Markus Eats a Fortune Cookie

My mom took us to a Chinese restaurant for lunch before our flight out of Charlotte. She had promised to take us out for lunch because Sami had won a refund on his groceries when we used her bonus card. Only we didn't realize it at the time and she had to take the receipt back later to claim the money.

Anyway, we felt bad about eating in front of Markus because he stares so intently at our food. Although he couldn't eat it properly, we figured he might enjoy chewing on a fortune cookie. He did. His fortune said he "would do well in the field of wacky inventions".

Chocolate and Flowers

Mmm... Steak

Sami cooked us a great steak dinner.

Actually, he's been cooking a lot lately... lasagna, chicken with rice and mushrooms, and all kinds of good stuff.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I went downstairs for breakfast this morning, and to see Sami before he heads off to work.

Look at the nice surprise he had waiting for me on the fireplace. Pulla! Yummy!

Quick Strawberry Pastries

We're still getting a few strawberries from our garden so I decided to try a new and easy recipe with them.

I was browsing strawberry recipes when I saw one using canned croissant dough. I remembered that Sami had bought some a long while back and we hadn't used it yet. The recipe called for jam, but I figured fresh berries would work ok too. I just mixed them up with a little bit of brown sugar and sprinkled some pearl sugar on top for decoration.

The pastries were pretty tasty and super easy. Although I think the Strawberry Crisp is still our favorite strawberry recipe.

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.

It's Plum Season!

Strawberries and Plums from our yard.

We have day neutral strawberry plants that produce continuously from June to frost. They are excellent and surprisingly easy to grow.

The plums are italian prune plums. Sami picked about 5 gallons off the small tree in our front yard and estimates that there are still about 3 gallons left.

Plum puree (for the baby)

I filled up all five trays of the dehydrator with halved plums.

After that we still had a lot more than we can eat fresh so I decided to cook some up for baby food (yes, I know it's quite a while before the baby can eat it). Anyway, the results were amazing, and I'd happily eat them all by myself.

Strawberry Crisp

We first made this recipe last weekend. It was so good we decided we had to have it again.

I changed the original recipe by doubling the ingredients for the crisp topping and baking at a higher temperature (375F )

Lunch with Liesl at Ava Roasteria

Liesl in front of Ava Roasteria

Liesl is one of the girls I met on the pregnancy forum. She actually lives in my neighborhood and we've been out walking together a couple times.

Anyway, I was working from home today and my schedule was flexible so we decided to go for lunch this afternoon and enjoy the sunshine before fall comes.

Goldfinches bathing in the waterfall near our table.

We were sitting outside since it was such a beautiful day and I was able to take this photo right from my seat.

Pretty orange flower in front of the waterfall.

Me in front of the waterfall.

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.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Fresh from our garden!

Sami picked a big bowlful of strawberries this afternoon. He selected all the bigger ones and suggested we dip them in chocolate.

Yum!

Sami dipping strawberries.

Sami had never used the double boiler method to melt chocolate before. He discovered it's actually easy and fun to dip things in chocolate.

Close-up of strawberry being dipped.

Strawberries cooling on wax paper.

Lunch at Milo's with Crystal and Jen

Milo's City Cafe

I had been chatting with some nice girls on an online pregnancy forum (think something like MySpace or Facebook for pregnant women).

As it turned out several of us live in the Portland area and we decided we should get together sometime.

Crystal & Jen waiting to cross the street.

I hadn't been to this restaurant before and wasn't sure how parking would be so I arrived a bit early. I was sitting on the bench outside when I could see Crystal and Jen approaching from a couple blocks away.

We laughed because although we've never actually met each other before, we were all at the exact same stage (25 weeks) and so easily recognizable.

I am ridiculously happy about my chocolate cake.

I surprised myself and ordered the Pulled Pork BBQ sandwich for lunch. (I like BBQ but don't usually order it unless it is beef.) It was great. The best BBQ I've had in Oregon so far.

I must have been really hungry because I ate the whole sandwich and still had room for dessert. The cake was excellent too.

Jen shows off her dessert

We thought these desserts were so cute with their umbrellas and little plastic figures.

Crystal actually took these photos - Jen and I were too busy eating. Poor Crystal was good and didn't order any dessert.

Crystal, Jen & I in the obligatory belly shot.

The angle of this is a little weird because the camera is sitting on a picnic table. Crystal took this picture using the timer on her camera. I took one with my camera too, but I think I look better in this one.

Desiree's Scalloped Spuds with Ham

Scalloped Potatoes - Yum!

My new friend Desiree loves baking and cooking too. She just gave me this great new recipe for scalloped potatoes. Haven't tasted them yet, but they smell soooo good!

Pear and Blackberry Sponge

My Double Fruit Pear and Blackberry Sponge.

Since we have so many pears in our yard and Sami just picked blackberries a couple days ago, I decided to try this recipe.

I don't have a proper sponge pan, so I figured I'd just use the big glass dish and double the recipe, but I realized after putting the fruit in that I had only two eggs... Actually I had 14 eggs but for some reason couldn't find the second box. Anyway, it's rather light on the sponge, but still looks and smells very yummy.

It's Blackberry Season!

Himalayan Blackberry - Rubus discolor

Unfortunately these blackberries are not our native species (Pacific Blackberry - Rubus ursinus).

The Oregon Department of Agriculture considers these Himalayan blackberries to be "the most widespread and economically disruptive of all the noxious weeds in western Oregon."

It's true, they're very invasive and you have to work hard to keep them out of your own yard. But they are quite tasty and easily available. So, there's a good chance we'll do some berry picking this weekend.

Sami Made Lasagna

Two beautiful lasagnas.

Sami made them and decided they were blog-worthy.

The recipe he uses is a Finnish one though, so it won't be very useful to most of you.

BBQ & Band

Erica (the Canadian) is American for the day.

Star Melissa and Sara

Aaron, Erica, & Melissa Grilling

Erica Masters the Art of Grilling

Dianthus

As a sort of housewarming gift, I took a bunch of lettuce and spinach seeds and a couple trays of potting soil over to Melissa & Erica's new place this spring.

Apparently I started a big gardening craze. Now they have all sorts of herbs, vegetables and flowers.

Erica, Aaron & Melissa - Time to eat.

Aaron, Sara & Melissa - The food was great!

Local Band Playing at the Channel's Edge

After dinner we walked down the street to the nearby giftshop/cafe to hear the live band playing there. They were quite good, but unfortunately I didn't catch the name of the band.

Aaron & Sara

Erica & Melissa

Dehydration Experiment 2

It's the end of the season for our grapes. We figured we'd better pick them and dry them (after eating some of course) before they started rotting on the vine.

There were too many to fit in the dehydrator that we used for the previous experiment so I put a few grapes on a tray on top of the pellet stove to see if they'd dry up there.

Sami saw them and decided to make it a serious experiment. He took the broiler tray and a sort of screen type thing that you use to cover the frying pan to keep the oil from popping out and put grapes on those as well. This is them after about 1 hour. It's hard to tell if they're actually drying or cooking. We did rotate the trays just now.

BTW, we're using the pellet stove today because for some reason the heat pump stopped working during the night last night. The installation guys are coming to work on it in the next hour or so.

Results of the Dehydration Experiment

Yesterday, my sister Becca asked me about the the results of the dehydration experiment. Of course, I'd meant to post something about that sooner, but I forgot.

Anyway, the process was slow - about 48 hours - but the grapes and figs turned out great. (There were more, but we ate them)

Sami pronounced the grapes/raisins "magical". I didn't eat any of the tomatoes, but he said they were not very good. Maybe I should have added some salt/ pepper/ basil/ olive oil?

Dehydration Experiment I - Before

The winter rains have started here in Oregon, so there's really no chance of our figs drying on the tree. I looked though some online recipes yesterday for fig jam and preserves, but didn't think canning was the best option.

Sami and I had wondered if we should try a food dehydrator. They tend to be kind of expensive though, and some of them use a lot of energy.

I didn't really expect to find anything on craigslist, but I was curious and Fridays are slow days in the library. I typed "dehydrator" in the search button and a few options came up. One lady in Hillsboro (near where Sami works) was selling one for 15$. We decided that was an OK price for an experiment and Sami picked it up on his way from work.

I looked inside the thing to figure out the model number and see if I could find any instructions or advice on the pros and cons of this particular dehydrator. Apparently ours is a Ronco (as seen on TV infomercials). I found a mix of good and bad reviews on Amazon.

So, this morning I got up and picked some figs, grapes and tomatoes for our first test run. There are two trays of grapes, two trays of figs and 1 of tomatoes. I started the dehydrator at 9:30 AM. According to reviews it may take 24-48 hours till things are completely dehydrated. We'll see. I'll post the results later this weekend.