Food and Hiking

This weekend was filled with much activity, at least the first part of the weekend was! Dan and I hatched a plan to go hiking this past weekend. We were really excited about hitting the trails again and planned to go to Mt. Diablo to hike the waterfall trails while there is still water flowing. We started the morning off with a Dutch Baby pancake. Dan and his family got me into these delectable treats when we were both in college. Slightly like a popover, the pancake is chewy on the outsides and the bottom is almost like custard in texture. The pancake is then dressed with butter, a little powdered sugar, and fresh squeezed lemon juice. They are simply wonderful to eat! We used to wait up to an hour and a half to have these at a restaurant, but with the purchase of our own cast iron pan and a book about cast iron cooking, we found out how easy these are to make. It almost makes me regret all the waiting around for a table at that restaurant for something so easy to make.

We then took off for the mountain. We drove up to the summit first, and then came the realization that we could not get to the trail head that I wanted to use with the car. We would have had to circumnavigate the entire mountain using roads that would take a long time to achieve our goal. We decided instead to just hike out to the trail, turning our once 5.5 mile hike into a near 10 mile one. This also resulted in us going downhill at the beginning rather than the end, another decision we would not be happy with later. We saw quite a few small and beautiful waterfalls. I took pictures of two of them. The sunlight was perfect, highlighting the ripples and flow of the water. At times the water would splash up into droplets that looked like diamonds in the air. It was glorious.
We walked in and out of forested areas and into grassy fields. The trail was a bit narrow, so side by side walking was rarely an option unless we were on sections that were the fire roads. There were lots of people out as well. I think the first day of spring always makes people want to get out of the house and explore nature again. The clouds were gone, and for the most part, the haze was minimal, giving us beautiful views of the San Francisco and Discovery Bays. The valleys stretched out like a shaggy green carpet. It was nice to be surrounded by so much green as so much of the summer and fall here is so brown. The wildflowers were something to behold as well. The poppies, Indian paintbrush, and lupines were all in full bloom. Many people were walking around with guidebooks for both the flowers and the many birds that were out and about with us all. Soon enough it was time to turn back and head up the mountain. It was a hard hike that took us a long while due to being a bit tired from the up and down sections of the waterfall loop. We eventually made it and then collapsed into the car, two very sore hikers. Sunday was declared a day of rest, literally. We did not move a bit due to the extreme soreness we both were feeling. The only movement activities that we partook in was the making of food. We cooked a mostly from scratch pizza that was marvelous. We made the crust with semolina and white flowers, used jar sauce*, and then added cheese; our wild boar sausage; and some caramelized onions. Needless to say, it was gone as soon as it was out of the oven. We hoped for leftovers, but there were none!

Today I am going to work on my niece's birthday gift as well as plant the tomato plants out into their permanent pots. They have gotten too large for their temporary home in the office window. While the soreness has subsided a bit, I am still feeling it. Hopefully I will be back in form for dance class on Thursday!

* My plans for this next canning season it to work on our own pizza sauce. The usage of store bought sauce is hopefully a thing of the past next year! Any good sauce recipes? Send them my way!

Early Fall and Cold Winter?

Yesterday was rather interesting. I got some hairflower pictures edited and listed the item up in Fabulous Pants Store. They are a great set of magnolia style flowers that I gave iridescent middles to. They are simply gorgeous.







I spent a lot of time on the web researching different things that needed to be looked into. Once I got frustrated with all of that looking about, I left for the type of research I like better, books! I went up to the library and dug around until they closed. I found a few good books with some new jelly and jam recipes that I cannot wait to try out. Hopefully there will be some that I can find the ingredients to! They are quite exotic and may require some food hunting to accomplish the goals. I hope to sit down over coffee with my canning buddy and find somethings that interest us both.

While I listed up some beautiful hairflowers that are definitely summer, and the weather is also finally acting like summer around the Bay Area, I cannot help but wonder if this is going to be a harsh winter with an early fall. I have noticed that I am turning into quite the stocking up for something type as of late. Aside from the usual familial stocking of jam and canned fruit for the winter and next year, I find myself stocking up on meat and staples as well. Our freezer is overflowing with meat that I have bought that was on sale in large packs. It is just Dan and I for most occasions, so I went though breaking down whole tenderloins of pork, large beef roasts, ground beef packages, and full chickens into meal sized portions for us and vacuum sealing them before freezing them for later. All of this was, of course, on great sales, hey I cannot pass up 76 cents a pound chickens. I justify it as being something that will save us money in the long run, which it will, and then I joke that it is my flu defense food bank. That if this H1N1 is really bad we can barricade ourselves in the apartment and survive nicely for a few weeks. I wonder though if deep down inside there is some sort of animal instinct kicking in making me want to hoard to get through an awful coming winter and early fall season. It is something to ponder I suppose, and as I was pondering these thoughts last night and this morning, I saw that we are supposed to have a more rainy than normal winter this year due in part to El Nino.

On the note of overflowing things, I am going to work on a tutorial today for making chicken stock. Right now I am overflowing with extra chicken cuttings and a carcass from last night's dinner. I have found that since I started making my own stock and using that in recipes I am much more happy with my results in flavor. It is also great to have on hand in case I need to whip up some quick chicken soup for a sick husband or friend. It really is easy, and when you freeze it into the hockey pucks, they are also convenient. I do this same thing with the turkey after thanksgiving, only that takes place the same night, so I don't have to find a place to put the carcass in the fridge full of leftovers. I also have some bread to bake for sandwiches as well as flat breads for tonight's Greek lamb dinner. Well I guess I am off to the kitchen and some sewing machine action later this afternoon!