Ice storm Anniversary

Sunday was J and my official anniversary and I had big plans to make this big fancy dinner.  I planned the menu, placed a big grocery delivery from fresh direct...then the sky opened up and dropped frozen rain over our entire area and didn't stop.

It was impossible to walk anywhere, sidewalks, streets, trees, mailboxes all covered in a thick shiny layer of ice.  It was kind of pretty and if you were able to slide your way somewhere it was silent out and so peaceful.

All of this peace and quiet could also be attributed to the fresh direct truck's noisy absence.  We had almost no groceries, so our fancy dinner became thawed meat sauce that I made  too much of a couple months ago, some penne from the cupboard, and a salad made from questionably old spring mix. 

It was a far cry from delicious but it was kind of a nice way to mark a year.  It was a night that was a quiet reminder of  the day to day greatness that we enjoy even when we're not having a lavish dinner or trip to the opera.

Espresso Brownies

I know I'm all about the New Year's Resolution but we went to a friend's house for dinner and I was craving chocolate so I made these delicious Espresso Brownies. And they did not disappoint. 

I didn't have espresso powder on-hand so I used finely ground beans that I brewed coffee from then dried.  The grains were as small as I could get them and for the most part fine, but I do wish I could have gotten the icing a little more smooth.  

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

• Nonstick vegetable oil cooking spray
• 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons espresso powder
• 1 (19.8-ounce) box brownie mix (recommended: Duncan Hines)
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with nonstick spray. Whisk 1/3 cup of water, oil, eggs, and 2 tablespoons espresso powder in a large bowl to blend. Add the brownie mix. Stir until well blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. Transfer the batter to the prepared baking pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 35 minutes. Cool completely.

Meanwhile, dissolve the remaining 2 teaspoons of espresso powder in the remaining 2 tablespoons of water in a medium bowl. Whisk in the vanilla. Add the powdered sugar and butter and whisk until smooth. Pour the glaze over the brownies. Refrigerate until the glaze is set. Cut into bite-size pieces. Arrange the brownies on a platter and serve.

Green Smoothie (??)

I mentioned earlier the "New Year's Resolutioning" that was happening in my house right now.  I'm not sure how successful we've been.  It's an up and down sort of thing.  We had an anniversary over the weekend so went out, then last night one of our friends wanted us to come over and cooked for us so not much control over the foodstuffs there.

BUT I'm trying, and that's the key right? right? haha.  Yesterday morning I made myself a smoothie, a "green smoothie" packed full of kale and spinach and raspberries and mango, except I forgot my art principals...green plus red equals brown...

So yesterday morning I had a delicious brown smoothie....mmm...so healthy

Date night - A year later

First of all, I would like to say, New York City doesn't disappoint.  There is always something novel to see...in this case, "Clean Underwear on Demand." 

You know who else doesn't disappoint? J! He was so sweet and planned an evening to celebrate our 1-year-anniversary. I'm always half teasing that we should go ice-skating so he decided it would be  a good night to give in and take me ice skating.  The only problem was that it was 20 degrees out.  

Once we got to the city we scrapped the ice skating (for now), and went to dinner first.  He had planned a dinner at Malatesta Tratorria in the West Village...the scene of our first date.  So we had dinner (I'm sorry for forgetting to take pics of the delicious food), and then dessert and coffee....mmm

After dinner we headed to Smalls (also in the West Village) for some live jazz.  It's one of our favorite date night spots.  The bands are always great, it's a tiny, dark, packed basement vibe and it's just so chill.


We had the best time.  It's so crazy to think about how much life has changed over the past year, there was a couple at the restaurant obviously on an early awkward date, and it was so funny to think that was us last year.

Pancake Friday

After feeling like a total Debbie Downer yesterday, I decided to celebrate one of the perks of being jobless...time to make pancakes on a weekday!

I still had a bunch of blueberries left, so I tossed them in my go-to pancake batter and made one enormous pancake just for myself (and 2 for the refrigerator, lol).  It was seriously the perfect pancake, but maybe it just felt extra perfect because it was such an indulgence to make pancakes all for myself and on a weekday morning! 

One of those days...

Today is one of those days of being unemployed that feels like I'm unemployed and never going to find a job.  It hasn't been that long but it feels that long today.  So what is one to do when they're having a long unemployed day?

Here are a few of my tips in case we're in the same boat:

1. Change out of your pjs/workout clothes/sweats/college hoodie, comb your hair, put on a little makeup, some nice smelling lotion or perfume.   I find that making the effort to look like I have some place to go makes me feel less like I'm starting at the computer filling in endless job forms online. 
2. Update LinkedIn profile- I've been putting this one off for a while, but these days, it's a really important tool in the job search. It gives employers a quick snap shot of you without having to read your resume.  Also, add a picture, it makes you a person to them.  Also, I found that updating this made me feel like a person with a purpose, too.  As I apply for jobs it's easy to start to feel like I'm just an application number, but linked in lets you be a human and reminds you that you have skills, and people who endorse your skills.
3. Make a list of people you know well that you've worked with and contact them.  Odds are you have way more LinkedIn connections than people who could actually endorse your work, but the ones who know you well can not only endorse you, but can also keep their eyes and ears open for opportunities in their network. 
4. Do some research.  I find that by researching topics in my field, I can feel myself becoming more confident in myself as a candidate that someone should hire.  
5. Think about the benefits of being unemployed at this moment.  It's hard.  Being unemployed sucks, but for me, it allowed me to have a surplus of time with my family and friends over the holidays without the stress of work.  I try to keep this in mind when I'm feeling dragged down. 
6. If all else fails, take a break...which is what I'm doing here, lol

Meatless Monday: Loaded Veggie Tortilla Soup

It's official.  We're "New Year's Resolutioners!"  I always try to avoid becoming one of "them," like I was avoiding the plague.  I go around wearing an imaginary new year's resolution mask and gown to shield myself from the infection.  If asked, I proudly tell people that I have no new year's resolutions...by proudly, I mean semi-apologetically smugly.  This year, thanks to the inability to avoid far too many tastings of food and alcohol alike over the past month of vacation, I've been infected.  Something must be done.  

Bring round the "Meatless Monday" bandwagon so I can hop on...

This Monday I made this amazing soup I came across on Pinterest. I thought I might be sad that there wasn't chicken stock.   You should have seen me in the grocery aisle picking up the chicken stock, then putting it down in favor of veggie stock, then repeating the process a few more times before J joined me in the aisle and I was left with whatever I had in my hand...a stock hot potato if you will...I ended up with veggie stock.  The strange thing is, I didn't miss the chicken stock one bit.  If you're not going vegetarian, I'm sure it would be tasty with some chicken stock, and shredded chicken thrown in, but it's just as delectable all veggie all the time.

Loaded Veggie Tortilla Soup

*The author, Minimalist Baker (who btw has a ton of other great recipes) called it nacho soup, but I think it's more like tortilla soup than any nachos i've ever eaten.

Ingredients: 

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1/2 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp each sea salt and black peper
• 1 can tomato paste
• 2 1/2 C water
• 2 C low sodium vegetable broth
• 1 cup your favorite fresh, chunky salsa**
• 1 4-oz can mild diced green chilis
• 2 15-oz cans black beans, lightly drained
• Optional toppings: tortilla chips, fresh onion, cilantro, avocado, grated cheese, sour cream, hot sauce, lime juice, etc. 

**I used a canned organic chunky salsa

Directions:

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat. 
2. Add olive oil, onion, garlic, and stir.  Cook for about 5 mins or until softened and transparent.  Turn down the heat if the garlic starts to brown. 
3. Add salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and stir to coat.  Then add tomato paste, water, veggie broth, salsa, green chilis and stir to combine.  Bring to a simmer, then add black beans.  Bring to a simmer again, reduce heat to low and cook for another 20-30 mins. 
4. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed, adding more spices, salt or pepper.  Add hot sauce for more heat.  (I didn't adjust the seasonings at all, everything was spot on)
5. Serve hot with tortilla chips, and optional toppings. 

Never enough time

What a whirlwind...can you count 20 days a a whirlwind?  Somehow it felt like it was.  I've just returned from visiting family in Washington for the holidays and I have the post-holiday blues.  It's a very strange thing to have the important people in your life split on separate coasts of the country.  Every time I go back to Washington, I spend the first week missing New York, then the second week soaking up my friends and family (namely my mom's babysitting), then the third week, I'm ready to go back to New York but simultaneously miss my family and friends already.  It may be some form of mental illness.  lol.  

I think this time was particularly hard because of the job situation.  Being in between jobs meant that I had plenty of downtime to see everyone, but the uncertainty also means I don't have a planned return trip, and this will probably have been my last 20 day trip. While my last job wasn't ideal, it meant that I was able to work remotely, so I could take these long trips without having to take vacation time, but it seems unlikely this will be the case in the future. 

Enough of the sap, I had an amazing time!  Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to the past month or so: 

As soon as I got back to Washington, my mom and I went into full Christmas mode!  She had already decorated just enough so it felt like Christmas when I got there, but we usually do most of it together so she saved a bunch...

Of course we had to have Christmas (or music) movies on while decorating...this year she graduated us all to small stockings, and J got his own, too! I guess I have to keep him around.

My brother was in desperate need for an Ugly Christmas Sweater, so I whipped this puppy up for him.  It was pretty amazing, all of that garland made it weigh a million pounds, and I sewed bells in it so when he shimmied it jingled.  haha...does anyone have any ideas how to make homemade ugly Christmas sweaters my livelihood?

I squeezed in as much Goodall time as possible.  First Kaitlin and I had a wild night on the town, which in our world means a dinner out at a wine bar, and a tasting flight of "bubbles." It was so good to reconnect and gossip like we don't live 3,000 miles apart.  I got my usual favorite, flat bread with roasted figs, goat cheese, honey, and pistachio.  It's the perfect balance of sweet and savory.

A couple of nights later I headed back over to the Goodalls for our annual gingerbread house building. Sweet little Lila got in on the action this year, and probably ate just as much candy as she put on her house, but she was so proud of herself and for the record, some of the candy did make it on her house.

My mom and I did our normal holiday bake-a-thon but she had to work throughout the holidays so we had to seriously scale back the variety of cookies.  We still made chocolate crinkles, sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, fudge, and rice krispie treats, so I don't think any of our recipients really noticed. 

If you look closely you'll see Humphrey hoping my dad will share some of his sugar cookie with him...poor neglected Humphrey.

The Monday after Christmas both of my parents had the day off from work so we all went to this little Bavarian village on the side of the mountain, Leavenworth.  We indulged in bratwurst for lunch, spiced German wine, beer, and wandered through some of the cute little shops.  Living so close to it, I never thought about the history, but J was asking how it came to be...upon googling it was literally developed to be a tourist trap.  In the 60s the town wasn't doing well economically, so they decided to create a faux Bavarian village, and voila! Success!

Then came New Years...J and I couldn't decide what to do for New Years Eve.  As much as I love my family, we decided we should do something other than stay in with my parents so we went down to Portland for a couple of days.  We lucked out and found this really cool "speakeasy" style party, and spent the night dancing and drinking...So fun!

We had a few low key days with my family, and then headed to the airport early on the 6th.  I didn't cry but I did a little on the 4th.  To make coming back feel more monumental, there was a snowstorm in the morning that meant an extra 2 hours on the plane with Humphrey.

Blueberry Orange Quick Bread

Our grocery store had blueberries on sale the other day.  It's the kind of sale I love and hate...buy one get one free.  The problem is that you can't get a deal without getting more than you actually need, but at the same time, I wanted blueberries anyway, and so it gave me an excuse to make this delicious bread.  

  

This recipe is just slightly modified from the one I found online here.  I don't think it's necessary to change a thing, but I didn't have enough lemon so I threw in some fresh orange juice, and made an orange glaze instead, and it's so yummy.  The lemon might have added more of a zing, but the orange and blueberry were a little sweeter.  

Blueberry Orange Quick Bread

Ingredients: 

BREAD

• 1/3 C butter, melted
• 1 C sugar
• 1 TBS lemon juice
• 2 TBS orange juice (fresh)
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 C flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 C milk
• 1 C fresh blueberries
• 1/2 C chopped walnuts
• 2 TBS combination of grated lemon & orange peels (mine was mostly orange)

GLAZE

• 2 TBS orange juice (fresh)
• 1/4 C sugar

Directions:

1.  In a large bowl, beat the butter, sugar, lemon/orange juice and eggs.  Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into egg mixture alternating with milk and beating after each addition. Fold in the berries, nuts, and peel.
2. Transfer to a greased 8"x4" loaf pan.  Bake at 350 for 60-70 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool 10 mins before removing from pan to wire rack. 
3. Combine glaze ingredients; drizzle over warm bread.  Cool completely.

Welcome back to NY

 

When I was in Washington I was saying, I'm dreading to going back to wearing my long puffy jacket for the next few months when people mentioned winter.  Welp, we made it back just in time for a little snow storm (and an extra 2 hours crammed onto a plane), but look how pretty it is, and look how adorable Humphrey is eating the snow...I guess it's not so bad

Happy New Year Portland!

What a year! Last year for New Year's Eve I stayed home with my parents and went to bed around 11pm.  That sounds terrible, but I really didn't mind.  Also around this time last year had been living in NY for about 6 months, and had just met this guy, J and wasn't sure how any of it was going to work out.  

And then this year, J was with me, and we were running around Portland together.  So strange, but so fun!  We were only there 2 nights, and 1 full day, so it seems like we did more eating and drinking than anything else but who's complaining? 

After spending New Year's Eve morning at Powell's Bookstore (the nation's largest independent bookstore)...you can take the professor out of the classroom...or something like that.  It was enormous.  We could have spent so much more time there, and money, but we decided to get out while our basket was still manageable.  

Then we hit up Rogue for a delicious lunch and a tasting...

Some of the beers were better than others, but overall delicious.  They had their bathrooms listed as Hops and Barley with no idication of which was men & women.  When we asked the waitress she answered as if it was a dumb question, "Barley is women because they make women sweet, Hops is men because they make beer bitter." Duh (we added the duh in our heads because she really was quite nice).

Then we walked to the Japanese Gardens which were much further than we thought, and everyone who heard we walked remarked that we really were New Yorkers. lol

We continued the Japanese theme into dinner and stopped at this amazing Japanese place.  We both ended up getting something other than sushi on a whim, and then the table next to us ordered a bunch of sushi and thoroughly out ordered us.  The restaurant even had chopstick cases hung on the wall for VIP customers. We may have split a bottle of saki, too.

After a couple of hours at the hotel we got all fancied up and went to a Speakeasy party at Red Star Tavern in downtown Portland.  They have this private room behind a hidden bookshelf door that they have special events in.  I have no idea how they made money on the event because it was an open bar (with high quality alcohol), and was only $40 a person! I think there was max 100 people, but probably closer to 70.  They had a live jazz band, a tiny crowded dance floor and we danced and drank all night! It was the best New Year's Eve I've had in a long time.  It was so much fun, I only took 3 pictures...a selfie, a picture of the 2015 ice sculpture, and a picture of empties (they weren't all ours). 

Unfortunately New Year's Day was a little rough.  Thanks to the aforementioned copious drinking I did, I was sick sick sick, and J and I may have checked off another relationship milestone...the one where he has to pull the car over on the highway and rub my back while I vomit.

Can you believe it's 2015?! I hope you all had a happy and safe New Year's Eve and that it is the start of the best year yet!