Fridays Are For Snow

Good morning guys!  Hope your Fridays are going well 🙂  I know mine is…it’s a snowy Friday and I get to spend it hanging out with my sister!  I just wish my sweet husband were here too.  I have a winner for the contest, but you’ll have to go all the way down to the end (because I’m super tricky like that ;))

So let’s backtrack a tad to yesterday.  It was my sister’s first time skiing ever, and so I made sure to document it!  I started off with some honey Oikos:

And I added some of my Dylan’s French Vanilla Pecan Chia Granola…but mixed it all together before I remembered to take the picture!!!  Do you guys do that – make the food pretty for the picture then mix it all together? I would say I do that about 97% of the time 🙂

And of course a ski trip wouldn’t be complete without a ridiculously weird face self-portrait!

Salah and Chad:

And the learning begins!  She did really really well…much better than I did my first time out.  Of course, my first time out was in the middle of a blizzard on the busiest day of the year and on a blue!

Fun with Nate:

She seriously picked it up so quickly!  The only times she really fell were because she was needing to regain control, which was super smart of her.  So proud of my little sister!

We stopped and had lunch at the cafeteria.  I had a veggie burger that was AWESOME except I couldn’t find any veggies to put on it…

And Nate and I split some fries:

Nate and Chad took off to tackle some of the harder runs, and Salah and I sat in Adirondack chairs (a special love of mine) in the sun while they skied some more.  My knee was starting to ache and Salah has compartment syndrome in her leg that was getting irritated from the boots.  I had fun though, just relaxing and talking!  I might’ve gotten a little sunburned…but I put on sunscreen!  Guess that stuff does wear off after a while!  On the way back down we stopped at New Moon Bakery in Nederland, which is one of my favorite places ever!  They have the most amazing baked goods and espresso.  I had an unpictured raspberry square and savored every last bite!

When we got home we all immediately laid down for a nap, then got up and went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner.  Salah really wanted to go since she hasn’t been for a long time!  We started off with some garlic cheese focaccia:

Nate had a root beer and spilled it, so our sassy waitress brought him a kiddie cup…teehee!

I decided on the Pear & Gorgonzola pizza!  It’s cool that I’m not eating meat at the moment because I’ve always wanted to try this, but then opt for something with chicken instead.  It was really freeing to be able to order something I’ve wanted to try for so long!

What a beauty, eh?  I love gorgonzola….the salty tangy creamy heavenly cheese that it is!

Nate got the Chipotle Chicken – and he let me have a meatless bite.  SO SPICY!  I love spicy things…this just made me want to lay into the rest of his pizza!

When we got home I made some of Jessica’s Chewy Cherry Chocolate cookies, but in bar form (I’m a lazy baker) for the office.  Since I didn’t have any chocolate chips, I made a fudge icing that was super easy!

• 1 cup milk
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 2 cups mini marshmallows
• vanilla
• 1 Tbsp corn syrup

Mix everything together but the marshmallows over medium-low heat.  Once it’s all combined, add the marshmallows and cook, stirring constantly, until the marshmallows are all melted in.  Pour over hot cookie bars and let sit at room temperature overnight.  I’m not in the office today, but Nate said they’re a huge hit!  Thanks for yet another fabulous recipe Jessica!

This morning I woke up to around 3 inches of snow already on the ground!  Since Nate took the Jeep (our 4WD vehicle) in to work, I decided that if I was going to get out at all I better go then.  I bundled up and got some groceries for dinner tonight (can anyone say vegetarian slow cooker chili?!  Recipe to come…) and rented some movies.  When I got home I made a Green(ish) Monster, but split it in half with Salah since neither one of us was super hungry.  I tried to capture the snow fall too, but not sure if you can really tell!

Today should be a fun lazy day of cooking and movie watching!  Then tomorrow I will be hitting up the Denver Urban Homesteading farmers market tomorrow with Ashley, so get excited about that…I know I am!  I kind of have my fingers crossed that Salah and Chad will get stuck here and she’ll just have to come with me, but we’ll see… 🙂

And, without further ado, the winner of the Wholesome Foods Bakery FoodBar giveaway is:

Congrats Miss Sara!  Please email me your address at heathersdish@gmail.com.  Thanks to all of you who have made this contest such a success!  You can still get 15% off by ordering with the discount code ‘HeathersDish15’ at checkout!

Hope y’all have a fabulous Friday!  What are your weekend plans?