Lentil soup

This is going to be a quick recipe post, more family updates later.
Saute three pieces of bacon with half a chopped onion, two diced celery sticks, two sliced charrots. Add two cloves of garlic. Add fresh or dried sage. One cup red wine. Two cups of lentils, 6 cups chicken stock and two tablespoons tomato paste. Simmer for aproximately 35 minutes until the lentils are almost tender. Add your choice of paste (we used pene because it was what we had on hand). Add extra cooking liquid if needed. Cook until the pasta is al dente, and stir in a few handfuls of spinach. Season with salt and pepper and serve with grated parmasean.

Blue skies and green papayas

This winter has been a bit depressing if you like powder skiing and avoiding avalanches, but we has snow on the ground so i can't complain. Aaron has played around with snow biking and i think i know what our next sports purchase is going to be. Rowan has been out skiing a few times as well. We bought a famillly pass to grand targhee, thinking we would get out more. With the absense of snow that hasnt happened. We were going to head up to the resort this sunday, but decided to just ski with rowan on our little hill. We had hiked and skiied mt oliver two days before and skiing groomers and bumps didnt sound so inviting. He is loving his skis!
Dinner tonight was a happy accident. I bought a papaya last week because rowan loves them. Turned out to be unripe. Instead of throwing it in the trash, we made green papaya salad. It came out great! Here's the easy recipe - shread the papaya and a few carrots, chopped cilantro, chopped basil. Dressing is sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, a tiny bit of chopped thai pepper and a splash of sesame oil. Toss it all together and top with grilled chicken (marinated in a bit of the dressing) peanuts or cashews and serve with white rice.