Relaxation??

Last weekend was a relatively new experience for me.  I was at home.  I had no plans for Saturday and Sunday and I did this thing called relaxation.  Weird!  To my surprise, Mike told me over the weekend, that other people do this "relaxing" thing all the time.  Now, I'm not saying that it was a bad thing.  I thoroughly enjoyed every Hallmark and Lifetime Original movie that I watched, but I sure felt weird doing it.  After stating to Mike for the 3rd time that I felt like a schlub, he assured me that this was perfectly acceptable in the real world and that I would have to accept it.  So, Sunday I embraced the relaxation and enjoyed it.  First thing this morning I flung off that weird stage and headed back into my world.  We just got back from cycling  : )

Although I have abandoned the relaxation thing, I did do some really  fantastic cooking over the weekend.  I made some more bread, I got some zucchini from the Farmer's Market and made a delicious recipe titled "Zesty Zucchini" that we had made previously at Cooking Divas.  I, of course, spiced it up a bit and changed around a few of the ingredients and it was delicious!!  

Between the rain showers, I made it outside on Sunday to pick wild blackberries.  It made me think of my grandma, because my mom says she used to do the same thing every summer.

I live in her house and I imagine that I was picking from the exact same bushes she did.  I ended up with a lot more than I thought I would and I'm excited to use them a couple of different ways.  Last night I began by making a blackberry compote with peaches and orange flavored rum that I put over pan fried venison steaks.  We both thought it was amazing!

 

The remaining compote I am thinking about turning into a dessert pizza tonight with cinnamon & sugar.  Then I even have about a cup of berries left to make something else still.  I'm going to carefully consider their use.  My arms, hands and legs paid a scratchy price for picking and I want to savor my berries!  While I was enjoying climbing through the brush picking berries I also began to wonder why I don't use the many, many, many elderberries I have about and I have another tree with berries that I think are edible??  I'm going to have to look into that one.

Not in chronological order, but Friday we did have a few things going on and it was a really fun day. Walker and I went on a geocaching adventure that saw us, swimming, visiting half the countryside and finding a home for some dumped cats.  Joey joined us later and we did just a few more caches.  Then that evening we had Liz & Christine over for dinner.  Chis brought a Mediterranean feast of hummus, tabbouleh, baba ganoush, grape leaves and falafel.  It was delicious!  I made an arugula walnut pesto pasta to compliment and we stuffed ourselves.  Not too much mind you, because we all still had the energy to head out for a little geocaching.  We witnessed Liz & Chris get their first cache and they joined us in finding one that had before eluded us.  To finish off the night we stopped in the Maple Rapids bar and kicked back a few cold ones.  What an enjoyable day! 

So, in conclusion... relaxation was great for trying new recipes, but I think that I would be as big as a blimp if I did it all the time, because I cooked so many amazing recipes!  Good thing we started training for the DALMAC today!

Salad... it's what's for dinner.

The salad I made last night for the surprise Bachelorette Dinner/Party was a big hit and several people wanted the recipe.  So although I am extremely insecure and I have to say that insecurity is against my religion, so basically I'm sinning here for you...  here it goes.  My first recipe posted on my blog!  It just feels a little intimidating thinking about the amazing food blogs I read (like David Lebovitz, 101 Cookbooks, Closet Cooking, Gluten-Free Goddess, Maangchi ).  I just want to be as great as those!  I will try my best and pretend I'm not worried about sucking this up.

I'm going to re-create the salad later this weekend and post some pictures as well, but for now you'll have to do with the recipe.

Arugula Salad with Candied Walnuts, Goat Cheese and a Honey-Balsamic Vinaigrette

I adapted this recipe from several others: One by Kate Edwards in Bon Appetit March 2010 - onions, one from the Bon Appetit January 2007 issue - walnuts and one from Heidi Swanson's blog 101 Cookbooks.

10 oz of arugula (I used whatever was ready in my garden a combo of rocket and sylvetta)
3 large red onions sliced into half moons
olive oil
4 oz herbed goat cheese crumbles
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups walnut halves
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
chili powder
red pepper flakes

Dressing
 4 tablespoons soy or canola oil
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Salt & Pepper


For the onions heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions. Sauté until golden, about 18 minutes. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper and let cool.

For the walnuts, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add in the walnuts and toast in the butter for about 2 or 3 minutes.  Then add Worcestershire and toss or stir to coat all the nuts.  Then add in the brown sugar and toss or stir to coat all nuts as the sugar melts.  Then sprinkle in chili powder, red chili flakes and salt to taste.  Make sure the sugar is all melted and then spread the nuts onto parchment or wax paper to cool.

For the dressing, just whisk together all of the ingredients.

To assemble add the arugula and onions to a large bowl and toss.  Then add the dressing and toss.  Finally top with the walnuts and cheese crumbles.

Whew!  There I did it!!  Hope you all like it!!

Yard Sale!

I have officially stopped in at my first yard sale for the year.  Now, I know that compared to the professionals (like my sister!) I am way behind the ball, but there never seem to be any open when I am free.  Why don't they keep yard sales open as long as stores??  I just don't get it.

Anyways I got two fantastic purchases.  A new 1960's style pitcher and an old hand crank juicer.  It's called the "Juice-O-Mat."  Totally love them and I spent $2 for both.  I'm a wheeler and dealer folks!

Here are my beauties...

He that is busy is tempted by but one devil; he that is idle, by a legion. - Thomas Fuller

We are so busy that I'm not sure if any devil can catch us in order to tempt us. If he did,  I'm sure we'd blow by the temptation with all of the things keeping us busy.

Two more very busy weeks/weekends have passed and they were filled with work, dinners, a graduation, a wedding, cycling, projects, parties and even a little bit of sleep. Two weekends ago we attended Lisa's graduation and had a delicious German congratulations dinner for her.


At the dinner I attempted my first try at Spaetzle. In the end I prevailed, but it took many tries. I owe big props to Chef Martin Block as I watched his video instruction as a primer that day before I tried to do it myself. Lisa said it was great and that she had never had homemade Spaetzle before!! She also said it was way better than the Spaetzle that they had when they dined in Germany in Epcot. Haha! Disney Chefs! I have prevailed over you!! Suzzy made an awesome beer braised brisket that I could eat for every meal for the next decade. It had an amazing flavor. We rounded it out with stuffed kohlrabi, a green salad and some other things that I have forgotten. What I haven't forgotten though, are Mom's 3 loaves of beer bread each made with different grains. One was an ancient grain mix, one was spelt and the third was oat. We have some exciting things happening in the Moore girls' kitchens.


Then on Saturday we worked in the yard and attended Caleb & Teresa's wedding. It was a good day/night. The ceremony was early and very close to my favorite burger establishment. So after a drink with the family at the sports bar we jetted off to Birch Run to get Jeanna open toed shoes and to get me some Halo Burger! It was delicious and I finally talked Mike into buying a t-shirt for me. It says, "Seven days without Halo Burger, makes one weak." I love it! We had a great time at the reception and we had a "few" beers. See the pictures for the full definition of what a "few" means.


Sunday we finished off the weekend with some relaxation and a little buggy work/barn cleaning.  No one faint, but Charlie convinced Mike to clean up the barn.  It looks great!  Charlie & Mike have been at work ever since turning our extra buggy frame into the Sageman-mobile.  CJ is very excited!

To Be Continued...

 

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.

Well, Memorial weekend the lawn mower wasn't broken, but we were fortunate enough to have Mom Keenan visiting to run it for us.  Mom & Dad Keenan came up and Friday and stayed through Monday for a nice long holiday weekend visit.  It was very nice and we had gorgeous weather.  A little warm but I will not complain.  Though you won't see me complaining about cooler weather either ; )  It was a busy weekend that we began with dessert at our house with both sets of parent on Friday evening.  Mike and I made an impromptu Cherry Vanilla Frozen Soy Yogurt that was delicious!  And we also finally taste tested a pie from the infamous Sweetie-Pie.  Well, I didn't taste the pie as it is not wheat/gluten-free, but I wanted to treat everyone else.  The famous, "award winning" pie was good... but all agreed it wasn't good enough to buy another for the price.  A $20 pie better be pretty amazing and it was only semi-amazing.  We all had a nice visit and then off to bed.

Saturday was a busy one.  We got up early and had a chat with our new exchange student, Freddy, and his family.  It was very nice to be able to introduce him to Mom & Dad Keenan and chat about whatever.  We got a tour of his home in Finland via skype and I was very jealous of his Mom's oven!  I need one of those!  Then we had breakfast of eggs with spring onions and homemade bread.  Yumm!  Next on the docket was picking up Sarah and heading for Everlastings in the Wildwood.  I love to go there every year and it has become a tradition of sorts for Sarah and I.  We also stopped at the Owosso Farmers Market along the way and picked up a few goodies.  Some greens, asparagus and a nasturtium for my herb box.  We scored all kinds of goodies at the nursery and came home with a truck full of work for both Sarah and I.  We finished Saturday off yard work, a nice dinner and a visit to Charlie & Sarah's to watch Rashad's fight.  Rashad was victorious!  I slept through all of the other fights except his.  After such a busy day, I could barely stay awake... period.

Sunday we went for an awesome bike ride with Momma K.  We found a new loop from our house that was about 23 miles I think and paved most of the way.  Great training route (read: tough hill climbs) and very pretty scenery.  After that we headed back to the pond to do battle in cards and against the mosquitoes!  We had a Euchre tournament to benefit the 4-H fund in memory of Michael Pettigrew that my generation is setting up.  He meant so much to us, we had to something in honor of such an amazing man.  Mom & Dad took off the next morning and it was nice for them not to have to rush home on Sunday.