Year of....

Happy Hour!!

Be that for the drinks or food, you will find me out and about on the early side.

There was another option pretty high up on the list, but I was more excited about a year of h-a-p-p-y hour.

image credit: Happy_Hour_Club_CA by PopKulture

Wake-up: Tis the season...

...for giving at KIVA. I've mentioned Kiva before and I just wanted to remind you this holiday season that this is a wonderful, fun way to give a hand up. I am still re-loaning the $100 that TEB gifted me through Kiva.

I give in $25 increments and my most recent loan was to a man in Columbia that makes leather goods by hand. You can search by many different parameters, e.g. female, type of industry, location. Give KIVA this holiday season.

Disclaimer: I have not been paid or compensated in anyway by Kiva. I truly believe that they have a great business model and that they help people all over the globe.

Wake-up: Tis the season...

...for union suits. yah know, the one piece jumpsuit PJs. Outfit the whole family!

Teenager:

Jack Wills' Shelderton All-in-one, $90

Exhilaration union suit, $20 Target

Trendy Aunt and Uncle:

J. Crew classic union suit, $70 (grey and red stripe)

Sports enthusiast:

Burton midweight one-piece, $100 (made for outdoor sports)

The Parents:

LL Bean two-layer union suit, $50

Baby:

Polarn O. Pyret classic striped eco romper, $50

Quick Dinner: Veggie Soup Base

Looking for a way to use up some turkey leftovers? Try my quick dinner veggie soup base. I normally bake some foccacia during the time it takes to make the soup base.

The secret ingredient is a German seasoning called Seitenbacher Vegetarian Vegetable Broth and Seasoning. I found it at Rainbow People whole foods grocery store in Juneau. Silly me for rationing my one small bottle when you can go buy loads of it on amazon right here. It is cheap, ~1$/ounce, light weight, and vegetarian making it perfect for backcountry travel or the urban hiker who has to hall their groceries for blocks (yup, that is me on both accounts).

Vegetarian Broccoli Soup Base - perfect for Thanksgiving leftovers

Inspired by GP's Detox broccoli and arugula soup recipe, I blogged it here.

Makes 2 servings (multiple 4-6 times to make enough for freezing)

1 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic minced

1 onion chopped (any kind you have on hand)

1 head broccoli chopped (including the thick stems)

2 1/2 cups water + Seitenbacher (according to directions for amount of water)

1/4 tsp course salt

1/2 lemon juice

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil. Once onion is soft add your water and Seitenbacher. Bring to a boil, turn down heat, and simmer until the broccoli is soft (~20 minutes). Purée with an immersion blender in the pot or transfer to a regular blender (be careful blending hot liquid and don't fill the blender more than halfway full). Freeze all your extra soup base in tupperware or ziploc bags (lay flat on cookie sheet until frozen to have stackable units).

Now comes the fun part. Clean out your fridge and add whatever looks good, e.g. brussel sprouts. After Thanksgiving we torn up some turkey and threw in some mini tortellini (the dried kind from Trader Joes). Simple. Your done. Enjoy!

photo credit: Cayenne 06.22.10

Wake-up: Fall has arrived

Yup, fall is here. I quite enjoy fall with the beautiful colored leaves, crisp air, and layering of clothing that circumvents having to wear a heavy jacket.

My capitol hill neighborhood is bursting with color.

Red leaves across the street from our house.

photo credit: Cayenne 11.06.10 and 11.13.10

Weekend: Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

photo credit: Berry Pop by MizMagee

Weekend: Happy May Day

Happy May Day and happy birthday to my niece MRC who turns 7 today. Someday I hope to be in Alaska for her birthday so that I can plan a maypole party. Martha Stewart has 3 dances and instructions for making the maypole and flower cones.

Barbar's Pole

Single Braid

Spider's Web

Read about how May Day is celebrated around the world here.

photo credit: mayday, mayday by Bryan Ledgard

Spring in Juneau: Flashes of Color

Signs of spring are becoming bolder - soon they will speckle the hillside like the brightly colored houses of Juneau.

Identity Challenge: Can you identify the plants above? Hint, here are some options - salmonberries, crocuses, young pine boughes, cranberries, tulips, devil's club, or wild rose bushes.

photo credit: All photos taken by Cayenne and/or TEB. Winter/Spring 2010 in Juneau, Alaska.

Happy Holidays: from Fairbanks, Alaska

As promised here are the highlights of our holiday in Alaska. My sister and niece decorated a lovely tree that we still are enjoying. TEB and I got MIA a book on ZOO-ology from Anthropologie (not on their website but here it is at Barnes & Noble). She loved it and we were able to use it to fend off present opening until after breakfast. We also strung a garland made of glass beads and bells on stretchy string for the tree. Lots of mandarin oranges have been consumed and "Santa" ate the sugar cookies + water that MIA left him (Santa also ate the fresh carrots left for him at my parent's house). Scrabble was played.

photo credit: Cayenne 12.25.09

Sunday Supper: On Hiatus...

Sunday Supper is on hiatus for a bit. It might come back in an altered form or not at all and I need a few weeks to think about it. I do think that Sunday Supper at Cayenne & Carob has served its purpose; I was in a no-cooking-funk and scheduling one day a week to cook helped me get back to my normal cooking routine.

For now, I leave you with some snapshots of what we ate for Christmas dinner in Alaska (left to right): half-dried salmon (my favorite, reference this post on other ways to prepare salmon), my mom's famous fruit salad, jarred salmon covered with cucumbers (decorated by aunt Dorthy with radishes in the shape of mushrooms and curled celery), macaroni and bacon bake (made by aunt Sister), and muk tuk (whale blubber).

photo credit: Cayenne 12.25.09

Happy Holidays: from Seattle

For the past four years I have celebrated the holiday season with two families: TEB's family in Seattle, WA, and my family in Alaska. Here is a glimpse of our Seattle holiday festivities complete with mulled wine or glogg, lefse, and twinkly lights in downtown Seattle. I'll be back after the weekend with a peek into the Alaska version.

photo credit: Cayenne + TEB, December 2009

Wake-up: Holiday Decorating

I am with my family in Alaska for the holiday season. Given that we are spending 2 weeks away from our San Diego home, I went minimalist on the holiday decorations. I put up the Christmas bears next to a tree silhouette quilted by my mom, surrounded by mini presents.
The plants got a few decorations from some hanging mittens and Swedish straw ornaments. Looking forward to January!

photo credit: Cayenne 12.13.09

Sunday Supper: Ultimate Ginger Cookie

I'm sharing my ULTIMATE ginger cookie recipe with you today. I promise that you will bake these up, everyone will love them, and you will making batch 2 within a week.

Ginger Cookies
by Cayenne (my notes say food network but i don't remember exactly)

1 ½ cups unsalted butter (or use salted butter and leave out salt below)
2 cups light brown sugar
½ cup unsulfered molasses
2 eggs
3 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour (or just add all whole wheat)
4 teaspoons ground ginger
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated
1 cup candied ginger, finely chopped
~2 cups Turbinado sugar (can be found at trader joe's, brown in color and has large crystals)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy; Add molasses and eggs and mix well. Combine flour, ground ginger, baking soda and salt and add to butter mixture; Blend in fresh and candied ginger.Pour turbinado sugar on a plate; roll tsp-size dough into ball, roll in sugar; press flat the dough balls on parchment covered baking sheet (or press down in cross-hatch pattern w/ fork). TEB figured out a quick way to coat multiple dough-balls at a time.

These cookies are going to flatten out a lot. Bake about 10 minutes for soft chewy cookies; ~12 minutes for crunchy cookies.

N.B. a kitchenaid mixer really helps mix up the stiff dough or coerce some muscle in the house to stir - that is what I did.

photo credit: Cayenne 12.16.09

Sunday Supper: Nevermind, just COOKIES!

Apple and Carrot Shortbread Cookies:

Apple and carrot shortbread recipe was adapted by Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks and was originally from Good Tempered Food by Tamasin Day-Lewis. I am not going to copy the recipe here to encourage you to head over to one of my favorite online recipes sources.

I followed the recipe exactly, unusual for me, I know. I speak from experience that this dough keeps in the fridge for 2-3 days. My house was sans rolling pin prior to the making of the Apple and Carrot Shortbread cookies.

Next up are the Everything Oatmeal Cookies from Susan of Food Blogga. When I was in Alaska last month my sister said to me, "I want to make some cookies with oatmeal, chocolate, fruit, coconut, etc." Sounds like she is craving the everything-and-anything-you-got-oatmeal-cookies. So we got to mixing and cupboard hunting. Turns out we pretty much had everything on the list for Everything Oatmeal Cookies. They sure were good!

Next week we are skipping supper again for my favorite cookie recipe. You are going to want to give them to everyone you know, I promise!

photo credit: Cayenne 11.03.09 and 11.05.09

Sunday Supper: Lentil and Sausage Soup

Cayenne & Carob's Sunday Supper: Clean-out-the-fridge Turkey (or Chicken) Soup.

I made this soup back when I "tried" to roast a chicken (on the list for a redo next year). I think it would be perfect when made with turkey stock. I hope you remembered to save your turkey carcass from Thanksgiving dinner! See Thursday's post to read about preparing homemade stock. Stock keeps forever in the freezer but only a few days in the fridge. Jar it and freeze it. Might as well make extra soup and freeze that too.

Lentil + Sausage Soup
By Cayenne

Hot Italian Sausages, sauteed and broken into smaller pieces
1 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
8-10 cup of turkey or chicken stock
handful or two of mixed, dried lentils (bulk aisle at whole foods)
1 bunch kale or chard, destemmed (use the stems but add them earlier) and chopped
handful of cubed, cooked potatoes
cayenne pepper
salt + pepper

In a largish soup pot saute the sausage (you want the pot to be big enough for the entire soup). Once the sausage is browned add the onions, cook for 1-2 minutes. If there is a lot (more than 2 cm) of grease in the pan drain some of the grease off. Otherwise go ahead and use it for flavor. Throw in the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the stock and lentils, bring soup to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until the lentils are soft.

You can stop at this point and freeze the soup for later when you can add whatever you can find when you defrost it. The rest of the recipes depends on what you are adding to the soup. Always add things that take longer to cook first and the more delicate veggies near the end, e.g. any greens or already cooked squash or potatoes. Carrots, the woody stems of kale and chard, or uncooked potatoes will take a bit to cook so add those early on in the cooking process.

Taste at this point so that you can add cayenne pepper, salt, fresh black pepper to suit your spice preference. I use very little salt in my food because my mom never salted anything and TEB just happens to be really sensitive to salt. For this particular soup I would not add any spices until the very end. The sausage adds a lot of spiciness and salt so I would not be surprised if the soup only needs a touch of pepper.

photo credit: Cayenne 08.09.09, 09.11.09

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of WA on this beautiful Thankgiving day. Tomorrow we will be giving thanks with family and friends. It is never too late to have a Thanksgiving dinner.

Save those turkey carcasses because this week's Sunday Supper will make good use of them. In fact, turn it into turkey stock by doing the following:
1. Place turkey carcass in a large pot and fill with water until turkey is covered
2. Fridge clean-out = add whatever veggies (roughly chopped) you find in the fridge, e.g. carrots, celery, onion (save the potatoes, yams, and squash for later)
3. Spices - a bay leaf or two depending on how big your turkey was, 5-10 peppercorns, garlic, and any left over fresh herbs you have.
4. Bring to a boil, turn heat down, and simmer covered for 2-4 hours. Add extra water if it is gets too low.
5. Strain entire pot so all you have left is a nice broth. Will keep for a few days or you can put in glass jars and freeze (leave a few cm of room at the top for the liquid to expand once frozen)

See you Sunday for Supper!

Wake-up: Marimekko Christmas News

During an 8 hour layover in Seattle, TEB and I ventured down to Pike's Place Market. We bought some carrots from one of the veggie vendors and fresh donuts. On our way to lunch with TEB's family at SAM we quickly ran through Tuuli, a cute shop that features Marimekko textiles. In the Marimekko Christmas Newsletter I discovered these lovely illustrations of how to use fabric to wrap gifts. I might just try it for this year's Christmas presents. I was getting a little tired of my recycled paper bag + stamp combo.
Tuuli
1407 First Avenue
Seattle WA 98101
Tel: 1.206.223.1112
tuuliseattle@gmail.com

photo credit: images from marimekko christmas newsletter 2009

Weekend: Happy Hallooween

BOO!

Weekend: Off the Grid in Sequoia

Sunday I am heading to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park for a little R&R. LMD and I are hiking out to Emerald and Pear Lakes for a few nights. I'll be posting again at the end of next week. Have a happy and safe 4th of July!photo credit: Emerald Lake by adriAAnsen; PearLake by LoveOurEarth

Quick Dinner: Mom's Stirfry with Cheese

I eat weird food and this mostly comes from the fact that mom cooks us all kinds of strange stuff when we were growing up. Last night she made stir fry, which was excellent, and included her own little twist - adding Tillamook cheese on the top. Apparently, I only vaguely remember this, we used to love cheesy stir fry as kids. She used to plate the stir fry up on brown rice, top with yellow cheese and soy sauce, then cover it for a few minutes so the cheese gets all melty.

Mom's Cheesy Stir Fry

Sesame oil
Sunflower oil
Chopped green onions
Broccoli florets and chopped stems
Sliced baby carrots
Chopped asparagus
1 can chickpeas
Sliced yellow squash
Pine nuts
Grated yellow cheese
Soy sauce

This recipe does not need measurements and the ingredients are very flexible - just look in your fridge and grab the veggies already in there. Alter your amounts of oil as you go and depending on how many veggies you have. Prep all the veggies before heating up your pan. Things go fast once you start stirring in veggies.

1. Start by heating a few tbsp of sunflower oil and sesame oil in a skillet or wok
2. Once hot, add the onions, cook for a few minutes
3. Stir in the broccoli and carrots
4. Once the broccoli and carrots are al dente, add the asparagus and chickpeas
5. Add the squash when the asparagus is almost done (if the skillet looks dry add a bit more sesame oil)
6. Stir in the pine nuts and drizzle with soy sauce, turn off heat, leave pan on burner
7. Grate cheese

Plate first with brown rice, then a pile of veggies. Top with grated cheese and cover for 1 minute.

Thanks Mom for teaching me that cooking is fun and an adventure. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

photo credit: Cayenne 05.10.09