Hot dog (hamburger) buns

For the 4th of July, we decided to do the ultra-traditional hamburgers and hot dogs. I decided I’d like to try my hand at making hot dog buns. I had previously made some burger buns from a random recipe I found online. I didn’t realize that you can use the same formula for both hot dog and hamburger buns. This time I found another recipe on a random blog. For the most part I followed the recipe that was laid out (since this was my first time making it). I amended it due to the fact that I don’t have a stand mixer and therefore have to do all my mixing/kneading by hand. The recipe called for letting the dough rest in the fridge for up to 24 hours so I made up the dough the night before July 4th.

Ingredients:

500g All purpose flour
½ cup warm milk
¾ cup warm water
2 tsp yeast
1½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp butter (can use butter as well)
extra oil to oil the bowl
1 egg for the egg-wash

First I mixed up the flour, yeast, salt and sugar. Continue reading “Hot dog (hamburger) buns” →

Birthday run

I woke up early on a Sunday morning to get a run in before it became too warm. Somewhere along the way I went from sleeping in really late (especially in college) to waking up early without any alarm. Nowadays I wake up automatically around 5:30 am on workdays and between 6 and 7 am on weekends. For my birthday I knew that I wanted to get an outside run and for that I had to get up early. I have been mostly logging treadmill miles because of the heat wave that has been plaguing Sacramento.

Once outside I came across a momma turkey and two poults (young baby turkeys).

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Continue reading “Birthday run” →

Kyoto Day 2-4 (Japan 2017)

We awoke on our first full day in Kyoto with some big plans. There were quite a few locations we wanted to tick off our boxes in Kyoto and we only had so many days to see them. We decided to head over to the Imperial Palace as it was supposed to be prime sakura (cherry blossom) viewing. There is a web site that lists the various locales within Kyoto and the status of the cherry blossoms in that location – ranging from peak viewing to not blossomed. The Imperial Palace was a short subway ride and walk from our AirBnB.

The Imperial Palace actually sits in the middle of a very large park. Upon first entering the park, you could see that others had the same idea of checking out the cherry blossoms. With it still being mid-morning, the lighting was actually quite good for picture-taking and so we did like the other tourists and posted in and around the trees. We didn’t actually go to the front of the Palace and elected to check out the Shirakumo Shrine, which is located towards the south-eastern portion of the park.

Continue reading “Kyoto Day 2-4 (Japan 2017)” →

Happy Global Running Day!

I remember when they called it National Running day. While it was a work day, and a long one at that, I still wanted to get in at least a few miles. Getting some In N Out for dinner helped spur me to get off my butt and run. I wound up getting 3 miles on the treadmill. It was also a good night since the Warriors beat the Cavs in Game 3 of the Finals.

I’ve not been doing a ton of running since the Big Sur Marathon. I’ve still had weird foot pain/soreness after I run. Sometimes it is sore even after just a long day on my feet. I’m just too stubborn to call a doc and schedule to be seen. Ah well, we’ll see how it goes.

Here’s a pic of me from the Austin Half Marathon many moons ago.

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-StewsCat

Tokyo last day and Day 1 Kyoto (Japan 2017)

I lost my original post for these days. Oh well, I’ll just re-start it and not try to re-create the old one that I had made.

So it was our last day in Tokyo and at the awesome Park Hyatt. Before leaving Tokyo I wanted to try to get at least one run in while in Japan. I decided to head up to the fitness center in the Park Hyatt. This is located up on the 47th floor. If you’ve seen the movie Lost in Translation, there is a scene where the main characters are swimming in this pool. I didn’t get any pictures because you’re not supposed to take pictures in the gym area. To actually get up to the fitness center you have to go through their spa (and actually tell them you’re a guest to get up there). They have a row of treadmills that face outward towards their floor-to-ceiling windows. You have this great overlook of the city and being so high up you get a bird’s eye view. It was a nice way to wake up for the day.

After sadly leaving the wonderful confines of the Park Hyatt, we made our way back to Tokyo Station by way of Shinjuku station for the ride over to Kyoto. Prior to taking the bullet train (Shinkansen), we needed some lunch. Within the underground mall area of Tokyo Station is Ramen Street. This was our first experience with ordering from a vending machine. So you walk up to a vending machine and can choose the type of Ramen you want (as well as any extras such as extra noodle, meat, other things), put money in the machine and then it spits out a ticket. You give the ticket to the attendant and wait in the line outside the restaurant. Once there is an open seat, they take you to it and then your food shows up. This place also had a paper bib for you to wear in case of splatter from the ramen. It was very tasty.