I've been squeezing the last little bit out of my summer break by finishing projects & little odds & ends that have been cluttering up my life. It feels so freeing!
Firstly, I've finished knitting my second sweater. The first one didn't fit too well, so I've frogged it. At least I can use the yarn for another one! This is the "Cozy V-Neck Pullover w/Deep Ribbing" from Fitted Knits, by Stefanie Japel. What's so great about this pattern is that the ribbing does the shaping for you. It's really flattering in the waist department & is a great basic sweater.
Another thing I did was repair my Nintendo! When Sage was visiting, we played the hell out of it & it finally started to have problems when we'd switch cartridges. We ended up having to jam a particular book into it to hold the game down far enough to make contact w/whatever parts are necessary for play. I found this great place & ordered the repair kit. Using their photo guide, I was able to get in there, clean it out, & replace the 72 pin cartridge connector, which apparently wears out in 25 years or so, ha ha.
Here's the best picture I took. I was too busy cussing to take more!
It took an hour, at the most, then I ended up w/a happy NES, ready for 25 more years of action!
Another thing I got done was the "butchery" of our tomato plants. Coral recommended I trim the shit out of them, so they'd put their energy into ripening the stragglers. I hope it works! For some reason, I feel guilty pruning plants. :( Here's the latest batch I picked.
Ethan & I have been watching X-Files, but this puzzle got us hooked to the point where we were putting it together WHILE watching it. Horrible! This is from Goodwill, & stated on the bottom that there were two missing pieces. Whoever donated it is so sweet to write that on there!
We came up with the idea of replacing them with cardboard (traced, then cut w/an Exacto Knife), then painting them to blend in. I think it worked really well! You'd only be able to tell if it were pointed out. I Mod Podged it a bunch, then hung it on the wall this morning. Cool!
Speaking of mushrooms & Goodwill: Mom bought these giant garden shrooms for me, when she was visiting last time. I LOVE THEM! They're originally from Target, but our Goodwill gets a lot of their close-out & remainder items, so you can sometimes get new shoes & stuff for a steal.
I also mended my sister's slipper that her kitty chewed a hole in:
Other tasks I completed: cleaned my room, washed 3 loads of laundry, made fruit leather out of a box of pears from Coral, backed up all my photos to Flickr & DVD, plus sold a bunch of old books on Amazon. I am officially declaring my old habit of procrastination OBSOLETE! If it feels so good to catch up on things, imagine what it's like to feel that way ALWAYS!
Most of my life, I've had a weird love/hate relationship w/eggs. When I was little, Mom used to scramble them, then COVER them w/cheese & serve them w/toast, in order for me to eat them.
I'm okay if they're in food (I LOVE mayonnaise, to the disgust of my sister, who's also egg-phobic!), but I'm pretty particular about heavily eggy dishes. For instance, I love egg salad sandwiches, but only if I make them myself, & without any funny business, such as relish, or olives, etc. Hard-boiled eggs, mayo/Vegenaise, mustard, S & P. That's it! Crepes are pretty much a "no", although Coral got me to eat some wheat-y, strawberry crepes at the slumber party. :)
I've made plenty of quiche in my time, for a couple of jobs---a café & also at the preschool I worked at---but I always steered clear, myself. Too eggy & wiggly for me! Now I'm feeling like I've missed out on a lot of good food, simply from imagining (wrongly) what it must taste like.
Finally, before our TLC work retreat, we enjoyed a catered breakfast from a nearby café. They had an amazing spread of fruit, baked goods, home fries, & three quiches. I asked my friend, Joey, if I could try a bite of his. It. Was. Amazing. So rich & delicate! I've learned my lesson. Be adventurous! Try new things! (As long as they're vegetarian, ha ha.)
When my mom & brother were here last time, I cracked open my new favorite cookbook, The Grand Central Baking Book, & found a recipe for quiche. It had bacon in it, plus a few ingredients I didn't have on hand, so I improvised. It paid off & I was rewarded with one of the tastiest things I've ever made. Please keep an open mind & try foods you might not otherwise eat. Since I've been a cook all my life, I thought I could imagine what quiche would taste like, but I was wrong! If you don't like something, you can always spit it out & chug some juice or something, holding your nose all the while (which is a great tip that got me through childhood). :) Here's my version of delicious quiche:
Spinach, Onion & Cheese Quiche
- 1 pre-baked pie shell
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 large onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- handful of frozen spinach (about 1/2 a bag)
- salt & pepper
- 5 large eggs
- 1 cup half & half
- 3 ounces grated Asiago
- 3 ounces grated Double Gloucester w/chives & onions
Preheat oven to 325*F. In a large pan over medium heat, sauté the onion & garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add spinach & cook until defrosted & no longer watery. Season well with salt & freshly ground black pepper.
Whisk together the eggs & half & half, with another good pinch of salt & pepper. Place the veggie mixture into the bottom of the pre-baked pie crust & spread evenly. Top with grated cheeses & then carefully pour the egg mixture over the top.
Slowly walk to the oven & place the quiche inside. Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until the center is set.
Let cool a bit before digging in!
I wanted to show you what happens if you get impatient & don't let your pie crust rest before baking.
Before:
After:
D'oh! A lot of the pretty details get garbled & it shrinks inward a bit. Oh well! It was tasty & we were too hungry to wait any longer. Next time I'll begin earlier...In other news, I rescued this plant from the dumpster area out back, after Ethan told me about seeing it. It's cool, though I'm not sure what it is yet.
I brought it in the house when it started raining, then checked the soil a few days later. What the hell?! I took it back outside to photograph these tiny, neon yellow, penis-shrooms!
Yeah, there's tons of dog hair in there too. I ended up scraping out the first couple inches of soil because I think it was full of mold, fungus & dog hair, then topped it off with fresh potting soil. It seems happier already! Who knows what kind of mushrooms those were...
I also disassembled a rainbow wool sweater that I got from Ara @ the clothes swap/bbq that her & Drew hosted. The sweater wasn't flattering on me (too short & wide, plus chunky yarn=not the best look), but I LOVE the colorway. I think I'll make a few kinds of hats & maybe some headbands or something. It took quite a few episodes of The X-Files to get through it (we're re-watching them & are almost done w/Season Two!), but I'm excited for all the possibilities. 
A while back, everyone from work went on a retreat to TLC Farm, in order to become more familiar with the consensus decision making process, which we've been using for about a year & a half, & to learn about sustainable living from the nice people who live & work at the farm. I'd gone there a couple summers ago for my Ecofeminist Spirituality class, so it was neat to see how the plants had grown & filled out since I'd last been there!
View of the information board, composting toilets (which were the first legal public composting toilets in Portland! Cool!), & cob sauna:
We started out by listening to the founders of our co-op speak about how they got organized & had to learn the ways of the school's bureaucratic bullshittery, in order to start out. It became apparent that we've been slacking on knowing our rights & how to get better deals written into our contracts w/the school.
View from the stage, down towards the main garden & creek area:
The sauna, which they were working on that day:
Then we did an exercise in honest communication, led by our awesome advisor, Shannon, to help curb passive aggressive complaining, which is actually a form of violence, under the consensus model. It divides & taints the group, while solving nothing. What is interesting is that conflict is important & necessary; it's how we handle it that's key. We got a little silly during the activity, but basically learned to use "I statements" to convey how we feel when a co-worker is continuously late, for example. It's also important to deal with the situation at hand, rather than bringing up other issues, which usually gets personal & causes the conversation to spiral out of control. It was super helpful & I can't wait to see how we use this knowledge, once we re-open for the fall term. Cool!
Part of the heated, cob bench. I love the face!
The other end of the bench. It reminds me of a dragon:
After that, we built our pizzas, then handed them off to Matt for baking in the cob oven! We all brought three ingredients, then shared them. So many tasty toppings! Unfortunately, I didn't take any food shots because I was too hungry.
I LOVE the beautiful ceiling above the outdoor kitchen area. It's hypnotizing:
Here's some of the peeps, waiting on the slow eaters:
Matt shows us their consensus model & introduces Brush, who helped us with the nitty-gritty & gave us tips on making the consensus process go more smoothly.
What I loved were Brush's hints on incorporating the voices of those who tend to be more quiet at meetings. One idea was to give each person in the group three stones. These represent the number of times you can speak up. Each time you talk, you throw a stone into the center of the table or whatever. This encourages the chattier folks to weigh the importance of what they want to say, & gives the quieter ones more room to speak up. He calls these techniques "Step Up, Sit Back", I believe. This challenges chattier people to hold back a bit, & urges quieter folks to be brave & "step up." I'm someone who processes things internally & I appreciate a quiet 30 seconds, or so, before I'm ready to share my thoughts. If everyone jumps in immediately, I tend to hang back & space out, honestly. :) Brush said he'd be happy to lead a workshop on facilitation, so I hope we invite him to help us out!
Here are two beautiful sheep. Matt said they are going to be sheared soon. How I would love to have some of the wool! They were total snuggle-bunnies:
Drew couldn't hold back & ran ahead to see the goats:
My parents raised goats when we were growing up, so we grew up drinking goats' milk & Mom even made homemade raspberry yogurt with it! Their names were Ethel & Michelle. This Nubian mama looks a lot like Ethel. She was pretty feisty though, so I stuck to petting her babies.
Cute little horned behbeh. Their eyes are so reptilian:
Hee hee!
Yay for my rain boots! Joey wanted me to take a picture of 'em. I'm usually living in my sandals, even in the rain, but these were necessary for stomping through the muck. And I didn't fall on my butt, even once!
If you live in or around Portland, I encourage you to visit the farm. They offer classes, workshops, work-trade, & have times where you can go in the sauna! It's a really open, spiritual environment, full of happy kids & wonderful people. Thanks, everyone!
Time for another birthday post. Ethan turned 26 years old today, & is working at his awesome, new job, which was the best birthday present he could have gotten! I'm whipping up a feast tonight, but might not take pictures, since the lighting will suck & the food is heavily brown, ha ha. However, I wanted to post a couple pictures of the cake I made, as well as some hors d'oeuvre I made for him.
Since dinner won't be served until 6:00, I wanted to surprise him once he gets home, w/a glass of Cabernet & some of these bad boys:
They're peppered Tofurky slices, spread with a thin layer of softened cream cheese, then rolled up. My grandma used to make these, with real turkey, sometimes rolling up a pickle spear or some cheddar. So addictive!
This is the cake I made. It's a quarter batch of this recipe, minus the filling. I just filled it with cream cheese frosting. It's a little baby cake!
It's always a hit; I used to make it at my last job & everyone who tried it was a fan. I've only made it as a layer cake, never as a tube cake, but I'm sure it's great no matter what. This time I used white whole wheat flour & brown sugar, so it's a LEETLE BIT more wholesome...
Eth, you're my bestest friend & I'm so thankful for all our dorky, good times!
P.S. Ruben says, "Happy birthday, Papa!"
Okay, so it's not actually her birthday till tomorrow, but we had to celebrate early, since she was heading up to Vancouver before the real day. She mentioned that she just received her Granny Mom's (grandma's) recipe for pound cake, so when I said that neither myself nor Ethan had ever had pound cake before, she was astounded! I asked her if she wanted me to bake her one for her birthday & she said "yeah"! The morning of the last full day that she stayed here, she went off to run errands & I got to work baking.
I was a little tentative about the recipe, because it mentioned "3 heaping cups" of flour, which is an estimate, not a measurement. The precise baking part of my brain was all **illogical! illogical!** I was nervous! How much should I heap?! I guess I did alright. It came out delicious---buttery w/a hint of vanilla.
Here's the recipe. If you're planning on making it, make sure that the butter, shortening, milk & eggs are at room temperature beforehand. Also, Granny Mom says you shouldn't even attempt this cake without a stand mixer. The world might end if you were to mix it by hand. Super important!Granny Mom's Pound Cake- 2 sticks butter (1 cup)
- 1/2 cup Crisco (I used Spectrum)
- 3 cups sugar
- 5 eggs
- 3 heaping cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease a bundt or tube pan & set aside. Cream together the butter, shortening & sugar till fluffy.
Here's the Spectrum shortening I used in place of gross Crisco:
Add eggs, one at a time, stopping often to scrape down the bowl of the mixer. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt & baking powder. Add part of the flour, alternating with some of the milk & vanilla, mixing just until combined. Repeat until all the ingredients are added.
Pour into prepared pan & bake for 1 hour to 1 hour & 15 minutes. Apparently the usual toothpick test doesn't work well for this cake. To test for doneness, press your finger into the top of the cake---if it feels firm, it's done. If not, put it back into the oven for 3 more minutes, then check again.
Here's the baked cake, cracky & gorgeous:
Sage made me eat the first piece. I made a raspberry sauce to go with it.
Thankfully, I've been eating food other than cake too. Mainly messy, delicious sandwiches. This one has Vegenaise, Tillamook pepper jack, veggie burger, tomato, avocado & pickles, on cracked wheat sourdough. YUM!
Today, when we took Noodle on a walk, I brought the camera along. He's so cute! We can only go on very short walks, because his hips hurt him, but he has so much fun sniffing around. :)
