March Dinner Club

Drum roll please.....
Sunshine Cheesecake!!!

Topped with candied oranges:
So perty:
Garnished with mint:
Kaija & Dean brought Spring Rolls for an appetizer:
It was Nikki's first taste of a spring roll (she loved it):
Bruce & Nellie hosted. I love the character of old Duluth houses. We realized all 4 couples live in 100 year old houses!
Nellie put together a beautiful table setting:
while Bruce worked in the kitchen:

Dinner was Cha Xui Pork and a veggie salad:


The food was delicious! The pork was very tender and the veggies complimented the dish very well. There were Thai birds eye peppers in the salad... holi canoli!! It was by far the spiciest pepper I have ever tasted! That's the beauty of dinner club... trying new things! We also had Wasabi Mashed Potatoes.
Dessert was obviously Sunshine Cheesecake. Everything pared together very well and no one left disgustingly stuffed. For drinks we had some Chinese beer, Sake & Sauvignon Blanc. So fun!!

All the couples obliged to a photo.
Henry & Nikki:
Dean & Kaija:
Nellie & Bruce:
M&M:

Our streak of good eats continued into the week.
We've had gorgeous weather and so Mikey fired up the grill on Monday night for some grilled chicken:
Homemade blue cheese dressing:
on a bed of mixed greens, avocado, red peppers, red onions, cucumbers & tomatoes:
On Tuesday night, the cooking continued. I came home from class to a fragrant house due to the making of Pork Lo Mein:
The Pork Lo Mein included marinated pork, cabbage, shitake mushrooms, sambal, green onions, garlic, ginger, special Lo Mein sauce and fresh noodles. I was in charge of preventing the smoke alarm from going off! A lot of the cooking takes place at high temperatures and our smoke detector is right by the stove so the heat sets it off.
I've never had "fresh" Lo Mein noodles so this was quite the treat!

Anna has hung out in the kitchen quite a bit lately. Who can blame her?

orange you glad...

...that it's spring time!!

More on that in a minute.
I've gotta catch you up on our eats from last week. Mikey made pork carnitas with carrots & peas last weekend. It's best served on crushed tortilla chips, melted cheese, romaine lettuce, red onion, chipotle mango lime salsa & sour cream:
We're trying to incorporate more veggies in our diet so the carrots & peas were a new addition. It should come as no surprise to you that there was enough carnitas to easily feed a family of 12. So, I've been eating it all week.
On Friday night, I put together a "garbage" salad that consisted of random veggies & an apple from our fridge:

I drizzled some olive oil, balsmic vinegar, honey and cracked pepper to dress up the greens. On the side I had a slice of cinnamon raisin bread with almond butter. All washed down with lime infused ice water:
I did a 35 minute hill workout on the treadmill prior to coming home from work and so this quick dinner hit the spot! It's been fun to get home on Fridays and tune into the March Madness... such good games this year!
'Round 7:30 I headed over to a friend's house for some pre-partying for the Cloud Cult show at UMD. I'm not real familiar with their music, but for $3 I thought I'd give it a try. It's not exactly my style of music but I was glad I went.

On Saturday we slept in and spent the day together!!! We took Annie down to Park Point to run around and then ran some errands.
Someone got a (much needed) haircut:
Someone else had a glass of wine during his haircut or so she wished:
Great Clips will make anyone run for the wine bar!

We spent the rest of the day/evening making dessert for dinner club on Sunday night. Here's a clue as to what we're making:
(10 points if you spot the mystery character)

Navel & Blood Oranges getting candied in a simple syrup solution:
Orange juice being reduced down with ginger & mint infusion:

Off to do some researching before dinner club tonight!! Pics to follow...

park point paradise

I'm on call for work this weekend and got my first call at 7:45 this morning. So, no sleeping in for me today! I actually had a productive morning. I finished typing up my homework from 8-11am so that I could enjoy the rest of the weekend. Had a conference call at 11am with my group to pass off the torch and then enjoyed the afternoon with my favorite peeps:

We did a 2 hour hike on park point this afternoon.
Found this sign of spring:
An old lighthouse:
An abandoned military building (I think):
The little explorer:
It's the first official weekend of spring and it also happened to be the opening of the shipping season. This ship is docked in Superior, WI:
We found a fun path along the shore on the bay side. We got up close to these old ore docks:
We were pretty far from home today! This is the breaking wall for the ships that enter the WI entrance. The hill in the background is Duluth:
Roots:
We all had a complete blast today!!
For our evening entertainment we went to the movie Crazy Heart at Zinema 2. We recommend it! Feels good to have some fun for once without the guilt of having school work waiting for me.
Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow (except Mikey... duty calls at 7am).

home made week

There's some buzz in the food blog world about making this week be "home made week." I love getting inspired to make some commonly purchased goods from scratch at home. Ashley from the Edible Perspective made some granola, lentil burgers and almond butter so far. When I have more time (when done with school) I am totally going to make more staples from scratch. I really want to make my own greek yogurt!
I had a rough day on Monday (feeling overwhelmed, pulled in so many directions and a little delirious). I did a labored 2 mile run but it didn't do much to clear my head. I came home to an empty house but shortly after the Mr. arrived with dinner groceries. Mikey made Thai Chicken Noodle soup. It had rice noodles as a base. The soup consisted of: shallots, red curry paste, serrano peppers, chicken broth, coconut milk, mushrooms, red peppers, snap peas, spinach and herbs. It was so good!
We spent some time relaxing while watching Monday night sitcoms. Nothing like snuggling with the fam on the couch:
Today was a much more productive day. I had a short day at work since I had a dentist apt. in the afternoon. Once home, I felt motivated to do some cleaning. I find that I clean a lot when I am under stress. Weird.
We continued home made week by making almond butter and hummus tonight.
The Roasted Garlic & Red Pepper Hummus consisted of roasted garlic (in the toaster oven for 30 mins), roasted red pepper (in the oven on broil for 10 mins), almond butter (made fresh today), chick peas, olive oil, lemon & parsley:
Homemade almond butter and hummus are so much more cost effective and tasty I might add!
Dinner was a big veggie sandwich that consisted of:
-homemade sambal mayo
-avocado
-lettuce
-tomato
-red onion
-red bell pepper
-banana peppers
-Morningstar "chicken" patty (140 cals of bliss)
-wheat bread
I have more group work this week for class so I spent my evening preparing for the next assignment. I have to work 10-10 tomorrow and will get home in time for a 10:30pm conference call with my group.
I really need to get a countdown-to-graduation ticker on the blog. To say I'm excited for it would be the biggest understatement!
Caio!

snow melt

A sure sign that it's spring time:
The peanut butter fiend in the house got his favorite spring treat!

We both had a day off of work today. It felt great to sleep in and then take Anna out to the beach to romp around. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing some reading on our front porch. Duluth broke a 132 year old record of warmer than normal temps this spring! It's March 14th (Happy Birthday Dianne) and the snow is gone:
I got our yard "rake ready" (a.k.a. poop patrolled and & sticks picked up) and so now we just need the ground to thaw out so that we can tidy things up. We also need to add some curb appeal this summer. Our yard is showing signs of a dog living there but she's worth it:
It's a fun time of year... March Madness time... go Gophers!!

signs of summer

After such a stressful start to the week, my wonderful husband had this waiting for me after class on Tuesday night:
He sure knows how to cheer me up! I had 2 glasses and then was out!
It's a super busy time at work for me with my days consisting of a lot of 12 hour days. Again, Mikey has pulled through by making sure I am well fed.
He spent his only day off this week making a phenomenal dinner. He made the best pork tacos ever! There were lots of signs of summer starting with these delicious corn tortillas:
We ate these a lot last summer. They taste great and smell like nag champa!
Next, homemade refined beans were smeared on the tortilla:
These could make anybody a fan of re-fried beans. Seriously! It was made with bacon fat, cotija cheese, red beans, great northern beans, onions, jalepeno and cilantro. It was unlike anything I have every tasted. It was pretty rich and so a little bit went a long way.
Next, a little bit of pork was added:
Oh my goodness... the flavors on the pork were perfectly balanced. It simmered for multiple hours this afternoon. Can you believe an entire quart of chicken stock was condensed to this? The spices included cumin, oregano, dried puya peppers, guajilla peppers, ancho peppers, and black pepper.
He also made my favorite summer staple: homemade salsa!!
Additional topping included our favorite sour cream:
Perhaps the strongest hint of summer was the re-appearance of the salad spinner! We use that sucker every day during the summer. We used it tonight to wash and toss some romaine lettuce.
And the final product:

The cherry on the cake was a Pacifico with a lime:
I'm in heaven! I can't wait to have the pork taco leftovers over the next few days.
I get a break from the high school basketball madness tomorrow night but then I've got a full day on Saturday.
It's suppose to be 53 degrees here on Sunday! We're having some friends over for authentic Sri Lankan food. Should be fun!