Auld Lang Syne

I have a fascination with time. I find myself feeling incredibly bound by it, yet also being fully aware of just how arbitrary it is. But it helps us to mark significant events in our lives and to occasionally pause to remember them. So, in true form to New Year's Eve tradition, we'd both like to present you with our year in review.

Accomplishments (in no particular order)

• We made our own cheese for the first time. And it's pretty good!
• Our furry friend Colton is no longer obese. (We didn't talk about that here, but he was. Quite.)
• Aaron tried his hand at charcuterie and makes the best burger patties ever. Seriously.
• Our repertoire of Italian food expanded: homemade pizza and pasta wreaked havoc on our waistlines.
• Gardening in our victory garden.
• Chrissie started taking graduate non-matriculated classes.
• We started this blog!
• The dogs lamented that we saved all our chicken bones to make stock for the first time.
• Green tomatoes became our friends.
• Chrissie was able to introduce Aaron to her Parisian grandmother before she passed away.
• Aaron returned to his childhood love of gaming.
• We ran a 5k together.
• 1.5 pounds of carrots were harvested from our garden. (To really understand why this is a major accomplishment, see this and this).
• We learned a little about being locavores.
• Our niece and nephews are completely indoctrinated into Harry Potter fandom.

Trials

• Our poor, fireblighted Charlie Brown tree
• We faced the realities of life and death. We'll miss you grandmama.
• Brine. Enough said.
• We discovered that locavorianism is hard.
• Helo's attempts at yard work. (More on that to come.)
• We tried to grow shallots. We probably should have just stuck with garlic.
• Helo taught us some of the joys of homeownership with his beautiful carvings on the windowsills.
• We never had enough time.

Goals for 2012

• Attempt homemade vinegar.
• Post more frequently.
• Make sauerkraut from scratch.
• Learn French.
• Thin the carrots!
• Discover more new recipes to fold into our regular repertoire.
• Stay involved in music.

There's probably a lot more that we could put in any of those given categories, but those are the highlights. We wish all of you out there the best possible year in 2012, and please feel free to share your thoughts with us anytime!

Roast Beef Sandwiches

Happy Holidays, all! I hope everyone has been enjoying the season's festivities. Goodness knows we have. I think that this may finally be the year I fully come to understand the toxicology of sugar. The dose makes the poison! And I'm happy to admit that I'm ready to settle back into our more well rounded non-holiday diet. Starting with Roast Beef Sandwiches!

Aaron already mentioned that he loves making hearty stews and roasts during the Winter, but we're only two people and we don't consume a whole lot of meat in any one sitting so it's important for us to find a variety of ways to consume his creations. Recently, he made a pot roast. In our sugar-induced stupor yesterday, we decided to cut it up for some sandwiches.

We used our George Foreman grill to make them as paninis and in addition to the deglazed sauce Aaron made with the meat itself (he's amazing at deglazing things. Wonderful for the tastebuds, horrible for the waistline.) we added some of our homemade sharp cheddar (a post will come on that one day.) and some dijon mustard to Aaron's. The result was simple but incredibly tasty. So tasty that we made them again today:

I know my system was greatly appreciative of the protein and other nutrients that it's been largely lacking as of late. Though that didn't stave of the comfy-food coma.

What are your favorite things to do with holiday and roast type leftovers?

Winter

Winter kind of has me down a little bit. It's dark when I go to work in the morning; it's dark when I get back home. It's really cold, so I don't want to do anything outside. That means I have to get creative and come up with things to do inside. It also means my favorite cuisine is in season - slow cookin'. I love slow cooked foods. They make me feel cozy. Braised something, something. Blah, blah stew. Miscellaneous roast. For the next few posts, I'll put up some recipes that have been really successful for me. They come from a cookbook and I augment them a little bit.

In other news, I finally found a cheap glass jar with a spigot. It was at Cost Plus World Market. Figures. We find everything at that place. Furniture, food, knick-knacks, etc. The way it always happens is that Chrissie and/or I will scour the greater Seattle area looking for just the right _________. Then we stumble on into Cost Plus for some totally different reason and happen upon the _________ that we were looking for all this time.

You'd think that after all this time, we would have learned that we should just start our shopping there, but that hasn't quite sunk in yet.

Now all I have to do is find a "mother" for my vinegar and I can get going on making it!

Operation Stair Climb

We've all heard it. "Just take the stairs" is a typical comment from people when us couch potatoes whine about trying to find free and easy ways to get in shape. On the other hand, my Jillian Michael's workout video tells me that's a false message of lethargy. Well, no offense to Jillian since I truly believe that she's incredible at what she does, but in the right context "just" taking the stairs can be a decently intense workout.

A couple of weeks ago my co-workers approached me with the idea that we should use one of our breaks to go climb the stairs in the tallest wing of our building. The concept appealed to me on multiple fronts. 1) It would get me away from my computer. I'm one of those people who, unless given a compelling reason, spends most of my breaks continuing to stare at my screen. 2) It's a free and convenient way to involve fitness in my day. 3) There are other people involved to keep me accountable.

I should mention, the tallest wing of our building happens to be 19 stories. We've calculated it to be somewhere in the range of 390 steps.

So we began. We're all at different fitness levels, so within a few flights we had started to separate with our speedy rabbit at a near jog and our couch potatoes (yours truly) huffing and puffing at the rear. I'll admit, that first day I was already hating myself for agreeing to such a massochistic activity by the time we reached the fourth floor. (Actually, that would be the fifth flight. Our building likes to call the basement "-1"). By the 19th flight I thought my lungs were going to burst out of my chest. I was clutching the handrail the entire way down for fear that my legs would give out from under me and I would roll in an uncontrollable heap to the bottom. When I got back to my office (just 15 minutes later) my legs were trembling in a major way. I felt pretty pathetic.

But it's getting better. I don't start cursing the jerk who created stairwells until the 10th floor or so now. And it only feels like someone is stabbing my lungs with a pitchfork for a minute or so. As horrible as it sounds still, it's nice to see progress.

Maybe one day I'll be as crazy as these guys and compete in the Empire State Building Run-Up. But I doubt it.

Update

Hey gang, back again with a short update. Life has been busy, so that has made it hard for us to plan fun things to post about. We promise though, as soon as things calm down again, we'll have fun things to post!


First, we can talk about Thanksgiving. Chrissie and I always do Thanksgiving at our place. It's the holiday that we consider "ours." Some perks to this: we don't have to go anywhere and we can make whatever we want. When was the last time we had turkey for Thanksgiving? Three years ago. I'll confess, I don't miss it. Turkey is fine, but it's not my favorite.  Our main meat this year was prime rib. We try and mix it up year to year, and this year we splurged a bit. If you were wondering, prime rib is good.

Thanksgiving went well. We made a plan of attack and didn't run into any hitches. That's probably the biggest recommendation I can give anyone who's preparing a large meal - make a plan. That way, you make the most of your resources. For us this year, it was managing four burners, one oven, and time.

Other things I've been working on, I'm still looking for glass jars to start making vinegar, but nothing in my price range has been popping up. Funny fact, thrift/second-hand stores don't sell everything at a super discount. Some things, like glass jars, are about the same price used as new. It makes sense, glass doesn't go old, but disappointing.

Anyway, that's it for now. Will try to post again soon!

Snickerdoodle Muffins

Many months ago I spotted a recipe on the web for snickerdoodle muffins and I got very excited. They looked positively delicious. Snickerdoodles rank high in my love of all things cookie, so transforming them into something that is socially acceptable to eat for breakfast sounded positively ingenious. I was so excited that I forgot to bookmark the page.

My only memory of the recipe was that it used cinnamon chips so I figured I would track those down before scouring google to find the recipe again. It took a fairly good while to find the chips, I guess they're a relatively seasonal offering. (note to self: stock up!) When I finally tracked them down, I came home happily with visions of sugary goodness in my head.

But I couldn't find the recipe. I found many similar recipes for similar muffins, but the version that had piqued my excitement months ago was apparently lost in the depths of the interwebs. My love of snickerdoodle prevailed, however, and I decided to come up with a recipe of my own. They turned out wonderfully, a cinnamony-sugary concoction that grazed the line between snickerdoodle and coffee cake. The cinnamon chips surprised me by melting into the muffin batter when they were baked, adding dots of sweetness rather than crunch. While originally I'd been hoping for the texture of the chip, I loved the way it turned out. My breakfast for the week was saved and yours can be too:


Snickerdoodle Muffins

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk*
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 pckg cinnamon chips
Cinnamon topping

*I ran low on milk and ended up using about half milk, half heavy cream. Cream can do no harm, right? That's what I thought.

Cinnamon Topping
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease your muffin pan. In a good sized bowl, combine your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt). In another bowl, combine your egg, milk, and vegetable oil. Add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until just moistened. Stir in the cinnamon chips.

Fill the muffin cups about 2/3 full then dust lightly with cinnamon topping. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until the muffins look golden brown.

Makes 12 muffins

Sick

Another week has gone by and Chrissie and I still aren't totally back on the blogging horse. The culprit this time was that both of us were sick. A lot was left undone around the house, but we're on the mend now and hope to be more productive soon. This did get me thinking about an interesting blog post though: Home Remedies. I know a couple that I'll share here and if any of you readers know of any, please let us know about them in the comments section!

Aaron's Asian Family Remedy for Sore Throats: The Salt Water Gargle. Fill up half of mug of warm water. Put about 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt in it. You can totally guestimate on the amount of salt. Stir. Drink a little, gargle, and spit out. Do this a few times. It's not pleasant, but I guarantee your throat will feel better!

Aaron's Dad's Remedy for Colds: Garlic Soup. Take 3 cloves of garlic and 6 sprigs of green onion. Throw them in a small pot with 1 cup of water. Boil liquid and reduce to half a cup. Drink the liquid. I've tried this and it tastes nasty. Unfortunately, I can't really say much to its effectiveness. My dad swears by it though.

Aaron's Asian Family Remedy for Heat Stroke: No clever name. Get some cool water. Get a porcelain spoon or bowl. Dip the spoon/bowl in the water and gently drag the edge of the spoon/bowl along the patient's shoulders. Aim for right behind the tops of the shoulders. Redip the spoon/bowl in the water when it gets hard to drag. Another good location to drag is along the muscles that go up & down with the spine, both sides. Then, have your patient go an lay down for a while. I've done it, I've had it done to me before and swear by it!

Chinese culture is awash with herbal remedies for things. It's something that I have interest in learning, but don't have the time to put into learning it right now. One thing that I think is really positive about Eastern medicine is that it strengthens your own body's ability to heal & fight disease, whereas Western Medicine is more geared towards finding and exterminating the offending organism. If you're interested in giving them a try - pop into your local Chinese apothecary/herbalist and they can whip up a concoction for you. My disclaimer - it will taste nasty, but it will work. I still remember how nasty my Grandma's Bloody-Nose-Soup-Remedy tasted, but hell, it worked.