Venus de Miles 2012

I've been riding with the Venus de Miles women's bike club this year, which has been a lot of fun. Every year near the end of the season, the club participates in the Venus de Miles cycling event. It's a ton of fun, women-only, good food, massages at the end, facial samples, and raises money for college scholarships- I don't think it could get better.

Last year I rode the 51-mile ride, which was great. This year I thought I'd challenge myself with the 67-mile ride. My mother-in-law was supposed to ride with me, but a crash earlier this season prohibited that. Then, an exhausting ride two weeks ago made me question my decision to do such a long ride, but I attempted it anyway and am so glad I did! It was fun, challenging and exciting to have met my goal.

Here are a few pics:
At the start:





The men in a drag (ladies only event, but these "ladies" ride with us, assisting with any mechanical issues or whatever else might come up).



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Fire truck!

Elias loves anything related to fire fighting: fire trucks, fire fighters, hydrants, helmets... When the flatiron fire was taking place- the first thing said when I told him there was a fire was "yay, I love fire!". We had to chat about good and bad fires and why this wasn't a good one.

Anyways, yesterday we were running some errands, and ended up having lunch outside the grocery store. A fire engine pulled up and Elias said hello to them, gave them high-fives and talked about his fire engine shirt he was wearing. The people close by started telling Elias that he should ask to see their truck. When the fire fighters came back out that is just what he did. Along with a few other kids, Elias got to sit in the drivers seat, check out the back, wear a helmet and learn about their masks and air tanks. I think it made his day :)

Later as we were laying down for naps, Elias told me he was going to dream about fire trucks, helping people and putting out fires. Too cute.





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Pesto Pizza Recipe

I combined three four recipes to make this pizza and really liked how it turned out. You could easily leave out the chicken for a vegetarian recipe, use gluten-free dough, leave out the parmesan cheese in the pesto, or whatever you need to do!


I used the following recipes to create this pizza:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pizza-with-Pesto-Fresh-Tomatoes-and-Mozzarella-101994
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/garden-tomato-basil-pesto-pizza-10000001087068/
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/classic_baked_chicken/
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/fresh_basil_pesto/


Here is my recipe - enjoy!

Pesto Pizza w/Tomatoes, Fresh Mozzarella and Chicken

YIELD

 Makes one 12-14" pizza, feeds 3-4

ACTIVE TIME

 1 hour +

INGREDIENTS

• • 6 ounces thinly sliced fresh mozzarella (I used ciliegine)
  • 2 med/lg (heirloom) tomatoes
  • 1 pound pizza dough (Whole Foods pre-made dough was really good), (thawed if frozen)
  • all-purpose whole wheat flour for dusting
  • 3 tablespoons basil pesto (Simply Recipes)
  • 1/4 Cup thinly sliced fresh basil
  • Optional: 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

• Special equipment

  • a large pizza stone (at least 14 inches across)
  • a baker's peel or parchment paper

---

INSTRUCTIONS

• 1. Bake chicken (Simply Recipes)
  2. If making homemade, make pesto (Simply Recipes).
  3. At least 1 hour before baking pizza, set stone on lowest rack of oven (if you have a gas stove, stone can go directly on oven floor) and preheat oven to 500°F.
  4. Thinly slice fresh mozzarella, basil, chicken and cut tomatoes crosswise into 1/8-inch-thick slices (or chop).
  5. On a floured surface with your hands pat out and stretch dough evenly into a 12-inch round, keeping hands flat. (Do not handle dough more than necessary. If dough is sticky, dust it lightly with flour.)
  6. Dust parchment paper with flour and carefully transfer dough onto it. Jerk peel once or twice and, if dough is sticking, lift dough and sprinkle flour underneath it, reshaping dough if necessary.
  7. Spread pesto over dough leaving a 1-inch border and place cheese.
  8. Arrange tomato over cheese.
  9. Add chicken slices and season with salt and pepper.
  10. Line up far edge of peel with far edge of stone and tilt peel, jerking it gently to start pizza moving. Once edge of pizza touches stone, quickly pull back peel to completely transfer pizza to stone. (I used parchment paper and accidentally baked it on the paper - turned out fine).
  11. Bake pizza until dough is crisp and brown, about 10 to 12 minutes, and transfer with peel to a cutting board.
  12. At about 5 minutes, sprinkle with fresh basil slices.
  13. Cut pizza into slices and serve immediately.

Elias and his bike

Elias loves riding his strider bike. He recently borrowed and temporarily lost my bike gloves, so we decided to get him his own pair. Tom found the smallest pair of kids gloves at U. Bikes and Elias loves them. Even this xxs pair is a little big but they work themselves down over his fingers over time and end up perfect.


Lately Tom has been taking Elias to the Valmont bike park where apparently he does pretty well. I haven't been myself but Tom says he loves to zoom around the tot track, have Tom push him around the pump track and do something they call "dropping in the hole".


We've taken a few walks with Elias on his strider and he does really well. He starts out with more of a walk or leaning to one side but by the end of the ride has more of a paddle that is well balanced and has a little of a glide in there. Tom keeps telling me that Elias will be tearing up by the end of the summer- yikes!


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Best 30 seconds...for a 2 year old

Took this video for Elias while he was napping one afternoon. He loves it! and will watch it over and over and over...

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Finally- a house!

So Tom & I started looking for a house to buy the summer before we got married, almost 8 years ago! We started looking at condos and never really found anything so continued renting. We kept an eye on the market as we transitioned from one rental to the next, but our most recent rental was such a good fit and price for us, it was going to take a really good house to make us move on. After five years renting a basement apartment in lower Chautauqua, we finally found a place that we both liked.

The house went on the market Friday, we looked at it Sunday afternoon and were likely going to make an offer, but wanted to discuss it and sleep on it. Well, no sleep was to be had as we got a call from our realtor friend letting us know that someone was preparing an offer for the next day. If we were interested, we had to get the process going! We decided to go for it and our realtor friend got everything together for us even though he was on vacation. The offer was submitted by noon on Monday and we found out that evening that our offer had been accepted! Things moved along smoothly and we were grateful that nothing big came up during the inspection or any of the other deadlines. Yesterday was closing day and again it went smoothly. We know have a house!

The house is ranch-style, 3bd/1ba, with a nice laundry room addition, great backyard and in a good neighborhood. We're probably not more than a mile from where we are currently living! The previous owner was moving out of the country and selling all of her household items so we were lucky enough to be able to purchase her living room, patio furniture and she ended leaving her lawn mower, rakes, hoses, etc. it's so nice to not have to purchase all of those things up front, although regardless we've still been to home depot more times in the last week than the last few years ;)

We have a few things to do before moving in: radon mitigation, adding insulation, etc. but we should hopefully be moved in by the end of the month!

Here are a few pics:

Savory Beet Soup recipe

So, I needed to have this recipe online so I could link to it easily and thought maybe some of the 3 of you that follow would enjoy it too. If you don't like beets, this could be a good way to eat them since the flavor is mellowed out by the potatoes. Play around with the number of beets and potatoes until it has the taste and consistency you prefer. Enjoy!

Savory Beet Soup

Adapted from a Cooking Light recipe

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

¼ teaspoon fennel seeds

4 cup chicken broth

2 cup water

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground pepper

3 medium beets, peeled & halved

1 medium potato, peeled & halved crosswise

Dash of dill weed

½ teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Optional: 8 tsp sour cream

Preparation:

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and fennel seeds; saute 3 minutes or until tender. Add broth and next nine ingredients (through bay leaf). Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes or until beets and potato are tender. Discard bay leaf.

To blend, use immersion blender in pot or place one-third broth mixture in blender or food processor; process until smooth. Place pureed mixture in a large bowl. Repeat procedure twice with remaining broth mixture. Return pureed mixture to pan. Warm soup over low heat for 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

Optional: Combine ½ cup soup and sour cream, stirring with a whisk. Divide soup evenly among each of 8 bowls. Top each serving with 1 tablespoon sour cream mixture; swirl sour cream mixture using the tip of a knife.