The Farmer’s Market(s)

There are oodles of farmer’s markets to choose from in the Portland Metro area. It is fun to pick which one to go to and you can go to a farmer’s market on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. You can go on Monday and Friday if you count the indoor Vancouver Farmer’s market. Yesterday we went to the Saturday Market @ PSU (if you want times and locations for other area farmer’s markets I have good luck with the Oregon Farmer’s Market Association directory and the Local Harvest listings).

Purchases
3 lbs. nectarines
2 peaches
2 thin asian eggplants
1 large jalapeno pepper
3 ears corn
1 bunch (5 sm-med) beets
1 teeny tiny french cantelope
3 tomatoes
2 zucchini

The market also has a wide variety of prepared food booths. We bought lunch while we were there. I had an artichoke and cojita cheese tamale from the Salvador Molly’s booth and R had a veggie pita pocket from some booth with a large bbq/smoker (they also sold lamb kabobs that looked yummy).

The week before right next to the market was an area filled with booths from Portland area Etsy sellers. It was great, so much beautiful, crafty goodness that we didn’t bother taking our out of town guests to the Saturday Market.

The PSU market is not actually my favorite market. I mean it is a fabulous market, and it works well for us late-risers since it goes strong until about 1:30 (officially it ends at 2 pm). But sometimes it is too overwhelming, just a little too big, a little too crowded. Luckily there are other markets in the area that hit that “just right” size feeling. Because unfortunately some of the smaller markets will wrap things up well before the official ending time.

1 year, 2 days

367 days ago I found out we were moving. Wow, in a couple weeks we will have lived here for 1 year. Time flys.

1 day ago we signed the lease on our apartment for another year. When we first moved in we were both dissappointed in a few things (some odd layout issues, the kitchen) and thrilled with a few things (it is an incredibly nice apartment in an almost perfect location); considering the fact that we practically signed the lease site unseen we are incredibly lucky. Another place we were considering made the news about multiple break-ins the first week we moved.

Cauliflower

While I contemplate what to do with this blog I bring you a never published post from last fall:

It all started with the cauliflower
Other wise known as the post where I proclaim my domestic clutziness.

The other day I realized that I was craving cauliflower. I decided to make a variation of this dish Cauliflower with Ginger, Garlic & Green Chilies from Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cookery. And since I was making that dish I was going to make a chickpea and tomato curry to go with it, and riata. While I was looking for a riata recipe I found two more dishes I wanted to cook. The menu progressed to include rice, somosas and spicy tamarind sauce.

Around 5 pm I started doing prep to throw everything together when Husband came home. At 7:00 pm I went to pick up Husband and when we arrived back at the house he started helping me in the kitchen. Now at 9:20 the chickpea-tomato curry has been done at least 40 minutes, the somosas have just come out of the oven and we are cooking are second, yes second batch of rice. I ruined one of my favorite pans.

I blame the kitchen, specifically the lack of counter and storage space. Our last home had a nice 6 ft span of counter space, plus the sink and another 2 feet. Our new place has two 12″ sections and two 2-foot sections, both 2-foot sections of counter are partially covered by a toaster, kitchen-aid mixer, dish-drainer and telephone. So when I started smelling something I looked in the pre-heating oven and saw our cast iron skillet, it was shoved in the oven one day while we needed to use more than two burners at the same time (a teapot sits on the fourth burner). I assumed the smell was the cast iron skillet-but I had no where to put a hot cast iron skillet, oh well. The smell continued, it got stronger. Eventually we found the rice (still on a heated burner) cooked to a black crisp.

The samosas however, were totally worth it.

Happy Valentines Day

I really like what the Yarn Harlot said about Valentines Day. Around here we try to keep it low key (depending on our mood we may or may not get gifty) and always spend the evening cooking dinner for each other (odd years I cook, even years he cooks) and just spending time focused on each other.

This year we deviated from our traditional almond chicken dish, made with lots of butter, white wine, lemon juice and almonds, due to the recent lax-vegetarianism of one household member (no meat, but if thai food happens to have some fish sauce in it… oh well). And it isn’t who you’d think it would be; Me, give up sushi entirely? Never. We had a yummy simple salad with a meyer(!) lemon vinagerette and parmasean, made a mushroom crepe cake (An early Alton Brown recipe, next time we’ll serve it in a more traditional crepe style) and enjoyed a bottle of Pinot Noir we bought on a visit here in July (it traveled from Oregon to Missouri then back to the PNW). We’ve stopped the folly of preparing a dessert since we are always too full from yummy food and wine. Then we cuddled up on the couch and watched Amelie. Man I love that movie.

Dog Days of January

January has been unusually dry, I think the news said we’ve only had half the average rainfall this month. We’ve also had a good number of sunny days.

On Sunday we had a needed sleep-in day, then gave dog a Dog-centered day. We went to one of the nice dog parks (5.5 fenced acres) where he got to spend 45 minutes romping with other dogs and get just a little muddy (it might have been dry that day but that doesn’t mean it has been a rain-free month). Then we went on a 2 hour hike in Forest Park. We were hoping Dog would be a little worn out after the dog park (he normally is on the sleepy side after such an outing) and not tug during our hike. But true to form he tugged more often than we liked on our hike.

Now our St. Louis friends might be thinking hike? Forest Park? See Portland’s Forest Park is literally a 5,000+ acre forest. It is beatiful, fairly quiet (though you can still hear traffic in some areas) and just the right amount of nature for me, close, accesible but not overwhelming.

Ah, I needed that

Today I went volunteering and then on a hunt for the right trim for a small bag I made last night. On my way home I got a call from Husband a good hour earlier than normal, “I’m ready for you to pick me up”. I had planned on hitting the grocery store to pick up the necessary ingredients for Kung Pao Tofu (we are working on eating less meat). Much to my surprise he recommended going out for Thai food. We debated where to go; should we take the easy way out and go to one of the two places close to home that are just eh, or try the place close to home that also serves sushi (now that just scares me). We ended up deciding to drive the 20 minutes into Portland and went to Thai Noon.

Yum. We needed a good dinner out. It was just the right amount of everything for us (good food, not upscale, not too far away). We needed a good thai dinner out. Thai egg rolls, Drunken Noodles, Spicy Green Beans and a yummy house-made cocktail with basil, ginger, fresh lime juice and gin. Now to veg out watching Scrubs.

And now some mundane

A little birdy said some mundane life stuff was okay on this blog.  I will try not to go so far as letting everyone know my laundry schedule.

It is 11:43 p.m.  and I am sitting here, sipping blueberry tea, trying to decide what type of cookie I should bake.  So far I’ve made Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, and Chocolate Black-Pepper cookies.  I’m insane, I should be going to bed not starting another batch of cookies.

(It is now 12:23, I just put a batch of cookie dough in the fridge to chill, tomorrow morning I will slice and bake it.)

Another weather related post

It is really windy right now.  Windy like the I-5 and I-101 are closed in places due to downed trees, as is part of State Hwy 26 and a few other roads.  Windy like areas of Portland and Vancouver are without electricity.  Windy like I thought I hit something when I heard the sound of the wind hitting my car while backing out of a parking spot.  Windy like I can hear the wind blowing fiercely while sitting on the first floor of our apartment with the TV on (Scrubs is back, yay!).

I’ve been working on the lengthy update of this past month, I can’t believe it has been a month.  Originally I thought we’d manage to update this blog at least once a week.  I guess the mundane everyday stuff seems less blog worthy than recaps of our weekend expeditions.

Hear that? Neither do I

I really don’t think this is what people meant when they said it rained a lot in the PNW.  But for the evening it hasn’t really been raining, thank goodness, our parking lot was trying to become one big puddle.  Luckily we don’t live near any creeks or on a hill; and I don’t think we’ve had enough rain to cause major flooding to the Columbia River.

We also didn’t notice the 2.6 earthquake that hit a couple nights ago.   So this is just a report of our lack of personal weather/nature related events.

On a positive note we both found ski boots this weekend (and both agreed that a ski show at an expo center is hellish) and I finally got my season ski pass.  R’s been moaning that it isn’t just a little colder on the mountain so that all the rain could be snow.  But everything is falling into place and the snow will come soon enough (for those wondering at home I don’t actually enjoy the whole process of skiing until I’m actually in skis going down a hill).

Trick or Treat

At the last minute (oh this morning) I got in the halloween spirit, bought some plastic spiders, candy corn and safety-pinned a towel to Dog’s halter so he could be in costume.

I also decorated our front door with plastic spiders.

Set out my halloween candle holders, put up some orange ribbon that says “trick or treat” in the window and carved my pumpkin.