I’m currently waiting on Crystal’s secret recipe for her Double Chocolate Quick Bread that she made for our snowshoeing trip in Rocky Mountain National Park a few weeks ago. I planned to post that this week because I have amazing photos of that delicious bread. Until then, I have a contribution from our friends Dan and Adam, on feeding while kayak camping.
Author: Emily
Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
We had a housewarming party for our new house in Redlands this weekend. It’s been a full month of living on a construction site, and the party was the motivating factor for completing something. The boys got one floor sanded and sealed, and it’s so beautiful that they are willing to do the rest. We also finished painting most of the walls and trim downstairs- a project that took about three more coats than normal homes, but was also well worth the effort.
Grilled Beer Sausage
We’re all moving! Well, except Aimee, who’s moved twelve times in the last twelve years and needs a break. But Mai-yan and me and boyfriends/fiances are all moved out and in brand new homes. We are also both dealing with our new homes basically being construction sites currently, which is fun, but a lot of work! Mai-yan has been building a new deck, and I have been painting, starting a new giant garden, and getting ready for a week of sanding a whole house worth of floors. Soon, we’ll each have a few pieces of furniture, maybe at least a bed (we hope). Anyway, all this moving works up an appetite!
Grilled Bananas Foster
So the month of January is over, which is typically a month dedicated to goals. If you’re like most people, your resolutions fell by the wayside a while back. Do you feel like your goal was a good one? Was it geared towards making you happier? Are you gonna stick with it? I’ve been struggling with this stuff for a while. I don’t normally make goals. Sure, I want to be able to climb harder and stress less and save more money and eat less meat. But making a goal to run a marathon or something doesn’t motivate me. I’ll easily drop my challenge on a lazy day with the excuse that no one else cares what I do.
Continue reading “Grilled Bananas Foster”
Picnic Pressed Sandwiches
I have been living in Las Vegas for the past month, temporarily. Its a weird place, I know, but the greatest thing about it is that a lot of people like to visit. There is also plenty of controversy around the idea of stalking friends on Facebook, but that’s how I’ve found out many of our friends were coming to visit me. To think that if I hadn’t been stalking my friends on Facebook and instead was productive, I would have had to work all day today instead of climbing with my good friends from college!
Orange Tofu Stir Fry
Everyone’s sick! This was the craziest beginning of a New Year in a while! Aimee had to rush off to Arizona to take care of her mother-in-law who had open heart surgery. Thankfully, after a rough week, she’s doing much better. Mai-yan and I both got stuck with typical winter illnesses. I found out that one of my best friends is in the hospital sick this week as well and the list goes on.
Mushroom Soup
Mai-yan has been great about going to Joshua Tree National Park all summer to climb. I don’t really know how they did it without dying in the desert, but they did it. I was jealous every time, but couldn’t convince myself to fight that heat. I wasn’t even going to go this weekend, due to an invite to Santa Barbara wine country. The hotel we were going to stay at caught on fire, though, so I was left planless. I made Mai-yan pick me up in their red VW van, and went out to trad climb for the first time in years. Continue reading “Mushroom Soup”
Caramel Apple Dip
Aimee came over to my house to work a few weeks ago. We were sitting around the table avoiding real work talk, and started reminiscing about our childhood as cousins. She said the main thing she remembered about my mom when we were kids was that my mom used to always have caramel apple dip around. This was very true. It was the store-bought kind, and with Fall on our minds, we took off to the store to buy some. When we got home, it was just as delicious as we remembered, but we looked at the ingredients, and pretty much the only ingredient in there was high-fructose corn syrup. I decided that day to learn to make my own.
Quick Backpacking Breakfast Ideas
We received a reader question last week that we wanted to answer thoroughly for anyone else out being adventurous while there’s still some warmth to enjoy.
Here is the question:
Dirty Gourmet,
We need help with breakfast for hiking 14ers. We usually camp out at the trailhead the night before and get up at 4am to avoid afternoon storms. We never feel like cooking or eating that early so we end up having a crappy breakfast and regret it later. Any ideas for a fast, easy breakfast with lots of carbs and protein? Even something you prepare ahead of time at home and bring with us would work.
Thanks,
Anne
We totally know the feeling of not being quite ready to eat, definitely not willing to cook, but still realizing we’ll pass out in an hour if we don’t shove something into our faces. This is true whether you are hiking up a 14,000 foot mountain or just going to work.
Spiced Tomato Potato Salad
I always hated cooking. My mom would try to convince me that it was something I wanted to learn, and she would do this by comparing it to sewing. She compared everything to sewing, which I thought was funny, since I didn’t want to learn to sew either. I avoided cooking almost totally until college when I actually had to fend for myself. Then I discovered The Food Network. I would watch Rachael Ray every afternoon when I got home from class. She would give me a fast easy recipe that I could handle, and I’d walk to the grocery store behind my apartment to get my daily ingredients. I would never stray from the exact recipe. I thought I’d never be able to. I thought that was something only “real” cooks could do.