Cooking, Skiing, Grilling...Oh My!

Goodmorning (or afternoon, or night)!
This will be a hodge-podge of a post but will show you that I'm staying on track with one of my goals for the new year --- cooking.  I've been using a lot of recipes out of Barefoot's new book, Foolproof, given to me by my sweet friend Gwen. 

But before we eat...we exercise :)  A few photos below from a backcountry ski trip last weekend to Yodelin.  Also below are some photos from two weeks ago; we stopped on the way home from Stevens Pass to watch some kayakers come down the Skykomish River.  It was a beautiful day and if you look closely, you can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance behind the kayakers. We've had a temperature inversion the last few weekends, meaning that it was warmer at higher elevations and cooler in the lower elevations, very strange. Anyways, it made for beautiful, sunny days in the mountains. Who wouldn't want to ski when it's sunny and in the 40's :) Made me happy to get sun!

And now for the cooking!  I've been making all sorts of things, photographed a few.  Let's see...I've made: two soups, chocolate chip cookies, kale chips, home made vegetable stock, orechetti with broccoli rabe (and chicken sausage for Will), seared scallops on tomatoes, and we grilled on our new grill!  My parents got us a grill for Christmas and we decided to order a Weber. We got it on Amazon (duh) and it came in two days; however, if you don't buy at a store, you have to put it together yourself!  It came in a ton of pieces and looked quite daunting.  It was actually pretty simple and was a success!

Orechetti with broccoli rabe; I added the meat
separately at the end.

Success, looks good, AND works!!

Kale chips

Seared scallops on tomatoes with crostini..
Sorry, can't get the photo the right orientation.

Home made tomato soup

I am going to a Superbowl party today so am going to make mini-pizzas or mini calzones for an appetizer.  Will kind of laughed when I said I was going to a sporting event party and asked me if I even knew who was playing.. I didn't.  But, I told him I knew it should be intersting because the 'brothers' were involved.  "Which brothers are these?" he asked me.  Hum... he called my bluff. I had just overheard someone at work say the 'brothers' so I said, "Oh you know, Payton and Eli Manning." He just laughed... anyways, Happy Superbowl day!