Portland Bound

We are going to Portland in a few days to visit some friends and celebrate their 10-Year Wedding Anniversary. Last time we were there, we ate, and drank, and ate some more.... I took up jogging just to force myself to process the last meal, and work up a hunger for the next. This time, due to a foot injury, it won't be that easy. I guess I'll have to exercise restraint. Or use the hotel pool for exercise instead of just lazing about.
We have few plans beside the party, just relaxing, going to the Pendleton store, and most important: hitting up the food trucks!! I always have my trusty iphone, so will be taking lots of pictures and posting soon.

More juice!

Last weekend I pulled out every fruit and vegetable I had in the house. I washed, peeled, chopped, prepped, bagged, juiced or just plain chomped! It was quite a production. Because my husband was waiting for me to finish up so we could go somewhere, I semi-timed myself. I thought that cleaning up after juicing was the time-consuming part. It turns out that cleaning and prepping the veggies is the long part. Followed by the tasting, critiquing, then adjusting, etc. The cleaning part is just messy. Anyway- this time instead of letting the juicing evolve as I went, I cleaned everything at the very beginning. It really was much easier. Just like making a recipe, I had my juice mise en place!

I should mention I'm thinking about doing a juice cleanse. We just watched a great documentary over the weekend called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, and it was very interesting. I got on the web site, and found that there are several different commitment levels, such as merely a 5-day cleanse, or one that you can still eat vegetables and fruits during the juice cleanse. I am looking more into that. In the mean time, I need to find more palatable ways to juice with vegetables. I love beets and carrots, but I seem to strike out when it comes to celery, kale, spinach, etc.

Making saffron scented potato gratin, listening to Lars Frederikson and the bastards

Sent from my iPhone

1!

It's been a year! My blog turned one over the weekend. To celebrate (and feed my sweet tooth) I made Carrot Cake. 

It's an old family recipe, and although I have made it several times, it definitely had been awhile. I forgot a couple of things. Such as- what size to grate the carrots! The largest, or smallest?? I just couldn't figure it out for some reason. My memory is shaky, perhaps from all the sugar I usually consume from licking the bowl. The other issue is that the amount of icing is just barely enough to cover the cake. I made a note on the recipe that I might want to make extra next time. Or modify the steps. For example, because this is a three layer cake, with icing with chopped walnuts, I might want to spread the icing in the center layers first, before adding the walnuts. Only adding them for the outside layer of icing. It would make it easier to spread inside and theoretically there would be more icing left to spread on the outside. Or else, make it just two layers. Anyway- did some other food stuff over the weekend, will post more soon..

Making Carrot Cake, listening to Bonnie Raitt

Sent from my iPhone

Veggies and burgers

I prepared 3 new veggie dishes and regular ol' beef burgers on the grill this weekend. Not a ton of cooking for me over the fantastic 3-day Memorial Day weekend. It was great to get a little yard work done, eat out, have bbq/drink/friend time, take in a walk here and there, watch some movies, take naps, etc. All in all a balanced, yet still full weekend!

The new dishes were:
Grilled Corn on the Cob with Spicy Chili Butter
Grilled romaine with guacamole dressing (from this month's Sunset magazine)
Grilled Cauliflower with Parmesan Butter
I will be making all of them again! All summer long. AND that spicy Chili Butter was super easy and tasted great on the cauliflower as well.