Last week was a bit of a disaster in the kitchen.
Disaster One: Sauteed onion, broccoli, garlic, and kale on a bed of spinach with an avocado/ginger/lemon dressing. The dressing was actually pretty good. Overall, it was really just a plate piled high with green things. Rachel ate a good bit of her plate, but I couldn't make myself eat it. This led to...
Disaster Two: Grilled cheese. I know, I know. It's not really that difficult to make a grilled cheese sandwich. However, I tapped into my father's mom's genes and let one side of it get burned. I will say that the most appalling part is that I was
standing in front of it while this happened. Pathetic. No photographic evidence here, either.
Disaster Three: Friday night. I made a lentil and beet borscht without cabbage. Apparently a borscht is not a borscht if it doesn't have cabbage in it. What it becomes is a beet-beet green-onion-lentil bowl of red beet-tasting water. As an adult, I'm trying to expand my palate and re-try foods I used to hate. Beets still fall into the category of not-my-favorite-food. Rachel and I resolved our problem by ordering pizza.
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| Unceremonious picture of a bowl of beets |
Rachel did manage to save the week by coming up with two meals that were quite good. One was a pork scaloppine we've made a few times, and the other was steak with mushroom sauce and cauliflower puree.
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| Steak, mushrooms, cauliflower puree and a red wine sauce |
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| Pork with pine nuts and capers on a bed of kale, garlic, and onion |
At least the cauliflower was something from my childhood I was trying again. In truth, it was more like a substitute for mashed potatoes (with butter, too!). I'm not sure I'd choose it over mashed potatoes, but it was an interesting change.
In professional news I accepted the job offer for the wilderness therapy program. I'm excited to be starting something new and am looking forward to the upcoming challenges. We'll see how it goes!
Besides chocking down beets, burned bread, and way too many green vegetables, we also went hiking this weekend. Our original plan was to hike Smarts Mountain, but we (I?) changed that after looking at the weather Sunday morning. A high pressure was building and although it would be cold the winds wouldn't be very high and it was clear. This meant I really wanted to get some good views. New plan: Mt. Jefferson.
I hiked the Caps Ridge Trail a few weeks ago and was reminded how much fun the trail was. It's a short trip to the summit with some fun, above treeline, rock scrambles. It's nothing too exposed or challenging, it's just a cool trail. We left the car nice and early (a little after noon - oops), reached the summit, and made it back in about four and a half hours. The hike itself was pretty nice - the clouds lifted as we reached treeline, the wind wasn't too bad, and there was enough snow on the ground to make it look like winter without the sub-zero temperatures. The drive back rewarded us with a nice sunset. The hike this morning rewarded us with sore muscles.
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| Looking up at the Caps Ridge Trail from the first good viewpoint |
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| She was trying to run away before the shutter released |
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| Looking at the Southern Presidentials |
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| Here we could watch clouds forming as the air came up the ridge |
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| Coming up the last little bit |
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| Cyclops shot, but I wasn't looking at the camera in the other one we took |
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| Summit pin. I'm now on a quest to find these |
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| On the way down |
