A Spring Day in the Mountains

What a lovely day it was! Sunny, warm--pretty up here in the mountains, with the snow melting beneath a beautiful blue sky. I was able to get DH to grill this evening, so I tested another one of Ruth’s recipes--this one was for a grilled flank steak that I started marinating yesterday. The marinade was something that can be used for all kinds of meats, and the sauce was great!

Breakfast was omelets. Sometimes we use ham and cheese, other times we'll use mushrooms, or spinach. But today we had asparagus and Swiss cheese. There's a restaurant in Buena Vista, Colorado, where we stop sometimes when we're camping in Leadville and start heading for home. It's called the Evergreen Cafe, and it serves fantastic breakfasts. While I'm tempted by several things on the menu, I always get a dish which is sort of like Eggs Benedict. Instead of ham, though, it's served with roasted asparagus. After I ate that the first time, about 15 years ago, I thought I'd go home and try an omelet with asparagus in it. And since I didn't want to make Hollandaise sauce, I used Swiss cheese. DH and I agreed that it's a great combination.

I used canned asparagus this time, and had about half a can left, so I decided to use it up by making some of Kalyn’s egg "muffins." I changed the recipe just a bit and added cream cheese to the egg mixture. The muffins I made this morning had asparagus and Swiss cheese in them, like our omelets, and are now packaged and in the freezer to grab for a couple quick breakfasts this week.


Since I had the oven going, I thought I'd make double use of it and make an apple tart. We bought some apples last week that we found were too mushy to eat out of hand, so I used three of them for this tart. It's something I throw together now and then, since I always keep already-made pie crusts in the freezer, and the recipe calls for ingredients I always have in the kitchen.

Rustic Apple Tart

1 unbaked 9" pie crust
3 large apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 c sugar or Splenda granular
1/4 c flour
2 T butter, cut in small pieces

Preheat oven to 350˚ Lay pie crust flat on a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Toss apples with cinnamon, nutmet, sugar/Splenda, and flour. Pour into a mound on the pie crust, and shape with your hands to leave 2-3" of pie crust all the way around the apples. Gently pull the edges of the pie crust up around the apples, leaving most of the center uncovered.

Dot apples with butter. Bake for about 40 minutes. Here's what it looks like cooked:


Dinner tonight was the flank steak. Some corn on the cob and a simple salad and we had a nice easy meal.





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