Spring Has Sprung!

I think it's safe to say that spring has finally arrived and is sticking around.  The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and we've been taking advantage of it every chance we get.  While I've heard it's possible to still get snow until May out here, I have a feeling we saw the last snowfall a few weeks ago.  It was definitely a mild winter but I'm not complaining at all.  As much as I love snow, I've been itching for warm weather and spring/summer for a while now.  I have to say though, spring out here is a bit different than I'm used to: it's not nearly as green out here.  I miss all the lush green yards, leafy trees, and colorful flowers.  I do love the mountains though so I suppose it's a trade-off. :)

Other than enjoying the great weather, we really haven't been up to much.  I've been counting down the weeks left at work (10 left including this week) and Matt has been enjoying his time off.  We'll be heading back to St. Louis for most of the month of July so get ready for some Matt and Ellen time family and friends in St. Louis!!  We're incredibly excited for our trip back--we haven't been there since Thanksgiving so a visit is long overdue. Cooper will be joining us too so we'll be loading up the car and making the drive back before we know it.  There's lots to accomplish before we take our extended vacation (house hunting, job hunting, and packing just to name a few) so I'm sure we'll be busy for the next 10 weeks.

On a more serious note, please take a moment out of your day to say a little prayer for our Soldiers still in harms way in Afghanistan.  We have a number of friends that recently arrived over there for another deployment.  Please just keep our Soldiers in your thoughts and prayers that they return home safe and sound next January.

Hope everyone is enjoying this lovely spring as much as we are!! :)

Pikes Peak Adventure

Hello all!  Matt here.  This past weekend my friend Andrew and I tried to hike up Pikes Peak, which would have been my first ascent of a 14er (That's what Coloradans, Coloradoites, and Coloradians call a 14,000' peak).  It's an obvious choice since it pretty much sits across the street from our house, and I've always wanted to climb it.  There are a couple different directions from which to approach it, but we chose the western slope.  There is a much better traveled, slightly longer, and more user-friendly approach from the east that starts in Manitou Springs, just 5 minutes up the road from me, but the western approach is 1) shorter, B) less traveled, D) more exciting, and 4) offers views of the Continental Divide, instead of the east-Colorado/Kansas wasteland.  Below is a topographical map of the route we were supposed to take (more on that later).  The trail up is about 6.8mi with an elevation gain of 5000'.

So, we loaded up our gear and set out to hit the trail by first light (6:30ish) so as to avoid the adverse weather prone to hit the summit in the afternoon.  We had made arrangements to catch a ride down the mountain on the Cog Railway train that ferries tourists up and down.  The catch was the train was leaving the summit at 11am so we had a bit of a time hack to make.  Consequences of missing the ride meant, most likely, that we'd be hiking back down, which sounded about as fun as getting punched in the throat.  When we arrived at the trailhead, we had a realization that did not occur to us earlier: there was still plenty of snow on the ground.  Duh!  It's the Rockies.  Oh well.  We're tough SOBs and we brought our snow spikes for this very reason, so we decided to continue with the plan.  The snow on the ground was an added challenge to the aerobic and navigational nature of the hike (ie, Soft snow is similar to sand.  Try hiking up a mountain of sand.  And trail covered by snow.  Damn.)

Trail?  What trail?

We started following some dude's tracks on what we figured was the trail.  Then the tracks split.  *Scratches head*  Well, we picked the set that went "up" and drove on.  Around the same time, Andrew and I had the same thought that we were probably not on the trail we planned to take.  We decided to follow it anyway simply for adventure's sake and see where it took us.  Ever the optimists, we hoped we would be able to intersect the trail at some point.  

Up we went.  The wind was beginning to pick up as the temp started to drop so we bundled up and continued on.  The sun was still on the east side of the mountain so shade did not help.  As we got above the timber-line, the views to the west opened up, and they were magnificent.  We could see the jagged snow-capped peaks of the Continental Divide, miles and miles away, clear as day.

  

This was about the time that the tracks we were following disappeared, X-files style.  No turn around or anything.  Quickly dismissing that mystery, we decided to get to the top of the peak we were climbing and take stock of our situation.  When we finally reached the top we were met by an amazing vista, and a truly bizarre, almost lunar-ish, landscape.    

Looking east.  Those are clouds way out there.

From there we could see the road that led to the summit.  The same road that our trail we meant to be on followed somewhat.  However, in order to get there we had to do some significant down-climbing through a boulder field.  We thought it best to get to the road and then decide whether to go further, or to call it a good adventure and let the mountain win this one.  As we climbed down, there were multiple times when either me or Andrew sunk into waist-deep snow, between boulders.  Needless to say, it was a little tense, and fun.

The boulder field.  About halfway down.  If you look real hard you can see me in the middle of the frame.

We finally reached the road, and a rather conveniently placed visitor cabin.  We spoke to a ranger who told us that the summit was getting pounded by 60mph winds and -5 temps.  She also mentioned a sobering fact that they couldn't even get up there to rescue us if need be due to the whether.  Pssshh.  Rescue who?!  Us?  Yeah well, maybe we decided not to proceed due to that little factoid, or that we knew the train wouldn't be running in those conditions, so our ride down was kaput.  Or a combination of the two.  Lucky for us, we left our egos in Andrew's truck about six miles, 1000' up, and then 4000' back down, on the other side of the mountain.  Now we were stuck with the conundrum of how to get back to either Andrew's truck, or my car in Manitou Springs.  Our best bet was to throw some thumbs on the side of the road.  Again, Lady Luck struck before we could even post up and two guys walked out of the visitor cabin who happened to be going down.  They were sympathetic to our circumstances enough to give us a ride in their Chevy Cruze rental car (Would you believe rental car companies call that a mid-size??!) back to my car.  Once back to my car we got double cheese burgers from Wendy's.  Civilization is nice, isn't it?  More pictures on Facebook. 

The arrow is roughly where we topped out and started our descent.

            

Homemade Chinese Dinner!

Matt and I just love our Chinese food.  We have a place here in town that we love, Hunan Springs, and we probably order from there every few weeks.  I always get beef with broccoli while Matt will change up his order.  Unfortunately, Chinese food isn't that great for you and we've been trying to eat healthier these days.  Plus, ordering out isn't so easy on the wallet either.  So, we decided we'd try our hand at making our own Chinese food with a couple recipes I found on Pinterest: baked sweet and sour chicken and baked crab rangoon.

Sweet and Sour Chicken:
This recipe originally came from here, and I've actually found a couple other great recipes on this blog too.  An important note: this chicken takes an hour to bake...plan accordingly (we didn't realize this and ended up having a late dinner).

The chicken coating:

3-4 boneless chicken breasts

salt & pepper

1 cup cornstarch

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup canola oil

Sweet and sour sauce:

3/4 cup sugar

4 tablespoons ketchup

1/2 cup vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon garlic salt

Start by preheating the oven to 325 degrees.   Rinse the chicken breasts, cut them into cubes, and season with salt and pepper.  Heat the canola oil in a large skillet.  Coat the chicken in the cornstarch then dip the coated chicken into the beaten eggs.  Cook the chicken in the skillet until browned, but not cooked through.

Once browned, transfer the chicken to a greased 9x13 baking dish.  Whisk all the ingredients together to make the sweet and sour sauce.  At this point, the original recipe calls for you to pour the sweet and sour sauce over the chicken in the pan and then bake it all together for an hour, turning the chicken every 15 minutes.  However, we found that our chicken was pretty sticky and doughy when we did it this way.  I think when we make this again we'll bake the chicken without the sauce and instead, make the sauce in a saucepan and heat it but use it on the side to dip the chicken into.  This way, the chicken will hopefully stay crispy and it allows each person to choose how much sauce they'd like.

We also decided to cut up a few peppers into large chunks and sauteed them in a large pan with a small amount of oil over medium heat.  We threw some pineapple in there too and added the mixture to our plate when the chicken was done.

Baked Crab Rangoon:

I just love crab rangoon but the fact that it's fried makes it delicious but rather unhealthy, so I was super excited when I found this recipe!

2 tablespoons light sour cream

8 oz reduced fat cream cheese, softened

1 scallion, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, minced

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 cup crab meat, drained

wonton wrappers (these can generally be found in the produce section)

Preheat the oven to 415 degrees.  In a bowl, mix together the sour cream, cream cheese, scallion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and sugar.  Once well combined, fold in the crab meat.  We used imitation crab which came in large chunks so we cut our up into much smaller pieces before folding it in.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.

Lay a wonton wrapper on your work surface and spoon about 2 teaspoons of the filling into the center of the wrapper.  Brush two adjacent sides of the wrapper with water (this will help seal the wrapper) and then fold the wrapper over on the diagonal.  Press around the filling to remove any air pockets and then press the sides together to seal the wrapper--if any air pockets are left, the wrapper will pop open while cooking and some filling will escape.  

After the wrapper is sealed, transfer to the baking sheet.  Once all the wrappers are completed (it should make about 20 or so), transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake for about 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown and crispy.

We found that while the edges and bottom of our were crispy, the top remained a bit doughy.  Next time, we plan to turn the wrappers over about halfway through in hopes of getting an overall crisp.  Also, I don't recommend reheating any leftovers in the microwave as they get very doughy...better to reheat in the oven.  

Once it's all done, enjoy your delicious meal...we sure did!!