Saag

First batch of Root Beer

Recently I got a new refrigerator to use as a kegerator. Once the kegs of homebrew were in the house, we started to think about what else could be dispensed and decided to make root beer. I had some Bucksnort root beer and thought it would be good to imitate that if I could. So here is attempt 1:

• 1.5 oz Sassafras root bark
• 3 Tbsp (~0.6 oz) Licorice root
• 1/2 tsp Wintergreen extract
• 10 cups sugar

Put the sugar, sassafras and licorice into the brew kettle with 3 gallons water and boiled for 25 minutes. Drained into sterilized keg and top off with cold tap water. Then added wintergreen extract, cooled keg and force carbonated.

Impressions: Tasted the next day and it was ok. Definitely not Bucksnort, but drinkable. A little on the light side, it was more red than dark brown I would expect for root beer. Also, a little heavy on the wintergreen. A good first batch with room for improvement.

Gluten-free beer

I've been brewing beer for a few years now. I'm usually looking for new twists to try brewing. The last beer I brewed was my first lager. It came out ok, but had a few slight off flavors. This weekend, I started my first gluten-free beer. The fermentables were:

• 6 lbs Sorghum liquid extract
• 1 lb Honey (from bees in my yard, so cool)
• 6 oz Belgium Candi (dark)

I boiled it for 60 minutes with hops thrown in at:

• 0.5 oz Chinook (11.9%) @ 45 minutes
• 1 oz Cascade (3.5%) @ 15 minutes

Also, a bit of Irish Moss thrown in near the end. I pitched last night and the yeast are starting to go, but it's still a little slow. It should be ready by the end of the month. Looking forward to tasting it then.

English Muffins (part 2)

The first batch of English Muffins were made with a batter that I poured into rings on the griddle. This worked ok but didn't seem to give the right texture or consistency. I've tried a couple of other recipes since then and this one has come the closest to the English Muffins that I'm used to.

Ingredients

* 1 cup soy milk
* 2 tsp active dry yeast
* 1 cup warm water
* 1/4 cup melted shortening
* 6 cups bread flour
* 1 teaspoon salt

I mixed all the ingredients together, then let it slowly rise for a day in the refrigerator. It nearly doubled in size. I pulled it out and rolled it into a sheet between 1/4" and 3/8" thick. Using a glass (I don't have a round cookie cutter) I cut out muffins then placed them on a cornmeal-sprinkled cookie sheet to warm and rise for an hour. They had risen to about double their height. I misted them with water before placing them on a hot griddle. They cooked for about 5-7 minutes per side.



The dough was stiffer than I would like and they didn't have quite as much flavor as I wanted, but are the closest I've made so far. For the next batch, I plan to replace the active dry yeast with sour dough starter and give it longer rise time. I think will help with both problems I had this time.

Breakfast "Snausage"

My friend Aimee sent me this recipe for vegan sausage. It took me too long to get around to making it, but we had people over for brunch this morning and I decided now was the time to try it out. None of our brunch guests were vegan, but they all enjoyed this. Once you have all the spices out, it's pretty easy to throw this together.

1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp crushed sage
2 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp celery seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
2 pinches cayenne
1 Tbsp milled flaxseed
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/4 cup oat or wheat bran
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos


In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the quinoa and water, let
boil for 10 minutes. Grind nutritional yeast through flaxseed in a spice
grinder. Combine spice mix with flour and oats, add to quinoa and stir.
Combine water and liquid aminos. Add liquid mixture to quinoa mixture
and mix well. Form mixture into 2" balls and flatten slightly into
patties. Fry with a little oil until brown, about 3 minutes per side.

Whole Wheat Hearth Bread

After getting the French Country bread recipe working well, I wanted to try something new. Instead of increasing the non-white flours slowly, I just eliminated the white bread flour completely. The dough was wetter than other breads I've made recently, but I think the wetness added to the oven spring.

Mix:

503g Whole wheat flour
30g Oat flakes
126g Rye flour
14g Salt
29g Sugar
450g Water

Let stand 20 minutes. Add:

7g Yeast
310g Levain
29g Vegetable oil

I ran out of time to bake this so I put it in the refrigerator while we went to a movie, then let it sit on the counter over night. In the morning, it had risen by about 50%. It had various size bubbles in the dough and was still wetter than I'm used to working. I formed it into a boule and let it rise again in a metal bowl lined with a well floured cloth napkin. About four hours later, I baked it at 450F for 40 minutes with a cup of ice added for steam at the start.

The crumb is a little tighter than usual, but it's still airy and I think smaller bubbles are to be expected with a whole wheat bread. Overall, I think it turned out well. This bread may become a regular, especially in colder months.

Pain de Campagne (French Country loaf)

This has become my "go to" bread recipe recently. The first few loaves did not come out well. I let the bread rise for the amount of time the recipes suggested, but didn't really pay much attention to the temperature in the kitchen. As a results, the bread never rose enough. Once I started letting the dough rise for a longer period, the results were much improved. This improvement came as an accident (we went to a friend's house and stayed longer than expected), but has now become a regular part of the 36 hour cycle of making this bread. Yes, 36 hours is a long time to make a loaf of bread, but very little of that time are you actually doing anything.

Bring starter out of refrigerator and make levain by adding:
135g Flour
175g Water

Let stand for 8-12 hours. Then mix:

250g water (room temp or slightly warmer)
440g Bread flour
30g Whole wheat flour
30g Rye flour

Let stand 20 minute to hydrate the flour. Then add:

310g Levain (sour dough starter)
2g Yeast (optional; not needed but speeds up the process)
10g salt

Knead for about 10 minutes. Let stand until it double in size (between
3 and 12 hours depending on room temp). Divide and form 2 or 3 loaves.
Let rise until it grows to about 1.5 to 2 times it's size (1-8 hours).
Dock tops of loaves with a razor or other sharp knife. Bake at 450 F
for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 400 and bake for another 15-ish
minutes. When putting the loaves in the oven, throw 1/2-1 cup of ice
into the bottom of the oven (preferably into cast iron fry pan or
skillet)

English Muffins

14g Honey
14g Oil
350g Warm Soy milk
335g Bread Flour
6g Salt
10g Starter
5g Apple Cider Vinegar
2g Baking Soda
45g Water

Mix all ingredients except the baking soda and water. Let stand 10 minutes. Combine the water and soda, then mix with batter. Heat griddle to low-medium heat (2 out of 5 on my stove). While batter is rising and griddle is warming, lightly oil the inside of english muffin rings or large canning bands. Pour about 1/4 cup batter into each ring and allow about 10 minutes to cook. Flip over and allow another 10 minutes.

Well, this was my first attempt to make English muffins and the came out somewhat like I had hoped. There is still plenty of room for improvements but they seem like they will work for breakfast tomorrow.

When I sliced into the muffins, they had a tight crumb with small bubbles. I think the recipe needs to be wetter. We'll try it again soon and let it sit over night to see if that improves the texture. The flavors came out a little sweeter than I expected but tasty enough to have another.

Hippity hop race

So last weekend I was looking for a race for June (I ran in May, I just haven't written about it yet). There was a women-only run on Saturday but no other races. Luckily I found a race on Sunday. It was not a standard race. For one thing it was only one mile. For another, it was on hippity hops. If you're not familiar with hippity hops, you're not alone. I had no idea what they were, but it sounded fun. Turns it a hippity hop is like a yoga ball with a handle. You sit on it and bounce your way along the mile course. Despite how fun this sounds, it must be pointed out that this was the hardest one mile race I've ever done. It took me just under 21 minutes and I was sore for a few days afterwards. The event took place in Julia Davis park as part of a day of fun and fund raising for Girls on the Run. I read about it and saw the World's Record for a mile on hippity hop was 13 minutes. Thinking it was a good cause and that a 13 minute mile is pretty slow, I decided to try it. I showed up early and did a few practice hops before the race. It felt fine, but not like I knew what I was doing. When we lined up for the start, I sae just how small this event was. There were about 20 racers. The race started and I was out with the fast pack, but after about eight to ten bounces, the leaders were already pulling away from me. As fast as I tried to hop, there was no keeping up with them. After a quarter of a mile, I came to the first water stop and paused to let my arms relax. I had assumed that my legs would get the workout, but my arms and back did most of the work moving the hippity hop. I managed to hold on to fifth place through the first three-quarters of a mile, even when I fell off the back of the hippity hop (twice). In the last quarter of a mile, there was a slight up hill and I couldn't get the hop up it. I kept hopping up but couldn't go forward. At this point, one more person passed me and I finished in sixth place overall. Although I didn't do it, one of the racers did set a new World's Record with a time of 12:09. I felt glad to finish and later heard that about half the field dropped out. It was a ridiculous event and I was sore for three days after, but I'm looking forward to next year. My goals for that are to finish faster and maybe even try hopping before race day.

Bread experimentation

Over the past year or so, I've been getting into bread baking. We heard about the five minute artisan bread recipe on Splendid Table and decided to try it. Our first loaf came out really well. Better than we expected actually. Soon we wanted additional recipes and improved technique tips, so it was necessary to buy the book. Unfortunately, the book didn't have as many tips as I had hoped, but the internet was loaded with them.

I've found that baking bread and brewing beer were very similar, except that the turn around time on the bread is much shorter. This "rapid prototyping" meant that I could experiment with lots of variables in as short period and find what worked best for me. At first, I was baking about one loaf a week and buying bread from the store to supplement the home made stuff. Now, I'm up to about three loaves a week and sometimes more if friends request some. We haven't bought bread from the store in at least six months.

What I've found so far is the best loaves start as very wet dough. Almost too wet to work with. Also, to get improved flavor, I use about 1/3 the amount of yeast the recipe calls for. In the five minute bread book, they recommend streaming when the bread goes in by putting a cup of water in the bottom of the oven. That may work in Seattle, but in Boise, it's too dry for that method. Instead the loaf spends the first half of the bake in an inverted pot that I mist twice to keep steamy. That seems to make a big difference in the crust.

So at this point, the bread experiment is going well. It's turning out good results and I'm having fun trying new variations each time. And with that, it's time to go bake the next experiment.

2011 Resolution: Part 4 of 12 - Robie Creek

I had never run a half marathon before Robie. Last summer, Matt convinced me it would be a good idea to run Ragnar with him. I was volunteered to run the second longest set of legs at a total of about 34 miles. The first leg was 14 miles, so I technically ran the distance of a half marathon in a race once before but it wasn't really the same.

There were four of us who ran Robie "together" and by that I mean we all arrived at the start and left the party at the end at the same time. We didn't really run it together, but it was fun all the same. This year's theme (there is always a theme at Robie) was pirates. Mel had the best/only traditionally pirate outfit of our group. Dom had a shirt proclaiming her status as a 14th generation pirate, complete with her great-great-great...grandfather's pirate flag. Matt decided to take the debate of Pirates vs Ninjas to the race and dressed as a barefooted ninja. Unfortunately for him, they regraded the road with extra gravel since we did our practice run. That slowed him down a bit which was thankful for since it meant I could keep up with him. I decided that maybe they didn't mean pirates of the high seas but rather pirates of the interwebs so I attached a floppy disk to my shirt and wrote "You wouldn't steal a car" on it. Not many people got the reference but that made it funnier in my mind.

The race started with some bad Jimmy Buffet covers and a little swash-buckling community theater. After the first half mile, the course takes you past a fire house and all the helpful firemen were out front offering bacon and donuts to anyone running, but with 12.6 miles and a nasty hill still to go, there were few that were interested. As we left town, we climbed through some neighborhoods in the foothills. At about mile 2, there was a slight downhill and since I was wearing shoes, I was able to get ahead of Matt. After that, it was just a quick 11 miles to the finish. The only real drawback about this run was the weather. I was expecting cold and rainy so when it turned out to be warm and sunny, I wasn't prepared, and I have a nice tan line across my forehead to prove it.

In the end, we all had good runs. I finished in 1:52 and Matt was five minutes behind me. It turns out that despite finishing about 50th in my age group, I still finished in the top 10% of runners overall. That seems to be where I've finished every race so far this year. I'll have to work on getting to the top 5% soon. Considering the winner finished in 1:18 (about the time I crested the hill at mile 9), I still have plenty of room to improve. But the race felt good and there was enough beer at the finish to make up for the last race. I'm already looking forward to next year and figuring out an even more obscure costume idea.

2011 Resolution: Part 3 of 12 - Les Bois 10k

I'm falling a little behind on these, but the running is still going well. In March, we ran the Les Bois 10k race from Fort Boise up into the foothills and back. It was the largest race so far with over 200 people running. As the weather gets warmer, more runners are participating, but I guess that is to be expected. It was still a little cold that morning and started to rain half way though, but all the runners seemed to be having a good time. On the way out, we kept climbing hills which didn't feel as good as I had hoped. It had been too wet to run on the trails recently and road running just doesn't prepare you for hills. For the 3 miles of hill climbing in this race, that wasn't too big of a problem, but it signaled that we should train on more hill before Robie next month.

The race went well and I kept a good pace throughout. On the downhill section a few high school kids passed me as they tore down the trail with no fear of knee or ankle problems. I remember those days. At the finish, they had the usual array of fruit and breakfast baked goods. I half jokingly asked what was vegan and to my delight, they had vegan muffins (also gluten free muffins, but I was less interested in those). I tried one and went back to tell Dom about them to try to help her finish strong, but she thought I was lying to get her to run faster. As it turned out, the muffins were so good, I didn't see the beer sitting on the ground under the muffin table. Oh well, I guess not every race this year is going to end with a cheap beer at the finish line.

2011 Resolutions: Part 2 of 12

Life had been busy recently, but it's March and I've already done three races. The second race of the year was exceptionally informal. It was the Boise Hashers "Men R Pigs" run. Special recognition had to go to the guy who ran all 4.4 mile with the better part of a pound of cooked bacon pinned to his shirt. By the end, it all looked pretty gross. There were about 80 people in the races so it was a very nice size.

We started in a park on the green belt near the foothills so I assumed we do mostly trail running so I wore my Vibrums. Turns out, that was a flawed assumption. The entire race was on roads. Running barefoot on roads is hard on your calves even if the Vibrums protect the bottom of your feet. Hills also makes the calves work harder so this course of all roads and mostly hills killed my calves. I kept telling myself that if I got to the top of the main hill (which never seemed to end), then my calves could rest. I had forgotten that when running barefoot, downhill is just as hard as up and maybe worse.

At the top of the hill, I was in sixth place, but people with padding in their shoes went much faster on the downhill. I kept pushing to keep up with them and managed to finish eighth overall. A respectable finish, I thought. The downside was that it hurt to walk for most of the next week. Oops.

As with all hash events, there was beer at the finish. This was the second race of the year and the second to end with cheap, bad beer. The first race was Michalob Ultra and this one was MGD. We'll see how well that tradition continues going forward.

My phone battery is almost dead so the third race will have to wait for another time.

New phone

A few weeks ago,i got a new phone. It's an android from htc and I've been having too much fun with it. As a result I've been ignoring the computer and therefore not written for a while. When I realized this today, the first thought I had was, "I wonder if there's an app for adding blog posts." Of course there is. I've now installed it and have fewer excuse not to post. Well that's really all I have to say about it so far, now to do the final test on the app by posting this.

Train from Shrewsbury

When we were moving from Cardiff to Ironbridge, we spent a weekend visiting the town. On the train back to Cardiff, the train goes through Shrewsbury. There is a nice wine shop in Shrewsbury that does tastings on Sundays and as we pulled up to the platform, it was obvious that several people wait to get on had been there. As the doors opened, four guys in various states of inebriation boarded the train. They were all laughing about some inside joke and looking over their shoulders. As they took their seats, the doors began to close and someone casually made his way out of the shop and onto the platform. It quickly became obvious that he was part of this group. He spotted his friends dumbfounded that they were on the train and he was not. As we pulled away, one of them got a call from him. Turns out it wasn't as funny leaving him behind since he was the designated drive and the only one with keys. Oops.

After about 20-30 minutes, we came to their stop and for the first time since they got on, they were quiet. Granted they were still chuckling but clearly trying hard to keep the volume down. Three of them rose to get off the train. The fourth had fallen asleep on the train. As the other three got off, someone woke the remaining man who jumped and raced off the train just before the doors closed. As the train continued on to Cardiff, I started wondering how many people they started the day with. We had only seen them for half an hour - they seemed like they had been going most of the day - and had almost lost two members of their party.

After moving to Ironbridge, we did stop by and visit the wine shop. It's a nice place right on the high street and if you get the chance, well worth a visit. Ours wasn't as much fun as their visit. We made it home with all the people who started in our group.

2011 Resolution: Part 1 of 12

I've never really been into New Year's Resolution. In fact, I can't remember ever creating one except perhaps for an assignment in elementary school and this year isn't all that different. Late last year, I realized that I run significantly more (and more regularly) when I have a race I'm preparing for so I thought I should try to register for more races. I started looking at the online race calendars and noticed that most months had at least one interesting or fun sounding race. Maybe I should run a race every month.

I had this idea in late November or early December, but no one asked me about it then so I kept it to myself. Of course everyone has to ask about Resolutions around the first of the year so instead of my regular answer of, "I figure you can change anytime you want and there's no significance to the New Year, so I didn't make any," I decided to tell a few people about running these races. Well, turns out that Dom thought this sounded good and now we're both doing it.

Attempt 1: I decided the best way to start in on this pseudo-Resolution was with an early race and there was one New Year's Day. I hadn't trained for it which sort of defeated the whole point but I had been running and I was going to do it. Checked the web the night before for start time (noon), ate an early breakfast, put on my running shoes and went out in the 8 degree weather for a "fun run." Unfortunately, when I got there, they were taking everything down. Turns out the site I looked at was wrong and the race started at 10. Oops, not a great start to the running year. Oh well, there was one more race in January.

Attempt 2: The only other race in the area in January was the Freezeout Hill Challenge last weekend. We both got up and drove out to Emmett in the freezing fog that morning, got a little lost, but eventually found the race. It was a small group, only about 100 runners between two distances. We both ran the longer race which was supposed to be 6.5 miles but they said was more like 6.6 or 6.7. The toughest part was the middle which was about 1.5 miles of continuous hill climb followed by another 1.5 miles back down. By then we were all warm, but you wouldn't have known it by looking at the runners, everyone had moisture from the fog frozen in the tips of their hair which looked pretty cool in the finisher photos.

Anyway, Dom and I both did well. We each took third in our age divisions and I was 11th overall. The best part of the race was the snacks at the finish. They had vegan chili. (And it was intentionally vegan rather than vegetarian that happened to also be vegan). I don't remember the last race I was at that had vegan snacks at the end other than fruit and on a cold day like that, chili always tastes good.

So the first race of the year is done. It went well and we're already looking at others. Since then, we registered for the Dirty Dash in August. It's a 10k mud run and obstacle course. We also talked about running the Napa Valley Ragnar this year as a team of 12. And maybe even the Rock'n'Roll Marathon in Savannah, GA. We'll see what the rest of the year brings but hopefully there will be more races like the second one to help keep my first "almost Resolution".

Directions, who needs 'em?

This weekend we went snowshoeing. It was the same place we went two weeks before when the family was in town for a visit, but this time we decided to make it a little more interesting. I'm not sure if you know this but snowshoe and cross-country ski trails are rated with the same system as downhill skiing. When the family was here, we went on the trails that were rated green and blue (easy to moderate), but when it was just us and the dog, we decided that the trails were too crowded. Of course we didn't see anyone on the trails while we were out there but we knew other people had been there recently and therefore, they were too crowded. Instead, we decided to explore on our own and let the trails behind.

When we started out, we weren't too far away from the trail, but were able to get into the deeper snow and just explore. This is the thing I like best about the winter equivalent of hiking, there's no need to stay on trail. After about twenty minutes, we stumbled back on to the trail and followed it for a while to let the dog catch his breath. We then noticed on the map that we could cut through a short section and get into a new area with a different trail to take us back to the parking lot.

We started off trail by going down a slight dip, then it became less slight. Soon, it was steep enough that the snowshoes could ski down the hill a little. We were realizing that we were well beyond the greens and blues by now. As this section bottomed out and we started to go up the other side of the ravine, I was convinced we would be able to see the other trails from the top. This turned out not to be the case, but we were still confident we knew where we were going so proceeded down the other side.

Turns out that this side of the hill was even steeper. Trying to get a footing in the steep snow, I fell over with almost every step. The quick off-trail route was starting to seem like a bad idea and I wondered if maybe we should have looked at a topo map before attempting it, but how would that have been fun? I was starting to remember a few years back when I was working in Roanoke for a week. My friend Brett decided to drive up from Georgia to meet me. Neither of us had cell phones. I told him I was installing an exhibition in the mall and that was all the direction he had to start his eight hour drive. Someone asked how he planned to find me and he just told them that he knew I was in a mall in Roanoke. To the two of us, it seemed like that was more than enough information, but apparently to some people, that isn't even a start. Well turns out there are (or were) two malls in Roanoke and he found me at the second one, but he found me all the same.

We eventually made it to the bottom of the hill, found the trail and ended up exactly where we had been aiming. It may have been the second valley rather than the first one we went down, but that just added to the adventure. I should probably stick with the trails a little more or find out more about the terrain before diving into the woods, but that just wouldn't be as interesting.

Ice Skating

The move from Florida to Ohio when I was nine brought a lot of changes. New school, new house, new friends and certainly new weather. I had rarely seen snow and never been on a frozen lake. That first winter, the pond down the street from our house froze and the whole family got ice skates. We learned the basics on that pond but also went to some of the hiking trails we walked the previous summer. The lakes near them were frozen as well and we would do similar loop trails on the ice. It was a very fun experience, but I rarely think back to it these days. It came up today as I walked into a co-workers office and noticed people in the distance gliding around. It's been below freezing in Boise for a few weeks now and although the ponds don't look it, some have frozen enough to skate on. There were two guys with skates and hockey stick slapping a puck around just outside my office window. It looked like fun. This weekend I might just have to look for a new pair of skates.

Power of Play

I heard that the Idaho History Museum had an exhibition all about toys from around the world and decided to check it out this First Thursday. They had several interesting examples of toys and a few that you could play with. I was pleased to see that interactive element in the exhibition, but there seemed to be more text panels talking about the toys than actual toys on display.

The one display case that stood out to me was the case with cars. These cars had been built out of whatever material was around at the time. The one in the middle of the picture had an old shoe as a chassis. These cars reminded me of many of the inventions kids came up with while I was running Kids Invent. They were built with the creative problem solving and innovation we are desperate for students these days to learn, but this sort of activity rarely happens in classrooms.

I enjoyed the toys that were on display at IHM and was very pleased to see that they weren't all in glass cases. I hope that the students who visit this exhibition are inspired to go home, pull out random "junk" and see what kinds of toys they can create.