Category Archives: Cooking

Portland Trippin’

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Daryl and I managed to find a little bit of time to get away this past weekend.  Daryl had gotten me a nights stay up in York, ME as my Christmas present, and we welcomed the time away.  So for anyone who knows me well you know I’m a planner.  I can’t go on a vacation without having a trusty list of things to do and see.  Partly because I’m in the middle of planning a wedding but mostly because I thought a little unstructured time might be good, I did not spend a second looking into doing anything on this weekend trip.  it wasn’t until the morning we left that I expressed some concern to Daryl- “Do you think we’ll get bored?  I’m afraid I might get bored.”

We checked into our room and I proceeded to fall asleep.  Around 6:30pm I reluctantly woke up.  While the Inn had a very nice looking restaurant I was in the mood to explore and since I had never been to Portland, ME and I thought- why not?  A short hour later we arrived in Portland.  I had started to scramble looking up reviews on yelp and managed to find a street which appeared to have some good restaurants on it.  We found parking on Exchange Street in the Old Port neighborhood and walked up and down looking at our options.

We picked The Grill Room for dinner that night, and lucky us, it was Portland’s Restaurant Week.  Daryl had the three course menu including salmon over a beet risotto.  I had scallops grilled on a rosemary sprig (I have to use this idea!) and a side of bacon-y brussel sprouts.  As dinner was winding down I asked the waiter if he had any suggestions for where to go for some live music and a drink.  I was sensing there was too much going on around me to just go back to the Hotel.

Local 188

He directed us to Local 188.  This place reminded me of Minneapolis 100%.  High tin ceilings, hipsters sitting around on couches- yes, the waiter had read my mind.  Daryl and I split a lovely porter and a cheese plate- their food looked amazing and I would highly recommend checking it out sometime.  I might use it as good excuse to go back!

The next day I slowly dragged myself out of bed…. IT WAS SO WARM… and by 11am we were on our way back up to Portland to see what it had to offer during the day. We arrived just in time to get some lunch and then started to explore.  Almost immediately we happened upon a gem.  Well maybe other people know it, but for us it was an unassuming storefront with just a chalkboard out front.  We walked into Vervacious and were in love.  There was a table for tasting their different balsamic vinegars and drizzling sauces.

Stacking Spice Jars

Now I like cooking, but I also LOVE a well designed product.  These spice jars lock into place so you can stack them and they form an M.C. Escher tessellation.  AH-HA!  A spice “rack” which is also a nerdy design element!  We got talking to the owner about food and cooking so I just threw out the question of whether he had any suggestions for dinner that night.  He recommended Boda and Miyake but described Boda as Thai street food styled tapas -we were sold.

 

We still had a lot of time left before dinner and walked all around.  Up and down Commercial Street, through Old Port again, up to Congress.  Being Sunday not a lot was open but the few places that were were absolutely great.  Lots of vintage clothing, and housewares stores.  One of our favorites was Pinecone + Chickadee.  I liked it for the organic cotton screen printed tees, Daryl liked it because they had a Texas Instrument TI-99/4A computer and old programming manuals that he remembers using in his childhood.  (And yes- I had to ask him to remind me what the make and model was for this post)

5pm came and we headed over to Boda and ordered two tapas, a salad and one entree.  Thank god for those people who take pictures of their food and post to facebook because I was able to steal their pictures to post them.

Ma Hor appetizer

Ma-Hor: bite sized fresh pineapple topped with ground pork, shrimp, onion and peanut
Pork belly skewers: marinated with salt, sprinkled with chopped scallion
Apple salad: local apples, shrimp, roasted coconut and peanuts in a sweet sour dressing

Beef Panaeng: Braised organic beef in a flavorful panaeng curry with coconut cream, served with jasmine rice
Sitting in the window I looked outside and realized the other restaurant that we had been recommended was across the street.  Pai Mei Miyakehad been recommended for their ramen- but my ears had perked up when I also heard they had sushi.  So Daryl and I opened up our reserve stomach space for some sushi.  We sat at the bar and ordered two of their sushi rolls, a tuna roll and a ceviche roll.  The ceviche roll blew me out of the water!  It was such a great combination of flavors, light and refreshing.  I would go back there anytime for that alone!  Being the designer I am I also loved the decor- especially the ceiling and lighting!

Miyake Interior

So that’s it folks! Hopefully that spoke to your taste buds enough to make the trip!  Oh and when you go, let me know so I can tag along!

Shower the people you love with love

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Daryl’s mom and sister threw me a great wedding shower yesterday.  I had made quite a stink about not wanting a big fuss or a wedding shower for that matter, but luckily they didn’t listen to me!  🙂  My family, Daryl’s family and my brides maids all surprised me with all sorts of herbs, spices, salts, marinades, oils vinegars and rubs.  Making this even better they were all accompanied by a recipe or quick note about a great way to use them.

I apologize the images are a little blurry, Daryl took the camera for Ice Weekend with the boys- so my old point and shoot will have to do the trick.  So with my Sunday wide open I took it upon myself to fully inspect my loot and make a fabulous dinner for myself.  I had a recipe stashed away for just the opportunity.  Paleo Pad Thai.  I added double the amount of almond butter, chili sauce and fish sauce which I now had courtesy of Nan!  I took a picture of my own but it wasn’t nearly as good as the original post so I will let you click through.

First of many recipe to come.  As you can see, we have all had tiring weekend 🙂

Mommeez, we r tired!

 

Make use of what you have

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It was 6:30 and Daryl and I were staring blankly at each other.  I had just asked him what he wanted to do for dinner, and I’m sure he was thinking about asking me the same thing.  I had just gotten home from babysitting, and he just got home from a day of climbing.  Neither of us particularly wanted to go back outside, but with only odds and ends in our fridge it wasn’t looking so good.

We had some short ribs, and ground beef but we had neglected to think ahead enough to thaw them.  So I was searching for a protein when I remembered we had eggs… FRITATTA!  Next we had to determine how to stretch 6 eggs into a reasonable dinner to feed the two of us (which is the amount of three normal people).

First we found some spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil.  We had a white onion left over from our farm share this week, as well as some cheese.  But it still didn’t feel like enough filler.  Then I had a brilliant moment.  We had potatoes and I had just gotten a mandolin from Daryl’s grandparents.

I had no idea how it was going to turn out, but I plowed through anyway.  I diced and sauteed the onion, added the spinach until wilted and then the sun-dried tomatoes.  Then I put in the thinly sliced potatoes with minced garlic (so it wouldn’t burn).  With everything pretty well tossed in olive oil we beat up our eggs with a little whole milk and tossed it in the frying pan.  We quickly tossed some cheese on top and mixed it around quickly.

I had forgotten to preheat the oven to finish it off, so I decided to turn the heat to low and cover on the burner.  We let it sit for almost 10 min this way, and another 10 min after we turned the heat off.  Oh boy was it delicious when we finally got to dig in.  It was part frittata, part potatoes au gratin and part tortilla espanola.  But it was 100% recommended!  I will do my best to put the recipe below but seeing as though I didn’t measure anything- it’s just a suggestion.

6 Eggs
1 Sm. White Onion, Diced
3 Garlic cloves, Minced
2 Tbs Olive Oil
6 Sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil
half a bag of spinach
1/4c whole milk
6 Sm. Yellow potatoes

The Perfect Apple Pie

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I have been making the apple pie for Thanksgiving since 2000 when my mom noticed an opportunity to pass it off because I now had a place of my own and more importantly and oven!

Ar first this ceremonious “passing of the pie” recipe sounded fun, if not flattering- until my mom told me she never REALLY had a recipe and made her crust with a combination of the Fannie Farmer Pate Brisse crust and a Julia Child one.

The first year I got nothing but rave reviews.  I followed the recipe exactly (even though it took me forever!)  The following year though fell flat for me.  Don’t get me wrong everyone was very polite and still ate and raved about my pie but for me… it was not up to par with that first pie.

This year however I changed three variables in my pie making recipe.

1)  I did not use Granny Smith apples as we had a ton of Mitsu Apples from the end of our farm share and I was told they make good cooking apples.

2)  After trying out a paleo/primal crust and determining it would not be nearly as pliable as a regular crust I decided to eliminate the vegetable shortening and use straight butter.  Two sticks in all- sorry folks!

3)  This was the first year (since the first pie) that I was using a gas oven.

Mostly because of the last variable I watched the pie closely and turned it based on eye sight not the recipe.  And as you can see above it came out darn close to perfect!