Fall means yummy food!

While I love the summer, with it's cool drinks, light dinners and sunshine 'til 9 pm, I equally enjoy the heartier fare of fall and winter. I love soups, casseroles, chili and root vegetables with their versatility and strong flavors. I find myself making a lot of comfort food lately- most recently, a variation on grilled cheese and tomato soup, a favorite old standby. I like the hearty tomato-bisque style soups by Amy's and Wolfgang Puck, but these can be pricey. So I picked up a can of Campbell's this time, but instead of water I used fat-free half and half (it says on the can that you can use milk, and since I only drink soymilk I figured this would work). With some basil stirred in this made a tasty, creamy and cheap soup. I paired it with a grilled "bacon" and cheese (morningstar farms veggie bacon and pepperjack). I always
sprinkle a little garlic salt on my grilled cheeses, as learned from the infamous dollar grilled cheeses sold by touring hippies at music festivals and shakedown streets. A fast and easy weekend lunch!

The quest for the perfect snack bar...

This is very much a detour from the regular content of my posts, but it does have to do with food so I will continue. I am always reading reviews of new snack products online and in magazines, searching for the perfect balance of nutrition, taste and satiating factor. I tend to eat one snack in the morning and one in the afternoon, and appreciate something convenient and fast. Here are reviews of a few snack bars I've tried recently-

Kashi- I love pretty much everything this company makes, and I feel safe buying it because it never contains much of the crap you find in everything else: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring and flavor etc. Their products taste like they are good for you because they are made with high quality ingredients (hence the slightly higher price than the average General Mills/Kraft products. I tried the TLC fruit and grain pumpkin pie bar and the TLC baked apple spice cereal bar. The pumpkin bar has a good crunch and a nice mixture of flavors and textures. I am a pumpkin fan so I enjoyed it, and it has 4 g. of protein and fiber, not bad for 120 calories.

The apple bar was softer and had a nice flavor but is a bit too sweet for my taste. Not bad at 3 g. fiber, 2 g. protein and 110 calories. However sweet this bar is it's got nothing on Fiber One's oats and apple streusel bar.

Fiber One- I should have known by looking at the ingredients, being that sugar appears 3 times in the list, in addition to HFCS and high maltose corn syrup (?). I would eat this as more of a candy bar than a healthy mid-morning snack. However, it somehow has 9 g. of fiber so it is filling. It could use about half the sugar and more protein (it has 2 g.). This bar has 130 calories.

I still enjoy my old standby, Nature Valley crunchy granola bars in oats and honey, cinnamon and peanut butter, but these have more calories, fat and sugar, and less fiber. They are pretty filling and good for a crunchy snack on a hike.

I am probably going to try the Kashi Golean bars next and I will report back.

Last Rockies Voyage

We went up to "the park" last weekend for probably the last time this year (the snow has already started). We were a little late for the Aspens but still saw some pretty foliage

on the drive up. We went to the ultra popular Bear Lake area for a nice 3.6 mile hike. Starting at Bear Lake, which many people just walk around, we hiked up to a lunch spot at Nymph lake, which is normally covered with lily pads but was already frozen over.



From there we continued on to Dream Lake and then up to Emerald Lake, an aptly named deep green lake nestled at the bottom of the intimidating Hallett Peak. It's easy to see why this is one of the most popular hikes in the park. It's not too challenging and rewards you with great views and peaceful waterside respites.