Recent Highlights

Happy Advent! I have a couple highlights from the past week that I want to share with you with a couple pictures to illustrate.

For the second year in a row, my office had a Christmas decorating competition last week. We formed the office into three areas and the employees into three teams. My team decided on a "Christmas land" theme complete with a Christmas photo booth as you see in the photo below. And, we WON! It was exciting. :) My co-worker took a short video of the decorations that you can watch here. I think we won because the judges (from my old workplace, Partners!) loved posing at our photo booth so much.

I have to admit that I was partially dreading the competition (which is terrible because I'm the event planning head!), mostly because the task seemed daunting. Of course, I shouldn't have worried because my co-workers had great ideas and skill. It's been so fun to turn on all the Christmas lights in the mornings when I first get to work.

 

For the second year in a row, my church has had a women's retreat at Camp Spalding/Clearwater Lodge, which is the main Presbyterian camp and retreat center in the Spokane area. It's just about 40 minutes north of my house in the beautiful pine-wooded, lake-filled countryside. The photo below is looking across Davis Lake towards the distant mountains from the room where we had worship sessions. We experienced most of the outdoors through big windows because the temperatures have been in the teens for the last couple days. I took a walk on Saturday afternoon and it look my legs 30 minutes to thaw--no kidding! You can see in the picture below that the shore of the lake has iced over.

 



 

My friend Margy and I drove up to camp on Friday afternoon and joined about 45 other women. The whole weekend was lovely. There's something about being away from home in a retreat setting that gives women the freedom to share more freely and deeply. We had some great moments of laughter and of sharing our stories together. After dinner on Friday night, we split into six groups and had to create a Nativity scene with the materials we had available at our tables. The photo below is the Nativity scene my group created. Someone commented that the sheep looked like ghosts, which I have to agree with. The yellow rays from the star was just the plastic that held in a package of paintbrushes. How cool is that? We had some very creative women in my group. I appointed myself Chief Glue-Gun Operator since it requires very little creative energy. :)

 

I decided to drive up to Trader Joe's today to take advantage of the dry weather, since the only Trader Joe's in the area is about 30 minutes from my house and up a big hill. I went in with a list and left with only two items on that list. Oops! At one point, an employee asked me, "Are you finding everything on your list?" because I was staring at it perplexedly. I gave him a wry grin and said "Yes, thanks." On my mental list, that is. I found that the meal I had planned to make no longer sounded good, so I did some quick meal planning in my head and ended up with what you see below. The veggie broth, barley, pearl onions, and parsnips will become a Pearled Barley Broth from one of my favorite veggie-centered cookbooks. The Merlot will be cooked in a five-hour meat sauce to go on the pasta. The dried apricots (which are incredibly delicious!), cranberry-covered goat cheese, carrots and cucumber will become my lunch for the week. Tomorrow's lunch will be dried apricots and cranberries, a hard-boiled duck egg (from my cousin), crackers and the goat cheese, and the veggies. Yum! 

 

Time in general seems to fly by, but the Advent/Christmas season always zip by particularly quickly. I wonder why. I'm trying my best to savor Advent, the unique season in the Church Year of longing, anticipation, introspection, and joy. I'll leave you with a couple verses from one of my favorite Advent songs, Holy Is Your Name, a traditional Scottish hymn.

 

 

My soul is filled with joy as I sing to God my savior:

You have looked upon your servant, you have visited your people.

 

Refrain: And Holy is your name, through all generations!

Everlasting is your mercy to the people you have chosen, and Holy is your name.

 

In your love you now fulfill what you promised to your people.

I will praise you, Lord, my savior, everlasting is your mercy.

Month-Gone Highlights

Hello! Thought you'd never hear from me again? No luck! Here I am again, eating a freshly-baked molasses cookie. I don't usually do trial runs of recipes before serving them to guests, but I made an exception for molasses cookies.

Here are several highlights from the last month of my life:

1. Somehow I ended up with two full gallons of apple cider back in October. I went up two Sundays in a row to Green Bluff only to find that the Hansens were completely sold out of apple cider. Finally, I made a special trip up there on a Friday afternoon and got my coveted cider. The next Friday, I got two free half gallons from a friend. I spent a lot of time on food blogs, searching for recipes and ended up making apple cider quick bread, apple cider baked beans (which I ate for a full, long week!), several batches of steel-cut oats, freezing several yogurt containers full, and drinking many warm mugs in the evenings. Ah, fall!

2. On the last Saturday in October, my friend Gerry invited me to a harvest party and hay ride out in the country. The man who hosts the party each year farms a ton of land (like 1,000 acres!) and has a beautiful spot in the country north of Spokane. Right after we arrived, a bunch of us (there were probably a good 50 people there with tons of little kids) hopped into two trailers packed with hay bales for the first hay ride of the evening. I sat next to a lovely older couple, and we bounced along for about half an hour. Tim, the farmer, pulled us with his big, ol' tractor. At one point in the ride, the back trailer that I was on came unhitched from the front trailer when we jounced over a rocky spot. It was tremendously exciting. :)

It was so lovely to crest the hill of wheat-stubbled fields on our hay ride as the sun was setting and the mist was drifting in. We saw a herd of deer and one of my companions pointed out the fiery yellow larches--conifers that lose their needles in the fall--that were striking against the dark green of the Ponderosa pines. We had a delicious potluck dinner with hamburgers and hot dogs and a full table of desserts. Gerry's daughter, daughter's son, and his family were also at the party, and we all went out on a second hay ride in the dark. At first, I thought it would be scary and cold, but then we got distracted by the night sky. The heavens opened and stars burned through, bright and clear. The six-year-old who was with us stared up and said, "Wow! That looks like outer space!" We four adults got a good chuckle out of that. We spent the next half hour looking for constellations and watching for the ghostly lights of the barn that shone through the mist. As you can tell, the party was fodder for an active imagination.

3. Since September, the aforementioned Gerry and I have been cooking meals for a monthly family night at church. The day before Halloween, the youth group hosted a carnival and chili cook-off for the kids and their families. I purchased all the sides for the chili and was there early to arrange them and help the youth director with all the preparations. It was a madhouse when all the kids were there! I sat by myself with my chili when I finally sat down because I was a little stupefied. I rallied, though, and ran the craft table for the quieter kids. Being removed from childhood, it was fun to see the boundless enthusiasm of the kids in their costumes as they decorating cookies, cake walked, and had their faces painted.

4. For the third year in a row, my friend Heidi and I spent the first Saturday evening in November listening to the Whitworth jazz band play with a famous jazz musician, this year the saxophonist Chris Potter. The Whitworth jazz band is fabulous! Heidi and I listened with rapt attention and great big grins. There was one song I loved particularly because it featured a saxophone trio with Potter and two students. They seamlessly slipped the solo between the three of them and it was marvelous. It filled me with delight, and I had to stand up and clap when it was done while also regretting that it didn't go on for many minutes more.

5. Work has been an adventure the last two months. My department--customer support--has a steady work load. In an average week, we get about 400 e-mails from customers about every topic imaginable relating to the Olive Tree Bible Study app, our website, sales, etc. Due to financial tightness, we had to let a person from my department go at the beginning on October. Several weeks later, another co-worker resigned, leaving my department with two people. The first full week in November, my one remaining co-worker was on vacation for a whole week, leaving just me in my department. It was a busy, crazy week, and I learned a lot. About 10 of my co-workers from other departments helped out in the e-mail queue that week, so I got to lead them, answer questions, refine my own techniques and understanding, and work my tail off. It was a good week, but boy was the next week even better with my co-worker back to share the load of people waiting for help! There are still just two of us in support (though still with plenty of help from other departments), so it continues to be draining. I can't wait for a change of pace at Thanksgiving.

Well, those are the highlights! I do have a closing thought for you though. I'm part of a book club during Sunday School at church, and the leader asked me to co-lead this year. We've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together, and I'm finding it to be full of challenging and rich passages. I have my dad's version from 1979, and it has so many underlinings and notes and scribbles. It's delightful! I spent a lot of time alone this weekend. Really alone because I hardly saw any of my housemates after Saturday afternoon. It was thus ironic that the chapter we discussed in Sunday School yesterday was "The Day Alone." Being alone always makes me take stock of my life. So much of life is so very ordinary. As I looked back in my planner, so much of what I do day to day is the same: eat lunch and make lunch, walk, journal, look at recipes online, read, talk with my parents, e-mail, ignore chores, fill up the laundry basket, do laundry, fold laundry, and on it goes. And yet, the ordinariness is infused with changing, shifting life. New lessons to learn, challenges to overcome, gratitude to be expressed, and daily life to be shared. Life isn't always easy, but there is always plenty to be thankful for, and today I'm thankful for life, the ordinary and extraordinary both.

Making Ricotta Cheese

I got it into my head that I wanted to make ricotta cheese this weekend. I think it was partly because my favorite cooking blog posted a tutorial about it recently and partly because I would be up on the South Hill where I could get milk from a local Spokane dairy:

 

 

I met the woman who owns this farm with her husband last March when I took a cheese-making class. The milk is pasturized only to 145 degrees, not homogenized, and has the cream on the top like in the good old days. I used a recipe from a blog called Annie's Eats. The ingredients are simple: white vinegar, milk, salt, and lemon juice. 

 

 

After mixing salt and milk, I heated the milk to 185 degrees, took the milk off the heat, and stirred in the lemon juice and vinegar. After leaving the mixture to curdle for about 10 minutes, I poured it into a curtain-lined colander over a bowl to catch the whey. I used the curtain in place of cheesecloth and it worked perfectly.

 

 

Here is the colander over the bowl of whey:

 

Here's me squeezing more whey out of the cheese. I have to admit that it was ridiculously fun to squeeze out the warm whey. My housemate was laughing at me.

 

 

It's amazing how much whey is left over after making the cheese! Good thing my co-worker sent me a link to a blog with 16 uses for whey. I'm thinking of freezing some of my whey in ice cube trays, using it to water my house plants, and cooking potatoes and oatmeal in it. I tasted it, and I can hardly describe the taste: fresh, slightly sour, rich.  

 

And here's the finished product!

 

It's amazing that eight cups of milk makes only two cups of ricotta. It made me realize how precious cheese is and why it's expensive. I have several ideas for how to use my cheese. I'm thinking of spreading it on sliced ciabatta bread with salami (from Trader Joe's!) and garden tomatoes. I'll let you know how it turns out. :)

Have you made something from scratch before? How did it turn out? Was it worth the effort?

Highlights of April/Early May

Wow! I'm so sorry for not posting anything sooner. In light of my procrastination in writing a blog post, I'm going to write up a quick list of highlights from the past couple weeks. I must point out that as I sit down to write this post, I'm also occasionally dipping a Nutter Butter (or two) into a glass of cold milk. It's hot outside, and I have nothing in the house that resembles ice cream (and no desire to drive a mile or two to Froyo), so a glass of cold milk must suffice. I would also like to note that I'm sporting my first mosquito bite of the summer on my left hand. Is this something to brag about?

Here's my list of highlights:

1. My housemates and I all pitched in together to make a Chicken Bacon Spinach Alfredo pizza. I made the alfredo sauce and crust and the whole thing came together rather splendidly. For dessert we had a half-baked cookie with chocolate fudge ice cream, which was incredibly delicious.We also had a ton of fun talking and laughing.

2. My small dinner group from church had the pleasure of going to a Green Bluff farm (Cherry Hill Orchard) where one of the couples in the group lives and works. We had tacos, and I made a delicious pudding parfait dessert with vanilla and chocolate puddings, peanut butter whipped cream and chocolate and Nutter Butter cookie crumbs. The highlight was touring the big red barn out of which cherries are sold in the summer. We climbed up to the cupola at the very top of the barn and got a three-sixty view of the bluff countryside in the dusk. Stunning!

3. Near the end of April, a couple from church invited me to see their two daughters perform in The Music Man at a local high school. This is one of my favorite musicals, and I was in it in high school, so I said YES! We met at Pizza Hut before the performance and enjoyed a lovely time of fellowship with proud parents Samuel and Renee and six others. The performance was delightful and lines of Music Man songs have been playing refrains in my head ever since.

4. On the first Wednesday of each month, I volunteer with my friends Margy and Stella at the Mead Food Bank. Last month, Margy and I went out to dinner with the weekly volunteers and had a great time. Betty, a volunteer, said we could be on the dinner list, which means that if your name comes up on the list, you get to choose where to go to dinner. As soon as I walked in last Wednesday, Betty said, "Elizabeth! It's your choice for dinner!" I couldn't believe I actually got to choose! It wasn't a hard decision. I chose Zip's, a local Spokane fast food joint that I've only visited one time when I was fourteen as my youth group headed through Spokane on a mission trip to British Columbia. We had a wonderful dinner with the food bank volunteers, and I ate a corndog, crinkle fries, and a peanut butter milkshake. Bliss! I was raving about my corn dog so much that Margy said, "You know, you can buy frozen corn dogs at the grocery store." I agreed with her, but told her that I limit my corndog eating to once every six years or so, so I can really eat them with gusto. :)

5. On Friday evening, my friend Heidi and I went to Coeur d'Alene to see a Whitworth music professor debut his second concerto with the Coeur d'Alene symphony. The whole evening was wonderful. Heidi works with Japanese exchange students in town, and I had met her girls once before. I saw three of them while waiting for Heidi and chatted with them about their recent trip to the East Coast. Then Heidi and I drove the 40 minutes to Coeur d'Alene and enjoyed a picnic in a park by the lake. We ate wheat rolls with mustard, mayo, sliced chicken breast, cheese and avocado, cut veggies with homemade buttermilk ranch dressing, orange soda, and a chocolate-peanut butter no-bake cookie from Petit Chat. The concert itself was incredible. Brent Edstrom, Heidi's professor, is a jazz musician, so the piece was mixed jazz and orchestra. It sounds odd, but the pieces worked beautifully together. My favorite movement has some Latin-inspired rhythms and melodies which made it hard to sit still. Probably the best part of the concert, though, was clapping for Brent with pure delight at the end of the concert. He came back on stage three times and played an encore piece because we clapped so hard!

There are other highlights and hard things about the past couple weeks, too, but the stories above are the most delightful and brought me much life and joy. What are your highlights from the past couple weeks?

P.S. Also, I have to tell you that I watched the BBC Miniseries Wives and Daughters this weekend and loved it! I highly recommend it to all those who haven't seen it. It's a lovely story and can generate some good discussion (and maybe even a few good tears).

Birthday Celebrations!

 

I had a blessed 24th birthday on Monday this week and enjoyed a couple celebrations with friends. On Friday night, my two friends from church took me out to dinner at Sante, the restaurant I enjoyed with my parents back in February. We ordered a Fromage plate to share with three kinds of cheese, salami, homemade mustard, apple-cherry preserve, candied walnuts, raisins, and slices of baguette. My main dish was ravioli stuffed with pork confit (con-fee) and apple cream cheese and covered with a mushroom crema sauce. Delicious! We finished up with bread pudding that had a homemade marshmallow to the side and butterscotch sauce drizzled over the top. The atmosphere of Sante and conversation made for a wonderful evening! Thanks Cindy and Becca!

 

On Sunday evening, I had the pleasure of cooking my mom's wonderful lasagna for several of my friends and housemates. We talked about our alter-egos at the dinner table, and then went out for Froyo. You don't want to know what was on my Peanut Butter/Birthday Cake frozen yogurt. Let's just say I have a high sugar tolerance. :)

 

My co-worker Emily and I joke that we're the same person because people call her Elizabeth and me Emily. We sometimes call ourselves Emily Elizabeth, like the owner of Clifford, the books about the big, red dog. So, as a present, Emily crocheted this adorable mini-Clifford for me: 

 

 

On Monday, I left work early and drove up to Trader Joe's (next two pictures). Call me crazy, but I simply love looking around that store. I didn't even get a ton of exciting stuff, just chicken breasts (which are currently in my Crock-Pot with onions, salsa, and taco seasoning), bacon, Fontina cheese, Roasted Red Pepper Spread with Eggplant and Garlic on the recommendation of a friend, Yogurt O's Strawberry Cereal, and a bouquet of flowers. I was having trouble getting my face, the flowers, and the Trader Joe's sign in the picture without blinding myself (the sun was bright!), so this is the best picture you'll get: 

 

I love having fresh flowers in the house again! My co-worker got me the Nutter Butters as a present. It's peanut butter. Enough said!

 

My housemate Pam made me this lovely sign and hung it above our front door. It's so great! It was the first thing I saw when I walked upstairs at 6 AM on Monday.

My housemate started her first day of a new job on Monday, so to celebrate doubly, my housemates Pam (left), Justina (right), and I went to a taco truck for dinner. We got a simply delicious burrito with marinated pork and onions and nachos with ground beef. It was delicious!

 

My co-worker bought me a bag of candy Princess jewelry with two necklaces, two rings, two lipsticks, and a bracelet with a "diamond." She said I'm the Party-Planning Princess at work, so I needed appropriate accessories. I put the ring on my finger and almost had to eat it off. Oops! A bunch of us in the office also love Downton Abbey, so she got me this awesome t-shirt! If you're Downton-Abbey literate, you'll know that Mr. Carson is a black-and-white, toe-the-line butler who also has a good heart. :)

 

We had our April birthday celebration at work and one of my co-workers brought this enormous, pizza-sized cookie! It was quite the sight! We also had brownies, a Mexican dip with chips, and fruit. I was a little sugared out at dinner, so I ate salad, roasted asparagus, and roasted cauliflower leftovers and a bowl of Strawberry Yogurt O's for dinner. Yum!

 

 

Overall, my birthday was a delight. However, in light of the bombings in Boston that happened on my birthday, I realized and continue to reflect on how grateful I am for the gift of life and for the gift of so many friends and family who have made my twenty-four years full of joy. Thank you! Life is precious, and I pray that we're each able to embrace life with the joy and courage given to us through Jesus Christ. 

Culinary Discoveries

Last Saturday I expanded my culinary skills by taking a cheese-making class in downtown Spokane at a store called Sun People Dry Goods. The teacher, Trish Vieira, owns Spokane Family Farm with her husband Mike, which produces local and minimally processed milk. She was a kick! She talked a mile a minute and knew more about milk in all its complexities than I ever knew existed. The class had 19 people (17 women), and we got to watch Trish make yogurt and mozzarella. I took notes and listened until my head was buzzing with thoughts about milk, cream, rennet, organic, Darigold, and more.

The highlight of the class for me was watching Trish make homemade mozzarella. It seriously looked like the easiest process ever and in just 40 minutes, she was cutting off pieces of warm, stretchy, salty mozzarella for us. It was so fun to eat because it stretched like gum. Trish asked us if we planned to make cheese, and I enthusiastically raised my hand. I do plan to carry out the mozzarella making (and document it here), but I realized I would need to pick up a couple things before making it.

In the olden days, people used cheesecloth to squeeze all the excess liquid out of their cheese (the whey). But Trish and those in the class who had made cheese before said cheesecloth is no longer any good for making cheese because the holes in the fabric are too big! I thought that an interesting statement about something straying beyond its original purpose. In place of cheesecloth, Trish used a piece of a polyester curtain that she found at Goodwill. I figured I would just go to Joann's to buy a similar piece of fabric to add to my mozzarella-making arsenal.

On Thursday, I had tea at the home of an older friend. She asked me if I wanted some old curtains from her mother-in-law. I said sure, and she showed me the heavy floral-patterned curtains. I didn't think anything of it until she showed me the sheer material that hangs behind the floral curtains...the exact material I needed for making cheese! I was too chicken to ask my friend if I could use the curtains to squeeze whey out of my homemade cheese. This is obviously not the purpose for which these curtains were intended! But as soon as I decide to make cheese, I will investigate.

On Sunday, I went to Trader Joe's with a friend from church and only got four things (shocking, I know!): baby bok choy, fontina cheese, Brie, and blueberry freezer waffles. On Thursday, I made this fried rice, and it turned out wonderfully! Instead of cooking brown rice, I used Trader Joe's frozen brown rice/barley mix, which made it super easy. I microwaved three bags and added sauteed baby bok choy, green cabbage, onion, and carrots with bacon and scrambled eggs, mixed it all together with soy sauce, and voila! Anyone want to come for dinner tonight?

 

My final culinary discovery is totally wonderful. Berry compote. My friend and I meet for breakfast every Friday morning to talk, pray, and read Scripture. I found a recipe in a cookbook for berry compote, which seemed a great way to use frozen blueberries and to make a delicious topping for French toast. As I was eating the berry compote this morning, I had a wonderful revelation. This compote could work well with so many things: a mix-in for yogurt and warm steel cut oats, a topping for ice cream and toast, and so many uses that I haven't even discovered. And it's the easiest thing ever! You never have to buy flavored yogurt again!

 

Anyone want to come for breakfast tomorrow?

 

P.S. Here's the recipe for berry compote from this awesome cookbook: Mix 1 cup berries (straight from the freezer is fine) with 3 tbsp sugar (a little more or less is fine) and a dash of water. Bring to a boil on the stove in a small saucepan and boil for five minutes. In the meantime, mix 2 tsp of cornstarch with 2 tbsp of cold water until all the corn starch is dissolved. After five minutes, add in the cornstarch and keep boiling and stirring for two minutes. Add in another 1/2 cup berries and stir for another minute. Remove from heat and serve right away or refrigerate and reheat later.   

A Foodie Pilgrimage to Trader Joe's

It may be wrong to equate Trader Joe's with a pilgrimage, but I mean it in a foodie, not a religious, sense. There are number of places in Spokane where a person can go on such a trek, so I chose a Saturday morning jaunt to Trader Joe's and the Great Harvest Bread Company. Unfortunately, most of the foodie sites I like to visit are on the South Hill, which is a half hour from my house, but that could actually be a blessing in disguise. :)

I was at Trader Joe's for a full hour, just looking. I didn't put anything in my basket for half an hour. Weird, I know, but, I was finally able to narrow the vast selection down to a few choice items.

Here's what I bought today:

Let me explain my choices.

1. I bought the hand-tossed whole wheat flour tortillas because I've been wanting to make breakfast burritos and wraps for lunch. The Mediterranean hummus goes with the tortillas for the wraps. The Oregonian taste-tested store-bought hummuses (hummi?) and chose this Trader Joe's hummus as the winner, so it was hard to pass up. I also bought a bag of spinach for the wraps, which you can't see in this picture.

2. I was intrigued by these bacon ends and pieces. It looked like good, thick bacon, so I decided to buy this package to throw in the freezer until I come up with a good use for it.

3. My housemate Katie got me a gift card to the Great Harvest Bread Company for my birthday. I used the last of it on this loaf of Honey Whole Wheat bread. I like the size of the slices because they're small enough to be a complement to a meal rather than the whole meal itself.

4. I love looking at the Trader Joe's cheese selection. They have wonderful foreign cheese that are (bonus!) reasonably priced. Two families I visited this summer--the Miedemas in Colorado and the Leonardis in Coeur d'Alene--had Gouda cheese that I loved, so this was the obvious choice.

5. I love almond butter on apple slices, English muffins, toast, etc. I bought a big thing of almond butter from Costco because it was twice the size of Trader Joe's almond butter and the same price, but I didn't like it at all. Sometimes it's worth it to pay a little more.

6. I use coconut milk in curries, but I'm also thinking of making a Cream of Mushroom soup from scratch with coconut milk in the coming weeks. Plus, it's always nice to have a can of coconut milk on hand.

7. Last but not least, the lemon curd! My favorite cooking show, River Cottage, has a recipe for muffins with a big dollop of lemon curd in the center of each muffin. Can't wait to make them!

So there's what I bought on my Trader Joe's/Great Harvest pilgrimage. It was very satisfying. I was proud of myself for choosing carefully; it's easy to overbuy there. But I felt I chose only what I was going to use within the next week or so. And I can always go back. :)

What's your favorite place to shop for groceries?