Andrew's Birthday Dinner

For Andrew's birthday we decided to celebrate at Woodberry Kitchen. It's one of our favorite restaurants, but we don't eat there often because of the price. There food is seasonal, and for the most part very local. The ambiance is really fun, and it's in our old neighborhood. We don't go on dates as often now that we have Lydia, so we decided to splurge. 

Andrew's old roommate, Micah, also works at Woodberry as a chef. We knew he would be there, but we had no idea how spoiled we would be! (Micah is an incredible cook! Anyone remember the seven course meal? That was all Micah.) 

We ordered one appetizer: a flatbread. We were brought five appetizers: deviled eggs, a bread and cheese board, a pear salad, and chilled tomato soup AND our flatbread. Oh, and the standard bread basket.

For the main course Andrew ordered the Pork Chop and I ordered the Braised Beef with Polenta, stewed tomatoes, okra and jimmy nardellos and beef gravy. We also were gifted the potatoes augratin, and mushrooms. (The mushrooms were the biggest surprise of the night for Andrew: something he never would have ordered, but ended up really liking!)

And then came dessert. You can't NOT have dessert on your birthday. Even if you've already eaten nine different dishes. We agreed we should just split something. I don't even remember what we ordered..Andrew ordered it. 

Our server brought out FIVE full size desserts. 

I think the biggest surprise for me was the butterscotch pudding. I'm generally a big brownie sundae fan. It's not terribly exciting, but always delicious. This time, the pudding was BY FAR my favorite dessert.  I think the tables around us probably thought we were gluttons at this point. 

The chocolate writing was so incredible to both of us! It's wasn't like a frosting, or a syrup, it was hard chocolate. 

It was such a fun night! So many surprises, and such a slow paced meal. We were gone for four hours and had a wonderful time talking and dreaming and of course, eating. (Thanks Brent, for watching Lydia-the-baby-who-refuses-bottles!)

And a BIG thank you to Micah Martin, for spoiling us rotten and really helping us celebrate in style. :)

Granola

I made granola from scratch for the first time yesterday. I had a roommate who tried to make it once, and it turned out poorly, so I've always been scared to try. Turns out, it's really easy. And yummy!

Doughnut Day

We are always up for celebrating a good holiday. Yesterday we celebrated Doughnut day. Nothing says date night like a trip to Dunkin' Doughnuts with a screaming baby! (We are such cruel parents, making her sit in her carseat.)

Garden Update

We love our little square foot garden boxes. They allow us to have a little bit of a garden in our little backyard. 

But it's kind of been left untended the past few weeks, and plants have taken on a life of their own. It's rained a lot. And the temps have been perfect for growing. 

Everyday of the ten-day forecast has rain in it. So I think it's only going to get more exciting.

The sage (the purpley-green plant on the left) totally overtook the lettuce, so it had to go. I planted it last year--I don't know what I was thinking! Tell me one recipe that uses sage, besides turkey stuffing. It didn't get very cold over the winter, so the sage was ready to TAKE OVER.

Lettuce, on the other hand, I eat everyday. Sometimes twice.

I haven't gotten very good (read: I don't do it at all) at staggering my planting. So, when I was planting things I thought, "It'd be nice to try growing cauliflower. I do like cauliflower." In my mind I envisioned going out to the backyard and picking a cauliflower to eat once or twice a week for a month or so.

Nope. That's not how plants produce. We get to eat as much cauliflower as we possibly can this week. And probably never again this growing season. Someday I will remember: stagger the planting.

First Harvest of the Season

Pi Day

Pi Day: one of my favorite holidays! We generally get a group of folks together. But this year, Andrew had a panel for the Ed Tech Forum scheduled months in advance, so a party was not in our future.

But Andrew said I could make pie for everyone at the forum. And so I did. :) We just extended the party.

I was good at documenting the beginning of the process, but forgot to take pictures of the finished products. But we had a apple, triple berry, strawberry, banana cream (made entirely from scratch!) and key lime (my first time making it. So good!). There were about 50 people at the forum, and it was fun to celebrate with all of them.

Samples

The other day, Andrew came upstairs for lunch. We had ordered pizza the night before, and we were going to eat leftovers. I have about zero appetite most of the time, so sometimes it's hard for me to get enough food ready to feed us both.

Andrew came upstairs and immediately said, "You're not feeling well, are you?" looking at the food I had put out. We were each going to eat ONE piece of pizza.

"I can tell you right now, one piece of pizza will not be enough for me," he says.

Which I knew. So we were also eating carrots, and yogurt and oranges. Which I explained.

"Those are SAMPLES," he says. "Can I please have chicken enchiladas, too?"

Now I laugh every time I eat some produce. They are samples, after all.

Navajo Tacos!

You're such good guessers/rememberers!

Mine weren't as good as they were when Mom made them. Maybe I was missing something? Indian Fry Bread, Chili, Lettuce, Sour Cream? Am I missing something? Besides Olives, I don't like olives.

Food for special days

A. Was there a food that you requested every time it was your birthday? Maybe for dinner?

B. Do you remember what you ate on the day you were baptized?

C. Does anyone remember what the answer to both of those questions are for me? I'll give you a clue...they are both the same answer.

I only ask this because in my adult life I have never cooked the meal I loved so much growing up. And today I'm going to.

I told Andrew to get really excited, because it's going to be delicious! But I told him he could guess if he wanted to. When I gave him A and B as clues, his response was, "This is a set-up. I'm supposed to guess what you ate YEARS before I knew you, and I have never eaten it?" He wasn't quite as excited as I thought he would be....

What food did you request on special days? Siblings, I'm serious, you should answer this question. I tried to guess to see if I could remember what you wanted.

Berries

We've gone Berry-Crazy over here! One of my goals for Personal Progress goals has been to learn to can. (Remember how I work with the Young Women, I'm re-doing Personal Progress. It's so much fun. And Andrew pretty much loves it. Along with learning to can this week, I've been noticing all the nice things my family does for me and telling them how much I appreciate it.)


I went berry picking last week and picked up the last of the blueberries and raspberries for the season, and a whole lot of blackberries. On Sunday we made triple-berry pie. We've been eating them in our cereal and smoothies, and on Monday I canned 24 jars of jam.

To cover the crust so it doesn't burn, I've always tried to string along ridiculously narrow pieces of tin foil over the edge. After years of doing this, it hit me that I could simply cut a large circle in the piece of tin foil, and place the square over the pie. SO MUCH EASIER.

 The tired sous chef. 

Seven Course Meal

Andrew has an old roommate. His name is Micah. He's part of our BlueZone. (A group of friends who lives close to one another. It's been found that to have a close-knit group of friends extends your life.) He has been a teacher in Baltimore for the past few years, but is trying to decide what to do next. He is thinking of going to culinary school. 

That's got my vote. 

He hosted a seven-course dinner on Saturday night in his backyard. It was incredible. It started at 6 with socializing, first course served at 7, and dessert concluded dinner at 11. It was so much fun. 

Sadly, the only picture we took was at our house before we left for dinner. 

The courses all had much fancier names (seriously, this wasn't your run of the mill food) but I can't remember them.

1. Spinach Tofu Soup

2. Fried Green tomatoes and Vinegar Brussel Sprouts (it's a tough call, but I think this might have been my favorite course). 

3. Drink: Berry Smoothie of some-sort for the Mormons. Everyone else had something else (which is even more incredible...considering he was cooking for 20!)

4. Indian dish of some variety that had potatoes and spinach in it.

5. Drink...rum something or other

6. Crusted Chicken with tomato, Cucumber soaked in vinegar and sugar (so GOOD!) and a three bean salad

7. Dessert: Chocolate Mousse. Wow. It was rich a delish.

We sat at a table with people that Andrew had met before, but didn't really know. Since there was about a half hour between courses we got to know them really well, which was really fun.

Phone Call

I was in search of canning supplies yesterday. It's one of the things I'd really like to do now that I have a few more hours in my day. I was able to find jars on Criagslist, but was still in need of a steamer. There is a great (and pretty big) organic food store that opened by REI, so I thought I'd try them first.

Me: Hi! I'm calling to see if you have any steamers for canning?
Girl: You want to steam and go tanning?
Me: No, I have a lot of berries, and I'd like to make jam, but I need a steamer to can it.
Girl: No, we don't have those. But have you tried Michael's next door?
Me: No, I haven't. But I think they are more crafts.
Girl: I don't know, they have a lot of really neat stuff in there.
Me: Alright, thanks for your help.
Girl: What about Walmart. They have EVERYTHING. You should really try Walmart.

And so I did. And in fact that was my initial inkling. But I had really hoped I could support someone a little more local. And seriously, when does the organic market make Walmart their first (or second) recommendation?

But, true to suspicion, Walmart did come through. And I am now ready to can.

New Food

I just cooked polenta with roasted portobello with snap peas for dinner.

So easy. So fast.

The polenta and portobello mushrooms were a first time food for us, I'm not sure why I was so intimidated by them. No need. So easy and so good.

Just drizzle a tsp of olive oil over each of the mushrooms with some salt and pepper. Put them in the oven for 8 minutes. Toss the peas with 1 tsp oil and some salt and pepper. Add to the mushrooms for another 8 minutes. When done, top with cheese of choice.

Polenta: Slice and saute for 5 minutes per side. A little bland, but the mushroom juice is a great sauce for them, and the cheese helps a lot.

I used a strong cheese, gorgonzola.

Yum!

New Staple

Andrew and I have a new staple in our diet: English Muffins.

They are delicious. And it doesn't help that the bakery outlet sells them buy-one-get-one free. With about 20 in a bag (perhaps a slight exaggeration) and they are $2 per bag. (Which really makes them one dollar, people.)

They are also the perfect snack for my favorite dishes. We have a set of Easter plates that we get to use for about 4 weeks a year, so it's really a win-win.

Dinner Tonight

This was dinner. 

And it was super delish. But probably a little more work to make the relish than it was probably worth.

The other hangup, was I REALLY needed to go grocery shopping. The salad I had planned on having with it was far too slimy. We were out of bread. I did whip up some brown rice, but that was a pretty dull table. 

Yum.

Today's Goodness. Except I made ours with Barley, not brown-rice. It's my new favorite grain.

Slowing down the Sugar Intake

I've been feeling REALLY tired lately. So I've started monitoring what I've been eating using this. It's been really nice because it will show you your nutrient breakdown. If you want to create an accound and be my friend, that would be nice (annpassey is my name.) What I've learned this week: I eat WAY more sugar than I should. I've known that for years. But now I'm making a serious push to eat LESS sugar (I'm not cutting it out: disaster). We'll be eating this little dish for lunch a few days this week.

Other lesson learned this week: I eat virtually no potassium. This has resulted in a pulled hamstring. Gross.

Last year one of my near years resolutions was to cook a new recipe a week. It's been really fun, and we've had more variation in our food. I've used quite a few recipes from the Whole Living Website, check 'em out.

This morning I whipped up some oatmeal for Andrew. Totally loving, right? Quick Oats, some brown sugar, and crasins. I was also making brownie bits for the potluck that was going to be occuring in between conference sessions.  Andrew decided to make his oatmeal into brownie-batter oatmeal.

He swears it'd be a big seller. :)

New-vember Continues

We've been doing new things everyday. And loving it. I've run new trails. Driven new routes. Gone to new meetings.

And we've eaten a lot of new food.

While we've eaten brussel sprouts before (they are a major ingredient in Andrew's favorite dish) we've never had them straight off the stalk. We're excited to try them!

Oh New-vember, how we love you. :)

sad day.

my heart is breaking. i just realized that i missed ben and jerry's free cone day this year. march 23 has come and gone.

so sad.

Flax vs. Chocolate

The fact that I added flax seed to my banana bread outweighs the fact that I also added chocolate chips, right?