Workouts & a Bonfire

Last weeks workouts were this -

workout 1
5 x 45 strides
4 x 1/4 repeats at mile TT minus 5 seconds

workout 2
4 x 3' out & backs

workout 3
40-60' alternate 1 mile easy, with 1 mile sub 5k goal 2-3x


I was supposed to run tuesday, thursday and saturday. But I got messed up so I got workout 1 done on thursday and that was it. Yeah, not great. So yesterday, I did workout #2 and today started on this weeks' workouts which are

workout 1
5 x 45 strides
4 x 1/4 repeats at mile TT minus 5
I did this workout this morning


workout 2
3 x 4' out & backs
I will do this thursday


workout 3
easy 30-40' run
I will actually be doing the Greenville Mud Run


I will work in workout #3 from last week into wednesday of this week probably & will be caught up :)

This morning's run felt so so so good! It was hard, but it was good.

This weekend, we had a bonfire and made smores, yum!!

that's me making smores and my husband doing something, I don't know. 

the photo was taken with a phone camera, so not as pretty

I also made a lemon cake this weekend from a recipe I found on Pinterest

it was a recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart via Marsha McComas

And finally on Sunday, I got to relax and read my new book!

I probably should've been working on workout #3, but oh well!

How was your weekend? 

Did you do anything fun for Easter? 

Namaste y'all!

Cookie Bars from Pinterest

You all know about my Pinterest obsession and this weekend, I made two recipes that I found there. I'm going to post both recipes because they both turned out well, but I thought I would do the easy one first.

recipe link

On Pinterest, they're called Magic Cookie Bars, but I've also heard 7 layer cookies. 

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 (14 ounce) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chops
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts

This was the easiest recipe ever - You basically just layer everything :)

Preheat over to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Coat a 9x13 baking pan with no-stick cooking spray.

Combine the graham cracker crumbs and butter. Press into bottom of prepared pan.  Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture.  Layer evening with chocolate chips, coconut, and nuts.  Press firmly down with a fork.  Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cur into bars or diamonds.  Store covered at room temperature.

Can you see the layers???

Voila!

Next time, I will use more graham crackers to get a little more stability in the cookie. When I cut it, it was a tad bit mushy. I also used shaved coconut vs shredded coconut because that's what I had. In the future, I will use the shaved because I think the consistency will work more nicely with the layers. I used Pecans and Walnuts for the nuts and they were delish. I took this to my grandfather's 80th birthday and everyone ate them!

Weekend Recap

I did lots of fun homemaking activities this weekend which was fun.

I baked a couple of recipes I found in pinterest

these were chocolate chip cookie bars and they were delish - I will post about the recipe later this week

 I didn't get a great picture, so this is what I've got but they're dark chocolate chip, toffee, hazelnut cookies - they were a hit!

We also did some stuff around the house - 

we painted the fireplace a gray color - so the room is so much lighter now

I also have been looking for some light frames but they're all like, $20 a piece, so I bought all 4 of these frames for $20 and painted them

I'm having so much fun decorating the house and I am so grateful for Pinterest. It has so many good ideas for people on a budget!!!

I was so busy this weekend, I didnt get in a yoga class or a good run. So I have that stuff to try to fit in this week. It's so hard trying to balance everything, but I'm still focusing on my goal of taking care of myself and not getting too busy. I am going to enjoy life!! Damnit!!!

The Living Room and some Brownies

Happy Friday out there to everyone. I will be doing a Fun Fact Friday later on in the day, but wanted to do two things that I've been meaning to do all week - 1) talk about my brownies I made on Tuesday and 2) show you how the living room is coming along.

I'm always amazed at how much difference a can of paint can make. Our living room before had tan carpets, tan walls, then we added a brown couch and had a lamp that gave off a yellowish light. We spend so much time in that room and it was annoying how dark it was. 

BEFORE

This is the day we moved in. The dungeon awaits. We have a screened in porch and it has a roof on it that acts as a porch off of our bedroom, which is nice. But all the browns with the lack of light make for a dark room. 

Here it is at christmas. I tried to add some light and some decor but it still was ssssooooo darkkkkkk

This is how it's coming along. We've got paint on the walls!! It already looks a million times brighter!!!

The next step - we're painting the fireplace a light grey and then painting the mantle piece white. I used the fabric in the pillows to pick the paint color. 

__________________________________________________________

Next on the list - BBBBRRRROOOOWWWNNNIIIEEESSSSS

I used a recipe I found on Pinterest from Brown Eyed Baker. 

Recipe - 

The Baked Brownie

Yield: 24 brownies

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Bake Time : 30 minutes

1¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
11 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

ingredients

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9×13-inch glass or light-colored baking pan. Line the pan with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and cocoa powder together.

3. Put the chocolate, butter and instant espresso powder in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined, then remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be room temperature.

4. Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.

5. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a rubber spatula (not a whisk), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then lift them out of the pan using the parchment paper. Cut into squares and serve.

7. Store at room temperature in an airtight container or wrap with plastic wrap for up to 3 days.

YUMS!! They were so good!!!! We ate them all. Yes. We. Did. 

I got it!!

I just ordered my new stand mixer -

The Cuisinart 5.5 qt stand mixer!! I bought it from Everything Kitchens. It was on sale for $249.95 with free shipping and I get a mail in rebate for a free food processor attachment after mail in rebate. Woot Woot!! 

So which do I choose?

I hope your break has been good so far. I am at home, enjoying a FULL WEEK off from work!! I have done some stuff in my house, cleaned, organized, I even took the christmas decorations down already. A lot of people are going back to work today, so if you're just catching up, I made a dessert, I entertained, and I did some christmas shopping.


I realized through the holidays after baking a bazillion cookies and even making some mash potatoes, that I am in serious need of a stand mixer. I've been wanting one for a long time, but it because they are so expensive, I've been holding off. My husband has sold a couple of things after our move, his trailer, his 1964 Bel Air, etc, and he has now given me permission to buy my mixer. I'm super excited, but still trying to decide which mixer to get. Here are my choices -


Some rules I've been given by my grandmother and mother in law -

*it needs to be over 400 watt. Anything under that is going to break or burn out
*the parts need to be all metal. Plastic is going to break

That's it. So Simple.


Kitchen Aid

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The thing I like about this mixer is that it comes in a lot of colors and it has all the attachments, mainly for pasta and for ice cream. I also like that it's affordable BUT it's only a 325 watt motor and some of the gears are plastic. There are some bad reviews on Amazon, so all of those combined make me think this isn't a good idea. 

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This mixer does have all metal parts and it's 525 but it's also $500. So, I could get a refurbished one, but let's see what my other options are first. 

Vikings

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The Viking is a professional grade mixer that fits all of the qualifications. It has an 800 watt motor with all metal parts. My only issue - it's at least $350 or more. That's not as bad as the one above though as far as cost and it has better reviews. Some of the reviews aren't great, but there aren't as many as there were for the KA. 

Breville

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550 watt, I didn't see anything about the parts. The reviews were all good and it's about $300. 

Cuisinart

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This is the highest wattage and my mother in law has one. Some of the reviews say that the motor smokes, so that makes me nervous. 

Which one, which one? I don't know. Anyone have experience with any of these??? 

Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies - kind of

I've been dying to make something out of this cookbook I bought last year

I've mentioned it on here several times, but have never done it. One thing I've been waiting for is I've been trying to find mesquite flour. I found some yesterday and ordered it, but in the meantime, I wanted to go ahead and try to make these cookies using a couple of substitutions. 

I am a BIG believer in whole ingredients or ingredients that have not been chemically processed. This book has a lot of recipes on substitutions for standard items such as flour, sugar, etc. I've already been making my usual baked goods with whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour as well as cane sugar vs white sugar,  kosher salt instead of regular salt, etc. I just recently found out that sea salt is better than kosher salt because kosher salt is still processed chemically, so once I run out of that, I'll buy sea salt. Also, you'll see in the picture below that I still have regular baking soda and baking powder. I definitely will switch once these are out, but I'm not going to throw away a full package of something so... 

The recipe calls for  -

1 cup mesquite flour

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups of raw cane sugar

3 eggs

1 cup unsalted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 cups rolled oats

1 package of semi sweet chocolate chips

I didn't have mesquite flour so what I did instead 

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour mixed with 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Heat your oven to 375 and grease your cookie sheet (I personally use my stoneware because I like the way it cooks better)

Mix all of your flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and set aside. 

cream butter until smooth - my butter did not come out smooth, it was clumpy and separate

add sugar until a frosting like consistency - still clumpy

add vanilla - this is when it started smoothing out

add 1 egg at a time, allowing each one to blend into the butter/sugar mixture - really smoothed out

add flour mixture

add oats

add chocolate chips

Each cookie should be 1 tablespoons so that it looks like this - 

So one thing I took a chance on was the amount of extra flour I added. It called for a cup of mesquite flour which typically is substituted 1/4 cup per cup of flour. I thought, ok, so I'll just use 1/4 cup of flour instead of the full extra cup. What ended up happening was the cookies melted out a little too flat. I noticed that as I was cooking the first batch, so I put the last cookie sheet in the fridge. That batch turned out a little better. Next time, I will go ahead and add 1 cup of flour. 

The cayenne pepper added a little heat which was kind of nice. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the final product but they were crispy which I like. If you like a chewier cookie, adding more flour will help that. They had a good combination of chocolate, oats, a little heat and cookie dough. I actually really liked them and hopefully, my adjustments for next time will make them even better. I also ordered some mesquite flour so we'll see what they taste like when I do that.