Tonight's Dinner

While I was on the couch watching K-State play football, Mike was in the kitchen making butternut squash pie and beef stew.  It was definitely a night of comfort foods.

The Chef...

The stew...

The pie...

Almost Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Mike isn't feeling well, so I decided to make him some chicken noodle soup.  

Taken and tweaked from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 gloves of garlic pressed
• 1 chopped onion
• 3 chopped celery
• 2 quarts chicken broth
• 1 rotisserie chicken, remove skin and bones and chop
• 1/2 package egg noodles
• 3 sliced carrots
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter. Cook garlic, onion and celery in butter until just tender, 5 minutes. Pour in chicken broth and stir in chicken, carrots, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 30 minutes.  Prepare noodles as directed on package and add to soup before serving.

Christmas Day Brunch

Mike and I took his grandmother, Enid, out for a Christmas brunch at the La Valencia hotel in La Jolla.

Mimosas.

The buffet

They had carolers

Enid loves her dessert.

Christmas Eve Dinner

Mike and I decided to make a Christmas Eve dinner for ourselves.

The ham

The sweet potatoes

The wine

The apple pie

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Mike and I went up to Mammoth Lakes for a blues festival a couple of weeks ago.  We decided to go on this camping trip with some people from Meet Up mainly to check out Mammoth for the first time.  Mammoth is so pretty and it smelled so good because of the pine trees.  We hiked the Devils Postpile National Monument on Saturday morning and drove back home through Yosemite on Sunday.

Our campsite.

Bluesapalooza

Hiking on Saturday

Devils Postpile

Rainbow Falls

Driving through Tioga Pass through Yosemite

Half Dome from Olmsted Point

You can see all our photos here:  Mammoth Aug 2010

Worm Farm

Mike bought a worm composting farm in the beginning of the summer and it was just in time for starting our CSA boxes.  The worms have plenty to eat!  They compost egg shells, our produce scraps, coffee grounds and other delicious stuff.  It takes a while to build up the levels, but we will eventually have a four-story farm that we keep on the balcony.

The worm bin in a pretty shady corner of the balcony.

Spicket to drain out soil matter.

Inside the worm bin.

Adding some fresh supplies to the bin.

Directions and helpful info (click on photo to see bigger)

Our composting container that holds scraps until ready to go in the farm.

Some yummy worm food.

A lot of times, we produce more waste than they can compost, so we freeze it for a while.

More CSA photos

We are still enjoying our CSA boxes and making new recipes with the food.  Here are some more photos.

Beautiful Tomatillos.

One box had fennel in it and we made Baked Chicken with Apples and Fennel

We get a lot of squash and usually make these Tostadas

Our latest box had leeks and potatoes and we made this yummy soup.

Community-Supported Agriculture

Last month, we joined a CSA.  We try to eat as healthy and organic as possible and one of the best ways to do that is to support local farms.  It takes less energy to ship food that is grown locally and the food doesn't have to be picked as early if it's not traveling very far.  Therefore, the food tastes better.  We chose to pick up our box bi-weekly (you can do weekly if you want) at a local farmers market.  We went with Inland Empire CSA since Mike knew someone else using them as well.  We got our first box 2 weeks ago and will be picking up our second tomorrow.  We get an email the week we pick up our box that tells us what we are getting and some recipes that we can use with the food in our box.  If anyone wants a recipe, let us know and we can post it or send it to you.  Here our some photos of our first box experience:

Sauted Beet Greens (top)
and Sauted Dandelion
Greens (bottom)













Roasted Beets

Sea Bass with Grapefruit-
Mango Salad, Sauted Greens, and Roasted Beets.

Collard Greens and Black Eye Pea Soup

Apple Turkey Picadillo

Here's yet another easy, healthy meal that we like to make quite a bit...Apple Turkey Picadillo.  We found it in the Eating Well magazine.  It's made with turkey and has fruit and vegetable servings in it.  We serve it with tortillas on the side.  I recently discovered it goes very well with a Belgium beer...like Spaten Oktoberfest Beer.  It brings out the clove spice.

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 8 ounces 99%-lean ground turkey
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 medium tart green apple, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup chopped tomato
• 3 tablespoons chopped green olives
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup sliced scallion greens

Directions

1.  Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic; cook until soft, stirring often, about 2 minutes.  Add turkey; cook, stirring and breaking up, until lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes.

2.  Sitr in cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and cloves; cook for 30 seconds.  Stir in vinegar, scraping up any browned bits.  Stir in apple, tomato, olives and Worcestershire sauce.  Reduce heat and gently simmer, stirring often, until any liquid in the pan has reduced to a syrupy glaze, about 8 minutes.  Stir in scallion greens and serve.

The finished product....

Our Newest Obsession

If you like Thai food, the next time you go to a Thai restaurant and haven't already tried this dish, order the mango with sticky rice dessert.  It is soooo good.  We just discovered this a couple of months ago and have already had it a few times.  It's seasonal, so not always available.  I think we need to figure out how to make it ourselves, it can't be that hard.