Visit to Glenn and Carolyn's in Tacoma

As we did last winter, Carla, her sisters and I went up to Tacoma to visit their brother Glenn and his wife Carolyn. We had an extra bonus this year when Jim, Starr's husband, decided to join us. He has roots in Washington and wanted to explore Vashon Island. He is interested in finding his grandparents grave sites so he can add his parents' ashes to the family site.

We took the three hour drive from Portland to Tacoma on Saturday morning December 28.

Vashon Island; just north of Tacoma

When we arrived, Glenn and Carolyn had the fire going, with their mild tempered dog, Daisy, in her spot.

Daisy sitting in front of the fire.

Glenn, Carla, and Linda in the kitchen

 They had a nice evening planned for us; family friends Tomoka and Sumit, who live about an hour way in the Seattle area came to dinner as did Glenn and Carolyn's delightful neighbors Linda and Michael. Carolyn fixed a delicious Mexican food dinner; for dessert we had some of Carolyn's Christmas cookies and Jim's chocolate chip cookies. Carolyn is a master of design; she makes beautiful decorations of wreaths and holly leaves on the cookie icing. They are almost too pretty to eat; notice I said almost.

Linda, Tomoka, Sumit, Linda and Michael

After a fun evening filled with margaritas, wine, and conversation we headed down the hill to the Silver Cloud Inn to get some sleep.

When we woke up Sunday morning there was a misty fog covering Puget Sound; Carla and I headed out for a brief walk before breakfast.

Silver Cloud Inn of Tacoma; our room was on the 3rd floor at the far left end.

Posts from a long-abandoned pier.

A sea bird stretching its wings

 After a walk we enjoyed a nice breakfast. Carla and I are veterans of hotel breakfasts; this was pretty good compared with other morning fare we've had.

Carla catching up with the news over coffee.

One of the things I like about the  Silver Cloud Inn is the BNSF mainline between Seattle and Portland runs right across the street. On the way to  Glenn's we caught an idling consist of Union Pacific locomotives waiting for the way to clear.

UP locomotives waiting for traffic to clear.

It's a short 10-15 minute drive from Glenn and Carolyn's place to the ferry terminal to make our way to Vashon island. We parked on the lower deck and headed upstairs for a look at the view.

Jim watching the coast slip away in the fog as we depart Tacoma

Carla, Starr, and Linda huddling together for some warmth on the upper deck.

 Once we hit Vashon island we took the western road up the island and cut across where Jim and Starr had identified a cemetery. We didn't drop in since there were not caretakers there on a Sunday. This was just a reconnaissance mission; they will return later to visit this and other cemeteries to find the ancestral spots.

We then headed towards town and perused the shops.

Treasure Island where we saw some interesting things

A vintage Peugeot scooter outside of Treasure Island. 

Scary snake mask at Treasure Island; I wonder what the nose used to look like.

By now it was getting on towards noon and we looked for a place to eat. December is definitely off season here and most places were closed for the winter.

What a character looking out at us.

Close-up of Perry's Vashon Burgers mascot.

 We ended up having a cup of clam chowder at Zombies. They serve the chowder in paper coffee cups in case you need to depart quickly to avert zombies.

On the ferry ride back to Tacoma we saw birds resting on anything that rose above the water's surface.

Birds making themselves at home on some old pier posts.

A bird stretching its wings on a Puget Sound buoy

Tacoma comes into view

We made our way back to the freeway and headed home. It was a great weekend.

Rotisserie Chicken and Acorn Squash

A big arctic cold front hit the country last week and it was really cold in Portland; our lowest overnight temperature at the house was 10 degrees and highs in the 20s. I'm sure places like the Dakotas and Chicago deal with this cold for longer stretches but for us it was a significant event. Finally on Thursday the weather started to turn and we got our normal December mid-40s and light rain.

Friday the forecast called for an end to the showers and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to make a rotisserie chicken.

I did a dry brine on the chicken by sprinkling some kosher salt on it, in the cavity and under the skin on the breasts. Ideally, I'd let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, but 4 hours would have to do today. You can find my recipe here.

A chicken on the rotisserie last summer.

Chicken hot off the Weber rotisserie.

 A couple of weeks ago I ran across a recipe for acorn squash in a pressure cooker from Dad Cooks Dinner.  So dinner was set! I halved two acorn squashes and scooped out the seeds. Then sprinkled some salt and baking soda, put in a basket and into the pressure cooker with a scant 1 cup water. I cooked under high pressure for 20 minutes; it might have been a bit much as they pretty much came apart in the pot.

Cook the squash under high pressure for 20 minutes

Then scoop the squash out of the skins and mix with butter, brown sugar and nutmeg.

Ready for mashing with butter, brown sugar and nutmeg

Mashed and ready to serve

Dinner is served

It was a nice dinner; better tasting and better for us than the pizza I was thinking about ordering.

Colorado Green Chili, Beans and Rice

I've been working my way through a number of pork chili recipes, both green and red. I ran across a recipe in Cook's Country that looked interesting. It has a can of diced tomatoes in it so I figured it wouldn't be totally green; more like Christmas: green with hints of red. If I'm making Mexican food, I figure I might as well make some beans and Spanish rice as well.

You can see the Cook's Country recipe from October/November 2013 here or my version here.

I bought a 3½ pound boneless pork butt hoping to get 3 pounds of meat; I ended up with only 2½ pounds.

The line up; 2 pounds of chiles, a 3+ pound pork butt and home made chicken stock are the stars

 The pork is cubed, the onion chopped, garlic pressed, and chiles stemmed, cut in half lengthwise and seeded. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of Anaheim chiles; I cleaned out New Seasons and didn't have enough so I added a couple of Poblanos to get the quantity I needed. Chiles go under the broiler for 15-20 minutes then sealed in a glass bowl for a few minutes before peeling.

Ingredients ready to be put together 

While the chiles broil, I cooked the pork in a little bit of water, then sautéd it after the water was gone. Meanwhile, chop ½ the chiles into small pieces and spin the other half and tomatoes in the food processor. Finally, take out the  pork and sauté the onions before adding everything back into the pot. Bring to a simmer and put in a 325° oven for an hour.

After a long simmer in the oven; notice how much the liquid has reduced. 

As you can see, this is a red and green chili; not a green chili.

While the chili is simmering it's time to turn our attention to Spanish rice. I recently bought a new Zojirushi rice cooker and have been looking for ways to use it.  I found a recipe on Simply Recipes that served as a starting point. But I totally went rogue; my take on it is here. I

Sauté some long grain rice and onion in some olive oil.

Sauté the rice

Add the garlic, then everything else and transfer to the rice cooker. Use a combination of chicken stock and water. n my research I discovered that Rotel tomatoes and diced chiles is the favorite brand for Spanish rice; I found some at Fred Meyer; it's interesting that the cans are 10 ounces rather than the typical 15.5 ounces. I used a can and a half; I probably could have used 2.

Ready to eat

I also made some pinto beans in the pressure cooker. You can read my latest blog entry on them here or look at my recipe here.


Dinner is served.

Dinner is served

We had the Watsons and Elaine over for dinner so we had to have dessert; Carla picked up a Marionberry pie at New Seasons.

Marionberry pie; whipped cream left over from Thanksgiving.

The chili and rice were total experiments; it looked good in Cook's Country magazine but it turned out rather bland. I rate it at 3 stars and will go back trying to finding a great red pork recipe that will take me back to the days of having pork and bean burritos at Bob Newlon's house growing up. The rice was good; I'll build off that recipe in the future.

Let me know what you think; I love comments.

Spaghetti with Quick Mushroom Ragu

When I was young we'd have Ragu sauce from a jar poured over spaghetti. If we were really living it up we'd brown some hamburger to simmer with it. For that reason when I see a recipe with the word "Ragu" I'm understandably skeptical. Ragu really refers to a long simmered sauce; meat sauces may need to cook for a couple of hours; mushrooms cook quite a bit faster - about 30-40 minutes total.

Likewise I've also evolved in my thinking on what spaghetti looks like. Many Italian restaurants (see Spaghetti Warehouse) serves a plate of noodles covered with a thick blanket of sauce. Now I'm not saying that isn't good spaghetti; I'm just saying that's not what all spaghetti looks like.

If you can put aside those misconceptions, you'll love this dish. I've given it the coveted 5 stars.

As I was cleaning out my DVR I ran across a show with a couple of spaghetti recipes from America's Test Kitchen. One recipe was for Pasta All'Amatriciana which I hope to make in the future.  Maybe because Carla and I have seen a lot of mushrooms on our walks this fall, this recipe for mushrooms and tomatoes caught my attention. You can find my recipe here.

A mushroom doubling as a miniature bird bath. (We did NOT use these in the recipe)

The ingredient list is fairly simple and no fancy techniques are required. Four ounces of pancetta, a couple of large portabello mushrooms; one ounce of porcini mushrooms steeped in chicken broth, garlic, rosemary, olive oil, a small can of diced tomatoes and a bit of tomato paste are all that's required. Top it with some grated pecorino romano cheese.

Simple list of ingredients; live oil aren't shown. Mushrooms in the bowl are steeping in chicken broth.

Pancetta is browned; other recipes are staged for cooking

After browning the pancetta, add the olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, rosemary andmushrooms and sauté for about 7 minutes until the mushrooms have given up their liquid

Sweat/sauté the first set of ingredients.

Add the tomatoes and reserved mushroom/chicken broth and simmer another 15-20 minutes; towards the end of that time get your spaghetti noodles going.

All the ingredients simmering to develop some depth.

 Boil the spaghetti in salted water; reserve a cup of the water before draining. Then put the spaghetti, sauce, and some of the reserved water back in the now empty noodle pot. Toss and serve. Notice that this is not an over-tomatoed wet sauce covering a plate of noodles.

Dinner is served.

This is a terrific, rich dish. My biggest suggestion is don't use industrial Parmesan cheese; the Pecorino Romano this recipe calls for is rich, salty, and slightly nutty. It really finishes this dish nicely.

I'm not a creative chef but I have learned how to follow recipes. So when I say this is a fantastic recipe, I'm not bragging about my creative prowess; rather, I'm sharing my findings. If you want to impress a loved one or want a nice dinner for a group, try this.

Tom and Nancy, I think you'll be having some of this when you visit later this month; I have some pancetta left over.

Fall Colors

Most of the leaves are down; a few trees are holding on. On our walks yesterday and today Carla and I grabbed some pictures.

We found this mushroom turned into a miniature bird bath.

On the way home we pass Carla's favorite pair of trees. They are still holding onto their leaves.

Enchiladas, Beans and Rice

I've been trying to eat less red meat, a lot of my Fall and Winter recipes are stews, chili, and what-not. When Carla and I were talking yesterday we thought some Mexican food might be nice. We had a pretty busy weekend planned what with the beautiful weather we've been having and it being the boys birthdays. That meant no custom sauces; we'd see what we could whip up out of cans. Since I just bought a new rice cooker, Spanish (Mexican?) rice was a must.

Seven ingredients for the rice (eight if you count the water). I took the recipe from a vegan site called trans-planted.comTrans-planted.com. It's the blog of a woman who lives overseas and cooks her favorite foods abroad. I'm not vegan so I used some chicken broth along with the water. She most have a very large rice cooker so I adjusted amounts based on a jambalaya recipe I found on zojirushi.com That's the maker of my new rice cooker. My recipe can be found here.

Spanish rice ingredients. Cumin is in the ramekin. 

Seven ingredients for the pinto beans as well. I've continued to tweak this recipe for my pressure cooker; I used five cups of liquid (3 of chicken broth; 2 of water) and they were a bit wet. But thicken up on reheating. You can find my recipe here. If you don't have a pressure cooker, just cook on the stove in a Dutch oven and keep an eye on the liquid; you might have to add some boiling water after an hour or so.

Pinto bean recipe. Cumin and chili powder in the ramiken. 

 Only five ingredients for the enchiladas! I used 1 large and 1 medium can for 12 enchiladas. I went the easy route. I thought about making my own enchilada sauce, but canned is fine. I went for medium heat; of course you can go as hot as you want. I got the recipe from Rockin' Robin; she has a nice video of the process. My recipe is here. I'll tell you she was much neater than me when it comes to making these. It is helpful to have two people assemble these. One to fry the tortillas and dip them in the sauce and another person to build the enchiladas.

Enchilada makin's 

 Back in the 70's when I worked at the Idaho State Correctional Institution as a teacher, Carla and I went to my boss' house (Tom Lloyd) for Texas enchiladas. They were literally the hottest things I have ever eaten even to this day. Enchilada parties were also a big event in college and after. People would bring different items and we'd construct amazing tubes of awesomeness. Cheese, green olives, and chicken in flour tortillas were the basic ingredients.

Simple cooking but lots of burners. I got to use three burners plus the rice cooker!

Hot oil and enchilada sauce in the frying pans. Beans in the pressure cooker.

 Pour the remaining sauce over the enchiladas and put in a 400˚ oven for about 15 minutes.

Enchiladas ready to be served.

 I lucked out; all 3 dishes came out pretty close to one another.  I prepped everything before cooking anything. The rice took about an hour to cook so I started it; then started sautéing the salt pork for the beans. Once the beans were up to pressure we started making the enchiladas.

Spanish rice is ready.

 The rice was the weak link here; they were pretty bland. But they mixed perfectly with the beans. I'll do a little more research before cooking my next batch.

This was actually a pretty quick dinner. 1 hour 45 minutes from walking into the kitchen to having dinner on the table. And that includes stopping and taking pictures in the process.

Dinner is served

 The nice thing about this is we'll have plenty to eat all week.

Left overs. 1 container of beans to the freezer and 1 to the refrigerator.