Winter Breakfast 2017

Winter Breakfast has become one of the most talked about and anticipated events in our household. We haven't yet gotten it to work out on the morning of the Winter Solstice, but we get as close as we can. Only the snowman pancakes and the white hot chocolate have been present at all our Winter Breakfast celebrations. The rest of the items change, depending on my creativity, motivation, and available time. This year the menu included snowman pancakes, white hot chocolate in snowman mugs, snowman bagels, hard boiled egg snowmen, grape penguins, and polar bear yogurt. As always, we had a blast!

Plate of Peguins

Egg Snowmen

Snowman pancakes

Snowman bagels

Polar bear yogurt

White hot chocolate

Winter Breakfast is our favorite!

We gave the kids some little surprises, and when Ruth saw these two items,
she declared it to be, "The best day of her life!"

The rest of the cruise*

We got off our cruise boat this morning around 6:15, with sleepy and tearful kiddos. They made so many friends on board and had so much fun that they definitely weren't ready for it to be over.

After Juneau, our next port was Skagway. We disembarked but didn't spend a lot of time in the little town, because it was mostly just rows of souvenir shops. But getting back on the boat was perfectly fine with everyone because there was so much fun to be had.

Skagway Totem

A storefront completely
covered in driftwood

Ruth decided to get in on a statue pose

At port in Skagway

The day after Skagway was spent on the boat, cruising around Glacier Bay. This was definitely Jeff's and my favorite day. It was absolutely beautiful and possibly the most serene place I have ever been. The quiet was all encompassing and the fog made it seem otherworldly. We saw and heard the glaciers calving, which was such an incredible experience. We also saw sea lions, otters, and a couple of whales.  Since the whole bay is a National Park, we also had rangers on board all day to give talks, answer questions, and point out particular places and animals of interest. We could have easily been happy spending at least twice as much time there. That night, we had our second gala night aboard the ship, and everyone was excited to dress up again and dine in the dining room.

Glacier Bay

Icy sea shrouded in fog

Margerie Glacier

Captain Nice at the Lido Buffet

Gala Night, Round Two

The final day of the cruise was a sea day, and the ship had even more activities scheduled than normal, so we were definitely well fed and entertained. The kids spent almost every moment in their respective camps. Meanwhile, Jeff and I attended a tour of the kitchen, a couple of cooking classes, a couple of trivia games, afternoon tea. We also had a date night to the dining room, while the kids were tied up with their friends and activities.

Crab appetizers in the kitchen

A large quantity of whipped cream

This should be a scratch-and-sniff picture!
Everyone wanted to linger in the bread room.

America's Test Kitchen cooking class

This morning when we got off the boat, we boarded a scenic tour train to Anchorage. In addition to the beautiful scenery, we also saw a grizzly bear (spotted by yours truly), a moose, some eagles and artic terns, and a group of Dall sheep. 

From boat to train

View from the train window

The lighter brown spot just right
and down from center is a
gigantic grizzly bear.
Here are a few reasons it isn't the
 greatest picture I've ever taken:
1. It was taken with my phone.
2. It was quite a ways away from us.
3. We were on a moving train.
4. I was saying "BEAR! BEAR! BEAR!"
and wasn't able to fully focus.

I caught the back of the train
as we went around a bend

The foreground is all glacial silt,
which is left behind as the tide retreats
at low tide. The difference between
high and low tide is tremendous .

When we got off the train, we reconnected with Usha (our faithful and beloved little RV, who came to Alaska separately from us) and met up with Jeff's cousin, who lives in Anchorage, for a wonderful lunch. We haven't seen him in years, so it was delightful to have a chance to catch up. 

Our Alaskan cruise is definitely our favorite cruise we've ever done, and this state is such an amazing place. We are looking forward to exploring more of it in the coming week.

*For those of you thinking this seems to be picking up in the middle of a story, you're right! If you missed the posting about the first half of our cruise, check it out here.

Ridiculously Awesome

We slept in this morning and had late workouts, so we didn't head out until 10:30 or so. Our first stop was the Boudin Bakery to pick up sandwiches for a picnic lunch. This huge bakery/cafe/store/museum in Fisherman's Wharf claims to be the first baker of San Francisco's famous sourdough bread, and it has been calling to us every day we've been here with its heavenly scents. Clay was also particularly interested in watching the bakers work and loved the animal-shaped loaves they were producing.

Boudin Bakery

Watching the baker make a crab

Once our lunch was purchased, we took an Uber over to Golden Gate Park, where we spent a lovely afternoon, soaking up the gorgeous weather and creating special memories. We visited the Japanese Tea Garden, had our picnic on the steps of what Clay called The Temple of Doom, rented a surrey bike which provided lots of laughs and was deemed "ridiculously awesome," watched a bit of lawn bowling, played at a really awesome playground, rode a fun indoor carousel, and saw many lovely plants and flowers.

Japanese Tea Garden

The waterwheel bridge in the
Tea Garden was the little boys' favorite!

Assembling in the "Temple of Doom"
for lunch

Our best memories of the day
were probably made in the surrey.

Carousel Riders

 Eventually, we made our way back over to the wharf for dinner at Pier 39's Crab House. And after dinner, we killed an hour in the puzzle and game store Think Out of the Box, where they encourage customers to try all the products, whether they buy them or not.

Crab House at Pier 39

Crab enchiladas

A skating dance group was
practicing at the pier.

Working on a puzzle at
Think Out of the Box

Playing a game

Last night in San Francisco
(Golden Gate Bridge on left, Alcatraz on right)

Sampling the Midwest

We hit the road about 5:30 this morning, with a couple of goals in mind: 1. Check as many states off our list as possible, with the hope of ending up in Wisconsin, and 2. Have a Progressive Dinner of sorts, in order to sample some of the dishes those states are known for, which basically amounts to various meats on various buns. We managed to hit five states--Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin--and sample iconic foods from two of those, plus we added in the Nebraska food, even though we haven't made it there yet. (The reason for this is that the restaurant we wanted to try doesn't appear to be on the western side of the state, where we will be later, but there was one in Kansas City, right across from the place we were already planning to stop for the Kansas BBQ.) We collected our food samples from all over and then saved them up for a picnic lunch at a lovely park in Des Moines. We laughed at ourselves the whole time and made such fun memories! Oh, and lest you think us to be true pigs, we only ordered a couple of each sandwich and then divided them six ways.

Before our official food tour even started, we stopped for a good ol' Southern breakfast in Garden City, MO

Kansas: burnt ends on a bun

Iowa: breaded pork tenderloin sandwich
(Those are Jeff's hands, to give you an idea of size.)

Nebraska: The Runza, a German hamburger with beef and cabbage and various toppings

Picnic in the park

Bread Winners

In recent months, we have been transitioning away from traditional breads and have been trying to take more of a gluten-free, sugar-free approach. My biggest issue with "fake" bread is usually the texture, as many recipes seem to come out way too dry or mushy in sort of a weird way or are so dense as to be impractical.

But, never one to give up easily, I have continued to try recipes from the vast selection offered by the Internet and have finally found some winners, with true bread-like texture. I wanted to share them here 1). so they will be easy for me to find in the future, and 2). because some of you may also want to try them out of dietary necessity or plain and simple curiosity.

Blender Bread Recipe--This is a really flavorful bread and is perfect for toast or for sandwiches or other use cases that require slices of bread.

2-Minute Flourless English Muffin--This one is a single-serve recipe, but it's quick and delicious. I have only had it toasted for breakfast, but I imagine it would also work well as sandwich bread.

Carrot Quinoa Muffins--A great make-ahead breakfast or snack option, if you want something that's easy to grab on your way out the door in the morning. The recipe, as it appears on the website, calls for brown sugar and whole wheat flour. I used gluten-free flour and coconut sugar, and I substituted whatever unsweetened, non-dairy milk I had on hand (probably either soy or almond, but could have been coconut), plus a bit of lemon juice, for the buttermilk.

Healthy Banana Bread--I've made this a couple of times now, and it goes very quickly. Everyone genuinely loves it, and no one seems bothered by the fact that it's healthy. Again, I substituted gluten-free flour, and I used organic agave syrup in place of honey or maple syrup, just because I happened to have it. The last time we made it, we added in chopped almonds, and it was fantastic!                  

If you have come across any non-bread bread recipes that you love, please share them so I can continue to build up my repertoire.