Nothing is more American than an Apple pie and a smile

So a couple of weeks ago I was teaching some outdoor cooking classes at SMU for adult boy scout leaders.  One class was "outdoor cooking A to Z" and the other class was "Dutch Oven cooking."  I had my good friend Russ help me out with these classes since I had 45 people signed up, and having that much food, fire, and hands in the kitchen needs lots of assistants.  My friend Russ is a little different than everyone else in the fact that he prefers apple pie over cobbler when camping. Since he was helping me I thought I would make sure we had ingredients for an apple pie.

Look at this amazing golden brown crust on this pie.  The great thing about making an apple pie in a class environment is that it shows the students how easy it was to make a great pie from simple ingredients.  My favorite is to show kids how to make an apple pie and they are just amazed that it has so few ingredients but tastes so good.

Here are the gooey good insides.  I bought one 3.5lbs bag of delicious red apples for 1.59, one five pound bag of sugar (The sugar was also for other items and I took half the bag home) for 1.79, cinnamon spice from my house, and a ready made pie crust for 2.19, and finally a little butter which was .69 cents for a tub.  Bake until the crust turns golden and call it good.  Make this with any novice kid and they will be amazed what they can do with a little sugar and spice.  I remember one boy came back from a campout and ran to his dad and let him know that the gooey insides of an apple pie is just regular sugar.

Now you can make a fancier pie and also get fancier with the crust but for those out there that want to start simple and work you way up the cooking ladder this is a great first step.  Plus you don't need a recipe just eye ball everything.  With diabetes you can easily replace the sugar with splenda and use a low carb crust or replace the crust with some sort of oatmeal mixture.  We had seven dutch ovens cooking at one time.  That was alot of fun.

Sole Pleasers

 

 Today I have another diabetic sock review that I received from socks 4 life  This time it is the brand "Sole Pleasers."  I ordered a three pack of brown socks that I call a casual weekend style of sock.  These socks are 80% cotton and 20% Nylon.  The description on the socks4life website about the Sole Pleasers: "you are sure to have great moisture absorption as well as friction reduction to prevent further irritation."  They also say they are "UPS" color friendly for all you package carriers.

 

These Sole Pleasers are alot better than the Soc Doc tube socks I reviewed yesterday.  Now I am more partial to a casual sock than a tube sock so that does play into this as well.  These socks were not quitters like the Soc Doc's and they felt more even on the leg and had a softer toe.   The only downside to the Sole Pleasers is they did feel a little thin on the material.  So I would give the Soc Doc the point for their thickness and they also felt all around of higher quality material (which makes it even more weird that they were quitters on me).  Overall these Sole Pleaser socks are fantastic and on my patented diabetes syringe scale I would give them 3 syringes on the scale of one to five syringes for their use of nylon to create a wicking sock and for their even feel on the leg and also how comfortable and soft the material felt on my toes.  The downside is I am not sure how long they will last (when they do wear out I will post about it).

Let me do a little disclaimer about  socks 4 life , they do not pay me for these reviews or any advertisements I post about their website.  They were willing to put their diabetes socks to my tests even though they do not have a camping or hiking sock they wanted me to try out their product. These are great people that truly try to have the best sock at the best price and they run all sorts of great discounts all the time.  I would recommend for any of you diabetics out there, or any body for that matter to register on their website.  They even overlap their sales with discounts on their productrs, plus you can get an email with another discount code to get them even cheaper and last if you buy a certain dollar amount they discount them all again.  I call that a win-win-win situation and in the world of diabetes we can never have too many of those.

Score-O

 This past weekend was "Score-O" out in Bridgeport Texas.  I love this event so much.  Now I never really do very well but, the enjoyment of teaching others how to navigate with a map and compass in a game environment teaches so much in 4 hours than I could teach in a week.  Above you can see this years map.  Your team gets a map 30 minutes before the competition begins and it has around 75 points on it worth various amounts from 5 points to 50 points for the single hardest point to get.  The event starts at 1pm and ends at 5pm and everyone gets the same map with the same points on it.  The start and finish line are the same place.  So the competition part is how well you plan out your route stamping your map with the punchers that are located at the way points.

 The legend on the map is amazing.  The people that put this event on each year really make a safe and fun event that I feel comfortable having any age scout wandering the forest or lack of forest rolling around in the cactus and getting chased by the free range cows.  They mark every deer stand and rock cluster in the area.

With diabetes and orienteering, I make sure to eat a large breakfast and we had some killer breakfast burritos with sausage and egg and hash browns on the side.  Lots of carbs for about 6 miles of hiking.  I turned my basal rate down a bit much and my BG's were a little high in the 2:30pm time frame so I bolused and turned off my temp basal rate.  The day was warm as well so bringing a water bottle is essential and planning your route around the water buffalos helps keep you hydrated.  A personal first aid kit, pocket knife, and the propper clothes ensures a successful time. 

If you are an outdoors type of person and also like the thrill of competition.  Then lets say you are not a fast runner, swimmer, or can hit a softball propperly.  Then you should consider taking a look at orienteering.  This is a low cost, high thought processing, and active sport that is so overlooked by many people.  Just put ther city you reside in and the word "orienteering" in a google or bing search and you will come across events and clubs in your area.

http://orienteeringusa.org/

http://ntoa.com/index.htm