Zion revisited

Last April Karen and I made a trip to Zion National Park. Since it was spring there was a lot of runoff from snow melt and the Virgin River was very full and the narrows were closed. The narrows are a well known attraction there and we really missed seeing them so we decided to come back in the fall, so that's what we did.

There was still a fair amount of water coming down the river and in one place we had to wade a spot that was about waist deep which got us pretty wet as you might imagine. Some people a little smarter or better prepared than us were wearing waders and that would have been a good thing but we didn't have any and had planned on the weather being warmer than it turned out to be.

Needless to say, it wasn't very warm and being wet really didn't make it any more comfortable being up there but the scenery was breathtaking and it was worth the discomfort.

We made it about a mile up from the end of the paved river walk and it was for the most part a wading hike. After the first part where the water was waist deep, the rest of what we went through was knee deep at best and not too difficult. Both of us decided that next time we do this hike we will get some waders or do it when the weather is hot.


The Ranger at the visitors center said the narrowest part is about 2½ miles up so we didn't get to see that but as you can see it still was quite spectacular. Along the way there were some plants trying to change colors with the fall season and one of my favorites was the one in the last picture, poison ivy. There wasn't too much of it and it was easy to spot so we didn't get into it.

The second day we were there we had a 16 mile bike ride and Karen made it the whole way, I was so proud of her!

I have the rest of our Zion pictures posted on my web album. Here's the link: Zion

Experimental dinner

So Karen and I go to a sale the other day at Shopko and they have this waffle iron on sale so she gets one. It's a cool little item and works great. Of course we had to have some waffles the day after to try it out and that we did. But Karen is thinking that there might be other uses for it too so she starts looking on the web for recipes where we can use the waffle iron and she finds Potato Waffle Bread.


Well, we were planning on having tacos for dinner so we decide to try and utilize the recipe she found and think, why not make some waffle bread and do a tostada type of thing instead. So that's what we do. I have to say that it was a huge success and even though it was not really a simple procedure to make the waffle bread, it was worth the effort and tasted very good. Ya gotta love the good old waffle iron.

Here's the recipe:
Rosemary-Garlic Potato Waffles

2 Potatoes
2 large eggs
1 cup flour
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
⅔ cup milk
4 garlic cloves minced
1½ tsp minced fresh rosemary
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
2 tsp baking powder

Peel, wash, and cut the potatoes into small pieces and boil with a pinch of salt. Cook until soft enough to mash. Reserve about ½ cup of the water.

While potatoes cook, heat olive oil and add minced rosemary, onion, and garlic and cook over low heat just until the onions turn clear and soften. Transfer the potatoes to a large mixing bowl and pour the oil, onion and garlic mixture over the drained potatoes.

Add milk to the still warm skillet- just to take the chill off (we used buttermilk)- then pour milk over potatoes. Mash potatoes with a masher or mixer. Add ¼ cup of warm potato water and mix until smooth. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Preheat waffle iron and finish batter by beating eggs into potatoes. Whisk together flour and baking powder and add to potato mixture.

lightly coat waffle iron with butter or Pam (you can skip this step if you have non stick grids on your waffle iron. We used Pam and that worked very well even though we had non stick grids.) Add batter to waffle iron and spread evenly almost to the edge of the grids. Bake until brown and crisp, on ours it was about 5 minutes. You might need to adjust according to how your waffle iron works.

Kind of an interesting experiment and we had fun doing it. Next time we are going to add some corn meal to the flour and try that.