Shape Shifter: I've fallen...but I'll get up!

So, I have fallen off the proverbial wagon of 5K training for umm....the past month. I guess I took the month of February off for all of the romantic sappiness that is involved. Not that any of the involved me, but I wanted to have my agenda completely open just in case. HaHa!

I was thinking that perhaps I should change what I blog about. I just bought this Cooking Light cookbook with amazing pictures of what each entree is supposed to turn out like. I have bought the ingredients to several recipes and have made a commitment to cook more. So many of my fellow bloggers are posting these yummy pics of their creations and I could do the same. But something happened that changed my mind...

I used to never consider myself a competitive person, however, now I know better. I am not necessarily competitive with friends and those I love...what would be the point in that? However, when it comes to someone who I have any form of resentment for, I can be quite competitive. (Just some brutal honesty----I'm confessing to the world that I am not Molly). I have recently found out that someone I know has decided to run a 5K in 2010. Now, I have no hostility towards this person. They just seem to be this huge question mark, leaving me only to wonder, "What the heck happened?" And therein lies the resentment---of not knowing.

Here's the thing. I am not evolved enough to just let it go. I want to be the first one to run a 5K, that way it is not me who is 'following' the lead. I have no doubt that this person hasn't even got a clue that I have made this a goal for 2010...that would require some form of communication or interest, which there apparently has been neither of. To be clear, the goal itself is mine...it has been written on my New Year's resolutions (which I did not make this year) for the past several years. I have made it for no one else but myself. I have just found a little fuel for my 'stick with it' fire.

So in the words of Gene Autry, "I'm Back In The Saddle Again!"

Yoganista: Day 6 - Shooting at the walls of heartache. Bang! Bang!

There was a lot of glancing at the clock today. This class went by very slowly. I think it had something to do with my lack of sleep and motivation. It might also have had a little to do with our quick alternations from downward facing dogs to lunges and back (a la Zack Mayo in "An officer and a gentleman", unfortunately there was no fine Navy man in dress whites to sweep me off my feet as a reward for my efforts).



We continued our work on Warrior 2. Our teacher kept emphasizing how important it was for us to engage all of our energy loops continuously as we transitioned between moves (way easier said than done). She said we waste a significant amount of energy otherwise and lose the major benefits of our yoga practice. I saw yet another yoga-dissertation correlation in this little tidbit of info. You see, once I actually start researching or writing it's easy to keep going. The problem for me comes in the starting and stopping. Once I stop, good luck getting me going again and I've also spent an inordinate amount of time just avoiding the thing altogether.



So, that which is true for yoga is also true for writing a dissertation: Be ok with your best effort. Commit to a regular practice schedule. Thank yourself for the work you do each day. If it hurts a little bit, you are probably doing it right.

SBD: 0 L&P: 0

Namaste.

Tonganterror: P90X Bring it!

     So, let me just begin by stating that I am going to bring it.  It's basically already brought.  Like, of all the things that could have been brought, this is definitely one.  My P90X journey begins tomorrow, and Tony Horton has already convinced me that "Bringing It!" is all I ever really needed to know (and no, I didn't learn that in Kindergarten).  

     Let me begin by telling you a little about me.  I am a 28 year old law student.  My undergraduate degree was in guitar (yes, you can actually major in that, and yes, it actually is a real degree, and yes it is rather hard, and yes, I honestly thought I might get a job when I got out of school, and yes, I actually did have one, and yes, you can still go to law school with that degree, and yes I am doing so).  I am a Tongan, and have inherited a healthy appetite as well as a rather large frame, which, after two stressful jobs after college, I have filled out quite nicely.  I was at the doctor's office one day getting weighed in and the digital scale read 410.65 pounds.  I was shocked, but only sort of, because I had noticed that standing in the line at Wal-Mart was getting much more difficult than it should have been.  

     I began a journey that day almost 2 years ago to lose weight.  I am now 55 pounds lighter (365 for the math wizzes in the crowd), but not even half way of where I want to be.  I am an avid swimmer (though much slower than the old ladies at the pool), and I have hit a plateau.  After seeing many transformations of good friends with P90X, I, the Tonganterror, have decided to "BRING IT!".  

     Day 1prime:  When my roommate and I first got "the P90X", we immediately started watching the video, from the comfort of our desk chairs in my room.  We weren't quite ready to "bring it".  The screen flashes, some ripped dude is posing in a ridiculous way and then Tony begins laying down the smack about how this workout coming up is going to tear me apart.  The bright red words "BRING IT!" flash on the screen and I suddenly felt like I needed to bring something somewhere and I was hooked. 

     Night 1 Prime:  Fired up by the amazing awesomeness of watching just a few minutes of the "X", we cruised on in to Academy sports and window shopped for equipment.  We settled on $10 walmart yoga mats (...not from the women's section though...ok, they were from the women's section).  We went home and did the workout.  We cried like the little girls who should have bought the yoga mats.  

     Our little preview has inspired me to bring it in every aspect of my life and things are getting interesting.  Tomorrow is the beginning of the actual program and Camp Cupcake has invited me to document the journey here at Challengers of the Unknown for any who may wish to follow my adventures as I "bring it".  Buckle up.  Oh and by the way, the Rock is totally gonna play me in the movie that will inevitably be made of this entire blog.  (He's going to need a fat suit).

Camp Cupcake: Cheating on Cupcakes

Yes, it has finally come to this.

Someday, I will map out this cupcake challenge like a relationship. And, to paraphrase Melissa Gray, who wrote All Cakes Considered, I would have to describe this phase in my relationship with cupcakes thusly:

Only baking cupcakes is like dating the same guy for two years, and you are not sure if you want to get more serious with him or marry him, and then George Clooney or Taye Diggs walks by.

I still love cupcakes.

I still plan to finish baking all of the cupcakes in the cookbook.

But I will be frank: I have made most of the fun recipes in this book. I have made at least one recipe a week for months, and I am getting a hankering for other things. I don't just mean I am getting a hankering to eat something besides a cupcake. I am getting a hankering to bake something besides a cupcake.

For this reason, I did not make any cupcakes this week. I turned my dissertation proposal into my committee, and I celebrated by baking cinnamon rolls. To be precise, I made a full batch of Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Roll Dough. If you are looking for a good cinnamon roll/sweet roll dough, look no further. This is perfection. It is light and moist, and surprisingly easy to make, even if you have never made anything with yeast in your life.

On Tuesday afternoon, I made the dough.

On Tuesday night, I used half the dough and made this:

And this:

On Wednesday night, I made these, Smitten Kitchen's ranch rugelach, using 1/4 of the batch:

On Thursday night, I made caramel apple sticky buns with the remaining 1/4, but I forgot to snap a picture. So, instead, here is a completely gratuitous picture of George Clooney, as a representation:

I rested on Friday night, after a week of clients, interviews, dissertation, and a few other unexpected things.

And then, on Saturday night, made a triple-batch of Bakerella's red-velvet sandwich cookies. Incidentally, this is a very easy, but completely crowd-pleasing recipe.

I realize that it might seem like I have gone off the deep end, or become a compulsive eater, but there is a method to my madness. It turns out there are a lot of people who help me out on a daily basis, and this was my way of letting them know how much I care about them.

Tomorrow, I'll be back to cupcakes.

Pie Are Squared: Alberta Beasley's Decadent Pecan Pie

Since my two-week deadline to make another pie fell on Valentine's weekend, I decided to make a pie specifically for my husband. This made the decision of which pie to make very easy because he has a clear favorite: pecan pie.
In our five-and-a-half year marriage, I have only made pecan pie for him one other time, a month or two after we got married. Why am I such a bad, depriving wife, you ask? Because really, he wasn't deprived at all. The pecan I made for him was terrible, with a super tough crust. And his mom provides him with at least one pecan pie every time she visits or we visit her. You really can't have pecan pie very often because it is pretty much pure sugar and corn syrup, plus some pecans. Hers is just way better than anything I could make.
Those are my excuses, anyway.

This time, I used a 9" pie pan, so I had ample crust for fluting. I went with a rope crust. It took me a few tries, but I think I eventually got the hang of it.
Try as I might, I could not get my camera to focus on the foreground, so this is as good as it got.


Here's the pie all filled with pecans on top, ready to bake.

Baked!

And then, because it was Valentine's Day, I added some little crust hearts. Aww.

Unfortunately, even though I overbaked it (observe the slightly burned pecans and overbrown crust), the filling didn't totally set, and it was more like pecan soup. It still tasted super good (I had one "slice" and Joel had the rest). But it was disappointing to have it be so soupy. I like to blame the elevation.

Ratings:

Flavor: 9

Execution: 7-I kind of don't feel like the soupiness was my fault because I followed the recipe, but it definitely wasn't a perfectly executed pie.

Difficulty: Easy. Arranging the pecans on top took a little while (the recipe read: just picture in your mind the most delicious-looking pecan pie you've ever seen...arrange the pecan halves on top so the pie looks tempting).

Overall rating: **** 4 out of 5 stars.

Bring It: Core Synergistics

In the last week and a half I feel like my whole world (okay my work related world) has been turned upside down. There have been some major changes going on in my job. (Why I thought Real Estate would be a good place field to go into when the economy just stinks I'll never know!) But I realized something. No matter how much I really didn't want to. No matter how tired I was from lack of sleep from stressing. No matter how much I wanted to eat that ice cream. And no matter how un-motivated I felt in the beginning. Getting up at 5:00 (4:45 on Yoga days) might have been the only thing that kept me from completely falling apart. And while I feel like things are still a little unsettled at work and out of my control this is something I can control.

On Monday's we do something called Core Synergistics. It's a love/hate relationship with this workout. For one the name Core Synergistics is just scary! It focuses on your core which of course is what we all want. Nobody wants the muffin top or the pouch. And we all want a strong back. However, to get that Tony has you doing crazy things like rolling around on the floor from "superman" to "banana" and "prison cell push-ups" which are push ups that you bring a knee in between the 1st and 2nd push up do a 3rd push up and then come back to your feet. The only thing that gets me through this work out is the fact that it's timed and you do as many as you can. If he told me I had to do 25 of those stupid push ups I would probably quit. On the bright side this is my 3rd week and I can definitly tell a difference. The work out was a little easier and the love/hate relationship is slowly becoming more of a love relationship.

Camp Cupcake: Devil's Food Cupcakes

I'm kind of amazed that it has taken me this long to make this recipe. I like chocolate cake. And I bought this very expensive gourmet baking cocoa at William-Sonoma when I was in Fort Worth last year.

Speaking of chocolate, while making the frosting, I discovered something very important:

Unsweetened chocolate and bittersweet chocolate are NOT the same thing.

In terms of the percentages of cacao, it goes like this: unsweetened chocolate (almost all cacao, no sugar), bittersweet chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, and milk chocolate (almost no cacao, it turns out). I have acquired a taste for dark chocolate as an adult, but there are times when it is a little too rich for me. That said, I should have checked this out before I made the chocolate frosting. I was going for something lighter than the chocolate ganache frosting I usually use, so I made the chocolate sour cream frosting instead, but, because I made it with unsweetened chocolate rather than bittersweet chocolate, it still came out pretty dark. I added several cups of powdered sugar to make it sweeter, but it was still pretty dark and very rich.

This was my attempt to take a better picture of my cupcakes than normal. I used the only natural light that comes into my apartment, which comes from the French doors that open into my bedroom. That's why the cupcakes are sitting on my bed.

It was a perfect recipe to take to Relief Society on Valentine's Day, especially since the lesson touched on, of all things, Satan. Hee hee.

Here is a link to the cake recipe. Here's the frosting:

Chocolate-Sour Cream Frosting (Makes about 8 cups)

1 lb. (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 c. unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder

1/4 tsp. salt

12 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

18 oz. BITTERSWEET chocolate, melted and cooled

1 1/2 c. sour cream

Sift together confectioners' sugar, cocoa, and salt. Beat cream cheese and butter until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add sugar mixture; mix until combined. Mix in melted and cooled chocolate and then sour cream; scrape down sides of bowl and continue beating until smooth. Use immediately, or store in refrigerator for up to 5 days.