Bien Rica

In addition to meals, in the last two days, the members of my house have made yogurt, cucumber lemonade, multiple varieties of hummus, gazpacho, dried apples, and more.

I think we've settled on an appropriate name for the house: Casa Bien Rica. Stop by for food sometime.

As found in Nebraska...

Felice sent me this grocery list:

i found the following grocery list in FoodPride on A St.:

3- 8oz pkg cream cheese

1 Envelope Ranch dressing

Lime jello sm

mini marsh - multi

1 No2 can crushed pine

Mayo

1 c Nuts

1 Cool whip

Migas Breakfast

Love it when I wake up early enough to make a breakfast rather than just having a bowl of cereal. Recent kick: migas.

Take a couple corn tortillas, cut into strips, and toss into an omelet pan with a bit of olive oil. Add 2-3 eggs -- the ones from Common Good Farm are amazing right now that the chickens are eating all sorts of fresh greens -- and fry up. The beauty of having the tortilla in there is that making perfect over-easy eggs becomes almost too challenging to be worth it, and the whole mixture tastes great with the egg binding the tortilla strips together, so you just cook the mess until the eggs aren't too runny.

Serve with fresh greens -- mine are from Shadowbrook Farm -- cilantro, salsa, cheese if you like.

Delicious!

Kick-That-Cold Miso

It's been awhile since I've posted a recipe...

After a busy day at work where what started as a minor sniffle slowly elevated to a full-on head cold, I came home both exhausted and motivated to try to kick the cold in the ass. I'm so backlogged with stuff to edit and looming deadlines that I can't afford to be sick for long. Miso to the rescue!

I remembered my very talented college roommate Marika, whose Japanese mother sent her care packages with instant packets, swearing by miso soup as the surefire cure for any ailment, particularly a bad cold. Fast-forward from instant packets to full-blown and elaborate soups with daikon ribbons and carefully simmered onions, introduced to me by my friend Brett's friend Megumi, whom he met while studying in Tokyo. Tonight, I needed something in between.

Kick-That-Cold Miso

1-2 Tbsp. sesame oil
4 cloves of garlic, whole
2 c. vegetable broth
1/3 c. seaweed/mushroom/leek mix
1 heaping Tbsp. red miso paste
1/4 c. vegetable broth*

1 bundle soba or udon noodles

Extra salt or tamari to taste.


In a medium-sized pot, bring enough water to boil to cook noodles. Meanwhile, cover the bottom of a medium-sized saucepan with sesame oil. Sprinkle in a little coarse sea salt, heat, and add the whole garlic cloves, searing over medium-high heat and stirring frequently. Once the garlic has started to brown and looks kind of deep-fried, carefully add 2 cups of vegetable broth and reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the the dried seaweed, and cook gently until the dried mushrooms in the mix have softened. In a separate bowl, dissolve the miso paste into the remaining 1/4 c. of vegetable broth. When your noodles have finished cooking, turn off the heat on the stock and stir in the miso.

Makes two good-sized bowls to feed the cold of one or the starting course for two.


*I highly recommend making your own vegetable stock -- it's so easy and practically free! Save up vegetable peelings, ends of onions, stems, etc. in the freezer until you have a nice containerful. Put these in a large stockpot with an equal amount of water, and add peppercorns, bay leaves, or other herbs. Bring to a low boil and simmer for several hours, strain, and salt if desired. Experimenting with different veggie scrap combinations is fun -- if you use beets, you can make pink broth!

Who Knew?

I just discovered canned dolmas. They're on special right now at Open Harvest, and became an impulse buy for me Saturday. I thought there would be no way they'd compete with fresh, restaurant-made ones, but holy wow, they're yummy.

In other news, I'm spending my little employee benefit of a state holiday working on my Pecha Kucha presentation.


Hope to see you at the Bourbon Theatre on the 24th!

Joke

Mom took me to lunch at Maggie's yesterday before she headed to the Community Blood Bank. Ah, the retired life. Above, a delicious seasonal/local roasted veggie wrap. Below, gazpacho, also deliciously local.


When she dropped me off back at my office, I wished her luck with the vampires.

Elisabeth: Have fun with the vampires.
Jane: You know, it's something good I can do that doesn't require brains.
Elisabeth: Yeah, that's the zombies.
Jane: (pausing for a moment) (laughter) Good one!

Late Night Greens

Whilst prepping & packing for Colorado (4:30 AM departure from Lincoln with Ms. Reddy to meet Ms. Hepburn in Ft. Collins), I made some killer garlic scape pesto with scapes from my neighbor Rich's yard. I used pistachios as the nut of choice, and pecorino romano & parmesan to cheese it up.


Bread from Le Quartier complimented nicely.


I put off the packing for too long, and once I finished that, I needed some more fortification. Late night rainbow chard from the farm!

Annals of Cooking: Peas!

I had both snow peas and regular snap peas from the farm, so I flash-fried them with some garlic scapes from my neighbor Rich, and added some soba noodles and sesame oil to round it out.

The best thing right now is that when I take out the compost, the black raspberries that grow right by the compost pile are really ripe. Nice dessert!

Macro Food

I've been eating well recently...

Le Quartier pizza crust with a sautéed portabella & caramelized onions, fresh tomato, Parmesan & pecorino romano.


Strawberry from Princeton Produce, consumed with Le Quartier bread, Branched Oak Farm Quark, and Shadowbrook Farm pea shoots while watching the Capital City Criterium.


"Cheesecake" made with shortbread, sweetened quark, and fresh strawberries.


Roasted beet, arugula & chèvre sandwich with a cup of Cultiva coffee at thé Cup.

Cats vs. Dogs

Friday evening, post-FAC at the Zoo Bar in celebration of Reynold Peterson's birthday, Brent, Sarah, Ande & I headed to Haymarket Park for the Saltdogs season opener. Sadly, the photo doesn't really show that this was a Cats vs. Dogs endeavor.

There were some great clouds to the west, and the weather was perfect for baseball.

Fireworks Friday! Inexplicably, the fireworks display was accompanied by two plays of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones. Does this make sense to you?

Post-game -- a Cats victory -- we headed to Bread & Cup for some beers, bread & butter on the patio. On the counter inside were some beautiful antique peonies next to the fresh greens for Saturday's meals.

Bikes lining "S" Street.

St. Paul Saturday

Gigantic latte at Gingko's

Jelly is the sweetest little cat. She greeted us every time we came walking back from somewhere.

We Tast[ed] The Flavors of Korea

Nick & Calico. She was just a little puppy the last time I saw her! This summer, she'll be riding back to Nebraska in the trailer hitched to the back of Nick's bike.

Ok, so that's in Des Moines. Ingenious bike parking integrated into the design of the parking meter.

Scenes from work

There is a vending machine in my office's breakroom (which looks like it came straight out of the bright orange 70s) that dispenses, for 50 cents a cup, Spiced Chia Tea.


Today, I've been taping sessions at conference on Data. Fun with convex reflective surfaces!

Wildlife Ride & Dinner

Jennie & I felt the need to mellow out yesterday afternoon, so we went for a nice little ride to Roca. It was a journey filled with wildlife.

First, and most exciting, my foot was a mere couple of inches from a huge snake. We screamed for a good long while and I didn't have it in me, as much as I wanted a photo, to go back and pull out my camera. I looked it up today, and I'm quite certain it was a young common kingsnake.

(image: UNL IANR Snake Key)

If it was, it likely wouldn't have done me any harm, but I wasn't about to go near a snake I couldn't identify.

A mile or so further down the trail, we encountered 3 young deer, and one stood on the trail until we got quite close while the others bounced through the woods alongside us. A bit later, we saw a large wild tom turkey in a fallow field, fanning out his tail feathers.

As we got closer to Roca, it started to rain a little; it felt great, seeing as though it was 89 degrees out. We paused at Roca Road and were debating whether to check out the Roca Tavern or not when a major strike of lightning and a booming, long thunderclap convinced us that a pitstop was probably in order. Soaked and colder, we sat down for a couple red beers.



After the rain passed, we headed back into a strong, cold headwind. On the way back, we saw bunnies, another deer, and several varieties of birds, of course.

Dinner: trout with kale, tortilla español, and ice cream with raspberries.

Good Morning, Sunset Park

It was an early Saturday morning. I was going to do the Spring Fling ride, but my crew kinda fell through and it's cold and rainy. I was up, though, and so were a pack of poets in Brooklyn.


Despite what she may have feared, Jules will never look like a man to me. We also have similarly colored bedspreads, despite our distance.


Mathias got a little bit animated when we started discussing what train I should take to come over for breakfast. The I-80 isn't running express today. Then I made the first joke in history to combine big ups, Atlas, and Ayn Rand. It happened because I was illustrating all the mess I would be bringing with me to breakfast.

Mathias went to start assembling breakfast with Heather Green, and Cindy King showed up. We made lots of stump faces. Teeth, they're bitey.

Once I decided that the trek to Sunset Park was just too far south in Brooklyn, I found some more local fare with Conrad at Tina's, aka the Nascar cafe. I forgot my camera, though, so you'll just have to imagine how awesome it was. Afterward, we stopped at Cultiva for some excellent espresso and a few DVD purchases for me. It's going to be harder to motivate toward editing now that I have one of my broadcast monitors set up in the bedroom and One Day in September, Mi Vida Loca, Far From Heaven, and High Fidelity (yeah, ok, one guilty pleasure) to watch.

Tuesday Night Neighbors

After long days (and an all-nighter for Gina) of being digital creatives, Gina & I hit the road. We escorted Felice to yoga, then headed to bread & cup for sandwiches and a beer. Check out those stretched out legs and the fancy road shoes at their ends!


Refueled, we decided to head to Pioneers Park.


Gina is a fan of photographs of airplanes in flight. That one's for her.


Gina had never been up to see the elk & bison, and luckily, they were near the fences. The elks' antlers were so velvety & springlike!


Our shadows were getting long on the way back, and we were in a hurry to get back into town, mostly because we'd decided to stop at Zesto. It is getting there, folks. Get out and ride.

Egg Salad Dady

My Egg Salad (thanks for the Easter eggs, Mom) is the Pimp Dady of Egg Salad Sandwiches. I kid you not.

Easter Weekend in Photos

Jennie at the ride-up ATM

Theo handles guitar & bass in Columbia Vs. Challenger

Teal front and center as Dustin, Tom, and Jim (off camera) rock the Box, UUVVWWZ style. What a great band.

Cassidy the Grillmassidy

Niki successfully found that egg

Papi touching up the rosemary/lemon/garlic basting on the leg of lamb, last 30 minutes of 6 hours of grilling

A little Pernod to whet the appetite

Purple Cannondale from Jim