Mmmmm-mmm! Meat Pie!

Meat pie has returned as a Christmas morning breakfast item! Here is the meat part, waiting to be wrapped in dough!

And here it is uncooked, but ready to go in the oven!  Yay meat pie!

Christmas expectations lowered again.

Hey!  Do you know what is fun? Taking pictures of a macaroni and cheese recipe's ingredients if you have tripled them.

Do you know what isn't fun?  Burning the cheese sauce because you tripled the recipe.  Too bad this was my main gift.  Perhaps the burnt smell won't come through in the final product.  (She says hopefully...)

Christmas Prep in action.

Here are some Christmas food failures.  On the top, a pound of chili bacon peanut brittle.  Sadly, in getting the candy to the proper temperature, I burnt it. Not only did this waste $8.00 in bacon and other items, but it also meant a lot of scrubbing on my pan.

Below the failed peanut brittle is the failed fudge.  I tried a new recipe from Parade magazine and the result was a half-fudge, half undissolved sugar concoction. The nuts and the fudge floated to the top, the undissolved sugar concoction sank to the bottom.  In hindsight, I probably could have sliced off the good fudge top and saved it, but I didn't think of it in time.  Also, there was a lot of scrubbing with this pan too.

There was also a Poor Man's Toffee which was only so-so.

I was rescued from my holiday prep doldrums by this recipe from Cooks Illustrated.  They had me make chocolate cookies, bake them and place an Andes mint on the top of each cookie.

Then the mint is spread to make a delicious minty frosting.

The cookies stayed soft, the frosting stayed chocolate minty for many days. I finally took them over to my Aunt's house and left them there with the rest of the Christmas cookies, so I would stop eating them.

Pizza making week 2

Skills have improved.  No holes, though the one on the front left did get a bit "french browned". *  I hope to make pizza making a regular occurrence.

*That's my dad's polite term for "a bit burnt".

First round of pizza making.

There was a recipe published in the paper, so I gave it a whirl. I had the pizza stone already. The recipe makes four supposedly 12-14 inch pizza, but mine top out at 10 or so inches.  I've got skills to develop.  Including stretching the dough so holes don't form.

This pizza had a minor leak.  The other three turned out okay.

Raspberries and kale from the garden.

Hooray!  Things are growing.  Here is the kale I have harvested for my Eat-All Greens project. (More on that in a second.) Also, raspberries from my bushes.  I'm beginning to realize that you don't really grow raspberries, you instead host the plant and try to keep it from completely taking over.

I bought Carol Deppe's The Tao of Vegetable Gardening because I enjoyed her first book, The Resilient Gardener, I think she's an important gardening person in Oregon and also because she has a method to increase the amount of greens you grow and use.  I love greens.

Following (somewhat) her directions, I planted the kale seed I had collected last fall.  Kale emerged.  I harvested it, started water to boil and arranged my kale on a cutting board, ready to boil briefly, as instructed.  After the water boiled and I added the kale to the pot, I noticed a caterpillar hanging out on the cutting board.  He went into the compost bin.

I drained the kale and was shaking it around in the pot, getting the extra water out, when what did I see but a boiled caterpillar.  "Eek!" said I, and fished it out.  Suspicious, I shook the kale some more and "Eek!" another one.  At that point, I thought it best to carefully comb through the kale to ensure I found any little critters that might have been along for the ride.  I found many, which were collected in the sink, as pictured here.

My finished project, happily caterpillar-free.  

And now I know to check my greens carefully before boiling.

Forktown Food Tour: Alphabet District.

Thanks to Linda, Matt's mom, visiting, we attended another Forktown Food Tour.  This time it was the Alphabet District.  Here's our menu of places.

At Kenny and Zuke's we had a reuben slider, one quarter of their salt bagel with cream cheese and a pickle.

At St. Honore Boulangerie we had a chouquette and half a croissant

At Bull Run Distilling we had samples of two kinds of vodka, a gin, a rum, a few different kinds of whisky and an aquavit.  After that we got to make our own mini-cocktail choosing from three different kinds of bitters. 

At Little Big Burger we had one of their burgers with goat cheese, plus some truffle fries

Next came Taste on 23rd where we had asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, a mushroom stuffed with smoked salmon and a salad with a strawberry fig dressing.  Also a sample of both red and white wines.

At The Meadow we had a salt and chocolate tasting.

Amazingly, after all that, we also had a brioche donut from Blue Star Donuts.  (This was my favorite part because it was a surprise and also because, I had just been touting the Transcendental Donut nature of Blue Star Donuts to a couple from Chicago.)

I did not, sadly, take pictures of much of this.  So here are the pictures I did take.

This sign, at the Bull Run Distillery, made me laugh.  Our guide said that she's had some vegans get grumpy at the message, which made me chuckle even more.

Bitters at the Distillery.

In the warehouse at the Distillery, it wasn't surprising to find this Timbers sticker.

Spirits aging.

The experimentation area.

Label.

This is a small distillery, and this is their bottling system.

Taste on 23rd was the only place I got a picture of the food.  Delicious!

Thanks Linda, for another good tour.

Forktown Food Tour

Matt's mother visited and we made time for Forktown Food Tour of N. Mississippi Ave. This is a tour that combines walking and eating, which all of us enjoy.  Here's our menu for the places we will be visiting on Mississippi.

At the Mee Sun Thai Eatery we had an appetizer of sausage, with exquisite Thai flavors.

Also a delicious glass noodle dish.  This is apparently a dish that has many variations throughout the country.

Our guide Kesley not only made sure we had great food, she also told us the history of the neighborhood.  Here, she stands outside the Rebuilding Center, which was a catalyst in bringing the neighborhood together. It's also a great place to buy everything you need for projects at home.

I'd not noticed before, but the cob tree sculpture encompasses all four seasons. Here we see autumn and winter.

And here spring and summer.

Check out these great details in the sculpture, like these birds.

This owl is made of some old concrete, maybe from a post hole.

Inside the Rebuilding Center.  Perhaps you need a new surround for your fireplace?

The spray paint on the wall helps the workers sort the donations.

Our next stop was Gabagool, where we got ready for some Italian sandwiches.

Aside from telling us that "gabagol" is an east coast pronunciation of "capicola" Kesley also came prepared to clean off our tables.

We had the signature sandwich, the gabagool, served on fresh-made Italian flat bread.  I am a fan of the sandwich in all its forms, and I can say that this was the best sandwich I have eaten in months. Everything tasted so fresh!

Other things available.

Our next stop was Little Big Burger, for a burger and fries.

Also some Hopworks beer.  It was such a nice day we opted to sit outside.

The remains of my burger, which I forgot to take a picture of.  It had goat cheese and was a fine specimen of a burger. The fries were perfect also.  

Next was Sidecar 11, which I had walked by many times without noticing, which is not surprising, given that it's such a slim restaurant.  This cocktail lounge is known for finding vintage liquor and hosting special parties made with said vintage liquor, such as the martinis they made with 1914 vermouth, found in the floorboards of a house.

We were first served a cucumber mule.  Given that I don't really like cucumber, I was quite pleased to enjoy how delicious this was.  I drank Matt's too!

Really great photo of all things Portland.  They also had personalized matches!  It's been years since I've seen matches at a restaurant/bar.  Remember how people used to collect them?

We also had cocktail bites of goat cheese bruschetta and spicy hazelnuts.

Our second cocktail (they were half cocktails) was a Whisky sour with Peychauds Bitters.  Also good.  You can see also the visual aids Kesley brought along.  This one shows the path of the Missoula Flood, lo those many years ago.  Because you can't talk about Portland geology without mentioning that flood.

Here's their next vintage tasting.

Our next stop was the Meadow for a salt and chocolate tasting.

Here are some Himalayan salt slabs for cooking on.

Here are shelves and shelves of bitters.  Below them are a few shelves of vermouth.

We tasted three different kinds of salt and two kinds of chocolate.  It was interesting to note the notes of fragrance that came through in the chocolate.  One of our chocolates had notes of pineapple.

Our last stop was Ruby Jewel, which was wide open on such a nice day. 

We got to sample two different kinds of ice cream sandwich.

And thus our tour ended.  It was delicious, educational and I highly recommend Forktown Food Tours.