Going Oregonic

Food Friday: Chicken and Phyllo Pie

2009-11-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you remember me venting about my oven a couple of weeks ago. Well, I now present you with the recipe that was infamously "in process" when the baking coil decided to explode. Clearly, I have a thing for spinach and phyllo (remember my spanakopitas? Yeah baby.) But I promise you, this recipe is not as labor-intensive, and should only take you about 20 minutes to make.

So, here's a look at what happens when an oven coil goes bad:

Want a closer look?

Weird right? So anyway, obviously you know me well enough to know that I cannot function properly without a working oven. I mean, really... something weird happened to me during this down time. I suddenly started eating ramen, macaroni & cheese from a box, and frozen Indian meals. Why? I don't know. I mean, I still had a perfectly usable stovetop, and even just here on this blog you can find many, many good & healthy recipes that do not require an oven. It was something psychological, I think. What I'm trying to say is that I fell deep into an ovenless abyss. You may be asking yourself, what about the other oven? Because you know my oven is actually a double oven. Well, in fact, during this 3 week period I realized that the baby oven on the left-hand side also had a coil problem and one of them wasn't working. Ugh. So, not only were both the ovens malfunctioning, but the door was broken.

Well, I did some research, and found that even though my oven is about 60 years old, Sears still sells parts for it (yay Kenmore!). So I ordered all the parts, and we set out to fix it last weekend. You see, we had gone apple picking, and I had a big bowl of apples just waiting to be thrown into a pie, and I just absolutely refuse to borrow a friend's kitchen and oven for that kind of project. Plus, who wants to share an apple pie? I don't. I need it all to myself, and I'm sure any friend would require some sort of payment measured in slices.

After about 3 hours of replacing parts, and tinkering around with wires behind the oven, we finally got everything fixed. I have to tell you in case you don't know... Justyn and I are bad-ass do it yourselfers. We have also fixed our own washing machine before, and just last night fixed our own LCD television for only $20! We don't need no stinking repairman, so :P. I have to tell you, it feels great to have a fully functioning oven again. I feel like I've been away from the land of the living for the last few weeks, and now I can breathe again!

Chicken and Phyllo Pie

adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

1 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon butter

3 slightly beaten eggs

1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

2/3 cup milk

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups chopped cooked chicken (I used leftover chicken I pulled from a rotisserie)

4 sheets frozen phyllo dough (18 x 14 inch rectangles), thawed

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1. In a medium skillet cook onions and garlic in 1 tablespoon hot butter until onion is tender. In a large bowl combine onion mixture, eggs, spinach, mozzarella cheese, milk, Parmesan cheese, and pepper. Stir in chicken; set aside.

2. Lightly brush 1 sheet of phyllo with some of the melted butter; fold in half crosswise (not lengthwise). Cover remaining phyllo with plastic wrap and a damp kitchen towel to prevent drying. Gently press folded phyllo into a 9-inch pie plate; allow ends to hang over edge. Repeat with remaining sheets of phyllo and remaining butter, staggering pyllo in pie plate sot he bottom and sides are evenly covered.

3. Spoon chicken filling into phyllo crust. Fold ends of the phyllo toward the center. Bake, uncovered, in a 375 degree oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving. Cut into wedges to serve.

Squirrel Stakeout

2009-11-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

One of our nice neighbors told us when we moved in that he could see squirrels nesting up in the eves of our house. But we never could hear anything, so we weren't all that worried about it. Plus, squirrels are kind of cute, right? I mean, as long as they're not hurting anything, is it a big problem? These are the the kind of thoughts that make me a bad homeowner. For the record, squirrels are BAD.

You see, we recently had our entire house insulated (exterior walls, basement band joists, and the attic.) And, I guess when the guys were insulating in the attic, they found major evidence of squirrels living there like pee, droppings, etc. I have to admit, it is pretty gross, but still... what could we do? So we asked our neighbor how they were getting in. We don't have any trees on our property, so that wasn't it. The only other option would be power lines, of which we have three running next to our roof. Then one day, I saw him. Everyone, meet Sherman:

It was exactly where we suspected he was getting in, and so Justyn came up with a plan of action. He bought some heavy duty, industrial-strength steel grating to cover up the hole they were using to get in. We watched to see when Sherman would leave (after all, we didn't want to trap the little guy in there). This is Justyn on our neighbor's porch, scoping it out:

Of course, eventually Sherman left to go get food, or scamper on trees, or whatever it is that squirrels do. Justyn promptly installed the steel grating over the hole, and we waited some more. We wanted to make sure it worked, and that when Sherman came back, he couldn't get in. We made ourselves comfortable and even had lunch.

When Sherman came back, he couldn't get in (of course). I'm no expert in squirrel behavior, but I honestly expected him to just leave once he figured out he couldn't get back in. But no. Sherman then did something very unexpected. He totally freaked out. He grabbed onto the steel mesh and started shaking it violently, and then started scampering around all over the roof. We were still on the lawn watching all of this unfold, and he looked at us from over the edge of the roof, and started barking and whining at us. Sort of like a dog, yes, but more high-pitched, like a squirrel. I didn't even know squirrels made noise so the whole thing was totally weird. Then, Sherman ran up to the top of the roof ridge and laid down.

Sherman stayed there for hours, and it made me feel like a bad person. All the while, he was chirping and barking and whining. It made me feel so bad, that I started to talk to him in the special voice I usually only reserve for Oliver. I told Sherman that I was sorry, and that I promised everything would be okay. It was only just beginning to feel like fall, and he would have plenty of time to find other lodging. And, just down the street I had seen a beautiful oak tree with tons of acorns on the ground, and one of our neighbors has a walnut tree from which I was sure he could get some food. When I started talking to him, he just looked at me like this:

And by the time I was done, Sherman had turned his back on me. Yes, he was still on the roof ridge, but instead of listening attentively, he shoved his bushy tail in my face. So, I went inside. Every half hour or so, I would check to see what he was doing, and he was always still right there. Every now and then he would go back down to the hole and shake the steel door again, only to return to the roof ridge and keep whining. After several of hours of this, we started to wonder if maybe there were more squirrels inside. We did some research on the internet, and found that some squirrels live in nests of 3, 4, 5, sometimes 6 in one place. It was the only explanation I could come up with for why Sherman would freak out like that, so I pleaded to Justyn to please remove the steel, and to try and find another way. I didn't want dead squirrel babies on my conscience. No sir.

So I did some more internet research, and after a couple of days I found a pretty cool idea. They said to get some 2-foot long pieces of plastic tubing, slice it open lengthwise, and thread the power line through the tubing. This way, when the squirrels try to run down the power line to your house, they will land on the tubing and just roll off. Kind of mean? Yes. Funny? Also yes. Justyn was very excited about this idea, and rushed right out to buy some plastic tubes:

You can see him getting in the mood. He was definitely in "battle-mode". (Obviously, he didn't have the special feelings for Sherman that I did.) So, we followed the directions and ended up with this:

Kind of hard to see, but you get the idea. We put them on all three of the power lines providing access to our house, and didn't see Sherman for quite a while. We also stuffed a paper towel into the hole he was using, just to see if he was still getting in (if the paper towel was moved to the side, we'd know it wasn't working). After a few days of the paper towel remaining in tact, we saw Sherman hanging out on our power line just outside of the tubing, eating a walnut.

No sign of him since. I don't know if it was the tubing that actually worked, or if we scared him so badly with the steel grating that he decided to leave on his own. Either way, we're squirrel-free!

I'm not sure if it was the most humane thing to do, but at least we didn't trap any squirrel babies in the attic. To me, that's a success.

Food Friday: Zucchini Herb Casserole

2009-10-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping it's been a sufficient amount of time since my last zucchini recipe, because I have another one for you. I'm also hoping I have redeemed myself with my last two recipes and you trust me, once again, to tell you about delicious food.

In other news, my oven is broken, and has been for about 2 weeks. Remember how excited I was when I got my cool vintage oven? And how I said it was really cheap? Well, when I bought it, the guy told me that the coils sometimes went out on those older ones, which was fine... I figured I could replace it when the time came and then promptly removed that conversation from my memory. About 2 months ago, I had something in the oven and went to remove it when I discovered that the oven door didn't want to open all the way. I was able to open the door about halfway, which was sufficient at that time, but made a mental note to take a look at it when it wasn't 350 degrees. Then I promptly removed that mental note from my memory until the next time I tried to take something out of the oven. The thing is, that the door opened okay when it wasn't hot (which is why I kept forgetting until it was time to take something out). Then one time when I got really frustrated at the door not opening, I tried to force it open and the whole door just came off. And it was hot. It was not good.

Anyway, around the same time, I noticed that part of the bottom coil was brighter red than the rest when it got hot. I found this curious, but it did not trigger the memory of the conversation I had with the guy about bad coils, so I ignored it. Until one day, about 2 weeks ago, when I was preheating the oven and was about halfway through preparing dinner. I had my back to the oven when I suddenly heard this sizzling, sparking sound. I turned around, and sure enough, sparks and flames were shooting up from the bottom coil in the spot I had previously noticed. And I have to tell you, that was a real bummer because dinner was too far prepared to stop. Luckily some friends who live closeby came through and let me use their oven in exchange for feeding them.

So it's been two weeks while we took the door apart, figured out what parts we needed, and ordered them. It really sucks, and is totally cramping my culinary mojo. I know there are plenty of things I could be cooking without using the oven, but for some reason I just can't get my head around it. The biggest bummer of all is that it's going to cost almost as much to fix it as I paid for it. Which, sounds bad, but considering I didn't pay much for it to begin with, I guess it's still okay. And, it's still cheaper than the $2200 oven that I would have to buy if I were to spring for a new one.

Okay. So anyway, this is a warm and tasty dish, and is loaded with good things like veggies, rice, and cheese. I found it to be a satisfying main course, but you could have it as a side, too, if you're a meat-eater. Or, you can mix in cooked chicken or shrimp and cook it in a larger dish if that's how you roll. Next time, I think I might add corn or some bell peppers for more flavor. I suggest opting for brown rice instead of white if you have time. If not, white is okay.

Zucchini Herb Casserole
1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 pounds zucchini, cubed
1 cup sliced green onions
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 1/2 cups seeded, chopped tomatoes
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese, divided

1. Combine the rice and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a shallow 1 1/2 quart casserole dish.
3. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook the zucchini, green onions, and garlic for 5 minutes, or until tender. Season with salt, basil, paprika, and oregano. Mix in the cooked rice, tomatoes, and 1 cup cheese. Continue to cook and stir until heated through. Transfer to the prepared casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.
4. Bake uncovered 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Facing My Fears (one of them)

2009-10-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

I have a water phobia. Not any water, only moving water. I used to love water as a child. We always had a swimming pool, and I spent many, many hours in it. The phobia started when I was about 10 years old, with a near-drowning incident in the resort pool at Disneyworld. This was followed by a series of events including, but not limited to:

-A 4th of July outing on the family boat to watch the fireworks in downtown Nashville. All the other boats leaving created extremely treacherous waters and high waves in the river, which overtook our small boat and nearly capsized us. Everyone and everything flew out of the boat, flooded the motor, and we were stuck in the middle of the river with the General Jackson coming right at us.

-A guided rafting trip down the Ocoee River, in which my boyfriend at the time and my father were both ejected and carried downstream through the rapids while I was stuck on the boat wondering what happened to them because I couldn't see them anymore.

It's a pretty awful phobia to have, and in the past has really cramped the fun factor in my life. I have often sat things out because of it when I probably would have had fun. But I think drowning is probably one of the absolute worst ways to die, and usually that's just not worth the risk. In fact, my phobia is so bad that I don't even like to put my face under the stream in the shower. I'm a face-splasher.

So you can see where my head was at when a friend of mine suggested going whitewater rafting a couple of months ago. I tried to politely put off making a decision, hoping she would get the hint and stop asking. But oh, no. She pushed me, and I tried to make light of it, saying something like, "Yeah, I don't know... I have a water thing." This tactic did not work, and when she got wind of the fact that Justyn used to be a professional whitewater raft guide (meaning they could save $ on the trip), it was all over for me. So, I took it like a champ and decided I would go. After all, as long as Justyn was there, everything would be fine, right? Plus, Justyn loves the water, and rivers in particular. He wants me to love water,too, so isn't it my wifely duty to try and overcome my fear?

This is me and one of my boat companions. I might look happy here, but I'm not. I'm very, very scared. We were waiting for our shuttle to get back so we could launch the boat, and I decided that while I was waiting I better go pee, because I sure as hell wasn't going to be getting in the water to do it. On my way back from the bathroom, I passed the little guide station and saw this:

There were a couple of things about this sign that bothered me. The first was, "Life jackets increase your survival time." I could see where they were going with it, but there was something not right about the phrase "survival time" entering into my brain at that moment. The second was the Mark Twain quote. I mean, honestly? The river might have secrets, but I don't want to know what they are, nor do I want the river whispering them to me. That's just freaky. You can see how irrational I was, at the time. I had already cried in the car on the way to the put-in, and this was not helping. At all.

These were some other people getting safety instructions from their guide. It sounded very informative from what I could tell. Our guide? Our guide was my husband. Which, in some ways was awesome, and in some ways was not awesome. I mean, I know him. I know he'll break a rule every chance he gets. I know that he hasn't guided a whitewater raft in over 7 years. I know that he takes off his shoes every night and leaves them in the living room until they are all packed underneath the coffee table and he can't find any of them. I mean, does he really know what he's doing?

But, he sure is hunky, though, right? Check out those aviator sunglasses. What a bad-ass. Life jacket? He don't need no stinking life jacket. (For the record, he did wear a life jacket, he did a fantastic job, and of course he knows exactly what he's doing.)

There was a lot to look at while we waited for the rest of our people to arrive, and I saw this guy who had cut the top out of his cowboy hat, just leaving the brim around his head like a visor:

I saw this, and I thought I might be in Tennessee for a second. But then I saw this guy who had on a pirate hat:

Nope, definitely not in Tennessee. Pirate hat = You're in Oregon.

Anyway, we finally launched the boat and it took us about 2 and a half hours to run the whole river, including stopping to eat lunch. It was fun, and I didn't fall out. In fact, the Deschutes River is a lot more mellow than the Ocoee, so that was great. I was pretty scared most of the time, and totally almost fell out once (the people around me did, and I think it was purely my insane fear of going in the water that kept me in the boat.) But, it was fun. And, I'm less scared now than I was before and would definitely consider doing it again. But I'm still not putting my face under the shower. Not quite there yet.

Food Friday: Bacon Cheddar Monkey Bread

2009-10-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, I promised it to you, now here it is. Bacon Cheddar Monkey Bread:

Monkey bread is awesome. If you've never heard of it, here's a rundown: You get pieces of biscuit dough, chop them up into bite-sized pieces, coat them with butter and flavoring/spices of your choice, and layer them in a bundt pan. Bake it, turn it upside down, pick off the pieces and eat it like monkeys. It's good stuff.

I'd never even heard of monkey bread until a 4 or 5 years ago, and even then, never took the time to try it. Most of the time when you see a monkey bread recipe, it's a sweet treat, usually with the biscuits coated with a mixture of butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Well, a couple of winters ago I really started getting on a soup kick. It didn't take long before I started getting really tired of cornbread & crackers, usually my "go-to" starches to serve with soup. So I thought of monkey bread, and wondered if I could make a savory version that would be good for such a thing.

I hunted around for a recipe online, and found a couple which gave me some inspiration to make this. I tweaked it a little bit here and there, and man oh man is it good! It's a fantastic accompaniment to most any soup, especially potato. It's also really great with my white chili recipe. I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but this isn't healthy at all and should be eaten responsibly. There. If you get fat or have a heart attack from gorging yourself on monkey bread, it won't be my fault. The Internets now have proof that I told you so.

Bacon Cheddar Monkey Bread

12 slices bacon, cooked & crumbled into small pieces (or 5 oz. pre-cooked bits, if that's how you roll)

1 small onion, chopped finely

2 cans buttermilk biscuits, cut into quarters (12 oz. each)

1/3 cup butter, melted

fresh pepper to taste (I used about 1 teaspoon)

1 cup cheddar cheese, grated (or more if you want it super duper cheesy)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, lightly grease a 9 inch bundt pan.

2. Combine bacon, cheese, onion & pepper; set aside.

3. Dip each biscuit piece into butter. Place 1/3 of biscuit pieces in the bottom of the pan, and then sprinkle half of the bacon mixture over the biscuits.

4. Repeat layering one more time (using the next 1/3 of the biscuits), and then end with the final 1/3 of the biscuits so there is a layer on the top (which will be the bottom).

5. Bake for 40 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool on wire rack and then invert onto plate or platter. Serve hot.

A Bump in the Road

2009-10-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

So remember right before I ran the 5k last month, that I was worried about injuring myself by running it before my training was over? Well, let it be known that you should always trust your first instinct. Even though it's cliche, it's cliche for a reason. That reason is because it's true. You already know that I pulled a calf muscle racing for the finish line, but I iced it when I got home and it felt fine the next day (Monday). Tuesday morning, I woke up and my legs felt great, so I went for a run (2.5 miles) and I felt awesome. No pain, no discomfort, just awesomeness.

Well, Tuesday night I started to get this really sharp pain just below my knee joint on the inside. But it was weird because it was only when I lifted my knee up, like to put on socks, shoes, jeans, or to climb stairs. And, it was excruciating. Like, on a scale of 1 to 10, it was probably an 8 or so. Anyway I iced it a bit, which seemed to make it worse so I stopped. I stayed off it for a few days, and it was totally not getting better at all.

So of course my next step was to do some internet research, which, in general I try to avoid, especially when it's something medical. Things you find on webMD can be pretty darn scary. Anyway, I googled "pain below knee inside" and found quite a bit of info. After I waded through the symptoms and descriptions, I figured out that I have Pes Anserine Bursitis of the knee. How do I know? Well, let's check the symptoms:

"The patient often points to the pes anserine as the area of pain or tenderness. The pes anserine is located about two to three inches below the joint on the inside of the knee. "

Yep, that sounds about right. Let's see what the causes are:

Overuse of the hamstrings, especially in athletes with tight hamstrings?
Check. I have notoriously tight hamstrings... like, I can't even touch my toes. So yeah. Check.

Are you a runner?
Check. Apparently runners are affected most often.

Sudden increases in distance run?
Uh... definitely check.

Running up hills?
Does a humongous hill, count? If so, check.

Anyway, I'm no doctor, but I'll be damned if that's not what I have. According to everything I read, the only treatment option says, "Stopping the activity that brings on or aggravates the symptoms is the first step toward pain reduction." It also said that icing it and taking an anti-inflammatory would help.

So that's the deal: I've been sitting around on my ass for almost THREE WEEKS and haven't been able to run at all. It took a solid two weeks for the pain to subside even a small amount, and I haven't wanted to risk running too soon, because I definitely don't want to go back to square one and sit around for another three weeks. Anyway, I waited until my knee really felt great (which was yesterday) and decided to go for a test run. And, because I wanted to try out my sweet new gear: a wicked running jacket, long-sleeve shirt for cold runs, and some amazing socks.

Yesterday's run was okay. Frustrating, but okay. I made it about 3/4 mile before my knee started to hurt, so then I walked about 5 minutes and started back jogging, but my knee hurt so I stopped, stretched, and walked some more. Then I ran for about 2 minutes until it started hurting again, then I stopped, stretched, and walked. I repeated this process about 4 times all the way back home. So, I finished feeling pretty frustrated that 3 weeks ago I was almost running 3 miles and now I can't even run one. When I got home I iced it of and on for about an hour, and then took an ibuprofen. It feels pretty good today, but I'm not sure if I will run tomorrow... I might wait 2 days in between until it gets better.

My plan is to keep at it, though, and to just ease back into it slowly until I'm back where I was. I'm not quitting!!! I know you might think I will, but I'm not. I promise. But obviously, I'm not going to be running the Run Like Hell 5k I was hoping for at the end of this month. It's okay though, because I didn't really know what costume I was going to wear anyway.

Food Friday: White Chili

2009-10-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

Well, no matter how we feel about it, fall is here. You know it's fall when you have to basically wear two different outfits every day, peeling off layers as the day progresses, and start putting them back on after the sun goes down. Consider yourself lucky, because today I'm sharing with you one of my favorite fall recipes. I look forward to making it every year and it always warms my soul.

I've had this recipe for quite a while. And although I can't really remember where I got it, I feel like it's a Paula Deen recipe. But don't be scared! There is some butter in it, but not an obscene amount and if you want you can probably cut it back or substitute a healthy oil instead. No matter where it came from, I've made several alterations to it anyway so it's sort of mine anyway (insert evil laugh here).

A few recipe notes: You might notice I call for 3 different kinds of white beans. I, personally, like the variety of doing this, but you can certainly use 3 cans of the same kind of bean. As long as it's white, it doesn't matter to me. For the chicken, I usually buy a small rotisserie chicken, pull all the meat off, and use about 3/4 of it in the soup. I think the flavor of the soup is much better with some dark meat. Also, sometimes I can't find white shoepeg corn. In that case, I just use yellow. And, you can use canned corn instead, just make sure you drain it first. Finally, it says to cook it for 1 1/2 hours, but I've only cooked it for an hour before and it was still great. Obviously, the longer you cook it, the more the flavors meld together, but it's still really freaking good no matter how long you cook it.

This is great served with cornbread or my Bacon Cheddar Monkey Bread recipe, which you'll see next week! (I know, I know.... bacon? Chicken? I guess October is going to be meat-eater's month here on Going Oregonic.)

White Chili
1 can cannellini beans, drained
1 can navy beans, drained
1 can great northern beans, drained
5 cups chicken broth
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3/4 cup diced onion
1/2 cup chopped green chiles (fresh or canned)
3/4 small rotisserie chicken (white and dark meat) pulled
1 tablespoon ground cumin
8 oz. frozen white shoepeg corn
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
3/4 tablespoon salt
Monterey jack cheese, shredded

1. Place beans in a large pot w/chicken stock & bring to a boil over high heat.
2. In a saucepan, heat butter over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, and green chiles and saute for 5 minutes. Add chile mixture to pot with beans.
3. Add chicken, corn, cumin, oregano, pepper, white pepper, and salt. Lower heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, for approximately 1 1/2 hours.
4. Top with cheese and serve immediately.

Food Friday: Berry French Toast

2009-10-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Look at these ginormous blackberries!

I know, I know... I must have an obsession with berries, right? I mean, as if I didn't get enough raspberries this summer (and I still have a ton in the freezer). But blackberries are so much different than raspberries, and they were in season, so how could I resist?

You see, my mom came to visit last month, and we wanted to go to Hood River to do the Fruit Loop, but just didn't have time. A closer option (and one I've mentioned before, if you recall the nude beach.... ahem) is Sauvie Island, where they have lots of little farms where you can go and pick your own fruit. It's no Fruit Loop, but is much closer and still hugely satisfying, so it was the perfect option for us. Luckily Chester Blackberries were in season, as well as nectarines and a few other goodies (remember I mentioned my blackberry & nectarine cobbler?), so we set out to pick some. It was a great way to spend a few hours, and we had a great time. The berries were absolutely huge and they were so juicy and sweet. Some of them almost tasted like wine, they were so rich.

The picture above is actually the path between rows of berries that we had to walk through to pick them. Lucky for us, Chester blackberries are thornless! It was like a jungle and we thought we'd never get out, but it was worth it. We took a little flat cardboard tray to put the berries in while we were picking, and we were having so much fun that we didn't really realize exactly how many we had picked. But on our way back up to the tent to check out, I turned to my mom and said, "You know, I'm a little concerned about how much weight we have here... this thing almost feels as heavy as Oliver, and he weighs ten pounds!" She said, "Surely not... let me see." And so she took the flat, and said, "Oh, wow.... maybe we do have a lot." When we got back up to weigh in, it turns out we had 8 pounds of berries. Not as much as we feared, but still, a LOT of berries. So, we went home, rinsed them, and promptly employed my freezing technique so I can enjoy berries all winter long.

Anyway, now I have all these berries (raspberries and blackberries) in my freezer, and last weekend I got a craving for some french toast. So I whipped this up in about 20 minutes. Easy peasy, and deeeelish. It didn't even need syrup!

One quick note before you start: If you're using frozen berries, you have a couple of choices here. Either take your berries out of the freezer to thaw the night before, or you can speed thaw them by rinsing them GENTLY under warm water. I usually put them in a small bowl, fill with warmish water and let them sit for a couple of minutes, then drain. After doing this 3 or 4 times, they should be mostly thawed except in the very middle. At this point, just let them sit and accumulate some of their own juice. You can sprinkle some sugar in at this point to help with the process. It's best if you let them naturally sit out and produce their own juice while thawing, but I hardly ever know what I'm making for breakfast until I wake up in the morning, so this is a good option. OR, if you don't care about using berry juice as syrup, you can rinse and drain all you want, and then just use regular syrup.

Berry French Toast

adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

4 beaten eggs

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

8 1/2-inch slices bread of your choice, preferably a bit dry (although I used regular ol' bread and it turned out just fine)

2 tablespoons butter

2 cups frozen berries, thawed to room temperature (keep the juices that accumulate during the thawing process)

powdered sugar

maple syrup (optional)

1. In a shallow bowl beat together eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, almond extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Dip bread slices into egg mixture, coating both sides and letting it soak in for just a second or two. If you're using really thick bread, let soak in egg mixture about 10 seconds on each side.

2. In a skillet or on a griddle melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium heat; add half of the bread slices and cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Repeat with remaining butter and bread slices. Top with thawed berries, juices, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve warm. If desired, serve with syrup.

Meet Oliver

2009-09-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

I don't think you've been properly introduced to our amazing cat, Oliver:

He's a British Shorthair, and he's the best cat in the world. I got him at a discount because he was defective. His twin brother is a world champion. Oliver is knock-kneed, so no one wanted him. Except me, that is. He's super cuddly and warm, and his fur is so thick, it's feels kind of sponge-y. It makes him extra squeezable.

He nibbles on our toes in the mornings to remind us to feed him (he's on a very regimented diet, because he's kind of chunky). He has a few dog-like habits, too. For instance, he likes to cover up his food after he eats some of it, and he comes when we call him, no matter where he is in the house.

Most of the time you see this breed, they're gray. But not Oliver. He's orange. He likes to sit in cardboard boxes. He especially likes to hang out in areas where he thinks he's camouflaged. We keep him around because he matches our hardwood floors.

He likes to spy on his toy mouse through this little window. If he can't quite see it, it makes him want it more. He likes a challenge.

This striped chair is one of his favorite spots. He gradually sinks down in between the cushion and the back of the chair, and has to re-situate himself. Sometimes, if he's really comfortable, he drools a little bit.

Maybe you'll be lucky enough to meet him one day. If not, I'm so sorry for you. You're really missing out.

Before & After Photos

2009-09-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a long time since I've updated you on the house, but not because we haven't been doing anything. Trust me, a lot has changed.

You already know we've painted our bedroom and the trim in the living room (even though I never showed you a picture like I told you I would). Here it is, by the way.

Can I just tell you how much I can't stand red? I absolutely hate it (something I've inherited from my dad, I believe). I like it in other people's houses, but it's just too bright, or too obnoxious for me to want to look at every freaking day.

And, I haven't quite figured out why, but our living room and dining room were both red when we moved in, but different shades of red. Which, would be somewhat tolerable if they weren't so open to each other. I mean, we're talking about some major clashage going on here, and in rooms where we spend most of our time, no less.

The living room was sort of an orange-y red, and the dining room was sort of a burgundy red. Neither of which sat very well with me. So, after we finished the big bathroom remodel, these 2 rooms were next on the priority list.

Not only did both rooms need to be painted, there were some huge gouges in the walls (from goodness knows what), so we had a lot of spackling to do, which you can see here.

You can also see our test patches above, where we experimented with some new colors. Nothing like forgetting to take a "before" picture until after you already started. Whatever, you get the idea.

So the new living room color sort of looks like cement. It's kind of a grayish brownish green. It was an "oops" paint we found for $10/gallon.

We're amazed at the difference. These colors really suit us much more... they're more mellow and chilled out, like us.

We painted the living room first, and then we had a hard time choosing a color for the dining room that would "flow" well since they are so open. I'm normally not a fan of purple, but I think it works.

It looks really purple here, but it really varies depending on the time of day. In the evenings it looks more gray.

You'll have to excuse Oliver. He heard that orange and purple are complementary colors, so he decided he wanted to be in the picture. We also painted the archways a sea-foam green, which is a nice accent (even though it looks almost white).

So, there you go! That's just a small piece of what we've been doing. More updates soon!

Food Friday: Chocolate Zucchini Bread

2009-09-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so just pretend that this says "Chocolate Bread." Okay? Can you do that for me? Because it's so super yummy, and I don't want you to not try this just because it has zucchini in it. Okay?

Okay.

So, in my desperation to use up my neverending supply of zucchini, I came across this recipe. I wasn't too sure about it, to be honest... but oh boy was I ever wrong. You should definitely make this at your earliest convenience. But, you should know... this is more of a dessert-y kind of bread, not a breakfast-y kind of bread like most zucchini breads are. Unless you're one of those people who eats chocolate for breakfast. And if you are, I'm not judging you. I've eaten my share of Count Chocula and Cocoa Puffs in the morning. I never tried those S'mores chocolate pop-tarts, though. That's just wrong.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread
adapted from All Recipes

2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate (or you can sub 3 tbsps cocoa powder and 1 tbsp butter per square)** I used DARK chocolate...mmmm
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar (or white, if that's all you've got)
3/4 cup applesauce (subbed for the oil)
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans. In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave chocolate until melted. Stir occasionally until chocolate is smooth.
2. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, oil, grated zucchini, vanilla and chocolate; beat well. Stir in the flour baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean.

Race Report: Race for the Cure 5k

2009-09-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

I did it!! I ran my first race! I ran the whole time, and I finished (and I wasn't last, either)! My final time was 33:19, which isn't great (everyone I know finished before me), but it's right on pace with what I've been running, so I think that's good. I didn't go way faster or way slower than normal, and I'm feeling like that's a good thing. My best friend Amy told me not to start out too fast, and I intentionally held back at the beginning, which I really believe helped me in the end.

I am not in this picture, so don't waste your time trying to find me.

Honestly, I can't believe I did it. I'm usually a quitter, which you know by now. But, I've had a surprisingly easy time sticking with the training, and it really never crossed my mind as an option to not do it. Which, is a good thing. I think I've passed some sort of important milestone because of that. I haven't been this proud of myself in a long time, and that is totally awesome.

So, how did it go? It went fine, actually. I think I've mentioned that Justyn runs faster than me (he finished in about 31 minutes), and so I ended up running alone for practically the entire race. I found that part of it harder than I thought, actually. Every time I would get close to another group of people, I would get a burst of energy... but when I was alone, my energy started flagging a bit. I don't really understand why, because normally I run alone anyway. Not sure what that's about. They're estimating that there were about 50,000 people there, and I think I was really hoping to feel like part of something. I did at certain points, but I think being surrounded by a bunch of people, but still alone, made it kind of hard. There was no one waiting for me at the finish line, either, which kind of took something away from it for me. I mean, I know I should be doing it for myself, and I am. But... it would've been nice to have someone cheering for me, you know?

About halfway through the race, I passed an older guy with a sign on his back that said he was running in memory of his wife who died of breast cancer. I totally almost broke down at that point. I was almost at the top of a huge hill, at which point you could look out and see the river and several of the bridges (a really great view of the city), and I just got totally overwhelmed with emotion. I started to tear up, and my breath caught a little and I almost lost it. But then I realized I probably wasn't going to make it very far if I was bawling, so I cut it out and passed him. I don't know if it was the emotion of actually doing what I set out to do, or if it was seeing this guy who lost someone, or the beautiful city view, or what. Regardless of the reason, I felt really moved and totally in the moment.

Anyway, that kept me motivated for another mile or so, and around 2.5 miles (previously the farthest I had run before), I definitely started getting tired. But then I saw the finish line, and totally busted it out. I pushed myself a little too hard, though, and pulled my calf muscle. I iced it when I got home, and it feels much better today. But, I definitely learned a lesson. Just because you can see the finish line doesn't mean you're invincible. I knew my legs were fatigued, and I started to realize that I should slow down, but didn't. Anyway, like I said... lesson learned.

A couple of pet peeves I have already with racing. First of all, to the old lady who nearly ran me over: Just because you're old and you're a breast cancer survivor doesn't mean you can plow into me and push me out of your way if you want to go around me. I'm glad you beat cancer and everything, but you don't have to be mean to people who are running slower than you. Maybe you should have lined up in the "7-8 minute" section instead of the "Over 10 minute" section.

And, why, oh why do people cross the finish line and then just freaking STOP? I mean, seriously, who are these people? Am I the only one who needs to ease myself out of running? Seriously, as soon as I crossed the finish line, I hit the people in front of me like a brick wall. I mean, they were just standing there! I'm like, Excuse me... umm... I need to keep walking or I am seriously going to pass out. Who are you people who can just stop, mosy over to the tent and grab a banana to chill out for a while? Am I in the minority here?

Lastly, the race t-shirt was ugly. Even though Amy says they're always ugly, I was holding out hope that it would be cool because it was my first race. Not so much. Honestly, I'd rather they just kept the shirt, and used that money to find a cure. Not that $5 is going to help much.

Anyway, I'm kind of sad it's over now, but I'm definitely sticking with it. I still have 2 weeks of the training program left, so I'm going to pick up where I left off. I found a 5k in another month that I think we're going to run, so I'll be interested to see how much of a difference one more month of training will make. Plus, it's right before Halloween and you're supposed to run in costume, which sounds totally awesome.

Food Friday: Spiced White Bean & Lemon Soup

2009-09-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Good news today, friends. My recipe doesn't contain zucchini OR cucumbers!! It does, however, call for a pound of fresh tomatoes, of which I've got plenty. But don't worry if tomatoes aren't in season when you make this. You can used canned, chopped tomatoes instead.

I think I'm becoming addicted to soup. I find myself craving it more and more often, and making it all the time. I mean, there are so many different spices, textures, ingredients, and flavors to experiment with, so it doesn't get old. Truly, you can make soup out of pretty much anything, and because of this (I think), I just never seem to get tired of it.

Anyway, Justyn's mom bought me an entire soup cookbook a few years ago, and needless to say I've gotten quite a bit of use out of it. I've had my eye on this recipe for quite a while, actually, and now I'm wishing I would've made it sooner. It originally called for chickpeas, but I'm not a big fan of garbanzo beans, so I substituted cannellini beans (white kidney beans) instead. This soup turned out to be really good... the spices are warm and unique, it tastes really fresh, and is enticingly fragrant. Plus, it's super easy and fast to make!

One note about the tomatoes - the recipe calls for a pound of ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped. If you don't know how to peel tomatoes, this is what you do: Fill a small saucepan with enough water to cover the amount of tomatoes you'll need to peel (but don't put them in yet). Bring the water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, drop the tomatoes into the water and boil for ONE minute. Remove from heat, drain, and set the tomatoes aside to cool for a bit until you can handle them. Using a knife, gently pierce the skin of each tomato, grab the edge of the skin, and it should peel right off. After that, you can chop them and use them in your soup! I used a combination of Roma tomatoes and Sungold (which is why my soup turned out more orangey-brown than red). I'm sure you can use whichever kind you like, as long as they're ripe and flavorful.

Spiced White Bean & Lemon Soup
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
Two 14-oz. cans cannellini beans
1 lb. ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
4 1/4 cups chicken or vegetable stock (I used my old standard, Imagine brand "No-Chicken" broth)
2 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
Juice of about 1/2 lemon

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and garlic, and cook gently for 4 minutes. Stir in the cumin, cinnamon, and ginger, then add half the beans, tomatoes, and most of the stock, reserving about 3/4 cup. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, process the remaining beans and reserved stock to a smooth puree in a food processor or blender. Stir the puree into the soup. Stir in the parsley. Add salt and pepper, and lemon juice to taste, and serve.

A Secret

2009-09-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping a secret from you. Not a deep, dark, incriminating secret, no. I don't have any of those. But, no matter how you slice it, it' still a secret. Something I have intentionally not told you about. It's not like one of those things I haven't gotten around to writing... I specifically did not want to tell you. But now, I can't put it off any longer, so here goes.

I have been training for a 5k for 7 weeks now, and am running my first official race this coming Sunday. I know, I know... we've been through this before, you and I. And, then, I quit on you. Not only did I quit, but I didn't even tell you I quit until way after I quit. That was in November, and I said as soon as I was feeling "fully mobile" I was going to get back on it. Well... obviously it took me a little longer than that, but come on, I did buy a house, move, had eight weeks in a row of visitors, etc. Anyway, I was totally ashamed last time I had to quit publicly, so this time, I figured I'd make sure I was sure before I told you.

If you remember correctly, there were several issues I was having during my runs, finally culminating with a strained muscle in my ankle which caused me to bag the whole thing. (Incidentally, even though I gave Justyn mad props at the end of my quitting post for going on without me, he did quit like a week later, too. I realize that is officially me throwing him under the bus, but I can't have you guys thinking I'm the only quitter in this household.) Anyway, I was running in some pretty old shoes before, so that was the first task on my list before I started training this time. So, I found a sweet deal at REI for these babies:

Brooks Adrenaline GTS 8

I got them for half-price, around $45, which is totally awesome. And, they feel really good on my feet. I have had zero pain in my left ankle this time around after 7 weeks, so I think I'm good. Issue # 1? Resolved.

Another issue I was having was with my ears, which through the use of my iPod, has become a non-issue. Issue # 2? Resolved.

Issue # 3 was temperature control. I've since figured out my temperature thresholds, which has helped a lot. 65 degrees is definitely my optimum running temp, in which case I wear calf-length leggings and a racerback top with a sports bra. Over 70 calls for shorts instead. 60 degrees and I have to throw on pants and a super thin cotton t-shirt over my sports bra, which usually ends up pushed way up to my biceps after about half a mile. But I found some awesome brand new Nike running pants at Goodwill for $7 which are absolutely perfect for cooler mornings. I definitely need to get some winter running tops, though, which will be next on the list for sure. Another issue resolved.

I was also having problems with my posture and breathing, which both seem to have worked themselves out on their own. I think a big part of my success this time around has been the warmer weather. We started training in October last year, right around the time it cooled off and started to get a little rainy, not to mention it was getting dark super early. I realize that time is coming up again soon, but I'm hoping my habits will be set by then enough that it won't be that big of a deal. Issue # 4? Mostly resolved.

Finally, the issue of timing. This was a big one for me, and honestly, I think resolving this issue alone has made the biggest difference. The Couch to 5k program is great, but requires a lot of different timed intervals which is difficult to keep up with while you're running. So, this time around, I googled "Couch to 5k iPod playlists" and found some chick who had put together some music with voice cues to tell you when to start and stop. I was so unbelievably psyched to find this, and it has made a huge difference. And, of course now I'm running 25 minutes at a time, so I can finally listen to my own music which totally rocks. Final issue? Totally resolved.

So anyway, Justyn and I have signed up for the Race for the Cure in downtown Portland this coming Sunday. And honestly? I'm a bit worried about what I've gotten myself into. You see, we aren't really done with the training program. I think we're through the hard part, but technically we still have like 2 weeks to go before we're consistently running a full 3 miles. I don't really mind it if I have to walk part of the race, but I'd like to run the whole thing. On the other hand, I don't want to hurt myself either. Does anyone out there think I'm risking injury by trying to run the whole thing if it's farther than I've ever run?

The other thing I'm worried about is this: When you start the program, they tell you that you can either run for time or distance. Well, time is so much easier, so that's what we've done. Until today, when I actually mapped 2.5 miles beforehand, just to see how I was doing. So in 25 minutes of running, I should have run 2.5 miles. But instead, I only ran 2.37 miles (averaging about a 10:30 mile... which, by the way... is that like laughably slow?). Could I have pushed my way through to the 2.5 mile mark? Absolutely. Is it a big deal? I don't know. All I know is that on Sunday I have to run 3.1 miles which, at my pace is going to be about 33 minutes and I don't know if I can do it. Or more importantly, if I should.

On the flip side, I am super excited about running my first race (for a good cause), getting my first race t-shirt, and a real live BIB!! I totally can't wait.

Food Friday: Harvest Grains & Garden Goodness

2009-09-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

In case you've been wondering, my garden is still going strong. See?

I have more cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchini than I know what to do with, but somehow we're still consuming it all. I guess that's a good thing... better than overconsuming other things (like ice cream).

These are the first Bush Delicata squash that I harvested:

Never heard of it? I hadn't either, actually, but it's also known as "Sweet Potato Squash". A friendly neighbor gave me the start when I first started my garden. The flavor is sort of a cross between a sweet potato and and acorn squash, with a slightly milder flavor. Really good. When I eat squash (acorn, usually), I generally just slice it down the middle, roast the halves upside down in the oven, and eat it right out of it's own skin. But, I kind of wanted to try this in another way, and had just found something great at Trader Joe's with which I wanted to experiment. So, I peeled, seeded, and diced the squash, coated it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted it in a covered baking dish at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes (until easily pierced with a fork, but NOT MUSHY).

By the way, this is a great side dish on its own if you ever need a different veggie on your plate.

Anyway, the cool new thing from Trader Joe's is called "Harvest Grain Blend" which is basically a mixture of Israeli couscous, orzo, red quinoa, and baby garbanzo beans. It caught my eye when walking through the store because of the beautiful colors in the bag, and I just had to try it. (You know I'm always trying to find new grains to eat.) I think you can just cook it up on its own to have as a side, but I wanted to incorporate some of my garden veggies so I made sort of a casserole instead. Don't worry if you don't have a TJ's near you. I'm going to do my best to guesstimate all the ingredients and ratios so you can make it yourself. Aren't I the best?

Harvest Grains & Garden Goodness
1/2 cup Israeli couscous
1/4 cup red quinoa
1/4 cup dried baby garbanzo beans, halved (so they cook faster)
1/4 cup orzo (multi-colored if you can find it, but that's just for the sake of presentation)
2 cups broth of your choice
1 Bush Delicata squash, or other squash of your choice
1 cup fresh green beans, cut
1 cup chopped tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
olive oil
1 tbsp. butter
salt
pepper

1. Peel, seed, and cube the squash into an oven-safe baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Toss to coat, cover, and bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until easily pierced with a fork. Don't let it get mushy.
2. While squash is roasting, slice your green beans into 3 inch pieces. Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil and 1 clove garlic in a skillet over medium heat. Saute green beans until tender.
3. While your green beans are cooking, put butter and 2 cloves garlic in a medium saucepan with dried grains. Toast over low-medium heat until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add broth, salt, and pepper to taste; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until all liquid is absorbed and grains are tender (about 10 minutes). Note: the garbanzo beans will still be firm - that's normal. All other grains should be soft.
4. When everything is done, stir the veggies into the cooked grains, and return to low heat until warmed through (if everything's not still hot from cooking). Top with fresh tomatoes, and serve.

Breaking My Silence

2009-09-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

I realize that the last few weeks have been quiet here on Going Oregonic, and I'm sorry for that. I don't really have an explanation for it, except that I just haven't felt much like writing. And, I haven't really had much to say, either. I've been spending a lot of time with new friends, and enjoying life in general instead of constantly looking out for blogging opportunities. You know what I mean?

My mom sent me this cartoon a while back, shortly after I started this blog:

Cartoon from here.

When she first sent it to me, I thought, "I'll never be like that." You know, not enjoying the present moment because I'm constantly thinking of how I'm going to write my post about it. Anyway, it seemed kind of like it was starting to happen lately, so I just wanted to take a little break and enjoy things as they happened, not worrying about the subject of my next entry. So, that's sort of what's been going on. And, on top of that, I just haven't felt very creative lately. I also haven't been cooking much, which is my primary creative outlet. I think my obsession with zucchini recipes has stifled my culinary prowess. It also doesn't help that I live in a city (and now within blocks) of excellent, healthy, cheap food. I have been eating out for an obscene amount of meals lately.

Until today, that is, when I decided to bust out some cookbooks and plan a couple of new meals for the week. And during this outing, something happened that has caused me to finally break my silence.

It's a beautiful day today, and I was going to walk to the store, but I just got this wicked new bike basket for my birthday and thought it would be a shame not to use it. I'm still trying to overcome my fear of biking, and since it was the middle of the day, I figured it would be a less busy time to go. So, I hopped on, got halfway there and realized I forgot my bike lock. Turned around, proceed to get said bike lock, and departed again. I mosied over to the library first to pick up some books I had waiting for me, and then headed in to get some groceries.

I brought an extra bag with me to hold heavy stuff, because the previous (and first) time I used my bike basket to go get groceries, I found it made my bike a little bit front-heavy and harder to steer and balance (not a good thing for a beginner like me). I figured I could put the books and canned goods in my backpack, and produce in the bike basket to make things a little easier on myself. Well, you can probably see where I'm going with this by now, so I'll just cut to the chase.

After my shopping was done, I started to make a right turn out of the parking lot onto the street when I realized some crazy chick in a BMW was flying towards me (I promise I'm not making excuses... she was going entirely too fast.) Well, it scared the shit out of me and unfortunately there was a car parked on the side of the road right by the turnout which I was trying to go around... anyway, I got all wobbly, lost my balance, and totally fell into and hit the parked car. Then I totally overcompensated and thus started to fall the other way in front of crazy BMW lady. When my brain realized that I was about to fall into the street and oncoming traffic, I somehow snapped out of it, straightened myself up, and kept right on riding/hyperventilating all the way home.

I'm totally fine, no scrapes or anything which is good. But my ego is sufficiently wounded, as is my confidence that I should even be on the road in anything other than a car. Which is a real bummer because my new bike basket is super cute and I want to use it again.

Food Friday: Shanghai Cucumbers

2009-09-04T15:57:00.003-07:00

Okay, so I realize it's been like 2 or 3 weeks in a row now that I've hit you up with a zucchini recipe. I have more in the hopper, but I figured I owed you a break. Don't get too excited, though... it's a recipe for the other vegetable of which I have an abundance: my beloved cucumber.

I really love PF Chang's. I'm not usually really big on chain restaurants, honestly, because usually the quality sucks, the food tastes "chain-y", and the service isn't so great either. Especially "ethnic" chains... I mean, really, we all know that PF Chang's isn't real Chinese food. But it's so good, right? Kung pao chicken? Hot & sour soup? Fughettaboudit.

Anyway, one of my favorite dishes at PF Chang's is called Shanghai Cucumbers. It has always seemed so simple, really, and I've been meaning to come up with my own homemade version for a long time. Well, now that I have like 15 pounds of cucumbers to use up, I figured it was an opportune time to give it a shot. I used lemon cucumbers for this, but any cucumber will work just fine. While it tastes really similar, I'm not 100% sure this is exactly like the PF Chang's version. But it's still damn good, so who cares? I don't.

Again, I made this one up, so the measurements are approximate. But, you should get the idea.

Shanghai Cucumbers

1 cucumber, chopped in about 1 inch pieces

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

Drizzle the sesame oil over the chopped cucumber pieces in a small/medium bowl. Add the remaining ingredients together and toss. Serve slightly chilled. (I keep my cukes, sesame oil and soy sauce in the fridge anyway, so it's kind of already chilled anyway once I make it.)

P.S. Remember the cobbler recipe I posted twice? I know, I know... I still feel guilty about that. While I'm not going to torture you with posting again, I do want you to know that I made it again this week using freshly picked nectarines and Chester blackberries. Mmm.

Food Friday: Zucchini Bread

2009-08-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

My world is being consumed by zucchini. No really, it is. After finally using up all my zukes (and giving some away), I was feeling pretty great about the fact that I have not had to throw any away. But then I went out into the garden yesterday, and picked SIX more that were ripe. Ugh. I am just barely keeping up. So, I was searching for more zucchini recipes when Justyn came home and said, "Honey, I'm sorry, but I just can't eat anymore zucchini."

So I said, "Well, what do you mean? Like, are you tired of having it a certain way?" His response was, "I'm tired of having it sliced, diced, sauteed, and grated. I'm tired of having it for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner." And of course I panicked... I mean, I just picked a ton more from the garden! (Incidentally, he must've seen them all lined up on the kitchen counter and freaked out.) Anyway, I said, "What about zucchini bread?" And he said, "Yeah, that's fine." Whew.

Even if you don't like zucchini, you should consider this recipe. It's really easy, healthy, and tastes nothing like zucchini. I originally found this recipe on All Recipes, but have modified it quite a bit to make it healthier. You can find the original here. This recipe makes quite a bit, so you may want to cut in in half. Or, you can do what I do and freeze some. To freeze, just wrap the completely cooled loaf/muffins really well in wax paper or aluminum foil. Remove from the freezer the night before you want to eat it.

Zucchini Bread

adapted from All Recipes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
3 eggs
1 cup applesauce

2 1/4 cups turbinado sugar (raw sugar - you can use white if that's all you have)
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-3 cups grated zucchini (anywhere in between is fine... it's a forgiving recipe)
1 cup chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS
1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Food Friday: Zucchini Patties

2009-08-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

I'm going to apologize in advance for the onslaught of zucchini recipes coming your way. Look, I've got a boatload of the stuff, and I've got to figure out some way to use it, so what do you expect? However, just because these recipes all happen to have zucchini in them, doesn't mean I've lowered my standards. They're all good, I promise.

I actually discovered this recipe last fall when my mom and I were discussing ways to use up excess zucchini. You see, Nashville recently got their first Trader Joe's, and if you've ever bought produce there, you know that their zucchini usually comes in packages of 3 together. Well, my mom was complaining about this issue, saying that sometimes she only wanted to buy one zucchini. And of course, at that point, I was like, Why? You can do lots of different stuff with zucchini. And I proceeded to send her a million recipes that called for zucchini in some form or fashion. Anyway, this was one of them. You'll be seeing the rest of the recipes I sent her in the coming weeks! Mwa ha ha ha!

I've made some slight changes to the recipe I found here. Also, I think you could probably bake these if you wanted to skip the frying (which, let's be honest, is not healthy no matter how many vegetables are involved.) But, that being said, don't forget I'm from the South and I like to fry things once in a while. So that's what I did. These are super easy and really tasty. I have made them as a side dish for dinner (to accompany salmon and rice) or my favorite so far is for breakfast on top of an egg with some avocado and salsa. MMMMM. It's damn good.

Zucchini Patties

adapted from AllRecipes

2 cups grated zucchini (a small-medium zucchini usually yields about 1 cup grated, FYI)
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
salt to taste (I use about 1/2 teaspoon)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1. In a medium bowl, combine the zucchini, eggs, onion powder, flour, Parmesan cheese, Cheddar cheese, and salt. Stir well enough to distribute ingredients evenly.
2. Heat a small amount of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Drop zucchini mixture by heaping tablespoonfuls, and cook for a few minutes on each side until golden.

Mt. Hood Scenic Loop

2009-08-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

We have had an influx of visitors this summer, and by influx, I mean it's been unreal. We had 8 (yes, count them = EIGHT) weekends in a row where we either had visitors in town or were out of town ourselves. That, paired with major changes going on in the house (new electrical, new HVAC, hot water heater, insulation, etc.), has made this summer absolutely crazy. I don't know how I ever found the time to work a full time job, seriously.

But I'm not complaining... no sir. It has been wonderful having people come visit. Honestly, our friends and family have really stepped up to the plate and gone out of their way to come see us in our new city. It's been overwhelmingly emotional, and I love it. It's scary when you move away, you know? You never know if people will keep in touch, and will come see you. And when they do, it's totally awesome. The other thing that has been great is that it's given us lots of chances to explore parts of Oregon. For the first couple of visitors, our standard tour involved driving to the coast (which is awesome), but pretty soon that gets old and you need something new. So our favorite destination lately has been the Mount Hood Scenic Loop. Here's a little photo tour for you:

This is the view from the Vista House at Crown Point, along the old Historic Columbia River Highway (part of which follows the path of the original Oregon Trail - cool, huh?) Maybe you remember that sometime about a year ago I said the Columbia River Gorge wasn't that impressive... or maybe you don't. But in case you do, I take it back. All of it. Let's just pretend it never happened.

Traveling along the scenic loop, you pass several waterfalls right in a row (probably all within 3 or 4 miles of each other). The first one is called Latourell Falls, and it's really pretty. Plus there's a cool old bridge right by the trailhead, and there's some cool neon green algae-looking stuff growing on the rocks. It drops 249 feet off a cliff with no tumbling, which is pretty rare for this area. It's a lovely stop to make if you're traveling that way, and it's an easy walk from the road.

The next waterfall we stopped to see was Wahkeena Falls, which means "most beautiful" in the local Native American language. This waterfall is definitely worth seeing... it's very different from the others because it sort of cascades or tumbles down, rather than just dropping straight from the top. This one is a little more of a walk up from the road, but still pretty easy and worth a stop.

You'll pass a few other waterfalls in this area, including Horsetail Falls, Sheppard's Dell, and Bridal Veil Falls. We didn't stop at them all, because we were on a mission. But, if you like waterfalls, this area is a jackpot. But first, the crowned jewel of waterfalls in this area, I give you Multnomah Falls. At a total drop of 620 feet, it's the second-highest year-round waterfall in the country, something we Oregonians are very proud of. Other people like it too; nearly two million visitors come to gawk at it every year.

After these stops, it's a short drive to Hood River, the windsurfing (and kiteboarding) capital of the world. We stopped at the waterfront and watched the surfers for quite a while, and it looks so fun. I'm definitely adding it to the list of things to try, water phobia or not. Hood River is also home to the Fruit Loop, a scenic drive/bike route that takes you around to several local farms where you can pay a very small feel and pick your own fruit. Mmmm. And best of all, check out the backdrop:

After seeing this, how can you not want to drive up to the mountain? So... we did! It's an absolutely beautiful drive up to Mount Hood, and by the time you get there, you're definitely hungry. So, stop in at Timberline Lodge and visit the Blue Ox Bar for some yummy pizza and a local microbrew. And, here's a tip: skip the farmer's market brunch they offer. It looks yummy, but at $20 per person, I'd rather load up with my own goodies from the farmer's market.

Anyway, Timberline is a really cool stop, and the lobby even has some movie props from The Shining, which was filmed there. It's also a good starting off point for hiking a portion of the Timberline Trail, which we followed for a couple of miles. Along the trail, there are some beautiful views of Mount Jefferson (Oregon's second highest peak) in the distance.

Personally, I think Mount Hood is much prettier from far away. Once you're on it, it's kind of sandy and bald looking. But hey, that's just me.

On our way back to Portland, we decided to stop and do another hike up to Mirror Lake. It's a pretty easy hike (3 miles out and back), mostly shaded, and takes you through some beautiful forest.

It's a popular hike, though, and was somewhat crowded when we went on a weekend. I'd suggest going early or waiting until late afternoon to go. Take a lunch, and eat on the water! But watch out for mosquitoes!!

It was a beautiful way to spend a summer day, and I'd highly suggest this to anyone wanting to get out of the city for a while. I do wish we'd stopped in Hood River longer, so maybe next time we'll do that... and who knows? Maybe you'll see pictures of me on a kiteboard before you know it!

Food Friday: Heirloom Tomato Salad with Lemon Cucumbers

2009-08-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Heirloom tomatoes are one of my absolute favorite things about summer. There are so many kinds, colors, shapes and flavors! Some are purple, or orange, or multi-colored... some even have stripes! I don't know why this fascinates me, but I simply cannot walk by a stand with heirloom tomatoes and not buy some. I think part of the reason is that I just love colorful salads, and how often do you have an excuse to put something purple in your salad??

So of course when I saw these, I just had to buy them. I intended to make a tomato & mozzarella salad, but then I remembered that I had a ton of lemon cucumbers to use, too. I have made tomato & mozzarella salad (its proper name is Insalata Caprese for those of you who want to sound gourmet) lots of times before, and it suddenly occurred to me that cucumbers (lemon cucumbers, especially) would be an interesting addition to the recipe.

So, I sliced it all up (actually Justyn sliced it all up) and tossed it with some olive oil and freshly chopped basil, and there you have it! A perfect summer salad. One quick note: I think technically you're supposed slice your tomatoes, cheese, etc. into round slices about 1/4 inch thick, arrange prettily onto a plate and drizzle with olive oil, etc. But, we just chopped ours into chunks and tossed it all together. Do what you like... there are no rules.

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Lemon Cucumbers

3-4 medium to large heirloom tomatoes, very ripe

2 lemon cucumbers (or regular would work here, too)

fresh mozzarella (you can buy it in one big chunk or little 1 inch balls)

1/4 cup freshly chopped basil

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

sea salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

Chop the tomatoes and cucumber and toss into a bowl. Drain any liquid that may accumulate in the bottom of the bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle basil into the mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss and enjoy!

Zukes & Cukes

2009-08-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

My dear, dear friends. I have excellent news. The zucchinis are BACK! Woo hoo! Check out how glossy and beautiful they are!

For those of you who have always had faith in me even during my failures, I want to thank you for not losing hope. For those of you who did doubt me after last week's devastating casualties, let this be a lesson to you. I am a resurrector, a gardening goddess, a miracle worker, if you will (at least for this week.)

In other news, I have lots and lots of cucumbers! If you were curious when I mentioned lemon cucumbers, here you go. Looks like a lemon (sort of) but tastes like any ol' cuke.

Here's one after it was sliced into a bowl and sprinkled with salt. Right before I ate it.

I'm also growing another type of cucumber called "straight eight". You can see where it gets its name:

Except I don't know what happened to this one.

Another gardening lesson I've learned is that things grow in funny shapes. These aren't your local supermarket cukes, people. Of course, they're better. 'Cause I grew 'em.

The Rose Garden

2009-08-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Ah, summer. It's in full swing, and I love it. There's a big secret here in the Pacific Northwest, and I've talked about it before. The secret is that the winters aren't as bad as anyone says they are, and even if they were, the summer weather would totally make up for it. It's cool in the evenings (65 - 70 degrees), warm during the day (mid-80s), no humidity, and no bugs. When I talked about this before, I only had a hunch that all the boo-hooing about the winter rains was just a front to keep people from moving here. I'm now absolutely convinced that is the case.

This is one of my favorites... reminds me of a candy cane.

Anyway, one of the absolute best places to visit during the summer in Portland is the International Rose Test Garden. Remember how I told you that one of Portland's nicknames is "City of Roses"? Well, here it is in full force: in a space of about 4 acres, there are over 7,000 rose plants of about 550 different varieties. The rose garden is tucked into beautiful Washington Park, a fantastic place to spend an afternoon if you want to be outdoors.

Why is it called a "test" garden, you ask? Well, it's just that: new varieties are sent here from all over the world to test them out... see how they grow, check for diseases, color, and fragrance. It started as a safe place to send roses for safe-keeping during World War I, because people didn't want their roses destroyed during the bombing in Europe. Which, I think is interesting...like, didn't they have other more important things to worry about than what would happen to their rose bushes? Weird.

The roses bloom off and on from April through October, with the peak coming in June/July depending on the weather. I highly recommend going before summer is over. I went in August last year, too, and there were still plenty of roses to enjoy. Plus, it's free, it's outside, and there's a pretty great view of downtown Portland with Mount Hood in the background. Here are some tips: parking kind of sucks, but be patient. Lots of people are coming and going, so you can easily snag a good spot if you keep your eyes open. Or, you can take MAX (Red Line or Blue Line) if you don't want to drive. Also, there's not much shade there, so wear sunscreen, and if it's a hot day, I wouldn't recommend going in the middle of the day. It can get pretty hot up there.

I mean, really, everywhere you turn there is an amazingly beautiful rose. I took so many pictures when I was there. And oh they smell so good. The whole place is so fragrant, and every rose I see beckons for me to put my nose right in and take a whiff. Mmm!

And with that, here are some more pictures for you to enjoy! This is just a small sampling of the beauty you will see there. I couldn't post all my pictures, because then you wouldn't go, would you?

The black rose. Yep, that's right. BLACK. (Apparently this is as close as they can get.)

Another black rose (which is really just dark red if you ask me.) Did you know there's no such thing as a blue rose?

If you're lucky like me, there will be a lady there playing her harp.

So go! And, while you're there, hit up a short hike in Washington Park or over at the Hoyt Arboretum. I highly recommend the Redwood Trail. And don't forget your camera! If you're not into hiking, then visit the Oregon Zoo, or the Portland Children's Museum instead. There's plenty for everyone!

Food Friday: Lemon Artichoke Pasta

2009-07-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

So, you know how much I love pasta. I've only mentioned it about a hundred times, right? But sometimes (like in the summer when it's hot), traditional pasta is just too heavy. This doesn't make me happy, because I don't like limitations on my pasta eating.

So, we were browsing through the farmer's market and spotted a stand where they were selling locally made pasta. I've bought Nonna's Noodles before, last fall, but I noticed this time they were selling "Lemon Juice and Zest" linguine. It was hot that day, and it sounded awesome. I thought to myself, "I can definitely do something with this."

I got home, and started perusing my cabinets to see what I had that would go well with the noodles. Of course I had some zucchini (at least, until I killed it all), and I had a can of artichoke hearts. Mmm... it was definitely starting to sound tasty.

I still needed some sort of sauce, though. I didn't want just plain olive oil... I wanted more flavor than that. So, the next time I was at Trader Joe's, I saw that they had Artichoke Lemon Pesto. Oh baby, now we're talkin'!

Now, I realize that not everyone can probably find lemon pasta, or the pesto. I know I have seen lemon pepper fettuccine at the store before, so don't assume you can't find it before you actually look. If you can't find it, I'm sure that plain ol' pasta will work just fine. For the pesto, my suggestion would be to get some fresh basil, olive oil, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and some artichoke hearts. Mix it up in a blender with a little salt and pepper (and maybe some garlic), and that's all you'd need to do. Or, I'm sure you can find a recipe online. Save your leftovers and use it to spread on crackers or fresh bread. Mmm.

This turned out super tasty. It was so lemony and fresh. I'll definitely make it again. So, obviously I made this recipe up so I don't have exact quantities. But I'll do my best to give you an idea so you have something to work with.

Lemon Artichoke Pasta

4 oz. linguine or fettuccine (lemon-flavored if you can find it)

1 medium zucchini, sliced

3/4 cup artichoke lemon pesto (this amount is really personal preference)

1 can artichoke hearts, chopped

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 clove garlic

olive oil

salt

pepper

Parmesan cheese

1. Cook noodles according to package directions.

2. Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a saute pan with 1 clove garlic. Add zucchini and dried basil. Salt and pepper to taste. Saute until just barely tender (I prefer my zucchini still a little bit crunchy).

3. When the noodles are finished, drain and add zucchini and artichoke hearts. Keep on low heat until warmed through.

4. Add pesto, toss all together, and serve immediately. Top with Parmesan cheese.

I heart Portland

2009-07-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

Here it is, friends! All bloggers do it, and now I'm joining the ranks by writing the inevitable anniversary post. Yep, that's right... today is the one year anniversary of this blog. It's also been just over a year since we packed up and moved ourselves across the country. So, today is a time to pause and reflect. Based on this reflection, I will, of course, be drawing conclusions and making assumptions about myself and the great city of Portland. I'm going to do my best not to get all sappy on you, but just in case I do (and let's be honest, I probably will), I'll apologize in advance. But I know you'll cut me some slack because you're loyal friends.

I don't think I ever told you why we decided to move, so here it is: I was miserable at my job, and I was ready to leave Nashville. I lived there for 20 years, and I wanted a change. Actually, I was ready to move a long time ago, but it's the sort of thing you have to build up to, make plans for, wrap your head around, etc. I never made it a big secret to my friends and family that I wanted to try living somewhere new and different for a while. I always said, "I don't want to be one of those people that never leaves." Some people are happy with that, and I don't judge them. I'm just not one of them. And, the truth of the matter is, I knew that it was very possible I would move away, hate it, and end up right back where I started. But, at least I would know. You know? No regrets.

Justyn moved to Nashville from San Francisco in 2002. I was ready to move then, but then we started our relationship and he had already just moved across the country, so it wasn't really an option. We fell in love, bought a house, got married, (yes, in that order), and things were great. We worked together, so leaving would have been hard... because we would both have to quit together. But things were great for a while, so we waited. Then I started to get really miserable at work. Like, so miserable that I was physically ill most of the time. Justyn was still happy with his work, but since he knew first-hand the drama and politics of what I was dealing with, I think it tainted his work experience. He knew I wanted to get out of the South, and after 5 years, I think he was ready too. So, he put his "feelers" out (as he likes to say) and soon got a job offer in Portland. That very same day, I had a disagreement with my boss and had come home and immediately typed my resignation letter. I was quitting, whether we moved or not. That much I had decided.

The job offer came in the evening, a couple of hours after I had written my letter. I'm not fanatical about such things, but I do believe that fate pushes you in a certain direction sometimes, and the coincidental timing wasn't something I could ignore. A string of similar "coincidences" followed, and after having several tearful discussions with my parents and close friends, we decided to do it. It was time.

I've mentioned several times before that moving was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I think that all depends on the person, and where your head is. We have some friends that moved here around the same time we did from the east coast (the guy also got a job in Portland) and they were miserable. They barely lasted a year before leaving. The difference? I don't know. I was ready. I was itching to leave. I wanted to like it here. So, that whole thing about life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it? I think it's pretty true.

It's taken right at one year, but I finally have some friends. Not many... but a handful. And that's all I have ever really had. I'm one of those people that would rather have 5 close friends than 50 acquaintances. My new friends here are great. Of course, we're still getting to know each other which will take some time. But I think most of them have great friend potential. That being said, there are times when we are surrounded by our new friends, and a wave of emotion washes over me and I miss my friends in Nashville. It's like, everyone in the room is laughing about something, and I just pause, and look around, and realize that there is a glaring omission in the room where certain people should be. The same thing happens with family. Justyn's dad came to visit for Father's Day this year (the first Father's Day I've not spent with my dad EVER). We had some family from Seattle down to visit, and it was fun, but it just didn't feel quite like it ought to, you know? My dad was missing.

And so, this is the way it goes. I think it will always be that way, though. No one will ever replace the friends I've had for nearly 20 years. Maybe that's all homesickness is... I guess I don't really know. I guess I had mental pictures of myself curled up in a ball in the corner of my new apartment, bawling my eyes out because I wanted to go home. That, of course, never happened. Maybe it's different for everyone. Maybe it's just different for me.

My homesickness comes in whispers and quick pulses of yearning. It comes when I least expect it. It's a flash of emotion, sort of like your stomach sinking when you realize you've forgotten something important. Then you remember it, and the feeling goes away. It happens sometimes on the bus to or from work, when I look around at all the strangers and realize that no one here knows me. It's lonely, but it's liberating. Maybe, as time goes by, the flashes will become more regular, and that's how I'll know it's time to go back. Maybe they'll fade, and I'll know I should stay. Maybe this is how it will always be.

So, here I am. Writing a blog. I never thought I would be a blogger, and I worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up with it. I started it as an outlet for me to cope with all the changes I was going through. Then some of my friends and family in Nashville started reading it, and used it as a way to keep up with me... with what I was doing. Then some of my new friends started reading it. I don't know why... maybe to get to know more about me, maybe because I can be funny and interesting sometimes. Now a whole bunch of people I don't even know read it, which I never expected. It's fun, and I like it. Sometimes I don't have anything interesting to say at all, and I want to tell you thanks for reading it anyway during those times.

And, so what about Portland? Well, after a year of being here, I can honestly say that I really like it here. I don't love it yet, because I think that kind of thing takes time. If I had just come to visit for vacation, and someone asked me if I'd been, I would say, "Portland? Oh, I've been to Portland. I love Portland." But loving to visit a place and loving to live there are two very different things. There's nothing I hate about it. The weather is great (no matter what anyone else says), it's beautiful everywhere you look, the food is amazing, there are tons of things to do, and I have a job that I love.

I feel like a different person here. A better person. In Nashville, I always labelled myself as kind of boring, a little bit high strung (easily stressed), extremely shy and quiet, and generally exhausted. But I referred to myself as "shy" the other day while at a barbecue with some of my new friends, and they laughed at me. They said, "You? You don't seem shy." I was taken aback, honestly. I've always been shy. I guess Nashville Stephanie is shy, and maybe Portland Stephanie isn't. I don't know... I can't explain it. All I know is that I feel more laid back, more outgoing, healthier, happier, more active, and I have more interests and hobbies than ever before. That, I think, is the true test of a relationship, whether it's with a person, a job, or a city. If it makes you better, then it's a keeper. And so far, Portland is definitely a keeper.

Gardening Lesson #2

2009-07-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

ca·su·al·ty
n. pl. ca·su·al·ties

1. An accident, especially one involving serious injury or loss of life.
2. One injured or killed in an accident: a heat wave with many casualties .
3. One injured, killed, captured, or missing in action through engagement with an enemy. Often used in the plural: Vegetable casualties were high.
4. One that is harmed or eliminated as a result of an action or a circumstance: The prolific zucchini plant was a casualty of the 100+ degree temperatures in Portland.

Yes, my friends, I am here to report further casualties. The gruesome pictures aren't until later, though, so don't worry... I'll ease you into it.

This tale of woe begins on a happy note. My zucchini plant has been extremely healthy. It has grown bigger than I ever anticipated (bigger, even, than it is here.) The leaves are big, strong, and bright green. I had lots of babies on the way, and I was content. I saw 4 pretty big zucchinis well on their way to being ready for harvest. Every day I went to check on them, and they appreciated the attention. The first one was getting pretty fat, but was still shorter than I thought it should be - so I waited. Patience, I've been told, is important when gardening. Well, a couple of days later, I went out and it was huge! Definitely time to pick. In fact, I probably waited a bit too long. See?

Yes, that is a Saturday Night Fever album in the background. Leave me alone. You know you like the Bee Gees.

This particular zucchini is what I believe most experts would call "gone to seed." I don't know a whole lot about it, but my guess is that if you leave some veggies on the stalk too long, they get really "seedy" and don't taste very good. This is definitely the biggest zucchini I've ever seen. And no, even though it looks like it's on steroids, I am not using chemicals. It's all organic, baby. You know me better than that. So anyway, Gardening Lesson # 2 is: Don't let your veggies get too big. This is actually harder than you'd think... you don't want to pick them before they're ready, either, so there's a delicate balance.

A couple of days later, I figured I should pick this one too. It was starting to look a little bulbous, as well.

I did get one regular sized one, though. He's in the middle:

See my little tomato??? I'll talk about her in a minute.

Okay. Are you ready? Here's where it gets ugly. So, I had a 4th zucchini that was looking good. I went out and checked on it every day, just like the others, but it didn't seem to be getting any bigger. And then I noticed that a lot of the other little babies weren't really growing either. And pretty soon they started turning yellow. I'm no expert, but I realized immediately that this was not good.

I called my local gardening store (where I bought the zucchini) to ask them what I should do. She said it could be one of three things. Scenario ONE could be that I let the first one get too big, and now the plant thinks it has done its job of procreating. I guess as soon as one of the veggies goes to seed, sometimes the plant will stop producing. I'm hoping this is not the case, because I want more zucchini. Scenario TWO could be that it's been too hot. Apparently most vegetables don't like temperatures over 90 degrees, and yesterday was a record-breaking 103 degrees here in Portland. Scenario THREE could be that it is not getting enough steady watering. I guess zucchini doesn't like a dry - wet - dry - wet watering cycle. They like to have wet soil all the time. I'm not sure how I can accomplish this without overwatering, so I'm hoping that scenario 2 is what's happening so I don't have to figure that out.

Anyway, she told me to go ahead and pluck off all the bad veggies so it can sort of reset and start over. The leaves of the plant still look strong and healthy, so that's a good sign. Hopefully all is not lost. So, if you're ready, here are my dead babies. All 7 of them.

Sad, huh? Most of them barely got over 3 inches long. They'll soon be buried with a little ceremony over the compost bin.

But, I can end on a happy note! Here she is, my very first Sungold tomato!

Isn't she beeeeeautiful? And, I have lots more on the way. I see some cucumbers in my near future, too. So, get ready for that!

You see, with gardening, I've already learned that you win some, and you lose some. Hopefully the next few will be winners.

Food Friday: Citrus Rosemary Salmon

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

I'm posting a non-vegetarian recipe today. I know! It's the first time ever. (Except the whole steak incident but you don't even remember that, do you?) I haven't talked to you about my flexitarianism in a while, so rest assured, I am still striving toward a mostly vegetarian diet. But, come on. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and even someone with a willpower of steel can't resist some locally caught salmon. I know I shouldn't eat it. Salmon is probably the most over-fished fish there is, and I should know better. I do know better. But I caved.

Salmon is not my favorite fish. It's one of Justyn's favorites, and really he's the one that pressures me into eating it. (See how I don't take responsibility for my own eating choices? Clever, huh? Spouses are good for lots of things, and one of them is using them as a scapegoat. Come on, you know you've done it.) And, when you're walking through the farmer's market and you pass by the fish lady and see that she just caught some fresh salmon this morning, it is hard to resist, even for someone like me.

Anyway, Justyn loves salmon about a hundred times more than I do. But sometimes, it's just too fishy tasting for me, you know? It's got a strong flavor and I have to be in the right mood for it. So, I'm always trying to find a different way to cook it so that I can enjoy it with Justyn when he gets one of his cravings.

I can't take credit for this recipe. I went to a friend's house and she made the salmon this way. I have changed it a little bit, though, and let me tell you, it is so good. The rosemary and the citrus really help cut any fishy-ness that you might taste. And, it's so light and fresh-tasting for summer. I served this with asparagus and some roasted squash and it was a great meal.

Citrus Rosemary Salmon
Fresh salmon fillets
Fresh rosemary sprigs
Lemon
Orange
olive oil
salt
pepper

1. Put the fish in a baking dish (if using an oven) or a large piece of foil (if grilling). Remember to spray the bottom with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Drizzle the fillet with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Slice half of the lemon and half of the orange. Use the unsliced portions to squeeze the lemon and orange juices over the top of the fish. Watch out for seeds!
4. Cover the fish with 2-3 sprigs of rosemary, and then lay the lemon and orange slices on top of the rosemary.
5. Cover your baking dish, or close up your foil packet, and cook at about 350 degrees. A regular sized fillet (1/2 pound or so) takes about 20-25 minutes. When it's flaky and lost its shininess/translucency, then it's done. I usually check mine after 15 minutes and go from there.

The Creepy Basement Bathroom, part II

2009-07-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today I'm continuing (and wrapping up) the saga of the creepy basement bathroom.

After I threw my anti-centipede super diva temper tantrum, Justyn agreed we needed to start the remodel. We only had a couple of weeks to get it done before company came into town, so we had to get started asap.

First, we had to cut and hang all the drywall. Now, I don't know if you recall, but about 3 months ago, when we were refinishing the hardwood floors in our house, Justyn and I had a conversation about hanging drywall. You can look back at it here, but I'll give you a recap. This is exactly what I told you about that conversation:

We were sitting around on one of the last days of this project and I said, "Honey, please tell me this is as hard as it gets." He was like, "Oh, yeah, this is definitely the hardest I've worked in a long time." And I was thinking, Whew, what a relief! Then he said, "I think hanging drywall might be harder, but luckily we don't have to do that." (Plaster, people. Our house was built in 1925.)

Clearly, I did not factor the unfinished basement into the equation at that point in time.

Let me tell you, cutting and hanging drywall is the worst. Luckily we only had a small bathroom to deal with (at least for now, until we refinish the rest of the basement.) The pieces of drywall are huge-mongous, and you have to cut holes for every little nook and cranny before you hang it up. Measurements must be precise. Well, guess whose job it was to measure and cut the drywall? Mine. Oh yes, my friends. I have another thing to add to my growing list of skills. So, you have to measure the drywall, score it with a utility knife, and then break it along the scored line. After you do that, all these little fiberglass-y type hairs stick out of the ends, and they get in your skin and they hurt. And it's heavy. So, after you've cut everything you have to get it into place on the ceiling or wherever, and then hold it while your mate/partner/whatever screws it in.

Then you have to get drywall tape and mud to cover all your seams, which also sucks. It's super hard to get it right, and even after we've finished we're not really happy with the job we did. But, hey. It's my first time, okay? I should cut myself some slack. After all, it is just a basement bathroom. Then we primed it, and painted it. That was the easy part (mostly because Justyn did it all... ha ha).

After that, it was time to tackle the floor. It's a bare concrete floor, and in basements you have to be really careful with your floor covering or you'll have moisture issues. So we went to Linoleum City to see what our options were. I don't know what that name cracks me up, but it does. I never thought I would step foot inside a place called Linoleum City, let alone give them some of my money. But, they had a pretty cool piece of linoleum that looked pretty good (like stone tiles), and it was cheap. Plus it was a super easy installation process. Some types of linoleum require you to etch the concrete floor and then put an adhesive down. The one we got doesn't need any of that. It's heavy enough that it just lays down flat. So, that 's what we got.

It comes in a big roll, though, and so again, you have to cut out all the little nooks and crannies for the sink, toilet, shower, notches in the wall, etc. We still had a whole bunch of packing paper leftover from the move, so we decided to tape some pieces together and make a pattern to use to cut the linoleum. But first, I had to iron it so it was flat (it had been all wadded up in a box).

Then we laid it on the concrete floor and traced the outline of what we needed.

The linoleum is easy to cut with a utility knife, so, we just laid the pattern right on top and cut it out.

Well, just when we were about to lay the floor down, I noticed a wet spot on the floor behind the toilet. I flushed it, and sure enough, more water came out. Greeeaaaat. We were really rushing by then, and the last thing we needed was a leaky toilet. Luckily Justyn has mad skills, and he figured out that it just needed a new wax ring. So we bought one and replaced it. It's totally gross, by the way. Nasty, gnarly business, dealing with toilets. Yuck yuck yuck. I made Justyn do that too. :)

After the toilet was fixed, we had just a few other small things to deal with. We had to spray foam fill an old fan in the wall, and I repainted the inside of the rusty medicine cabinet. (I know, right? What is it with me and medicine cabinets?) We hung some towel hooks and a new towel rack, put some art on the walls, installed an exhaust fan and some new light fixtures, and Ta Da! It was done.

Since we finished it, we have had Justyn's dad come visit for 2 weekends, my dad and stepmom, and some friends from Colorado. Justyn's mom is coming this weekend, and my mom is coming later in August. We bought basement shoes for everyone so they can wear them on the way to the bathroom, and so far no one has complained. (I know, some places give you a robe, we give out shower shoes.) We still have a few things to do later on, though (my previous observation that nothing is ever all the way done still stands). There's a weird gap between the shower and the wall on one side, so Justyn is going to build some shelves to put there. And, now the sink is leaking so we have to deal with that relatively soon. But, it's usable, bug-free (as far as I know), and much, much less creepy, so I can't really ask for anything else.

Gardening Lesson #1

2009-07-22T10:02:00.001-07:00

Remember my beautiful lettuce?

Well, I have bad news.

I killed it.

Not on purpose, of course! (Considering I was really enjoying my homemade salads.) But I guess lettuce doesn't like as much sun as other vegetables. I'm going to show you a photo, not because I'm mean and want to make you suffer, but because I'm honest. I told you there would be failures. Didn't I?

WARNING: The photo below is not for the faint of heart. If you are a sensitive person, especially about food and gardening, then I suggest you seriously consider the ramifications before you scroll down.

Last chance!

Okay, you asked for it:

I know! I know! Isn't it awful? My heart breaks every time I go out there. I should probably just dig it up. But, I guess I'm holding out hope that some of it will come back.

So, the moral of the story, kids, and filed under "Gardening Lesson # 1" is: Plant your lettuce somewhere it gets a little bit of shade. Tomatoes, peppers, and other veggies love full sun, so don't do what I did and plant a big patch of lettuce right in the middle of 4 tomato plants. It gets mad, and then it dies.

I guess I'm going to have to start buying lettuce. And that sucks.

The Creepy Basement Bathroom, part I

2009-07-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to tell you a scary story about a girl and a creepy basement bathroom.

You see, when we bought our house, the listing said there were TWO full bathrooms. Which, we were excited about because our last house only had one bathroom and it was sort of a pain. Fine for a young couple starting out, not so fine when your husband's entire family is crashing at your place for Christmas. Anyway, we were cruising through the house checking it out, and had only come across one bathroom which didn't even really have a shower (Incidentally, that bathroom, my friends, is an entirely separate story which I'll get into in just a minute.) So, I was anxious to find the other bathroom. We only had the basement left to explore, which already was red flag number one.

The basement in our house is unfinished, in every sense of the word (concrete floor, concrete walls, no drywall, etc. I was just starting to wonder, Where's the other bathroom? Then I saw a door. Then I opened the door.

Okay, now here's where I want you to start playing some scary horror movie music in your head. (I suggest the soundtrack to the bathroom scene from Psycho). Ready? Okay. So I opened the door, and I saw this:

Then I screamed! (No really, I didn't scream out loud. But I did scream on the inside. I assure you. I was screaming bloody murder.) I mean, really???? This is the second bathroom? Oh. My. God. You have got. To be kidding. Moldy walls? Concrete floor? No ceiling? Mysterious fan with a cord to nowhere? Raw, exposed light bulbs??? If this is not straight out of a horror movie, I don't know what is.

Okay, look. I'm no diva. Those of you who know me, know that I'm not the girly-girl princess-y type. But right then and there, I declared for all to hear, that I would not, could not, absolutely refused to ever use that bathroom in its current condition. Which, in a house with two bathrooms, shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong. As I mentioned, our main floor bathroom doesn't really have a shower. See?

It has a shower head, but it's mounted to the wall at about knee level, and there's no shower curtain, so water gets everywhere and it's less than ideal. Have you ever been to Europe? I have found this is quite common with Euro showers, if that gives you an idea of what I'm dealing with. And, I can't just enclose it with a regular shower curtain, because that would put the light switch inside the shower (see picture). I'm no electrician, but I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea.

Anyway, I thought dealing with the euro shower was a small price to pay in order to not use the creepy basement bathroom. This lasted about 2 weeks after we moved in, where there was a daily euro shower ordeal. It was always a big production and took waaayyy longer than any bathing process should ever take.

So Justyn, being the boy that he is, decided he'd had enough and was going to start using the creepy basement bathroom. I said, "Fine. Go ahead." And I continued with my daily bath/shower routine. I stuck it out for another week or so, and then I started getting jealous of his 10 minute showers. After some gentle prodding by him, he convinced me to just try using it. He said, "It's really not that bad once you get used to it. Just get in, and get out." So I gave in, and even though it was super creepy and weird, I sort of did get used to it. This lasted about another week.

Then one fateful day, there was an incident. I had just finished my shower and turned off the water. I pulled the shower curtain back, and I beheld a long, blackish something. On the floor of the shower. By my bare foot. I didn't have my glasses on, so I bent over to look at what the something might be, and it was a freaking centipede. Well, I screamed, Justyn came running, and I made him get rid of it. (I will save spiders all day long, but centipedes? In the shower? With me? They die.) A heightened discussion ensued, in which Justyn did a lot of laughing at me, and I did some crying, interspersed with protests like, "I draw the line at showering with bugs!!!" and "What would my dad say if he saw how I am living in squalor??" Punctuated by my declaration, "I refuse to make our guests come down into this bathroom! Something has to be done!" Obviously, that was the end of the "Stephanie Showers In the Creepy Basement Bathroom" era. Then I went back to my upstairs euro shower existence.

Luckily we had guests coming relatively soon. So, we decided it was time to make the creepy basement bathroom uncreepy. And that, my friends, is what we have been working on. It's done now, but it was a big project so I'm going to give it to you in stages. This is the preface, or the Introduction, if you will. The middle part will come shortly.

Food Friday: My Favorite Salad

2009-07-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

I never ate a salad until I was 22 years old. Until that time, I referred to salad and most anything related to it (i.e. green vegetables, or vegetables of any breed for that matter) as "rabbit food." I have talked to you about this before, but I neglected to mention that I inherited this disdain for healthy food from my dad. To this day, he will not even try broccoli (unless it's mashed up, cooked for a few hours and added to a cheesy soup of some sort... and even then it's a stretch).

One of the first solid foods I ever ate was a Pinwheel. For those of you who don't know, it's a ring-shaped chocolate cookie with marshmallow on top, all covered with a thin chocolate coating. This guy has a good picture in case you care. Apparently my dad snuck me a pinwheel when my mom wasn't looking, and next thing she knew I had scarfed the whole thing. This was a serious error on my dad's part, and shaped very poor eating habits for me at too young an age. My dad still brags about this incident, and my mom is still flaming pissed.

But, I digress. The first place I was ever brave enough to eat a salad was at Olive Garden. My best friend absolutely loved their salads, and finally convinced me to try it. And, it was tasty.... but really all about the dressing. So then, for a long time the only salad I would eat was from OG. But then I learned that you could actually buy bottles of their salad dressing, so I started buying it and making salads at home (with, of course, the exact same ingredients they use at the restaurant, lest I mess up the good thing I had going at that point.) Well, I say exactly the same ingredients, when what I mean is minus the olives and pepperoncini peppers. I still can't eat olives. I'll get into that another time.

So when Justyn and I started dating, he was a vegetarian fresh from San Francisco and I think he suspected there was something seriously wrong with me. You see, part of my salad issue was due to the flavor which I had not acquired a taste for during my first 20 years of life. The other part of the issue was size which I have also mentioned before. I have sort of a complex about bite-sized food, and as you know, most salads out there are not well-chopped. This, of course, leads to big leaves of lettuce flopping about all over your face until your entire chin is covered with balsamic vinaigrette. I don't know what my issue is, but I simply cannot tolerate this. Thus, the salads I make at home require quite a bit of time at the cutting board so I can scoop up the goods easily and efficiently with my fork with no stragglers trying to wave goodbye on their way inside my mouth.

As I got more comfortable with my homemade salads and started actually enjoying them, I decided it was time to experiment. I tried different ingredients and different dressings (of which there are many I currently enjoy - except creamy dressings which I still can't handle). I've come a long way since I started eating salads, and since I now have my very own lettuce to enjoy, I thought I'd share my favorite salad recipe with you. It's not really a recipe, I guess, because there are no amounts. Everyone likes their lettuce/dressing/accessories ratio a little different, so I'll leave it up to you if you like a gallon of dressing or just a splash.

I won't go into the nutritional benefits of eating salad, because you're not idiots. Everyone knows salad is good for you (unless you load it up with ham, bacon, boiled eggs, chow mein noodles, cheese, and ranch dressing). Even if you prefer a heavy, non-healthy salad, I urge you to give this a try. It's perfect for summer, a fabulous, light introduction to virtually any meal. I have a salad nearly every day now, and if I skip a day, I end up a cranky monkey, indeed. Okay, get ready to chop! You know I like my stuff chopped.

Stephanie's Favorite Salad

Crispy lettuce fresh from the garden (usually a mixture of red leaf, green leaf and baby spinach)
Fresh cucumber, sliced and quartered
Tomatoes, also sliced and quartered, or if using smaller varieties (like cherry tomatoes) halved
Walnut pieces (I actually prefer sugared nuts, but I haven't been brave enough to make those at home so just plain ol' roasted nuts are fine with me. Pecans work well, too, for this salad.)
Fresh blueberries
Dried tart cherries (Trader Joe's has an excellent choice) or dried cranberries are good, too
Feta cheese crumbles (if I'm feeling brave - I don't usually like cheese on my salad unless it's parmesan)
Your favorite vinaigrette dressing (I prefer Newman's Own Italian)

Chop, toss, and you're good to go. Mmmm!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2009-07-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

Oh, boy. I'm sooo behind on updating you. So, let's just pretend for a second that I posted this about... oh... one month ago. Okay? Okay.

So, when we first moved into our new house, this was in the backyard.

As you know, we don't have kids. (Or at least, if you hadn't guessed by now, then you maybe thought I was a really bad mother for not having mentioned them anytime over the last year.) So, this little monstrosity was quite a problem. What do I do when I have a problem? I go to Craigslist, baby.

I was cruising through Craigslist trying to see how much these things go for, and if it was possible for us to actually make some money. I was about to post it for $100 bucks when I came across an ad by a lady who was looking for one for her kids. She said she couldn't afford to buy a new one, but wanted one in good shape and could pay a little bit. Well, it tugged on my heartstrings, so I contacted her and told her I had one, and said if she would come and get it, she could have it for free. So, she came with a big group of guys and took it all away, and she gave me $50!

It was nice to have it out of our yard, see?

Ah.... much better! So, then, what to do with all the space? Why, a garden of course!

I have tried gardening before, in Nashville. It didn't work out all that well for me because I tried to plant too many things in too small of a space. I'm pretty sure I had about 6 different tomato plants, 2 or 3 cucumbers, some peppers, etc. all in about a 4' x 6' space. Ha! No wonder it didn't work out. Plus, the space I was using apparently had a big slab of concrete underneath it that I didn't know about, so there were only about 6 inches of dirt (obviously I didn't dig around to investigate too much before I planted my veggies). I only discovered this when I tried harvesting my carrots and they came out like a bunch of little knubs. Plus, it gets so swelteringly hot in Nashville, that you have to water constantly. I don't have that kind of discipline, so the whole thing turned out to be quite a disaster.

Anyway, based on the amazing variety and quality of produce at the farmers markets here, I quickly deduced that things were much easier to grow here in Oregon, and obviously as soon as we got our house, building some sort of garden was at the top of the priority list. One of my super nice neighbors from across the street had told me about a cute little garden store near our house, so I went to check it out and found that they had organic vegetable starts for $1.99 each! What a deal! But, next year I think I'm going to start everything from seed on my own. I just didn't have time this year, since we moved in after the growing season started. Anyway, I bought my starts, and a $30 trip to Home Depot (for lumber) and about 2 hours later, Justyn and I had built a couple of raised garden beds. Check it:

Bed #1, right after I planted my vegetable starts (day zero).

Bed # 2, day zero.

Okay, okay... I guess I have to explain the grid. Everyone asks me, so here goes: I'm OCD, okay?? I measured out 12" squares, and used string to make a grid. This way, I knew to make sure all the plants had the proper amount of space. Plus I like the way it looks. It seems so orderly and neat. Admit it, you know you're a little jealous.

So, we did all this on Memorial Day (I know, I know... I told you I was behind.) Now, a month and a half later, lookie!!

I don't really have room to post pictures of all my babies, so I'll tell you what I've got going on. 4 different kinds of tomatoes: Sungold (cherry-sized tomatoes that are orange in color), Old German (a very large, marbled heirloom tomato), Roma, and a mystery tomato that one of my neighbors gave me. The picture above is the mystery one. I also planted some strawberries (which, incidentally, I think are duds because they're getting bigger and bigger but not blooming or bearing fruit). We have 2 different kinds of lettuce: Romaine and Red Leaf, 2 different kinds of peppers: jalapenos and orange bell peppers, 2 different kinds of cucumbers: lemon cucumbers and regular ones, and 2 different kinds of squash: zucchini and bush delicata.

Our lettuce has been ready for quite a while, so now I'm just waiting for all the others to catch up. Everything has bloomed and has babies on it (except the strawberries). And, look how much bigger everything is in just 5 or 6 weeks!

Bed # 1, week 6

Bed # 2, week 6

I'm so excited to start having my own veggies!! I'll keep you posted and let you know when I pick the first one!

Food Friday: Raspberry Cobbler

2009-07-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, don't be mad.

...I'm repeating a recipe. But wait! I can justify it! It's not out of laziness, I promise.

I have truckloads of raspberries to use.

And, it's a really good recipe. I wouldn't give it to you again if it wasn't damn good.

I'm also throwing in a bonus lesson of how to freeze raspberries, so hopefully it's not a totally déjà vu experience for you.

At this point I really wish I had a kitchen scale, because I seriously think that I've been getting somewhere between 1-2 pounds of raspberries off my raspberry bush every day. And, that is NOT an exaggeration, folks. It's been really awesome, but I also have trouble keeping up.

This recipe calls for 2 generous cups of berries. Well, I had a LOT more than that (because I hadn't picked berries for a couple of days), so I doubled the recipe, and still had about 2 cups leftover. I'll tell you what I did with the rest some other time.

So then, I skipped picking berries again for a few days. Hey, I'm a busy gal. I've had two sets of parents in town this week, not to mention we wrapped up a bathroom remodel and threw in an electrical upgrade to our house for good measure. So excuse me if I skipped a few days. Geez.

Anyway, when I finally got around to picking them again, I think I had about 5 pounds of berries. And, no real plan to use them (at least not in the near enough future to keep them from going bad). Also, I figured out that if you leave them on the bush until the very last minute, they will keep longer. I knew I didn't have time to make anything on those days, so instead of picking the ripe ones and refrigerating them (which doesn't work all that well, honestly), I just left them on the bush and they were fine. It just means you have more to pick later, but it's kind of fun to pick berries so that's okay.

So, when I had this obnoxiously large supply of berries and no agenda, I kind of freaked out. Even though I can't use them all right now, I am afraid every day that the berries will run out. I just know one of these days I'm going to go out there, and they'll all be gone. And that, my friends, will be a sad, sad day. So, I refuse to throw any away or let them go bad. I will not allow it to happen. Not on my watch.

So, I did some research about how to freeze berries, and it turns out that raspberries are super easy to freeze (strawberries, blueberries, etc. I think are a little different, so if that's what you have, check into it a bit because there are a couple of extra steps). Just get a bowl of clean water, and submerge the berries a couple of handfuls at a time. Remove them with a slotted spoon and lay them out on a towel to dry (or you can probably use a paper towel if you don't want raspberry stains on your kitchen towels).

But be careful! Raspberries have this cute little hole in the middle where the water will like to hang out. You want to make sure this doesn't happen, because the more water that is surrounding the berry, the more ice crystals will form, and that breaks down the structure of the berry and contributes to freezer burn. So, what I did is turned them all upside down on the towel like this:

(Incidentally, my little 2 year old nephew likes to put his finger in that hole and wave it around a bit before he eats them. It's super cute.) And just let them sit for a while, pat them dry with another towel on top, and then you're ready to freeze them. After they've dried, lay them out flat on a cookie sheet (one that is small enough to fit in your freezer). Make sure they're flat, and not stacked on top of each other. Then put the cookie sheet in your freezer for one hour. This freezes the berries enough so that you can transfer them to another container and they won't stick to each other. Then, when you need to thaw some berries, you can just scoop out what you need and you don't have to worry about breaking them apart. Cool, huh?

Anyway, after they've been in there for an hour, you can take them out and put them in a freezer bag, Tupperware, or whatever and then return them to the freezer. They should keep for about 6-9 months. I read that it's best if you have one of those fancy schmancy vacuum sealers for this kind of freezing. But I don't have one, so I made my own:

I just put them in a freezer bag and zipped up the top until it was almost closed. Then I stuck a straw in the hole and sucked out as much air as I could. I'm sure it's not the best vacuum sealing job that was ever done, but it works for me.

A couple of recipe notes: You can obviously make this with any kind of berry. You know I've done it with blackberries before, but honestly, the raspberry is so much better. Also, I have made this with Splenda instead of sugar, and it's still damn good. The butter? I don't have any suggestions to make that healthier. And, the butter flavor really makes this recipe, so I wouldn't mess with it too much if I were you. Don't worry if you don't have self-rising flour on hand. I never have it, but you can make it yourself if you have all-purpose flour and it's super easy. For each cup of flour you need, just add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Works every time.

Seriously, you should make this ASAP. It's the perfect summer dessert. Just add ice cream.

Pioneer Woman's Raspberry Cobbler
Remember I doubled this recipe.
Ingredients:

1 cup milk

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 cup of self-rising flour

2 generous cups of raspberries (frozen or fresh)

Melt butter in a microwaveable dish. Pour 1 cup of sugar and flour into a mixing bowl, whisking in milk. Mix well. Then, pour in melted butter and whisk it all well together. Butter a baking dish. (Or, you can do what I did, and put the butter in the bottom of your pan while it's preheating in the oven. That melts the butter, and when you pour the batter into your pan, it doesn't mix completely and so you get little pockets of buttery goodness after it's baked. Mmmm. Plus you don't have to butter your dish. I love an excuse to skip steps.)

Now rinse and pat dry your berries. Pour the batter into the baking dish. Sprinkle berries over the top of the batter; distributing evenly. (I also sort of mush mine down into the batter a little bit. I don't know why, I just do. It's a compulsion.) Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over the top.

Bake in the oven at 350 for one hour, or until golden and bubbly. If you desire, sprinkle an additional teaspoon of sugar over the cobbler 10 minutes before it's done.

Food Friday: Spanakopitas

2009-06-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

For today's Food Friday, I'm whipping out the big guns. Exhibit A:

Oh baby. That makes my mouth water just looking at it. And I was prepared. I can't imagine what it's doing to you right now.

The Spanakopita. (Pronounced with the emphasis on "KO". Like this. Me and my southern self have been pronouncing it "spanakoPEEta for years. I have recently corrected this.) Yummy greens, cheese, and spices all wrapped up inside warm, flaky, goodness.

Mmm... spinach.

When I say "big guns" I mean it. I know you thought I was going soft on you, what with my "faux" Food Fridays full of summery drinks and what-not. But seriously, no messing around this Friday. Because this is a serious recipe. It takes commitment. It takes ambition. It takes time. But I promise you, it is so worth it.

Fresh dill. I just love fresh dill.

Justyn's mom showed me how to make these long, long ago. Since then, I've learned anytime your mother-in-law teaches you a recipe, you should take notes and pay close attention. You see, this is Justyn's favorite food. In the world. Bar none. I didn't know that when she taught me how to make them. (See? I told you, you should listen to your MIL.)

Parsley. I use flat-leaf, but you can go curly if you want. They're your spanakopitas.

It took me a long time to build up the cooking confidence and gumption to make these all by myself. But you can do it, I promise. Turn on your favorite music, and spend awhile in the kitchen. Know you will be rewarded in the end.

Green onions. The dark horse.

I mean, look at this lineup, folks! Spinach? Cheese? Dill? Flaky, buttery filo dough? Fuhgeddaboudit. Plus you sort of get to play with your food while you're making them, and nothing's more fun than that.

Feta cheese. This recipe is nothing without the cheese.

These are really great to take to a party, or if you're having people come stay at your house and you want to have some snacks for people. Or, if you're like Justyn, you'll eat them anytime, anywhere, for any meal. Spanakopitas are a perfectly acceptable meal for him, in lieu of breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

So, a couple of things I should explain to you before I let you loose with this beloved recipe. First, make sure you squeeze the water out of the spinach really well. I know it's a pain in the rear, but do it. Wrap it in a towel and ring it out, or push it through a strainer, whatever floats your boat. Just make sure you really try to get all the water out.

Also, don't be afraid of filo dough. Just be careful with it, treat it kind of like tissue paper, and you'll be fine. Respect the dough, and it will respect you. And, work sort of quickly on the assembly. It can dry out and get really brittle if it sits in the open air too long. Don't feel like you have to be Speedy Gonzales, just don't lolligag either.

A word on the assembly. Remember making paper footballs when you were a kid? Remember how you always got in trouble for flicking them across the room in class, and your teacher said what a waste of time it was and that you should be paying attention? Well, I need you to dig deep into the recesses of your memory, because you're going to fold these puppies just like you would fold a paper football. And if you ever see that teacher again you can tell her to stuff it! And be careful not to use too much filling. I almost always use too much so they all bust open in the oven. So just watch yourself. I mean, they still taste awesome either way, but you want them to be pretty, don't you?

You'll lay your filo dough out, and use a pizza cutter or a really sharp knife to slice it in half lengthwise. Then you'll place a spoonful of the spinach and cheese mixture into one corner, and start folding it like this:

And just keep folding it all the way down until you have a whole cookie sheet of paper football spanakopitas:

This recipe made 24 spanakopitas for me, and I used too much filling, so it probably should have made more. That's quite a few spanakopitas, so if they're just for 2 or 3 people, I would suggest halving the recipe.

Ingredients:
2 pounds fresh spinach (I use baby spinach because it's easier to deal with)
1 medium onion, minced
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup scallions, chopped
3 cups feta cheese
1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped, or 2 tsp dried dill
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1 tsp sea salt
pinch black pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 pound pkg filo dough
olive oil for brushing filo (quite a bit of it, actually... don't skimp on the oil)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Wash spinach well, remove any tough stems and steam in the water that clings to its leaves. Drain and squeeze out excess moisture. Chop finely and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl combine onions, scallions, feta, and spices then mix in chopped spinach.

To assemble:

1. Carefully unroll the filo. Lay the stack of pastry sheets flat on a work counter, and cover completely with wax paper. Place a large cutting board or clean surface next to the filo and place a single layer of filo on the board. Lightly brush with olive oil. Place two more sheets on top of the first, brushing each lightly with oil and covering the stack of filo with a damp towel each time a sheet is removed.
2. Cut through the three layers lengthwise with a sharp knife or pizza cutter to produce two long strips.
3. Spoon about 1/2 cup spinach filling onto lower left-hand corner of one of the strips. Fold corner upward toward right-hand edge to form a triangle, encasing the filling. Continue to roll flag-style (or paper-football style, if you're me) to the end of the strip until you have a triangle-shaped spanakopita. Brush the outside lightly with olive oil and place on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Continue to roll pastries until filling is used.

4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

NOTE: If you have left-overs and want to store them, keep them in open air, not stacked on top of one another. They only keep for about 2 days after baking.

Berry Heaven

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

So, my unidentified berry bush? Well, the verdict is in.

They're raspberries.

Lots of them. I filled up this bowl in just one morning of picking, and I probably picked at least this many yesterday.

I'm officially in berry heaven. For now, I've been pretty content just eating them right off the bush. But I think pretty soon I'm going to bake something with them. It's been so long since I've baked anything, and I'm having withdrawals. Any suggestions?

Exploring the Yard

2009-06-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

So, no one knows what this is?

Look closely, friends. Now do you see it?

It's a big ball of baby spiders! Right outside my front door, no less.

Shortly after I took the picture, they did this:

I didn't touch them I promise. But I guess they sensed my presence. You see, I'm nice to spiders. I had quite a reputation at my last job for rescuing spiders when people found them in the office. People always want to kill them, and I think that's mean. I like to set them free when I find one inside. I mean, they don't want to be inside, either. Plus, I like to keep my spider-karma clean. I figure that if I kill spiders my whole life, the chances are pretty good that one will eventually kill me. Besides, what if, when you kill a spider, they let off some sort of high pitched S.O.S. signal, or secrete some sort of scent that beckons other spiders to come to their rescue? I don't want to get attacked by spiders, so, I set them free.

Anyway, then they scattered. The next day, they were gone. Hopefully not inside my house.

One of the joys/pains in the ass of buying a new house is trying to figure out what all the existing plants and trees are, and determining what's a weed and what's not. Like, for instance, see this?

It looks like a big, ugly weed, doesn't it? Needs to be cut, trimmed, removed, etc. Right?

Wrong. Check it out:

Those, my friends, are berries. And let me tell you, there are tons of them. Seriously, I think that I'm going to have hundreds and hundreds, because that is a huge bush and just one one little branch I counted like 30 berries. I think they're raspberries, but can't be sure. There are all kinds of berries around here: loganberries, marionberries, boysenberries, etc. So, I'll just have to let them get ripe and then figure it out. After that, I'll have to figure out how to use them all up. I see lots of cobblers, tarts, and buckles in this blog's future. That much I do know.

Food Friday: Cucumber Water (with Mint)

2009-06-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

I know, I know... another drink when it's supposed to be Food Friday. But, it's my blog, and I do what I want. Plus it's summer and who doesn't enjoy a refreshing drink every now and then??

I freaking love cucumbers. I could just sit and eat a cucumber any time, day or night. Slice it up, sprinkle with some salt, and oh momma. I'm in heaven.

I have had cucumber water on 2 prior occasions: once at a spa when I had my pre-wedding treatment, and once at a fantastic Lebanese restaurant in downtown Portland (called Habibi for those of you who are interested. Their green lentil soup is really good, and their homemade pita with hummus is ah-may-zing. Don't be scared by the website, though. I promise it's good.) Anyway, they serve cucumber water there, too. So, I was finally like, "Why can't I make it myself?" I mean, I totally love cucumber, and I'm always drinking water, so it seems logical.

The cucumber flavor is pretty subtle, so unless you just hate cucumbers (which some people do, I understand), you should give it a try. It's super easy, and the cucumber flavor really adds a nice, refreshing kick to what is otherwise a pretty boring beverage. It also looks cool, and is a nice thing to serve at the last minute if you have people over and want to offer something a little creative and cheap to drink.

All you need for this is a cucumber, a pitcher, and some water. And, I still had some mint leftover from my strawberry green tea experiment, so I added some mint. I would highly recommend that, if you like mint. It really steps up what I like to call the "refreshment factor." But if not, it's really good with just the cuke. Or, if you don't like cucumbers, try it with just the mint, because mint water by itself is also excellent.

Cucumber Water (with mint)

Ingredients:

6-7 slices of cucumber, freshly cut

1/4 cup crushed mint leaves

1 pitcher of plain ol' water

Directions:

Add the cucumbers and the mint to the water. Let it sit for a few minutes. Add some ice, or put it in the fridge for a bit. Then drink it.

Nudity & Bicycles (part II)

2009-06-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Apparently some people didn't like the naked bike ride. One guy dislikes it so much, in fact, that he grabbed his video camera and rushed to the event just to make sure everyone knew he didn't approve. He starts yelling at them around 24 seconds in.

Warning: There is nudity in this video (obviously.)

He's saying "Get raped, degenerate scum!" (For those of you can't understand crazy-talk.) If you're interested in this guy, you can read more funny stuff about him here.

Nudity & Bicycles

2009-06-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

You don't realize it yet, but I have let you down. As a faithful blog reader, you expect a certain level of service from me, and rely on me to report on quirky things happening here in PDX. Especially the uber-Portland-y ones.

So this past weekend was the annual World Naked Bike Ride in Portland. It's a big freaking deal here, apparently, but I didn't know. I promise I didn't know. If I had known, I would have been there getting the scoop for you, and taking pictures of nakedness. Although, I'm not sure all those naked people would appreciate a fully clothed person standing on the side of the road taking pictures of them. But then, if they did care, then they probably wouldn't be out riding their bikes naked, would they? Update: Check out my later post about a guy who doesn't approve of the naked bike ride.

Anyway, last year, Portland tied with London for the largest turnout of around 800 people. This year, they're saying that an estimated 5,000 people came out. Since I wasn't there, I can only direct you to read the account of someone who was there. This report is complete with photos. But reader beware: Not all bikers are supermodels, and some of these people have no business being naked in public. Don't say I didn't warn you.

In related news, the World Naked Bike Ride is part of Pedalpalooza which is going on here in Portland now. It's basically 2 weeks of nothing but bikes, bikes, and more bikes. From June 11 through the 27th, every day contains multiple events and rides for all ages, shapes, and sizes. During this 2 week period, there are around 200 different rides and other events you can take part in, to celebrate the greatness of the bicycle. There are bike jousting events, bike scavenger hunts, a "bike-in" movie, bike polo, zoobombing, even a vegan bike wedding.

To celebrate in my own special way, I got some new tires for my bike. If you recall, my bike is a mountain bike, complete with super-knobby tires that sound like a freaking weed eater motor when I'm riding down the road. So I got some slicks. Check it out:

My knobby tires (before)

My slicks (after)

The other bonus of changing tires, is that I learned what to do if I get a flat. But, it was pretty freaking hard and I really relied on Justyn to do the hard stuff. So, if I ever get a flat, I'm pretty sure I'll just call someone for a ride instead of trying to fix it myself. My bike maintenance skills have a loooong way to go.

Anyway, my new tires have made such a huge difference in my riding! I do want a better bike at some point, because I have been riding quite a bit. I ride to the grocery store, to the library, to happy hours, you name it. Between riding to the farmers market and back, and then to Trader Joe's and back, I got home and realized I accidentally rode almost 10 miles a couple of weekends ago! This was surprising to me, because the weekend prior, I had gone out to Sauvie Island (home of Portland's nude beaches) with a friend to ride, and bailed out because the loop was 12 miles and I didn't think I could do it. Granted, there was a lot of traffic and it made me nervous. But it was good practice to get used to cars, and I'm super glad I went. Now I'm pretty comfortable on the road, as long as it's not a main road with lots of cars. Anyway, I didn't think I could do 12 miles, but it turns out I probably could've. I just had to work my way up! I still can't take my hands off the handlebars, though, to signal when I'm turning. Which, is probably pretty dangerous, but I figure it's less dangerous than me riding one-handed.

**If you click through the nude beach link, it takes you to ORCOBA's website (Oregon Clothing-Optional Beach Alliance). There are photos there, again, NSFW. And also, keep in mind we're not talking about a Sports Illustrated photo shoot either. Same as the bike ride, some of these people should not be naked in public. But if you wanna check it out, go for it. I don't judge. I just provide the info. Oh, and by the way, if you are one of those naked people, I'm not judging you either. If you want to be naked, that's cool.

Lilac Envy

2009-06-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

This is my neighbor's lilac bush.

I lean over and smell the blooms every time I walk by, which is at least once a day. I can't help it.

I want one of my very own.

And, check this out:

Anyone know what that is?

Food Friday: Veggie Alfredo

2009-06-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Have I said how much I love pasta? Well, I do. It's probably going to be my downfall. I just love starches in general, I think. You know I've made the jump from white rice to brown rice, but I just can't seem to do it with pasta. I'm sorry, but whole wheat pasta tastes like ass and all you people that say it doesn't are smoking crack.

Anyway, I love pasta. I try to eat healthy, but sometimes I just need it. Like really really need it. You know? And I also love alfredo sauce. I haven't yet mastered the art of making my own alfredo sauce, but I feel that day fast-approaching. Although, I don't know why I would waste my time on such things when you can buy perfectly good alfredo sauce in a jar.

Back in the day (a.k.a. before I started eating healthier food) I would just boil myself some pasta, slather the alfredo on it, and voila! Dinner! But, I have found a much, much tastier way to have alfredo, and it's healthy, too! I invented this on yet another occasion when I had a ton of veggies to use up before they went bad, and no real plan for them. And omigosh, it is so good. I really think you should make this tonight. And you know I don't say that very often. So you should take me seriously. Tonight.

I never thought I would be one of those people who doesn't measure things, but it turns out that I am. Whodathunkit? I am a meticulous recipe-follower, and for those of you who are like that, I'm sorry. Of all the times I've made this (and I've made it several times), I haven't really measured any of the ingredients. So, I'll do my best to estimate it for you here. This makes just enough for me and Justyn, with a little leftover for one of our lunches the next day. So, if you're cooking for more, I'd double everything.

Veggie Alfredo
1 1/2 cups of dried pasta (I use fusilli or rotini, usually)
1/2 jar of alfredo sauce (about a cup and a half, or so)
1 large zucchini, sliced into rounds and then cut in half again (like half-moons)
1 1/2 cups green cabbage, chopped
1 cup asparagus, chopped into 2-3 inch pieces
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
salt to taste (I use about 1 1/2 tsp)
several generous twists of fresh ground pepper
1 tsp dried italian herb blend
1 tsp dried oregano (the Italian herb blend already contains this, but I really like oregano so I add more)
red pepper flakes (optional, if you want some heat)
romano cheese, to garnish
parmesan cheese, to garnish

Heat some olive oil in a large skillet and add the crushed garlic to saute for a couple of minutes. Go ahead and start the water boiling for your pasta, and put the alfredo in a separate small saucepan to heat. (Or you can wait and add it to the veggie mixture at the end to heat up. But I use a cast iron skillet for my veggies so I don't like to put the alfredo sauce in that pan. But you can if you want, and it'll save you an extra step and an extra pan.)

Add the asparagus to the olive oil to saute on its own for about 2-3 minutes. Then add the zucchini and cabbage. Sprinkle the veggie mixture with all your spices: salt, pepper, herbs, oregano, and red pepper (if using). Saute on low-medium heat, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, add your pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions. Ideally, when the pasta is finished, your veggies will be cooked just enough to eat (still a bit crispy and bright green, but not too hard to eat.) Keep an eye on them, though, and turn your heat up/down as needed. Don't overcook them, though, or they'll be soggy and weird.

Put your cooked pasta in a bowl, spoon the sauce over the noodles, and then top with your veggies. Sprinkle with romano and parmesan cheese.

Red Light District

2009-06-08T11:13:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying that I don't have a problem with authority.

No, really, I don't.

But I do have a problem with this:

Photo from here because I can't take pictures and drive at the same time.

It's not exactly that... but it's when the arrow is red, but the other light is green, that really bugs me. I mean, if there are no cars coming, why can't I turn? They don't do that in Nashville, folks. The people in charge there, rightly assume that if I have a license to drive, that I can see clearly if a car is coming, and can act accordingly (by either waiting, or proceeding to turn). But here in Oregon, noooo. You can't do that here. You have to wait until they say you can turn. Ugh. It truly is one of the most annoying things about this place.

About 2 weeks after we moved here, I was driving through Beaverton, and just barely made it through a yellow light. Right as I went through the intersection, I saw this bright white light flash in my rearview mirror, and realized that it took a picture of me! Luckily for me, our car was still new and had temporary tags from Tennessee. Serves them right, those sneaky bastards... But, I knew to be careful after that. They don't do that in Tennessee either. Hmph.

When I went to register the car and get our new plates, they said that we had to get our license within 30 days of moving to the state. So I picked up a manual and started studying. But then as I started talking to other people, I found out that it was one of the hardest drivers tests in the nation, and I know several people who failed it the first time. Yikes! Those of you who know me, know that I am a hardcore bookworm/studier, and so this freaked me out. So, I put it off, and I put it off... until a few weeks ago.

After being here for almost a year (!) and I am proud to say I finally took my driver's test and passed! The first time! But it was really hard. With some weird, stupid questions.

For example:

When approaching a person on horseback, if the rider's hand is raised in the air, you should:

a) Stop and pull over. This person needs help.

b) This is a greeting. Proceed normally.

c) The animal is frightened. Slow down and proceed with caution.

d) The animal is making a turn and you should yield.

I mean, what a stupid question! How many times have I ever approached a horse on a road? How about zero. Luckily someone I knew warned me about this question, (which, at the time, I thought they were kidding) so I knew the answer was C. But still! I mean, does not knowing that make me a bad driver? Of course not. The whole test is just designed to make you read their stupid 100+ page book. Parts of it were sort of entertaining, though, like the part about driving with caution in school zones, and the book says, "Remember, children are often very unpredictable." It really does say that. Ha ha! I don't know why, but it made me laugh out loud when I read that. Like they're wild animals or something.

Anyway, I do have to say that I am glad I read the book. There are a LOT more rules here regarding pedestrians and bicyclists which are good to know. I'm definitely not used to driving with so many people on the road (not in cars) so it's good that I finally learned it all. And I probably should have done it sooner than like 10 months after I moved here. But whatever. It's done, and I'm legal!

So, I am officially an Oregon resident now... my driver license was the last southern stronghold. When I got carded, people were like, "Ohhh... Tennessee, huh?" And then a story ensued, they asked me what it's like living in the South, etc. It was a nice conversation starter. But now, I'm just a regular old Oregonian. Kind of sad.

Food Friday: Strawberry Green Tea with Mint

2009-06-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

It's been hot here... like, really hot. And muggy, too, which is like... weird. Because last time I checked it was not supposed to be muggy here. It's one reason I was glad to leave the South, for crying out loud. And, we even had a thunderstorm here yesterday, complete with lightning and blown down trees and everything. It was kind of nice, though, and it made me miss home a little bit.

Anyway, it's been hot, and I needed a drink. So this week's Food Friday is really a drink. But whatever, you're not that picky, are ya? See, I drink a lot of water. I think a lot of people find it odd, but I figure I don't drink enough water as it is, so if I'm going to drink something it may as well be water. But sometimes you need more, you know? Some flavor or something. Justyn's mom makes "tea juice" which is basically tea brewed in the sunshine with some flavor of juice added. My mom used to make something similar we called "sun tea" and she added frozen orange juice or orange-pineapple or something like that. It was tasty. This is similar, but not the same.

I've already raved about the farmer's markets here, remember? Well, we used to go to the Beaverton market, which is definitely one of the best. But now that's not so convenient anymore, so we looked up the closest one to our new place. It turns out that they just started a new market this year for this area called the King market. Anyway, we decided to check it out. It's waaayy smaller than the Beaverton market, which is kind of a bummer, but I liked it. They still had a pretty good selection of stuff and we can ride our bikes... yay! The only thing I don't like about it is that it's on a Sunday. I like to go on Saturday so I have part of the weekend to cook up some cool stuff. So, we stocked up on tons of stuff, including some yummy looking local strawberries and big bunches of fresh mint, which I love. I'm a big fan of mint.

Justyn suggested making some sun tea / tea juice concoction with what we made, but we didn't have a pitcher to put it in. Well, we did, but it's plastic. And, you have to set it out in the sun for a few hours, so we needed something glass. Plastic + heat + your belly = no good. So, Justyn went on a quest for something and he came back with this:

It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but whatever. It serves its purpose. So we put 10 green tea bags in it with some water and set it outside for a few hours in the sun.

I don't know what I was off doing, but I had already decided in my mind that the mint might not go so well with the strawberries and green tea flavor. But, Justyn apparently had already decided in his mind that he thought it would be great, and wanted to add some lemon in, too, just for good measure. By the time I came back into the kitchen a little while later, this is what he had done:

Looks pretty good, right? This is about 1/2 a small container of strawberries, about 1/2 cup of pulverized mint leaves, juice from 6 lemons, and about 1/3 cup of agave nectar to sweeten it. I wanted to try that instead of sugar just to see what happened, and I thought it was pretty good. You should be able to find it pretty easily at Trader Joe's.

So after the tea had brewed up, we added this strawberry mint lemon agave concoction to it and tried it out. It was pretty good, actually, but I think definitely no mint next time. And more strawberries. And, it was better the 2nd day after all the stuff had time to hang out together, so maybe make it in the morning and let it sit most of the day after you add your fruit. You should totally try out your own version, though... it works well with just tea and juice, so pick your faves and try it out. It's sort of a fun, summery thing to do.

Strawberry Green Tea with Mint

Ingredients:

10 regular green tea bags

1 cup smashed strawberries

1/2 cup crushed mint leaves

1/3 cup agave nectar (or sweeten to taste)

juice from 6 lemons

Directions:
Place the tea bags in a large glass pitcher and set outside in the sun to brew for about 2 hours. In the meantime, mix all the other ingredients together. Add the mixture to the tea, let the flavors mingle, and enjoy! You can also add a little splash of tequila if you're feeling frisky. I'm not saying I did that, but you could if you wanted.

Finally, Some Progress

2009-06-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the radio silence over the last week... I got some sort of a cold (of course just after I was telling someone how I hardly ever get sick.) But I have good news: we have made visible progress. Check it.

So, I've mentioned to you that the master bedroom was a lovely mix of olive green wainscoting and pink walls when we bought the house. We corrected the "green" portion of that when we painted all the trim (just making it white) and it was quite an improvement. But, since we knew we were going to paint the walls too, we didn't tape off when we painted the trim, so there was a lovely overspray effect you can see here:

I mean, hideously ugly, right? You'd think it would've been one of the first things we corrected, right? I mean, since we sleep in there and all. But nooo... it took us close to a month to get our act together and paint it. Which is pretty pathetic, really, because it's only like 1/3rd of the wall space of a normal room so it surely wouldn't take long. Another serious issue in the master bedroom was this hole in the ceiling:

It's on my side of the room, and it has really been bothering me since day one. I don't know why, because the inspector said it was from a previous roof leak and that there shouldn't be any problem now. But even when I'm sleeping I can feel it there. Like it's a big ugly eyeball just looking at me all night long. Well, the first time it rained really hard a couple of weeks ago, I walked into the bedroom and there was a huge puddle of water on the floor right under the hole. Greeaaat. Just what we need - a roof leak. But, the roof is pretty new, so we were a bit confused. Justyn went up to check it out, and discovered that there's an attic vent right above it that had just lost its seal. So he fixed it for about 5 bucks and 5 minutes. Whew! But still.... it kept looking at me.

So we finally picked a color and decided to paint last weekend, and with the exception of some minor touching up, it's done!!! Ain't it purty???

And, P.S. - What do you think of those curtains? I'm still not quite sure about them, myself. Too dark? Too long?

Look what else is done:

The hole has been patched, my friends. Justyn still has to texture it to look like the rest of the ceiling, but it's mostly done and that's okay in my book for this project. (And really, let's face it... it seems like nothing is ever really all the way done around here. I've got to lower my standards, obviously).

And, I know you've been waiting for this one, so here's an after picture of the new medicine cabinet I promised you.

Again, not quite done, but done enough I suppose. The door opens, I can put stuff in it, and I can see myself so I guess I should be happy about it. And, it's not purple like the other one, which is a bonus. I realize that it's just a medicine cabinet, and not a beautiful one either. But it's the small victories I have to cling to. Just let me have my moment, okay? And no, I have not mentioned the pumpkin-colored walls in here with gray trim. I'm thinking maybe if I ignore it, it won't bother me.

We actually have gotten some other stuff done in the yard, but I'll save it for another post because it's especially exciting.

Food Friday: Cinnamon Spice Muffins

2009-05-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

I don't have cravings very often (unless you count chocolate chip cookies but we're not talking about that, are we?). So I was sitting around one afternoon, and I had a craving for some spice cake. Like, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, you know what I'm talking about. It was an unexpectedly chilly day, kind of gloomy, and I really didn't want to go to the store. So, as usual, I went to All Recipes to see if I could find a recipe that called for ingredients I already had.

Unfortunately, I had some trouble. Don't get me wrong, I found lots of spice cake recipes, but almost all of them (and I mean all) called for apples. Well, I didn't have any apples, and like I said, I wasn't about to drive the 2 minutes to the store that would enable me to get apples. I was just starting to get a little bit frustrated when I came across this recipe for "Cinnamon Teacake". It didn't call for apples, and it also happened to be eggless which I thought would be worth a try. Don't be fooled, though. Eggless does not equal healthy. It seems that they substituted butter for the missing eggs, and so it's pretty fattening. Luckily for me, healthy was not part of my criteria that day, so I made it.

I changed a few things, though, because the recipe only called for cinnamon, and I wanted spice cake so I added some vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, etc. (Incidentally, I'm not sure if the measurements below are 100% accurate - I sort of just threw things in. But it's pretty close, I think.) I also substituted half of the sugar with brown, because I thought it would be a better pairing with all the spices. I thought about subbing part of the flour with whole wheat flour (to mitigate the unhealthiness of the entire stick of butter I was about to consume), but I didn't want to mess with the recipe too much because of the lack of eggs. I wasn't sure how the consistency was going to turn out, but next time I probably will use some whole wheat flour. I also obviously made muffins instead of cake. Because I wanted muffins.

You should definitely make these unless you're on a diet. They are super moist, and really good warm. The consistency is a lot like coffee cake, and it is so good with some hot spiced tea (or coffee if you're into that kind of thing.) Mmm!

Cinnamon Spice Muffins

adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients

Muffins:

7 tablespoons butter
1 cup self-rising flour
1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/3 cup milk

Topping:

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a small muffin tin (6 muffins).
2. Melt 7 tablespoons of the butter. In a medium sized bowl mix together the melted butter, vanilla, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and the self rising flour to form a soft dough. Add the milk and mix again till smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove muffins from oven and set aside.

4. In a saucepan melt 1 tablespoon butter and mix with 1 tablespoon white sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Spread over top of muffins.
5. In a small bowl stir together the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Sprinkle over muffins.

Baby Steps

2009-05-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

There's so much to do at the house, and I'm officially feeling overwhelmed. I feel sometimes like I just walk from room to room, looking around, not even knowing where to begin, and by the time I realize that I actually am just wasting time, like an hour has gone by. This weekend will be the one month anniversary of when we moved in, and we haven't made nearly as much progress during that time as we should've. Now, granted, we have had some family in town (nothing got done last weekend) and more coming this weekend so we do have a small excuse. But still... things are going too slowly for me to be happy.

But, we have gotten some things done, like I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I probably shouldn't say "done" because some of these things have been "started" but not "completed". But whatever. Baby steps.

Remember my new stove? You probably didn't notice, but there is a desperate need for some storage on that wall (in addition to the pantry that we don't have). So, a few weeks ago we went to Ikea to see what we could find. About 4 hours (seriously) and a couple hundred dollars later, we had purchased a stand-alone pantry, a cabinet to go over the stove to hold the microwave, and a few other miscellaneous items. To mount the cabinet, we had to find studs to hang this mounting bracket:

Finding studs is no easy task in a house this old. They do things differently now, stud spacing is different, they use nails, drywall, etc. Justyn started drilling all these little holes to try to find the stud, and I said, "Why can't we use a stud-finder?" Well, apparently a stud finder is just a little mini-metal detector looking for nail-heads in the drywall. So, we can't use one. Instead we drill holes. Lots of them. This project took an obscenely long time, and when we finally got the cabinet mounted, we realized the door we bought wouldn't open all the way because of this whacked-out piece of wall that is in the way. So, I don't have any finished pictures for you yet because (like I mentioned before) it's not done yet.

So instead we moved on to the medicine cabinet in the main floor bathroom:

Notice anything missing? How about a DOOR? (And, by the way, check out my new outlet. Heck yeah.) The thing about these old medicine cabinets are that they're all one piece. So we can't just get a new door. We had to rip this one out of the wall and get a whole new cabinet. Luckily there is an amazingly awesome place here in Portland called The ReBuilding Center where people take all their old house crap and you can buy it. So we found a medicine cabinet exactly the size we needed for only 5 BUCKS! How awesome is that? And it's recycled. Woot!

Tangent: (It's relevant, I promise.) So, Justyn has a tool belt. He's had it for many, many years from when he first started working in construction. He loves his tool belt, and I think it's hilarious. He really will not do any project unless he has it on. I have never quite understood it, myself, but he's a dude, so I guess I'm not supposed to understand or whatever. Well anyway, back in our last house, I bought a trusty little tool kit from Target for like 10 dollars or something that has a hammer, pliers, a utility knife, a screwdriver, and a tape measure. It's all a gal like me needs, you know? Well, every time I get something out of it, Justyn looks at me and says, "Oh, you got your little hammer, huh?" or "Hey, can you bring me your little screwdriver?" And so I'm like, "Hey, why are all my tools preceded by the word little? They're just as good as yours." (Granted, they are smaller and not as heavy-duty as his, but that's beside the point.) But since we've been doing all this stuff around the house, my little screwdriver ends up in his tool belt, or I end up with his pliers, etc. It started to become a little bit of a problem.

Anyway, you know already that I have zero construction/remodeling skills. And this medicine cabinet has been in the wall since 1925. And trust me, it was in there. So, I took out the glass shelves (something I can do, thankyouverymuch) and proceeded to score around the edge of the cabinet so as to proceed removing it. But, 80+ years of paint, plaster, and goodness knows what else, made it somewhat difficult. So, Justyn and I are standing there looking at it, trying to figure out how to get it out, and he says, "Aha. I have the perfect tool for this job." And he walks out to the garage. Well, I grab my trusty little hammer, and start prying the cabinet away from the wall. In less than 2 minutes, I had that thing out of there, before he even came back with his whatever he was going to get. You should have seen his face when I walked out with the cabinet in hand. It was awesome! (And, I think he was totally impressed.) He was like, "How... did you... ?" And I said, "Oh, just me and my little hammer." Ha!

When I came back into the bathroom and looked in the hole, I saw this:

I was like, "What is that stuff at the bottom?" And I looked more closely:

Those are used razorblades, my friends. Lots of them. And I betcha they're about 80 years old, too. Gross! I called my mom (because I like to share these odd occurrences with her) and she explained to me that the little slit in the back of the cabinet is for dropping in your used razorblades. So, I asked the obvious question, "Yeah, but how do they get them out?" And she said, "They don't." And, again, all I can say is... Eww. And... Weird. But anyway, we got it all cleaned out, got the new cabinet up, and that project is mostly done, except some of the paint and plaster came out with the cabinet so it's a little rough around the edges. Another project started, but not completed. And thus, no photo for you. I know you're disappointed, but get used to it. This is the reality of fixing a house. It is a lesson you and I must learn together.

And so guess what I got:

Yep, my very own tool belt...check me out! I've already used it once to put on a light switch plate cover. I also got a new nylon coated, self-locking tape measure (because my last one was too short, according to my husband) and a speed square (which I'm not entirely sure of it's purpose). I am supposed to get an upgraded hammer, too, because mine is so small it falls through the loop and almost gouged our new floors once already. I guess it is kind of small, now that I think about it. But, hey! It has been a good hammer for me for many years. It served as a good stepping stone for me. It's all about the baby steps.

But Wait! There's More...

2009-05-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

So, I told you that some of our neighbors had brought us some grilled food, let us borrow their caulk gun, and their lawnmower (twice). To return the favor, at least partially, Justyn agreed to help the guy unload some cabinets that he'd purchased and help carry them down into the guy's basement. I felt good because we were finally helping them out. But later that day, he brought this over:

"Just a bottle of wine to say thanks for Justyn's help today," he said. Then last Saturday morning, one of the little girls from across the street delivered these cookies (still warm). They were almost exactly like my friend Amy's "Grandma Cookies," but with raisins added. They definitely made me miss my friend.

Then this weekend, another neighbor (not yet introduced) brought over some fresh-baked (again, still warm) chocolate chip cookies. I'm tellin' ya... these people are either stalking me, or we're a match made in neighbor heaven. Surely she didn't know that chocolate chip cookies are my favorite? I mean, seriously, does this ever stop? I'm not complaining at all, it's just kind of weird, and I'm starting to feel sort of guilty.

The other bonus about this particular neighbor is that she has an amazing yard. She told me about a garden store only about 10 blocks away where they sell organic vegetable starts. I'm so excited! I walked there today in only 15 minutes, browsed a bit, and plan to go back to pick up some things. Don't worry, I will share every step of my gardening blunders with you. And, I assure you, there will be blunders.

We also finally found out who left the anonymous tulips on our front doorstep, and got the chance to say thanks in person, which was nice. After all this niceness, I decided that my original thought of baking something in return wouldn't quite cut it. So, I dug out some stationery and delivered some handwritten notes to each of them to say thanks. Maybe that'll be the end of it, and maybe not. Only time will tell.

Food Friday: Asparagus Soup

2009-05-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have been eating like total crap lately. Don't let this blog fool you... there are plenty of days (moreso lately than ever) that I just don't have time or energy to make something. We've been so busy moving and unpacking, and trying to fix our house, that I seriously have not been to do a major grocery run in like 2 months. So, I've been eating a LOT of beans and rice, popcorn, frozen Boca burgers, frozen vegetables, and pizza (YES with pepperoni... leave me alone.) Luckily for you, I was cooking like a fiend before all this house stuff happened, and so I have some recipes saved up to last you until I get my freaking act together.

Asparagus is one of those vegetables that I think people love to hate. Like broccoli, or brussels sprouts. So many people just don't even give it a chance, you know? Like even the sound of the word makes them lose their appetite. But I honestly think that asparagus gets a bad rep for no real reason (other than the whole pee thing). About that... did you know that it makes everyone's pee smell, but some people don't have the ability to smell it? You know how they found that out? 2 people ate some asparagus, one person said their pee smelled funny and the other one said their pee didn't smell funny. So they took the first person's pee, and held it under the nose of the second person, and the second person still couldn't smell it. I actually looked this up a long time ago... I don't know why this is so fascinating to me, other than the idea that someone would willingly smell another person's pee for the sake of science.

Anyway, asparagus is yet another vegetable that used to make me turn up my nose, but I have really grown to like it. Roasted asparagus is my favorite, but when I saw this recipe for asparagus soup, I thought it might be a nice variation. Incidentally, roasting asparagus is a fantastic quick side veggie, and it is super easy. Just wash and trim the bottoms, drizzle with lots of olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper, and roast at 400 for about 15-2o minutes. It's THAT easy. Seriously. And, again, the benefits: asparagus is a low-calorie, fat-free, cholesterol-free, low sodium veggie. It's also a good source of vitamin K, fiber, folic acid, and potassium. By the way, I only eat green asparagus. I've never had white asparagus and I don't want to . Something about it just... doesn't... seem... right.

Anyway, the soup. I read a ton of food blogs every day, one of which is use real butter. She makes some amazing food, and her pictures are waaayyy better than mine. She even put her asparagus soup in shot glasses and served them with mini-grilled cheese sandwiches which was super cute. And, I personally LOVE grilled cheese sandwiches, but that's a whole different topic. Anyway, I'm no Martha Stewart, and am the first to admit it, so I served my soup in a regular bowl with other regular food like the regular gal that I am. Remember the Sesame-Ginger Rice I made for you a few weeks ago? Perfect side for the soup. Add a scrumptiously roasted acorn squash (again, super easy, tasty, and amazingly cheap) and you've got yourself a colorful, well-balanced meal.

Asparagus Soup
from use real butter

Ingredients:
1 lb. asparagus spears, bottoms trimmed
2 tbsps vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, diced
1 cup yellow onion, diced
salt
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsps flour
1 quart chicken broth (remember what I told you about chicken broth??)
1-2 tsps lemon juice
pepper

Directions:
1. Cut the asparagus spears into 2-inch pieces. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan or pot (you'll end up putting all the soup back in this pot, so make sure it's big enough). When the oil is hot, add the garlic and onions. Sauté until fragrant. Add the asparagus to the pot, season with salt (don't be shy here), and stir-fry until the spears turn a deep green. Do not overcook!

2. Remove from heat and empty the vegetables into a food processor or blender or food mill. (I used a blender, and the consistency was a little coarse, but not bad at all.) Purée the asparagus with about a cup of the chicken broth.

3. In the same pot you used before, melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until it foams. Pour the chicken broth into the pan a little at a time and stir to incorporate (so you avoid chunks of flour-butter floating around in the broth). Pour in the remaining chicken broth and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the purée. Add lemon juice (the more, the better, IMHO) and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Bike At Your Own Risk

2009-05-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

I am afraid of my bike. Like, totally terrified. I don't really recall riding bikes as a kid growing up in the south. We mostly rode 4-wheelers (now more commonly known as ATVs) around in the mud where there were no other cars or people or roads, etc. But, Justyn is super-active, and having grown up in Colorado and lived in San Francisco, he's a biker. In my never ending quest to improve myself and open my mind, I told him a couple of years ago that I'd try mountain biking with him (no traffic to worry about) so I searched Craigslist and found this for pretty cheap:

I think we went mountain biking twice in Nashville, both of which involved me getting scared from going too fast downhill or almost hitting a tree and then walking for a good portion of the trail. You see, I'm not a clumsy person (at least I don't think I am), nor am I accident-prone. But I am one of those people who gets hurt. You know, like... I don't always get hurt, but if someone is destined to get injured during some sort of activity, it's usually me. I also don't generally do well with activities which involve some type of device between my feet and the ground (think ice skating, skiing, skateboarding, etc.)

I also had a traumatic experience with a bike when I was a child. I was riding on the back of a bike with my mom, and even though I was small (about 6 or 7 years old, I think), I just couldn't keep my feet on those little pegs that were about 2 inches long. So, genius that I was (even at that young age) I decided I would just stick my legs way out to the sides and I'd be fine. Well, mom turned a corner and my foot got sucked up into the rear spokes. There was crying, blood, an exposed tendon, and a trip to the emergency room with my foot wrapped up in a blue kitchen towel. But the whole time I was sitting there in my mom's lap in the front seat on the way to the hospital, all I could think about was that I had ruined my favorite Strawberry Shortcake socks with the little pink fuzzy ball on the back.

Anyway, you can see why I have a deeply ingrained fear of bicycles. When we were packing to move, there was a moment when we both stood in the garage looking at all of our crap - Justyn looked at me and I looked at him, and we discussed if it was worth moving the bike (that I had only ridden twice) 2500 miles with us to Portland. In the end, I chose to keep it in hopes that I will be brave enough one day to call it my friend.

Because the thing is, that Portland has quite a reputation for bicycling. Apparently it's the most bike friendly city in the country, and number 2 in the whole world (second only to Amsterdam). Almost 10% of Portlanders commute by bike, and there are 164 miles of bike lanes, 66 miles of bike paths, and 30 miles of bike boulevards throughout the city. Almost 15,000 people crossed the bridges into the city by bike in 2007, and that number is growing about as quickly as gas prices. All those statistics should make me feel safer, right? I mean, in Nashville, you don't see many bike commuters... there is no "Share the Road" mentality there, and for that reason I would never consider biking in Nashville. Southerners + Hummers + Bicycles = Disaster Waiting to Happen. But here, I shouldn't be so worried. Drivers are used to bicyclists here, and bike lanes. There is a great biking community here, and even classes for women who are scared.

So, the point is that lately I've been thinking a lot about it. Our apartment was in a super hilly area of Portland (not very bikeable for a rookie/weakling like me). But now that we've moved to a flatter area where there are actually things to bike to, I've been thinking of giving it a shot. Justyn can bike downtown to his job in 15 minutes! I am sufficiently jealous every time I get on the bus to go downtown, wearing my gloves because I'm afraid I'm going to catch the swine flu. Plus, mass transit is not as cheap as I thought it would be. It's $2 for a 2 hour bus ticket, so $4 for a whole day. To me, that's no bargain because I'm pretty sure I would pay less than that for gas in my hybrid to get downtown. But whatever... it's still better for the environment I guess. But, it would be nice to not have to pay that, or pay for parking, and also to be in shape.

So May is national bike month, and this week is national bike to work week. Now, I am not going to be biking to work, for obvious reasons. Gotta start small, you know. In fact, the mayor of Portland, Sam Adams (yep, like the beer) has announced that he will be going car-free this month and ride his bike instead. Wow, he's really in the spirit! (Or, it could be that he totalled his truck last week in a controversial crash that some are saying involved some type of libation. Maybe the whole Beau Breedlove thing is getting to him.) It's a complete tangent, but interesting if you need a distraction for a while. Lots of drama here in Portland politics.

Anyway, this past weekend was really nice, and a friend of mine told me about an awesome breakfast spot pretty closeby (Justyn is always on the hunt for good breakfast). So, on Sunday morning (Mother's Day) we decided to take advantage of the beautiful sunny weather, hopped on our bikes and rode to Bridge's Cafe. It was only about a 5 minute ride, and we didn't have to cross any busy streets to get there. And, it was totally awesome! I have never in my life used my bike as a mode of transport, and it was rad. I loved it! I felt like a real Portlander, locking my bike up outside and walking in with my right pant leg tight rolled up to my calf like the 40 year-old virgin. Oh yeah. It was awesome. It sounds dorky, but it means I'm part of a club now. It's like a gang sign, or a calling card. I'm a biker. And, I'm gonna do it some more too. Just wait and see.

Food Friday: Too Much Chocolate Cake with Baileys Buttercream Icing

2009-05-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

I promised you birthday cake, and here it is. And, man oh man, is it good.

Justyn's birthday was last weekend, and since this is officially his favorite cake, of course I made it for him. I don't make cakes that often... not because they're hard or anything, but just because it makes so much cake, and I never think it's a good idea for 2 people to have a whole cake sitting around just waiting to be eaten. But, for his birthday, I make no exceptions.

It's a bundt cake recipe, and so not healthy. Do not be fooled by my previous rants and raves about eating healthy food, cutting back on meat, sauteing your veggies in water instead of oil, etc. This is a "no holds barred" kind of a birthday cake, and by that I mean I made no substitutions of applesauce for oil, or whole wheat flour or any of that business. I even splurged for the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips. Because it's my sweetie's birthday, and he deserves only the best.

Ahh... the icing. This is the best icing you will ever have (if you like Baileys) and it's so super easy. But, I do have one confession to make. This was not the perfect birthday cake experience. You see, I sort of screwed up. We ended up spending almost all afternoon in Ikea on Saturday (another story for another time, let me assure you), and around 10:00 on Saturday night I realized that I had no Baileys Irish Cream liqueur, and obviously nothing would be open on Sunday (when I needed the cake). I used to have some, but when I moved across the country, the sucky moving company wouldn't pack or move our alcohol. And, since I only use Baileys about once a year, I gave the whole bottle to my mom, whose cabinet it is probably still sitting in as I type this. When I came to this horrible realization, I jumped in the car to go grab some. I mean, it's Saturday night, only 10 o'clock. Surely there are liquor stores open. Well, guess again. Closed. Closed. And closed again.

Shite! What was I going to do? I only needed 4 tablespoons for crying out loud! Maybe I could go to a bar and order a couple of shots, and sneak them home? Nah, something about that doesn't seem like it'll work. I did some research online, and found that some grocery stores carry Irish Cream syrup in the coffee section. Well, I went to my grocery store and they didn't have any. So, I bought some Irish Cream coffee creamer and figured it was my best shot. I threw some of that in, in place of the Baileys, and added some brandy to try and get that "liqueur taste" (and because I had some). Well, let me tell you, it was nowhere near as good as it should've been, and as I result I truly feel like I failed at this year's birthday cake venture. But, let me also say that this cake is so freaking chocolatey and moist, that it's pretty darn good without any frosting at all.

The other thing is, that this is a super easy cake to make. It's not from scratch (I know, I know, but it's so good! It really doesn't even matter). It's not a mix either, it's a hybrid. You know, think "Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee" on the Food Network. It's sorta like that. I found this recipe on All Recipes, which I've mentioned before. And normally I wouldn't try something like this (using a boxed mix as a base) but it had like a million 5 star reviews so I figured it was worth it. The icing recipe is from a similar site, RecipeZaar. It's almost exactly like All Recipes, but All Recipes doesn't allow any brand names in their recipes, so you can't find Baileys anything on their site.

Too Much Chocolate Cake with Baileys Buttercream Icing

Cake recipe taken from AllRecipes, Icing from Recipezaar

Ingredients

Cake:

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix

1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix

1 cup sour cream

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Icing:

1 cup (2 sticks) real butter, at room temperature

3 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons real vanilla extract

4 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream liqueur

milk, if needed for desirable consistency

Directions

Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs and water. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased 12 cup bundt pan.

3. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cake thoroughly in pan at least an hour and a half before inverting onto a plate and icing.

Icing:

1. Cream together butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and Bailey's. Add milk if it is too thick.

2. Slather on a VERY cool cake.

Welcome to Pleasantville

2009-05-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

Did I ever tell you how mean our neighbors were to us when we moved into our apartment last summer? I think the first night we were there, they banged on the ceiling after I closed the washing machine door a little too loudly (apparently). Then a few days later she came up and was all, "Umm... hi. Umm... I just wanted to come up and tell you... that like... besides, like, welcome to the neighborhood and everything... that umm... we can hear like... everything in your apartment." She had this totally snooty, valley girl-esque way about her, had bleached her hair a few too many times, and I'm pretty sure she also had on leopard print ballet flats (not that there's anything wrong with that, because I kind of find them to be cute myself, just not on her.) So I said, "Oh my gosh, really? Like what?" She said, "Well, like... everything. I mean, like... we can hear you walking and stuff. I mean, it's like... so bad that I even went downstairs to our neighbors and asked if they could hear us, and they were like, 'yeah', and so now I like... just... tiptoe around my apartment all the time." And when she said "tiptoe" she actually acted it out like charades and showed me how she tiptoed around in her ballet flats. So, I said, "Oh, that must really suck. I'm sorry...but I mean, we have to walk around so.... " And then she said, "Well, I just wanted to let you know." And I was all, "Thanks." And, I never spoke to her again in the 10 months we lived there.

Anyway, that was the "Welcome to Portland" we received, and it totally sucked. After a few other tense encounters (a near fist-fight at the first movie we went to, and a napkin Nazi at a concession stand near the Seattle Locks) I was starting to think this place was full of nothing but a bunch of mean hippies. Oh boy, was I ever wrong.

We met our first neighbor before we even put an offer on our new house, who told us some of the horrible stories about the previous family who lived here. I won't get into all those details, but suffice it to say that there were several confrontations involving the Portland police, guns, jail, escaped juveniles, and a recycling bin full of forties of Olde E to prove it all. From that time until last week when we moved in, we had already met 7 houses of neighbors (they all came over and introduced themselves.) In fact, one of them even brought this beauty over as a gift for us:

Just to give you a frame of reference, I only knew 2 of my neighbors in Nashville and I lived that house for almost 6 years. Also during the 2 weeks we were refinishing floors and painting, etc, we borrowed a shop vac from our gay neighbor ("Bob"), a caulk gun, and a lawnmower. They even brought us each a plate of grilled delicacies, complete with sides (Greek salad, some sort of Moroccan rice with pine nuts and cranberries) and 2 Sierra Nevadas (Justyn's favorite beer). How awesome is that?! They all kept coming over and saying, "We're so glad you're here!" or "We're so excited to see activity over here!"

It all seems great so far, but for a guarded, private person like me, it also seems a little bit strange. You know what I mean? For example, one of our neighbors, "Mick," was saying to us (regarding the previous owners of our house), "Things really started getting bad, and Bob and I had just had enough. So, we made things very difficult for them." I sort of did a double-take, like, "Come again?" Like, seriously, what does that even mean? "We made things very difficult for them." Kinda creepy, right? But whatever, I shouldn't complain. I mean, they have all been nothing but nice to us, so I have nothing to worry about. ... Right?

So then yesterday morning, I walked out the front door and saw these:

Ahh... surely they don't know that tulips are my favorite... or do they?

Aren't they pretty? But I don't know who they're from. They're anonymous tulips.

I mean, maybe it's just another nice gesture. Or, maybe it's "Pleasantville code" for "Please mow your lawn and get rid of the box spring sitting in your backyard." (I'm not a redneck, it just won't fit up our stairwell and we haven't figured out what to do about it yet.) Either way, I guess I'll never know. But I'm thinking maybe I should bake them all some cookies, just to be on the safe side. Problem is, I don't have a "to die for" cookie recipe. And, I think that's what's in order here. I'll have to think on that for a bit... any ideas, let me know!

P.S. I don't know if you noticed, but I now have curtains in my dining room. That's one of many home improvements I've got to tell you about later.

P.P.S. Sorry about no Food Friday last week. I'm sure you can imagine things have been kinda crazy. But, there is a birthday cake waiting for you. And, I promise it'll be good.

When In Doubt, Clean It Again (With Bleach)

2009-04-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today we're going to play "What's under the 50 year-old contact paper?"

I'm sure someone thought this was awesome when they put it down in 1960something. Now? In 2009? Not so much.

When we move, getting the bedroom in order is always the number one priority. This way, we can have at least one room that isn't piled high with boxes. And, it's nice to wake up to some sense of normalcy before you open the door to chaos. And trust me, that's exactly what is on the other side of the door. Chaos.

Second on the list is the kitchen. You know I like to cook and bake, so getting things put away and usable is of the utmost importance. When I opened the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen, I saw what you see above: roses and bees, slightly rotten, with a touch of mold and just a pinch of foul-smell as a bonus. We did pay someone to come in and clean the place top to bottom last week, and it took her about 9 hours to do the whole place. (Because I will clean up after myself all day long, but refuse to clean up after other people, especially if I don't know them.) She was a hard worker, but I truly don't think anyone could have gotten this place completely spotless in that short amount of time. So, when I opened the drawers and found this, I was disappointed, as well as adamant that there was no way I was putting anything in there until I cleaned them again with some strong chemicals.

You may be thinking this is incongruous with other behavior you have seen from me. Just let me say this: for day to day maintenance and upkeep, I DO use environmentally friendly cleaning products. But for nastiness and crustiness, only the harsh stuff will do, especially when food is involved. I've tried the "green" stuff. It just can't do the job. So, we removed the contact paper and this is what we found:

Pink, yellow, and brown!

White! (sort of)

Pink and mint green!

Pink, white, and natural wood!

So we scrubbed and scrubbed, and scrubbed some more, and I still didn't feel quite confident enough to put my eating utensils in these. So, what did we do? We bought more contact paper! Because I'm anal, OCD, and a germaphobe. And, because I'm also just a little bit white trash, we got this:

The look of "natural" wood.

See? Much better.

No really, this is the most normal looking contact paper they had at Fred Meyer. I've only been to a Fred Meyer like twice since I've moved here (one of which was just yesterday). I thought it was like the "Wal-Mart" of the Pacific Northwest (because they don't seem to really have Wal-Marts here). I said that to someone, and they emphatically disagreed with me, that Fred Meyer is waaayyy better than Wal-Mart. So, now I don't know what to believe. I'm sure I'll find out, though, because there's one pretty close to our new house and it seems to be where all our neighbors go for stuff.

Anyway, after scrubbing, bleaching, and putting down new contact paper, I can confidently say my dishes are put away. There isn't quite room for everything yet, and there's no pantry so right now a lot of stuff is still in boxes. But we'll get there. I'm panicking a little bit, but we'll get there.

Moving In

2009-04-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

Alright, we're in! It was painful, but here we are. Our internet just got hooked up like an hour ago, and I'm excited to tell you what's been going on. I'm tired, so I'm not going to give you all the gory details just yet, but here are a few updates.

Painting? Yes, we painted some of the new place. Namely, all the trim (crown molding, baseboards, window trim, etc.) in the living room, dining room, and master bedroom. You want to see? Okay, here you go:

Sorry, it's the best I can do right now. I promise I'll put some pictures up, just as soon as I get all this sorted out and can actually walk into the living room to even take a freaking picture.

I mentioned that there were no outlets in the bathroom. Honestly, I don't understand how a family with 4 kids lived in this place. No outlets in the bathroom? Oh, and only one (yes, ONE) outlet in the kitchen. And, guess where it was:

Really? Really? Really? How am I supposed to use that? I can compromise, people, I really can. But you have to give me something to work with. I can just see myself wrangling with an extension cord all over this kitchen to try and cook one freaking meal. I think my rice cooker would fit really nicely over there on the floor, as well as the coffee maker and the toaster. I could just make that whole nook area "appliance land".

Sounds amusing for about 2 seconds (not really). So, we called an electrician to add some outlets (a.k.a. "receptacles" in electrician-speak) and to ground the fuse box because it's so freaking old and it's not grounded which is totally freaking scary. He did all this last week while we were painting, and then the city inspector came out today to approve the work that he did. Well, guess what? Umm...the electrician forgot to connect the new ground wire to the fuse box. He ran it all the way inside, and then just left it cut off. I don't know crap about electricity, but I do know that a ground needs to be connected to something. As a result, our house failed the inspection. So, the electrician has to come out and fix it, and then the city has to come inspect it again. Good times.

Oh, and check out my new stove:

Oh yeah, double oven baby!!! And, it was super cheap on Craigslist. What you're seeing is a vintage Kenmore, I think probably from the mid 60s. I was totally psyched to bring it home, but when we got it here and plugged it in, only the lights worked. No burners, neither oven. Luckily we asked the electrician when he was here...turns out it was just a fuse issue. Yes, it's so old it has fuses. Is it energy efficient? No. But is it totally awesome? Yes. I just used it for the first time to make my lunch (ramen). Am I in college again? No. But is all my food packed away in boxes? Yes. It cooked my ramen just fine, and I can't wait to make something even way better than that. I owe our neighbors some baked goodies because they brought us food when we were over here working until all hours trying to get this place move-in ready.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to lose a little weight and get in shape, here's a tip: refinish about 1000 square feet of hardwood floors, tape, prep, and paint some trim, and move yourself all in 2 weeks. Justyn and I have both lost about 10 pounds since we started all this. I probably didn't need to lose any, but I definitely feel stronger than I did a month ago, and that's a good thing.

That's all for now... I have to get some more boxes unpacked so Justyn doesn't think I've been sitting around blogging and eating ramen all day.

Food Friday: Vegetable Risotto

2009-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm on a rice kick, what can I say? Risotto is a great way to still get your rice fix, while still changing it up a bit. This is a super-great recipe to get a lot of veggies into your diet, and this makes a good main course without needing a lot of other bulk to make it feel substantial (a tough quality to find for those of us who don't eat much meat). It's a great dish for spring and summer when corn, zucchini, and peppers are in season. I think, technically, that this can't be called a "risotto". Those Italians are very picky about how risotto must be prepared, and I think for it to be called a real risotto, it has to be stirred clockwise like 400 times while constantly pouring in your stock, and maybe thrown in a dash of blood from your first-born child. But, who has that kind of time? This way only takes like 30 minutes and that's just fine with me.

You may notice the recipe below says to saute your veggies in water, not oil. This is an excellent tip for reducing fat in your diet. I do it all the time and it works great. I would recommend that you chop and add the basil immediately before serving, not sooner. And, let each person get their own. Fresh basil is good, but can be a bit overpowering if you're not used to eating a lot of it. This is a fairly easy preparation except for the chopping, which takes a little bit of time. But, get your wife or husband or roommate in there to help, and you'll knock it out in no time.

I don't know if you can tell, but this is one of many dishes I've made in my Le Creuset dutch oven!

Vegetable Risotto

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups vegetable broth (see my note from last week's post about veggie broth)
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup water
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cups broccoli florets
1 cup finely chopped zucchini
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
1 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
1 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste

1. Place the broth in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Sitr in the rice, reduce heat, and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the broth is absorbed, about 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, place the water in a large nonstick frying pan. Add all the vegetables, except the basil. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Combine the rice and vegetables. Stir in the basil Season with salt & pepper.

The Big Reveal

2009-04-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

After almost 120 hours of manual labor, 60+ gallons of sawdust, and lots of aches and pains, we have finally finished the floors of our new house! And the verdict is: I will never ever refinish my own floors again. It was definitely the most taxing physical work I've ever done. But, that being said, we actually had a pretty good time and it is one of the most rewarding things you can do to a house, I think. Each step is tedious, but you can see clear progress with each goal, and the finished product is so gratifying. It went pretty smoothly, except that I ran over the cord with the drum sander and ripped it down to the bare copper wire (oops), and at one point I forgot to empty the dust bag (the point of which I still don't really get, because it is SO dusty even with that attached). I was cruising along, sanding the floor, and it got so heavy it fell off and a ginormous cloud of dust exploded all over the room. Not fun.

To recap the steps for you, this is what we did in 5 rooms (1000 square feet), plus some of the stair landings: sand with 40 grit, edge with 40 grit, sweep, vacuum. Repeat with 40 grit again, because we're anal. Fill entire floor with wood filler (by hand, with a plastic trowel) to seal cracks, gouges, etc. Sand and edge with 60 grit, sweep, vacuum. Repeat with 60 grit again, because we're anal. Spot fill the floor with wood filler for any places you missed. Sand and edge with 100 grit, sweep, vacuum. Get a 1 1/2" paint scraper to scrape out the corners you couldn't get with the sanders, sand by hand with 100 grit. Buff with 120 grit, sweep, vacuum. Sweep & vacuum again, then wipe all surfaces (floors, walls, baseboards, windows) with a damp towel to remove ALL dust. Apply oil sealer to fir, water-based sealer to oak. Let dry overnight. Buff the fir with 120 grit, sweep, vacuum, wipe all surfaces again to remove dust. Apply first coat of water-based finish to all floors. Let dry overnight. Buff the oak with 120 grit, sweep, vacuum, wipe all surfaces again to remove dust. Apply 2nd coat of water-based finish to all floors. Walk away very, very slowly so as not to stir up any dust. I'm so not exaggerating, my friends. It was brutal. But check out how great they turned out!

Here's a reminder of what they used to look like:

The landing has been refinished, the stair treads are what the floors used to look like.

Here's an action shot of me applying the oil sealer to the fir floor in the master bedroom. You have to use an oil sealer for fir floors because the wood is softer and needs a little more protection. We used water-based on the oak (living room and dining room) because we like the look of it a little better, and it's not so fume-y.

I have intentionally refrained from commenting on the pink and green paint in this room. (Not to mention the mysterious sticky drips of unidentifiable liquid on the baseboards.) I don't want to talk about it, but it will be addressed. Trust me.

This is the finished master bedroom. It's not a great photo, but you can tell it looks better than it did.

Finished guest bedroom # 1 (notice, no more burn marks - yay!)

Finished guest bedroom # 2

Finished living room

Finished dining room

Another action shot of Justyn buffing the floors (after we applied the sealer). You can see how dusty it is... I couldn't keep the lens clean long enough to snap the shot.

So, I mentioned that Justyn has done a lot of construction, remodeling, etc. We were sitting around on one of the last days of this project and I said, "Honey, please tell me this is as hard as it gets." He was like, "Oh, yeah, this is definitely the hardest I've worked in a long time." And I was thinking, Whew, what a relief! Then he said, "I think hanging drywall might be harder, but luckily we don't have to do that." (Plaster, people. Our house was built in 1925.) Then there was a pause.... and he said, "Painting. Painting trim especially sucks, and is a lot of work, too."

Fabulous. That was next on the list, and we had about one day to rest before we had to start prepping for that project. I'm sorry, but I refuse to live in a place with mysterious crusties on door frames and baseboards. Also on the agenda before move-in: buy a stove, have the place professionally cleaned with the strongest chemicals ever made (I know, I know...I should be ashamed), and get an electrician out to remedy the fact that there are no outlets in the bathroom (among other electrical issues). More on these projects coming up, but right now I've gotta start packing!

Food Friday: Sesame-Ginger Rice

2009-04-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

I think I must've been Japanese in another life, because I seriously could eat rice for every meal. And, just plain old rice, too... no seasonings, flavors, or any special ingredients. Just rice and water. Up until about 6 months ago, I have been a die-hard white rice fan my whole life. Which is weird because I know it's not as good for you as brown rice. But, I've had brown rice at PF Chang's, and I don't like it. It's too.... chewy... or something.

The rice we usually eat at home is basmati. If you've never had basmati rice, I strongly recommend you investigate it further. It's super tasty, and has a nice subtle fragrance and flavor to it. It's mostly commonly used in Indian dishes, but don't be scared. It's still just white rice.

Anyway, considering how much rice we eat around here, I figured I should try and open up my mind and make the switch to brown. After all, every other grain I eat is brown (whole grain bread, I use whole wheat flour when I bake, etc.) Then I was roaming around New Seasons (the amazing local grocery store here in Portland), which I really love doing from time to time, and I saw in the bulk bins that they had brown basmati. Until this point I did not know such a thing existed, although if I had used my brain a little bit I probably could have deduced this possibility. Like I said, my brown rice experiences hadn't been good so far. So I bought some, and have been loving it ever since.

So, the recipe. Back in September I went home to Nashville for a visit, and to take care of my mom who had just had a bad car accident. Some of our really great friends had me over for dinner, and cooked this rice for me (using white rice). I loved loved loved it (like I said, I have a thing for rice) and asked her for the recipe. When I got back to Portland and bought the brown basmati rice I figured this recipe would be a great way to break me into the texture. I knew I liked the rice, so hopefully it would help me get over the texture thing.

Bottom line, this is SO unbelievably good. The sesame and ginger flavors aren't overpowering, and you can serve this as a side to almost any main course. It adds a really nice bulk to an otherwise exclusive meal of veggies, which is an important quality to me for obvious reasons. Try it with brown rice, pleeeaaassse? I promise you won't even tell the difference. (FYI, I've fully converted to a brown rice eater, and am now happy to eat just plain ol' brown rice instead of plain ol' white rice. And trust me, that's saying something.) The other great thing about this recipe is that I almost always have everything on hand already. So, it's a nice recipe to throw down at the last minute (minus cooking time, of course) if you don't have time to go to the store.

A couple of recipe notes: I use toasted sesame seeds and Imagine brand "No-Chicken" Broth. If you're going to use veggie broth instead of chicken, then I strongly suggest you get this kind. It's the best veggie broth I've found that doesn't taste like... well.... vegetables. Don't get me wrong, I like the taste of vegetables and all, but sometimes I don't want all my dishes to taste like vegetable soup. Anyway, this is a fantastic chicken broth substitute. If you're sensitive to salt, you might find this dish a bit salty (it depends somewhat on the brand of broth you use, I think), so cut back on the salt measurement if you're not sure. You can always add it later.

Another bonus: Brown rice is lower on the glycemic index than white rice, which is a good thing. The only down side to eating brown rice is that it takes longer to cook. Brown rice still has the germ and inner husk so it takes longer for the water to soak through (they remove this to make white rice). Or you can pre-soak your rice and it will cook the same as white. But, I always thought that was kind of stupid. I mean, it's not like it really saves you any time because you still have to invest the same amount of minutes, plus another step. But anyway, I digress. Here's the recipe. Make it.

Sesame-Ginger Rice
adapted slightly from Southern Living
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup uncooked long-grain rice (brown basmati, people!)
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth (see note above)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

Garnish:
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or cilantro (I use this if I have it on hand, but sometimes make it without. It's not critical to the recipe, in my opinion.)
Fresh lime wedges (again, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't)

Preparation:
1. Melt butter in a 3 1/2-qt. saucepan oer medium-high heat. Stir in rice, and saute 2 minutes or until rice turns opaque. Stir in sesame seeds. Add broth, salt, ginger, and pepper; bring to a boil.
2. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook mixture 20 to 25 minutes (40 to 45 for brown rice) or until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender; fluff with a fork. Garnish, if desired.

Daniel-san, Show me 'Sand the Floor'.

2009-04-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

I casually mentioned on Friday that we were planning to refinish the hardwood floors in our new house this weekend. We had high hopes to finish it all up in one weekend, but now we realize that's crazy. It's a looong, complicated process: Sand with 40 grit, edge with 40 grit, sand with 60 grit, edge with 60 grit, sand with 100 grit, edge with 100 grit, buff with 120 grit... and that's as far as we got. Now we have to clean up all the dust, seal them, let them dry, put one coat of finish on, buff again, clean up the dust from the buffing, and put one more coat of finish on. Why, on earth we thought we could finish all this in one weekend is beyond me.

You see, we had someone come out and look at the floors to give us an estimate on refinishing. They said, "These are in such bad condition, they really aren't worth refinishing... you should just have them replaced." Too bad replacing them would have cost $15,000. Sorry, floor people. We don't have that kind of cash sitting around without a name on it. Anyway, these people also offer classes on how to refinish your own floors, which Justyn and I both attended a couple of weeks ago. It was really great, because they let you use the drum sander and edger to get a feel for what they're like, and you can practice on some floor samples they have. Anyway, if you're going to refinish your own floors, I'd recommend finding a class like that and taking it. It was $40 but totally worth it.

Part of the reason we didn't finish in one weekend (but not the only, let me assure you) is that our floors were NASTY. After we did the 40 grit, there was still some of the old finish showing, some weird stains and streaking, etc. So, we did the 40 again. And then after the 60... same thing. So we did the 60 again. We're overacheivers, Justyn and I. When we took our class and they were listing the steps, they said "DO NOT SKIP STEPS!!" Because, really after the first round of sanding, your floors already look a lot better, and it is tempting to just be like, "Eh, that's good enough." But noooo... not us. We add steps because we're just like that.

Anyway, like I said, we're totally not done yet, but I wanted to give you an update and show you some 'before' and 'during' photos.

Living room before sanding

Living room after sanding

Dining room before sanding

Dining room before sanding

Dining room after sanding

Master bedroom before sanding

Master bedroom before sanding

Master bedroom after sanding

Guest room 1 before sanding

Guest bedroom 1 before sanding (note the big black burn marks)

Guest bedroom 1 after sanding

Guest bedroom 2 before sanding

Guest bedroom 2 after sanding

That's it for now... gotta go start sealing these bad boys. More pictures later this week.

Food Friday: Raspberries & Oranges

2009-04-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

Today's post is going to be short and sweet, because I have to get to work and then start this weekend's daunting job of refinishing 1000 square feet of sadly distressed hardwood floors in our new house. It should be interesting, because Justyn has a ton of experience with tasks like these, and I have zilch. By the way, sorry for the crappy pictures today. I don't know what my problem was when I took these, but you'll get the general idea anyway.

This is a made-up concoction... one of my many attempts to creatively use leftover food before it goes bad. You see, I had some leftover raspberries that were so good, and some mandarin oranges I had used for a salad. I also needed to find a home for about half of a small carton of whipping cream from something else. I don't use heavy cream very much, so when I buy it, I like to get my money's (and fat/calorie's worth).

So, I just plopped my fruit in little mini-bowls, topped it with the whipped cream, and voila! Easy, fresh dessert. My favorite. Plus it only took me like 5 minutes which is also awesome. A couple of tips: when I whipped up the cream, I added sugar (of course), a splash of vanilla, and some lemon juice. Mmm!

You may notice that my whipped cream is a little lifeless. After my last experience with it, I think maybe this time I didn't whip it quite long enough. But whatever. It was still tasty.

Spring Cherry Blossoms

2009-04-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

I told you I would find some.

Hello gorgeous.

Nice to see you.

I've been looking everywhere for you.

Reunited, and it feels so good...

But oh, wait one second. This one seems to be having problems:

What is it with me and dead cherry trees? It's okay, though. I love you anyway.

I love you, too.

Don't stay away so long next time.

Disappointment

2009-04-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time choosing the title of this post. On one hand, I could be a "glass half full" kind of gal and call it "The Promise of Spring". Or I could go the other way and call it "The Early Bird Gets Nothing". While I did decide to go with the down-side for the overall post, don't worry. It's not all bad.

I'm referring to the First Hike of the Season, a.k.a. Cherry Orchard Trail. I read about the hike in this month's issue of Portland Monthly (an excellent resource if you've just moved here... I highly recommend it). It sounded perfect: sweeping views of the Columbia River Gorge, ponds swarming with butterflies, a wind-swept meadow and blossoming cherry trees. Pair that, with the fact that it was sunny and 75 degrees this weekend, and I mean, come on! Who could pass that up? Not me, that's for sure.

A little background: we signed all the papers for our house on Friday (yay!) but I guess here in Oregon that doesn't count as a "closing" so we didn't get the keys. I, personally, was glad because I knew the weather was supposed to be nice and I didn't want to be stuck inside doing a bunch of chores the whole weekend. Plus, the cherry blossoms in the city are at their peak, and I just knew it would be a perfect time to start our hiking season. Nevermind the fact that this hike was 4.5 miles out and back, and there was an elevation gain of 1500 feet in the first 2 miles. And nevermind that the last hike we went on was around Thanksgiving. I knew it would be tough, but I also knew that it would be totally worth it once we got to the top.

It's not a super-popular trail, which was good because it was so amazingly beautiful that I'm sure it would've been very crowded if it were more well-known. The way up was extremely steep, and parts of it were covered with scree and gravel, making it pretty tough to get your footing. Plus the trail goes right along the edge of the cliff in some places, and for someone who hasn't been hiking in 4 months, it's pretty scary. By that time you're gaining elevation pretty quickly, and I tend to look at my feet a lot (for obvious reasons) so when you look up it's easy to get a little vertigo. I got dizzy a couple of times, and almost lost my balance once (at this stage we discussed turning back, because nothing is worth Stephanie falling off the edge of a cliff into the Columbia River Gorge, cherry orchard or not.) It was also pretty windy, and you know that I have trouble with this, so I stuffed some tissue in my ears (a trick I learned at an Alice in Chains concert) and I was good to go.

After you go through a series of switchbacks, the trail starts to level out and goes through a whole bunch of scraggly looking trees:

Once we got to this part, the rest of the trail was pretty easy... still some up and down, but nothing like the first mile and a half or so. The article I'd read said, "At approximately 1.5 miles, you'll see a pond known for attracting swarms of fluttering butterflies." Another website had touted the pond as "a small, seasonal pond that's just packed with butterflies in the early spring". Well, we found it:

No butterflies in sight. Hmph. Disappointment # 1. But, by then we were through the hard part and only had another 3/4 mile to go. Plus we were hungry and anxious to eat our avocado, tomato, spinach & cucumber sandwiches. Mmm. At the end of the road we came to the meadow, which was pretty neat. It had beautiful views of the river, so we sat and had our lunch.

Oh, Where's the cherry orchard, you ask? That's an excellent question, and one I'd love to know the answer to. We didn't see any stinking cherry trees. The article said, "The few remaining trees, which sprout snow-white blossoms each April, line the eastern edge of the meadow." But we didn't see any. Not even one. And, apparently (after doing some more research this morning) there is only one. Another source says, "Once upon a time, the Lyle cherry orchard was just that. But when farmers stopped irrigating, the orchard died—save for one tree, whose survival no one can fully explain. Look for the cherry tree on the eastern edge." My only guess is that maybe it died? Disappointment #2, not to mention quite a tragedy, if it did, in fact, die.

But on the way back, we did see more signs of spring (aside from the gorgeous weather.)

Spring blooms just waking up.

But don't get me wrong... it was totally worth it. No pain, no gain. I mean, where else can you get a view like this, and all from your own leg work?

I'm extremely sore today, but I feel great. All in all, I still think it was a perfect way to start off Spring, regardless of the disappointment. I can't wait to get some more hikes under my belt and share them with you!

And, P.S. I'm going to find some damn cherry blossoms if it kills me. Pictures to come.

Food Friday: Asian Coleslaw with Peanut Sauce

2009-04-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

I hate coleslaw. I can't stand the weird flavor of it, and I absolutely hate mayonnaise so I've never been a big fan. Plus, coleslaw reminds me of summer family reunion barbecues where it was so swelteringly hot that I felt like I was going to have a heat stroke at any moment (it was the south, after all). In addition, over the last year I've developed some wacky allergy to raw carrots, and since most coleslaw has shredded carrots in it, it's a no-go for me.

As a result of this aversion to coleslaw, anytime I see a recipe for it I skip right past without even looking at the ingredients. So you may find it surprising that I actually sought out this recipe. You see, I had a whole bunch of cabbage leftover from another recipe that I desperately needed to use (what that original recipe was, I cannot remember). I don't like to waste food, especially produce that I have hand-picked and someone has worked hard to grow for my enjoyment.

Anyway, I went to my old stand-by, Allrecipes, to do an ingredient search for cabbage. And, of course, a ton of coleslaw recipes came up. Of course, I didn't even think of coleslaw because I hated it, and started skipping by all those to try and find something a little more creative. Then I came across this recipe for Asian Coleslaw and said to myself, I don't think Asians use mayonnaise so maybe this'll be okay. When I read through the recipe and saw it was a peanut-based sauce, I knew I was in business.

Just a couple of nutritional notes: the red cabbage in this is an excellent source of vitamin C (85% of your DV in only 1 cup), and a pretty good source of vitamin A (20% DV in 1 cup). Bok choy and Napa cabbage are also very high in vitamin A (bok choy contains 60% of your DV) and both are still pretty good sources of vitamin C, though not as much as red. All cabbages are a good source of dietary fiber as well as B1, B2, B3, iron, potassium and calcium. And, of course, raw is best. A lot of nutrients are lost when food is cooked. (Not that you would eat cooked coleslaw, but I just wanted to make the point.)

I altered the recipe quite a bit based on what I had on hand, and it turned out really well. I'll definitely make this again, though I think I might cut back on the ginger in the dressing. It was a tad bit strong for my taste. Also, I had no trouble finding Napa cabbage at my grocery store. But if you can't find it, you can use pretty much any cabbage in this. Just slather some peanut sauce on it and you'll forget what the heck kind of cabbage it is anyway. Mmm!

Oh, and this does make quite a bit, so if you're just cooking for one or two I would recommend halving this recipe.

Asian Coleslaw with Peanut Sauce
INGREDIENTS

Peanut Sauce:
6 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 tablespoons creamy peanut butter (I used natural PB with no sugar and it was tasty)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root (I would start with 1 tablespoon, then taste and adjust if you want more)
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic

Slaw:
4 cups thinly sliced Chinese cabbage (Napa)
3 cups thinly sliced red cabbage
2 cups thinly sliced bok choy

*You can add green cabbage, carrots, cilantro, red bell pepper, or whatever else you like to mix things up.

DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the rice vinegar, oil, peanut butter, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic.

2. In a large bowl, mix the cabbage and bok choy. Toss with the peanut butter mixture just before serving.

Jobs and Houses

2009-03-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've been a bad blogger lately. I realize this, and I'm sorry. I generally try to post a couple of times a week (some food and some non-food posts for a good variety) and I haven't been keeping up on that. In fact, I missed a Food Friday a couple of weeks ago and I just quietly let it pass. And while I appreciate that no one threw me under the bus and called me out on it, your silence has been killing me. Adding to that, I just sort of feel like I've lost my sense of humor lately. I've never considered myself a "funny" person at all, but I have been feeling especially boring the last few weeks. As a result, I think I have some approach avoidance with writing posts, fearing they won't be any good.

But I have excuses! My excuses lead me to another apology, though... from the beginning I have tried to be open and honest with you about my life's dilemmas (i.e. no job, apartment living, missing friends, etc.) but not so forthcoming with updates on those dilemmas. So here goes... I'm ready to fill you in on what's been happening the last couple of months.

First and foremost, I got a job!! I've been there almost a month. I know, I know... I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I made such a big deal about not having a job, that I at least owed you that much. I actually had been volunteering there since September, so when they realized they needed to hire someone, I already had a foot in the door. The bad news is that it's only part time, but the good news is that I absolutely love it, and it could easily grow into a full time position. It's just exactly the kind of fulfilling work I was looking for. I get to work with kids, teachers and community leaders, and really make a difference in peoples' lives. It's amazing what a difference a new career path can make, and I truly think that this is the kind of work I was meant to do. I'm sure I still have a lot of growing pains to go through, since this is my first time working for a non-profit, but I am really looking forward to it. Plus, I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten a job in this shitty economy. (P.S. - Thank you, New York Times, for making an already horribly depressed city feel even worse.)

Okay, next up: Justyn and I bought a house! We started "casually" looking at houses (if there is such a thing) in early January. I'm pretty sure we saw close to 30 houses before we decided it just wasn't quite time yet. We literally told our realtor one evening, "Well, we think we've seen most of what's out there so far, so let's take a little break and just let us know if anything interesting comes on the market." No kidding, the next day she sent us a new listing in a fabulous neighborhood that had just been repossessed by the bank. (By the way, buying a house from a bank is a whole new ballgame... maybe I"ll tell you about it sometime.) We went to see it the next day, and it was completely trashed. I guess the people who had been there before left in a hurry, so there was still a bunch of stuff all over the house - mattresses, kid's toys, trash, food, you name it. I guess they were sorta mad, too, when they left because the front door was kicked in, and a couple of windows were broken. But, it was really inexpensive for the area and Justyn and I are good at looking past the surface and seeing the potential of a place. It has a ton of potential and even while we were there, people were sort of flocking to it to check it out.

We knew there would be a lot of interest, so we rushed to get a home inspection and put an offer in the very next day (2 days after it went on the market - the sign wasn't even in the yard yet!) Ours was the first offer in (yay!) and they tell us there are about 15 other people waiting in line just in case our deal falls through. Yikes... talk about pressure. Anyway, I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing. Underneath all the trash it looks a lot better, but some things must be done before we move in. Justyn's step-dad is a builder and their house was always under construction when he was growing up. Me? Not so much. For example, when our linoleum kitchen floor started looking too rough, my dad brought home a bunch of carpet tiles from his office to cover it up. So, the whole remodeling/renovating thing is pretty new to me, aside from the disastrous bathroom remodel at our other house (yes, the one we still own). One day I'll tell you about that, but not now. I have to been in the mood to get pissed off all over again, and now is not that time.

Anyway, while I am nervous about it, and dreading packing and moving all over again, I am excited too. It is such a great house, and a place I can see us living for a really really long time. It's big enough for us to grow into, and the neighbors we have met so far are totally awesome. They appear to be mostly young, successful couples and there is a really great neighborhood atmosphere. They already told us they all have drinks together once a week, each time at a different house. Isn't that cute??

I have been saying for months that if I could just find a job, I could honestly say that I liked it here in Portland. Then, when that happened, I still didn't feel quite settled. I don't think you can feel settled when you're renting a place... at least not when you know what it feels like to own, you know? So, the house comes at a good time. Hopefully we'll be able to get most of the work done quickly so we can actually relax a bit when we get there. We don't have our closing date yet, but I think it will be within another week or so. After that, we have to sand and refinish all the hardwood floors, paint, and be out of our apartment all within 2 weeks. So I'll do my best to keep up on the posts while all this is going on! I'm sure I'll be talking more about our remodeling adventures as things progress, but first we have to pack and move.

And, trust me... we're doing it ourselves this time.

Food Friday: Breakfast Banana Split

2009-03-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

I've never been really big on breakfast. I tend to sleep as late as possible, thus my breakfast routine is usually rushed and made up of "grab-n-go" food. If I do have time to make breakfast, it's usually cereal, an english muffin, or instant oatmeal. As a result of this limited repertoire, I get tired of my breakfast options all the time. The problem is that I cannot skip breakfast. If I do, I'm a cranky mess by 10:00 AM.

I also have a mean sweet tooth (in case you couldn't tell already), and up until a few months ago I preferred a sweet breakfast rather than a savory one. Justyn always wants spinach and feta omelets for breakfast, and I can't resist some french toast and/or pancakes. Mmm. But these sweet options aren't so healthy, and don't really go well with the whole "getting healthy and eating fresh food" thing I've got going on. So, I've been taking a break from sweet starts in the morning, opting for eggs, breakfast burritos, etc.). So naturally, when I saw this recipe for a Breakfast Banana Split I had to try it.

It can take a little extra time to prepare, but is so worth the extra 5-10 minutes. If you wash your blueberries and wash/chop your strawberries the night before, all you really have to deal with is slicing the banana which takes no time at all. This is such a great breakfast, and a wonderful way to get some calcium and fresh fruit first thing in the morning. Do it! I, personally, can't wait until summer when these particular fruits reach their peak season. Oh my gosh. It will be heavenly.

One small note about the kind of yogurt to use: I would recommend a slightly flavored yogurt, like vanilla or honey (The Greek Gods brand has a fabulously delicious honey yogurt, and their vanilla isn't bad either) and of course go with non-fat if you can. Anything super-flavorful like strawberry, cherry, blueberry, etc. will compete too much with wonderfulness of the fresh fruit. Avoid anything that has a lot of extra sugar added, too. Remember you're getting quite a bit of sugar in this dish anyway (the fructose from the fruit).

Breakfast Banana Split

Ingredients:
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup puffed wheat cereal
1/2 cup puffed rice cereal
4 oz container of lightly flavored yogurt
1/4 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup sliced fresh strawberries

Directions:
Place the yogurt in a cereal bowl, and smooth it all over the bottom. Place the sliced bananas around the edge of the yogurt. Sprinkle the cereal over the yogurt, then top that with the strawberries and blueberries. (You really can do this however you want...this is just how I do it.)

License to Fill

2009-03-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

I can't pump my own gas anymore. Why not, you ask? Because it's against the law, that's why.

Oregon and New Jersey are the only two states in the country where you can't pump your own gas. New Jersey started this practice in 1949, and they keep it in place for two reasons: safety and jobs. Oregon, on the other hand, lists a whopping seventeen reasons for the ban. Included in these reasons are that the fumes are toxic, the risk of crime when customers leave their vehicle, as well as safety (flammability) and jobs. Apparently, Oregon citizens like the ban, because it came up on the ballot in 1982 to reverse it and allow self-service. It didn't pass. Incidentally, you CAN pump your own gas if you own a motorcycle, or if your car runs on diesel fuel. Apparently diesel isn't quite as flammable as regular gasoline, so it's okay. But considering the other 16 reasons still apply, I'm thinking things aren't making much sense anymore. I mean, you're still leaving your vehicle and breathing in the fumes...

Anyway, when we moved out here, we did not know about this law. So we were driving across I-84 and somewhere in eastern Oregon we needed gas. So we stopped, got out of the car, and proceeded to pump the gas. This guy came running out in his little orange vest, yelling, "Excuse me, Sir??? Excuse me!!!" We were like, "WTF is this guy's problem?" and looking around to see if something was on fire. It was far enough inside the Oregon border that he probably wasn't used to people not knowing the law, and he was not amused. This is serious business, apparently, and you can be fined up to $500 bucks if you get caught. And of course, now, when we go through Washington, we forget and then end up sitting our car at the pump for a while until we remember where we are.

Some people in Oregon are really upset about this law, like this guy who comments, "in Oregon, the legislators think you ought to be able to kill yourself, but not pump your own gas." (For those of you who don't know, assisted suicide is legal in Oregon.) I, on the other hand, don't really care all that much. I think it's kind of nice to have someone pump your gas for you, and you don't even have to get out of the car. I don't even have to turn my car off, actually, because it's a hybrid and the engine cuts off when it's in park anyway. It's especially nice when it's really cold out, or raining, though it hasn't been doing much of that anyway.

Only one time have I actually been frustrated at the gas station, because there were tons of cars waiting and only 2 attendants. I was in a hurry, and they were slow. But, being frustrated one time in over 9 months isn't too bad. So, I'm happy. I get a free service that I don't have to tip for, and I'd rather not be breathing in the fumes anyway. Plus, with the unemployment rate in Oregon now up to 10.8%, I think it's great that those people have jobs. So, more power to 'em. (Although I do watch them in my side mirror to make sure they pick the right fuel grade and they don't copy my credit card number.)

Food Friday: Sautéed Plantains

2009-03-13T16:45:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, please allow me to introduce you to... the plantain:

Looks kind of like a green banana, yes? Well, it is sort of like a banana, but a heck of a lot bigger (I know, I should have added a quarter or something to the picture so you'd have a size reference.) This one I bought was probably about 12-13 inches long. Plantains are often eaten more as a vegetable than a fruit. They're not sweet at all, unless you let them get really over-ripe, like almost black. You usually buy them when they're really green (like the picture above) and you can do different things with them at different stages of ripeness.

For example, you can eat them when they're still green like this, but they absolutely have to be cooked. At this stage (green to greenish-yellow), people often cook them more like a potato. They're pretty bland, but starchy, and must be cooked before eating. As it ripens, it will turn from green to yellow, and then from yellow to brown or black. The only time you can eat a plantain without cooking it, is if it's black. For this recipe, you want it sort of in the middle stages of ripening, like this:

See? mostly yellow but starting to get a few black spots. The peel of a plantain is really thick, much thicker than a banana, and they're not quite as easy to peel. (Mine came of more in pieces, than long strips like a banana.) The inside smells a lot like a banana, but don't be fooled. It's still not sweet!

I wasn't so sure how I was going to like these, to be honest. I have only had plantains once before, when Justyn and I went to Costa Rica, and I didn't really remember them too much. (Which I figured was good... if I hated them then I would certainly remember that!) So I was browsing the produce section one day and saw these and figured I'd give it a shot. (This is what I have started doing... going to the store with no real plan, and just buying what looks fresh and good. It's a great way to learn about new fruits and veggies!) Anyway, like I said, I was a little nervous about how these were going to turn out, especially because they look and smell so much like a banana. But I was so pleasantly surprised! They were very tasty and super quick to make. So tasty, in fact (and easy!) that we are definitely keeping this one in the arsenal. It makes a great side dish for anything Mexican, South American, or Caribbean. Plus plantains are an excellent source of potassium, vitamins A & C, a good source of vitamin B6, they're high in dietary fiber, and an energy booster. Yum!

Sautéed Ripe Plantains (Plátanos Maduros)

from The New York Times, by Mark Bittman

3 or 4 yellow-black or black plantains, peeled (I just used one big one, and it was plenty for 2 people)
Neutral oil, like grapeseed, corn or canola, as needed
Salt and pepper to taste
Lime wedges (I used lemon)

Instructions:
1. Cut plantains into 1-inch pieces. Film bottom of a large skillet with oil and place over medium heat; a minute later, add plantains.

2. Cook, turning as necessary and adjusting heat so plantains brown slowly without burning, 10 to 15 minutes. Serve hot and crispy, sprinkled with salt, pepper and lime juice.