Warm and Wonderful

The green chile cornbread I just pulled out of the oven, that is.  Food is really my favorite subject, and I can't bear to start yet another blog just for the purpose of food-blogging.  So, as I don't have much time right now, and I am determined to keep my hand in at this - just a little note about how happy I am that vegan baking is so easy, and the results so wonderful.  I love to bake, always have, and was afraid that it would have to become a thing of the past once we switched to a vegan diet.  Instead, I find myself baking much more often than I used to - as finding baked goods that are vegan and either lowfat or fatfree is no easy thing.  If anyone's interested, I'll try to recreate the recipe later today.  It's a conflation of two real recipes, and my own creative touches.

I'm off soon to the New Volunteer Brunch at the Rio Grande Nature Center, where I have been a volunteer since soon after we moved here. The "veteran" volunteers give the new volunteers a welcome brunch at the end of their training - and this year's is today - the cornbread is my offering - and I'm having a hard time not cutting into it right now, while it's warm and fragrant and I have a hot cup of coffee to go with it.

      Here's a previous post about the Nature Center, from some time back.  My volunteering is sporadic, largely depending on if I am also teaching, how much I'm traveling, and so forth.  But I always go back, and of course visit often simply for walking the trails, birding, watching the river. It's a major hangout for the sandhill cranes during the winter - but they have just about all left for parts north at this point.  There's a great horned owl nest in some high branches back in a ways off the bike path through the Bosque, at the edge of the park - an owl has been on the nest for a while now, incubating - and I'm hoping for some babies when I go take a peek at it today.