mountain masala

While Ft. Collins had another 50* day, the mountains were a different story.  It was sunny, but only 17 degrees!  We forgot that a lot of people had Monday off since Christmas fell on the weekend, so needless to say it took 3hrs to get to the mountains today.  Luckily Chris does the driving!

I finally found the memory card for my point n’ shoot camera.  No sense in hauling the dSLR and leaving it in the cold car all day long.  Here are a few shots from the drive.  We drove over the pass today, instead of taking the tunnel, because we went to A-Basin. 

The pass goes up over the mountain and is mainly for trucks carrying HC [hazardous chemicals] inside.  HC trucks are not permitted to go through the tunnel. 

We took the pass because it’s actually a little shorter when going to A-Basin and typically has less traffic.  However, sometimes you get stuch behind an HC truck going really s.l.o.w.

So many dogs around this mountain.  Big boxer!

At the base of A-Basin.

At the top of the mountain about to snowboard down the back bowl.

The clouds + sky looked pretty crazy.  My point n’ shoot is now over 4yrs old and has seen better days.  The photo quality has definitely degraded, but I kind of like it!

The snowboarder, now skier + traitor, hehe. 

I was feeling a bit out of it today.  Might be coming down with something, but hoping to fight it off!

Heading back to the car, there was such a great view. 

With the sun still barely poking through.

And here is Chris starring in a ski video.  We’ll call it…

“not as planned”

Hilarious and totally not typical for Chris, so I kind of love that I got it on video. muahahaa 

The drive home didn’t take quite as long, and I may have dozed off a few times.  I had a plan of what I wanted to make for dinner, so we stopped by Whole Foods on the way back for a few things.

When we got home, we walked in to quite the stinky mess from the dog[s].  Exhausted, we spent the next 1.5hrs cleaning floors, cleaning dogs, and trying not to throw up.  I was ready to throw in the towel on dinner, as it was already 8:30pm.  However, I thought maybe it would relax me and it did just that.

I’m so glad I decided to make this meal.  Recently, I finished the book A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenburg [author of the blog Orangette].  The book was fabulous.  I’ll give a quick recap of my thoughts soon, but I definitely loved it!  The recipe that I just had to make first, was for Chana Masala.  I’ve never tried making this before, as ethnic cooking can be quite intimidating, however Molly made it sound pretty simple. 

It took less than an hour and was actually very simple, but took a little patience.  There are a few steps where you just have to stir + wait, stir + wait.  I don’t mind though.  Like I said, it was actually really relaxing.

I followed the recipe exactly, even using a few new-to-my-kitchen-ingredients, like cardamom pods + garam masala.  This smelled completely amazing while it was cooking.

Such robust flavors, with quite the spice.  I’m glad I swirled in a little whole milk yogurt to help cool things down, as suggested by Molly.  I actually boiled the garbanzo beans too.  I threw 2c raw beans in a bowl with water into the fridge before bed last night to soften them up and then started boiling them as soon as we got home.

We both thoroughly enjoyed this meal.

Chris spotted an article that he thought you might find interesting.  I definitely did!!  I’m so fascinated + baffled by research like this.  Scraping plaque off teeth, that are over 40,000 years old, to study the types of food consumed + how they were prepared just seems down right impossible.

Neanderthals may have feasted on meat and two veg diet

Night!

Ashley