A Blustery Saturday Morning in the Northwest

Today is a pretty good day for being lazy. 

While we had planned on beginning yesterday with a visit to Voula's Offshore Cafe we both slept in and felt it was too late to make the drive.  So, we opted to do it today but guess what?  Yep. the youngling slept until almost 11 again today so this morning (sort of) I made a perennial favorite around Casa Hunger - crepes!

Now, I know many peeps are a bit intimidated by the concept of crepes but the fact of the matter is they are easy to master with just a bit of practice.  Even today on a range with which I am still becoming accustomed, I was able to produce a fine batch of these tender French pancakes while wasting (the dog got these) only 2.  That's only one more than the usual because as anyone who is proficient in crepe making understands, the first one merely serves to condition the pan.

Today, I opted for Bananas Foster as a filling and Henry went for his traditional chocolate syrup.  We keep the Midnight Moo organic chocolate syrup from Trader Joe's in the house and he typically overdoes it but I figure a once in a while chocolate breakfast is nothing to worry about...

As for my concoction today, try out the following -

Bananas Foster Crepes

• For the crepes -
• 1 Cup All purpose flour
• 1 Cup Milk
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Pinches Kosher salt

1. Combine all above ingredients in a blender for 1 minute, scraping the sides to incorporate the dry in the wet
2. Let rest for 30 minutes
3. Heat a 10" non-stick pan on medium high
4. Spray or butter the pan lightly
5. Pour 1.5oz of the batter into the center of the pan and swirl evenly while tilting the pan side to side to cover the entire bottom
6. Once the edges dry and begin to curl up, flip the crepe and cook for about 45 seconds more
7. The first one may not cover the pan completely or may fail is some way - DO NOT PANIC! as you can always treat the dog or dip it yourself into a bit of that yummy blackberry freezer jam you made from all the free blackberries this past summer (but that's another post)
8. Continue until all crepes are done, stacking so as not to allow any of these treats to dry out

• For the Bananas Foster filling -
• 1 Banana, sliced about 1/4"
• 1 Tbl Butter
• 1 Tbl Brown sugar
• Pinch Kosher salt
• 1 Squeeze Lime juice, fresh
• 1 Tbl Creme de Banana - Optional but it certainly adds a tremendous flavor

1. In the same pan used to cook the crepes turned to high, melt the butter, brown sugar and salt together
2. Cook for about 1 minute, stirring to combine
4. Remove from the heat and add the lime juice and if using, the Creme de banana
5. Stir to combine and holding away from your face and body, light the liquor to burn off the alcohol allowing to burn until the flame goes out
6. Add the banana slices and stir to coat
7. Fill 2 crepes with the fruit and roll, topping the crepes with the sauce from the pan

OK, maybe not too lazy afterall but even with the crepe cook time this was done in about 20 minutes.

*Note - the crepes will not go to waste as they freeze marvelously with wax paper in between and stored in a freezer zip top bag.  They never last that long at our house unless I make a double batch.

Hasta

Celebrate Good Times, COME ON!

With all due respect to Kool and The Gang, it's the time of year this beer lover is ready for a little bit of Celebration; Celebration Ale that is...

From Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, the 2009 Celebration Ale is once again worthy of shedding a tear of happiness today.  Friday is pizza night here at Casa Hunger and with a pie of spicy Italian sausae with red onion rings and red bell peppers, I had my first taste of this years holiday heaven.  I haven't had a chance to sample any of my other perennial favorites but I will, oh yes I will.  Although it used to be Jubelale from Deschutes Brewery, Celebration has become my favorite for the past few years; malty with enough hops to balance it out so it doesn't have that overmalted sweet flavor and overly viscous mouthfeel that so many of the holiday beers seem to show.  Aaaahhhhh... this is the best part of the holidays as far as I'm concerned.

To give a little history, my first experience with holiday beers was the first xmas ale from Wasatch Brewing in Park City Utah when I lived there.  Not knowing any better I thought this was a fine brew but it was not something you could drink much of; one and that was it.  Uniquely spiced and heavy with a too sweet middle and cloying finish, it was a beer to enjoy and then move on to something that I could drink all evening such as a double Sapphire with a twist on the rocks.  Nothing cleans the palatte like a fine gin w/ a hint of lemon... In review it appears Wasatch Brewing has dropped the spicing aspect and moved to a more traditional recipe according to the reviews here.

Anyway, back when I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I was lucky enough to find Jolly Roger Christmas Ale from Maritime Pacific Brewing Company.  Rich malts with some hoppiness but still a bit sweet after just a couple so it was not really a long lived love affair for me.  I still try it every year but I've moved on, although like a first love I still remember that first holiday season with Jolly Roger very fondly.

That same year I was fortunate enough to try a number of other holiday ales such as Wee Heavy from Hale's Ales and Snow Cap Ale from Pyramid Breweries.  While that was all back in 1992, it was certainly a year to remember in my long career of enjoying the produce of our fine Northwest brewmasters but nothing compares to Celebration Ale for this guy at this time of year.

More later...

Hasta

Simpler things, simpler life...

A couple of things that have changed with our move and our embracing a simpler life - we don't have a dishwasher or a microwave in our new house.  While we spent the first few weeks shopping for a microwave that would fit in our smaller home, after a while I just sorta stopped.  I began to realize we'd been living just fine without one and then started thinking about all the years I lived without one in my earlier years and while there is no doubt a microwave can make some tasks simpler but, I now don't even miss having one.  I can't think of any reason now to buy one other than to have a large butter melter / popcorn popper.  It will probably take me a bit to re-learn how to pop popcorn for real without burning it or I could go get myself a mono-tasker air popper that would just take up room the other 363 days that I don't make popcorn.  Just seems kinda silly.

Regarding a dishwasher, I remember when even having one, my roommates and I all spurned this appliance as it ruined the good cookware and didn't really get the dishes all that clean.  At times I think about getting one now and how it would fit in our home but you know, I think I really just liked having a place to get the dirty dishes out of the sink and off the counter and a place to leave the clean dishes so I wouldn't have to put them away to get my kitchen back.  Tonight I had a whole sinkful of dishes and cookware as I've only rinsed and stacked the few dishes used the past couple of days and this evening I made chicken parmesan as the youngling had a tough day and it is one of his true faves.  Even not making the sauce from scratch I still ended up with a few pots & pans as well as 3 days worth of glasses and dishes but this brings me to one of the amazing benefits of not having a dishwasher - a chance to practice mindfulness.

To live in the present; not hurrying to finish something so I can move on to the next task, to concentrate on the task at hand, to wash the dishes for washing the dishes...

So many times in our rushed life we forget the beauty and relaxation of just doing.  Doing for doing.  Thinking about your breathing, about the way the water and the soap combine and feel on your hands as you slowly wipe or scrub the dish or pot.  This is a way that I find myself able to slow down, focus on a task that many take for granted or try to get through as quickly as possible only to do the same with the next task. 

Perhaps that's how I need to start looking at these things I find I must do day to day, not as "chores" but merely as tasks.  Many meditation masters tell us one of the easiest and most convenient meditation tools we have available is our breathing; focus on your breathing, counting as your body relaxes and your heartbeat and breath slow, slower, slowest... all the while focusing on the in breath and the out breath.  Why not do the same with the things we must do other than breathing; washing dishes, folding laundry, making the bed?  I find another task that is easy for me to use to focus my mindfulness is sweeping with an old fashioned straw broom.  Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping...

One of my favorite guides is Thich Nhat Hanh, a respected Zen master who tells us that to live in the present, to be mindful of this very moment and only this very moment is the only way to true peace within ourselves.  By finding that peace within ourselves we can portray peace to the world around us.

Maybe I'm onto something...

Hasta

..."our food system is at Wounded Knee"...

This paragraph really hit home for me -

"This industrial food experiment, historically speaking, is completely abnormal. It’s not normal to eat things you can’t spell or pronounce. It’s not normal to eat things you can’t make in your kitchen. Indeed, if everything in today’s science-based supermarket that was unavailable before 1900 were removed, hardly anything would be left. And as more people realize that this grand experiment in ingesting material totally foreign to our three-trillion-member internal community of intestinal microflora and -fauna is really biologically aberrant behavior, they are opting out of industrial fare. Indeed, to call it a food revolution is accurate."

This is quite an article, it brings common sense and a desire to return to basics to a forefront of our consciousness and as you may have read from time to time, this is what I'm trying to do myself.  A return to the basics of life seems (at least for me) to start and after traveling full circle, end with food.  We all need to eat, even fat people like myself still need to ingest some calories every day in order to survive; and that doesn't even begin to talk about the mental health, the joy we get from feeding ourselves well and with the sensual gratification.  Granted water is even more essential and so we need to protect that as well but that's another post, no one has yet tried to synthesize water (at least not that I know of); recapture, desalinate, recycle, purify, recapture and adulterate yes, but manufacture doesn't seem to be a viable option unless you're on the Starship Enterprise and everyone knows there you can just order a tea extra hot and it pops out of the computer but I digress. 

Regardless of what we do we MUST protect our food supply from over-manipulation.  We cannot continue to feed our children food that contains poisons that can build up over time to cause any sort of chronic conditions or even death.  I really don't think humans were ever meant to consume petroleum byproducts; indirectly as most of us know through the nitrogen fertilizer used to produce the ubiquitous soy and corn (corn remember from The Omnivore's Dilemma, makes up over 60% of the current American diet) as well as directly through preservatives and colorants added to enhance appearance and increase shelf life.

This article I Drink Raw Milk by Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farms seems to state the obvious (eat naturally, locally produced foods from decentralized farms) as well as the not so obvious (that the industrial food conglomerates are fighting tooth and nail to destroy the "raw milk revolution").  This is just a foreward for the book The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights by David Gumpert.  The article has piqued my interest enough that I'll be searching out this book.  While I continue to try and feed my little family with the best products produced naturally and from suppliers nearby I think it is easy to lose sight of the the bigger picture and the targeting of all of us by the giant food conglomerates and chemical companies that are trying to steal away our food choices.  I think it's time to get a reminder on and read this book. 

If I think about it, all we really need to do it turn on any television channel that targets children and see the amazing amount of marketing that tries to tell them how wonderful it is to eat at Burger King or McDonald's.

In closing, I'll share another paragraph in case anyone out there doesn't have a chance to to read the entire article -

"This clash of choice versus prohibition brings us to today’s Wounded Knee of food. The local heritage-based food movement represents everything that is good and noble about farming and food culture. It is about decentralized farms. Pastoral livestock systems. Symbiotic multi-speciation. Companion planting. Earthworms. It is about community-appropriate techniques and scale. Aesthetically and aromatically sensual romantic farming. Re-embedding the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker in the village. And ultimately about health-giving food grown more productively on less land than industrial models."

Think, eat, drink...

Hasta

Tuesday in a 4 Day Week

Tuesday evening, 2nd day in a 4 day week and I'm already thinking it can't come soon enough.  Work is somewhat overwhelming and at times I find myself just sitting and wondering aloud what to do next because there is so much to do and in so many different directions.  Lately I've found solace in the kitchen but tonight it just wasn't gonna happen so it was a good night for being lazy.

Although the day was difficult lunch was delicious.  Roast pork with provolone and red onions on pugliese.  You know a fine sandwich is a work of art and this was one of those.  A bit of the pan gravy from last night to moisten the bread and it was a done deal with a lovely Fuji apple, YUM!  This was all thanks toa great tasting, healthy dinner last night - a roast loin of pork with spuds and carrots.  One pan, one hour and dinner is on the table; even got groans of delight from the youngling.

I'm tired... so tonight it was leftover pulled pork and raw carrots for dinner with a Hansen's root beer for the lad and a Broken Halo IPA for me.   I don't even feel much like writing but here it is, day 3 of NaBloWriMo and I'm on board, tonight I call tell about a lovely Sangiovese I enjoyed for a couple evenings -

Luiano Rosso Toscana - $8.99 on sale from $15.00
Fattoria Luiano

Ruby red, gorgeous as it pours from the bottle and swirls itself in the bowl with a lovely red fruit aroma rising from the rim.  The mouthfeel is medium body with great fruit and spice; cherries, raspberries, blueberries and black pepper with a piercing fresh acidity.  Although bright on the palatte, the acid is not unpleasant and goes so nicely with food.  I enjoyed this thoroughly as a cocktail and even more with pear and blue cheese pizza while waiting for the ghouls and goblins on Saturday night.

That's about all I have for you this evening so stick a fork in me - I'm done

Hasta

Interesting article about processed food...

...from Bitten today
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/processed-foods-and-depression/

A study was done in England with findings concluding that people who eat more processed foods are more likely to suffer from depression. One chap in the article went so far as to give up all dairy, wheat and meat and decided that he felt better. He said that he would rather eat right and not suffer from feeling bad as he had for so many years. Hmmm... I think that's overdoing it a bit since what kind of life is it not to have all sorts of yumminess around you?

I can certainly see staying away from processed foods where much of the nutritional content is removed during the processing and then loaded back up with emulsifiers, preservatives, sugar, salt, petroleum and corn by products, etc. You can still eat naturally produced foods and still feel healthy all while eating animals and their produce along with the fruits and veg; we just need to eat less of it.

I think of it this way - I drinks some pretty good fermented juice and grain products, mighty fine distillates of plants, grains and herbs (gotta add the citrus, wouldn't want to get scurvy now would we?) but I drink in relatively small amounts because I'd rather drink a better product and drink less of it. Well the same can go for food - the most expensive bit of our diet is the animal and animal products. Let's just eat a higher quality and less of it. I would certainly never condone a fully vegetarian or began diet just as I would not condone a fully animal and animal product based diet. For one thing any of these limiting diets is far too boring. Another reason is I like vegetables, fruits, meats, cheese, eggs and grains; I like 'em all. We will be trying to eat more veg and fruit, in fact that is one more of the guidelines I've set for us this month is fruit or veg with every meal and so far so good.

Enough proselytizing for one evening, I have a center cut pork loin roast in the oven along with red thumb and chieftain spuds from our garden and carrots from the farmer's market. Henry is building a bookcase and we haven't turned on the tube (another new program, a minimum of an hour of quiet time or time spent together at home without TV or radio; just reading and or activity, tonight I'm blogging and he finished his homework and is building).

I'm going to open a bottle of plonk and check the roast...

Hasta

I Think I Can, I Think I Can...

So said the little engine that could as I recall. Well he had a bit of a problem; if he stopped half way up the hill then the rest of the train would roll back down the hill filled with screaming passengers waiting for a fiery...er...uh, that got out of hand rather quickly yes?

OK, so where I was going is that I signed up for NaBloWriMo or National Blog Writing Month (http://www.nablowrimo.org/) where I have committed to a blog post every day for the month of November. I figure hey, this is the month we're getting back into feeding ourselves healthily, tastily and plentifully for $200 and what better way to stay on track than to hold myself to something more - sharing the trials and tribulations with y'all. Will I keep up? Can I keep up? Let's check back December 1st and see if the November count is 30+...

Now, as some of you may recall the guidelines I set for us back in January were as follows:

• $200 on groceries for the month
• $50 on alcohol for the month
• No dining out for the month

As this in the beginning of the holiday season where there are a couple feasts, a couple family visits, copious parties with friends and coworkers (and that's just the planned stuff), I'll expand the guidelines a bit.

• Dining out is OK but should be kept to a minimum and the expenditures will be tracked and reported
• Alcohol will be consumed both at home and out but will also be tracked and reported (still looking for that mid-week, under $10 red)
• Grocery goal is still $200
• Meat will be natural and / or locally grown; preferably both but still no feedlot or corn fed beef

We were out and about today and did go out for sushi as Henry and I were with friend Scott and a long way from home. Henry had said that he wanted to try sushi so I am chalking this up to adventure. Henry was pretty good; he tried seared ahi with a soy ginger sauce, spider roll (well the deep fried soft shell crab anyway) and calamari with a soy dipping sauce - I was quite pleased and he said we can get the ahi again but he wants to try it at home with some other spices than what we had today. I call this a rousing success!

Lunch was pretty late so dinner for me is a couple glasses of sangiovese and Henry had a roast chicken panini with provolone and we're watching last week's Top Chef: Las Vegas while winding down the week. Looks like day one of NaBloWriMo is in the history books!

Hasta