Winter Squash & Leek Quiche

We went to the farmer's market again and I decided to buy a pumpkin-looking sort of squash and some leeks.

I browsed around through some recipes combining squash and leeks and we finally decided to make quiches. I adapted this recipe by adding ground beef and I used a different pie crust recipe that included sage in the dough. Very tasty. We ate one and put the other in the freezer for a quick dinner later.

Eggplant Parmesan

Eggplant Parmesan

We were talking about going to the farmer's market this morning when Sami handed me the most recent issue of Food and Wine magazine.

I flipped though and asked Sami what he thought of various dishes. We knew eggplant would be in season and decided to try the recipe. We hardly even use eggplant, so it was a nice change for us.

I'm not sure how big of a dish you're supposed to use for this recipe but 8 eggplants sounded like a ton, so we halved the recipe.

Sunny Saturday at the Farmer's Market

Sara in front of the fountain.

Since everyone is requesting more pictures of me, I figured we'd better oblige.

Here's the side view.

Winter Farmer's Market

Sami at the Beaverton-Hillsdale Winter Market

Our closest market, the Beaverton Farmer's Market closes for the winter, but the Beaverton-Hillsdale one a few miles east of us is open every second Sunday during the winter.

We bought leeks and potatoes, and a beautiful 2 lb piece of salmon tail caught just that morning by the nice Native American guys. Sami ended up baking the salmon with an herb-pecan crust. It was excellent.

Farmer's Market

The Beaverton farmer's market opened for the summer today. There were five or six rows of tents and a pretty large selection of veggies, fruits, bread, meats, crafts and plants. This market seemed a bit more expensive than others we've been to, but perhaps the prices will go down as more produce is available later in the season.

The market is the one place here in Oregon where you won't find dogs. According to the farmer's market website, only purse-dogs are allowed. Portland is a dog town, everyone owns dogs and they take them everywhere. There are even pubs like Lucky Lab where you can hang out and drink a beer with your dog.

There was also a band playing at the market. I didn't see them at first, and it sounded like they were a marching band... Yesterday I was sitting at home reading, and I heard a band playing. We do live just down the street from a school, but the music seemed closer than that. I looked out the window and the kids were marching up and down our street. It was kind of funny.

Later in the summer there will be tons of people playing in the Beaverton City Park Fountain. I thought I'd better get a photo of it before the weather got too warm. I also read that there will be movies shown on a big inflatable screen near the fountain later on during the summer. They're all kids movies, but there is an online survey so people can vote for their favorites.

Excuses, Excuses

So I know it's been a very long time since I last posted... Mainly because I don't have any good pictures.

• Sami came back from his conference.
• I had a field trip for my Solar Installers class on the rainiest day of the year then managed to leave Sami's camera in my classmate's car.
• We went to the farmers market and got veggies and elk-boar sausage. I planned to make a quiche, but it hasn't happened yet.
• We had free tickets and went to the home and garden show but it was huge and all the exhibitors seemed thoroughly bored since it was the 5th day of the show. We only picked up a catalog for fruit trees and bushes and learned a little bit about windows.
• I decided to try out a book club, I've never joined one before and thought it could be a good way to meet people. We read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. It was ok I guess, but I wouldn't seek out another one of his books. I hoped/expected the book club people would linger a bit after the discussion and chat about random stuff, but they didn't. They all left right at 7 without even having dessert.
• We finished cleaning our old apartment and turned in the keys. Yay!
• Sami got the flu first and then gave it to me, so I've slept 14 out of the past 24 hours and missed a day and a half of work.

Winter Market & Estate Sale

The Portland area has quite a few farmers markets. A few weeks ago I read about the Beaverton-Hillsdale Winter Market which is held twice a month. Since it's not too far (about 7 miles) from here I decided to go and check it out. Even though it's the middle of winter I still found ingredients for some tasty meals. (Ignore the water, it's just sitting there ready for when we move the fish tank). I'm planning to make a soup with the winter squash and leeks and a stew with the elk steak and shiitake mushrooms.

Near the market, I found an estate sale. I was wanting either a small pull-out sofa or a twin bed to go in my office/guest room. Since today was sunday, everything was marked half off. I got a large file cabinet for 7$ and a christmas cactus for 2$. The best thing that there was a small pull-out sofa marked "FREE"! It was in good condition and didn't smell like smoke or cat pee or anything weird, so I gave my name to the estate sale people and rushed home to get my truck. On my way home, I started thinking that maybe we should put this sofa in the home theater room because the our current big green one that we'd hoped to put there wouldn't fit through the door. So, it's in the garage now and I will wait till Sami gets back from his conference to help me decide where it should go.