view from the ride home

As you can imagine, we had an outstanding day.

the coldest toilet seat EVER

Starting from the bottom picture: there was actually an outhouse near our destination, so I decided to use it (peeing in deep powder while on snow-shoes is actually a wee-bit difficult). The thermometer on the outside of the outhouse (in the shade) read 10 degrees.
Moving up from there: you might be able to see that one could not move the door to the outhouse either open or closed, as it was obstructed by snow.
The nice thing about this was that there was enough snow on the outhouse floor that I didn't have to remove my snow-shoes!
And the top photo: I was so amused by the process, that I took a picture of the view from the inside, while sitting on the most frigid toilet seat I've ever imagined.

hi, ma!

Tom was particularly enjoying the deep powder. I decided that despite my super-warm snow-shoeing pants, I should have worn my gators, too....

snow-shoeing at Brainard Lake

We had an AWESOME day today: we discovered a new snoe-showing location. Sandwiched in between Eldora and Lyons is a great trail system at Brainard Lake. They have x-country skiing as well as snow-shoeing -- and they keep the trails separate so that the snow-shoers don't ruin the ski-tracks. We thought that the trails were extremely well marked, and we couldn't have had more perfect weather. We shoed a total of about 5 or 5 1/2 miles (depending on which signs you believed most!) which was both wonderful & exhausting: between the deep powder (it snowed a little last night) and the altitude (the trailhead STARTS at 10,000 feet) we were absolutely pooped by the end of the afternoon.

MMMmmmmm... BBQ sauce.

Tom has graciously offered that if my colleagues want to have journal club (which is about 4 times a year) at our house, he will cook the meals. His only caveat has been that we need to agree to guinea-pig for new recipes.
Well, last night, Tom outdid himself. He decided to explore his new Bobby Flay book, the Mesa Grill Cookbook. He made a chicken-skewer dish to die for, with 2 different sauces -- a straight-up BBQ sauce, and a peanut sauce. It was garnished with a cabbage-slaw, which was awesome.
When we added that to his meatball appetizer, my usual hummus & veggie plate, a squash soup (I FINALLY used up the last of our 47 pounds of squash!!!!) and cake for dessert, everyone (I think) was most satisfied.

Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake

I made this cake on Sunday for journal club (which was yesterday). It went over EXTREMELY well. I got the recipe from an Ina Garten book (the Barefoot Contessa). She gives credit to a friend named Anna Pump. In any event, I'll share the recipe:
for the cake:
1/2 pound butter
2 cups sugar
4 extra-large eggs, at room temp
1/4 cup grated orange zest (she says from 4 large oranges -- it took me 5)
3 cups all purpose flour + 2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp baking pwdr
1/2 tsp baking soda
t tsp kosher salt
1/4 c. freshly squeezed OJ (total of 1/2 c for the whole recipe)
3/4 c. buttermilk, at room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups "good" semisweet choc chunks
for the syrup:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cupt freshly squeezed OJ
for the ganache:
8 oz "good" semisweet choc chips
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp instant coffee granules

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. grease & flour a 10-inch bundt pan.
Cream the butter & sugar for about 5 min -- until light & fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the orange zest.
Sift together 3 cups flour, the baking pwdr, soda, salt into a large bowl. In another bowl, combine the orange juice, buttermilk & vanilla. Add the flour & buttermilk mixtures alternately in thirds to the creamed butter. Toss the chocolate chunks w/ 2 tbsp flour & add to the batter. Pour into the pan, smooth the top, bake for 45 min - 1 hour. Let the cake cool on a wire rack for 10 min.
Meanwhile, make syrup: in a small saucepain over med-low heat, cook the sugar w/ the OJ until the sugar dissolves. Remove the cake from teh pan, set it on a rack over a tray, and spoon the orange syrup over the cake. Let the cake cool completely.
Ganache: melt the chocolate, heavy cream & coffe in the top of a dbl-boiler until smooth & warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over top of cake.

our annual Toloczko visit

We managed to squeeze in a visit with the Toloczkos in honor of Jennifer & Henry's visit. It was really nice to catch up with them for a while. Of course, their entire family looks wonderful...

icy run-off

RMNP is just as awesome in the winter as the summer (if not more?)

Hi, moms!

Yesterday was an absolutely perfect day at RMNP. We took a short hike (about 5 miles round-trip) and had nothing but blue skies and warm weather. We had intended to snow-shoe, but we really only needed the Tak-Traks...

elk viewing

Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park never disappoints us -- especially when it comes to wild-life viewing. We saw a small herd of elk near the Fern Lake Trailhead yesterday.

makin' the rounds

We brought Jennifer & Henry to our favorite cheese-importer. Unfortunately, we were too late in the day to enjoy the samples that are usually available. However, we all found something tasty...

Boulder Canyon overlook

This is from the top of the Meyer's Gulch trail -- one of our favorites. This evening I learned that I do not have to take the pictures using the "panoramic" function on the camera in order to still merge them on the computer later on. Cool.

and of course....

My love affair with aspen trees continues.

no color enhancing, no filters...

Just amazing weather, with perfect blue skies and puffy-white cloud accents.

Jennifer to the rescue

Henry found a sink hole... but Jennifer saved him!

baby got back

Jennifer announced that the most distinct advantage of tying her jacket around her waste was that it would make her look like she's got back. Ah, if we all had such problems....

snow friends

Jennifer & Henry are here for a much-needed vacation (as far as I'm concerned!) So of course, we took them hiking up at Walker Ranch today. There wasn't enough snow for snow-shoeing, but there was enough snow for a snowman....

Lady & the Tramp

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day: Greg & Kim were here for a brief visit (on their way down the mountain from Breckenridge). In honor of the big day, Tom decided to recreate the Lady & the Tramp dinner (in his opinion, the most romantic movie ever). He made baked meatballs (combination veal, pork & beef), fresh pasta, fresh bread, and salad. Yum!