New products, cold runs…and homemade cheese balls!

After getting back from Vegas on (yet another) redeye and going straight to work, I was exhausted come Thursday evening and Friday.  Which might explain why I managed now almost three straight days of falling asleep early, and sleeping really long…like, 2PM on Saturday long.  But, to my body – that’s only 8AM Auckland time!

2PM is also a great time to take photos of products with natural light, so both The Girl and I have been knocking out product shots given the massive influx of new items to review.  Here’s a quick sneak peak:

(A&D ANT+ Blood Pressure Monitor, 4iiii’s Heads Up Display System, Outside Interactive Treadmill Running Simulator Videos, Recon Instruments Mode Live GPS Ski Goggles, Garmin FR910XT Quick Release Kit and extender/fabric straps)

I’m particularly proud of The Girl’s discovery on how to photograph the inside of the Recon Instruments LCD screen – which is super easy/clear to see with your naked eye, but it’s really tough from a camera perspective.  More once we finalize this technique a bit more.

But, before we knew it we had to stop and run downtown to go see this years Warren Miller ski movie.  As longtime readers know, I’ve long since seen the Warren Miller movies – even as a kid.  I was bummed that due to my travel schedule this fall, I missed the local showings in November/December – but thankfully they added a last minute one here this weekend in DC.  Score!

The show was great, definitely better than some of the more recent years.  Felt like they seemed to get the content back to where it used to be – good stuff.  Makes me want to go skiing!  Thankfully…next weekend. :)  Or…actually, the weekend after.  Either way, soon!

Before I knew it, it was late Saturday night – and my desire to run in the cold and dark DC wind was fairly limited.  So I jumped on the trainer instead.  This would be my first ride on the CycleOps PowerBeam Pro – and so far I’m pretty happy with it.  They sent me out a unit in late November to try, in conjunction with their upcoming computerized training software. 

While the software won’t be out till next fall, it has given me a chance to play with with the Joule 3.0 (the larger one) – which works incredibly well with its ability to control the unit (increase wirelessly the resistance).  Thus far, I’m happy in the fact that it ‘just works’ – and I was able to quickly get on, start my ride, and not have to deal with any impediments.

More over the coming weeks on the trainer, then, the LeMond Fitness Revolution trainer.

Finally onto Sunday.  This brought a cold and windy 11-mile run.  Albeit, not quite as bad as it would have been on Saturday night – it still wasn’t the warm tropical waters and coconut trees of Bora Bora.

And the pace was good, in the mid-7’s.  Still a bit of fatigue to overcome, but that should happen in the coming days and weeks.

But finally – the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Cheese balls.

For Christmas my sister-in-law (yes, it’s weird saying that) gave me this totally awesome cheese making kit.  As regular readers know – I love fresh mozzarella cheese!  And if I can perfect making it at home, then it’ll go great with the fresh pasta I always make.

Now, I’ll be doing a follow-up post on this once I perfect it – but I figured I’d give you a preview.  The whole process took about 45 minutes.  The box says 30 minutes, and I’m reasonably sure I can get it that faster once I get the hang of it.

You’re supposed to be fairly choosey when it comes to the milk.  They recommend local over non-local, and trying to get regular pasteurized over ultra-pasteurized.  I ended up having to buy it in glass jars, but it was nice and local!

In the end, I got three cheese balls of varying sizes from 1 gallon of milk – which is crazy!  Everything else is included in the kit.

And, here is my final product!

It was ‘good’, but I still need to work on the creaminess angle.  I think I may have over-worked it – oddly enough, in my quest to not overheat it.  I believe had I heated it more initially, I would have been able to work it less by avoiding repeated trips to the hot water.  Any folks that have tips here I’d love to hear them!  Especially for example, where to buy Water Buffalo Milk for Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella.

And yes, that’s one of my most treasured new books above – Mozza – a book completely and totally dedicated to the consumption of fresh Mozzarella.  I bought it back in November, and have been carefully charting my journey through it. You just wait, creations abound!

With that, ready for another busy week ahead!  Thanks for reading all!

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