Winter Fun

Sleek and I just got home from a nice weekend at Canaan Valley. Some friends of ours, Jessica and Pat, have a family place up there. We finally decided to take them up on an invitation to hang for a weekend. Olives and g2thelow went along with us. We left Friday afternoon, knowing we were going to hit some really bad weather. Much of the eastern part of WV was hit with an ice storm on Friday morning. It later turned to rain, then snow. Everything was fine until we were about 20 miles from Canaan. That's when the roads became snow-covered, and the snow was still falling. I creeped along at about 25 mph for that part of the trip. I even have a Subaru, but I can't help but be overly-cautious driving in those conditions. I was relieved when we finally pulled up to the townhouse.

We had a reservation to eat at the White Grass Cafe. I was super-stoked because I have made lots of fantastic recipes from their cookbook. For appetizers, we had some smoked-trout dip made with local trout, and some spinach artichoke dip. Both of them were amazing. I could've eaten them with a spoon! For dinner, I had a curried sweet potato soup and a hummus panini. They were both very good as well. Dessert, oh dessert. Olives and I both wanted to try the sweet potato cake with toffee frosting and the walnut and pecan pie. So, I ordered the pie and she ordered the cake, and we split them. The cake was really good, but the pie...Oh, the pie. Amazing.

The weather was just fantastic on Saturday, so a few of us went out for a hike and the others hung out while Jessica got started on dinner. We really ate well. Jessica is an amazing cook. She made some salmon cakes and what I would call a spanikopita casserole. Very much like spanikopita, but without all the butter and phyllo pastry. Much healthier and eaiser to make. I had made some chickpea gravy and mashed potatoes to bring along. (At the request of Sleek.) I also made a batch of apple scones.


Saturday night, Jessica, g2thelow and Sleek did some skiing and snowboarding. (Unfortunately, Pat stayed home nursing a cold.) Olives and I opted for something requiring less athletic ability. Snow tubing! It was really fun. It was super-icy, so it was like a luge. We were flying down the hill! After that, we returned to the townhouse and played several hours worth of board games. There were drinks involved, and lots of laughter. We had an awesome time.

This morning when we woke up, Jessica was already downstairs making breakfast. She made something I've always wanted to try, but thought it required too much work. Tofu scramble. It actually looked really easy to make, and I'm definitely going to make it soon. She also made some oven-roasted home fries. I wrapped it all up in a tortilla with some cheese and hot sauce. Wow. Very tasty.

On the way home we stopped at Blackwater Falls. They had the bottom part of the trail blocked off because the steps were too icy. We got a decent view from above, though. What a great weekend. We're hoping to do it again next year! (Oh, and I was too busy eating to take any pics of the food!)