Old Dog...New Tricks

End of One Local Summer Challenge

2009-09-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Well, Becke said last week she was hoping we'd go out with a bang since this has been the last week of the One Local Summer Challenge. And I'm going to have to let her down. No big production this week - just a lot of good local produce and simple meals. We had a quiche with local eggs, mushrooms from the farmer's market and cherry tomatoes from our yard. One night we had a beautiful fruit salad - all from our CSA and other stands at the farm market. Tomatoes on sandwiches, tomatoes in salads, tomatoes in gratin and sometimes... just plain sliced tomatoes. Big red ones, dark colored Black Russians in large and small sizes, pear-shaped little reds. And they are cooperatively getting ripe in the garden a few at a time. So we eat a few one day, by the next evening more are ripe.

Last night was one of our simple, but all local and very delicious dinners. Aileen and one of her college buddies joined us. We each had an ear of corn (from the farmer's market) with a very lovely gratin made with zucchini and tomatoes (both from the garden). Then, having had a fairly light dinner, we enjoyed a raspberry (backyard frozen earlier) and peach (farm market) crisp. Aileen happened to have brought a pint of "Ginger Dream" ice cream made by one of her neighbors last week which went extremely well with the crisp.

The recipe for this gratin was in "the Oregonian" last week. Needless to say - a recipe using summer squash and tomatoes, both making big appearances in our garden - I cut it out immediately. Here's a link to the recipe and a photo:
Zucchini and Summer Squash Gratin with Parmesan and Fresh Thyme

The picture was taken shortly after I started cooking it. And, then, when it was done, I forgot to take an "after" picture. But, this gives an idea of what it looked like.

So, local eating will continue here since we are now in the season where the choices are plentiful and will be for a while into the early fall. But the crushing pressure of producing a report every week will be lifted. Whew!!

One Local Summer

2009-08-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

I went looking for something new and different to do with sole this evening and found something on Epicurious that included a few other things I wanted to use and was written by Jamie Oliver, a favorite of Jeff's. I varied the recipe quite a bit and, fortunately, it still turned out to be wonderful. The green beans were steamed just plain and the potatoes were roasted.

So, here is the rundown on this meal for my One Local Summer report:
tomatoes, swiss chard, basil - our garden
other tomatoes, green beans, new potatoes, garlic - our CSA and the farmer's market
dover sole - caught in Oregon
white wine - not local

Here's the recipe from Epicurious. I'll describe my variations at the end.

Pan-Baked Lemon Sole with Spinach, Olives, and Tomatoes by Jamie Oliver

Adapted from Happy Days with the Naked Chef

2 garlic cloves, sliced
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup Chardonnay or other dry white wine
1 (28- or 32-oz) can whole tomatoes in juice
Fine sea salt to taste
1/2 cup brine-cured black olives (3 oz), pitted
1/4 cup packed fresh basil leaves
1 flat anchovy fillet
4 (7-oz) lemon sole fillets
5 oz baby spinach

Make sauce:
Cook garlic in 2 tablespoons oil in a 2-quart flameproof gratin dish over moderate heat (on stovetop), stirring until softened (but with no change in color), 1 to 2 minutes. Add wine and boil until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes with juice, breaking them up with a spoon, and gently simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 20 minutes. Add sea salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat.

Prepare fish while sauce simmers:
Preheat oven to 400°F.

Pulse olives, basil, and anchovy to a coarse paste in a food processor (or finely chop with a knife). Add 2 tablespoons oil and pulse to combine.

Lay fish fillets, skinned sides down, on a work surface and season with pepper. Divide olive paste among fillets and spread evenly. Beginning at narrow end, roll up each fillet.

Bake fish:
Arrange fish rolls, seam sides down, on tomato sauce in gratin dish. Drizzle with remaining tablespoon oil and bake, uncovered, in middle of oven, until fish is just cooked through, about 15 minutes.

Transfer fish to 4 heated plates. Heat tomato sauce in gratin dish over moderate heat (on stovetop), then add spinach and cook, stirring, until wilted, about 1 minute. Spoon sauce with spinach alongside fish.

My variations:

I had about 1/4 the amount of fish, but made 1/2 the amount of the sauce and was glad I did - would have been happy to have even more of the sauce. And these were dover sole - have to admit I don't know anything about lemon sole.

Used fresh tomatoes instead of canned, added a little extra water and a little extra wine.

Don't like olives and didn't have an anchovy fillet. So, the sole was wrapped up only with chopped basil with a tiny bit of olive oil.

We had a lot of chard in the garden, so I used that in place of the spinach - chopped it up to be about the same size as baby spinach leaves.

Roasted Ratatouille - One Local Summer

2009-08-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

It being zucchini season, among other things, we are in that perennial hunt for "what is one more way we can use zucchini?" One of my favorites is ratatouille and we'd had it a couple weeks ago. But, I had found a slight variation in the Moosewood "Simple Suppers" cookbook recently. They suggest roasting the vegetables instead of cooking them on the stovetop. So, that's what I tried Sunday evening. It's the usual assortment of late summer vegetables, with some olive oil and salt and pepper - but roasted in the oven for close to an hour at 450. When serving, a bit of chopped fresh basil is added. It was delicious, sweet and rich tasting as is often the case with roasted vegetables. We had the ratatouille with a small London Broil steak cooked on the grill and a piece of wheat nut bread, with whole wheat, walnut chunks, flax and millet - from New Seasons' bakery.

zucchini, tomatoes, basil - our garden
eggplant, peppers, onions - Deep Roots Farm, our CSA
steak - New Seasons Pacific Village beef

The ratatouille - Before....

during.... (stir periodically during the roasting)

and after

First Tomatoes out of the Garden - OLS Week 9

2009-07-31T22:52:00.001-07:00

Hot, hot, hot here in Portland. Whew, we're just not used to this. We generally wilt when it gets to 100, never mind 106! I've never been good in the heat and that certainly hasn't changed. So, cooking meals is just not an option. What is an option is eating out at restaurants with AC and eating simple meals that can be prepared with chopping and assembling. On our worst three days this past week, we had two salads here and one at one of those restaurants.

The best was last night's caprese salad. I have to say it was nothing unique or unusual. But, all I need to say is that the tomatoes came right out of the garden and onto the plate. It just doesn't get much better than that. They were still warm from the sunshine and so delicious. With the salad, we had bread with pesto. I did actually heat up the broiler and put in the pesto bread with a little cheese for a few minutes. All done quickly enough not to heat up the kitchen.

So, here's the local food rundown:
tomatoes - first of the season from our garden
mozzarella - have to admit I don't remember where it came from
basil - also fresh out of the backyard
olive oil - brought from Italy by our friends the Dawsons
white balsamic vinegar - I got it in San Francisco on our last trip
ciabatta bread - from the bakery down the street, Grand Central
pesto - made last week using our garden basil
cheese - Tillamook white cheddar

And, lastly, because Patty requested more puppy photos, here's one of Lucy. She's growing like crazy. Still pretty shy, but making slow progress on that front.

100

Fresh Crab and Zucchini from the Garden - OLS Week 8

2009-07-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

We are escaping a small portion of the heat wave in Portland by spending a few days at the coast. Alas, we have to return on Tuesday morning and I believe that Tuesday and Wednesday are predicted to be the worst days - somewhere in the vicinity of 102 degrees. But, at least we will have missed the high 90's days leading up to that. It's lovely here in Manzanita.

I headed to the Little Apple grocery store to look for some fish for dinner. They're pretty good about getting in a variety of whatever is in seasons and caught nearby. There was a sign on the door that said: "Crab Today". No further persuasion needed for me - we both love fresh crab. This was caught near Astoria and I brought home one nice sized crab for us to share. I basically did nothing other than clean it and melt some butter, an obvious additional benefit to eating crab - no cooking!

Ordinarily, we have a green salad and some sourdough bread with fresh crab. But, for this dinner, I did something different because of what we have and what was available. Our lettuce didn't fare so well with our three weeks away. So, Grady pulled up most of what was left and planted new starts. While we're waiting for those to be ready for harvesting, the zucchini in our garden has gotten itself ready. So, I had brought down a yellow zucchini when we came to the beach. Recently, we've sauteed and grilled it, so I decided to make a stuffed zucchini tonight. I carved out the center of each half of the squash. I sauteed the zucchini that was cut out, some mushrooms, part of a carrot and some green onions in butter and white wine. Then I added crumbs of some Grand Central Bakery bread and a little shredded white cheddar cheese. Put all this back into the carved out zucchini and baked them for about half an hour at 350 degrees. There was a fair amount of extra stuffing, which I baked at the same time.

Before baking....

...and after

I looked for some herbs to add to the stuffing, but couldn't find anything that seemed appropriate in spite of this selection:

Since we loan out the house to other friends and family, we end up with a random accumulation of spices and herbs - not necessarily what I need at any given moment. But, it's always a challenge to see if I can use up any of this stuff!

So, here's the local wrap up for this meal:
Crab - caught near Astoria miles north up the coast
Zucchini - our garden
Green onions and carrot - Deep Roots Farm, our CSA
mushrooms - probably not at all local (but I really wanted mushrooms in this stuffing)
cheese - Tillamook Aged White Cheddar (Tillamook is about 30 miles south of here)
bread crumbs - Grand Central Bakery bread brought from Portland
Sauvignon Blanc- from New Zealand (could probably have found something that was made closer, but we had this on hand in the cupboard here)

PS: In reading one of the comments about this meal, I realized that I was a bit careless in the use of the term "fresh". In fact, most of the time when we buy crab at a fish market or grocery store, at least around here, the crabs have been previously cooked - usually steamed or boiled. So, in fact, they are cooked when we get them. But, I think of them as fresh because they came in that day from where they'd been caught and because I don't have to cook them myself.

Eatling Local in Bergen, Norway

2009-07-19T20:36:00.001-07:00

"Pingvinen", the restaurant Aileen originally chose for her 30th birthday dinner ( by reading about it in a guide)- not knowing that pingvinen is Norwegian for penguin*. We had to come back a different day because they were full up on June 17. But, she chose it because she'd read that they specialize in traditional Norwegian fare. This food may actually qualify more as "traditional" than truly "local" to the Bergen area. But, I promised a post on local eating from our trip and this is probably going to be the best I can muster up.

We all agreed that the best approach at this restaurant was to order five different entrees for the 6 of us (as Karen was sick this particular evening) and share them around. This way, we all got to try each thing.

Dried salted cod ( similar to Bacalhau in Portuguese cuisine)

Fish Souffle

Whale

Tuskfish

We also had a dish with meatballs, but I don't seem to have come home with a photograph of the meatballs. Overall, the food was quite delicious. A few (well, specifically the whale) unusual enough to qualify more as "interesting" than "good" tasting, in my opinion. But, the vegetables served with these items were all nicely cooked and very fresh tasting.

The crew heading back to our hotel after a delicious and very unusual dinner at Pingvinen.

In general, the food we had throughout Norway was much better than I had expected. Fruits and vegetables were usually very fresh. The bread served with breakfast, at every hotel, was full of whole grains and really wonderful. We had very fine picnic lunches of flatbreads with cheeses, sliced meats and fruit. A couple of evenings, one or more of us also had reindeer - either in a stew or sliced and served with mushrooms. So, although VERY expensive, food was a pleasant surprise throughout our trip - in small towns and in the bigger cities.

*For the occasional readers who are not familiar with our family, I'm thinking I might explain why it was such a coincidence that Aileen chose this restaurant without knowing what the name means. She is a biologist and a significant amount of her work has been with research on penguins in Antarctica.

One Local Summer, Week 7 Babyback Ribs and Green Beans

2009-07-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

This is somewhat of a cautionary tale about finding and remembering recipes this week. I always read the food section of the newspaper each week and I also read a variety of food blogs - recently, the folks around the country who are participating in the One Local Summer eat local challenge. Earlier this week, I remember reading more than one or two descriptions of preparing ribs. And I also saw a recipe for green beans, using a little maple syrup, that sounded interesting. Then, I happened to see that Sheridan was having Carlton Farms babyback ribs at what looked to be a good price. And I got green beans from the CSA. So, I went back to look for those recipes I'd seen. And, of course (!) I couldn't find any of them. I don't know why I read things and think I'll remember where to come back to find them. I think I need to do more bookmarking of online recipes and more cutting out of newspaper ideas.

But, obviously, there are lots of ways to cook green beans and ribs. As it turns out, we have some locally made barbecue sauce in the fridge and it seemed to make sense to use that rather than make something new from scratch - especially since it was a warm day and less time in the kitchen sounded better than more. So, the ribs got the "Ooga Booga" treatment - with advice from the butcher at Sheridan on how to cook them. And, in a happy coincidence, while looking for the previous recipes, I found a nice description of a treatment of green beans in the blog of another OLS participant: Versatile Green Beans by Ami at Writing:My Life . She used tomatoes, onions and garlic (which I had on hand), basil (which I have in the garden) and goat cheese (had a small chunk leftover from the anniversary party). I also roasted some fairly local small potatoes with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.

Here is the rundown of where our dinner tonight came from:
Babyback ribs - Carlton Farms, Yamhill Valley
Ooga Booga BBQ Sauce - made in Northeast Portland
German butterball potatoes - from "Oregon" (according to New Seasons market)
Green Beans, tomatoes, and onions- from Deep Roots Farm, our CSA
Garlic - farmer's market
Basil - our backyard
Goat cheese - Rivers Edge, Logsden, Oregon

We had spent most of the week eating leftovers from our anniversary party, and had two dinners out. So, today was really the first time I was doing any serious cooking this week.

Back From Norway - One Local Summer, Week 6

2009-07-13T12:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, we're back from our adventures in Norway and France. More on that later.
In the meantime, I wanted to make a quick report for the One Local Summer Challenge since I missed out on weeks 2-5. And even this is a bit late, but I can chime in on the comments section.

This is not about a whole meal, but one thing that I made for our anniversary party Saturday night. We celebrated 35 years this week, so decided to have a party and invite what turned out to be about 35 friends. We had three people who were at our wedding with us - my sister, Grady's sister and our best man. We have fabulous contributions from friends and family, cooked a few things here and got a couple of items from a caterer. All in all it was a lovely evening - good food, good friends and lots of catching up.

So, one of the salads I made was pretty much all local. It was a tomato-bread salad using a recipe from one of our cooking classes taught by Ken Hoyt at "In Good Taste" Cooking School. The tomatoes and onions came from our CSA (Deep Roots Farm), garlic from another stand at the farmer's market, basil out of our garden (survived our absence - hooray!) and the bread was made at New Seasons. Here is Ken's recipe:

Tomato-Bread Salad with Basil and Capers
5 C 1/2 inch cubed French or Italian bread
1.5 lob tomatoes, diced medium
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1/2 large red onion, diced
1/2 C fresh basil leaves, julienned
1/4 C capers, drained (I forgot these)
1/4 C olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar (I actually used a white wine vinegar because I didn't realize I was almost out of red wine vinegar)
salt and ground black pepper, to taste.

Put bread cubes in middle of 250 degree oven until bread is dried out, about 30 min.
Combine tomatoes and garlic in medium bowl; stir and let stand until juicy, about 30 min.
Add all remaining ingredients (reserving bread) and fold to combine. Ten minutes prior to serving, add the bread cubes; toss again. Adjust seasoning, including pepper, to taste.

Since I was making this the day of the party, and was just a tad bit busy, I didn't remember to take a picture. But, it both looked and tasted quite wonderful.

Later, I'll do a post on some of the local foods we ate in Norway.

Off to Norway with the Family!

2009-06-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

We are off to Norway and then to Paris - leaving tomorrow morning. It's a family trip - Grady and I, our two kids, his sister, and her two kids. Several years ago, G and I took Aileen and Kris to Ireland and were able to visit with some of my Irish end of the family and see Arranmoor Island, home of the Boyle end of our family. Since that time, I've suggested to Grady that we should follow up with a similar family trip to Norway where much of his family originated. So, it's finally happening!

This means my blog and my weekly reports for One Local Summer will most likely be on a hiatus until early July. We return on July 2, but then head to the coast for the 4th of July holiday. I'll keep an eye out for Norwegian food specialties, but I don't know whether I'll want to spend much time in internet cafes. I hope to have things to report on when I return.

A Day at the Races

2009-06-06T19:44:00.001-07:00

Dragon boat races - for Rose Festival here in Portland today. Grady has been practicing with the Realty Trust team 3 times a week since March. That's three 7 a.m. times per week, I should add. Oh, boy, doesn't that sound like fun. But, he did it - never missed a practice except for the two that took place while we were out of town back when they first started. So, today was the first day of racing - two heats, one at about 11 a.m. and another at 3:30 p.m. Tomorrow morning they will race again - this time in a group of other boats that had similar times to theirs. If they win the first one, they race again and possibly a 3rd time. That's it - no vast monetary prizes, just the glory and prestige of winning.

Dragonboats are large wooden boats paddled (not rowed, I was informed) by 18 people plus a drummer and a flag-catcher. The ones used for the Rose Festival races here were given to Portland by our sister city in China, Kaohsiung. There are smaller boats without the decoration that are raced year-round.

I walked over from my gym for the morning race. Ian, Liam and Graham joined me to cheer on the Realty Trust Red Dragons in their first heat. Later in the afternoon, I walked over from the east side of the river and watched the afternoon race with their coach.

Ian's picture of the Red Dragons as they were coming in for their first race. Came in 3rd, but at least they beat the Victoria's Secret Team. (How bad would that be to say you were beat by the underwear team?) Grady is in the last seat on the right (OK, that's starboard, right?) side of the boat with the tan hat (which you really can't see.)

First place in a close finish for their afternoon heat. When the flag-grabber gets the flag, that's the official end.

Coach Sue pointing out that they hadn't done very well with the precision paddling in the second race, even though they won.

Grady listening intently, of course, to the coach's comments.

On the way back up after the 1st place finish.

About 85 teams in and out, using the same eight boats, all day long. It takes a system and they have one - very organized - always four teams lining up while another four are loading and another four are racing. Grady's team is heading down the ramp and out onto the dock for their afternoon race.

These gals looked more like my kind of team actually. Cheerleaders for one of the teams - complete with poodle skirts, heart-shaped sunglasses and little white canvas shoes. They had a full selection of choreographed cheers. I wonder what time of day they practice?

Pasta with Spring Vegetables in Light, Lemony Cream Saucie - One Local Summer WEek 1

2009-06-02T20:08:00.000-07:00

One Local Summer Begins this week. Our west region's activities will be moderated by Becke at Columbus Foodie. It's great to find a new food blog with beautiful photographs and great ideas.

We started out the week with a dinner inspired by a recipe in "The Oregonian" recently. In the category of great minds think alike, I was at Jeff's house recently and he had made the same thing. We both made several modifications, but the basic recipe was a terrific starting point. You can go to this link to see the original newspaper version.

I made made a trip to the farmer's market this weekend and had new spring veggies I wanted to use. I also had gotten some spinach fettucine at the market. A cool thing about this recipe is that it does use some cream, but it is fairly minimal, and yet still makes a very nice sauce. You reduce some chicken broth (no, not a vegetarian recipe inspite of its name) by about half, add the cream and reduce further, adding lemon zest after taking it off the heat. Then toss in the veggies, some parmesan cheese and fresh herbs.

The biggest change that both Jeff and I made was to saute the vegetables in a very small amount of oil, rather than steam them. We both wanted to use mushrooms and steamed mushrooms just doesn't sound very good at all. In mine, I used fresh peas, leeks, sweet onion, baby carrots, zucchini and shitakes. Plus, Grady had brought up some green beans from last year's CSA that we still had in the freezer, so I added some of those as well. For the fresh herbs, I used chives and basil out of our garden. The meal was completed with a salad using three types of lettuce from our garden plus some a raw version of the same things we put in the pasta.

So, in the category of local foods in this meal were all the vegetables, the pasta, chicken broth and cream. Not local in Oregon, but important, were the lemon and the parmesan.

I didn't manage to remember to take a picture before we ate the pasta. Not back in the routine yet. But, here is a substitution:

our farmer's market goodies from this week. We have joined an alternative form of a CSA with Deep Roots Farm. Instead of having a box delivered somewhere each week, this is set up as a running account balance to use at the farmer's market stands. This scenario takes some of the challenge and surprise out of having a farm share. But, since we are going to be gone a fair amount this summer, this seemed to be more practical for us this year.

Let's see.....liver?..... or shrimp?

2009-05-17T16:52:00.001-07:00

I almost got rejected by the Red Cross on Friday. My iron level was too low for making a donation based on the first sample they took. Since they offered a chance to have a second sample taken, I agreed and that time, on my dominant hand, the iron level was right at the level needed to be eligible to give them a pint.

Which means I need to pay attention to iron intake for a while again. This has happened to me off and on when I've gone to donate blood - periodically I get rejected. And, every time that I come home and talk about needing to get more iron, Grady says I'll need to eat liver and spinach. He's so predictable. There are many foods that are rich in iron, but he always mentions those two because he knows I hate liver and like spinach only when fresh. Actually, he is remembering when his mother would have to get more iron and what she ate, at that time, was liver and spinach. It's been MANY years since he lived with her and observed this liver and spinach regimen. But, it's stuck in his replay tapes.

So, imagine my happiness when I happened to see an article about the iron content in shrimp in the May issue of "Cooking Light". Six ounces of shrimp have 4 mg of iron (compared to .5 mg in scallops). This seemed like a good excuse to have shrimp for dinner last night. And the magazine actually had two different risotto recipes involving shrimp. I made a variation on
Spinach Risotto with Shrimp and Goat Cheese. As I mentioned, I'm not a big fan of cooked spinach, so even though we had fresh spinach from the farmer's market, I substituted swiss chard out of our garden. We also did not have goat cheese, but it tasted fine with some pecorino that I did have in the fridge. I also added some mushrooms just because I had some and thought it would be good. Made for a nice simple dinner with a salad of greens out of the garden. All in all, not a high percentage of local foods - but those parts that were local could be measured in feet traveled from the backyard.

I know I have some lists of iron-rich foods somewhere, but, if you have suggestions (other than liver and spinach), please let me know.

One Local Summer 2009

2009-05-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

I have signed up for the One Local Summer Challenge again. It is organized by the folks at the Farm to Philly blog. They start up June 1. Participating in these challenges helps me keep my attention on local eating more often and also on keeping up the blog. It will feel good to be more focused on this again.

We are trying a different approach to joining a CSA this year. I loved getting the weekly boxes from Heather at Little Frog Farm last year and joining with other folks at St.Andrews in the Farm to Congregation program. But, it really didn't make sense for us to make that trip to the pick-up point every week - not very close to us. So, there I was putting extra miles on the car in the cause of supporting local agriculture. Our friend Jeff had taken a different approach last year and we've decided to do the same thing this year. We are part of the CSA through Deep Roots Farm near Corvallis and Albany. They bring their produce to a couple of the Portland Farmer's Markets. Having a CSA share with them means you select things at their market stand instead of having a box delivered somewhere. One of those two markets is pretty close to us so it will save on the driving. Plus, for this summer, in particular, it makes a lot of sense since we will be gone quite a bit. With this arrangement, we can get what we need when we're here and not have to make arrangements for produce getting delivered while we are out of town. I will kind of miss the surprise and the challenge of figuring out to use everything that comes in the weekly delivery, but this really seems more practical for now.

Meanwhile, we've been eating lettuce and chard out of our garden pots for a few weeks now and they are doing really well so far.

Rhubarb Chutney

2009-04-29T19:20:00.001-07:00

Recently I made another foray into the downstairs freezer to see what was on hand. After some reconnaissance, I discovered that we still had some packages of rhubarb and of berries from last spring. Whoops! Time to start using those before we have a new crop coming in fresh. So, I decided to bring up a bag of local 2008 rhubarb and think of something to do with it. The trouble with rhubarb and berries is that the first ideas that comes to mind are all in the dessert food group, not something that Grady and I need very much. So, I looked for other ways to use them and found a couple of ways to make rhubarb chutney.

I had a tough time deciding between two Epicurious recipes, so I kind of followed one, while adding elements to the other. My amalgam had:
4 C rhubarb
1 C golden raisins
1 C dried tart cherries
about 1/4 C brandy (all that we have left in the bottle - probably should have been more)
I think I used about 3/4 C sugar, but started low and then tasted as it went along
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp grated orange peel
juice of 1 lime

I cooked the fruit for a little while first until the rhubarb was fairly soft. Then added the rest and cooked until it tasted pretty good.

We used it with grilled chicken breasts one evening and then with some ham tonight.

So now to think of some ideas for the berries that does not include pie crust, lots of butter and sugar...... ?? I'm open to suggestions.

Shop til You Drop

2009-04-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

I had to tell Mom that she is not supposed to take that literally!

While on an outing to Macy's on Sunday, Mom had a leg give out on her and she fell. The outcome, after an ambulance ride to the hospital, was a broken femur and a broken wrist. Surgery, and lots of heavy metal additions to her bones later, and she's on to a rehab place. She's been having some difficulty with the pain medication, so the recovery has had its ups and downs so far even though the doctors were quite happy with her initial progress.

I'll be off to spend about 10 days there during the sibling relay (...Jim and Catherine hand off to me, I hand off to Mary....) - leaving this coming Saturday. It's been very hard to be so far away, so I will be glad to have some time on site to do whatever I can to help. And also to celebrate her birthday and Mother's day.

I just noticed that my sister, Ann, has got a post on her blog about Mom's set-back, so I'm going to skip any other details. You can check that out at Ann's blog.

Here's one of my favorite photos of Mom - with our daughter Aileen at Katie Rinehart's wedding.

She was shopping for a trip to Paris to spend time with our sister Mary and her family. Obviously the France trip will be on hold for a while while Mom makes new friends in the PT department.

Lunch with 'Married with Dinner'

2009-04-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

OK, so I still seem to be dragging out this blogging holiday. But, here goes an attempt to start catching up. For this post, I'm going back to March 23 - while Grady and I were in California for spring break. At the beginning of the week, I had an opportunity to meet Anita from Married with Dinner. In response to my question about places in the Bay area that were some favorites for featuring locally grown or made food, one place Anita suggested was the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco. So, I took the ferry over from Alameda, spent some time wandering around the shops in the Ferry Building and then she met me there for lunch.

After following Anita and Cameron's blog for a couple of years, it was a treat to meet her in person and find out a little more about her and about how her interest in local eating developed. We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant and enjoyed a nice conversation before she needed to head back to work and I had to catch my return ferry. It was quite gracious of her to take the time in the middle of a busy work day to come and chat with me.

And her recommendation about the shops in the marketplace led to a delicious dinner that evening, plus some goodies that I brought back to Portland. Here are a few random pictures from my shopping expedition:

Stonehouse white balsamic vinegar - one of the things I brought home. We have really been enjoying this delicious vinegar in various ways. The most obvious use - in a vinaigrette with olive oil brought to us from Italy by our friends, the Dawsons. Very nice.

Part of the dinner that evening - green beans and mushrooms from farms in that area. We had this with locally grown chicken breasts. The chicken was marinated in another treat I brought home from that outing- Cranberry Pepper Sauce from Marin Gourmet. Of course, since I've waited this long to write about this experience, I can't remember the names of the shops or the farms. It sure doesn't pay to get behind.

And this is a shop at the Ferry Building where I actually did not purchase anything....

but, you gotta love a store whose name includes the phrase " TASTY SALTED PIG PARTS".

On the way back, I stopped at a winery that is located right next to the ferry in Alameda - Rosemblum Cellars, another of Anita's suggestions. Spent an enjoyable hour tasting wines and chatting with a few other folks, and, of course, adding to my take away package.

So, my thanks to Anita for wonderful suggestions and for a delightful lunch conversation.

PS. Finally found my camera, as you can see.

The Easter Buffalo

2009-04-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been on a blogging holiday for a while now. No particular excuse - just kind of lost momentum. I'm thinking of it as a bit of a break between the end of the Dark Days Eat Local challenge and the beginning of the farmer's market season. I had a trip to California in the middle of this hiatus, but that really wasn't an excuse either since I had computer access while I was there. I did get to meet one of my favorite local food bloggers while there. More on that later.

So, for Easter dinner yesterday, we had a small crowd of 13 people. With all the leaves in our dining room table (and turning it diagonally in the room), we have room for the 14 we expected. Fortunately for me, our guests brought major portions of the dinner, so I didn't have to spend all day in the kitchen getting ready. On the other hand, Grady and I did have to spend a fair amount of time cleaning up the house beforehand. But, that, after all, is half the reason for having guests, isn't it? To make you clean your house?

The featured item on the dinner menu was buffalo roast. This buffalo was not, technically, local. However, it did travel here on an airplane with the rancher who raised it. Jeff's sister and brother-in-law, Janet and Duke, work two ranches in Colorado. The bison run as a wild herd on the Zapata/Medano Ranch. Not only is the buffalo grass-fed and finished, but it was cooked by someone who really knows what to do with a good cut of meat. Such a treat for all of us.

Accompanying the buffalo, we had
"Aunt Janet's Potatoes" made by Ian
braised kale, and a green salad (both of which I got at the downtown farmer's market on Saturday)
steamed asparagus
Jeff's hot cross buns
rolls that Duke made

And, in case that all wasn't enough, Jeff made a lovely lemon poppyseed cake. And Tig had made lemon sorbet which she served in lemon shells - so lovely and wonderful!

So, all in all, a great evening - fabulous food and terrific conversation. Not to mention, plenty of activity with our two young friends (ages 3 and 5) who had had WAY too much Easter candy. Alas, no photos of the guests or the food because I've not been able to find my camera since we got back from California. :(

Lastly, here is the recipe (or one, anyway, Ian's version) for the potato casserole - a regular feature of Miller/Creswell holiday meals:

Aunt Janet's Potatoes
5 lbs. potatoes
1 pint sour cream
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup jack (I always use more like 1/2 lb.)
1/2 cup cheddar (ditto)
2 large cans diced chiles (I often use about four fresh chiles of
varying spiciness)
1 bunch green onions, chopped finely
Salt and pepper (probably about 1 or 2 Tbsp. of salt and as much
pepper as you can stand)

Peel potatoes, then boil whole potatoes on high for 10 minutes. Turn
off heat and drain the potatoes in cool water for another 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add sour cream, melted butter, Jack and cheddar cheeses
(grated), chiles, green onions, salt and pepper into a large mixing
bowl. When potatoes are cool, grate them in Cuisinart (I usually
grate the cheese this way too, since it's already out). Mix potatoes
in with other ingredients, and then pour everything into a 9" x 13"
baking dish. Bake until bubbly at 350 degrees -- usually about 30-40
minutes.

The Great Spring Freezer Clean-Out: Dark Days report

2009-03-15T13:51:00.001-07:00

I had decided that part of my Lenten discipline would be to work on using up food in the freezer and tackle some of the overfull closet/storage areas. So, Friday I headed to the basement freezer and wasted a bit of energy with the door open examining what was available. Recently our smaller freezer that is part of the fridge got itself into trouble and had to be evacuated. I was out of town and Grady's solution was to haul everything down to the basement. Consequently, that one downstairs really got full and was not at all organized. He was in a bit of a hurry since first priority was to deal with the water leaking upstairs.

Well, long story short, I moved things around and got an idea of what all we have. Here is how my reasoning started - I knew that I had unintentionally ended up with two bunches of cilantro, so I wanted to make something that could use some of that. I pulled out beef stew meat, a small leftover package of chorizo, some of the frozen jalapenos out of our garden, and decided to make chili.

Given that this is the last week of the 2009 Dark Days Challenge, if I'd planned ahead better, I would have tried to come up with something more interesting and with a higher % of local items. But I didn't. So, I kind of feel like I'm closing out with sort of a fizzle. But, hey, the chili was very good and the beef share in the freezer has shrunk, cans of beans and tomatoes were used out of the cupboard, and half the cilantro is gone! The only thing I got at the grocery store were non-local bell peppers.

I did find that I was in good company when I read Anita's post (40 Days with my freezer) on Married with Dinner. They have gone into freezer clean-out mode, as have several of the folks who wrote comments to her. I felt lucky, though, not to have had any heavy packages of meet fall out and nearly hit my toe, although I can easily see how that can happen.

New Kitchen Tools

2009-03-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well, not real new. But, I'm catching up on some blog ideas hanging in the back of my brain closet. Recently I used two new additions to my kitchen tool collection for one evening's dinner.

I made a pinenut-crusted fish using a recipe from Moosewood's "Simple Suppers". This was the product of a trip to Powell's for Norway books and maps. While Grady and Ardie were browsing in the travel section, I hung out in the cookbook department. And managed to find something that is new to me and which looked really useful.

A while back when a few of us were taking a cooking class, the chef showed us a Messermeister peeler - with a very sharp serrated blade. He used it to peel an apricot for a dessert. I have found it to be extraordinarily useful. In this case, I used it to peel some delicata squash for a risotto.

This is the squash and chard risotto with fried sage leaves - a variation on a recipe in The Farm to Table Cookbook.

Later, I'll show you my terrific new kitchen shears, but I think this is enough excitement for one evening.

Snoopy Bloggers

2009-03-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm a little behind on blogging. Really, it's not Facebook. Current best excuse is work - quite a bit more than half time recently and likely to continue until school staffing season is over.

Meanwhile, Pam issued a challenge to show the inside of our fridges after posting a photo of hers and admitting to being a bit of a voyeur. Laura took her up on it. And I just have to join in to represent those of us who are a little less organized in the refrigerator department. Theirs were way too clean and tidy looking.

By way of local foods, there is the steak we grilled recently from our beef share, the leftover risotto with delicata squash, some chard in the vegetable drawer. And then there is the salsa - an item of such importance to warrant having two on hand at a time. One is an organic salsa from Muir Glen in Sedro Woolley, Washington. But, the one that I think is best is Zuniga's Handcrafted Salsa. Zuniga Foods in in Tigard, but the salsa is processed just a short distance from where we live in Portland - hand diced in small batches, very fresh and tasty.

So much for snooping in our refrigerators, maybe next we can reveal medicine cabinets!

Dark Days Challenge - Week 16 Report

2009-03-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

For our Dark Days Eat Local Challenge meal this week, our closest effort is today's dinner - a rather traditional meat and potatoes kind of meal. I went down to survey the freezer and we still have a fair amount from our Kookoolan Farms beef share. So, I pulled a sirloin tip steak.

Our dinner was the sirloin tip steak grilled on the back porch, a potatoe casserole, and some sauteed chard with garlic.

the steak - Kookoolan Farms in Yamhill
potatoes - Washington was the closest I could find for the russets
cream - Tillamook
Chicken broth - made from the last whole chicken we cooked
cheddar - Provvista Organic sharp cheddar. Unfortunately, this probably is not made locally, just imported or distributed by a local company. Not enough information on the label. But, the cheese tastes very good.
Red chard - part of it came from somewhere in Washington, but, believe it or not, we also had some growing in our pot in the backyard - same one we planted last spring. Woo-hoo!

Creamy Potato Casserole
8-10 servings
2.5 lb russet potatoes, scrubbed, skins left on (about 5 medium)
1 C whipping cream
1 C chicken broth
4 medium garlic cloves, minced
1/4 C unsalted butter
3/4 C grated parmesan
3/4 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1.5 C shredded sharp cheddar cheese

boil potatoes until just barely tender, 15-17 minutes. Drain. when cool enough to handle, peel and shred. Place shredded potatoe sin large bowl and set aside.

Bring cream and broth to simmer in saucepan. remove from heat and stire in garlic, butter and parmesan. Pour cream mixture intow bowl with potatoes and stir. Stir in salt and pepper. Scrape into 2 qt. oval baking dish and sprinkle with cheddar. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking until top is nicely browned, 20-25 min.
from Cook's Country magazine, published in The Oregonian

Poblano Bread Pudding

2009-03-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

I've kind of lost my rhythm with local foods eating lately. The out of town travel threw me off and I haven't gotten organized since returning. But, we have still been eating in the meantime. And I have been on a different campaign, which is to use up things we have on hand. So, here is what we had tonight - Poblano Bread Pudding.

For many years, our favorite restaurant in Manzanita was the Blue Sky Cafe. It was a wonderful restaurant - good food, good cocktails, very friendly staff. We loved it. But, alas, the owners decided to close a couple years ago. I held out hope for a while that they might change their mind or a similar restaurant might move in. But now the space has been taken over by the bakery. And the bakery is very good as well - lovely baguettes, rolls, and other bread things. But, I am getting sidetracked. While the Blue Sky was still open, one of their regular items was this Poblano Bread Pudding. Since I really loved it, I finally asked one day if they would share the recipe. So, here it is - with their original amounts and my modifications. As you will see, it is designed for a very large batch. Being a former math teacher, it was obvious that many of the ingredients were in amounts that would be easily divisible by 5, so that is what I did - or best approximations thereof. I think I had hastily copied the recipe from something, so the amount of the poblano chiles is, I think, actually incorrect. But, estimation is another good math skill and it has always turned out well.

Poblano Bread Pudding (courtesy of Bue Sky Cafe in Mazanita, Oregon)
15 eggs (1)
1 onion, chopped (a small handful)
5 C. half and half (1 C)
2 handfuls cilantro (about half a small handful)
1 t. salt and pepper (a few quick shakes)
2 T cumin (about 2 t.)
1 handful parmesan (I actually forgot this tonight)
1T chile powder (1 t.)
5 C. jack cheese (1 C)
20-30 C bread, torn (4-5 C)
6 t roasted chiles (recipe says this would be 8-9 poblanos, but obviously this would be more than 6 t - so I used 1 poblano and it chopped up into about 2 large T.)

Whisk eggs, milk and spices. Add bread. Let soak 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add onion, chile, both cheeses and cilantro. Mix and put in baking dish.
Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes.

My approximate one-fifth recipe filled a 7 " x 11" pan (which is about the same volume as a 9 inch square pan).

I decided to make this because we had three different partial loaves of Italian or French bread - all made by local bakeries. And we also had two packages of Tillamook pepper jack (due to Grady and I not realizing what the other had gotten while shopping). The eggs and half-and-half were also from local area dairies. So, I guess it was mainly the chiles that weren't a local item in this dinner. Not as bad as I was thinking. In any case, very useful for using up that bread. I served it with glorified pinto beans and a small salad.

Rochester Trip Photos, March 09

2009-03-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

These next two posts are just going to be a series of family pictures from my recent trip to Rochester to visit Mom. More on food - local and not - coming up.

The McHughs are in the hunt for a family dog. Since I am still in Molly withdrawal, I went along to check out some golden-doodle puppies. VERY VERY CUTE!

This little one really liked the spot Kyle made for him.

Krissy gettting geared up for St. Patrick's day while waiting for dinner at Flaherty's. Not only do they let kids in the bar area, but they give them beer trinkets. I didn't manage to score one myself, but Kyle very kindly gave his to me, so I will be set for the 17th also.

I gave my camera to Krissy while I was sitting out in another waiting area. She captured this very sweet picture of her Mom.

Finally, we got called to a table for dinner. Mom, along with the rest of us, was ready.

To be continued.....

Rochester Trip Photos, part 2

2009-03-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

Then, there was the infamous Boggle game. Kyle is busy totaling up his score. Krissy was the official timer, keeping us from cheating. She also added up my scores for me.

The WINNER!!!
Beat by my 7th grade niece. Ugh.
Tara - displaying a surprising lack of humility after beating her aunt.

The not-so-gracious LOSER.

But, hey, we were first and second, after all. And there were other people playing the game as well. (not mentioning any names)

And, no trip to Rochester would be complete without Sunday breakfast after church with the gang. Pretty good looking group. Don played hooky from church that morning. tsk, tsk.

And, lastly, have to have one more shot from the mutual admiration society of Krissy and the camera.

Dark Days Challenge - Week 14 Report

2009-02-16T20:44:00.000-08:00

I'm about to head out of town for a week. Leaving at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning - a fact which my airport driver really appreciates. Off to visit my Mom, sister Patty and her kids and one of my U.M. friends. And then there is the 32 degree weather and predicted snow. Not that I care about that. Oh no. Love having to find room in the suitcase for a pair of boots.

But, on to the topic at hand. I have no idea what kind of food local to upstate New York will be available in February, so I'm going to report in on our dinner this evening. It was very simple and the camera was packed away already, so I have no pictures. But, we had hamburgers made with our Kookolan Farms grass-fed beef. and I used four Oregon Yukon gold potatoes to make a gratin as a side dish. And that is pretty much the start and end of it.

If we end up with some more interesting Rochester-local meals as the week goes on, I'll chime in with a blog post from Mom's computer. Cheerio!

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

A dozen beauties from my sweetheart.
fair trade-certified roses, of course :)

In starting up this short note, I realize what a creature of habit I am. As I was typing in the Title, the words popped up - signifying that I had used that same title before. So, I looked in the archives and, sure enough, same title this time last year. On top of that, last year, we evidently went to Vindalho for dinner last year. Tonight we are going to Lauro Kitchen - same owner/chef - different cuisine. But, neither restaurant was my first choice at the times I made the reservations. Last year, I called "Sel Gris", a new restaurant in our neighborhood at that time - called them a week before Valentine's day only to find they were already full up for the 14th. So, this year, I got smarter and called two weeks ahead. And got the same response.
Hmmm. Predictable we are.

Fish Tacos - Dark Days, Week 13

2009-02-13T20:00:00.001-08:00

OK, so I know this looks like mud and leaves. Yum. We're all over this natural eating business. However, if I could post this as a scratch and sniff photo, you'd think differently. This is a Moroccan Spice mixture that has been combined with some olive oil, lemon juice and cilantro. The spice mix has cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, paprika, turmeric, and salt. The aroma is fabulous. I made up a small batch of the spice mix and will be able to use the rest of it for something else.

Chunks of fish fillets are coated with the Morrocan mixture, baked in the oven

and served with corn tortillas.

Accompaniments: cilantro yogurt sauce, lettuce and tomatoes.

The Moroccan Fish Fillets are a recipe in my newest cookbook:

"Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers"

The authors suggest this can be used in fish tacos, served in pita bread, or on top of rice, all of which sound good to me. The fish tacos were very tasty. My recollection is that most fish tacos use a fried fish. That's what I remember from the famous-for-fish-tacos place Aileen took us to in San Diego. And I have to admit I kind of miss that crunchiness of the fried fish. But, really, the taste is so interesting with all those spices that it makes up for being a healthier version with the baked fish.

Local ingredients
dover sole fillets - wild caught off the coast of Oregon
Yogurt - Nancy's from Eugene
Tortillas - Carmen's, also out of Eugene

From farther away

cilantro, tomatoes, lettuce, lemon juice, olive oil from California
exotic spices - presumably from exotic places

Dark Days Challenge - Week 12 Report

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

It all started with the need for another freezer clean out. I don't know how we manage, but we seemed to start accumulating lots of odd bits of this and that in the small upstairs freezer until it gets almost full. Then it becomes time to start meal planning at the freezer. So, the item retrieved yesterday was chicken chorizo. Since I don't have an overly extensive culinary imagination, I decided to make the first thing that came to mind ,which was chili. The returning cold weather led me in that direction.

The only problem with writing this up for the Dark Days Challenge is that I don't really know where the chorizo itself came from - other than that it was purchased at New Seasons. I think they made their chicken sausages with chicken from California. And the bell peppers were not local. But, everything else came from somewhere in Oregon or Washington - the hot peppers, onion, canned tomatoes, dried pinto and black beans. The hot peppers were ones we grew last summer and have been kept in the freezer. And, the black turtle beans I used were from Little Frog Farm, our CSA.

I made a variation of the Moosewood's Red, Green and Gold Chili. I sauteed the chorizo and set it aside. Cooked one large onion, one each of red, green, yellow and orange peppers - plus the hot ones from the backyard. Once those are well under way, I add (this time of year) canned whole and crushed tomatoes. I put the chorizo back in and let the whole thing cook while the beans finished cooking. Finally, I added the beans and gave it another half hour or so. For seasonings (besides the chorizo and the peppers), I added cumin and chili powder.

The only other thing we had with the chili was cornbread. Grady's sister, who is here visiting, made it using Bob's Red Mill corn meal. So, altogether a pretty straightup, simple, but satisfying dinner. Good thing because somewhere I lost my mind in planning for tonight's dinner. We invited 8 people for a birthday dinner for my niece, Karla. And I decided to bake "Birthday Party Paella" - bought the ingredients before looking again at the recipe to remember how much work it is. Plus, of course, being a birthday I had to make a cake as well. So, I'm having a bit of overzelous meal-planner's regret. But, I'm sure it will all taste great and we'll have a good time. And, that's what all this cooking is about, after all - isn't it?!

Comfort Food on Cold Evening

2009-02-07T11:13:00.000-08:00

The past two nights we have enjoyed a Baked Penne With Marinara, a recipe that Laura at (no so) Urban Hennery shared recently. She has the recipe at that link to her blog. Simple, but very delicious. She talks about cooking the sausage, onion and garlic until the aroma makes your mouth water. For me, the mouth-watering aroma came while the whole thing was cooking in the oven. It was simply a wonderful smell. Unfortunately, reheating it in the microwave doesn't give you the same experience. But, the taste is still great the second day. This recipe makes a large amount, so keep that in mind if you try it. I decided to go ahead with the whole thing so we could have it two nights and then also have a fair amount to put in the freezer for an evening when we don't have much time. One thing about this recipe that was new for me was adding pesto to the marinara sauce. I have always treated those as two separate ways to cover pasta. But, I would like to try the combined version again in other uses. It added a lovely flavor to the tomatoes, onions and garlic. I was lucky to have both tomato sauce and pesto in the freezer from last summer, so it was a partially local meal.

It was great as is, but, as I'm writing about it, I was thinking that it could also be nice to add mushrooms to the marinara. This time of year, mushrooms are one of the fairly readily available local items we can get here.

Chocolate Orbit Cake

2009-02-02T13:11:00.001-08:00

Now, doesn't that look delicious?! Well, if I had some actual photographic skill, it would. And, if you tasted it, you would agree. Unless you are one of those people who do not appreciate rich, dark chocolate. This cake has no flour - a LOT of butter, quite a few eggs and very expensive chocolate. But, no flour.

This is the cake I made for Grady's birthday - the Friday night version. And, remembering how good it was, I decided to throw in the recipe. This was in the newspaper at some point.

Chocolate Orbit Cake

one 9 3/4 oz bar Scharffen Berger 62 percent semisweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
15 T unsalted butter, cut into pieces
5 eggs, at room temperature
1 C granulated sugar
Optional: gently whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan and line with parchment paper.

In the top of a double boiler over simmering water, combine the chocolate and butter, whisking until melted and blended. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until well blended. Gradually whisk in the chocolate mixture until blended. Pour the batter into prepared cake pan. Place the pan in a larger baking pan. Fill the larger pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the cake pan.

Cover the larger pan with foil and bake in the center of the oven for 90 minutes or until cake appears set and, when you touch its center, your finger comes away clean. Remove the cake pan from the water, transfer to a rack to cool completely. Serve plain or with whipped cream.

I actually found a bar of the Scharffen Berger exactly as described in the recipe! I was expecting to have to substitute. Not cheap, but, boy, the result is terrific. In typing the recipe, I realized I hadn't done that business with the foil when I made this cake, but that didn't seem to be a problem. One other note - when I made this a previous time, I also put together a raspberry sauce to serve on top and that was wonderful.

And, here is the birthday boy enjoying his orbit cake:

Pesto Spread for Laura's Potluck

2009-02-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

Laura, at Not So Urban Hennery invited Dark Days Eat Local Food Challenge participants and other local food bloggers to her house on Sunday. A chance to meet people behind the blogs, share a snack or treat from our local area, get ideas from other folks. And, for those who save seeds, a seed exchange. And, of course, a chance to see where Laura and her clan live. It was a lovely afternoon and I enjoyed the chance to meet her and the others.

Laura asked us to share the recipes for the food we brought. So, here is mine, borrowed from Epicurious:

Pesto Goat Cheese Spread
4 oz. soft mild goat cheese, at room temperature
2 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 C. pesto

Stir all together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I had never made this recipe, so I was taking a chance and hoping it would be decent. Itried to think of something that we had from our own garden, available this time of year, and also would lend itself to appetizer type food. So, I pulled the pesto out of the freezer - made last summer with basil in the back yard. I added Fraga Farm (Sweethome, OR) goat cheese, and Nancy's (Eugene) cream cheese. The biggest challenge turned out to be trying to find crackers made anywhere near here. Just for the sake of the activity, I actually looked at the packages of every type of cracker at New Seasons that looked like it would be suitable for this dip. And the closest I could find were some flatbread type crackers made in Yelm, Washington!

So, I will just add a public thank you to Laura for organizing this gathering and opening her home to those of us who were able to make the trip.

A Tale of Three Birthday Dinners - Dark Days Week 11

2009-02-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it just works out this way. Grady's birthday was last Thursday. I had made plans for us to go to Seattle on the weekend and celebrate with some friends there on Saturday night. And, we also wanted to have Jeff over for a birthday dinner, but he couldn't come on Thursday night. So, Grady ended up with birthday dinners on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. And they represented the range from a homemade meal, a home-cooked meal, and dinner out - with varying degrees of attention to local foods.

Thursday I had to work late, so I got some ready-to-cook food at Pastaworks on Hawthorne - ravioli and a tomato sauce with greens. These were made by a local business, but I don't really know about all the individual ingredients they use. To accompany the pasta, I roasted a delicata squash and some mushrooms I had gotten at the People's Coop farm market the day before. Pastaworks is a good source for chicken that is locally raised on small family farms. If it weren't so darned hard to park around there, I would shop there more often. So, that was the home-cooked, but not entirely homemade meal.

Friday night I made beef stroganoff (see recipe information below). Beef from New Seasons market (Country Natural Beef), mushrooms also from the farm market and Tillamook cream. The broth was out of a pot roast I had made earlier in the week using a roast from our beef share. I could have used locally made noodles for the stroganoff, but Grady prefers it with rice. Jeff brought a lovely winter salad with red cabbage, apples, carrots, onions and fennel.

Saturday night we ate at Artemis Cafe in Seattle. Their website says they showcase "local, high quality ingredients", although the menu doesn't give any details. The food was very good, but the meal was mostly memorable for the great company and livey conversation. We dined with six of our long-time friends who live there. This is part of the group Grady first met when they were all in architecture school at U.W. a year or two ago.

I checked back and found that the recipe I used for Beef Stroganoff came from Bon Appetit, via Epicurious. So, you can take a look at that link. But, I made several modifications:
1. I don't use the mustard at all because I despise mustard. I don't think anything feels missing. But, if you are a mustard lover, have at it.
2. As mentioned earlier, we had it with rice since the birthday boy prefers stroganoff on rice. But, if it was for me, I'd use the noodles.
3. I don't use the paprika at the end - not because I don't like paprika, though. Some other recipe I've used in the past suggested finishing stroganoff with fresh ground nutmeg and we have always liked what that does for the dish. I don't know how much- I just grate a whole nutmeg onto the finished stroganoff until it looks right. But, you might want to try the paprika. I'm sure it would be tasty as well.

Finally, the original impetus for the trip to Seattle was to join Laura and others at a gathering of bloggers interested in local foods. I'm going to include the recipe from that in a separate post since Laura asked us all to share.

Inauguration Party Photos

2009-01-26T15:33:00.001-08:00

This past fall, we had established a pattern of watching the debates with Jeff and his extended family. And the same group gathered on election night to watch the returns. So, it seemed only logical to gather this same group of friends on the night of the Inauguration this past week.

Got the dining room all decked out with party regalia - basically everything we owned in red, white and blue.

Grace was the master decorator of the Obama cookies - with some able assistance from Jennifer.

Unlike the ladies who get upset when someone else shows up to the party in the same outfit, we were quite pleased to have matching shirts at this celebration. (Ian, Jennifer and I)

In addition to the beautiful cookies, dinner was a great combined effort. Jeff brought some lovely cheeses for a starter. I made red beans and rice, as well as some nice local sauteed kale. Jennifer and Ian brought roasted vegetables and cornbread. The beans and rice recipe came from Ivy Manning's new blog, Ivysfeast. She is the author of one of my regular cookbooks - The Farm to Table Cookbook.

Dark Days Challenge - Week 10 Report

2009-01-26T10:28:00.000-08:00

Wow, here we are on week 10 already! This was a tough week for me as far as local eating goes. I'm trying to remember if I felt this way last winter about this time. As I recall, it actually seemed to get even more difficult about March. In any case, last week was an unusually busy one for me at work. But, it still is not full time and I think many or most of the other challenge participants work regular full time jobs, so I don't think that flies as an excuse.

I was contemplating our evening meals and not coming up with a single one that ended up with 90% local ingredients - or even 75 or 80%. But, then I remembered our breakfast on the morning of the inauguration! Because the inauguration was important to us, Grady and I both chose to stay home from work (nice to have that option) that morning so we could watch it together on TV. So, I decided that it was an opportunity to have something other than our standard cold or hot cereal weekday breakfast. I made scrambled eggs with mushrooms and cheese. And we even had a couple slices of bacon and hashbrown potatoes just in case our arteries needed a little clogging up. For good measure, we also had banana slices.

Eggs - from Yelm, Washington(a little over 100 miles from here), cage free, vegetarian fed, etc.
Cheese - Willamette Valley Cheese Co. pepper jack
Mushrooms - Oregon grown shitakes
Potatoes - locally grown yellow fin, but I can't remember exactly where exactly
bacon- made at New Seasons with Pacific Village pork
bananas - not at all local

So, I guess it wasn't a complete flop of a week with regard to the challenge. Our other meals certainly used many local products, but I'd guess they were closer to half and half. (Like red beans and rice - local beans, California rice.) Plenty of room for improvement in the coming week!

Totally off task

2009-01-24T12:50:00.001-08:00

I'm avoiding the fact that I haven't done so well with keeping my focus on local foods this week. So, stalling while I try to think about what we've eaten and gather up some kind of report, I'm passing along this scary thing that came in my email recently:

"Take our quick survey and get a FREE $50 McDonald's Gift Card. Participation required. See below for details."

$50 at McDonald's?!

Dark Days Challenge - Week 9 Report

2009-01-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

Our Dark Days meals got a boost from our freezer this week. I was not overly ambitious last summer, but I did make a small start at saving things coming out of the garden or our CSA. One round of canning sent me quickly back to the freezer as means of preserving. If I ever get more ambitious and decide to save up quite a bit more, I'll probably have to do more canning. But, so far, the freezer has not been particularly close to full. And the only canner we have left from our early days of canning is extremely inconvenient to use. I don't want to buy a new one unless Im really co

So, one dinner was steak from our beef share (Kookoolan Farms) and a chard gratin. I didn't think that our garden chard would freeze all that well, but it seemed like making it into a gratin and then freezing that would be a way of having it to use later. And, it was - succesful, that is. A nice easy meal with a small salad on the side.

Last night I brought up a pint container of a tomato sauce that I had put together last summer with our garden tomatoes and basil. I added Oregon mushrooms and kale, plus some non-local red peppers and zucchini and we ate it on Nonna's Noodles (tre colori linguine).

Earlier in the week we had a second round of a soup I had made for friends last weekend. We had quite a bit of stock from a recently roasted turkey that included lots of the little bits of meat from the bones. We also had on hand a local delicata squash, carrots, potatoes and onions and also some pink beans. I got another squash, a beautiful one called gold nugget and found a minestrone recipe that used these items with a little adaptation. It turned out to be a beautiful soup - the bright oranges and golds of the squashes contrasting with the dark green kale.

Autumn Minestrone/Turkey Soup (adapted from an Epicurious recipe)

2 tablespoons canola or other vegetable oil
1 cup chopped onions
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 1/2 cups peeled and cubed winter squash (1 delicata + 1 gold nugget)*
2 celery stalks, diced
1/2 cup peeled and diced carrots
2 1/2 cups cubed potatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 cups turkey broth (with lots of the little bits from the carcass) + 2 cups water
4 cups chopped kale (Mustard Seed Farm in St. Paul, Oregon)
1 1/2 cups cooked pink beans (Draper Girls Farm, Parkdale)

* recipe recommends acorn, delicata, or buttercup

Cook the dried beans in advance. Warm the oil in a large soup pot on medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the squash, celery, carrots, potatoes, oregano, salt, pepper, and water and cook for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are almost done. Add the kale and beans and simmer for another 20 minutes, until the kale is tender and the beans are hot.

One Week To Go - Do You Have Your Inauguration Plans?

2009-01-13T20:32:00.000-08:00

I guess it's time to retire the Bush Countdown Clock. Cue large sigh of relief.

We have a small crowd with whom we watched the debates and then gathered again on election night. So, it only seemed right to follow through and invite them for dinner on Inauguration evening. I'm thinking theme food (?). At the least maybe some sugar cookies that we can decorate with red, white and blue frosting ala the cake that Ian made with the Obama symbol in the frosting. We're also contemplating some kind of simple activity in the spirit of service that the President-elect has inspired in so many people. Maybe writing letters to our representatives? cooking extra food to take to someone? Maybe just making a plan to do something else later on.

I ay have said this earlier. But, this election and inauguration together make probably the only time I wish I was back at the school where I was principal at the end of my career. Since at least 65% of my students looked like Sash and Malia, I really don't think it is possible to overestimate the significance of our choice to them and to their families. And, listening to the current principal describe what it was like at school on November 5, I know my hunch is correct.

So, today's post is dedicated to once again seeing a young family in the White House. I actually remember a lot of that kind of talk from 1960 - my first memories of a presidential election. I was 11 - old enough to watch election night and the inauguration on TV.

Thank you, Cucumber and Scallion

2009-01-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Cucumber and Scallion and the family who care for them, I got to have two very local, very fresh eggs for breakfast this morning. (The picture is of the four remaining eggs that we received.) With such a gift, the dilemma was - how to use them? Clearly the best thing was to cook them fairly straight up to enjoy the uniqueness of eggs from chickens I have actually met. I almost poached them, but I have not poached eggs very often and was worried about making a mess of these special eggs. So, I went conservative and fell back on one of my favorites - scrambled. And, to go with them, I had a piece of toast from Grand Central como bread with strawberry jam made by my friend Kelli. So many gifts this morning!

So, many thanks to the girls and to Jennifer, Ian, Liam and Graham. Your gift was a treat. I think this is the first time (at least in a very long time) that I've eaten eggs that came directly from a source I know.

Dark Days Challenge - Week 8 Report

2009-01-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

Well, we've had a pretty good week for sticking with mostly local foods. For a meal to report on, I decided to describe a dinner we had earlier in the week when our niece joined us. We had a squash tart and a simple fruit salad (Oregon pears, Washington apples, California oranges).

The tart was made with a butternut squash and onions that came from an earlier trip to the farmer's market. (It's been getting more difficult to get to those since the choices are pretty limited during the winter months.) The cream, eggs and cheeses all were bought at the grocery store but did come from various places in Oregon.

The cheeses in the tart - Fern's Edge Goat Dairy in Lowell (southeast of Eugene) and Willamette Valley Cheese Co. in Salem.

The onions get carmelized.

The filling after the squash has been roasted and everything else has been mixed in.

Forgot to take a picture of the tart after it was cooked, but before we ate dinner. So, this is what was left and kind of a hurried, blurry photo. The quality of the picture is not at all indicative of the taste of the tart. I don't have a tart pan, so the pie crust doesn't quite fit. But, it sure tasted great and the leftovers made for a terrific breakfast.

The recipe is from Epicurious.

Roasted butternut squash and caramelized onion tart
pastry dough
pie weights or raw rice for weighting shell
1 small butternut squash (about 1 pound)
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil plus about 2 teaspoons for brushing squash
1 small onion
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 whole large egg
1/2 large egg yolk (1/2 tablespoon)
1/3 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup grated Italian Fontina cheese (about 2 1/2 ounces)
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan (about 1 ounce)
1/4 cup crumbled mild soft goat cheese (about 1 ounce)
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and marjoram leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup fine fresh bread crumbs
preparation
On a lightly floured surface roll out dough into a 12-inch round (about 1/8 inch thick). Fit dough into an 11-inch tart pan with a removable fluted rim. Freeze shell 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Line shell with foil and fill with pie weights or raw rice.
Bake shell in middle of oven until edge is pale golden, about 20 minutes. Carefully remove foil and weights or rice and bake shell 10 minutes more, or until bottom is golden. Leave oven on. Cool shell in pan on a rack.

Halve squash and scoop out seeds.
Lightly brush each cut side with about 1 teaspoon oil and on a baking sheet roast squash, cut sides down, in middle of oven 40 minutes, or until soft.

While squash is roasting, thinly slice onion and in a heavy skillet cook in 1/2 tablespoon butter and remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons oil over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Cool squash and scoop out flesh.
In a food processor purée squash. Add whole egg, egg yolk, and cream and blend well.
Transfer mixture to a large bowl and stir in cheeses, herbs, onion, salt, and pepper to taste. Pour filling into shell, smoothing top.

In a small skillet melt remaining tablespoon butter and stir in bread crumbs until combined well.
Sprinkle bread crumb mixture evenly over filling. Bake tart in middle of oven 40 minutes, or until filling is set. Cool tart in pan on rack 10 minutes and carefully remove rim.

Transfer mixture to a large bowl and stir in cheeses, herbs, onion, salt, and pepper to taste. Pour filling into shell, smoothing top.

In a small skillet melt remaining tablespoon butter and stir in bread crumbs until combined well.
Sprinkle bread crumb mixture evenly over filling. Bake tart in middle of oven 40 minutes, or until filling is set. Cool tart in pan on rack 10 minutes and carefully remove rim. Serves 6 to 8.

Celebrity Guest Photographer

2009-01-11T16:05:00.000-08:00

Family members - you've already seen these. But, I got Aileen's permission to share them for anyone else reading the blog.
For those who don't know her, our daughter, Aileen, is a biologist. She is just about at the end of what I think is at least her 5th trip to the Antarctic peninsula. She does research involving penguins, primarily, but also other sea birds, and various mammals that cohabit with the penguins - like fur seals. On her previous trips, she has lived on one of the islands off the peninsula for roughly 2-4 months or so. This year she is on a different sort of project involving working on a cruise ship (National Geographic), helping with naturalist kinds of duties and then doing census work at the various islands where the ship stops.

She has been sending emails with reports of what they are doing and seeing and, in her last one, she included these three photographs as a sample. They are all on South Georgia Island. The top one is an elephant seal, the next one shows some of the island when she and a friend were on a hike (she's in the red jacket), and the last one is a king penguin with its egg. One of the things we always look forward to the next time we see her after her Antarctic trips is seeing her photographs.

If you're interested in a whole lot more detail, read the text below - her last email. But, otherwise, I just thought it would be fun to show something completely different on my blog, by way of showing something about one of our kids. I actually asked the other one (of our kids) to share some of his photographs on the blog when he was home for Christmas, but he has to format them and it's hard to say how long that will take!

Here is her email report from the last part of her trip:
January 6, 2009

Hello all,

We've just spent the past four days at South Georgia, a sub-Antarctic
island located northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula, and more or less
due west of Cape Horn. The waters just north of the Southern Ocean
are extremely productive biologically and support lots of birds and
mammals. Since there is little land mass available, millions of these
birds and seals crowd onto South Georgia to nest and to have their
pups.

One of the most famous residents is the king penguin. These are one
of the biggest of the penguin species, and they have lovely shades of
orange and yellow outlining their black and white pattern. They
aren't particularly afraid of people, since they have no land
predators, and they nest out in the open by the tens of thousands. We
spent several long mornings and afternoons at king penguin colonies
where we'd just park on the outskirts and watch the penguins
displaying and wait for birds to rotate their eggs (which they carry
on their feet). Meanwhile, other penguins would come and go right
next to us, occasionally stopping to try to figure out what we new
critters on the beach were.

At the same sites with the king penguins, we also saw tons of
non-breeding elephant seals and fur seals. The elephant seals have
already finished breeding for the season, and the newly weaned pups
are lying like fat sausages on the beach along with some of the
molting sub-adults. Their main activities at this point are sleeping,
burping, and farting; but, occasionally a pair of younger males will
start fighting – biting at each others necks and bumping chests. The
fur seals are right in the midst of breeding, but owing to the mass
density of fur seals at South Georgia, and their propensity to bite
anyone coming into their territories, we only visited those colonies
via zodiac. Still, these were great views of the swarms of seals.
The fur seal population was nearly exterminated during the sealing
days, and fifty years ago there were only a handful around. The
population has apparently made a strong recovery; people who have
visited here over the years say they saw more seals by far this year
than they ever have before.

South Georgia was also a major site of whaling during the first half
of the twentieth century, and we visited several of the old whaling
stations. While we were in the area, we saw few whales, but in those
days they were able to kill hundreds of whales a day without going far
from shore.

We did some legitimate hiking while we were on the island, including
one beautiful day when the ship dropped us at one point and picked us
up later in the day at another. Another big highlight was getting to
see the nests of light-mantled sooty albatross, one of the most
beautiful birds around. And our trip to South Georgia ended with a
close-up sighting of some southern right whales, a species that is
only just beginning to recover from the whaling days.

Aileen

Dark Days Challenge - Week 7 Report

2009-01-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

This has been a week of borrowing ideas from locavore writers - Barbara Kingsolver and two local eating bloggers. Because I have very little shame, I decided to spotlight our homemade pizza for this week's report Dark Days check in. The only reason for any shame is that the crust of the pizza shared some of the less fine qualities of cardboard. On the other hand, some of the toppings came to the pizza from our garden via the freezer and I am very proud of making that small first step of saving some of the food we'd grown to be able to use it this time of year. Please see the last post for a description of the mostly local pizza dinner. Many thanks to the kind folks who are offering suggestions via comments. Any advice or tips are welcome to advance the cause of my next attempt.

In addition to that meal, I found some other ideas to borrow while reading the Dark Days reports and other blogs. These were actually much more successful and got favorable reviews from friends and family.

One of the Mixed Greens bloggers shared a recipe for cranberry upside down cake which I made with Oregon cranberries for our New Year's Eve supper.

"Late Bloomer" at Soccer Moms and Single Chicks wrote about their Christmas morning breakfast casserole in her Dark Days report last week. It looked and sounded so good that I made it for our New Years brunch. I made a couple of modifications - using the suggestion of cooking the potatoes first, adding green peppers and onions to them and also used less sausage than suggested.

My thanks for the inspiration and the wonderful ideas and recipes.

Pizza SOS!

2009-01-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

OK, I know that just yesterday I asked for some advice in my blog and now here I am again asking for more. This time it's about food, yesterday it was knitting. I guess I should be happy that those are two things vexing me because it indicates what I can spend time on these days. Even though I'm now a year and a half out from being a principal, I still have this almost daily appreciation for the gift of time. Much as I loved that school and that job, it really did take over my life when I was there.

All that aside, I decided to try the Kingsolver family's Friday Night Pizza last night (concidentally, Friday night). In the past I've not had a huge success with homemade pizza. But, so many people I know make it and this has to be a well-vetted recipe. After all, they wrote about making it every week in their book. But, this one I made last night had a pretty cardboard-y crust. So, I'm looking for pizza crust tips.

First off, I do not have a pizza stone. Yes, I know that's the big thing you're supposed to have for making pizza. But, I hate to invest $ in a special thing - especially when I'm not very confident I will make it very often. I don't know if a partial contributor was not using tomato sauce. I had some leftover pesto which I used instead of tomato sauce and it was a little skimpy because there wasn't a whole lot left.

I think the toppings were pretty good, but maybe too much? (this actually went on two pizzas)

Pesto made with our garden basil last summer, Oregon shitake mushrooms, roasted cherry tomatoes also out of the garden (roasted and frozen in the early fall). And Japanese eggplant. I got it out of a big box of them at church a week or two ago - not sure where they came from prior to that.

The finished product. I would say the roasted cherry tomatoes were definitely the highlight of the whole thing. But, the crust was very dry. Help!!!

The Good, The Bad and the Practical - Knitting Update

2009-01-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

On my "things to do when I retire" list was learning to knit. I got started on that one this past summer. A couple of earlier posts gave the early reports on this "new trick". So, I thought it was time for an update.

After taking the hat class and making one hat, I started working on a couple of scarves. This is the GOOD SCARF:
very nice, easy to work on, very cooperative. In fact, I just finished it last night. The yarn is a tweed lambswool, made in England, purchased on sale at the yarn store in Manzanita (T-Spot). I found a very simple pattern on the internet - Aran Print, 8 rows of seed stitch and 2 rows of garter stitch. So, any experienced knitter will immediately see why this scarf was a successful project for a beginner.

This, on the other hand, is the BAD SCARF ( or what little has been completed on it after much time spent):

I also got this yarn and a pattern at the T-Spot. It looked like a good next step in terms of learning something new. I signed up for "Knitting Studio" - a class at Twisted where you bring a project and can get some help while you work. Very nice instructor, much patience and STILL - I knitted and ripped out, knitted and ripped out...... Then, I decided to get different needles - these are called "TURBO" needles. You'd think that would really make for some significant forward momentum. But, no. Not on the EVIL scarf. This photo represents fairly major progress and yet I've now made another mistake that I don't know how to figure out. This will be a real test of my patience as to whether or not this ever becomes a scarf.

And, the "practical" refers to what became my Christmas gift project. Some of these patterns were called dishcloths, some washcloths, but my favorite was the "spa cloth". Basically, they're all the same kind of thing, made with cotton yarn, using various free-on-the-internet patterns. The first one was my very first start-to-finish project. It has some noticable flaws, but actually works quite well. Then, off and on over the past few months, I made seven more that I gave to various friends and family as parts of Christmas gifts. Most were variations of these two:

So now I feel ready to try something new. Based on advice from a friend who is a knitter, I think my next project will be a felted bag. Probably something I can use - like a bag to carry around a knitting project I am working on. But, there are TONS of patterns for them and the trick is to find something that is just enough challenging so that I learn something new, but not so much that it is way over my head. If any of you are knitters, send suggestions!

Remembering Grandma Mik at Christmas

2008-12-29T16:20:00.000-08:00

My mom's mother, Lillian Mikolasek, aka Grandma Mik, was quite the artist and craftsperson. When we spent summers with her and Grandpa in Menominee (Michigan), she was always working on something. She sewed, painted and otherwise created all manner of useful or decorative pieces. She and a group of women in the hospital guild met regularly at the hospital and made little decorative items that were then put on the patient's food trays at holidays. She has left us a wonderful legacy of her work - particularly painted objects. These include wooden bowls, cutting boards, platters, tablecloths, glassware and even clothing. Mom, in her wisdom, has been distributing them to my six siblings and I over the years. Most of those which I have inherited are Christmas holiday pieces. So, I always enjoy some fond memories of Grandma when I get them out this time of year. This Christmas/New Years plate is beautiful.

This little wood tree, made with two pieces of flat wood, suffered quite a bit at the hands (or rather teeth) of Archimedes. He was the golden retriever we had prior to Molly. After he did his handiwork on the tree, Grady took the pieces down to the basement so that he could work on restoring them. Well, quite a few years have passed and we had both forgotten about the little tree. During the recent enforced time at home due to snow, Grady began clearing out the basement, came across the tree pieces and took the first steps of fixing them. More work is to be done, but I was so happy to see even this much repair and to have it out again.

I think we have about a dozen of these glasses. But, a few of them are worn out. No blame to the dog this time, just paint that has rubbed off. I am in the process of looking for an artist/craftsperson who could restore the worn ones and help us preserve the whole set.

And, here is another wooden plate that she painted. So, here's a toast to Grandma Mik! I wish I had a fraction of her talent and creativity.

Chriastmas Morning Frittata - Dark Days Week 6

2008-12-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

Start with Oregon-grown chard, scallions, small red potatoes, sweet red pepper and garlic.

Saute all of these in a small amount of olive oil; mix into beaten eggs (we used six); add a little bit of feta cheese (in this case not very local).
Cook on the stove top about 4 minutes until it starts to set on the bottom. Put under the broiler for a few minutes.

And have a fairly festive looking Christmas morning breakfast.

I had stalled on posting this because I had talked Kris into taking some photos for me - hoping to include them as my celebrity guest photographer. But, due to some difference in the format, he can't download them while he's here. So, maybe I'll get to add them later on.

Dark Days Challenge Recap - Week 5

2008-12-21T11:41:00.000-08:00

After getting sidetracked with the snowy weather reports and photos, I am remembering that it is time for the weekly check in on our local eating challenge. This pretty well sums up our week: lentil soup and chili, both made with mostly local ingredients, leftovers of each of those, and then eating elsewhere, plus foraging through what is on hand when we can't get to the grocery store.

I described the lentil soup earlier this week.

This week's chili:
New Seasons' housemade sausage from Pacific Village pork
Muir Glen canned tomatoes from Cedro Wolley, Wa (not terribly local from here, but not too far)
the last of our cherry tomatoes that have slowly been turning red and yellow inside the house
pinto and small red beans from Draper Girls farm
chili peppers - hot ones from our yard (frozen), and sweet ones from the last farmer's market
onion - farmer's market

And now it's time to start thinking about Christmas Eve and Christmas day dinners. For some reason, even with all this extra time at home, I've been postponing that planning. We may need to have plan A and plan B, depending on when we can get out to a grocery store and what is there when we get there.

Did I Wake Up in the Wrong Place?

2008-12-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

Backyard Deck

This is really beginning to look a lot more like winter in Rochester, and even a little like early winter in Escanaba. Not at all like Portland. After 3-5 days of schools closed (varies in different parts of the city), we're NOW getting the really serious weather. How crazy is that?! Upwards of 8 or more inches of snow in some parts of the city - and, again unusual for us, very dry light powdery stuff. And looking forward to some freezing rain on top of this for tonight. So, we're in for the evening, not going to a Christmas party in the southwest hills. Chili and some doctored eggnog to celebrate on our own here and then on to some movies.

But, you've got to love Portland. A little earlier this evening, we watched a guy riding his bike down the street along the snow-covered street. The cross-country skiers was not a surprising sight, but riding a bike?!

Looking towards neighbor's house

Update on Sunday morning - basically, just take the 7-8 inches of dry snow and add a layer of ice. I don't think we'll see any more bicycles - mainly just people walking or skiing down the middle of the street. Walking through the snow now requires punching through the ice layer with your boots with each step. Even measuring the snow on the deck involved jabbing the ruler several times to get through the ice. Some more photos for our out of town friends and family.

Looking out to Ladd Avenue

I hope the raspberry vines forgive us next summer

On the deck - after the freezing rain and ice compacted what was there last night

And, finally, when you can't really go anywhere, you might as well enjoy it:

Getting Carried Away

2008-12-17T11:08:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I mentioned that I am largely a recipe-follower rather than a recipe-creator. This is a story of why I should probably stick with being the former. I decided to branch off on my own for a lentil soup and maybe it would have been better to rein it in a little. The result wasn't bad, but it may have been a little over the top.

It started with the fact that we had about a cup of cubed pumpkin left over from the risotto. I didn't want to waste it and, in thinking of ideas of what to do, I decided they might be good in a soup - and it has definitely been soup weather here. So, examining what all we had on hand (since snowy roads were not enticing for a trip to the store), lentil soup seemed to be the best option.

We had these beautiful lentils in the cupboard - from Draper Girls Farm. The red ones are called "red chief", the others didn't have a special name.

Here they are all mixed together in the pan for the first step of cooking the 3 cups of lentils.

Next is where I got into trouble. I started out reading the Moosewood recipe which suggested carrots, onions, and celery, all of which we had in the fridge. But, when I started looking in the fridge, I also found a bunch of sweet red and yellow peppers. We also had potatoes. So, here are the one onion, 2 ribs of celery, 2 big carrots, one potato and about a cup of chopped peppers - as they are sauteed briefly before going into the soup. All of these, by the way, except the celery, were locally grown and purchased at the farmer's market. At this point, I should have been suspicious about the quantity in this pan compared to the quantity of the lentils and their cooking water.

But, no, it all was so beautiful and looked delicious. For seasoning, I added salt, pepper, and cumin plus a little bit of fresh thyme that was left from some other meal. I need to mention that I had also browned some chicken basil sausages that we had on hand. By the time, I added all these "extras" to the lentils, it became more of a stew than a soup. I tried adding more liquid, but the soup pot was pretty close to full. And I had almost forgotten to add the cubed pumpkin which was the original reason for making this soup in the first place!

So, we had this soup on Monday evening and it was OK, but not great. Tonight, we'll have a second round and this time I can use a small amount of the "stew", add some broth and make it a little more soupy. Plus, the second time out is usually better anyway. Maybe next time, I'll try to confine myself to one version of a recipe and try not to get so carried away with emptying the refrigerator into one meal. But, on the other hand, I think it will end up to be an interesting and tasty meal and we'll probably have some left to freeze for future use.

Meanwhile, we're on day 3 of cold and snowy weather here in Portland. Having a snow day no longer has the thrill for me that it did while I was teaching. At this point, if I don't go to work, I don't get paid, so it's not actually such a great thing to be home these day. But, since I have no choice, I'm taking advantage of the time to make some more Christmas cookies, do some more knitting, and an assortment of odd jobs around the house. It's hard to complain.

Update after eating a second round of the soup:
It was much better on its second outing - after adding some broth, cooking longer and generally having time to do whatever it is that makes soup better the second time around.

Dark Days Challenge Recap - Week 4

2008-12-13T22:49:00.001-08:00

Woo-eee! We're having us a little winter here in the Northwest. Snow coming down for most of the morning. And, unusually for us, it seems more like the Michigan- type snow that Grady and I remember, very dry and light. Lucky me, I got to drive in it because I had several things going on at church this morning and I wanted to give it a try. Getting there was no issue, but coming home was a long slow affair. My knitting studio is going to offer a make up session, so I'm glad not to feel a need to get to that this afternoon. But, Portland Center Stage does not cancel. So, this evening, we'll probably put on the traction devices and head out just like people who are used to living in winter climates. Looks like we'll be watching "A Christmas Carol" and heading out to something looking more Christmas-y than usual.

Meanwhile, it's time for the weekly update on a mostly local meal from the week.
My From Farm to Table Cookbook was the inspiration for dinner last night and the night before. Last night's meal was closer to the 90% goal because we had pork loin chops from a local farm as the main entree, in place of the Alaskan salmon that we had on Friday night.

The remaining parts of the dinner were made from Chef Ivy Manning's recipes:
Cinderella Pumpkin Risotto with Fried Sage - pumpkin from our CSA, Farmer's market onions, northwest white wine, vegetable stock I made when the garden was about done producing, the arborio rice came from California (but that was at least closer than the last batch I bought which had originated in Texas)

Braised Lacinato Kale - see the last post for a description of getting this from an Oregon farm, rather than one in California

Fresh Cranberry Chutney - cranberries grown in Bandon, farmer's market cilantro and onion, chile out of our garden, pear that we got out near Hood River, plus a lot of seasonings that were not really local at all

I thought the combination of the pumpkin risotto, the kale and the chutney were wonderful with both the salmon and the pork chops. I was quite pleased with my planning. :) And all three were delicious. I'm not so great at creating recipes out of my head, but my skill in choosing other people's recipes has been increasing!

After the first night, Grady combined the leftover kale with the risotto. So, this picture from the second night has both mixed together. The other dark green that you see in there is some of the fried sage.

Making Choices

2008-12-12T22:24:00.000-08:00

Grocery shopping used to be so straight-forward. Go to the store, look for what you need, also buy some stuff you don't need, but want. Pay and go home. But, now that I am trying to train myself to put a priority on local foods, it has become a more complicated task. While it is true that I'm getting somewhat used to it and there are certainly items I know and can find fairly easily, there are plenty of occasions that I end up spending extra time and making different kinds of choices that I used to.

Thursday evening and Friday I shopped for some items for a birthday dinner for our friend, Jeff. I had decided to cook a fish, preferably salmon, but was open to other possibilities. To go with it, I planned to make a pumpkin risotto and some braised kale. At the grocery store (New Seasons) there were two dilemmas. First, the fish. New Seasons uses the Seafood Watch color coding system rating each one on sustainability and health oceans criteria. Since the salmon was from Alaska, I looked for what they had that had been caught in Oregon. But, the locally caught sole and cod were on yellow markers. So, I asked the helper behind the counter why they were yellow (less desirable in terms of being healthy for the ocean environment) and he explained that they were trawler-caught. So, I opted not to buy any fish there at that point since I still had time the next day to look elsewhere. In the end, I did end up getting wild caught-Alaskan salmon the next day since I didn't find anything that looked to be a better choice, but did buy it at a place that had it on sale.

So, having not bought the main entree, I moved to the produce section to look for lacinato kale. Here again I had to do a little research. The marker signs indicated that there was some Oregon-grown kale and some from California. But, in looking through what was there, I couldn't find the local version. After getting the produce helper over, we found that there was one bunch left of the lacinato kale that was from Oregon. All the rest of that type came from California. On the other hand, they did have a lot of curly kale that was local. The recipe called for two bunches of the lacinato variety. But, I made the choice to go with one of each type so that I could stick with kale grown in our area.

Of course, all these shopping decisions get more complicated since we now also have to pay a lot more attention to the cost of what we are buying since our family consists of one retired person and one person who makes a living (or used to make) selling real estate. So, shopping for food these days is just a bigger project than it used to be. But, since I am the one in the retired category, at least I usually have more time to spend asking questions and pondering choices at the market.

Meanwhile, this food was for an occasion - Jeff's birthday - after all. So, here are a few pictures of the birthday dinner. More on the risotto and kale later for my Dark Days Report.

Dark Days Challenge Recap - Week 3

2008-12-07T13:55:00.001-08:00

It's time for the weekly write up for the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. I'm finding it difficult to decide what to describe this week. There were new three meals plus a lot of leftovers. The turkey soup was really delicious, probably my favorite meal of the week. But, that started with turkey bones and meat that originated in California, so a good percentage was not local. Last night we had Beef Stew. The stew used Oregon grown beef, and all local vegetables from yesterday's visit to the Portland Farmer's Market. But, it was boring - not nearly as wonderful as the last time I made this recipe, so I was disappointed.

The remaining new meal this week was our dinner Monday night. This one actually was close to 90% local and also quite good. Very plain and simple - a classic meat and potatoes kind of meal, but Laura reminds us this week that fancy meals are not what this challenge is about. It is a challenge, not a competition. So, we had T-bone steaks (from our Kookolan Farms beef share), mashed potatoes left from Thanksgiving (farm market Yellow Fin potatoes), and braised kale (also from the last Eastbank farmer's market) with bacon (Pacific Village pork), and onions (farmer's market). The red wine vinegar (Spain) and salt and pepper were the only items that travelled farther.

Braised Kale with Bacon and Onions
(from Epicurious)

2 bunches kale (about 20 ounces total), thick stems and ribs trimmed and chopped, leaves chopped
6 bacon slices, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cups chopped onions
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Cook kale stems and ribs in large pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain. Set aside.

Cook bacon pieces in heavy large pot over medium heat until brown and crisp, about 4 minutes. Add chopped onions and sauté until tender, about 8 minutes. Add kale leaves, ribs and stems and sauté until leaves are crisp-tender, about 10 minutes. Cover and cook until kale is very tender, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Stir in vinegar. Cook mixture 2 minutes to blend flavors. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl and serve.

Here's a picture of the aforementioned not very exciting beef stew from last night. I need to figure out why this one was not as good as the last time. Maybe a cheaper wine? using vegetable broth instead of beef or chicken broth? not enough of the orange peel? maybe not cooking as long? Hmmmm.

Turkey Soup - Our Best Ever

2008-12-04T21:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't ordinarily get all rapturous about turkey soup. I routinely make a soup after Thanksgiving because that's what you're supposed to do with that carcass and all the odd bits leftover, right? But, I have to honestly say that mostly what I made was boring, bland soup - eaten because one doesn't want to waste food, of course, but not because it was something to look forward to. I am happy to report that we managed to put together something much better this year.

Maybe the key difference is the"we", since this soup was ultimately a three-person effort. While we were still at the beach, Jeff did all the work of cleaning the meat off the bones, getting the stock going and adding a variety of vegetables that were on hand. It cooked quite a while there, then we brought it home with us. Grady took the next steps, adding carrots, a few mushrooms and some rice to part and had it for dinner one evening when the rest of us were all doing something else. Finally, on another evening, I took the remaining of the original stock, put a few more things into it and finally had a really good tasting, not boring, turkey soup. Here is the final version:

Turkey Soup

stock from Thanksgiving turkey bones cooked for a really good long time (free range, fresh, hormone-free turkey from not-so-local California)
carrots (CSA)
onions, garlic, shitakes, kale (Farmer's Market)
chanterelles (Oregon grown, New Seasons)
a good helping of leftover mashed potatoes (yellow fins - Farmer's Market)
the last of the leftover turkey white meat
a cup of rice
white wine (a sauvignon blanc, but I can't remember where it was from)

Of course, being a good Irish Catholic girl, my guess would be that the mashed potatoes were the magic ingredient to make this one so much better. What can't be improved with a little helping of mashed potatoes?!

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge Recap - Week 2: Delicata Squash

2008-11-30T15:24:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a very short report today. For my Dark Days Challenge report I just want to describe one really good thing we had as part of our dinner last night. I'll do a separate write up about Thanksgiving with pictures for the family. But, I don't want to make Laura (moderator of the Eat Local Challenge) wade through all of that.

Kris got to choose the dinner choice for last night since he will not be here this evening and he chose fish. In the short amount of time I had available to shop, I didn't find much that was caught in Oregon, so we ended up with an Alaskan salmon fillet - wild caught, but not exactly local. However, to go with it, I cooked one of the delicata squash I had gotten at the farmer's market on Tuesday. Based on a recipe from Epicurious, I cut the delicata into slices after cutting it in half lengthwise (skin left on). Then, I cut up some Oregon mushrooms - morells and shitakes - into good size chunks. Coated them all with a little bit of olive oil that had been mixed with fresh thyme, salt and pepper. They roasted at 375 for about half an hour. It was delicious and made a very nice accompaniment to the salmon.

After we've taken Kris to the airport, I'll start rounding up the Thanksgiving pictures to share.

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge Recap - Week 1

2008-11-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

We're off to a mixed start in the 2008 Eat Local Challenge that runs through the winter months. We have had some really terrific meals of local foods this week, but also had a couple of "survival" nights due to other things that got in the way of my planning.

Monday this week, we had my birthday meal prepared by Grady. Last night, we had a simple not-quiche - I guess it would be a frittata. I decided we didn't need a pie crust now since we will be eating pie in a few days. So, I just put the mixture straight in the pie plate, into the oven and baked it. In addition to the eggs, it had poblanos from our yard, diced fingerling potatoes, onions and mushrooms from the farmer's market, plus a local cheese.

With Mom newly arrived in town, I thought I would fix a nice dinner this evening. Because, after that, we'll probably be clearing out the refrigerator the next couple nights in order to accommodate all the Thanksgiving food.

So, the dinner I'm working on for this evening is:

roast pork shoulder Pacific Village pork (Banks, Oregon)
wilted rainbow chard our garden and some left from our last CSA share
Beans with pancetta and sage cranberry beans (Hood River)
recipe courtesy of Anita at Married with Dinner

This report will have to part one, or a draft, because our weekly recap for the Dark Days Challenge was supposed to be ready an hour ago. But, I got a late start on dinner tonight. Mom and I took a cooking class this afternoon and it ran quite a bit longer than I had expected. So, dinner is still cooking. I could add some picture later, or maybe it doesn't really matter.

Meanwhile, I do have this photo of the quiche-turned frittata from last night.

Update following dinner:
Since we were late, I didn't bother taking any pictures of tonight's dinner. But, it turned out well. The beans were delicious and were a particularly nice combination with the chard. The pork, roasted with just salt and pepper, was very nice. We haven't had a pork roast in quite a while and I'd forgotten good it can be.

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge 2008-09

2008-11-18T18:11:00.000-08:00

It's time for the start of the Second Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. It was this activity that got me started with both local eating efforts and with blogging a year ago. Thank you, Laura at Not-so Urban Hennery, for this opportunity.

This year the challenge will run from November 15 to March 15.

The “Rules”:

Cook one meal a week featuring at least 90% local ingredients
You define local - the standard definitions range from 100, to 150 to 200 miles
Ingredients can be things you grew and preserved yourself, sourced from local farms and markets, or purchased at the store
Write about the meals you cook, your challenges finding ingredients, why you’re eating local or whatever else strikes your fancy for each recap. Photos are optional.
Include friends and family in your sourcing and eating as possible

In general, we have several meals a week that are mainly local - especially with leftovers! I am going to keep better track of the distance to see what we can maintain. It seemed to me last year, in the winter, that most things were either within the 100 mile radius or they came from northern Washington or California. I don't remember much coming from in between. But, that will be something worth tracking a little more.

We will have a small advantage over last year in that I was able to preserve some things this summer - mostly in the freezer: tomato sauce, green beans, jams, peppers. Plus, we have most of the 1/8 share of local, grass fed beef from Kookoolan farms. We're lucky to have two farmer's markets that operate year-round to give us some locally grown fruits and vegetables. It will still be quite a challenge - especially about February and March. But, I learned a lot last year, so I won't be quite the deer in the headlights this year.

I am particularly fond of rule #5 this year - including family and friends in our sourcing and eating. Dinner with friends is one of our main social activities. And many of our friends share our interest in local eating.

Here's a short recap of our local eating so far:
Nov. 15 spent most of the day flying from Detroit to Portland, we stopped at Roots Brewing near our house for a quick bite on the way home (no food on the planes, of course) and enjoyed a very locally made beer - i.e. brewed six blocks from our house

Nov. 16 a bad day all around (see previous post) so we skipped lunch and had quick and easy from New Seasons for dinner, paid no attention to its origins

Nov. 17 My Birthday!!! implemented rule #5, had 10 friends for dinner, wild caught salmon grilled on a cedar plank, a DELICIOUS ratatouille with peppers and tomatoes from our garden, other peppers and egglant from Oregon and Washington, cherry pie with filling from the Apple Valley Country Store, champagne from California (see photos below)

Grady's beautiful cherry pie for my birthday "cake"

Lively discussions - politics, families, politics, photography, politics....

Grady serving the salmon

Just a little bit of handwashing - 12 champagne, 12 wine, 12 water
And a good time had by all, especially the birthday "girl".

"Molly and Me" - a Year Later

2008-11-16T12:14:00.001-08:00

Molly Malone (1997-2008)

I started this blog on November 10, 2007 with a post about my dog Molly and about my own first steps of moving forward to a life after full time work. And, now I'm noting the first anniversary of my blog and, sadly, Molly is no longer here to celebrate with me. Both of the veterinarians we've seen recently remarked on how unusual it is to see an 11 1/2 year old Newfoundland. And, if it weren't for her loss of mobility, she'd still be with us. She was a real sweetie - gentle, very enamored with people (and with people food). She always followed one or the other of us around the house and would plop herself down to be within 6 or 8 feet once we settled down somewhere. It's going to be tough to get used to being around here without our constant companion.

I wish I had some digital pictures of Molly as a puppy. She was SO darned cute. But, we only have pictures on paper from that period. Here are a few of our memories of her.

Found a cool spot in the garden at our Manzanita house

Camping with our friend Susan

Her standard sprawl in her favorite spot at the beach house

Getting some attention from Aileen one Christmas

and always a beggar

Under the "Labels" section to the right (below the archives), there is a category for Molly. If you're a dog lover, you can click on her name in that list, and see other pictures of her from some of my previous posts during the past year. I guess I'll have to retire that label now.

Meanwhile, the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge has begun, as of yesterdat. So, I'll be back to blogging about our local eating efforts once we get over this hump. It's been kind of a rough week.

I'm Not Ready

2008-11-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

I am REALLY not ready to lose any more of my parents' generation from the family. But, we did. Monday evening. Uncle Gerry's cancer got the better of him. Just a week before his and Aunt Phyl's anniversary. And now one more of those people who've been a part of my life for all 58 years is gone.

Gerry married my dad's younger sister, Phyllis, in Lansing, Michigan almost exactly 52 years ago. I don't keep track of the anniversary dates of most of my relatives. But, this one I know - November 17. I remember it because (a) I was the flower girl in their wedding and (b)they got married on my birthday. I think I was seven. I was so thrilled - the beautiful flower girl dress and all that attention. And, at the reception I got a birthday present of a piggy bank, which was passed around so that all the adults at the party could make a contribution to the bank. Oh, wow! pretty big stuff for a seven year old.

Aunt Phyl and Uncle Gerry were a lifesaver for me the summer I got a job in Lansing and lived with my grandparents. Our family was living in Escanaba and I can't really remember why I got this job in Lansing (at Sears) instead of working at home that summer. I'm sure we had a Sears store in Escanaba. In any case, as lovely as Grandpa and Grandma Rinehart were, life at 210 Regent St. with two elderly grandparents was not the most exciting for someone in her late teens. I didn't have any friends in Lansing. Phyl and Gerry were young enough that spending time with them on many occasions provided a great relief and were a high point of my summer. They were so great to me.

It was that summer, on the verge of adulthood, that I first began to interact with my aunt and uncle less as a child and more as another (almost) adult. That was when I learned to appreciate Gerry's low-key sense of humor. And, subsequently, in various big family gatherings, it is a quality of his that has stood out. We are a large extended family of noisy, talkative, opinionated people. (Well, quite a few of us are- and you know that's true, siblings and cousins, so don't get all huffy with me.) Jerry seemed to just enjoy all the carrying on.

Michigan State University has lost one of its biggest fans this week and we've lost a favorite uncle. Phyl, Teri, Lisa, Tim, Eric, Steve, Mary Ellen - you are in our thoughts and prayers.

Gerry with Teri and Kim at our 2007 family reunion in Michigan:

and with Aunt Phyllis and their grandson, Aaron:

More memories and photos of Uncle Gerry on Ann's blog today.

It Was a Beef Stew Kind of Day

2008-11-09T17:47:00.000-08:00

And lucky for us, we had most of what we need on hand from local sources. In the main, I followed Alice Waters' recipe in The Art of Simple Food chapter on slow cooking. Her version calls for bacon, which I did not have on hand, so I skipped it. On the other hand, I had a few fingerling potatoes in the garden window and I decided to add them. Some of the ingredients I have not used in beef stew previously were 2 cloves, strip of orange zest and brandy. That all sounded pretty interesting to me and turned out to make a wonderful rich-tasting broth.

Her recipe specifies "grass-fed beef chuck" and, thanks to our beef share purchase this fall from Kookolan Farms, I actually had it (grass-fed, pasture-raised, no hormones no medications beef, pasture-killed and hand-processed) in our freezer. The vegetables (carrots, onions, tomatoes, potatoes) came from our CSA, Jennifer's garden and ours. I had some dried porcini mushrooms that came from "Fungus Amongus" in Snohomish, Washington - not in a 100 mile radius, but pretty darn close.

So, instead of singing the Rainy Day Blues, we're stayed inside and enjoyed a hearty, delicious beef stew. Not particularly photogenic, but very tasty.

Leave it to the Irish

2008-11-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

to find a family connection to anyone we want to call our own. Thank goodness some folks found the heritage of Barack's family in Ireland - the Kearneys from Moneygall in County Offaly. The Corrigan Brothers have even written a song, a modified version performed here by Shay Black.

I haven't written a post about the results of the election because I have really felt too overwhelmed - with the true significance (as opposed to the Irish linkage). And my own words don't feel adequate to the task. But, suffice to say, I am enormously grateful that, for the first time since I started voting in 1968, I am genuinely exited about the person for whom I voted in the presidential election. I believe Barack Obama is the right person for this difficult time. It's wonderful that he is our first African American in the office and it's great that he has an Irish connection. But, most important, he is an intelligent, ethical man with a clear vision of where we need to go and the calm, steady temperament to lead us there.

Knitting Rookie

2008-11-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Learning to knit was on my list of things to begin once I'd retired. And, after some other projects last year, I started moving on this goal last summer. I've taken two short beginner classes and then recently took a class on how to make a hat.

I started with a couple of cotton dishcloths. That seemed like a good way to learn how to follow a pattern and complete a project from start to finish with the limited skills I had.

This is the beginning of the hat. The new skill was knitting in the round - really easy until you get to the part where the circles need to get smaller and smaller and then you have to switch to a bunch of double pointed needles and everything feels VERY awkward and you feel like you have 40 fingers.

The completed hat

Unfortunately, the hat looks really bad on me. But, most hats do. I don't really have a hat kind of head- particularly for close-fitting knitted hats. So, I need to find someone to take it off my hands. These two below offered and seemed to enjoy it. But, it's a little big for them. I'll have to try making one their size sometime.

I had started on a Christmas stocking in preparation for a class where I would learn how to make it and then found out this week they are having to cancel the class due to low enrollment. So, now I have to decide whether to try to do it anyway or take up something else. It really doesn't matter. I don't have great ambitions, but it is kind of relaxing and I love the colors and feel of the yarns.

Halloween on Ladd Avenue

2008-11-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

Doing our best to recreate the Miller-Creswell family Halloween parties of a few years ago, we invited Jennifer, Ian, Liam and Graham, and Jeff. Grace got a better offer, if you can imagine that. The basic ingredients of those parties when our kids and theirs were young were bobbing for apples and then making those into caramel apples, costumes, chili for dinner, and anything else we decided to get creative about.

So, we had those basic required elements of "the Halloween party". But, something new that was probably the best part of the whole evening were our trick-or-treat helpers! Liam and Graham are probably the only kids I've known who got great joy out of giving candy away and didn't really seem all that interested in getting some themselves. They positively squealed with delight each time there was a knock on the door. They ran to the door and got so excited when they saw the different kids in costumes. I've never had that much fun giving out the treats myself. Those two were a real kick. So, here are a few pictures from the evening:

Molly - not overly enthused about her "costume

Jennifer bobbing for an apple with tips from Graham

Ian did it the right way - going all the way down to the bottom of the "cauldron"

Liam and Graham were both successful bobbers

the same version of chili I wrote about a couple weeks ago

2 witches and a ghost

close up of the pin on one of the witches

Jennifer in one of the famous bug hats *

even the chicken gets into the party spirit

*Previous appearances of the famous bug hats at our house:

If the World Could Vote

2008-11-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

In all honesty, politics is more on my mind these days than eating local foods. That's not to say we've given up on our efforts. In fact, it's become pretty much a part of our regular routines - and easier these days than some others with farmer's markets still open and even a few things still coming out of our garden.

But, meanwhile, there is this pit in my stomach. For those of you who don't know me, I am world class worrier. Until I met my friend Sarah, I thought I was pretty much top of the line in worrying skills. While I was a school principal, I had plenty on my plate to keep me up nights. Since I've retired, that load has gone down tremendously. Currently taking its place, though, is my concern about the outcome of the election. The polls look favorable for my candidate, Barack Obama. But, I think it's too soon to relax.

So, I am trying to keep busy. Sometimes it's doing other things that are fun to keep my mind off politics - Halloween party (pictures in the next post), church auction, a play reading on Tuesday.... And, other times, I'm throwing myself into the mix to make a few small efforts to help out - being an election observer for the Democratic party of Oregon and making phone calls for the Obama campaign.

All of which is a long-winded way to explain yet another post on the subject of the upcoming election. This exercise below is an interesting diversion. News reports about interest in our election among folks abroad has been pretty much leaning in one direction. But, just for the fun of it, and for my sister who is an expat in France, here's a link to see how people in other countries would vote in our election if they could.

What would happen if the world could vote in the upcoming US Election?

This was started by 3 guys in Iceland. Americans may vote as well.

You may vote on your computer only once.

Check out the tabs on the left at the website // look at the world
map - http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/

See the link below to vote --

http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/

Once you've voted take a look at how each country is voting!

Farm-to-Congregation Project: our CSA

2008-10-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight we celebrated the end of the growing season at a Harvest Potluck with other people who participated in this same project. Grady and I have been enjoying fruits and vegetables through our CSA (Community supported agriculture) since early June. Inferfaith Food & Farms Partnership is an effort of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Their goal is to "empower faith communities, farmers and neighborhoods to build rural-rban alliances and create innovative partnerships for just and sustainable food systems."

In the Farm-to-Congregation project, some congregations have a farmer who brings produce to sell at the church on Sundays. In others, the partnership is a CSA. My faith community, St. Andrew's Catholic church partnered with a Lutheran church in the same neighborhood and Heather Burns. Heather leased space on Sauvie Island and established Little Frog Farm. Each week, she brought the harvest of that week to a location in northeast Portland and we picked up our share.

It has been a wonderful introduction to being part of a CSA for us. Heather has been very welcoming and great to talk with each week. In addition, I usually ran into other people I knew from St. Andrew's when I went to pick up the share. I even had a chance to chat with a woman from the Lutheran church who had been a reading tutor at my school when I was principal at Vernon. I've had mixed feelings about being a part of this particular farm share since the pick up is not close to our house. But, the connections with other people I know has offset that concern somewhat.

So, for the potluck, I made a vegetarian lasagne. For the sauce, I used tomatoes, garlic and onions from Heather and also some out of our garden, plus basil from our plant. Then I put in swiss chard that came from our garden. The rest was pretty much standard issue lasagne items. We came home with an empty pan even though there was a lot of good food at the potluck.

Nope!

2008-10-23T20:02:00.000-07:00

I voted this morning and this pretty well sums up my decision on the top of the ticket:
My thanks to Steve on More Hockey Less War for providing this best comic relief of the day. He found this on the site of one of our local newspapers, The Willamette Week. If you're really into this kind of thing, you can go there and download a pdf of the image to print.

I have to admit I need a laugh once in a while on the topic of the election. I think I'm spending WAY too much time reading various political blogs and news sites. Aside from the fact that I do actually have other things to do in my life, I'm finding every so often that I am getting that pit-in-the-stomach feeling worrying about it. (That and, oh, maybe the economic situation maybe?) I've neglected my own blog and the other local foodie blogs that I usually enjoy.

But, Grady and I are both done voting. I dropped mine off at the election headquarters this morning - hopefully no more calls, no more mailers, no more folks at the door. Back to local food reading and writing!

(Sorry, Maureen. I don't mean to poke a stick in your eye. I know you like her. But, it's my blog and I get to say what I want. Feel free to comment, though. I won't let anyone beat you up for your views. We've never been shy about airing differing views in our family! Dad would have loved the debating.)

More Fall Favorites and New Ones

2008-10-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Squash, mushrooms, wine and cream - hard to miss with that combination. We had half of a butternut from our farm share last week, so I was looking for a good way to use it. I remember from last fall some squash with stuff on pasta combinations that we enjoyed. I found this on Epicurious: Farfalle with Butternut Squash, Mushrooms and Spinach

As usual, I adapted the recipe to use something we have - in this case, I used swiss chard in place of the spinach. Our little chard plants have just kept chugging along, producing all summer long. Grady says it likes the location and the environment.

If you use Epicurious recipes, you probably know that they have a feature in which previous users can rate the recipes. Many of the ratings of this recipe said it was kind of bland and I would have to say it was a little bit on the bland side. I grated fresh nutmeg and used more than the recipe suggests and I think those steps helped. I might use more pepper or even add some dried red pepper if I make it again.

Then, browsing through my Farm to Table Cookbook, I found a recipe for "Toffee Apple Upside Down Cake" since I had a bunch of apples on hand and was looking for a dessert idea. This is a good news, bad news story. On the not-so-good side was my success in making the caramel toffee layer. I've never been good with anything that involves melting sugar. I seldom make candy because of this challenge. But, this seemed like it would be pretty reasonable to pull off. Unfortunately, my "caramel" layer turned out more like solid plastic - good for scraping my car windows if we get ice. So, I ended up pulling it off the top of the cake. The good news is that it didn't really matter - the cake was delicious without it. Besides, Ivy Manning suggests that this cake can be used as a coffee cake for breakfast as well and that 's probably all the better without the candy on top! I'll definitely make it again with or without the caramel layer. We're going to go up to the Hood River Fruit Loop Tour again next weekend, so we will have a big supply of apples on hand for the next month or so.

This is a great time of year for local eating with so many fruits and vegetables that are new this time of year and still plenty that are fresh and local. And, for those of us with that delayed summer, we're still getting tomatoes along side the squashes and greens and apples and pears.

Celebrating Chili Weather Again

2008-10-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

After a hiatus due to a trip to the San Juan Islands, I'm ready to blog again about our local eating efforts. I'll add a post about the trip once I sort through the pictures a second time.

There is nothing like the first cold days of fall to call out for a big pot of chili. And, just as I was contemplating this fact, one of my favorite local eating blogs turned up with a recipe. Laura, at (not so) Urban Hennery, adapted a recipe for sloppy joes from another of my favorite food blogs (Married with Dinner) into a chili. Laura was very happy with her results and, likewise, Grady and I thought my version was one of the best I've made in quite a while. So, I'm giving this version a strong recommendation.

I will note that I made a few modifications - not because I thought they were needed, but rather in response to items I had on hand. I only had about a cup of tomato sauce, so I added some additional tomatoes and cooked it a bit longer. I also added both a red and a yellow bell pepper and, instead of the Anaheim chile, I used a couple of peppers from our garden. One was a jalpeno and I'm not sure what the other was, but it looked like a small poblano. That business of the chiles you use is, of course, one of the big factors in varying the heat level. We like things pretty hot, but not so much that you are wiping your forehead constantly. This combination worked well for us, but the Anaheim might be safer. I'd like to try that another time when I have one on hand.

So, yes, we are still eating locally pretty regularly - even though I haven't been writing it lately. I missed a recent opportunity for an October eat local challenge. But, I will report in as if we were in the challenge group. The beef came from our 1/8 share from Kookoolan Farms . The chorizo was most definitely not local, but was something we have had in the freezer for a while, so I was glad to use it. All the fresh produce, except the bell peppers, were from our garden and our farm share. Beans were local, but purchased at a store at some point.
So, here is the Laura/Anita recipe:

San Francisco Joe’s Chili
makes a big pot adapted from Anita’s San Francisco Sloppy Joes

1.5 pounds bulk Chorizo
1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium Anaheim chile, diced, or to taste
1 small bell pepper, diced
1 large onion, diced (I like red)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 tbs chile powder, or to taste
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp kosher salt
2 cups fresh tomato, chopped
3-4 cups tomato sauce
1.5 cups pinto beans
1.5 cups kidney beans
1 cup black beans

1. In a dutch oven, or medium pot, brown the chorizo in a bit of oil. Then set it aside, leaving the drippings in the pan.

2. In the same pan, brown the ground beef. Add the chiles, pepper, 2/3s of the onion and garlic when the beef is almost done. Cook several minutes until onions becomes translucent. Then add the chopped tomato, chile powder, oregano and salt.

3. Add the tomato sauce and beans. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Cover and simmer for at least 45 minutes.

4. Serve with shredded Monterey Jack cheese, the remaining onion and a touch of sour cream. We had corn bread muffins on the side. Yum!

It does, indeed, make a big pot. We've had it three times so far and have enough left to put some in the freezer for later on. To vary things a bit, we had it with cornbread one night, with tortilla chips another, and then tonight served it over brown rice.

2008-09-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

Big Bean Soup Served with Little Nibbles is a great all-purpose recipe. I've probably written about it before on the blog. But, this is the early autumn, end of summer reprise. I was specifically looking for a soup to make that would use some of the abundance of vegetables we are getting currently from the garden and our CSA. So, I turned to this old fav.

It comes from Sally Schneider via Lynne Rosetto Kasper's "The Splendid Table" NPR program. What I like is that it comes in three parts:
Basic Bean Soup - onion, carrot, garlic, beans, broth, chili pepper, and some basic seasonings
Flavorings that are optional- including peppery greens, fresh herbs and garlic puree
Embellishments - which is a list of various vegetables that can be added at the end, like slow-roasted tomatoes, roasted mushrooms or fennel, plus things like cheese and other fresh herbs

So, there are almost endless variations of the options in the three categories. I used cranberry beans, turnip greens for the flavoring, and roasted some of our cherry tomatoes. Plus, I added some fresh zucchini, peppers from our garden, leeks, and green beans.
When using the leftovers a couple days later, I also threw in the leftover Zucchini Rinehart and some roasted local shittake mushrooms.

We had two good meals with this soup and another left that I put in the freezer.

Meanwhile, I'm watching the news and blogs and wondering whether our debate-watching party Friday night will be some other kind of party. This business of evading the debate is a new low - even for that campaign that seem to be lurching from one goofy idea to another. Now, it looks like he's not only trying to get out of his own debate, but setting the groundwork to get Suzie out of having to do hers as well. What a gentleman!

Zucchini Rinehart

2008-09-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

Officially, it is "Southwestern Stir-Fried Zucchini Rinehart". No connection to the famous and much beloved Rinehart dynasty of Michigan (as far as I can tell). This is a great way to use the zucchini that is so plentiful this time of year. Grady didn't even plant any in our garden this year, but we are getting a few each week in our CSA. I've had this recipe for a while and can't remember if one of those famous Rinehart chefs sent it to me. But, it has Epicurious at the top, so I think that's where I got it.

I made the zucchini to serve with a pork chop and cabbage recipe. I would not suggest this was an ideal combination for a meal, but it was OK. The main goal was using some of the many vegetables we have on hand from garden and CSA share. Earlier today, I went through the fridge and made a list of all the vegetables we have on hand. Then, went on a hunt for things to use them that might be different from some of our stand-by dishes. The pork chop recipe's purpose was to use up cabbage. And it turned out to be, not only low fat, but also delicious. I think the key was the balsamic vinegar. You can find it at the Epicurious site: Pork Chops with Red Cabbage

Southwestern Stir-Fried Zucchini Rinehart
2 poblano chiles
1 large red bell pepper
2 garlic cloves
6 medium zucchini (about 2 pounds)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lime or lemon juice, or to taste

Roast and peel poblano and bell pepper. Mince garlic cloves and cut zucchini into 2-inch-long spears. Chop cilantro. Cut poblanos and bell pepper into 2- by 1/4-inch strips.

Heat a dry small skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking and toast cumin seeds, stirring constantly, until fragrant and several shades darker, being careful not to burn them. With a mortar and pestle coarsely grind cumin seeds.

In a 12-inch skillet heat oil over moderate heat until hot but not smoking and cook garlic, stirring, until softened, about a few seconds. Add zucchini and sauté over moderately high heat, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add poblano and bell pepper strips and cumin and cook, stirring constantly, until zucchini is crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Add lime or lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve zucchini sprinkled with cilantro. Gourmet. June, 1998

Note: I did not roast the peppers, so, when cooking, I put them in the pan first and gave them a little extra time in the stir-fry process and it was just fine. I also added some sliced local onions just because I have a bunch of them.

The pork chops are grown in Oregon. Everything else, except for poblano, oil and spices, came from garden and our farm share. It was a very tasty dinner and got us one step closer to using up our wealth of local produce. Not altogether a totally nugatory effort.

Pickles!

2008-09-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

In my ongoing pursuit of ways to preserve some of the seasonal foods without having to resort to canning, I discovered refrigerator pickles. I have made freezer jam, have frozen green beans, made pesto and put in the freezer. And, I have a bottle of raspberry liqueur doing its thing on the counter. So, today I made just 4 quarts of pickles that sit out for 24 hours and then go into the refrigerator.

"Back in the day" Grady and I used to can all kinds of things, including pickles. And I'm not completely averse to doing more canning. But, I just want to be really sure. And, one thing I remembered about the pickles is that some turned out great and some were a lot less desirable. So, I guess I'm not interested in putting tons of work into canning pickles until I try out some recipes. So, this seemed like an easy way to try it out with a minimal investment of time and resources. They're beautiful looking. We'll find out in somewhere from 3 days to 2 weeks if they taste as good as they look. The recipes vary quite a bit in their opinions of how long they take to become pickles and then how long they last in the refrigerator.

Where's the Beef?!

2008-09-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

(Yes, I know - I'm dating myself with that reference.)
But, here is where the beef is:

in our handy new freezer, that is. I can't remember if I told this story. We had had a freezer in the basement for many years. Finally, about a year and a half ago, we decided to give it away. Someone at my church needed one and we just weren't using it. In fact, had unplugged it for the past few years. Just taking up space. So, of course, a short time later, I get involved in this local food eating business. And, a short time later I see the value of saving stuff up from the growing season so you can still eat local during the winter. But....no freezer. So, a month or so ago, we went to a scratch and dent sale and got a new one. Sigh. On the other hand, the upside is that someone else, who couldn't afford it, got a freezer; and now we have one that is much more efficient in terms of energy usage.

So, I have been putting in freezer jam, green beans, pesto, chicken broth and other small amounts of things as they've come along. Then, recently I read about buying a small share of beef from Kookoolan Farms. I signed up for a 1/8 share of some that were going to be ready in August and Grady picked it up today. This gives us a supply of meat for quite a while that is raised the way we would prefer and that is locally grown - Yamhill, Oregon. According to their newsletter:

"All our large animals are pasture-raised and pasture-killed. They are never in a feedlot, never trucked live to slaughter, and never in contact with any herd other than the small herd they're raised in. Lambs and goats are 100% exclusively grass-fed (no grain in their lifetime). Beef cows are finished with some corn in the last four weeks."

So, that's one less thing to spend time hunting for as we try to increase the percentage of locally grown food on our table.

By the way, not only did I give away the freezer, but, some time ago actually, I also gave away our water bath canner. And, of course, now I wish I had that back as well. Grady has reminded me of both these things numerous times lately. Sigh.

Ratatouille

2008-09-07T17:12:00.001-07:00

BEFORE

AFTER

I had that basket of vegetables from our garden, our CSA share and a Saturday morning trip to one of the farmer's markets. I felt like I was running out of ideas for things to fix. So, I consulted my copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Since Barbara Kingsolver so kindly organized the book by seasons, it was easy to find the end of summer chapter and then check the end of the chapter where she includes their menus from a typical week in that season. As soon as I saw ratatouille listed, I knew I had a winner. Uses most of the things in the picture plus basil from our backyard. Hooray!

We had it last night as a side dish with some grilled chicken. We'll have the leftovers on another night over rice or pasta. I used the recipe in Alice Waters' cookbook with a few looks at an Epicurious version as well. It was a real treat. Those very fresh vegetables had cooked long enough together to make a delicious broth. We're looking forward to the leftovers.

Then, feeling ambitious, I used some of our local peaches to make an upside down cake. This was one of the things on the menu when Jeff and I took our recent cooking class. Our chef used nectarines, but my peaches were more ripe than my nectarines. Very simple, but very nice. An old idea (remember the pineapple upside down cakes of the past?) brought back and improved. I thought it was so pretty, I had to include a look at its upside down top.

Family of Many Opinions

2008-09-07T16:49:00.000-07:00

I am the oldest of seven (1 boy) and we are a group who tend to be strong in our opinions and we don't hold them back. Recently, our Alaska sister got a good email conversation going by offering her view of Suzie Palin. (Yes, I know they call her Sarah, but to me, she's not a Sarah - she's a Suzie so I've renamed her for my own use.) Maureen told us about how many of the folks in Alaska view her - how she helped the town of Wasilla grow when other towns around them have not, how she was an improvement over the previous governor, and that she is generally viewed as a politician they like up there. Well, that stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest among the "flaming liberals" of the family, myself included. Most of the responses had more to do with Suzie's social and political views. I wouldn't say we came to any meeting of the minds, but we all had a good airing of our opinions (among the family and a few friends, that is). So, hats off to Maureen for giving us that excuse!

Having vented on the issue of Suzie Palin in the family venue, I'm not really interested in going back into it all - at least for the moment. (And all the blog readers heave a sigh of relief.) But, instead, I will recommend you read another opinion that I thought was particularly well written. Laura has a blog primarily focused on local eating, gardening and raising chickens. She has organized, or helped to organize, the eat-local challenges I've participated in and written about. In this post about Ms. Suzie, her focus is mainly on the complicated issue of the desire of many to see a woman in high office and how this nomination comes up short. If this sounds of interest to you, you will find that post at: (not so) Urban Hennery

And I'm back to food reporting in the next post because the garden and CSA have been good to us lately.

One Local Summer, Week 13

2008-09-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

We've just returned from four days in Manzanita for the holiday weekend with friends and lots of local foods on the menu. So, I'll give a brief write up of what we had there. But, also, for my official Week 13 report, I want to refer you to an earlier post this week:

Curly Kale and Potato Soup

That one at least has a picture, although the soup was not particularly photogenic.

There were three families on our trip to the coast. We all have gardens and all three belong to CSA's. In addition, Jeff stopped at a farm stand on the way down and I went to the Manzanita Farmer's Market. So, there was a refrigerator full of wonderful local foods for us to choose from. At various times, we enjoyed:
red new potatoes with wilted chard
a saute of zucchini, onion and fresh corn
green salads with garden lettuce, cherry tomatoes, scallions, cucumbers
chicken ( from "Lance's Beef", a farm in Bay City)
pork chops (unknown origin - purchased at the little grocery store there)
frittata with peppers (some local, some not), cherry tomatoes, cilantro and Rogue River cheddar with jalapenos
french toast with local eggs and milk that I'm not sure about, made with challah made by a nearby bakery

We have been going to the coast for Labor Day weekend with these friends for many years. It has always been that last blast before school starts for three teachers, their kids and one guy who always has to put up with a lot of "school talk".

Although I don't have any picture of the food, I do have this showing a gorgeous bouquet that Grace (Jeff's neice) got for me at the Manzanita Farm Market:

Clearly a young woman of quality and taste. Grace is a soon-to-be sixth grader who will live here in Portland for the school year with Jeff and keep him honest by being a student in his class for his last year of teaching.

Curly Kale and Potato Soup

2008-08-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

Last week's CSA share brought a nice looking bunch of Red Russian kale. So, I turned to my Alice Waters, Art of Simple Food for ideas and found her recipe for "Curly Kale and Potato Soup". I don't know the difference between curly and Red Russian - but the Red Russian was, in fact, kind of curly so I figured that was good enough for me. The recipe calls for Yellow Finn or Yukon Gold potatoes. I used some Yukon golds and some of the Red Nordland that Heather has been bringing in the farm share. I used onions from the farmer's market and the CSA. And, then we'd also gotten garlic yesterday from Heather's harvest. I did have to use store-bought chicken broth because we didn't have any on hand, but it is made here in our area. And I did add one of the optional variations - a half pound of spicy chicken sausage, made at our market. We thought it might have been a little bland without the spicy sausage, but next time I would try it with some dried red peppers to accomplish the same thing.

Simple, as promised by the title of the cookbook, but very nice.

She Did What She Needed to Do...

2008-08-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

... and did it well.

Hillary's speech at the convention tonight brought me right back to the tears I felt when she officially dropped out of the race. I voted for Barack Obama in the primary and I have volunteered at his office since then. But, as a woman close to her age, who has dealt with some overt discrimination because of my gender, the primary race has been a huge bag of mixed feelings for me. So, it was hard to watch and, at the same time, I admired her for putting her own personal feelings aside and doing what needed to be done. I just hope she convinced those supporters of her who have been threatening to throw their votes away.

One Local Summer, Week 12

2008-08-23T16:08:00.001-07:00

Even with my limited picture-taking ability, aren't those just beautiful?! More basil from our plants in the pot, but now we also FINALLY have some tomatoes ready to go. So far, only the cherry tomatoes are ripe, but the others are working on it. So, at least a couple of our local meals this week involved pesto and tomatoes.

My cousin, Carol, from Virginia and her friend were in town visiting this week. Since it was her first trip to the Pacific Northwest, I thought we needed to show them what we can do with local foods in Portland. I made pasta with pesto, Italian chicken sauage and cherry tomatoes plus a green salad. Later in the week, I made another batch of it to take to a potluck party.
pesto - basil from our garden (parmesan, pine nuts, and olive oil not local)
Chicken Italian sausage - made at New Seasons
Cherry tomatoes - backyard
Lettuce - backyard and CSA
Tomatoes - backyard
Scallions, red onion and carrots- CSA
pasta - bought in bulk at New Seasons, but I don't know its origin

Meanwhile, back in the garden - in addition to the arrival of the tomatoes, here are a couple of other recent appearances:

Pears

on our espaliered pear tree

and peppers

And, in the preservation department, today, I froze some green beans from our CSA and a bunch of rhubarb brought to us by a friend.

To Market, To Market...

2008-08-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

but not to buy a fat pig. Instead: plums, peaches, corn, lettuce, garlic and a pickle! I haven't been down to the farmer's market at PSU in a while. We've been getting most of our vegetables through the farm share or at the nearby Eastbank farm market lately. But, having gotten my bike looked over yesterday, I was in the mood for riding to the market this morning. There is a new stand - Pickleopolis (aka "Kingdom of the Brine") where they sell pickled cucumbers, beans, beets and some kraut. The pickle I brought home for lunch was really good - lots of garlic, very crisp. And, seeing my bike helmet, the woman very nicely packaged it in a second bag for me so it would survive the trip without getting pickle juice all over my fruit.

On the way home, I stopped at Clever Cycles and bought myself a present - a small basket to put on the front handlebars. I've been looking at them in various places for a while and found a nice simple one there. It has 2 hooks which just hang over the handlebar - very easy to put on and take off, has a handle if I want to take it off to carry around. There are some things that I don't really want to put in the panniers, but which should survive a trip in the basket more safely. For example, this morning at the farmer's market, I was looking at pints of berries and some flowers, but passed on both because of not having a good way to carry them.

So, with a little tuning up and a new basket, I'm good to go - trying to ride without worrying about falling again. My arm and leg are mostly healed, so it seems like I should be able to get over the rest of it. At 58, I don't seem to bounce back as quickly as I did in my days of bike-riding around Menominee, Escanaba and East Lansing. Duh.

One Local Summer, Week 11

2008-08-17T20:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I took a cooking class with three friends at the In Good Taste Cooking School in Northwest Portland. This is the second one that a couple of us have taken and it is a great way to learn some new things and have a lovely dinner. This class was called "Dog Days Dinner Party" - a menu you can prepare in the cool part of the morning and then serve on a hot summer evening. Little did they know, when the class was planned in April, that August 15 would turn out to, in fact, be a true dog day in Portland. Seeing Ken's comment to this post, I'm adding an quick edit. It reminded me that I had forgotten to put in the name of the instructor for this class - Ken Hoyt. With a demonstration class, the instructor's ability to carry on an entertaining conversation can make a big difference in the enjoyment of the class and we really did have a good time. Thanks, Ken.

One thing on the menu was "Summer Corn Salad". So, for tonight's dinner, I tried it out.
The salad is made with:
tomatoes (Denison Farms in Corvallis)
corn (from Washington)
red onion and bell pepper (our CSA)
avocado (not local)
cilantro (California, unfortunately, since my plant is dead)
pine nuts and jalapeno pepper (can't remember where they came from)
and dressed with olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper

We had it with quesadillas made with local whole wheat tortillas, Tillamook pepper jack cheese, the same tomatoes, jalapeno and cilantro that I used in the salad. Turned out to be a nice summer dinner.

Our heat wave seems to have come to an end - for which we are all pretty much thankful, including Molly. Looks like we'll even have a little rain this week which should make the garden plants happy.

Dog Days in Portland

2008-08-17T14:36:00.001-07:00

When we have three days in a row of 100+ temperatures, and you have a fur coat you can't hang up in the closet, you need some help. Molly seemed to appreciate having her own personal fan.

Have Not Fallen Off the Planet

2008-08-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, it really has been a long time since I've added a new post to the blog! My list of excuses is long, but maybe not entirely honest. I have been busy, but I can't say that I have had no time on the computer during this busy period. But, I just haven't felt motivated with all the other things going on.

The "busy" stuff included a week at the beach and then a house full of people for four days, including a big party at our house. The visitors here were related to a celebration we held on Sunday to honor Grady's Mom who died in May. It was a lovely afternoon of remembering, telling stories and just good conversation. I know that Anne would have appreciated it, so I think it was well worth the effort.

Meanwhile, we actually have had lots of local food eating with all the garden and farm share options, but I didn't even turn in a weekly report for the One Local Summer Challenge. By way of example, recently, I made a pizza with swiss chard, mushrooms and an Italian sausage along with a fruit salad.
Swiss chard – CSA
Oregon Mushrooms and Italian sausage – Local
Fruit salad – Oregon cantalope, honeydew & blueberries Washington cherries (Wa)

And just to update another recent blog topic, my beat up arm and leg from the bicycle fall are healing pretty well. The bruising is almost gone, scrapes and scabs on the mend. The only thing I'm a little concerned about is that the swelling in my arm doesn't seem to be improving much. But, the doc did say that could take a while.

So, there's a brief check in. I hope to get back into some regular reporting in on our garden and local eating efforts as I get back into normal routines.

One Local Summer, Week 8

2008-08-03T15:03:00.001-07:00

Wow, when I think back to the "Dark Days Eat Local Challenge" and the degree of difficulty factor in finding local vegetables back in December, January, February. And, then compare to the options now, it is amazing! The offerings at the farmer's markets, of which there are many in Portland, our CSA share, and our little backyard garden make it easy to eat local. In fact, the difficulty now is in choosing and in keeping up with the garden and farm share.

So, we've been having mostly local meals except for when we want to just try something else or are eating elsewhere. One of our best local meals from this week is the one in the picture above.
Grilled Pork Country Boneless Ribs - Sweet Briar Farms in Eugene
Marinted with Huckleberry Pear grilling sauce - Apple Valley Farm Country Store, near Hood River
Russian Banana fingerling potatoes, garlic and WallaWalla scallions - all from our CSA
Salad -garden and CSA lettuce, local blueberries, radishes and snow peas from the CSA share

That Huckleberry Pear grilling sauce is to die for. When we make our next trip up to the "Fruit Loop", I will want to get another jar.

Meanwhile, we've switched over a few things in the garden. Took out a couple of the lettuce plants that had bolted while we were in B.C., cleaned things up and put in some more chard and some new lettuce plants. The peppers and tomatoes are making progress, but still have a ways to go.

The basil, on the other hand, has gone to town. I pulled off enough from it at the stage it is in here to make 3 batches of pesto and still have plenty for everyday cooking.

Now I Feel Like a REAL Bicyclist

2008-07-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

as a result of having my first bicycle crash (at least in a very long time). And, maybe "crash" is a bit more dramatic than the accident warranted. I had an up close and personal meeting with the pavement this afternoon. Since I started riding again on a somewhat regular basis, I've wondered if I was going to be able to avoid a fall. In the main, I ride pretty slowly and cautiously, so it didn't seem to be terribly likely.

But, I believe somewhere in Bicycling 101, they tell you not to try to cross streetcar tracks at an angle. Duh. It's not like I don't know this rule. I regularly have to cross railroad tracks to get to the path along the river and always am careful to cross as close as I can to a 90 degree angle. Today, I was riding down to the south waterfront area on the west side of the river. Had gotten as far as the Spaghetti Factory restaurant and was looking to figure out where I could turn to head back. In hind sight, I know that I should have gone one more block and would probably have been just fine. But, instead, I turned on the same block that the streetcar turns down there. And, just about the time, I was figuring out that there was no place for the bike to ride, I went flying. Ouch! Double ouch! (and a lot of other words that I need to leave out in case Mom reads my blog.) Sad to say, it was my own darn fault, no one else I can blame!

I was, in fact, very lucky in two ways. One is that I really wasn't hurt in any significant way - painful, yes, but not serious. And the other is the number of people who came to offer help. I was so impressed. One woman who was just walking by, came over quickly and helped by getting my bike out of the way. (I was a bit concerned because I was sprawled across the tracks and not feeling ready to move any too quickly.) Another woman came out of a business across the street and offered bandaids or other first aid paraphernalia. A shuttle bus driver stopped and asked if I needed help. The business across the street was "Paradym Events" and, as it turns out, the kind folks there took great care of me - fixed my handlebars so I could actually ride the bike again (had the tools and the knowledge to take care of that), gave me alcohol wipes for all the scrapes (did I say Ouch?!) and water. How great that there are people who will take time to do things like that. So, as much as I would like to whine, I do feel quite fortunate.

I'd love to show photos of my injuries, as some of my blogging sisters and others like to do. But this is a high-class blog - none of that blood and guts stuff. And Catherine would be grossed out. Nevermind that, if there were pictures of my "injuries", I'm afraid there would be a lot of guffawing out there amongst the real athletes. In addition, right after I got home, I needed to drive to go pick up our CSA share. Another woman came in for her produce with a serious black eye and bruises on her face around her eye - saying she'd had a recent bike accident. She'd even had a concussion. So, my tale was a lot less glamorous to tell. (Didn't ask her if she was wearing a helmet.)

Grady is offering zero sympathy, for some reason. I just mention this in a blatant appeal for words of sympathy from blog readers. :)
(Well, in the interest of fairness, I guess I should add that, after I rode a bit less than half way back home, and things were starting to hurt quite a bit, I called him and he did come and pick me up. So maybe he didn't feel any additional words of sympathy were required.)

Instead of unpleasant photos of my arm and knee, I'll offer instead a picture of one of the herbs from our CSA share today - borage. Another new adventure in cooking.

One Local Summer, Week 8

2008-07-27T16:07:00.001-07:00

Our week was chopped up again since I went to Manzanita for three days. I brought some of our backyard greens and some leftovers, so not much exciting to report on there. And, I have no idea of what Grady ate here on his own.
But, we had a lovely breakfast one morning:

Probably the last picking (sigh) of our raspberries and loganberries in the backyard.
I combined them with some Oregon Blueberries to make a Summer Fruit Compote (Art of Slow Food, Alice Waters). We had it on top of multi-grain pancakes. I have not yet investigated the source of the grains that I buy in bulk at the grocery store, so I can't designate them as local. But, the butter, eggs and buttermilk used with them to make the pancakes were all local. The berries in the compote soaked nicely into the pancakes and made for a delicious combination.

Today, I needed to make something to take to a neighborhood potluck picnic down at Ladd Circle. I started out looking for something in which to use the fennel from our CSA share since it was probably more than we would be likely to use during the week on our own. I think fennel is something of an acquired taste and I'd have to say that Grady has not yet made the acquisition. I found a recipe for Fennel Slaw on Epicurious and took this to the potluck.Fennel - CSA share
Cabbage - from Washington, not really local, but close
Carrot - grown in Oregon
Walla Walla scallions substituted for the onions - CSA share

It's hard to believe we are already at week 8. We've settled into some routines with our local eating. I haven't been to a farmer's market in a while - keep missing them because of being out of town. But, between the little bit we get from our tiny garden and the small share we have from Little Frog farm, we're in pretty good shape for vegetables and fruits. And now we have a locally grown chicken available at New Seasons, plus fish, beef and pork. I think it's time for me to pursue more about the grains as we move into week 9 - or when we run out of the flours that we have on hand.

Random observations from our B.C. Road Trip

2008-07-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

Every town in British Columbia has:

a community center - usually large and quite beautiful, no matter how small the town
one or more of the following - Subway, A&W, Dairy Queen- all three usually unless town is very small
log house builder
at least one liquor store - no exceptions; three or four unless the town has a population under 50; often they are combined with something else - liquor store and tavern, liquor store and gas station, etc. - very efficient
at least one "Chinese and Western" restaurant
taxidermist
An official 'Information Center - in which the employees are paid by the number of maps and brochures they are able to hand out to visitors, more points if they can mark up the map with random points of interest first; but the Info Centers always have a restroom, so I am a big fan
a drop-dead gorgeous scenic view - including rivers, forests and mountains in the distance

OK, maybe there are just a few generalizations here, but not too many. Most of all, it is a beautiful province and we felt welcomed by friendly people every place we stopped or stayed.

Two Highlights of the trip:
1. Visits to two first nations cultural centers and several galleries that specialize in native arts in Victoria -
'KSan Historic Village - for centuries, the home of the Gitxan in the upper Skeena River region near Hazelton; a replication of the houses, totem poles, and other artifacts of their culture
Quw'utsun' Cultural and Conference Centre
run by the Cowichan Tribes; in addition to an interpretive tour and opportunity to talk with a basket-weaver and a carver, we lucked into an opportunity to see a performance of aboriginal songs and dances by the Cowichan Tzinquaw Dancers.

In Victoria, we browsed through several galleries that focus on art of the northwest coast. Our favorite were prints by Coast Salish artist, lessLIE at Alcheringa Gallery. After a fair amount of looking, hemming and hawing, we managed to decide on one print to bring home.

2. The ferry trip from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy
A 15-hour ride through the inland passage along the west coast of B.C.. Again, gorgeous scenery on both sides of the boat. And many wildlife-viewing opportunities throughout the day- LOTS of whales, dolphins playing in the wake of the boat, eagles flying overhead and a few seals. Observation of the wildlife on board also helped pass the time. I believe we were among a small minority of people on the boat who were native speakers of English. It seems to be quite a popular trip with European tourists. It was also my observation that we were among a similarly small minority of people on the boat not wearing travel pants - men, women, children, couples in matching travel pants. (If you ever see Grady and I wearing matching travel pants and matching jackets, please put us out of our misery.)

Lastly, here are a couple of the house fronts and totems in the 'KSan village:

And, for those of you who heard (or read in last year's travel blog) about our "rough crossing" of Lake Michigan, I thought I might show you a picture of me not throwing up on this ferry ride. Note: no white knuckles on the seat arms, no extra large barf bags in sight. Whew, what a better way to travel.

A group of my photos from this trip are on my flickr page.
I'm hoping Grady will get his developed soon. He actually took two FILM cameras. On the ferry ride, he was stopped frequently by other folks who were curious about these antique cameras he was using! But, of course, he has not only a better camera, but actual knowledge and skill in using it. So, his pictures of the whales and dolphins are likely to actually look like something. And, maybe I can get digital versions to post later on.

One Local Summer, Week 7

2008-07-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

Just back from our road trip through British Columbia, so tonight's dinner is the only meal I've made here at home this week. It was an almost all local meal. We haven't had chicken in a while and I had a hankering for it. So we've grilled some local chicken breasts that I had marinated in ginger, garlic and chili powder - based loosely on a recipe in The Farm to Table Cookbook.
Chard from our garden sauteed with garlic and some hot pepper.
Gratin with local fingerlings, shitakes, and mild. I didn't have time to look for a local substitute for the cheese, so I went ahead and used gruyere as called for in the recipe. This was also a variation on a recipe in Ivy Manning's book.
And, finally, a green salad with lettuce from our garden.

The potatoes look a lot better in the before picture than they do in the completed meal - partly due to my picture-taking abilities, but also probably due to the fact that it got overcooked while I was waiting for Grady to get back from a visit to the neighbors. (Always handy to have someone else to blame!)

I haven't posted any pictures of Molly lately - the namesake for the "old dog", as I explained in the very first post of this blog. The potatoes gratin may have been overcooked, but that didn't keep her from showing her interest. She was happy to have us back home and she always appreciates it when we eat on the deck since the table there is lower than our kitchen island, making it much easier to get her nose up close.

We did have a lovely dinner in Victoria that also qualifies for One Local Summer. I asked our host at the B&B for suggestions of restaurants that use local products in their cooking. He enthusiastically suggested three restaurants that he said were all very good. We chose Paprika Bistro and it was excellent. I started with a salad of local organic greens, green apples, Poplar Grove Tiger blue cheese and hazelnuts. Then followed with Cowichan Bay Farm duck with sour cherry and ginger sauce and a potato strudel.

A few more observations on our trip through B.C. later. I managed to come home with one souvenir I didn't appreciate, a full-on cold with all the usual symptoms. So, this is about all the effort I can muster tonight.

Road Trip 2008

2008-07-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

We’re off in the little red car again, heading north – farther north than either of us have even been. On our way to Prince Rupert, British Columbia - four days worth of north. We should get there by tomorrow evening and then we'll be taking a 15-hour ferry ride to Vancouver Island. I don't feel up to a frequent and detailed trip blog as I had done with our road trip last year (huge sighs of relief from the hoards of readers). But, I'll post an assortment of pictures and comments for the family. Then it should be easy to scroll through.

The first day and a half was urban:
Seattle - dinner with Barb Williams and a stay at the Chez Rinehart/Young, relaxing in the front yard looking out over the sunset on Greenlake.
Vancouver - lunch with Chris (friend of our Kris), Ashley (his wife) and Riley (friend from Montreal who had just ridden his bike from Portland to Vancouver); transported "gifts" and wine for Chris and Ashley

The Alex Fraser bridge heading into the part of town nearest to where Chris and Ashley live. Very cool looking.

Saturday - drove along the "sea to sky highway", up through Whistler and on to Pemberton. We were curious about the amount of road construction until we saw the signs reminding us that the 2010 Winter Olympics will be in that area. Pemberton was a lovely little town, particularly the restaurant where we had dinner and the farm at which we had breakfast the next morning. (more on the food in both places in the last post about local eating)

Grady relaxing and enjoying the view from the patio of the Pemberton Valley Vineyard Inn and Restaurant.

And this is the view he was appreciating.

The North Arm Farm has been farmed by the Sturdy's since the mid 1990's. They grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, including the strawberries and cherries we tasted, without herbicides, pesticides or fungicides. They are open for visitors and have a bakery where they sell pastries and pies made on site using the fruit that is in season. In addition to enjoying our breakfast, we walked around the farm and said hello to some of the animals.

But, when I headed even a little close to mama and baby (behind a fence, mind you),

these three members of the family (or close friends, I'm sure) immediately headed my way making loud remarks that did not sound very much like "hi, come on over, you're welcome here any time."

Here is another version of what the folks who work on this farm get to look at while they're working (the other being in that post about the local eating in Pemberton).

Our next stop after Pemberton was in Quesnel after a very dramatic and scenic drive along the Cariboo highway. We stayed in the lovely "Garden Gallery B&B".

Grady relaxing on the deck with our hosts, Don and Darleen (and their dog, Dudley). With a bit of wine and lemonade, we learned about their careers as teachers and how they turned their home into a B&B after they retired. We had the whole second floor to ourselves. In the morning, they fixed us a full breakfast of potato pancakes with herbs and scapes from their garden, sliced tomatoes and fruit, and some locally made sausages they picked up that morning at the farmer's market.

A fairly uneventful drive today. Lunch in a nice park in Frasier Lake (next to a large grouping of those red hat ladies). I'd have to say that the highlight of the day was a walk on the trail around a wetlands area here in Houston called the "Duck Pond Trail". It was good to get outside a bit more and we got to see several ducks, geese and other birds in the pond.

So, there's a recap of the trip so far. On to Prince Rupert tomorrow after spending some time in one of the three Hazeltons.

Eating Local in Pemberton, BC - OLS Week 6

2008-07-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

I thought I would report in from the road and share a little of our local eating efforts in British Columbia. During the first part of this week, we were mostly just trying to use up leftovers and bits of things in the refrigerator to clean it out before leaving for 10 days. We had lots of lettuce from our garden and our CSA with all those leftovers. But, otherwise, it was not too interesting.

We are currently on a road trip loop through British Columbia, on our way to Prince Rupert (four days worth of north). From there, we take a 15-hour ferry ride wouth along the inland passage to Vancouver Island. At the moment, I am sitting in a park in Fort Frasier using wifi from the public library, I think.

Day before yesterday, we were in the little town of Pemberton, a short distance north of Whistler. Saturday night we had dinner at the Pemberton Valley Vineyard Inn and Restaurant. We started with a salad of several types of greens, and both red and golden beets from their garden.

I had wine-poached Pacific west coast halibut with Across the Creek baby new potatoes. The Pemberton area has quite a bit of farming and potatoes are a specialty. These were served with some zucchini spears and onions also from their garden. I don’t remember the name of the duck entrée that Grady had, but I believe it was also raised in the area. I also had a glass of the Pemberton Vallery Vinyard wine.

ncidentally, we had a lovely evening because of the beautiful setting and the fact that they were not busy. So, we were there three hours, getting to watch the sun go down and the moon appear and make its way across the tops of these mountains.

Sunday morning, we drove to the North Arm Farm. We walked around the farm a bit and then got a pint of strawberries they had just picked and pastries made in the kitchen there. They have a bakery in which they make pies and other pastries using whatever fruit is currently in season.

This is a cherry strudel. Doesn’t look like much in this picture, but it was so delicious. Quite decadent to have, basically, cherry pie for breakfast, but we tried to be more circumspect the rest of the day.
It was a beautiful warm sunny morning and we ate our breakfast out on one of the picnic tables looking at this view.

Strange Men Outside Our Bedroom Window

2008-07-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

...and look at the mess they've left!

Well, I guess it's kind of hard to tell from this view. You have to know that the house has been blue for about 20 years.

Here is a little closer up view
Our lovely old 1911 Portland Foursquare is not so lovely these days. Of course, it hasn't been lovely for some time since it has been WAY overdue for a new paint job. So, now it is on its way to getting its new coat of paint.

I understand that the wood has to be prepared first. And I understand that, in these days of high temperatures in the 80's and 90's, that the crew doing this work might want to start early in the morning when it is still cool. But, I was just NOT prepared to be awakened at 6:45 a.m. to the sound of men's voices outside my bedroom window. And, not prepared to go into the bathroom and find another one looming outside that window. And, then to try to get clothes out of the spare bedroom and - yes, again - guys outside my window. These are all on the second floor of a big old house, mind you - not a place you expect to find people lurking. Well, maybe lurking is not really what they were doing. There was also the noise of equipment being scraped across the siding and torches getting the paint all heated up. So, I know they were working and I know the house REALLY needs it. But, cheesh, wasn't I just waxing philosophically about how much I appreciated having time to myself again in the summer?

And, don't even get me started on how much this is costing us - just to have them work on two sides of the house plus the rafters on the other two. It is just obscene. But, Rex (our mailman) said he's never seen such a good job done on a house and he's seen plenty of this type of work on his route. So, Grady will finish the other two sides (which are not in as bad a shape) and then he will do the actual painting. And, maybe by November (!), we'll have a beautiful new greenish blue foursquare again.

Thank goodness we are leaving on our road trip on Friday so I won't have to wake up to men standing on scaffolding right outside my window after tomorrow. They'll be done by the time we return. I can make this trip drag on if necessary to ensure that is the case.

34 years, but who's counting?

2008-07-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

It was July 6, 1974, in Manchester, Michigan in the presence of our families and many good friends that Grady and I decided to make the big commitment. And, here we are - 34 years later - graying hair and wonky knees, but still going strong.

We spent part of the day with a day trip to Mt. St. Helens. We like to go up there every so often to see how things are progressing, but it has been quite a while since our last trip. On May 18, 1980, we made the unfortunate decision to drive from Seattle to Portland with Grady's mom and our 11 month old daughter. Seven hours later, we arrived at home after spending quite a bit of time on the freeway near Chehalis waiting for I5 to re-open. The one payoff was seeing the mud and debris-clogged Toutle River rushing at an amazing speed on its way to the Cowlitz River. Truly an amazing sight, but, boy, what a long day.

After our trip up to see what we could of St. Helens (low clouds getting in the way), we went to LePigeon for an anniversary dinner. It has received very positive reviews since they opened and they were recently rated Restaurant of the Year by The Oregonian. We decided that was a good call based on the wonderful dinner we had. Feeling brave after a delicious dinner, we tried an unusual dessert - cornbread with honey and apricots, topped with maple ice cream and small bits of bacon. The chef is known for inventive combinations and this certainly qualified. It was delicious. Although quite a small serving, we were glad we were sharing it since it was so rich. And, since seating is at communal tables, we met some nice folks from Piedmont, Ann Arbor, and Chicago.

All in all, a fine day for a couple of old birds who enjoy being together.

One Local Summer, Week 5

2008-07-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

I decided I should just go ahead and write up one of our local meals now because we are eating out or with other people the next three nights and I don't know how much control I will have over the options.

Boy, I am loving this not working most of the summer. Reminds me of when I was first teaching. There is so much you can do when you have big stretches of time available. Today, Is started out doing some volunteer work in the morning, had a workout at the gym, and ran some errands. And, then, in the late afternoon, I rode my bike to the Eastbank Farmer's Market. We're lucky to have a couple of mid-week farm markets and both are in easy biking distance from our house.

Back at home, I picked basil and made pesto. The freshly made pesto with basil right out of the garden is SO much better than other versions we've had.

Our dinner tonight:

Pesto Pasta Genovese: basil from garden, potatoes and green beans from farmer's market
Whole wheat penne: didn't make pasta from scratch today - too hot!
Salad: greens from CSA; tomatoes, cucumbers and green onions -today's market trip
Pinot Noir: King's Ridge made in Newburg, Oregon
Baguette: made by the bakers at New Seasons

The Pesto Pasta Genovese recipe was in my new Ivy Manning cookbook. This is a variation of pasta with pesto that we first learned about from our cooking teacher in Siena several years ago.

In fact, all our meals so far this week have been pretty much local thanks to the garden, our CSA, and local choices available at the grocery store. It is getting easier and easier with so many options this time of year. I'll have to try to remember these good feelings along about next February when the choices are quite a bit less plentiful.

JAM makes Jam

2008-07-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

Here is my first effort this summer in the food preserving category. Raspberries from our backyard plus Mt. Hood strawberries - a small batch of each. Used a kind of pectin that allows for using less sugar than normal. These happen to be a cooked and then processed version. Next time, I think I'll make some freezer jam.

I did this project yesterday and then decided that we would have to have something with jam for dinner. So, I made cream biscuits (The Art of Simple Food). But, since it didn't seem quite right to have just biscuits and jam for dinner, I heated up some risotto with squash from the freezer and made a salad out of the garden. (We're also trying to use up stuff in the freezer these days.)

Today, I picked up our first CSA half-share.

By way of miscellaneous trivia, my initials before I was married were JAR. And, for the past 34 years, they've been JAM.

One Local Summer, Week 4 Report

2008-06-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

We've had a few different local meals this week, but my favorite was this evening's dinner. The plan started out when I was in Manzanita and went to the great bookstore there because I'd finished reading the book I'd had with me (The God of Small Things). While I was at the Cloud and Leaf Bookstore, I found a copy of The Farm to Table Cookbook, by Ivy Manning, calling my name. So, I started reading the "Spring" chapter and found a couple of things I thought would go nicely together.

Spicy Minced Pork in Lettuce Bundles (well no lettuce bundles showing here, but this is the pork with all it's seasonings)

Watercress, Snow Pea, and Shiitake Stir-Fry

and Asian Slaw with Peanuts from Epicurious.com

And, here is the whole package. Pretty sloppy-looking picutre, but, being at our friends' house, I didn't want to take time to stage photos.

It all went together quite well and we've all had more than our daily ration of fresh ginger today since there was a good amount in all three dishes. The vegetables came from our garden, Cochran's garden and the farmer's market. The pork loin came from Pacific Village portk producers in Oregon via the New Seasons market in our neighborhood. Not local: peanuts, ginger, red pepper and lime juice.

And I'm looking forward to spending more time with Ivy Manning's cookbook.

Sand, Yarn and Local Food

2008-06-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

Another quick trip to the coast this week for beach-sitting, local eating, and knitting, not to mention 99 (actually got to 100 on Saturday) degree weather-avoiding. I left early Friday afternoon. I was inordinately happy driving to Manzanita - tuna sandwich, bag of fresh cherries and an iced latte for lunch en route, windows down and sun roof open. I was on my own this time. Grady had to stay behind to do his neighborhood civic duty on Saturday morning (innoculating elm trees in Ladd's Addition). And Molly was not invited. With guests coming to use the house Sunday morning, I didn't want to spend any extra time cleaning the house since we had already done a thorough cleaning the last time we left.It was actually HOT at the coast the past couple day - in the 80's. (This is unusual in case you are not familiar with the Oregon coast.) So, it was a great time to sit on the beach and read or nap, and I did plenty of both. On Friday, there was a pretty good breeze, so we had lots of kites and kite surfers. Today, it was completely calm.
Friday evening I went to the farmer's market in Manzanita to get dinner. Wow, talk about crowds! I got there about 20 minutes after it opened and it was already getting crazy. I got my dinner items and scooted on out.
So, I had a nice simple local meal for myself. Broiled ling cod, mixed salad greens with a bit of hothouse tomato, and roasted red fingerling potatoes, plus a sauvignon blanc from our neighbor state to the north.

I first started this blog to write about my experiences with learning to make local foods a regular part of our diet. This was one of the things I wanted to learn about and do in my retirement. Among the other "new tricks" on that retirement "to do" list is learning to knit. It just happened that a brand new yarn store opened up in Manzanita recently and they were offering a one-session introduction to knitting beginner class this morning. So, I signed myself up and drove down to attend. Lou, our incredibly patient teacher, got us started with two ways to cast on and the basic knit stitch. And, "TA DA.....", here is my first effort (well, actually second, but the first one looks pretty much the same, except even more uneven.)
The store is called T-Spot Yarns, Teas, and Chocolate. Doesn't have a website yet. But, if you like any of those three things and find yourself in Manzanita, I would encourage you to stop by and see Olga.

Now It Feels Official

2008-06-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

that I am retired. Today was the last of the various retirement festivities - a luncheon put on by our Portland district administrators professional organization. Along with my fellow principal retirees, I was given a plaque and a nice tribute. In my case, the little speech was given by one of the Assistant Superintendents whom I have worked for in three different positions in my career with the district. It was embarrassing, but nice to be acknowledged by my colleagues.

Since I didn't need to go back to work afterwards, I celebrated by taking the time to ride my bike to the athletic club for a workout. For normal people, this wouldn't be any big accomplishment since the gym is only a bit under 2 miles from here and it's a posted bike route most of the way, even though on city streets and crossing the bridge. But, it's the first time I didn't take the car to go the gym, so I feel like it was a step forward for my exercise program.

Why couldn't it have just been a nice day all around instead of coming home to the news that the Supreme Court has made a huge mistake?

Bike Toys

2008-06-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

Ann, don't read this.

On Sunday, I rode my bike downtown to the Bike Gallery and got their help to install my bike computer. The dirty little secret of this story is that Ann and Gina gave me this computer for Christmas (!) and it's taken me this long to get it installed and working. (That's why I don't want them to read about this.) And, in fact, right at the beginning, Ann suggested I just take it to a bike store and have them install it. But, oh no, we had to do it ourselves. Grady was sure he could install the apparatus on the wheel and I worked on the set up of the computer itself. But, it didn't work. Over time, we had various people, including our son and our almost-son - both avid bicyclists - look at the installation and declare it to be done correctly. But, still no readings on the computer. To make a long story short, over the long stretch of crummy weather, I didn't have a huge interest in riding the bike somewhere to get help and there was always something else to do. Eventually, I called the store that it came from in Seattle to ask if they knew what local Portland bike stores sell the same brand and they suggested the Bike Gallery. And, I finally found a time to call the store here, they were available to help and it was a nice day to ride downtown.

Turns out the computer itself was the problem. When the bike mechanic couldn't get the system working, he started trading out parts and, as soon as he put in a new computer, it worked like a charm. Luckily, they were willing to let me take home the new one on my bike under the assumption that the warranty on my original one would get them a replacement. I had to pay an installation fee, but it was well worth it.

So, I rode around that day for 8.4 miles, just in case you're interested, including the trip back from the store and then an excursion down the Springwater Trail, a path that heads south along the Willamette River. Today I rode down to the People's Coop for their weekly farmer's market - only 1.2 miles. Ok, I promise not to report on the mileage of every bicycle trip I take. It's just that I do love gadgets and this shows distance, speed, time, temperature and a few other things - could probably get stock market quotes if I were interested.

By the way, I bought cabbage, white onions and shiitake mushrooms at the market. The first two are for making a local version of fish tacos tomorrow night.

One Local Summer, Week 3 Report

2008-06-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

We've had a few meals that were all, or nearly all, local this week. But, I have no pictures. For the first couple, I wasn't thinking about it since we were eating with friends. And last night, I started out taking pictures during the preparation, but then misplaced my camera! Couldn't find it when I went to take a shot of the finished product. It has to turn up soon - I hope!

Last Sunday, Jennifer and I made a dinner for three of the fathers in our lives. We had:
Salad - lettuce, spinach, carrots and snap peas
Sauteed spinach
Roasted carrots and fingerling potatoes
Grilled stuffed salmon *
Rhubarb crisp

The salmon was wild caught from Bristol Bay, Alaska. Everything else (except the lemon juice) was local - either from one of our gardens, a farmer's market, or Jennifer and Ian's CSA farm. Even though I couldn't get salmon from the Oregon coast, I decided to go ahead and make the stuffed salmon for Father's day because it is one of Grady's favorites. The recipe came from his Mom many years ago (but I don't know where she got it.)

Last night I made whole wheat fettucine from scratch and topped it with a mushroom sauce. I sauteed the Oregon shiitakes, added garlic, green onions, rainbow chard, chives, white wine and cream. The chard and chives came from our garden, wine and cream from New Seasons, everything else was purchased at the farmer's market. Salad accompanying the pasta also was fresh from the back yard.

We also had a local breakfast while out at the coast mid-week, using Melinda's recipe for yogurt pancakes, topped with strawberries. (See last post).

* Barbecued Stuffed Fish (serves 12)

Wash fish quickly in cold water, pat dry. Rub cavity with salt & pepper, stuff with garden veg stuffing. Close opening with skewers and lace. Brush with salad oil. Place in wire basket on grill 4 in. from medium coals. Cook 45 min. until fish flakes easily with fork, turning 3 times and basting with mixture of 1/2 c melted butter & 1/4 c lemon juice.

Garden vegetable stuffing
(enough for 10# fish--salmon, cod, snapper, lake trout)

1 c finely chopped onion
1/2 c cut parsley
1/4 c butter
1 1/2 T lemon juice
1 clove garlic crushed
1 c mushrooms cut up
2 c dry bread crumbs
1 egg
1 c shredded carrot
1/4 tsp ea marjoram and pepper
2 tsp salt

Cook the onion in butter until tender. Lightly mix in remaining ingredients. If there is extra stuffing, place in aluminum foil pan, cover, heat on grill for 20 minutes.

Strawberry Day

2008-06-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

On our way down to Manzanita on Wednesday afternoon, we stopped to buy some strawberries from a farm in Canby. And, then, when Jeff drove down a little while later, he bought some as well - a whole flat. Plus, I'd brought from home a pint that I'd gotten at the farmer's market. We were knee deep in local strawberries. And no one was complaining. So, Thursday was a full-on strawberry day.

Breakfast:
sliced strawberries on the yogurt pancakes I'd made ( many thanks to Melinda at 'Elements in Time' for this great way to start the day. This link to her blog has the recipe and photos.)
Lunch:
a little sliced bread with cheese and whole strawberries on the side
Dinner:
grilled steak with leftovers from Father's day and another party, followed by strawberry shortcake that Jeff made for us - using the traditional recipe in my old copy of Joy of Cooking that I keep down at the beach.

Proud to say we're doing our best this week to support a couple of the local strawberry farms in our area.

Note to self: get a life

2008-06-16T16:50:00.001-07:00

It's a darn good thing that I am pretty sure my kids do not read my blog. If they did, I imagine it would reinforce their opinion that I need to "get a life". But, since they do have lives and better things to do, I think it's safe for me to write about exciting experiences such as reorganizing the food storage container drawer. Along with the more entertaining things I've done since retiring, I am also trying to occasionally address some of those not-so-fun things on the "to do" list. So, one of those was to deal with the frustrating experience of rooting around in the tupperware drawer looking for a box and a lid that match for storing leftovers.

When I got everything out onto the counter island, this is what I found:

Keeping in mind, this does not count things currently in use in the fridge or freezer. Seems like a bit much, wouldn't you say? There are only two of us who live her now. How much food could we possibly store?! My theory is that there is hanky panky going on in that drawer when we're not around and they are reproducing. I know I have never purchased that many containers. And, then, of course, after matching up all the boxes with lids that fit, these were left over:

Have no idea where are the containers that once went with these, but it does not seem necessary to continue harboring these orphans in the over-full drawer.

So, next step is to figure out which to keep and what to do with the ones we don't keep. To some extent, this project was motivated by the fact that we got a new freezer, that raspberries should be arriving soon and, in general, I want to do more long term storage of foods that are available in the summer and fall in order to keep us eating locally for more of the year.

I'm guessing that I will no longer be able to give my sister a bad time when she writes about racoons, toilets or her toes on her blog. Darn.

One Local Summer, Week 2 Report

2008-06-14T20:38:00.001-07:00

Our dinner this evening:
Black Cod (troll caught in Columbia River): Hollywood Farm Market
(grilled after marinating in olive oil, garden cilantro, salt and pepper)
Salad: cilantro and 3 kinds of lettuce from our garden, carrots and onions from Sweet Leaf Farm, Rogue Creamery blue cheese (OK, Central Point, Oregon is quite a bit more than 100 miles from here, so technically, not local as in 100 mile radius, but it's in the same state after all and darn good blue cheese)
Red Potatoes with Wilted Greens: potatoes and garlic from Sweet Leaf Farm, rainbow chard and chives from our garden
"Peace Bomb" bread by Dave's Killer Bread at Portland State Farmer's Market

Otherwise, it has been a week of eating elsewhere (Sun, Wed, Thurs, Fri) - still the season of retirement parties, dinners before seeing a play, and visits from out of town friends.

Hooray, the sun has FINALLY returned to the northwest and we feel like we are actually getting some summer here in Portland. I enjoyed a nice bike ride to the downtown Farmer's market today only to find that half the population of Portland also thought it was a terrific time to go to the market. All I could think of, as I elbowed my way through the crowds, was that farmer's markets were one of the early items in the list of "Stuff White People Like".

Meanwhile, still no evidence that the raspberries or loganberries are even close. :(
But, we're ready - our new freezer has been delivered and is ready to go!

"June-uary" = CSA delay

2008-06-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Juneuary - the TV station weather people are very fond of this term that one of them came up with. But, I have to admit I laughed the first time I heard it because it pretty well describes what's been going on here in the lovely Pacific Northwest. We had been due to have our first CSA pickup on June 18, but, as the weather has dragged on in this cool mode, I was guessing we'd hear that there would be a delay. And, that email came yesterday. Heather, at Little Frog Farm, gave us this update: "the unusually cool and wet weather during much of May and so far June has meant that veggies are growing very slowly in the open farm field. Since I don’t have the green houses or hoop houses that other larger farms may have, we’ll just have to wait for the sun to make an appearance and do its good work. "

So, in the meantime, we are enjoying the greens from our garden and the veggies, fish, cheese, etc. that we can get at the various farmer's markets that are close to us.