Hiking Among Snowy Peaks

My friend Nicole is visiting from Boston this week, and so far we've had a fun few days of relxing and adventure.

Friday night was the STYX concert at the Belly Up here in Aspen.  The Belly Up is a small venue with a maximum of about 400 ticket holders, so we got to see an awesome classic band from about 25 feet away!

The encore performance - Renegade!

Yesterday, my friend Jamie joined us and we headed to the Maroon Bells, which is one of the most popular areas for tourists here in Aspen.  With a fresh coating of snow on the peaks surrounding Aspen, the drive up and our hike to Crater lake was nothing short of beautiful. 

The only thing that would have made the views better was a blue sky, but the clouds overhead welcomed us with a few little snow showers, so I'm not complaining.

 

That's me at the start of the hike at Maroon Lake with the Maroon Bells behind me.  This area has several 14-ers (a peak that has a summit at 14,000 or above), which are extremely difficult to summit.  Most require extreme mountaineering techniques and a lot of equipment like harnesses and ice climbing gear. 

 The Maroon Bells are named for their bell-like shape and their very red color of soil and stone, which is hard to see here with their fresh coating of snow. 

Like I said, they're pretty gnarly to climb, and this past summer the papers had a few reports of fatalities up there.  We took a somewhat short and easy hike to Crater Lake, which is at the base of the Bells.  We even got to enjoy a little snow shower while we were sitting around the lake.

We finished off the day with some pub grub and beers at the Aspen Brewing Company!

Stuffed Mushrooms

I was inspired one day while walking through the produce department of the grocery store when I saw their pre-packaged stuffed portabello mushrooms.  I decided to whip up a delicious and filling version of it myself.  I've done it twice now and have learned a few things, so I'll tell you how I made them and then offer some addtional suggestions.

Its basically one mushroom per person, so here's for two:
- 2 large portabello mushrooms, stems removed
- 2 tbsp italian dressing
- 1/2 cup low fat ricotta cheese
- 2 wedges laughing cow light garlic and herb
- grated parm
- 2 slices canadian bacon
- 2 cups baby spinach
Olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Take the mushrooms and rub them with the italian dressing and set aside.  In a bowl, mix the ricotta, laughing cow, and parmesan cheese together.

In a skillet, heat up olive oil and wilt the spinach.  Dice up the canadian bacon and throw it in the skillet with the spinach to heat through and brown a little.  Take this mixture and mix it with the cheese mix.

Salt and pepper the mushrooms and put them gill side down on a medium-high grill (you could also do this under the broiler).  Grill them for about 3-4 minutes until the gills turn brown.  Flip the mushroom so that the gills are up and fill each with half the mixture.  Make sure the mushrooms aren't over a super high flame and close the grill.  Let the mushrooms cook for aout 4-5 minutes until the mushroom is soft and dark on the bottom and the filling is heated through. 

This goes great with a little cous cous on the side.  Also, I love these just as is but Jim thinks they need a little more texture and something to cut the creaminess of the cheese, so next time I make them, I think I will add some bread crumbs to the mixture before putting it on the mushrooms.  I guess you could also just sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and let them get crunchy...oo that's a good idea!

Really the sky is the limit with what you can stuff these things with.  Give it a shot with your favorite ingredients and let me know how it comes out!

My Backpacking Adventure!

There is a very popular backpacking trail that starts right outside of Aspen, which ascends to the Conundrum Hot Springs.  Its one of the most popular hikes in the state, and people come from all over the country for this trip.  Jim and I are lucky to live right near the start of this trail, and its a wonder neither of us had been up there previously.  That said, it was something really cool to share together :)

We set out on the trail around 10 am on Sunday morning with the shock of pulling into a tiny parking lot jammed with over 40 cars.  We've heard rumors that the springs can get crowded on weekends, but hopeful that starting on Sunday would behoove us, we set out loaded packs mounted.  We planned to possibly stay until Tuesday morning because Jim didn't have to be at work until noon.  As we hiked our way along the 9 mile trail, we started passing a steady stream of people leaving the springs.  Jim and I estimated we saw about 70 people leaving while we were hiking up, so we were pleasantly surpised when we started hearing from the end of the neverending line of people that only a few couples remained in the camps.  I have no idea how anyone would enjoy being one of 70 people up there!! 

Our hike up was fairly flat for the majority and then got steeper at the end.  We went past a beautiful waterfall that I would have loved to get close to.

We got to camp around 5 pm and as promised found out that only four other people were around.  We picked camp site number 13, which came highly recommended by a friend and didn't disappoint. 

It offered privacy and close proximity to the main pool, which he hit promptly after setting up the tent.

Three hours later, we finally drug ourselves out into the freezing cold to retreat to the camp, finish setting up, eat dinner, and hit the sack.   Our original plan for Monday was to possibly hike to the top of Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak which are both 14,000+ in elevation.

After realizing how long it took to get up to the pools, we calculated we'd have to get up around 5am, pack up and leave before the sun was up to get down in time for Jim to go to work, so we decided to come back Monday.  This turned out to be a good idea, because as we were deparing, it started to spit snow.

As we hiked back to the car, the sun came in and out, and we only passed 2 couples hiking in, which meant it would have been anoter quiet evening in the pools.  It looked fairly nasty as we looked back, but then it cleared up beautifully, so I hope they had  a nice evening. 

All in all it was a great trip for Jim and I.  We travel really well together, even though I'm a turtle in comparison (or my analogy of Jim = Energizer Bunny and Angie = Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man), and we really enjoyed this trip.  If you ever have a chance to go to Aspen and take this trip...do it!  And make sure you let me know you're in town :)

Baking Fool

Tania and I are having a pizza party at her house tonight to invite some clients and potential acquaintence type potential clients, and we're making homemade pizza in her wood fired brick oven (that she built herself, ha).  The pizza comes out sooo good from that thing.  Anyway, I was put in charge of dessert!

I made three things:

Apple Crisp



Iced Pumpkin Cookies






Low Fat Gluten Free Brownies (Tania is gluten intolerant)

The low fat brownies are actually really good, and they aren't gluten free specific.  The original recipe uses regular flour, but I used gluten free for Tania.

Here's the recipe:

3T butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

or 1T butter
2oz square baker's chocolate

Melt combination of choice above and add:
1 cup sugar
1 egg + 1 egg white
2 tsp vanilla
3T (one small baby food jar) prune puree

Mix Dry Ingredients:
1/2 cup flour (substitute gluten free but add about 2T extra)
2T cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda

Combine all ingredients and pour into 8x8 baking pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.  You can also add walnuts if you'd like.  I calculated the points for these brownies without the nuts, and its 3 points!  They're REALLY good brownies for 3 points.  Taste super fudgey and not fat free...so its a good option if you don't have a box of no pudge :)

Yum!:



The pumpkin cookies were a HUGE hit, so I'll post the recipe for those tomorrow.  Despite the fact that they are in no way waist friendly, they are a nice festive treat to take to a fall party.

Pumpkin!

I've heard some rumors that the Great Pumpkin shortage is starting to wane, and pumpkin is slowly becoming available in stores again.  Out here in the great wild west, we haven't been so lucky, so I bought a CASE of pumpkin online about a week ago.  It arrived a few days ago, and the cans are all nicely stacked in my canning storage area.  I've already made pumpkin spice muffins, and this morning I made pumpkin waffles!

I saw a recipe for these in the October issue of Food Network Magazine, and I decided I had to try them.  I set out to make them for breakfast this morning, and then realized I was missing one ingredient.  So I got on my trusty Weight Watchers site and found a recipe there - one that I'm sure was much more figure friendly - which I could make entirely from my pantry.

Here's the recipe directly from WW:
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup pumpkin
1/4 cup brown sugar
1-1/4 cup buttermilk

Mix the first six (dry) ingredients, then mix the remaining (wet) ingredients and then combine and whisk until just mixed and cook in waffle iron.

I made a few variations to this recipe.
I swapped 1/4 cup of the all purpose flour for whole wheat
I added 1/8 tsp ground ginger

I tasted the batter and it seemed like it wasn't pumpkin-y enough, so I added another 1/4 cup of pumpkin and 1 tsp of vanilla also.  I think my version is better, and the changes didn't increase the points value.  If anything, I think adding the whole wheat flour made them more filling.

I have a four waffle style iron, where it makes four connected squares.  This made four full squares (16 individual waffles), of which I ate three with a little light butter and syrup and was full.

 Delish!

On another note, I am excited that tomorrow is my first fit test since starting the INSANITY workouts.  I took it at the beginning, and its been two weeks, so I am excited to see the measurable amount of progress that's been made.

Today, I am going to enjoy my insanity day off with a bike ride!

Comments have been fixed...

Apparently there was an issue with posting comments, which explains why I myself was having issues posting comments to respond to people, lol.  I believe I have fixed this problem, so if you try to post a comment and it doesn't work, please email me.

For some reason, it was set so that only registered users could post, but I modified that option...so hopefully you can all tell me how wonderful I am now :-D

Green Monsters...

And no, I don't mean that big wall at Fenway!

In case you are out of the know, the Green Monster smoothie is ALL the rage right now.  I finally bought myself a Magic Bullet Blender, so I got to try my first Green Monster this morning.  According to:  greenmonstermovement.com, the basic Green Monster is made as such:

2 cups of spinach
1 cup milk (cow, almond, soy, whatever you prefer)
1 banana
1 cup frozen strawberries

A lot of people also add Flax Seed in, so I am going to buy some and try that.

Whirl it all around in your blender until you have a very green and very frothy drink that contains 2 fruit servings, two veggie servings, and dairy!

I made the traditional Green Monster, as above, and it was really good.  I think I was a little heavy handed with the spinach and added more than two cups though because it was a hair grassy tasting.  Otherwise, it tasted like a strawberry banana smoothie, but had  a lot more volume:

Yes, I know it looks a little like baby food.  Or maybe baby puke?  But trust me, they're really good and filling.  I got about 2/3 the way through and decided to do Insanity and have the rest as my refuel afterwards.

I think tomorrow I will try and do some peaches in there....then who knows, the possibilities are endless!