A weekend "off"

No racing this weekend, but still plenty of goings on. I had been planning to head up to my Parent's this weekend for the Balsam Vinterfest and to meet up with my friends Garrison and Kristen who were out visiting from Ohio. The warm weather and marginal snow conditions led to the race getting cancelled, but getting to see friends and family still made it worth while to make the trip home.

My parents have a wonderful supportive community around them, so there wasn't a lot they needed, even with my dad having pretty strict lifting and movement restrictions. I took a stab at fixing their internet/routing problems and did some baking with my mom before heading back to Northfield.

Sunday was an exciting day, Gretchen Margret Porath was baptized, and I got to become a Godparent! It was an extra fun service since we also installed a new pastor at church, so lots of new people were welcomed in to our community of faith.

Greta's Baptism

I don't usually expose others to my more creative culinary excursions, but this one has a bit of a story behind it. When we were headed up to the Seeley Hills Classic last weekend Nate, Nichole, and I stopped at my parents for supper. My mom said there was some Carrot Cake soup that we should eat, and the whole trip out there Nichole was trying to figure out what carrot cake soup was. She even did some google research and the results were not promising. When we got to my parents we found out we would actually be eating carrot LEEK soup, and it was very tasty. When I got assigned to bring a dessert for the baptism party I figured carrot cake soup sounded dessert-like.

I looked around for soups that would go good with carrot cake (the recipes Nichole found on the car ride used milk broth and didn't sound appealing) and settled on a creamy carrot and sweet potato bisque with cinnamon and nutmeg as seasoning, very similar taste profile to the cake. My mom and I baked the carrot cake while I was home. I brought both components separately, but combined mine to test how the carrot cake soup would work out.

Carrot Cake Soup!

It was actually rather tasty, although I prefer both components more individually, so I wouldn't go as far at to call it a win.

This weekend brings an abbreviated but still busy weekend of racing. The City of Lakes Loppet is suffering from a lack of snow, so the races have been cut down from 42k each day to about 15k each day. A much more manageable weekend, but the loop the races will be held on is quite hilly, so there will be plenty of pain to be found.