Sparkly Clean

Well, hello there! I'll be playing blog catch-up this week. My goal is to add a post every day this week until I've got all our photos uploaded. We really enjoy looking back at photos/stories so I want to make sure I get Thanksgiving and Christmas 2010 added ASAP.

But, for now I want to showcase our big purchase for the month (er... year). It just so happened that our 1991 dishwasher crapped out in December. We had it fixed about a year ago for about $100. A second break down in a year was the straw that broke our dishwasher back.
Our old lifesaver:

I didn't grow up with a dishwasher and so this was my first dishwasher. I've grown quite fond of using it and can't imagine not having one in the future.

The "before" pic complete with piles of dirty dishes that I was sick of washing:
Kathy Fuhs- this "before" pic is just for you. Now you've got a visual of the white washed cabinets & country blue counter tops. I am more than ready to spruce it up in to the new millennium.

We paid for delivery & installation from Best Buy. It was a bit pricey but worth every penny. The 2010 era of dishwashers have water connections at the back of the unit so that the entire height can be used for washing; they're not called Tall Tub Dishwashers for nothing.
So, our installer had to cut our water line and install a flexible connection in the basement off the water heater.
The installer also got a nice jolt of electricity when he reached underneath the old dishwasher to disconnect the power supply and found some wire exposed. He uninstalled the old dw, disposed of it, ran a new water connection and installed the new dw.
Work in progress:
Here's the "after" shot with all the dirty dishes loaded up and ready for a spin:
Sleek, beautiful and already smudged:
We ended up getting the Samsung 400 series. I did LOTS of research. Our requirements were:
- quiet (around 50 decibels)
-hard food disposer so that we don't have to do a bunch of pre-washing
-energy star qualified
-stainless steel
-sanitizer function (built in water heater to boost water temp in final cycle)
-racks that can accommodate our large dinner plates (the one we got has an adjustable upper shelf)
-heated drying cycle
-purchased from a place with interest free financing

I read a lot of customer reviews and professional opinions on brands, features & specific models. I feel like we got exactly what we wanted and it was on sale (we saved $175).

We've probably run 4 loads through the dishwasher and are completely happy with it! It is scary quiet. With music playing in the living room, we couldn't even hear it running while eating at the breakfast bar.

Merry Christmas to us. Let's hope next year's Christmas present is a little more exciting (and way less practical). ipad anyone??

FB, Family & Friends

With all the food pictures lately, I thought I'd mix things up a bit and show you what else we've been up to.
Last weekend, I drove down to St. Cloud to watch Mattie play in the first round state tournament football game. Hannah and her friend Kelsi came along too. We drove through a winter storm but arrived in time to catch some lunch before the game. I met up with my friend Sarah for grilled cheese sandwiches & soup:

Sarah is in the accelerated nursing program as SCSU. It was great to catch up with her!

Next, we were off to the game:
It's hard to believe Matt is only a freshman (and only 14 yrs. old). My dad coaches the defense and Mattie plays the linebacker (?) position. Like father, like son:
We met my mom at the game:
Note: puff coats= not water proof. Ick!

We headed back to Duluth right after the game since the storm was still roaring.
All of us took hot showers and wrapped up in our PJ's & blankets once we got home.

Sunday was Dinner Club.
Monday rolled around pretty quickly and so ideas of what to eat for the week were swirling. My weekday lunch requirements are:
-must be microwavable or not require any heating
-must be able to hold me 4+ hours (protein!)
-must not be strongly scented (no fish or spicy curry) so I don't offend my co-workers:)
-easy to transport
And that's pretty much it!

I've grown pretty fond of pinto beans and we had 2 big cans in our pantry due to a recent sale at the coop. I decided to make a Veggie & Bean "Taco" Salad.
I needed to amp up the veggies and so for $11 I got:
2 jars of salsa (Frontera's Chiptole and Mango Key Lime)
1 yellow onion
1 bunch of broccoli
2 zucchinis

We buy carrots by the 5 or 10 lb. sized bag so there is rarely a shortage of carrots in our house. We also had half a container of baby bellas in the fridge and some potatoes that my mom sent up. So, I got to work chopping. I chopped everything except for the mushrooms. Aren't you impressed with my matchstick carrot skillz?

This is a lot of veggies!!
While I chopped the veggies, I also had the potatoes boiling until they were soft but not fully cooked (~10 minutes).
Next the veggies & potatoes were tossed in olive oil, S+P, thyme & chipotle and then spread on to 2 cookie sheets for some roasting time in the oven.

They roasted at 400 degrees for probably 35-45 minutes. We stirred them pretty often as they were sticking to the pan a little bit. You could probably add more oil so that they don't stick, but we were trying to keep this dish a lil' bit more healthy.

While the roasting was taking place, Mikey decided to cook some bacon on the stovetop. I was in charge of crumbling the bacon once it was done (one of my favorite tasks).

Finally, the veggie mixture, crumbled bacon & pinto beans were mixed together and tossed back in the oven for a few minutes- just long enough to heat up the beans:

To make the "taco salad" we put a layer of the veggie & bean mixture in a bowl then crumbled some red hot blue tortilla chips over the top and finished with a couple spoonfuls of the 2 salsas and sour cream (for Mikey). Totally delish! I've been eating the veggie & bean mixture at work all week. Tortilla chips & salsa are too complicated to pack, so I just eat the beans, potatoes & veggies. All it takes is a minute and a half in the microwave and my lunch is ready!

It's now Friday and we've got a fun weekend planned. I'll have some good updates next week.
I just need Mikey and Hannah (flu) to feel better so that somebody can help me haul a Cmas tree up 2 blocks to our house:(

what's cooking?

As most of you know, Mikey has been pretty sick the past few weeks. He's got something funky going on with his belly. So, we've been spending a lot of nights at home making digestion-friendly foods. For about a week straight, all Mikey ate were these beauties:
I just love their color! With this being his only meal of the day, they really pack the punch. They have oatmeal, flax, blackberries, mango, lots of peanut butter, strawberry yogurt & orange-pineapple juice in them. Totally delish but definitely a meal in a glass.

You can imagine how old it got just eating one of those a day. So, I suggested another "soft" food.
My idea took some coaxing but Mikey finally agreed to help me make a version of Chicken Pot Pie. This meal was inspired by my desire to clean out the produce in the fridge.
We started by finely dicing carrots, celery, onions, mushrooms & delicata squash. As evidenced by the perfectly symmetrical diced veggies, I bet you can guess who did the chopping:
The veggies were sauteed in some olive oil and seasoned with salt & pepper. They were cooked until they were soft but still slightly firm.
We had planned to use up some chicken that Mikey got for free from the Coop but when we opened the package, he nearly barfed from the smell. So, I was off to Mt. Royal for a rotisserie chicken.
When I returned, Mikey got to work on shredding the chicken. Meanwhile, he taught me how my make my very first roux! I gotta tell ya, I felt so fancy! There's no "cream of anything" in this dish! The roux is made by combining 2 c. milk, 4 Tbsp. butter & 1/2 c. flour . You have to constantly stir the mixture over medium heat just until it comes to a boil. After a couple high fives, we spread the veggies in the bottom of our one and only casserole pan. Next we layered the shredded chicken over the veggies and then poured the roux over everything. We gave it a good stir and then cracked some pepper over the top:
After a few tastings, Mikey determined that the dish needed a little sweetness. Low and behold, we had half of a bag of frozen peas in the freezer! I was a little hesitant to add them as I'm not a huge fan of peas unless they are still in their pea pods and fresh from the garden. But, the addition of the peas would end up being the star of the dish!

I'm going to re-wind here for a minute to fill you in on what I did while Mikey was busy cutting up all the veggies. I made the Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuit batter that would end up being the "pie" portion of this dish. The recipe for the biscuits comes from Epicurious. I just plopped the biscuits on top of the filling:
We baked this at 375 degrees for approx. 30 mins.
Holy good god goodness!!
This was hands down the best casserole to ever come out of the M&M kitchen. We already have plans to make it with turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving!!

Lastly, I did a little baking last weekend. I had a craving for granola. This was kind of "garbage granola" as I just used up a bunch of stuff in the cupboard. I combined oats, chopped almonds, unsweetened coconut, pepitas & craisins in a bowl. In a small sauce pan I combined 1/4 c. brown sugar, 2 Tbsp. honey, 1 Tbsp. maple syrup, 1/2 tsp. salt & 2 Tbsp. canola oil and heated it up just until everything was combined. Then I poured it over the dry ingredients, gave it a stir and spread it on a cookie sheet. It baked for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees:


Once it cooled, I put it in one of my favorite jars:

so that it looks pretty in the cupboard:
It is divine when sprinkled over my favorite yogurt:
The tri-fecta of sweeteners (honey, maple syrup & brown sugar) was the key to it's flavor.
Bon appetit!

November Dinner Club

I have a couple recipes up my sleeve to share, but I must show you our good eats from November dinner club first. We were in charge of dessert this month which is a nice break for Mikey since he takes care of the duty whenever we have to bring appetizer or host with the entree. I love to bake!! Erin & Frank (the hosts) sent their menu out ahead of time and it sounded like a lot of food. So, I wanted to keep dessert pretty minimal.
I decided to make truffles.
I asked Mikey what flavors we should make and he suggested 3: coconut, macadamia nut and peanut butter (big surprise).
I got all 3 "flavorings" at the Coop. They have dried coconut and macadamia nuts in the bulk aisle. It was very economical to select just the amount that we needed:

I had the idea to toast the coconut and nuts on a sheet pan but Mikey suggested (and confirmed with the Coop baker) that toasting them in a saute pan would be a better idea. So, I roughly chopped the nuts and separated out the coconut:

The key to toasting nuts is to let the pan heat up ahead of time. So, I let it heat up for a good 5 minutes and then the toasting only took about a minute. I did the nuts and coconut separately and wiped the pan out with a paper towel between each one. Unfortunately, once the nuts cooled and I tasted them, I realized they needed to be toasted some more. So, I fired the pan up again for a solid 5 and toasted for another minute or so.

Next, I got to work on making the ganache filling. It consisted of
8 oz chocolate
1/2 c. heavy whipping cream
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 Tbsp. light corn syrup (I did my homework to see if I could substitute honey or brown rice syrup for this and it turns out that only light corn syrup will do. It comes down to the chemistry of the sugar molecule in corn syrup and it's amazing binding abilities. Yep, total nerdom.)
*Recipe is courtesy of Cooks Illustrated

First, you melt the chocolate using the double boiler method (photo towards the end of the post because there is more melted chocolate required, muhahaha....)

Then in a separate pan you bring the cream, butter & corn syrup just to a strong simmer (about 160 degrees). Remove the pan from the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes. It'll look really weird at this point and you might think you haven't boiled it long enough (I was worried):
Then, you whisk the creamy sauce into the melted chocolate. It will look divine now and all your worries will have gone away. You need to pop the mixture into the fridge to bring it down to 80 degrees. The recipe said this would take 15-20 minutes but mine took a good hour.
Next, I put the chilled mixture in the Kitchenaid mixer bowl and whipped it on medium speed until it became the consistency of store-bought canned chocolate frosting (per the instructions).
At this point, the "dough" was still pretty soft, so I threw the bowl back in the fridge long enough to be able to roll the dough into little balls:

And here is how they turned out:
It was now 10:30pm and I was spent so I put them in the fridge (in a sealed container so they wouldn't dry out) until I could add the finishing touches.
A couple days later, I got around to adding the coatings: perfectly toasted coconut, finely chopped macadamia nuts (they chopped really easily after being toasted) and peanut butter:
More chocolate melting ensued (another 8 oz) via double boiler:
A third of the ganache balls were rolled in slightly warmed peanut butter (our fave- Maranatha p.b. is just peanuts and salt; no added sugar) and then popped in the freezer:
Finally, all the ganache balls were coated in melted chocolate. One third were rolled in coconut and another third were rolled in mac nuts:

I like to call these Rustic Truffles. There's no perfectly shaped ones but it didn't really matter because they all tasted wonderful.

So, on to dinner club we went. Bruce & Nellie brought the appetizer which was homemade cheese crackers and a cheese dip:
Dinner started with an amazing salad of spring mix, stilton blue cheese, red onions, re-constituted dried cherries, candied walnuts and a balsamic dressing (this was my favorite dish of the night):
I love Frank & Erin's style. Water was served in mason jars and the dressing was served in this adorable stainless cup:
Next, I helped myself to two sweet potato biscuits:
The main course was this apple, pear & goat cheese gratin:
and pistachio encrusted pork tenderloin with a pumpkin sauce drizzled on top:
This was totally my kind of meal! I loved everything about it!! The meal had lots of my favorite foods. My only regret is that I didn't bring the nice DSLR. My lil' point n shoot is handy but the picture quality is sub-par.

For dessert, we made little packages with 3 truffles in each box (one of each flavor) for each person:
We have a new couple joining us for dinner club. Meet Lindon & Katie:
Lindon has worked with Bruce in the past and Katie & Erin went to grad school together.

And here's Nellie & Bruce:
M&M (and Lindon in the background):
The gracious hosts, Erin & Frank (and their adorable pup, Shakira):
I forgot to mention that we also had some delicious wines. Sadly, no photos were taken because well, I just forgot.
Cheers to Dinner Club!!

Halloween '10

Halloween 2010 was very low key for us. I've got the emergency line cell phone for work this weekend and Mikey is not feeling well. So no costumes, no bar hopping and no local music like last year.
But, we did some baking and pumpkin carving!
We made some pumpkin bread (with molasses):

With Mikey spending the day on the couch, Hannah came over to take his place on pumpkin carving and dressing the animals up:
This costume suits Kramer perfectly:
Annie actually really likes her costume. She happily obliged to being dressed up.
Our Bella Bug:
and the Feisty Cosmo Bat :
We tried a new pumpkin carving technique thanks to a recommendation from my mom. Instead of cutting the top out, we cut the bottom off and then set the pumpkin on top of a candle. It worked perfectly! No more worrying about the top sitting perfectly on top. Plus is was way easier to clean the seeds out.
Hannah and I carved 3 of the pumpkins today. The other 3 were carved last weekend by me, Hannah and Matt when my fam was up visiting.

We also took a different approach with handing out candy this year. Instead of tormenting the dog (she hates the doorbell), we just put the bowl of candy out on the front steps for the kiddos to help themselves. Our front porch storm door is also out of commission due to the recent temperature changes and/or the old house doing some settling. The frame is warped and so now the door will only shut with quite a bit of force. So, self serve candy worked well this year.

We made the most of our quiet Halloween. Hope you had a good one as well!

October Dinner Club

Dinner Club is back in swing. With summer being so crazy, we took a break but are now back at it. We've had some big changes with our dinner club. We lost 2 couples but have gained a new one. Kaija & Dean are off to Antarctica for a year and Nikki & Henry are finding themselves too busy so they are out. Our new couple is Frank & Erin, but I'll introduce them properly at the end.

Bruce and Nellie hosted this month and the menu was all about Autumn. We were in charge of the appetizer and so we did a cheese & wine tasting. There were four types of cheese: Mobay, Manchego, Gorgonzola & Wasabi Gouda (clockwise starting at the top):

I had wanted to bring sliced pears and grapes but as I pulled the (newly purchased) fruit out of the fridge, I discovered the grapes were molding and the pears were hard as apples. Major bummer. Going to a dinner party with foodies, I thought I'd spice things up a bit by adding some info. about each of the cheeses:

People seemed to like the Marietta Old Vine Zin that we brought to go along with the cheese.

Bruce brought out the first course- 2 Squash Soup and rye bread- and Nellie got us all situated with drinks- High Life: the champagne of beers.
The two different soups had contrasting flavors but as we swirled them together in the bowl, it was the most perfect pairing. This was my favorite item of the night!

The main entree was a Russian potato & whitefish gratin with an apple & green salad:
I've never had whitefish gratin and this was quite good. It was the perfect Autumn meal.

Frank & Erin were in charge of dessert and Erin impressed all of us with her pie making skills. She made a pear pie with a crumble topping and it was garnished with little leaves made from the leftover pie crust:
There were flavors of cardamom, cinnamon and coconut in the pie. It was very unique and very good.
And now, here are the happy dinner clubbers...
The Hosts- Bruce & Nellie:
The newbies- Frank & Erin (Frank works at UMD and he & Nellie used to work in the same department):
and us:
Once again, dinner club was a great time. We really enjoyed the great conversation and lots of laughter. We can't wait to host at our house in December!!