Sunday, March 24, 2013

Rocky Mountain Lake Park


The City and County of Denver provide over 200 city parks, over 100 miles of trails, and 11 dog parks. This equals over 5000 acres of urban parkland. As early as the 1870s, city leaders began transforming Denver’s character from a dry and dusty prairie into the green oasis of today by creating parks and parkways. Most of Denver's off-street, multi-use trails follow Denver’s urban waterways and offer safe and scenic routes through the urban neighborhoods.

 Rocky Mountain Lake Park, is located at 3301 W 46th Ave, directly south of Interstate 70, and east of Lowell Boulevard in Denver, Colorado. It is in walking distance to where my son and his family live, and I had visited the park with my oldest grandson.


The park features a baseball field, bicycle/pedestrian pathway, football field, fishing, horseshoe pit, softball field, tennis court, picnic areas, playground, and flower gardens.
The park has a loop trail around the lake that is one mile long.


In addition, the park is a nice place to bird watch. Geese and ducks live in the lake year round.


In some areas, there is an abundance of Cattails along the shore.

This placard about cattails was in another park in Colorado, and not in Rocky Mountain Lake Park, but I found it interesting, as it describes the uses of cattails throughout the seasons.  (Click on this photo, as well as all others, to enlarge them, and then click on them again when they open on a new page to make them even larger.)


The most exciting thing of all that I saw in Rocky Mountain park were the first signs of Spring! After a few days of high temperatures of high 60's and low 70's earlier in the week, everything was finally beginning to bud. 


Unfortunately, this is what happened this weekend -- the temperatures dropped again, and we had eight inches of snow! It seems Winter wants to hold on a little longer in this part of Colorado!  I have a feeling our Easter egg hunt will be happening indoors this year.  I hope Spring is appearing where you are!



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Thursday, March 21, 2013

Four Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies - Gluten Free!


Three cookies!  That's all that was left from the two dozen I made as a treat for my daughter, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren after a trek to the mall to visit the Easter Bunny.


My grandsons are full of energy and had a lot of fun running around in the mall's play area, after posing for a photo with the bunny. Their little cousin, my granddaughter, slept blissfully through the entire experience.



When we arrived back to my house, the Peanut Butter cookies I made that afternoon were a big hit! Since my daughter-in-law and youngest grandson are gluten sensitive, I had searched online for an easy gluten-free recipe and came upon one on the PBS Parents web site that required only four ingredients. I had to share the recipe with you because these are so easy to make and taste really good! Give them a try even if you aren't gluten sensitive. They would also be easy cookies for young children to help make.


Four Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (Gluten Free)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup peanut butter, smooth or crunchy
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Using a hand or stand mixer, mix the peanut butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla on low speed until well combined.
  3. Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough 1 1/2-inches apart onto the baking sheet. If you don't have a cookie scoop, drop the dough with a spoon.
  4. Flatten the dough balls the tines of a fork, making a cross pattern on the cookies.
  5. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes until they are golden around the edges. Allow the cookies to rest on the counter for 2 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack
  6. Enjoy!


The dough made a dozen generous sized cookies -- you could make them smaller if you'd like more. I used extra crunchy peanut butter and obviously, I did not press the fork indentations into them too hard -- I'll do a better job next time. I made a second batch and placed about a half cup of chocolate chips in the dough before cooking to add some variety. If you like the taste of peanut butter you'll enjoy these cookies!


Can you believe that Easter will soon be here? We are expecting a snowstorm this weekend, so like in many other parts of the country we have to wait a little longer for signs of Spring to arrive.  Has Spring come to your area as yet?





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