In Which I Post Pics of Yummy Food, a Recipie and Random Things.

I know I haven't posted in awhile. It was the holidays and work was nuts and traveling and just general winter shut in behavior for me. It's not that I can;t think of interesting things to post about, I just haven't felt like it.

Sad things, there will be no garden this spring. Normally I would be perusing seed catalogs and debating whether or not to do starts indoors or build a cold frame this year and stuff, but sometime this year, most likely in the springish, I'll be moving to the other side of town. So instead for creating garden beds, I will be tuning under all my years of hard work with this soil, and seeding it with...grass. landlords request, as although they don't mind whatever I do with the yard, there is no guarantee future tenets will care at all, much less grow food. At some point we will have to also, stop adding tot he compost bin and turn that under too. Which is sad, this year's is going to be awesome. Maybe I can find someone who will add it to their bin.

In other related news, Tomorrow is the anniversary of the the day B and I met. Out first date. So we're going out. Sadly, the restaurant we met at has closed so we're going someplace else. But there will be video games and dollar movies and Thai food and walking so it will be fun anyways.

On the crafts front, I am knitting a sweater (again) for myself. I plan on finishing this one! I am almost done with the back panel. That's about as far as I got with the other one...I am trying to plan valentine crafts and birthday crafts but I don;t know I will get to them. I am already behind one birthday (sorry mom) and so that means I probably won't get things made or started before other birthdays either (sorry Sis.) But I will try!!! I have a yen to embroider so you all may get delayed cute things to frame if I get off my bum and do it. OK embroidery requires sitting on one's bum so, this might work...




I recently acquired a pressure cooker as a xmas gift. It's intended function was for canning foods that need a pressure cooker to kill off the spores of botulism bacterias. Like everything but jam and tomatoes. However, cooking in a pressure cooker is damn awesome. Energy saving and fast. It's an over looked way of cooking I think. In our country anyways. My pressure cooker is Swiss.
So this stew was made in half an hour. Total, prep and all. I would have cooked the meat a wee bit longer, like a minute or two, but other than that it cooked in about 10 mins, 10 mins for cutting veg. It was delicious. I cooked chicken the first time, and added too much liquid and cooked it for too long. The chicken was great, tender juicy...the veggies ended up a mush in the broth that was made. SO when I made their stew, I cooked the meat for 10 min, then added the veg and cooked for 5 min more. Perfect.


Not that oven roasting can be replaced. pressure cookers use steam pressure to cook, so there is no crispy browning reactions to be had like this chicken dish from last month.




I have started to move away from following baking recipes for gluten free cooking by the book. yay! The more familiar I become with all the different flours and what not the more I can experiment I hope to move into GF bread sometime in the next year. B still can't eat a lot of carbs so there is real no rush to learn anyways.

I have recently discovered I'm lactose intolerant. And I haven't experimented much with this, but I think it's for both the protein and the sugar in milk, casein and lactose. Which means my body doesn't make the enzymes needed to digest them. I had wondered for awhile, but in the last year my digestive issues have gotten worse, and I have always had them, just never said anything to anyone. I think I have been more or less seriously intolerant since I was just out of high school. I feel 100 times better, and more energetic. However. I am not happy about removing dairy from my life and it has become a chore to eat out and buy premade items like cookies or cakes. =( bah!

SO I am also now learning, more than before, how to cook dairy free.

This is a recipe for chocolate hazelnut butter cookies. or as I have been calling them in my head nutella cookies. I would have used peanut butter, but we had more hazelnut butter.

2 c. gluten free/dairy free flour mix (or pancake/baking mix)
1/2 tsp. baking soda (or 1tsp baking powder if baking mix does not have baking powder included)
1tsp. xanthan gum. (I want to experiment with other gums, since this is derived from corn.)
1 tsp salt (less if you like less salty sweets I like extra salt in nut and chocolate cookies)
1/2 c. nut butter of some kind
1./2 c. agave nectar + 1 tsp molasses (more if you don't need to cut out sugar. 3/4 c brown and 1/2rd white)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
2 squares dark chocolate grated ( or as many chips as you like)

mix all dry ingredients together
mix all wet ingredients together in a separate bowl
add wet to dry and mix. If mix is too dry add a little hemp milk till it all comes together.

roll out tsp sized balls onto a cookie sheet
press with a fork or flatten
cook at 350 degrees for about 9 mins or so.

Support Science and Culture in These Dark Times

I did not get laid off today. I am extremely lucky. I'm in the "Why me? Why not me? What's going on? What are we going to do?" phase of dealing with the fact I lost 20 co-workers today. Several, at least a 3rd, of whom I have, or had, direct working relationships with. People who I saw every day for the last 5 years. People who I mentored, who mentored me, who are role models to me, who have taught me, who have influenced my life and direction. Today they are part of the jobless rate.
20 people is a lot when your workforce is 200 or so in the off season. (Seasonal summer hires bump it up a lot.)
20 people is a lot as you have watched open positions go unhired and people have moved on to 'pursue other avenues of interest" over the last year.


I am in education. I am not in a corporation. I am not in retail. I am not in electronics. I am not in the car industry, in real estate or in banking.

I work for a non profit private school. Otherwise known as the local science museum.

I teach people.
Kids. Grownups. Everyone.

I am not a school teacher. I do what is called informal education.

People like me work in science museums, art museums, history museums, natural history museums, zoos, children's museums, aviation museums ( do you see a trend here?).

I work in a cultural center. And we are being affected by the economic crisis too.
We are a luxury. We are a 'local attraction".

We get you excited about the sciences, the arts and history. The past, present and future. We inspire young minds to explore, learn, seek, grow...

So when you are out there, deciding what to do for the day with you limited entertainment dollars, please consider supporting the arts and sciences in your local community. Go visit a museum. Forget the 2 1/2 hour movie, or the amusement park, or the mall. Forget the new video game or the fancy meal.
Get thee some learnin'!
Goodness knows our country needs it!

Shades of Orange

So, today was pumpkin processing day! I still have three squash on the vine and I fear they will not ripen all the way. So I went ahead and processed the other three, plus one that B brought home for Halloween and two we got in the veggie delivery box. The last three were pie pumpkins, the three I grew were called luxury pie squash. We got two butternut in the box too, but I am saving those for another day.

I baked them all in the oven and while they were baking, B and I separated seeds from the eating squash and the saved guts of the Jack o' lantern pumpkins for roasting later. I put aside the pie pumpkin guts for soup stock and composted the Jack o' Lantern guts. You can eat Jack o' Lantern pumpkins, but they are not as good as ones grown for eating. The seeds however, are awesome for roasting.

Seeds were washed and set aside and the pumpkins done roasting so I separated the skins from the flesh and put the skins in the stock pot along with the saved celery tops, carrot greens onion and garlic skins, pepper innards and other misc veggie stuff we normally compost. I figured out that I can freeze the veggie bits that make good stock until I have enough to make stock...duuuurr. So much less waste. I mean, I still compost the stuff after I make stock out of it, but I have extracted much of their nutrient and flavor goodness and gotten the maximum benefit from the veggies before my garden will get their benefit. =)

So the pumpkin stock is simmering, I pureed the pumpkin flesh and set it to drain.
While it was draining, I mixed up two batches of seeds.( about half the total, B has his own recipe plans for roasting the other half.) I used sunflower oil, which is a high heat oil and very tasty for roasted stuff. I used salt and pepper on one batch and cinnamon nutmeg clove and salt on the other.


(The jack o' lantern on the left was a bunny with a carrot in it's mouth on Friday, the ears curled up and now we decided it looks like a squirrel and so D put a hazelnut in it's mouth.)

The stock was done, so I strained it and added the bit of pumpkin that didn't get soft in the oven to boil, and added some more pumpkin as needed and left to simmer. When the pumpkin soft-end I pureed it all and spiced it with curry ginger clove nutmeg and cinnamon, salt and pepper. After it had thickened (evaporated excess water) I added coconut milk.



The rest of the strained pumpkin i put up in a large jar, realized smaller jars would be more utilitarian and the moved it into smaller jars and put them up in the freezer, along with some chicken stock I made the other day and won't be using soon.

Funny aside: one of the pumpkins was rotten inside, partly. This was one of the pumpkins the squirrels has tried to eat so I decided they could have it. I put it out on the porch and they chowed down on the seeds and made a huge mess. We put the jack o lantern guts in the compost and they were rooting through that like it was Halloween! Looking for seeds. It was quite the scene.

Pie!
I made a pumpkin pie that is dairy and gluten free, low sugar and could be vegan but for I used an egg and not egg replacer. (None of us are vegan, but the recipe is.)
It has a crust, it has a silkier than custard texture and it's fantastic.



See, B and D combined are lactose intolerant, low glycemic and gluten free. So are several other people in my life here in Portland, in addition or vegan and vegetarian. so I now have a pie recipe that everyone can eat! (if I leave out the egg and use egg replacer. =) )

The recipe for the pie is here.
The crust is Jungle shortening (non hydrogenated oils) and amaranth flour, salt and water. I pressed it into place, it's not a roll out kinda crust, but it's very crispy. and although I don't think it's tasty on it's own, with the pie and whipped cream it's texture is great.

And aside from the shortening in the crust, it's actually pretty darned healthy. Some sugar. I left the olive oil out of the recipe, it didn't seem to need it anyways. The original recipe is crust less, so if you made this, the most unhealthy thing about it, is the 3/4 cup of brown sugar. And you could get the same flavour out of a half a cup of agave syrup and a tablespoon or so of molasses.

The filling texture is AMAZING it melts on the tongue. Dawn thought it should be more sweet, and if I didn't have sweetened whipped cream on mine, I would have agreed.

Happy All Hallows Eve!

Time for Soup and Knitting

Snap, one day it's 70 and that toasty end of summer weather, the air is warm and smells baked, the light shifts to the south...and then suddenly the air chills. Then the rains come and the air smells like fall. The leaves are just turning, it fees late, mid-October.

The pumpkins are finishing their orangification in the yard. The tomatoes have all been harvested to ripen indoors in paper bags before the frost takes them. I'm roasting squash for soup and baked goods and making roasts and drinking hot coca.

The sweaters are out of storage and the tank tops are in their place. The extra comforter is out and the pilot is lit on the heater. All these little seasonal preparations. I am quite enjoying them this year.

It's been a Long time since I could enjoy a fall. I think I enjoyed the first one in Portland due to novelty, but the next few succumbed to the adjusting to the higher latitude and dealing with seasonal depression. Last fall, we just want to forget last fall. This fall? Marvelous.


Summer finished up in a flurry of work. Work has been a bit life consuming lately but not in a bad way. I am finally settling into a comfortable rhythm and can get back to projects and hobbies and such.

Like my sister, (but not in a copy cat way!)I did refinish a table, the one in my kitchen with the horrible varnish that would stick to anything you placed on it and discolor if you put anything wet or hot on it. So I sanded it off and oiled it with linseed and now it doesn't stick and I can put wet and HOT things on it and it does no harm. It's useful! amazing!


Recently in the kitchen, we have enjoyed butternut squash curried soup, pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin spice cake (both gluten free) roast beef and potatoes, and tomato sauces from the garden.

The carpets have been cleaned, the kitchen cabinet has changed from green to veneer, soon windows will be sealed.

Finding a way to keep the carpets clean with wet bikes around is being worked out. Rain gear dries on a rack by the heater.

My hair is short again, I have new shearling slippers to keep my feet warm and I've been thrifting for winter clothes that actually fit that I don't swim in. Sweaters and long sleeved shirts. I scored a bright red Land's End rain slicker that I plan to sew some reflective tape onto, for winter commuting. This will be the first winter I attempt to bike and not drive to work through.

It's time to start knitting for Christmas gifts.


Pics below from earlier this summer.

Summer's End

July... August... where does the time go? I have no real answer to that but it's gone. It's been a nice mellow fairly uneventful summer. And that's good. Work is a lot of work these days so down time is valued for being just that...time to wind down. B and I have done a lot of cool stuff round the city. I can't remember what all really... but most recently, the bike camping-fiasco-adventure-educational experience, and Last Thursday, which was last night, and I think it could be fun to do again when I am less tired and not hungry, which i was and just amplifies my social anxiety. Tomorrow we head of by train to Spokane ( I love saying train to Spokane, all rhymey even if it means pronouncing Spokane wrong)for Labour day weekend with his fam. (Update, I didn;t get this posted before I left so, it was a fun Labor day!!)

Other eventful things going on:
Squirrels eat my tomatoes. Ungrateful if adorable beasts. We feed them all kinds of goodies (otherwise they eat the bird seed.)and they repay us thus? my tomatoes! arrrrg.
the garden is awesome this summer, lots of good food has come out of it and still is. Thwarted somewhat by cabbage moths and aphids but it could be worse.
Knitting a baby blanket for a co worker, it's coming along at decent speed. the child was born on my birthday!
My 31st birthday was quiet and unassuming and relaxing. Awesome.
I have un-photographed craft things I have done to my 'office space' in my room. curtins for the shelves and decoupage on the desk front. someday i will have pics. I have been lazy.
B and I are on the hunt for a new living situation, a nice place in a quiet neighborhood near where we spend most of our time, closer to work, for me, off a busy street etc. I hope we find a place similar to what I have now, but east of the river and not as uh, derelict. =) It's charming in it's derelictness though. Mostly I would miss having a yard to garden in, but that is hard to come by. I'll settle for a bathtub. =) ( Which is funny because I gave up a bathtub for the garden when I moved here.) Anyways wish us luck, we're not in a hurry, but sometime before the rains come, due to B's mold sensitivity. I'm thinking by November.

June

What a month.
Two weddings and pedalpalooza AND full time work. Non stop action.
The garden has grown. the rain has given way to muggy warm humidity. California is sharing it's smoke with us creating a muggy haze over the city. And I can finally rest a bit. Woo!

Recap of June. Two best friends married, cake made, pictures taken. Check out Photographia for some photo updates. A few here but, more there.





















Lots of Bike-fun bike rides bike fairs and uhh biking. I don't have pictures but you can recap a lot of what was going on around town at this site: Bike Portland Pedalpalooza 2008

We participated in the Sunday Parkways, Wild Plant Lore, kickoff parade, MCBF, WNBR, Bike Kiss-in, Rocky Butte picnic ride...ugh I can't remember if there was more, that was a lot to fit in with the weddings for me.

Today I staked my tomatoes again, I have some small baby tomatoes!



Cleaned and organized after two weeks of relative chaos. Annnnnnd abbreviated some thrift store corduroy finds into pedal pushers, and I am very happy to have shorts for summer. Corduroy shorts to boot. I love corduroy.