November 21, 2011

Some running tips

The Tucson Marathon is just 20 days away. That’s 8-10 (depending on how much my travel schedule gets in the way) training runs left. I’m still very much at the beginning of what I hope will be a life long distance running career, but I realized I’ve learned a lot in training for this first marathon.

Most of the “serious” stuff I’ve learned isn’t that interesting. Who, but other people training for a marathon, cares about Fartleks, 880s or the nutritional composition of the perfect kale smoothie?

The answer is exactly zero people. It’s the frivolous stuff I’ve learned that’s actually interesting. And, I think these lessons apply pretty much universally to working to accomplish anything that requires endurance, mental strength and sacrifice.

Tip 1: Dress for fun (and invest in good socks.) 

I’m really into bright workout clothes. Like Kids Incorporated audition bright.Nothing makes me happier than my hot pink sports bra, my purple running shorts and my neon yellow Newtons. They add pizzazz. They remind me not to take what I’m doing too seriously.  When you’re pounding through hour three of a four hour run it’s the little things that make you happy. Today in fact I went on a long run and I swear the only thing that kept me going for miles 10 and 11 was looking at and feeling happy about my gold glitter nail polish.

Today I also learned an important lesson when it comes to dressing flashy – you can go overboard and it will be embarrassing. I got some new running tights this weekend in fuchsia because I’m just that annoying. Big time mistake. I’m a really sweaty person with (apparently) really sweaty legs and by the end of my 20 miler it pretty much looked like I’d peed myself. Luckily at the time I was too tired to care. Distance running has a way of taking away your sense of personal dignity I guess. I am, however, retrospectively embarrassed.

As for the socks, isn’t it just a general life rule that you want your feet to be dry and as comfy as possible?

Tip 2: Show tunes. 

I swear the only thing that’s getting me through this last stretch of training is the Rent soundtrack. If your taste skews less 90s, Wicked is also great to run to. If you’re a little more classic in your musical theater taste, Les Miserables is great (especially “One day more!”) If your taste skews more fabulous I strongly suggest Mama Mia. I haven’t tried it, but I bet Caberet is great too. I can say from experience that both Anything Goes and Oklahoma are not great for running.

Then again – you’re talking to an ex drama nerd who used to dress up in a leotard and perform all the parts of Cats out in her bedroom. So, there’s that. I think this works for me because I enjoy lip synching along and pretending I’m the female lead in each play.

Tip 3: Develop a complex and interesting inner life.  

I’ve always had a really detailed one so long stretches of time alone to play pretend is actually something I look forward. I’m really great at imaging elaborate scenarios and carrying on conversations with myself for hours. Favorite scenarios include picking out my wardrobe and planning my acceptance speech should I ever win a Daytime Emmy Award (secret childhood dream) and telling off ex-boyfriends and enemies with the kind of dignity and snappy language that gets slow claps from the imaginary onlookers in my imaginary confrontation scenarios. Some runners have mantras. I have fantasy land.

Tip 4: Have a stressful job. 

I have one. I love it, but am frequently stressed out by it. This has fueled more than one long run. Bonus – running takes away stress and has made me a better problem solver and manager.

Tip 5: Make time to treat yo self. 

I failed to do this earlier in the month and as a result of running outside with a terrible head cold I gave myself pneumonia. Don’t do this. It sucks and I lost three weeks of real training time. Give yourself time to rest. Get massages. Get pedicures and don’t feel too embarrassed by how gnarly your feet are.

Something else I think should fall under this heading is that after a long run, if you feel like eating all the food that there is in the world, give yourself the mental go ahead. You just burned thousands of calories (about 100 per 10 minutes… which if you run for like 270 minutes is a lot of calories!) Chances are you won’t really eat all the food in the world, but you will allow yourself to eat something really satisfying instead of trying to be “good.” And for the love of god, I hope you’re not running a marathon with weight loss as a primary goal (because if you are I worry you might die) but if you’re worried about weight take heart in the fact that I continue to eat food, including lots of carbs, on a regular basis and yet have lost 25 pounds this year. More proof that running is an amazing sport.

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November 7, 2011

Crunch time

I’m back from my pneumonia induced rest period. Last night I was able to get in a nice 9 mile run without too much trouble (see above for my happy, endorphin rushed face) but I’m really, really nervous about getting back in shape for the marathon next month.I perform best under pressure – in school I always left reports to the last minute. When I worked at the newspaper I always, always waited until the night before a cover story was due to write it (sorry Amy! Really, you are the best editor in the world…) and things always worked out just fine.

Unfortunately, my friend and fellow future Tucson  Marathon runner  Monique says, “cramming for a marathon isn’t the same as cramming for your college midterms.”

That sucks.

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November 1, 2011

Happy Halloween

catt

I’m all dressed up and medically forbidden from having anywhere to go. I have pneumonia. It’s the worst. I can’t run. I can’t even really enjoy a walk without needing my inhaler. So uncool. But I decided not to let it stop me from my ultimate cat lady fantasy costume. I’m just having fun passing out candy to little kids (and the occasional adult – what’s up with that) and eating a slice of an amazing vegan pumpkin pie I made yesterday.

Think positive thoughts for me!

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October 25, 2011

What should I turn these babies in to?

Maybe it’s because I’ve been too sick to run (really – tried it Saturday, banged out five miles.. couldn’t really breathe for 4.5 of them) but I’m feeling really bleak about winter coming.

I think it’s because I had to wear tights to work this morning – I was hoping to last until November without them. Last night I also did the ceremonial putting away of the summer clothes. (Along with the ceremonial boxing up of things to give to my sister.) Both activities come with a ceremonial mess:

Grim.

To cheer myself up I made pumpkin puree following this recipe from No Meat Athlete – it’ll probably turn into a pie at some point this Saturday. I’m trying to remind myself to revel in what is great about fall and try not to think about my poor pasty legs being shoved into black tights for the next 6 months. If nothing else I can take pleasure in planting spring flowers which will come out to cheer me up just when I’m sure I can’t take another second of winter.

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October 17, 2011

Incredibly sweet weekend

No pie baking and not a lot of running happened this weekend but there was still a lot of sweetness to go around. And frankly, a lot of sweat because it was still 97 degrees in Tucson. In October! I love the desert and I love my family, but I can tell you unequivocally that the heat made me so grateful that I am no longer an Arizona resident.

Anyway, this weekend I got to see one of my best friends, Alexis, get married. Even better – I got to perform the ceremony. I was so incredibly honored to marry them. I met Alexis in the late summer of 2006, even though we had mutual friends in common for years. It was a weird time in both of our lives which bonded us instantly – that and a real, un-ironic, love of Mariah Carey. I can’t even count the number of weird nights I had with her or the number of hours she spent listening to me vent about whatever no-longer-very-important seeing things used to get me worked up back then.

My first couple years out of college I spent a lot of time in bars, a lot of time staying up until the sun came out, and I met a ton of people. I had a rule back then that no matter how many acquaintances I had, I didn’t really count someone as a friend until I a) knew their last name (this was before Facebook just told you everyone’s last name. We were all on Myspace and a first name only basis) and b) would feel comfortable hanging out with them during the day, sober.

Alexis was one of the few “night time friends” from that group who migrated over into the day time friends group and stayed there. Lucky me.

Her wedding was incredibly fun with a ton of really sweet details and a lot of super fun dancing:

I loved the cake topper Alexis made. It's her, her husband Josh and their dog Jackson.

I'm not sure why, but Alexis' little sister changing into these Converse after the ceremony just made me really happy. It was one of the sweetest, small details of the day.

I also had the opportunity to log some serious family time the past couple days which was fantastic. Oliver got to meet members of my extended family at my second-cousin Fenix’s birthday party. She’s three – check out her adorable face below. My cousins all have made some seriously adorable children.

Birthday girl ready for cake.

I got in lots of good Grammy/mom/dad/sibling time. I so wish that I could move them all to Portland to live near us. I know Arizona isn’t in my future again, but I get really homesick for my family. Final great thing about the weekend – I got to introduce Oliver to Eegees… and have one myself for the first time in about a kajillion years.

EEGEES! The official food of Tucson.

Now all I need are a couple days to recover from my weekend with some good long runs and some good sleep. I wish I could freeze time so that tomorrow wouldn’t be Monday yet. Oh well – this weekend was worth how tired I am right now/how tired I will be tomorrow.

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October 9, 2011

Sweet potato pie

I’m really excited about two things right now. It officially feels like fall (I love seasons! Being from AZ does that to you) and this cookbook I picked up in Louisiana this week:

Yummmmmmmmmmmm. Yum.

I can’t tell you how good it felt to bake today. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Obviously, southern pies are pretty much the antithesis of eating vegan — a goal of mine until after the marathon — but I was happy to discover that with a couple of adjustments I was able to make a fantastic sweet potato pie.

Whenever I’m trying to convert a recipe to vegan I struggle the most with finding a substitute for eggs. Yes, bananas and applesauce often work… but, they aren’t always right consistency wise. So, I’m really grateful to my colleague Jenny for introducing me to this egg replacer. (It’s potato starch.)

1.5 tablespoons of the mix + 2 tabelspoons of hot water = one egg.

I also really like the 70s color scheme on the box. It was a theme of the day, see:

I've had this dress since I was like 20. It will never stop being the best dress ever.

This pie is easy to make and if you’ve made pumpkin pie before, the ingredients are going to seem really familiar to you. An important note : I definitely Portlandized the ingredients — for example, egg replacer instead of eggs, Earth First instead of butter, powdered soy instead of powdered milk, agave instead of sugar, whole wheat flour –so I’ll list the truly Southern ingredients in parenthesis. Since anything lacking at least a pound of butter can’t qualify as real Southern cookin’ I suppose this sweet potato pie is just inspired by the South.

As a side note, I recommend having The Wonder Years on Netflix streaming while baking. I think that was a key ingredient for my enjoyment in baking this pie.

Here’s what you’ll need for the filling:

  • 1.5 pounds of sweet potatoes. I used the white sweet potatoes. Next time I think I’ll mix in some yams just to have some color.
  • 1/2 cup of agave (1 cup sugar)
  • 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. Just a note? I think next time I’d actually double or triple these amounts for more flavor, especially since I don’t use much sugar.
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 cups of soy powder (evaporated milk.)
  • 3 tablespoons of egg replacer, whipped to foam with hot water (2 eggs)
  •  3 tablespoons of Earth Balance (butter)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ingredients ready to get mixed together. Those pumpkins aren't part of it - they're sitting there waiting for me to do something with them later this week.

Some of the steps to make this filling take a while, including the first step: prepping the potatoes. We all know there are just some prep tasks that really suck. Pitting cherries. Grating lemon zest. Peeling potatoes. Suck, suck, suck. So, I recommend the following method to make the peeling process easier:

Step 1: Boil the potatoes in a big pot. (Or if you’re like me and lack a big pot, two small pots.) Bring the to a rolling boil, turn down the heat a big and let them cook until they’re very, very tender. I found this took about 30 minutes.  While the potatoes are boiling, I recommend going and making your crust.

Step 2: Once the potatoes are very, very tender, drain them and set them aside until they’re cool enough to handle. Slide the peels off like so and put into a big mixing bowl:

Peeling potatoes made easy.

Step 3: Mash the potatoes. This is easiest if you have a food processor. I do not have a food processor, so as usual, I mashed them up with my hands. It took forever to get them smooth, which was ok with me since my crust needed to refrigerate anyway. If you’re in a hurry though you should definitely use a processor.

Step 4: Combine the spices, salt, evaporated soy (or milk) and whisk. Add the egg replacer (or just eggs) and mix it all together evenly. Add the melted Earth Balance (or butter) and vanilla and mix evenly. Finally, add the whole mix to your sweet potatoes and mix until the ingredients have combined evenly.

Step 5: Pour into your crust and bake at 375 for about an hour.

It will look like this when done:

Well not exactly like that since the pie in this picture has three slices missing....

As for the crust, here’s how I made mine this time. You’ll need regular flour, cake  flour, butter (or substitute if you’re me), vegetable shortening, sugar, salt and water to make this.

Step one: Combine one cup of all-purpose flour with 2/3 cup cake flour (the two kinds of flours = extra flaky).

Step two: Mix in a tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt.

Step three: Cut in half a stick of very cold Earth Balance (you can use butter.) The colder the fat, the flakier your pie or so my Southern pie cookbook tells me. I need to look up the chemistry of that one. Mix with hands. Cut in 5 tablespoons of very cold vegetable shortening and do the same.

Step four: Sprinkle 1.4 cup of cold water and tossed together until you can make a ball. Flatten ball into a thick pancake, wrap in wax paper and refrigerate an hour. Go and make your filling as instructed above.

Step five: roll out, press into pan, fill with filling and bake.

Finally: enjoy!

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October 7, 2011

Miss you!

It’s 10 p.m. and I’m sitting here in a hotel room staring at my running shoes, craving a good run (and honestly, a good slice of pie) but I just worked a 14 hour day, am in a pretty dangerous city (so no outside runs, even during the day) and am so, so burned out on being in  business traveler’s treadmill hell.

All that to say, I haven’t been blogging because my runs have been mostly inside and uninspiring and I’ve had zero time to bake. I’m just hoping that the fact that I can deal with the monotony of treadmill running means I won’t get bored during the marathon (or frankly, my 20 mile run this weekend) when I actually get to be outside.

Anyway, aside from not really enjoying running, here are some things I’ve been seeing and doing:

Enjoying this pumpkin/thinking about how I want to make pumpkin pie.

Buying farm raised gator for Oliver. (Bad vegan!)

Feeling nervous about all this hot sauce.

I’m excited to get home for more of this:

Snuggling with Nacho/watching Ally McBeal/pretending I AM Ally McBeal

 

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September 25, 2011

Superstitions and pie

For my birthday, my dad got me an awesome, short cookbook called The Lost Art of Pie Making Made Easy. I love it because it’s full of the usual tips on how to make a flaky crust, etc… but it also is full of weird bits of trivia.

My favorite are the superstitions related to pie:

  • If a piece of pie is pointed toward you, you may expect a letter that day.
  • If a piece of pie points half-way around, you may expect a letter the next day.
  • If the point of another person’s pie is directed toward you and the person begins eating his piece at that point, you will get a letter.

Weird, huh? I like it.

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September 18, 2011

Something new and not really sweet.

I’m not really a fan of Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side? Barf.) but I’m now definitely a fan of her sister. Gesine Bullock-Prado is a marathoner and baker who’s Long-Run Cake was recently featured in Runner’s World. Even though it’s not my usual sweet – I’m on team pie, obviously – I gave it a try this weekend. I really like how it turned out, though it’s not very sweet at all. It’s kind of like a homemade Cliff Bar. Next time I think I’ll add dates to sweeten it up a bit without adding sugar.

Ingredients for Long Run Cake: 1 cup apple sauce, 1 can black beans, 1.5 cups flour (I used whole wheat), 1 cup cocoa powder, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup agave syrup, 2 bananas (I used these instead of eggs, because that's what I'm into right now), 1/4 cup coffee, 1 teaspoon vanilla.

The steps are pretty simple too:

  • Blend the apple sauce and black beans in a food processor. (Note: I do not have a food processor so I had to use a weird combination of a milk-shake mixer that I have and my hands.)

This is called adventures in not having a food processor.

  • In another bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa and salt
  • With an electric mixer, (or milkshake mixer if you’re me) whip together the bananas and agave. Then, mix in the coffee.
  • Add in beans and apple sauce. Then add in the flour/cocoa mix and beat them together until it’s all smooth.
  • Pour into bread pan and bake until cake springs back when poked. (In my oven this took 35 minutes, the recipe from the magazine said 25.)

The cake definitely lives up to its name. I ate it for breakfast this morning to get ready for my Sunday long run and it gave me enough energy to both run and do five epic loads of laundry. Not bad.

Breakfast. (Bad habit of eating it in bed on Sunday mornings...)

 

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September 15, 2011

Vegan chocolate pie. (Yep, vegan.)

So, embarrassing confession time: I have a total 13-year-old girl crush on Scott Jurek. (For those of you who actually knew me when I was 13 … this is pretty much the same kind of crush I once had on Leonardo DiCaprio — without the posters on the wall.) I just really admire him as an athlete. And also as a babe.

Despite the embarrassing side effects of having a pretend crush on a (marginally) famous person I’ll never meet, there is an upside. I’m feeling inspired by his plant-based diet and have been eating even healthier than normal. But not SO healthy that I’m willing to give up baking or eating pies, so I was really thrilled when I found this mousse recipe on my new favorite blog No Meat Athlete. The baker who invented it eventually turned it into a pie recipe, which I used for inspiration, but adapted to make my own. (Also, hers was too Christmas-y for a 90 degree day in September with no air conditioning.)

The secret weapon in this chocolate pie? Avocado. Yeah, I was skeptical too.

Seriously skeptical.

I added a banana to the mix (which was made of 3 big avocados) because… I guess for no reason except it felt right. Here are the other ingredients I used: 1/4 cups peanut butter, 7 oz of semi-sweet baker’s chocolate, a tablespoon of vegetable oil and a tablespoon of vanilla extract. This is so easy to make I feel weird even posting steps. Basically just whip up the avocados until they don’t have any lumps. Melt the chocolate (I just did it in the microwave) and mix it with the oil. After it’s good and melted mix the chocolate and the avocado.

Turned me into a believer.

Once that’s good and blended, mix in the banana, peanut butter and vanilla extract. Keep whipping it up really well so it’s smooth. When it’s nice and smooth and looks good to you, pour it into the pie shell and chill for at least 2 hours.

I made the graham cracker crust from scratch because I refuse to buy store bought crust on principal, using this recipe. To keep things vegan, I used cold coconut oil instead of butter. (It turns into a solid in the refrigerator so you can use it the same way you’d use butter or shortening in pie.)

Ready to go into the food processor. To make this crust just chop12 graham crackers in a food processor, mix together with butter (or whatever fat you want to use to hold it together) and press into your pie dish. Bake it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. I like to put mine in the freezer after they bake so that they hold their shape when I put the filling in.

All that weirdness turned into this. And we ate every bite (over a series of days guys, jeez, don’t judge.) This is the best result I’ve ever gotten from a ridiculous pretend crush.

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