Running the trails in Ridley Creek

On Friday afternoon, Riley and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather we've been experiencing with a trip to Ridley Creek State Park for some trail running. My friend, Andrew, convinced me to sign up for a Tough Mudder (which I will be counting as a "road race" for the purposes of #19), so I've been hitting the trails in my new vibram treksports to help prepare for the arduous hills I'll be running in May.




We took to the white trail, a 3.9 mile loop through a  large part of the park. I've been doing most of my trail running in Wissahickon lately, and although I love it, it had not prepared me for all the hills of Ridley Creek. It was a fun, but exhausting run... for me at least. Riley seemed to bounce her way up and down the trail, stopping frequently to turn back, tongue wagging, with an expression that could only mean "COME ON!"

This is the first park I've visited as part of #35: Visit all the state and federal parks in Philadelphia and its countryside. I added this task to my list for two reasons: 1) I love spending time outdoors - hiking, camping, canoeing, etc. - and found myself always saying that I wanted to do more of the aforesaid activities; and 2) Pennsylvania really is a beautiful state and has done a pretty darn good job preserving some of the commonwealth's natural beauty. Ridley Creek is no exception. It's a mere 10 minutes from my hometown, and I know I must have gone there a handful of times as a boyscout or with my family, but I didn't realize how beautiful the park really is. It has a number of different hiking trails; a paved 5-mile all-purpose path for biking, walking, and running; a trail for horseback riding; a gorgeous mansion that can be rented out for events, weddings, and parties; a colonial plantation for all you history nerds out there; and horse stables, which offer a number of really cool services. I'm sort of ashamed that I didn't take advantage of the park more frequently when I was living so close to it!

I've finally compiled the full list of parks I need to visit. As far as federal parks go, there are a number of things that classify as a park: historic sites, battlefields, national memorials, etc. Given my goal of getting outdoors, I'm using the term as I originally stated to mean either "national park" or "national historic park," which leaves me with two federal sites to visit in the Philly area.

There are 15 state and federal parks in all, and to be completely honest, I'm more than excited to visit each of them.

Philadelphia County
Benjamin Rush State Park
Independence National Historic Park

Bucks County
Delaware Canal State Park
Neshaminy State Park
Nockamixon State Park
Ralph Stover State Park
Tyler State Park

Chester County
French Creek State Park
Marsh Creek State Park
White Clay Creek Preserve

Delaware County
Ridley Creek State Park

Montgomery County
Evansburg State Park
Fort Washington State Park
Norristown Farm Park
Valley Forge National Historic Park

Homemade Cheez-Its!

I will readily admit that the book of face, for the most part, is a waste of time. I will even venture to guess that at least 80% of all time spent Facebook-ing has the productivity equivalent to that of time spent burning money, time spent watching sand in an hour glass, or time spent watching Fox "News." Another 19.5% can be attributed to the very productive task of stalking former high school/college/grad school classmates. And finally, roughly 0.5% can be attributed to discovering awe-inspiring, life-changing things.

This post is about one of the things that falls in that last category: Homemade Cheez-Its.

Cheez-Its are amazing. Cheez-Its are heaven sent. Cheez-Its are salty. And crackery. And cheesy for Pete's sake! Cheez-Its are, indisputably, the best snack food ever created by any human being life force in the entire history of the universe. I don't care if you tell me that something is better. You are wrong. Dead wrong. Cheez-Its are the best.

You know what isn't the best? Cheese Nips. You know what is the worst? Cheese Nips. I hesitate to even mention Cheese Nips on the same internet as Cheez-Its, but I feel that I must to make sure that all reading this know that Cheese Nips are the devil's food. They are disgusting. Whoever invented Cheese Nips should be tried before the International Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity. I would gladly prosecute that case. And I would WIN.

But for now, let us remember that Cheez-Its do indeed exist. And so we shall bask in their glory and forget the evil, wicked ways of lesser snacks.

Unfortunately, I do not recall who of my Facebook friends posted the article about these homemade nuggets of gloriousity, and for that I am sad. I am sad because I would like to thank you for your post. When it appeared on my news feed, I was overwhelmed with joy and moved to tears. But whoever you are, thank you. From the deepest, most bottomest trenches of my heart, thank you. And now, without further ado, here is the recipe, altered only slightly by yours truly from the recipe posted on Chicagoist.

You shall make it. And you shall eat it. And you shall be glad. So sayeth the big cheese. Amen.

Homemade Cheez-Its

Ingredients

• 10 oz cheddar cheese - preferably of the orange variety. (You could also sub in any other variety of delicious cheese with a similar texture. I for one can't wait to make these again with my favorite aged Gouda.)
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 5 Tbsp. cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 3/4 tsp. kosher salt + extra for sprinkling
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• Cold water

Directions

Shred the cheddar cheese using the fun wheel attachment on your food processor. Or be lame, and shred it by hand. Or be lamer, and buy it pre-shredded. Add the flour, cold butter, salt, paprika, and cayenne pepper to the food processor. Pulse until thoroughly mixed and crumbly.

Slowly add cold water 1-2 tablespoons at a time until the mixture has the consistency of a very thick dough. Gather into a ball, cover in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and pre-heat your oven to 350º.

After chilling, unwrap the dough and place between two sheets of parchment paper. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it is about 1/8 inch thick. Remove the top sheet of parchment paper and cut the rolled-out dough into squares using a pizza cutter or, if you want to be fancy, a serrated knife.

Place the cut dough onto the baking sheet, leaving a little room between each cracker. Sprinkle with salt (optional).

Bake for roughly 25 minutes, being sure to check on the crackers every so often towards the end as they can go from perfectly cooked to burnt very easily. I had to remove some of the smaller ones from the sheet before others.

If you have the patience, allow them to cool, and enjoy!

North Fork

Note: I started this post on January 27. It is now February 23. In the immortal words of Jacques the shrimp: "I am ashamed."

I've been a little behind on posting completed items for the past few weeks, but this one will bring me up to speed (lies!). Things have been busy since the holidays ended. I started full-time in the Tax LLM program at Villanova Law and have cut my hours back at the firm, but am still working nonetheless. I'm really enjoying the program, but I don't have time for many non-work/non-school related activities during the week anymore. And while I've managed to post a few updates this (now last) month, I didn't want to zip through this one with reckless abandon...or something.

Jake and I returned to the North Fork this year anticipating a fun-filled weekend stacked with delicious food, coastal views, scrabble games, and glass after glass of delicious wines. For those of you who don't know what the North Fork is, it's the region north of the Hamptons as far east on Long Island as you can go. The island forks at the end, and the fork on the north is known very cleverly as the "North Fork." The area is Long Island's wine country and the roads are lined with vineyards. I can imagine that it gets very crowded in the summer, but the winter keeps a relaxed buzz with locals and city-escapees alike flocking to taste the fruit o' the vine.

The weekend exceeded our expectations. We stayed once again at the wonderful Shorecrest B&B, where our hostess Marilyn welcomed us back with open arms and plenty of delicious spiced cookies. And I must say that there's something about a British accent that makes everything taste better and feel cozier. We settled in on Friday afternoon, took a walk on the beach, had a couples massage, and went to a delicious dinner at the restaurant for the town's movers-and-shakers, The Frisky Oyster. We spent the next day vineyard hopping with our newly made friends, Sara and Mike, who were also staying at the B&B. I was lucky enough to convince Jake to drive us around this year, so I could be sure to fulllllly enjoy my wine tasting experience. I did it last year, so it was only fair...

For New Year's Eve, we celebrated with a dinner at the relaxed, and absolutely delicious, Noah's. Happy with our low-key, yet elegant, dining experience, we joined Sara and Mike at The Frisky where it seemed that everyone from the area was engaged in the North Fork equivalent of Jersey Shore's fist-pumping. We danced, we drank, and had an absolutely wonderful time, despite the DJ's outright refusal to play any Beyonce as requested (multiple times) by both Jake and Sara. Simply unforgivable.

We headed back Sunday, being sure to stop at the outlets on the way out, after a wonderful weekend . The North Fork is an absolutely fantastic place to visit for a few days away, and I would recommend it to anyone. The area and the Shorecrest will always have a special place in our hearts, and I hope we can return again and again.

Oh, yeah, and THIS happened:

Thaaaaat's right!!! Jake popped the question in the most adorable of ways on Friday evening during our ritual pre-dinner game of Scrabble. I of course said yes immediately. For the full story ask me, but suffice it to say that it involved shaky voices, bottles of previously-thought-unavailable Rose Cuvée, and happy tears and smiles all around. Wedding date: TBD. Yay!

rub a dub dub

So tonight I took a bath. After a long day of not doing much at all (I had off and my evening class was canceled), I decided to make myself feel less lazy by laying in a tub of hot water for 45 minutes. A few weeks ago, I stopped by Lush, a/k/a my own personal hell, since it's around the corner from my office, and left with a few bath balls and the feeling that my olfactory nerve would never work again.

After eating dinner with Jake, I turned on the hot water, placed the "Honey" ball in the tub, lit a few candles, and slowly dipped in. I made it about ten minutes before I started feeling...well, bored. I made Jake, who already hated me for taking a bath while he was stuck studying, fetch my Nook for me so I could read a few more chapters in the Hunger Games trilogy (which beeteedubs, I'm enjoying immensely thus far). Jake really likes me tonight. :D

I enjoyed my time in the bath, but will wait to take another until we have a slightly bigger tub. We have another bath ball left - an avocado flavored one - and I'll reserve it for Jake's use sometime soon. For now, though, I'm off to bed. Taking baths and blogging about it makes me tired.

Jewish Apple Cake

For the month of December, my baked from scratch item was Jewish Apple Cake. We made the cake twice in one weekend for holiday parties, and got rave reviews for it all around.

The cake is relatively easy to make and is so delicious. The apples keep the cake extremely moist. I opted to leave the skin on the apples, which adds flecks of color throughout.

I can't take any credit for this one though, as the recipe was given to me by Jake's mom. As such, I also won't be revealing the recipe. Sorry folks. Instead, here's a link to similar recipes, though none of them are exactly the same as I followed, so I make no guarantees. My guess is they'll be pretty darn delicious, but not as good as the one we have. Call me biased, I'll probably agree.