Cardamom Coffee Cake

Cardamom Coffee Cake:

A Near-Perfect Post-Saturday Run Snack!

Coffee cake…it was always a treat in our household. My Mom only made it on special occasions, but when she did, it seemed like it was always gone in a flash! Over the past few months, every now and again I’d all of a sudden crave coffee cake. Fortunately, it takes time to bake, so I never actually followed through with my cravings and let it go… [Read More]

National Sticky Bun Day

Happy National Sticky Bun Day

Brought to you by El Bolillo Bakery; Houston, TX

I’ve recently started following Punchbowl on twitter (my handle is activelifecook fwiw) which tells me all of the odd days that are out there. Well, today was a reason to celebrate…it’s National Sticky Bun Day (2/20/10)! I woke up early this morning, 6:30am to be exact, to surprise my husband with breakfast before he had to go into work. El Bolillo fit the bill… [Read More]

Training Update – Week 20

Week 20: Ramping it up…

Plus Realizing Why Mom Never Let us eat Cookies for Dinner…

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So, we are starting to get into the home stretch for this season’s training season. We are also in the thick of the Holiday Season, which means lots of obligations outside of training. Christmas parties, shopping, and work obligations seem to take over and come into conflict with our training schedule. However, it seems like we are still managing to get everything taken care of, even when everything seems to be going wrong… [Read More]

Training Update – Week 15

Another Week, Another Step Closer…

Plus a Recipe for Whole Wheat Soft Pretzels!

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Yet again I must apologize for the tardy post this week. We finally had our long-awaited long weekend in San Antonio and I wanted to be disconnected from the intertubes (well except for my iphone…must be able to find good food ;-) ). Well, we had a successful weekend (more on that next update) and came back nice and well-rested to face the small stretch until we reach Thanksgiving! [Read More]

Training Update – Week 10

Breaking Records and Feeling Sore!

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It’s been an interesting and tiring week in our household…our schedule pretty much has been: work, run, eat, sleep, repeat! The run part has finally started taking a bit more of a toll on my body, as has allergy season, which has hit me with full impact. We also were breaking records, both Mark and I ran the Susan Komen Race for the Cure on Saturday and broke our 5k race records (Mark by over 3 minutes)! All of these factors put together has yielded a very run down Stef…but not run down enough to keep me from baking for my Monday Bake Sale! This week I was feeling like I was missing home and all that is fall…so…I decided to use apples as the central theme for this week’s bake sale (apple cinnamon cookies shown above)! [Read More]

Training Update – Week 5

Bring on the “Hills” (and the Baked Goods)!

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This week started our second month of training and with that came our second third track practice where we were charged with a new challenge…hills! Everything else has been pretty quiet…we were unable to climb this week due to the pickup of our old fridge to be delivered to my parents in Pennsylvania (took forever). We’ve been really busy with training and work, so we actually had a whole 2 day period where our television wasn’t turned on at all (it’s normally on for only ~30 min/day right now…will change with the advent of College Football season). Fundraising has gone well this week, with the theme being contrast…Deborah Madison’s Banana Oat Muffins (diabetic-friendly) and Honey Whole Wheat Poundcake with Blueberry and Lemon Icing (shown above).  [Read More]

Training Update – Week One

One Week Down…Many More to Come!

Okay…going to multi-task with this post. Planning to give everyone a quick update on my training and give out my “famous” whole wheat brownie recipe!

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[Read More]

Healthy Ice Cream Sandwich

A Truly Simple and Satisfying Treat for a Hot Summer Day

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We’ve officially entered the dog days of summer in Houston…nearly a continuous week of 90+ temperatures (most over 95F), no rain, and no relief from the heat in the short-term forecast. I normally don’t like ice cream, but today was a day that I just really needed something to cool myself down after our evening walk (that may be going away soon…too hot…). I had inspiration from the whole wheat sugar cookies I found at the Wheat Council website. Boy am I glad I found that base cookie recipe…so versatile and it will be making many repeat appearances on my blog in various forms… [Read More]

Raspberry “Mousse”

Fake Mousse is Better than No Mousse at All…

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I must admit, this is not one of my tastiest or most creative recipes…but it gets the job done on cooling you down on a hot summer day! Last week we had a lot of raspberries around, as they were on sale at the grocery store and couldn’t pass up a deal when we’re pinching pennies…Thus the raspberry “mousse” was born… [Read More]

Berry and Dark Chocolate “Parfait”

Summertime in the City!

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Okay…sorry for being MIA for such a long time, life has been crazy…First off, it’s official, we’re buying a house! Second, we had a house guest for over a week that required a lot of extra time from us…Third, training has taken a lot of my time, preparing for a number of races in the coming weeks. However, the biggest time drain is the house purchase…

So…we are very excited to get out and do (free) activities around town this summer! This dessert was a result of one of those activities. Yummy, cheap, and oh so satisfying on a hot summer evening! [Read More]