Baking on a Tuesday

If you didn't know by now, I like to bake. And I bake when I'm stressed or bored. So baking on a Tuesday means bad things are going on...it didn't help that two ginormous muffin tins magically appeared on my desk today at work.

                                                 

GIANT!!!!

So here's what came from tonight's day of baking. Individual monkey breads...

Recipe:

4 can of Pillsbury Grands Homestyle biscuits
2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
0.5 tsp nutmeg
1 3/4 cups butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1. Cut the biscuits into sixths

2. Mix white sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in big bag

3. Add biscuits (you might have to do several smaller batches) and mix!

All sugary and delicious!!

4. Melt butter and brown sugar in pan on stove

5. Add 8 pieces of sugar coated biscuit into bottom of each muffin tin

 6. Pour half of mixture over biscuits

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6

8. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes

AAAAAAANNNNNNDDDDDDD......

 It makes 12 big muffins or 24 regular cupcake pan size muffins

You can also add pecans or raisins. My mom always made this shizz with pecans (and in a bundt pan like normal people) but I always viewed them as a vehicle for the sugary goodness and I'd just suck the sugar off and toss the nuts. Now that I'm more mature I actually eat the nuts but I was blinded by the carbs at the grocery store and ended up walking out of the store with nothing but biscuits, pizza dough, and prefrozen mango margarita...guess we all know where my priorities are...

I've been good and haven't touched these babies (minus scraping all of the sugar/butter mixture off of the edge of the pans). They'll be super delish tomorrow at work and I'll be super popular and feel special for about 5 minutes until they're all gone...because I only have 12.

Oh and I wanted to spin while these things were in the oven but that didn't happen...oopsies!

I Won All the Prizes!!

I have a friend at work who coaches triathletes. This winter he joined forces with a few other coaches to start a winter, indoor triathlon race series. The first one was too far away for me to want to drive to it but then there was on on my home turf, even at MY YMCA! It was today....

In case you can't see, that is a GOLD medal! Yup, I placed first in my age group and was the second place overall women's finisher! Woot!!

Since it was indoor, they choose to measure distance over a set time...but since it's almost April they did the run outside...so here's what we did:

15 minutes in the pool
30 minutes on a spin bike and they measured cadence to determine distance
5k run as fast as you can!

It was a points system. So if you went the farthest distance or ran the fastest you got 100 points and everyone lower got a percentage of 100 points. I got 97.06 points for the swimming, I only missed first place by a lap! I didn't do as well in biking and running but still good! The biking was difficult, because, naturally, the easiest way to get the fly wheel to turn the most was to set the resistance to zero but then you start going to fast that your feet flop out or you can't slow down. So I had to hold back a little since I didn't have shoes that would clip in and I lost my footing twice. :( The running was also a little slower than I wanted but, I kind of expected that. My lungs still haven't recovered from my cold. It was brutal!

But, overall it was super fun. And I placed! They also gave out whoopie pies (delicious!) but I gave up chocolate for lent and couldn't indulge :'( Only 2 weeks left until Easter! Woot!!

Alaska is Cold (and my return to blogging)

Heyyyyy...

So last time I posted, I was on my way to Alaska. That was like a month ago. Here's what I saw...

 SANTA CLAUS!!!! We went to his house!

And there were reindeer at Santa's House!! That's Dasher and Dancer

 Of course, we had to scope out the local ice cream hot spot...sadly I gave up chocolate for Lent so I couldn't try any of the really cool flavors :'(

 That's a Muskox. Their hair is super soft and yarn spun from it costs like a bajillion dollars because you can only collect it when it falls off, they don't shave them or anything!

 Here moosey moose!! We saw 2 in the wild while we were there!

 

Anyone watch Ice Road Truckers? If you do then you'll recognize someone in this picture. If not (like me), this just looks like a bunch of random people. Luckily I have good detective skills and figured out that the guy putting on a microphone MUST be the famous guy. Oh, and if you do watch the show keep an eye out for me in a future episode! Being the fame whore that I am, I strategically placed myself in EVERY shot they took while I was there...

 

The ice carving championship took place while we were there. This is one of a bunch of sculptures!

 

This puppy guided me trough the wilderness on a sled! Super fun, but like everything else, IT WAS COLD!!!

 

Tee hee hee...all of the cars had little power cable tails to keep the engines warm at night!

 Oh yeah...and we saw some lights :) Here's my favorite shot I took....unedited

Here's another one that daddy edited...preeeetty!

I ran a little while I was there, but as expected, I didn't keep up with the plan. And then I got a serious cold and had to drop out of the half marathon I had planned to run in Atlanta a week after I got back :'(

I've also decided that, due to the vaca, and the cold, there is no way I'd be able to train for a full marathon at the beginning of May so I've requested to be moved to the half marathon race. Hopefully they'll let me switch! Both races are sold out so I'm not sure they'll allow people to move around.