Bonus Delicious -- Buttermilk Biscuits

Ian and I have bought the frozen grands biscuits a few times because they are easy to make and you can make just two at a time if you want! I thought we still had some in the freezer when I decided Sunday's dinner would be chili and biscuits.

I was therefore surprised, but not dismayed when I rooted around amidst the steam buns and popsicles, frozen fruit and frozen okra, and nary a frozen biscuit was found.

"Guess I get to practice biscuits tonight!" and "Oooh! Ian will be excited!" were my thoughts. I've never made biscuits from scratch on my own before, yet I recently had practice with a similar treat, so I knew a few moments to keep an eye out for.

I looked up a buttermilk cheddar biscuit recipe (to use up what we still have in the fridge) on food network (thank you Ina) and Ian came home just in time to flour my rolling surface and say "The way I used to make them, for what it's worth..."  he started.

"Thanks for adding the what it's worth part, otherwise I would have thought you were telling me what to do," I said. (which for some reason I get quite finicky about when cooking) "Go on."

"If you want nice layered biscuits, you roll out the dough too thin and then fold it over on itself and roll it out again. You could repeat that three times or so. Sometimes I would brush butter in between the layers, but you don't have to do that."

"I should think not! There's already a stick and a half in here," I exclaimed.

The biscuits were then rolled out, folded over, rolled out, folded over, rolled out again and cut into rectangles, laid down on the scrap of parchment paper I had left and popped into the fully pre-heated oven at 425 deg.  25 minutes later delicious smelling/looking bread square fluffy layered mouth contraptions came out and we enjoyed our chili and biscuits.

Ian was surprisingly non-chalant when I told him I think I'll add biscuits to my repertoire. "That means I have to make them until I can do it from memory, at least 3 more times."

"I'll eat biscuits three more times," is all he said.

Bonus Delicious -- Blackberry Buttermilk Scones

 Today I woke up early and using a recipe from Martha's Everyday Food mag, made Blackberry Scones! (the recipe is for raspberry, but that's an easy substitute)

The scones are part of one of my new goals for 2011, but I haven't got all that sorted yet. For now, they will just be a  bonus delicious.

Next time I make them I'm going to make sure to preheat the oven all the way (I burned the bottoms because I put them in while the oven was still warming up to 400 deg) and let the food processor stay on its shelf. 

The texture is very light, totally different than what I expect from a scone since I'm used to coffee shop triangle wedges of heavy delicious. "They're like a biscuit" I said to Ian. "Well, yeah! I don't understand why people don't realize that. . . it's the same recipe (mostly)"

You'll see at least three more batches of scones from me this year. I want to put them in my repertoire which means being able to make and bake them without a recipe.

Bonus Delicious -- rice noodle soup

The only thing that New Seasons (boutique grocery store) sells for less than Fred Meyer (utility grocery store... although the one Ian and I go to is the only LEED certified grocery store in the state) are Thai Kitchen instant noodles.

And I love them, for 89 cents, a meal/snack in just three - five minutes. All you have to do is boil water!

Ian is trying to turn me onto their "homecooked" counterpart which involves more than just boiling water, and turns out acceptable, but not as delicious. I don't know how to make delicious home cooked noodle soup, I think I must be missing a key ingredient.

It is like magic though, how all the little bits turn into one bowl of yum. The noodle soup is very much "the whole is more than the sum of its parts."

Lots of different pieces. . .

Turn into delicious noodle soup.

While I'm not writing off from scratch rice noodle soup, it is going to take a couple more tries to convince me it's better than my easy and cheap Thai Kitchen rice noodles.

Bonus Delicious -- EAT A SALAD

I remember when I ate salads almost everyday. I would unpack my lunch at my desk and coworkers would say "Wow, that looks great! and so healthy..." I would eat my salad with lemon juice or a bit of olive oil and vinegar, and I liked it that way.

At the time I was vegetarian, maybe pescatarian. And I rarely ate any dairy. There have been some physiological changes in me since those days, and I'm out of the (very good) habit of just throwing together a salad for lunch.

These days I still have to trick myself a little with those tastier tidbits an omnivorous palate is used to having around. A bit of cheese, some torn bits of meat, and salad dressing. (Though I happy to say I use less than the suggested serving size)

Lately, the only time I've been eating a salad is when it is the path of least resistance. If a salad is the easiest thing to make, then it wins. Sometimes I forget that all the odd bits and ends in the fridge could even become a salad! Ian suggested I make a pretty "EAT A SALAD" sign to hang on the cupboard as a loving reminder. It's on my list of things to make (I'm currently working on my first sock puppet).

Making salads always reminds me of my step-dad David. He puts together an amazing salad. You could eat a David Salad for days. He could make you salad everyday for a week and it would be different everytime. Today you get olives, tomorrow you get garbanzo beans and artichoke hearts...the next day there are beans and peppers. These days, when I get all the fixins on the counter and my salad seems to be missing an element, I find myself wondering "what else would David put in here?"

bonus delicious -- sinnimint chocolate chip

Is "sinnimint" already trademarked? If not, I'm filling out the applications because the dessert Ian and I came up with the other night needs some legal protection. It's that good, and dangerous.

Most times our dessert consists of an apple or caramel rice cakes, or jello, all pretty wholesome. Occasionally however we get a wicked sweet tooth and splurge on ice cream and/or treats. My favorite brand of ice cream is Haagen Dazs' new line called "FIVE." For any of the flavors there are just five ingredients. Usual suspects on the list: skim milk, cream, sugar, egg yolk and then the flavor.

They are starting to release so many flavors that I am having trouble remembering which ones I've tried. While in front of the ice cream section at our grocery store Ian asked which flavor we should get and I said "mint, no chocolate I always like chocolate, lemon, no! oooh caramel." At some point I settled on mint long enough for it to make its way to the cart.

My new favorite ice cream.

We almost made it out of the snack aisle too but something was itching our brains. Mint ice cream is great, yet would be even greater with a bit of cookie.
"All of those have too much junk in them," I said when Ian was looking at the oreos.
"what about the pepperidge farm ones?"
"Maybe the milanos, or hey those coconut ones, or that one."
"so, basically any of them"
"I really just want a thin chocolate wafer, that would be perfect."

Then an idea struck Ian and he grabbed my hand. We whisked away from the cookie aisle to the . . . refrigerated aisles? After a little bit of hemming and hawing between pre-made cookie doughs, we decided TollHouse probably knows best and we just wouldn't read the label too hard.

Later that night I won "brilliant idea of the night" when I said "we could just bake two of them in the toaster oven."

No need to bake the whole batch when you have a toaster oven!

The rest of the magic was all Ian. It was his idea to use the cookies as a crust in the bottom of our little dishes.

This ice cream is really minty, and thankfully, no green dye in sight!

It was also Ian's brilliance to sprinkle left over cinnamon sugar on the top of the little scoops of ice cream.

delight in a dish.

I have a feeling this month is going to be quite desserted. In the middle of September I had already decided that October's new dish for goal 101 would be caramel apples. I'm also waiting impatiently to hear how Lindsey Loo's adventure with this pumpkin tiramisu turns out. If it goes well I may just request an encore when Ian and I are in Dayton during our epic November road-trip.

Other news on the radar? Carmen is coming to visit in early November, just before we head east. Ian is really going to finish my new cutting table next week. I'm sewing up a storm for Bike Cozy so the show can continue during our road trip (currently trying to scrape together enough money for a netbook).

Bonus Delicious -- sandwiches beat pizza

The last day my mom was in town we were organizing my studio and were both hit with hunger. We were running low on groceries since they were leaving early the next morning. Even though we still had dinner planned, we didn't have lunch.

"Where could we get food?" she asked.

"I don't know, there is this pizza place that has gluten free dough that I've been wanting to try, it's just up the street."

"Oooh, that sounds good, can you order online?"

I was looking at the place's website and suddenly it all got too complicated. How to pay, I'd have to read her cc over the phone to them? It would still take over half an hour to get here, and by then our hunger might turn into hanger. We were hungry now. Would we go pick it up? It seemed silly to have them deliver. And then I said "Are you sure there's nothing here we could eat?"

Then one of us said "Let's go check." So we went to the kitchen. The hunger had scrambled our thinking wires, but there was still rice bread that David had bought, salty crunchy tortilla chips for the side. A little more searching yielded the rest of the makings for delicious avocado, tomato sandwiches. We had just enough brain power left to get all the fixin's onto the bread.

We decided the path of least resistance was to use what we had.

Don't these look great! A delightful alternative to ordering out.

And afterward I got a big hug from my mom who said "You just saved me twenty-two bucks!"

Bonus Delicious -- B L T

Part of the reason we put bacon in the potato soup (beyond the fact that bacon makes everything taste more delicious) is because David was hankering for a BLT. So we bought bacon, and used three slices in the soup, some slices went to David's BLT which left four slices for Ian and I to have BLTs the next day.

I asked Ian, my resident cook expert, for a mini-course on cooking the pig. He said to put the bacon in the pan. Turn the pan on high until the bacon starts to sizzle, then find the magic balance of heat when the bacon is still sizzling, yet not smoking. And very important, flip the bacon every minute. "How do I know when it's done?" "when it looks done!" "But when is that?" "It happens kind of all at once, but I know if I just leave you to it, you'll know when that is" So he went outside to smoke a cigarette and I bit my lip hoping he was right.

yum. I got the bacon just how he likes it, crispy and chewy.

Bonus Delicious -- Potato Soup with Bacon

I'm hungry and I'm waiting for Ian's rice to cook so we can eat our Thai leftovers together while watching something on Netflix (am so excited for tv season to be started already, Hulu will soon be a good friend again).

While I'm waiting, I thought it would be a good time to catch up on a couple of blog posts (I got backlogged during my parent's visit, lots of post material and no time to update!). Going against all intuition I decided to post some of my bonus delicious from this month (hoping that my stomach can outlast the tempation.)

This past Sunday we had "Potato Soup" on the menu with Ian as cook. Then I remembered we had promised and were going to the "Suck My Flick" screening (one year anniversary even) at the non-profit or is it not-for-profit venue: Curious Comedy Club . And there wouldn't be enough time between Ian getting home from work and our departure, so I would make the soup.

feeling very domestic with a giant soup pot on the stove and veggie broth a'brewin.

Bonus Delicious -- out at Mo's

September has been a month full of new dishes, delicious meals and trying new things.

Not only have I been cooking all sorts of meals, yet even going out has led to adventurous tastings.

We were in Newport at lunch time on our way up the coast back to Portland from Crater Lake. (If you look at a map the coast seems out of the way, but when you're from Michigan, and you get that close to the ocean a couple of hours doesn't seem like so far away anymore) In Newport we drove down the main strip and were all hungry and looking for food and found none. We did see signs to "Historic Bayfront" and decided to turn around and investigate further. Good thing too, as soon as we turned on the street, we saw Mo's and that was it. We were eating there for lunch, goodbye hungry-grumps.

What we didn't know at the time was there were many Mo's along the coast. We were blinded by hunger, and their award winning clam chowder was in fact delicious.

Ian couldn't get the oyster shooters because it was red tide (too warm). We split a combination platter and since he liked all four/five options, let me pick our three. I initially thought to go for the cod, calamari and . . . but then I decided I get calamari anywhere so I kept the cod as a back up and we ordered the clam strips and oysters. Everything was deep fried (demerits). Ian has been trying to get me to try more sea food (especially shell fish even though I claim to have a slight allergy to them) and he said that deep fried is usually the best way to introduce a new food (everything tastes okay deep fried right?) but deep fried oysters are his least favorite and I didn't like it one bit!

I tried some oyster, but only a bite. I'll try another one if it's cooked differently, Ian says we'll steam them.

What a funny cycle with the sea lions near the dock. A few moments of peaceful laze about then one somewhere would start barking and they'd all bark for a few minutes then some more lazing about. Entertaining!

Newport is also where we got to see the sea lions. Ian showed me how to take video with his camera and I posted one of the delightful animals on youtube.

Graciela and David at the historic bayfront in Newport. Our day driving along the coast was true Oregon. Overcast and kind of raining the whole time.

Sometimes a picture will help cement the memory in your mind for later.

I have so many pictures from the trip, which is great because Ian and I are not picture takers. For one thing he says there is no point of just taking a picture of the ______ (waterfall, ocean, cave, this or that) because someone else has already taken the picture and posted it on the internet that you can look at. And their picture is probably better because someone with nice equipment will surely have taken photos of whatever you're looking at. (For an awesome TED talk about some amazing photo sharing environment building interaction stuff click here.) Better to pay attention with your memory and let it all sink in so you can remember it for yourself later.

So, we don't take many pictures. His theory is one reason I've started drawing when we're out with natural wonders. The drawing is mine, it's how I see it, what I see as important and helps make the scene real in my mind.

Bonus Delicious -- Sweet Stir Fry

The first time this meal came together was kind of accidental. Remember the cabbage I used for the asian coleslaw back in June? Well, I only used a little over half of the cabbage and the rest went back into the fridge.

Then, week in, week out, it would be in my produce tupperware. And I would think and say "We have got to do something with that cabbage," concurrently being amazed that it was still fresh.

Finally, last week, right before my parents got here. . . our cupboards were bare. We could make rice. And what would go with the rice? It was a tuesday, and Ian wouldn't be getting home until after 8. I started pondering. Opening the fridge and staring at all the empty space.

Double Bonus Delicious -- Fresh Berries and Zuke Salad

Yum. Fresh berries. An expensive treat, but all three types were together looking so beautiful, so irresistible.

Ian has already left, for the morning, to go mountain biking. I reckon they're looking to get a head start on the heat. Point of the story, I was on my own for breakfast (unusual occurrence) so I kept it simple. Yesterday's coffee, rye toast with homemade apple butter, and a bowl packed with Oregon berries, fresh via the grocery store yesterday. Berries. berries. b-e-r-r-i-e-s. So many memories are packed into the taste of fresh berries. Especially black berries, since the first time I really had them was after college, when I lived in Bristol. 

It was winter then, so I would make oatmeal and pour (rice) milk on top and sprinkle on fresh blackberries. They were a weekly staple. Eating them now reminds me of all those lovely days in a borrowed city, walking about drawing postcards and joking with Shills.

I'm a bit more sentimental than usual, since today is my last day at the Portland Paper Zone. I'm typing up a nice long letter for my exit interview and looking back on the last two years is pulling at my heart strings a little. I ought to concentrate on what I'm going to stock up on with my last employee discount! Lots of Bookbinding supplies I reckon, bookcloth and handmade papers, and christmas presents. Oooh, pretty presents. There we are, all cheery and better again. On to the Zukes.

Yesterday, when Ian and I were making our list for grocery shopping this week, I realized we still had the zucchini and corn for the raw salad I was supposed to make last week. Throwing away rotten veg makes me feel immature, and unhealthy! Luckily, the corn and the zuke were still fresh and firm (the cucumber was not so lucky) Knowing it was a "now, or you'll be throwing away rotten veg, again" kind of situation, I started on this simple salad as soon as we were home again and all the new veg was safely stowed.

For this delightful side-dish, to serve 2 adults (with a healthy appetite):

1 corn on its cob
1 small zucchini
1 juicy lime
1 TBLsp olive oil
chopped cilantro (the one week we forget to buy cilantro)
salt and pepper to taste

Husk the corn and cut the kernels off the cob. I love the feel of the juicy kernels popping off into the bowl.

See that giant plant? That's a Rachel kind of plant. You water it when you remember and if it's summer, it's growing. No special instructions required!

Hey Dad! That's me, voluntarily preparing zucchini to eat! Slice zucchini thin and add to corn.

add the juice of a lime (two limes if they aren't very juicy).

Olive oil to coat and cover, stir.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Ready to hang out in the fridge until dinner! Ta-da! Delicious and nutritious.

And I took (almost) my fair share of zucchini (Ian only got a couple of extra slices)! This recipe can definitely go into the summer rotation. Leave out the pepper and it's a dish raw foodists would give a delicious thumbs up! I felt so healthy eating the delightful little kernels of juicy corn and the kind of crunchy, but sort of tasteless zucchini was nothing to be scared of! Next time I'll remember the cilantro.

Bonus Delicious -- Orange Ginger Shrimps

In one of my Martha Everyday cooking magazines, there was this most delicious looking picture of shrimp andouille, with grits and roasted tomatoes.

I showed it to Ian and he said he could make it without the recipe. When we were at the grocery store picking out the shrimps, he was sooooooo excited. "I haven't had shrimps in [calculating how long we've been dating] over three years!" This post isn't about that meal, but it's what has opened the door to the occasional shrimp dinner.

Orange ginger grilled shrimp on a well laid salad.

I tend to avoid shellfish and bottom feeders. "But they're all so delicious" Ian says. [I tried his catfish Po'Boy at lunch before grocery shopping the other day and I did not like it. "Why," Ian asked me, "It was this funny kind of chewy" I said, "yeah, chewy and it tastes a little like dirt" "YES! That's exactly why I didn't like it!" "That's why it's so good!" he said.) I usually say I'm allergic to shellfish (which I am, a little) otherwise people always want to know WHY you don't eat something and "It's a preference," is never a satisfying answer. Also, I'm too old to say "Because I don't like it." I'm in a definite "I'll try it" phase. Gotta test those old automatic answers and I still haven't met an eggplant I liked to eat. Look at? all day long. . . eat, not really.

But back to the delicious at hand.

My recent Martha cooking mag has these three glazes all with orange marmalade, that are just mouthwateringly tempting. I finally remembered to get marmalade at the store so it was time to try one!

Orange Ginger glaze:

1/4 c. marmalade*
1 1/2 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger**

*(we use the Simply Fruit brand because it uses good 'ol sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup)

**(we bought a giant delicious hunk of ginger eons ago, broke it apart, put it in a freezer bag and froze it. Anytime something calls for fresh ginger I just take out a little hunk and grate it on a cheese grater)

Just mix the three ingredients together in a small bowl and wait for the grill to get going. The recipe also shows beef and pork and says brush glaze on two minutes before the meat is done cooking and then again right after you take it off the grill. Because shrimps cook so fast, Ian laid the skewers of shrimps on the grill, and then brushed both sides with the glaze. We ran out of glaze, so no "after the grill" bit which was okay by us.

Also when we grill and have peaches in the house, we always grill a peach. Warm peach, if I hadn't eaten it first, I wouldn't even have wanted dessert.

duh duh duh yummmm!

You can see the tasty little shrimps on top. Also attending the fiesta, sliced red pepper, sprouts, carrot slices, shredded beet ( left over from the Pretty Beet and Carrot ) and a sprinkle of sliced red cabbage, all on a bed of torn romaine hearts.)

P.S. I LOVE the color of shredded beets. It is the most perfect purplish red ever. I even love the way it stains my hands. I feel like a kid after finger painting. 

I love beet color.

Bonus Delicious --Pretty Beet and Carrots

I am encouraging summer to come back by making cold veggie salads, the kind of thing you want to eat when it's hot and balmy and your skin is sticky. Even though Portland is dim and gray, looking at these plates of goodness makes me feel like I'm getting ready to go to a summer picnic!

Ian's plate. The buffalo chicken wings are the color of carrots!

Rachel's plate. I don't eat fowl so my little nuggets are Quorn. Soy free!