Keeping to the spirit of a blooming spring

I took inspiration from a photo of a butternut squash tart I saw on the web. The tart took slices of butternut squash and arranged it to look like a blooming flower. It looked real pretty. So I decided to make my apple tarts that way. Here's the result. It tastes as good as it looks. =)

Taking a spring walk in the hood...

It's a rear thing to have both Saturday and Sunday relatively dry and occasionally sunny this time of the year in Portland. We took a walk to the west of Pearl district around Nob Hill, aka NW 23rd.
The sun really helped to paint the picture of spring in the city. The air is slightly cool and brisk. Everything is blooming.

We love looking at houses in the area. It's definitely different architecturally from Chicago. Most houses are made of wood. Given that it rains here 8 months out of a year, it puzzles me. Brick houses is the dominate Chicago style. Nob hill area is about split between houses and apartment buildings, some old some new, whereas Pearl is mostly higher rise new construction apartment buildings. I like looking at these houses as we might be thinking about moving to this area in the future.

Houses with wood sidings is the most common style. Somewhat traditional for me, but charming in its own way

Occasionally you come across some brick houses. All the roof tops are slanted given the amount of rain it gets here.

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