Pete and I have really gotten into the IndoBoard that Paul got me for my Birthday/Christmas gift.















It's supposed to build your core and make your balance almost perfect. There is another bottom you can use that helps more with snowboarding and in the near future we'll be getting that. Hopefully it will help with my carving.

So I did my half hour today. I started doing it with my 5 lb weights and boy do you really feel it then. I'm glad that after a few times of use I stabilized because I don't think I could take too many more nasty falls.

Yesterday I finally go thru to unemployment. It only took two weeks of calling every minute all day. We went as far as calling from Pete's out of state number to the 800 number. I had tried it from my phone but it refused to connect. The local number I was able to call was busy and you could never get thru, but it only took 3 hours calling from Pete's number. Now I'm just waiting for something from the bank and it should be all taken care of. Thank goodness!

Since I was on a roll of getting stuff taken care of I started working on our taxes. It's not like we've gotten any of the forms we need yet but my records are good enough that I can estimate. I'm glad to get most of it out of the way. One less thing to worry about.

As usual I've been cooking, so below is a quick log of a couple meals in the past couple days.















Grilled Cubanish Sandwich with Organic Tomato Soup - Dinner 1.19.10
















Red & Yellow Pepper, Onion, Sausage & Egg Burrito with Hash Browns - Breakfast 1.20.10

Dinner on 1.20.10 was Wheat Angel Hair w Sausage & Garlic Bread
I tried to make grilled Eggplant but it was gross in my opinion. I only used half of the Eggplant last night so tonight I'm going to use another prep method and hopefully it'll come out good.

So far today nothing much planned. I made Pete some breakfast this morning. Nothing special just Scrambled Veggie Eggs, Bacon & Hash Browns.














He made a good point that I should use my real camera to take pictures but the one on my phone is always so close.

Since it's so nice here today, it really has been feeling like spring more than anything here,














I was thinking of starting my indoor herb garden. I read the back of my seed packets and it was pretty adamant that if I grow them indoor I wait until early or late spring. So looks like I have a few months before I can plant them. I'm going to try to make one of my own Topsy Turvy, the upside down tomato grower, but same thing I have to wait until spring to find some tomato plants to buy. So that project will have to wait.

Pete went skiing yesterday, I'm still not feeling great, and met up with some people he met when Paul was here for Christmas. After a long day of skiing, in white out conditions apparently, I met up with everyone at  "Tommyknockers" for a drink.
















This was the first time I had the homemade Rootbeer there and it's pretty good. It has an interesting Maple flavor to it. After that we headed home and watched TV.

Looks like we'll be meeting up again on Tuesday, tomorrow, and maybe going to Breckenridge. At least that's where I hope we go it's so easy to get off the lifts there. And since we stayed there in December I really like skiing there.

Tonight for dinner we had veggie turkey meatloaf with brown rice. It turned out good and was exactly what I wanted for dinner.

Today was a beautiful day, 60 degrees in Denver. Pete and I headed to Park Meadows Mall where the Apple store is.










Can't be a minute late at this location or they'll cancel your appointment. Thankfully Pete ran a head of me and checked us in. All I needed to do was get the face plate on my computer replaced before my AppleCare runs out in April. Last time I went in the store to replace the charge cord they let me know that the plate replacement was covered for free and they always have them in stock. All I needed was an appointment and I was good to go.














Of course the day that I make my appointment they don't have any in stock. The teenager that was assigned to us, you can see him by the Genius Bar logo, talked and talked until I said I was ready to go to an authorized dealer when he finally got to the point and said they would order it and call us when it came in. So it was a total waste of the hour drive into the city and we'll get to do it again in 3-5 days.

We decided that we would have lunch while we waited because it was supposed to take 2 hours to get the plate changed and we hadn't had anything to eat for breakfast. After looking at our choices we decided to try the Thai place in the Mall Plaza.















Pete got a Thai Iced Coffee like always, but this one wasn't very good.















We split some Coconut Shrimp for an appetizer














I got the Beef Satay Lunch















Pete got his Pad Thai














It was a beautiful place with nice staff but I think that the place we went to with John and Pam was much better. We'll need to get back there so I can get the name of it. Plus their cheese & crab dumplings are awesome.

Nothing special for dinner tonight. Just baked pasta with chicken & cream sauce topped with panko and parm cheese, sauteed zucchini (can you tell I'm trying to get them out of the fridge?) and crescent rolls.... I'll upload the pic a little later.

So the recipe I was testing here was the coconut rice. This is another Bethanny recipe but one that I found online. She has some really good instruction videos on her YouTube page. Since I can't link it to anything I've typed it up below.

The zucchini was super easy. I chopped 1 zucchini, seasoned it with Hawaiian sea salt & pepper and grilled them on our cast iron grill pan.















The shrimp were disappointing. I intended to have nice crispy shrimp for a contrast to the rice but it just didn't work out. The panko was not cooperating and didn't stick at all. It was a bummer but now I know for next time. Pete made a good suggestion to butterfly them next time also.

Let me tell you going from cooking on sea level to 7,500 ft you need to make some adjustments. The Coconut Rice came out OK. Nothing to rave about and I had to do some quick thinking to save it.

Coconut Rice - 4 Servings
1 cup Jasmine Rice
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup Lite Coconut Milk
1/2 t vanilla
pinch of salt & raw sugar
1/4 grated coconut

In a deep frying pan add rice, water & coconut milk. The liquid should be covering the rice plus 1/4". Bring the rice to a boil, about 3 minutes. Watch carefully! In a separate pan toast the grated coconut on low. When the liquid is absorbed into the rice it's done. Serve with toasted coconut as a garnish. (Optional: Top with toasted slivered almonds)

Since I'm doing pictures with the blog I've actually had to think about plating. It's something I don't know too much about but I was pretty happy with how it came together. Pete did his own take on how the food should be arranged.

So since another one of our goals for the new year is to get in shape I've compiled a book of healthy recipes and will slowly be working my way thru them. Last summer I got the book "Naturally Thin" by Bethenny Frankel and one of the "Recipes" that jumped out at me that I couldn't wait to try was the Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. These are really low cal and since it's all good stuff in them it's a non-guilty treat great for my sweet tooth. I've attached a link for anyone who wants to try it them self.

Here is the before shot:
















Here is the finished product:
















The texture of the cookies are good but they could be sweeter. Next time I think I'll be adding honey, organic Colorado for us, to sweeten it up a bit. I also saw in a different recipe that the banana's were mashed instead of cut into small pieces so that might sweeten it a bit more. But all in all they came out great.

Naturally Thin Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pete and I had a relaxing day at home today. Both of us are feeling a little under the weather so no snowboarding today. It's a bummer to miss the Ullr fest but there is always next year.

Pete has been doing research all day for the gear he needs for his avalanche class that he's taking in February. Trying to find the best deal on snowshoes so he can get practicing.

Today I'm making Banana Oatmeal Cookies and tonight for Dinner: Breaded Shrimp, Grilled Zucchini and Coconut Jasmine Rice. We have a few errands to run in town but then it's into the kitchen.

Continued......
We went to Idaho Springs today and hit up a few shops to see if anyone had a split board for Pete's training next month or one we could turn into one. At the consignment shop Pete found a great thin jacket for an extra layer for only $8. We looked at a pair of Flylow Pants but decided to wait on them.

On to Clear Creek Outdoor where I found the best skateboard! Pete's been telling me that to get better on my snowboard that I'll have to start skateboarding. So today I found one that I really like. I walked out of the house today without my phone so they best I could come up with for a pic is this:



















We went a little further down the street to the Fly fishing shop where we found the same pants that Pete liked at the consignment store for $270. We turned right around and bought him the same pair for $52 thanks to our locals discount ($54 original).

After hitting up the main strip, lol, we headed to the grocery store to grab a few things and while we were there we picked up the local papers. The Clear Creek Currant was a total waste since the Help Wanted section had 3 job listings. The other paper the Canyon Courier that had at least 1 job that sounded decent. So after grabbing our newest Netflix from the Post Office we headed home.

Nothing on the schedule for tonight just hanging out, making dinner and watching Lost in Translation.

After living in NYC, Brooklyn to be exact, for the last 10 years my husband Pete and I decided to give it all up to move out west and be ski bums. Now that we are almost completely unpacked I've decided to document some of our adventures.

We've set a few goals for this ski season, Pete is planning on skiing 100 days this year and mine is to ski at least one day every month in 2010. This will include hiking the St. Mary's Glacier and really getting back into shape. We'll be doing a lot of hiking, camping and rafting this summer so there should be lots to write about.

I'll also be writing about my recipes and cooking adventures. Recently I've compiled a bunch of ideas that I want to try out everything will be documented with pictures hopefully. This way I can practice plating and have a visual record of how they evolve each time I make them.

Tomorrow we ski Breckenridge, it is the Ullr fest so we'll see if there is anything going on in town after a long day on the mountain....