Welcome back for another installment of the world-famous Bacon & Tofu blog. Another weekend has come and gone but luckily it was another nice one so I am energized and ready for “Week Zero.”

I could tell the weekend was going to be a good one because Colleen and I were on the same page: we both wanted to go to REI. Colleen wanted to go for a pair of hiking pants and I wanted to go for, well, the hell of it. Little did we know that it happened to be their used gear sale so the parking lot was absolutely packed with people trying to get good deals on pre-owned stuff. As we weren’t in the market for any particular gear and we didn’t feel like fighting the throng of people, we stuck to the regular store. Colleen ended up with a nice pair of pants and I ended up with a pair of pants (on clearance) and a long sleeved shirt. I tried convincing Colleen to get a wide brimmed hat to protect her from the sun but she still thinks they are way too dorky. Maybe one day she’ll practice what she preaches when it comes to sun protection ;) I also picked up a camelback hydration pack but it ended up being too big for our pack so it looks like it will have to go back whenever we head back down there. I love our Sigg bottles but I think the hydration pack would make the hikes a bit easier. We aren’t expert hikers or anything so waiting a little longer won’t kill us, I suppose.

I got the cooking bug this weekend and decided to try my hand at making some bread. I have had the outrageously easy big bread recipe on VegWeb bookmarked for about 2 years now so I finally decided to bite the bullet and actually fix it. The recipe doesn’t require any kneading of the bread so it easily won out over other prospective recipes. The recipe was very easy, although it took a while to make simply because of the rising time required. The result was excellent though and I now have visions of bread loaves dancing through my head. The picture below shows not only the bread but also our newest kitchen accessory, a silicone baking mat. Colleen wanted one of these so she could make some crackers so while we were out at BB&B last weekend, we nabbed one. I have become an instant convert, it simply because it gives me a simple non-stick surface to work on. Sometimes the simplest items are the best ones.

This morning, Colleen and I were once again on the same page as we decided we needed to break in our new hiking gear. Not feeling in the mood to travel far, we made our way to Marian Bear Memorial Park. We were there back in February when we experienced our first SoCal frost but we went to the opposite side of the park this time. Both the weather and the hike were very pleasant and we even grabbed a couple caches along the way. I’m in the process of trying to create a panorama but until that happens, you can enjoy the pictures from this excursion on my Flickr photostream.

The rest of the day was mostly low-key. I watched the Eagles rough up the Steelers (w00p), baked some seitan shawarma, and even fixed stir-fry for dinner. Let me tell ya, I felt like some ubermeche this weekend (and I didn’t even mention the fact that I did my bike maintenance in record time on Saturday!).

I guess that about wraps up the recap of the weekend though. Week Zero looms ominously but I’m kinda looking forward to it.

- Sat