Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:00AM Most of my visits to Yosemite have come in the busy summer season - but just once my husband and I visited on a whim in the fall to celebrate our engagement. We arrived just as the sun was beginning to set and had the opportunity to see some gorgeous views. Someday I'd love to back in the winter to do some snowshoeing.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 5:00AM 
It's a rhubarb frenzy around our house while the prices are still low and so far I've made jam, pie, shrub, and tea bread. I thought, why not make some scones and curd too! I'm pretty happy with the base scone recipe I've been using for other versions like the Meyer Lemon Curd and Whole Grain Blueberry - this is just a slight adaptation to use vanilla sheep milk yogurt and added rhubarb pieces.
For the curd, I used my Meyer Lemon Curd recipe as a base but pumped up the amount of juice to up the rhubarb flavor. I also added more sugar since I was looking for a sweeter curd rather than a tarter version. For the rhubarb juice, I opted to boil down about 5 stalks of rhubarb since my research on the interwebs informed this would probably give me a sweeter and less tart version than simply running the stalks through my juicer.
Speaking of rhubarb, while I was searching for more ideas on what to make with rhubarb I came across this nerdy Star Trek recipe for Aaktay, or Klingon Steamed Bread. So I'll have to try adapting it to be gluten free sometime while rhubarb is still in season. Anyone have a suggestion on what I could substitute for "all-bran cereal"? I was thinking brown rice flakes perhaps.
Alright that's enough nerdy recipe talk, on to the scones and curd!
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 5:00AM 
One of the reasons I was so keen on the move to Washington State was living in close proximity to the mountains and especially the snow. So it's a little sad that over the course of this past winter my first visit to the snow came just a little over a week ago in May. Our mountains were all quite snowy still, so I spent a while looking at trip reports on Washington Trails Association for hikes that would at least be considered passable without any special equipment. Last time this year we attempted a hike up Kachess Ridge and ended up turning around due to loosing the trail in all the snow. It sounded like the Lake Serene and Bridal Veil Falls hike would be an okay choice, although it was noted that there was some snow on the trail - we figured we'd just enjoy as much of the hike as we could.
Overall, I put this hike in my totally worth it basket - in spite of the amount of stairs (those are my hiking kryptonite). If you include the out and back to the falls, the hike clocks in at around 9 miles round trip with about 2,000 feet of elevation gain. However since there are two gorgeous water features to see along the way, the climb is totally worth it.
Hikes, Things You Should Do In..., Washington in Do Friday, May 10, 2013 at 5:01AM I've been craving a tropical getaway recently - so that's had me thinking back to trips I took more than a decade ago to warmer destinations like the U.S. Virgin Islands. Just like the photos I shared from Greece, these were taken with a standard SLR film camera (which I'm realizing just how much I loved after looking back at more of these images). I only spent a few hours on St. Thomas and my strongest takeaway was the memories of the vibrant colored flora found around every corner.
St. Thomas, Travel Scenes, USVI in Travel Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 5:00AM 
This past winter I really haven't been into soup but now that we're deep in spring, all I seem to want is comforting soups. We've had two different soups on repeat in our food rotation; a dairy free tomato bisque and split pea soup. Up until recently, my attempts at split pea always turned out rather bland - but I've finally worked away at the recipe to get what I want. My theory is that I was missing a very key ingredient: bacon. And not just added bacon to the final soup, but cooking it in the same pot that you're soup will spend two hours simmering away in.
For a vegan version of this soup, you could easily skip the bacon all together and just cook the vegetables in 2 tablespoons of your favorite cooking oil. Adding some slices of cooked shiitake mushrooms would help pump up the flavor in somewhat similar way to the bacon.
Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Soup, Soy Free, Vegan Option in Recipes