Brunch for a crowd

I had invited a few east side coworkers over for brunch. I've been cooking up a storm the day before. Two kinds of strata, chard/Gruyere and mushroom/onion/Monterey Jack. Pan roasted red potatoes with thyme. Pan seared pork and chicken sausages. And of course, my famous cinnamon cardamom buns with cream cheese icing.

Gerard is taking a huge bite of the cinnamon bun.

First real snow in Portland

The big storm that swept the entire Northwest is finally over and we're back to the constant drizzle and gray sky.
On the night of my birthday last week, we looked out of the window and saw a familiar scene on the street. Everything was covered in a fluffy white coat and glistening in the light of street lamps. It brought me nostalgia of the windy city.

But because this is Portland, everything turned slushy the next morning as the temperature rose. That didn't stop me from attacking Jose with a couple wet snowballs when he was shoveling in front of the house. I felt like a little kid again (though it's not a rare occurrence).

Happy 2012!!!

For the first blog of the new year, I decided to recap some of the yummy homemade stuff we've eaten in the last week of 2011. There was oven fried calamari, minestrone with shredded chicken, potato stuffed pastry top with an egg, tender duck legs, cinnamon buns, dark chocolate haystack bars and wait for it... pumpkin cheesecake.

Oh, yeah, we said we were going on a diet coming back from India to recover from the rich food we ate there. Oh well... Happy 2012, everyone!!!

Trip to India

We try to do a big trip once a year to somewhere exotic and far away. This year we were invited to a friend's family wedding in New Delhi, India. I don't know about you. But on our list of exotic places to go, India is way up there. I had always been intimidated by traveling to India. This would have been the best time to go since we'd have friends guide us around and the rare opportunity to attend a traditional India wedding.

We spent less than 10 days there, but it was everything we had pictured and much much more. Can you imagine a 5-day wedding, where two families from different parts of India came together and combined all the rituals into one 5-day celebration? Everyday it was bursting with vibrant colors from decoration to saree to food.

And the food was every bit as delicious as we wished for. We got to sample cuisines from various parts of India as well, because the hosts wanted to cater to guests traveling from all over the country. The daily, or more accurately 3 times a day, chai ritual embodies the spirit of calm and peace. Though we couldn't get used to having housemaid serve us food and drinks all the time. We found ourselves constantly thanking and nodding to the servants.

And then there's the famous Taj Mahal and other tombs and forts built by various kings and emperors of the past. They are impressive to look at from a distance, but even more breath-taking at close-up. Every single piece of decorative pattern was hand-made and manually embedded in the walls, each with intricate detail. There were no plain flat surfaces anywhere except for the ground. Every wall is covered with patterns that were either carved out or embedded in.

I thought the most interesting side of India was what you see out on the streets, outside of well-groomed heritage sites and outside of homes of upper-middle class. In the western media you only hear about the double-digit growth of countries like India and China and about how the cream of the crop lives and spends. You don't hear or see this other side of India where people still live in vast poverty. It makes us feel so lucky and grateful for what we have.

To see more photos of India, go here, here and here.

Moon-sized Calzone

We had some home-made pizza dough left in our fridge after a pizza party. Jose's been hinting at me that calzones would make him very happy. So I looked through the fridge for things to fill the calzone with, left over chicken sausage, half tub of ricotta cheese, a bunch of rainbow chard and some mushrooms.

Once the veggies been sauted separately, just roll out the dough and start layer things on half of the dough.

Fold the other half of the dough over and seal along the edges, brush the outside with egg wash and cut a few slits for venting.

Pop it in the oven at 350 for 30min or so and voilà, you have yourself a fulfilling dinner.

First time hosting friends at our new house

Sorry for not posting for a while. Lots has happened in the last two or three months. First and foremost, we have just moved to a new house a week ago. We've spent last week unpacking and putting things away.

Ceci brought a couple friends from Germany over for dinner. This is the first time we put our new dinning space to use for entertaining. Not much to write about the food. But we had a great time chatting with this couple who've been traveling around north America for the past few months and who will continue their year-long trip after a few days in Portland. Their stories are very inspiring.

Fishing on Columbia River

Three of us went on a guided fishing trip, originally purchased for four people.

The toughest parts were
(1) getting up at 2:30am to prep for the trip to make sure we get to the river by 6am
(2) hold the pee for 8 hours straight while we were on the river
(3) letting go 7 fish (2 wild coho salmon, 4 chinook salmon and 1 taken by a sea lion, no joke).

The best part was taking home three 20-lb coho salmon and having the freshest steamed fish heads for dinner that night. Yes, fish heads, arguably the best part of a fish. You ought not to make faces until you've tried it. =)

For photos of the entire trip on Picasa, click here.

Flipping a zucchini pancake

This was the most successful one among the four I attempted.

Peach crumble

I bought 10lbs of peaches and nectarines from Saturday farmers market over the weekend. I had to think of a way to use them all up before they go had.

A simple peach crumble would do. The extra topping is always a treat.

Clyde Common

Finally we made it to Clyde Common, one of the very best restaurants in Portland and one of the very Portland restaurants.

The main space on the first floor offers communal seating only. Upstairs is where you can find a few private tables. We were taking a friend from out of town there, so we went upstairs. That also gave us a view of the entire space including the open kitchen.

The menu is seasonal. But certain popular items stay on the menu for a long time. Someone had recommended "prosciutto wrapped trout" a few months back and it's available still. We got that, along with a pasta dish (tagliatelle with tomatoes, onion, basil and orange) and a duck dish.

the pasta to die for

The trout was amazing. It came with a sunny side egg on top and creamy chanterelle sauce. The fish is stuffed with some sort of green, parsley perhaps. It tasted as good as it looked. The prosciutto was crispy on the outside, contrasting the tender flesh of the fish. This whole thing could only be topped by the pasta dish our guest ordered. Don't let the simple description fool you. This tagliatelle packs so much flavor that I could not believe that there were only five ingredient in it. I would go back to Clyde Common any day just for the pasta.

The duck dish was good, but not overwhelmingly impressive like the other two.

I might have gotten ahead of myself a bit. Before all the entrees, we were served some house-made focaccia with olive oil. This is another thing that would keep me coming back. This place knows how to make carbs right. The two appetizers we got were pretty good. The simple tomato salad was better than the sweetbread.

Okay let's recap. Everything was at least good. More than half of the food we had tonight was amazing. I'm not sure I've ever said that about any other restaurant. The portion was only reasonable. What more could you ask?

Hiking Mt. St. Helen

Just an hour drive from where we camped, we arrived at the first Mt. St. Helen lookout. Even before the lookout, the destructive event and aftermath from St. Helen eruption 30+ years ago was hard to miss. You are looking at mother nature still trying to recover 30 years after every bit of life was wiped out in hundreds of thousands of square miles. It gave me chills. What brightens up the lifeless is the blooming wild flowers, creating such contrast.

Kept on driving towards Windy Ridge, a visitor's center and a head of Windy Ridge hiking trail, we saw clouds obstructing the view of the famous St. Helen. Parked at the visitor's parking lot, we started to hike up. Half way through the hike, you get a better view of the clear side of the Spirit Lake. I say clear side, because the other side is till this day covered in layers of dead burnt timbers from the blast.

life among the dead

Another 10 min up the hill, the trail makes a right turn and reveals our first full view of Mt. St. Helen. You would notice the left side of the mountain is still snow-covered, while the right side (the blasted side) has a giant crater in the middle of it.

After Windy Ridge, we made our way back to the car and drove to Harmony trail, which would lead us all the way down to the Spirit Lake to see the dead trees floating on the water. The first half of the trail was surrounded by lush growth of bushes and young trees that provided much needed shade. Once you descent to the valley floor, there's barely any shade. All you see if wild flowers among dead trees on either side of a sandy trail.

The view of the dead trees covered half of the lake takes your breath away. So does getting down to the water. We jumped from parched logs to parched logs. The water is crystal clear.

First camping trip ever

There's been a lot of expectations around my first camping trip. Friends were curious how I like it. So was I. To ease into it, we decided to do one overnight camping followed by hiking in Mt. St. Helen.
Lenka and Chris suggested a camp ground, Iron Creek, about 1hr northeast of St. Helen.

The camp ground was full by the time we got there around 5:30pm on a Friday. Not wanting to go home empty handed, we drove around to see if there were other camp grounds nearby with availability. Luckily we found a private one by Tower Rock, just 15min down the road from Iron Creek. It's run by an elderly couple on a few acres of open land with small fish ponds. There were flush toilets and fishing equipment rental. We were sold immediately.

our camp spot with a picnic table and a fire ring

a small pond behind our camp spot

fish pond in camp ground

First off, setting up tents. It's pass 7pm now, time for dinner. Chris bought a brand new two burner stove that runs on propane. We have chicken wrap and shrimp/veggie saute on the menu. I had everything pre-washed, cut and seasoned. It's just a matter of warming up everything and assembling together. It took about 45 min for dinner to be ready. Food was excellent, even more so when you ate under the darkening cloudy starless evening sky.

chicken wrap

By the time plates were empty, it was too dark to do dishes. We packed up the dirty dishes and got ready to set up a camp fire. 8 bucks got us a wheel barrel full of fire wood, more than what we could use. I just sat and watched Chris and Jose building a fire, and snapped some really cool photos of the crackling flame. The night fall also brought frog songs, the classic sound of the country side.

building a fire

the crackling fire would send sparks into the air like fireworks

Not sure how many hours had passed before we decided to call it a night and went to our tents. It's so dark out here without any lights. Part of the appeal I guess. The frogs' singing was still going strong. I had never been inside a tent before. It's roomier than it looks on the outside. I had borrowed Jose's old fleece sleeping bag, hoping it would be warm enough for the night.

It wasn't.

take a peek inside the tent

Next morning I woke up with frozen toes at 5:30am. It was still quiet outside with occasional bird chipping in the trees. The rain fly over the tent kept us and our shoes dry. After a quick freshening up, we started preparing breakfast. Chris was the chef this time, while Lenka pulled out a banana bread she made ahead of time. We cook water for tea and cocoa to take the chill out of our body.

breakfast sausage, potato wedges and eggs

Lenka's yummy banana bread

After breakfast and dish washing, we planned out what we would go to hike, packed up our stuff, paid the camp owner and drove off to Mt. St. Helen.

I can see myself doing this again. I was skeptical before, but I think I can handle this, as long as there are flush toilets. =)