Pedal power

At the end of May I conquered a half marathon. That deserves it's own post, but alas, the husband has all the sweaty pictures on his camera.

After running 179 miles in 4.5 months, I was toast. My hips were shot, my feet were aching, and I was tired of strapping on my spandex to prance around town.

Enter...my new bike! I loved being so active for so many months- just needed a change of pace and something a little more forgiving to my pore battered joints. My husband and in-laws went in together to get me this kick ass Trek. It's a hybrid commuter bike- not trail ready but definitely prepared to deal with the pothole-a-rific urban terrain of our town.


Mine's the blue one. It's for women. You can tell this because it's decorated in swirly text and curlicues. No, I'm not kidding.


We took the scenic route to the Cape Cod canal. Saw a gaggle (family) o' geese crossing a rotary- people actually stopped to let them cross! Wonders never cease.

We stopped in Plymouth and had steamers + salad (me) + clam chowder (Nick) at The Lobster Hut. Slurpy goodness.

We parked at Scusset Beach and took off. I decided to master the art of taking pictures while riding. First shot- not so good.

Ahh, much better. Side note- we are sans helmet because this is a dedicated bike/walk/job/rollerblade path. Normally Sarah Seatbelts always wears a helmet, but sometimes she throws caution to the wind. And by sometimes, I mean only when there are no cars around.

View of the trail.

Bridge.

Blurry backwards shot of Nick. We were probably fake racing each other.



Seagull mural! Not a huge fan of seagulls (one ate my Kraft American cheese single when I was 5 at Mustang Beach in Corpus Christi, TX- bastard!), but I dig the themed decorations on the trail.


RV park along the trail- we did some trailer scoping. There are some pretty sweet rigs out there.

Sometimes you need a little help- tow boat to the rescue!

Nick said this is a railroad bridge. The bridge part lowers down when a train comes by so it can pass the canal. The wonders of architecture!


At the end of trail, you can get off and explore Buzzards Bay.



I spotted this shop from across the parking lot. I have a sixth sense for frozen dairy.

I had a small cone of Coffee Heath frozen yogurt. Wish I could say it tasted like coffee. It really just tasted brown. Nick had some unpictured but awesome mocha peanut butter ice cream. I snagged a bite or two.

We even stumbled upon an SEIU family fun day for home health workers and met a vice president for SEIU who works with the same health care system as I do. Small world!


Antiques, anyone?

After our snack stop, we pedaled back toward the car. The entire trail is about 8 miles, end to end. I didn't want to stop (biking is SO much more than running!!) so we went all the way to the beach.



Two thumbs up for biking!

Up next- Gilligan gets a puppy trailer (no, I'm not kidding. It's ordered and coming this week!!). The ultimate head out of the window experience for the world's silliest labradoodle coming soon to a blog near you!

Cucumber sandwiches for commoners

Flashback! Real high tea spread from Harrods- February 2009.

Pinkies up, husband!



We had a tea party at work on Friday to celebrate the royal wedding- it was SO much fun! We have a stash of real china tea cups and pots from when the nuns ran the college. Apparently tea was important because there is a closet in the board room with at least 100 different cups.

Everyone contributed a little something. One of my staff members brought in her great aunt's silver tea service, the associate registrar brought in decorations (we had a wall of Big Ben and Double Decker bus cut outs), the director of admissions bought some whipped cream fruit turnovers (yum!), and others brought biscuits and digestives.

We also played musical trivia and I won a pair of socks that say England on them! Awesome. Better than the woman who won the already burned candle. HA!

I decided to get real serious about this tea party business and made cucumber sandwiches. Survey says?

Strangely delicious! I'm telling you- they are tasty! The husband snatched at least 3. Fresh and crunchy- these are easy tea party fare.


Start by slicing up an English cucumber. Those are the seedless ones wrapped up in plastic. Slice them pretty thin- tea sandwiches are supposed to be dainty.

Buy some good quality white bread. In hindsight I should have gotten a regular loaf. My sandwiches were a bit...oblong...due to the homestyle loaf. Cut off the crusts, obviously.

This is how thick the bread slices are pre-rolling.

This takes the tea sandwiches to a more authentic place, but I guess you could skip this step (if you're a cheater). Bust out the rolling pin and roll those slices until they are good and mashed down. The thinner the better. I would have rolled a bit more but the bread started to tear.

Slather on some cream cheese. Use the full fat kind. These sandwiches are so smaller they are practically calorie-free. Bonus!? The cream cheese seals the bread and keeps the sandwiches from getting soggy. I made these the night before and they were still good to go the next day at noon.

Layer on some cucumber slices.

Top with the other slice of cream cheesed bread. Mash it down with your hand.

Slice.

Stack.

From this angle, you can see why I call these cucumber sandwiches for commoners. I was a little too lazy to really get after those crusts. Plus, the bread was oval shaped and I would have lost a lot to make prettier treats.

They must have tasted pretty good, though. Came home with a clean plate!

Strawberry Shortcake Trifle

I first created this lovely dessert last June. My mother in law always requests strawberry shortcake as her birthday dessert. I volunteered to make it, but much to my chagrin (though not my surprise- these are tricky!) my biscuits didn't rise.

Rather than toss the bunch and start over, I tore them into pieces, threw them in a bowl and layered in sugared strawberries and homemade whipped cream. And so, the strawberry shortcake trifle was born.

I volunteered to bring a dessert for Easter and immediately thought of this. Plus I said I'd make it for Nick's aunt for her birthday...in February. Well, better late than never.

If you wanted to make this easy-peasy, you could get yourself those biscuits in a can. Grands Flaky Layers is my canned biscuit of choice- how much do you love banging that can on the counter? Don't lie!

I decided to go all fancypants and make my biscuits from scratch. I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe which is in her PHENOMENAL cookbook. It's so good, in fact, I won't share it. Nope. You'll just have to your own copy here.

I did take pictures of the process, so please enjoy. Don't drool on your keyboards.


Standard biscuit procedure here. Use a pastry cutter to cut in some butter and shortening (for shame! I know, but I swear it made a difference.)

Throw in some buttermilk and stir 'til raggedy.

Dump it out on a floured surface and roll to your desired thickness. Mine were kind of a mishmash since I knew I was going to rip them all up anyways.


Check out those flaky layers, y'all. I knew these bad boys were gonna rise before they even hit the heat.

Gather up the scraps and repeat the above steps.


Oh.
My.

God.

Good lord these were good. Good enough to eat a "test" biscuit. Had to make sure it was...flaky enough. It was.

Wash off some berries. I used 4 pounds.

Glamour shot!

Dish lady diva approves of the sugared berries- I added 1/2 cup.

Stir it up and let it hang for 10-15 minutes- you want those juices flowing.

Line up your dishes and sprinkle some biscuit in each. If I had a trifle dish, I would have used that.

Instead, I thought, "Single serve! Too cute!"

Ha. It was cute until they clanged to holy hell on the drive over. Potholes + wine glasses = stress.

Easter miracle!? None of them broke.

Top the biscuit layer with some berries. Add a dollop of whipped cream. Repeat as desired.

I got 12 servings + a large mason jar out of 1 biscuit recipe + 4 pounds of strawberries + 2 1/2 containers of Cool Whip...

I seriously contemplated not coming clean about the Cool Whip. It's not even dairy!! But y'all deserve the truth and the truth is the two stores I went to were OUT of heavy whipping cream.

Cross my heart, hope to die.



Assembly instructions:

Cook up some biscuits- I used one recipe of the Pioneer Woman's buttermilk biscuit. YUM.

Tear them up into bite sized pieces.

Wash and slice up 4 pounds of strawberries. Add 1/2 cup sugar and stir 'til all berries are equally coated.

Whip up your cream or buy the frozen stuff. Add some vanilla or sugar if you like things extra sweet.

In a trifle dish, or if you're not traveling by car, in a wine glass, layer the biscuit first, berry second, and whipped cream. Repeat as many times as you want.

Garnish with half a berry if you're feeling cutesy.

Eat. And share. If you want to.