Travel & Trails

Mom and I went on a trip together. We didn't do the things we planned, but we had a great time.

We picked Ha Ha Tonka State Park because we wanted to see the "castle" ruins. The story of the ruins is pretty cool, though a little bit sad. There is a .4 mile mostly paved trail that goes out to it. You can't go into it or climb on it, but it's neat to walk around and peak through the windows. I wonder if the area would've became a park if the house hadn't burned.

Apparently, Ha Ha Tonka is also home to the 12th largest spring in Missouri. They sprang that on us (haha..see what I did there&  there?) when we stopped in the visitor center. I'm a sucker for visitor centers and I really wanted a Ha Ha Tonka State Park shirt. They only had one shirt that said Ha Ha Tonka, and it didn't come in my size. Apparently Missouri is doing "The Year of the Trail," including a neat challenge issued by the governor to travel 100 miles of trail. That's awesome, cause that's my goal for the year, too! So I bought a hiking medallion for it. I also bought a Ha Ha Tonka medallion.


We planned a backpacking trip on Turkey Penn Hollow trail. We loaded up our packs and headed off on the supposedly 6.5 mile trail. We hadn't been hiking long when it started storming. Around mile 5.5, when we discovered the backpacking camp was after that marker, we decided to go on and hike out. We thought it was only 6.5 miles. Turns out, the mileage doesn't start at the parking lot. The Turkey Penn Hollow trail starts & ends partially down another trail, making the mileage for it a little over 7.5 miles.

Mom says it still counts as backpacking because we did the whole thing with our packs on. :)

Not staying on the trail for the night gave us an extra day on our trip. We went to the George Washington Carver Monument National Park.

Hiking Challenge

Random odd thing

I enjoy hiking, and I love seeing new places. I like the little random odd things as much as the big cool things. Lately, I've done most of my hiking all in one spot, and while at work.

I decided to challenge myself, to help myself branch out a little.

Before the end of the year, I'm going to cover 100 non-work miles of trail, by running or hiking, with at least half them not in Mount Magazine State Park.

I already went to Pedestal Rocks & King's Bluff. They were 2 loop trails that totaled around  4.3 miles.

Big cool thing

All the trails I've done since then have been while I was on the clock. The last few days, I've planned on on going on one of our trails after work. It's been raining and Boudreaux didn't want to get wet.

Mom and I are going to do some hiking soon. Amily has quite a few big hikes planned for us this summer. Sharing the trails will make the challenge even more fun!

Progress

I had one of those moments today where I was like "Wow! I've come really far!" and it wasn't just because I had ran 4.5 miles.

In Sept. 2011, I officially didn't run a lick.

In Sept. 2012, I ran 15 miles. I was getting ready for the Color Run 5K that was going to be that following November.

Sept. 2012 Smashrun Overview

 In Sept. 2013, I ran 26 miles! I'm getting ready for the Mississippi River Marathon's half marathon that's in February 2014.

Sept. 2013 Smashrun Overview

I'm super excited, not only about my progress but about training for a half marathon. I'm using Hal Higdon's half marathon Novice 1 training program. I picked it because it has 3 running days and includes cross training, strength training, and stretching.

Today I completed week 2 of the training. I changed the days to match my work schedule, so I do the Monday workouts on Friday, making my long runs on Thursday, my normal day off. For strength I've just kind of been doing random stuff. Cross training has been hiking and riding a bicycle.

I've decided I need to get a little structure for strength training. I went to the library and borrowed "Body by You" by Mark Lauren. It's a body weight training program specifically tailored for women. I've been reading it and have decided to give it a shot. Tomorrow will be the initial evaluation for me, where I see which exercises I will use to continue the program.

Even though "Body by You" is fairly anti-cardio, and it isn't really intended to be used like this, I plan to use it on days that call for strength and on the major cross training day. I've been taking measurements, but I think tomorrow I'm going to take one of those half naked "before" photos (not for sharing!) and see what happens after a couple months.

I'm a little excited about doing this combination, though "Body by You" is going to get tough.

Let's see how it goes!

Chapati!

All Aboard! First stop on the bread bus is India! (fun fact, if you're in Arkansas & could dig all the way through the earth, you'd wind up in the Indian Ocean!)

I have a confession. Chapati wasn't my first choice. Originally, I really wanted to make naan. Then I decided to celebrate the upcoming St. Patrick's day, I'd make Irish soda bread, to have something I'd never had. Plans fell through, and I didn't go to town to get buttermilk to make the soda bread. Naan takes yogurt, so that was also out.

On the same page as naan in my Indian cookbook is chapati. Doesn't take anything I don't already have and as an added bonus it lets me use up the odd bit of whole wheat flour I have left.

According to my Indian cookbook, and various websites, chapatis are the "daily bread" type bread for Indian homes. Some time on the internet has made it clear that it is a fairly common bread in most south Asian countries. I even saw some references to it being eaten in Kenya and other north African countries, with several variations: diameter, thickness, puff-factor, and so on. I went with the Indian recipe that I found the most often. It was almost identical to the one in my cookbook.

Chapati

2 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. oil
water or milk
I used a mix of water and milk, & wound up needing a little over 2/3 c. of liquid.

First, mix together the salt and flour. Make a small well in the dry ingredients. Slowly add the milk or water until you form a dough that's elastic but not sticky. Once you have the dough mixed up, add the oil and knead it in.











Separate the dough into portions about the size of a golf ball. Roll each ball until it's round and totally seamless. Once the dough is divided and rolled smooth, let it rest for about 20 minutes. After the dough's had a nice rest, roll the balls in a little bit of flour, to keep it from sticking.




 




Smoosh the ball(yes, that's a technical term) with your hand to make a round dough circle. Then with a rolling pin, soup can, or whatever is handy, use a circular motion to roll the dough into a thinner dough circle. You want it to be about 1/8" or so thick. A little thicker is better than too thin.

A griddle or a big cast iron skillet works great for cooking them. (wait, I guess I can't call this "baking" around the world, oh well) Warm the griddle/skillet to medium heat. On my knobs that go from 1 -10, I had it on 7 the whole time. It worked well.


See the little bubbles popping up on it? When you start seeing lots of tiny little bubbles, you flip it over. Watch it carefully because that only takes around 20-30 seconds to happen. If you get bigger bubbles, like in the picture, you let it wait a few seconds too long. It's not the end of the world, just flip it quick, before it's the end of the chapati!


Once it's flipped, it only needs to cook for about another 20-30 seconds.

I tried several of the many utensils scatter about my kitchen. My really big cooking chopsticks that came with my wok wound up being the best for flipping the chapati. I thought I'd use tongs, but they just scooted the bread around. My spatula took some maneuvering, but it ripped the edges more.

Yum!

I had chapati with my curry and rice for dinner. I read in several places that chapati is often used as an eating utensil to scoop up food as you eat it. I don't know the accuracy of this statement, but it's how I ate my dinner and boy, it was good stuff!

This recipe was wrangled out of "The Complete Book of Indian Cooking" by Shehzad Husain & Rafi Fernandez. I didn't use the exact recipe as printed. I made changes based on several different sources. Also, my chapati are not nearly as perfectly round as theirs. This makes me sad. Despite that, it's a very cool book.

Beginning with my Bread Machine

A few weeks ago, I decided that I would stop buying bread and begin making my own. I didn't have a particular reason; it just sounded like a worthwhile idea. Since then, I've decided that there are a couple of good reasons.

One, it tastes so much better than buying bread. Granted, that could be a downside, especially if I decided to go on a low-carb diet. Probably nothing to worry about for a while. If you see me looking Jabba the Hutt though, ya might want to remind me that I saw this coming.

Two, have you ever read the ingredients on a loaf of bread? Good grief! When I make it at home, I know the ingredients (and can pronounce them all without phonetics!). There's flour, salt, sugar, oil, yeast, ascorbic acid, and sorbitan monostearne.The latter two are in the yeast. While that's not particularly thrilling to me, they are still much better than the unprounouncable paragraph listed on the back of store bought loaves. Ascorbic acid is basically artificial vitamin C. Sorbitan monostearne is an emulsifying agent.

I like baking, but I eat more bread than I have time bake, especially with running around the state visiting folks on all my days off. That's where this wonderful machine comes in!

It's my Sunbeam Bread Machine!
It can make a 1 lb, 1.5 lb, and 2 lb loaf. It has cycles for regular bread, whole wheat bread, dough, quick breads, and jam. This little miracle box belonged to grandparents. They gave it to me not to long ago and I am a very proud new owner.

The first loaf of my new endeavor went well. Well, I know it looks kind of fat and squatty, but it makes a great sandwich!

I used a really simple recipe that I found online at Allrecipes.com that I only changed a little.
1 c. warm water
2 tblsp. olive oil
3c. bread flour
1 tblsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp bread machine yeast

First, you put in the liquids. Then the flour. Everything else can go on top of the flour. On my machine I used the "1" setting. It turned out wonderfully!
I actually added a few tablespoons more water because the dough looked very dry when first started mixing. 

My next goal is turn out a good loaf of whole wheat bread. I even have the flour already on the counter. I want to eventually use the dough cycle to make my own hamburger and hot dog buns. Maybe even french bread.