Sweaters and Crockpots

What is it about Autumn that makes us want to pull out our sweaters, boots, and crockpots independent of the almost 70 degree sunny day? Inner stuff. It's the same meter that reads "Eat more and pack on weight for the Winter" and then we need to hit the gym twice as hard.

Don't fight nature with salads and barbecue turkey burgers! Give in to your urge and make something from my favorite crockpot website A Year of Slow Cooking. Stephanie decided to make something in the crockpot for 365 days straight and blog about it. You'll find her recipes, ingredients, and verdict completely honest. You can count on her authentic voice and reaction of her family every time.

This weekend I was making a breakfast buffet for up to 45 people to be served at 7:30am. I had three choices:

1. Buy a big pink box full of fat, sugar, and regrets and serve with fruit salad;

2. Stay up all night and cook like a crack addict so it will be ready for the crowd; or

3. Make something in a crockpot

Because I trust A Year of Slow Cooking with my life, I decided to make Mexican Breakfast Casserole. Making a breakfast for 45 people from a blind recipe is like trusting your mom to pick out a blind date: It could go wrong in a way you cannot plan for. However, I knew I could count on Stephanie.

I put the casserole together at 11:00pm after working hard all day and evening. I was punch drunk and screwed a few things up. In fact, I did a piss poor job. But the next morning, in spite of my worst effort, it turned out great. I made two versions, one vegetarian with black beans, and one meatatarian with Jimmy Dean sausage. They both turned out extremely delicious and hardy. When I make it again, I'll make lower fat version with low fat cheese, egg whites, and more vegetables. It would make a great brunch dish and the leftovers are perfect for quick dinners before heading outside on a cool night.

There are somethings you can always count on, Stephanie's recipes, Mexican food, and crockpots.

Happy Autumn!

Run Faster and Reduce Pain

If you've experienced knee and hip problems that seem to be caused or exacerbated by running, you may find this technique to be your bag of magic beans!

I was having Thomas work on my hip and knees for months during my triathlon training. He'd fix me up, I'd feel great, then after a couple of runs I'd start limping around again. I was doing everything I was supposed to do to fix the problem, but it was chronic. I wasn't sure if I might have to give-up running alltogether and start competitive skipping or folk dancing?

A few weeks ago, I found this YouTube

Now I run faster, without pain, and I didn't have to buy the shoes. Although I would be interested to know if they work. I learned that I was a "heel striker" thereby putting significant force on my joints, not to mention putting on the brakes with every stride. Therefore, if you are a heel striker you are a bad person. At least that's what comes across in the research I've done.

In the video, they illustrate a natural running technique when you're barefoot. They suggest emulating that strike with your shoes on. Now I've heard of a lot of people jumping on the barefoot bandwagon and Five Finger Shoes (the funny rubber toe shoes). The problem I have with those methods are in the lack of arch support. There is none! I need it or my feet hurt.

I've shared this new technique with my running partner and she has improved her time and duration too! I highly recommend giving this a try. If you search for "Pose method of running" on YouTube you will find more instructional videos.

I hope this new breakthrough gives you the runs!

Hot Weather Dinner - Salad Bar Tonight?

Too hot to cook. Almost too hot to eat. But since I'm the cook/nutritionist for my family, I'm not going to just throw in the towel. I'm planning on a salad bar tonight. I'll prep the ingredients and they can throw it all together. However, we always include The Big Three (Carbohydrate, Protein, Earth)


Tonight I'll be making BLT SALAD

Romaine Lettuce
Sliced Heirloom Tomatoes
Thick Cut Bacon, all torn-up
Sourdough Croutons
Dressing: Newmans Light Balsamic Vinaigrette

Here are some items you have laying around the kitchen. Pull some out and have a Salad Bar Night!

Carbohydrate
Leftover Cold Pasta
Crunchy Chow Mien Noodles
Cooked Quinoa
Crumbled Tortilla Chips
Croutons
Corn (the grain most likely to be mistaken for a vegetable)

Protein
Canned Kidney Beans
Bacon
Hard Boiled Egg (see my video!)
Garbanzo Beans
Black Beans
Cheese (grated, so we don't go crazy)
Sunflower Seeds
Nuts
Tofu (Extra Firm, diced)
Edamame (cooked and shelled)
Frozen Peas
White Chunk Tuna (canned, drained)

Earth
Lettuce (Exception: Iceberg has no nutritional value)
Baby Spinach Leaves
Sliced red peppers
cilantro
jalapenos
beets
celery
carrots
broccoli
mandarin orange slices
strawberries
Tomatoes
Onions

After dinner, head out to frozen yogurt, then they can really build a delicious creation!

Let's Make Pop Star Smoothies!

Congratulations! You followed Cookie's advice and bought yourself some organic produce for a reasonable price. But is it reasonable when organic goes bad faster than conventional and you end up throwing away half? Nope. Does it make you wonder what they've done to the conventional produce to increase it's appearance and longevity? Yep.

Sometimes the family runs through fruit so fast that you'll need to make another trip to the neighborhood fruit stand. But there are days when the sad little creatures sit in your fruit basket on the counter and wither away like yesterdays pop star.

This leads me to my topic "How is fruit like a pop star?"

1. When they're sweet and juicy, everyone wants them
2. The smallest blemish is the biggest deal
3. The first sign of a little aging and whamo, they're cast aside for the newest crop of sweet young things
4. Being organic and natural is a bit trendy, but let's face it, they're just not as pretty

For these reasons, I suggest slicing and freezing them for later in order to preserve their potential. Hey, this works for fruit too! Let's make Pop Star Smoothies!

The Britney Spears Smoothie

• Frozen banana slices
• Fat Free Vanilla Yogurt
• Low Fat Coconut Milk*

What's the matter, don't have any coconut milk? Just get your people to get you some or use any other kind of milk, just as long as it's white for gosh sake.

Vanilla Ice Smoothie

• Frozen banana slices
• Ice cubes
• Protein Powder (We at Fetch like Trader Joe's brand, but powdered milk will do too)
• Dash of Vanilla Extract
• Dash of Ground Cinnamon

I like to say "dash"

The NSync Smoothie

• Frozen Nectarine or Peach slices
• Silken Tofu
• Lemonade
• Ice

Blend together and keep in the closet for 8-10 years.

Miley Cyrus Smoothie

• Frozen Strawberries
• Frozen Blueberries
• Vanilla Fat Free Yogurt
• Orange Juice

This is so delicious, it will make you want to lap dance all over a 44-year old man!

The Cost of the Dirty Dozen

So many opinions, even arguments, lawsuits, and sour grapes over whether or not organic produce is better for you than conventional. Before I embarked on this research and evaluation, I would have said "I would buy organic if it wasn't so expensive." But I've knowledged-up a little and found out some surprising information. Thanks to Fetch the Cookie, a pad of paper, and a little thing called Excel, I found that organic is not necessarily more expensive. If so, not by much.

In the northeast corner of Santa Rosa, California, I scoured four produce resources that I knew our readers would relate to: Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Safeway, and a little local fruit stand (Bob's Fruit Truck, to be exact). I focused my attention on THE DIRTY DOZEN. A list of 12 fruits and vegetables that are doomed by the The Environmental Working Group ("EWG") as being the worst for harmful chemical and pesticide residues.

I know what you're thinking "How can I rob my child of all those delicious pesticides, chemical sprays, and shiny wax coating?" Tough decision. Maybe we can help.

Getting back to the perceived "problem" with organic produce: The cost. I've created this spreadsheet highlighting the lowest priced organic (green box) and the lowest priced conventional (orange box). As you can easily see, there is very little difference. What I found most surprising is the difference in suppliers. For instance, we all kind of knew that Whole Foods would be the highest, right? But aren't you surprised that Trader Joe's only came in second for economical organic produce? I'm happy to report that the local fruit stand won first place! I like to give support to the farmers who grow things around here. They live here. Pay taxes here. Raise their children here. Plus they don't have to load up trucks and drive them from Mexico, or even worse, ship the crops in from Chile.

When asked, the friendly employees at Bob's Fruit Truck can tell you what farm the produce came from, sometimes just blocks away. Given the choice, with a small difference in price, wouldn't you rather buy organic and local?

Bob's Fruit Truck is located at 4358 Sonoma Highway, Santa Rosa, CA (707) 537-6686. Their deliveries are made on Friday and Monday, that's the best days to load up on your produce. However, they are open every day 9-7, except Sunday 9-5.

The Day I Set a World's Record

When I was a little girl, the teacher would say "Find a book to read for the next 20 minutes" and, if I was quick enough, I'd snatch the Guinness Book of World Records off the library shelf before anyone else could.

I would drift away from my adolescent angst for awhile staring at the world's fattest twins riding their matching motorcycles. (Nowadays you can see that anywhere.) Or be grossed out by that creepy man with the world's longest fingernails. I'd try to imagine how he could eat or even go to the bathroom. I assumed he must have had servants to do everything for him so he could just sit around and watch TV. He was sort of a hero to me.

This weekend, I was invited by Brad and Sally Lowder of Sonoma County to attend a Hoedown, but not just any Hoedown, we'd be trying for the World's Largest Virginia Reel for the Guinness Book of World Records!

I wanted to cover the event for Fetch The Cookie and had envisioned my terrifically unique and bold interview that I'd have with the Guinness Judge. Probably the best of his career. His name would have been Archibold or something cool like that. He would have worn a dark suit with long shiny European shoes. He'd be wearing an ascot and sporting his legendary bad teeth. Disappointment set hard on me when I found out Guinness would not be there. You see, if you want to have an official judge set foot on your event, it costs thousands of dollars. Instead, Brad followed the rules, filled out the applications, took pictures and videos, and had an official witness. Being a bonafide real estate agent, that's just another day at work for him.

Our Official Witness was BRENT FARRIS of KZST. Everyone knows that radio jocks are about as official as you can get. I'm pretty sure they had him fingerprinted and x-rayed. The IRS probably did a background check . We searched his car for unethical contraband. He was clean. So far.

After we signed in at the official table, on the official paper, we found an official place to stand on the grass until we could rope some strangers into dancing with us. I brought six "tween" girls who giggled and snickered like crazy when the group of Japanese exchange students joined us wearing straw hats, bandannas, and cowboy boots. I would love to read their Facebook pages to their families back home after attending their first Hoedown. They probably think we do this all the time.

The "caller" talked us through a couple of practice runs and then they announced we'd be doing it for an official NINE MINUTES. From the first clap of my hands to the last stomp of my foot, I smiled and laughed with my new dance partner, Kathy. We bowed, doe-see-doed, swung around, and skipped. The little girls' straw hats blew off in the wind as they were spun around by their partners. There was cheering and clapping and laughing everywhere. Just like all fun and wonderful things it went by too fast, leaving us all with a gallant feeling of achievement mixed with a sad feeling of completion.

If you'd be interesting in making or breaking a World Record, here's how. So get your family together and see what you can dream up. What are your skills? How about the world's largest lemonade stand? How about the most blog comments in the world (hint, hint). Currently, our family is setting the record for the world's largest pile of laundry.

Fresh Strawberry Crepe (3.5 Points!)

I love fruit stands and I'd like to stop at each and every dirty little shack along the long stretch o' highway. But fruit stands work like husband repellent. I guess it's the combination of girly "gathering" plus interfering with the perfection of driving from Point A to Point B with no bathroom, eating, or stretching breaks.

Too bad, because fruit stands will always be the best place to find your strawberries. I don't waste my time eating the tart ones because they make me feel sad that I was tricked into buying substandard produce, after I had my hopes up and everything.

Strawberries are best when picked ripe from the vine. They should be little and dark red. Forget about those giant ones you get at the grocery store with a little bit of greenishness near the top. You're lying to yourself if you believe "it will get ripe at home" because it never really sweetens up, it just gets softer ... like me, for instance.

Yesterday I brought home two baskets of fresh strawberries from the Central Valley here in California. I'm hoping to gorge my way through these before they start wearing little green fuzzy sweaters and become inedible. It's so sad to see those sweet little strawberries go to waste like a prom dress that never got worn. So this morning, I set out to use at least half of a basket. I made real crepes and they were fabulous and easy. Really very easy and only 3.5 points on Weight Watchers!

Ingredients
1/2 cup 1% low-fat milk
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp sea salt

1 cup sliced strawberries

Whipcream (I use Lucerne Low Fat. Only 1 point for 2 TBS)

Instructions

Beat first five ingredients until smooth. Let sit for 15 minutes before cooking in nonstick pan with nonstick spray. Pour 1/3 batter in hot pan and swirl to make a circle. Cook for about two minutes. Flip and cook an additional one minute. Don't get all sissy about flipping the crepe. It is not as hard as you're making it out to be. If you make a hole in it, just hide it under whip cream and strawberries.

Serves 3 fabulous people

Pancake Cookies for Breakfast

We love quinoa! We've been using it for years and now, it seems, it has gained quite a bit of popularity. This sneaky little grain is packed with protein and fiber. It's also gluten-free and tastes delicious. There are tons of things you make make with it, both sweet and savory. I'll get you more information on that soon.

This post I want to share my all-time favorite recipe for pancakes. I originally found a recipe on a box of quinoa flour from Ancient Harvest, but I altered it to fit my daughter's allergies and then altered it again to decrease the fat and make it more tasty.

What we're left with is this golden pancake with a slightly nutty/crunchy charm. My daughter puts Earth Balance Buttery Spread and syrup on hers. But I'll eat mine straight from the griddle. They are THAT good. When she has her little friends over, they'll all be eaten up as soon as I can lay them down.

Ingredients

1/3 Cup Quinoa Flour

1/3 cup uncooked yellow cornmeal

1/3 cup rolled oats

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp canola oil

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 Milk (Rice, oat, almond, cow, soy milk)

1 Egg Replacer to equal one egg - or just a plain ol' egg

Mix together dry ingredients. Add milk, egg, and oil. Pour onto a prepared griddle and turn when the bubbles spread across the pancake and the bottom is golden.

This makes enough for 2-3 people. If I eat half the batch, I count it as 7 points (Weight Watchers).

I like to make little pancakes for the kids and call them "pancake cookies" so that I don't have to cut up their food. For various reasons, you cannot trust children with a bottle of syrup, so I found it best to pour a serving into a little medicine cup. Then they can dunk their "pancake cookies" for a sticky little swim. Yum!

Get Ready for the Next Potato Famine

"Saints be gloried, we haven't had such as a wee crumb in a month, Sharon. Tis a blessed ting that the good Lord provided us with your fat wings to sustain us through this wretched Potato Famine".

I'm a perfect amalgamation of German and Irish that equates into an amazing ability to store fat. I'm a little French too but I didn't get any of that lovely olive skin, delicate features, nor the tousled hair. Just some b.o.

It doesn't matter how much I exercise and diet I will always have some tummy fat and, of course, my lovable fat wings. The Italians have the ass fat and, as much as they'd like to complain about it, it's way better than tummy fat. Nobody's writing rap about lovin' the big bellies.

Getting in shape for the next triathlon requires me to exert myself. I must run, ride, and swim. And I do. I have been changing my eating patterns thanks to Weight Watchers - I love it - but I started to gain weight. I had lost over 17 pounds since October and then it started to come back again, like an ex-boyfriend that just won't go away, no matter how many times you don't return his calls because he has the sex appeal of your Uncle George who doesn't clip his toenails and when he walks on the wood floor it sounds like castanets.

I complained to Thomas, he's my pit crew for the upcoming triathlon, and he asked me if I've been tired lately. "Oh my God, how did you know?" I had been sleeping 9-11 hours a night and practically falling asleep in the afternoon. Then he said something that made me happy and afraid all at once: "You are [suffering*] from overtraining. You need to increase your calories and decrease your exercise."

This assignment is not as easy as it sounds. After all the hard work I've done, it's a big risk to start eating more and decrease exercise. It's downright counter-intuitive. But I had tried everything else and I just kept gaining weight, feeling sleepy, and wanting to give up the whole Weight Watchers thing. Fuck it.

I read this article and decided to give it a try. Since then, I lost 1.2 pounds the first week and 1.6 the second week. The weight is still coming off, I feel great, look pretty good, and have a ton of energy for exercising. Now, if I could just do something about my cheap Irish skin.

* I think he should have said "suffering" so I added it here.

Marathon 5k ... is that an oxymoron?

I ran in the Windsor Green Half Marathon last weekend but I didn't qualify for the hat or shirt because I didn't register for the race until the day before. It's important to have a hat or shirt because when you wear it you feel better than other people. Which you are, because you were in a marathon. So what if you only ran the 5K (3.1 miles for all the Americans unable to grasp metrics). It sounds like a really big deal anyway, doesn't it? Try it out:

"Ya, I ran the 5K this weekend. What did you do? What's that? Oh, you went to the Outlet Mall? Well good for you."
See, doesn't that sound superior?

On the up-side of registering late, I got a reduced entrance fee of only $35 plus a pancake breakfast served by the Windsor Fire Department. Naturally it was important for the Fire Department to pose in a picture with me. They are trying to improve their public image. After much begging, I acquiesced. "Just one picture, fella."

I was running with my friend Kelly who pushed her infant in a stroller while her kindergartner held on to a strap attached to the handle. "Walkers on the right!" I'd yell at the crowd of wanderers spread out like lost cats on the course. The ones that heard me moved over and looked at me with a sort of terror and some said "Oh, thank you. I'm sorry." I have quite an air of authority, but that all comes from being tall and bossy.

About halfway through the 5k, Kelly's son was running serpentine and I had my head turned for just a second when whafamm! I tripped up the little guy and he went down like a flying squirrel on a low branch, all spread out and trying to grasp at nothing. Schlice! went his little kindergarten knees on the concrete. So I quickly picked him up by the armpits and screamed "You almost made me fall!" No, just kidding. We scooped him up and, to his credit, he didn't even cry. I almost did though. We kept cheering him on and telling him how awesome he was. "Next year I'm running the 10k!" he proclaimed.

Meanwhile, we passed an angry mom and her son. She was whining in her best awful mom voice "Come on! I Want to Finish This Race!" and I thought she was the worst motivational speaker ever.

When you run to the finish line, no matter what, you feel like a winner because, if for no other reason, you finished something today. I can't say the same for the breakfast. I couldn't finish it because Kelly's husband Roy held up the sausage and said "You could run the whole course and burn off this one sausage." True. I ate the eggs.

Thanks in part to Thomas and his Body Mechanical know-how I finished 10th in my age group! Outstanding result considering I spent a good amount of time tripping little children, handling traffic control issues, and contemplating the vast superiority of Kelly's mothering skills compared to the rest of these chicks.

I took some pictures for Blogger Queen that I thought you'd enjoy. This one is my favorite. Here's an innocent woman trying to get off the grass and I'm such a big asshole that I thought it would be a pretty funny picture. I'm the shadow standing there unapologetically.

The Best Part of the Race: Kelly picked a hat up off the ground and said "looks like someone lost their hat." I grabbed it and happily put it on my head. "This one fits just right" said Goldilocks. I only felt a tiny drip of guilt. It wasn't until I wrote this post and looked at this poor lady's picture that I realized exactly where that hat came from. See it? It's laying there on the ground, right next to the shadow of my head. It seems that the destiny of this hat was to be on my head. If she ever sees this post, I'm in trouble.

Run in the Rain

I'm getting ready for a little ol' 5k this weekend. I got my Body Mechanic tune-up and I'm looking forward to possible rain because I envision lots of people running through the streets with their hands over their hair like little pink carports. But not me, sister, I'm tough! I just have to make sure I'm wearing my waterproof mascara.

I assume there will be some cream puffs with umbrellas too. I hate umbrellas for a couple of reasons:

First, and I know this is horrid of me, but I would never have agreed to marry Kent if he even owned an umbrella, much less carried an umbrella. Might as well have shapely curved eyebrows and carry a man purse with a dangly keyring attached.

I'm now thinking about my metro-man friends who do carry an umbrella, have shaped eyebrows, and might have something in their closet they call their attache' or travel bag (but really it is a purse). I feel bad now for making disparaging remarks in the previous paragraph.

The second reason I hate umbrellas is that I'm tall. It's always short people that have the umbrellas. In a crowd of people on the street, they twirl those pokey spikes around like buzz saws cutting through hair, shopping bags, and eyeballs. They have no concept of life above the umbrella. It's like they have their own little rain forest world of 5'4" and under. Everything above the forest canopy is theoretical and invisible. Someday I'm going carry around a cigar and burn drip holes in the tops of umbrellas.

Still, I don't know what to wear to the 5k. I wish had a Bead-Dazzler.

Roasted Scrotum

"Roasted Scrotum? I have a roasted scrotum" I asked as I lifted my head up from the soft, warm table to read what was written about me on the grease board. "No, it says Rotated Sacrum" corrected Thomas, my Body Mechanic.

Competing in the Super Jane Triathlon with the T.W.A.T.s in 2008 was the first publicly competitive activity I ever participated in, except for walking through nightclubs in my 20s. I was really good at that and let me tell you, it wasn't easy in those shoes.

After the triathlon, all us T.W.A.T.s were on fire and ready to sign-up for the next one. But right after the triathlon my back seized up on me. I couldn't run or sit without severe pain. I hate being broken. I feel like I have all this strength and energy in my brain, but my body just slows me down like a shopping cart with a rusted wheel.

After my last triathlon, I had to sit on the floor to put on my pants for over a year because I couldn't lift my right leg. My back was in distress and it simply would not fire to lift my leg. I had to hoist it around with my hands like a dead dog strapped to my waist. Thankfully, I could at least tell people it was a triathlon injury instead of something lame like a pedicure mishap or a Wii accident.

I gave up real workouts for a while, telling myself "Well, that's it for me. No more triathlons, or running, or weight lifting. I'll just find exercises that are more conducive to my advanced age of mid-forties."

I started researching dance classes, dog walking, swimming. Meanwhile I gained 15 pounds and started smuggling my food babies in maternity pants.

I tried to fix my back problem:

1. Ibuprofen .... until my stomach hurt

2. Chiropractic .... felt great for the time being, but had to keep coming back week after week, month after month, check after check.

3. Physical Therapy .... made my back worse because stretching is the last thing I should have been doing!

4. Denial .... I just pretended that it wasn't happening and kept working out anyway. Same results as (3).

Finally I took my back to the shop: My Body Mechanic. I suppose if I had to describe Thomas' services to a stranger, I'd say something like "It's like a sports massage with all your clothes on, but instead of feeling good on the table and leaving with your original injuries, you'll leave without the problem you came in with. He's amazing." But that's the dumbest explanation ever. He has all sorts of credentials and you can read them for yourself.

So amazing is Thomas, that I've decided to compete in another Triathlon in October. I have confidence that:

A) I will prevent a debilitating injury, months and months of treatments, and medical bills.

B) I will beat my prior times, even though I'm now 45.

C) I will get more women involved in Triathlons.

My friend Kelly and I decided to do the Tri-Girl-Tri in October. I'm just excited about having new blog material. There's the locker room etiquette, outdoor drills, and of course we still need to come up with a new team name. Kelly and I have some ideas: The Moaning V's, Beadazzled Bitches, and more. We can't be the T.I.T.s because Team In Training already swiped that one. Any ideas?

Oh, and my rotated sacrum (aka roasted scrotum)? He fixed it. In one visit. Back pain is gone. I'm afraid my knees are jacked too. So he gave me some things to do about that with a giant roller. And I run like a dorky girl, but that's another post.