Chewy Caramel Apple Chip Cookies

I know this is a training blog but get over it.  Cookies are just as good as GUs for energy.  Plus cookies taste better.  (And people like to comment on cookie posts for some reason)

I love this t-shirt
IMAGE SOURCE

I found the recipe for these tasty cookies from Eat, Live Run.  I made them for Thanksgiving and they were GREAT!!.  I love chewie cookies and these were REALLY chewie.  I think next time I would like to make them a little more cake like by substituting either cake flour and/or some table sugar.



It's traditional to have a beer while making cookies.
Yes, it is a pink beer and yes I will drink a pink beer.
And yes I am still a man.

  

And yes it does have
MAPLE SYRUP and SMOKED BACON in the pink beer.
Yes it was great.


Chewy Caramel Apple Chip Cookies
makes about 2 dozen cookies
Recipe Source from Eat, Live Run blog

Ingredients:
2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 apple
1 bag mini caramels (or regular sized caramels, cut up into small pieces)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla and egg and continue to beat until combined.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in another bowl.

Grate the apple with a cheese grater and squeeze out all liquid with paper towels.

Add shredded apple to the flour and then add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and mix until combined.

Then, add the caramel bits. Dough will be a little dry.

Roll small balls of dough out and bake on a lined baking sheet for 12-14 minutes.

Let cookies completely before attempting to move them off the baking sheet or else they will fall apart!

Time: 30 minutes



I could not find the mini caramel bits so I used these instead.
Sorry I can no get the image to turn for some reason.

 

Fresh out of the oven





Close up shot

  

My new favorate beer.  It is AWESOME.
I had it on Black Friday after all the shopping nightmares.
It's a brown ale made with YAMS, MOLASSES, MAPLE SYRUP and SPICES.
Not very sweet and well balanced. 
Much better than all the bad pumpkin beers that are out this season.



Space Coast Marathon 2011 in Pictures

Space Coast Marathon in Pictures

Here is last years review  It was a great race again this year.

Bonnie and I before the race



Bonnie and I after the race. 
I'm in my Super Hero pose.



Mr HalfTRIing before the race



Decorations. 
It's sad we will never see the shuttle again.



Decorations.
Hopefully we will see more of these.



People dressed up. 
Sadly, there were very few this year.



ZURG!!
Sadly very few volunteers at the aid stations dressed up.
I was looking forward to the "I Dream of Jeannie" girls.



The Marathon Maniacs and Half Fanatics



The cops showed up!!



The Half Fanatics



The Ronnie James Dio pose.



Wow, that guy is hot.



Another hot guy.

I'm sexy and I know it.  LOL



The sunrise on the run.



Great Food.  They also had pizza



Volunteers cooking the grub.



The cool bling.
A 40th anniversary medal.
This is the oldest marathon in Florida.

More Cookie Yummyness

MORE DROOL!! 
(IMAGE SOURCE)

These cookies were originally made by Carrots 'n' Cake but the recipe I adopted was the one adopted by You just have to TRI.  "You just have to TRI" is a long time follower and commenter on my blog.  When I saw these cookies on here post I had to try them.

These cookies are super healthy (or at least that is what I keep telling myself) because they have:

• Oats - fiber is good for your tummy.  Also Quakers do not lie and they are skinny
• Whole wheat flour - because the media says anything with whole wheat is better.  I used general purpose flour because it tastes better and is not heathly.
• Pumpkin - it's a really big fruit.  I learned that on Good Eats last night.
• Chia seeds - because they are little alien seeds and you need to eat them before they hatch and take over the world (and also because they look like rabbit turds).
• Vanilla Extract - because a little alcohol is good for cholesterol levels
• Walnuts - because they look like little brains so they make you smart
• Raisins - again because they look like rabbit turds
• Hemp Milk - Because hippies use hemp milk as an excuse for not passing drug tests.  I substituted heavy cream because I am cheap and did not want to throw out the little I had left in the refrigerator. Heavy cream also tastes MUCH better.  Hemp milk tastes like dry rope. 

Because this cookies are so healthy I had to crack open up one
of these to balance the goodness with some carbs

Pumped Up Pumpkin Cookies
Makes 12 cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (I use GPF)
1/4 canned pumpkin
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed (you may want to lower this a little if you do not like super sweet cookies)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup raisins (I used sweetened dried cranberries)
1/4 cup vanilla hemp milk (I used heavy cream)
Directions:

Preheat oven to 350*F
Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl or food processor or use use your arm muscles weakling.
Coat baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray
Use tablespoon to portion cookies onto baking sheet
Bake for 15-18 minutes (If the fire alarm goes off I suggest lowering your cooking times).

Forget baking and just eat the cookie dough.

You are "supposed" to let them cool down.
YA RIGHT!!

They were eaten within 10 minutes at work.

Yummy Historical Cookies

DROOL....

(IMAGE SOURCE)

So OK, I have to admit I am the chef of the house.  I am the one in the house who actually loves to cook.  It is a passion that I have had since I had to fend for myself when I was a kid.  I read cookbooks, watch cooking shows and enjoy great, unusual foreign food.

One blogger I follow is Bake Bike Blog  BBB is more bake than bike but it is a great blog anyway.  She had a post about Anzac Biscuits (cookies for us who only speak American :-) ).  Being a history buff, a chef and a biscuit (err... cookie) lover I had to try these out. 

They are AWESOME.  Bonnie and T loved them.  I had to quickly hide them in my room so they could last more than 10 minutes in my house.  Doh..I forgot to hide them so they may not be there when I get home from wook.

A few things to note.  Golden syrup can be found in your local mega mart European isle.  Many Publix Supermarkets have it.  Worse case you can use dark corn syrup.  It does not taste too different.  I suspect the recipe would also be good with honey or molasses.  Also I forget to flatten the cookies slightly which does help with cooking.  Also add the baking soda to the water like BBB states. I did not do that but the cookies still turned out fine.  I cooked my cookies at 350F but I may lower the temperature to 300F like BBB specified.  I think the low temperate may help out with the cooking.  What do you think?

Give these cookies a try.  They were great and REALLY easy to make.  You can read about the history of the cookies here and this history of ANZAC Day here.  Both are great reads.

Weekend Project

Now Chewie can swim with me.
BTW the pictures in the image source are amazing. 
They are about human ingenuity during the Thailand floods.
(IMAGE SOURCE)



I think I just added a weekend project to my list.  Chewie can now do open water swims with me.  I am not sure Bonnie is going to like this idea but she does not need to know.  She does not read this blog anyway.  (Actually no one does so this will be Chewie and Is little secret).  Watch out Digger, Chewie will soon be on your tail!! :-)

No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.  Any similarity to persons (or pets) living or dead is purely coincidental. Offer only valid at participating locations.  Tax, tag and title excluded. Some exclusions may apply.  BTW this post is a joke.  Chewie would never wear water bottles because they are not earth friendly.  We use hot air filled balloons made from soy to float him across the lake.  Remember to always recycle.

Miami Man 70.3 Part 3

Miami Man 70.3 Part 3

The Race Bling.
It has a picture of me on it. :-)

So with a belly full of pond water I was off to T1.  This race I decided to forgo a lot of things so my T1 time was about ½ what it normally is.  It did not help I had about a ¼ mile run out of T1 to get onto the bike

The Miami Man bike course is a 13 ride to an area where you do two loops then take the same 13 mile ride back.  I was averaging about 20-23 mph on the first loop.  I was pushing hard to stay above 20 mph because I know the wind gods were not going to be happy.  The weather predication said there would be 10-20mph winds

The first lap was great.  No wind what-so-ever but the minute I hit the second loop the winds kicked up to 15-20 mph steady winds.  It sucked big time.  What was even worse is the bike course was laid out so you back was never really into the wind.  The wind was almost unbearable but I survived somehow.

A teenager having fun (but he will never admit it).

T2 was much of the same as T2 but I did do a quick spray of sunscreen.  Apparently it was too quick because I burned in many places

Proof that I rock... or do they mean you?

The run portion of Miami Man is through the Miami Zoo.  In all fairness, only about 30% of the run is through the area where the animals are displayed.  The rest of the run is around some dirt roads or through the parking lots.  The parts through the zoo are great but the rest of the run is not all that interesting.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a fun run. 

The run is well supported with aid stations every mile or so.  Each aid station is themed.  My favorite station was the one where everyone was dressed up like movie stars.

Bonnie says I am smiling.  I say it was forced.
You be the judge.

I did not seem to get my legs going till about mile 6.  After mile 6 my legs turned to auto pilot and just kept going and going.  I have no clue how they were moving and actually giving me negative splits.  IT was a really weird feeling.  It was truly like being on auto pilot.

OMG We are all smilling (and T is blinking)

Overall it was a great family weekend.  Everyone had a great time.  Triston even got a teddy bear for winning 2^nd place.

Here are my results for the 70.3

Swim:    37:44

T1:          2:58

Bike:      2:56:20

T2:          3:50

Run        2:24:55

Total:    6:05:47

You can find my official pictures here



T gets the teddy bear award.
If you click on the image you can actually see a teenager smilling in the wild.

The Finish Line

Miami Man 70.3 Part 2

See the 2010 review here:

Sorry folks, parks closed.

This was going to be a family race weekend.  Bonnie and Triston were doing the international distance race and I was doing the 70.3.  This was Triston’s first international distance race so he was really excited.  He was also excited because there was only one other person in his age group so he was guaranteed to place (that’s always a nice bonus). 

My position from swim out.  How nice and close.

Holy shot.  Look how far I have to run with the bike TWICE.
See the little blue gate WAY OUT in the FAR distance.

We had to rack our bike the day before the race.  I was nicely placed on the 2^nd rack from the swim exit but that meant I had to run the bike to and from bike in/out which was almost 2 racks down.  It was quite a run with the bike in shoes.

Daemeon in her resting place. 
DON'T LOOK HER IN THE EYES!

The race expo was really nice. There were about a dozen vendors selling all types of items are very reasonable prices.  The number and quality of vendors was much better than any Ironman race I have done.

The lake we swam in.

WAY TO EARLY!!

I had to wake up at 3:45 AM so we could get the whole family ready, pack up the car and check out of the hotel.  It was way too early for anyone to get up.  I am starting to think getting up early is the hardest part of a 70.3

Bonnie trying on her swim cap.

It's the little things that make her happy.

The swim was done with wave starts.  I was the 2^nd wave (the pros and older participates went in the 1^st wave).  Saturday’s winds really churned up the lake so it was nowhere near as clear as last year.  The bottom of the lake was also spongy and gross.  I have a feeling the park is putting a lot of algaecide into the lake and that is causing the spongy gross (but clear) lake.  It cannot be safe to be swallow as much of that lake as I did during the swim.

My swim went really good.  It was your typical pushing and shoving during the swim but nothing rude or out of the ordinary. My only issue was the amount of lake I swallowed.  I could not seem to stop swallowing water.

Swim Start

The first lap I was having issues with my leg cramping up really bad.  I have never had that issue before and I was a little concerned but eventually it went away.  By lap two I was in the grove and passing people left and right.  I get my rhythm and I felt great.

See teenagers actually smile sometimes. 
Here's proof.

See I still never smile

Doh..which way did he go boss?!