Gingerbread Cookies

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Always a favorite this time of year! You can use store bought cookie icing or if you're looking for something to make your homemade icing harden for better stacking, try meringue powder (found at a specialty baking store).

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
1 tbsp vinegar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl beat shortening with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in molasses, egg, and vinegar until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in remaining flour. Divide dough in half. Cover and chill dough about 3 hours or until easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a cookie sheet. On a lightly floured surface, roll half of the dough at a time until 1/8 inch thick. Using a 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter, cut into desired shapes. Place 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheet.

Bake for 5 to 6 minutes or until edges are light brown. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. If desired, decorate cookies with icing.

Nanaimo Bars

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Nanaimo Bars are a Canadian holiday tradition. The recipe originates in my home province of British Columbia in none other than the town of Nanaimo. Though there is some debate about when the actual recipe was created, the 1st printed copy that has been officially confirmed and now resides in the Nanaimo museum is from the early 1950s. This recipe is in fact listed on the City of Nanaimo's website and it is ABSOLUTELY delicious.

If you've never had a Nanaimo bar before, you need to fix that, preferably right now.

INGREDIENTS
Bottom Layer
½ cup unsalted butter (European style cultured)
¼ cup sugar
5 tbsp. cocoa
1 egg beaten
1 ¼ cups graham wafer crumbs
½ c. finely chopped almonds
1 cup coconut

Second Layer
½ cup unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. and 2 Tsp. cream
2 Tbsp. vanilla custard powder (I used vanilla pudding/pie mix)
2 cups icing sugar

Third Layer
4 squares semi-sweet chocolate (1 oz. each)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

DIRECTIONS
Bottom Layer
Melt the butter, sugar, and cocoa in top of double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan.

Second Layer
Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer.

Third Layer
Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator.

Serve chilled.

Making a list and checking it twice!

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It feels pretty relaxing to be prepping for ONLY a 5k race and not a half or full marathon. Don't get me wrong 5k is still a good distance for a race and if you pick the right pace it can be challenging but as I mentioned yesterday, I'm working on getting back to running for the sake of running. Last year I ran the Santa Shuffle and my husband & son did the 1k Elf walk!

Why am I the only one smiling? I promise I didn't force them to come...

It is an untimed race. There was a clock which Cody was watching as I crossed the finish line but I didn't take a picture of it nor did I had I purchased my Garmin yet. All of which is unfortunate because it was my first sub-30 minute 5k race and I have no record of it! This year I have no time goal, just to go have some fun with some other runners!

And I won't be running in the Santa hat again, holy hot batman.

I'm also raising money on behalf of the Salvation Army for this race, so if you'd like to make a donation you can do so here. I know that particularly at this time of year, there are lots of opportunities to give but if you could donate anything, even $5, I'd really appreciate it.

I've also organized a Secret Santa gift exchange with some of my fellow running buddies taking part in the race, so I'm really looking forward to that. I've selected a few of my favorite items for my Secret Santa!

There are some other fun things happening this weekend that I will share with all of you very soon! What are your plans for this weekend?

Cinnamon & Sugar Shortbread Cookies

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Shortbread cookies are a holiday baking tradition in my house. Several batches are made during the month of December. This year, I decided I needed a new recipe. I've been making the same cookies for 7 years, and they are good, but I wanted to do better. I created my own recipe based on a combination of a few different ones.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups of flour
3/4 teaspoon of salt
1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, room temperature
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment. Whisk together flour and salt. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add confectioner's sugar, and continue to beat until pale and fluffy, occasionally scraping down the sides of bowl, about 2 minutes more. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture, and mix on low speed, scraping sides if necessary, until flour is just incorporated and dough sticks together when squeezed with fingers.

Turn out dough, forming into 2 disks; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

In the meantime, mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll out 1 disk to a 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out shapes using desired cookie cutter, and transfer to prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle with a spoon the cinnamon and sugar mixture on top of the cookies. Reroll scraps. Repeat with remaining disk. Refrigerate until firm, 15-30 minutes. Bake until firm and golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

 

The best thing about shortbread, is that it lasts forever in an airtight container, well that is if they don't all get eaten. I've heard they can last up to a month, but mine are always long gone before then.

 

Race Review: 5 Peaks Ugly Sweater Run

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A while ago, Solana posted that she was organizing a 5 Peaks Ugly Sweater Run! It was a trail run, approximately a 4.5km loop which you could run as little or as many times as you wanted. I was more than ready to be done marathon training but a 5km fun run sounded right up my alley so on Saturday I headed up to the North Shore for some Christmas ugliness in the trails!

Another gal from Maple Ridge was also going so we decided to carpool. After a stop at Starbucks with all of my Christmas ugliness mostly concealed under baggy sweatpants and a rain coat, we began our drive at around 7:00AM. Thankfully, it took us no time at all to get up there. We couldn't stay long because Jacki had to be back home for the rest of the morning and I had to catch up on some school work this weekend... I spent too much time during the week christmasifying my house and Black Friday shopping for gifts that I fell a little bit behind on everything else.

I think we got there much earlier than most, just before 8:00AM. We promptly received our souvenir Santa hat and candy cane and decided to make our way outside to get things underway. It was drizzling but not pouring rain yet. We headed off down a forest road assuming we would head into a trail eventually. Well, apparently we are not very observant because we missed a marker and thankfully someone was coming out of the trail and yelled at us to turn around. It was marked pretty well, we were just too busy chatting.


Photo courtesy of Rob Shaer

Once we got into the trails, I was immediately reminded why I don't do very much trail running. Although, I'll admit it is so beautiful running through the trees, I have a hard time navigating all of the rocks, slippery logs, and mud puddles. I'm clumsy even on the road so I'm pretty much just asking for trouble when there's actual obstacles. None the less, on we went. After missing that marker we were much more observant for the rest of the run and had very little trouble spotting which way to go.

We walked whenever we hit bridges or logs because they were quite slippery and neither of us wanted to leave with an injury. It wasn't until we were on our way back that we spotted the rest of the runners heading into the forest. It was fun to check out people's outfits as they went by! It had started to rain more at this point, and my cotton sweater was definitely getting heavier.


Photo courtesy of Rob Shaer

We returned to the start in about 44 minutes, definitely no record time for a 4.5k run, but like I said, it was a "fun run", I'm learning to like that phrase a lot more haha. For every loop you did you got to roll a big die and if you rolled a 5, you got to select a prize from a HUGE table of prizes! When we returned pretty soaked after the 1st loop and looked at the time, we decided that was enough for today. So I was really hoping, I'd roll a 5 and get a prize, and what do you know? I totally did!

Mountain Equipment Co-Op Hydration pack!

There was also a baking competition:

I did not get myself organized enough to bring something unfortunately. I know, I know... my blog has the word "bake" in the title, you think I'd do something but alas, life got in the way. Secretly, I'm kind of glad I didn't because these looked a lot better than anything I've made before, hah!

I would definitely do this race again next year. I'd love to bring Griffin too, was so pleased to see lots of kids came out. Hopefully it will be an annual event.

Race Review Summary

Package Pickup/Expo: N/A. You just come wearing your ugly sweater and you're in!

Price/Value: $20 for adults $10 for kids. I'll admit that I was originally a little miffed about the $20 for just a fun run... but since I didn't know much about what was going to happen, it was a premature judgement and it definitely wasn't JUST a fun run.

Upon giving it more thought, if you're going to do several loops, that totally makes sense. Running an event for 4+ hours is a lot of work. Also, the prizes were amazing and your chances of winning were really high, it sounds like most people left with something. So I'd say it was definitely worth it, especially if you were going to spend your whole morning there, which unfortunately we couldn't. Also, we got photographed by the amazing Rob Shaer, I'd pay $20 just for those photos. My original thoughts about the price turned out to be completely unjustified for a well organized GREAT VALUE fun run.

Note: Because I know someone will  point it out... The other 5k fun run I'm doing this upcoming weekend is $30, it didn't bother me because it is for charity. Somehow I totally missed that they were collecting warm clothing for the homeless at this run, so my bad.

Aid Stations: There is no aid station on course per say... But since it is a loop course, you can get water or blueberry juice, or even a baked good in between each loop (every 4.5k)!

Course Difficulty: Pretty simple, I imagine especially so if you're an avid trail runner. There wasn't very much elevation change and if there was I didn't notice.

Medals: There are none, but you get a souvenir Santa hat. I'd pay more if there was an "Ugly Sweater" medal because that would just be bananas!

Solana did an amazing job. I was really impressed with the event and wish I could have stayed all afternoon with all those crazy fun trail runners! Trail runners are cool people for sure, almost cool enough to convince me I should be a trail runner... Thanks to Jacki for the ride and the conversation :)

Perhaps #17 was just 1 too many for 2013...

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This past Sunday I was all set to do the Try Events Vancouver Historic Half Marathon... rewind back to last Thursday and this happened:

Sick toddlers are no fun at all, and what's worse is that they are germ incubators and they touch EVERYTHING. It was pretty much inevitable that I would be next in line for the dreaded flu but after the previous week and being sick at Disney Wine & Dine, I was in denial. Come Saturday, with a horrible sore throat, sneezes, and even some tummy trouble thrown in, I still believed that come Sunday morning, I would magically feel ready to run. I was drinking lots of tea and hoping for the best.

Maybe if I hoped hard enough, I would wake up looking like my coffee mug!
 

The 1st time Nyquil made it into my pre-race checklist.

Not surprisingly, Sunday morning came very early at 5:45AM with a still-sick toddler and I decided that enough was enough. As sad as I was that I was done running half marathons for the year, it felt like it was time. I've run 16 half marathons this year, 1 full marathon, and few other races too. I feel like I've accomplished what I set out to do at the beginning of the year. I ran, I changed the way I look at running by running 100's and 100's of kilometres.

 

Sunday morning was a beautiful morning here and I spent it with my family. Griffin and I were even up early enough to catch the sunrise in our pajamas...

This time of year is pretty wonderful after all. I've spent the beginning of this week recovering from the dreaded sickness and decorating the house for the holidays. So even though I felt pretty down about missing the race on Sunday, I feel better now. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is the best thing to do.

Griffin is feeling better now too :)

Have you ever had to miss a race because of being sick?