Happy New Year

Christmas Eve - all is merry and bright

Merry Christmas everyone

The incredible (and deviled) edible egg

I had a girly party to attend this last weekend. A pot luck. I volunteered to bring deviled eggs. As someone kindly pointed out recently, I've been obsessed with deviled eggs of late. Not exactly sure why, but I think its the drive to create the perfect one. Its more of a science and personal preference than anything. Nonetheless, I've made it me personal mission to find the recipe that Mister and I like, personally, the best. I think I've found it. So, I had this girly event and wanted the eggs to not only be super duper tasty, but also, girly. My first plan was to decorate them with sliced roasted red peppers (I am in love with them lately) and chives. You know, red and green, for the holiday. But when Mister and I walked to the grocery Saturday morning, I saw this package of edible flowers right next to the chives. I bought the chives then went back and bought the flowers. I had much fun decorating these eggs with the flowers. I thought they were the most beautiful deviled eggs I'd ever made. That really wouldn't be much of an accomplishment, I mean, they are deviled eggs. How much time does anyone (other than me) spend decorating them. Yes, yes, I know, moving on. So, the platter above was the finished product and below is a close up of one the the eggs with a delicate little forget-me-now placed in the center of the deviled portion. On looking at the photo, it could have been more 'cleaned up' of an egg to photograph, but, eh, like I said, they're deviled eggs. Get over it.

Oh, and the delicious recipe I used, and of course changed up a bit is this one from all recipes dot com, which I changed up as follows:

24 eggs, hard boiled

8 tsp white vinegar

1/2 cup mayo

2 Tbsp mustard

2 tsp dried dill (rubbed between your palms or turned in your mortar and pestle to bring out the flavor)

s&p to taste

paprika for sprinkling

So, I really just read the reviews of the recipe, adjusted according to which reviewers I believed and then tasted, adjusted, added, stirred then piped in the filling, topped with prettiness and refrigerated until the party at which point I ate them. All. No, just kidding. But, many. Mmm, mmm delish!

Just Watched: Julie & Julia

Oh my heavens. If you like to cook or bake, at all, go out and rent this film. It was fantastic.

I can see how someone who doesn't like to do those things might not care for the film, but I loved, loved, loved it! I will own this film, at some point, in the futur. Guaranteed.

If you don't know, its based on the blog by Julie Powell called The Julie/Julia Project.

Julie Powell, through many reasons (watch the film) started a blog chronicalling her cooking her way through Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Its also the story of Julia Childs during the period of time in which she lived in Europe. Her amazing relationship with her husband and food and life in general. I've ALWAYS found Julia Childs an amazing phenomenon, as I am sure so many poeple have and do. I found myself being slightly jealous of Julie Powell while I watched the movie, I wished I had thought to do that blog and all that cooking. But then, I realized Mister and I have far too many food issues (dairy and gluten being the foremost) to do much french cooking. So, there you go.

Really great film. Totally recommend it.

Harley's Wild Ride

This is what happens when Mister has too much time on his hands. Actually its great, Harley loves hanging with Mister and also has always loved riding around on things. It seemed a natural progression. CLICK HERE - YouTube

Dipped Pretzels

As you are, I am sure, aware, I read the Pioneer Woman. She has some good stuff. I usually modify her recipes, that's just what I do with most recipes. This recipe is no different. I picked up the idea HERE on her blog. I then changed it up to make it more to my liking. I used pretzel sticks -they have salt, which I think helps the overall flavor and they were thicker and shorter. So, I didn't have to break them in half and they were strong enough not to break during the dipping process. I also did the nuts slightly differently.

I started with slivered almonds which I toasted. Dry pan, medium heat, watching constantly, shaking and stirring. There are a million methods to do this, in the oven, on the stove top. This is just the quick one I find works best for me. Mmmmmm, toasted almonds. My kitchen smelled amazing!

Ok, almonds all toasted up, here's the honey wheat pretzels I used, the just happened to be from Trader Joes. Semi-sweet, non-dairy chocolate chips and the wonderful, delightful, amazing, creamy, delicious Nutella. Yes, I am aware that Nutella contains dairy. Sometimes I just sneak it in and know there will be consequences.

Chop up the nuts so they are pretty fine, but not powder. I just chopped until I was tired of chopping. Melt the chocolate and as much Nutella as you think you want, I used two - three rather large spoon fulls. Dip half the pretzel in the chocolate mixture then roll in nuts, place on parchment paper lined baking pans, cool, eat.

I'm giving them as Christmas gifts and will have some around for a Christmas Eve open house we are having.

They could not be easier to put together and they are pretty tasty.

Bon Appetit!

Mexican Wedding Cake

Made a batch last night. Not the best photo, but that's ok, they taste good. You can find the recipe all over the internet and also in your Joy of Cooking. This recipe I pulled off Epicurious.com and was delicious. I chose this version because it called for just a hint of cinnamon in the powdered sugar coating. You don't really notice the cinnamon, but you do notice 'something'. Does that make sense. Ok, seriously, go bake something. I want to hear about what you are doing this Christmas. Bon Appetit!

Just Watched: Food Inc.

I really, truly believe everyone should watch this movie - Food, Inc.

It shouldn't have anything to do with politics, its about the food we put into our mouths and into the mouths of our children. Its about our/your health. Its about the future, your children's future, not mine. Its about how we not only treat the animals who give their lives for us, but for the farmers who are treated not much better than those animals. Its about being controlled (without much knowledge on the part of the Amercian people.... hence we should all watch the movie) by corporate giants, there's only actually a few using different names to keep us guessing. Giant corporations who care nothing about the consumer's well being, the quality of our food, whether we die from food poisoning or not, but only about the corporate (and hence their personal) bottom line. There is nothing else they care about. No matter what their packaging and advertising states.

We should really ask ourselves, "Why?". Why do the corporations deline to comment or be on camera? Why do the corporations threaten the farmers contracts, i.e. livelihoods, with revocation if the methods are socially acceptable.

I believe, no matter what personal choices we make in our own lives, that we should all know the facts about where our food comes from. I believe we each should make our own choices, but let's have them be informed choices.

So, there you go. Thursday.

Holiday Baking - Best Peanut Butter Cookies of Your Life

Ok, these cookies have nothing to do with the post, but they are the only cookie photos I could find on my computer. I decided in the last couple days, that I needed to give my holiday cheer a good hard boot kick to the sternum, or the tuchas, your choice. I don't have photos, photos are terrible when you try to take them in a dark kitchen in the middle of December. But, I've made a couple batches of ginger bread, mini loaves to give away as gifts. Last night I made peanutbutter chocolate chip cookies. The BEST peanutbutter chocolate chip cookie recipe EVER, in my opinion. If you try these out, trust me on the baking time. I gave the recipe to someone who loved the cookies. I gave her the same warning I'm giving you now and she didn't heed it. She thought I was crazy and that I had no clue what I was talking about. Her first batch out of the oven were rocks. Tasty rocks, but rocks nonetheless. The advice - bake them for 6 to 7 minutes at the most. You won't think its enough baking time. But once they are out of the oven and cooled for about 12 seconds and you sink your teeth into the meltaway cookies, you'll thank me.

1 c white sugar

1 c brown sugar

1 cup shortening - please don't use butter, the texture will be all wrong, trust me

1 cup peanutbutter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

about 3/4 bag of chocolate chips of choice - seems crazy, but its almost too much chocolate even at this reduced amount. BUT - you choose you chocolateyness level.

Just follow your regular cookie making directions, cream, add, sift add then roll into 1+ inch balls, flatten slightly and bake at 350 for 6 - 7 minutes.

These cookies won't spread much, they'll keep their shape and then when you bite into them, they'll practically melt in your mouth.

Anyway... I also plan to make peanut brittle, Mexican wedding cakes, gluten free banana bread from this cook book which Mister gave me for our 2nd anniversary (paper don't ya know). Those are the 'for sure's'. Not sure what else I'll get to baking. Maybe Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls to give away.

What are YOU baking? Making? What are your holiday staples - baking or traditions or things you do, places you go? I really am needing a holiday cheer boost. I'm pretty much scrooge and the grinch all wrapped up into one cranky female this week. Help a girl out, won't ya?!

Just Watched: Local Color

Local Color. Mister and I both liked this movie. Mister's mom recommended it to us and it didn't disappoint.

I love cilantro - Mediterranean Spread

Oh, baby! Just about any recipe with cilantro and I'm there.

My brother and his wife and another couple had planned to stay the weekend with us. My brother flew out Saturday morning for Christmas at his wife's family's place in Illinois and the other couple were going to hang with us and have amazing sushi Saturday night. Well, freezing rain ruined a big part of that, we had to reschedule. We were very bummed, but, Friday night, the four of us (Mister, me, bro, his wife - sorry, I'm being very redundant right now, but keeping the people straight is confusing me and I lived it. Anyway...) I had mediterranean food planned for Friday night and it turned out oh, so, wonderful.

White rice with turmeric;

THIS tandoori chicken recipe - I, of course, changed it up a bit. I used boneless, skinless thighs and cut them into chunks before it went into the marinade. I used soy yogurt, and this garam masala...

and when it came time to cook the meat, I left it in all its marinade, poured it onto a baking sheet and cooked it at 425 for 15+ minutes, until the meat was cooked through. It would be so great to substitute all manor or your favorite veggies for the chicken (zucchini, tomatoes, garbanzo beans). The garam masala's second ingredient is black pepper and the recipe called for cayenne pepper, Mister was in heaven, it was a bit hot for my taste. Still ate it though.

We had kalamata olive, two varieties of flat bread, corn chips, green pimiento'd olives, olive tapenade, Sriracha sauce and sliced roasted red peppers (which were to die for), guacamole, salsa, celery, carrots, green onions... I think that was most of it. Oh, and a large bowl of roughly chopped cilantro to sprinkle over everything.

Yum!

City Walks: #2 Piedmont & Overlook Loops

I've said it before, I've always thought urban hiking would be great. Up until now, its been difficult to find someone who wanted to do it with me. I then get motivated by Alison of Discovering SanFrancisco and her "city walks". I go out, I buy me a book...

and voila! The next thing I know, Mister and I are city walkin', we are city walkers, we are walkin' the city...... ok, no caffeine or alcohol involved here, just a prolonged lack of sleep.... story of my life. I digress.

We find ourselves with a beautiful Fall afternoon and decide to do our first city walk. We choose two loops in North Portland. The Overlook loop actually meanders right by the Overlook House, where Mister and I got married just two+ years ago. We took it all as a sign.

So, the nitty gritty is this: North Portland - which can in places be intimidating, but these two loops were not; excluding the MAX ride (which we did exclude due to waning daylight and temperature) the two loops totalled 5.9 miles. It took us just about 3 hours, or maybe a bit more, and we were not in a hurry, we took our time and stopped often to check stuff out. Despite the photo heavy post, you won't, unfortunately, get much of a feel of the walk. I took what I thought was a lot of photos, but it turns out I just took a lot of the same thing, over and over. Lesson, hopefully, learned for future city walks. We start our walk on Rosa Parks Way in Peninsula Park. This park contains not only the oldest community center in the city, but also what was the original "Rose Garden" (Portland is the City of Roses, The Rose City). The sunken rose garden was superceded just 4 years after it was built by the Washington Park Rose Test Garden which still serves as a focal point in our city.

There are notable homes as you walk along and the book also gives interesting information about the neighborhoods that you, as a regular person, would just never ever know. At one point, there were quite a few alleys. We didn't pay much attention then were informed (by the book) that the alleys were created for the telephone and electric wires. Keeping all those overhead wires on one street, contained - as it were, kept the look of the main streets and avenues 'cleaner' and more desirable. Interesting.

This is a 1906 shingle-style home with a semicircular bay window above the front porch. It was beautifully painted and looked to be well-taken care of.

We came across this metal shop called Edelia. There were so many really cool metal sculptures, here's one, a bicycle which looked, we never really got to talk to anyone, they were busy, to be made of recycled materials.

This is a big old 4-square home on the Overlook bluff. Imagine, your bedroom has that upstairs balcony. How great would that be?!

This triangle of land with 3 large London plane trees used to be the site of streetcar turnaround. You could walk or drive by this and never know.

Don't know what these berries were, but they were SO purple.

This was in someone's yard, an old British phone booth. A replica? The real thing? Either way, it had a skeleton (leftover from Halloween, I presume) hanging out.

We then came to this cute, hidden walkway. It is one of the very few, if not the only, walk way over a major street (N. Going) the only street to/from Swan Island, an industrial area. Here you can see the spiral ramp.

...and the spiral from underneath...

... and it apparently is over top of Simon G. Stanich Park. No clue who that is/was.

... and as we climbed the spiral ramp, the walkway we will soon be inside...

... and us inside the walkway with N. Going and Swan Island behind us... (squint)...

... and finally Mister walking out the other end of the walkway. This is the perfect example of, no photos of all the amazing homes we saw and 23 of the one walk way. Eh, what are you gonna do. I gotta be me.

The walk took us through the adidas Village. (Interesting side note, the company I work for owned, developed and then sold to adidas its village.)

We then turned around, and walked back the way we came rather than finishing the loop as a loop. The last leg of the loop would have been a straight walk down a very busy street, so we opted to return the way we came and see things from a new angle.

In summary.... we loved, loved, loved our city walk and have annoyed everyone we know telling them how much we loved it and can't wait to do more and want everyone we know to do them with us. And now the loop is complete, we are back to the part where we think urban hiking is cool and neat and educational and our friends and family think we are odd.

We're ok with that.

More City Walks to come, but it might not be until Spring. We realized on this walk that we'd need to copy an laminate the walks out of the book because we were constantly referring to it as we walked. Who knows, we'll see.

Just Read: The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

Author: Rebecca Wells

Its from the author of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which I dearly enjoyed. This one, was just okay. A nice, sweet story of Calla Lily Ponder, growing up in LaLuna, Louisiana and reaching the goals she sets in her life and the trials and bumps along the way. Not unhappy I read it. Would I recommend it, not necessarily. I would give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Full moon

Photos from the other morning when I got to work, full moon and fog, clear and crisp. Very pretty.

Just Watched: The Matrix

Yes, yes, I know. I'm the only person on the planet who had not seen The Matrix. Up until yesterday, that is, when Mister insisted I watch it with him. Its one of his favorite movies. It was actually a good movie, intriguing and dark and thought provoking.

Next, who knows, maybe I'll rent E.T.