Pizza Friday

In order to keep up the trend of including people in the culinary photos we decided to publish our Friday night feast. I don't know if anyone recognizes this girl, but she's one heck of a cheese grater. We constructed this pie from double proofed dough, tomato sauce, whole milk mozz, olives, green peppers, and onions. Then we baked it at 550 degrees for about 8 minutes on a stone. It also has a twin brother, so there will be pizza for breakfast all weekend. Ciao!

Thanksgiving Photos a Week Late

We had several Thanksgiving meals -- and much to be grateful for -- but only one to immortalize with photos. This was last Friday at Nanette's with her kids and parents.

I mean no offense to the vegetarians, but Sean looks so happy holding the turkey. That good-looking apple pie was Lee's work, and the rasberry vinegar carrot dish, which I made, was interesting and photogenic, but not especially popular.

Question for Pam

The Brian and Sheila family had lasagna for dinner last night. I made it the previous night. It's really pretty easy if you use the no-boil noodles and jars of pasta sauce. I use Barilla noodles, fresh mozzarella and ricotta, two eggs, and whatever sauce is on sale. I think it turns out relatively light, but Sheila thinks it's still too cheesy and heavy.


Adam blurted out that he thinks the lasagna needed some artichokes in it, like Pam makes it. My question to Pam is: How do you do this? Jars of artichokes? Fresh? Canned? What size should they be? Do you cut 'em up? Do you rinse off the vinegar first? What other veggies do you put in your lasagna?


Let me know! With some tweaking I hope to put together a lasagna we all will love.

Agriculture 101

Janet and I thought we would make our first our first post here with an introduction to our balcony garden experiment. Before spending 5 days in Chicago, we were worried that our little plants wouldn't survive since we had just planted them a little over a week ago. Boy, were we suprised! The plants tripled in size since our departure and now I'm sure that these pots will not suffice. From left to right, they are Japanese Eggplant, Red Beefsteak Tomato, and Sweet Red Pepper. I'm afraid I will just have to transplant these into larger pots and replace them with some salad greens. Catch ya later Barrys!

Some good chow after a rough day

Well it's been another rough day for me at the Newgard house. I've been doing my rounds, checking for birds out each window. Pam's been overfeeding them, so there is more than I'm used to checking on. And I'm still getting used to finding the comfortable places to sleep and testing each one is tiresome. So after a hard day of this kind of work, I just want to settle down and eat a fine meal.

Butternut Squash Spring Rolls

Here is my favorite Thanksgiving dish with recipe and photo.

Butternut Squash Spring Rolls
1 lb butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2” cubes
olive oil
4 ounces rice sticks
12 8” round rice paper wrappers
1/3 cup roasted peanuts
1 cup cilantro leaves
1/2 cup green onions sliced

Place squash on baking sheets and toss with olive oil. Roast in 400 oven for 15 minutes. Turn and roast until caramelized. Cool.

Boil water for noodles. Put noodles in boiling water and turn off heat. Cover and let sit for 10 minutes, stir occasionally. Drain, rinse with cold water.

Assemble rolls:
Fill a large pie plate with warm water. Use a plate or towel as a work surface. Submerge rice wrapper in warm water for about 30 seconds and transfer to work surface. Place a small handful of noodles in lower third of wrapper leaving about an inch of empty space on each side of wrapper. Add squash pieces, nuts, onions and cilantro. To roll, fold sides then bottom of wrapper and roll. Place seam side down on tray. Cut in half when ready to serve.

Warning:
It’s very tempting to overfill rice wrappers. Have hungry family members nearby to eat your less then perfect rolls.

Dipping Sauce
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
4 teaspoons sugar
4 tablespoons hot chili oil
2 teaspoons sesame oil

You want color in your food? I'll give you color!

I hope your graphics card can handle the entire spectrum of color, because that's what I have in this little Mediterranean salad I threw together last night. There are peppers of yellow, red, and orange, cucumbers, imported Kalamata olives, carrots, Italian flat-leaf parsley, Roma tomatoes, wisps of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and a dijon vinaigrette.

Tonight - Soup and sandwiches: Potato-Leek soup and grilled mozzarella and tomatoes on Tuscan bread. Yummm.

Monday Night Dinner, Plus Some Kitchen Shots

Ok, I found my camera cable and downloaded 137 photos. But I'll spare you all but a few.

First, the stir-fry from Monday, and you can see the top of my new slide-in stove. (Counter to slide it into still to come.)

And then here are a few of the dozens of kitchen shots I have to sort through.


This first one is from when I came back after living in Mill Valley for eight days while my floors were being sanded and finished. (I won't show you the photo of my basement, where I stashed everything.)

And then there are two shots of a working, albeit unfinished kitchen.

I'm loving it, though I still have many boxes to unpack. I have 30 plates, but only 3 forks. So far.

Sunday I will have my third, or is it fourth annual Thanksgiving leftovers potluck.

btw, I told Sean about this. He'd like to be invited as well.

Family Reunion Reconnaisance Trip

Well, I just took a photo of my stir-fry leftovers in the wok, but I can't find my cable to upload the photos. So no food pornography from me today. (But later, yes.)

But on the subject of the family reunion, here's the plan. On December 14, I am flying down to San Diego to meet Nanette, who will be there for a work conference, and the next day, we're going to drive to Ensenada and Rosarito Beach in Baja California to look at some beach houses.

Rosarito Beach is an hour and a half south of San Diego, and Ensanada about two hours. From preliminary research it seems that Rosarito Beach is like Cabo or Cancun, very touristy. Ensanada is too, but there's a real Mexican city there too.

I figure we'll need a place (or two) that can accomodate 15-20 people. We're not going to sign on any dotted lines, but our hope is to figure out if this is feasible. I'll take photos, and by then I'll have found the cable for the camera.

(And I think kitchen photos qualify for this blog too...so those are coming soon.)

P.S. At work, we've all been encouraged to join Facebook, so don't be surprised if you get an invitation to be my friend.

And Pat, looks like you know how to nap as well as eat.

Whew, that was tiring

It takes five minutes to set up a blog, right? Well, maybe more like an hour, if you count making the first few posts and figuring out how to get Pam's and my name separated while signed in on the same computer.

Before sending out the invites to others to join, I rolled up my signature napkin and used it to cushion my forehead as I took a brief rest, just like I did when the children were very small and I was very tired.

Colorful food is healthy, right?

All the articles in the food section say that a meal that screams color tends to be good for you, so before Pam got home tonight I dug around to see what we had and settled on orange, green, white and red. Sweet potatoes, green beans and radiatore pasta with a sauce of dried cherry tomatoes and mushrooms, onions, four cloves of garlic and half of a dried habanero pepper, which was actually not quite enough.

I show it here with my signature yellow napkin, to add a bit more color.

Pat's lunch - not bad for leftovers

Today's lunch looked so good that I thought I'd capture it for posterity. That's jasmine rice with Indian rasam ("pepperwater") and lentil sauce, mashed hubbard squash, spinach sauteed with garlic and fresh asparagus.

Actually, it's all leftovers, but as Pam and I like to say, "we know how to eat."