Brad and Cassia

Important Announcement!

2010-04-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, family and followers!

I am very excited to announce that I am starting a new blog! Bradcassia.blogspot.com (this one) will stay around for life updates, friend information, and more about our life. But, all of the cooking and wine and such will be moved to www.cassiakathleen.com (that's my name!). So please bookmark the new blog and keep an eye on all the goodness happening over there. You'll notice that, for the moment, it looks eerily similar to this blog. It's exactly the same, minus some life updates. But, I assure you, it will soon start a new little life of its own.

See you at cassia kathleen!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-04-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

Hello friends! This week we found a very good cheap wine of the week. There is a wine shop near us, Que Syrah, that I really like and they have a wall of cheap options. I've rarely been led astray by Don and his picks, and today's was great.

It's the 2007 Saurus Cabernet Sauvignon. It's from Patagonia in Argentina, and I was very pleasantly surprised. When the wine first hit my mouth, I admit to thinking I was going to be disappointed. It has a very light, almost floral characteristic that I'm not usually a fan of. But the minute you swallow, the aftertaste hits, and then the pepper and the jammy fruit and the cab flavor I was waiting for all came flooding in. Still not a super full-bodied wine, especially for a cab, but a really nice, smooth representation. We're about to eat it with a yummy smelling lasagna. I'll let you know how it pairs.

Enjoy!

Recipe of the Moment - Turkey Bolognese

2010-04-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

On to some real food now! Not that appetizers aren't real food, but this is going to be an entree post for those of you who actually need to cook a dinner every now and then. This post is a turkey bolognese that I adapted from Pioneer Woman, who is an incredible food blogger. And, in fact, she got the recipe from a pastor friend of hers, Ryan. So this is really just a passed down recipe that's been passed down again right on for your consumption.

I chopped the recipe in half, which was more than enough for Brad and I. (We ate the whole thing, but that's just because it was so good, I don't recommend it.) And I used frozen ground turkey I had in my freezer instead of ground beef (no, not awesome, but good enough, and free, since I already had it).

The results were stunning. The bolognese has a little hint of sweetness from the carrots and lot of good, hearty flavor from the tomatoes and the meat. I added some extra garlic and some extra red wine to "beef" up the flavor of the turkey (ha ha, get it? ...), and it all worked out quite nicely. I am a big fan. I liked it way too much to not share with you all.

Why not finish off the bottle you used to cook with while you enjoy your dinner? Guaranteed perfect wine pairing for the meal.

Turkey Bolognese

Ingredients
2 glugs olive oil
3/4 cup grated carrots (use your cheese grater, just on the smaller side)
1/2 red onion, diced
1 lb ground turkey
1 T dried oregano
1 T dried basil
3 ounces tomato paste
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups red wine
1 T Worcestershire
1 28 ounce can whole tomatoes
1/2 cup milk
Salt and Pepper, to taste
Parmesan, for topping
1/2 pound cooked pasta

Directions (see Pioneer Woman's site for detailed pictures of each step)
1. In a dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat
2. Add carrots and onions, and cook till not quite soft
3. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add ground turkey, stir and cook till browned
4. Add oregano and basil, and stir to combine everything
5. Make another well, this time adding the tomato paste in the center, stirring till heated through
6. Add garlic and cook till somewhat soft
7. Make another well and add red wine and Worcestershire, stir to combine
8. Add tomatoes, breaking up with your spoon
9. Add milk, stir all together, season with salt and pepper, turn heat down to low and let flavors meld for at least 30 minutes
10. Serve over pasta and sprinkle with parmesan

Enjoy!

Recipe of the Moment - Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

2010-04-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

This was another piece of our appetizer dinner last weekend. My parents had these frozen breaded shrimp that are perfect for an easy appetizer, but I wanted to make some sort of dipping sauce to go with them. A little snooping around online got me to this recipe. I adapted it slightly for what we had on hand, and it worked out beautifully.

The peanut butter/soy sauce/lime mixture was perfect, and really easy to make since you just stick it in a blender. And paired with the shrimp, it made a perfect appetizer. Thinned out with a little fish stock, this could also make a great sauce for rice noodles or for an asian casserole. I'd eat pretty much anything dipped in this stuff. Mmm mmm mm.

Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

Ingredients
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup low-sodium chicken stock
3 T soy sauce
1 1/2 T brown sugar
2 T lime juice
1 1/2 T minced ginger (we used jarred, and it was just fine)

1 t minced garlic

1/2 t chili flakes

1 shallot, chopped

Directions
1. Place all ingredients in a blender and blend till smooth
2. If desired, serve with chopped cilantro on top

Sauce will keep 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator

Enjoy!

Recipe of the Moment - Turkey Bacon Wrapped Asparagus

2010-04-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

The next fews days will be showcasing the appetizers from the wine tasting at my parent's house in Phoenix last weekend. I wanted there to be a lot of variety, yet with components that were easy to make and filling, so that there didn't need to be a ton of different appetizers to make.

My parents already had some great looking asparagus in their fridge, and so I immediately thought of doing a bacon-wrapped asparagus dish. To be fair, I merely conceptualized this dish and told my Mom what to do. All of the arranging of the food was done by her, so the final result is her handiwork. And they turned out wonderfully. Simple to make, one-pan prep and clean up, and a delicious outcome. Sounds like a staple to me!

Turkey Bacon Wrapped Asparagus
(adapted from this recipe)

Ingredients
1 large bundle asparagus, ends trimmed (we had about 20 spears)
1 pkg turkey bacon (can use real bacon, if you prefer)
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Pepper

Directions
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees
2. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt and freshly-ground pepper over all the asparagus spears on a foil-lined baking pan
3. One by one, wrap a strip of turkey bacon around each spear, taking care to place them on the baking sheet so that both ends of the bacon are held underneath the spear while baking (alternatively, you can use soaked toothpicks to hold the bacon in place, but we found it wasn't necessary)
4. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, until the bacon starts to look crispy but without drying out the asparagus

Enjoy!

Recipe of the Moment - Earl Grey Cookies

2010-04-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

With visions of Alinea dancing in my head, I wanted to come up with something wonderful for the Project Runway finale last night. Sarah was doing the salad and I was doing the sangria (and Brad was just enjoying it all). However, since I don't own any liquid nitrogen or agar or lecithin, not to mention truffles or shad roe or hibiscus, I had to settle for something a little less gastronomic.

One of the Alinea courses was an Earl Grey course, which happens to be my favorite type of tea. There were little tiny bits of crumbled Earl Grey cookies at the bottom of the plate, and they were delicious. Cookies I can do. Especially because I already have the tea handy.

This recipe is from Real Simple magazine, and I figured I could trust Martha to make some great tea cookies. I adapted it to fit my kitchen and ingredients. What you see below is my slightly different version. They were delicious, as predicted. And very easy to make. They were like my family's classic Faircakes, only with a light tea flavor and less butter. And I topped them off with some homemade Earl Grey whipped cream. Mmmm mmmm mmmm.

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar
2 T. Earl Grey tea leaves (cheap bagged ones are actually better, as they have smaller leaf bits)
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
1 t. water
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions
1. Grind tea leaves with a mortar and pestle until fine.
2. In a stand mixer, mix the two sugars, tea leaves, and salt together
3. Add vanilla, water and butter and stir until combined
4. Add flour slowly and mix until dough comes together
5. Divide dough in half, roll each half into a 2 inch diameter log, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
6. When ready to bake, heat oven to 375 degrees
7. Slice logs into 1/3 inch disks, place on parchment-paper lined tray, 2 inches apart
8. Bake 10 - 12 minutes, until edges are just slightly browned (my oven runs hot, it only needed 10)
9. Let cool on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool, then serve!

Earl Grey Whipped Cream

Ingredients
1/2 bag's worth Earl Grey tea leaves, ground fine
1/2 pint whipping cream
1 t. vanilla
1 - 3 T. sugar

Directions
1. Whisk chilled cream vigorously in a bowl, until it starts to thicken (alternatively, use a hand mixer, a much faster method, but one unfortunately unavailable to me)
2. Add in the tea leaves and vanilla, whisk to combine and thicken more
3. Add sugar to taste, I only used about a tablespoon and a half, but if you want sweeter whipped cream, use more
4. Whisk till peaks stay set and it looks ready to enjoy! (If preparing early, put cream in the fridge and whisk again right before serving)

Enjoy!

Place of the Moment - Alinea

2010-04-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

Last night, Brad took me out to dinner for my birthday. No big deal, right? Wrong, my friend, very wrong. This place was incredible. It's called Alinea, and to show why this was the best meal I have ever eaten, I'm going to walk you through each of the 12 courses we ate, one by one. I did not take my camera, every picture on this site was taken by the blogger of Gourmet Pigs. They posted these the day before we went, so the food looks very, very similar.

The format goes thusly... you have no idea what you're going to be served, and the food comes at its own pace, one course at a time. I also did the wine pairings with the food, so the memorable ones of those I'll mention as well. Each course is different and delicious in and of itself, and each has its own utensils and serving apparatus. You'll see... On to the food!

English Pea

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This was frozen peas (and by frozen, I mean dehydrated and/or frozen with liquid nitrogen, or some such awesomeness), honeydew melon, iberico ham, sherry vinegar, burreta cheese, basil, and other bits all put together for a few great bites. It was like biting into delicious, savory dippin' dots.

This was served with my favorite drink of the night. It was a Szigeti Cuvee Prestige Brut with some drops of Iqhilika mead and Peychaud bitters. Yes, sparkling wine with mead and bitters swirled in. The best sparkling wine I have ever had. Flavorful, full of body, I wished I had another few glasses... until there were so many other wines served to us.

Shad Roe

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This had a bay branch growing out of it for the aromatic properties, and it was a tempura battered and fried single bite of shad roe, wrapped in bacon, with shallots and Dijon mustard.

Distillation

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This looked like a shot of liquor of some sort, but it was, in fact, a distillation of thai flavors. You should have smelled this thing. It was so aromatic, and tasted just like all the flavors of the Thai food we'd eaten the night before in one little swallow.

Pork Belly

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

So we'd already had these little flags of rice paper on our table, and we'd been told we'd use them later. So sure enough, they're set out on this little holder contraption, filled with a bunch of pureed pork belly, then you're told to garnish the whole thing however you want with the bits on the glass plate. There is black salt, cucumber, dehydrated garlic flakes, bananas dipped in chocolate powder, lime gelee, coconut, red onion, basil seeds in a lime juice thing, cashews, and two other bits. It was amazing.

Sturgeon

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This was a deconstructed sturgeon potato leek soup. There was an applesauce ribbon over it all, with bits of pureed leek, some crouton dust, radishes, a potato crisp, and who knows what else. Yummy.

At this point, Brad got a glass of a 2005 Anima Negra from the island of Majorca. The major varietal is Callet, and it was a very delicious wine. I loved the creativity of the wines they offered and the fact that so many were so new to me.

King Crab

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

So this was a three-course course. The top was some crab and fennel with a lemon foam (I think) and some other jellied/frozen bits. Then the top of the bowl comes off and there's more crab and fennel flavors in a slightly more substantial/traditional form. Then down blow, there's a creamy reduction of the flavors with some more crab bits floating in it that tasted like the best crab bisque you've ever had, if it was in Thailand. Very fun.

This was paired with a 2006 Albert Mann Pinot Gris 'Hengst' Grand Cru. It was a grapefruit-crisp Pinot Gris that was very nice.

Filet de Boeuf

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This was a plate of beef/meat bits. It was the most substational course of the night. There was a wagyu round in the center, a sculpted button mushroom, a cockscomb, sweetbreads, and some other pureed beefs. I'm still not turned on to red meat, so this wasn't my favorite. But the flavors were wonderful.

Hot Potato/Cold Potato

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This was a paraffin wax bowl with a cold potato soup in it, then a skewered bit of hot potato and truffle that you let fall into the bowl and slurp like an oyster.

Duck

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This was a few different preparations of duck surrounded by a chamomile foam with some morel mushrooms as well. One of the bites was the most tender piece of meat I've ever had. And it was my first taste of foie gras, which I didn't know I was eating or I would have left it on the plate on principle. Though, admittedly, delicious.

This was served with a 2005 Quinta de Foz de Arouce 'Vinhas Velhas de Santa Maria' from Portugal. A red varietal called Baga, which I'd never had, with a lot of structure and good flavor, it was my favorite wine that was served. Though there were some fine pairings with the other offerings, this is a wine I would drink on its own and truly enjoy.

Black Truffle

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This was called a truffle explosion, and we were warned to take it in one bite or it would explode everywhere. A sort of ravioli filled with truffle and topped with a parmesan sliver, a very juicy bite that just melted in your mouth.

Earl Grey

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This started the dessert courses. The pillow was inflated with the aroma of Earl Grey and it slowly deflated as you ate, swirling the smell around you. On the plate was some white chocolate, some bits of earl grey cookies, caramel (I think), and other sweeter flavors. It was my favorite of the desserts.

Chocolate

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This picture is actually from the full 24-course tasting menu, and it gets served on your actual table. Ours was the same components, just served on a plate. Frozen dark chocolate, solidified chocolate mousse, menthol cream, and coconut. The dark chocolate was amazing, but the menthol was a little overpowering for me. Still an intriguing presentation.

Bubble Gum

gourmetpigs.blogspot.com

This was our last course of the night, and it shows up in this tube. It is hibiscus bits, creme fraiche, and bubble gum flavored tapioca at the end. You just suck it out in one go and swallow it down. Definitely tasted like bubble gum.

So I'm sure you can all see why I was so enthralled with this place. It was the most interesting meal I've ever had. Bravo Chef Achatz, bravo.

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-04-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

We have a winner for this week! When we were in Phoenix, we got to host a wine tasting for the family and some friends. It was great. There were also a bunch of delicious appetizers that will show up in a later post, have no doubt.

We tasted 6 different wines, along with Dad's magnum of 2006 Orfila Sangiovese.

For me, the best of the night was the 2008 Tormaresca Neprica. It's Italian, so I would already have been pretty biased towards it, but I didn't know what I was drinking, so I legitimately picked it out without knowing. The blend is 40% Negroamaro, 30% Primitivo, and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon (get it? NePriCa...). It was earthy and a little fruity, complex, rich, and best of all, it's only $9 at Costco! Dad liked it best too.

Good job Costco. Great cheap wine of the week. And good pick for the tasting Dad!

New Format

2010-04-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hey friends.

First of all, thank you for all my birthday wishes! It has been a great birthday, with a weekend in Phoenix with my parents and one of my German exchange student brothers Julien. We ate a bunch of great food, played a lot of cornhole and Ticket to Ride, and just hung out. It was wonderful. And so far back in Chicago we've eaten some great Thai food with friends, and tomorrow night Brad's taking me to some super-fancy restaurant where we're going to eat a 12 course meal. I promise to write down everything we eat and tell you all about it. (I sincerely wish I owned an iPhone so I could surreptitiously snap photos of the food as well, but oh well...) All in all, it's shaping up to be a great year already!!

Just a note on the blog. I'm toying with the idea of going more in-depth with my food portions, which means that a weekly recipe wrap-up would just be a ridiculously long post if I only did one a week. So watch out for some "recipe of the moment" pages instead of a weekly wrap-up page. I'm also going to reproduce the recipes I use in their full format each time, so you don't have to keep clicking away (though I'll still provide the links). This will also let me be more clear about any tweaking I did with each recipe.

Anyway, it's going to look a little different around here, and now you've been forewarned. The cheap wine of the week wednesdays will stay the way you know and love for now.

Have a wonderful night, and know that you and your friendship and love give me so much joy!

Alcohol doesn't freeze...

2010-04-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

We didn't drink any good cheap wine this week. In lieu of that, I want to show you what happened in our fridge this week.

I open the fridge and notice a weird brownish liquid underneath the veggie drawer. Thinking that there was just some really old cilantro I hadn't remembered that had leaked (gross!), I left it alone for another time. Later that day I needed tortillas for dinner, so I open the fridge again and pull the tortillas out and there's some liquid on the plastic bag as well, a shelf above the possibly rancid cilantro. That's interesting. And hey, wait a second... it smells like beer in here. And there is a little shard of glass on this tortilla bag.

What the?

This happened

Yep... our fridge was turned down too cold, and a beer we had shoved in the back hoping someone else would drink it froze... and expanded... and EXPLODED all over our fridge. Plus a Coke can that also decided to expand its horizons.

So don't believe those folks who'll tell you that alcohol doesn't freeze. If it's like beer and has enough water in it, it will. Vodka won't. Though I learned recently that you're not supposed to put your vodka in the freezer if you want to make a mixed drink correctly. Who knew? I'll keep it on the shelf from now on.

Till next week (by which, I hope to have actually imbibed some cheap wine worth drinking...), have wonderful days!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2010-04-12T22:19:00.000-07:00

Here're some of the recipes we ate this week.

We had a great concert at our church on Friday called Acoustic Blend (you can see some pictures I took of the event on Facebook here). To add to the night we had some snacks available and coffee and tea and such. I contributed brownies. Nothing super special, just followed the recipe on the box (Hershey's Ultimate Fudge Brownies). But they were really good. Even a few days later for the church potluck!

Brownie glamour shot

One of our healthy/cheap meals of the week was this great tilapia with green beans recipe. Now, normally I don't like tilapia. It's too light and it doesn't really taste like anything. But this recipe called for a light breading and frying in a little bit of butter (cook's note, half the butter with a couple tablespoons of olive oil cuts down a lot of the bad fat). And it was really good tasting, and really fresh with the added green beans and cherry tomatoes.

Fried green bean tomatoes

Flaky tilapia fillet... mmmm...

Another good dinner of the week was for our community group dinner, which we got the chance to host. For a good crowd-friendly recipe, I pulled out the trusty Wolfgang Puck mushroom turkey burgers. Delicious, easy to make, and better for you than beef burgers. Unless they were lying, everyone really liked them. And our friends brought over some red onion and cilantro to top them off, which was a perfect accoutrement.

Melted fontina cheese was also a winner

Another quick meal was a bacon, spinach, tomato and avocado sandwich (hereafter known as a S.T.A.B... or a B.A.S.T?). Melted fontina on wheat bread finished them off, and they were really yummy.

It S.T.A.B.s you with goodness

And that's about it. I also made this NYT caesar salad recipe from the Minimalist for our church's potluck on Sunday night celebrating our one year anniversary of being a church! But I was rather distracted by the Masters all day (yay Phil!) and didn't make it very well. It was fine, but not blog worthy. But I assume the recipe is worth eating anyway, even if I didn't pull it off that night. So that's something else for you.

Have a lovely week friends! We'll see you back next week for some more great food and fun.

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-04-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

Hi friends.

We again drank no good cheap wine this week. But I wanted to share a little something tonight about what to do with bad cheap wine, of which there is plenty in this world. You know the feeling. You're standing in front of the wines at the store, pretending like you know what you're looking for, hoping everyone thinks you look all suave and sophisticated since you're beside the cabernet, and you have no idea what to buy. So you grab some $8.99-on-sale bottle and head out the door. Well, you pay for it first. Then you head out the door.

And you get home, cut the foil off, pop the cork (though, at $8.99, there is a pretty decent chance it's got a screwcap on it), pour out a little bit, try it... and wrinkle your nose in distaste.

This is a perfect example of the shock of a bad cheap wine face, circa the national prayer breakfast 2006

Now, there are those of us who will continue to drink it because nine bucks is nine bucks. And there are those of us who will put the cork back in and hope we find something to cook with it tomorrow night before it goes too bad. There are even some who will just pour it down the drain because it's really that bad.But before you go to extremes, like drinking plain yucky wine, there is another option. Our new best friend... sangria!

Yes, I mentioned this on Sunday since Sarah brought up the glorious idea last Thursday. And sangria is the perfect solution for bad cheap wine. You really don't want to use anything expensive in sangria, since you won't really be able to taste anything except for wine-y-ness anyway. So the minute you decide this cheap wine is not worth it's weight in straw... dump it in a pitcher or a bowl, cut up a bunch of fruit, throw in some sugar, cover it, and stick it in the fridge overnight.

Like so

Then tomorrow, add some ginger ale, or sparkling water, or sprite, and if you want, some other sorts of liquors. And viola! A useful, yummy, perfect-for-spring-and-summer drink. Much better than that bad cheap wine you thought you were stuck with, no?

Here are some sangria recipe sites:

About.com Wine Section Sangrias

Wine Intro Sangrias

Food Network Sangrias

Epicurious Sangria Recipe from their Nov 1973 issue

Allrecipe's Sangrias

Enjoy! And be free of the curse of bad, cheap wine!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2010-04-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter, friends! It's a joyous day, and it's joyously beautiful here in chicago, with lots of trees budding and birds singing to celebrate the risen Lord!
And in the spirit of spring renewal, we're finally getting some more food pictures up on the blog!

Brad and I are in a place right now where we're starting to pay a lot more attention to our budget. And, unfortunately, the food I like to make is not always the food our bank account likes for me to make. But we also don't want to swing towards mac and cheese every night and consequently gain 20 pounds each this year. So this installment of recipes, and many more in the future, are my first attempt at budget-friendly, healthy meals for us.

So, marching on!

The first recipe of the bunch was Linguine with Tuna Puttanesca. I had most of the ingredients for this in my pantry already, and it looked quite yummy. I used thin spaghetti instead of linguini, and I chopped up some leftover piquillo peppers to add in as well. They were a great addition to this acidic, tangy sauce.

All in all, very light, fresh-tasting, and enjoyable!

The next night, I made bean and cheese burritos, one of our cheap favorites. But I had one extra tortilla leftover, so I decided to use some of the leftover kalamatas and some veggies in the fridge to make a little cheese crisp appetizer. Delicioso!

Another recipe idea came from having a bunch of eggs in my fridge that I never use. It's feeling a lot more like springtime, so I decided to make a spinach, egg, and bacon salad. Nothing too special there, but it tasted amazing. I found a dressing for it on this blog, and now I have a new balsamic vinaigrette recipe. Perfect.

The best part about this dinner was that our friend Sarah, who comes over on Thursdays to watch Project Runway with us, had the wonderful idea of making a sangria, since it was perfect weather for it. So she brought all the ingredients for a really fruity, sparkling sangria that was a perfect addition to the night. I think we're going to make "salad and sangria Thursdays" a running theme.

The last meal for this installment was our dinner last night with some friends. Seth, who goes to school with Brad, his wife Shauna and his nephew Max, who was in town for spring break, all came over for a game day extravaganza. We played Settlers all day long. And dinner was one of my favorites. Vodka sausage pasta. It's based off this recipe, though with the sausages fried up in the pan following the shallots and garlic, before simmering in the tomatoes.

It was yummy. And the bread and salad they brought topped it off perfectly. Plus great root beer and cream soda. The pizookie we made for dessert wasn't so bad either.

That's all for now. Hopefully we'll find some more cost-cutting-yet-still-good-for-you meals to make this next week. Though we'll have leftover pasta for just about every meal for four days.

Until next time, have a blessed Easter night!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-03-31T15:15:00.000-07:00

Hello again all!

This week's cheap wine(s) of the week comes from the spring wine tasting night we hosted on Friday. We tasted a lineup of eight different wines, and most of them were good, with the two Chards we had being notable exceptions.

Here was the list:

1) 2008 Cortijo Viura
2) 2008 Kilda Unoaked Chardonnay
3) 2007 Tulip Hill Oaked Chardonnay
4) 2008 Montinore Estate Muller-Thurgau

5) 2008 Chalone Pinot Noir

6) 2007 The Paradise Montepulciano D'Abruzzo

7) 2005 Zoom Vaca Mountain Vineyard Zinfandel

8) NV Orfila Tawny Port

Here they are, all bagged and ready to taste.

So my favorite white of the night was the Viura. I've never had this varietal before, and when I went to Lush Wine and Spirits to pick up the bottles for the night, I asked them for an Albarino, which they didn't have. But they suggested this instead, and it was really good. Very light, a little mineral-y, nice a smooth going down. I was a big fan. I'll definitely try this varietal again if I run across it. And this particular one, at $10 even, was a great deal and deserving of Cheap Wine of the Week status.

My favorite red of the night, and my favorite wine overall, was the Zoom Zinfandel. I got to cheat a little bit and try this at Lush when I was buying all the wines, so I knew how good it was going to be beforehand. In fact, I considered not even putting this in the tasting and keeping it for Brad and I, but I decided our friends deserved to taste the goodness too. At $15, it's a little steep for a truly cheap wine, but oh man was it worth every penny. Rich and velvety, smooth as all get out, strong flavors but not overpowering, yummy! And it tasted like Napa, so that was lovely.

This is how much I liked it:

So there you have it. Oh, and a special shout-out to Orfila's Tawny Port. Though it's not my favorite style of wine in the world, three out of the ten people liked it best at the table.

Enjoy, friends!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-03-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

This week's wine is a true cheap wine of the week. It's really cheap ($6.99!) and it was quite good. I don't expect all of the body I love in wine to be there in a wine that's this cost-conscious, so I wasn't disappointed that this wine was a little light. But it had a lot of structure and some good fruit. And it's made out of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Sangiovese, three of my favorite grapes.

It's the 2007 Columbia Crest Two Vines Vineyard 10 Red Wine (long name, I know). And I found it on sale at Whole Foods last Friday.

We had it with pizza, very unsophisticated, but it went quite nicely. And it's not always easy to pair pizza with wine. Sometimes the cheesy-ness is overwhelming. But this was great. Good find, good buy, good glass of wine.

Enjoy!

Schizophrenic Chicago Spring Weather

2010-03-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a little taste of the mood swings in Chicago's weather in spring.

This was the view from our kitchen last Friday

And then this is what we were greeted with on Saturday

And then here's what I found today on a walk around the neighborhood

Oh seasons...

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2010-03-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

Here's the food I've managed to cook over the last week or so. I've had this random temp job where I work at the mall handing out giftcards for a promotion they're doing, and it goes from 4:45 - 9:15 every day, so I haven't exactly been keeping up with the cooking lately. But I'm really grateful God's provided the job for me, so if dinner is lacking, so be it.

Anyways... here's a few of the things that we've eaten recently.

A while back, I wanted something that was completely comfort food. Brad was waiting (as he is still) for a letter from grad school, and some other circumstances had just kinda gotten us down. And since there was nothing I could do other than pray, which I know is not nothing, but still... I made chicken pot pie.

I've never made one, but there was nothing else I could think of that said "comfort food" to me quite as much. I found the recipe here, and it was amazing. I added some corn instead of peas, and didn't have any celery seed, so I left it out. Listening to the comments on the page, I also added some poultry seasoning to the sauce and one-and-a-halved the sauce portion. It turned out great. Tons of yummy veggies, and lots of homestyle goodness.

Another night, I wanted something easy, but full of flavor. In our house, we usually need some protein in our dinners. And I find that sausages are always a really easy go-to meat, because they're so easy to cook. For this dinner, I had some roasted red pepper chicken sausages from Whole Foods that I needed to use, and I had some piquillo peppers waiting in the pantry. (Awesome sweet but a little spicy peppers, if you've never used them). I found this recipe on epicurious that involved both ingredients, and the end result was great.

Check out those piquillos... mmmm....

On another night, I wanted to find something really healthy, but really good for us to eat. I liked the idea of a chicken soup, but that gets a little boring. This recipe I found from Emeril combines plain ol' chicken soup with a ton of veggies and goodness.

Look at all that, garbanzo beans, spinach, red and green peppers, onion, celery, carrots eggplant, bay leaves, garlic... it's rather awesome.

Then throw in some roasted chicken, some chicken stock, and some rice, and you have yourself some really yummy, and really nutritious, soup.

One more recipe of the week was something that has become a bit of a go-to for me. I know it well enough that I can shop for it at the grocery store without writing down the ingredients, so that's something. It's a shrimp scampi recipe I found a few years ago that I really like. Nowadays, I cut down on the butter and add more olive oil. And this particular night I had some leftover basil, so I chopped that up into it too. But it's a great, flavorful, simple dish. And it's one I'm quite fond of. Cook's note, we only eat about half of the recipe at a time, it makes a lot of pasta.

And that's it from the Carters for now! Next week, plans for another wine tasting night with friends. Should be a good time!

Life update

2010-03-12T23:20:00.000-08:00

New update to our life... I, Cassia, got into the PhD program in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at IIT, Illinois Institute of Technology! (Yes, a tech school, yes, it has a good psych program... go figure.)

I am so excited!! I get to go to school again! I get to do something I really want to do! I think this was God letting me know that this is something He wants me to do too!

This is a good night. A really good night. We opened a bottle of Girard 2007 Petite Sirah in celebration.

I am a very happy girl.

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-03-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

Hello from snowy Utah!

Ski update, really quickly... we're getting a ton of snow and so it's awesome conditions. I skied through deep powder for the first time today, and it's like skiing on pillows. So much fun! Another good thing, I've broken nothing, concussed nothing, sprained nothing, and only jammed a finger so far. Brad and his Dad have been able to ski through a ton of trees and jump off cliffs and such as well. They enjoyed it. Lori and I enjoyed not doing it.

One of the perks of staying at the lodge here is that they have a wine and cheese night on Monday nights. So, naturally, we all went and ate appetizers and cheese for dinner. We also got to sample some wines that they had available for us. Luckily, one of them was pretty good. Also luckily, it's cheap. So... we have this week's winner!

The 2006 Wishing Tree Shiraz was a very nice surprise. Looking around the internet, it seems that it retails for around $11.99.

It comes under screw-cap, which a lot of Australian wines do, but as long as you're drinking this when you buy it, there's no problem with that. The wine was a little light, for a shiraz, but had a lot of good fruit flavors and some nice earthiness. It was, by far, my favorite of the reds I tried here. I've never seen it anywhere, although I've never looked. And the label above is slightly misleading. The bottle is more black and white and graphic in person. So, if you can find it, it's worth drinking! Enjoy!

Ski Trip!!

2010-03-09T15:03:00.000-08:00

In a wonderfully-timed post-interview trip, we're spending four days in Snowbird, UT skiing and playing a bunch of Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride.

We are here:

For a general idea of what's going on when we hit the slopes, this is what Tom and Lori and Brad look like when they ski:

This is what I look like:

But luckily enough, they're very patient with me and very encouraging. (And Brad says I'm actually much better than that...) And so far, my knee's held up nicely.

At the moment, I'm sitting in the condo with Lori, watching a ton of snow falling, enjoying a comfortable, warm, room, and waiting for the boys to get back from the second half of the day. Because, you see, the best thing to do when it's super foggy and snowy and there's no visibility, is to ski the trees. So you can know where you're going. In narrow caverns and such. Yeah, have fun with that Tom and Brad! We'll see you when you get home!

We're excited about being here and getting the chance to rest. And then when we get back to Chicago, I have a whole week's worth of work to do! I will finally be paying Illinois income taxes! Yay!

Life Update

2010-03-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

So just thought I'd put it on the blog so it's official. Yesterday I got a week-long job through a temp agency that starts March 14th. Hopefully by being good at this the agency will recognize that I can be good at other things and start getting me jobs on a more regular basis. I'm really excited to finally have something to do, even if it's a job at a mall where I pass out gift cards.

Also yesterday, I got my first acceptance into a grad program. I found out that I got wait-listed for the PhD program at Claremont Graduate University but they accepted me into their Masters program with a scholarship instead. We're really hoping that God will get both of us into our programs here in Chicago, since we feel like it's been so clear that he's wanted us here. But Claremont's still an option, and it's still pretty nice to know someone wants me for something! I'm still waiting to hear from DePaul (not looking good) and Illinois Institute of Technology (still promising).

We're hoping to hear back from SAIC about Brad's Masters program this week, though this week is rapidly drawing to an end... He applied to two departments, Painting and Drawing and Film and New Media. He got an interview with the Painting and Drawing dept that's set for this Sunday, which is a great step in the process. And the Film and New Media dept doesn't hold interviews, so we are hoping to get a letter telling us one way or another soon.

So for those of you out there that wanted a little update on how we're doing, that's it. Any prayers you feel like offering up on the grad school/job front would be greatly appreciated!

We Drank No Good Cheap Wine This Week

2010-03-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

As previously mentioned, we've really cut back on the amount on alcohol we're drinking, and it really puts a cramp in the Cheap Wine of the Week postings. But I'm going to stick with the alcohol-related theme and share a margarita recipe I've come up with since moving here.

Now, I really like margaritas. They, or variations on their theme, are definitely my favorite type of mixed drink. They don't beat wine out of its top drink spot, since they're super-caloric and super-filling, but I'm still a big fan. However, I've never been able to make one that was that great at home using the basic tequila + lime + triple sec method. And mixes always turn out mix-tasting. So a while ago I was trying to figure out a new mixing method for a drink. Actually I was trying to find a mixed drink that involved cranberry juice and ginger ale, two things we have in constant supply around our apt. And I was hoping for that something to include tequila, since I like the taste of it so much more than other liquors.

But the great grand internet turned up nothing involving those three ingredients. So I made something up all by myself. And since I made it, I'm naming it. And it shall henceforth be called the Carterita. Ingenious, I know.

Well, here's the secret recipe:

2 parts tequila
2 parts cranberry juice (exclusively Ocean Spray, if Brad's drinking it)
1 part freshly-squeezed lime juice
1 part triple sec/Grand Marnier/Cointreau
shake to combine with ice, pour into glass over ice
fill with ginger ale, to taste

And here's the beauty itself, in action being enjoyed with the Caldo de Cameron last week (which, if I haven't mentioned, is amazing). The background is a puzzle I did of a Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass saguaro window, which can be purchased here.

So if you also have a bunch of cranberry and ginger ale lying around, and if you've also got a hankering for a new yummy margarita recipe, then here you go! Enjoy!

Recipe Wrap-Up, finally

2010-03-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

It's been a good couple weeks since the last legit recipe wrap-up. We've been all over the place lately and it's meant I haven't been around to cook anything for a while. But when I have managed to get to the stove, I've made it worth our while. Here's a random recap of the last weeks in food for the Carters.

First a winter-y breakfast for myself. Brad's not really an egg person. Or rather, he is, but only at certain times. Whereas I could be an egg person every day if they magically cooked themselves. But when I've got some time/energy in the morning, I like to make yummy egg creations. And this is my favorite as far as flavor and ease. It's eggs, scrambled with milk, garlic salt, pepper, and Herbes de Provence sprinkled in. The great thing about the herbs is that it gives you a ton of flavor, which means I never miss having cheese in them.

On the very same day in which I cooked that breakfast, I also cooked lunch and dinner. This is a rarity. In fact, it's possible it's never happened before. I forgot to take lunch pictures (grilled turkey sandwich on wheat bread with aged cheddar toasted onto them... not groundbreaking, but really yummy). But I did manage to remember dinner. I found this Three Mushroom Rigatoni recipe from Rachael Ray that looked good. I wanted something mushroom-y so I thought this would cover that nicely.

It looked and smelled amazing while it was cooking, all those mushrooms simmering away.

But, the final product was just good. It wasn't great. The shitake and rosemary combination gave off a little too much earthy flavor that didn't get balanced out by much fat or richness in the rest of the dish. Also, I used really, really cheap wine to reduce with, so that may have lessened the flavor quotient. Again, it wasn't bad... it just won't be a favorite.

However, the next two recipes may just end up being all-time favorites. In accordance with my attempt to possibly start experimenting with red meat, I decided to just go for it and cook us up some prime rib. Why not, right? Brad wanted a meal with cooked carrots and potatoes, so I was going to do roast chicken, But looking through recipes, I came across this roasted prime rib with carrots and potatoes and thought, let's see how it goes.

The thing that kicked this recipe over the edge was the fact that it's called Garlic Schmeared Prime Rib. I mean, how could you go wrong? I cut up some potatoes and carrots (using my hand dandy potato scrubbing gloves courtesy of Nana and Granddad from Christmas... which can be purchased here, or here)

I pureed a ton of garlic cloves with some leftover rosemary from the mushroom recipe and olive oil. "Schmeared" it all over the meat (which was not, in fact prime rib, it was some other cut of beef with a rib in it that was much less expensive, but thinner, so I cut the roasting time by about half, and I roasted the veggies a little bit before I put the meat in.)

And viola! Pretty soon, gorgeous yummy roasted carrots and potatoes, with some crunchy snap peas thrown in the mix. And some surprisingly great tasting, not chewy rib thing on top of them sliced thinly and ready to go! I must say, it was really good. Of course, anything with all that garlic thrown over it would be pretty good, but this did inch me closer to the red meat idea for sure.

And for the piece de resistance of this group of recipes... a mexican shrimp soup (courtesy of Michi's facebook suggestion when I pondered out loud as to whether to make fajitas, soup, or something with shrimp in it). Or, as it's more properly called Caldo de Camaron. I scoured the internet for a good mexican shrimp soup recipe, and this one won because of it's easy-to-make-yet-actually-authentic-sounding shrimp stock portion of the recipe. You peel the shrimp, and then boil the peels in chicken broth. When it was done cooking, I finally understood one of the myriad smells that always abound in my favorite taco shops. It's fish stock. And this is how I make one.

And then you throw in this pureed goodness of onions and garlic and serranos and tomatoes and cook it down to mush, and then you add in the stock and some potato pieces and then the shrimp and cook them almost enough. Then throw some lime on the side and some cilantro and avocado on top. And really, my friends, you have an incredibly delicious soup. One of my favorite things I've ever made. Ever. In my life. I wish I could eat it all the time.

There it is. The goodness itself. I think you should all carve out an hour of dinner time this week and make this. And eat it. You may want to double the recipe. It's amazing. And actually, pretty dang good for you too. So, enjoy that. And I'll salivate over here some more while I think about it.

Celebrity Sighting of the Week Wednesday

2010-02-24T21:17:00.001-08:00

So something happened today that blows all of the possibly good cheap wine we've had this week out of the water. We were going out to dinner tonight to celebrate our friends Seth getting into the MFA Ceramics program at SAIC (congrats Seth!!) And since that coincided with restaurant week here in Chicago, where you can go to some great restaurants and have a prix fixe menu for only $32, we decided to go out to a great otherwise-unaffordable restaurant with Seth and his wife Shauna.

Seth's choice was One Sixty Blue, one of the restaurants here in town a certain celebrity sports player in town owns. The food was supposed to be great (and it was). And we were having a great time bringing up random facts about this celebrity at our table when, guess who walks in the door? THE OWNER HIMSELF... MICHAEL JORDAN!!!!

Some thoughts. He's tall, he's got huge hands, he was wearing Nikes, he was with his daughter, he was on his cell phone practically the whole time, and I made eye contact on the way back from the bathroom but then got embarrassed and looked away immediately.

Needless to say, it was pretty awesome. The Bulls kept beating the Suns back when I cared about the NBA, but I always loved to watch MJ, who didn't? (I harbored deep resentment for John Paxson and his three pointer though.) The man is a legend. And we ate dinner next to him. Good night.

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday - Sorta

2010-02-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

It's Wednesday! Cheap wine of the week day always brings a smile to my face. Though this week it's cheap beer of the week day. As I've mentioned, we're not drinking as much wine nowadays, so my options for this are being limited. Luckily, when Jake and Nicole were in town we went to Goose Island Brewery with them here in Wrigleyville and got to do a beer tasting. They do four tastes for $6, so between the four of us we tasted every beer they offered, with a couple doubles. It's quite fun to support our local brewery, and it's an added bonus that they make some really good beers.

Now, I'm still somewhat of a beer wimp. I like hefeweizens and wheat beers, though I can appreciate a more full-bodied beer, I just couldn't drink a whole glass of one. But we have so many friends who really like beer and who are really into it, so I want to expand my horizons. And Brad's getting to the point where he's really enjoying beer as well, so this was a great thing for us.

I can't remember the name of my favorite beer of the night, so I'll share with you Brad's favorite of the night. We present: Goose Island Nut Brown Ale.

It's a little too chocolate-y for my taste, but Brad (and Nicole) liked the little coffee flavor and some of that chocolate-ness. One of my favorites was the Sahti, and the Honker's Ale is always good. So, if you happen to be in town, you should 1) let us know, and 2) go visit Goose Island... preferably with us.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T20:23:00.000-08:00

Hey friends, Happy Celebration of Love Day! Just for today, some lovely little ranunculus to enjoy

For this week's recipe wrap-up, just a couple good things to share.

A basic herb-encrusted salmon over rice that I love to make. I use Mrs. Dash Original Blend, throw it all over the salmon and pan sear the salmon till it's done. For the rice, I like to use chicken stock and I also add some Mrs. Dash to tie the flavors together. Sometimes I completely change my mind and use curry, but this was a Dash kind of night.

The other meal of the week was a really yummy, simple pasta dish. I had leftover roasted chicken to use up and we hadn't had pasta in a really long time. I used this Chicken Bolognese recipe, only swapped out the ground chicken with the diced roasted and used shells instead of penne.

Here's the sauce simmering away

And here's the finished product, mmmmmm!

I hope you've had a wonderful Valentine's with a friend, a spouse, a love, or your dog (or a combination thereof). Happy eating!

Apparently It Snows Here

2010-02-12T13:10:00.000-08:00

Let me lead you on a little tour of our neighborhood from a couple days back...

You step out our door and this is what greets you on the hallway windowsill... striations of snow layers

You go down the hallway, and downstairs out our front door and this is what the sidewalk looks like... drifts pointing the way

You continue down the sidewalk and turn down the street and almost miss our bright yellow Mini, because she is rather buried

As are all the other cars on Hutchinson St.

If you go down a couple blocks more, you come upon Holy Trinity North Side, all dressed in white

And then you can't take it any more and you come back home to cuddle up with some hot Earl Grey and a chocolate chip cookie

Here's a little video of how everything got this way

If you're in the sun, don't take it for granted! If you're in this with us, enjoy how pretty it is from indoors! And Happy Valentine's Weekend to everyone out there!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-02-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

Except it's Thursday. Oh well. I was a little busy last night going to a switched-day small group and then eating one of the best dinners of my life. I think that deserves an extra day's worth of time on the blog. (As far as dinner goes, we ate at avec, a really amazing restaurant here... it was incredible. I ate pureed fava bean crostini, and amazing cheeses, and figs. I also ate salami and pork and ham. Taste sensations. I'm beginning to rethink my life-long no red meat eating. Morally, as long as the meat is grass-fed or sustainably farmed, I think I'm turning my mind around toward it. We'll see...)

Anyway, to the cheap wine of the week. Brad and I have cut back considerably in the last couple weeks so we're not trying as many wines anymore. But luckily, the one red we did try this week happened to be cheap and good. So it wins.

Actually, it was really good. We both very much enjoyed it and it was on sale for $7.99! The Red Diamond 2007 Cabernet.

It was really smooth, light but not watery, great flavor, and $7.99 people! $7.99! Really, this was our best Cheap Wine of the Week find in a long time. It gives me hope for us to not be shrinking our wallets too much while not sacrificing good taste. So, our hat's off to you, Red Diamond. Nicely done. Nicely done.

Dessert Recipe Wrap-Up

2010-02-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

So I still haven't been doing much cooking this week. I'm going to cop the resting-up-from-the-crazy-week excuse, even though it's true. But I did manage to bake some desserts this week.

One was a really yummy chocolate chip banana bread. I found the recipe on this blog, which took some searching. (PS, this blogger knows her stuff about food, but is a little crude/harsh/over-sharer, just fyi) I thought chocolate chip banana bread was common thing. But most of the recipes I found either added nuts, which is not my favorite way to do banana bread, or didn't add buttermilk, which I think is a key component. But this one worked out really well, albeit with an extra 10 minutes of baking. (Note, I was inspired by my sisters-in-law who baked really good banana bread over Christmas and I've been craving it ever since.) This was delicious, and as an added bonus it got rid of like half of the black bananas in my freezer!

My other contribution was some chocolate chip cookies for a super bowl party we went to. For Ryan and Vera's wedding, a bunch of friends got together and set up a massive cookie table. (See this NYT article that inspired it all.) So I baked a ton of cookie dough for Faircakes (a family recipe that's amazing) and for these NYT chocolate chip cookies, which I'd made before and loved. There were a couple problems, though. 1) I made WAY too much dough. Probably like 15 dozen cookies worth. 2) The recipe calls for a really long bake time that I have had a problem adjusting to make the cookies work out correctly. So the ones at the wedding were a little brown and crispy, though they still tasted good.

Well, using two of the four rounds of extra dough I have, I made another attempt at the cookies yesterday. I cut the cooking time down to 14 minutes for each batch, and it was much better. I think I'm going to try 12 minutes next time and I think that'll be just about right. Also, don't forget the sea salt. Just a few sprinkles on top add a great texture and flavor.

Someday I'll get more actual food up! Till then, some sweets just in time for Valentine's Day! Enjoy!

The Growth of the Paperwhites

2010-02-04T20:38:00.000-08:00

Look! I haven't killed them yet! (Though I have killed my CF card on my good camera, so you're stuck with these not-so-great pictures for now).

Day 9, getting bigger!

Day 12, we have flowering!

Woo hoo for finding something that grows in our apartment!

Catch-up Day

2010-02-03T19:32:00.000-08:00

So I made no food last week and we drank no good cheap wine this week. Our week was full of friends and wedding adventures instead!

One of Brad's best friends got married over the weekend in Pittsburgh. Brad's known Ryan since elementary school and he's one of a great close group of friends from San Diego. Ryan met his wife (!) Vera working with a ministry in Pittsburgh called Earthen Vessels Outreach. It's involved in the urban city with kids ministries and Ryan's working with them restoring this really old church to be their new sanctuary. It's really cool. Brad got to be the best man in the wedding so we were there a few days early and helped set up everything. Our friend Nicole was also in the wedding and it was great to hang out a lot with her. And a bunch of other friends came out as well. My camera is having flash card problems so I don't have any pictures to show you yet, but I hope to have some up soon. Congratulations Ryan and Vera! We love you and we were so glad to be a part of the wedding!

On Monday we came back to Chicago along with our friends Jake and Nicole who had come to the wedding as well and got to spend a few extra days with us. It was great to have them in town, and we got to show off the city. It wasn't even that cold, although they still got to see snow! We had a great time. I was using my other camera for this section of the trip, so here are a few pictures of that.

Here are Brad and Nicole in front of our apt building enjoying the snow

Here's Jake making a snow angel and Brad throwing snow in his face

Here we are loving our night with friends!

We got to wander downtown and see all the great snow and ice on the buildings. It looks beautiful right now. This is the famous "bean" sculpture in Millennium Park with snow on it.

And here's the Chicago river as it was starting to melt.

I'll hopefully be back to cooking and someday we'll find another cheap wine of the week for you. But I hope you liked the peek into what we've been up to this week!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-01-27T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's that day again!

It's a short and sweet one. This is the runner-up from our wine tasting. Like I mentioned before, I found it at Whole Foods for $11.99 (though I've seen it quite a few places, it's got a very bold style that is hard to miss). And I'm not usually a huge Merlot fan, but this was nice and smooth and light. A good, cheap, everyday type of wine that I think would go well with anything.

It's the 2008 The Velvet Devil Merlot.

Yay! Go try it sometime! Or remember next year that I posted a cheap Merlot once and look it up and try it then!

That is all. See you next week.

Paperwhites

2010-01-25T13:59:00.000-08:00

So I found a new favorite cheap thing that I never knew existed. Call me late to the game on this one, but I am not much of a botanist so I've never heard of Paperwhites. But it turns out they are related to an Amaryllis, which I have heard of, and they are a really easy to grow bulb plant. This is how easy to grow they are... you stick them in a bowl of water and they bloom in 3 weeks. That's it. You're gonna want some stone to hold them in place.

The best part was that they were 50 cents for each bulb at this nursery my friend Sarah and I were at! So I got five. And put them in a bowl. And put some stone and water in the bowl with them.

Aren't they cool looking? I love my camera with natural light to work with.

I'll update you on their progress. I'm thinking I might be able to not kill them!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2010-01-24T12:41:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

It's been quite a week. A bit of an emotional roller coaster, if you will. But one of my favorite remedies for feeling down is cooking something delicious. It's very satisfying to know that if you put these certain ingredients together and roast them for this amount of time, there will always be a yummy end result. If nothing else seems to be going well, I can still cook well, dangit! And so, I did. Here are the results.

It's been pretty mild for a winter here at the moment. It's been like 35 and not snowing and not windy. Now, that's not warm, but it's really not cold. Still it's been a little cloudy and grey, so it's called for some warm feel-good food. And what's better for that then some chili and cornbread? (Side note, about four of my friends on Facebook also had this idea, so I think it's a case of great minds and all...)

If you ever wanted to know what color my cutting board is, it's the color of a red pepper. Exactly.

I used this chili recipe, just with ground turkey. I've made it before, and it's nice and thick and bean-y. Hearty and satisfying.

And I tried out the Joy of Cooking cornbread recipe for the cornbread. Everything I read said to use stone-ground cornmeal because it's finer and the cornbread doesn't taste as gritty. I didn't have stone ground cornmeal, so I just took my regular cornmeal, and my tiny little mortar and pestle and ground it finer myself.

And I made cornbread cupcake style, which worked out really well. (Cook's note, better the second day! Mmmm, leftovers)

The next night was this Roast Turkey Panini with Pesto Roasted Red Peppers and Fontina. Brad wanted a panini with some meat in it, and we have an awesome panini pan (thank you Christopher Sampson and Kayli Moran and Mario Batali for the wedding gift). Of course, the recipe calls for "prepared basil pesto", so I also has to look up a basil pesto recipe. And after roasting some red peppers and pine nuts, the meal turned out beautifully.

Homemade pesto, with lots of great cheese.

And you gotta love those panini lines on the bread.

Last, but not least (especially according to Brad) was my very first attempt to make pork chops. I found these at Whole Foods, they are already rubbed in adobo and citrus, which made my job extremely easy. I just had to rub a little salt on both sides, throw some olive oil in a pan, and fry the chops for about 4 minutes on each side. I deglazed the pan with a little bit of tequila and water for a quick sauce that paired well with the spice and citrus, and done. Seriously, the first 10 minute meal I've ever made. It was wonderful. And I have nothing to compare them to, but Brad said they were good, so I'll believe him!

And that is all. Tomorrow I'll post my new favorite this I got with my friend Sarah at the nursery yesterday while we were looking for plants for the church foyer.

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2010-01-20T20:24:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

So I have a bunch of cheap wines of the week in my repertoire now! What's nice is, I get to spread them out and not go hunting for a good wine every week. We had our wine tasting, which was awesome, and so we got to taste a bunch of different wines, and I liked most of them!

Here are a few detail shots of the prep for the party. I made little wine FAQ pages and name tags with a rating sheet on the back for everyone.

We had 12 people in our little apartment, which meant Brad and I were standing, but it was a lot of fun! We are so blessed to have such a great community here!

On to this week's cheap wine of the week. In a thoroughly unscientific study (I liked it best, Brad did too, and I remember some other people saying good things about it...), this was our wine tasting winner! It's the 2007 Boomtown Syrah. I got it from Whole Foods for $12.99. It's from Washington, and it was a good surprise. I expected to like the Cab we had best, but luckily it was a blind tasting and I was able to forget which wine was which long enough to not be prejudiced against this one. Nice and smooth, not too tannic, a little oaky, and a lot of fruit. Mmmm mmm good!

Here it is alongside the rest of the bottles we had available that night.

Next week, I'll reveal the second-favorite of the night. (Here's a hint, it's also red, also from Whole Foods, and also $12.99!)

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2010-01-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

This is our start of 2010's recipe fun! This year I hope to keep being able to find great recipes, try and be healthy and spend less money. So, in that spirit, let's go on to the food of the last couple weeks.

Since Brad and I were sick at the same time, it called for a soup night. Over Christmas I found some footed soup bowls at Crate and Barrel for $3.95. Best bowls ever. So I had to retry French Onion Soup recipe, since I could broil it properly and have all that great melty cheese on top. I used a different recipe this time, and it turned out just as good. Possibly better.

Mmmmm... cheesy goodness...

The next night was a chicken salad, just another version of my favorite shredded chicken one. This involved adding fresh corn and grape tomatoes. And, as a new twist, I made up a tequila lime vinaigrette to use as a dressing. The little bit of tequila added some sweetness and the lime was a great tart counterpoint to that.

My favorite thing that I have made in a long, long time came by this week. I mean, really. It was that good. So we had seen Alton Brown making these Tuna Croquettes on Good Eats. And Brad thought they looked good, so I made them the first night.

I used this Tartar Sauce recipe as something to dip the croquettes in. And it was really good. A great meal. But the next night, at the risk of being redundant, I made both recipes again. As a sandwich. A tuna croquette tartar sandwich with arugula on a freshly toasted bun. Oh yum. This will make it into the repertoire.

The last recipe came from another community group get-together dinner. We potlucked with some great lasagna and cheesy garlic bread and snacks and drinks, and our contribution was a caesar salad. The special part was that I made my own caesar dressing. I've never tried a caesar before, and figured Ina Garten would know how to make a good one. And she did. But, cook's note, pay attention to her when she says to use a light olive oil. I used extra virgin, and it definitely tasted olive oil-y. Still good, but I'll know better for next time.

There we go. Weeks worth of food crammed into one post for you. I'm off onto more culinary adventures! Go Chargers!

How To Host a Wine Tasting

2010-01-13T11:23:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Instead of our regularly-scheduled Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday, today I'm going to share my tips on hosting a wine tasting. (We didn't drink any good cheap wines this week, just a great expensive one.)

So the hardest part about a wine tasting is picking the wine you want to serve. It can be rather daunting. Do you just go to the store and blindly grab 6 bottles and hope they work? Do you get only wines that start with the letter "W"? While those may actually be valid, fun tastings, there are a few rules to stick with.

First, the basic options for a tasting are vertical, horizontal, or themed. Vertical tastings mean that you select one specific wine, say Orfila Vineyards' 2006 Ambassador's Reserve Merlot, and then you go into your cellar and pull out the 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001 versions and set them all up against each-other to see how the wine differs throughout the years. If you have a great love for a vineyard or a wine, this is a cool option to lovingly sip through its history.

But, let's face it, most of us don't have the luxury of having a cellar full of older vintages of wines that we can stack up against one another. So the next idea of a tasting is a horizontal tasting. This is where you select a certain varietal (and, if you want to be picky, a certain region as well), say Miner Family's 2006 Petite Sirah, and then you go pick out five other 2006 Napa Valley Petites to set up alongside it. This way you get the same grape, from the same year, from the same region, but you can taste the differences between the makers.

Now, for a crowd that doesn't necessarily like the same type of wine, another idea is a themed tasting. This can encompass just about anything. All Italian wines, wines with animals on the label, wines under $10, wines Cassia has featured as Cheap Wines of the Week. You get the idea. With this type of tasting, it's going to probably be a little more hit or miss, but it can also be really fun because you get to explore some random wines and be casual and fun about it.

The logistics of the wine tasting after you've picked out your wines is then completely up to you. Especially if I'm doing a themed or random tasting, I like to go for the blind tasting idea. So you grab a bunch of paper bags, wrap the open bottles all up (if you're with wine snob types, make sure you take off the foil or any other identifying features above the top of the bag), number the bottles, and give everyone tasting cards for them to make notes and guess which one is which.

Image taken from winetastingguy.com.

The last step is to get some great cheese, or bread, or something to snack on so the wine doesn't go to everyone's heads too quickly and so they can clear their palates. And then pour out about an ounce or so of each wine to everyone (really, you don't need a lot, just enough to swish and swirl), provide a dump bucket, and get to tasting!

This Saturday we're hosting a wine tasting at our place (8 o'clock if you're in the Chicago area, just let me know if you want to come!), and I'll be doing a more informal educational style. Pick out four common white varietals, four common red varietals, one rose, bag 'em, and let people see if they can pick out which one's which. (The rose might be a freebie). I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes!

If you guys have some good wine tasting tips of your own, let me know! I'd love to hear more fun ideas! Happy wine tasting!

Christmas post, finally

2010-01-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

Hey friends and family! Welcome to 2010! We've been crazy busy and then crazy sick, so I'm just now getting all this up for you to see. We got to spend Christmas in San Diego this year and it was a wonderful time. We hung out with a ton of people and played a lot of games and laughed, a lot. It was great. We even got to extend our stay for an extra couple of days because Southwest Airlines is fantastic and will let you switch flights with no fee if it costs the same. All in all, a lovely time was had by all. And then Brad got sick and got an ear infection and ruptured his eardrum, and then gave his sickness (but not the ear infection, thankfully) to me, so we've been using a lot of Kleenex around our apartment the last week or so. But we're on the mend and both he and I are almost done with our grad school applications! Yay!

So there's the update for now, more to come later, but to tide you over, here are a few pictures from Christmas:

The classic Southern California Christmas picture

Me and my matching present, nicely designed by Brad's sister Michi

The random karate kick, of course

The Carters bought these "C is for Carter" hats when we went to the Cubs game out here, so we had to do the family photo with them

And a bunch of us went to Orfila so I could see everyone and finally catch up, and of course try out all the delicious wine!

There it is, Christmas 09 in all its glory. The regular recipes and cheap wines of the week will resume this coming week as well, never fear. And I still need to show you all the new view from our apt (hint, it involves lots of fluffy white stuff.) Have a great week!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-12-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

Here's our cheap wine of the week this week! We enjoyed this with some friends who made us delicious chicken and pork tacos. Yummy! I brought a straight cabernet and this cabernet/syrah blend because both would have a little spice to pair with the tacos. And both were good with it, but this one was better. Both Brad and I really liked it.

The Purple Cowboy Tenacious Red was about $11.99 at Jewel, and it was smooth and great next to the tacos and guac.

So next time you have good friends that make you tacos, bring this along and have a lovely meal!

Merry Christmas friends! We hope it's a blessed time of family and joy for all of you.

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-12-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

In keeping with this week's short posts, here's another one to add. I suppose when the holidays come around, I get to just enjoy the fruit of other people's cooking labor more often, and don't have time to make food for us as much.

So my one night of cooking this week yielded a really tasty BLT salad. Brad finished his final project for school and this was his celebration dinner. He wanted a salad, but I knew it needed a little bit of protein substance or it wasn't going to cut it for a whole meal. This turned out to be perfect. A little saltiness from the bacon, a little sweetness from the tomatoes, and a little tang from the dressing. I ended up using spinach for the salad instead of lettuce and it was great.

Lots of yummy grape tomatoes were a bright, delicious touch.

And the only other thing I took a picture of is truly not creative, but it's such great morning comfort food and it made me happy. We had leftover bread from the salad dinner and I knew it would got to waste if I didn't use it, so I ended up making cinnamon sugar toast.

This, a cup of Earl Grey, a blanket, and some falling snow outside my window was the perfect way to start a morning.

Have a truly blessed Christmas week!

Brad's New Website

2009-12-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hello friends!

This is just to pass along that Brad has finally updated his website with the artwork he's been working on all semester! You should go check it out.

There's a lot of writing, we know, but it helps give a good sense of what this stuff really is and why it's so cool. His direction has changed dramatically this semester, so if you haven't seen his stuff in a while you may want the help figuring it out. It's been a great semester of learning and tweaking and discovering new ways to create. We're so blessed that Brad's had this opportunity to be at this school with these professors. Now he's on to applying for school to hopefully be in the master's program next year.

Here's a hot tip for the site. Follow the birdie! It's pretty dang awesome. :)

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-12-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

A short post about our cheap wine of the week. This week's was the Toasted Head Cabernet Sauvignon. I know, I know. Somewhat of a cop-out. Admittedly, this is not a creative pick, everyone already knows about Toasted Head. But it's cheap, it's good, and we drank it this week. So it wins. I think I spent $9.99 on it at Jewel, and we enjoyed it.

Hope you enjoy it too!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-12-13T19:11:00.000-08:00

Another week, some more good food!

This week was full of some yummy meals. The first was a turkey burger night. It was based off of this Southwestern Turkey Burger recipe, though I used some white cheddar on top and turkey bacon. It turned out lovely, at any rate!

The next meal was one I've been craving for a while. I've made it a few times before, and it's a delicious four-cheese baked macaroni and cheese dish. Emeril's recipe is the baked macaroni recipe I tried first, and it was so good I've never thought to try and find another. You can't see it quite as well in the picture, but it's creamy and nutmeg-y and yummy goodness. I was so excited to finally cook it and serve it. (But we needed a bit of a break between the Thanksgiving amount of food and serving this monster.)

The last recipe was a new one for me. A friend on Facebook was talking about a Greek shrimp recipe and it made me think about making shrimp. I went searching for a shrimp meal that sounded delicious and like something I've never made. This is what I came up with. Good ol' Ina Garten. Always good for some really great food that taste wonderful. (Cook's note, I used half the butter it called for, and next time I'll add another half cup or so of bread crumbs to get a little more crispiness.) It was delicious. Both brad and I really liked it. And I like that it didn't include the pasta that's usually in shrimp scampi.

Here's the shrimps before cooking.

And here they are all finished and bubbly. Mmmmmm.

The side salad with the shrimp was a really easy spinach salad with some hard boiled eggs (thanks Trader Joe's for selling those by the bag), and a lemon-balsamic vinaigrette to go with the shrimp.

So there you have it. Christmas is coming! And I'm hoping to have some very fun pictures of snow and cold up soon. You can enjoy our white christmas vicariously (or you can live here too and wish you were in sunny so cal... either way). Have a wonderful holiday season!

Homemade Holiday

2009-12-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

Hey friends. I thought I'd share this idea with you all. I'm sure Christmas is tight for everyone right now, but that doesn't mean that there are less people in our lives that we want to honor and thank and give something great to! I really wanted to give something to the other members of our small group at our new church, because they have been so welcoming and awesome by allowing us in their lives this semester. But with everyone in the group, giving a separate, store-bought gift to all of them wasn't probably feasible. So I decided to do something homemade. And these paint tins of brownies emerged.

I found this great Chocolate Chocolate Chip Brownie recipe on another blog (well, I'm assuming it's great, I've never actually tried it... if you're in my small group, let me know how they turned out). I just used the dry ingredients to make the layers (my friends will have to find their own butter and eggs). I found the paint tins at Michael's, and added some candy cane ornaments I had from an event I was part of at our old church a few years back.

The walnuts were an addition of mine into the recipe, but I left them in their own compartment so people didn't have to add them if they didn't want to. And I put a circle of wax paper in-between the layer of flour/cocoa powder and brown sugar so that it would help with the mixing process.

Lastly I tacked on the name tags with the recipe written on another card and voila! Homemade holiday goodness! I hope they all enjoy them, and I hope this may spark some creative juices in you for your friends too!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-12-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

You know what is perfect with a -20 degree wind-chill night? A cheap wine of the week, of course! (Yes, that's really what the weather will be here tonight... be jealous.)

And this week's was great. We're finally back to a cheap red, yay!

I found this at Whole Foods, one of their 10 great wines under $10 they are showcasing through the season. It's the 2007 Altovinum Evodia Old Vines Garnacha. It was $9.99, and worth every penny. A little light, but some great structure and really smooth flavor. Mmm mmm.

We've met a couple here who are just recently getting into wine, and this will be one I introduce them to for sure. For 10 bucks, this is a great wine, and something I think anyone can enjoy.

Okay, there's the shortest post I've ever done, but the Top Chef finale starts right now, so I gotta go. Enjoy!!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-12-07T09:38:00.001-08:00

So this one's on a Monday, oh well. And this is about two week's worth of recipes and goodness, so be prepared for a long one with lots of yummy photos!

It all started the weekend before Thanksgiving when Jonathan was in town. He was here for a work training deal and stayed over the extra weekend to hang out with us. Fantastic. A new person to cook for! I was in the mood to cook scallops again after the great Charleston scallop sucess. But most of the recipes I found were of the same variety. But then Epicurious saved the day with this fantastic Nantucket Scallop Chowder recipe. It's like clam chowder, but with scallops and bacon. So, yeah, it's delicious. (Cook's note, I added corn, and next time I'll use my immersion blender and add in some more potatoes that have been all creamed together to add a little more of that chowder thickness... but it was still amazing.)

The finished product with some lovely paprika and bacon all over it

The best part of that meal, though, was the appetizer. I've made quite a few caprese salads in my day. My roommate in college, Elissa, taught me the beauty and deliciousness of them in college and I've loved them ever since. What's not to love about tomatoes, mozzarella and basil? But this caprese was the absolute best caprese I have ever had in my life. Everything was perfect. Heirloom tomatoes (on sale at Whole Foods), buffalo mozzarella, and Thai basil (a little spicier than regular basil). Mmmmmm mmmmm mmmmm. I could probably eat this every day. And the heirloom tomatoes looked really cool too with their scalloped edges and such.

And what's the fun in having heirlooms if they aren't different colors? Bring on the yellow tomatoes!

The next couple dinners that week were just fun, easy dinners. I knew I'd have more cooking than even I would want to do on Thanksgiving, so I took a bit of a break.

Here's one of my favorite things, breakfast for dinner!

And here's a great chicken corn salad that's one of my go-tos whenever I see boston lettuce in the store. It's based off this recipe, though it's been modified a bit over time.

And last, but not least, was the turkey tortilla soup that I was forced into post-Thanksgiving. So, as you know, I didn't roast a huge turkey for thanksgiving. I did this Turkey Osso Bucco recipe instead. It turned out wonderfully. But I way overbought on the turkey parts. We just used the turkey breast pieces I'd gotten, and so I had these two gigantic turkey legs left over that I didn't know what to do with. (Those large dinosaur legs in the boiling pot of water in the Thanksgiving post.) So after some thought and worry, because I didn't want them to go to waste, we finally hit on a spin off chicken tortilla soup, just with turkey. I boiled those legs for almost an hour, forgetting that this was not the most efficient or effective way to deal with really large pieces of meat. But they finally got cooked, and they were shredded into a lot of spices and goodness and topped with tortilla chips. It worked out. But I'll try and not recreate that next year...

Phew! That's all of them! Have a great week! And for all you west-coasters out there, just know that we had the first legitimate snowfall of the year over here! So it's awesome for now, but I'll soon be rather jealous of you all. :-)

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-12-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

It's baaaaaaaack! Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday has also returned from its hiatus. First a little news, I took the GRE yesterday and it went really, really well. The new computerized version lets you know your score right at the end of the test, so you don't have to wait around and wonder how you did. It was such a relief to see that score pop up on the screen and know all my hard work the last couple weeks has been worth it. Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts for me, I know this is just another confirmation that God thinks I should go to grad school. On to the applications!

Anyway, in honor of the occasion we opened a bottle of Frank Family Blanc de Blancs Champagne to celebrate. (Not a cheap wine of the week by any stretch of the imagination, but I'll include a picture anyway)

But our real cheap wine this week was one my parents and Brad and I enjoyed at Fontana Grill and Wine Bar in our neighborhood. The name of the wine is actually "Reds", which is, obviously, a red blend. It's a blend of carignane, zinfandel, and petite sirah. At the restaurant the bottle was $22, which means in real life it's probably about $15. Still not crazy cheap, but it's a great deal. The wine was silky smooth, very velvety without being overpowering. My Dad and Brad and I really liked it, and my Mom, who normally doesn't like reds, even enjoyed her sip. We'll definitely be getting it next time at Fontana. (Great restaurant, by the way... my Mom and Brad and I had been there when she was in town last, like 6 weeks ago, and the waitress remembered us, very nice)

So if you see it on the menu someday, go for it! I can't find it online (you try searching for "Reds" as a wine and finding it...), so you don't get a picture, but try and remember it if you can.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Time in Chicago

2009-11-30T08:46:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy time here in the windy city, and we've had a ton of friends and family over to visit us! It's been great but very busy, so the blog has been sadly neglected. But here's a big Thanksgiving post. My parents came in town for Thanksgiving and have been here for 5 days or so. This was my first Thanksgiving hosting and it went really well! We also got to have Kristen White and her Dad, Moreno, come down from Wisconsin as well, which was great.

Here are my 10 things I learned hosting Thanksgiving...

1) Have friends over! It makes it a lot more fun. Friends also help cook and bring extra food so you don't have to do it all... fantastic.
2) Hosting Thanksgiving actually takes a lot more work and planning than I ever thought it did.
3) You really don't need to roast a huge turkey, you can make Turkey Osso Bucco instead.

4) Mom's floaty shirt can blow into the gas stove and light on fire and then she'll have a big melted hole in it, and then you'll be reminded that you don't have a fire extinguisher

5) Moreno White brings over really cool toys to play with, like a laser pointer that, when you point it at a diamond in the dark will throw off all sorts of cool reflections

6) The Dykeman family recipe for stuffing is still the most delicious stuffing ever.

7) Red gerber daisies are a lovely little touch.

8) When you cook leftover turkey legs, it looks like you're cooking parts of a dinosaur, they're huge and they take forever to cook.

9) Everyone needs huge homemade hands around their Thanksgiving table.

10) There are so very, very many thinks to be thankful for in my life!!! Brad and I are so thankful for all God has given us. He's pretty incredible, and has given us a pretty incredible life.

Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful as well!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-11-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to Cheap Wine of the Week! We're finally back to an actual cheap wine that we actually drank this week.

This week's is the 2008 Paso a Paso Verdejo. I think I found this at Whole Foods, though it could have been Trader Joe's. It was $9.99 and it was another white that I needed to cook with. I'd honestly never heard of the Verdejo varietal, so I was excited to see what it tasted like, but I wasn't prepared to spend a ton of money on it. And I figured if we didn't like it, I'd cook with all of it. But it turns out I liked it well enough to drink it instead!

It's got some nice crisp citrus flavors, with a very little sweetness. I think with some sort of citrus salad or a light chicken dish, it would pair very nicely. I keep finding these whites that I'm enjoying, which is a surprise. I still wouldn't pick a white as a favorite any time soon, but these cheaper, lighter, dry whites have been just nice and refreshing. (And they're always cheaper, so they have a better chance of ending up here...)

Here're a few pictures:

And a close-up of the label, very cool geode looking label.

Have a good week all!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-11-15T19:11:00.001-08:00

Another week, another recipe wrap-up!

This was a great cooking week. We got to have friends over Friday night to play Settlers with us so I finally got to cook for company! Of course, I failed to take any pictures of the food, but oh well. The pictures of the dining room from the last post are from that night, so that will have to suffice. Anyway, on to the food I did manage to capture!

The first meal was chicken piccata and some yummy garlic mashed potatoes. I love chicken piccata and I love how quickly it cooks up. The mashed potatoes were an excuse to use some leftover half and half that was going to expire soon. Hearty and delicious!

The next meal we had was for our 3rd anniversary. I was hoping for something really special, and I found this recipe and just wanted to try it out. It was a spinach spaghetti dish with artichokes and mushroom and garlic. I tweaked the recipe by adding the mushrooms and taking out the sundried tomatoes. (Though it would have had better colors with that pop of red...)

And for dessert, we had my go-to yummy dessert, which is fresh fruit over vanilla ice cream. I was inspired to add a little something different by a friend's blog (artdomestic.blogpost.com) who had a post a few days ago on Pomegranates. She's right, they are so much fun to pop out, and they are truly delicious. So I added some pomegranate arils to the classic raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, and macerated them in some sugar and freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Yummy.

And lastly, on an impulse buy at Whole Foods, I found some trout on sale, and figured that I should try my hand at whole trout. I grew up with my Dad's small-mouth bass and sauteed potato dishes, and I wanted to emulate that a little bit. But, unfortunately, I don't have the secret recipe for the breading he uses (I've never asked, he might be willing to share), and these trout were completely whole, heads and all (though I had the guy chop those off, I couldn't handle it). So I went for an oven-baked preparation, but still had those delicious Hamilton potatoes. Oh my word. This was some yummy fish. Of course, anything with all those herbs and lemon and white wine sauce would be good. But this was quite yummy.

Here's the raw trout with the herbs getting smooshed in there.

All bundled up in its pouch!

And the final dish.

That's all for now. Hope you have a good upcoming week everyone!

Brad's Artwork

2009-11-14T19:28:00.001-08:00

I wanted to show off a few new pieces of Brad's. He's been working on these huge "artifacts", as he calls them, of a lost world online. They are these much-larger-than-life pieces that are drawn solely on the computer (using his tablet). They are so awesome. And since we have them printed out now, we decided to put them up in the dining room. Why not? Hands can eat, and cook, and do all sorts of dining-related activities. And since the dining room doubles as Brad's workspace, this seemed appropriate for that as well. I really like them and I thought you all would like them as well. They are so cool!

Here's as much of both of the hands as I could get in one photo. These are both about 7 feet wide and 4 feet tall. Pretty huge.

And here's somewhat of a detail of just the one hand (this one's Brad's hand, the other one is mine).

Hope you're having lovely weekends, even though the college football scene today was awful!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-11-11T12:37:00.001-08:00

This week's wine was really cheap (for us), it was free! We had the privilege of being part of my friend, Elissa's, wedding on Saturday, and I am going to combine a post about that day with my weekly one celebrating one of the wines at the reception.

The wedding was wonderful. Elissa met Chris two summers ago at her church. Chris was going to seminary and was at her church as an intern (or something like that), and she was invited by her aunt to help on a project with him. Apparently she didn't do much on the project, but she and Chris certainly became great friends really quickly. It has been wonderful watching their relationship and I am so thankful that she has found a man that loves the Lord and her so very much. My absolute favorite part about the wedding is that it means she is finally moving out to Illinois! Chris is a pastor at a group of churches down in the Quad Cities area, which is about two and a half hours away. Yay! That's a lot closer than Phoenix!

Here are a few pictures from the wedding.

This is my favorite getting-ready picture, her mom and sister were helping her get into that gorgeous dress and she was cracking up at the process.

And here's the wonderful couple. Officially Mr. and Mrs. Heller!

And here's a little bit of detail from the reception, the flowers and "tent" made out of lights were just stunning.

As for our "cheap wine of the week", that honor goes to the ZD Cabernet we had at the reception. It was really delicious, with all that you hope for out of a nice Cab. And we were really happy to be able to drink such a great wine without having to buy it ourselves! For anyone that was also at the wedding, I'm sure you enjoyed it as well. For anyone else looking for a great "cheap" wine, I suggest you find some good friends who will let you try it out on their dime. :-)

Congratulations Chris and Elissa! We love you and we are so happy to have you as in-state neighbors!

PS ~ Happy 3rd Anniversary to us! Brad and I will be drinking another not-cheap-wine-of-the-week tonight in honor of our day. We got to go to Napa on the trip out here and that was our anniversary gift to ourselves, so we'll be opening one of the bottles in honor of that.

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-11-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

Phew! It's been a long week! But a great one. I was in Phoenix Wednesday through tonight for my college roommate, Elissa's, wedding. Brad joined me Friday night and we had a wonderful time with her friends and family and I'm so thankful I got to be a part of her day. God has already blessed them so much. And they're moving to Illinois in the Quad Cities area! Yay!!

So I didn't get a chance to cook much this week. But a couple good recipes came out anyway.

First up was a night where we needed something warm and filling to make a crisp, fall night more inviting. So what's better for that than french onion soup? I found a recipe online that looked really good. Here it is. And it was really good, but it took a whole lot longer than I prepared for. The caramelizing of the onions took about two hours. But it was worth it. Mmmmm mmm good. Unfortunately, I don't have oven-sfe bowls, so I wasn't able to broil a great Gruyere topping onto the bowls that you dig through, but the Gruyere topped bread had to suffice.

And my other opportunity to cook came in Phoenix. Mom was working late and it was up to Dad and I to make something to eat. So we scrounged around a little bit and came up with these frozen tempura shrimp that we needed to make something with. And I found this recipe for some cold sesame noodles. The best part? The only things we needed to buy at the store were the egg noodles and the cilantro. Nice $4 meal.

Here're the noodles (honestly the best peanut sauce I've ever made, it would be delicious on anything)

Here's the finished product:

I promise to cook some more this week, but I appreciated the help from my Dad and it was pretty fun to have another audience other than Brad to eat with me. :-)

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-11-04T21:55:00.001-08:00

There is no cheap wine of the week this week. Nothing we drank was really worth spending the money on. And I'm pretty sure we only tried one wine this week (Ravenswood Petite Sirah, not so great). So here's a plug for Orfila! This is the winery I worked at in San Diego. It is really awesome. And I really miss the cheap-as-free wine we got there. And the friends.

www.orfila.com

But go check out the website or give them a call. And if you're in the San Diego area, just visiting or if you live there, go to the tasting room in Escondido! It's right by the Wild Animal Park and it's great wine, great people, and great views.

Mmmmm. Yummy. I miss it so much!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-11-01T18:31:00.001-08:00

Hi all,

This week has been rather strange for Brad and me. We've been staying up till about 3am the last four nights and sleeping in till like 11 or 12. He's drawing this awesome new drawing (it's a 7 foot by 4 foot hand that he uses this scribbling technique to do. It's really, really gorgeous so far.) I'm studying for the GRE. I'm applying for two programs in Industrial/Organizational Psychology in Chicago and so I need to take the GRE. And since I just decided I wanted to apply for these programs like two weeks ago, I really need to take the GRE like right now. At any rate, Brad and I have barely left our apartment for the last week.

Needless to say, there wasn't much cooking being done. Food was more of a soup-out-of-a-can or take-out-sushi variety. But I managed a couple meals, and two decent photographs.

This first is a simple cream pasta. I had leftover half and half and good shredded cheese, so I made this pasta. However, the sauce called for 6 raw eggs mixed with the half and half and then just poured over the hot pasta to cook it. I did not trust it not to kill us, so I left it on heat for a little bit, so there were some vestiges of scrambled eggs in the pasta. It still worked out well, though, and at least it tasted good!

And, since it's fall, it was high time I baked a pumpkin pie. I don't think I've ever baked a pumpkin pie before. So I turned to the queen of comfort food, Paula Deen, for her recipe, knowing it couldn't turn out badly. In fact, Brad said it was really awesome pumpkin pie. Add in some whipped cream and yummy! Have lovely weeks, friends!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-10-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

This week's cheap wine of the week was a bit of surprise. I needed a dry white to cook my scallops with Sunday and definitely didn't want to use any of the Cakebread Chard we had for the meal. When Mom and I were at Whole Foods, we picked up a Quail Creek Sauvignon Blanc for $5.99 that I thought would just be a good cooking wine, but not really worth drinking, especially next to the Cakebread. But since there were three of us, and only one bottle of the chard, we ended up drinking it as well. And it was really quite nice. Light, but acidic, and nice and citrusy. Brad and I enjoyed it. And $5.99? You really can't beat that!

Here's a picture of it at our dinner.

(PS ~ Someone we know didn't really like one of the bottles I suggested from TJ's a couple weeks back... Brad and I liked it both times we had it... but this is just a reminder that these are cheap wines of the week, not super-amazing-awesome wines of the week... don't expect them to be perfect... just something to enjoy for an everyday deal... so enjoy them for what they are!)

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-10-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

Look, I instituted a new tradition, and I already broke it! My mom's been in town all weekend, which has been lovely, but it means I missed the Sunday deadline for this week. The recipe wrap-up on Monday will have to suffice. And strange internet doings mean I am barely making the Monday mark, it is almost Tuesday already... sad...

So I cooked a lot this week, and forgot to take pictures for most of it. There are two meals I'll share, though. One was a turkey mushroom burger that was a little bit of a leftover meal. I had the buns leftover and the lettuce and the mushrooms and the cheese. All I needed was a tomato and the turkey meat. Sauteed mushrooms and garlic and shallot mixed in with the meat and salt and pepper and garlic salt, with a little basil thrown in for fun. Topped off with some delicious white cheddar, and we were good to go. Yummy!

The second meal is one Mom and I made Sunday night after church. Brad and I had gotten her a bottle of Cakebread Chardonnay on our trip to Napa as a surprise. So we had to find a recipe that would pair nicely with the wine. Scallops Charleston was the winner. We used bay scallops, because they were a ton cheaper, so we had these little bits of scallops in this delicious mushroom wine sauce all topped with a great Gruyere and broiled to perfection. We served it with wild rice and some of Nana's famous green beans she canned for us. Oh my word. It was fantastic. Not liking scallops very much, I don't know when they're done very well. But between Mom and I tasting them as we cooked, we get it just right. And I liked these scallops a lot. Who wouldn't like something bathed in mushrooms and cheese? And it paired with the wine really well. We finished off our night with a round of Rummikub, some hot cider I spiced (and spiked with a touch of rum), and Good Will Hunting. Very good night.

And here's Mom and Brad enjoying our little family meal!

Happy fall to you all! Next week, a true Sunday post, I promise.

I Bet God Has Fun Coloring Trees in the Fall

2009-10-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to give you all a peek around our neighborhood this week. While the rain has come for the weekend, it has been truly gorgeous the past couple days. So check out the wonderful leaves!

This is the view from our living room across the street

This is the view out of our kitchen window

And this is that same street, the cemetery lined with these great red trees

A house down the street, with a perfect fall montage

Even the squirrels are enjoying the weather!

This is a school in our neighborhood and there are all these great trees with their beautiful coloring

And across the street from the school is our great little church, Holy Trinity North Side!

Hope fall is treating you all well wherever you are as well!

Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesday

2009-10-21T12:34:00.001-07:00

New tradition! I was talking to my mom and her IT guy last night because I'm going to help start her business' blog. One of the points he made was that in blogs, people like to expect some patterns or consistency. Good point Aaron. I'm going to use that for my own personal gain. So, from now on Wednesdays will be "Cheap Wine of the Week Wednesdays" and Sundays will be "Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up Sundays". Other random tidbits will be spread throughout the week.

So for this week, the cheap wine of the week isn't actually a wine at all. It's a beer. Yes, we have jaw-droppingly selected a beer as our delicious cheap thing to drink with a meal this week. And, actually, for a beer, it really isn't that cheap. At $7.99 for a four-pack, it's slightly gourmet. But if it were a bottle of wine, it'd be really cheap, so we're using it!

I was at Whole Foods trying to find a beer and needed help from the beer guy. I told him I know next to nothing about beer, but I like Hefeweizens. He looked at me crazily and said "well light wheat beers aren't in season right now." In season? C'mon Whole Foods, don't go all organically freaky on me. Beers have seasons? Add that to the things I didn't know. But as he explained it, it made sense. People don't want light, crisp beers right now as the weather gets colder. They want big robust beers they can curl up in front of the fire with. Well that's all very well and good for beer people. But for a beer wimp like me, I do, in fact, want a light crisp wheat beer to drink. So he grudgingly offered this as an option. Turns out, it was perfect. The beer is Ommegang Brewery's Witte Beer. It's got some good wheat to it, it's not too heavy, it's got a little bit of orange flavor and a little coriander (I kid you not, I picked up those notes without reading the label, where they were clearly spelled out). Very yummy. Great with the shrimp salad I made.

I didn't take this picture. As you've probably noticed, I am not this professional.

So if you're at Whole Foods sometime soon then pick this up. Or wait till next summer when it's "in season" and indulge then. Enjoy!

Weekly Recipe Wrap-Up

2009-10-18T19:27:00.001-07:00

Apparently Brad's been bragging about my food, and is sad I didn't put up pictures of one of our dinners this week he told Jonathan about. I guess if it doesn't end up on the blog, it didn't happen! So I shall do a little weekly dinner wrap-up Wednesday's meal and tonight's.

Wednesday I was experimenting and it actually turned out really well. Brad voted for shrimp as a protein and I thought of a salad topped with shrimp. Brad asked that the shrimp "have a little color or crunch" so the best I could think of was a slightly breaded shrimp fried in a little half butter/half olive oil mixture for some browning action. I was skeptical about the shrimp, since they tasted almost a little sweet, but pairing with the spinach and sliced bell pepper salad was a lucky break. Everything ended up marrying really well. A thick homemade balsamic vinaigrette finished it off.

As for our cheap wine of the week, I wanted something with some acidity and that wasn't too heavy to pair with the shrimp salad. Whole Foods had this white bordeaux on sale, it's a 2008 Chateau Lamothe de Haux Bordeaux Blanc. It's a 40% Sauvignon Blanc, 40% Semillon and 20% muscadelle blend. Very light (we both agreed it was "almost like water" and way too easy to drink), and a great pairing with both seafood and the crispiness of the peppers and spinach. For $10.99, I'd buy this again. We're not big white people but for a meal like this, we needed it.

For tonight I needed a protein-rich meal. I've been tracking my daily calories and exercise using SparkPeople, which has been great. It's a good way to stay aware of what I'm putting in and what I'm working off. And today, SparkPeople said I needed a lot more protein for dinner if I was going to get enough for the day. So I made chicken, serrano chili, and white cheddar quesadillas. Good protein, and great flavors. Here's the recipe from Food Network. A good reminder of the southwest and home. And I made some guacamole, which never used to be a big deal, but out here it has been impossible to find good avocados. My first attempt, they were super green. My second attempt, they looks and felt great but were all brown and spotty inside. Finally today, they worked out perfectly. Yummy yummy guac, Hamilton style.

For the quesadillas, I got to break out my huge stainless skillet and flip these massive 14" tortilla sandwiches in them instead of just folding the tortilla over. Making them in the skillet helps give that great color on the tortillas as well. They were spicy (next time I'll seed the serranos before chopping them), but very good.

Hope you all had great weeks! We did, and, as you can see, we enjoyed our food!

Friendsgiving

2009-10-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

Our old small group in San Diego is having a Friendsgiving tonight (the timing is in honor of Canadian Thanksgiving). I really wish we could be there with them to share in this probably awesome night of food and laughter and fun. Being with that group of people means you always have a great time and feel warm and fuzzy with friend love. And besides, there are a ton of awesome cooks, so the food at these things is sweet!

Since I can't be there to add in my bit of food (and the winery's donation of cheap or free wine), in honor of the night, I made something here in Chicago. I hope they can enjoy it through pictures. We miss you guys and hope it was a great night!!

To ward off the chill, I made a great chicken soup/stew with a ton of garlic in it. It totally cleans you out and warms you up. In a related note, we got our radiators turned on today! Yay! The boilers had been broken and it was getting pretty chilly in our apartment. Our little space heater was working way overtime. So now it's warm and toasty in here! Though there are a ton of whistles and burbles and knocks that are going on. Apparently normal.

Anyway, enjoy!

Halloween in Chicago

2009-10-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

So Halloween's kind of a big deal over here. Apparently everyone relishes the last holiday before the retreat to their houses for 6 months. I've really never seen so much Halloween decorating on a street before, so I had to share it with you, my blog friends. Check these pics out! These are all houses within a block of our apartment. Sweet orange and black and purple (the all hallows eve color of the year, apparently).

Both these houses are all lit up and spidered out.

Orange Christmas lights, lit pumpkins, and lawn ornaments... par for the course around here.

Someone even decorated the stop signs on one corner for fall...

And for some cute lawn decoration, some pumpkins and a giant stuffed spider (really, someone threw this huge stuffed spider out onto their lawn... crazy)

There are a ton of skulls and gravestones around as well, but they're scary so I didn't take pictures of them. This hasn't inspired me to go decorate as well, but I think it's pretty cool. Good neighborhood spirit!

Quick Update Time

2009-10-12T20:15:00.001-07:00

Hello all!

Just a quick life update. Life is good, though I'm in a little bit of a transition time and I'm trying to process what God has for me in my life. And I've been alternating between stressing out and getting frustrated, and just sitting back and realizing God has it under control. But at small group tonight it came to me as we were going around for prayer requests that everyone is in a time of transition in their lives. A couple of us are looking for work, a couple of us are going to school, one couple put an offer in for a house, one girl is getting involved in some new Bible studies with some new people. We are all going through some sort of transition period. And honestly, that will probably never stop. Once you get the job you have to find your niche, then you get promoted, then you find something new. Or once you get the house then you get the dog and then you think about having a family. And so on and so forth. So if I don't start leaning on Christ and His perfect plan now, then in all the next transitions, I'll be as lost and confused as I felt sometimes this week. Time to remember to focus on Jesus.

But at least I know that even if life is confusing, there is always good food to cook! I've neglected taking pictures of food this week, so I'll put up some not-as-great pictures of tonight's meal. It was a Cassia original (the basic quiche proportions I stole from Barbara Bush, but the inner workings I made up.) Chicken Andouille Sausage Quiche with cilantro and green onions and lots of spices inside. Mmmmmm. It was spicy with a little hint of sweetness from the crust. Yummy!

Cheap Wines of the Week

2009-10-08T11:54:00.001-07:00

I'm a bad cheap wine of the week reporter! So, I shall rectify that right now and post not one, but two cheap wines of the week, and a special bonus wine of the week. So that should fill my quota from the last couple weeks.

First, my go-to cheap wine, Origin Malbec. It's in every grocery store there is and it's always on sale because grocery-store-wine-buyers have no idea what Malbec is and are afraid to try it. I'm a fan of the Origin line of wines because they are a cheap way to get a sense of different varietals. I'm not saying they're great wines, they're not. But they're good enough for $5 and they do help you explore some different wines you might not have tired before. Brad and I particularly liked the 2008 Malbec. I figured it out, and we've had every vintage of this wine from '05-'08 in the course of our wine drinking years, and this one was really good. So, 5 bucks, decent wine, in the grocery store... give it a try!

Next up is a find from Trader Joe's. Stonehedge Reserve Petite Syrah (yes, they spell Petite Sirah with a "y", oh well). Ever since Don Reha bottled the new estate Petite Sirah at Orfila, I have rectified my former dislike of the varietal (you were right Tania!). Big, spicy, yummy, and rich... it's a good thing to try. And then on our Napa trip on the way out here we got to try some more really good ones. So I saw this at TJ's and thought we'd try it out. It turned out to be a nice option. Some good raisin and a little cocoa on the finish, and just a rich, smooth ride to get there. I think it was $10.99, and it's something we've bought twice now and just a good dinner wine. (PS, this goes better with homemade white pizza than with homemade enchiladas, the chipotle was too much for the wine, the pizza balanced nicely.)

And for our bonus wine, a signed bottle just for me! I went to a winemaker's tasting night Tuesday at Que Syrah (bad pun, good wine), our local wine shop down Southport. Murrieta's Well, a winery in Livermore, CA was there showcasing a few of their wines. For coming out of Livermore, the wine was really quite good. And Sergio Traverso, the owner, knew Alejandro Orfila, the owner of Orfila, so we got to chat about that for a while. It was a fun night with some good wine, and I came away with two of their reds, one of which Sergio signed for me! If you can't read it, the inscription says "To Cassia, All the Best! (and come back to CA) Sergio." Adorable.

Happy bargain hunting in whatever it is that makes you smile this week!

Birthday Weekend

2009-10-05T09:58:00.001-07:00

Brad turned 26 yesterday! And in honor of that momentous occasion, Tom and Lori got to come out for the weekend and hang out with us. It was really great to see them, and even more fun to show them our new little life out here. I love that now they'll have a visual picture when we say we're going to church or walking past Wrigley Field. It was a great weekend of just hanging out.

Friday we wandered downtown and went to The Gage restaurant for dinner (found a Bien Nacido Merlot to drink, which was pretty fun since my old winery also sources grapes from the Bien Nacido vineyard). Saturday we went to Ann Sathers for some huge breakfast food, we got to go to a Cubs vs D'Backs game at Wrigley (see pictures and video below), thanks Mom and Dad and Tim Chelgren!, then we played an epic game of Settlers that Tom came from behind and beat us all at, then we went to a local brewery and watched USC mercilessly beat Cal. Sunday they got to come with s to our first-ever church-wide celebration downtown, where all four congregations came together for a big celebration of what God's doing through Holy Trinity. It wasn't quite the small church feel, but it was an awesome time of vision and community.

All in all, very fun! Thanks for coming out parents! Brad had a great birthday full of friends calling and Facebooking, and capped off with some Margie's ice cream shakes with some friends and staying up way too late with them. Awesome. We are praying for God to keep doing great things for Brad this next year. It's going to be a year full of new decisions and new ideas, and we hope that Brad keeps finding new ways to show Jesus through his art. But man, 26 just sounds old! (And I'm still a fresh, young 25 for another 6 months...)

Here are some fun Wrigley Field stadium pictures. It's a great place to watch a ballgame. And we got some great seats, right behind home plate, so we could really see the whole thing.

The Cubs ending up beating the Diamondbacks pretty badly, and it was fun to see the whole crowd get really into it. The raised the W (for win) flag high after the game and everyone sang the "Go, Cubs, Go!" song, which was really funny.

And here's just a few more pictures of us enjoying the game, Brad was being a good photographer so he isn't in them, sadly.

To finish it all off, here's a great video of the Seventh Inning Stretch, a classic Cubs tradition. The guest of honor singing it was legendary Cubs player Ryne Sandberg, which was pretty cool. The Cubs' fans are really pretty fun to see. We had a great time!

Vino-Lok

2009-10-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

That thing up there is what I'm blogging on today. I know it kinda looks like a glass pacifier or something, but this little thing made me so excited last night! So, what is it, you ask? It's called the Vino-Lok, made by Alcoa, and it's a glass wine closure. It's made out of all glass except for plastic around the ring that helps seal the bottle. Production of them started in 2003 and they really haven't caught on in the wine world. I have never seen one on a bottle before and it was really fun to find one. The claim is that they will help protect the wine from air and also add no extra flavors like a synthetic cork might do.

Everyone is trying to find a "better" closure than natural cork because of the "corkage" problem. Depending on who you ask, anywhere from 1% - 10% of wines are "corked" because of improper harvesting, production, or cleaning of the cork, resulting in the release of the chemical TCA. This is no good because you spend all this money on a bottle of wine and then open it and it's all ruined. It's like sticking a bottle of wine in your super-hot trunk and ruining it, only it's not your fault. So scientists are trying to create a better closure that won't have the TCA problem. Except that no-one has been able to recreate the specific properties of natural cork, namely that as a wine ages most of the air is kept out, but a very little bit leaks through the cork's pores and allows for proper aging of wine. So if you're going to be drinking your wine within the next year (90% of the world's wine is consumed within 12 months of purchase) than it's worth not risking the corkage and using a synthetic cork or screwcap or Vino-Lok. But if you are making a fine wine that deserves to be aged, then natural cork is the way to go.

Honestly, I'm a classical kind of girl with this. I love the feeling of popping a cork in a wine bottle, and though the Vino-Lok is better than a synthetic or a screwcap, it's still not classic, and I'm just prejudiced towards real cork. I was super excited to see one on a bottle, and it was cool and pretty, but nothing beats real cork for me.

The way I've learned any of this has been through the book To Cork or Not to Cork by Geroge M Taber. He also wrote The Judgment of Paris, which is the book the recent movie Bottle Shock was based on. Both books are really interesting and really well-researched. I've learned tons just through these two books. What made last night even more fun is that I had just picked up To Cork or Not to Cork at the library yesterday as a good re-read. So I got the book that taught me about corks and other closures and then I find one of those other closure in the same day! Fun!

More Fall Loveliness

2009-09-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

Hi friends. I couldn't resist putting up some more fall pictures from yesterday. I walked to Trader Joe's (picked up ingredients for Rachel Ray's really easy and delicious Southwest Turkey Burgers, minus the bacon) and on my way back I passed a school with a ton of fall-y trees that had dropped their leaves all over the sidewalk. So, I stooped down and started gathering them up. I mean, you can't just ignore free decorations made by none other than the Creator of the universe. (And, really, what're a few moments of sheer embarrassment while everyone wonders why that girl is picking stuff up off the ground going to do, kill me?) Enjoy a few more pieces of Fall, from our house to yours!

Fall Yummy Things

2009-09-26T17:11:00.000-07:00

You all know I've been excited about cooking at home again. Well, I went to Whole Foods and it gave me too many good ingredients to ignore so I got to make some goodness tonight. I got some free-range chicken sausages with basil and sun-dried tomato and some yellow and green heirloom tomatoes. And so I made pasta with the sausage and an heirloom tomato-based cream sauce, and of course some of our home-grown basil on top!

And I now have a new favorite thing... tea floats. Last night I was having some decaf english breakfast tea and it was too hot so I was just sitting waiting for it to cool, and then it came to me. What if I put a little ice cream on top and made a float? Oh my word. So very good. Vanilla bean english breakfast float. I must remember there's ice cream in it so I don't drink them every day. But now I know they exist so they'll be tempting me.

Now off to watch USC hopefully do better than last week...

Fall is Coming!

2009-09-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

Fall is coming! The leaves are starting to change colors and the air is getting crisp (not cold yet, just crisp.) I went to an apple festival with some friends from our small group and saw some freshly harvested apples. I've been drinking tea. And all the stores think Halloween is tomorrow, apparently. It's fun to be in a place that can feel like fall. Everyone here says that fall is the best season, so we'll have to do our best to enjoy it!

This is the view out our window at the moment with some yellowing leaves. If you click on the picture and make it bigger you can see it better.

And, in another start of a new season, this is what I've come to dub our small-group-salad that I made for our first small group meeting on Monday night. (I'm pretty sure I also made it for our first small group meeting in San Diego with our great friends there... hopefully this group turns out just as wonderfully!)

Enjoy the cooling weather wherever you are!

This Is What We Got in the Mail Today

2009-09-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

My friends at Orfila graciously shipped me all my wine so that I didn't have to transport it myself. Since it's been so hot in SoCal, they weren't able to ship it till recently so this was like getting to unpack stuff all over again!

This is all the wine we had sent... craziness... we really need a wine fridge now...

Detail of a bottle our artist on staff did and everyone signed for us (We were leaving on a jet plane to go to art school... pretty nifty)

And this was a "gift" from everyone at Orfila... a delicious looking blend of who knows what with floating bits everywhere... mmmmmm... funny guys....

Our New Church

2009-09-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

So we officially have a church! We're really impressed at how smoothly God has made this decision go for us. Thank you to all of you who were praying. We truly loved Green Valley in San Diego, so we knew that our expectations were high for another church family. And I honestly felt like we may just have to settle for something not as great, or that it would take months to find something. But God doesn't ever work like we expect... shocking...

Walking down our street, I had passed by this little church building a few times and thought that we should try it out, since we were so close and all. I finally looked at their website last Saturday night to see if we wanted to check it out. Unbeknownst to me, the website was just updated a couple of days before I looked at it. And it's honestly God's timing that it was, because I'm of the generation that puts a lot of stock in websites. It looked pretty good, so we went the next Sunday evening to their only service.

First impression, it's a really small church. Second impression, they're talking about Jesus and the Bible in a way we like. Third impression, these are the most welcoming people we've ever met. Since it's so small, we certainly stood out as newbies, and I think every person in the church introduced themselves to us that first day. It was very warm and inviting. The pastor called Brad that week to try and set up a lunch, though it never worked out, and he e-mailed me to set up a time he and his wife could have us over for dinner. Another woman from the church who we'd met briefly e-mailed me to see if I wanted to hang out or go to a Bible study the next day with her.

Naturally we went again this Sunday (we almost felt like we couldn't not go after everyone was so nice), and we got to be a part of the family-style church dinner they do every month. It was great. We met two couples near our age who were both fantastic and friendly and interesting, and there was again a feeling of welcome and family. We ended up signing up for a small group the those two couples were also in, and it just felt so right. I left that Sunday so excited that we're finally getting a start on having friends in Chicago! And ones that love the Lord. Yay!

So tonight, we've just gotten back from dinner at pastor Tom's house with his wife Traci. It was wonderful. They have a beautiful home (I must confess coveting their range...), and a beautiful family, and we talked for almost four hours before we realized we should probably leave them to go to sleep. (It's their 10 year anniversary today, and they still wanted us to be there, that's pretty awesome). All in all, we feel great about this being our new church home. Both Brad and I have already found places in the church where we may be of service and where we can get plugged in.

Thanks again for praying. I think this is clearly where God wants us to be. (Yay for friends!)

Stuffed, roasted chicken

2009-09-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

One more food post, then I promise I'll get back to our daily goings-on for a bit (wait, I have no job, these are my daily goings-on). But, as you know, we got our gas turned on yesterday! So I made Tyler Florence's Roasted Chicken with Herbed Mushrooms recipe to celebrate, and it turned out amazingly. I have roasted a chicken once before and it was good, but it's still intimidating since that's that thing that every chef is supposed to be able to do. So, with a little trepidation, I went for it.

Here's the stuffed bird, ready to roast (lemons, onions, thyme, smashed garlic and salt and pepper).

This is one trussed, stuffed, bacon-wrapped, herb-covered, ready-to-roast chicken!

And here's the final product. Moist meat, salty bacon adding a crispiness, and really good reduced-in-their-own-juices mushrooms. Mmmmmm. Best compliment of the night about it? Brad: "This is the first time I've watched Top Chef and not been hungry afterward." Success! Here's the link to the recipe if any of you want to try it out on your own sometime! Tyler's Roast Chicken with Herbed Mushrooms. Enjoy!

In Honor of our Gas Being Turned on Tomorrow

2009-09-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

We have a gas stove and a gas range in our new apartment. And I'm really excited about a gas range, I've never really cooked on one and everyone says they're so much better. But having such things makes no difference when the gas company takes three weeks to turn your gas on and so leaves you applianceless. (PS - having a gas company with a complete monopoly on a big city likes this makes for truly awful customer service and heinous wait times). Since I can do nothing about the situation but wait, I've been waiting. And not cooking much. And getting antsy.

But tomorrow the day is finally here, and I will have an oven and a range again, yay! So tonight, I "cooked" us something to prepare for the real cooking to come. It was a simple caprese salad, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil (picked off my brand new basil plant!), but the special touch was roasted garlic (in the toaster oven). This was my second attempt at roasting garlic, and the first time something went horribly wrong, but this time it was great. All in all, pretty yummy.

And at the church we visited on Sunday, (which we think may be our new church home... right down the street, great people, preaching Bible and Jesus... but that's another post) one of the couples found out I'd worked at a vineyard and immediately started asking if I knew of any good cheap wines out there. I gave a few suggestions, but I realized that there are so few options that you can trust as far as good wine. So if Brad and I ever run across one, I will post it on our blog and let you know about it. So, cheap wine of the week: Masciarelli Trebbiano d'Abruzzo. We found this at a local wine store when they were tasting it. I was intrigued by it because Orfila grew Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, and this grape is from the same region. But it's a crisp, dry, slightly acidic white that is really nice. And it was only $9.99!

Sorry for the long post, I will probably do more food/wine posts because I really enjoy it, but I'll keep them to picture and little explanations.

Preliminary Apartment Pics

2009-09-14T13:05:00.001-07:00

So, as promised, some pictures! Here is the dining room/Brad's workspace (look at the new huge table! We can actually have people over now!)

On to the tiny little kitchen, but with a really cool view of Graceland Cemetery across the street.

And our new living room, with our awesome tree-lined street and our huge bank of windows. It's been great with the beautiful weather we're having so far!

New Blog!

2009-09-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

Hello to everyone out there! We've decided to set this up for so our friends and family can all be caught up on our every move. As soon as I get a bunch of boxes cleared away, I'll post pictures of our not-quite-finished apartment. Stay tuned!