Edamame Shumai

I usually maintain a healthy appetite regardless of whether I'm sick, but this flu has left me with no desire to eat - only an intellectual understanding that I need to eat something. Bananas, oatmeal, and jello have been my main sustenance, though I tried eating some warmed up shumai for dinner.

Calzone Mistake

I was feeling a bit better today, and wanted Dan to have a decent dinner, so I rallied a bit and made up some calzones. I tried to avoid putting much in mine, but still should've stuck to broth. Ironically, these were probably the best calzones I've ever made. I wish I could've enjoyed them more.

Sick Soup

After a great dinner with my folks last night, I got deathly ill. I was actually feeling a bit weird before dinner, so I know it wasn't the great food. I was either something else I ate/drank, or just a flu bug. Whatever it was, it wrecked me. I haven't felt this bad in a long time. My body feels totally emptied out, my esophagus feels like I drank acid, and I blew out blood vessels in right eye, which left it with a little twitch all day. Needless to say, I didn't go to work today. I spent the entire day on the couch, downloading movies from Amazon UnBox via my Tivo, because I can't bear to watch daytime TV.

Halibut Dinner with Mom & Dad

My folks are leaving for a short trip to Boston tomorrow morning, and it might be the last chance to see them before Hawai'i. They had some stuff to pick up that I borrowed, as well as some stuff to drop off, so we decided to make a night of it. They found a great recipe while watching a TV show, and came over and cooked it for us. It was seared halibut over mixed greens and gorgonzola smashed potatoes, with a pesto sauce and a little parmesan cheese. It was really delicious, and fun to cook together.



Braised Greens

1 tspn olive oil
1 tbspn minced garlic
1/4 cup prosciutto, sliced thin
1/4 cup pine nuts
4-5 cups washed and chopped tender greens (collard, kale, mustard, beet, chard, etc)
1/2 cup basil leaves
2 tbspn balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper to taste
freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese

In a large saute pan, heat oil over medium high heat and saute proscuitto, garlic and pine nuts until the pine nuts are golden - about 1 minute. Add the greens, basil, vinegar, and salt & pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the greens are tender crisp. Sprinkle with grated parmigiano.

Smashed Potatoes
1 lb red potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
2-3 oz gorgonzola cheese
2 tbspn butter
1/4 cup milk or half & half
1 tspn salt
1/2 tspn pepper

Place potatoes in a pot of boiling salted water, cover, and cook until tender - about 15-20 minutes - then drain. Transfer cooked potatoes to a bowl and add gorgonzola, butter, milk, salt and pepper. Mash the potatoes, skins on, until fairly smooth. Add extra milk if potatoes are too dry. (Note: Potatoes can be made a day ahead, and reheated in a casserole dish at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.)

Pan-Seared Halibut
4 - 6 oz halibut filets, skin removed
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 tbsnp basil pesto

Season filets with salt and pepper. In a large saute pan, heat oil over medium heat and sear filets for 4-5 minutes per side, until opaque through. Remove from pan and brush with pesto sauce.

Sauteed Cherry Tomatoes
2 tbspn olive oil
1 basket cherry tomatoes, washed and stems removed
2-3 cloves minced garlic
1/4 tspn salt
2 tbspn basil pesto

In a saute pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Add garlic and cook for 15 seconds. Add tomatoes, salt and pesto and cook just until the tomatoes begin to blister, but no longer.

Put it all together

Place 1/2 cup potatoes in the center of each plate. Top with a layer of greens and then top with halibut filet. Scatter each plate with cherry tomatoes and garnish with fresh basil.

Tofu Stir Fry

Tonight we threw together a VERY spicy tofu and veggie stir fry, along with some white rice. I marinated the tofu in Sriracha, soy, ginger, honey, sesame and rice vinegar, then cubed it and tossed it with zucchini, bok choy, peppers, and chilies.

Seared Scallops with Pasta

Diver scallops, with just salt & pepper, seared in a very hot pan with some butter and olive oil (1.5 min per side), then laid over angelhair pasta. I used the pan drippings, with more butter, green onions and sherry, to create a little dressing for the pasta.

La Cabana Memorial Day Lunch

After finally finishing the patio and benches (just a fire pit needed now to finish it off), Dan & I headed to one of our neighborhood Mexican restaurants for lunch - La Cabana. It was the first restaurant we tried when we moved to Beacon Hill, and one I'd been to years and years ago when a friend lived up here. But ever since our love affair with El Sombrero in Columbia City began, we've been neglecting it. Today was a perfect day to take a walk up to Beacon Ave and give Cabana a little love.



I went for a menu item I hadn't tried before, which was a vegetarian fajita. It sounded like a healthier option than the cheesy dishes who's siren song I can usually not resist, and I hoped it would be a better mid-day option than, say, a chimichanga. The portion was significant, and the food was pretty good. The best part (other than the always friendly service) was that in honor of Memorial Day, they put tiny American flags on every plate.



I also had a Tecate, which came in the can with a small glass.

Family BBQ w/ Mai Tai Cupcakes

As a little pre-Memorial Day celebration, we drove down to Dan's folks place in Kent and had dinner with them, Dan's sister Jennifer, her husband Matt, and their sons Blake & Milo.

Before dinner we played a cutthroat game of croquet, where I applied everything I learned from watching Heathers about a million times in high school, and somehow ended up winning (after everyone else picked each other off.



Since everyone else was partaking of some pork (which was reportedly AMAZING), Dan's Mom made up a special non-meat dish of scallops for me. Like the pork, they were cooked perfectly. We all enjoyed a salad courtesy of Jennifer, and some delicious potatoes.



After dinner, my contribution was my second attempt at mai tai cupcakes. This time around, I made a buttercream frosting, then drizzled the rum-laden icing over the cupcakes for the adults, and left it off for the kids. The buttercream definitely detracted from the flavor match to the cocktail, but made for a better looking cupcake.

Salmon Quiche

Luau Blackout?

We hit luau today, though I only have pictures of our drinks for some weird reason.

Chips and Dips

Super Birds

Pina Colada Cupcakes

Teriyaki Seitan w/ Cucumber Salad

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Brunch for Dinner

Although we planned to have 'Breakfast for Dinner' tonight, we ended up making a fritatta, which kinda makes it 'Brunch for Dinner', maybe.

The fritatta included turkey bacon lardons, veggie sausage, onion, garlic, mushrooms, and wheat bread, along with eggs, of course.

The First Grill of the Season!

Finally, the patio made of recovered concrete is completed! Two long, hot days in the sun, and nasty sunburn, and I finished it up. Now I just need to build a couple benches and get some accessories, and you'll start seeing photos of us enjoying cocktails & meals out of doors.

But without any benches, tonight we just cooked outside (for the first time at our new house!).

I had a garden burger patty, while Dan went for some ground turkey. We added to that some turkey bacon, avocado, grilled onion, tomato, and cheese, all on whole wheat buns.

And while I was finishing up the patio, Dan was whipping up some mac salad, which he augmented with a little mustard and horseradish to give it a little more zip.

El Sombrero

I got up early today and worked on the patio some more. I was nearly finished around lunch time, but also famished. To escape the heat of the midday sun (I don't get to say that often in Seattle), we cleaned up and headed to Columbia City for some lunch at El Sombrero.

And, as seems to always be the case when we eat there, I forgot to take pictures until after I'd started eating (and very nearly finished).



We both had nice, icy cold Tecate beers in frosty mugs, and I had the veggie taco salad, while Dan enjoyed the carne asada quesadillas. There are a lot of haters out there who swear that these types of establishments are no good because they're not 'authentic' mexican food, but I love El Sombrero.

Borracchini's

After getting some headway on the patio, we headed down our local italian bakery/deli, Borracchini's, to get some dinner.

It turned out we got there a bit late (after 6, when they close the deli at 6:30), and by the time we figured out what we wanted and got someone's attention, it was 6:35. I ended up going for an egg salad sandwich and some pasta salad, and Dan opted to get a big thing of spaghetti & meatballs.

The sandwich and salad were tasty after working so hard in the hot sun all day, and the walk down to the shop was nice, too.

BOOM!

Tonight we headed over to our old stomping grounds, Capitol Hill, to meet up with our friends Jason & Jayson for some dinner and to see a play called 'S2' that our pal Spencer is performing in.

A lot has changed in the short time since we moved away, including the opening of what seems like an endless variety of new bars and restaurants. Included in those is BOOM noodle, a Pan-Asian noodle restaurant from (reportedly) the folks behind Blue C Sushi. Like a number of other restaurants of late, it capitalizes on the trend of communal seating arrangements to maximize how many people they can fit in the space.

Communal seating can have a bit of a cafeteria vibe to it (as well as make me too easily distracted), but we ended up with our own table because it wasn't a particularly busy night.



We started with some cocktails. I tried a Yuzu vodka concoction with a sugar rim, and Dan sipped a Mojito. My sugar rim ended up making my fingers all sticky, but the drink was good.

We had some chicken skewers as a starter, and of course noodles as a main course. I ordered the Wasabi Soba, and Dan got the Beef Yakisoba. I don't recall what Jason got, but Jayson ordered the unforgettably colored Roasted Red Beet Soba.

It had been a long time since we'd seen 'The Ja(y)sons', and it was great to catch up a bit, and venture to my first theater experience in a LONG time together with good friends.