Today is National Celiac Awareness Day, so let's all be aware of Celiac Disease. If you're pooping your brains out, you may want to consider going to the doctor and get tested. It's also good to be aware that some people can't eat gluten, so don't be a dick about it. :) Meanwhile, go check out my LAST blog article and COMMENT. Thanks!
P.F. Changs has some recipes for us gluten-free Chinese food eaters. Happy day to us! Check them out here: http://www.pfchangs.com/chefscorner/
Monday, September 13, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Boulder Wildfire
Please note, I have no new news regarding the wildfire. If you reached this page via google, this is simply my personal account of an event taking place in my town. I feel awful for the people directly affected by the wildfire, am thankful for all of the firemen and other people keeping us safe, and wish I could do something to help.
Last Saturday, Labor Day weekend, six of us and one dog headed to Rainbow Lakes in the Indian Peaks to go backpacking for one night. We packed up our gear and despite the last-minuteness of the trip, the only thing I forgot was a raincoat. We arrived at the trail head around 1:00 in the afternoon and hiked in along an easy trail with several beautiful lakes. Our organizer had gotten our permit as well as directions on where to stay that night, so we went off trail with a hand-held GPS, compass, and men with amazing senses of direction.
While hiking off trail we all started to realize how dry everything was. The downed trees that we climbed over just disintegrated under our feet. Pine needles were everywhere, and with the exception of a small creek, the whole place was just brutally dry. After lots of bushwhacking and climbing through boulder fields with full packs, we finally found our destination, a cute meadow with two small ponds. We set up camp, the boys fly fished for a bit in the ponds with no luck (I insist there weren't actually fish in the ponds), and eventually started dinner. We used our backpacking stoves and were careful to keep things out in the open because our permit very specifically told us not to start a campfire. There was evidence that the campers before us had not followed this rule because we found several fire pits near our camp. We enjoyed clear skies, a moonless night, and therefore, an amazing display of stars. We roped up all of our smelly food/toiletries and hung them on trees away from our camp, just in case a bear might wander by. Finally, we went to sleep. I was wearing several layers of clothing, expecting the temperature to drop, but instead, the winds picked up. I have no way of knowing how strong the winds were that night, but gusty winds inside a tent are never comfortable. Back in May we had a similar night, but in the desert of Utah. We were all thankful that at least this time, there wasn't sand falling on our faces all night. I had a hard time sleeping and woke up at one point thirsty, sweating, and concerned that I had heard an animal outside sniffing. Dave calmed me down, assured me there was no bear, and I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in the tent because of the wind.
The next day we hiked to a very high ridge right next to the Arapaho Glacier and three beautiful lakes, which are off limits due to them containing our city's water.
From this ridge, looking east, we could see the city of Boulder in the distance and the plains behind. We ate lunch and hiked down to our camp where our backpacks awaited us.
We hiked out through the dry brush again and fly fished some more at one of the more popular lakes. Somewhere along the line I must have set down Dave's trekking poles, because when I got to the end, I no longer had them with me. Oops! (First the ipod, now the trekking poles? I'm really going for girlfriend of the year here.) We enjoyed a beer (cider) at the trail head, then headed home to Boulder, exhausted from the hike and not sleeping much the night before.
Monday morning Dave and I wandered out to the garage to put our backpacking supplies away. Dave was opening the garage and looked at me and his eyes wandered to the sky. I don't remember the exact words out of his mouth, but I turned and was shocked by what I saw. Through my sunglasses was what looked like a cloud made out of the dirtiest cloud condensation nuclei known to man. I quickly realized that this was a smoke plume. It was so huge, so brown, and so close to us that I ran mountain ward for a closer look at the situation. From my view, which is quite close to the foothills/flatirons, pictured below, the fire source looked too close for comfort. (I'd later learn that my point of view distorted things and I was one canyon off when describing to Dave where it was coming from.) We learned quickly that there was a massive fire burning between Boulder Canyon, the canyon we had just taken home the night before, and Lefthand canyon, further north. It started around 10:00am that day, Labor Day. Dave is very familiar with this area due to his road biking through these canyons over the past several years and quickly explained to me what I was really looking at. The winds that had kept me awake all night on Saturday were still howling and caused the fire to spread very quickly. Of course the ample amounts of dry fuel in the area didn't hurt matters either. Thus far, there is no confirmed cause of the fire.
Monday night at 3:14AM I woke up in a panic. I had been dreaming about a fire and when I came to my senses, I quickly realized why: our entire condo was filled with the deep, dark smell of thick smoke. The smell was very intense and I was concerned that I would have breathing problems from it. Of course we both have healthy lungs/hearts, so my concerns were unfounded. I popped out of bed and began shutting all of the windows. (With no air conditioning, we learned to cool our place down nightly.) The smell was unbearable. I was able to wake up Dave (this is rare, he is such a heavy sleeper, but I think he could sense my panic) and he explained to me how to turn on the filtering settings on each of his fancy fans. I decided just to focus on the bedroom and hope that the rest of the house would slowly filter as well. I hadn't bothered to go online to see if there were new updates and just hoped that if I was going to be evacuated, that someone would knock loudly enough for me to hear them over the buzzing fans. I woke up for school the next morning to find that the fans had worked. However, the smell outside was just awful! The whole city was sitting in a brown cloud due to an inversion, which just happened to be the topic of my classes that day.
That same night, this amazing time lapse video was taken from Flagstaff Mountain, just up the road from us.
Fire from Flagstaff
Wednesday I returned from work to find it was pouring rain in Boulder and after running to the grocery store, this beautiful display of nature showed itself not briefly, but for at least a half an hour. Had the fire area received the pouring rain? Probably not as much as we got at my place, unfortunately.
Thursday I was searching for more material on the fire for teaching purposes and found that a Red Flag Warning was going into effect for the fire area and Boulder. This meant that a windstorm was on the way. Sure enough, it kicked in last night and just roared outside. Weather observations claim 30mph gusts up by me. Warnings went out to the city of Boulder: if you live west of Broadway, it's possible that you may need to evacuate, should the fire expand eastward. The city cut the grass and cleared brush as an attempt to create a barrier against the possible inferno. Now, I live south of town and knew that this didn't affect me, but nonetheless, it got me thinking, what would I do if I had minutes to evacuate in the middle of the night? I went online and found some great links with checkoff lists for fire evacuation, should you have time to prepare. A few things stuck me as good thinking: turn on your lights so firemen can see your place at night, put propane tanks in plain view away from structures, fill up pails and garbage cans with water, and have your hose out in plain view for firemen. Of course it also suggested which belongings to take with you. A few hours later they clarified the area for possible evacuation and it no longer included my place, which eased my anxiety a bit.
We woke up this morning to find that the wind storm had not caused the fire to spread and the city was safe. Winds will continue to gust today, although weaker, and winds will become northwesterly any minute, making us, for the first time since it started that I know of, downwind of the fire. Several evacuees were allowed to return to their homes this morning, but the fire still burns, only 30% contained. 169 homes destroyed, others damaged, and nearly 7,000 acres burned/burning. Included in this are a few of my colleagues/friends who were either evacuated all week or are waiting in limbo to find out if their house, right in the center of the burn area, was lost. My heart goes out to them.
The planes continue to fly overhead on their way from the airport southeast of us to the fire northwest of us to drop flame retardant on the fire. This map shows the evacuation area in red, and current fire perimeter in orange. The red spots include the reported damaged structures (burned homes, mostly). We were camping just above the word "Legend" on the left of the map. We live in the bottom right near where it says "Table Mesa" on a little orange road. The evacuation for the upper right area of this map has been lifted since it was made. The concentration of roads in the center right is the city of Boulder, the northwest portion of which was under warning for a possible evacuation last night.
Before I leave you with a few links to pictures and news on the fire, I ask you this: if you got an evacuation call (reverse 911) and had minutes to grab what you could before you drove off, with each second you take putting you further in danger, what three things would you take with you?
http://inciweb.org/incident/2119/
Live google map
http://www.dailycamera.com/fourmile-canyon-fire/
Last Saturday, Labor Day weekend, six of us and one dog headed to Rainbow Lakes in the Indian Peaks to go backpacking for one night. We packed up our gear and despite the last-minuteness of the trip, the only thing I forgot was a raincoat. We arrived at the trail head around 1:00 in the afternoon and hiked in along an easy trail with several beautiful lakes. Our organizer had gotten our permit as well as directions on where to stay that night, so we went off trail with a hand-held GPS, compass, and men with amazing senses of direction.
While hiking off trail we all started to realize how dry everything was. The downed trees that we climbed over just disintegrated under our feet. Pine needles were everywhere, and with the exception of a small creek, the whole place was just brutally dry. After lots of bushwhacking and climbing through boulder fields with full packs, we finally found our destination, a cute meadow with two small ponds. We set up camp, the boys fly fished for a bit in the ponds with no luck (I insist there weren't actually fish in the ponds), and eventually started dinner. We used our backpacking stoves and were careful to keep things out in the open because our permit very specifically told us not to start a campfire. There was evidence that the campers before us had not followed this rule because we found several fire pits near our camp. We enjoyed clear skies, a moonless night, and therefore, an amazing display of stars. We roped up all of our smelly food/toiletries and hung them on trees away from our camp, just in case a bear might wander by. Finally, we went to sleep. I was wearing several layers of clothing, expecting the temperature to drop, but instead, the winds picked up. I have no way of knowing how strong the winds were that night, but gusty winds inside a tent are never comfortable. Back in May we had a similar night, but in the desert of Utah. We were all thankful that at least this time, there wasn't sand falling on our faces all night. I had a hard time sleeping and woke up at one point thirsty, sweating, and concerned that I had heard an animal outside sniffing. Dave calmed me down, assured me there was no bear, and I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in the tent because of the wind.The next day we hiked to a very high ridge right next to the Arapaho Glacier and three beautiful lakes, which are off limits due to them containing our city's water.
 |
| Arapaho Glacier with Dave and I enduring gusty winds. |
 |
| Hiking down from the ridge. That's me in orange! The two ponds left-center are in the meadow we camped in. Looking left in the distance is the site of the Fourmile Canyon Wildfire that would start the next day. |
Monday morning Dave and I wandered out to the garage to put our backpacking supplies away. Dave was opening the garage and looked at me and his eyes wandered to the sky. I don't remember the exact words out of his mouth, but I turned and was shocked by what I saw. Through my sunglasses was what looked like a cloud made out of the dirtiest cloud condensation nuclei known to man. I quickly realized that this was a smoke plume. It was so huge, so brown, and so close to us that I ran mountain ward for a closer look at the situation. From my view, which is quite close to the foothills/flatirons, pictured below, the fire source looked too close for comfort. (I'd later learn that my point of view distorted things and I was one canyon off when describing to Dave where it was coming from.) We learned quickly that there was a massive fire burning between Boulder Canyon, the canyon we had just taken home the night before, and Lefthand canyon, further north. It started around 10:00am that day, Labor Day. Dave is very familiar with this area due to his road biking through these canyons over the past several years and quickly explained to me what I was really looking at. The winds that had kept me awake all night on Saturday were still howling and caused the fire to spread very quickly. Of course the ample amounts of dry fuel in the area didn't hurt matters either. Thus far, there is no confirmed cause of the fire.
 |
| View of the smoke plume on Monday from my "backyard." Behind these trees are flatirons. |
 |
| View from Arapahoe Ave going west from Lafayette. |
That same night, this amazing time lapse video was taken from Flagstaff Mountain, just up the road from us.
Fire from Flagstaff
Wednesday I returned from work to find it was pouring rain in Boulder and after running to the grocery store, this beautiful display of nature showed itself not briefly, but for at least a half an hour. Had the fire area received the pouring rain? Probably not as much as we got at my place, unfortunately. Thursday I was searching for more material on the fire for teaching purposes and found that a Red Flag Warning was going into effect for the fire area and Boulder. This meant that a windstorm was on the way. Sure enough, it kicked in last night and just roared outside. Weather observations claim 30mph gusts up by me. Warnings went out to the city of Boulder: if you live west of Broadway, it's possible that you may need to evacuate, should the fire expand eastward. The city cut the grass and cleared brush as an attempt to create a barrier against the possible inferno. Now, I live south of town and knew that this didn't affect me, but nonetheless, it got me thinking, what would I do if I had minutes to evacuate in the middle of the night? I went online and found some great links with checkoff lists for fire evacuation, should you have time to prepare. A few things stuck me as good thinking: turn on your lights so firemen can see your place at night, put propane tanks in plain view away from structures, fill up pails and garbage cans with water, and have your hose out in plain view for firemen. Of course it also suggested which belongings to take with you. A few hours later they clarified the area for possible evacuation and it no longer included my place, which eased my anxiety a bit.
We woke up this morning to find that the wind storm had not caused the fire to spread and the city was safe. Winds will continue to gust today, although weaker, and winds will become northwesterly any minute, making us, for the first time since it started that I know of, downwind of the fire. Several evacuees were allowed to return to their homes this morning, but the fire still burns, only 30% contained. 169 homes destroyed, others damaged, and nearly 7,000 acres burned/burning. Included in this are a few of my colleagues/friends who were either evacuated all week or are waiting in limbo to find out if their house, right in the center of the burn area, was lost. My heart goes out to them.
 |
| Source: Boulder County: http://www.bouldercounty.org/bocc/FourMileFireWebPerimeter.pdf |
Before I leave you with a few links to pictures and news on the fire, I ask you this: if you got an evacuation call (reverse 911) and had minutes to grab what you could before you drove off, with each second you take putting you further in danger, what three things would you take with you?
http://inciweb.org/incident/2119/
Live google map
http://www.dailycamera.com/fourmile-canyon-fire/
Monday, September 6, 2010
Mexican Caviar
Mexican Caviar is a staple at all of my family's summertime gatherings. It is a sweet bean and pepper salsa served on tortilla chips. Although, we have also thrown it into tacos and fajitas. This stuff is addicting and pretty healthy. I threw together a batch of this for a softball party we attended last weekend. I had made a few substitutions for missing ingredients, but the original recipe is the best!
Mexican Caviar
Ingredients:
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can black eyed peas (found near the canned beans)
1 can shoepeg corn (found near the canned corn)
1 can diced/sliced jalapeno peppers
1 bunch green onions
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
Dressing:
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 c. cider vinegar
Directions:
1. Bring cider vinegar, olive oil, and sugar to a boil. Whisk to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat immediately and let cool to at least room temperature.
2. Pour pinto beans, black beans, and black eyed peas into a colander and rinse.
3. Check out the size of the jalapeno peppers and dice if necessary.
4. Dice green and red pepper.
5. Dice green onion.
6. Toss all ingredients into a large Tupperware bowl with a tight-fitting cover.
7. Add the cooled vinegar dressing and stir.
8. Let this sit over night, or at least for a few hours before serving.
Serve with your favorite corn tortilla chips or Fritos. This will keep for about a week, which is a good thing because it makes a huge batch!
Mexican Caviar
Ingredients:
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can black eyed peas (found near the canned beans)
1 can shoepeg corn (found near the canned corn)
1 can diced/sliced jalapeno peppers
1 bunch green onions
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
Dressing:
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 c. cider vinegar
Directions:
1. Bring cider vinegar, olive oil, and sugar to a boil. Whisk to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat immediately and let cool to at least room temperature.
2. Pour pinto beans, black beans, and black eyed peas into a colander and rinse.
3. Check out the size of the jalapeno peppers and dice if necessary.
4. Dice green and red pepper.
5. Dice green onion.
6. Toss all ingredients into a large Tupperware bowl with a tight-fitting cover.
7. Add the cooled vinegar dressing and stir.8. Let this sit over night, or at least for a few hours before serving.
Serve with your favorite corn tortilla chips or Fritos. This will keep for about a week, which is a good thing because it makes a huge batch!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Update and Mini Caprese Salads
After I returned to Boulder from my trip to Wisconsin on a Saturday
(remember, before Wisconsin, I only had four days in Boulder after my
trip to NJ), Dave left for a Phish concert in Telluride on Sunday with
his buddies. Wednesday he returned to Boulder and Friday his parents
arrived for a last-minute trip to take care of some family stuff. They
were fun and easy house guests and after spending several days with them
and Dave's aunts and cousins, they all left town on Wednesday, my first
day of work. The next day at 7:00 am, Dave left for a wedding in San
Diego. Monday I had my first day of classes and Dave returned that
evening. A week and a half later, things finally feel like they are
settling down. Since we left for NJ on July 15, summer just whizzed
by.
Now my semester has started. I'm teaching four classes, one new, very upper level class and two other subjects that I have taught before. Luckily, amidst my vacationing this summer, I was able to organize and prep the classes I have taught before by revamping my old materials, and I got a start on my new class. This has made my first two weeks of class a breeze. Well, that and the fact that my schedule is infinitely better than the schedules I dealt with last year. (Here, teach a night class, then an early morning class the next day, oh, and it won't be in a subject matter you know anything about, and you have two lab classes, and, by the way, I'll let you know what classes you're teaching 48 hours before the first day of class.) Things are going to start kicking in to gear next week, but for the time being, I'm enjoying everything going as planned.
While
Dave was out of town I had a freak-out moment when I figured my life
was going to go from peaceful to insanity once classes started and I
decided to stock up on the necessities, should I never have time to run
an errand until Thanksgiving. Amidst my errands I found a two-pack of
fresh mozzarella at Costco and a basil plant for sale at Soopers.
These, plus cherry tomatoes from my tub plants, all contributed to
making a fun recipe I saw on another blog-- mini caprese salads!
Just slice two ends off of your cherry tomato, one to make the thing stand up, and the other to clean out a little of the runny insides. Then stuff your cherry tomato with a small piece of fresh mozzarella, top with a slice of basil, fresh cracked pepper, salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. These little guys are cute as hell, but frankly, not worth the work if you're just feeding yourself. In that case, a regular old caprese salad will do the trick. However, I imagine these would be fun to bring to a party as finger food. Sorry friends, I have kept this treat to myself!
.
Now my semester has started. I'm teaching four classes, one new, very upper level class and two other subjects that I have taught before. Luckily, amidst my vacationing this summer, I was able to organize and prep the classes I have taught before by revamping my old materials, and I got a start on my new class. This has made my first two weeks of class a breeze. Well, that and the fact that my schedule is infinitely better than the schedules I dealt with last year. (Here, teach a night class, then an early morning class the next day, oh, and it won't be in a subject matter you know anything about, and you have two lab classes, and, by the way, I'll let you know what classes you're teaching 48 hours before the first day of class.) Things are going to start kicking in to gear next week, but for the time being, I'm enjoying everything going as planned.
While
Dave was out of town I had a freak-out moment when I figured my life
was going to go from peaceful to insanity once classes started and I
decided to stock up on the necessities, should I never have time to run
an errand until Thanksgiving. Amidst my errands I found a two-pack of
fresh mozzarella at Costco and a basil plant for sale at Soopers.
These, plus cherry tomatoes from my tub plants, all contributed to
making a fun recipe I saw on another blog-- mini caprese salads! 
Just slice two ends off of your cherry tomato, one to make the thing stand up, and the other to clean out a little of the runny insides. Then stuff your cherry tomato with a small piece of fresh mozzarella, top with a slice of basil, fresh cracked pepper, salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. These little guys are cute as hell, but frankly, not worth the work if you're just feeding yourself. In that case, a regular old caprese salad will do the trick. However, I imagine these would be fun to bring to a party as finger food. Sorry friends, I have kept this treat to myself!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Meteor Shower Tonight
"PERSEID METEOR SHOWER:
The annual Perseid meteor shower is underway. Earth is passing through a
wide stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, and each time a fleck of
comet dust hits
Earth's atmosphere--flash!--there is a meteor. Forecasters say the
shower will peak on Thursday, August 12th, and Friday, August 13th. You
can see Perseids
flitting across the sky at any time between about 10 pm on Thursday
evening and sunrise on Friday morning. Observers who get away from city
lights can expect to count dozens of meteors per hour, especially during
the dark hours before dawn.
BONUS: If you go outside a little early on Thursday evening, around sunset, you'll see a beautiful gathering of planets in the sunset sky--Venus, Mars, Saturn and the crescent Moon. It's a nice way to start a meteor watch. Sky maps may be found at http://spaceweather.com." -Spaceweather.com
It's always fun getting these e-mails! Hopefully there are few clouds and the insane amount of light pollution where all of us live is at a minimum.
Sorry for the unpersonalized post. Dave just returned from a trip to Telluride (think I can get him to write a guest post telling us about his trip?) and I'm in hard core class-prep mode.
And no, a meteorologist does not study meteors, but you'd be surprised how many people ask me that!
 |
| Last night, Brian A. Klimowski caught this Perseid streaking over the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona. |
BONUS: If you go outside a little early on Thursday evening, around sunset, you'll see a beautiful gathering of planets in the sunset sky--Venus, Mars, Saturn and the crescent Moon. It's a nice way to start a meteor watch. Sky maps may be found at http://spaceweather.com." -Spaceweather.com
It's always fun getting these e-mails! Hopefully there are few clouds and the insane amount of light pollution where all of us live is at a minimum.
Sorry for the unpersonalized post. Dave just returned from a trip to Telluride (think I can get him to write a guest post telling us about his trip?) and I'm in hard core class-prep mode.
And no, a meteorologist does not study meteors, but you'd be surprised how many people ask me that!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Back to School
All I want to do is take a trip to Target and pretend that I have back to school supplies to buy, just to be a part of the chaos that is a university town filled with new freshman and their parents during dorm move in. Yes, we have little kids in this town too, so I'm sure I could enjoy the glue-buying crowd as well. I really have zero things I need from Target, so I will just stay home and work on my own back to school stuff.
The week in between my vacations I had a meeting with my fellow professors where I had an "Oh yeah, I have a real job that starts up soon" moment. The moment lasted no more than an hour and I skipped off to vacation #2 and didn't crack a textbook the whole trip. Really, this is very unlike me. During the school year I was working 14 hour days and almost all weekends. It definitely all caught up with me and slacker/vacation mode suited me better than I ever could have known. Having a month off was something I don't think I've ever had, ever. Although I could have been working diligently to make my life that much easier in the future, I really did not do much work in July.
I returned home this weekend and spent the first two days doing everything I could think of that didn't involve actually cracking a book (unpacking, cleaning, figuring out my bus schedule for the fall). Well, yesterday I finally took a hard look at my calendar and had a little flip-flop in my stomach. Apparently this is what it takes to force me to get down to business. I have very few work days left before classes start and for my new, very upper level class, I have only prepped about 1/20th of the semester, and not well. Luckily, my other three classes I have taught before and spent the beginning half of the summer perfecting my materials for those. I guess I'm down to the wire and today will be spent not surfing the internet for fun blogs, but actually creating some hard-core lectures.
Life is good, I feel refreshed, I'm stoked about my new job, but it's time to get down to business so my stress levels don't go through the roof once school starts!
I'll leave you with my last picture taken on my trip to New Jersey. I'll call it, "Vacation's over." As we got through security at Newark, we looked out the window and saw the sun rise over NYC. And now, back to reality.
The week in between my vacations I had a meeting with my fellow professors where I had an "Oh yeah, I have a real job that starts up soon" moment. The moment lasted no more than an hour and I skipped off to vacation #2 and didn't crack a textbook the whole trip. Really, this is very unlike me. During the school year I was working 14 hour days and almost all weekends. It definitely all caught up with me and slacker/vacation mode suited me better than I ever could have known. Having a month off was something I don't think I've ever had, ever. Although I could have been working diligently to make my life that much easier in the future, I really did not do much work in July.
I returned home this weekend and spent the first two days doing everything I could think of that didn't involve actually cracking a book (unpacking, cleaning, figuring out my bus schedule for the fall). Well, yesterday I finally took a hard look at my calendar and had a little flip-flop in my stomach. Apparently this is what it takes to force me to get down to business. I have very few work days left before classes start and for my new, very upper level class, I have only prepped about 1/20th of the semester, and not well. Luckily, my other three classes I have taught before and spent the beginning half of the summer perfecting my materials for those. I guess I'm down to the wire and today will be spent not surfing the internet for fun blogs, but actually creating some hard-core lectures.
Life is good, I feel refreshed, I'm stoked about my new job, but it's time to get down to business so my stress levels don't go through the roof once school starts!
I'll leave you with my last picture taken on my trip to New Jersey. I'll call it, "Vacation's over." As we got through security at Newark, we looked out the window and saw the sun rise over NYC. And now, back to reality.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Soft Pretzels and Doughnuts!!!
Dave and I ventured to a gluten-free food fair in Denver one Saturday last summer where we were treated to gobs of cakes, breads, crackers, and other such gluten-free goodies. One of the ideas that really sold to me was Jules Gluten-Free flour. Rather than buying a $6.00 chocolate cake mix any time I want to make a cake, why not use my grandma's chocolate cake recipe and just substitute the typical all purpose flour for gluten-free flour? Well, normally this is a no-no because you can't just throw in rice flour and expect your cake to actually have the texture of cake, but with the Jules Gluten-Free flour, you can use it in any recipe you want because it is formulated to act like regular all purpose flour!
The next weekend I started experimenting with my new (and pricey) flour after Jules e-mailed me a recipe for soft pretzels. AMAZING! Try it here: Jules Gluten Free Soft Pretzel Recipe.
Okay, so if I can use her flour for one of her recipes and make something that tastes guiltily glutenous, the next test was to see if I could use the flour for a random recipe. Somehow doughnuts came up. Back in the hay-day of eating whatever I pleased, I could easily put back a bag of powder sugar doughnuts or enjoy a Krispy Kreme or two when I was in Milwaukee. I've definitely gone without this treat since being diagnosed with Celiac Disease and I thought I should give it a try with my new flour.
I found a copy cat recipe for Krispy Kreme-style doughnuts. I cut the recipe in half (something you should always do with caution when baking) and still had enough for about two cookie sheets full of doughnuts. Check out the recipe here: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Copy Cat. Just sub the Jules Gluten Free flour for the flour! Believe it or not, I don't have doughnut cookie-cutters lying around, so I just used a wide glass and a large shot glass for the doughnut shape. Also, make sure your yeast is not old! I tried this at my parents' house and had no success with some yeast I found in the fridge. This recipe is time consuming, so give yourself a few hours for the whole process while letting the pastry rise a few times. I started at about 8:00pm and finished just before midnight with this project, so I'm sporting my PJs. These were delicious! My mouth is watering just thinking about them!
The next weekend I started experimenting with my new (and pricey) flour after Jules e-mailed me a recipe for soft pretzels. AMAZING! Try it here: Jules Gluten Free Soft Pretzel Recipe.
 |
| My first soft pretzel in years |
 |
| I made doughnuts and doughnut holes and glazed, rather than frosted them. |
I found a copy cat recipe for Krispy Kreme-style doughnuts. I cut the recipe in half (something you should always do with caution when baking) and still had enough for about two cookie sheets full of doughnuts. Check out the recipe here: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Copy Cat. Just sub the Jules Gluten Free flour for the flour! Believe it or not, I don't have doughnut cookie-cutters lying around, so I just used a wide glass and a large shot glass for the doughnut shape. Also, make sure your yeast is not old! I tried this at my parents' house and had no success with some yeast I found in the fridge. This recipe is time consuming, so give yourself a few hours for the whole process while letting the pastry rise a few times. I started at about 8:00pm and finished just before midnight with this project, so I'm sporting my PJs. These were delicious! My mouth is watering just thinking about them!
Monday, August 9, 2010
Atomic Buffalo Turds (ABTs)
ABTs, atomic buffalo turds, are the ultimate summer hors d'oeuvre. These are smoked jalapeno peppers stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese then wrapped in bacon. ABTs are classic party food at Dave’s old roommates’ house. These friends are the ultimate do-it-yourselfers and boy can they cook! ABTs are commonly consumed with homebrewed beer (hard cider for me!) before dinner. Here’s my take on ABTs.
Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese
6 jalapenos
3 chorizo sausages, raw
6 slices of bacon
Directions:
Clean the jalapenos and cut each of them in half. Get out all of the inner membrane and seeds to avoid overly spicy ABTs. Wear rubber gloves when working with mass quantities of jalapenos! Otherwise, the oils get on your skin and your hands can burn for days. Also, if you touch your eyes, nose, or other sensitive body parts (think about this for a minute), you may regret it. Trust me on this one.
Chorizo is a sort of Mexican pork sausage. You want to find raw chorizo for this recipe. You can sometimes find it in sausage link form, sometimes in a tube of meat, sometimes just set out in a container ground-beef-style. You won’t need a huge amount of this, so you may want to just freeze half for your next batch. On the stove, put chorizo in a frying pan and cook. If your chorizo was in sausage link form, remove the casing and use the meat only. Drain the grease. Remove from heat and stir in the cream cheese until smooth.
Stuff jalapenos with the chorizo and cream cheese mixture.
Put a half-piece of bacon around the jalapeno it bind it together with a toothpick.
Smoke on low heat until bacon is cooked. Dave’s old roommates used an actual home-made smoker for this purpose and let them cook for ~2 hours. I have cooked these on the grill on low heat (watch out for grease fires!) and also broiled them in the oven on a cookie sheet, which works in a pinch, but to really get a true ABT, smoking over low heat is the way to go! One of the projects on our to-do list is to make a smoker out of terracotta pots and an old stove we got from Dave’s Grandad. I’ll let you know if we are successful.
The longer you cook the jalapeno the less spicy they are, so keep this in mind if you have sensitive guests. If you get a spicy batch, cut the spice by serving some mild queso with chips, glasses of milk, or spoonfuls of sour cream, depending on your degree of desperation. I have read that vodka cuts the spice, but this has never actually worked for me. Do you have any secrets to sooth a burning mouth?
Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese
6 jalapenos
3 chorizo sausages, raw
6 slices of bacon
Directions:
Clean the jalapenos and cut each of them in half. Get out all of the inner membrane and seeds to avoid overly spicy ABTs. Wear rubber gloves when working with mass quantities of jalapenos! Otherwise, the oils get on your skin and your hands can burn for days. Also, if you touch your eyes, nose, or other sensitive body parts (think about this for a minute), you may regret it. Trust me on this one.
Chorizo is a sort of Mexican pork sausage. You want to find raw chorizo for this recipe. You can sometimes find it in sausage link form, sometimes in a tube of meat, sometimes just set out in a container ground-beef-style. You won’t need a huge amount of this, so you may want to just freeze half for your next batch. On the stove, put chorizo in a frying pan and cook. If your chorizo was in sausage link form, remove the casing and use the meat only. Drain the grease. Remove from heat and stir in the cream cheese until smooth.
Stuff jalapenos with the chorizo and cream cheese mixture.
Put a half-piece of bacon around the jalapeno it bind it together with a toothpick.
Smoke on low heat until bacon is cooked. Dave’s old roommates used an actual home-made smoker for this purpose and let them cook for ~2 hours. I have cooked these on the grill on low heat (watch out for grease fires!) and also broiled them in the oven on a cookie sheet, which works in a pinch, but to really get a true ABT, smoking over low heat is the way to go! One of the projects on our to-do list is to make a smoker out of terracotta pots and an old stove we got from Dave’s Grandad. I’ll let you know if we are successful.
The longer you cook the jalapeno the less spicy they are, so keep this in mind if you have sensitive guests. If you get a spicy batch, cut the spice by serving some mild queso with chips, glasses of milk, or spoonfuls of sour cream, depending on your degree of desperation. I have read that vodka cuts the spice, but this has never actually worked for me. Do you have any secrets to sooth a burning mouth?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
My first garden
After 5 years in a small apartment with no personal outdoor space of my own, I'm spending my first summer at my new digs, complete with community garden! This is something I've been looking forward to for years! We managed to get a very small plot and after doing some research (okay, I looked at probably two webpages), I found out that it's best to wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant in Colorado if you want to avoid frost. I weeded and turned over dirt for an entire day, laid down some organic compost (organic only or the old garden ladies will murder me), and the next day, planted my first garden. I planted tomato, pepper, and strawberry plants, then used
seeds for oregano, basil, dill, beans, peas, broccoli, carrots, beats,
and a butternut squash. This all fit in a plot perhaps slightly larger
than a twin bed. I didn't really know what I was doing, so I just went
for it.  |
| The view isn't too shabby from our garden plot. |
And then it hailed the day after I finished putting in all of my plants outside. The problem was, we weren't home when it happened. If we were, we could have stood outside with umbrellas over our plants or dragged our tub garden under the overhang. Unfortunately, we returned home shortly after it finished to find random piles of hail resembling snow covered the area. I was very upset and somewhat frantically removing chunks of ice from the bases of our tub plants when Dave saved the day with some xmas lights and a plastic tarp.
The next day we surveyed the damage to the garden plot and the tubs. This hail storm took most of the leaves off of my plants and the leaves that were left were scarred and yellowed. So, I wandered back to the store and got three more tomato plants, two more pepper plants, and one more strawberry plant. Assuming the hail-damaged plants would soon die, I planted the new plants in very close proximity to the half-dead ones. In the case of the tomatoes, all of the plants survived, so now I have six HUGE tomato plants within about a 2 by 2 foot area. Oops!
We got hail several times after this and one time Dave was able to collect a few hail specimens and save them in our freezer. Only in a house with two meteorologists would hail in a freezer be considered a romantic gesture!
Anyway, on Friday we took a walk to the garden plot and discovered our first rewards, four ripe tomatoes! I left for the airport minutes later, and took one for the road. Not knowing if it would be allowed through security, I sat there at DIA and enjoyed my tomato.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Vacation #2: Wisconsin
As if 10 days in New Jersey wasn't enough, now I'm on family vacation #2, only this time it's MY family! I got back to Colorado early Monday morning and flew to Wisconsin Friday evening, leaving Dave to fend for himself back home. Saturday my parents, brother, and I drove north until we finally reached our destination, a collection of condos conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. Here we have our annual extended family vacation consisting of somewhere on the order of 40-50 cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grandma. We spend the week hanging out at the lake, enjoying water sports, swimming in the pool, eating lots of horribly unhealthy food in Wisconsin-sized portions, relaxing, and enjoying the company of family. We have been coming here for more than 20 years!
Oddly enough, I can't get a cell phone signal, but I do have wireless internet!
Here's an old picture of the lake we're staying on. It really is a beautiful place to relax for a week!
Oddly enough, I can't get a cell phone signal, but I do have wireless internet!
Here's an old picture of the lake we're staying on. It really is a beautiful place to relax for a week!
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