Month-o-Salads in Review February 2, 2010

We’ve sort of decided to extend the month of salads indefinitely, it was so enjoyable (and hopefully healthy, too). But we’ll be very loose about it (so I suppose the decision is to just eat MORE salads, not only salads).  Among other non-salad foods, I’ve been anxious to try some new pad thai recipes (if anyone has a good one, please send it my way!)

In any case, here are some salads we tried, with commentary:

The fennel salad: Fennel bulb and fronds, arugula, toasted pecans, gorgonzola, and red grapes (from Cooks Illustrated)
More appropriately: THE fennel salad. It was our first salad this January, and we knew it would be the best, without even tasting the others. Because it did indeed win the best salad award, we’re putting the recipe below.

Celery root, pear, and toasted hazelnuts
This was decent, but turns out that it’s just glorified coleslaw, which is not exactly what you want for dinner, if you’re eating just one thing.

Spinach salad with roasted hazelnuts, pear, and gorgonzola
With K’s vinaigrette, or just a storebought vinaigrette

Spinach with pecans, dried cranberries, and blue cheese
An old standby

Salade Nicoise
Always a favorite. We loosely use the Joy of Cooking version.

Arugula with finely chopped bittersweet chocolate and pistachios, with a sherry vinaigrette (from A Homemade Life)
We – especially C – had not-so-high expectations for this, but I saw the recipe and wanted to try it). Turned out it was excellent  – the subtle sweet of the chocolate balance out the spice of the arugula and the tang of the sherry vinegar.

Arugula with sugared pistachios, orange, and feta, with a light vinaigrette with fresh mint (from Cook’s Illustrated)
This was an outstanding salad, second only to The Fennel Salad. Perhaps because they both came from Cook’s Illustrated?  Be warned, though – the sugared pistachios are addictive, and perhaps the next big ice cream topping.

Some salads on our list for the next month:

Steak salad with miso dressing (an old favorite)
Caesar salad with homemade caesar dressing
A new version of the celery root salad, a la Bon Appetit
Grapefruit and avocado salad (all the better to use with our new grapefruit knife!)
Spinach salad with avocado, toasted almonds, and oranges

THE Fennel Salad (otherwise known as Arugula Salad with Grapes, Fennel, Gorgonzola, and Pecans, from Cook’s Illustrated)

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. apricot or peach jam (or honey)
• 4.5 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
• 4.5 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium shallot, minced very fine (approx. 2 Tbsp.)
• Salt and pepper
• 1 small fennel bulb, cored and trimmed of stalks, and sliced very thin (approx. 1.5 cups); fronds chopped coarse (approx. 6 Tbsp.)
• 8 oz. arugula
• 9 oz. red seedless grapes (approx. 1.5 cups)
• 5 oz. gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (approx. 1.25 cups)
• 3/4 c. chopped pecans, toasted

Whisk jam, vinegar, oil, shallot, 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a large bowl. Toss the fennel with the vinaigrette; let sit for 15 minutes. Add arugula, fennel frond, and grapes to mixture; toss. Put salad in bowls/plates and serve.  Enjoy!

Friday Five January 29, 2010

1. Last Sunday, I went to see a Stanford Women’s Gymnastics meet with a few friends…it was a lot of fun, and Stanford edged out UCLA for the win. There were a ridiculous number of little girls in princess dresses, which made it even more entertaining!
2. With a light workload, I’ve enjoyed some fascinating non-fiction reading this week: The Center Cannot Hold and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. C has moved on from his book about auction theory and is taking a stab at Beloved.  One of his favorite authors, Sanlinger, died earlier this week, so he is looking forward to the time (probably in several years) when Salinger’s papers are released.
3. My office now officially knows that we’re headed East in June, which makes leaving our home here seem much more real and imminent. We’d better get working on our list!
4. Countdown to the Winter Olympics: 14 days to go!  TV, procured. Working on finding an antenna for the TV…
5. We’re looking forward to a very tasty meal with friends from our bible study up in San Francisco tomorrow night. The restaurant’s so popular that the earliest reservations we could get were 9:45pm!

Splish splash January 21, 2010

I know that since I am from Seattle, I should be used to rain. But this is SOME RAIN. In Seattle, it really only drizzles. These last two days, the rain has been coming down so hard that it bounces when it hits the ground (but it is not hail, I swear!) And then it creates waves that cascade across the street and down the road.

The thunder was so loud that the car alarms were going off throughout the morning.

And the puddles. Many of them have begun to morph into lakes. Certainly deep enough to wash one’s hair in. Growing up, the concrete the driveway in front of our home was not quite level, and so each winter, a large puddle that we named “Lake Andersen” appeared (and would usually stick around well into the spring months). The Lake Andersen of Seattle is no longer, since there’s a new driveway – but it turns out that C and I have a lake of our own (for which I’ve appropriated the name Lake Andersen), right outside our front door.

Lake Andersen

On my way to work (at least we had power this morning!)

Mahjong and other weekend fun January 18, 2010

Last weekend, C and I went on an adventure up to Chinatown in SF in search of a mahjong set (which we were hoping to get our friend J for Christmas). Mahjong is sort of a combination between dominoes and gin rummy. We found a set, and had lots of other fun poking around all of the shops and restaurants. We drank boba, ate steamed pork buns, and tried on funny hats.

C with his bubble tea

K and the Maoist hat

This weekend, we’ve been having fun learning to play mahjong, although there are a lot of rules…we have a ways to go!

Also, yesterday afternoon I tried my hand at making Kristiana Kringler, a Swedish New Year’s almond pastry that we didn’t have a chance to enjoy in Seattle over Christmas.  There’s room for improvement, but all in all it was a success – it was all gone within 20 minutes at a get together we went to yesterday evening.

Earthquake! January 7, 2010

We just felt an earthquake!  It was an itty-bitty one (the perfect size, really – just enough to feel and know it’s definitely an earthquake, but not so large as to be scary).  Here’s the info about it:

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc71336726.htm
UPDATE: For those of you in earthquake territory, I just learned from my co-worker that keeping shoes under your bed is an important piece of earthquake preparedness. Apparently in many earthquakes, one of the most common injuries is cuts on people’s feet from the broken glass once they get out of bed after the quake (if the quake happens while they’re asleep).

Month-o-Salads January 4, 2010

After eating incredibly tasty but very rich food throughout December, we decided it was time to lighten up our diet. So we’ve proclaimed January a month of salads. We will likely eat other things, as well, but the goal is for the majority of our dinners to be vegetable-based salads of some sort or another. Yesterday I filled the fridge with all sorts of produce and the cupboard with all sorts of nuts to keep the salad-meals interesting. We’ll keep a tally and post the list of salads we have concocted (along with any new dressing discoveries) at the end of the month.

In the meantime, here’s my go-to vinaigrette recipe:

1 small tablespoon mustard (have used both dijon and sweeter mustards, like honey and sweet onion)
1 small tablespoon brown sugar or honey
1 minced or crushed clove of garlic
some salt
some ground pepper
1 (large) tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar (or regular balsamic)
2 tablespoons olive oil

I usually put all the ingredients in a small jar, seal the lid tight, and shake it like crazy until it has emulsified.

2009: The Year in Hamburgers December 31, 2009

In honor of K’s favorite food (since she was 3), we thought that taking a look back to the burgers we’ve eaten this year would be a fun way to recap 2009.

In March, in Washington, DC, we had tasty burgers (and shakes) at Good Stuff Eatery. On the way home from DC, in the Atlanta airport, we also enjoyed the chance to try out Krystal burgers.

K had a fancy-shmancy and very tasty birthday burger at the Village Pub (complete with homemade pickles and duck fat fries). And, her birthday present from C was a Weber, so we can grill our own burgers (see a few home recipes below).

We celebrated C’s birthday at our place, grilling burgers, drinking sangria, and playing horseshoes (and watching fireworks).

Throughout the year, we enjoyed burgers as well as beer and fellowship on Thursday nights with friends from church at the Dutch Goose and the Oasis (local watering holes) – and at Antonio’s Nuthouse before they changed up the menu.

In-n-Out is a common stop when running errands (especially for K), and on California road trips to Merced, SLO/Santa Barbara, and Carmel (those who know the area might realize from that list of destinations that we’re giving the Gilroy In-n-Out especially good business).

To close out the year, this week in Dallas we had a chance to experience fine burgers at the fine Texas establishment: Braum’s. We were sad to miss a chance to visit the Dairymart in Pottsboro, TX and eat hamburgers there…maybe in 2010!

Finally, we wanted to share just a few favorite burgers-at-home from this past year:

• Alton Brown’s “grind your own beef” burger
• Chipotle Pork Cheeseburgers
• Not exactly a burger, but we love the fresh-baked buns from the Mayfield Bakery & Cafe (still looking for our own not-too-complicated recipe)

UPDATE: After reading this post, C’s Aunt Sherry thought it was only appropriate that we close out our year with a burger – so on December 31 we had lunch at a very fun little drive-in/burger joint in Dallas, the Dairy-ette. The burgers were indeed tasty, and they had root beer in frosted mugs.  What fun!

Merry Christmas! December 25, 2009

Here’s a poem that was read last night at our Christmas Eve service:

The risk of birth Madeleine L’Engle

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war and hate
And a nova lighting the sky to warn
That time runs out and the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour and truth were trampled by scorn-
Yet here did the savior make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by greed and pride the sky is torn-
yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

Fun in PNW December 24, 2009

We’ve had a fun week up in the Northwest – first K’s birthday party in Portland, an overnight at her house, and a chance to go to her church and wander around Portland.  How good to see an old friend. Kind of like french fries are a great vehicle for salt and ketchup, walking is a great vehicle for catching up.

Here’s us at the craft fair we wandered around (“The Festival of the Last Minute”):

Goofin' around...

 

Sunday night C and I took the train up to Seattle. It’s been pretty low-key, but we did get a chance to go to Pike Place (and of course get donuts); taste wine; and visit the long-talked-about La Carta de Oaxaca (which brought back memories of our 2004 Christmas adventures in Oaxaca).

Also, we finally waited out the line at Salumi. We’ve been once before, but gave up on the line (that wraps partway around the block). This time, we braved the cold and the line (which ended up being a 40 minute wait).  We decided it was worth it once – the meat was great - but might not always be worth the wait (on the other hand, we think we figured out the secret to not waiting).

Other than this, we’ve mostly been around the house, getting ready for the Scandinavian Smorgasbord (tonight), watching the Wire, and listening to The Statler Brother’s Christmas Album (the best Christmas album ever, to my mind).

C and I in line at Salumi

C's long-awaited meat plate

 

P chowing down on the mole (salami) mozzarella sandwich

SoCal December 18, 2009

C and I went down to LA last weekend, to go to a wedding. We had a great time – the wedding was beautiful and lots of fun, and we were also able to catch up with some of C’s friends from Nerd College (the fact that C rarely reads this gives me the freedom to say this…)  I got to see said institution for the first time (below is us on campus).  The most interesting thing about the brief tour I took was the incongruity between the beautiful, stately campus and the zombie-like (and very nerdy) students walking around. A colleague of mine mentioned a similiar incongruity – he read that a famous physicist from Caltech frequetly went to a strip club near campus to work on equations (or whatever it is that physicists do).

We’re heading out tomorrow for a fun-filled two weeks of Christmas: first in Portland, then Seattle, then Dallas, then San Diego (K) and Atlanta (C).  A merry Christmas to all!