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Showing posts from June, 2011

In the absence of real riding...

The kids are out of school. It's summer. You'd think a person would have time to do things like ride a bike. But no. Things aren't working out that way. Why? Well the weather has been yucky for one. Rain. Lots of it. And I've been busy working on getting ourselves ready for our Short Wing Piper Club convention vacation. And other things that I won't get into right now. I've ridden very little in the last two weeks. And I'm frustrated. But I will survive and will get back on the bike and logging some miles soon. So, in the absence of real riding, take a trip back in time with me to April when I took part in not just 30 Days of Biking but the 30 Days of Biking Team Loving the Bike challenge against Team Bike Radio. Each day of the challenge team members could take pictures from their rides to earn a point. The picture from each day that earned the most "likes" earned another point for the team member. One of my pictures won one day - it was a pic

Quest Cake #2

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If you read my blog entry from a few days ago you know I'm in search of the perfect chocolate cake recipe. I tried another recipe from the Chocolate Cakes - 50 Great Cakes for Every Occasion book. This one is called "Pound of Chocolate Cake" and has in it, you guessed it, a pound of chocolate that is covered in chocolate ganache. I adjusted the recipe slightly. The recipe asks you to bake the cake in a square pan but I used a springform pan instead (my perfect chocolate cake is supposed to be round, don't know why I have that idea in my head but it is). It also calls for 13 oz. of semisweet chocolate but I didn't have quite enough so I used about 9 oz. of semisweet and 4 of bittersweet. The recipe says to butter the pan but I went ahead and dusted it with cocoa powder as well. The cake turned out well, better than well, actually. The center was moist and dense - nearly perfect in texture. Rose, my daughter, says it's better than the first chocolate cake

Happy Father's Day!

It's been a good Father's Day. We started things off with a short flight to Stanton Airfield for their Father's Day Fly-in, an annual event for the Mibus Family. Stanton is located near Northfield, Minnesota and the field holds a lot of history . Open since 1942 when it was owned by Carleton College to train pilots for WWII, the grass strip airfield is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's also one of our favorite places to fly to because it's close, there are two huge grass strips to land on and they have ice cream in the freezer and the old-fashioned pop machine. Pretty much a perfect airport, if you ask me. There's an exhibit about Stanton Airfield opening at the Northfield Historical Society on Thursday called " Historic Stanton Airfield - Where History Touches the Sky." It sounds like it will be a cool exhibit and I believe it will be up at the Historical Society until late August. Not sure about the details but you can f ind det

A Quest - for Perfect Chocolate Cake

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I'm in search of a recipe for the perfect chocolate cake. I had the perfect chocolate cake just over a month ago at the Old Village Hall Restaurant & Pub in Lanesboro, MN. It was a mocha chocolate cake and it was rich and dense and oh so yummy. Recently, I had another chocolate cake that was close to as perfect as the first - this one a Chocolate Truffle Turtle Cake at The Roasted Pear . I asked for the recipe. I didn't get it. I'm tempted to call the Old Village Hall and ask for their recipe but I don't mind a quest. So I'm on one - in search of a recipe for the perfect chocolate cake. The cake I want to bake is kind of like a flourless chocolate torte but more dense. The ones I've had have been topped with chocolate ganache so that's a must. I believe both had a chocolate crust but I'm not hooked on the crust idea. Tuesday night I tried a recipe from Chocolate Cakes - 50 Great Cakes for Every Occasion . The recipe, Peppermint Patty Cake, calle

Going somewhere

This morning Owen and I rode to the town of New Market, about 8 miles from home, for a cup of coffee. We've never ridden to New Market before. It's a nice ride with several decent hills. Our coffee stop, Fritzie's, is a newly opened coffee shop in town. This was our first visit. I had a great latte and a yummy granola bar sort of baked treat.  Owen had a cup of dark roast - free refills made him extra happy. The service was excellent and we plan to stop at Fritzie's again. A few doors down from the coffee stop is an Anytime Fitness. Through the huge windows we could see people working out on the treadmills and exercise bikes, pedaling and walking furiously but not going anywhere. And while I appreciate exercise equipment - I have a treadmill in my hangar and I do use it - and totally understand the importance of having places to exercise, it seemed a little sad that on such a gorgeous morning the people exercising inside weren't walking or biking outside. That