2009 Veggies

veggies

Once again we decided to join a CSA (community supported agriculture) for the summer. Since we live in a condo and don't have a ton of sun it is the best option for us to get fresh grown veggies every week. Each week you go pick up your share and you never know exactly what you will get. The picture above is this week's veggies and is a pretty good sampling of what we get this time of year. The last few weeks we got corn instead of spinach and summer squash (zucchini or crook-neck) instead of sunshine squash.

Dinners this weekend

On Saturday we didn't have anything planned, which is an anomaly. So when Matt asked what I wanted to do I said we should pick something to make for dinner that is different.

I asked Matt what he would like the main part to consist of, and he responded with Lamb. So we flipped to the Lamb section of my Meat cookbook. We looked at many recipes and settled on a leg of lamb recipe.

So we wrote our list and off to Safeway we went. Safeway did not have Leg of Lamb, so we then went to Trader Joe's after picking up other groceries. Again, we picked up groceries at TJ's and got to the meat department to discover they too did not have Leg of Lamb, but I did see they had whole chickens, so I picked one of those up for Sunday's dinner. So off to TOP we went. TOP did have Leg of Lamb (and only one of them), so we finished our shopping there.

Came home and made the rub for the lamb, let it sit, and then put it in the oven. It took about an hour and a half to get to temperature. In the meantime I chopped up some red potatoes and tossed them in olive oil with the rest of the rosemary, garlic & onions to roast up. Made some green beans *the last of the ones from our Co-Op this summer* with caramelized onions.

Dinner was delicious. Later this week we will probably have gyros out of the leftover lamb.

The reason I picked up a whole chicken is because the other day Matt mentioned the butterflied chicken I have made, and I thought, great tomorrow I can do that and we will eat leftovers this week :)

So I used Alton Brown's Broiled, Butterflied Chicken The hardest part about this recipe is getting the Keel bone out of the chicken. Also, I have found his cooking times are quite a bit shorter than it ever comes out for me.

With our chicken I served Sourdough Garlic Bread and Salad. Later this week we will be having tacos with the leftovers.

Life

It has been awhile.  So here is a recap on what is happening in my life.

I am still working at BlueKai, and loving it.  I stayed very busy in December when we were working on due diligence for the round of funding we received.  We are very excited to continue to see growth throughout the rest of this year.

We are still working with the high school youth group at church and that keeps us busy.  There is Bible Study once a week, Fellowship nights twice a month and a communion Sunday service once a month.  We love all the kids and are excited to see what God is doing in their lives, but will definitely miss the seniors when they graduate and head off to college.  For the first time our youth group is going on a mission trip this summer.  We are going to the Yakima Indian Tribe in eastern Washington.

For Christmas we went home to California for a little over a week.  It was great to see our families and some of our friends.  It is always amazing how quickly the time goes when you are home.

My older brother, Joel, is getting married in June, so we will be down to San Diego for that.  We are excited to have Cindi join our family!

Food!!  We love food, both homemade and restaurants.

We have gone to a few fun restaurants within the last six months:
Poppy - Indian Inspired, owned and operated by the former chef at The Herbfarm (a fantastic restaurant)
Olivar - French and Spanish influence, a great place to order many different dishes and share them among the table
Matt's in the Market - a Pike Place Market tradition, fresh food from the market
FLO - a Japanese restaurant/sushi bar, off the main drag, but wonderful.  We did the Omakase, and it was amazing
Splash Cafe - this is a must when we are back home

These were all good and fun.

Some things I have made lately:

Fish Tacos
Chicken Pot Pie
Pork Saltimbocca - butterflied pork stuffed with prosciutto and sage, with a sauce that has mushrooms, wine, stock and parsley
Red Beans & Rice
Lemon Chiffon Cake (for one of our high schoolers 18th birthday)
Seared Swordfish
Smoked Salmon and Dill dip
Christmas Candy (toffee, peanut brittle, peppermint bark, fudge, pistachio craisin bark)
Stir-fry - nothing like what mom made us when growing up though - no bean sprouts and rice, instead noodles and lots of different veggies with a sauce made with Hoisin Sauce

We are also excited because we got reservations to French Laundry in March.  We are hoping to try at least one of the other restaurants by Thomas Keller while down there.

I have received a couple cookbooks in recent months and am excited about both of them:
The Complete Meat Cookbook - this talks about how to prepare different cuts of meat and also different recipes.  The Saltimbocca I made came out of this book
Baked - I haven't made anything out of this yet, but the recipes are making my mouth water
Grill It! - this has some yummy recipes in it and just sparks my creativity

Well, that is what is going on with us, maybe I will try to post more often ;-)