathon so I don't have to get too crazy but I'd like to be as prepared as possible.  Another caveat, I'm not really going about this in any researched and scientific way.  I honestly thought it was just a good idea to incorporate some heat into my training since we're lacking the proper weather conditions in the great Pacific Northwest.  I'll let you know at the end of January if this helped at all - although that too will all be subjective so make of it what you will.

Race Photos

Note: This post idea was totally stolen from SR.

Sometimes...okay, let's be honest, MOST OF THE TIME race photos aren't very pretty.  Here are two of my recent 'worst' photos.  I'm pretty sure there are others out there but currently these take the cake.  No chin and condom head with double chin (you're lucky I didn't zoom in on that one).  Awesome!

But even if we have awful pictures we always look.  Or at least I always look so I assume I'm not alone.  I love sifting through the pictures to find the good, the bad and the downright fugly.  Which brings me to my point - Brightroom Inc. did a TERRIBLE job at the Seattle Marathon this year.  Let's take the finishing shot for example:

 
I had to blow it up extra large to highlight just how stellar the photo was.  I'm pretty sure they just used clips from the video recording the finish and didn't spring for an ACTUAL photographer to take shots at the end.  If this were my first half or full marathon I'd be totally disappointed that I didn't get a finishing shot - up close and personal.  Those moments CAN be important and if you're paying upwards of $100 dollars you should at least have a commemorative photo of it.  Just sayin'.

Instead Brightroom this year opted to give us gorgeous shots of the city sites such as these below...which sadly aren't even ON the marathon course and were obviously not taken on the day of the race because we had wind and rain, not blue skies.  So yeah, they blew it.

And the most random of all - a shot of Boeing Field...WTF?!  Is this a 'what's Seattle known for' photo shoot?

Do you obsess about your race photos?  Do you spend hours sifting through the lost and found photo items to see, if on the off chance that one of your photos didn't get labeled appropriately?  What was your worst photo?

Chocolate Chili and Yam Pecan Cucpakes

Cupcakes #24 and #25 are out the door.  Only 5 more!!!  

#24 - Chocolate Chili Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

One Saturday after a long run I was feeling 'spicy' and I was craving chocolate so I decided to make cupcakes.  The result was a Serrano pepper chocolate cupcake.  I simply took the usual chocolate cupcake recipe that I've been using all year and blended in two whole Serrano peppers.  I could taste it in the batter but when they baked a bit of the kick went out of them.  That said, I still noticed a slight kick after consumption so you knew SOMETHING was there.  I think next time I'd spice it up even more.  The frosting was a simple chocolate buttercream that was a bit on the mousse-y side.  

#25 - Yam and Pecan Cupcakes with Option A) Gorgonzola Cream Cheese Frosting or Option B) Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting

Okay, I know Option A doesn't sound appealing to most people but I'm not like most people.  This recipe was for Thanksgiving and for some reason I associated Thanksgiving with crackers and cheese (stinky cheese) and then all the other stuff (turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, etc...).  The yam and pecan part was a no-brainer but I wanted to mix it up a bit with the frosting.  Surprisingly blue cheese or Gorgonzola frosting is no where to be found on the interwebs.  So I improvised.  I basically made cream cheese frosting with Gorgonzola bits blended in.  The result - fantastic!  You could taste it but it wasn't overpowering AND I think it complemented the yams and pecans very nicely.  

For those that weren't so daring I made a few with bourbon cream cheese frosting.  I of course added more bourbon than was necessary just so you could get the boozy feel of the cupcake.  I have a feeling that those were the preferred flavor for the big day but I liked them both equally.  And, for your reference here is the recipe I used for the cupcakes.

Last thing to make note of - I found out THE BEST way to pipe frosting without dirtying your pastry bag.  So easy!  Basically you dump the frosting on a sheet of plastic wrap, roll it up, twist the ends, thread into piping bag, cut one end and done-zo.  Here's the video.  No more mess to deal with - especially after I blew a hole in one of my pastry bags.  Problem solved.
 

How To FAIL At Refueling After a Long Run

Enough Said.  Usually I'm not so terrible, I promise!  For the record...I only took a few sips of the energy drink so I'd have enough 'energy' to not nap the whole day away and I split the cupcakes 50/50 AND I ate a real meal before I consumed this.

Happy Holidays to Me

Look Ma, I bought new gear!  Seven dollar jerseys with seven dollar matching cycling shorts?!  You've got to be crazy.  AND there is one with an M-dot on it?  That sure beats buying the swag at IM Canada and spending more like 80 dollars for a jersey and 80 dollars for cycling shorts.  Thrifty shopping for the win!

Not entirely sure why I bought the Germany jersey but I liked the colors...and I kinda like Germany so whatevs.