Justin and I enjoying a very lazy vacation in Costa Rica! I can´t wait to show you all the pictures of the amazing beaches and food! We have been very adventurous and organic. I don´t think I have ever gone so long without blowdrying my hair or putting on a stitch of makeup. It is so hot here that there isn´t really any point, everything just melts away! We found a nice guy on the beach named Walter (imagine that with a Spanish accent) who took us for a horse back ride along the beach and then up into the jungle. We arrived at a quaint waterfall where we hiked and swam and cooled off! On the way back we saw, and more prominently heard howler monkeys! I was very excited. After about two days of a bruised rear we were ready for the next adventure! The owners of the house we are renting left of with all of their toys. So we pulled out the kayak, rowed to a nearby island and had a picnic on the beach which we shared with the resident crabs and iguanas. Yesterday we rode bikes to the neighboring beach of Carillo and visited a wildlife rescue with some really crazy animals. The guide informed us that the American crocodile, who is very agressive, is the most common animal in Costa Rica. Not only do they inhabit the fresh waters, but they also like to swim from mangrove forest to mangrove forest in the ocean! Neadless to say I am keeping my eyes open when we swim! We are taking one more day to be lazy on the beach before embarking on a trip inland to pick up our friends at the airport and visit some of the active volcanoes of Costa Rica. If I play my cards right I may be able to weasle my way into a spa treatment at the mudbaths there. I am off to try and surf! I am sure it will be good entertainment for anyone in eyesight! Have a wonderful week, until we return to the states, hasta luego!
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LOW FAT LEMON RICOTTA PANCAKES Hi there! Robin's sister here popping in for a guest blog. I made these pancakes last weekend and they were so delicious that I had to share the recipe. Contrary to my sister, I am not much for baking. Cooking I love - but baking requires accuracy and I am more of a "choose your own adventure" cook. However, my boyfriend expressed a pancake craving so I stepped up to the plate. I remember enjoying some fabulous lemon ricotta pancakes at a restaurant years ago and wanted to make my own version. Never having made pancakes from scratch before, I hopped online and found a recipe from Bobby Flay. Being a bit of a nutrition nut, I instinctively "trimmed the fat" from his recipe and added my own twists. The pancakes turned out so moist (for lack of a less upsetting word) and fluffy. And I promise - you would never guess my version is very low fat. This recipe will serve four - of course I ate my serving and my boyfriend took care of the other three O: Needless to say, they satisfied his pancake craving. DIRECTIONS: Combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and sugar in a small bowl. Whisk together the cheese, eggs, milk, lemon juice and zest in a large bowl. Whisk the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined. Brush the hot griddle with a smidgen of yogurt butter (use Butter flavored Pam if you're really watching the Calories). For each pancake, pour approximately 1/4 cup measure of the batter on the griddle and cook on both sides until light golden brown. Repeat until no batter remains. Empty the contents of the lemon curd into a small saucepan and warm over low heat. Alternatively, remove the lid and place in a microwave oven on 50 percent power for 2 minutes, stopping after 1 minute to stir the curd. Drizzle a few tablespoons of the curd over the pancakes, top with fresh raspberries, and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. I omitted the Lemon Curd but give it a go if it sounds yummy to you. We did not think they were missing anything. INGREDIENTS:
Our most recent house project has been redecorating the living room. Although we spend the most time here, it somehow got pushed to the back burner. My husband and I love the feeling of old houses. There is a charm and elegance that makes me feel like I am part of something special. So we decided to try and preserve that old world charm in our new furniture. Our house was built in 1920 and I love that look anyways, so we tried to keep that vintage. The walls in our house are made of plaster and lath. This means that it is hard to hang things on the wall. Thus, people hang things on the picture molding. After 90 years of hanging pictures it looked like this. Honestly it made the whole living and dining room look pretty cruddy. We decided as a brave engaged couple that we would reconstruct the molding. It would be good practice in "communicating" before our upcoming wedding, and believe me it was! It took us a long time, and about 1,000 cuts with the compound mider saw. Eventually we ended up with the second picture. We painted the crown molding, then stained the dental piece to match the other wood in the room. For the ends we bought the medallions, constructed boxes out of them. We mostly added these because we couldn't figure out the proper angles to end the molding. I think it looks great and it compliments the other period details! Now about three years later we began the hunt for furniture. The first piece we found was this amazing chair from Hause in East Sac. It is styled after a porter chair from the 1880's. In the old castles the doorman would have to sit in the drafty entryway. The dome was designed to give some protection from the elements! I wanted an interesting signature piece to go next to the china hutch. For our couch and chair we decided to go with a 1920's tufted chesterfield couch. They are very comfortable and give the room a feeling of richness and sophistication. I almost had a heart attack when they arrive because the furniture is huge and bulky for our little house. But once it was all in place I coudn't be happier with it. This quickly became my new favorite reading chair. So we hunted around to find the perfect reading lamp. The shade on this is made of Mica so it has a really neat glow that doesn't come across in pictures. The last piece in this room was the coffee table. I had fallen in love with a trunk I saw at Restoration Hardware, but who has four thousand dollars to throw at a coffee table? So I hunted on Craig's list until I found the perfect one for less than two hundred. One person's trash can be another's treasure! We found this amazing old trunk in Lincoln. We brought it home, slapped some legs on the bottom to make it high enough, and whuala! Coffee table with storage! Last but not least we purchased a rug for the dining room. We found one that matched the living room in color but was a bit more formal. It gave the rooms good separation. Now we kick up our feet and enjoy the finished product! May is probably my favorite month in the garden. The weather has warmed up but I'm not a sweaty mess after being outside. Everything has started blooming into amazing bursts of color! These are blossoms from our pomegranate tree which will turn into swollen globes of antioxidants in the fall. You can literally see the fruits of your labor! Behind those blossoms you will start to see fruit growing! I have heard that it is good to water the fruit trees a lot at this point to help the fruit swell up, but that could be a wives' tale. It is the time of year that you should turn back on the sprinklers. Also, adjust everything to make sure that water is getting to the new season's plants and not the ghost of what was growing last year. There are even some plants in May that have graced us with a harvest! The artichoke plant is starting to make up for all the garden real-estate it's claimed! We have been enjoying about an artichoke a week. I have to say, I love having a whole side dish in the backyard! It makes dinner much easier. Even my most scraggly, slug eaten potato plants are throwing food my way! Planting: As everything begins to grow in and thicken, it is tempting to slip into the hammock and take a snooze. Definitely do this, but also try and plant one new plant a week. This way you will continue to have a harvest late into summer an fall. You will thank me later!!! May is a great time to put things like peppers and eggplant in the ground. My peppers are blossoming and starting to push out tiny little peppers. Peppers generally like consistent watering. Be careful not to have soggy soil or the won't thrive. May is also when cucumber plants and tomatoes will start to look alive. Corn, sweet potatoes, snap peas, cantaloupe, and leaks can also be planted in May. If you are planning on putting in squash or gourds for a fall harvest, you should start these seeds indoors in May or June. Weeding: We all hate it. There really isn't anything fun about it, but it must be done. My husband and I were busy or out of town every weekend in April and the weeds completely took over my garden. I have spent all of May trying to dig deep in this nasty grass that grows and rescue the struggling plants underneath. Luckily I have found good things growing! Try and get the weeds up whenever you have a few minutes here and there. This way your new seedlings aren't struggling for sunlight and the weeds aren't sucking up all the nutrients in the soil. Some of the winter plants and lettuces may have gone to seeds. When these plants bolt, like you see in the picture of my chard, rip them out. They use a lot of the plant's energy to do this and they will taste bitter and gross. Chop them, compost them, and wait for the to serve you next year as dirt! Let me know how your garden is growing! I love comments! Quinoa: You know you've heard the word. But you always kind of wonder how it is pronounced, well it is /keenwuah/. This seems to be the new superfood, the thing you hear everyone talking about, the food people are trying to incorporate into their diets. Well there is a reason why! Quinoa has over 9 grams of protein per cup, and it is high in fiber so it fills you up fast and you stay that way. It is also known to be a detoxifier, bone builder, and a brain food. Besides the great health benefits, it is easy to cook and has a creamy, rich, nutty flavor. My teaching partner Miranda gave me this recipe. She got it from her friend when she was trying to find tasty, diet friendly foods for her and her husband. I then made it for my husband and I and we loved it. So... quinoa has made it through the gauntlet and been approved. I think this would be a great salad to bring to a summer barbecue. It has a light delicious flavor with diverse pops of creaminess and acidity depending on what morsel ends up in your mouth. I added a cup of garbanzo beans and we had it as a meal all by itself. I am now on the hunt for other good quinoa recipes. If you've got them, try this, and then send me over your recipes! Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups quinoa (dry) 1 avocado sliced 1 cup walnuts (the original recipe called for 1/2 C but we kept hunting around for the walnuts, so add more) 1/2 cup feta cheese crumbles 1/2 cup sliced green onions 1 1/2 cups chopped baby spinach 1 cup grape tomatoes 1 cup garbanzo beans Dressing: 1/4 cup olive oil 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 2 cloves garlic finely chopped 1 teaspoon dijon mustard salt and pepper Directions: 1. Cook quinoa according to directions. Rinse it under cold water and put it in the fridge to chill. 2. In a large bowl, toss together the chilled quinoa, walnuts, feta cheese, onions, spinach, avocado (save some slices to set on top to look pretty), tomatoes, and garbanzo beans. 3. In a small bowl whisk together the oil, vinegar, garlic, and mustard. Pour the dressing over salad and toss to combine, Season with salt and pepper to taste. My adorable little nephew (cousin's baby) Kairyn was born on the same day as my husband. So tax day has now become a major birthday celebration in our family! For his first birthday my cousins, Lisa and Jake, threw him a monkey themed party. It was fun to watch all the little ones "help" open the presents, which actually meant rip them all open at record speed. To accompany this party I made some chocolate monkey and banana cupcakes. I used a Hershey's recipe for both the cake and frosting, because it is dependably delicious and always moist! My sister said it was my best work yet (but really that means Hershey's has a great recipe). For the middle of the face I used a Nilla Wafer and sliced just the top off. For the ears I used half of a shortbread cookie. I bought the eyes and cupcake tins at Raley's. You can't really see the tins but they are covered in bananas and monkeys. I used a little tube of red gel frosting for the mouth and had tons of fun making the expressions! The bananas are there just to break up the monotony of a million monkey faces. I didn't want it to get creepy! I tinted a bit of fondant yellow. Then used a simple round biscuit cutter and just cut it twice in a half moon shape. I then trimmed off the very end and painted it with a bit of green food coloring and cocoa powder to give it some depth. If you ever have the need for a jungle party, this was fun and not too time consuming! Give it a try! This weekend was my husband's thirtieth birthday! We invited all our friends for an amazing day of paintball. I had shirts made with my strapping husband Justin flexing on it, so we all wore those to get painted up! His middle name is Kase, so that is always fun to mess with! During the very first round of paintball I quickly ran to the nearest wall to hide behind and slowly crept my head up to see what was going on. Within seconds I had been shot right between the eyes (thanks Brad). Thank goodness for goggles. There is a learning curve to this paintball thing! After running through creeks, ducking behind barricades, and getting shot with paintballs, we had worked up quite an appetite. We came back to the house for some relaxation in the back yard, and food! We had appetizers, pulled chicken sandwiches, cake, and Grater's ice cream from Cincinnati. For the cake I used Martha Stewart's Perfect white cake recipe. Per my husband's request, I added chocolate chips to the cake batter before baking it. The flavor was great, but I have to admit that the cake was a little dry. For the frosting I used Martha's Italian Butter Cream frosting. It has a great consistency, but make sure you serve it room temperature. Mine was still a little cold from the fridge when I served it, and the consistency was a bit too stiff. For the filling used a bit of frosting and fresh raspberries. The raspberries helped to balance the layers as well. Where I needed more filling I used whole raspberries and where I didn't I sliced them in half. They added a little zing to the rich frosting. To decorate it I used gel frosting to make it look like the cake had been paint-balling with us! We served it with raspberry chocolate chip Graeter's ice cream and it was delish! After eating all this, we walked to Turn Verein which is our local German cultural center, to enjoy their Bockbierfest. We danced the night away and came home with a smile. Thanks to all our friends who came out to celebrate! It meant a lot to us and we had a wonderful time. Happy Birthday Justin! When you've got old bananas, make banana bread! I have been tweaking my banana bread recipe a little here and a little there while trying to taste for each ingredient. I think it is finally time to share with you all! However, if you bake it, I want feedback. Even if you think it is awful, tell me so I can make it better. This recipe makes two large loaf pans. Or one big one for yourself, and 3 small ones for your friends. Okay, the recipe: Ingredients: 3/4 cup butter at room temperature 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar 4 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla 4/5 ripe banana 3 cup all purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 2. Mix butter and sugar together until creamy. Use an electric mixer if you have one. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. 3. If you are mixing by hand then mash up the bananas prior to putting them in. If you using an electric mixer you can just add them in chunks of banana at a time. 4. In a separate bowl mix together all the dry ingredients, except the walnuts. Add this to the wet mixture in about three batches and mix only until combined. 5. Finally add in chopped walnuts. Butter the bread pans and then fill them about 2/3 full. The batter will expand. If you are having a serious sweet tooth that day you can sprinkle brown sugar on before you make it. 6. Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes. Test with a toothpick to make sure the middle is cooked. The top should be brown and crispy. When you take it out let the bread cool for about ten minutes. Use a knife to separate the sides and enjoy hot! What should you be doing in March and April? Planting, planting, planting! I'm sorry I didn't write a March garden tips. Honestly, I was too busy working in the garden. The sun calls me out there and suddenly all my spare time is consumed. At this point though, anything and everything that you want in your summer garden should be planted. Potatoes (which I will talk about), radishes, peppers, lettuce, cilantro, spinach, beets, cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, leeks, turnips, chard, beans, cantaloupe, corn any of it! I didn't actually plant all of these things, but you could! Seeds love the fresh morning dew and the mild sunny days. I would recommend reading the back of the seed packet for each so that you plant them in the ideal location. If you planted a garden last year, try and rotate the crops. Don't plant corn in the same place you did last year because the soil will be depleted of the nutrients corn uses. I personally am not planting corn this year because it was tall and messy and we couldn't actually eat any of the corn I grew (tips please!) Beware that broccoli and cauliflower turn out to be very large plants, so leave them lots of room or they will envelope other plants. They might be good candidates for planting in the yard, rather than the veggie garden! Onions and carrots are good to plant together because the pests that like to eat one are deterred by the smell of the other plant. Beans need a lattice or something to grow up. The tubers like radishes, beets, carrots, and turnips need room in the ground to grow, so try and put them in loose soft soil next to something that has a minimal root system like lettuce. I took my own advice in January and planted a variety of lettuce in a pot. There it is! I have also spent a fair amount of time time trimming. I wanted to make sure that as things began to grow they were growing in the shape that I wanted to. I also trimmed back trees that had grown over the winter and ae casting a shadow on the vegetable garden. The one positive of having no more chickens is that I can now replant a garden in the chicken area. They had eaten everything they could get their beaks on! So I went and got myself a bunch of ranunculus and other pretty flowers and planted, planted, planted. Potatoes: I have been meaning to write about chitting potatoes. There are a few ways you can get potatoes ready to put in the ground. Now, depending on where you are this should be done early in the season while the nights are still very cold but not freezing. You can wait until potatoes in your cupboard start to grow (that happens to me more than I would like to admit). You can also stand a few potatoes up in an egg carton and leave them to sit until the eyes start to grow. Or you can cut up a potato leaving one eye in each chunk. Let the cut up potato dry for 24 hours so the cut parts form kind of a skin. I have found them to be most successful when I plant the whole potato. Whatever method you choose, plant them with the new growth pointing towards the sky. Keep them shallow, then form a mound of dirt or compost over the planted potato. As it begins to grow you want to keep adding a bit to the mound. New potatoes will grow off the root of the plant. So the hill ensures that water won't collect and rot the new potatoes. This is what the plant looks like when it grows up! The plant will also strive to be above the dirt, so if you keep adding it, it will keep growing and the surface for making new potatoes will increase. My friend Dan acutally puts an old tire around his potato plants to make a seriously high hill and he says the whole thing is filled with potatoes at the end of the season! Tomatoes: It is still pretty cold for tomatoes. They like it nice and hot. So I would recommend still starting to tomatoes inside if you are starting by seed. I used some of the old plastic containers from flowers and started more tomatoes to make sure I have lots and lots come summer! I did put a few in the ground about a month ago, but they basically just sit there and don't grow until it is warmer. However, they are susceptible to bugs! Maintenance: Any time you get a free minute it is good to run out and pick a few weeds. Even if it is only for five minutes. In the spring it is ideal growing conditions and weeds spring up constantly. Last year I let them get so out of control that the weeds literally took over one of the planters. This weakens the soil and destroys the good plants growing. All of the January planting should be growing in nicely. The onions and garlic should be thin little plants right now. You can basically water them here and there and leave them be until the end of summer. All the lettuce is growing in nicely and is almost large enough to eat. I try and harvest the lettuce by pulling off the outside leaves instead of uprooting the plant. This way it can keep producing food for you until the heat of summer hits. The last major battle for me is the slugs and snails, but this is a conversation for another day. If you have any questions, or tips or me, send them in a comment! One of my dear loves is fresh bread. You know that smell... that "My house is warm and cozy, someone is baking" smell. Fresh bread is the best for that! Once I started baking fresh bread, packaged store bought bread was out of style at my house. It became one of those things that you eat only when you are too hungry to function. I'll have you know that I don't sit around all day kneading bread. Why would I do that when bread maker can do that for me!! I simply dump in the ingredients, tell the machine when I want to be fed, and press start. This means I can set it before I go to bed and have steaming hot bread for breakfast. You can't beat it! In order to make life easy on busy days, I will measure out the dry ingredients ahead of time. I put them into a ziplock and make about five loaves worth. Then after a long day of teaching I can still manage to get some bread in the bread maker. I usually make plain white bread, but it is fun to throw in herbs from the garden and produce olive oil rosemary bread, or a mix of random herbs. Occasionally I get fancy and used my bread machine to mix me up the dough for pizza, focaccia, challah, or brioche. I will put the recipe for white bread (which is on my chalk board for immediate use) and rosemary bread. These are from the Cuisinart bread recipe booklet. You can also access all of their recipes online. I've included a picture of the Fleischmann's yeast because I really think it is the best. I also use bread flour instead of all purpose flour. King Arthur's flour or Gold Medal bread flour are my favorites. If you don't have a bread maker, and you love fresh bread, I would invest in one. Otherwise, I hope this inspires you to make bread! If you want directions for how to do it by hand write a comment and I will write some up! Basic White Bread-Machine Bread Ingredients: Medium loaf Water, 80°–90°F 11⁄8 cups Unsalted butter, 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon at room temperature Granulated sugar or honey 2 1⁄4 teaspoons Salt 1 1⁄8 teaspoons Bread flour 3 cups Nonfat dry milk 3 tablespoons Yeast, active dry, instant or bread machine 1 1⁄2 teaspoons Place all ingredients, in the order listed, in the bread pan fitted with the kneading paddle. Place the bread pan in the Cuisinart™Convection Bread Maker. Press Menu and select White. Press Crust and select Medium (or to taste). Press Loaf and select dough size. Press Start to mix, knead, rise, and bake. When pause signal sounds, remove dough and kneading paddle if desired, reshape dough and replace in bread pan. Press Start to continue. When cycle is completed, remove bread from machine and transfer to wire rack to cool. Bread slices best when allowed to cool. Calories 77 (17% from fat) • carb. 13g • pro. 2g • fat 1g • sat. fat 1g • chol. 3mg • sod. 116mg • calc. 16mg • fiber 0g Rosemary Bread-Medium Loaf Ingredients: Water, 80°–90°F 3/4 cups Olive Oil 3 Tablespoons Salt 1 teaspoon Bread flour 3 cups Rosemary chopped 2 teaspoons Yeast, active dry, instant or bread machine 1 1⁄2 teaspoons *Sometimes I like to add chopped olives or other yummy tidbits to this* Place all ingredients, in the order listed, in the bread pan fitted with the kneading paddle. Place the bread pan in the Cuisinart™Convection Bread Maker. Press Menu and select White. Press Crust and select Medium (or to taste). Press Loaf and select dough size. Press Start to mix, knead, rise, and bake. When pause signal sounds, remove dough and kneading paddle if desired, reshape dough and replace in bread pan. Press Start to continue. When cycle is completed, remove bread from machine and transfer to wire rack to cool. Bread slices best when allowed to cool. |
Robin's BlogI am living in Downtown Archives
June 2014
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