Laughing Planet Che Guevara burrito remake

Last week I overhead a coworker confess that, while she’s looking forward to seeing old friends when she returns to New York, she’s secretly most excited about revisiting a favorite restaurant. “I mean, it’ll be great to hang out with them, but I’ve been dreaming about this one sandwich.” She feigned shame until one of us asked her to describe the sandwich. “Oh you don’t even KNOW!! Okay, so it starts with…”

It’s gonna be a while until I share my coworker’s longing-ranking of friends and food** but I can still identify with her excitement. I’ve been daydreaming about Laughing Planet - a quick-serve restaurant in our old neighborhood – and my regular order there.

Toinight we set out to recreate the magic. Here goes…

LAUGHING PLANET’S CHE GUEVARA BURRITO REMAKE

1-2 cups rice (white or brown, doesn’t matter) ** 1-2 sweet potatoes, rinsed, peeled, and cubed ** half an onion, diced ** 1-2 plantains, sliced **1 can black beans, rinsed ** few tablespoons chopped cilantro ** 1 small crown of broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces ** tortillas ** favorite hot sauce ** favorite bbq sauce

Get the rice cooking using your preferred method. Meanwhile, chop the cilantro, rinse the black beans, and set them both aside. Boil a small pot of water and throw in the sweet potato; cook until just tender. Rinse and set aside. Heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a skillet, then add the onion and cook a few minutes. Throw in the plantains and stir. Let the plaintains sit a bit before flipping so that they can brown a little. Add the sweet potato and stir. Heat this mixture until the plantains are tender. Steam the broccoli until just tender. Lay out each of the ingredients assembly-line-style. Stir a healthy dose of hot sauce into a half cup of bbq sauce (I like it hot enough that my nose runs).

Heat the tortillas (I love heating them one by one over the gas burner) and walk down your assembly line. I like putting the sauce on after the rice, because the rice helps hold it in the burrito.

Plantains, sweet potato, and onion

Mixing up jerk bbq sauce

Clockwise from the top: rice, black beans, jerk sauce, broccoli, plantain/onion/sweet potato

MMMMM...you don't even KNOW

** The Oregon food memories all include friends…gardening, trading recipes, dinner parties, sharing lunch leftovers, trying new restaurants. The other day a very kind coworker remarked, “you must miss your friends from Oregon,” and dammit I lingered too long in formulating my response. And then I got choked up…which is always kind of a surprise to this stoic midwesterner. So Oregon friends, if you’re reading this, you have not been eclipsed by a burrito.

Why we’re on the Post Office’s watch list

In so many ways, Sam is not a typical dog. This is how he wins over non-dog-people. He doesn’t ask for attention, he doesn’t fetch, he silently observes people and situations…sometimes he’s downright boring. Before long folks are petting his sleeping form and confessing, “I don’t usually like dogs…but this dog is funny.” And he is.

Sam...wasting time until dinner

Turns out he’s also a public menace. Last week we got a letter from the U.S. Postal Service that read:

I am writing to make you aware of problems that our carrier is having with your dog. Yesterday, July 14, she was chased by your dog into the neighbors yard. This is unacceptable. Dog threats are a very real concern for our letter carriers. Millions of dollars are spent each year on injuries our carriers sustain from dogs. It is postal policy that the mail will not be delivered to a home that presents a dog threat….

Sam was confined to the backyard when this happened. There’s a Sam-sized hole in the fence if you kick aside some boards, so he must have seen the mailperson coming, pushed aside the boards, bolted through the fence to terrorize her, and (here’s the kicker) – GONE BACK INSIDE THE FENCE. Geez. Only Sam would be so assured in his right-ness that he’d bust out of confinement only to re-enter confinement when the job was done.

I don’t blame the post office one bit. I wouldn’t want strange dogs barking and chasing me, and I told Sam that he was lucky he didn’t get pepper-sprayed. Or worse. He told me that this woman is part of an evil government-watch plan that involves aliens, Richard Simmons, and a national ban on bacon. Poor Sam…I’m afraid old age is starting to mess with his head.

Summer Solstice

One night last week the western sky was still dusky pink when Read and I went to bed. When I was little, I pouted about being sent to bed in summer when it was still light out. Funny how we voluntarily do things as adults that we fought against as kids. 

How have you been spending these extra long summer days? Here’s some photos of what’s been happening over here…

The roommate adopted a 2 year old golden retriever (here he is after a run-through with the Furminator comb). As I write this, Sam is under the bed covers, growling at the retriever and his goofy, panting efforts to climb into bed for a group cuddle.

 

I spent a long weekend in NYC with my highschool friends. It was so much fun, and the time change helped me stay up late and sleep in...very exciting for someone who's known as the one who falls asleep at parties in a corner chair. Here we are walking around Brooklyn at sunset.

 

I keep plugging away at this blue lace hat. It's too big for the fitted cap I imagined, so I'm going to try and make it a loose beret-type thing. More to come.

 

On Saturday Sam and I took a hike with friends at Brice Creek. The water is crystal clear straight to the bottom. We passed a couple swimming holes with real potential...I took notes.

 

A dignified and regal Sam, posing at Brice Creek. Tango the little poodle looks impressed, yes?

Memorial Day Weekend in Sisters

For Memorial Day Weekend we went to visit Read’s aunt and uncle in Sisters, Oregon. I remember driving through Sisters heading the opposite direction when I moved to Eugene.  It’s where my Dad got a reminder that in Oregon, you can’t pump your own gas (“Sir…SIR! Step AWAY from your car!!”). I also recall a lot of quaint, wild-west-themed lettering on the storefronts, which I was happy to see is still the case. We took a walk downtown on Saturday and passed one of Read’s favorite childhood landmarks: Sno Cap ice cream.

Sno Cap in Sisters, Oregon

Read’s aunt and uncle live at the end of a couple miles of red cinder gravel. They have a spectacular view of the 3 Sisters mountains. I did a lot of knitting and we all did a lot of talking, cooking, and coffee-drinking…everything you need for a relaxing weekend. 

On Sunday it rained. Read took this picture out the kitchen window. 

Sisters, Oregon

I’m going to use this picture to illustrate something I figured out today…and wish I’d figured out much earlier. I’d noticed that my photos were sometimes blurry or fuzzy on this blog. They look fine on my camera, in iphoto, etc. but…wordpress wasn’t preserving that crispness through the uploading process. 

I should have troubleshooted this earlier, but for some reason just got around to it today. It’s what I suspected — photos need to be resized in a photo-editing program before uploading them to WordPress. The automatic resizing that WordPress does for you doesn’t always preserve the photo’s quality like you want it to. 

Since I don’t have Photoshop, I finally joined Flickr. You can grab URLs from various sized versions of your photos and upload them that way. The “medium” sized photo is 500 pixels wide…which seems to be working well in WordPress. Now I want to retroactively fix all of my photos on here. 

For comparision, here’s the same photo uploaded the “old” way…where I relied on WordPress to automatically resize my original photo file. It’s just not as good.

Same photo, different uploading method

Cast On: Snowbird cardigan

Late last week my friend and coworker had some crowns put in, a root canal, AND her wisdom teeth removed…all in one fell swoop. Talk about pain meds. I took work off to spend the day with her. I knew I’d be sitting in the waiting room a while and maybe watching tv while she slept. This all led me to one important conclusion—I needed a big new knitting project. And not a stash project. One where I pick out a pattern and go buy the yarn and everything.

Snowbird photo by PiPiBird on ravelry

 

I’ve been wanting to try a simple open cardigan and this post from barefoot rooster pointed me towards the Snowbird cardigan from Heidi Kirrmaier. I picked out a silk/wool blend and bought the pattern off ravelry (username=foxflat). That marks the first time I’ve bought a pattern online – it was really easy. I’ve never knit a raglan-type sweater in the round so I’m looking forward to it. I may shorten it up some – depends how quickly I go through the skeins I bought.

My other big project this week was trying to figure out how to keep the cats out of our roommate’s houseplants. Their litterbox is upstairs and amazingly, they seem to be too lazy to walk up there. Read says it’s because they probably prefer real dirt to litter. Either way…poor plants. We need to fix it. Do any of you have tried and true strategies? This is what we’ve come up with so far: 

Kabob sticks, planted sharp side up

 

more cat traps

 

Hope you had an enjoyable weekend! I’ll leave you with two bits of Oregon-themed happiness.

The first is a link to one of my favorite songs–Loretta Lynn is one classy lady.  Portland Oregon w/ Jack White

The second is a photo from a warm afternoon walk around the Portland Rose Garden yesterday. No roses yet…but all of the fruit trees were in bloom. So pretty.

Portland Rose Garden in March

daylight savings Sunday

 

Front step breakfast

My Sunday started with breakfast on the front step. One of my favorite things about having cool roommates is communal meals. I don’t know about you, but when I live alone I tend to eat cereal for dinner more nights than not. Cooking for others inspires me to try new things. And in the process of making meals together you pick up new recipes and ways to do things.  Sam campaigned hard this morning for some of the fried potatoes, eggs, and toast but without luck. 

After breakfast I finished up another slouchy hat for my friend. I’m worried that it’s a little big since it stretched during blocking. I made her promise to tell me if she doesn’t like it. 

Slouchy Hat Series #3 (for Tami)

I’m slowly perfecting this hat patten. It just needs a few more iterations. If you’d like one let me know. I can only make use of so many hats, especially if Read and I move to L.A.

Where do YOU take your knitting??

Last night I watched a commercial where an iphone-owner bragged that he didn’t mind being put on hold anymore because the iphone lets him simultaneously pay bills, watch videos, and play games. It made me think of how when I graduated from high school everyone gave me calling cards for presents so that I could call home from the dorm phones for free. Then I felt old.

One day I’m going to walk into the cellphone store and there won’t be any phones that just call people anymore…which will be okay. I guess it will provide me with additional ways to occupy myself when put on hold. Or waiting for the doctor. Or sitting on a long flight. For now my go-to time-occupier is knitting. Seriously, you can take it anywhere.

For instance, last weekend my friend Emily invited me cross-country skiing in the Oregon mountains. I haven’t been skiing since I was a kid in Ohio, where it was very flat and very cold. I remember that it sometimes involved blisters and very tangled falls, but was fun. So off we went, and wow what a day. Blue skies! Mountains! Sunshine!

Hoodoo ski area in Oregon

A couple miles in and I was feeling the burn. Turns out a “flat” trail in Oregon means “full of little hills” if you’re used to the glacier-flattened landscapes of Ohio. And going downhill kept resulting in wipeouts. Emily and her friend spotted a monstrous hill to the right and got all excited about taking a detour to go up and down it. I respectfully declined, sat down on the backpack to wait, and then remembered I’d packed my knitting in the backpack. Now I can add “cross country-skiing” to the list of situations where I’ve been happy to have my knitting.

So where do YOU take your knitting?

check out the ice-wipeout-knuckles

Our lunches were in the backpack (my seat). Emily thanked me later for turning her sandwich into a panini

Goodbye two thousand and nine

I’m a bit late on the new year’s post and the Rose Bowl is partly to blame. This year it pit the team of my childhood -Ohio State- against the team of my current hometown -Oregon. I offended fans from both teams by saying I was having trouble knowing who to cheer for, but in the end I had to represent the midwest. It’s hard to counter twenty-some years of indoctrination and besides, there’s something fun about being the only Buckeye in a house full of Duck fans (ME vs. THEM!!). Especially when your team wins.

I’m not a diehard fan by any means (I don’t know all of the players names, I understand rules but not strategy) but I really, honestly enjoy watching football. Read and I got so worked up watching the game that we came home, flopped on the bed in our fan gear, and fell asleep for the evening. 

I had fun reading the new year’s themed posts on my blogroll, like this photo montage from dooce.com, an impressive “year of making” from Artsy Craftsy Babe, and craft highlights from Elsie Marley. Outside of the craft sites, you must read the 2009 recap from passiveaggressivenotes.com.

In my own little world, 2009 was a big year. I moved across the neighborhood, started this blog with Bethany, said goodbye to friends who moved across the country, learned how to use my spinning wheel, got hired on a permanent basis at work, lost my grandfather, got engaged, and traveled across the Atlantic. You never know what a year will bring, and 2010 promises to deal out some extra big adventures. But before I can welcome in the new it feels right to say goodbye to the old, so here are some images from 2009:

winter sunset over the Pacific

 

convincing Sam to ride in the bike basket

 

new milestone: a handknit sweater good enough to wear outside the house

 

canned Oregon peaches

 

swimming in the river to beat the heat

 

pre-Rose Bowl, when I'm an Oregon fan

 

first skein of hand-dyed & hand-spun yarn

 

Venice just before dawn

 

hometown church on christmas eve

No-canning-needed quick dill pickles

 

Best pickles!!!These pickles are AWESOME (as you can see from my gratuitous use of exclamation points on the recipe card). The friend who shared her recipe calls them refrigerator pickles. Since you don’t process them in boiling water (i.e. can them) you have to keep them in the fridge, but that’s what makes them so crispy. I’ve made these with my friends for the past few years (pickling is always more fun with a friend) and they earn high marks from pickle-lovers.

First, find yourself a few pounds of pickling cucumbers. These are small varieties especially made for pickling – I’ve had better luck finding them at farmers markets than the grocery store.  If you grow your own cukes and want to pickle them, make sure to only use the ones that are small, firm, and darker green. Last summer I grew “asian cucumbers” and they worked beautifully too- they were very dense and had small seed cavities. Wash your cukes and set them aside. Next, bring to boil in a big pot:
4.5 cups water
4 cups white vinegar
6 tablespoons canning salt

Repeat: "I am the SPICE MASTER"

I have found that most very very good recipes (i.e. my gramma’s baked beans) contain moments of imprecise-ness. Here is where this recipe allows for personal interpretations. You’ll need some faith in your ability to estimate the spice ratios. You can do it!

In each (previously washed) canning jar, put approximately:
2 bay leaves
big sprig of fresh dill
1 tablespoon mustard seed
1-3 dried chili peppers
a couple cloves of fresh garlic
a pinch each of whole coriander and whole allspice

Pack each jar with baby cucumbers. I like to keep them whole, but I've also tried halving or quartering them.

Fill with vinegar/salt solution

Wait a few weeks

Fill each jar nearly to the top with boiling vinegar/salt solution. Put the lid on, put them in the fridge, and wait a week or so. From what I’ve read online you’re only supposed to keep the jars around for a few months. If you and yours love dill pickles then it’s no concern because they’ll be gone much sooner. Since I’m the only dill-pickle-eater in my house sometimes it takes me a while to eat through them. In case you’re in the same situation, I can assure you that I’ve eaten them 6-8 months later with no ill effects (if anything, they tasted even better!).