Leisurely Dirt Bike Riding

Paragliding Birthday Present

For my birthday Bade gave me a gift certificate to go paragliding. We cashed it in this weekend.  Paragliding was a lot of fun, really relaxing, and allows you to see our area of Utah in a new way.

New Laundry Room

So one of my requirements for my fiance’s house was that he remodel his laundry room before I move it.  I enjoy doing laundry and I like having a room I can store things in an organized way.  Both of those will be so much more enjoyable if Bade’s laundry room was shaped differently.

The Original: The laundry room is essentially a long hallway with a giant closet in the middle, that when opened, you can’t see down the laundry hallway.  The big issues with this are usability, and light.  The closet blocks most the light coming in, and it is difficult to get anything out of this closet.

The Remodel: Removing the closet, replacing that area with a counter and some narrow wall cabinets. More light, more usable storage space, and a counter area to fold clothes, iron, and place groceries, etc.

Here is the progress:

Favorite Cookies: Snickerdoodles

Both Bade and I LOVE snickerdoodle cookies.  My favorite recipe for snickerdoodles comes from food.com. It makes 60 – 80 snickerdoodles cookies (I make medium-small balls), so I like to make a full batch and freeze a few dozen in some ziplocks to cook another day.

Dough

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Sugar Coating
Mix the dough into dough balls, then roll in this cinnamon sugar coating before placing on the ungreased cookie sheet.

• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon

Cook at 350 degrees for around 7-8 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Take the cookie sheet out before they look fully cooked.

From frozen: I let the cookie dough balls defrost for 30 minutes to an hour, then push them down 1/2 way. You can then cook them like regular.

Fruit Pizza Recipe

Fruit pizza is a great dessert to bring to a summer/fall BBQ. Bade and I made this for a get together recently and it was a big hit. The recipe was from allrecipes.com.

Crust

• 1/2 c butter
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Frosting

• 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
• 1/2 c sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla

1. Mix crust, and roll out to pan or cookie sheet size.  I like to make 4 circles in the 4 corners so you don’t have a soft doughy middle.  The 4 corners will spread out and connect with each other.
2. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 – 10 minutes until golden brown.
3. Once cook, spread frosting mixture over crust.  Note, the frosting mixture will be a light brown color because of the vanilla.  You can use white vanilla o avoid this, or add a little bit of powdered sugar to the top to lighten it up.
4. Chill.
5. Add fruit when you are ready to serve.  My favorite fruits to add are strawberries, kiwis, bananas and blueberries.

Feather Tornado

feather tornado aftermath

Accidental experiment instructions:

1 – Place a big box of goose down feathers on the back seat of your Honda Civic. Don’t ask why I even own large boxes of goose down feathers :).

2 – Turn on Amos Lee’s “Windows Are Rolled Down.” This will cause Bade to roll down his window and request that everyone else in the car roll down their windows.

Result: Within seconds, the box of goose down feathers will fly open and you will be in the middle of a feather tornado!

SO Funny!

A Stroll In the Canyon

This evening I went on a nice walk in the canyon with my dad. We went 4.5 miles and 1200 feet in elevation change. Good way to spend an evening.

Firsts Weekend

This weekend Bade pushed me to try many new firsts; my first time (real time) fly fishing, my first time riding a dirt bike on single track trails, and my first time eating wild raspberries.

On Friday, Bade and I left work a few hours early, packed up, then left to drive on a dirt road for an hour, before stopping at one of our go-to camping stops of late. It is at the head of 6th water, at the mouth of a spillway where they pipe water over from Strawberry Reservoir. The fish there are really big for a river, because they are Strawberry fish. Bade taught me how to cast with a fly rod, and after practicing for a bit, we put a dry fly (after mistakenly putting a wet fly) on the rod, and within a few minutes I caught my first fish fly fishing.

The sunset Friday evening was so pretty.  After the sun went down, we enjoyed the clouds flickering because of lightning, and we saw a few shooting stars.

Saturday morning, after Bade fished for a few hours, he gathered a bunch of wild raspberries.  We drove the truck out to the main road, unloaded the dirt bikes, and started up to the Strawberry overlook. Just below the top, we turned off onto some single track dirt trails that were really fun, not rocky, and just perfect for a beginner dirt bike rider. 

 

We rode through some crazy thick thistle fields, saw TONS of butterflies, had nearly 4 hours or single track trail riding, and collected many more handfuls of wild raspberries.

Argentinian Inspired Steak

Photo from: http://shine.yahoo.com/summer-grilling/adam-rapoports-skirt-steak-chimichurri-sauce-131800639.html

Last night Bade suggested that we make an Argentinian Inspired Steak dinner; he even sent me a link to the recipe he thought looked good, http://shine.yahoo.com/summer-grilling/adam-rapoports-skirt-steak-chimichurri-sauce-131800639.html. We had guests for dinner, and everyone agreed that it was worthy of repeating. Here is what I did for our steak.

1. Cut skirt steak (1.5 – 2 lbs) out and cut against the grain.  I cut 4 pieces from a 2 lb slab. Lay all your pieces out and sprinkle with kosher salt.  Leave out for 30 minutes.  Pat dry, then re-salt and pepper the slices one more time.

2. Make your marinade.

• 1/2 c red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 3-4 garlic cloves minced
• 1 shallot chopped
• 1 red jalapeno pepper chopped
• 1 c minced cilantro
• 1/2 c minced parsley
• 1/3 c minced oregano
• 3/4 c extra virgin olive oil

3. Divide the marinade into 2 containers, one to be used as a marinade, and one to be used as a season or garnish after the meat has been cooked.  Marinade meat for 1-6 hours (I did 3 hours).

4. Cook steak on the grill on high for about 4 minutes per side.

We served the steak with mashed potatoes and a light salad which looked really good on a plate, and tasted just as nice. Dang! I wish I grabbed a photo of it before eating :).

Life Saving Misses

There I was, just passing Diversion Dam in Provo Canyon.  Out of the corner of my eye I see a long brown blob come bounding down the hill on my left and dart into the road.  I quickly calculated the angle and speed and was aware that this creature was going to just miss my front tire and I would run over him with my back tire.  I was approaching a runner, so I only swerved slightly, but the sudden movement was enough to scare the brown blog and he ran back towards the side of the road almost as quickly as he had run out into the road.

A few minutes beyond Diversion I was approaching Canyon Glen.  There was a stick right in the middle of the road.  It was in my lane, but I didn’t want to run over it because my road bike tires are so small, I would feel this stick, so I went just an inch to the side of it.  As I was passing it, the stick recoiled and I became instantly aware of how close my leg and foot was to the head of this snake!