While chowing down on Thanksgiving dinner, a couple of friends and I made plans to hit the slopes the following day.  I woke up bright and early on Friday morning (5:45am) and met up with two friends at a park and ride along the highway.  We left the parking lot just after 6:30 in the morning and I drove us up to Keystone.  We wanted to be sure to avoid any traffic, which was completely successful, though we may have been even a bit too early.  We arrived at Keystone before eight and the lifts don’t open until nine.

With all the recent snow that has fallen in the mountains many of the resorts are opening lifts and terrain much quicker than ever.  One of these record-breaking openings was the earliest ever opening of The Outback at Keystone.  Traditionally this is my favorite area of Keystone, so once we were finally on the slopes, we immediately headed that way.  Usually you would take either Mozart, Mine Shaft, or Diamond Back from the top of Dercum Mountain (the first peak at Keystone) to gain access to both North Peak and The Outback.  On Friday, these trails were all closed due to lack of snow coverage, so the only way to access the other two peaks was to take a ride on the Outpost Gondola.

Enjoying the snow in The Outback at Keystone.

I don’t think I have ever ridden the Outpost Gondola, but I was more than happy to take a ride this day.  Once we made it to North Peak and then The Outback we were treated to absolutely no lines.  In addition the snow was actually really good, especially for November.  We enjoyed many hours of fun out in The Outback.  The highlight of the day was easily the snow we found after a quick hike to the North Bowl.  My friend Rob and I often hike out to the North and South Bowls to find the best powder.  Friday was no exception, where after a half mile hike we found over half a foot of untouched powder.  It took us both by surprise, but we enjoyed every minute of it.

After noon we decided to work our way back towards the front of the resort.  We took one run down Bachelor, and soon realized that the snow wasn’t very good on the front side of the mountain.  I’ve often found this to be true.  Rob blames it on the night skiing that Keystone has.  Most resorts in Colorado don’t offer it.  We also found large lines all along the front side of the mountain.  Those two things put together convinced us to call it a day.  I was so happy that most people either couldn’t figure out how to get back to the other two mountains or just weren’t interested.  It left all the good snow for us while they dealt with all the icy conditions on the front.  It was a great first day of the season!

Keystone on Dwellable

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I know I did.  We had dinner at some friends’ house who were hosting a group of the misfits (mostly from Cincinnati) for the holiday. 

My plate of food on Thanksgiving.

The hosts cooked a bunch of the food, but I volunteered to bring over a couple of dishes to share.  I choose to make the sweet potatoes and a green bean casserole.  After hearing that someone at the party either was allergic to or didn’t like mushrooms, I decided to try something different for the green bean casserole.  I found this recipe and followed the directions exactly.  This dish turned out great, but I wasn’t overly impressed with it.  Maybe it was just all of the great food that was prepared, but I think it could have had even more flavor.  Still a very pleasing alternative to the traditional casserole. 

Grandma's Green Bean Casserole.

I settled on this recipe for the sweet potatoes, mostly because it was the highest rated sweet potato dish I could find.  Let me say that I would have to agree with the rating on this one, it was delicious, and seemed to be the favorite of many of our group.  With that said, I had a few problems with the recipe, which I again tried to follow exactly.  It seemed that my sweet potatoes weren’t nearly done enough after only fifteen minutes in boiling water.  I removed them from the water at that time and I couldn’t mash them at all.  I returned them to boiling water for another ten minutes, and I still had problems mashing.  Unfortunately I didn’t realize the problem before I added the sauce to the potatoes.  So rather than boiling them anymore, I was forced to put them into the oven to cook. 

I baked them for around ten minutes, and finally I was able to start mashing some of the potatoes, though not nearly half as the recipe indicated.  Again, I baked them for another ten minutes and finally I was able to get half of the potatoes mashed.  I think that cutting the potatoes up into smaller pieces at the start would have helped fix my problem.  I had another problem with the last step of adding marshmallows to the top and baking until brown.  It seems my dish was a little too liquidy, and the sauce was boiling rapidly in the oven, which quickly disintegrated most of the marshmallows.  Rather than trying again, I simply mixed the remaining marshmallows into the dish and watched them melt.  Despite these issues, the sweet potatoes were excellent. 

In rushing to get the potatoes finished, I forgot to take a photo of them.  You will just have to trust me that they looked as delicious as they tasted.

You may recall the running challenge I participated in at this time last year.  The goal was to run 100 miles between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I was able to complete the challenge last year (week 2 results, week 3, and week 4) with a few days leftover.  Well it is back again this season, and I am signed up to participate.  I don’t actually know Jenny but found out about the challenge through friends in Denver.  It is open to anyone, so I encourage you to give it a try.  To sign up just visit jennychallenge.blogspot.com and follow the directions.  If you do decide to sign up, let me know, as there are already over 150 people registered and finding someone without scanning the entire list is impossible.  Good luck runners.

I finally made it out to Jack-n-Grill this past Sunday.  We have wanted to try it ever since one of my wife’s cousins alerted us to its existence when he saw it on The Travel Channel’s Man v. Food.  I didn’t visit to conquer the seven pound burrito that the TV show host attempted to eat, I just wanted to sample some regular sized meals.  Fortunately for me, their meals are far from normal sized. 

We arrived at the original location in the middle of the afternoon and were immediately seated at a table directly next to the kitchen.  There is a large glass window that allows diners to view the kitchen and the preparation of their food.  We started with the chips and salsa, which only cost $1.  I knew we were in for a spicy meal the second I tasted the salsa.  I remember it burning my mouth right away, but it was very delicious.  Before long we watched as our meals were quickly assembled in the kitchen and then delivered right away to our table. 

I ordered a chicken burrito smothered in both red vegetarian and pork green chile, also known as Christmas style.  I was given the option to have sour cream and guacamole added, which I agreed to.  My wife ordered the plate of four gorditas, choosing one each of refritos, chicken, chicken and bean, and breakfast.  These are deep-fried sopapillas that are again served with choice of chiles for dipping.  We decided to split both meals, and I’m glad we did.  The gorditas were delicious!  The burrito was also good, with the standout items being both chiles.  The pork green chile was very hot and full of flavor. 

Finishing the last bits of my smothered burrito.

 

Even though we were very hungry, we could not finish all the food, as the burrito was very large in addition to the serving of four stuffed sopapillas.  The prices seemed fair, $10 for each of the meals, though I wasn’t aware that the guacamole and sour cream on my burrito would be extra.  $2 for one scoop of guacamole seems pretty high to me.  I would recommend ordering the guacamole as an appetizer and saving some for your meals, if desired.  Overall I left the restaurant happy and completely full.  Their menu is very long, so I hope to make it back to sample more in the future. 

To kick off the weekend Kim and I went out on Friday night to catch Ozomatli at the Ogden Theatre.  I was first introduced to this band back in college by one of my roommates.  He took me to my first show in 2002, and though I have only seen them a couple of times since them, they put on one of the best live shows I have seen.  The show on Friday night was no exception.  It was a solid mix of old songs that I can remember hearing back in ’02 and new songs.  The band was formed in 1995 and is showing no signs of slowing down.

The band currently features seven members: Asdru Sierra (lead vocals, trumpet), Raul Pacheco (lead vocals, guitar, tres, jarana), Justin Poree (rap vocals, percussion), Wil-dog Abers (bass, backing vocals), Jiro Yamaguchi (tabla, percussion, backing vocals), Ulises Bella (sax, clarinet, requinto jarocho, keyboards, backing vocals), and Mario Calire (drums).  Their mix of music includes everything from hip hop and salsa, dancehall and cumbia, samba and funk, merengue and comparsa, East LA R&B and New Orleans second line, Jamaican ragga and Indian raga, all sung in a mix of spanish and english.  It is very hard to explain other than to say it is a very worldly sound and a ton of fun.

At times on Friday the number of players on stage nearly doubled as guests on all sorts of instruments came and went, including sousaphone and an entire horn section.  The sound was great, the crowd was large but not overly packed.  We were able to find a great spot downstairs, off to the side but with a great view of the stage.  Part of the show is watching the band members and their dances and theatrics.  The crowd knew nearly all the songs and fully participated at all the right times.  It was a wonderful show and I hope to see them play again soon.  

Image taken from heyreverb.com

Somehow my hockey team lost to the last place team in the league on Wednesday night.  What’s strange is that this team didn’t seem like a very bad team at all.  In fact, most of their forwards were really good skaters.  This game was played at what must be the oldest hockey rink in Denver.  Most of the rinks I’ve played in have been really nice and up to date.  This rink was up to date for the most part, but you could definitely tell the age of the building based on the locker room facilities and small size of the benches.  What’s worst, there is no bar!

Bowling went really well last night.  Not only for me but also for my team.  I started with a score of 111 in the first game.  Second was my third highest score ever of 146.  And finally I finished the night with a 130.  My team will still be in second place, as the first place team also won all of their games.  However, we put should put some space between us and the team we played against, who were in third place.  We only have a few weeks left to climb back into first, so I hope that my bowling continues to be above my average.

I went 2-1 in fantasy football.  With one of my wins, I moved up into second place overall.  I remain in fourth place in the other league with a win.  And in the final league with a loss, I remain tied for fourth.  This week may be a struggle for some of my teams, as injuries continue to bring down some of my better players.  I also lost some points in the college pick’em game and fell all the way down to sixth place.  And I’m stuck in eighth place in the NFL version.

I put together one of those baby pools where you can guess the delivery date, size of the baby, etc.  Originally I was thinking of making it a money pool, but that seemed like too much work to collect the money.  So the entries are free and take very little time.  Please follow this link to enter your guesses.  You have less than 30 days to enter.  Maybe we will find some kind of prize to give the winner.  Best of luck!

We had our first Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend.  A good friend of ours will be leaving the country for work before Thanksgiving arrives, and she wanted to have a great American meal before she left.  This group of friends are all quite the cooks, so I had to prepare a couple of my favorite recipes for the occasion.  The first are these wonderful garlic mashed potatoes.  I’ve been making them for years, and I don’t think there are any better mashed potatoes out there anywhere.  I also made a large batch of stir fried asparagus.  I followed both receipes closely, except for I heated the teriyaki sauce for the asparagus until it thickened and was much more like a glaze.

Just as I was posting this, I remember that today is the Thanksgiving potluck at work.  So I am actually having my second Thanksgiving meal of the season right now.

Over the weekend I made my first visit to Swing Thai.  My wife had tried their food once before, but neither of us had ever dined in.  There is a location close to our house (301 S. Pennsylvania) but we always seemed to pass it up when heading out for Thai food.  The nearby Thai Basil gets most of our business.  Since we were on foot, and Swing Thai is a few blocks closer to home, we decided to give it a try.

Immediately I was amazed at how small this location is.  You can see that it is small from the outside, but it was even smaller than I expected.  The nice thing about the small size is that the kitchen is very close and the wonderful smells greet you right away upon entry.  We were seated at a small table in the middle of the room.  The service was alright, though it did take awhile to get our drinks, just a water and iced green tea.  Refills came much quicker and the food was served quickly too.

I decided to try the Jungle Curry, while my wife had the Pad Thai.  The curry came with a warning of it being hot, but I didn’t think it was too spicy.  It was a little more soupy than I’m used to, but the vegetables were wonderful.  I was a little shocked at the serving size of the dish.  Typically when ordering curry at other restaurants I’ve been given so much that it often supplies enough leftovers for multiple lunches.  The serving of curry here was much smaller and I had no problem eating it all.  The Pad Thai was closer to the normal service size, but perhaps still a little small.  We left with absolutely no leftovers.  Despite this complaint, the food was very good and of the highest quality.

Saturday was a productive day for us at the Paff house.  We spent the majority of the day working on the baby’s room.  Details can be found over at kimandedjr.com.

It's a jungle in there!