It was not the day I was expecting, but still quite nice:)
Reading:
I wasn’t expecting to, but have spent much of the day reading Longbourne by Jo Baker. I think I’ll be done by tomorrow. It is a great read so far. I’m loving the different perspective on the characters from Pride and Prejudice!
Exercise:
I usually get up and run first thing Saturday morning, but there was a skiff of snow and it was pouring so I delayed. I was feeling quite guilty by 11am when I was still in my jammies. I did get out for a run at lunchtime when the sun came out for a bit. A beautiful run was spoiled by Runkeeper malfunctioning again. It kept losing the GPS signal and said I was doing a kilometre in 2:44, yeah right! I ended up deleting the run when I got back and just manually entered the distance. Thankfully I had done my usual park run!
The funniest thing about this run was when this song about the constitution came on. Obviously Spotify is celebrating President’s Day. I’m Canadian, I don’t need to hear this!
My Polar Loop activity tracker forced me out on a walk this afternoon. It was enjoyable until I got my phone out to take a photo to share with you all and my phone died. I had to walk home with no music:(. It was funny though to see a guy in a tux out walking a dog. My mind immediately questioned whether he had taken the dog to the wedding with him or rushed home between the ceremony and reception? He definitely lent some class to the inlet trail 🤣. I was hoping to run across him, but we walked parallel the whole time.
I also got a Lyndsay workout done this evening. It was an integrated abs workout and it almost killed me! A warm up, two sets of twelve exercises with each performed for 50 seconds, then a cardio blast of five exercises for 30 seconds, repeated twice and finally an overload of eight exercises performed for 30 seconds each. Amazingly with all of this, my activity timer still says I haven’t made my goal. Maybe it has to fit tight to my wrist to work properly?
Cooking:
I had asked for a fish tacos recipe and Regina Mary came through with one for me. Of course, being me, I messed up and only printed the first page, the ingredients so I somewhat had to make it up as I went along, but it was yummy and had a kick to it:) In fact it was so yummy that there is no pictorial evidence as I had eaten all before I thought to take a picture🤣
Knitting:
I have only managed two more rows on my sweater today and I ended up having to redo one of them. I’m a little disappointed to see that the bottom edge rolls because it’s just stockinette stitch. I checked and there doesn’t seem to be an edging applied to this area:( Hmmm maybe tomorrow I’ll do more.
Baking:
The only other thing I have accomplished today, well other than laundry, is baking. I’m participating in the Fantastic Bake Along again this month which had perfect timing as bookclub is tomorrow!Tracy at It’s a T Sweets Day hosts the bake along and this morning she wrote about her best brownie recipe. I immediately hauled out all my cookbooks and started looking for a chocolate recipe I wanted to make. I don’t really like chocolate so I don’t have a go-to recipe. I unfortunately got super overwhelmed and couldn’t decide on anything:(. I asked Tracy and she said it was okay for me to make her brownie recipe and just alter it to be gluten free and dairy free, so that’s what I did:)
Tyler Brownies (gf/df version)
1 cup Earth Balance vegan butter spread
2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
5 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
1/4 cup mullet flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup oat flour
1 tsp xantham gum
I used my kitchenaid mixer and combined everything together. I lined my very old 8×8 pan with parchment paper and spread the batter evenly. It looked light brown just as Tracy said it should. I ended up cooking my brownies at 350 for 48 minutes and I think they still needed longer:(. They are very fudgy:(. Hopefully the women at book club will like them. They do taste good!They just didn’t hold together that well for me.
Unfortunately I’m on my phone so I can’t provide links to all the other amazing bloggers who participate in the Fantastic Bake Along (if there’s a way, please let me know), but please go to Tracy’s post and check them all out!!!
I also ended up baking up the rest of the cookie dough I had bought last week.
Finally I took some of the brownie parts that had crumbled and have made them into cake pops, but I haven’t quite finished so I’ll have to share them tomorrow.
Well I’m back to Longbourne now!
Have fun!
AJ