Oat and Date bars

I like making brownies and bars. You bake them in a foil sling in an 8x8 or a 9x9 square pan. But I hate cutting them. This oat and date bar is no exception. It's impossible to cut without mashing the different layers and getting crumbs all over the place. I always wonder how the bakeries cut them so neatly. However these mashed-up bars are no less tasty.
I followed a recipe from Serious Eats. It's one of my main sources of recipes these days. ATK is my cooking bible. We have both the ATK cooking and baking books. The executive editor at Serious Eats, Kenji Alt, also used to work at ATK. So anyway, it's a simple recipe, see link above. I had to cut out the sugar called for the dates filling. I also cut down sugar in the oats layers by about half. The finished bars were still quite sweet for my taste. So if you're trying this, be sure to adjust the sugar level.

Ranunculus

It's not the best name for a flower, but ranunculus is one of my favorite flowers. Its other name, buttercup, is so much more appropriate. Trader Joe's selling these for $3.99 per bunch. I couldn't help wanting one.
It's currently perching on our dinning table, just what we need to lighten up a raining day in Portland.

Sweet potatoes vs. yam

I bought two kinds of sweet potatoes (yams) yesterday. I never knew the difference between the two names. But these two kinds of tubers are very different. One has red skin and cream yellow flesh, while the other beige-y skin and starchy deep purple flesh. They both look very different from super market sweet potatoes most of us have seen. I baked them in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes. They look so pretty.

I knew that there were more varieties of yams out there that I have or have not encountered before. I've always just grouped them under the big umbrella of sweet potatoes or yams, even though I knew they were very different. So I went online and was determined to find out more about these tubers.
Here's an article from Chef Zoe Francois. She apparently had the same confusion and she did all the leg work so I don't have to. Here's her article on Sweet Potatoes vs. Yams. Thanks to her, I learned that what I just ate were Garnet yam and Purple yam. And the ones I got from Trader Joe's were Jewel yams, which are smaller but ultra moist and sweet.
She also has a couple yam recipes there, like Pots de Creme with yams, that I'd like to try someday.

A new lamp in the house

Our new place needed lights over the dinning area. I found a pendant lamp from CB2 that's less than $50. I always wanted a pendant lamp over the dinning table. It just seems so cozy. This lamp is very simple, which is perfect. Jose did a wonderful job installing it with a common canope kit from home depot. He installed it just in time for our Friday pizza party. It was beautiful.

Happy first birthday in Portland, Jose

I want to make a cake for Jose's birthday, which gave me an excuse to use the bundt pan that Dad got me for Xmas. One thing about bundt cake is that it looks so pretty and impressive. So here it is.

I under baked the cake by a few minutes to make sure the inside is sufficiently moist and fudgy

Gruner PDX

Last night I took Jose out for his birthday, though his birthday is today. Friends had recommended Gruner, a restaurant that serves mostly northern European cuisine with Pacific Northwest influence. It's a very modern looking restaurant inside and out. There are quite a few restaurants like this through out Portland with clean modern lines and material combinations. We had a reservation, which turn out to be a good idea for 6:30pm on Saturday night.
I studied the menu online before hand and kinda knew what we wanted. We were both hungry so we ordered two appetizers and two entrees. One appetizer, beet and ricotta dumplings, was both attractive and tasty. The other one, swabian ravioli, was less good in comparison, but not bad.

Beet and ricotta dumplings; so soft and tasty

The entrees are very impressive. The choucroute garnie - bratwurst, saucisson, cider braised pork belly, house-cured pork tenderloin, sauerkraut, sweet mustard with yukon gold potatoes. It's a lot of meat. Pork tenderloin was cooked just right. The pork belly was very well seasoned and tender. The mustard that came on the side was strong but finished on a sweet note. So very good. But not as good as my entree, buckwheat spätzle with braised rabbit, shiitake & black trumpet mushrooms. This spätzle is insanely good. It's much smaller portion compared to the other dish. But every bite in this dish counts. The rabbit meat is sweet, the buckwheat spätzle was nicely textured and full of flavor. I wish I knew how to make this dish. =)

Brats, pork and more pork

spätzle with rabbit and mushroom

The check poking out from inside a book, though I don't know if they expect you to read the book while waiting for them to pick up the card, or the significance of the book selection. Either way it's a very Portland thing to do.

Portland famer's market

There are farmer's markets in Portland that run all year around, thanks to the relatively mild weather. But it has been rainy and wet the past few weekends. Today's the first time we see blue sky and blinding sun light. We took the street car down to PSU farmer's market to check it out. This is the first farmer market I have visited in Portland. It's much bigger than anything I've seen in Chicago. It's got everything, fresh farm greens, produce and fruits, meats and fish, lots of cheese, honey, lots of bakery vendors. There are also quite a lot of food vendors selling freshly prepared lunch fair.

We walked by a crepe place "C'est Si Bon", and thought of our friends back in Chicago who make fabulous crepes. So here are a few photos for you, Mandy and Marko and little Petra. Hope you're doing well.

C'est Si Bon has both savory and sweet crepes and they use different crepe batter for savory and sweet application

Pine State Biscuits has a booth here too. I guess they started their business at farmer's markets. For people outside of Portland, this is a place that serves nothing but darn good biscuits. They would top them with gravy, serve them with eggs, buttermilk fried chicken, sausage and bacon. They were out of friend chicken and eggs when we got there. We bought a plain biscuit to go instead. It's warm, light and buttery. We have to make it to their restaurant one of these days, which I heard it's always packed.

Pine State Biscuits

gnocchi from scratch

I've tried store bought gnocchi and it wasn't very good. They are just bland dense doughs that don't soak up much of the sauce. Now that I have some extra time on hand, this would be a good time to try making gnocchi from scratch.
I found a recipe on Serious Eats. Recipe here. It took a little less than 2 hours from beginning to food on the table. But the result was amazing. Now I just wish I made more so there's leftovers.
It's not something I would make regularly. But for special occasions, it's worth every bit of effort.

the dough is made from mixing cooked potato flesh, eggs and flour; the less flour you use the more tender the dumplings. I don't have a potato ricer. So I just roughly chopped the cooked potatoes with my dough scraper

Once the dough is smooth, roll into a ball and divide into fours

shape each portion into a long rope

cut into small pillows

work with one pillow at a time, roll on the back of a fork to create ridges on one side and a finger dimple on the other

the finished gnocchi would have a dimple on one side, which traps and holds sauce

For the sauce I used a roasted red pepper pesto that I made a couple days ago. The dish came together in less than 10 minutes after all the gnocchi were shaped

The gnocchi was so soft and tender and had a hint of sweetness from the potatoes. It soaked up so much sauce from both the tender flesh and the dimple shape. Because I didn't rice the potatoes, every now and then you get some small chucks of potatoes under your teeth when you bite into it. It's sooooooo good.

Mt. Tabor city park

There are so many city parks within Portland city limit. Mt. Tabor park is probably the biggest one. After consuming a number of cinnamon rolls, we went out for a hike in the park. Forecast said it was supposed to be sunny. It's cold and gloomy out. 
We parked our car and started walking around. There are lots of bikers and runners and people walking their dogs. It's very damp this time of the year, actually 8 months out of a year. Trees are covered with moss and lichens. The sun is no where to be seen. The fogginess renders this place almost a fairy land. But the wetness also chills you to the bone.

There are picnic tables scattered around the park. This would be a great place to bring family out for a picnic in the summer.

Wake up to freshly-made cinnamon rolls

A little extra work the night before is all it takes to wake up to the smell of cinnamon rolls Sunday morning. And you get to eat it too.
I made the dough the night before, formed them into individual rolls and let them rise in a warm place overnight. Sunday morning I jumped out of bed at 7:30am, turned on the oven to 350 and bake them for 25min. It's so good.

After rising in a warm place overnight, the rolls are snugging up with one another

The inside texture is so soft, while the top is slightly crispy

 You can find this recipe at America's Test Kitchen.

Friday night pizza

We made some pizza doughs at the beginning of the week, but didn't get a chance to use it till Friday. The dough has been sitting in the fridge all this time and has collapsed a bit and lost some of the volume.

Instead of round pizza, I was inspired by our friend J&L and stretched the doughs into rectangles roughly 10x16in. I was going to top one pizza with ricotta cheese but realized that I bought cottage cheese instead. I don't think cottage cheese works well on pizzas. So I had to borrow half of goat cheese from the other pizza.

After a thin layer of goat cheese mixture (goat cheese, olive oil, salt and fresh thyme), one pizza was topped with sliced zucchini and the other with sautéd crimini mushroom, then finally a layer of grated parm.

Bake both in a 500 degree oven for 9-10min, rotating half way through, and voila!

Last night with J&L

Our dear friends J&L are on their way to Toronto for the next chapter of their life. Since we started looking into the possibility of moving to Portland, J&L have been a constant source of all things Portland. We are both very sad to see them go, but excited for them at the same time.
On their last night here in town, we went out with them for dinner and a drink. We discovered yet another cool place we'd go back in the years to come, a Mexican taqueria "Por Que No". All tacos are $0.50 off on Tuesdays. It's a tiny but crowded place.

J&L

The food is on the spicy side for me, but then again it's Mexican food. The tacos are delicious. I ordered 3 tacos, one shrimp, one calamari and one breaded cod. My nose was running like a leaky faucet while eating the calamari taco. That's why my body reacts to spicy food. But it's so good that I couldn't stop eating it. The shrimp was very good too. Cod on the other hand was overly salty. The food reminded me of a Mexican place in Chicago called De Cero, but with different ambiance.

After tacos we stopped by Thirsty Lions to meet their friends. There was also a song-writing contest going on at the bar. It was the finale. J&L's friend Sean was competing as one of the final seven.

Sean performing his songs at Thirsty Lions.

 We left shortly after Sean performed. But we made sure to cast our vote for Sean before we left. It was so fun hanging out with the two and their friends. We wish they could stay, but we know there are a lot more excitement north of the border. We will miss you both.