Almond Flour Bread

This loaf of bread cost me about $9 or so. I had thought it was a lot more, but thankfully I’m math challenged and I got the figure wrong. $9 sounds better than $13. Using almond flour instead of regular cheapo flour=expensive!

I did however, find a good source for almond flour in the Nutty Guys, so it won’t be as over-the-moon pricey next time I bake it. It’s much cheaper at this website and nicely, they charge only $10 for shipping, whether you buy just one 1 pound bag or 10 one pound bags.

I blogged about my Dry Curd Cottage Cheese-or Farmers Cheese making experience yesterday over on my OTHER blog: Three Blackbirds. There are pictures, ya’ll! So now I’m totally in the game. The recipes I’m making for the Specific Carb Diet all seem to require almond flour and Farmers Cheese and I was having a tough time finding either. Now I can get creative and have some fun cooking!

It’s funny that the almond bread has no actual “flour” in it. It’s basically: almonds, eggs and farmers cheese plus a bit of baking soda and salt. That’s it. So even though I’m eating a bread, it’s a complex carb. Gotta love that!

I’m doing well with my excercise. Doing well in that I’m not “cheating” and going back out into the desert for multiple walks because I said I’m going to stop being so driven. I did 3 miles yesterday, LIKE I PROMISED I WOULD, even though I wanted to do more. I was still wiped out from my pathetic couple of sick days, so I took it easy. I walked 5 and then ran 1 minute for three repeats. Then I did the last large chunk by running 1 minute/walking 1 at a slow, easy pace, finishing with 5 minutes of running and then 5 minutes to cool down. The point is….see how MODERATE I’m being? Stupid moderation.

A couple of hours later it was still so sunny out and I said, hang this, I’m going out for a walk, but then I remembered my dumb commitment to take it down a notch this week, so I turned around and came back home after one block. YES, I was totally going to break my promise. But I didn’t. Uhem.

I hoped on my bike and did almost 4 miles instead and it was fabulous! What a super invention the bike is. Half the time you’re not pedaling at all, you’re just coasting down hills, and other half it’s tough, but then you can shift to the little gears. It’s still hard and it hurts my quads. It burns. In not a good way. But overall, I was out in the sunshine and feeling the wind and loving every second of it. And afterward, I was not exhausted like I’ve been for months from doing hours of walking! I even had the extra energy to hook the two crazy dogs up and take them for a walk. They were smiling, I swear.

So now I think this is all very cool. I’m enjoying multiple thingsSo throughout the day and none of it is wiping me out. So-Bingo! I think I’ve found a perfect solution.

My new “master plan” is to take my bike out on the sand/dirt roads I run on and see how that works. Half of the roads are totally drivable and half have sand 3-6″ that’s pretty hard to run through, let alone drive a little 1″ wide wheel through. That’s some bike tumbling action there.

I imagine I’ll end up jumping-or falling off and pushing the bike through some big patches. BTW you haven’t lived until you’ve ridden along a dirt road and then hit a deep sandy patch. The road practically grabs your bike by it’s wobbly wheels and then throws you to the ground. It’s heart-stopping fun, I’ll tell you what. But still, I’m going to give it a go on Friday.

There’s a nice paved trail out by the string of volcanoes about 2 miles from the house as well. I’m going to throw my bike in the back of the truck and take it out there on Saturday. (It’s so much funner to plan excursions now instead of what I used to do all day long, every day: plan out my next elaborate meal.)

In my wildest dreams, for my whole adult life, I’ve always wanted to ride a bike all over the place. When I was a teenager I practically lived on my bike in NJ. Boy did I take that bike places! (Not bad places. What are you thinking? OK, maybe SOME bad places.) I completely gave up on my biking dreams when we moved to WA state when I was 18. When it’s sunny in Washington state, it’s wonderful biking weather but when it’s not…like a LOT of the time, biking sucks. The bike wheel throws up the cold rain water on your cold, wet butt, the whole time you’re riding. That’s not for me. But here in New Mexico? It’s PERFECT to bike here.

Already this morning, I woke up thinking, it’s beautiful out, and I can take my bike out for a couple of miles anytime I want-even a few times if I want. That will get me out there where it’s pretty so I can shake off the cobwebs without wearing myself out. Now, if my butt would just stop hurting, I’d be totally in business.