Tag Archive for gluten free

Race Reports and Guess My Time

May 4, 2010 planet3rry One comment

I would like to thank all those that played the Guess My Time, Win Crap contest for the Run For the Deaf 5k this past Saturday. I don’t have the “official” results, but it looks like unofficially that David Peach of Missionary Talks fame (@dpeach on twitter) will be the winner of the crap great prizes. And just in time too, because now that he actually has a home for his missionary trip in South America, it might actually be able to reach him. However, it might take a couple of months for something to make it to him, IF it makes it… but the official results are still pending.

Run for the Deaf 5k 05.01.2010

As for the actual race itself, the Run for the Deaf did not disappoint for a great run and venue! The weather held off (i.e. Storms that pounded Middle Tennessee) and it was cool and calm for the run. Now while I still had to stop for just a short bit just before mile 3, I was pretty pleased at my overall run. I am not exactly sure why my 5k runs have been so poor (i.e. I have had to walk in the last 3) physically, but mentally I feel fine. I am curious if it’s a residual effect of the marathon runs in Late 2008 and in 2009, or it’s a flag that something else is wrong. Who knows…

So my unofficial time for the Run for the Deaf was 24:58 (net Terry-Time from Start Line to Finish) but it’s going to be slightly over 25 minutes I know, but my split times were: 7:39, 8:02 and for the last 1.1 which included two short walk breaks was 9:17 for a total of 24:58. I didn’t win any Age Group awards, since I stayed for those, but I did win a DOOR PRIZE! Scored me a CASE of water! I think that makes my Door Prize winning at this race about 50%!

Rittenhouse Half-Marathon 4.24.2010

My Official time for the Rittenhouse Half Marathon was 2:16:28 and I finished 30 0ut 0f 36… and they didn’t have Age Groups, but I finished 23 out of 26 in the Male Finishers. I was on a 2hr finishing pace for the first 4 miles. My downfall came to a Rookie Mistake that I did the day before (Never Eat Anything New the Day Before Race Day). I ate something that wasn’t actually “new” to me, but given my current diet, it was “new” and thus had an adverse reaction. I have been on a Gluten Free Diet for almost 3 years now, and in addition, I have been on a Casein-Reduced diet as well. Reduced basically means that I’ll still eat Chocolate and Sherbet and a few other things that have Casein (Milk Protein) but never anything in high concentration. Well, as a reward for The Elder’s trip for a checkup at the hospital, the reward was a Frosty from Wendy’s. Seeing that the Wendy’s that they would be purchasing said dairy treat at the one just down the block from my office, I said “Get Me One!”

Excited about the cold, casein-rich Frosty, I ate without even thinking of any residual effects for the next day. After all, I have had plenty of Frostys in my lifetime, so what would odd about it now? Nothing, other than the fact that it made my stomach feel like a lead weight around mile 4 and that shortly after mile 10, I was hoping that I would just expel whatever was hating me that day from either end… at this point… I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel better. Nothing ended up happening and around mile 11, I was feeling okay… tired, but okay. I had been taking walk-breaks as needed but I was finding that after Mile 10, my walk breaks were becoming less frequent, even when I running a challenging part of the course. So, I knew that my sluggishness was stomach related and not fatigue related.

In the last mile, there was no one ahead of me, and I had distanced myself from the runner behind me, who just before Mile 12, had caught up with me as I wasn’t sure of the Course and stopped and back-tracked about 0.1 of a mile. I was going to make the best of whatever was left. As part of my normal race strategy, I had the last 0.25 mile or so planned out on where I would start accelerating to the finish. Not exactly sure how “fast” I got in the last 0.15 miles, but it FELT like a sprint. I knew that I wasn’t going to even be close to my goal time for that race (sub 2hr), but it was a RACE and every second counts!

The nice thing about this Half Marathon is that you get a Finisher’s Medal, so I didn’t walk away empty handed (didn’t win a door prize either). Usually only the Mega Halfs (or in this case the Micro Halfs) which can afford the medals will have them, but sometimes the Micro Halfs will have something for the Runners. This was my first time running the course and I really enjoyed the course itself, which is part through the town/city of Harriman and part on the back country roads. When you were on the country roads, the shoulders on the road were ample enough that traffic didn’t seem like it was going to plow into you. Plus, the Rittenhouse race having the support of the Harriman Police, there were plenty of patrol cars on the course. The water stops seems nicely laid out according to  difficult parts of the course. There were mile markers, but they were at not uniform places along the course, which for my run that day was probably a good thing so that I wouldn’t be obsessing about my mile times every split.

I would probably run the Rittenhouse Half Marathon again, but with it being in late April, it does have some competition with other events on that particular weekend or being close to a spring Marathon.

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Sah-wing Better Batter Sah-wing

April 13, 2009 planet3rry No comments

The kids woke up to no Easter Baskets filled with candy or toys or anything like that. It’s part of our “Don’t Tell, Don’t Know” plan we have here in Planet3rry Central. If we don’t tell them about an Easter Basket, they won’t know to want one. But with The Elder being in public kindergarten, that’s going to be short lived. Of course, we’ll just manipulate the information. “Sure, you can have an Easter basket, and since this is the Swahili year of the Tree, that means that all of your Easter Gifts have to be made out of paper“.

As much as I enjoy helping the kids do stuff that they probably shouldn’t do for safety reason by themselves… but since they are intelligent, I would rather supervise them and be there, as opposed to them trying the same thing when NO one is around just for a joyride to the Hospital in the Ambulance. Oh, if they KNEW they could ride in an ambulance… I think they would try to fake it. Okay, I wrote myself in a circle, I was starting with one thing and then went all around it and now I am lost. Oh well.

GF but not TFNow, I did make a special treat for the Family. I made some Gluten Free and (Just About) Casein Free Brownies! I used a new flour with an ancient recipe that I know by heart. If you are going to know anything by heart… screweth the Shakespeare… I good chocolate recSchwing!ipe tis a better choice I pray! The flour that I used was called Better Batter. And Yes, EVERYTIME we say it we do want to say Better Batter Baseball. That’s a toy that the kids were trying to win. It’s Baseball for the only child, more or less.

The result of the Brownies… “Mmmmm Tasty!” Most GF Chocolate foods taste like… well, chocolate cardboard or something close to it…they were indeed NOT of that variety. Moist and evenly cooked, with the edge of the Brownies a little more tougher to satisfy those with the “Edge Fetish” (and you know who you are!).

Now, the end result wasn’t identical to the regular recipe. The biggest difference was that despite the 4 eggs, the brownies weren’t all that cakey. They were about 1/2in thick and I had thought it would be around 1in or so. But this did not affect the texture or taste of the brownies, I even wonder if I could have used less eggs and still had the same result.

Well, since it’s not a National Secret, I guess I can share it with anyone who wants it:

[Preheat oven to 350F and grease a pan of your choice... 9x13 standard works]

2/3 Shortening (Crisco is my pick)

4oz Unsweetened Chocolate

[Heat these two together until it's a liquid, just short of boiling]

2c sugar (Haven’t tried alternatives yet)

[Stir that in, Makes a nice choco-sugar substance]

4 eggs

1 tsp Vanilla

[Mix 'em into the batter]

Now we get into Chose Your Own Baking Adventure

if you want to use the Better Batter Flour choose “A”

if you want to use the Regular Gluten All Purpose Flour choose “B”

A) Better Batter

1.25c of Better Batter Flour

1 tsp of salt

[Mix'em into the batter, and put it in the pan]

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

[put in oven and bake for 30...]

B) Gluten APF

1.25c of AP Flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp of baking powder

[Mix'em into the batter, and put it in the pan]

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

[put in oven and bake for 30...]

All this recipe talk is making me hungry.

Life In General , , ,

Cupcakes, CDs and Chats

November 7, 2008 planet3rry One comment

In some ways it’s really late. In other ways, it’s really early. I feel tired, but am not that sleep. Strange because I had one of my faster (although maybe not smartest) runs in the past few months. You would figure that I would be more tired then this. Earlier in the week, I had to lay down at this time or sooner because I was tired. Now, I am still awake.

So, I had a few things to do this evening apart from running, things that are due today, Friday. One of them was to make some Gluten Free, Casein Free cupcakes for The Elder’s Harvest Hoedown this weekend. Ever since we went on the Gluten Free diet in June 2007 and then Casein Free (minus some chocolate) a few months later, it’s amazing at how difficult it can be for people with Celiac Disease (can’t eat wheat, barley, rye, and sometime oats) in finding foods in the general public. There seems to be some shift in mainstream grocery stores to care more natural foods and this means Gluten Free items. It’s pretty amazing what Tapioca can do! With a blend of Tapioca Flour, Rice Flour, Tapioca Starch, Cornstarch, I was able to make some chocolate cupcakes that look like chocolate cupcakes and don’t taste like cardboard. I will defer frosting them in the morning after my “nap”.

I talked about going to a birthday for a girl that rides The Elder’s bus. Now that I have FINALLY burned the CD for her mom, it finished about 5 minutes ago, I can put together a picasa album together. I should also look into the Flickr Uploadr as well.

Now, I can tell that I am getting sleepy… so I better take the Blue Bonnet out so that it can soften over the next 4 hours.

Life In General

X of all

February 13, 2008 planet3rry 2 comments

Zoinks! Things around here have been busy. It seems that if I am not going 100 mph then I’m going to slow. So where should I start?

Once a upon a time, not too long ago…

First of all, I got a new phone. I went ahead and got the Katana II for me to upgrade to it was only $30 and to upgrade to the Katana DLX was $130. So for a savings of $100, I’d go for the lower tech. It’s pretty sleek, but I have yet to activate it yet. I think am admiring it in all of it’s glory that I don’t want to do anything. Well, I should figure out how to get it activated. What’s great is that now I will be able to Mobile Blog and show you pictures of what’s happening with me… or see my observations that a picture add to the entertainment value… so that I don’t have to go BACK to the place to get the shot… such as the picture in Meth Heads Prefer Grape post.

Second of all, I think I am going to add a “Goals” section on the Sidebar so that you can track how successful I am with my trading. Instead of the goal “Make Large Bags of Cash”, I am going to put it “$1,000 for Seminar Trip in July”. By using that whole Law of Attraction thing. So, look for that in days to come… if I knew Ajax… I’d write me a fancy plug-in for WordPress. I’m really digging the whole 2 sidebar theme.

Third of all, I am thinking of another contest. But I think this one will be more aimed toward runners as I am thinking of having the prize 26.2 Marathon Stories. Non-runners would probably like some of the (i’m assuming because I haven’t read it) stories in there or maybe they’d like it as a coffee table book. Maybe they even have a lunatic runner friend and have no idea of what to give them as a gift.

Fourth of all, We tried a new Gluten Free Bread last night… Pamela’s Products Wheat-Free Amazing Bread Mix. If I hadn’t have underbaked it, I think it would have turned out awesome. I was recently upset when Amazon shifted their Gluten Free Pantry Favorite bread to another shipper. This meant that I now had to PAY for shipping (YA, I know!) and the cost of it wasn’t any cheaper than what I could buy at the local store. So I thought that I would check out Pamela and her fine assortment of goodies. We have had the Pancake mix from Pamela’s before and that was pretty good. AND the bonus is that you can do a subscription of this from Amazon, so the cost breaks down to $3.26 per 2 lb loaf… that’s almost the same price as regular bread!

Fifth of all, My nose has stopped running and is just slightly congested. Unfortunately, I have NOT started running again. Bleh! I think tomorrow will be the only chance I get to run for the next couple of days. I might be able to run over the weekend at the In-laws house, but I will have the kids.

Sixth of all, I have been selling my stuff on eBay pretty heavy. I had 3 auction end this morning that I will need to get shipped out. I am looking for a good wholesale/niche that I can use to sell stuff and make a profit. I think the anxiety drugs are working because I am much much more comfortable with being entrepreneurial than I ever have been.

So that’s what’s been going on and I just realized that I am late for a meeting…

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T3rryfied

January 18, 2008 planet3rry 3 comments

Well, I have the theme just about done. There are a few minor things here and there that I need to fix, but I think it is at least coherent enough to function for most uses. I don’t think that I will win any award for the design or even the coding… but it’s good enough for me.

I actually restructured the code enough that I decided to rename it and make me the author. I do credit the original author and still link to her website. However, since I changed the design to incorporate 3 columns and changed the style a bit. I dunno…

GRRRRR… I just check one of the pages so that I could TAG this post correctly and I notice something ELSE that I have to fix… *SIGH*

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So my Terry Weekend has started… the kids, My Lovely and Talented Wife and our Au Pair are traveling down to Loris, South Carolina for the weekend with Lolo and Lola. It’s going to be JAM Packed with fun and excitement chores and more chores. Today, I will do all the stuff that needs time to set, cure and otherwise be untouched by 4yo and 2yo paw prints.

I was thinking that I might do a series of posts that highlight the projects. Of course, if I have any super secret projects that I want to hide from My Lovely and Talented Wife, then I can’t show those… since she reads my blog now.

It’s a shame that I am not training for anything specific this month, because this weekend would be a great time to get a super duper long run or other crazy exciting adventure. I do have the 10 miler at the end of the month, but I’m going for a specific time, that’s a base training run… so no need to sweat over that. I may take The Loud and Lovable Skipper Doodle out on a trail run… he’d like that.

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Other site enhancements will be a Glossary plugin that My Lovely and Talented Wife found. This way, all the nicknames that I use… you’ll be able to see who I am talking about.

And I did get the GIMP to do my wishes… I just had to take an extra step from how I perform the same task in Potatoshop… once I figured that out, the picture changing went quickly. I also had a chance to upgrade to GIMP 2.4 which I was still using a GIMP 2.2.somthing. So now I have all the pretty buttons… awwwwwwwww.

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I’ve done really well on my stock picks this go around… Seening that the Stock Market has been rolling over to previous lows, I have banked on this with some PUT options that have been very profitable. Most of them expire today and I hate to see them go… but alas, that it one of the characteristics of Options is that they expire unlike holding the Common Stock which you keep until you sell.

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I’m hoping to get some other posts out today… I have Christmas Photo Safari pictures ready to upload… I am awaiting approval from my niece to allow me to post her pictures.

I’m going to be doing some Gluten Free Mad Scientist stuff in the kitchen this weekend. As much I as I appreciate my “Little Helpers”, when you are doing something for the first time, The Maestro needs some space to work his kitchen mojo.

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Gluten Snuffed Him

December 20, 2007 planet3rry 2 comments

Yesterday we had our Christmas party for my place of work. For the second time we had a local pub within walking (or stumbling) distance host our lunchtime celebration. The Old Guys provided the ham and turkey and the bar provided the fixins. We had green beans, mashed potatoes, rolls, gravy and cranberry sauce in addition to the meat. I passed on the gluten ladened dinner rolls, but I did get some of the gravy. Most gravies have flour in them as a thickener.

Funny aside story: My Father In-Law was making some gravy and was using cornstarch as a thickener. If you’ve never used cornstarch, not only will it soothe a baby’s bottom from diaper rash, but when used as a thickener, you don’t need a whole lot. So, he puts some in, stirs and stirs, still liquid, puts some more in, stirs and stirs, puts some more in… by the time that he was done, you could ask for a slice of gravy with your potatoes.

In the past, after the lunch, we have a gift exchange and a dessert feast where everyone brings in a dessert from home. However, this year, we were doing a chocolate fondue for the dessert. Fancy huh? Here in East Tennessee we pronounce the “t” in Gourmet! So, we signed up for items for dippage. I chose the fat free, gluten free, casein free Marshmallow as the item I would bring.

So we were in the conference room dipping and eating and more dipping and one of the items on the table was chocolate brownies. Not the normal made from the box chocolate brownies. These were homemade from one of the respected bakers in our workgroup. The looked so moist and packed with chocolate. I sat there and fantasized about eating one of those brownies… but NO, they had gluten in them. Sure, I was eating a bunch of casein in the milk and white chocolate fondues, but I had been pretty good about the gluten (from the gravy).

But then, some how a brownie ended up on my plate. In front of Congress, I would have to say “I do not recall picking up the brownie.” THat’s my story… hell, it has worked before. So, I had the brownie with some chocolate and oh my, it was so moist and delicious. It was SO worth eating. I mean, if you are going to break the rules, it should be worth it. And since I had ONE brownie in one flavor of chocolate, I had to eat ANOTHER one, right?

So, I had maybe 4 brownies all in all. I had a normal afternoon and evening. Even the morning was shaping up nicely, took The Elder to school and then it hit me. BAMM! The Gluten Effect started in… as I was driving into work, I was feeling my eyes get heavy… very heavy. I made it in to work and sitting in my chair things began to dim. I’m not exactly sure how long I was out, but it must have been a while. I was dead to the world.

Once I was back in reality, things were fine and I didn’t feel tired or exhausted or bad at all. And so now, we’ll be in SC and there will be plenty of Gluten temptations around… I just know.

Life In General , ,

My Helpers

November 27, 2007 planet3rry 5 comments

My Lovely and Talented Wife needed me to make some bakery sweets for the Advent By Candlelight event at our Church tonight. We had a Gluten Free Pantry Chocolate Truffle Brownie mix in the cupboard and we had decided to use this since we wouldn’t have to buy any extra groceries. So, I had to get home to make the Brownies, plus take care of the kids for the evening. I knew that either the kids would wreck havok on the house like Godzilla on Tokyo, if I didn’t watch them like a hawk (they do have my DNA). So, I recruited them to “help” me. Luckily, The Younger, whose favorite line is “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I CAN DO IT” when it comes to everything, wasn’t all that interested in helping. He was much more interested in running around and playing with plastic bags. The Elder was much more engaged with the whole mixing process. I think he figured that if the dry mix tastes good, the finished mix must taste good as well.

So, I made the brownie mix, but that’s not all… we do alot of our Gluten Free Shopping with Amazon. Mainly because we can get bulk for pretty cheap. Like the Thai Noodles that we like are $2.50 at the store, but if you buy 12 from Amazon in bulk they’re only $1.50ish each. So, the box with the smiley face (that’s an Amazon box) was delivered with 6 boxes of Gluten Free Pantry Chocolate Chip mix… and well, since I was making the brownies, making the cookies would be just as easy since I was in the cooking mode.

So, I made the cookies and they turned out pretty good. They’re not exactly as good as Nestle Tollhouse Cookies, but for “homemade” cookies, they are good.

aside: My Lovely and Talented Wife just came in and said there were “A MILLION desserts there. A MILLION!” So being the highly intelligent person that she is, she brought home our gluten free brownies since most people wouldn’t appreciate them.

While the brownies were cooking, the cookie dough was set on the sheets and hanging around the kitchen. Funny that one cookie, the closest to the edge kept shrinking. The Elder apparently “needed a fix” every 30 seconds. Once the cookies were out of the oven, I gave them a small glass of milk and a cookie.

Here are pictures of my “helpers”

The Elder
The Cookie Addict

 

The Younger
Saving Some for Later

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The Gluten Free and almost Casien Free Thanksgiving

November 26, 2007 planet3rry 5 comments

Even though we do really healthy stuff like run 8k races in the rain or stand in the rain yelling at the racers to “Keep Moving” we do the normal Thanksgiving fare. But this year, we were having to make a little itty bitty tweak to our Thanksgiving menu, removing Gluten (Wheat, Barley and Rye) and Casein (Milk Protein). I did have pictures, but to be honest, they didn’t turn out all that appetizing on the Kodak, perhaps they need some “retouching” before I post them. ANyway, this is what we had:

Turkey (Naturally GFCF) salt, peppered with Rosemary. I did over cook the bird a little bit but it’s still edible.

Cranberry Sauce: My Sister -In-Law (I need to think of a witty nickname for her) has this recipe for a cranberry sauce that’s more in the arena of chutney/salsa based. It’s not the standard “out of the can” cranberry sauce with ridges. It’s a fresh fruit mixture that I actually like. The only problem is that the recipe feeds and army and we have 100 gallons of it still left.

Green Bean Almadine: If you need to make your green beans fancy, this is the simplest way short of making your green bean casserole with Gorgonzola cheese.

Cornbread Stuffing: We took the recipe for the stuffing off the Gluten Free Pantry Corn Bread Box for stuffing. It was “good” we are going to tweak the recipe for Christmas to make it AWESOME!

Mashed Potatos: Standard Baked Potatoes with “It Melts” Monterey Jack Cheese and Soy Milk

Sweet Potato: Sweet Potato

And our one item that had some Casein in it was our dessert: Cherry Cheesecake, an older instant cheese cake mix that we had used the crust in our pre-gluten free days and had the mix just hanging out. We made a GFCF crust from crushed Arrowroot cookies and the milk we used was soy, so the amount of Casein was pretty small.

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