Best Birthday Cake & Quilt Day 2

This is a super cool monster quilt my friend Shawn made me

I made this awesome psychedelic cake for the girls~ they're 2 months today!!

Insane Sandwich

This is a recipe from the NY Times. It was rad and totally gross at the same time. So what I did was make a pocket in a slice of challah bread and stuff it with grated swiss cheese- the recipe called for Gruyere but I can't eat raw milk since I'm pregnant. Then I soaked the stuffed bread in an egg, milk and salt and pepper mixture while I slowly fried thinly sliced apple pieces in olive oil. After that you place the bread in the pan, cover the top with more apple slices and cook it through. You've got to flip it a couple times to get everything golden brown.

I kind of liked it, but it was pretty sick. It felt really gluttonous. I've never eaten a Monte Cristo before, but once my brother did before we went looking at houses he wanted to buy and he completely exploded. It's a shame because he was such a nice brother. Needless to say he didn't buy a house and I never ate a Monte Cristo sandwich!

Last Day of Summer~Beginning of the Fall

This weekend has been very appropriate in the Northwest, we have been drenched with rain showers to snap us out of summer and get the school year rolling. Today is the last day of this summer blog and I'll probably only post once a week (maximum) now that the school year is starting and autumn is coming.

A lot got accomplished with my little experiment of staying home and not working for the summer break. It was nice. I cooked, read and knit. I have two Christmas gifts finished and only 3 more to knit. The dog doesn't really come, but he does fetch better~he'll let go of his ball now. The garden kept us with a steady supply of tomatoes, zucchini and broccoli, as well as green beans and a single blueberry! The potatoes are still growing and the garlic has all been picked, the apples look awful but the cherries (in retrospect) were great!

To welcome autumn I purchased an acorn squash this Friday. They store really well, so I suggest you invest in several winter squash to eat during the cold months. In celebration of our storm, I'll leave you with a recipe for potato and broccoli soup that we just love around here.

Potato and Broccoli Soup
Melt 2Tbsp butter in a large soup pot
Add 1 chopped shallot, leek or onion
3 Russet potatoes cubed
1-2 cups of broccoli
Saute all of these for 10 minutes
Add 2 Cups of vegetable or chicken stock
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes
Afterwards, using a potato masher- or anything you have, mash down the liquid mixture
Add 1 Cup milk
1 Cup cubed cheddar cheese
Heat all through until cheese is melted and serve.

We put chives on top, but in the winter when these aren't available you can top with whatever you prefer- crumbled bacon, sour cream and/or grated cheese.

Enjoy!

Sunflowers, Granola and Rabbits!

These are my awesome and totally not too healthy granola bars. They are flavored with honey, walnuts and homemade jam and some organic dark chocolate chips as well as a little almond butter. They're super good and at least I can pronounce the ingredients! The secret with homemade granola bars is that they're only good if you over flavor them. Just the basics and they're really not edible or worth making.

I just think this is beautiful. I harvested my sunflower thank you gift and I shook out a few seeds for my lunch today. The rest of the head is drying out so the rest of the seeds can catch up.

Funny (looking) Bunny!! This little guy is to be tucked away into one of the pockets in the cabled cardigan I finished yesterday. I might make a few more as I was shocked how small these guys really are. This is a free pattern from the Little Cotton Rabbits blog/site I wrote about. There are also patterns for bears and tiny 'iced buns'. I totally need to work on the ears. Justin wants an elephant and I think I can knit a trunk in i-cord like the legs. I'll experiment this weekend.

Breakfast Baby

How could I have gone 29 years without one of these bad boys!! I was hungry for something substantial but not just scrambled eggs or oatmeal this morning. I turned to a recipe book a friend of ours made and made a Dutch Baby. These are radical!! They do deflate quickly and I will use WAY less butter next time, but they are so super good. I am eating mine with powder sugar and cinnamon, but they can go savory as well.

All you do is preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Melt butter in a pie pan (the original calls for 3 tbs, but next time I'll only do 1)
Meantime mix 3/4 C flour, 3/4 C milk, 2 beaten eggs and 1/2 Tbs sugar
Pour the batter over the melted butter in the pie pan and bake 15-18 minutes.

This is a quick and simple recipe that really tastes great.

No Fail Bread Recipe

So yesterday afternoon I realized that I haven't posted my favorite bread recipe on this blog yet. I love making bread. It is really simple and super satisfying. I don't buy bread at all anymore. I make a loaf or two per week and this works just fine. It goes fast because I don't have a slicer so some slices are more generous than others! This recipe can be totally modified based on your tastes. I modified a King Arthur Flour Bag recipe with my own ideas and a friends suggestion (play with the sugars).

Best Bread Recipe Ever
2 tsp yeast
1 1/3 C lukewarm water (never hot)
1 Tbsp. oil
2 Tbsp.s brown sugar, or molasses or honey- each produces a diff't taste, all are great
3 C flour
1 1/4 tsp salt

Place yeast in large mixing bowl and add warm water. I swirl mine to get most of it dissolved by moving the bowl around. Then add oil, sugars and salt- again sort of mix it around in a gentle manner. Finally add the flour and using your hands mix it together in the bowl. If it's sticky add more flour. It should bind together but not be wet or glossy. Once it's been mixed and formed into a ball, cover the bowl and let rise. Bread rises well at 65 degress or higher. In winter here I put the oven on warm and place the bread on the stove. Let rise about 30+ minutes, it should double in size. At this stage I like to melt a tablespoon of butter in the bottom of my glass loaf pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. I make sure the melted butter has been used to grease all of the loaf pan. You don't have to, grease your pan with oil for a vegan loaf. Next place your dough in the loaf pan- I sort of roll mine into a cylinder shape and place in the pan flipping it over at least once so all sides have butter on them.
Let the dough rise 1" over the top of the loaf pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from oven and place loaf pan with bread on a cookie rack- I think that is what it's called (the metal grid that cookies cool on)! When you're feeling brave flip the bread out, place upright and cover with a towel to cool.

Modifications:
Think about adding:
nuts
oats
olives
herbs
various types of flours- but be careful, start with a half cup at a time if changing flours
dried fruits
*cats
*dogs



* just kidding, unless you have mad skills and have turned kids into desserts

Cheese Wafers with Basil

These are so completely awesome! They taste like Cheez-Its but they're homemade with basil from my garden and local butter, flour and cheese. The recipe is free online but I'm not giving this one away. Instead I'll bring them to every potluck with a dip or soup and everyone will love me the most!! Just kidding, the recipe is simple:
1/2 lb butter
1/2 lb sharp cheddar cheese (grated)
2 1/2 C flour
1 tsp salt
1tsp pepper 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp chopped basil

Cream the butter and cheese then mix in all other ingredients. Roll thin and cut to desired shape. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. This is the link of where I got the recipe:
Enjoy!

Summer Bounty and the Beast!

Okay so last night I started thinking about how I neglect to eat leafy greens on a regular basis (daily). So I woke up this morning determined to hit up the Farmer's Market for some good stuff. I had a great time, I bought blueberries, Swiss chard and purslane and cool-robby (kohlrabi) as well as squash flowers.

Lo and behold, what gets cooked first? Stuffed squash flowers!! What a beast! I couldn't wait to get them home and stuff them with cream cheese, cheddar and chives and then fry those bad boys. They're really good though and I think Justin will like them.

Cate inspired me to eat radish sandwiches with butter, so I'll stuff that with the purslane and some cool-robby. That might be a bit healthier.

New Regime

This is a lemon sponge cake I made from allrecipes.com. It tastes great and was super simple to make- however it's a little flat!

So to defeat the purpose of my workout regime I bake and cook and knit all day. I really want to finish Justin's sweater but I seriously can't watch another show on Lifetime.com. You have to get up every break to make it full screen (terrible) and the dog and cats are super needy. I think I'll need to get disciplined and just ignore them.
Oh yeah, the workout regime is going strong, but today was drizzling and I couldn't focus watching Justin standing in the rain with the dog this morning. So, I set up a full length mirror in the garage, brought my jump rope and danced/jump roped for 30 minutes. It was super fun and I think I prefer this to running. In fact, I know I do. This was a great start to the day!
Now if only I can keep out of the kitchen...

No Moss Grows Under Our Feet!

When I was a kid my mom would impulsively determine several times throughout the year that our furniture desperately needed to be rearranged. She would get going and move all of the living room furniture around. I always thought it was a little weird, but I notice that I get that way now, but instead of needing to move furniture I want to cook everything that I've been thinking about right then and there.
Today was like that. I made some lavender cookies, basil pesto and canned spiced honey as well as made mini pizzas from scratch- I topped them with caramelized onions (the ones from the farmer's market yesterday). It was a lot of fun and I got my fill of movement! Oh I also finished those socks.

This is spiced honey for adding to tea. You slice 1 lemon 5 times (six slices) and poke 2 cloves into each slice. Then you use 1 cinnamon stick for each jar and boil in the honey. It worked well, but I was hoping that the lemons and cinnamon stick wouldn't float at the top, but rather lay in the canning jars- well so far they're still floating!

This is a rad lavender shortbread made from mint and lavender grown in my garden. There is also 1 teaspoon lemon zest added. I thought it would be weird with mint, but it actually tastes great. I included a picture of the owl cut-out for D.L.
The recipe can be found at this website

Finally this is my basil pesto. This is the portion that didn't fit into my ice cube trays. I used basil, olive oil and almonds and a little salt and 4 cloves of garlic. I pretty much just eyeball it. The basil was from my garden, but I don't want to harvest my garlic just yet.
The best tip I ever got was to freeze pesto into ice cube trays and then pop them out into a plastic freezer bag. When it's time to use it you've got small sizes to work with.

Last Nights Dinner

So this isn't very sustainable and the only things local are the chives and fried tofu. However all ingredients were purchased from the co-op or the local asian market (that's how I justify it).




Okay so I made miso soup and avocado and cucumber sushi rolls. I use red mellow miso and begin by sauteing a little onion and garlic in the sauce pan. I then add the bokchoy and soften it up awhile. When it's ready (5-8 minutes) the miso paste, water and tofu are added. Lastly, I add green onion once it's in the serving bowls. My buddy Steven taught me how to make miso soup when I just fell off the turnip truck and had no idea what vegan was or Food Not Bombs or Cap'n Jazz. I love Steven, every time I make this dinner Justin and I end up talking about how wonderful he is and all of his Olympia adventures.
The sushi is super simple. I just buy the seaweed, sushi rice and my veggies- only one avocado and one cucumber make 5 rolls! I just spread a strip of rice on the seaweed put some chopped veggies on and roll it up. This is a good summer meal because there's not a lot of heat. Sushi doesn't really remind me of anyone, except maybe my dad or Cate when we ate sushi from Trader Joe's in the car while going to LA, but I'm not sure what we were doing. With my buddy Cate there are so many other funny foods that we've enjoyed, like STINKY SHRIMP, abscess soup, tons of weird spinach stories and flying fish sandwiches. So I guess sushi brings on quite a wide range of conversational topics!