The Adventure Bite

Stuffed Butternut Squash

By Dani, on January 16th, 2012

Last night as I stared at the almost completely empty fridge (sans leftovers that smell funny, condiments, and the ever prevalent gallons of milk thanks to WIC) I threw this together. Fast (in actual hands on prep time), somewhat healthy, and a switch up from another night of spaghetti….not that I actually had the ingredients to make spaghetti but… you get the idea.

Split the butternut squash down the center and pull out the guts. If you have a ridiculously long butternut squash like mine (which I admit I picked out because it was a humorous looking shape then split it in four pieces.

Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic powder.

Toss it in the oven at 400 degrees until it is fork tender.

Start some brown rice in the rice cooker.

After you do something else for a half hour or so….chop an onion and garlic (I didn’t) and brown some sausage up (I had hamburger) with it. Season with salt and pepper and a little spice if you like. Then add liberal amounts of rosemary on it….fresh would be best but did I mention the state of my kitchen last night?

Pull the squash out of the oven and spoon some of the flesh (seriously who decided this should be called flesh?) into the pan with the meat/onion/garlic combo. Throw some of the now cooked brown rice in and mix. This would also be a great time to add some cheese! Because everything is better with cheese. Which is why all my cheese was gone already.

Toss it all back in the shell and back into the oven while you fix a salad and some nice crunchy bread. Oh yes I ate all that with the cheese for lunch…..

‘That’s it…I’m going grocery shopping.

Durian tastes like…..

By Dani, on January 9th, 2012

Ask five people what Durian tastes like and you are likely to get five different answers. Some drool over it, some run in horror and some, like us, just really want to put new strange things in our mouths.

They come frozen at our favorite Asian market because they smell terrible when they aren’t frozen apparently. Our friend Shireen took us on an amazing foodie adventure to said Asian market when we first arrived in Georgia and we have been addicted ever since. She insisted that we taste a Durian.

So taste it we did.

We hacked it open (note that we are outside while doing so!)

Opened up the pods.

And dug in!

Kevin and Shireen swear that it tastes sweet and desserty. All I could taste was Walla Walla sweet onions. But….I was pregnant so that could be part of it. It was pudding like texture and kind of mushy which was strange. I could see it in a savory type of dish or maybe a sweet dish if it had plenty of sugar in it.

All in all….not my cup of tea, but…..Adventure Bite conquered!

An Afternoon with Alivia

By Dani, on October 11th, 2010

Last week I had the great pleasure of finally meeting Ms. Alivia and catching up a little with her wonderful parents. It was an overcast kind of gloomy day but we had a great time with the ducks and playing in the park.

Picasa vs. Flicker

By Dani, on September 1st, 2010

After just a short time of using WordPress I have discovered so many wonderful things….and some very useful….and some very odd things.

The topic for today is photo uploads. After waiting what seems eons to a 20-something-year-old (around two minutes) for one of my photos to upload to my blog, I sighed in exasperation saying “this is just not going to work.”

After a little digging on some of my favorite blogs I sighed again, this time in contentment and realized that they too do not upload their photos natively to WordPress.

I can see two reasons for this:
1) It takes forever
2) It’s gotta suck lots of server juice to host all of these photos

Realizing that I have a mediocre camera at the moment and that my pictures will greatly increase in size and volume as this blog continues I have begun my search for a photo host site.

My main points of interest (at the moment) are:

Flickr…..or…….Picasa

Here are my requirements:

1. Fast uploads (I’m impatient with slow technology)
2. Album uploads (i.e. upload multiple pictures without having to dig through the whole album to find the next picture in sequence)
3. Cheap or free storage space
4. Easily integrates to posting on WordPress
5. Ability to organize photos in albums

Lets start with #1 Fast Uploads

Web Based Uploader:

Flickr: Uploaded 5 pictures in: 3 minutes

Picasa: Uploaded 5 pictures in: 1 min 45 seconds

#2 Album Uploads

Web Uploader:

Flickr: Allows as many pictures as you want to select to be uploaded at a time in one screen.

Picasa: Only allows 5 pictures at a time and must be individually selected on multiple screens.

#3 Cheap or Free Storage Space

Flickr: 100 mb of free storage every month (does not roll over) after using for 11 months you effectively could have more storage space than Picasa if you use your full amount each month

Picasa: 1,024 mb of free storage forever

A note about “storage” space:

Flickr considers any upload to be part of your free storage for the month….even if you delete the picture in that month.

Picasa only counts what is currently in the system as a cumulative whole.

Take away point: if you use the free Flickr make sure you want those pictures BEFORE you upload them.

Note: Flickr also only displays your most recent 200 pictures. This doesn’t mean it deletes them….you just can’t see them in Flickr. The solution to this is to link the photo’s to your blog which will continue to display them even after they are “archived” in a sense in your main Flickr page.

Upgrade Pricing:

Flicker: $25 a year for unlimited uploads for full resolution photos
$47.99 for two years

Picasa: $5.00 a year for 20 GB
$20.00 a year for 80 GB
$50.00 a year for 200 GB
$100.00 a year for 400 GB
$256.00 a year for 1 TB

Now keep in mind that Picasa is taking into account your ENTIRE photo collection in these measurements, cumulatively. So if you are using these services as a web back up and you upload 20 GB the first year and 20 GB the second year, you will have to upgrade to the next plan as they consider your collection to be 40 GB total. Multiply this over a decade and you could easily be over the 80 GB putting you more expensive than the upgraded Flickr pricing long term.

Take Away Point:

If you are sharing photo’s with family and friends and can delete all but the most recent 1,000mb or 20 GB (for $5 bucks) Picasa is a better price point. This should not be considered a web back up for your photos.

You could also just share them via Facebook but the image quality is lower than Picasa’s.

If you are running a blog or are a photographer who needs their full portfolio online OR you wish to use a web service as your backup for your photo’s Flickr is a better price point.

Check back soon for my testing on the comparitive Desktop applications of these products and my final review!

Tomatillo Pork Burritos

By Dani, on August 21st, 2010

2010-04-28-17.37.42

Many months ago Kevin and I slipped out of the house for our “Date Night”. i.e. stuff your face in public.

(We have decided now that we much prefer stuffing our faces at home)

That epic night it was elected that it should be the local Mexican joint whom would be graced by our presence. Little did we know what was in store for us that night. What we found was the humbly named Burrito Verde….not very impressive on paper by any counts.

Pork served in a green sauce wrapped in a flour tortilla served with beans and rice.

What it should have said was the following,

“Pulled pork simmered for hours with tangy yet savory tomatillo sauce that gush in your mouth like a stew wrapped in a tortilla covered in cheese. Slurping goodness.”

We returned the following week for taste comparisons, again. And then set to work.

One pork roast. One crockpot. All day they must dance together.

First order is to pull out your bag of beautiful sticky husked tomatillos.

(Any self respecting hispanic store will carry these)

Pull off the husks and wash them under warm water to get rid of all the sticky.

Chop ‘em all in half

Like so….

And throw them all on a cookie sheet. Set them to broil while you fix the rest of the ingredients.

Serious amounts of lime, cilantro and as many jalepenos as you can stand. Don’t be afraid to be generous with the jalepenos….it can take it.

At this point in the game I thought it was great fun to chop up all the jalepenos with my bare hands….ahh ha ha. All was good until after I sat down after finishing the recipe and scratched my nose.

Only after three hours, ice cubes, rubbing alcohol, a gallon of tears and finally dipping my face in milk did the pain end.

Please wear gloves.

p.s. the next time we made this I did yet again the same mistake. But Kevin handed me a stalk of aloe vera, patted me on the head and I was fixed in ten minutes flat. Ahh husbands.

Back to work, deseed them and take out most of the membranes (leave them if you like your face to burn off)

Yummy.

Chop up an onion. Don’t worry about it being too fine its going in the blender.

Pull out the tomatillos when they are good and black and bubbly.

Throw everything in the blender. Jalepenos, cilantro, lime, tomatillos.

Add some salt and pepper and a generous helping of garlic powder.

We also like to dust in some cayenne and the slightest bit of cinnamon.

Delish.

Whirl away!

We like ours on the slightly chunky side.

Pour over the pork and stir.

You should ideally let this cook in the sauce all day. But if you’re like me and you didn’t remember the tomatillos until you are driving home from work you can let it simmer in the sauce for an hour or so and call it good.

Oh my goodness.

Wrap in a warm flour torilla, top with cheese and flame broil it for a second.

Preferably serve with homemade refried beans, rice and a margarita.

I’m going into a carb comma…..I need beans….now.

Garden Update

By Dani, on July 31st, 2010

The garden has really started to blossom as summer is coming into full force here in our dry hot hole in Oregon. The hemp rolls have proved to be even more useful than we initially thought…..guess its a good thing we have hundreds of feet of it!

It has been used as fencing, as the trellis line and as shade cloth to shield the plants from the scorching afternoon sun.

I am also considering making a dress out of it. I think it will be pleasantly breezy and have a nice swag look to it……much like the kilt that Kevin desperately wants to own. I do lots of adventures…..but I draw the line at kilts….and eating snails. Blegh. To both of them.

I don’t care if they are considered delicacies or that you want to connect with your inner German….they are gross. I find kilts to be on par with butt flaps that natives wear. Yes I said it….butt flaps.

Ah, I digress.

The greenhouse is up and running. Here are some building pictures:

Here is my valiant husband wondering what the heck he got himself into…or rather what I got him into:

In other news there are loads of baby plants growing and popping up everywhere.

Beans and Cucumbers are showing their little heads

The Grey Squash is quite impressive popping up in just a weeks time:

I feel like a plant mother….just call me Mother Earth.

This is our first baby yellow squash!

Just popped out this morning! Luckily one of the male flowers was still holding on for dear life and I popped him off the plant and hand pollinated the cute little momma flower. She closed right up within the next hour and appears very happy.

At Kevin’s urging I decided to purchase a couple new additions to the garden that I was unable to get to grow or didn’t even try to start. I picked up a couple bell pepper plants, including one called the MexiPepper! I am anticipating short, brown peppers with the ability to make beautiful hand thrown tortillas! Ariba!

Equally exotic I found a beautiful lemon cucumber who apparently fruits these pretty little things:

And a couple burpless cucumbers have rounded out what was becoming a rather sad looking cucumber plot. With the addition of the new babies that have been peeking out it should be looking lush quite soon!

This morning I repotted the basil into one of the pots up by the house and tucked the sage into the soon to be overflowing bucket with the thyme, oregano and rosemary.

Pictures to follow!

The Garden

By Dani, on June 1st, 2010

The garden is coming along quite nicely!

After some long hours of work from The Commune crew we have all four of the 4′x30′ beds in!

The trellis bed of 3′x45′ has been somewhat leveled and is ready to have the hand labor started to get it in place.

The truly great thing about my father….well one of the many now that I think about it (love ya dad!)…..is that he has giant piles of what most people call….junk. Everywhere.

And about half the time I am disgusted by it. The other half of the time I find it to be pure genius.

Like when we needed a hospital bed last week…yeah thats right…he had one.

And edging for these raised beds….yeah he has a saw mill. A SAW MILL!?!?! And a whole bunch of logs he milled into perfect beams that sat in the field for years, unloved and unhappy. Now they are loved.

Today I needed trellis netting and deer fencing. And he just so happened to have not one, or two but FOUR rolls of 4′ by 225′ of this hemp roll of root ball netting that just so happens to be perfect for me.

Not that I exactly need 900 feet of it….but beggers can’t be choosers right?! And who knows what other ideas I may come up to use it for.

Testing the baby

By Dani, on May 31st, 2010

category that is……at the moment my only child is around 40lbs, likes to run away, jump in dirty ponds and is sleeping on the tile floor.

I about had a heart attack

By Dani, on May 6th, 2010

I have had a wonderful day of learning so much about PHP and CSS languages today and have made good progress towards the final format I would like this blog to be in.

I was editing away on the code trying to put widgets on my 404 page (the one you see when you get lost in someones website or directed to by an outdated link), no big deal right?

I had a copy of the php code I had just removed and was happily playing with it while I listened to Kevin read The Epicenter (our newest novel).

Then it happened.

It broke.

And I don’t mean a little broke. I’m talking big broke, heart pounding, palms sweating, fear rising broke.

I poked it. Prodded it. Tried desperately just to have it take the old code back.

Nada. Not happening here chickita.

Then I got angry….really angry. I stood up in a huff, cutting Kevin off mid paragraph and announced that it was time for dinner. I ripped a piece of bread off the loaf I just baked and angrily munched on it.

Which then threw Kevin into a huff, who then tried to peel an egg I just boiled that were too fresh to peel easily. He then opened a drawer in a huff, pulled out a knife and slammed it shut again.

He cut himself a piece of bread and stomped off into the back of the house.

(Let it be known that when we don’t know what to do with our frustrations ripping hunks of bread off the loaf is good therapy. )

More…

Cheesecake Recipe

By Dani, on May 3rd, 2010

This is my favorite cheesecake recipe….but due to how expensive it is to buy all the cream cheese and how much I don’t need a cheesecake floating around my thighs refrigerator, I have only made this recipe once.

It was a beautiful glorious sight to behold.

You’ll have to imagine it with me ’cause I have no pictures to speak of….yet.

Here you go:

White dessert plate decorated with chocolate sauce. Gingersnap crust topped with creamy, white, dense, sweet cheesecake. Dollop of homemade whipped cream. Tart, winter blackberries gracing the top and sides.

Or you could just imagine heaven. It would be equivelent.

Without further ado, the recipe:

Gingersnap Cheesecake

Crust:

6 tbsp butter, melted

1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies

1/4 cup sugar

Put crushed gingersnap cookies in mixing bowl. Add sugar.

Add melted butter.

Stir or blend together with your hands.

Press into the pie plate or springform pan (if you want crust only on bottom make sure to grease sides of pan)

Pre-bake the crust for 8-10 min in a preheated 350 degree oven.

Filling:

4 or 5 8-oz packages cream cheese

1 3/4 cups sugar

3 tb flour

1 1/2 tsp grated orange rind

1 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind

1/2 tsp vanilla

5 eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 550 degrees. (Yes, that’s correct!) Put a pot of hot water on to boil.

Place cream cheese in large mixing bowl. Beat at low speed until packets are combined well.

Add sugar gradually, beat 2-3 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients in order listed. (Add eggs one at a time)

When smooth, pour into precooked crust pan.

Place in pre-heated oven. Add a container (pie pan or whatever shallow pan that is oven safe) of boiling water into the oven.

Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 200 degrees. Cook for 50 minutes. DO NOT PEEK AT IT!

Turn oven off and leave cheesecake in oven (door closed) for thirty minutes.

Open oven door and let cool an additional thirty minutes in oven.

Finally, pull out and cool until room temperature (could take several hours) and then put in refrigerator for as long as possible (overnight is best).

Note: If your kitchen is warm go ahead and pull cheesecake out to counter and let cool. If it’s on the chiller side open the oven door and sit it on the oven door (just dont let your kids/pets/husband’s touch it) and let it cool in there. The idea here is to SLOWLY cool the cake, otherwise it will crack in the middle.

Top with homemade whipped cream, chocolate sauce, or berries. Or if you are like me and believe that if you’re going to eat dessert it might as well taste excessively delicious use all three

Cheers!