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June 26, 2006

Signing up

I've been in a frenzy of signing up for things. Partly to fill the void that's left by not doing taiko right now, and partly in an attempt to be a little more social. Here's what I've signed up for:

- Swimming lessons for Ethan and for me - gulp! - tennis!
- Starting a parents group in the Mt. Tabor area (organized by someone else, but I'll help)
- Two volunteer activities: sprucing up Mt. Tabor in August, and "Knitting for Newborns" in July. The knitting one was a whim, but it just caught my eye on Hands On Portland. They knit things for babies in the NICU at Legacy Emanuel.
- I sent an email to get information about the peer counselor training program by the Nursing Mothers Council of Oregon.

I think that's it! Ah, summer...

Posted by ktingey at 06:11 AM | Comments (8)

June 23, 2006

Not bad

Last night we had to get some of the leftovers out of the fridge. So I used the rest of the gyoza I made a few days ago (they were OK, but Ethan prefers "regular" potstickers to homemade ones, because mine had green things in them). Then I made a Vietnamese-ish fried rice with the leftover ground turkey, red pepper, a serrano pepper, shiitake, onions, and a few shrimp. And egg. Ginger, garlic, and then fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. Jeff liked it, so I guess it was good.

Generally speaking we've both been uninspired in terms of cooking and eating. I think we're not getting enough exercise. But on Monday I made a very lengthy Indian lamb recipe. It wasn't difficult, just long, but it turned out really good. From Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, one of the Indian cookbooks we got for New Year's several years ago. I made a slightly odd brown rice and pea dish, flavored with saffron and black cumin seeds. I think it was only odd because it was brown rice, but we didn't have any basmati. And then a yogurt-garlic-mint sauce (Ethan can be counted on to eat lots of that), and the closest thing we had on hand to naan: Trader Joe's handmade tortillas. And decaf chai. The same cookbook has a very nice chai recipe, very simple, but I think the key thing is to boil the spices, heat the milk and sugar, and then just steep the tea a few minutes. Yummy yum.

I really miss having Ann and Zack around to cook and eat with. Even more so now that they've got a baby! I can't wait to go there in July and meet Mika.

Posted by ktingey at 10:01 PM | Comments (6)

June 16, 2006

ept

No, no, not now. I'm just thinking back to when I bought an ept (early pregnancy test) over 4 years ago. I had just started thinking something might be up because I was about a week late. And then it occurred to me that there could be a reason I was suddenly more buxom than I'd ever been, so I went to the store to get a test. Jeff happened to be out of town, in California for work, so I went alone, to the New Seasons near our house. I was nervous. Believe it or not, I'd made it to 31 years old without ever having bought one of those things - is that unusual? I don't know. It seems to me a lot of women of that age would have had some cause, either because they were late, or paranoid, or just liked peeing on sticks and watching them change color.

So I got an ept, along with a few other things. When I went to check out, the young fellow scanning my items studiously avoided looking at me when he got to that one, and I did the same. Then he got to my produce, and he said, "Is that baby bok choy?" And he blushed, I swear.

Ethan, my baby bok choy.

Posted by ktingey at 09:06 PM | Comments (8)

June 06, 2006

Breakfast for lunch

I got a little ambitious at lunch today and did two experimental recipes. I had it in my head to make breakfast sausage, because we had some ground turkey I didn't know what to do with, and biscuits. But as usual, I was not content to make a real recipe, not even for the biscuits, but they turned out very good.

I sort of used Mom's scone recipe, but with less sugar, more flour, and some baking powder in addition to the baking soda. Then I added some black pepper and a very little grated cheese. Good.

For the sausage, I put a bunch of sage from the garden, some Italian parsley, grated half an Asian pear we had sitting around, some garlic, and an egg. I had looked up a recipe on epicurious that gave me the basic idea.

All in all, not a bad breakfast for lunch. Jeff made eggs and we had a fruit salad with this deliscrumptious Tuscan cantaloupe I got over the weekend.

Posted by ktingey at 09:02 PM | Comments (8)

June 01, 2006

Salad Queen

It's true, I am Queen of Salads. We eat salad a lot, and I pride myself on both my homemade dressings and my semi-reliable ability to make a good salad out of whatever we've got. Used to be I always just made my grandmother's vinaigrette, and indeed it is very good, with its not-so-secret ingredient: sugar. But a few years ago Jeff confessed that he was extremely tired of it, so I branched out. Now I can make a decent ranch (not healthy, but Jeff's favorite), very good Caesar (yes, with raw egg, though sometimes I microwave the egg yolk lightly), what I call "Caesar-ish" which is made with mayonnaise instead, blue cheese, and a wide variety of oil-and-vinegar dressings.

The other night we had a particularly good salad, with oranges, avocados, and red onions sliced very thin. The dressing had balsamic vinegar and just a little raw garlic (thank you, Trader Joe's frozen crushed garlic). Lately I've been adding some raw kale to our salads, since we discovered at Rasul and Sepideh's house that although Jeff hates cooked kale, raw is actually fine. It's good in salads.

In other cooking news, I made fish tacos last night. I've discovered a very easy way to do it, also thanks to Trader Joe's. They sell breaded frozen cod fillets that you just cook in the oven, and sliced, they make very good fish tacos. I made a coleslaw with a chipotle-lime dressing, and also cooked some red onions in vinegar. Avocados, tomatoes, feta (a reasonable substitute for cotija), and then sour cream and salsa for Ethan, of course.

Posted by ktingey at 09:51 PM | Comments (8)