Happy St. Pattie's Day

Hello again. Big day for us today. First off, it's St. Patrick's Day. Second, it's the first home match for our MLS club, Sounders FC. Chrissie and I are season ticket holders and enthusiastic Sounders fans. If you'll forgive my brief aside, I would highly encourage everyone to go to a soccer game in person. Watching it on television really doesn't do it justice. Going to a game in person really is a lot of fun.

Anyway, in honor of St. Pattie's Day, we made an Irish Stew from a friend's blog. You can find the recipe here. Now, I've never had much luck with Crock Pots, but a lot of people swear by them, so I keep trying to find recipes that work for me. I did not successfully execute this recipe. Instead of cooking the stew on the low setting, I cooked it on the high setting (for the entire time). Now, I did this intentionally. I've cooked Crock Pot recipes in the past where I was told to cook something on the low setting only to come back to find that my dish did not cook at all. So, I've come to interpret "cook on low" to "cook on high." Not the case here. The author really means cook on low.

Not all was lost though. The dish was very forgiving and instead of a stew, we ended up with something more like a hash and it was still tasty. Here's a picture of the final results:

Not too bad looking either.

Chrissie and I are looking forward to entertaining you all with stories of our outside adventures soon. We just have to wait for the weather to let up. It's been precipitating in one form or another every day for the past two weeks, so as soon as things dry out, we'll be out there digging in the dirt again. Until next time!

My Willow

I've loved willow trees since I was young. The giant weeping willows in the park were just so grandiose. They're the kind of presence that makes even a little kid sit up and recognize that maybe the world is a little bigger and a little older than they are.

Our yard is far too small for a giant lake-side weeping willow, but when it dawned on me that there was any potential for me to finally have a willow of my own (as a part of our backyard rehabilitation project) I became a girl on a mission. So, naturally, I turned to google.

My first search was for dwarf willow trees. They are lovely, but I was semi-shocked that any willow tree existed that would reach a maximum height of 1 - 6 centimeters. A 1 centimeter tree? Really? Helo would destroy that before it even hit the ground.

Then I did some reading that suggested that some willows can be maintained as relatively small trees with diligent pruning. That sounded more like it.

I found a picture of a beautiful golden curls willow and headed to the nursery.

As luck would have it, they didn't have my type of willow tree. For a while, it appeared the only willow they had was a pussy willow. Not quite was I was looking for. Happily, the staff came to the rescue and guided Aaron and I to a cousin of my beloved golden willow - the scarlet curls willow tree. The difference? In the winter, we'll have gorgeous red branches. Double win!

So, as you can see above, I am now the happy owner of a newly planted scarlet curls willow. Anyone want to suggest names for my new friend?

Chili, REAL Chili

I made some chili this week for the first time. It was an amalgamation of recipes and stuff I had picked up. Not much else to say except that it was pretty tasty, and now, I share it with you.

Recipe:
2 Tbsp butter
2 medium onions, sliced (if you want them smaller, dice them)
1 lb ground beef
A 20 ounce can of tomatoes
2 ounces of tomato paste
1/3 cup of beer or ale
1 tsp of salt
A dash of tobasco
1-2 Tbsp of chili powder

Mix & Match ingredients below to your taste. I used them all in these ratios.
1 fresh or dried chili, seeded, stemmed, and minced
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground oregeno
A dash of cinnamon

Here's a picture of the motley crew:

Things you'll note - no beans. I am told that real chili doesn't have beans in it. I decided to try it this way for my first time. I've had chili both ways and have enjoyed them both. If you want beans, use them. Not being a purist, I won't look down on you. I believe 2 cups of beans equivalates to 1 pound of meat. You'll have to figure the rest out on your own though. In the spirit of full disclosure though, I like the all-meat version better.

The rice cooker in the background is cooking long grain rice. I served the chili over it. For those of you who don't know, rice cookers can cook any type of rice. Each rice cooker is a little different. They all require slightly different amounts of water to get the rice just right. You'll have to experiment with yours to find out how much to put in exactly. My rice cooker is made by Zojirushi and my experience with it, and other Asian brands, has been to use slightly less water than what the rice maker calls for. Oh, another helpful tip - rinse the rice before cooking. That eliminates all the dust in there with it. You can't see it until you add water, then you'll see the water get cloudy. I rinse my rice twice before cooking. It doesn't eliminate all of the dust, but I don't think you ever will. Your rice will taste much better.

Process:

Melt butter in a large pan or pot over medium heat. After it gets hot, saute the onion until it is tender, but not brown. Then add the meat. Break up the meat with a fork. After the meat has browned, add in everything else. Turn the heat to low, cover your pot, and cook at a simmer for an hour. Here's another picture!

After that, it's ready to serve. Easy-peasy! Here's a picture of the final product.

I hope you all enjoy this. If you know of other chili recipes out there, I would love to hear about them and incorporate them into my recipe. Anyway, happy eating!

For the love of Pinterest

I tried to stay away from Pinterest. Really, I did. I knew it would just be another site that would encourage me to spend countless hours staring at a screen. But it's just so darn full of interesting ideas. And pretty clothes. And tasty food.

Yeah, I've been sucked in.

One of the earliest ideas I found there were these coasters. Aaron and I have been searching for coasters for quite a while (in the meantime, we haven't used any. How uncivilized!) and I knew instantly that these were right up our alley. But, like many of the projects we get excited by, we threw it on the to-do list and promptly forgot about it.

Until today. The nice thing about Pinterest is that it makes it harder for me to forget all the exciting ideas that I find, since I log in pretty much every day and they're sitting there staring me in the face. (Sadly, it also reminds me of all the clothes I can't buy. C'est la vie.) We had some free time this morning, so we headed off to the store and picked up a cheap copy of Scrabble.

Then came the tricky part. It's actually semi-difficult to come up with 4-5 nicely themed coasters using all four letter words and only the tiles in one scrabble set. We cheated and a couple of the coasters have three letter words followed by a blank tile.

Once we were content with our chosen vocabulary, we broke out the wood glue and had at it. So far, we haven't backed ours with cork like the ones on the site. We're still considering whether we want/need to do that. Which meant that we had to glue ours together by connecting the tiles themselves.

I have to say, Scrabble tiles may have a quality control problem. It's easy enough to ignore that they're slightly differently sized and not quite square when playing with them on a gameboard. It's entirely different when you're trying to form an even 4x4 tile object out of 16 of them. Looking back at the original site, I guess I can see why they chose to place them on cork instead, and we may still do something similar to make sure they don't break. We'll see. For now, they just have little gaps in them. It gives them character. (Right? Imperfection is always character building.) And they're a little quirky. Just like us.

Happy Valentines Day!

Fast & Loose Beef Bourguignon

I made my beef stew again this weekend. It's definitely one of my staple dishes and has a lot of the things that I like about food: slow cooked, one-pot-meal, homey. I'd like to share it with you all today. The original can be found in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" under Boeuf Bourguignon. No, nothing is so sacred that it can't be modified. My version of the recipe - Fast & Loose Beef Bourguignon.

Cook Time: 3-4 hours. Feeds 6 (although Chrissie and I have stretched that out longer)

Tools:
1 Dutch Oven
1 Pair of Tongs
1 Spatula
Maybe one extra pot for boiling water

Ingredients:
1 6 ounce chunk of bacon - try to find a chunk that has not been sliced.
Olive Oil
3 pounds of stewing beef - It's best to find a Rump Roast or a Chuck Roast to cut up. Sirloin Tip, Top Round, or Bottom Round will do also. For the sake of everything good in the world, make sure you find a moist piece of beef. There's nothing more sad than eating a dry piece of beef in a stew.
4+ carrots - depending on how wabbity you're feeling
1 onion
1 3+ pound bag of baby potatoes - whatever you want
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 Tb flour
1 bottle of full-bodied, young red wine
2-3 cups of beef stock
1 Tb tomato paste
2 cloves mashed garlic
1/2 tsp thyme
1 crumpled bay leaf
Parsley sprigs for garnishment

Putting It All Together:

Cup up the beef into pieces about 1 inch long on each side. Dry the pieces.

Slice 1 carrot. Cut the rest into chunks.

Slice the onion.

Cut up the bacon chunk into slices about 1.5 inches long and 1/4 inch thick. Remove the rind from the bacon. If you got salty bacon, simmer it (rind and all) for 10 minutes in water using that extra pot you got out. When that's done, set the bacon chunks and rind apart from each other.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. Your oven probably does something a little different than what you actually tell it to do. Mine likes to cook about 10 degrees cooler than what I tell it to do. Set a rack in the middle of the oven.

Heat your Dutch oven over medium heat on your stove. Put 1 Tb olive oil in and saute the bacon chunks in there for 2-3 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Brown all the sides of your beef in the bacon fat. Were your pieces totally dry? I hope so, this is where it really counts. Browning is best executed when your pieces are dry. I use tongs here, but anything that will keep you from burning your hand will work. I also tend to run out of cooking fat at this stage, so I add in more olive oil (another Tb) whenever I do. Set aside all of your browned pieces.

Once that's done, add in your sliced carrot and onion. Get them brown.

Put the beef and bacon chunks back in. Add the salt, pepper, and flour. Toss the mixture to coat all the beef lightly with flour. Take your Dutch oven and place it in the oven (uncovered). After 4 minutes, toss the mixture, and cook for another 4 minutes. This browns the flour and covers the meat in a light crust.

Remove the Dutch oven and set your oven for 325 degrees F. Reset the rack to the lower third of your oven.

Pour the bottle of wine into the Dutch oven. Then add your beef stock until the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs, and bacon rind. Bring to a simmer on the stove, then cover it and stick it in the oven. Regulate the heat so that the liquid simmers very slowly for 2.5-3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.

While you're waiting for the beef, peel your potatoes. Cut up large sized ones. After your meat has been cooking for an hour add your potatoes and mix up the stew. After another half-an-hour, add your carrot chunks.

Optional: When your stew is done, separate the solid bits from the broth and skim off any fat. Then simmer the sauce for a minute or two, skimming off additional fat as it rises. Test your broth with a spoon - it should be thick enough to coat it lightly. If it's too thin, boil it down rapidly. If it's too thick, mix in a few Tb's of stock.

I've finished the stew without the last step before and it's tasted great.

Check seasoning, garnish with parsley and serve with noddles, rice, or bread.

Voila!

Backyard Rehabilitation

Our backyard has been in pretty sad shape since we moved in. The soil is primarily clay and when we do manage to dig through sections, we discover all kinds of fun left to us from the previous owner of this property. (Our house is a new development of several houses on a patch of land that used to be just one home with a giant yard). I'm pretty sure that our yard must have been home to some sort of garage or shop where somebody worked on machines and cars. We've found random screws and nails, rusted out hinges, random scraps of cloth, and even an oil filter buried back there. There's still a tarp that's fairly deep stuck in the ground near the back. Helo's having a grand time attempting to uncover it.

Little by little, we're trying to reclaim the space and make it both usable and healthy again. Grass has been a struggle for us in a few areas of the yard both because of a lack of sunshine and a dig-happy puppy, so we're contemplating some new approaches this year. Our hope is that by late summer we'll be well on our way.

This is what we're starting from:

This is the side of our house. The large hole is courtesy of Helo.

Side of the back. Our currently dormant veggie garden, some Helo landscaping, and lots of branches thanks to recent stormy days. Our herbs are also hanging out back here until it gets warmer and we can move them to the front where there's more sun.

The middle of the back. A little more of Helo's handiwork, and some struggling grass.

The other side of the back. There used to be a Peony in the back corner, but it wasn't super happy and I guess Helo didn't want it to suffer.

Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. The first project we have in mind is building a small storage space under our deck (not pictured) for our gardening supplies, reminiscent of this one. After that, we're considering creating a small patio space in the area that Helo most loves to dig, since it's super difficult to get grass to grow there anyway. Beyond that, we're not entirely sure yet, but ideas are flowing and we'd love to hear yours!