Almost ready for Panama and Columbia

You can watch my thread for Panama and Columbia at http://paul2panama.blogspot.com/ as I travel about.

I will be gone from April 18th to May 8th.

Cooking Class at Celilo's, Hood River, OR

Wow was this amazing!  How could it be so good and also be vegetarian!  Well we certainly had fun putting it all the food together and making a wonderful meal.


We cooked up fresh Roasted Celeriac and Apple Gratin and also Sweet potato and Yam Gratin.  Ricotta Gnudi with Wild Mushrooms and Kale.  It was fun making the Gnudi 'Nudies" as Ben says and giggles each time.  And we made Olive Oil Biscotti that was just delicious for after dinner.  We also made herbed goat cheese and sweet paprika, Olive and sundried tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese balls cut in half and mixed with harissa spread. These were on toast for an appetizer.

Preparing the Olives and Sundried Tomatoes for the toast

Serving  Olives and Sundried Tomatoes		Goat cheese with herbs.

Mozzarella Cheese with Harissa Spread

Baked Celery Root		Baked Apples

Baked Sweet Potatoes and Yams 

Assembling the Celeric and Apple Gratin

Assembling the Sweet Potato and Yam Gratin

Layering the potatoes with Ricotta cheese
and bechamel sauce we made up.

Ricotta Gnudi's are almost ready.
See how they are now floating.

Making up the Olive Oil Biscotti with Hazelnuts.

Boy were they great!

(Sorry about the background fan noise)

The Ricotta Gnudi with Wild Mushrooms
and Kale are ready to be served.

The Gratins are now ready for serving.

Dinner is ready now and the wine is being served!  Yummy!  Thanks Ben.

Back on the Mini Farm

New pigs will be coming in on Sunday but the old pigs were depressed due to the snow and mud that built up in their pens.  Eric and Liesl went to work and created a new play pen for them and the are now very happy. Liesl was making one of them very happy!  They have rototilled the yard in less than a day and it was much easier than us doing it.  Also they are adding fertilizer to everything which will be good when we go to plant it in late spring.

Happy hungry pigs!

 The new pig shack is finished and erected and also has new fencing around it.  All looks good for the new arrivals on Sunday

Traveling back to Hood River from Bend OR

From Redmond I thought I saw Mt Hood but it was Mt Jefferson. Mt Hood had clouds covering it.  Roads were very good with lots  of nice snow on the trees.

Click on the pictures for a better view.

Skiing on Mt Batchelor Bend OR

Great day of skiing on Mt Batchelor with friends.  Joe, Marc and Cheryl at the top of the lift with horizontal snow and white out conditions.  Got Marc to take a picture of Cheryl and me at the bottom of the mountain after the snow had slowed down.  Too bad we didn't have any fun as you can tell for the pictures.

Just another day of Skiing at the Meadows.

 Great day to be out after 21" of new powder in the last 24 hours.  It was sunny some of the time but it was also windy at the top of Vista Express. Temperature was between 7-14 degrees.  14 at the base for sure and it says it was 7 at 6,600 feet on their website!  Great hitting the powder and also cruising on the semi groomed runs.  Got a lot of runs in and the legs are wobbly again!   Little more crowded today.  Must be getting old!

Here is a picture of where we parked the car!  Pretty cool amount of snow there.  

They say over 100 inches of base.

Snowing hard today

Looks like we might be able to go skiing tomorrow.  Big flakes coming down.  Slowed the camera down to watch them leave tracers!

 Angel of course enjoyed all the snow trying to bury herself it in but it wasn't deep enough.  I will have to bring her up higher and let her have some fun in the woods.