cooking, picnic-ing, and (more) hiking

It's hot here . . .

. . . but I discovered the trick to cooking though the heat while still not owning an air conditioner -- I only cook after 10 pm! This way, even if I have to turn on the oven and heat up the apartment, it's cooled off again by morning. Wahoo! Cooking during the summer is fun again! I made a couple of things last week:


Jerk Tofu (from the Post Punk Kitchen) with a side of baked sweet potato and garlic-roasted asparagus . . .


. . . and red lentil stew with saffron rice and cilantro yogurt cream. (The stew and cream were from an old issue of Cooking Light magazine, and I made up the rice.)

Also, I picked up a bunch of very delicious picnic-type foods, (hummus, wholegrain pita, orange cherry tomatoes, cucumber, olives, feta, stuffed grape leaves, and tabouli,) made some homemade lemonade (1 cup sugar, 1 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice, and 6 cups of water,) and packed up a meal to go for Dan and I last Friday. (No pics of the food, sorry!) We drove down to Minnehaha Creek, set up picnic camp at the bottom of the falls, ate a bunch, and then walked off our lunch along the creek.

The falls:


Alternate view of the falls (looking down from the top):


Minnehaha Creek:


Views along the creek:








I'm planning sushi for dinner tomorrow night, (which you've seen a million times before, so I won't bore you with additional photos,) and have no idea what I'll come up with these next couple of days, so stay tuned! (And stay cool!)