They were pretty nice to have when we ended up being a little late to our dinner reservation because our previously booked hotel moved us elsewhere, then sent us to the wrong hotel (all the way across town).

They were also quite delightful at 2:45 AM on Sunday morning…pre-race fueling at its finest. But they’re full of oats and bananas, so that definitely means they’re not the worst thing one could eat before running 26.2 miles. They’re light and fluffy and taste just like banana bread!

Speaking of 26.2 miles, I just signed up for my eighth marathon:

The day after Big Sur, my good friend Alyssa reminded me that it’s pretty much a scientific fact that a marathon on that course is about 20 minutes slower on any other course. Meaning I could possibly run 3:29 (which would be a 3 minute PR). December 2, I plan to do just that in Sacremento! I have run CIM once before, in 2007, and dropped my PR from 4:14 to 3:47, so I know it’s a great PR course.

The next few months I’m going to focus on building a really good base, hopefully running some fast shorter races, and staying injury free so I can train harder than I’ve ever trained before for this race. Bring.it.on.

I will never, EVER put one of those ridiculous headbands with the giant flowers on Ellie’s head. I know some people love them because they leave absolutely no doubt that their baby is a girl, but I just can’t stand them. That doesn’t mean I won’t put Ellie in a tutu though.

I think it really complements the drool on her chin.

The grandparents are in town right now, and my dad brought his french horn (he brings it everywhere). Ellie might be a future french horn player.

She loves her grandpa.

One of my parents’ favorite places in the city is Cafe Bunn Mi on Clement, and we were there just a few hours after they arrived.

I wish I could say that we had these cookies for dessert after our banh mi, but sadly they were already gone.  Sorry, parents.  Cookies never last long around here.

I love baking with Oreos a lot more than I love eating Oreos. Actually this week I discovered that I love eating and baking with Newman’s Os. They’re amazing.

As soon as I made the blueberries and cream cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar, I knew that the next time I made them, I would use oreos in place of dried blueberries. I’m SO glad I did. I also happened to make a mistake when I read the recipe and added about 3 times as much corn syrup as I was supposed to, but the cookies weren’t way too sweet, and the texture was perfect so I’m going to keep the recipe the way I made it, not the way it was supposed to be according to the book.

These are kind of time consuming because you have to make the milk crumbs and then the cookie dough, which has to chill for at least an hour before you bake it, but I think they’re worth it.  I only included the weights in this recipe, because the last time I used the volume recipe from this book, the cookies didn’t turn out, so I think weighing the ingredients ensures a better end result. A food scale is definitely a worthwhile investment!

This will make about 20 cookies

(adapted from Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook by Christina Tosi)

We quit swaddling her cold turkey and so far things are going great. We also got the OK from her pediatrician to introduce solid food, and we decided to start with bananas.

After a little bit of assistance with the spoon, she was ready to try it herself.

Success! (Kind of…)

I think this weekend we may move on to sweet potatoes!

I’ve been baking a lot lately, and as always I’m thankful for Mike’s office and my work both being so willing to take baked goods off our hands. In case you’re here because I occasionally make healthy things, I do have to recommend this salad, or more specifically, the dressing, which I now want to put on everything

Proceed directly to Shutterbean for the recipe!

I wanted oatmeal raisin cookies the other day, but I decided to branch out a little bit. These aren’t as cakey as normal whoopie pies (the ground up oats make them a little denser) and they have cream cheese frosting inside. Maybe it makes more sense to call them oatmeal raisin sandwich cookies. But whatever you call them, they’re good! I mean, can you really go wrong when cream cheese frosting is involved?

Today, I was standing next to him as he flipped through his notebook, looking for a blank page to do the warm-up. He’d stuck the post-it on one of the pages, and had traced over all the words a couple times in different colored ink. I know it seems like nothing, but I hope I’m starting to turn a corner with this kid. It’s little things like that that make this job amazing.

I was still a little tired after school but was determined to run since yesterday was a rest day. I had absolutely NO desire to run outside, so I made a deal with myself that all I had to do was 30 minutes on the treadmill at whatever pace felt good.

After warming up for 10 minutes, I decided to do intervals and ended up doing 5 x 2 minutes at 9.7 miles per hour. Definitely a confidence booster, and I felt a million times better after the run than before.

And since it appears we’re now on the topic of little triumphs, here’s one more. I’ve pretty much been riding high all week on the fact that I can now make rice krispie treats that I can actually eat. I’m not always a totally strict vegetarian (I still drink Guinness and eat Parmesan cheese) but I’m pretty adamant about not eating gelatin (why I pick and choose that way, I’m not entirely sure). I just assumed rice krispie treats weren’t going to happen for me anymore, but it turns out marshmallow creme doesn’t have gelatin in it!

They’re not exactly the same as when you make them with real marshmallows, but I’ll take them (and you can use a 10-ounce bag of marshmallows if you’re not vegetarian).

I had a slightly traumatic experience Friday morning. I went to scan something and my computer told me I needed to restart to install updates. I usually just click “restart later” but for some reason, I clicked “restart now,” and was then met with this screen.

Frozen just like that. Any attempts to revive the computer were futile. Mike thinks he can save it, but it’s a $300 netbook that I’ve had for two and a half years, use constantly, and carted all over Asia. It was probably time for an upgrade anyway.

After that, the rest of Friday was pretty good. I was planning on taking a rest day, but ended up running a mile and a half with my PE kids (and doing tons of burpees. So fun.) Friday night was, as always, pizza night.

This week it was super simple: just marinara, mozzarella, a little cheddar, and some canned pineapple. One of my favorite combinations!

Oh, and I made some cookies. Mike really liked these; I wasn’t quite as sold. I always get really excited when I see Meyer lemons, so I buy a bunch, bake something with them, and then remember that I like regular lemons much better. Meyer lemons just remind me of gin for some reason, and that’s not really something I like to be reminded of.

But if you do like them, and you are looking for a nice simple cookie to make with them, here you go!

Having my parents around has been really nice. I’m off again for Winter Break for two weeks starting this afternoon, and then reality hits in January. For right now, I’m just enjoying knowing Ellie is having a great time all day with her grandparents, getting to run with my dad in the afternoons, and not having to worry about getting all her stuff ready to go to daycare.

My sister flew down from Portland for a couple days this week, so we did Christmas a little early. She gave me The Pastry Queen Cookbook, which was what I almost gave her (at the last minute I switched to running tights and espresso flavored Gu). I’m SO excited about the recipes in that book.

My parents were insanely generous and got me a macro lens! Now I can get you a super up-close and personal view of everything I make!

These were inspired by a cookie I had at Bi-Rite creamery. I just found a basic chocolate crinkle recipe online and added some peppermint extract and crushed candy canes. I highly recommend adding them to your Christmas Cookie repertoire! They also make great gifts… I gave a few to my principal, vice principal, and department chair.

Those were supposed to be a hostess gift for the Christmas party we went to this weekend, but nope, I burned the crap out of 2 cups of mixed nuts (tossed with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger) because I read the cooking time as 45 minutes even though that was the cooling time. What a bummer. Fortunately we had everything on hand to make these cookies.

Soft chocolate cookies, rolled in sugar and dried coconut. Definitely good enough to make me forget about my embarrassing kitchen mishap.

Oh! Nuts sent me some nuts to bake with. I kind of forgot what a giant pain skinning hazelnuts is, but it’s definitely worth it. (I use the boil with baking soda method.)

Then I threw the hazelnuts and some milk chocolate chips into the food processor for a few pulses.

I adapted this from a recipe from Baking From My Home To Yours.I’m not sure why she recommends baking them for 18 minutes because that seemed WAY too long (I’d check them after about 10 minutes – if they start to darken they’ve baked too long). I cut out snowflake shapes and dusted them with powdered sugar to make them a little more festive.

Wednesday night, we took Ellie on her first plane flight. I was afraid she’d scream the whole time, but she did great (I think Sophie the giraffe helped).

She was alert and happy the whole time we were waiting at the airport, and then fell asleep as we were taking off. I still need to work on my fear of flying, but at least she seems okay with it.

Thanksgiving started with a 4-mile Turkey Trot.
We’ve done this run three or four times before. Last year I ran 3 minutes faster than this year’s 34:10, but it was still a really fun run.

It finishes in the zoo, so we went and checked on the elephants.

On the way home we made a mandatory stop at Starbucks. I wish I got to hang out with my sister more.

Now that it’s socially acceptable to put up Christmas decorations, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas cookies! I made a double batch of homemade oreos, and added some peppermint extract and red food coloring to the filling. Even though I doubled the cookie recipe, I made a single recipe of frosting and had enough (maybe I don’t fill them enough?) The recipe below should make about 45 modestly-filled sandwiches.

Recipe:

I skimmed a few pages and ended up checking it out, and I’ve actually really enjoyed it! I appreciate that the author doesn’t take herself too seriously, is able to recognize her flaws, and doesn’t do anything too unrealistic. At the outset, she acknowledges that she’s not unhappy, she just wants to see if she can make herself a little bit happier, and tries various things based on her research. Some of them work, and seem like things that I would definitely do (like getting rid of clutter and finding more fun); others don’t interest me (like keeping a gratitude journal or starting a collection). But I think the thing that really stuck with me most was the concept she kept coming back to: “Be Gretchen.”

I’ve definitely noticed that the periods in my life that I was the least happy were when I was trying to be somebody else. I will never be interested in interior decorating, and that’s fine. I’d rather throw a bunch of stuff in a pan and end up with blondies than spend hours decorating sugar cookies with royal icing. I’d rather run for miles than go to Zumba.

I know it seems really obvious, but I found it really helpful to be reminded “we can chose what we do, but we can’t choose what we like to do.”

I like putting things in blondies.  Like M & Ms and pretzels, or in this case, cranberries, white chocolate chips, and toasted pecans.