Hatch Chile - straight from Hatch NM

Mis amigos los gringos have company this weekend. Wero loco's parents The Klugs came to visit from Nuevo (Las Cruces, NM). I'll have to explain the "Nuevo" some other day. Anyhow, before their trip to Arizona, they went to the Chile Festival in Hatch, NM and bought a huge burlap bag with about 20 lbs of green chiles to bring to los weros here in Phoenix. We thought we could go to one of the local grocery stores selling roasted chiles and have them roast the chiles for us, but unfortunately were turned down. Therefore, we were left with no other option but to roast the chiles ourselves, and with so many helping hands around we knew it'd be a piece of cake. :0) The Klugs were in charge of roasting on the grill outside, Mr Haney (Erin's Dad) was just the man we needed to make sure each and every chile was sprayed with cooking spray so the chiles would not stick to the grill or the cookie sheets. Between Erin, Chris and myself we would man the oven while chiles were roasting on cookie sheets. And before you knew it, all of the chiles were done. Afteward, Erin made some yummy quesadillas with the delicious chiles.

Now the weros are pros at roasting chiles. :-)

Here's the before...,................................and....................the after shots!

Hiking - Phoenix Moutain Preserve

You all have heard (or read) me whine recently about missing our hikes and stuff. Well, guess what? We've officially started our hikes once again....whoo hoo!!! My hiking buddy, Grover, and I decided we'd start with an easy hike and begin working our way up to the more difficult / longer hikes. We invited our coworker, Bud, to come along. We had done this trail once in the Spring time. It is a fairly easy 4-mile trail that begins at the 32nd Street & Lincoln trailhead. Well, if you remember from my previous hiking posts, Grover tends to get us lost sometimes...actually most of the time. Well, things haven't changed. He decided this time were were going to do the trail the opposite direction from the last time...BIG mistake. We wound up on the wrong trail from the beginning, and it took us a while to actually get back on the right trail, but thankfully eventually did end up on the correct one. I know, I know, you all are probably asking yourselves why I allow him to continue to lead our trails...I guess it just makes it more adventurous and it gives me more reasons to talk trash about him. :-) Which I know he likes!!! Let's hope we didn't scare Bud!! I'll keep you posted...if I don't mention Bud joining us again, then you know what happened.