Apron #2, Finally Finished! Phew!

It's adjustable.

Accented pockets. I tell ya, I really had a tough time with this one for some reason. I can't tell you how many stitches I had to remove and re-do, how many times I got pricked with needles or slapped by my machine. I didn't have near as hard a time with the last one. I'm still happy with the way it came out but sure am happy to be done with this. I actually put my machine away to take a break. This one will be gifted in May, and the next birthday won't be til' June. So I'll enjoy the break from sewing and the extra time I get to shop for the perfect fabrics for the next one.

I will also be setting myself up a much better spot next time with better lighting. I have some good folding tables that will be perfect for projects and I'm thinking the office will suit me better next time, also, I'll be more closed off from the rest of the house that I can put the girls to bed, shut the door and have some music and sew away all night if I want to. Ya, that sounds better.

Yummy Homemade Pizza And...What?

Pizza. After kneading the dough and placing it in it's rising spot, I headed to Haggens. I bought some fresh Thai Basil, and Italian dried salami. Then I came home, checked the dough for readiness. Played around with tossing the dough, which was a lot of fun but super messy especially because I was wearing all black..silly me. Then topped with pizza sauce, salami, fresh sliced mushrooms, fresh green bell pepper, fresh sliced tomato and freshly sliced mozzarella topped with basil, cut julien style.

What are you substituting for cream and sugar??

Baked to perfection! The only thing wrong with this pizza is the tomatoes. I learned that I should place them on the pizza after it's done baking, not before. Although is was still super yummy, it was seriously messy. We all used forks and loved every bite. The dried salami had so much flavor I couldn't believe it. No more cheap salami for this household, I'm goin' gourmet because the difference was unbelievable! I feel I can finally close the book on finding good recipes for pizzas (mainly the crust) because I'm am content with this. :) From here on out, the possibilities are endless.

Rain Rain Go Away, But Leave A Pot Of Soup!

Potato soup served with fresh grated cheddar cheese and English muffin bread baked this morning. Very filling, and again, thank you mom for the best potato soup recipe in the world. I bought a whole ham this morning to make this. I cut some slices for the morning, which I plan to make eggs benedict, my style. I also food savored 2 large chunks that I can do a number of things with later. Still in my weird funk, I'm working through that and I'm ready to break free of it, but something deep inside isn't letting me.

I Need, I Want, I Whine A Bit About it..

Sort of an experiment. I used the chicken pot pie recipe that I have and love, but used turkey kielbasa instead. I was kinda nervous that it would take away the flavor from everything else but I thought it was nice. I spaced out when I should have taken a picture so here it is almost devoured.

Shepards Pie. Me style. Lamb? No thanks, I'll stick with ground beef. I baked this one for the first time. I thought it needed a lot more mashed, but oh well.

I am in a funk. I've been in a funk for a while now. I can't seem to get my head out of my ass and get back into the groove. I don't know what's up with me these days. Even my husband noticed I've just been slackin' hard. I have been spending lots of time out in the garden though. Mainly the front. I completly cleared one large bed of all weeds, runaway strawberries, and sadly lilies.

Long sigh...the lilies. Hundreds of them, they're everywhere! I love lilies and have tried to keep them but of all the hundreds, only about 15 or 20 of them produce blossoms. The rest just stay green so I sadly pulled them all out, I'll be doing that all over.My peonies are doing good, still need to get the special cages.

Mozz and tomato pizza with fresh basil for dinner? Ding!

Time to rant and rave a bit? Yes. What the hell is docelatte cheese? Nobody anywhere knows what it is and one girl handed me a block of cheese made with coffee grounds and said, "here, this is coffee cheese." Coffee cheese? What world was I in? So anyways, that's probably why they tell you it's ok to exchange that with gorgonzola cheese. What country do I need to travel to to get this?

Risotto. My luck and love with risotto are still going in different directions. I love risotto and my luck with it sucks. I've managed to ruin every pot that I have ever made. So I am going at it again with a different recipe out of a completly different book. Should I be worried? Ugh.

Rhubarb Schmubarb

This strong, well rooted and resiliant plant is rhubarb. I spent some time clearing a perimeter for it to breath better for the rest of it's long season. I found a few slimy slugs along the way and took the opportunity to teach Mia about how mommy kills slugs, salt the bastards! Both snails and slugs have infested my backyard like I've never seen before and so it's been a constant battle and they LOVE this plant. I poured pellets down that are enviro friendly, and attracts them, they eat them, and then they starve themselves before creeping away to die.

I am no fan of rhubarb. When someone told me what I had, I thought - pull it. But I know some people, my mother, sister, and my neighbor, who love the stuff. So I left it alone. Wow did it produce! I couldn't get rid of it fast enough before I had more stalks coming in.

After getting to know my neighbor, a nice little old yet very strong willed and blunt lady, Nancy, I learned a few things. The plant was special to her and the previous owner, and had enjoyed a close friendship over this one plant. How could I ever bring myself to take it out? Last year, we were clearing a lot from the backyard, enough to fill my husbands trailer to the max. She politely came running over to see what we were doing and was concerned about the plant.

The relief she expressed when she learned that we were keeping it. She was happy to see that we were trying to take back the yard from it's year's of neglect. She tells me stories about what the gardens used to be like. Anyways ladies, it's well on it's way. These pictures are about 8 days after it exploded with green.

Beauty In The Belly Of The Beast

Last nights mashed potatoes, waldorf salad, fresh baked bread and cider. I had opened up a bottle of wine that I'd had for a while...no good! Next best thing on hand - sparkling cider. I decided I didn't want to break out the fancy because clean-up would take forever because none of it can go in the dishwasher.

The beast on my plate ready for my belly.

This is our major spring project. My husband and I were talking about an idea he had - get rid of these boxes, the pointless thin strip of grass, and make this all part of a vegetable garden that wraps around the rest of the yard. This is a huge undertaking and I'm nervous of the time it will take to get this ready, especially because it needs to be done like..yesturday. This also includes removing the trees in the back. Long sigh.

There used to be a pond and a large rock waterfall here. The work that went into getting this space to look like this is astounding. We are gonna pull the rose bushes, and hopefully transplant them to another area we have in mind and see if we can revive them to their original beauty. We are also planning on moving the light that was next to the pond, onto the edge of the garden and walkway to give better light, Mark already dug to find where the wiring goes so this should be super easy, just a bit time consuming. This will all be vegebables if we get out asses moving soon.

Trillium. I have these in 2 areas of the garden that are coupled with 2 different kinds of ferms. I plan on clearing those areas so that they have more room to breath. That won't take too long, it's really just clearing away the dead.

Daffodils blooming in the front garden. I also have these on the side of the house. In a couple of weeks, I will have so many of these I'll have to start cutting them and putting them on the table.

Fresh Caught King Salmon

My husband went on a fishing trip on the Columbia River and caught this freshly out of the ocean King Salmon the day before. I wasn't there of course so I didn't get a picture of the beast as a whole, but here is half of it. This picture does it no justice - this fed 4 adults and a toddler, with seconds, and I still had enough leftovers to make a whole meal out of it the next night. In Portland, King Salmon is going for $30/lb so this was definitly a treat to cherish. Mark grilled this for us and it practically melted in your mouth.

Just off the grill and ready to be devoured. I also had fresh baked bread, and spinach salad topped with feta. Didn't want to make too many sides because this is a ton of fish.

We food savored some and kept some in fridge for tonights dinner. Again, we will be having someone over for dinner so I am kinda goin' all out for it. I'm thinking about getting out the fine china and silver because, well, why not? Mark will grill the fish again, something that he has mastered and I love him even more for that. I will be making waldorf salad, fresh bread, and a bit of potato, I'm thinking creamy mashed. I may even open a bottle of wine and get out the crystal. Why not? I also have banana bread in the oven and am wondering what I am going to do for dessert.

This past week has been rough. Between my husband being gone fishing, and being sick I haven't really done much at all. I mustered some good energy to do our tradition of shopping, eating out, eating ice cream and baking cookies while Mark was gone. Two days of that will make ya tired! Other than that, I've done some small things but this cold and cough has really held on and every morning when I wake up I feel like my head is going to explode.

Just yesturday, I finally managed to clean the entire house for the first time in a week and it took me 4 hours. All except Mias room, which she made the biggest mess ever and it's gonna take me like an hour to do that so I've saved that for last. It felt good to have a clean house again.

Also, yesturday and the day before were awesome spring days. We spent most of the day out in the yard, not necessarily doing yard work, but simply enjoying it. Mia and I layed in the grass and ran around bare foot and it was awesome! My daffodils are blooming and things are really starting to come up so next time we go outside, we will be rolling our sleeves up and gettin' dirty. Honestly I can't wait!

Super Moon And Irish...Taco's? Yes!

The "supermoon". Last seen this size 18 years ago.

Irish coffee anyone? This drink was very strong but very good!

Pressing tortillas for the tacos.

Vegetable appetizer with hummus dip. Not a huge fan of hummus myself, but this one was really good!

Prepping apples for the apple and whiskey sauce dessert. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of this baked, but there is one below of it coming together.

Cook baby cook!

Apples and whiskey sauce dessert.

Corned beef and potatoes with avocado mix served with freshly made corn tortillas coupled with a rice, bean, corn and cilantro mix. This plate was very filling but very good. I was kinda worried about corned beef taco's, but so glad that I tasted them and I loved them! Very very good, and different.

The start of a long process! Bagels. Here, I had to mix water, yeast, sugar together with a mixer and then let it sit until it was frothy. Brought back memories of my ill fated trip with sourdough.

Kneaded. This dough is suppose to be harder than normal, which it was. Stiff dough, but smooth dough.

Getting my pot of water with sugar ready to boil.

Perfectly risen. I used a trick I heard about; turn your oven on for just about 30 seconds, turn it off, and let the dough rise in the overn. Worked well I thought.

Bagels rolled and pinched together. This was actually a lot of fun to do.

Then I had to boil the bagels for 30 seconds on each side. ?? Different.

The most picture perfect bagel that I produced. I had a bit of discontent with the way the recipe was written. It called for cornmeal, by the time all my bagels were ready to bake, I realized I hadn't used the cornmeal. So I read and read again, it never told me what to do with it. ?? Then I figured it out. When you take bagels out of boiling water, your to put them on an oiled sheet - Im 100% sure that this is where you then sprinkle the conrmeal all over the sheet so the bagels don't stick after the first 5 minutes of baking - because you bake for 5 minutes, take them out of oven, flip them over, and then bake for another 30-35 minutes.

My first batch stuck to the pan something aweful and didn't look so hot when they were done. But all in all, I was ok with the recipe. They were really good when they hot but once they cooled, they got kind of hard on the outside. They also didn't come out as thick as I wanted them. I do think that I will be looking into different recipes for these and keep trying til' I get one that I'm truly happy with.

This is part of dinner. Spinach salad with tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and walnuts.

Chicken with vegetables. Boiled in oil and water, I added some cornstarch and soy sauce to thicken the water and oil and it made a nice thin sauce. Served over white rice.

I also made a small pot of very basic miso soup so we all had a small bowl with dinner. I used a lot more paste this time and got the full affect of the miso flavor.

Grim Days With Fresh Breads

Coffee cake I made this morning.

English Muffin Bread I also made this morning. It's good!

This is so simple you really don't need to write it down. Put some oil in a pan, sautee onions and any other desired veggies, add either dashi or vegetable stock. Once boiling, laddle out a little bit of stock and put in small bowl. Add 1-2 tbsp of either brown rice, red or white miso. I used brown rice this time. Mix it well and make sure it's all dissolved. Replace back into pot. Simmer it for a few minutes. I served it with rice noodles and I put some turkey in it. It was pretty good although I thought it could use some pepper.

This is going to be my most "grim" blog yet, and there won't be another. I've been watching whats been happening in Japan and looking at the cold hard facts about radiation and it's behavior. People - we have a serious problem here! Nobody seems to care. As my husband said this morning, everybody is in denial and most people are actually putting their trust in the media and the government.

I heard one scientist claim that radiation won't leave Japan. Really? My husband watched a weather report where the weather man was stopped, told something in his ear piece and completly changed everything he was saying...they don't want the general population knowing that winds will bring this radiation around the entire world within' time. It entered our region on Monday.

It's going to enter our food supply, and it's going to enter our water supply. This is completly inevitable. After the accident at Chernobyl, Ottawa Canada measured radiation and found they had 6 times the normal limit, and it only took a few weeks at most to trickle it's way around the globe. I am not being overly cautious. I have a friend with a Masters degree in this exact area of expertise. This is what she does for a living, constantly measuring chemicals and such that are either in the envirornment naturally or not, and measuring their effect on the water supply. We may not see the direct effect today, tomorrow, or even next year. In about 5 years, there is going to be a huge boom of cancers.

So in the end, be smart, be safe. Make miso. Be cautious. Don't trust what the media tells you, or some stupid Yahoo article that took someone 15 minutes to write, THEY ARE NOT GOING TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH. PERIOD!

Of course they want everyone to calm down, think that it's all ok. They need people to continue buying things, to keep shopping, and to keep paying taxes. Now I could continue to go on for a very long time getting into the media and government and the cold, hard, nasty things they keep from us, but really, that's a whole different blog with a whole different agenda, and honestly, I don't have time. Now, how about some food? Miso anybody?

Amen!

When Life Throws You Lemons - You Make A Birthday Cake!

In my family, I believe everyone deserves a homemade birthday cake. My father-in-law likes lemon cake and it's his birthday, so here goes to a new adventure involving lots of lemon. Lemon cake with lemon frosting.
Shaving for my zest to go in batter. I finally found a good use for this little grater, a kitchen item I find annoying with it's shape and size. I'll use it once a year now.

Why buy buttermilk when you can make your own....ironically with lemon juice.

My dry mix including the lemon zest.

Ready for oven. I alternatly added the buttermilk and flour mixture to the 2 eggs and 3 egg yolks, beginning and ending with the flour mix. As I understand, this recipe can easily be over mixed, so there was no room for error.

Getting ready to candy the lemon slices.

Making syrup to brush baked cakes with. Also, this is when I candied the lemons. This process took 25 minutes.

After poking like 100 holes in the cakes, I brushed them with the syrup that I just made with lemon slices. Cakes were still hot here, so they cooled while soaking up the bitterly sweet syrup. A lemon lovers heaven!

Making real lemon frosting. This was honestly challenging. Not only did I have to pick a bowl to sacrifice just in case it cracked, I had to constantly mix and hold my mini temp reader until this mixture of egg whites, water, sugar, and a pinch of salt came to 150 degrees - on top of - not in - a pan of boiling water. Although I haven't cut into the cake yet, I feel maybe I have unleashed a deadly secret about this frosting. I did the exact same thing with German Chocolate Cake frosting - I took it off the heat to early and in turn ended up with seperated frosting. So I used the syrup to drench the cake with, made another batch the right way and the cake alone was to die for. I did the same thing here, we'll see what reaction I get from people when they eat this. Who knew there was frosting made by forming stiff peaks.

After the cake was frosted, still wrapping my brain around the type of "frosting" this was, there is still seperation occuring with both batches. Again, I'm no fan of lemon, but I was pleasantly surprised with the taste and texture of this lemon "fluff".

Cake frosted...I had to use a spoon to frost it, a knife was useless.

Taa Daa! Topped with candied lemons and ready to be eatin'. I'll let you know how this turned out. I spent a total of 2 1/2 hours start to finish with this cake.