Strawberry Shortcake

It's that time of year again for fresh berries and I'm craving them!  I ordered raspberries and strawberries from my Brown Box this week and they are delicious!  Then Bruce suggested we have strawberry shortcake this weekend but I didn't want to buy those sponge cake-things at the store or even angel food cake so I made my own shortcake.  When they first came out of the oven, one did not make it to the wire rack to cool because it ended up in my mouth!  Wow!  These are the best!!

Makes 6 shortcakes

2 cups flour, plus more for work surface and biscuit cutter

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. baking powder

3 Tbsp. granulated sugar

2 Tbsp. granulated sugar for sprinkling

1 stick  unsalted butter (8 tablespoons), frozen

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup half-and-half

1 Tbsp. half-and-half

1 egg white, lightly beaten

1.  Adjust oven rack to lower middle position; heat oven to 425 degrees.  

2.  Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and 3 Tbsp. sugar in medium bowl.  

3.  Using large holes of box grater, grate butter into dry ingredients.

4.  Toss butter with flour to coat.  Use pastry cutter to finish cutting butter into flour.  Or scoop up coated butter with both hands, then quickly rub butter into dry ingredients with fingertips until most of butter pieces are the size of split peas.

5.  Pat dough into rectangle, 3/4 inch thick.  Flour biscuit cutter; cut 6 dough rounds.

6.  Place 1 inch apart on small baking sheet; brush dough tops with egg white and sprinkle with remaining sugar.  (Can be covered and refrigerated up to 2 hours before baking.)  

Bake until golden brown, 12 to 14 minutes.  Place baking sheet on wire rack; cool cakes until warm, about 10 minutes.

Frat Food

I never thought frat. food could be so good!  Chef Bob put together a wonderful dinner for family's of the graduating class of my nephew who is graduating from Whitman College this weekend.  (Chef Bob is the guy in the middle)  The frat. brothers LOVE him!!  

But I can see why!  They are one lucky house to have a guy like this cooking for you everyday!  He put out quite a spread for us.

The undergraduates assisted Chef Bob and served the seniors and their families.

Chef Bob has been the chef for this frat house for 25 years and going strong.

Our first course was a delicious salad with peaches and strawberries.

Our entree was a choice of salmon, chicken marsala, or prime rib  with quinoa pilaf which is what I got.

(Served on real plates, not paper…)  And dessert was a delicious strawberry cream cake that was homemade.  Most impressive.  This is a far cry from Animal House!

Congratulations to all the graduates!!

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, I received some new additions to my Lush collection of bath bars, bombs, and melts.  Thank you, Lauren, for remembering me - again - and surprising me with another gift in the mail!  My last gift from Lauren were the salt and pepper shakers in March.

Can you tell which one is the real egg from our chickens?

I love opening gifts that come in the mail.  (The one and only good thing about living far away from people you love).  If I did one thing right as a mother, it was teaching my kids to be good gift-givers!  They both excelled in that category and I'm a very happy Mother for it!!  If you don't know about Lush, check them out here: Lush   Now, I have Pop-in-the-Bath,  A French Kiss, Mum Tulip, Pink Bath Bomb to name a few.  I love taking baths so this is the perfect gift for me and Lauren knows it.   And Lush bath bombs looks so perfect in a basket next to the bathtub, so colorful and catchy!  If I didn't have a bathtub I'd probably buy them anyway because they are so beautiful and smell so gracious!  How can you not LOVE them!  I even love the names of the different ones.  I just took a bath last night and used the carrot, which is a bubble bar.  (I got it before Easter)  Do I dare say I take baths just so I can play with my latest Lush bath bar?   Nick is equally great at gift-giving, too.  He and Sachiyo sent me a set of "air vases".  What are "air vases", you ask?  Remember, they were in Japan for 5 months.  The package looked like a plain piece of paper but then you stretch them out and they mold into a air vase.

You can freely change their shape since they are just thin, lightweight paper.  I will probably use them for decoration since they are so delicate, yet very eye-catching!  

Don't they look neat from up-above?

Nick and Sachiyo also sent us some professional photos they had taken in Japan in traditional Japanese wedding attire.  They always wanted to do this so since they were in Japan for 5 months, they decided to have it done.   Here is a sample I took off of Skype before he sent them to me for Mother's Day.

This is a traditional Japanese pose, along with the traditional formal clothing of a Japanese wedding.  There are some additional photos of Sachiyo in a beautiful kimono, too. I'm going to have one enlarged into an 8 x 10 but it might be hard to decide which one since they are all so neat! 

Happy Mother's Day to me!

But I can't go through Mother's Day without thinking about my own mother who passed away 3 years ago.  I want to celebrate her even though she isn't here physically anymore.  I feel like she is still here and that this day ought to be about her, not me... even though I love getting all my presents… I am the mother I am because of her so she's the one who gets the credit.  I still feel her motherly love inside me and it shines through all the time, like when I feel like calling her to tell her about a bad day I had, or a good day I had, or the crazy thing that one of our animals did today, or a great recipe I made, or when I want to brag about Nick and Lauren (I could do that with her and she'd love to hear it) or when I have to do housecleaning or laundry, I'd just call her to put off doing my chores a little longer, or... on and on...I know what she would say so I don't have to call her anymore.  She's inside me talking to me all the time now.  So, Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!  I know you're listening.

Homemade Corn Tortillas

Tonight we made homemade corn tortillas in honor of Cinco de Mayo and they were delicious!  I don't think I can buy packaged tortillas anymore and they were so easy to make.  All you do is add masa harina (a dry corn flour) together with water, flatten into round shapes and cook on the griddle!  We don't have a tortilla press but we going to get one so we can make these all the time since they are so simple.

Makes 16 -5" tortillas  

2 cups masa harina, preferably Bob's Red Mill

1-1/2 cups water

1.  In a large bowl, combine the masa harina with the water and stir until moistened.  Try to find Bob's Red Mill because it will make a difference due to it's superior flavor.

It is found in health food stores or in some supermarkets or at bobsredmill.com.  

2.  Carefully rolled out the dough on a sheet of plastic wrap to about 8" long

and then divided it into 16 pieces.  Roll each piece into a ball, transfer to a large plate and cover loosely with plastic wrap. 

 3.  Heat a griddle until very hot.  Line a basket or a wide, shallow bowl with a clean kitchen towel.  Cut a sturdy, resealable plastic bag at the seams.  Set 1 ball of dough between the sheets of plastic.  Using a tortilla press, a skillet or a rolling pin, flatten the tortilla to a 5-inch round.  Peel off the plastic and set the tortilla on the hot griddle.

4.  Cook the tortilla over high heat until lightly browned in spots, about 1 minute.  Flip and cook about 30 seconds longer.  Wrap the cooked tortillas in the towel.  Press, cook and wrap the remaining balls of dough, keeping the stack of tortillas covered.  Serve the tortillas warm or make tacos with them or shredded meat, salsa verde, sour cream, or whatever you prefer.

Idaho Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics State Meeting

I just returned tonight from our state's dietetic meeting in beautiful Sun Valley, Idaho - couldn't have been a better place to have it!  Just beautiful!

The town was very quiet because ski season is over and summer hasn't started yet and it was also very different when we were there in February for a little ski trip with Lauren and her boyfriend, Kevin, who came to Idaho for the first time.

So, of course, we had to take them skiing to Sun Valley.  For our meeting,  all the dietitians stayed at the Sun Valley Lodge, a historical place with all kinds of photos posted of the famous people who have visited.  It was built in 1936 and is just gorgeous inside and out.  The rooms are rather lovely, too, I must say.  (white robes, slippers, walk-in closets! Nice!)

It looked very different than when we were there in February.  The snow sculpture isn't there anymore.

It was a lot warmer this visit, too!  It did rain a little and this morning we woke up to snow falling!  It was so beautiful.  The snow did not stick so driving home for the 3 hour drive was not a problem.


The meeting this year had many excellent speakers who are experts in their fields such as Nancy Clark, MS, RD who has been the sport nutrition expert for decades and has written many books on the subject.  I remember going to one of her workshops in the 90's.  I realized after hearing her speak again, that I still use what I learned back then…describing to clients about fueling their body with food.  And I picked up another tip from her this time, to approach clients who are resistant to change their eating habits by saying, "Let's just experiment a little and try this and see what happens."  I like that non-threatening, non-authoritarian way of wording it.


Another speaker, Pam Charney, PhD, RD, from the University of Washington, talked about the assessment part of the Nutrition Care Process which our facility implemented a couple of years ago.  We are still learning  aspects of this and she is definitely an expert on it!  When talking to her on the side, she knew dietitians I knew in Seattle from so many years ago!  It was like going back in time since I've lived in Idaho for 13 years now.  I mentioned to her how I remembered going to workshops in the early 90's to learn about the Nutrition Care Process and she immediately knew the RD who taught it, Karen Lacey.  I didn't remember that at all!  She was a very fun person to talk with and a wealth of information, too.


Another favorite was listening to Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD,  talk about Intuitive Eating.  Her book, by the same title, is now out, it's third edition.  Evelyn loves to tell stories about her patients, sort of like case studies, that are rather fascinating.   She is really a eating pschologist, to sum up what she does.  I can't wait to read her third edition of Intuitive Eating.


I also loved Amy Walters, a psychologist, who talked about behavior change with patients with chronic disease.  I picked up a lot of tips from her talk, too.  She brought up the use of Motivational Interviewing a lot in her talk which is how I communicate to my patients so I am always looking for new methods and approaches to this.


The President-Elect of our national professional organization, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Ethan Bergman PhD, RD, was there and updated us all on the latest activities going on in our association;  

Ethan Bergman, Pam Charney, and me

and a couple of MDs were there who spoke about allergies and another on appropriate use of nutrition support, parenteral nutrition vs. enteral nutrition.


Those were just a few of the topics covered and all were excellent and it was a very worthwhile conference.  I really got a lot out of it this year!


It was sad when it was time to drive home, as beautiful as the drive may be.

Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes

My brother came up with a fun idea to have a food and beer pairing dinner so he sent out an e-mail to see who might want to participate so, naturally, I was in!  My husband's favorite beer is an IPA and we always have it on hand here at home so I looked up what food went well with an IPA and apparently spicy foods pair well with it so a curry dish it was! (Although, before this dinner I really never thought it mattered what you ate with beer!)  We had four courses and each couple brought one, an appetizer, a salad, an entree, and a dessert.  We all got approximately a 6 oz. serving of beer to sample with each course.  I think the pairing makes a difference because all the beer was so good, yet so different!  I'll outline below all the pairing we sampled tonight.  

We started out with appetizers of homemade spring rolls, an original recipe from one of our participates of the group.  They were made with pulled pork, bean sprouts, carrots, cabbage, etc. and served with soy sauce.  We each got two spring rolls with a 6 ounce of Elysian Stout. So yummy!

We gobbled those babies down fast since we were all sort of hungry at the beginning…soon to change…Why a stout with spring rolls?  Because there was a dragon on the label…not what a beer and food pairing is really about but it tasted delicious just the same!

Next course was an apricot salad

paired with Pyramid's Apricot Pale Ale, another one of our favorite beers.

We often go to the Pyramid Ale House before Mariner baseball games in Seattle so it's high on our list of favorites.  I think we started having a little more than 6 ounces at this point.

Then it was my turn for my Chicken Curry which I made the night before because dishes such as this will taste better after it sits a day to let all the spices and seasonings simmer together.

We paired it with Alaskan Brewing IPA.  I found the recipe for the chicken curry on  epicurious which had information on food and beer pairing with recipes that go with certain beers, a perfect website for the occasion.

Makes 4 servings

2 pounds skinless chicken thighs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chopped shallot
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons ground chili paste or dried chili flakes, or to taste
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 lemongrass stalks, cut into 3-inch pieces and bruised with the flat side of a knife
1 (1-inch) piece ginger, peeled, cut into 3 slices and bruised with the flat side of a knife
1 1/2 cups fresh chicken stock or store-bought low-sodium chicken broth
3 carrots, peeled, cut on the diagonal into 2/3-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk or cow's milk
1 yellow onion, cut into wedges
1 medium sweet potato (about 1 pound), peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
GARNISHES
1/2 cup Asian basil leaves, cut in half
8 sprigs cilantro, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 scallions, chopped

 1. Combine 2 tablespoons of the curry powder and the salt in a bowl. Add the chicken and turn to coat the meat evenly. Set aside for 30 minutes.

2. Heat the oil in a medium pot over moderate heat. Add the shallot, garlic, chili paste and the remaining 1 tablespoon curry powder, and stir until fragrant, about 10 seconds. Add the chicken and cook until the edges of the pieces are golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the fish sauce, sugar, lemongrass, ginger and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat. Add the carrots and cook for 10 minutes. Add the coconut milk, onion and sweet potato and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a serving bowl, garnish with Asian basil, cilantro and scallions, and serve.



We were so full at this point but dessert was still to come!  The dessert beer was unbelievably delicious!  It was a German beer 

and was slightly sweet, paired with a homemade banana cream pie.

This beer was so tasty that it made drinking beer with dessert not seem so unusual.  We still had to have some after-dinner coffee to top the evening, along with the guys going out on the patio to smoke cigars that Bruce brought back from our Florida vacation.  A wonderful, delicious evening.  I can't wait to see what our next food and beer pairing party will bring!

Homemade Granola

Here is my dinner tonight - homemade granola!  Yummy!  My first night home from vacation after a 10-hour work day, I just want a bowl of granola for dinner.  No more fancy dinners, vacation is over.  But this granola is a treat.  My sister brought me this batch of granola she made from a recipe of Molly Wizenberg who is a food writer in Seattle, runs a restaurant called Delancey, and has the award winning blog, Orangette.   Check it out.   Looking for a good homemade granola recipe?  Here it is.  It's good enough to eat for dinner.


Makes 7 cups


3 cups rolled oats
1 cup raw hulled pumpkin seeds
1 cup raw hulled sunflower seeds
1 cup  unsweetened coconut chips (not flakes)
1-1/4 cups raw pecans, whole and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt
3/4 cup maple syrup, preferably Grade B
1/2 cup olive oil
dried cherries, optional  (My sister used dried blueberries which I love)


1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.


2.  In a large bowl, combine the oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut chips, pecans, light brown sugar, and salt.  Stir to mix.  Add the olive oil and maple syrup, and stir until well combined.  Spread the mixture in an even layer on the prepared sheet pan.  Bake, stirring every 15 minutes, until the granola is golden brown and toasted, about 45 minutes.  Remove the granola from the oven, and season with more salt to taste.   Cool completely on a wire rack.  If you'd like, stir in some dried cherries (or blueberries).  Store in an airtight container.


Note:  Will keep at room temperature for up to a month.

Downtown Disney

We arrived in Orlando for our Disney vacation without a full day to spend at the parks so we took it easy and spent time reading our Unofficial Guide  to Walt Disney World 2012 and hung out a bit at Downtown Disney.  It's an area that is open to the public with lots of shops and restaurants.  It reminded me of a teenager's paradise of hanging out at the mall!  Disney style, of course…It's a huge place, as is all of Disney's adventures.  If you just arrive to Orlando, like we did, it's a fun way to break into the Disney hype gradually.  We were so excited to hit the parks after spending the evening there.  We picked an Irish pub to eat dinner, called Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant.

This was a very authentic Irish Pub.  Many elements, including the bar, were hand-crafted from hardwoods in Ireland and sent to the United States for reassembly.  The venue was huge by Irish-pub standards, but the dark polished-wood paneling, as well as the snugs (small, private cubbyholes), preserves the feel of the traditional pub.  The pentagonal main room sat beneath an impressive dome where  Celtic dancers preformed on a tablelike platform.  Since we had just arrived, we peeked inside to look at it all and then sat outside to enjoy the weather.

We immediately ordered a Guinness 

and their must-have appetizer Dalkey Due: batter fried cocktail sausages with a mustard dipping sauce.

To tell you the truth, I was full after our appetizer so ended up just ordering a Caesar salad with grilled shrimp

and Bruce ordered the risotto with grilled shrimp.

It was delicious and hit the spot as we enjoyed the beautiful weather of our first day of vacation!

So, then we explored the rest of Downtown Disney, which also has all the other "chain" restaurants that people might enjoy

like Planet Hollywood - Disney-style, of course.  

House of Blues - a Cajun restaurant, that had live entertainment; Wolfgang Puck Cafe; Fulton's Crab House situated on a riverboat

and Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop where we stopped for ice cream. 

There was lots going on at Downtown Disney, including showings of Cirque Du Soleil.

We knew it was going to be a busy and fun week at Disney World!