Despite winter’s impressive efforts to stay in the game this year, the vernal equinox is almost upon us marking the first official day of spring. I thought this would be a good week to look back on our Westlander Winter of Fun (WWF) and share a briefing of our winter adventures with you – especially since we didn’t really start this blog until half-way through winter.
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I clearly wrote that first bit a few days ago. Now that we’re a few days after the official start of spring and facing a high of 42F topping yesterday’s high of 37F, we’re not really feeling that great spring spirit we were feeling just a few hopeful nights ago. Yes, it will get warmer, and we will dance in the sunshine in shorts and flip flops soon… just not quite soon enough.
So I’m skipping the winter wrap-up until winter really does wrap itself up. For now, enjoy this bit of warm, comforting, amazingness.
9-12 Double Stuffed Oreos
~ 2 Tbsp your favorite peanut butter (We used JIF natural creamy.)
1/2 batch chocolate chip cookie dough, prepared (We made a 1/2 recipe from the back of a bag of Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, substituting browned butter for butter.)
Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
Grab out an Oreo and spread a dollop of peanut butter on top of it. Place it, peanut butter side up, in the cupcake tin and top with another Oreo. Quickly realize you will never fit cookie dough on top of two double stuffed Oreos. Remove Oreo peanut butter sandwich and eat it.
Grab out another Oreo. Twist it open gently. Spread a dollop of peanut butter on the inside. Gently sandwich back together and place in the cupcake tin. Do this with the first 6 Oreos.
Now take a good spoonful/handful of your cookie dough and mold it a bit into a slightly flattened ball. If you’re like me, you probably grabbed too little dough, thinking of cookies, and not of filling the spaces in the cupcake tin cup. Grab some more. You’ll really need a fistful of dough. Honestly, you should be a bit appalled at how much dough you use in each cup. That’s better. Place that on top of the Oreo in the cupcake tin. Repeat for the next 5. Assess how much cookie dough you have left, and prepare 3-6 more Oreos accordingly. Top with the remaining cookie dough.
Bake at 375F for 15-20 min. Cookie tops should be mostly golden when done. Cool in the pan for 5-10 min and then remove and place on a rack to cool.
We especially enjoy these warm with a tall glass of milk.
But a word to the wise – remember that fistful of cookie dough you used in each one?… that left you a bit appalled? These are delicious but large! Pace yourself.
I just had to share this video. It is absolutely fascinating and well worth the 22 min and 20 sec it takes to watch.
I hadn’t initially intended to post about my recent experiences with TED, but when I saw that video, I thought it definitely worth sharing (more videos below).
I’ve always loved TED Talks, and I think they’re a great way to spend a little procrastination time. They’re fascinating and inspiring, and they range from 3 min to 25 min or so in length. When I watch them, I feel not only like I’m taking a bit of a break, but also like I’m learning a very small but profound bit of information each time. Now, sometimes my brain just needs to zone, and this is probably not the activity I’d choose to fill that need. But most of the time, they give me a much needed lift and a bit of inspiration. I’m quite grateful for that.
My latest surge of TED Talk addiction has unfortunate beginnings in a hip injury I received while running.
Let me explain a bit. I love throwing on tennis shoes and walking out the front door for a jog. I love exercising outside. I love running around the city in the afternoons. I’ve done it in all kinds of weather. Among the things I almost can not ever bring myself to do lies running and other similar sports indoors. My brain feels like it’s dying on a treadmill or exercise bike, and my body misses the feel of adjusting to the elements (even if the elements are just uneven sidewalks). My whole being feels like it should be moving forward. My eyes search for the passing of scenery and find nothing that comes close. Is it really that bad? No. But my patience with indoor exercise wanes quickly. So getting an injury that prevents me from running outdoors can (as it has in the past) be the death of an exercise routine for me until I’m feeling better.
However, I’m trying to suck it up this time. I can’t run for now. Ok, I can accept that. But I can bike. And I really need to keep moving. I will not bike outdoors until the average temperature tops 50 deg. But I do have an indoor trainer. So now, instead of layering up and heading out into the frigid air and last rays of winter sun a few days a week, can I tolerate throwing on shorts and a T-shirt, putting my bike in the trainer, and riding indoors? Can I stick with it?
Well, this is where the TED Talks come in. I need a good distraction. From past experience, TV doesn’t work. Neither do movies, even the exciting ones (though they’re a little better, and Brian loves them and could bike for hours with them). I’ve even tried putting on YouTube videos of other people biking with helmet cams to give myself some scenery. They sort of work, but the videos are quite short, and so I have to loop several of them to ride long enough. Yet, somehow, TED Talks are perfect. I’m not quite sure why. They are not fast paced. They often involve watching one person on stage and sometimes include a few slides – not the most visually stimulating thing for a workout. There’s no soundtrack, nothing that seems like it will get and keep the blood pumping. And yet, I’m fascinated enough by the speakers and what I’m learning that I can pull up a stream of TED Talks, and, most of the time, my workouts fly by.
Go TED! For now, it’s rocking my world and helping me stay fit! Below I’ve posted a few more of some favorites. If you have ones you love, I’d love to hear about them and check them out! [Note: This is in no way an exhaustive list (nor do the views of the speakers necessarily represent my own views on the topics presented). These just happen to be the ones I’ve hit on so far that have left me high on life.]
We made a really tasty soup last night. Our schedule has been on-again off-again insanity, so we’ve taken to subsisting on one giant crock pot meal every one to two weeks mixed in with a few other meals (of pasta) so we don’t die of boredom.
I love crock pot cooking. There is nothing like throwing a bunch of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink into a pot and just letting it simmer throughout the day. The aromas start teasing me within the first hour, and by the end I’m dying to taste whatever concoction has been melded before me. Needless to say, I’m kind of loving our current cooking habits.
Last night, though, was one of only a few pots we’ve done that had no tomato whatsoever. Now, I love tomatoes. Brian loves tomatoes. But it always surprises me how much adding a can or two of tomatoes to a soup pot can alter the flavor so that the whole base tastes like tomato. Is this a bad thing? Certainly not. In fact, we find it delicious. But it also makes pots without any tomato that much more exciting to try!
So lasts night’s pot… no tomatoes. And it was also quite delicious.
(Sadly, I don’t have a picture of this soup, so imagine a giant steaming crock pot of spicy veggie deliciousness inserted here.)
Cumin adds a slight smokiness, and chili powder combines with crushed red pepper to give this soup a good kick. The original recipe called for onion, garlic, and spinach as it’s only vegetables; but Brian and I love a veggie packed soup. So our adaptation includes a plethora of veggies on top of the originals. Really, at this point we could probably call it “Veggie Soup with Tofu and Farro”! The tofu and farro add a great texture and protein as well. While all our additions can make the ingredient list seem almost painfully long, I can assure you that this soup is easy to put together since almost all of it gets tossed into the crock pot at once.
There is a lot of flexibility in this recipe, and this was the first time we’ve tried it. So there are a few changes I’ll try next time we make this one to balance out the flavors and textures a bit more. We definitely needed to add soy sauce in the end to increase the saltiness. So next time I’ll exchange one quart of the water for a quart of broth for additional flavor, and then add in more soy sauce as necessary. Also, the pot was big enough and brothy enough that 3/4 cups farro just didn’t quite cut it. I’ll up that to at least 1 or 1 1/2 cups next time (if you like brothier soups, you may not want to do this). Finally, I’ll double the sesame oil added in the end to increase its presence in the soup. The recipe below is my original, before any of these changes.
Make sure you use a large crockpot (ours is 6 quarts and fills to the brim).
This recipe will make about 5-6 quarts of soup. A serving is about 1 1/2 – 2 cups. We eat it for lunches and dinners throughout the week, so we make a lot.
First, make sure all your ingredients are chopped, sliced, etc. as directed above. Put everything into a 6 quart crock pot except the spinach, peanut oil, and sesame oil. Mix it around a bit to spread out the spices. It will probably be filled almost to the brim but will settle as it cooks. Set the crock pot on low for 8 hours. At the end of the 8 hours, mix in the spinach, peanut oil, and sesame oil. Set the crock pot on high for about 15 min to wilt the spinach. You must be dying to try it by now having been, perhaps, breathing in the aromas all day long. So serve it up, top with a bit more soy sauce (I tend to under do salt in the pot and top off in the end individually as desired), and enjoy!
I need to be frank with you. I need to fully admit that I am quite excited about life right now. Could that be the caffeine talking? Oh, it most definitely is, or at least the sugar rush from the chocolate chips that keep finding their way into my mouth. But it’s not only that. You see, Brian and I have stepped up our commitment to living life to it’s fullest, and right now, we’re winning. Thankfully we’re not winning like Charlie Sheen was ‘winning’, but we are in fact winning.
Now, this does not mean our lives are all roses and sunshine. We don’t bolt out of bed at the sound of the alarm, ready and eager to take on the day. I assure you that does not happen. I know. I’m there every time we hit snooze (again and again), then finally, slowly drag ourselves out of bed and yawn at the morning. But we are still winning. We’re winning because, aside from the fact that we are not morning people, we are driving ourselves to seek out more adventures and having a blast with it all.
A little back story on our current drive.
Brian and I both had a super busy fall this past year and did not push ourselves to adventure as much as we wanted to. So we decided that come winter 2013 we were going to throw ourselves back into life with the Westlander Winter of Fun (WWF)! For Christmas (2012) Brian even started a WWF calendar where we’ve since been planning adventures of all types.
And that, really, is why we’re winning right now.
So what’s our latest adventure? Oh, it was an incredible weekend of wintery fun!
Ah, but before I dive into it, I should introduce the other players in this particular adventure. This time we adventured with our awesome niece, Alison and her equally awesome husband, Paul (with, thankfully, his equally awesome Wisconsin winter driving skills). The four of us adventure in traveling pretty well together, so it seemed only natural that we would come together for this weekend adventure too!
Ok, so our incredible weekend of wintery fun included diving into a sampling of cross-country skiing
This particular shot was our homage to The Beatles. (photo by Paul)
and snowshoeing!
Our winter catalog shot. Having a blast! (photo by Paul)
Both were pretty much completely new to us, so we made sure that our adventures were well padded with a tidbit of luxury and recovery. We preceded the adventure with a little magic and separated our days with delicious bbq and an obligatory soak in a motel hot tub. I’ll be perfectly honest; we selected our weekend location based entirely around the presence and availability of said hot tub. Like I mentioned before, winning.
Our adventure began with an early morning drive out to Laurel Ridge x-country ski center. Trust me, this in itself was an adventure given the sometimes unplowed roads and snow drifts building up in the middle due to high winds. Our Wisconsinite handled it like a champ – no fear, just extreme concentration.
Despite thinking we might only see a dusting of snow, we drove headlong into the thick of it!
We arrived at the park to find powdery snow all around and a nice cozy warming hut planted at the head of several trails. We rented our sets of boots, skis, and poles and then spent the obligatory 20-30 min testing out equipment, bundling up, and sun screening in preparation. I’m always amazed at how long it takes to put on all the winter gear. And then, finally, around 1pm or so, we headed out to the trails!
I think the skiing itself could best be described for us as “play”. We played cross-country skiing like little kids play in the backyard. We skidded here and there. We tried classic style and skating. We pushed our postures into what we thought were appropriate looking forms (ever thankful that a hot tub awaited us that evening). And sometimes we got the hang of gliding along for a few strides, or even a decently measurable distance. But, as we’ll fully admit to anyone, we were never really in control of the process.
Sometimes we looked more in control.
Brian and Alison heading up a steep section. (photo by Paul)
Other times it was a bit more obvious we were sliding along for the ride.
How can we tell we’re watching a beginner? Body pitched awkwardly forward, poles out for serious balance, legs wide. However, the most obvious sign was the “Wheeeeee!” he exhaled the whole way down (He doesn’t do that on a snowboard). Beginner? Yes. Wonderfully daring adventurer? Most definitely. (photo by Paul)
But, also like little kids at play, we had a super fun time skiing around and trying out all these new movements and feelings. We fell all over the place, laughing at ourselves at least most of the time. (Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we did not capture the slips, falls, or face plants that also dotted our outing, on camera… trust me, they were all quite funny and did not lead to injury.) And, we skied around until we were dog tired and just plain done and ready for our naps.
And then, like adults, we drove an hour back to our motel, rallied for a delicious dinner, and enjoyed a paper coffee cup of wine while soaking our muscles in the motel hot tub (as promised).
We crashed. We crashed hard. We are, as it turns out, not little kids with boundless energy. We woke up the next morning sore, stiff, and really really not ready to ski again. We had no desire to drive back an hour to the same place. We thought about just eating and watching movies. But we also wanted to take full advantage of the time we had out near the snow. And then the idea of snowshoeing came up. Snowshoeing? Well, that could be something. Something that involves wandering in the snow but isn’t skiing. Something that uses slightly different muscle groups. And something we hadn’t really tried before. Snowshoeing it was, then.
We were off to a much closer spot in New Germany State Park. We found the lodge where we rent equipment; and we found a wonderfully welcoming firepit to cozy up to, a small shop for gear and food, and plenty of tables with a view of the snow-covered lake outside. It was beautiful. We were definitely going to reward our efforts with a break at this lodge after our experience. But we had to have the experience first.
Snowshoeing, as it turned out, was far easier than we had anticipated. We thought we might have trouble walking and would be falling all over ourselves. But, for the most part, it was like taking a hike in the woods.
Brian and Meghan in search of some super powdery snow. (photo by Paul)
We went out of our way to tromp through powder, of course. That’s where the snowshoes are most useful and most fun.
Found the powder! (photo by Paul)
And it is definitely more effortful than simply hiking. You have to pick up each foot a little more and place it a with a bit of care as you can’t see what is under the snow. Small branches and shrubs on the ground become a danger if they get stuck through the holes in the shoes. I think each of us got claimed by a branch or two at some point. But for the most part, you tramp along in the powder, and the size of the shoe prevents you from ever really losing balance over the terrain. While we grew tired and hungry from our hiking, we felt very in control of our actual movements, and once again, had a pretty amazing time taking a walk in the snowy woods.
Oh, of course afterwards we dove on our bowls of chili like we hadn’t eaten in a week. We put our shoes by the fire to dry out and warm up. And I celebrated a bit extra with a post-chili hocho and ice cream. We probably would have spent much longer in the lodge if we could. But by the time we finished stripping off gear and eating we needed to move on, begin the drive back home, leave our winter wonderland behind (tear), and embrace the week to come.
Overall thoughts on this adventure? It was amazing. In an attempt to not completely overdo it (just a little), I haven’t expounded on all the details. But I can say that not a moment was taken for granted from the time we left Philly Saturday afternoon, to the time we got back Monday night. And through each excursion, we constantly marveled at the amazing beauty that is a quiet, wintery, snow-laden forest; and at our own luck for the opportunity to experience it all.
Overall opinion of these sports? Both experiences were pretty equally awesome and come highly recommended by us newbies. They’re uncomplicated enough to try out on your own, but you can always take a lesson if you prefer that. Next time we might try a lesson to get a better grasp on the forms.
Are these sports for everyone? Probably not. But, you might want to spend a day or two giving them a try if you:
Love downhill skiing but want to break it up with something a bit more aerobic.
Hate downhill skiing, but still want to experience a bit of winter magic and earn your lunchtime chili and hocho (or beer).
Love the outdoors in general, and wandering in the woods in particular, but never really tried it through snow.
Hate the outdoors, but only because of all the stickiness and bugs (no bugs in the winter!).
Need to do something (anything!) to kill cabin fever (and you live near-ish to snow).
Want to try a new activity and are not concerned about falling about in the snow.
Just want to experience a Robert Frost poem first hand.
