Luke and I moved a couple miles north, to an apartment where my friend Barbara used to live. It's big and bright, and surrounded by rose bushes. I'm excited to have an apartment where I can do some home remedy projects to make it look more like ours. I'll be posting before and after photos as I get stuff done around here. Right now the only room that is pretty much done is the kitchen, and with it's shockingly-yellow walls, it's my favorite room in the house:

It reminds me of a kitchen an old Mexican lady would have.

Look at that! Built-in cutting board counter, a feature I love.

 

Plus, there are nice shelves where for all my tea stuff.

 And Luke doesn't mind when I announce things like "In our new house, we arrange dishes by color!"

 

 

Aside from the kitchen, I hope this place starts looking different this summer. (So that you know what to totally look forward to and so that I have a list that isn't on a scrap of paper that will sit in the bottom of my purse for a while until I lose it) In the next couple months I plan to:

- Find some cheap lamps, make them look like they weren't cheap.

- Paint the bedroom (did you know paint costs, like, thirty dollars a gallon?! I had no idea! Yikes!)

- Paint the entryway

- Make an end table for the livingroom 

- Make a bench for the entryway (install some hooks?)

- Sand and refinish the patio

- Make rose petal jelly (as if we need any more jams or jellies. But I can't help myself).

- Make a headboard for our bed.

- Make a bedside table for Luke

Ooo-eee ooo-ah-ah, ting tang Walla-walla bing-bang

A few weeks back,* Luke told me that if he lived in the middle ages, he'd want to be the village baker. He likes the idea of waking up in the wee hours of the morning to bake big loaves in a stone oven. When he lived in Guatemala, there was a baker in one of the towns that was a good example of what he has in mind: a fat man with strong arms and a big laugh.

*On a side note: I have no concept of time. Anything that was longer than a week ago is "a few weeks back." It could've been two weeks, it could've been six months. I don't know.*

When he asked me what I would be, my first thought was of taking the job of midwife. But I should leave that to someone who actually likes birth, and not just the idea of liking it. The job I would really choose is the herbalist/medicine woman/witch doctor. I like learning about herbs and plants and mushrooms- edible things that can be foraged, medicinal properties, etc. It would be fun to have a job of it (and if I was the baker's wife we could combine the two and give medicinal breads).

For my friend Drew's birthday I got to play medicine woman, and made him some tinctures. It was fun to research which herbs I wanted to use, which medicinal properties they had, etc. I ended up making a St.John's Wort tincture for mood elevation; nettle tincture for colds and hay fever; and a sleep tincture using chamomile, spearmint, lavender greens, and lemon balm.

 

 

As I do any time I want something to have a cute label, I asked Luke to do it.

Also for his birthday I finished his Christmas present that I never gave him. It's a magic bag. It can hold his tinctures, stuff for reiki sessions, books on shamanism, whatever. The front of the gray linen bag is embroidered with wheels ("chakra" means "wheel") with the corresponding color and number of spokes for each chakra. The crown chakra is represented by a lavender lotus (just to make it more interesting and because I was not about to embroider 960 spokes). This was a fun project. Though I don't believe in chakras the same way Drew does, it was fun to learn about them and the ideology behind taking care of them. And it seems like something a witch doctor should make, right?

Sewing, take two.

Yesterday I spent a really lovely rainy afternoon listening to music, drinking iced green tea, and re-teaching myself to sew. I was working with a rainy-day gray linen and looking-forward-to-sunshine yellow eyelet, and it was perfect. Kind of. I talked to the sewing machine, the needle, and the fabric when, at various times, they all refused to do what I wanted them to. I yelled at nothing in particular when the tension would get messed up and there'd be a big knotted mess of thread, but then fixed without me knowing what I'd done to fix it. There was a huge pile of strings next to me when I finished.

 

But the first project turned out- better than I expected, even- and I was encouraged enough to start a second, a skirt for my sister-in-law's wedding on Saturday. Fast forward three hours, and I had to quit and go to bed, because I had a I had a boxy apron instead of a springy skirt, like I'd hoped. The longer I worked, the more frustrated I got and the less I knew what to do to fix it. I'm hoping that with a day of separation I'll be able to look at it anew, and won't have to go buy a skirt last minute.

Happy Easter!

I'm going to go ahead and name this the best Easter I've ever had. Luke and I have decided that Easter is the holiday we do together at home, rather than spending it at one of our family's houses. Last year was our first one, and this year we outdid ourselves. We planned a lovely meal of:

salmon with a mustard herb sauce,

 

red potatoes with bacon, blue cheese, and green onions,

.

and roasted balsamic asparagus with poached eggs.

After lunch we went to a AAA baseball game.  I love baseball, and this was a good game- the Bees beat Tacoma 10-5.

And now we're ending our night with a pizza party and You've Got Mail. A perfect Easter. Hope yours was, too.

Spring's here!

This is my favorite time of year. Snow storms aren't bad any more because you know the snow will last a few hours, not a few days or weeks or months. The weather is unpredictable, and ever-changing. I can steal flowers and forsythia branches from the neighbors (just one or two per house! I'm not a total jerk- I never take enough to be noticeable).

 

 The field behind my house looks green and inviting, and I can pretend that it's not going to dry up in a couple months,and be full of puncture vine that will stab me and Whitney through the blankets as we read for as long as we can until we're sweating and the pale skin we got from our Western European ancestors is pink and dried up (we can usually make it like, twenty minutes).

In April, these jerks don't exist.

But my favorite thing about this time of year is planning a garden. I have a dozen of scraps of paper scribbled with the plants I will have, those I might have, and those I should consider, if my tiny garden can magically fit more than I thought it would. I draw out little maps of my garden and divide up the space with twigs and twine. I love planting seeds indoors and seeing things grow. I like testing the garden dirt to see if it's dry enough: balling up a wad of dirt in my hands and throwing it to the ground to see if it's more mud pie or workable.Getting callouses from shoveling. Finding wonder in the living. And I love- I love- that soon my house and tea and dinners will be filled with things that I grew.

  

Today I learned:

Mediocre sewing skills, if left unused for months, will atrophy into a Sunday afternoon of frustration. A simple sewing project will be abandoned after an hour. I'm going to have to ease myself back into this. Tonight? Embroidery.

I need to buy some chia pets.

A couple weeks ago I was at work, reveling in a veggie sandwich from Apple Spice Junction, and I realized that for me, what makes a good veggie sandwich is the mushroom/sprouts combo. I spent every spare second of the day reading about the different kinds of sprouts, the health benefits* of sprouts, the best ways to grow sprouts at home, etc.etc. etc. On the way home I stopped at Whole Foods, where you can buy different sprouts in bulk. I bought just a little bit of three kinds- a sandwich blend (alfalfa, radish, broccoli, and mung), radish, and mung bean- in case this was just a phase and I lost interest after the first time.

For the radish, I spritzed a paper towel with water and stuck it in the bottom of a mason jar, with the the seeds over it. The sprouts molded before they were very big.

For the mung and the sandwich blend, I put about three tablespoons of seeds in the bottom of a mason jar, and used one of those paint strainers as a screen over the mouth of the jar, secured by the ring. I soaked the seeds for 12 hours, then shook out all the water, and left the jars to drain on my dish draining rack. I rinsed and shook up the seeds every twelve hours, always finishing by shaking out all the water and letting the sprouts dry out as much as possible. Within four days I had a really delicious blend for sandwiches/salads.

I also had a jar of really stinky mung beans.Turns out the paint strainer weave is too tight for the bigger beans; not enough water got out, and the beans went bad.

I'm debating buying or making a sprout grower because they look so nice, but trying to talk myself out of it because the jars work just as well (or will, once I get a looser screen for the big beans). What's nice, though, is that I can always have them on hand to add flavor and healthiness* to various foods. This week I'm going to experiment with sprouts in smoothies.

*Sprouts are a good source of protein, vitamin C, and a lot of other good stuff that prevents disease and cancer, and lower bad cholesterol.

I'm baaaa-aaack!

I had to retake the bar exam, so the last couple months have been spent studying and working, with very little time for either social life or hobbies. The good news is that I think I did well (though I won't know until the end of April or beginning of May), so I probably won't ever have to do that again.  The other good thing is that the exam got over just in time to start planning a garden. A lot needs to be done still to turn the city plot behind my garage into a productive garden, but I've got nothin' but time! I'm still working as a barista and volunteering with Utah Health and Human Rights Project, but without having to study, I feel free, free, free! So expect to hear from me more regularly. Expect new recipes and expect flowers and maybe expect a floppy hat.

Greek Pastries, Part 2

My favorite Greek pastry (that I've had) is Galaktoboureko, which I've made with my boss a couple times now. A creamy, delicious semolina custard is wrapped up in layers of phyllo ('Gala' means milk in Greek. I think 'bourek' means pie). Sometimes it's made with lemon, sometimes with orange, sometimes a syrup is poured on top. The latest version we made was an orange custard with cinnamon sugar in the phyllo layers. It was to die for. Make it next time you go to a potluck or have friends over. Don't make it if you're alone- unless you're too skinny- because you'll eat it all and gain ten pounds.

 Picture taken from here.

The recipe:

4 C milk
1 1/2 C sugar
1 C + 2 T unsalted butter
Zest and juice of 1/2 orange
3/4 C semolina
4 egg whites, whisked until soft peaks form (be careful not to beat it too much- you don't want stiff peaks)
1/4 C vegetable oil
2 T ground cinnamon
1/2 package phyllo
3 T powdered sugar


1. In a medium saucepan, combine the milk, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, and orange zest/juice. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Mix in semolina, and cook, stirring, until the mixture is thick, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat, and fold in the egg whites. Set the mixture aside to cool.


2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a small saucepan, melt remaining 1 C butter with the oil; use some of this mixture to brush a 9-inch round or square baking pan.  In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.

3. Unwrap the phyllo and top with one dry kitchen towel and one slightly damp towel, so the sheets don't dry out too much as you work. Working with one sheet of phyllo at a time, lay the sheets of phyllo so they fit tightly in the pan (filling the bottom of the pan and going up and over the sides) and there's a 1 1/2 inch flap sticking out over the top of the pan- you should use about three sheets of phyllo. Using a pastry brush, brush the phyllo with a generous amount of the butter mixture, then lightly sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Repeat until you have three or four good layers of phyllo and cinnamon sugar. 

4. Pour the custard into the phyllo-lined pan and spread evenly. Working with one layer at a time, fold those little phyllo flaps that you left sticking out toward the center of the pan and "glue" them down with the butter mixture. Add 2-3 of layers of phyllo/butter/cinnamon sugar to the top, so that the custard is totally enveloped.  Do not sprinkle the top layer with cinnamon sugar, or it'll burn. Prick all over with a fork, and bake (with a baking sheet below it to catch any drips) for about 45 minutes, until golden brown.  

5. Combine remaining tablespoon of cinnamon with the confectioners' sugar, and sprinkle over the surface of the phyllo when removed from oven- it'll form a nice crust. Let rest 5 to 10 minutes before slicing. Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold- it's delicious however!

Greek Pastries

I work at Kafeneio (ka- (like in cat), fuh-knee-o), a Greek coffee shop that opened up in Salt Lake a little more than a month ago. How is a Greek coffee shop different than a regular neighborhood coffee shop? Mostly it's just that we have cute/dorky Greek god- and goddess-named lattes (like "Hera's Temper" or "Hermes' Wings"). But we also sell Greek coffee, which is the same as Turkish coffee, if you've had that: made in an ibrik (or briki) served with the grounds in the bottom. Old greeks still tell their fortunes with the grounds, similar to reading tea leaves.

Our briki

But the best part is that my boss, a very nice Greek lady, makes Greek pastries here in the shop. And yesterday she let me help her.

We made pasta flora, a simple pastry with apricot or strawberry jam covered in a lattice design. Then galaktoboureko, my favorite, a lemony custard wrapped in phyllo and topped with a honey lemon syrup and cinnamon.

Galaktoboureko (picture from Closet Cooking, a blog I like a lot).

But the best was making baklava. Easy but time consuming, baklava is layers and layers (and layers. I think the one I did last night had about forty) of flaky phyllo pastry, butter, and nuts. After baking, it's smothered in an orange and clove flavored syrup. Delicious!

So I forgot about blogging for a month. It was pretty uneventful month in terms of crafting, though:

• I started some little felt ornaments with my mom, but decided they looked too much like something a seven year old would do in primary, and didn't finish them.
  
• We had a back-to-the-box week where we made old favorite recipes that got put into the recipe box and never eaten again (I think we have the opposite problem as most people- we almost never eat the same thing), and ate out for an unhealthy number of meals.
• I was going to sew a Christmas gift for my sister-in-law, Jenny, but kept putting it off so much that I ended up just buying her a new purse on Christmas Eve.
  
• I haven't finished sewing the Christmas gift for my friend Drew.
  

So there you have it. Almost nothing to show for the month of December. Except these, the meals we made with our goat cheese:

Lukey made a pizza with barbeque sauce, goat cheese, pineapple, and smoked gouda. I was skeptical, but it was DELICIOUS. A great mix of flavors.

I kept it simple, with grilled veggie and goat cheese sandwiches on ciabatta bread. Balsalmic vinegar, goat cheese, and warm tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms is comfort food for me.

Chevre

Growing up, my family had goats, usually two of them. We milked 'em morning and night, and got more than a gallon per goat on a good day. Mostly we sold the milk to families with kids who couldn't digest cow's milk (my brother was like that, one of the reasons we got goats in the first place. Goat milk is more similar to human milk than cow milk is, so it's really good for kids who just stopped breast feeding, or who have sensitive stomachs), but some people just liked having raw, unpasteurized milk.

One of our goats was a Nubian, the kind in this picture. Pretty cute, right?
Picture found here.
We also had a Saanen and an Alpine.

In some ways, the life of a kid with goats was a pain in the butt: having vacations hinge on whether you can find someone to milk while you're gone (and finding a neighbor in the suburbs who not only can milk, but is willing to do it twice a day for even just a few days is... well, about as hard a you'd expect); being a teenager and having to milk/feed them in the morning when you want to be sleeping in, and in the evening when you want to be hanging out; and trying to seem like just a normal kid when there are little handfuls of alfalfa that fell in your pockets when you fed the goats this morning.

But raising goats had it advantages, too: the milk's really good, as long as the goats are fed right; there were no unnatural hormones in the milk; blah blah blah we learned about hard work; and best of all- yogurt and cheese. My mom made lots of both, especially in the summer, when the goats produced the most milk (more daylight = more milk). Today, for the first time in more than ten years, I made goat cheese.

Chevre is the generic name for goat cheese, coming from the French word for goat. The kind of cheese most people think of when the think of goat cheese- that creamy, soft cheese that sort of has the consistency of a crumbly cream cheese- is the kind I made. and it couldn't be much easier:


Put a half gallon of goat's milk in a stainless steel pot (aluminum can change the taste). Slowly heat the milk to 195 degrees, stirring frequently so none of the milk starts cooking to the bottom of the pot. The milk will get frothy and start stinking the way that warm milk does, but it shouldn't boil.


Add 1/4 C lemon juice very slowly, stirring while you add it. As soon as it's all in there, though, stop stirring. Let the milk curdle. It'll look really disgusting.


Add a bit of salt and let it cool to 100 degrees.

Strain the curds from the whey for 2 - 4 hours, until it's the texture you want (I wanted ours to be more creamy, so I only strained it for about two hours). You can buy cheesecloth at kitchen stores, or sometimes at the fabric store, but my mom discovered something better: In the paint section at Home Depot, you can buy two paint strainers for about three bucks. They work as well as expensive cheesecloth, and they're reusable, cheap, and just the right size. They're good for jelly bags, too.

You could hook the bag on the faucet and strain right into the sink, but then you'd have to do the dishes before you make cheese, and what's the fun in that? Just jerry-rig something like this, and those dishes can wait!

And there you have it! Homemade chevre! Luke and I are each going to get one half of the cheese to make a meal for the other. I'll show you what we come up with.

Pumpkin season

I heard somewhere that this was a good year for pumpkin farmers, and based on how cheap pumkins have been at the grocery store, I believe it. I made pumpkin cupcakes (which were a disappointment to me, but other people seemed to like them), and pumpkin pasta (next time we'll use cooked spinach, and no parsley) and the best pumpkin recipe so far, a creamy risotto.

Served with spinach and a spicy honey and sage chicken, the risotto was the best (and biggest) part of the meal.

The recipe:

1/3 C olive oil
1 C onion, chopped
1 T garlic, minced
2 C orzo
1 C cooking wine
5 - 5 1/2 C chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 sugar pumpkin (about 4 C)
1/2 C grated parmesan
4 T butter

Heat oven to 425. Bake 1/4 pumpkin until soft, about 30 minutes. When done, remove the skin and puree.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion and garlic and stir continuously until softened (3-4 mins). Add the orzo and stir to coat.

Add the wine and continue cooking, stirring often, until it has been absorbed by the rice. Add two cups of stock and cook until absorbed. Add the rest of the stock one cup at a time until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente.

Peel the remaining 1/4 pumpkin, chop into small pieces, and saute in a little butter until tender.

Stir the pumpkin puree and the diced pumkin into the orzo and reduce heat to very low. Stir in the parmesan. Serve.



*This recipe makes A LOT- main dish for four or five, side dish for eight- but is great as leftovers. I won't half it in the future, because I liked being able to have it for a couple days afterward.

**Traditionally, risotto's made with arborio rice. I like orzo because it has a similar chewy texture, but costs way less.

Lemon Curd

Cold weather makes me want lemon curd. I don't know that it's traditionally a cold-weather food, but that's when I want it- something sweet and tart and comforting on cold mornings. I woke up a little earlier than usual on Monday so I could make a batch and enjoy it with cup of tea before having to leave for work. I've been eating it on toast just about every morning this week.

I think people over-think lemon curd. It's beauty is in its simplicity- both of flavor and of preparation. No need to strain it or use a double boiler. Just keep it simple, man. Here's my recipe:

6 T unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 C sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tsp. grated lemon zest
2/3 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (don't use the bottled kind. This is one time where it matters that you squeeze it yourself).

1) Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, about 2 mins. Add eggs and yolks and beat for another minute. Mix in lemon juice. It'll look a little lumpy/curdly- it's cool.
2) Cook the mixture over low heat until it looks smooth- just a minute or two. Increase the heat to medium low and stir constantly until the mixture thickens, about 15 min (don't turn the heat up too much because the egg whites cook at a lower temperature and you don't want to see little white flecks in the curd).
3) Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest. Pour into half-pint jars. Keep what you think you'll eat in a week or two in the fridge, and put the rest in a jar in the freezer (or give it to a friend if you're unselfish. I'm not).



I mostly just eat it on toast (what a great way to perk up a morning!), but also used it to make Lukey my own version of a napoleon: I baked four-inch puff pastry squares for about fifteen minutes, until they were golden and delicious looking. Meanwhile, I sprinkled blackberries with sugar and cooked them over low on the stove, so they got syrupy. Then I layered the puff pastry, lemon curd and blackberries (two or three layers each- whatever seemed good proportion). It turned out pretty deliciously.

Winter Laze

I've been getting ready for winter with more vigor than ever before- getting the garden ready, planting bulbs, and de-junking everything (because who wants to spend time inside with all this junk?). You'd think that with this getting-ready-to-hibernate mentality I'd be all about cooking. But I'm not. And thankfully, neither is Luke. For the most part, we're ignoring the fabulous, elaborate meals we have planned, and are instead making things that are quick and easy. For example:

The decadent carmelized onion and gouda quesadilla from Donna's cookbook (I won it for the Cinco De Mayo giveaway at Fab Frugal Food, and it has not disappointed),

Thai spring rolls with chicken, cilantro, plum sauce we canned a while back, and kiwi

How do you get a nice picture of something wrapped in opaque rice paper? Maybe you can. I can't.

and mushroom and onion turnovers (just saute the filling, fold it in puff pastry, then bake at 450 for about twenty minutes),

Luckily, quick and easy food can be just as delicious as a more elaborate meal. And now I've got some good meals planned for when I'm really in the mood to cook again.

mushaboom

I got my garden all tilled up and spread with compost this weekend, and not a minute too soon:

Looks like it's really going to start being winter around here, and besides needing shoes that'll keep out the wet and cold, I'm ready to face my least favorite season.

While working outside, I found that a group of mushrooms that I'd seen growing on an old elm stump this spring are back again. I'd been told by a couple people from Mushrooms Society of Utah that they were probably Flammulina velutipes, or flaming velvet foot/flaming shank. Now that they've returned, I was able to take a spore print and double check with field guides to be sure.

And they are! So now I've got some really lovely winter mushrooms growing thirty feet from my back door, and I'm ready to experiment with them. Luke is too nervous to eat them (and even doesn't want me to), but I did my research and am confident, so I'll probably cook some up in a stir fry for one.

Little Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky

I just love these human landscapes in southwestern Florida (found here):





This one's my favorite- it reminds me of dandelion seeds blowing away:

I'm glad I live in a world where Google Earth exists. Have you ever used Global Genie? I like to spend a couple minutes every day looking at the streets of places I'll probably never get to go.