I'm heeeeeeeere...

Crossing #6 off The List. Finally!! Next up...?

Next up - #6!

I'm gonna have to go ahead and cross off #12...  Hooray!

2013 goals.

An early summary of the 1Q goals due to the aforementioned shit that has to get done.

• New soup recipe every week: check to the 13th degree - just click on "goals" or "potato and gluten free" to the left for an in-depth review of each.  The best results from this goal are that (a) I still totally love soup, (b) I absolutely love every recipe we made for very different reasons, and (c) I can't wait to share everything with our Canada hosts along the first leg of our trip.
• Spring cleaning: check, with much more to come in the next 2 weeks.  Much, much, MUCH more to come.  Gaaaaaaaaaa!
• Shamrock Run 2013: um... nine miles? Not so much.  Five miles?  Cake!  Good enough cake for me.

And as far as 2Q goals, I'm going to have to go ahead and relink the aforementioned link, and say that the following truths are self-evident for the rest of 2013 and leave it at that:

• An amazing time will be had.
• A photography experiment will be conducted.
• Much letting go of control will be done.
• And as far as the list, I'm looking to cross off 6, 12 and 16 for sure.  Possibly also 13, 15, 19 and 20.  Time will tell.

Happy 2013, friends!  Posts here will be fewer and far between.  Please check out the link above to keep up with forthcoming shenanigans.

Soup, week thirteen: Moroccan spiced chickpea and lentil.

Really?  Thirteen weeks in a quarter?  Really? 

Not that I'm not loving all these soups... I've just got other shit to do right now.

Anyway, file this one under "Whole Foods - Who Knew?"  I was on a quest to use up some lentils.  We had almost everything handy and just had to purchase the fresh onion, fennel and jalapeno. 

it. was. delicious.

And it continues to be delicious - the recipe made enough for dinner Sunday and three days of leftovers for two people.  I think that works out to about $0.38 per serving or something ridiculous like that.  Definitely a recipe to take on the road!

File under: Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow.

really, you would think
i'd remember that french fries
are not a good thing

A new PR.

forty-five minutes
to run eight kilometers
not too shabby, eh?

106/718... sweet

Soup, week twelve: Smitten Kitchen's chana masala.

I ran across this lovely recipe on Wannabe Chef's blog the other day.  It looked so simple and delicious, and the best part was that we already had all the spices on hand except the amchoor powder - but even she didn't have that and substituted lemon instead.  So we did the same.

let the record show 

that we also used powdered ginger 

and didn't toast the cumin seeds before grinding them 

The verdict?  Hearty.  Healthy.  Uber spicy, bordering on too-spicy-but-not-quite.  In other words, absolutely perfect.  I suspect that after two days the flavors will meld in amazing harmony and when we heat it up for lunch I will be able to eat it with rice (which I couldn't do tonight due to a late afternoon cheese snack).

Next week marks the end of this quarterly goal.  As is usually the case with my recipe goals, part of me is happy - these goals are fairly time-intensive and often require more money than I would usually spend at the grocery store. 

The other part of me is going to miss these experiments.  But we now have an arsenal of soup recipes to take with us on the road and share with hosts along the way.  And that can't be a bad thing...

Soup, week eleven: minestrone with collard greens and white beans.

This week's goals: easy, cheap and delicious. Martha came through as usual with this quick, wonderful bowl of goodness.  Added bonuses (boni?): we used most of the frozen beans that have been taking up space all winter, and our favorite quinoa corn muffins were the perfect addition.

his had cheese

mine did not

so that I could eat quinoa corn muffins

Soup, week ten: African chickpea and spinach soup.

I had to work all weekend so my soup duty consisted of finding a recipe.  He did the real work of making the soup... which means that the proportions of peanut butter and spices were a bit elevated.

It turned out wonderfully, and the crisped chickpeas from Smitten Kitchen were a nice addition.

I did at least take this photo

Next time we are tripling the recipe!

Belated Friday five.

In honor of the Oscars, I bring you five old movies I've only recently seen, in no particular order:

• I've Loved You So Long - beautiful and heartbreaking, just what you'd expect from those nutty French.
• 50/50 - wanted to love it but I only kind of liked it.
• The Fifth Element - not sure why I always resist Bruce Willis because everything I have ever seen with him has been completely amazing in its own special (and sometimes "special") way. 
• A Day Without a Mexican - was hoping it would be so much better, it could have been so much better.
• Conan O'Brien Can't Stop - never liked his show but now I at least like him.

Soup, week eight and nine: GF corn chowder and butternut squash, carrot and ginger.

I was out of town last weekend, so yesterday we made two soups to make up for it.  Both recipes were found that morning in about 5 minutes, as opposed to my usual hours of scouring the interwebs for THE PERFECT SOUP.  I think I've finally realized that life is too short for that nonsense.

Soup #8 was based off a question posed to him - "what's one ingredient and/or one type of soup you'd like to try?"  The answer was "chowder", and the caveat was that he'd tried to find a good chowder recipe last weekend but they all contained potato.  So this roasted corn chowder with lime, for which we could easily substitute butternut squash in place of sweet potato, seemed to fit the bill quite nicely. 

I must confess that the note at the end of the recipe about using a crock pot for this soup could have been the driver.  There has been a crock pot in my kitchen since cohabitation over a year ago and I've never used it.  And that just seemed WRONG.

making it right

The photo above was taken before we added the tofu and coconut milk.  It was a squeeze, but it all fit.  Barely.  We tasted it last night but didn't actually enjoy a bowl until this afternoon.  It was lovely - not very creamy, very hearty, very spicy.  And pretty healthy.

Soup #9 was a play off Soup #8 - since we'd have to substitute a little bit of butternut squash for sweet potatoes in that soup, why not just try a nice butternut squash (, carrot, ginger) soup as well, to use up the rest of the butternut squash?  They really had me at the name of the blog - um, "with style and grace"?  Yeah, I am so there.  The soup was delicious.

with style, grace and quinoa corn muffins

Yes, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last quinoa corn muffin, and that also seemed WRONG. We were out of yellow cornmeal so I substituted blue corn meal. I usually find this to be grittier, but in this recipe it somehow worked out. I'm totally sure the lime butter had nothing to do with that.

and so pretty!

I'll almost be sad to see this quarter end.

I won't miss all the dishes though.

Soup, week seven: homemade pho.

Always wanted to try pho, but thought it would be too difficult. This recipe looked easy enough.  So easy, in fact, that we didn't really follow it at all.  We used our homemade vegetable stock, no fish sauce, no soy sauce, more spinach and mushrooms than was called for, regular basil, and rice noodles instead of soba.

(Otherwise, we followed the recipe exactly.  Haha.)

So I'm not sure that what we ended up with technically qualifies as pho, but it was tasty, healthy and lasted all week.  That's all that really matters in the end, right?

it was really pretty, too

Belated Friday five.

Five suggestions to help you purge, in no particular order.  In fact, they're all kind of tied together in one general theme.

I should preface this post by saying that these are all my opinions, and I make no judgment of anyone who chooses to live differently than me - unless they constantly complain to me that they have too much stuff and/or no money to do what they want to do.  To those people, I say, "Read on..."

• Move every few years.  Since 1998 I have changed apartments every three years or so.  Each time I end up with carloads of items in good condition - books, clothes, kitchen dishes and accessories, even small furniture - that don't seem worth the effort to (ask friends to help me/pay for someone to) move.  These items can obviously be donated to thrift stores, but please consider your friendly neighborhood establishments instead of behemoth organizations with questionable executive salaries.
• Sub-suggestion #1: Don't buy a house. The more space you have, the more you fill it up with stuff you don't need.  And the longer you have that space, the less you bother to clean it out.  (And also when your oven breaks you have to fix it yourself, which kind of sucks.)
• Sub-suggestion #2:  And don't just throw your stuff into a storage unit, because 5 years from now you will have paid a ridiculous amount of money to save things you'll only get rid of as soon as you open the storage unit.
• Value experiences, not things.  Sure, I could have a new living room furniture set, but instead I went to New Zealand.  I could own a TV that was made in this decade, but I'd rather see a band once or twice a month and enjoy a nice meal out every so often.  I'm not one to need the latest technology or the newest fashions or a wall full of books... and as I often joke, if I ever get a proposal I want a plane ticket, not a ring.
• .JPGs are cheap.  Take pictures of things you think you can't get rid of, then get rid of them.  See how often you look at the pictures... or miss the things you got rid of.  (My guess for both would be "not very often"...)
• One (wo)man's trash really is another (wo)man's treasure.  I recently Freecycled razor blades for a razor I lost on our camping trip, the shell and press of the third French press *someone* has broken in the last 15 months, and a very old, very loud bread machine that the local thrift store probably would've trashed.  I've also gotten rid of tons of egg cartons, empty Adam's peanut butter jars and moving boxes through Freecycle, and along the way I've seen some amazing things listed (and taken) that would've otherwise ended up in the landfill.  A great site with a great mission.
• The One Year Rule.  If I don't use it, wear it, look at it, or think about it for one year, it's gone.  Period.  Most recent case in point: my basic sewing machine, purchased solely to hem pants and make curtains, sold on Craig's List for $100, and the next time I need a sewing machine I'll just borrow one. 
• Sub-suggestion: The "no new hangers" rule is also a good one - for each new piece of clothing you buy, give something away.  I've found that I am much more particular about purchasing something when I have already been very particular in filling my closet in the first place. 

Now... go forth and purge!  After all, spring is just around the corner...

Soup, week six: continuing the carrot theme.

With the newfound discovery of lime butter, I decided to go simple and healthy with this week's soup.  That way, when I lopped a big blob of lime butter on the quinoa corn muffins accompanying  the soup, I wouldn't feel so guilty.

So I found this recipe.  It was simple and healthy and delicious.  We had leftovers for lunch most of the week and we were happy to eat them.  My only regrets were not thinking ahead to thaw out our homemade vegetable stock, and running out of cumin during the soup-making (it could've used more cumin).

not as boring as it looks

As an aside, faithful readers may know that we've been making homemade peanut butter, almond milk and almond butter, blue cheese and goddess salad dressing, and various other staples for a while now (in addition to all the other generally healthy recipes we've found that avoid potatoes and wheat). 

So I'm amazed that it took us this long to start making our own vegetable stock.  Pre-food intolerance, I always resisted it because $2.50 seemed a bit excessive for what seemed to be salty brown water.  Post-food intolerance, I couldn't find one without a list of ingredients I was supposed to avoid.  Homemade, it's a great pre-compost reuse and I'm really amazed at what a difference it makes for flavor. 

It also makes your house smell AMAZING.

There are many recipes out there but our approach has simply been to toss carrot and celery ends, onion peels, mushroom stems and any other non-cabbage-like vegetable leftovers into a freezer bag until we have several cups' worth, and then boil them with some salt, pepper and a bay leaf for a few hours.  Strain, freeze, and there you have it...  Just don't forget to thaw it the day before you need it. 

And I can eat them with cheese!

homemade almond milk
equals lots of wasted pulp...
finally! a cure

Skills to pay the bills.

strategic planning:
better to employ in life
than the 9 to 5

Soup, week four and five: carrot, quinoa and curried lentil. (And brilliant cornbread.)

We were out of town last weekend.  We ate a lot of delicious food, but we did not make or eat any soup.  So today to make up for it, we made a total mess of the kitchen... and two beautiful soups in the process.

One was a carrot soup I saw a few weeks ago and had been dying to try.  Smitten Kitchen, carrots, tahini, crisped chickpeas... there could not possibly be anything wrong with any of that.  Right?

there wasn't... not one single thing

The soup was like butter... like healthy, vitamin-C-filled, delicious butter you would eat with a spoon... and then go back for seconds... and possibly thirds if you didn't have another amazing soup in front of you.  The crisped chickpeas were a nice touch, and they are officially going to become a staple around here (on salads, in soups, in my hand about to be popped into my mouth, that sort of thing).

The other was a lentil and quinoa soup recipe I found at our lovely hostess's house last weekend. She's big on backpacking with tasty food, and we like to camp and hike with tasty food, so I perused her cookbook collection just looking for easy, me-friendly energy bars and that sort of thing.

I quickly realized I needed to own this cookbook at some point.  It features lots of gluten-free recipes and some really interesting soup ideas - many of which call for a bunch of dehydration and re-hydration (this is a backpacker cookbook, after all) but which also look like they would be just as wonderful without all that nonsense.  This was one of those recipes so I scribbled it down on the back of an envelope and recreated it tonight.

OK, he recreated it tonight.  Whatever.

mine = sans yogurt because of the quinoa
*SIGH*

Spicy and hearty and wholesome and amazing.

We both agreed that these two soups are our favorites so far, this quarter and also out of any other soups we have made this winter.  And we have made some wonderful soups.  Especially after two days this week of leftover aforementioned pumpkin corn soup that had been frozen and defrosted and reheated and still wowed me, all I can say is... that's saying a lot.

To round out the kitchen-mess-extravaganza I also made these amazing black quinoa corn muffins.  (Only I used regular quinoa because that's what we had.)  And OH. MY. they are good. 

I am never eating again

Soup, week three: African peanut quinoa soup.

This one was a no-brainer.  Let's face it, African = spicy, quinoa = protein and peanut butter = awesome.

The recipe called for sweet potatoes but leftover butternut squash from last week's roasted vegetable soup made a nice substitute (when supplemented with a pre-cut half from Whole Foods, roasted while the bacon cooked Sunday morning).

before

after

It needed a little more salt than called for, but I think that's because we made our own peanut butter and didn't add a lot of salt.  Otherwise I am pretty pleased with this one.  And thankful that he got jury duty so that I can enjoy leftovers all week...

Spring cleaning, part two.

most important rule
first freecycler to respond
is going to flake

Soup, week two: roasted vegetable and kale soup.

I wanted to love this soup.  It was alright, and it made for great leftovers, and it was most definitely healthy... but it didn't wow me. 

not the prettiest soup, either

Totally worth the experiment for the smell of roasted vegetables in our kitchen that day though.

Got to be a loner, we just do what we please.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending the local School of Rock's Beatles show, where tiny-to-high-school-aged children named Wednesday and T-Rex and Susiannamarie (Iann for short)* played songs about sex and drugs for two hours.

you are the youngest person in the theater

goo goo g'joob

It was wonderful.  Please support your local School of Rock. 

In related news, the hardest thing about this whole no-negativity missive is going to be dealing with people.  Specifically, Portland people.  Portlanders are, as a rule, fiercely independent.  We bike**, we hike, we run, we craft, we bake, we blog, we read.  (We read a lot, in fact.)

These are not team sports.  Sure, there are hiking groups and book clubs and knitting circles, but for the most part we are on our own.  And while we have the Blazers (yawn), the Timbers (passing fad), and the Winterhawks (for die hard hockey fans only), we don't spend a lot of time on team sports.  Therefore, we tend not to be team players.

This is my theory, anyway.***

Like the woman who stood behind us for 10 minutes yesterday, chatting loudly with her friend/on her phone and then moving to stand directly in front of us, blocking our up-until-then perfect view of the stage.  I could not help my body language when she turned around (it essentially said, "hey lady, WTF?") and she snapped, "her son is singing lead on the next song."

(Reaction #1: Well, you should've thought about that three hours ago and gotten a nice spot down front.  Reaction #2, which I wish would've come before my physical reaction: Oh, hey that's cool, whatever.  Luckily she and her friend went downstairs for photographic evidence of her son's 15 minutes of fame, and the rest of the show was totally enjoyable.)

And like me, and like my partner in crime, both of whom spent the entire day today actively avoiding people.

I really need to work on this.

Ob-la-di ob-la-da...

________________
* not their real names... but essentially their real names
** and by "we" I mean "not me"
*** and by "my" I mean I stole it from someone

Soup, week one: curry lentil.

I bought a bag of dried lentils a bazillion years ago and never did anything with them, so when this completely easy and delicious recipe caught my eye, we totally went for it during a halftime of football.

And it was awesome.

Our only recommended deviations from the original recipe: go with at least 2 tbsp of curry from the start (we skimped at her recommendation and added a tbsp more or so near the end), and add a few dollops of whole fat yogurt along with the lemon and onion before serving. 

just say yes

I am so excited about the next 11 weeks.

Belated Friday five.

One sentence each on five movies we have seen, in no particular order:

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi (an overdue review) - truly fascinating... and hunger inducing.
• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - I finally saw this for $3 at the local pizza/pint/playhouse, and finally learned that it is definitely worth seeing.
• Searching for Sugar Man - very inspiring, and possibly the only reason I've seen to want to visit South Africa (other than maybe swimming with sharks, which is coincidentally another good movie).
• The Hobbit - enjoyable enough in 2D, but with a made-for-3D feel.
• Bullitt - my dream car for many years was an electric blue 1964 Ford Mustang, Steve McQueen is no Paul Newman, and that's about all I have to say about this movie.