Microwaves, Water Bottles and Forest Fires

And not because they go together, but they are the things I'm thinking about right now. Random, I know.

First off, microwaves. A modern invention that still isn't perfect, but is certainly a necessity in the kitchen. Or is it? I was surprised over Christmas when my lovely cousin, Morgan, commented that she has pretty much lived the last year without a microwave and she wouldn't have one in her flat in Paris, where she currently resides for the semester (oh to be in college again. I graduated 10 years ago. Wow!).

Homemade post-bike ride pizza!

Pizza and beer after a 600 calorie ride

It got me thinking about how much I use or don't use the microwave. I guess I primarily use it to reheat things. I'm a stovetop and oven cooking kind of gal. But as I just reheated my leftover homemade pizza from last night, it made me recall this conversation. The microwave gets used to heat up lunches for me, primarily at work, or today, at home, as I worked from home, but other than that, I don't really use the microwave that much. How much do you use your microwave in cooking?

Water bottles. I am a huge water consumer. I typically drink (exercise not included) 4 nalgene containers of water a day. That is 128 oz of water. And if I'm exercising, add on one or two more bottles worth. This is one of my 4 bottles. The sticker is for Guerrilla Gravity, a new gravity bike company. Matt is the enginerd behind the first downhill bike: GGDH. I call the GGDH his mistress, as he spends two or three nights, at least, a week designing "her".

Part of my "obsession" if we will call it that, of drinking so much water is that it is dry in Colorado. Very dry. Today's relative humidity is less than 10%. We have 2 humidifiers in our house. Also, I find that drinking that much water means I pee a lot, which gets me out of my chair on a fairly regular basis while I'm working. I also gave up artificially sweetened drinks and pop close to a year ago. It was rough. I was a diet coke every afternoon, maybe 2, kind of girl. Again, it was rough. But, since I kicked the habit, I drink a lot more water and my default drink is now iced tea and LaCroix sodas (naturally flavored bubbly water). Do you drink a lot of water each day? Do you drink enough water? What is your favorite water bottle?

So, on that dry front, there is a nasty bugger of a forest fire burning southwest of Denver right now. Thankfully, my family who live up in the foothills, are all safe. I've been really impressed on the utilization of social media by the Jefferson County Sheriff's office. Twitter, blogger, google maps.

Despite the fire, Matt and I decided to ride yesterday after work. Matt joined his friend Evan and they took Dakota Ridge. I did Matthew Winters and met up with them. There was an advisory for the sensitive population to stay indoors, but I pretended I wasn't asthmatic and disregarded the warning. I did take my inhaler. I did not use my inhaler. I was fine. I do have a little bit of a cough today, but nothing bad. The sky was hazy, but the smoke plume went off to the east south of where we were. I did see the fire planes overhead while riding. While waiting for the guys at the top of the Morrison Slide trail, I snapped a few pictures. These are looking south towards Red Rocks. I'm really hoping that we get some rain soon, as a summer drought and more fires is never good.

The hazy clouds are from the wildfire. When we arrived there was a thick plume going upwards. Red Rocks amphitheater is  right behind the red slabs sticking up out of the ground

Matt (black shirt, green pack) and Evan (red shirt, black pack) heading up the red rocks trail. The climb from this point gets brutal, which is why I met them at the top! :)

A bit of singleness and domesticity

Matt had his last day at his old job on Tuesday, so Thursday night, he headed to Moab with some friends for a weekend of bike riding. I had wanted to go, but after taking 2 days off at President's Day weekend, I didn't feel right taking Friday off. As such, I found myself in a déjà vu world - that of the single girl. I was able to have some nice "me" time and also not cook a meal for dinner!

Friday night after my spin class, I had the weirdest dinner, but oh was it grand! Warmed up chicken meatballs, popcorn and a little bit of lemon zest cookie dough (not too much, as I didn't want to undo what the bike had just burned). A part of me misses that aspect of being single - the come home and have a bowl of cereal because you don't feel like cooking, or just graze your way through the meal.

On Saturday, I was a bit more structured in my eating habits, which included Michelle coming over for a girl's night. We shared a pizza at Serioz and watched a rather random film, Wild Target. It was slightly predictable, but random and fun non-the-less. It had Emily from Devil Wears Prada and Ron Weasley from Harry Potter in it. On Sunday, we got up and went for a nice walk to and from the dog park. After Michelle left on Sunday, I began preparing for a week away. Myplans for the day were to make a bunch of crock pot meals and freeze them, some dough/bread and pizza sauce. I accomplished them all, but am a bit sore from all of the walking and standing that the day brought.

Before heading out, I made my dough: http://www.makeandtakes.com/warning-easiest-recipe-for-homemade-bread/

I began with my grocery list in hand - well, actually on the iphone, but the principle of the matter is there! I found this on pinterest: http://melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/freezer-cooking-slow-cooker-meals.html and decided to give 10 crock-pot meals a try. I went to Costcofirst, as I buy my organic chicken there. I also picked up my chuck roast - the only non-organic or natural thing in my meal preparation. I feel slightly guilty, but oh well. Next was Target for some general household items, followedby Whole Foods for the rest of my grocery goodies.

When I got home, my dough was ready to go.

Dough all nice and bubbly

30 minutes to rise on the pizza stone

So I cut it into thirds, rolled them into balls, put cornmeal on my pizza stone, turned the oven on to 450F and placed the other two balls into quart sized baggies.

Bagged for the fridge

I put the bagged dough in the fridge.

The dough exploded through the plastic bag :(

This morning, along with all things bad Monday (the dog got sick overnight - poor puppy and poor me), I discovered that this was not the best call, as BOTH bags blew open. I guess I'll need to use the freezer next time, or a bigger bag to store the dough. Any suggestions are welcome. I was able to salvage the two bags, remove the dried out dough from each and combine into one bag. We'll see how that bread turns out. It is now housed in the freezer.