you never know, it's always changing.

I moved!!!!

2010-03-29T01:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah - I moved to Seattle, but my blog moved too! Follow me at http://mollyskitchen.tumblr.com/. Cheers!

Dad and Jill got married!

2010-03-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, dad and Jill were married on the banks of the Willamette River at the close of a 70 degree spring day in Portland. It was beautiful. From the weather, to the raspberry cocktails, to the friends and family, the event was simply beautiful. It was wonderful to see my brothers, Jill's children, our grandmothers, and my aunts.

Jobless in Seattle

2010-03-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

Being jobless, I thought I would come to Seattle and get a little bored or restless looking for work and moving in to our new place. But as a friend at OHSU told me before I left, "it's a beautiful time to be moving to Seattle!" All the cherry blossoms are out in full popcorn puffs, and just as Lynn advised me to do, I've been going on walks around town. Tuesday, I went to meet Phil at his work so we could run errands when he was done for the day. It's about five miles from our house to his work. I am trying to familiarize myself with the bicycle friendly streets and intersections, so that walk helped a lot.

Our place is still not quite "settled in" but we're slowly getting everything in it's place. Cooking helps. Soup helps. Eating helps everything. The market had chicken back marked way down so I bought a few pounds and made 6 quarts of stock yesterday. I read and re-read all the literature on stocks we had in the house. The Joy of Cooking suggests blending the vegetables before cooking to extract more flavor. I put them in the Cuisinart and the results were quite satisfying. This morning I scooped all the fat off of the chilled broth. Don't worry - I didn't throw it away. I tried a matzo ball recipe from Bon Appetit that called for schmaltz. The results were quite impressive. Phil and I had three matzo balls each, situated in my homemade broth, and accompanied by a large arugula salad and mashed celeriac and russet potatoes. I'm going to go roll myself over the couch now and watch a movie...

The cookbooks have a place

2010-03-23T10:18:00.001-07:00

... So we can call it home now.

In Seattle now

2010-03-18T13:43:00.001-07:00

A long time since posting... Phil and I are in our new place in Seattle now. I haven't been taking pictures, or documenting much, but when we get more settled, I will post pictures! So far, we're enjoying living together, and watching Kitty run up and down the stairs. We can chop vegetables side-by-side at our giant counter, and I am in love with the gas range. Right now I'm unpacking boxes, applying to jobs, and learning to navigate Seattle traffic on bike. It's a beautiful time to be in the city - all the cherry blossoms are blooming! We've joined the local co-op that's just a short walk from the house. I'd say, overall we are well on our way to becoming full fledged Seattlites. You better come visit us!

Lazy morning.

2010-02-28T11:02:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like a biscuit sandwich for breakfast... Or three. I made a quick batch of biscuits this morning to put egg and veggie sausage on, but they didn't rise! Old baking powder (likely cause), or really old buttermilk (bought it back in mid December) were the obvious culprits. Or I just kneaded too much. Whatever it was, doesn't really matter - they tasted yummy!

Recipe: The Rest

2010-02-25T18:50:00.001-08:00

As previously mentioned, I'm moving to Seattle. Part of getting ready involves eating as much of the food I've hoarded in my cabinets as possible. Rachel and I tend to get carried away with food (bet you didn't know that, did you?), so this has been a fun task for us the past several weeks. In one night, we ate homemade asian steambuns filled with left over spicy lentils from a freezer jar; thai lemongrass and chicken soup; and the aforementioned spicy lentils over brown rice, smothered in mozzarella cheese. Well, tonight I wanted lentil soup, and it ended up being a recipe utilizing a lot of "the rest" of stuff in our kitchen.

Ingredient list:

The rest of the lentils in the house - red and french green
The rest of the hot yellow curry powder
The rest of a baggie of dehydrated onion flakes
The rest of a Pacific tetrapak of chicken broth
The rest of an open can of Trader Joe's light coconut milk
The rest of my broccoli from last week
The rest of my bunch of carrots from last week
The rest of some celery from god only knows when
Some ginger, Bragg's, and cumin

and of course... spooned this over the rest of the white jasmine rice in the house (only about a half cup dry left, sorry Rachel).

Pretty tasty! Lentils look pretty disgusting on camera though...

Random Shot #7

2010-02-24T16:40:00.000-08:00

Better late than never... I chose this shot from last fall because I can't wait till spring and summer finally arrive, bringing with them lots of yummy fresh food!

Roller Derby

2010-02-23T18:47:00.000-08:00

For my birthday (yes, back in November), Carol and Barry took Phil and me to roller derby this past weekend! It was really exciting, and I'm totally hooked now. There's something beautiful about watching adult women skate really fast and sort of beat each other up for fun. I told Phil I'd be quite happy getting season tickets once I move up to Seattle.

Loving my Kitchenaid

2010-02-14T12:40:00.000-08:00

I may not be interested in eating cookies, but I sure as hell love to make pretty food.

Chocolate Cookies - Adapted from Panthera's recipe on Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons organic vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick oats
1 cup dried currants
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons organic agave
1/3 cup organic, unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In large mixing bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.

Add the flour, baking soda and salt; stir in to the creamed mixture until just incorporated. Mix in the quick oats, currants, chocolate chips, agave and cocoa powder until homogenous.

Drop giant spoonfuls (mine were at least 4 tablespoons each) onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 22-25 minutes in a preheated oven on the middle rack*. Let cool on sheets for five minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

* I baked two sheets at a time, which required almost 30 minutes time, and I staggered the sheets - one closer to the back, one closer to the door.

It's official

2010-02-11T18:58:00.001-08:00

In mid March I'm MOVING TO SEATTLE!

Breakfast

2010-02-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

Remember when you were little and when you came down with a nasty cold or the flu, your mom would make you anything you wanted, just as long as you'd eat? Well, my tastebuds are all out of whack, and my throat is swollen and painful, and I'm home from work this morning, so when I finally got out of bed, I made the first thing that came to mind. A plate of veggie sausage, with an egg fried to coagulated death, on top of a whole wheat pancake (made with soymilk that Becca and I made from scratch). Yeah. Really. I ate that. Now I'm kind of full.

Random Shot #6

2010-02-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

Random Shot #5

2010-01-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

2010-01-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

Pulled pork is delicious. There's no mistaking that. For about the same price you'd pay for a good pulled pork sandwich ($7), I bought a 3.6 lbs boston pork butt yesterday. When I got home, I put a ton of spices in a bowl with brown sugar and some salt and dry rubbed the beast. Then, I put it in a plastic bag and let it rest overnight in the fridge. This morning, I pulled it back out of the bag, shoved it in the crock pot, set to low, and let it simmer for 9.5 hours. After that, I pulled all the pork apart on a baking sheet with two forks, and set aside. I simmered some apple cider vinegar, ketchup, worcestershire, brown sugar and a ton more spices until it tasted yummy, then mixed in all the shredded pork and tossed it in the oven set at 350 F. At that point, I started mixing yeast and flour together for some homemade buns...

The rub came from a recipe on Beantown Baker, and I made some hamburger buns from One Frugal Foodie. What you have to understand is, I spent at least a week in advance obsessively looking at recipes for crockpot pulled pork, and decided on my attack, only to find this exquisite website just as I was pulling the buns out of the oven. Oh well, mine tastes ammmmmmazingly good, and now I have another new recipe to look forward to.

Random Shot #4

2010-01-20T22:04:00.001-08:00

African Quinoa Soup

2010-01-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

At my request, Saba brought me some of the soup she made for dinner last night. It was so delicious and hearty, I really wanted to have some for lunch at work tomorrow. So I waited until about 8:30 and decided to make that happen... And now I'm eating second dinner, as usual.

Adapted from the post Jake put up last summer... I'm not really sure why my soup is much thinner than Jake's, maybe he lied about the amount of quinoa and peanut butter? At any rate, it doesn't matter, Rachel and I just confirmed it still tastes amazing. And it will obviously be thicker tomorrow after the quinoa sits and soaks up the liquids.

Ingredients:

2 tbls butter

1 medium onion, diced

1 medium sized beet, diced

1 medium sweet potato, diced

6 cloves of garlic (normal people probably use 2-3), minced

3 small carrots, tops removed, diced

1 cup of red chard (approximately two large leafs), stems removed and diced and set aside, greens sliced

1 ts oregano

1/2 ts cumin powder

1/2 ts red chili flakes

1/4 ts cayenne

6 cups of vegetable broth

1 cup red quinoa

3/4 cup peanut butter

Methods:

Heat a heavy-bottomed pot on medium, and add butter. After the butter has melted and just started to froth, add onions, beet and potato. Saute until the onions become translucent and the roots begin to soften (10-12 minutes). Add the garlic, carrot, and chard stems and saute another 2 minutes. I always add my garlic later than the onion so it doesn't burn and stick to the pan. Add the chard and stir just a couple times, until incorporated, then add the broth and all the spices. Raise heat to high and bring to a rolling boil. Add quinoa, then lower heat and allow to simmer for 20 minutes. Add the peanut butter and mash around with a wooden spoon to dissolve. Serve immediately! Leftovers will only

Long weekend

2010-01-19T18:54:00.000-08:00

Had a great weekend in Seattle with many many friends. Becca and I drove up on Friday afternoon and had with a couple of her college friends and Phil at La Isla. I ordered rare steak on a salad, but didn't eat much since I was still nursing a food poisoning tummy from the day before. The bites I did have were delicious, and everyone seemed really happy with their meals.

On Saturday, Phil and I met up with my Portland friends, Shane and Kevin, and ate at Table 219. My tummy was more on the mend, so I helped myself to a chicken sausage scramble, and my favorite kind of potatoes.

After a painful evening of pulling on some plastic, Phil and I got Thai takeout and watched a movie. It was a fairly early night for us, and we got up early the next day to hit Steven's Pass with Ava. The snow was heavy, and the vertigo was pretty bad, but we had a blast. That was only the second time I've skied in two years, and it felt really good to gets some turns in. We even managed to take the chair to the very top and enjoy a very steep mogul field. We skied till all of us had weak, cramping legs, then had beer and burgers from the lodge.

Once we got back to Seattle, we reconvened with Becca and headed out to Txori Bar. We got a bunch of weird little bites (and they really are bites), including squid in its own ink and spanish chorizo with shaved chocolate. We also had some not-so-weird stuff like, cauliflower and rabbit. The pictures tend to speak for themselves. (Below, Becca is appreciating every last bit of the rabbit bones.)

After a shameless stop at the drive-in to pick up some burgers and fries, we all settled in at Phil's house to watch Mean Girls - which I'd never seen. Big fan now. It was a really nice long weekend. I'm very relaxed now!

Potatoes n' Cheese

2010-01-13T20:51:00.000-08:00

More often than not, I start chopping up produce and putting it in a pan or pot before I've decided what the end product is going to be. I love making breakfast restaurant-style potatoes (with crispy browned outsides, with gooey middles), so that's what I started with tonight. I stared at the taters, frothing up and sizzling, and contemplated where to go next.

"Potatoes and eggs, with some pancakes? Maybe potatoes and black beans in a burrito? Potatoes with... Cheese curds! Which means I should make gravy - POUTINE!"

I hovered over the stove, muttering, but Rachel (my roommate) is pretty used to this by now. A place in Durango, Colorado popped into my head at that moment, and I furiously began chopping onions. I love onions, and they are a good source of vitamin C to boot, so I tend to use at least a half a cup of onion in anything I cook. The restaurant I'm speaking of is Serious Texas Barbecue. They make "Cheezy potatoes" that are out of this world. It's been years since I had them, but I remember it was potatoes, onion, and a ton of melted cheese. I, of course, slathered the whole lot with their Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, and I wish I had some of that right about now.

So I skipped the poutine for tonight, and I made a stab at Cheezy potatoes. I had some curds from the Tillamook Cheese Factory in the fridge, and when you pan fry those, they get even "squeeky"-er. Which is amazing-er. I pan fried the taters in 2 tbls olive oil, and 2 tbls butter, then added a cup of sliced onions, 1 tbls fresh thyme from my Aerogarden, 2 ts rubbed sage, and 1 ts of oregano. I think I actually went overboard with the spices. I also added 2 cloves of garlic, which I like to microplane into the pan, rather than chop. Microplaning gives you a garlic paste, rather than little bits that will brown and burn in the hot oil. Finished off with half an avocado, some Tillamook sour cream, and a lot of sriracha. Pretty damn good dinner. For 9pm on a weeknight...

Random Shot #3

2010-01-13T12:44:00.001-08:00

Agh! I have to make sure I post in between these random shots... That was sort of the point. To get me posting more.

Forest foraging pays off

Random Shot #2

2010-01-06T08:35:00.000-08:00

Parmesan Popovers

2010-01-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

Kitty was almost as excited as I was to see these beauties come out of the oven.

Final product.

I've been looking over popover recipes since the October 2009 issue of Gourmet Magazine came out. They did a fun looking fall spread at a mountain cabin setting with a bunch of really thin, beautiful models who you know can't be eating tins and tins of popovers... Anyway. Everything they made for that meal made my mouth water, especially the Provolone Popovers. I have never eaten popovers before, let alone made them, but I was curious. We never have milk in our house, so it hasn't been a recipe I could just last minute whip up. Since the holidays, I think Rachel and I have both had to buy a lot of milk for various recipes, so there's an abundance of dairy in our fridge now.

This morning, I woke up and started googling "popover recipes" on my iPhone, then remembered the October Gourmet out in my living room. When I found the recipe again, it definitely seemed like the simplest of all the ones I'd been scouting. I also wasn't planning on letting my batter rest for the 60+ minutes recommended. I didn't have provolone, but I did have the all important catalyst, parmesan, and some sharp white cheddar which I decided could pretend to be provolone. They turned out beautiful, delicious, and didn't even stick to the pan! Jake and Phil were leaving to go boating at 9:30, and I managed to toss a couple steaming hot morsels at them as they walked out. This was a super simple recipe that I will make again and again! Rachel brought home the beautiful muffin tin from her grandmother's after Christmas. It's the perfect size for a 25 minute bake. The recipe below yielded two exact batches in her 8 small muffin tin.

Full recipe found here, on Gourmet.com.

Random Shot #1

2009-12-30T14:26:00.000-08:00

I'm going to start putting some of my favorite pictures - old or new - up on a weekly basis.

Arleta Library Bakery & Cafe

2009-12-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

Phil, Eric and I went for a little drive out to Arleta Library Bakery & Cafe this morning. Well, this afternoon I guess. We were still in time for brunch (they are open until 2:30pm on the weekend), and we only had to wait about ten minutes for a table. Time we spent looking over the menu by the front door, and gulping down a cup of french pressed coffee. Arleta Library is very very small (even smaller than Juniors I think), so I bet there's a pretty serious line during the more normal breakfast hours, but I'd still say it's worth a much longer wait. Once we were seated, the specials were presented to us, including the quiche of the day, which was a wild mushroom and local greens mix. I was hell bent on trying as many things as possible, since Saba and Owen recommended it so highly to us. The Sicilian Hash was an instant pick after having watched the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives episode that featured Arleta Library. Since there were three of us, and we were all pretty hungry, we went with four items, plus a side of bacon. In addition to the bacon and the Hash, we devoured an order of the Pane Dolce, Portland's Best Biscuits-n-Gravy, and The Tuscan. The Tuscan and the Hash each offer a side of either toast or a scone, so we had one of each. The Hash and the biscuits and gravy both came with a side of potatoes, which were large wedges, heavily seasoned and crispy on the outside, with steaming hot, gooey middles. In other words, amazing. We completely annihilated our plates of food (which impressed our server) by eating for a few minutes, then trading plates clockwise until they were gone. After we finished what seemed to be an impossible task a half hour prior, we all realized how "not overly full and sick" we felt, despite the amount of food we had just consumed. I chalked this up to being directly related to the lack of grease in our meal. Whereas most places serving up similar items would be dripping in animal fats, and greasy oils, Arleta Bakery somehow manages to pull off these incredible dishes with minimal greasiness, which left me feeling full, but really refreshed and happy. (I've been known to eat to the point of illness on more than on occasion.)

Although Arleta Library is a 12 minute drive from home (not sure on the bike length), I'm stoked to go back for more, and I can't wait to take more friends there.

Lark

2009-12-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

Lark was not only a pleasure for the palate, but overall, gave me a comfy, warm feeling. The high ceiling, and beautiful wooden interior flowed nicely with the simple menu design, soft lighting, and bright, bustling kitchen that peeked through the end of the hallway. We browsed the menu, stomachs growling after two cocktails around the corner at Tavern Law, and found it hard to choose between rosti potatoes with clabber cream and roasted sunchokes with rosemary, garlic and lavender. Eventually, we settled on the salmon special (it had bacon, there was no contest), roasted sunchokes, sauteed mushrooms, Bluebird Grain Farms farro, chicken liver parfait, and many other things that my memory is not recalling. To be honest, "chicken liver" ANYTHING was not in my vocabulary (or belly) three weeks ago. After a brave taste a few weeks ago at Clyde Common, I was totally sold.

Our fish had crispy skins, with a silky, not at all dry, meaty inside. The farro was chewy, cooked to perfection (don't know if al dente is even a proper term here, but it's how I'd describe it) and tossed with what I believe may have been chard. The only thing I haven't mentioned is the bread. Oh goodness, the bread.... I don't know for sure where it came from, but I'm assuming it was baked in house? Heavy, wheaty, chewy bread to sop up all the delicious sauces at the bottom of our serving plates and bowls. There was no holding back. Perhaps I licked my fingers? But nobody seemed to mind.

Lark is very romantic, and I look forward to going back with Phil for a special occasion. Their dining area also comfortably accommodated the party of 8 or more who sat next to us. It's places like Lark where you want to bring a few friends, so you can order more dishes, and snag more tastes!

More friends.... More tastes!

Canlis

2009-12-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

Rose Bowl Bound

2009-12-02T08:57:00.000-08:00

Bacon scallion scones

2009-11-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

Just a scone weekend I guess.

Lemon ginger scones

2009-11-21T13:37:00.000-08:00

I decided I need to work on breakfast this week. My habits have not been healthy as of late. If I have a large batch of quick food in the house, that is relatively easy to snag before I hop on my bike, then maybe I can pump some fuel into me before my morning commute (5 mile ride). Since I've never made scones before, they sounded like a fun challenge, and also a great way to customize my morning snack. Usually, bakery scones are huge and I only eat them if I'm sharing with someone else. I looked for some recipes, and decided to just make them tiny.

I fell in love with the recipe for Orange and Oat scones on 101 Cookbooks, and thought I'd give those a go. I made a ton of changes though, and realized that my scones don't even vaguely resemble her recipe.

First, you cut in the butter. Then you stir everything together, gently working in the buttermilk.

After forming the dough into a round, you slice into wedges and bake till the bottoms are golden brown. Then you nom nom nom nom....

We all deserve it.

2009-11-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

Tilth

2009-11-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

Beginning on Thursday, I've been wined and dined by my loved ones - Bamboo Sushi with dad on Thursday, Tilth with Phil on Saturday, Volunteer Park Cafe with Phil, Katie and Jason on Sunday, and Nostrana with mom on Monday! I don't believe there's anything I love more in life than my family and friends combined with rich, tasty foods and my camera. Since I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to eat at such scrumptious places (when I'm not laboring over my own stove), I figured I should be jotting down my memories for friends, family, and future reference. I'll get to all of them eventually, but today I'm beginning with Tilth.

I'd been on the train for 3.5 hours when Phil picked me up on Friday evening. We hopped online to see who had openings and what sounded good, and quickly agreed on Tilth, as we'd both been itching to get over there.

Located in Wallingford, a lively neighborhood adjacent to the University District in Seattle, Tilth boasts the claim to fame of having been the second restaurant to ever become Oregon Tilth certified. How fitting. The restaurant is in a tastefully renovated craftsman house, with an enclosed sunroom which sort of makes you feel like you're coming home as you step into the entrance. The space is small, and the staff to table ratio seemed unusually high - but in a really good way.

We started our meal off with some pink bubbly and some scrumptious hors d'oeuvres.....

Phil ordered the salmon and I ordered the ricotta dumpling with lardon. Yum YUM. The portions were the perfect size for having started with an appetizer and ending with a cheese plate (and chocolate deserty thing for Phil). We were able to take our time, and savor each dish without getting too full. I can't WAIT to go back.

Phil's in Seattle

2009-10-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

As a lot of you already know, Phil moved to Seattle a few weeks ago to work for Urbanspoon. This is quite exciting for all sorts of reasons, but I am selfishly mostly excited about the fact that he's closer in mileage and therefore we get to spend significantly more time together. He moved into a cool rental house with a lot of weird features including 1) a warm water dog bath in the basement; 2) tons of windows in every room and not a single curtain or shade; 3) pine flooring; 4) cork walls in one room; 5) a sink that has a regular faucet, and also a "pot filler" that is extra tall and can run at full water pressure while the other faucet is being used; and 6) fruiting shaggy mane mushrooms in the driveway. In case you couldn't tell, I really like Phil's house. I like Seattle too. I'd never been to Seattle before he moved there, and oddly enough, now Josh and I are both spending a lot of time there together as well. (Phil and Josh and Ava went to see the new Matchstick Productions film, and of course Josh dressed up as Saucerboy.)

Last weekend while walking around in a city park, Phil and I found what says is his most favorite mushroom of all. Seems like the perfect combination of rain and sunshine, and temperature this year. We've been finding a lot of mushrooms every weekend, whether we're trying to or not!

Phil with shaggy parasols

Chanterelles from two weekends ago

New stuff all over again....

2009-10-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

Well well well... It's been a long time again, and boy do I have a lot to report. Not going to go into a lot of detail, because I want to get back to posting some beautiful pictures of edibles. I quit my job at WebMD (finally!) am happily employed as a Research Assistant now at Oregon Health & Science University. Woot. Pretty excited to be back in research, and also doing research that is now more related to what I went to school for.

Last night, Grandma Davis went out in the rain and cold and started picking concord grapes in the driveway before I came over for dinner. By the time I got there, she had gotten about ten pounds already done, if not more. I added a bit more to it, and now I have tons of grapes to do god knows what with.... Between Grandma and mom, and I, we decided I'm going to make grape juice and can it. So that involved me bringing grandmas canner home too. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tofu Snacks

2009-09-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite snacks - so much so, that I sometimes just eat a bowl of them with a salad for dinner or lunch. I've tried over a dozen different brands of tofu, and I've tried freezing it vs. not freezing it, and so on...

I've found this comes out the most favorable in terms of texture, and flavor absorbtion using Wildwood, extra firm, no water packed tofu. They carry it at Fred Meyer and New Seasons regularly now. Put the tofu in the freezer till frozen all the way through, then thaw it back out in the fridge over a couple of days, or on the counter if using immediately.

After freezing and thawing, firm tofu takes on a spongier texture that lets you squeeze all the water out, then it reabsorbs juices much better, and bakes into a more firm final texture. After freezing and thawing, follow the below recipe to make these nummy snacks.

Baked Tofu Snacks

1 pound extra firm tofu, water pressed out, frozen and thawed.
2 tbls extra virgin olive oil
Bragg's Liquid Aminos to taste (about 1 tbls)
2 tbls nutritional yeast flakes
1 tbls garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400F. Dice the tofu into large, 1/2" squares and place in a medium mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss well until tofu is evenly coated. Add more Bragg's to taste. Spread cubes onto an ungreased cookie sheet and place on medium rack for 10 minutes. Flip cubes, and bake for additional 12-15 minutes until tofu is golden and crisp on the outside. Middle should be spongy, but not crispy. Dip in something spicy, goddess dressing, or enjoy plain! Can be refrigerated up to 3-5 days to nom later.

Random Food Pic

2009-09-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Breakfast Bagel. Yum.

Phil actually put this together. We went over to his mom's garden and took the tomato, bought the sheep cheese from New Seasons, I grew the basil, and it's a Kettleman's bagel. The colors looked really great in the natural light and he said, "I can't believe you're not shooting this..." to which I responded, "DON'T EAT IT!" and went to grab my camera.

Cycletrack

2009-09-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

Bee Allergy

2009-08-21T00:55:00.000-07:00

Photos clockwise from top, left: Josh at Ozone, honey bee outside my house, my hand about halfway to the full size (~24 hours after sting), a cartoon of an epi-pen from http://www.epipen.com/page/how-to-use-epipen-auto-injector-index)

Last weekend Josh was passing through Oregon, heading up to Washington for his next NOLS course. We went to Ozone on Saturday, and while we were approaching the climbing area, a bee just decided to sting me. Maybe someone pissed it off, coming down the trail in front of us, but one second Josh and I were chatting, and another second, I was jumping up and down, swearing. The honey bee "left it's butt in me" as I've been telling folks, and it was a good thing Josh was there, because he directed me to "scrape" the butt out to avoid getting more of the poison in my hand. I was stung twice at Ozone when I went climbing with Ian and Graham earlier this summer. Maybe that was enough bee juice for my body this year. By the time Josh and I got home, my hand started getting big.

I took two rounds of Benadryl, made a pen mark when the swelling hit my wrist, called my insurance companies free nurse line when the swelling was a third of the way up my arm in the morning, went to see a doctor at the advice of the nurse line, took 60mg of prednisone and waited six hours, then called the nurseline again when I couldn't feel my hand anymore, and then headed for the ER when the nurse told me he wouldn't have waited that long if it were him, and I was starting to lose circulation in my hand, which was obvious from the cold fingers, and white hand. After several hours in the ER, and some humming and hawing over my ridiculously small veins that are almost impossible to get blood out of, let alone stick an IV into for such a small problem, the folks turned my arm into a real topographic map (watching for more swelling), and I waited. Then I got a cool lesson in histamine and the allergic response in the body, reminding me of those funny H2-receptors, blah blah blah - at that point I was really zoned out on Benadryl, but still really enjoying the geeky talk about why I would be taking Pepsid (an antacid) to help lessen the reaction.

Now I have to carry an epi-pen. That's the funny thing about the allergic response to an antigen like bee stings - the reaction can get worse after every exposure. This time it was my hand, and most of my arm all the way up to my elbow that swelled into a painful, red balloon. And next time, I'll have this handy dandy epi-pen around in case I get stung on my neck. Ew.

Soup in the middle of summer

2009-08-20T22:34:00.001-07:00

I'm pretty sure the last time I made French Onion Soup from scratch was in 2006 (post) when Phil lived in Mountain View. I think it's typically made with yellow onions, but last night when I was wandering around Fred Meyer at 10pm, I saw Walla Walla's on sale for $.49/lb and decided I wanted French Onion soup today. Two Walla Walla's amount to almost three pounds of onion. I scaled it down to two pounds, and followed this recipe from epicurious.com. Three hours later, Rachel and I had dinner. My mouth was watering too much to get the proper foodie shots, and I was already nibbling the edges of the melted Gruyere, so this is all I got.

Food Pics - mmmm

2009-08-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

Scallions at the Portland Farmers Market - Wednesday.

Josh at Mai Thai

Update...

2009-08-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

Well, there's not really anything to update on. Since my last post...

Things have been CRAZY hectic with work. I've been working out of the Portland office the past couple weeks, instead of working from my bedroom. I do love the bike commute in to Northwest (lets me have 60 minutes of riding per shift), but working from home with Kitty is nice too.
I put clipless pedals on my bike. Woohoo!
I made the fourth batch of pesto this summer. All from my little planter box of five basil plants. (Another harvest will be coming this week)
Phil and I went to his ten year high school reunion. Yup. He's old. Keith and Ashley were there, and it was great to meet new people and see old faces.
I ate Korean food for the first time! At Phil's reunion I met Kate. She was also adopted from Korea, and we've hung out a couple times since the reunion. The first time was so she and her boyfriend, Ky, could teach me about Korean food. Yum!!!

Last week, I got to babysit Caitlyn for a day. ALWAYS a blast to spend time with the munchkin.

On Friday, I went to Seattle for the first time. Phil and I attended a party for Urbanspoon.

On Sunday, Dad and Jill and I rode in the Providence Bridge Pedal. This was the driving motivation behind me getting the new pedals, and boy was I glad to have them! I'm still super tired.

And, last but not least.... I bought a MacBook Pro! I'll go ahead and give another "woohoo" to that.

Food food foods

2009-07-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

It's been really hot this week, and I've been staying up really late, enjoying the cool air while possible. Staying up late means more time with the camera, my computer, and of course, this all happens in the kitchen. This is the product of the past couple days...

Carol's Birthday Weekend

2009-07-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

Carol's birthday was on July 14, and her family visited for the weekend so Phil and Sophia also came to town. It was the first time I'd met Budge, Mary, Sally and Bob, and I had a great time hanging out with them and eating food. On Friday, before Phil had gotten here, I joined them at Pok Pok for the best dinner I've had in Portland since moving here last summer. On Saturday, Carol made a couple platters of the feast above - one with salmon and one with halibut. Phil and I managed to slip in some rock climbing up at French's Dome before dinner, and on Sunday he went and kayaked the Wind River. All in all, an extremely fun filled weekend with good food, great company, and wonderful Oregon weather.

Mt. Hood from the road to French's Dome, E Lolo Pass.

Raspberry Lemon Pudding Cakes

2009-07-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

Josh, Rachel and I went to Grandma's house the other day, and while we were having lunch, I found this recipe in one of her magazines. I thought it would be a nice, afternoon desert, and she had all the ingredients, so I whipped them up.

The North American Organic Beer Festival

2009-07-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Phil was in town, and we made it over to Overlook Park for the North American Organic Beer Festival with my friends Saba, Owen and Kira. While there were a lot of beers (FULL beer list here), and we tried as many as we could, there were a couple that really stood out. The Widmer, Teaser XPA was innnnnnncredibly refreshing and crisp, and had a ton of floral aromas that I normally don't like, but fell in love with. So that was the light - the dark one that I really loved was from Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing. Their People's Porter was delicious, though I don't remember why. I just kept a notepad of all the beers I tried, and rated them on a scale of 1-10, and I gave that particular porter an 8, so I must have really enjoyed it.

Kitty!

2009-06-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

I wasn't really going to share this creepy catness with everyone, but Phil saw it and said, "That belongs on the internet!" So here it is. Heheheh.

No Knead Bread

2009-06-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I didn't think about Jake's No Knead Bread post. But then Rachel moved in. She brought her cast iron dutch oven, and overnight, there was suddenly this incredible, hard crust, chewy inside, big holed boule in our kitchen. Surely it was store bought? No! This is the infamous no knead bread! Holy cow! For years, I have tried wetter breads in a refrigerated rise overnight, putting a cup of water in the oven, tossing water on the element in the oven (shhh, don't tell the land lords), baking on a stone, baking in a loaf pan, and then finally that bread machine incident when I gave up on doing all the labor. Searching for the perfect homemade crust is not easy when you're accustomed to the product of large, professional ovens, and years of professional baking experience. But now you can have it all. Cheaply, and simply!

This article in the NY Times mentions a bit about the molecular theory behind this bread, which you can explore more in depth if you happen to own a copy of On Food and Cooking (thank you PK!). Watch a video of Jim Lahey (the recipe creator) making this bread with a total of FIVE MINUTES of labor. Now go make some!

Grandma Eileen's 90th Birthday

2009-06-21T15:15:00.001-07:00

Mom's Birthday

2009-06-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

If you know me, you know I loooooove surprises. Surprising other people, that is. For mom's birthday, we had Josh AND Wes in town, and a homecooked spread out at Pat's with Grandma, Doug, Janet, Kenzie, and Max to join us. The sun even came out, the mosquitos left us alone, and it was a beautiful day. Recipes, and more food shots to come...

Road Trip!

2009-06-10T08:41:00.001-07:00

Black Bean and Tofu Burgers

2009-05-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

This one, I actually can't replicate. Two days ago I soaked some black beans. Last night I boiled those beans with some vegetarian boulion, onion. garlic, four chiptoles in adobo sauce (way too many, I was coughing from the spicy), and made soup. Tonight I was looking around, and decided burgers sounded good. I drained the soup juice, pulsed the beans in the food processor, and added shredded carrot, 1/4 sweet onion, 3 cloves garlic, annnnnnnd... I'm losing track. I used some nasty old bread, and toasted it into bread crumbs - again pulsed in the processor. Crumbled some tofu that was left over from Monday by - you guessed it - pulsing in the food processor. Tossed in a dash of soy sauce, a spoonful of nutritional yeast, and mashed it all good with a wooden spoon. Mashy mashy mashy. Then I weighed out 5 oz balls (because this process has been so precise, why not bring the food scale into it?!), and smooshed them into patties. Baked on a greased cookie sheet for thirty minutes, flipping halfway through. I can't tell you how they are yet, because they are in the oven. I'm guessing they will be amazing though - doesn't it sound good!? Sure smells good....

Asparagus season

2009-05-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

It's asparagus season.... And it's oh so good. Phil and I grabbed this from a streetside stand as we were leaving the farmer's market empty handed. That's right, we failed to buy anything at the farmer's market then stopped at a permanent, year round produce stand not even 100 feet away because we were drawn to these giant asparagus. Tonight I heated up a pan with two tablespoons of olive oil, tossed these puppies in the oil with about a half cup of sweet onion, four cloves of garlic (yes, FOUR), and added some Mexican Chorizo Field Grain Sausages. I think the stand said they were from Hermiston. I have to hurry up and eat the rest of this batch so I can go buy more!

Corvallis

2009-04-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

This morning I was out for a walk and developed a large lump in my throat when I started thinking about Corvallis. Don't get me wrong, I love Portland - but I was thinking about all the pretty and enjoyable things about Corvallis too, and thought I'd write a post about my memories.

The best parts about Corvallis were:

My cottage...

Alex, who was killed on Harrison about a year ago...

My fermentation bitches...

My homemade, raised bed, and all the veggies I grew....

The waterfront Farmers Market...

Joel and Liz...

And last, but not at all least, working at the Plant Clinic for the last year and a half of living there.

Basically every post I write these days is regarding the reasons I am happy in Portland. The two places aren't better or worse in my mind, just different, and both beautiful in the spring!

Sunday flower walk winner

2009-04-19T00:22:00.001-07:00

Bakery Bar - yummmmm

2009-04-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning and had a lazy walk around my neighborhood taking pictures of beautiful things. I wound up at Bakery Bar for coffee and one of my favorite scones - cheddar scallion (sans the bacon today). The place was packed, as usual, so I asked to share a table with a guy and his son outside. After chatting for a while, he identified himself as the owner. Him and his wife opened the NE Glisan location this November, and you might have remembered how excited I was... They now have an expanded breakfast menu, and I can't wait to try a brekkie sandwich with egg and bacon.

Steno books

2009-04-18T00:36:00.000-07:00

Working as a health coach, I take notes all day, every day. Notes notes notes notes.... I make quick, shorthand notes while on the phone with participants (pt's). These are in regards to their "ch" (cholesterol), "bp" (blood pressure), "wt" (weight), and well, you get the idea. During training I quickly learned which writing pad I preferred - we'd been given about four different kinds. And now, working as apartment manager as well, I find I'm taking notes pretty much all day long, every day, and the steno books have taken over my apartment. Tonight, I walked around and just shot pictures wherever I found them....

Flickr <3's kayaking waterfalls

2009-04-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

It turns out people really like photos of folks hucking their boats over waterfalls. My Flickr stats went through the roof on Sunday and Monday, just because I posted the shots from the race Phil was in on the PDX Kayaker forum. Pretty fun to watch, but now the glory is over...

2009-04-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

More Muffins!

2009-03-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

The bran muffins, I actually ate. Muffins like this are for guests, or friends. This is a super simple recipe I found on about.com. I had a couple cans of Washington cherries in my cabinet from longer ago than I can remember, so I thought I'd turn them into these breakfast treats. Turned out looking pretty good.

Bran Muffins

2009-03-03T15:52:00.001-08:00

This morning I had a craving for bran muffins. I've never made bran muffins before, and I've probably only eaten a bran muffin once or twice in my life. However, I happen to have lots of oat bran, wheat bran, wheat germ, and multigran whatnot laying around right now from failed bread baking attmempts. The Bob's Red Mill bag of wheat bran had a recipe for muffins on it. Of the 12 ingredients, I had 5. They were the important ones though, so for the ones I didn't have, I just added more wet stuff, or more dry stuff. It seemed to have worked out just fine, and now I have delicious muffins that I will probably not be able to replicate ever again.

Staying Active

2009-02-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

Since I've started working from home, it's been really important to try extra hard to get outside in the mornings, and my days off. I have been volunteering a lot, sometimes two organizations a day, on my days off. A couple weeks ago, Elizabeth and David and I decided to spend a sunny day up at the Portland Japanese Gardens. Elizabeth is a much stronger cyclist than I am, and riding up the hill to essentially, the top of Washington Park, with her was quite challenging. I was happy to have made it up without dying.

Six a.m. in the airport

2009-02-15T06:35:00.000-08:00

Here I am in the airport at six a.m., sharing a table with some weirdo who just threw away his whole breakfast. I flew up to Vancouver to spend the weekend with Phil, but now my weekends are Thursday through Sunday. This means I'm hopping the seven a.m. flight back home, in order to be at my desk, clocking in, by noon.

To avoid any sort of Valentine's Day crowd/rush situation, we found the perfect solution! We ate at a sushi restaurant that does not take reservations. The wait was probably no worse than any other Saturday night in Vancouver, and the food was increeeeedible. After our first plate of seven different slabs of fresh fish, and two tuna rolls, we ordered more fish, barbequed eggplant, and squid with garlic and lemon. But then I was still feel nibbley, as usual, so then we ordered another bottle of sake, and some tempura. Incredibly fresh fish, and the best part of the meal - the biggest motivating factor for Phil taking me - was the real, fresh wasabi. If you're not aware already, the wasabi you get in restaurants, and with your to-go sushi at Safeway is really horseradish, Chinese mustard, and a lot of green food coloring. A fun part about eating the real wasabi, is surprising way they sneak it in on you. It has to be served between the fish and the rice, so as not to become oxidized, which would cause it to lose flavor. Between the fish and rice means you don't see it, don't know how much of it is there until you're chewing, and then BAM. Wasabi heaven.

Phil and I also went skiing while I was in town. It hadn't snowed in three days, so we opted to go night skiing, figuring the snow wouldn't be any better paying for full day tickets. I brought my boots, but left the skis at home in order to fly carryon, and this meant demoing some fun, shaply skis from Cypress Mountain. Even though we got to the mountain around seven p.m., we had an excellent time, and got some good turns in.

New new new

2009-02-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you who I haven't caught up with in a while - I have a new job now! I am a Health Educator (or health coach), and I work from home. It's an actual job, with actual benefits, with a crazy schedule I have to stick to and everything. I'm just about to start my third week working after the two weeks of training in January, and it is wonderful. I work from home and talk to people on the phone, who's employers have added health coaching to part of their wellness packages, or benefits plans.

The purpose is to help folks identify their risks for negative, chronic health conditions, and begin to modify their lifestyle in order to reduce their risk for those conditions or diseases. It's not my job to change people, it's my job to help people identify what it is they want to change, how it is they can do it, and help them transition through that process, and understand how it affects their health. Some folks have a lot of health information (I talk to people who are nurses, or have a PhD, every day), and some folks have a low level of health education and need help understanding what their cholesterol numbers mean, and why exercising a little bit can help lower it.

It's great working from home, and kitty gets even MORE spoiled now because she knows I'll scratch under her chin whenever I simultaneously shoo her off of my workspace. Working from home also means I have to go extra lengths to make sure I get outside and do stuff. When it was a bit sunnier a few weeks ago, riding my bike ten miles to run errands or just get out in the morning was pretty easy, but I know the spring rain is going to come any minute.

As a partial solution, I've signed up to volunteer at Free Geek as a regular intern. Free Geek is AWESOME. They recycle electronics by refurbing them if possible and getting the stuff back into the community, into the hands of people that really need it - or by sending to a local, recycling company, which can take care of the nastier, toxic stuff. I'm training to be teaching the computer adoption class, which just means a class people take to set up their new computers once they have earned a computer through volunteering for 24 hours. I don't really need to lug another computer home (apartment is too small), but I am very interested in helping people get computers in their homes, learning more about linux, computer software/hardware in general, and helping out at a sweet place like Free Geek. It's a really cool space, and fun to walk around and see folks ripping stuff apart, and resassembling it into full blown computer systems. More on that as I get more time in. I was just signed up to teach, but tonight I signed up to start on the "building computers" part, so I can learn more about the insides. My first shift isn't for three weeks, so I'll keep you posted.

Quick 'n Healthy

2009-02-05T21:35:00.000-08:00

With my new work schedule, I get off of work at 9pm, and like to have dinner when I get off instead of on my break. I like to get the food prepped during my 30 minute evening break, or right after I get off, but still eat well. Tonight, I tried this new "simmer sauce" from Tasty Bite, and it was gooooood. I roasted the eggplant in the oven for a while first for about 15 minutes, then added it to the zucchini and red peppers when I added the simmer sauce. Served it over some nutty, short grain, brown rice with some nutritional yeast and tamari on top.

Beef Stew

2009-02-04T22:32:00.001-08:00

It's very hard to make beef stew look good in a picture, which is why I left this one itty bitty. My mom gave me a cookbook for Christmas with some of her recipes in it already, and blank cards to add my own favorites. I've been looking forward to eating some beef stew for days, and kept running into timing problems. But finally, I made the stew, two nights ago, and now I'm eating stew every meal. I used mom's beef with barley recipe and adapted it a tiny bit. I grab and chop eveyrthing in handfuls, so I'm not even going to try to put amounts on the recipe.

Beef Stew with Farro (adapted from mom's Crybaby Stew)

Ingredients:

Stew meat, cut into 1" cubes
Strong red wine
Garlic, diced
Bay leaf (x2)
Herbs de provance
Flour
Salt, pepper
Vegetable oil
Beef stock or boullion
Onion, cut very coarsely
Carrots, chopped coarsely
Potatoes (waxy yukons, or russet are fine), cubed
Farro or barley
Frozen peas

Place stew meat in a shallow pyrex and cover in a couple cups of red wine (I used a Malbec). Add bay leaves and a few diced cloves of garlic to the mix. Cover and let sit for a few hours, or refrigerate overnight.
In a bowl, combine flour, some salt, pepper and herbs de provance.
Heat up a few tbls of oil in a heavy pot (oven safe) or dutch oven to medium. Preheat oven to 300F.
Coat each piece of meat in the flour mixture, then brown on all sides in the pot. Reserve the wine marinade.
Add the onion and sautee for another 7 minutes or so, then add the carrots and potato. Deglaze the bottom of the pot, adding the wine mixture and scrapping the bottom well. Add the broth, a couple hand fulls of farro or barley, and put in the oven for 3 hours or until done. Check at about 1 hour and stir the pot well, making sure it's not boiling and causing things to stick on the bottom. Turn heat down to 275F if it is.

For a thicker, more gravy like stew, when you check it at one hour, slowly mix in a flour/water mixture to thicken. When it's done, the meat will fall apart on your spoon, and you wont be able to stand the yummy smells anymore. When you take it out of the oven, stir in a few hand fulls of frozen peas. Serve piping hot with some hearty bread. Yumm!

Curry Sunday

2009-01-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

I made curry last Sunday too, so I guess it's becoming a habit. This red curry has potatoes and tofu in it that I baked instead of pan sauteeing, making it less oily and fatty.

Sunday Morning

2009-01-25T10:25:00.000-08:00

Free Geek Recycling Day

2009-01-24T18:12:00.000-08:00

Pizza Night!

2009-01-21T21:01:00.000-08:00

Quick and (relatively) healthy.

I've been training for my new job this week over at Montgomery Park and it's a long, cold bike ride home for me, compared to coming home from the State Building down the street. Tonight, I was starving before I even left the office, and it would have been very easy to just grab a salad or pasta dish from the deli section of the market, but instead I held out about 30 more minutes for this awesome pizza. This is a super time saver, and can be completed in, like I said, about thirty minutes. A great substitute for the Jiffy Pizza Dough in this recipe is Trader Joe's pizza dough that comes in the bag. Honestly, I hate that stuff - it never rests/rises properly and I am fighting it on the pan - BUT, a lot of my girlfriends love it.

You Need:
Box of Jiffy Pizza Dough Mix (the little blue boxes that cost about $.40)
A couple cups of low fat mozzarella (I bought the pre-shredded kind at Whole Foods, which was cheaper than the blocks)
Some marinara sauce (or canned pizza sauce, I just already has a jar of 365 Garlic and Basil Pasta Sauce open)
1/2 lb Chicken Sausage (Basil and Garlic from the Whole Foods deli is only $5.69/lb - but I would also just use tofu chunks here)
1 yukon gold potato (I love my carbs with my carbs)
4 or 5 sweet piquante peppers (bulk sections sometimes have these)

Follow directions on Jiffy Dough Box. While the dough is resting, and the oven pre-heating, heat a skillet to med/high heat and brown the chicken sausage (or tofu chunks) for 7-8 minutes.
Finely slice peppers into little strips, and with a very sharp knife, slice the potato into the thinnest pieces possible. If you have a mandolin, you probably want to use that, but using my knife with a fresh sharpening job, I made my slices as thin as a piece of paper, which is thinner than my mandolin.
Smear some sauce on the crust, add cheese, sausage, peppers, finish with potatoes (makes sure they get cooked if they are on the top), and more cheese.
Bake at 425F for approximately 13 minutes, or until cheese is golden.

YUM. This tastes really good with fresh avocado on top too.

Rubber Keyboard

2009-01-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

I bought this keyboard for about $20 including shipping. It's pretty crappy to type on, because you have to be very deliberate with each punch, but it's a cool toy and it is totally silent - which rules.

Mexico

2009-01-19T14:03:00.000-08:00

I haven't been able to sit down and spend time talking about our trip yet, and a lot of time has now gone by, so the task seems daunting, but I do want to share with all of you a little more about what it was like. So, what I've done is copy the journal pages I kept, and the stubs from our taxi rides, plane rides, and exhibit entries into here for you to browse over. We covered a lot of ground in 12 days, and it was all beautiful! Hit the play button to view the slideshow directly under this text to view all of our photos as well...

Mexico

2009-01-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

No light tricks here. I took this shot in Manzanillo one night while Phil and I were walking around on the water front. Definitely my favorite shot of the trip. More to come on details of our adventures. Still unpacking and unwinding.... and starting a new job! I began training at WebMD today, and am really excited to be a health coach. Happy new year, and here's to new beginnings.

Leaving on a jetplane...

2008-12-26T10:55:00.000-08:00

Although it may seem impossible to walk away from this little bug (see below), I am leaving for a vacation! Phil and I are going to Mexico on Monday. We will be gone Monday the 29th till January 10th. Happy New Year! I'll take an annoying amount of pictures, you can count on it.

Portland Snowpocalypse - UPDATED with new photos every 12 hours or so

2008-12-20T18:34:00.001-08:00

Just signed up for Clear

2008-12-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

I am SO thrilled with my new internet service. I heard about Clear on Twitter the other day, and wanted to learn more about it, but just hadn't gotten around. I saw a kiosk for them the other day and was kicking myself for not stopping, so today when I saw them outside of Powell's I stopped to learn more. And I signed up!

My old internet: 1.5 mbps with Qwest for $39.99/month

My new internet!: 6 mbps with Clear for $40/month

Qwest takes FOREVER to ship you your set up crap (modem, annoying "startup disc", etc), and with Clear, I gave them $40 and they handed me a modem and I walked away. What do you need to start your service? I walked home, plugged the modem in (to an electrical outlet), and BAM. No cable line, no phone line, nothing! I am so thrilled, and the guys who sold to me were super thrilled also. Clear reps Matt Kurowski and Brett Dilley pictured below, braving the storm. I honestly just wanted to write about this because I am so excited to be out from under the awful fees and contracts of Comcast or Qwest, but they will give people some sort of credit for referring or whatever, so you should give them my name if you sign up because of reading this post. Kthxbai ;)

Left: Brett Dilley (brett.dilley@clearwire.com) Right: Matt Kurowski (matt.kurowski@clearwire.com)

About those books and burritos...

2008-12-19T09:36:00.001-08:00

I wrote that post about Supporting Local Economy a few days back and have continually been following the Portland hype over it. The actual Dude is from San Francisco, but his mom runs the store here in Portland, if you'll recall.

Since then I've been amazed at the response by the internet community to his Twitter cries and blog post .

I orignally commented on his blog saying, I would go buy books, and although, I love burritos - and Cha Cha Cha more than any other burrito joint around - that I was really just in it for the books. Since then I've started to wonder if maybe there's another way to make something awesome of this. There's a lot of hungry people in Portland, and they aren't the ones who can afford to spend $50 at the bookstore. (I only spent $31 the other day and felt kind of strapped...) But if I do spend another $20 before xmas (if Dude allows folks to combine receipts), then I will go collect my burrito, but I'm going to walk right out on the street and give it to the first person who asks me for money. Lets just hope they don't throw it back at me, completely annoyed, because that would really ruin my idealistic vision of how this would go all go down.

2008-12-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

Took a little walk today to get some groceries. As you all know, it's snowing and whatever, but it is SO COLD!!!! The wind is coming right through my window panes.

Bagels

2008-12-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

It's quite cold out, so leaving the house seems somewhat unreasonable. Until there is snow in the mountains to be skied, that is. David and Elizabeth were dropping their car off at Les Schwab this morning, like everybody else in Portland, and were told they would have a 5 hour wait. (Les Schwab is nextdoor to my house.) So, they popped in to say hello. I made coffee and Elizabeth and I busted out some bagels while David finished up their laundry. Same recipe that I always use.

2008-12-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

Lets not forget 2004. Apparently this weekend is supposed to be colder and wetter than that year. By wetter I mean, frozen wetness of course. Lets hope people can be smarter Portlanders and stay home this weekend!!!!

Frittata

2008-12-11T21:27:00.000-08:00

Quick, healthy, delicious dinner. Usually, I make frittatas like a pie - just bake it in a dish. This time I made it the way you're supposed to cook a frittata - sauteed in a pan, then broiling the top in the oven. It cooks quicker, and is easy to do with my super awesome stainless steel cookware. No need to really post a recipe here, it's just a bunch of veggies mixed up with eggs (whisked with whatever sort of milk, cream, or cheese you have laying around).

Civil War

2008-12-11T14:42:00.000-08:00

Obviously the Beavers lost the football game, but we won at the blood drive!!!! I feel like that could be taken in so many ways, since the ducks literally did, cream us in the ball game. Anywho, this is a fun little competition the Red Cross Pacific Northwest Chapter puts on. And we won. So :-P

Support Local Economy

2008-12-11T13:27:00.001-08:00

I just caught this story on Twitter and wanted to share with friends and family in the vacinity. Broadway Books in NE has been in business for 20+ years and is an awesome local bookstore. Regardless of the super amazing burritos, this son is doing an incredible thing with the internets to help his mom out from 1000 miles away. He's supporting Portland local businesses and family. Maybe you could do the same. Read full story.

More from my weekend in Vancouver

2008-12-09T08:01:00.001-08:00

Vancouver Aquarium

2008-12-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

2008-11-28T10:29:00.001-08:00

Biking in high heels is oddly fun...

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T21:13:00.000-08:00

New Coffee Shop!

2008-11-25T09:16:00.001-08:00

Oh, really really good news. There is finally a coffee shop, spitting distance from my house. A resident in my building was moving out recently and she said, "I just need to be somewhere, you know, where I can walk to a coffee shop...." It's true. That matters. And this place just opened up where I always ride my bike out to the main street - Bakery Bar. I guess they have another location in southeast, but boy am I glad to see them up here! Yum yum yum. They have Stumptown coffee too. Bonus.

Bacon Scallion Scone and Coffee

My Weekend

2008-11-23T21:43:00.001-08:00

From the Splendid Table

2008-11-18T17:38:00.000-08:00

Phil's mom made this soup the night of the VP debates and I've been thinking about it ever since. It is wicked easy to make - toss everything into the Cuisinart, then into the pot.

The only deviation from the original recipe I made was adding oregano as well. We're out of fresh tomato season, so I opted for organic Muir Glen whole tomatoes, crushing them with my hands as I scooped them out of the can. It's more appropriate to top with asiago, or a stinky goat cheese, but fresh mozarella was in the super discount bin at the store for $2! So my soup is topped with fresh mozarella and homegrown basil. I'm going to go ladle up seconds now....

Morning radio funny

2008-11-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

From Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, "In keeping with his promise to meet with hostile world leaders, under no pre-conditions, Barack Obama went to the White House this week."

Everyone responds to the rising food prices in one way or another. I make a bunch of fake meat.

2008-11-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

Do you love sausage, but know it's horrible for you, so you avoid it? Do you love vegetarians sausages as well, but they are so friggin' expensive they have become a luxury food item? Solution - make your own vegetarian sausage. This has become an awesome concept for me, because I don't like mushrooms and a lot of vegetarian pretend meat products are diced up mushrooms (yeck), or they are shoved full of sundried tomatoes (double yeck).

I found this recipe from VeganDad and as with all fake meat recipes, it is very tweakable. His recipe called for 1/2 cup pinto peans, and I used an old bag of navy beans that Logan gave me 3 years ago when he moved out of the 14th street house.

For this recipe, I used my cuisinart, but VeganDad and other folks just say to mash with a fork.

For 10, 3 ounce sausages:

1 1/2 cups beans (I used navy)
4 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons Braggs or Soy sauce
2 2/3 cups vital wheat gluten
3/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 cups cold water (important that it is super cold)
LOTS of hot pepper flakes - I used 2 tablespoons
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon cumin seeds

PROCEDURE: Get steamer going. I used a two tiered food steamer with lots of surface area, but a pot steamer will work as long as you keep rotating the sausages and don't let them crowd each other too much.

Put the beans, garlic cloves, olive oil, and Braggs in the food processor and chop the hell out of it till everything is all chopped up. You don't want any whole beans in there.

Next, add the wheat gluten, yeast and water, and pulse about thirty times until the mixture is homogenous, but not being overly kneaded.

Put all your spices in, and pulse a dozen more times, just to make sure everything is distributed. Some people say not to overly mix this, but I turned my processor on and walked away to get more spices, and it turned out awesome.

**I used a food scale to weigh my whole dough hunk, then lopped off sections which were the weight of the total divided by ten. Um. You can just grab some off the hunk, and try to make about ten.

Take some dough and lay it onto a strip of foil, then roll the dough into it, and twist the ends tight. It is not important to shape them perfectly, they will just fill the foil tube on their own. Layer in the steamer and cook for 40 minutes.

When they are done, carefully pull them out of the steamer and lay them across the counter to cool. When safe to touch, unroll them from their foil, but let them sit there cooling more. They may seem gooey and weird, but when they dry out, their consistency is perfect.

Enjoy grilled, sauteed, sliced up for soups, or in a bun. Yum! *** I'm packaging mine up in freezer ziplocks to store. Way better than buying the Tofurkey ones at the market, and this way you can style them out with your own flavor preferences.

3 years of blogging

2008-11-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

I have been blogging for THREE years! What in the world have i been talking about?

Well, in the beginning, Phil and I had just moved to Colorado, and I was trying to keep the family updated on our whereabouts and roundabouts. We had just started a garden. Blue house was our home, at the base of the College hill. Sometimes Durango sounds like a nice place to be again, in my mind. But then I remember how cold/unfriendly/small it was, which outweighs the pretty mountains. We can always find pretty mountains in Oregon.

Eventually I stopped blogging because life was boring. Then I realized that it's the boring stuff that's actually quite beautiful - the gardening, the close up photos of kitty, the food, (oh god, the food!), and all those funny weekend projects I was making in Corvallis.

Journals are great, but I never stick with them. Seeing all of this before me, in a format I am comfortable navigating (the computer, as opposed to a book) makes it pretty cool to live through memories again. And now I've shifted again. How about... Less words, more photos. Or just photos. Maybe that will help me perfect the new camera skills.

The WETTEST Day of the Year

2008-11-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

Now I know mom really doesn't want to hear this... but biking home tonight felt like one of the craziest things I have ever done in my life. I thought I could avoid having to buy a new jacket just because I'm biking in Portland, and compensate with blinkie lights. NO. Wearing black Gortex with black rain pants is entirely unacceptable. I totally believe the biker is responsible for just about any accident that could ever be imagined - if you're out there, you know you can die at any second - and I'm finding that wearing my work shoes on the ride home when it rained seven inches in the past three days is not going to work. I have to be maneuverable and super duper quick. It is just loads of fun and I feel so accomplished every time I get home and carry my bike upstairs.

Sunchoke Soup

2008-11-11T21:04:00.001-08:00

Made this great soup for dinner, Cream of Sunchoke Soup. Phil and I ordered it at Lovely Hula Hands for my birthday dinner, where it was WAY better, but hey, I'm trying. I've totally messed up the "read more" thing, but if you click on it you'll get the list of ingredients.
Ingredients

Chop, chop chop chop chop.

Sunchokes look really weird.

Some for me, some for the soup!

Final product.

Sunchoke Soup

1 lb sunchokes, washed, peeled, sliced thin, and soaked in a bowl of cold water and fresh lemon juice
1 med onion, diced
2 med new potatoes, diced small
1/2 lb celariac, diced small
2 celery stalks, diced

1 tbs stone ground mustard
1 cup of dry white wine
1 cup of half and half

4 cups broth
Thyme
Rosemary
Olive oil
Salt

Pepper

Bring 2tbs olive oil to medium heat in a heavy bottom pot. Sautee onion, rosemary, thyme, and celery for 8 minutes, but do not brown.
Add the other vegetables and mustard, and sautee for 10 minutes.
Add white wine and increase heat, boiling off nearly all the liquid.
Add the broth and keep at a light boil for 30 minutes with no lid.
In batches, puree the soup mixture in a food processor or blender, then transfer back to pot.
Add half and half, and stir while bringing heat up to just a boil. Add salt and peper to taste. Serve hot immediately with a celery leaf to garnish.

I hate dishes

2008-11-09T20:42:00.000-08:00

2008-11-08T22:14:00.000-08:00

New camera is lots of fun.

2008-11-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I love pizza... Here are the first food shots with my new camera. I'll have to work on the lighting... Nasty kitchen lighting makes everything yellow, but super bright flash makes everything sharp. Click on "read more" for recipe.

Super Quick Pizza Nite

What you need....
1lb bag of Trader Joes whole wheat pizza dough (set on counter 60 minutes before using for best results)
Whatever veggiesare flying around your fridge. I had roasted red peppers, capers, onion, garlic, and some extra firm tofu.
Olive oil
Herbs and spices
Some cheese
This is super simple and actually not pizza I guess, since I had no sauce.

Preheat oven to 450. Roll out dough into a rectangle or circle, and brush with extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle dough with crushed red peppers for a spicy zing, or dried parsley/basil/thyme/orgeano. Slice onion extremely thin and layer on top of olive oil. Mince garlic and sprinkle over the onion. Now layer on your other random veggies, spinkle with a small amount of cheese (1/4 cup) to keep things sticking on there. I sliced the tofu super super thin and layered on top like pepperoni. Spinkle something on top of the tofu to give it some flavor to take in. Bake for 12-18 minutes till crust is browned and cheese is bubbly. Yuuuum

November 4th, 2008 FTW

2008-11-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

I shot a bunch of pictures around the NE Killingsworth Campaign for Change office while Phil and I were volunteering on Monday night and Tuesday. You can see all of the shots at my flickr site, but here are a few of what will be the most memorable for me.

2008-11-05T12:47:00.001-08:00

This sums it up.

OBAMA wins from BrownBomber on Vimeo.

Birthday Dinner

2008-11-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

My birthday was yesterday, and I have been celebrating since Friday. Mom and grandma took me out to lunch and we had a great time eating the famous ruben sandwiches at Rose's in Portland, then we had a sleep over at mom's house. On Saturday, Phil and I had dinner with dad at his house, and we ate a decedent meal of homegrown tomatoes marinated in balsamic vinegar and fresh basil, with slices of fresh mozzarella; fingerling potato au gratin with stinky blue-veined cheese (yum); and 2 inch thick steaks. Oh my oh my.... For desert, dad picked up some yummy stinky cheeses which we had with slices of crispy red pears and honey crisp apples. A true Northwest dinner, paired with Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon.

On my actual birthday, Phil and I slept in (big surprise), and went for an afternoon hike in Forest Park,

where I took 380 photos with my new camera, a Nikon digital SLR from dad. It was a crispy col day to go hunting

for mushrooms, and although we didn't have much luck, we had a great day.

We had a late dinner at the gorgeous and delicious, Lovely Hula Hands . I couldn't help myself, I ordered steak

and fingerling potatoes!!! For the second night in a row! Phil had an incredible hamburger which was too big to

squish into your mouth, but somehow he managed. Yuuuummy. And we had an awesome Spanish tempernillo to

go with dinner, which began with sunchoke soup with mint oil, and a baby oak leaf salad with feta and lemon

vinegarette. I'm a pretty spoiled lady.

Riding the ariel tram to OHSU

2008-10-30T22:48:00.001-07:00