Homemade Clif Bars (Round 2)

Week 20 is finally here. In 6 days, what I've been training, spending most of my money and thinking of for the past 19 weeks will be taking place. The Rohto Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (Honu). I'm pretty excited to be doing it but at the same time feeling really stressed/nervous about the whole ordeal. I know I should view this as practice for next years race (Achilles tendon issue set me way back on my running ability) and try to relax and have fun. Oh, if you're wondering, my AT is feeling a lot better. Decided to give acupuncture a shot and it seemed to make it feel better. Will write about that experience later. 

On with the Clif bars. I have to be honest. I love Clif Bars. When it's on sale I buy a lot. Let's put it this way, last time I bought, the cashier said "you must really love Clif Bars". However, sales on Clif Bars are not to frequent and buying them on regular price ain't cheap. Being the cheap but thrifty triathlete. I figured some cute food blogger in Foodbloggerland has probably attempted making a knock off of the bars. After a quick search on Foodgawker I found this recipe by Camilla @ Enlightened Cooking and decided to give it a shot. 

Homemade Cliff Bars

1. 1 1/4c crushed crispy rice cereal (ex. Rice Krispies or something similar)

2. 1c finely chopped uncooked quick-cooking oats 

3. 2T ground flaxseed 

4. 1/4 finely chopped dried fruit

5. 1/4 finely chopped nuts

6. 1/2c brown rice cereal

7. 1/3c nut butter (I used natural peanut butter not Skippies or Jiff)

8. 1t vanilla extract (fake is fine)

Using a non-stick spray or wax paper, cover the bottom of a 8in square pan. Set aside. 

In a large bowl, combine 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Mix it up.

In a microwave safe dish, combine 6 and 7. Start off with 30sec on high heat, take out, stir well, nuke another 30 sec, stir, nuke 30sec more.Add in vanilla. Basically, you want to get it to bubble to ensure a good stick when mixing it with the dry. 

 

Pour mixture over dry mixture and stir with a wooden spoon till coated. Caution, mixture may still be hot so let it cool till you can work with it. Mix with your hands to get everything incorporated with each other. 

Place mixture in 8in pan and press down to cover the bottom of the pan. Place a sheet of wax paper on top of the mixture, using something flat and hard, give the mixture a good press down. Chill for 30 min or more. Once chilled, cut into bars and wrap tightly. 

*Reason for round 2 is that the first attempt didn't really come out. It was too dry and crumbled once you tried to eat one. For round 2, I crushed the crisp rice cereal and pulsed the oats in a food processor. I also added more BRS and less PB (round 1 was way too peanut buttery for me). I think that tweaking it this way allowed it to stick together better. 

I won't lie, I did the math, it would be cheaper to buy the original bars since the ingredients isn't too cheap. However, if you do make it again, I think you make out cost wise in the long run.

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Honolulu Triathlon 2011 Recap

I have to admit, I'm still new to this blogging thing so I tend to forget things essential to blogging. A camera. So this weekend was the 8th annual Honolulu Triathlon International Festival of Sports. It's a pretty big event with the Olympic and sprint distance triathlons, junior, youth and kids triathlons, sprint duathlon, open water swim, and a road race all on one day. I give them credit for holding such a huge event with races all going on at  the same time.

So Saturday was packet pick up, body marking and bike drop off. This day before stuff is really nice since it reduces lines and makes race morning smoother, however since it's such a big ass race, the longs were quite long in my section. This year they decided to do the body marking before the race. I'm used to having the number written on me and getting high off the fumes. I lucked out, this year they had legit number stamps instead of pens. If you just so happen to stumble on my blog, I hurt my Achilles tendon a few months ago and had to changed 2/3 races over to relay events with me swimming and biking while having another run. This worked out at the Lanikai triathlon since it was a little on the smaller scale side. I was still able to change it over but talk about confusion on their end. I guess people don't really do two people teams that often or at all since they seemed a little lost on what I was talking about despite the approval from the race director. After I got that sorted out, I still had a feeling that they weren't sure on what to do.

On race days, I get up a few hours before start time to give myself time to eat, use the bathroom, stretch and check my bags to make sure I have everything and head out early. One of my things is arriving early on race day. By arriving early, it gives me time to set up my transition area, check the bike, use the bathroom, and try to relax.

Time for the race report. Since I was doing a relay, we had to start dead last for the swim. Luckily I found another relay swimmer who was pretty decent so I decided to draft off of her for the first 500m but that was when things got interesting. We hit the mass of slow swimmers. From this point on, most of my time was spent avoiding the breaststroke kicks, sidestroke kicks and trying not to run any slow swimmers over. Not fun. It was like swimming at a crowed public pool. Somehow I managed to do the 1500 in 23 min. Not my best time but can't help it. On to the bike section. The game plan was to sandbag the ride for 13 miles and slowly pick it up to mile 18 and pound it for the till the finish.The plan worked out perfectly, allowing me to have energy to fight the head wind and pound it back for a 1:08.

I don't know the exact times for what we did, the times were taken from my watch and meter on the bike. Apparently the timing chip didn't work for the swim part, somehow worked for the bike and run. Remember I said I had that feeling like they didn't know what they were doing? Well I guess my gut was right, they messed up on the category we were in, thus making us not exist on the results posted online today. Oh well. We still had fun doing it. On another note, 2 more weeks till the Honu. I know I must have said this a million times but I pretty excited to do it! Can't wait! 

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Rainy Friday

Sadly I have no reviews or recipes to share with you today. With all the crappy weather, I've been feeling lazy and unmotivated to do anything else besides train. However, one I do have a random post to share. So one day while listing to random tracks on 8tracks.com, this particular song caught my ear. You and Me by Penny and the Quarters. 

 

Wondering what else they had I decided to look them up. Apparently the group "Penny and the Quarters" was a vocal group from the 1970's. Their song, "You and Me" never got released but out somehow made it to a move soundtrack.The sad thing is, no one can remember who the members of the group. More on this can be read here.

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K-Swiss Blade Light Run

After a long wait, I finally received my K-Swiss Blade Light Runs (BLR) in the mail the other day. My first thought after picking up was "Wow, these look better in person than online". 

My current shoe is the K-Swiss K-Ona C, however they are pretty hard to find in my area. If you're wondering what the "C" stands for, I was told that it stands for "Cushion" while the "S" stands for "Stability" for the other model. Like the K-Ona, the BLR provides good ventilation and has holes on the bottom for water drainage.

Looking from the bottom

Insole removed

Unlike the K-Ona, the BLR comes with loops on the back and on the tongue. This allows for easier adjustment in T2. 

So far I have only worn these around the house so far. Hopefully the weather holds up so I can finally take these out on a short jog.

On another note, 4 more weeks till the Honu.

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Vanilla Bean Brownie Ice Cream

What a way to start a week. Thunder and lightning, torrential downpours, flooding and waterspouts! Yesterday after coming home from work I decided to do some light jogging at the park. I looking forward since injuring my Achilles almost 3 months ago. Well, after jogging for about 10 seconds, it started to storm. So much for running and I minus well cross off swimming too. But wait! I live in town, Ala Moana beach park only a few miles away. After swimming the full 2K, I noticed a lot of people looking out towards sea, apparently two waterspouts were forming right off shore. I've only seen these on T.V and never in person so it was pretty cool seeing it so close. Despite the close waterspouts, thunder and lighting in the back of me, all I could think of was "I wish I had a waterproof cam, no ones going to believe that it was so close". 

For all of you who don't know me, I frequent Goodwill pretty often in search of random things. Sometimes you score and sometimes you don't. This particular visit I found a mint condition Cuisinart Ice Cream maker. 

On with the recipe. 

Vanilla Bean Brownie Ice Cream via bakedbree

Ingredients:

3/4c sugar

2T corn starch

pinch of salt

1C whole milk

2C heavy cream

1 egg yolk

1 vanilla bean caviar

brownies, copped into small pieces

Steps:

In a pot, whisk together sugar, corn starch and salt. Slowly whisk in milk and cream.

Heat over medium to medium high heat till mixture thickens. 

In another bowl, whisk egg yolk and vanilla bean caviar. Once caviar has been taken out from bean, place bean in milk mixture.

Once the mixture has thickened, slowly add 1/2c of it to the egg mixture and whisk.You do not want the yolk to scramble. Gradually add the rest of the mixture. 

Place a plastic wrap on the surface of the mixture (you want to prevent a skin from forming) and place in the fridge overnight. 

Once cooled, pour mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the directions that came with your maker.

As for the brownies add accordingly to your makers instructions.

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Fried Polenta

According to the weather man, we were supposed to have some rainy weather this past weekend. I was definitely not looking forward to riding on the trainer for 3.5hrs. I don't really remember what I did on Saturday besides cooking and it was a decent day. So much for rain. For all of you that don't live on Oahu, biking here sucks. You have bike lanes that disappear, bike lane signs but no bike lane and drivers that just don't give a shit if you're on the road. You'd imagine, a place where the weather is great most of the time would be great for biking. No, not in Hawaii. We're probably one of the most unfriendly biker states in the nation. Anyways, got up at 4:30am, ate, prepped bottles and got gear together. As I was packing the bike up it started to pour. Great. 3.5hrs with wet roads. Luckily, the rain decided to stay in the valley and not come down to the ocean. So where does one ride for 3.5 hours? I started off at Kapiolani park and headed out to Waimanalo, did a few laps in the farm lots, back to Hawaii Kai, back to Diamond Head, thru Kahala, back out to Hawaii Kai and finally back to Kapiolani park. Non stop. I forgot the total mileage but it was around 60 something. Let me tell you this, it's a lot to think about. Oh yeah, Cobb V-Flow plus is AWESOME. I dunno if I could last with the Selle. 

Anyways, on with the cooking. I was having this craving for something fried and it being the end of the month, I can't go out and splurge on any fried fatty goodness. The Slumlords demand rent. I really was craving food from Home but guess that will have to wait till after June. I remember reading something about frying polenta and how good it was. I decided to give it a shot. 

Fried Polenta

Ingridents

1c polenta

2c water

Directions

Boil 2c water in pot, once boiling, add in polenta and stir till thick. Once thick, pour into a baking dish, flatten and place in fridge for 2 hours or until cold. Once it's cold, cut polenta into strips for frying. Heat pan with oil, fry polenta till golden brown on all sides. Let cool on wire rack. Season with salt and pepper.

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