Morning Walk

Woke up to sun shine and snow-dusted cliffs this morning. This is our first snow storm of the season, and my first time seeing snow in the area first hand. It's breathtaking. :)

Rabbit tracks?

A good chunk of my walk this morning smelled of sweet desert sage that lines the road. 

There and Back Again or My Travels To and From Moab

Just arrived home from my third trip from Moab to Salt Lake and back in the past two weeks. This is not counting the day that we got back to Moab to discover that I had left my laptop at my mother's house and had to meet her half way that same day, but we won't get in to that. PS: my mom is the greatest mom in all the land. 

The drive isn't so bad. It's roughly 3 1/2 hours (counting the time it takes to drive down the river road in to Moab) which I believe is just enough time to feel like a real road trip, but just short enough not to feel insurmountable. It helps that my favorite part of the drive is the stretch from Wellington to Green River, which I have found is most people's least favorite part of the drive. I've heard it called "desolate" and "boring", but to me, that stretch of highway is open and free and easy as pie. It blows by in no time. 

In just a few short weeks, that drive has started feeling like an old friend, and I look forward to it more than anything. So today, on my trip back from my mom's 70th Birthday party this weekend, I stopped to take a few photos of some of my favorite land marks/spots along the drive. 

 Yes, that's a Filet-o-fish you see there in the passenger's seat. Don't judge.

Icicle-covered red rocks on the River Road

When I arrived home today, I turned the corner to make my final approach to the house when about 30 horses from the ranch next door all came running towards me. I pulled the car over and jumped out and said "Hi! Hi! Hello!" about a dozen times while they responded with several "pfbbbbp!" horse sounds like the ones little kids make - or that horses make. The dark brown one was the bravest and came the closest to me, standing to her side to get a good look at me with one eye. Notice the cute heart branding on her shoulder. Yes, I've decided she is a girl, and her name is Darla. Aah, it's good to be home.

Like My New Beachy Motif?

Beans Beans the Magical Fruit! (A Tribute to Beans and a Salad to Remember)

I had one of those afternoons where nothing sounded good to eat, and it seemed as though there was 'nothing' in the fridge or pantry anyway. I wandered into the kitchen and started putting items in a bowl and came up with a Black Bean Salad that I would like to remember. It went a little something like this:

1 can of black beans rinsed
1 clove garlic thinly sliced
1 cup frozen corn defrosted
1/4 orange bell pepper diced
1/2 carrot diced
1/2 cucumber diced
2 cups red cabbage chopped
1 cup diced button mushrooms
1 cup chopped spinach
1/2 cup almond pepper jack cheese diced

Toss all ingredients together with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, a dash of corriander, a dash of cumin, and 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar. I added what was left of my latest tomato tahini dressing, and the leftover juices from the tub of pickled mushrooms from Whole Foods that I can't seem to get enough of these days. Viola! It's a taste sensation.

The Sounds of Summer

OMD - Forever Live & Die by Far_q

Good-Ass Gazpacho

There's nothing quite as refreshing nor quite as satisfying on a 93 degree summer day than a bowl of chilled gazpacho. I just made a batch of what I think may be my best yet. 

Here's what's in it:

Good-Ass Gazpacho (Vegan, mostly raw, gluten free)

• 1 ear fresh corn, corn cut from the cob
• 4 button mushrooms 
• 1 hothouse cucumber 
• 1 large red bell pepper
• 4 plum tomatoes 
• 1 red onion 
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 avocados
• 1/2 cup non-dairy cream cheese (I used Tofutti brand)
• 32 ounces tomato juice 
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (option if you like heat with your chilled soup)
• 1 hand full cilantro chopped

• Chop all veggies in to bite-sized pieces and combine in a large bowl (all except the avocado, unless yours happen to be on the more firm side of ripe) Mix veggies together with salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil, red pepper and cilantro. Add the tomato juice. Add cubed avocado and drop teaspoon-full scoops of cream cheese substitute into the mix. Stir gently and let chill for at least one hour. The longer gazpacho sits, the better it will taste. 

Enjoy!

BOOCH!

On a recent trip to Austin I was lucky enough to stop in at the raw restaurant "Beets Cafe" on 5th street where I was treated to a lovely kale salad, an "ELT" (smoked/dehydrated eggplant, lettuce and tomato) which I plan to recreate myself in the near future, and a raw brownie.

With all this deliciousness, the pièce de résistance for me was the locally-brewed Kombucha Buddha's Brew. I must have drank four of these in the two days I was in Austin. This was the first Kombucha I had tried and really enjoyed outside of GT's. The original flavor was sweet and tart and fizzy and everything that GT's original wants to be.

Tasting something so good gave me enough hope to push my desire to brew my own Kombucha into action. As soon as I got home, I began researching and found that it is actually quite easy to make your own 'boocha at home. All you  need is sugar, tea, and a mother Kombucha mushroom. Now to get your own mother, you have to either know someone who has one or order one online for a good chunk of change (average is about $40.) So I searched around some more and found some more info.



Like I always say, if you can't trust two hipster dudes, who can you trust? So I decided to give it a try. I put all the ingredients together in a gallon jar, and waited. The SCOBY (Symbiotic Collection of Bacteria and Yeast) seemed to be floating and moving around, but nothing much happened for the first few days. I'm sure this is typical, and I would have kept my experiment going, only my good friend heard I was making my own booch and offered to give me her mother. Oh mamma! I came home to find this on my porch one night:

This mother had a ton of strands and a grown baby booch mushroom already grown out of it, so I decided to start from scratch. I now have two batches going: one from the mother and 1 from the baby. Here they are at day 2:

The mother is on the left, the baby on the right. After two days, I already started to see the white 'looks-like-mold-but-it's-not' spots forming around the baby. If you actually do see mold, you have to throw the SCOBY out, but if it is bubbly, brown or doing any other strange thing, it is fine so long as there is no furry mold accumulating.

I plan to let my babies ferment for another week before I bottle 'em up and start a new batch. Now I just need to decide what flavors to add! If you're interested in brewing your own booch, I recommend the following web sites:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8rocz_how-to-make-your-own-kombucha-part_school

http://www.foodrenegade.com/how-to-brew-kombucha-double-fermentation-method/