Black Forest Energy Bars

What could be better than a High Trestle Trail walk in the rain?

Well, hiking it in cowboy boots of course!

And I suppose having black forest energy bars to get you there.

I made these energy bars this weekend for lots of family and several wanted the recipe. So first here is the palette for this Black Forest Energy Bar masterpiece…

Unlike most energy bars that are sweetened with dates, these are powered mostly by prunes. Cherry essence prunes to boot which add to the cherry-ness. Plus, these guys were on the sticky side, so I topped them with a fine layer of cherry essence chocolate. The final nuance is the coarse sea salt; it remains pretty coarse even after going through the food processor and lends a salty kick every few bites. If that sounds too weird, then go with a more finely ground salt.

Ingredients:

• 12 oz almonds
• ⅓ c cocoa powder
• 1 c coconut shredded (your choice: sweetened or unsweetened, I’ve used both)
• 1 7oz bag cherry essence prunes
• ½ c dried cherries
• ½ c chopped dates
• 3 T molasses
• ½ t coarse sea salt

Topping:

• ¾ c chocolate chips
• 2 t coconut milk
• 1 T cherry juice concentrate

In a food processor chop almonds finely. Add cocoa powder, coconut, and coarse sea salt. Depending on the strength and capacity of your food processor, you may need to do the rest in stages. Your call, but if it all fits then add the prunes and process. Next add the final ingredients: dried cherries, dates, and molasses. Process until you have an even consistency throughout. Press into an 8×8 inch (or similar size) pan and chill.

While bars are chilling, melt chocolate chips on double boiler (or carefully in the microwave) with the coconut milk. Stir frequently and once the chocolate is mostly melted, add the cherry juice concentrate. Spread this evenly onto the chilled bars. The chocolate should firm up a bit while you are spreading it. Cut and keep chilled.

Happy Trails!

Supple Scars

Babycakes is teaching Daddy about how to become a “supple leopard.”

Kelly Starrett’s book, Becoming a Supple Leopard, is a guide to sort of become your own “coach, doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist, or masseur” all-in-one and improve your flexibility, fitness, and overall health. The cover’s barely been cracked and it’s a fascinating read. We’re pretty excited to put the ideas into use.

Presently my focus is scar tissue mobilization (not so much a focus of the aforementioned book but along the same lines of self-rehab). Sounds yummy, right? Well, when you have a scar across your abdomen that feels like a clump of spaghetti stuck beneath the skin, that’s not so yummy. So since I’m eight weeks out from cesarean section surgery, I’ve slowly been working on my scar.

Why bother?

Scars leave a much more expansive mark than they appear, even if a whopping seven inches long. Because of how they are damaged and how they heal, the sliced tissues can cause pain and tightness in surrounding muscles or joints long after they’ve healed. However, the less elastic and more fibrous scar tissue can be made to feel pretty close to the original weave. This is done through fairly simple massage techniques: moving skin side-to-side, picking up the scar, pressing deeper to get into the subcutaneous layers of flesh, etc.. Basically the more the scar and the layers beneath it are massaged and manipulated the better and the more likely you are not to have pain elsewhere.

As a runner I don’t want my scar to hinder performance, but more importantly as a mother I don’t want pain and tightness to cramp our style months and years down the road.

For those of you with a scar of some kind, I hope you’re inspired to do some scar tissue work. From what I understand, you can always work a scar even if it’s from years ago, just don’t expect results as quickly. Happy and healthy healing…

Spicy Chocolate Pear Torte

Unless it’s beet cake, we’re not really big on cake. In fact, at our own wedding we served a chocolate fountain instead of the traditional wedding cake.

It kind of went with our non-traditional wedding theme anyway.

Nope, we had no attendants. Set in the front yard where I grew up. The old church pews were hauled in by a tractor. And with the help of my sister-in-law and mother, I sewed my dress. Although inanimate, she’s like a member of the family.

Back in 2001, as student in France I was invited to a wedding, and I fell in love. It was in the hills on the outskirts of Lyon, France and just beautiful. I remember that my name card at the reception just read “L’américaine” and that they served the most divine chocolate pear cake I’d ever tasted.  The perfect blend of moist chocolate cake and whole cooked pears. I love every bite and kid you not that I’ve thought about that cake frequently in the past dozen years.

Until this torte, I’d not been able to emulate that cake. This is not exact, but I dare say it might be even better. Plus, I’ve spiced it up with some red chili powder, which gives it more of a Mexican flair than French. If you’re afraid of the heat, go for a quarter teaspoon; otherwise add a pinch more toward a half teaspoon. Please don’t leave it out altogether because life’s too short to not add a little heat!

Spicey Chocolate Pear Torte:

Ingredients

• 7 oz very dark chocolate (70%+) or bittersweet chocolate
• 4 T butter
• ¾ c brown sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 32oz can of pears (drained)
• 2 T molasses
• ¼ t salt
• ¼ – ½ t red chili powder

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 10-12 inch tart pan. Or use mini/individual-sized tart pans if you’d like. In a double boiler over simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

Beat together egg yolks, sugar, molasses, salt and your choice amount of chili powder (or leave it out, but you’ll be missing it!). Mix in about ¼ C of the melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. Continuing to mix, slowly pour in the rest of the melted chocolate until all is incorporated. Fold in the egg whites, just until all is blended.

Organize the pears, cut side down, to evenly distribute them in the pan. Pour the torte batter over the pears. Bake for 30-35min, until the torte does not jiggle in the middle. Remove from oven and let torte cool. Dust with confectioner’s sugar if you’d like or toss on a dash more of the chili powder if you’re crazy like moi.

Hot stuff!

Strawberry Cranberry Chia Jam

I was so happy to have Poppy stop by the blog because that led me to the idea for this jam. Thanks!

For some time now, I’ve wanted to create a less sugary concoction out of a partial left-over bag of frozen cranberries. This jam is it!

It’s full of superfoods: chia, cranberries, and strawberries, all antioxidant rich and crazy with anti-inflammatory properties.  What’s more, the recipe is super-duper easy if you have a food processor and about 45 minutes, start to finish.

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ c strawberries
• 1 ½ c cranberries
• ¾ c chia seed
• ½ c juice
• ¼ c honey

Wash berries. Over  medium heat, cook cranberries in your favorite red juice (I used pomegranate cranberry) until all have “popped.”

Puree strawberries in a food processor. Add strawberries and honey to the cranberry mixture. You may want to play with the amount of honey and add more to satisfy your sweet tooth. Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the chia seeds while stirring.

Turn off heat. Pour into jars and allow to cool.

Kickin’ it with a rice cake! Yes, the rice kick continues…

Coconut Sticky Rice Macaroons

Around here it’s not supposed to snow on May 3rd. We’re diggin’ it.

 

Looks like a little rosey cheeked someone needs some hot cocoa. Some day.

Well, lately I’ve been on a rice kick. We had some leftover jasmine white rice, so I modified a traditional coconut macaroon recipe to make these puppies. Enjoy… 

Ingredients:

•  3 egg whites
• 1 ½ c sweetened shredded coconut
• 1 ¼ c powdered sugar
• 1 c cooked white rice
• ½ t almond or vanilla extract
• ¼ t salt

Allow eggs to sit at room temp for about an hour. This will help the whites to behave when being whipped later. Grease well or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl beat the egg whites. Start on low and increase to high speed, beating until stiff, smooth, glossy peaks form. Fold in remaining ingredients, taking care not to over mix everything.

Spoon ¾ inch tall piles onto prepared baking pan. Bake at 350° for about 18 minutes. Simple and should remind you of a tasty Thai dessert.

Can I get some mango with that sticky rice!

Cocoa Rice Muffins

This weekend we amused ourselves watching a friendly flock of grackles attack some stale Wonder bread that our toddler neighbor from upstairs threw over their balcony. They felt bad, but I had to reassure them they’re the best upstairs neighbors we’ve ever had. Beats the guys who once spewed over the balcony only to puke all down our window… I know, lovely. We’ll take attracting grackles any day. A good use for Wonder Bread too, don’t cha think?

Besides observing grackles, Mr. Monster Napper did some dozing on the patio.He typically takes one monster nap (2-3+ hrs) and several cat naps (30min-1hr) on either side of that. Most importantly, he’s been putting in six hour stretches at night. I mean, six hours of continuous sleep – coupled with a solo trip to the knitting shop, a long shower, shaved legs, and a green smoothie for lunch all in one day – I felt like a new woman!

Preparing for this baby, I read Bringing up Bébé. I loved the ideas, but since I’m not in fact French, I wasn’t really sure how to actually bring up my bébé with so many cultural differences. I think I’ve found a close “American” version of the book. We’ve been loosely following the ideas in the book Babywise, by Gary Ezzo. The gist is an: eat – wake/play – sleep routine throughout the day and at night you just omit the waketime of course.  This helps babies organize their sleep, get the bulk of their calories during the day, and eventually learn to self-soothe. It seems controversial to some because at first glance it’s just another cry-it-out method; however, I believe there’s more to it than that. I don’t let our baby cry it out. I know that when he cries, he’s communicating something. There are times I might let him cry for a minute or two so that I can get a better idea of what his deal is. I’m always listening and now getting pretty good at interpreting his language. So far it’s working for us. I’m sure it doesn’t work for everyone, but it might be worth a shot? Also the eat-wake-sleep cycle takes quite a bit of diligence and patience. We don’t get it right every time, but obviously something’s working because he’s not waking up every couple of hours each night to eat or “talk.” Amen to that!

Apart from the book, I’ve probably gotten even more out of this babywise mama’s blog: Making Home. In a series of posts, she really spells out the first eight weeks of her fifth baby’s life and gives a better picture of how Babywise can work. Do check out her blog if you’re expecting or in midst of your “fourth” trimester with a newborn and curious about a method to the madness/sweetness.

Since I’m feeling so good and rested, I worked up a fun muffin recipe for you to try. Gluten free, chocolatey rice muffins! Awesome!

Cocoa Rice Muffins…

Ingredients:

•  ¾ c milk
• ½ c applesauce
• 2 eggs
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 ½ c cooked rice
• 2 c g-free flour (I used 1 ½ c buckwheat and ½ tapioca)
• ¼ c cocoa powder
• ½ t salt
• 1 ½ t baking powder
• 1 c chocolate chips
• 2 c walnuts chopped (I toasted mine by accident (they were drying in the oven after a soak, and then I left them there during preheating – Whoops.))

Preheat oven to 350° and prepare a one-dozen muffin tin with papers or oil.

In a large bowl, mix first five ingredients. Add the dry ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Spoon batter into the muffin tin. It’s okay to fill them full, these guys won’t spill over. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Happy gluten free eating!

 

Double Chocolate Chia Oaties

Baby W will be four weeks old tomorrow!

Amazing to watch his bright blue eyes become brighter and more alert each day.

I’m feeling more myself too. Nowhere near my fighting weight, but that will come in due time. Right now I’m learning a bunch, like how to get long wiggly arms into those tiny sleeves…

and how to help a sleepy head drift off into sleep…

Speaking of which, during naptime today I managed to whip up a batch of our favorite oat-flour cookies. This recipe is a little number I’ve been working on for the past year. Chock full of cocoa powder, chocolate chips, and chia-goodness, they’re gluten free, vegan, and light on the sugar. Plus they’re adaptable; add your favorite nuts, coconut, or dried fruit to give them your own flair. I prefer the punch of dried cherries but didn’t have any on hand today, so we added raw pumpkin seeds.

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe banana mashed
• ¾ c applesauce
• ¾ c peanut butter
• ¼ c oil (your choice, coconut, olive, canola, etc.)
• ⅔ c brown sugar
• 2 t vanilla
• 2 ¼ c oat flour
• ½ c ground chia seed
• ⅓ c cocoa powder
• 2 t baking powder
• ½ t salt
• 10 oz chocolate chips
• 8 oz dried cherries or nuts/coconut (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl stir the first six ingredients. Add dry ingredients and blend well. Stir in chocolate chips and cherries or nuts or both. Allow the cookie dough to sit for about five minutes to allow the chia to thicken things up. Form walnut-sized balls and squish them down a little on an ungreased baking sheet. They won’t flatten out much if you don’t squish them yourself. Bake for 12-15 min.

Easy Peasy! Enjoy!

On a different note: Boston we love you and all the lore associated with your great race. You’ll be back, and I can’t wait to toe your start line once again.

Welcome, Baby!

You know it’s been too long when you’ve forgotten the username and password to your own blog. So I appreciate your patience with me and hope that you’ve assumed, yes, I’ve had my baby. Wow, what a last few weeks! This is my latest snapshot of our little one, deep in sweet dream land and of course surrounded by fur.

He’s two and a half weeks old and just an amazing miracle. Love. Love. Love!

We are having so much fun learning who he is and how to orchestrate our days (and nights). I like to say that thankfully he seems to understand the difference between daytime and nighttime. At least he’s sleeping for longer stretches at night. Plus, he’s getting stronger by the day, masterfully handling his rigorous tummy time training.

His entry into the world was a bit of a long story, so I’ll give you the Cliffs Notes version and share a little of my goals now looking forward.

We had hopes of a natural vaginal birth, laboring at home for the bulk of the process, and spending minimal time at the hospital. None of that happened. We were two weeks over due and scheduled for an induction. I spent six days in the hospital. The induction process lasted from a Thursday until Saturday morning. Baby was such a champ, never showing signs of distress through all the long hours of psycho Pitocin contractions. We stalled at 9cm for five hours and then my midwife was concerned that a c-section would probably be the only option. So a c-section birth was how we would finally meet our little one. On the operating table, when the doc or nurse slammed me in the sternum (not really sure who did what because I couldn’t see over that blue curtain; thank goodness!) and heaved him out of my uterus, all 22 ½ inches and 8lb 10.6oz of him were just perfect.

As with most major and minor life events, nope, things didn’t go as we’d hoped. But, really, who cares! All is well and we have a wonderfully healthy baby boy. Now, I’ll take another three weeks or so then assess how I’m feeling and, with doctor’s approval, hopefully start to run again. My goal is for my best half marathon this fall. I’m signed up for an early September half, which (Yikes!) now sounds really soon. I’ll likely run the Des Moines half too in October. I am anxious to see how training and motherhood balance but confident that we can make it work. I guess I feel like now he’s here to learn from us, and I want to be the best role model I can be for him. That’s probably the best incentive ever. -Thanks to It happened on Mulberry Street Photography for this sweet pic!

As for my creativity in the kitchen, I’m sure to strike a balance with that soon too. I’m anxious to share some new recipes with you. Right now all I seem to be producing is milk.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the Details

Lost in the details perfectly explains what I’ve been up to.

A baby’s eyesight is something like 20/400 at birth, legally blind I dare say, and the retina is quite underdeveloped. One way to help vision development is by surrounding a newborn with contrasting blacks and whites. Since I refuse to wallpaper the house in black and white stripes, I’ve instead busted out the freezer paper and black paint. I painted on shapes with the help of freezer paper stencils I cut out and ironed on fabric – there are Internet tutorials galore and actually directions right on the freezer paper box if you want to play around with it. Then I sewed some cones and pyramids, stuffed them, and strung ‘em up…

The new view from our baby’s cradle are these bad boys. Hung 8-12 inches from the face, I believe they will for sure do their job of visual stimulation for our little one. Not nearly as cute as the monkey, giraffe, and friends that used to hang from this mobile, but in a few months we’ll swap out these psycho geometric puffs and put those cuties back where they belong for a new view.

Here’s to seeing all the little details of life and getting lost in them.

The approaching birth day

Outside of the seven+ pounds of extra pressure on my pelvic floor, a very much engaged baby brings all sorts of thoughts to my mind. Exactly one  year ago we were planning a spring trip to France. Even then in the back of our minds we had hopes of being to this point one year after that trip, with a baby on the way.

Now the birth day is approaching and I find it all so hard to believe. Hard to believe this little right foot protruding past my ribs is just about the best feeling ever. Hard to believe my sewing machine has withstood the heat I’ve pumped through its foot feed in the past six months, toiling with me to create: one play quilt, a diaper bag, a “boppy” pillow, two newborn snugglers, two pair of 12m pants out of my old pants (and a turmeric tie-dyed 3m top)…

… fifteen cloth diapers, four maternity shirts, and most recently a suped-up car seat and matching tabbed security blanket. Had it not been for thirty-five hours of the Anna Karenina audio book mixed in with a little James Herriot to lighten Anna’s woes, these projects would probably still be mere thoughts.

Still what is hardest to believe is how prepared I feel.

I started blogging to counter my tendency to craft in the kitchen with no recipe. I confess I still love to be in the kitchen sans my multicolored note pad (i.e. recipe recording system).  …Ahh… to just create something, something I have no idea of how to duplicate… But most of my crafting I do the same, no recipe. For instance, with the car seat head supporter, I spent five minutes staring at Graco’s version at Wal-Mart, taking mental pictures of how I could get around my own cuter and more cuddly version. Inspired enough, I went home; voilà. A far cry cuter than Graco’s and matches the strap covers and security blanket, both with ribbons recycled from a sweet diaper cake.

When a couple of weeks ago when my good friend said, “Wow, you’re really prepared for this baby,” it was a huge praise. I knew she didn’t mean, “Wow, you really have your crib and nappy bucket at the ready” but rather that we’ve done our research and are truly prepared. At her remark I realized that, nope, this pregnancy thing isn’t something I wanted to do without a recipe. To understand my options and feel knowledgeable about labor and delivery seems like a better plan than to just wing it and do what the midwife or doctor tells me.  So I have read, studied, and trained physically and mentally for this baby’s birth day. While, no, things probably won’t go as planned and, yes, there are times to just do as the medical staff instructs, it’s really important to know our options.

This planning reminds me of the marathon. I used to take the no formula approach to marathon training and ran some pretty pathetic marathons without a “recipe.” I’d go out and just run a little or lots with no progression or real plan. Now I approach marathon training with serious focus. Training plans inevitably change with injuries and life events, but never again I would race a marathon without doing my homework and my best to follow a plan.

So why do fears lurk? We have our ducks in a row. All of us are just waiting for this baby.

It’s similar again to a marathon. I always arrive at a marathon start with “healthy fears” and trepidation. Sure part of me wonders if I’ll hit my paces, get a PR, or place well, but deep down what it is, I think, is that I know just how much it’s going to hurt. After running over a dozen marathons, I’ve learned that the pain is fleeting and quickly I’m taken with the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction of a race well run.

So though the approaching birth day may cause me a little angst, I agree, I’m prepared for it. I can’t wait to hold our vernix-covered little one for the first time. When the time comes post-postpartum, I look forward to another round of marathon training. Who knows, I might have just a little less fear for the next 26.2?