Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Thai soup and low-hanging clouds

it's been a while since i've had an update, eh? between work, yard work, house work, home renovations & updates ... it's been a boring couple of months!

we ended up getting a lot of delicious, sweet little cherry tomatoes off of one plant, and lots of yummy cucumbers. the hops plants looked really sad, going into fall. better luck for us next year, i hope.

it's been a mild fall - at least milder than the first one we experienced here. not as rainy as i remember last year, but i'm fine with that. just makes walking to work more enjoyable.

i do have to share a recipe i found in sunset magazine - it's absolutely fantastic, and it can be dressed up with extra veggies and/or potatoes if you want something heartier

Thai Chicken Coconut Soup

i didn't add the fish sauce or the chili paste, because we didn't have it around. but i've made this three times in about 15 days ... and we had it for lunch today. so awesome ...

Saturday, September 20, 2008

fresh, end of summer, soup

1 big, BIG green zucchini
1 beefsteak tomato
half of a walla walla sweet onion
4 small red potatoes
2 yukon gold potatoes
(all previous are chopped/diced)
7 ears of corn

spices:
ground 4-color pepper
ground ancho pepper
ground red pepper
sea salt (any kind, i used 3 types)
thyme

boil corn (after shucking) 10 minutes - add corn to 4 cups boiling water
pull corn out with tongs
to water, carefully add potatoes first - let return to boil, and boil for 10 minutes
add all other ingredients

spices are most easily added to chopped/diced veggies first, then all into the pot. if you try to shake out spices directly above a boiling pot, or even steaming pot, your spices gather moisture and congeal around the lip of the container.

simmer another 20-30 minutes and serve with tortilla chip strips

always better the 2nd (and 3rd) time

Monday, August 25, 2008

mmm ... food

my husband and i love to eat. more importantly, we love to cook. recently i've started cooking "comfort food" that reminds me a lot of my grandma (dad's mom)

like cabbage, she made that often. i made it my own with tomato, bell pepper, onion, and cumin & red pepper. dad's side of the family didn't really use spices other than salt & pepper. didn't really need to when grandma grew most of the veggies that we ate


the cabbage concoction i made tonight was a lot like husband's family's "caldo" - soup. we just have to eat more of the cabbage, then add more chicken stock and some meat, and we'll have soup. i like making food that can be turned into 3-4 meals. especially when it's cheap food like cabbage!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

howdy

first posts are always awkward

let me introduce myself with this little gem from something i got tagged for in my livejournal account

i used to want kids. really. but mostly to run experiments on them. this was back in '98 or '99 and i was big into my psychology courses. i wanted to have at least 3, and up to 6, but i'd play all these wicked games with them to trick them, or i'd plan on teaching them that the color blue was called "phantom" or "shibble" or something really off-the-wall like that. i had big plans to throw nature out the window, and nurture them into exactly what i wanted them to be.

*waves hello*