I like German food/I'm sorry

     First and foremost, I'm still terrible at taking pictures.  1.  I'm lazy and don't take the time or exercise the patience to do so.  2.  I often cook at night which just means terrible lighting.  3.  My camera is sub-par to begin with and its batteries are constantly dead because I forget to take them out between uses.
     That said,  I made some fine schnitzel tonight and am kind of sorry I don't have any pictures to show you.
     I happen to live in a town of wonderful food including three German restaurants that I have had the pleasure of sampling.  There are many more German places in Portland and many more restaurants that aren't German.  However, tonight I made schnitzel and I have only been to the three German places so we'll just talk about those.
     The first German restaurant we visited was Rheinlander (http://rheinlander.com/).  This was the place I first had fondue and schnitzel and it was love at first bite.  I haven't been there for a while, so that's all I really have to say about the experience.  Sidenote:  I am personally terrible at making fondue.  It always turns out grainy and gross.  I believe this stems from my lack of patience when melting cheese.  See #2 in the first paragraph.

     The second German place I visited was Prost! (http://prostportland.com/), a fantastic place in the Mississippi area of Portland.  Portland is divided up into little districts.  For instance, we live in Sullivan's Gulch which abuts historic Irvington (big beautiful old houses), Lloyd District (shopping and crime), and Hollywood (don't know much about this area.  There's a Trader Joes there that I've walked to.)  Anyway, "Prost!" translates to "Cheers!" or "To your health!" which kind of gives you an idea of Prost! the restaurant.  A lovely place where the table to your right might actually be speaking German and the table to your left is toasting the birthday boy.  Prost!  This is actually my favorite German restaurant so far and I really want to go back.  It has a lively atmosphere and a big patio outside that I would like to take advantage of.  Our table shared the braunschweiger which is a German pate they serve with apple slices.  You know, I wouldn't have thought it when I was a kid, but meat paste is just really good.  Definitely need more meat paste in my life.  My dinner was the pretzel sandwich consisting of "Fresh Neumann's Pretzel roll served with Cervelat and Jagdwurst, Cheddar Cheese, Romaine Lettuce, Onions and Stone Ground Mustard."  I don't what all of those words mean, but the taste was phenomenal!  It is a goal in my life to someday make really really good pretzels for such a purpose.  Oh, our table also shared a boot of beer.  How festive!

     The third German place we've tried out is Stammtisch (http://www.stammtischpdx.com/).  This place is conveniently only a 20 minute walk from us.  I've sampled some wonderful beers at Stammtisch including Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen, a wonderfully smokey beer.  Smokey things are a delight.  This beer introduced me to the whole smokey style of beer called rauchbier.  I will learn more about this style.  Anyway, Stammtisch is fancy.  Think rabbit with pureed root vegetables.  Honestly, the key to Stammtisch is to remember to ask for water.  This is a fancy worldly place.  The beer is strong and delicious and is brought out quickly, the food is equally delicious and takes a while to prepare (understandably so) and is a reasonably but modest serving, the water is not provided unless you ask for it.  Strong beer now + modest portions later + no water = you might have a problem.  Order a pretzel (served with little dishes of schmaltz, mustard, and some yummy camembert spread) to tide you over and always always always remember to ask your server for water.  My goodness.

     I've discovered my love of German food since moving to Portland which is a little nutty considering how much of Iowa's food has strong German ties.  I mean, pork tenderloin.  Thin, breaded, fried pork.  Sounds an awful lot like schnitzel.  Potato salad?  Sounds suspiciously German to me.  I will honor my Iowa roots and my German heritage by celebrating my love of German food in my own kitchen.  Which brings me to the very title of this blog!

     I MADE SCHNITZEL!  I pounded out some pork loin real thin, dredged it in flour, dredged it in a mixture of egg and milk with a little nutmeg, dredged it in panko crumbs mixed with a bit of grated parm, salt/pepper, fried it up.  The whole process was a lot easier than I was expecting although my kitchen is a disaster zone.  This blog post has an ulterior motive.  While I'm busy typing up my love of German food I am most definitely not cleaning my kitchen.  It will get cleaned before bed.  Anywho, served with my amazing schnitzel was homemade German potato salad!  How neat!  Steam and chop some potatoes.  Fry a bit of bacon (I used salt pork because it was in my fridge.  Sidenote, I learned about salt pork while reading the "Little House" books and have always wanted to try it and I finally have!  It's...salty.  It worked with the potatoes and made me feel close to Laura Ingalls Wilder who is my #1 childhood hero.  Delightful!).  Toss with the potatoes.  In the same pan you use to fry the bacon (salt pork), fry up some onion and then toss the onion with the potatoes.  In the same pan again boil up a quarter cup white vinegar, a couple tablespoons of water, three tablespoons of sugar, and some salt/pepper.  Toss that in with the potatoes and mix it up.  Potato salad!  Also served with the schnitzel and German potato salad was some large curd cottage cheese.  From a tub.  Making schnitzel and potato salad was tiring and there was no more counter space to be had.  Washed down with  Velvet Merlin oatmeal stout by Firestone.  Dessert was a chocolate chip cookie from the batch I made last night.  How wonderful! :)

*I COMPLETELY FORGOT THE CHUTNEY!  One of my coworkers was given some Italian plums by a friend of hers that has a tree in her yard.  My coworker made chutney out of said Italian plums, whole grain mustard, and what I only assume is good fairy magic.  Because this chutney is magical.  I put it on the schnitzel and was very happy.  

What Has Changed

     My kitchen has changed these past couple of years.  Aside from actually physically changing kitchens around 5-6 times since starting this blog, I've practiced my skills and added some fancy new tools.  My current job at a kitchen shop helps with both the skills and the tools.  I own several sharp knives and know how to use them reasonably well.  I own a refurbished Vitamix and use it for millions of smoothies and amazing velvety soups.  I actually follow recipes now!  I'm experimenting with new ingredients and new techniques which means I am often vastly out of my comfort zone.  The first time I made clarified butter, I sat with my nose practically touching the pan anxiously waiting for the milk solids to settle to the bottom.  Last time I made clarified butter, I threw the butter in the pan and let it do its thing until it was time to skim the foam.  Then I threw some brown sugar, a dash of apple cider vinegar, some sea salt, and a healthy dose of vanilla together and cooked it down into a nice caramel sauce to drizzle over cheesecake.  Always save the foam!  You paid for that foam, dangit!  Don't just throw it away!
     The same attitude applies to many things in my kitchen.  Vegetable scraps and chicken bones are stashed in the freezer until I feel like making stock.  I'm trying my hand at pan frying salmon with a crisp melt-a-way skin (need to practice this one more).  Coffee grounds were thrown around my potted herbs (Until I let the herbs die in the hot sun.  I can't get attached to plants at a rental.  My green thumb may just have to wait until I own some actual dirt.)  Why, right this second I'm drinking a soothing brew I threw together in a saucepan.  Just keep topping off the pot as you dip some out and keep using the same herbs and spices until the flavors all used up.  This is called frugality.  It's been around for centuries and centuries and I certainly am not claiming credit for it.  Merely, as my skills in the kitchen develop, I am recognizing ways to use all my ingredients to their fullest potential.
   Anyway, here's the rough recipe (I still don't measure everything) for the lovely beverage I'm enjoying.  This post was originally going to be about a roasted grape, goat cheese, and proscuitto pizza we made recently, but it somehow took a different turn.  Life can be funny that way.  The pizza post will wait.

-One small pot water
-Smallish chunk of fresh ginger cut into smaller chunks
-Some peppercorns.  Like, a half teaspoon or something
-A couple bay leaves
-Some cinnamon.  Stick if you got it!
-Whatever else sounds nice.  I threw in some sage

Boil all this up until it smells nice.  Ladle some into your favorite mug.  My favorite mug is a lovely mulberry color and the glaze is all swirly!  Top off the pot and bring to a boil again.  This recipe is technically supposed to steep for a few hours, but I wanted it now.  Put a healthy spoonful of honey into your mug.  I'm lucky enough to have picked up some local honey at the farmer's market outside my work.  Add a dash of cream.  Enjoy!

     This recipe was taken from another blogger named Shaye Elliot.  A homesteader from somewhere in Washington who just does all kinds of cool stuff.  We don't know each other, but we may actually be soul sisters.  You'll notice that my recipe lacks all-spice and cloves.  I lack all-spice at the moment and flat out did not read the recipe that well and missed the cloves.  My recipe has sage because I like sage.  This is a cup of tea, not rocket science.  Make what you love and relax!
     I also want to clarify a couple points on my sidebar as to other things that have changed for me.  Currently, our apartment has its own washer and dryer.  This experience is just as wonderful as I expected.  It's real swell not to hoard my quarters or have to trudge a block or two through snow drifts to wash my sheets.  Also, I now own a culinary torch and have used it on occasion to make creme brulee.  This experience is also as wonderful as I expected it to be.  I love creme brulee and that's a fact.  My culinary torch has also been utilized for toasting cheese on top of French onion soup, bruleeing sugar on a lemon tart, and (my current favorite) roasting marshmallows for s'mores.  I eat so many s'mores.

A Spectacular Failure

    

 Look.  Look at those pretty jars all lined up filled to the brim with pretty pink pickles.  These jars are filled with pickled watermelon rind and I canned them myself.
     I first had pickled watermelon rinds as a garnish to an amazing dinner at Imperial in southwest Portland (http://www.imperialpdx.com/#welcome).  My dinner consisted of fried rabbit (Think chicken fried rabbit.  This was the first time I've ever had rabbit and, let me tell you, I'm a fan) atop a semolina corn cake along with said watermelon rind pickles and big ol' chunks of some real good bacon.  It was served with a cute little pitcher of local honey and a teeny tiny bottle of housemade hot sauce to drizzle over the fried rabbit.  Dang, it was all good.  I may have licked the honey pitcher...  Accompanying my meal with seriously the one of the best cocktails I have ever had:  A Radish Walks into a Bar.  From their menu: Carpano Antica vermouth, Ransom Old Tom gin, radish gastrique, lemon, cracked pepper & salt.  What the heck?  I don't even like gin that much!  This cocktail was probably made with Voodoo magic, it was so good.  Many times, when I experience some delightful food or drink, I tell myself, "Hey, you need to try making this at home."  I don't think I can attempt this drink at home.  I don't even understand what all the words involved mean.  Something from that meaI I was determined to nail was those watermelon rind pickles.  They had a nice spiciness to them and were oh-so-crisp!  By chance, I had happened to pick up the America's Test Kitchen DIY cookbook from work.  I don't remember why I decided I needed this book.  Maybe I wanted to try their yogurt recipe or something.  Anyway, this book has a recipe for a crisp spiced watermelon rind pickle!  It even has cardamom in it!  I love cardamom.  It's a delicious sounding recipe.  I made the pickles and let them sit for the prescribed 10 days.  Maybe only 9.  I get impatient.  After a bunch of days, I cracked open my first jar of watermelon rind pickles and had a sample.  These pickles are, without a doubt, completely inedible.
     Where did I got wrong, you ask?  They look so lovely, after all, with their cute little labels and all.  Let me count the ways I totally messed up this recipe.

1.  I casually skimmed the recipe and then picked up supplies.  Oh, I need a watermelon you say?  Guess I'll pick out a big one.  After carefully paring this gigantic watermelon and salting the peeled rind, I take a look at the yield of this recipe.  Four pints, you say?  I filled up my largest bowl with watermelon rinds and still had leftover rind for days.  I check the recipe again.  I needed a 4-5 pound watermelon.  I estimate that the watermelon I had so carefully chosen and prepared weighed closer to 10 pounds.  No matter!  A quick run to the store for more jars and rice vinegar and I will soon have more pickles than I know what to do with.

2.  A key step after salting the rinds and letting them sit for a day is to then thoroughly rinse them.  This was my downfall.  This poorly executed step is what ruined my carefully made pickles.  That one bite I managed made my mouth pucker and my tongue burn for about 10 minutes afterward.  Too salty!  My fiance was standing behind me when I cracked the first jar and asked how they were.  "Try them," I managed with an almost straight face.  He did not care for the pickles.  I shared this story with a coworker.  Apparently saltiness is a big problem people run into when they first try pickling.  You can definitely call me a beginner pickler.  I shall rinse thoroughly in the future.  I will also cut off more of the watermelon flesh.  These pickles were a little mushy for me.  Nothing to do with the saltiness.  Just another observation of future improvements.

3.  I need canning tongs.  This lack of equipment had no effect on my pickles overall.  It was just a huge pain trying to lift jars in and out of boiling water first thing in the morning using regular metal tongs.  I will be acquiring canning tongs in the future.

     Overall, this was really only half a failure.  I had never canned anything before in my entire life and, frankly, was kind of nervous to do so.  Fears of busted jars and botulism have held me back far too long.  No longer!  Aside from splattering myself with boiling water, my canning efforts turned out just perfect.  Shortly after removing the jars from their processing bath, I could hear the pop!  pop!  of the lids fully sealing.  Six of the seven jars and still beautifully sealed on my shelves until I get around to popping open the lids and emptying them into the compost bin.  Yes, I will can again.  I will probably even try this recipe again.  Just be sure to rinse thoroughly.

This link is exactly the recipe I used.  http://www.wnyc.org/story/pickled-watermelon-rind/

*A note on my photography skills:  I'm not sure they will improve ever.  We'll see.

Catching Up

     It's been a while since I've posted here.  A heck of a long while.  Major things that have happened since last January:  I worked my way up at the kitchen shop from brand new sales associate all the way to Assistant Manager,  I gained over 200 hours of volunteer time as an intern for Oregon Fish and Wildlife Service, and both of my siblings got married.  One in Iowa last summer and one in Cape Cod this summer.  Oh, and the boyfriend I had just started seeing at the beginning of this blog proposed and we're getting married back in Iowa next September!  So yeah, it's been busy and this blog has not received any love at all.  So sorry, little blog and sorry to any readers.  (I know you're out there!  You've told me about yourselves!)
     The cool part is that, while ignoring this blog, I've had the opportunity to explore the amazing food (and beer) Portland has to offer.  Seriously, it's really hard to find bad or even mediocre food here.  The fiance's mother and sister visited last week and, to give you an idea of the kind of food I've been eating, here's everything that we ate in those two days:

-After airport drinks at Pepe-Le-Moko in downtown PDX (pepelemokopdx.com/).  I ordered the Hotel Nacional Special which was lovely, but my future sister-in-law's amaretto sour really stole the show.  We also ordered a charcuterie board.  Charcuterie boards are always good.

-A late not-quite-breakfast the next morning at Coco Donuts (www.cocodonuts.com/).  We live in Sullivan's Gulch in NE Portland and this place is a few blocks from us.  I think I had a glazed buttermilk donut and coffee.  Coffee in Portland is also usually delicious.  At Coco's  I also recommend the lavender glazed donuts and the old fashioned donuts.  Good stuff.

-We then visited the Japanese Garden and Rose Garden.  In the interest of time, I'm not getting into the gardens, but trust me that they are beautiful and you definitely need to visit them if you are ever in PDX.  However, after the gardens we all ordered pastrami on rye with Russian dressing from Kenny and Zuke's (http://www.kennyandzukes.com/).  Shut the front door.  This is the best pastrami I have ever had and it could possibly be the best pastrami the world even has to offer.  So smokey.  So tender.  Gah!  From the menu:  cured 7 days, smoked 10 hours, steamed 3 hours.  Pure bliss.  I want to someday try my hand at curing meats and maybe making my own pastrami.  I know I will never reach this level of pastrami, but it might be fun to try.

-A visit to the shops on Alberta means a visit to Salt & Straw for ice cream (saltandstraw.com/).  They've got tons of delicious and wacky flavors that change through the season.  My favorite thus far was a cheddar apple pie ice cream they had last fall.  This time I ordered bone marrow ice cream with smoked bourbon soaked cherries off their farmer's market menu.  I didn't really get much of the bone marrow flavor, but it was still good ice cream.  I'm a sucker for smokey and cherries so they worked for me.

-Dinner at Petisco's (www.petiscopdx.com/).  Also near our home.  This is a lovely hole in the wall.  They do this huge paella night every month.  We have yet to go, but they have their paella pan hanging on the wall and it is gigantic and well seasoned.  After my pastrami sandwich, I went for something light and ordered a salad with proscuitto, roasted figs, goat cheese, and a few baguette slices.  My fiance's mom got some sort of pureed pea ravioli.  I don't remember the details, but it was just lovely.  The table shared a pitcher of white wine sangria with mangos.  It's been hot here lately and that was a welcome cool beverage.

-After dinner drinks at Hale Pele authentic tiki bar (halepele.com/menu/).  This place is just a hoot!  Jungle sounds playing over speakers, bamboo and tiki paraphernalia everywhere, flaming drinks every time you turn around.  One of their bartenders comes into my work to pick stuff up for the bar from time to time and we're now at the point where we can be all "Oh hey!  How's it going?" when we see each other.  I like to think that this means I have an in at Hale Pele and can get a table whenever I want, but honestly they just have excellent service and always have room.  Anyway, the Missionary's Downfall is my favorite drink here.  Light and refreshing and they don't skimp on the mint!

-Day two!  Getting tired of food yet?  Too bad, because this day was a doozy!  The fiance and his family got breakfast at Lovejoy Bakery (lovejoybakers.com/) in the Pearl District.  I did not join them as I filled in a couple hours at work, but I assume that whatever they ate was delicious because everything there is delicious.  I can personally vouch for their macarons, pulled pork sandwiches, and lemon tarts.  I've been there a couple times.  Meanwhile, I grabbed a quick bite of coffee and a gluten-free blueberry muffin at Costello's Travel Cafe behind our apartment (www.costellostravelcaffe.com/).  I don't know how they got the texture of this gluten-free muffin so perfect, but they really just nailed it.  They also sprinkled some rapadura sugar on top before baking which I absolutely will do someday when it's not so hot and I feel like baking muffins.  This place is my go-to for quick breakfasts on my way to work.  I especially love their croissants.  I'm no croissant expert, but these things are buttery and flakey and oh-so-good.

-I joined the rest of the bunch for lunch at Piazza Italia downtown (http://www.piazzaportland.com/language/english/pages/menu.html).  All the workers are Italian.  When not speaking to customers, they are speaking Italian.  The place is hung with soccer jerseys.  It's the most Italian thing I've ever seen.  Complimentary bread and oil/balsamic are on each table.  I ate a lot of bread.  It's just so good!  Big air bubbles and super fluffy with a nice crust.  We actually attempted a dupe of Piazza Italia's Linguine Squarciarella for dinner tonight!  Basically, we made speghetti carbanara out of Silver Spoon with some small adjustments.  We swapped bacon for torn up proscuitto and added diced onions.  We also made homemade linguine using our Kitchenaid and pasta attachments!  This was a first for me and I must say that, for a first timer, this was some pretty good pasta.  Our efforts weren't quite as good as Piazza Italia's, but then again we're not Italian so it's all good as they say.

-We left downtown to peruse the shops in the Alphabet District.  These shops are fancy and fun.  We visited the vintage jewelry store we got my engagement ring from and checked out a house-turned-shop filled to the brim with Polish pottery and about a million other stores.  A snap decision to visit Papa Haydn for macarons turned into full on dessert (www.papahaydn.com/).  I again ordered from the seasonal local menu and ended up with a blackberry cheesecake.  You can't go wrong with this, seriously.  Others ordered a lemon macaron ice cream sandwich that also incorporated cherries and honey, a grasshopper cake (mint and chocolate is always good), and lemon chiffon cake.  The mix of honey and lemon in the macaron was my personal fav.

-More chocolate!  We stopped by Moonstruck from some truffles (http://www.moonstruckchocolate.com/category/portland-23rd-ave).  I got some sort of salted caramel truffle and a lemon macaron.  Seriously, if you've never tried a macaron, go out and do so.  Light but crisp outer shell, creamy filling, and I honestly can't describe the texture of the cookie after you bite into it.  Melt-in-your-mouth overall.

-Back to NE for dinner!  Shandong Northern China cuisine (http://www.shandongportland.com/menu/).  They have the best (and biggest) pot stickers I have ever had in my life.  Just amazing.  The fiance and I shared an order of pork belly fried rice and still had leftovers.  I just discovered pork belly in the last couple years and will order it almost any time I see it on a menu.  My goodness.  Thus ends day two of feasting.

-Breakfast at Costello's again before dropping family off at the airport and heading to work.  After two solid days of eating, I could really eat no more.  I got a light breakfast of Greek yogurt, a bunch of cut up fruit, and housemade granola.  They did not skimp on the granola.  I took some home and topped my breakfast yogurt with it for the next couple of days.  Good stuff.  The fiance got some sort of breakfast panini that included amazing multigrain bread and avocados.  His mom and sister both ordered strawberry waffles.  I tried those waffles and, man, they are on another level.  Seriously, Costello's is just one of my favorite breakfast places ever.  It really helps that I live behind it.

     So, there's that.  I knew we ate a ton, but I am seriously exhausted just from the effort of typing it all out!  Luckily, typing this blog post has given me some time to digest my delicious homemade Italian food and I might be ready for some dessert.  I melted some semi-sweet chocolate and stirred in vanilla (I use the good stuff now!  Like from Madagascar or Mexico or something!) and heavy cream.  It's setting up now in the fridge and will basically be a lazy mock pot-de-creme.  I've eaten some amazing things and have had some spectacular creations (and spectacular failures) in my own kitchen that I should probably write about and my wandering days are still going strong.  Thanks for reading!

*I want to add the disclaimer that I don't necessarily eat like this every day.  That would kill the Molly.  However, I am surrounded by amazing food places.  Petisco's had a mean happy hour special of $6 sandwiches which I often take advantage of if I fail to pack a lunch for work.  Only eat half the sandwich with the salad it comes with and then the next day pack a different side to have with the other half of the sandwich.  My cooking skills are also growing which means I eat better at home.  For example, we seared scallops for the first time last night.  We didn't really know what we were doing, but they turned out amazing!  I whipped up a light salad of shaved fennel and diced apple with a vinaigrette.  It sounds so fancy, but took only about 15 minutes.  So yeah, I definitely don't eat crazy all the time, but I do eat well.  Yay for me!

I Wandered Far

     Really far.  On November 26, 2012, we packed up my boyfriend's car and moved from San Antonio, TX all the way to Portland, OR.  The trip took three days.  We traveled through western Texas, New Mexico, the corner of Colorado, Utah, Idaho and, finally, Oregon.  We saw some beautiful country.  Each state is just a little different from one another and greatly different from my native Iowa.  It always seemed that there were mountains visible wherever we were.  We were worried about driving through the Rockies this time of year, but lucked out.  There was only snow a few places and really only on the eastern sides of slopes or the very tops of mountains.  Overall, it was a pleasant, if long, drive.  The only scary part was an area called "The Cabbage" just before reaching The Dalles in Oregon.  Six miles of hairpin turns on six percent slopes.  My boyfriend drove.  I closed my eyes at times.  We survived!
     We've had a couple months to settle in now.  I love our neighborhood.  I can walk to everywhere I need and take cheap public transportation anywhere else I'd want to go.  There are tons of cool little shops nearby and a million new restaurants.  One of myy favorite restaurants thus far is Cadillac Cafe near our apartment which makes an amazing pork loin sandwich with apples and bleu cheese.  Holy buckets that is a good sandwich!  My next favorite restaurant is the Zeus Cafe in downtown.  We went there last Friday with a friend of ours and I had a bleu cheese and steak salad (I've been on a bleu cheese kick), my boyfriend had a duck confit pizza (OMG), and our friend had duck with farro risotto that she said was amazing.  We split an order of truffle fries with black garlic aeoli.  Seriously, aeoli is where it's at.  We've been to the Zeus Cafe a few times on a Friday night and have befriended one of the bartenders.  I think Zeus Cafe will be our new "place."
     One of the best parts of our move is that, of last week, I am employed!  Backtracking a little, while in San Antonio I worked training parrots at SeaWorld.  It was fun for the most part, but the hours weren't reliable so I was pretty stressed out.   I now work full time at a fancy gourmet kitchen shop just a block away.  I love working full time.  I love working so close to home.  I love working with kitchen stuff and am looking forward to learning more!
     So far this move has been great!

I am an ADULT!

     Kind of.  Most of the time.  I work a decent job that's actually in my field (I train parrots!  They're adorable!).  My house is mostly clean most of the time.  I eat a lot of salad.  I work on my thesis.  To balance being an adult, I like to do small ridiculous things on a daily basis.  Sometimes (everyday) I will look at pictures of baby animals.  Sometimes I eat a bag of Peachios.  Yesterday, I danced around the apartment to "Gangnam Style."  Seriously, you can't be an adult all of the time.

     Here's a pic of the bf and me visiting my work.  That parrot is a blue and gold macaw named Dewey.  He is four years old and his interests include hanging upside down, nibbling on things, and being held like a baby.

     I do generally cook like an adult.  Especially since I have someone that appreciates my cooking and will also notice if I eat the same pot of soup for two weeks and call me out on how gross that is.  I've taken to experimenting with DIY food stuff.  Some of it has gone great.  Some of it needs more experimentation.  My sourdough starter started out fantastic!  Lots of bubbles and a nice sour smell meant that I had some pretty high expectations.  When I actually used my starter, I was less than impressed.  Here are a couple of pictures to demonstrate.

     See?!  That starter looks fantastic!  Look at it all bubbly and overflowing!  Other starters are so jealous of my starter!

     Here is how it baked up.  I am very disappoint...  Sourdough starter is on the back burner and I shall return to it later.

     Other experiments have gone a lot better.  I've gotten pretty good at making my own Greek yogurt and now have a cheap healthy breakfast food that goes great with honey, berries, and chocolate granola.  I have managed to master the art of a long-rise bread baked in a Dutch oven.  Seriously, this bread is easy and delicious.  There are websites everywhere for this recipe so I'm not going to type out all of the steps.  Here is someone else's blog that has it all written down. http://simplysogood.blogspot.com/2010/03/crusty-bread.html  Tada!  Pretty tasty.  For reference, my bread looks like that.  IT IS DELICIOUS.  

     I have made this bread a couple of times now and use it for everything.  Last week we used a few pieces to make French toast and IT WAS DELICIOUS.  This morning we popped it in the toaster, slathered it with butter, and shook some cinnamon sugar on it.  IT WAS DELICIOUS.  Incidentally, I ate my homemade cinnamon toast along with the aforementioned homemade Greek yogurt.  I am Betty Crocker.  I should also point out that the butter was also homemade.  The process is so easy that I'll actually type out the instructions.  1.  Let heavy cream sit out in an open mason jar for 12 hours so that it can sour.

                    2.  Put a lid on the jar and shake it until it turns into butter.

                    3.  Rinse and salt butter.

     We call it wizard butter.  A friend of my bf's sent him this video of an old dude making this butter and this dude looks like a wizard.  Here's the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oropJD0CUxI
     Tonight, the homemade bread and wizard butter was turned into garlic bread.  I just buttered slices of bread with wizard butter, shook on some garlic power, grated on some parmesan, and baked it until it looked like garlic bread.  It paired nicely with the Italian wedding soup I made using our Dutch oven.
     I love our Dutch oven.  It is big and a pretty green color and gets used several times a month for various soups and bread.  Short story of how we acquired said Dutch oven:  before I even moved down to Texas, bf and I were visiting his parents.  The subject of Dutch ovens came up and his mom was all of a sudden all "OH!" and then walked off and came back with a brand new Dutch oven which we now have.  It was amazing.

     Anyway, we had Italian wedding soup and garlic bread for dinner and I forgot to take a picture to post here.  Here is the soup recipe! http://allrecipes.com/recipe/italian-wedding-soup/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=italian%20wedding%20soup&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page  It's pretty tasty and meatballs are always a good time.  Tomorrow, I'll make more garlic bread and set the food up all pretty so I can take a picture and post it here.  You all will know that I'm just posting pics of leftovers, but I'm pretty sure most of the people that read this blog are friends and family so I don't need to impress you anyway.  For the one or two other people that read it, I'm sorry.  I don't aim very high.

   To wrap everything up, we got all fancy and drank red wine with our dinner which actually paired great with the soup and with dessert.  It's a sweet red from California called LaDiDa.  For being less than $5 it is surprisingly tasty.  Dessert was chocolate "mousse" (melted dark chocolate with sugar whipped into heavy whipping cream until thick and topped with whipped cream).  So fancy!  So adult!

*Note-Waste not, want not!  To make Greek yogurt you have to drain off the whey.  Since whey is packed full of protein and other good things and since I'm hyper frugal, I cannot justify dumping it down the sink.  Therefore, whey waters my basil plant (the Texas sun has killed all my other herbs) and has started making its way into baked goods.  The bread I'm eating was made with leftover whey from last week's yogurt.

**Update:  For a long time, my camera was stuck on zoom and I thought it was broken.  In an attempt to fix the camera, I accidentally delete all the pictures.  So, no soup pictures.  I am sad.  Luckily, my tech savvy bf took a look and fixed it in about 5 minutes.  Yeah, it was just on the wrong setting.

More Fancy (Crab Croquettes and Schmancy Restaurants)

    

 So, cooking with someone and sharing food is a heck of a lot more fun than cooking and eating by yourself.  Also, it's a lot more fun to go out to eat with people than by yourself.  Go figure.
     Since moving to Texas, life has gotten fancy.  I live in an apartment building that wasn't built during WWII and so the paint is fresh, the rooms are spacious, and it doesn't smell weird.  Fantastic!  Also, San Antonio has fancier restaurants than I am used to (I am used to Pablo's quesadillas) so bf and I are getting all sorts of ideas for fancy food that we want to make.  Just last weekend, for instance, we made homemade cheesecake out of the "Ad Hoc at Home" cookbook by Thomas Keller with from-scratch raspberry sauce made from fresh raspberries!  I did not take pictures of this cheesecake so you will have to just take my word that it was delicious.
     A couple weeks ago, we went with a group of people to a fancy pants restaurant called Bin 555 (http://www.bin555.com/).  I'll just tell you what we ate.  Bf and I ordered an appetizer of crab croquettes with lemon aioli sauce (more on this later).  Both of us ordered duck confit and cauliflower gruyere gratin as our main meal.  Let me just take a moment to say that I love duck.  I love the crispy skin and the rich meat and whatever the grainy sugary stuff and oniony things that was served with taste and feel in my mouth.  That said, I have looked at recipes for duck confit.  It looks expensive.  I probably will not be making it any time soon.  We finished off dinner with a Nutella tart which was amazingly chocolaty and rich and I WILL be trying to make that someday.  We drank a table wine (Recuerde), but I honestly know nothing about wine so I can't really get into too much detail.  We liked it!  I don't remember what the rest of the table got as main courses but one person ordered both bone marrow and grilled cheese as his appetizers.  Someday, I shall try bone marrow.  Every time I see it my mouth waters.  I did get to the try the grilled cheese and HOLY COW I WANT TO EAT THESE EVERY DAY.  They're simple enough.  Little baguette looking things with goat cheese and jam.  I WILL MAKE THESE.
     Back to the crab croquettes.  .  They are crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside and the aioli was delightfully zesty.  Bf absolutely loved them.  He has been talking about making them every since.  And today we did.  And in the process used three fry pans, one sauce pain, and a ton of plates, bowls, and utensils.  Worth it.
Here's a site with the recipe we used!  We got our recipe from "Izakaya:  the Japanese Pub Cookbook," but so did the author of this blog.  Read their blog and enjoy the recipe! http://chubbyhubby.net/blog/?p=571  We also made lemon aioli.  Neither of us liked it so I won't include the recipe for that.  We ended up dipping our crab croquettes in the ginger dressing that we used on the spinach salad.  Speaking of ginger dressing....here's the recipe for that, too!  Enjoy! http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/10/Benihana-Ginger-Salad-Dressing75170.shtml

Getting Fancy

     Just stopping by to present the recipe I'm experimenting with tonight.
http://lipstickblogspot.blogspot.com/2010/06/roasted-salmon-with-pea-puree-in-light.html
     I am trying that and it sounds amazing.  Being me, however, I can't actually follow the exact recipe.  So, here are my changes:

• Side of peas instead of puree.  Don't want to dirty food processor.
• We do not have shallots.  We do, however, have part of a red onion that needs used.  Not the same, but it will work tonight.
• No mint involved.  Fresh mint will not be present in this household until after I move and can get my baby herbs started.
• No chicken broth involved.  I realize that broth would add flavor but I only have enough salmon for one serving each for my bf and I.  So, I don't want to open up chicken broth just for small amounts.
• No nutmeg in the rub.  Didn't have it.  Subbed cinnamon (I know it's not the same!)
• Didn't measure anything in the rub.  Just dumped.  I do that.
• That might be it for changes...

     I've already made the rub.  Dumping resulted in a little over half a cup which is more than we need for this recipe obviously.  However, I tried a pinch or two of it and I bet you one million dollars it would taste great on shrimp, chicken, pork, in burgers, etc.  The possibilities are endless.
     Also serving this with side of baby carrots with Beaumonde dip because the carrots keep freezing in the fridge so we need to get them eaten.  My bf always has a bowl of this made because he absolutely adores it and being home all day, I'm pretty much addicted.  Bf is pretty handy in the kitchen.
     Anyway, I was just pretty excited for this recipe (even though I'm not strictly following it) because it looks super tasty and super fancy.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

*Ok, so about the time my bf was leaving work and I was starting to get dinner together, I realized that all the sour cream had gone into the Boaumonde dip.  Wanting to get dinner started and not wanting to go out in the rain, I subbed sour cream with dip.  The issue is that there's mayonaise in the dip and that flavor came through, otherwise it actually tasted good.  I dolloped the sauce over the salmon fillets and that was a bit much flavor-wise.  Both of us scrapped off the sauce and just dipped bites of salmon in it and that was tasty.  The rub was fantastic.  Will try this recipe again with regular sour cream some other time.

I Moved!

     Ok, so I have not posted in several months.  I've been busy with that whole grad student thing.  I do not want to get into that here because talking about it would probably be very boring to any readers and because it would just make me go "UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH."  And we don't need that right now.
     Suffice it to say that I have finished the coursework for my program and am now solely in the thesis writing portion which is actually the most frustrating part.  Hence the long drawn out "UGH."  Also, I have moved twice in as many months.  First from my apartment to my parents's house at the end of the year.  Next from my parents' house to San Antonio into my bf's apartment.  After almost a year living 2/3 across the country, I'm pretty stoked about this move.  I'm going to say my bf is, too.  Also, in mid-March we'll be moving again.  But this time just across the parking lot to a smaller (more affordable) apartment.
     So, now my current full-time job is thesis writing which I need to get on a bit more.  I don't currently have a job job and probably won't look too hard until I turn the next chapter of my thesis in to my adviser (hence the "getting on that").  It's kind of nice for the moment.  I've started an exercise routine as we have a work-out center in our apartment complex.  Hopefully my inner sexy svelte self will emerge in time.  I've taken up jewelry making again and am considering starting an Etsy shop except that means my parents need to find my camera among the gigantic pile of personal belongings that didn't fit in my Impala and ship it to me.
   Being the half of the couple that's not bringing home the bacon, I've started to keep on top of things like laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc.  It's only fair (or about as fair as I can make it at the moment).  If I had my camera here, I'd post some pics of the rad food I've made thus far.  But since it's still in Iowa I'll just list some off:  wacky cake (which bf had never had and I overcooked in the oven which runs a bit hot), balsamic roasted vegetables with goat cheese pasta (set the fire alarm off, boiled over the pasta, turned out delicious anyway), Cook's Illustrated chocolate chip cookies (what the frick was up with that recipe?!  Not nearly enough flour called for in recipe resulted in melted mess on cookie sheet.  Dumped melted mess into dough and added about a whole extra cup of flour.  Chocolate chips from first batch melted thus creating chocolate chocolate chip cookies.  Actually a success.  But what. The. Frick.), and have plans to make some roasted cauliflower parmesan pasta thing tomorrow.  I'm on a roast vegetable and pasta kick at the moment and I like it.  Also, bf likes cheese so we have some super rad smoked gouda and multigrain crackers kicking around.  I approve.
  Current lifestyle:  awesomesauce.

  Also, since I don't have any food pics here is a photo of a llama that I stole from some stranger's blog.  Thanks, Stranger!

Dessert for Dinner

     I get on kicks of different foods.  Summer rolls were a kick.  Black bean quesadillas were a kick.  I've gone of kicks of soup, of stir fry, of lots of things.  I'll eat one thing several times a week and then be done with it.  For a while.
     At the moment, my kick is brie and apple grilled sandwiches.  This sandwich has been around for a while in many variations, but is fairly new to me.  My first experience with a similar sandwich was at Roots Market in Cedar Falls (http://www.rootsmarket.net).  They serve up a delicious Toasted Normandy which is a roast turkey sandwich with melted brie, apples, and dijon.  One of the best sandwiches in the Cedar Valley at a great local health store.  I could eat this sandwich everyday.  Or at least a lot.
     Funny thing about being a grad student, however, is that you're poor and try to not constantly eat out.  So, I do the next best thing which is try to make it at home.   As I've said before, I am far too lazy (and too poor) to buy such fancy things as meat, so my creation is a vegetarian version.  And without the roast turkey, the dijon is a little much for me, so I left that out too.  So, that left me with apples and brie.  Pretty good, but needs something.  So, I sprinkled some cinnamon on there too and grilled it up in my baby cast iron skillet.
     All in all, not quite the same as the Toasted Normandy.  More of a dessert sandwich if there is such a thing.  Still very tasty and budget friendly.  This is my dinner tonight.  Grilled brie and apples, grapes, and a mug of chai tea with Hansen's milk (http://www.hansendairy.com) and sweetened with honey from B.J. Honey in LaPorte City.  It's a pretty good dinner.

Really Fast Pretty Healthy Food (Summer Rolls)

 
     For the past five months I have been visiting San Antonio, Texas from time to time since my boyfriend got a fancy pants job and moved down there.  Now, when I think of Texas cuisine, I usually think of steak, ribs and various other kinds of beef.  Because it's Texas.  I could just be stereotyping, but the people there seem to like cow meat.
     So, I don't know if my boyfriend lives in some sort of cultural pocket or what, but there are Asian restaurants EVERYWHERE!  Which is cool.  Because Asian food is generally awesome.  I believe the first Asian place we tried out was House of Pho which is actually a Vietnamese chain restaurant.  Here's some more stereotyping, but when I think of chain restaurants I think of greasy heavy food with no nutritional content.  However, House of Pho is gooooooooooood.  Lots of fresh veggies.  Very light food but you will still walk away pretty full.  Mostly because if you get the soup looking stuff it comes in gigantic bowls that are impossible to finish.  Here is their website!  http://www.houseofphosa.com/  Go there!  Anyway, I digress.
     One of the appetizers they have that I will probably now get every time I go are the summer rolls with shrimp and peanut dipping sauce.  I fell in love with them.  I went back to Iowa and craaaaaaaaved these things.  Unfortunately, I cannot find any place in the Cedar Valley that has them.  So, I looked up recipes on http://foodgawker.com/ and turns out they're really easy to just make at home.  The problem is that I could not find the rice paper wrappers anywhere in the Cedar Valley either.  Fortunately, my boyfriend happens to live about five whole minutes from a Japanese grocery store (I don't remember what this place is called or I would post their website too).  I picked up a pack of 50 some rice paper wrappers for less than $5.  Seriously, I'm probably set for a while.
     Moral of the story, I now make summer rolls all the time.  I'd post a formal recipe for them but honestly it goes something like:  microwave vermicelli noodles in a bunch of water until they're cooked.  While microwaving noodles cut up a bunch of veggies (I always put in spinach because it's full of vitamins and iron and stuff and then throw in whatever else I have.  Cucumbers are in season right now).  The noodles are probably done so drain them.  Take the rice paper wrappers and run them under water to soften them.  Pile on the noodles and veggies.  Fold 'em up!  15 minutes and you're done!  You can add shrimp or chicken or whatever but I'm a poor lazy grad student.  And meat is expensive and requires cooking.
     I do have a recipe for the peanut butter dipping sauce (or at least a list of ingredients) so here that is.

Peanut Butter Dipping Sauce (for 3 summer rolls)
2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1.5 tablespoons sushi vinegar
splash of soy sauce
couple shakes of cayenne

*Note #1:  Today I found a packet of sweet and sour sauce in my fridge from this one time when I had eggrolls so I added that into the dipping sauce too.  It was super tasty!
 **Note #2:  I for some reason find dipping summer rolls to be difficult and messy.  So now I just spread some of the dipping sauce over the wrappers and then add the rest of the stuff.  Probably not authentic but easy-peasy.
***Note #3:  This pic was my dinner tonight.  SO FULL.

This post has nothing to do with food...

     During my undergraduate career as an Earth Science major, I got to see some pretty cool things.  I have hunted fossils of creatures that have been extinct for millions of years near Coralville, Iowa, listened to wolves howl all around me as I stood near the geysers of Yellowstone National Park, and watched two helicopters land on the beach as I was sleeping on in the remote wilderness along the Colorado River in Utah.  This is that story.
     I was white water rafting the Colorado River as part of a field trip with the Earth Science Department of the University of Northern Iowa.  And that day we hit the biggest rapids yet.  As I recall, water was shooting through the canyon at around 35,000 cubic feet/second.  Definitely Class V rapids.  And very close to being too dangerous even for our experienced guides to mess with.
     I have never experienced anything so thrilling in my entire life.

     The guides called the troughs of water our boats dove nose-first into "bus eaters" and they were not exaggerating.  I was sitting in the back wearing nerdy goggles so my contacts didn't wash out and made sure that I kept my eyes wide open the entire time.  So, eyes wide open, I gripped the ropes along the side of the boat and watched the other students in the front dive 20 feet as my end shot into the air.  Then my stomach would do a quick flip flop as the butt of the boat came crashing down and I was staring up at a wall of water that, could indeed, crash over a bus with no problem.  I wish I had the words to adequately describe how terrifying and exhilarating the experience was but, honestly, anything I could say would sound flat.  All I know is that, before I die, I would dearly love to hit Class V rapids again.
     We camped on a beach that I don't remember the name of and lit a campfire for the first time in the four days we'd been on the river.  I remember alternating between exhaustion and freaking out about the day and eating hot dogs but that is about it.  At some point early in the evening it came out that the entire time we were bucking and plunging in Class V's, one of the students was feeling a very sharp pain in his lower right side.
     The guides and our prof gathered around him trying to figure out what to do.  By the time the severity of the situation was realized, it was too late and too dark for the guide who was an EMT to take him on one of the boats alone to the nearest edge of civilization.  It was decided that he would monitor the guy until first light when it would would be safe to navigate.  We were told that if he got worse they would have to call in a rescue.  It was pretty hot out (in the desert, you know) so I bedded down in just my rain gear for warmth and my sarong spread on the cool sand.
     I have no idea what time it was when they woke us.  The middle of the night.  I remember the stars making it almost as bright as twilight and the walls of the canyon casting shadows on the sky (something else I want to see again).  We were told that the student's condition had worsened and rescue had been called in.  They were sending a helicopter to lift the kid out and fly him to a hospital.  We had to wet down the beach so it could land.
     One of our guides later told us that we Iowans worked quickly and efficiently.  We formed a human chain passing buckets of river water to wet the fine sand.  It was a small beach.  If I recall correctly maybe a quarter of a football field?  It still took a long time.  We passed the buckets and dumped it on the ground working our way from one end of the beach to the other watching the sky and listening.  Eventually we got the beach as wet as a surface made of sand can be, grabbed our gear, and dragged it into the scrub.  Then we listened and watched some more.
     I can't remember if we heard the helicopter or saw it first.  Either way, it was far away.  It had a light that it swung around searching the many canyons of Canyonlands National Park for one small group of humans.  We flashed our lights a couple times.  Don't know if it helped.  It probably didn't.  Eventually, the helicopter found us and everyone but the sick student and the EMT guide ducked into the scrub.  Despite our efforts to wet the sand down as much as possible, we were pelted and kept our heads down.  Nothing more could be done at our end so we bedded down in what open flattish places we could find and tried to catch some sleep before morning.  I recall sliding downhill and waking up to my feet in a bush and something in the bush hissing at me.  I scooted up and passed out again.
     We woke up to daylight and a helicopter landing on the beach next to the first one.  Turns out something (I have no idea what) was broken on the first helicopter and they had kept the student stable until the sun came up and another helicopter could be safely sent in to pick him up and take him away.  One helicopter gone and one remaining.  We passed out for a while more.
     And woke up to a helicopter landing on the beach for the third time in just a few hours in the middle of the vast DESERT WILDERNESS of the United States.  They brought a replacement part for the first helicopter.  This time, I woke myself up enough to think of grabbing my goggles.  They replaced whatever the heck was broken and I kept my eyes wide open and watched as two helicopters lifted off the beach, pelted us with sand, and took off into the desert sky.
  We ran our last rapids of the trip that day.  Nothing over a Class III.  And I had the amazing fortune of being allowed to "swim" some high Class II's (by swim I mean the guide told us we were allowed to jump in with our life vests and have the current sweep us along.  I laughed hysterically the entire time.  In a good way.).  We landed in civilization sometime midday.  I don't recall where.  Then we received the happy news that the sick student had been flown to a hospital somewhere in Arizona where they definitively diagnosed him with acute appendicitis (our guides kinda figured that but definitive is good).  And then they took his appendix out.  And we all lived happily ever after!

Berry Season!

Best. Season. Ever.
     Today, I had the pleasure of spending my morning at my research site.  This meant I got to spend my morning on the prairie with a good friend and coworker whose research shares the same site as mine!  Everything is in bloom right now and, as I have been away for the past week, I needed to get back out there and take pictures demonstrating different aspects of my research for reports, presentations, and, of course, my thesis.  Dry as that sounds, what basically happened is that I took pictures of flowers.
    Side benefit of our scientific exploits is that our site is surrounded by thickets that are FILLED with raspberries!  We took full advantage of that.  In the name of science.
     Now, I am a student at the University of Northern Iowa.  We happen to have a lovely biological preserves system (Check it out sometime!  It is full of trails!).  It is also filled with apple and cherry trees and wild berries of all kinds and probably all sorts of other things that I have not eaten yet.  This is where I went after work to get the berries pictured here.
     Someone had beaten me to them.
     My former boss from my undergrad days came wandering off the trails with bowls of raspberries destined to become jam.  However, he left berries enough for me, other wanderers, and all the woodland creatures who wanted some.
     I wish I had taken my camera onto the trail.  Shafts of sunlight came through and hit the ripe berries making them shine.  Also shining were the ebony jewelwing damselflies (I had to look them up.  You should too!  They are beautiful!) that were flitting around everywhere.  I waded around in the thorny bushes filling the container used to store the peanut butter sandwich I had for lunch with the dark shiny berries, getting scolded by an irate catbird, and gradually staining my fingers purple.  It was amazing.
     To make a long story short, I took my foraged treasures home with me and after supper (Maple salmon, little red potatoes, peas, and a tall glass of milk!) made a bit of homemade whipped cream and globbed it on to my berries.  I ate them while I wrote this post.  My stomach is full to bursting and I am immensely happy.
     Also, here is a picture of me in my "office" today.  The flowers you're looking at are Ox-eye sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides).  The prairie is already much taller than me in a few places.  Soon I will get lost in it. :)

Breakfast of Champions

     First off, you know those food blogs that have the food "posed" at such an angle and the light is right and whatever and the food is crumbled delightfully just so?  Yeah, I am really bad at taking pictures like that.
     Instead, I kind of just aim my camera in the food's general direction and push the button.  That is what I did for this picture which is a picture of crockpot oatmeal which is my favorite breakfast ever and in all ways amazing.
     Now to do something I rarely do on this blog!  I'm gonna post the recipe!!!!!!!

Crockpot Oatmeal

1 cup steel cut oats
dump in some craisins (roughly 1/3 cup or 1ish handful)
1 chopped apple
dump in some cinnamon (around 1.2 teaspoon measured in my palm)
dump in a little salt (about 1/2 teaspoon again measured in my palm)
pour in REAL maple syrup or honey ( maybe 1/4 cup of whatever you have the most of)
4 cups water

     Stir it up in the handy dandy crockpot and cook on low for four hours!  Then just store it in the fridge for whenever you want to eat some breakfast.  I generally prefer mornings for such an activity.
     Come the morning time when it is the sustenance just scoop some into a bowl.  Now, you could just pop it into the microwave and that's just fine.  OOOOOOOOOOOR you could chop up half a banana and add a splash of milk.  Then microwave it.  Putting banana into your oatmeal is nothing new but I had not tried it until recently and IT IS DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!  The banana adds kind of a caramel flavor to the oatmeal which is quite nice.
     It is 12:18 a.m. and I have a pot of this just a cookin' away as we speak.  It will be done in about an hour.  I meant to start it as soon as I got home from work around 5:30 but I forgot.  I debated just waiting until tomorrow to start it but I would really like some oatmeal tomorrow morning and I figure if I waited until tomorrow I would just forget again so may as well do it now.
     My apartment smells amazing.  I am excited.

Chocolate Nom Cake

It broke in half.
     If you read this before I get a chance to post the pics then you will just have to imagine a small chocolate cake on a white plate broken in half.  If you are reading this after I got a chance to post the pics then you are looking at a picture of a small chocolate cake that is broken in half.
     I'm in San Antonio visiting the bf for the week and have been eating EVERYWHERE!  I will probably devote a whole post to the restaurants/bars I went to this week at some point (or not.  I do what I want.) but to give you a little background, le bf works 2nd shift so for 4 days this week I have 10 hours of alone time.  However, a couple of times his friends have been kind enough to invite me to hang out with them and do what people in San Antonio do.  Or at least do what they do which is eating and drinking.  I approve.
     Yesterday (or Tuesday as I like to call it) we went to a fancy pants restaurant called Tre Tratorria (http://www.tretrattoria.com/) for lunch.  Food was omgsonom.  If you look at the lunch menu, I had the power lunch of mixed greens and gnocchi with gorgonzola.  I did not order dessert but was offered a few bites of the Nutella X 3 and IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!! Basically it was a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and chocolate mousse (I assume all with Nutella).  I've never had flourless chocolate cake so the experience was wholly new and delightful and I decided immediately to try it.  Feeling kind of bad for the bf who was at work and didn't get partake in this delightful experience, I decided I would be the most awesome gf in the world and make it for him while he was at work and surprise him!
     So, today while the bf was at work I drove (all by myself!) to the store to get the ingredients for a flourless chocolate cake recipe from the internet (http://adashofsass.com/2011/05/23/flourless-chocolate-cake/).  Then I made the cake.  It's a very simple recipe and I whipped it up without any fuss and set the timer.
     Except I set the timer wrong.  I am notoriously bad at doing simple tasks.  So I waited for the beep.  And waited.  And waited.  Then decided to stop waiting and went to check the timer.  I forgot to press "start."  Luckily the cake looked ok so I took it out of the oven and let it rest for 5 minutes before turning it over on a plate like the recipe says to.
     It broke in half.
     Well I can't present the bf with a broken cake!  I did the only thing I could think of and put the cake back in the pan.  It looks mostly ok.  And it hides the slightly burned bottom of the cake.  Haven't gotten a chance to try it yet so hopefully it doesn't taste burned.
     Here's (will be) a pic of it right side up!  Nom!
*Note:  Bf if you are reading this while you are at work then the surprise is all spoiled.  How dare you?!  But hopefully you are now excited for it!  If you are not reading this then hopefully when you get home from work you will be surprised and excited.
**Note:  Pictures of this cake are saved to my camera's internal memory instead of the card and I cannot find the cord to my camera to get the pictures of the cake off of it and onto this post.  However, I have a solution!  First, go to Google and "Google" "flourless chocolate cake."  Look at pictures of flourless chocolate cake.  Imagine the flourless chocolate cake first broken in half and then cut up with a nice dollop of homemade vanilla whipped cream.  Also imagine the flourless chocolate cake a bit too crumbly because I burned it.  That is basically how it went down.

Machete Man

     Sometimes, I do stupid things.  The stupid thing I'm going to tell you about today is that time I got chased by a man with a machete.  This happened when I was like, 16, and was kept as a highly classified secret because I feared that if my parents found out, they would lock me away until I was 78 or something.  Because obviously girls who get chased by men with machetes are not safe to be out and about.  But last Thanksgiving, the story came out to my parents and my aunt so it's safe for the rest of the world to know now.
    We just wanted an innocent adventure.  One of my cousins (the one I usually do stupid things with) was visiting and we met up with the guy I was seeing and, living in a small rural town, had absolutely nothing to do.  The answer was clear.  We had to go trespassing!
     We have some train yards in town.  I honestly don't know much about them.  I had never visited them prior to this night and, after what transpired, I have never been back.  To give you an idea of the train yards so you can accurately picture them in your mind and make this blog reading experience more exciting, the train yards are a grassy, brushy area.  With trains in it.  Fix this image in your imagination.  Now imagine that it was dark.  Because it was.
     I have no idea why we chose the train yards from among the vast options of other places to trespass but that's teenagers for you.  We parked my trusty white 1993 Corsica (Le Blizzard) a little ways away to be all sneaky like and hiked in.
     The train yards are creepy.  Our teenage minds were well able to imagine serial killer hobos hiding behind every bush and rock and entire hoards of zombified hobos (I'm afraid of hobos sometimes btw.  Not all the time.  Just sometimes) lurking in the rusty boxcars.  My cousin is afraid of snakes.  Being a mean creature, at every rustle of the grass I jokingly said "Ooooooooooh!  It's a snaaaaaaaaaaaaake!" causing her to shriek and me to giggle.
     Then there was a really big rustle in the bushes.  Too big for a snake.  Too big for a rabbit.  We paused, cocked our head to the side like spaniels and peered into the brush.  Stupid mistake.  Never pause.  Just run.
     A scary hobo man with ripped clothes and loooooooong stringy hair leaped out of the bushes shrieking like a banshee and waving a MACHETE!  For, the record, I did not see my life flash before my eyes.  I SAW A FRIGGIN' SCARY HOBO MAN WITH A MACHETE FLASH BEFORE MY EYES!
     I ran.  I ran all the way to my Corsica (Le Blizzard), fumbled the keys into the lock, dove in, locked it again, and waited.
     Where were the other two people in the party?  Were they chopped into little teenager bits for hobo stew?  Were they strung up and having their skins peeled off to make kid suits?  Were they still alive, fighting this scary hobo man tooth and nail and cursing me for abandoning them?  I was all a dither.
     Luckily, both of them soon came racing out of the woods.  They hopped in the car and away we sped.
     Here is what happened.  I ran (like a sane person), the guy tried to run but there was a hole and he tripped in it and fell down.  My dear, dear cousin, God bless her soul, continued watching the crazy hobo with the machete.  Luckily for her, the machete man got tangled in the bushes.  And fell down with a giggle.  Obviously she had to stop and laugh at him.
     So, that's the story of the Machete Man.  It was scary, but we all survived!.  I have other stories where I do stupid things!  I will tell them to you sometime!

*Note:  I was going have a sweet picture of a scary man with a machete but I am at a place.  And google imaging "machete man" brought up very graphic images.  I don't want the other people here to be really creeped out as I quietly sit here looking at blood and gore.  Might give the wrong impression.

**Note:  Machetes are scary.  So I put a picture of a puppy up instead.  I stole it from the internet.

I Don't Follow Recipes

    At least not all the way.  I take a look at the recipe and then measure things like soda, salt, vanilla, etc in the palm of my hand.  I've had many people tell me you can't estimate measurements while baking.  It's a science.  This, in the past, has particularly driven my dad nuts when he's asked me to make stuff for him because he measures out every single ingredient exactly.  But I do it my way and people will always eat what I bake and no one has died yet.
     This recipe is based on Neiman Marcus cookies (my mom's fav, btw).  I'm baking them to trade.   Two dozen cookies traded to a coworker in exchange for enough rhubarb to make a small pie!  I'm excited.  I grabbed a Neiman Marcus recipe off the internet (this one has chocolate chips!) and starting mixing.  
     I then realized that this recipe doesn't have oatmeal and my mom's does so this recipe is unacceptable.  So, then I started getting creative.  First of all, I used almond instead of vanilla (whoa, crazy!) which had nothing at all to do with the oatmeal at all but it sounded tasty.  I reduced the amount of flour so that I could add oatmeal.  Then I was looking through my cupboards and realized that I also have whole wheat flour and bran.  Wouldn't that go great in an oatmeal cookie?  So, I again reduced the flour so I could add those too.  I kind of measured.  Almost.
   Then I thought to myself, "man, I sure do like craisins and walnuts in my oatmeal cookies.  I should add craisins and walnuts!"  A quick text to my coworker gave the okay from him and his wife to add craisins and walnuts.  Good thing my parents gave me this ginourmous bag of walnuts!  The next issue was that when I dumped all my craisins in there weren't enough since I had doubled the recipe so I could bake my cookies and eat them too.  Good thing my parents gave me part of a bag of golden raisins!

 So anyway, that's the usual series of events when I bake.  I find a recipe, then make it "better."  I sampled these cookies and they are pretty dang tasty.  And my apartment (which I cleaned yesterday) smells amazing! Here's an approximate recipe (again, I didn't measure).

Kind of Neiman Marcus Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons almond extract
3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup bran
chocolate chips, craisins and raisins, chopped walnuts to taste.

1.  Cream butter in sugars
2.  Mix in eggs and extract
3.  Mix soda, powder, and salt
4.  Add the rest of dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated
5.  Mix in chocolate chips, craisins/raisins, and walnuts with a wooden spoon
6.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes (in my oven anyway)
7.  Cook, remove from cookie sheet, and eat!

*Note:  if you don't have or don't want to add wheat flour and bran, just add do about one cup of regular flour.  Again I didn't measure.  Try that and add until it looks right.

Morels!

  
     We didn't find any.  The afternoon was still a success, however, as I was able to get enough greens together (mostly Virginia water leaf and violet leaves and blossoms, but also a few sprigs of dandelion) for a nice spring salad.    
     The site was Thunder Woman County Park in Black Hawk County along the Cedar River.  The area is flooded right now but green stuff is coming up and blooming.  An associate and I carried plastic grocery bags and scoured the ground with our eyes looking for morels.  Like I said, we didn't find any, but it was a beautiful spring day and we swapped stories about what's blooming where at this time of year and what kind of foraged plants we've eaten and how we cooked it and if we liked it and all that jazz that nerdy nature people do when they are out foraging.  Aside from food, there were quite a few objects tossed around by people and the river.  A couple treasures I spotted are 1. a nice glass saying "Robert River Rides.  Quad City Queen.  Spirit of Dubuque.  Mississippi Belle 11" which will make a nice vase should I ever desire to plop some flowers into it and 2. a GINORMOUS snail shell (the biggest I have ever seen on an Iowa river) that looks like it had something go to town getting at the critter that used to call the shell home.  Here are my treasures.

     So pretty!

     So back home with my bounty I went.  I had some chicken brining (I have been informed that this will completely transform my cheap frozen chicken breasts).  I made an Asian inspired coating and baked the chicken and then tossed it in a spicy glaze.  Turned out good.  For my spring greens I made a quick honey-mustard vinaigrette which was DELICIOUS.  Will need to remember what all I put in it.  Also steamed some broccoli and cauliflower for good measure.  Went fancy tonight.

  Alas, now it is finals week (the reason I haven't posted anything in a long time is because of homework) and I need to write a paper now.  The fact that I actually made real food during finals weeks is just weird.  Usually finals week is pizza and pb&j time.  Although, I do want cookies.  Cuz it's finals week.  And cookies are good.

Also, congratulations to Erin and Rich King on their newest addition Audrey who joined her brother Owen today!  Happy Birthday, Audrey!

Inventive Late Night Snacking

  This dish tastes better than it looks.
  It was cold, dark, and rainy.  I was in the middle of homework.  I wanted monkey bread.  Gooey, molten caramel over warm, soft bread with a touch of cinnamon!  It needed to be in my belly.  Trouble was it was cold, dark, rainy, and I was in the middle of doing homework.  Also, monkey bread is not a health food and I am trying sooo hard to shift my diet towards healthy.  But it sounded sooooo gooooood!
   First, I tried drinking gratuitous amounts of peppermint tea.  No relief from monkey bread fever.  Just needed to use the bathroom a lot.  Next tried healthy popcorn.  Tasty, but not what I want.  I got desperate.
   I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and dumped in a few teaspoons of brown sugar, a small pat of butter, a splash of milk, a splash of vanilla, a dash of salt, and finally a few chocolate chips.  I could settle without monkey bread but desperately needed caramel goodness.  I microwaved it for 20 second intervals stirring in between until a smooth creamy chocolate caramel sauce formed.
   I could not justify eating caramel sauce by itself with a spoon.  That is not very adult-like.  Also, felt kind of guilty for eating caramel sauce to begin with and wanted to "make it healthy."  So I ended up slicing up a banana and drizzling the sauce on top and sprinkling it with chopped walnuts.  Good.  Make it better?  Yes!  Add natural applesauce of course!
   I am full of good ideas.
   The resulting dish was...all right.  I probably should have stopped at the walnuts and forgot all about the applesauce (which, although natural, was super sweet).  But, dash it all, it was smooth, caramel-y, had a touch of chocolate, and the bananas provided a very nice creaminess.  Late night craving satisfied and possibly have an easy, relatively healthy snack recipe if I work out a few kinks.
  Later, I noticed that I had a bottle of butterscotch sauce in the fridge.  Will possibly just consider drizzling a little bit of that over bananas next time.  Faster, easier, and probably a lot healthier if just using a little bit.
*Note:  I recently visited the warm, sunny, full of flowers city of San Antonio, Texas.  Ate lots of tasty food, met lots of nice people, and will blog about it when I have time enough to devote to a possibly lengthy blog.