dos hike-os

So, on my last post, where I wrote a list of things I'd like to do this summer, I figure I'll go back and cross things off of that list as I accomplish them.  Well, the only thing I've done so far off of the list is try two new hikes in the last week.  Unfortunately, since I wrote "try a new hike every week," I'm not really in a position to cross it off the list.  Bummer.  More than writing lists, I like crossing things off of them.

Lucky for you, I'm going to tell you about these hikes anyway.  The only hike Dan and I had done, prior to last week, was up Mount Battie.  While this is a pretty awesome hike (especially when you factor in the view from the top), it is rather steep and also rather short.  And, sometimes you just like to try something new.

So, on Tuesday, Dan and I did the Maiden's Cliff hike.  You can see the summit of Maiden's Cliff from Megunticook Lake, which is located in Camden.  At the summit, there is a big white cross which marks the place where a girl fell from the cliffs to her death in the 1860s.

This hike was pretty neat.   The view from the top was awesome and conveniently, we were right across the street from the lake when we got to the bottom, which allowed for a quick dip to cool off.  It only took us about 20-30 minutes to summit Maiden's Cliff and the trail itself is a mile long, so I was hoping that our next hike would take a bit longer.

Luckily for me, my friend Celeste and her boyfriend Erik arrived that night.  On Wednesday, they took us to hike up Mount Megunticook.  It took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, to summit it. When you're almost to the top, there's a great lookout point that overlooks Mount Battie and the harbor.  The summit itself is enclosed by trees, so the lookout is a pretty nice feature of the hike.

So far, so good on the hiking front.  Hopefully, I'll be able to convince Dan to try another, longish hike with me next week.  I think if I take him to the Camden Snowbowl (Camden's ski hill), I might be able to convince him to go. You'll just have to tune in next week to find out.

blueberry muffins and banana boy bait

It seems all I've been doing lately is laundry and baking.  I almost feel too domestic for my own good (not that I'm good at either of these things).  Oh, and I drive a volvo station wagon just to round out the picture. Next thing you know, I'll own a golden retriever.  Just kidding, but really only because I'm allergic.

Anyway, I have a couple more recipes I'd like to share with you.  The first is for some delicious blueberry muffins.

Stonewall Kitchen's Blueberry-Buttermilk Muffins

Vegetable oil spray for pans

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbs baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tsp unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp grated lemon zest

2 cups fresh blueberries or 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375.  Place rack in middle of oven.

Spray 18 muffin tins with vegetable oil spray. 

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

Beat 1 stick of butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each and scraping down the sides of the bowl.  Mix in the vanilla.

Add half of the dry ingredients and mix to combine.  Add the buttermilk and mix until smooth.  Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until blended.  Fold in lemon zest and blueberries.  

Fill muffin tins about 3/4 full and bake for 17 minutes. 

While muffins are baking, mix the remaining 2 tsp of butter and brown sugar until crumbly.  After the muffins have been in the oven for 17 minutes, take them out and put a scant teaspoon of the brown sugar/butter mixture on each one.  Put muffins back into the oven for about 3 more minutes, or until a toothpick will come out clean. 

The second recipe is actually called Banana Brunch Bars, but we have monikered it Banana Boy Bait as it was very reminiscent of Blueberry Boy Bait, and Dan says just as good.  So, I guess if you're trying to nab a boy who doesn't like blueberries, this might be the way to go.  The recipe comes from a cookbook that I bought in Hannibal, Missouri while driving across the country with my mom.  The cookbook is made by the high school students who have traveled all over the world with EF (the company I used to work for in Boston) and is sold as a fundraiser for their trips.  It includes recipes both from abroad and Missouri (think Devonshire Cream and green bean casserole).

Banana Boy Bait

For the Bars:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup shortening

1/3 cup milk

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 very ripe banana

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts

For the topping:

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup butter

Combine all of the ingredients for the bars.  Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes.  Spread into a 9 x 13 baking pan.

Topping: mix all ingredients until crumbly.  Sprinkle over cake.  

Bake at 350 for 30 to 35 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. 

general drew's chicken

After a week of being spoiled by Dan's parents, eating at delicious restaurants for almost every meal, it's no surprise that Dan and I were less than thrilled to go back to our regular meal of hot dogs and sauteed zucchini.  Not that there's anything wrong with these foods perse (although the health benefits of hot dogs are clearly debatable), but when you eat them for the majority of your meals every week, well, let's just say it gets kind of old.

So, when I asked Dan what he wanted to make for dinner the other night, his less-than-enthusiastic, "eh...I dunno..." didn't come as a surprise.  But suddenly he came up with an idea.  He wanted to make the version of General Tso's chicken that our friend Drew makes.  Drew lives in Vail, so Dan gave him a call to catch up and get the recipe.  Drew rattled off the recipe from memory. He makes a lot of it by feel, so he didn't always have exact measurements.  I think that that's the best way to cook (although, admittedly, I'm not good at cooking that way).

I debated whether or not to post the recipe here; I kind of feel like it's Drew's secret, special recipe. But since Drew is a sharer, I think he'd be pretty pleased that I'm sharing his delicious food with you all.  So, if you'd like to make yourself a slightly healthier version of Chinese takeout, here's how to make General Drew's Chicken:

Cut up the chicken (we did two chicken breasts, boneless, skinless) and marinate it in dry sherry (about a cup), soy sauce (about 1/3 of a cup) and a smashed clove of garlic.  We left it in there for about an hour, but I'm sure you could do slightly shorter or a longer period of time.  

Next bread the chicken in cornstarch and immediately fry it in vegetable or peanut oil.  When the chicken has a crispy crust, remove it from the oil.  

Leave some of the oil in the frying pan and add crushed red pepper and minced garlic to taste.  Let this simmer for a minute or so.  

Add 1/3 cup of corn syrup, 2 tbs soy sauce, 1 tbs vinegar, 1 tbs sugar, and a dash of ginger.  Let this simmer together for a bit and adjust seasonings to taste.  

Add chicken back into the sauce mixture.  Next time, we would double the sauce, because we like a lot of sauce, but that's up to you.  You can also add any vegetables you might like to include in your dish at this time.  Or, if you don't want any vegetables, don't add them. 

Here was our final product.  We served it with rice too.  Oh, and don't forget to sprinkle on the sesame seeds! That's the best part!

Thanks, Drew, for the awesome recipe and for helping us to break out of the hot dog/zucchini blues!

obsession: birds

I'm not sure where my obsession with birds came from.  But it's here and it's in full force.  If somebody were marketing directly to me, all they'd have to do is slap a bird onto their product and I'd want to buy it.   If that bird is an owl, well, even better. 

Just to give you an idea of my love for everything bird, here's a collage of a few of my bird finds from polyvore:

If you'd like to join me in my obsession and check out some of these items in more detail, you can click here.   For some reason, Polyvore doesn't let you add items from etsy, so here are some etsy faves:

Vintage 

modern

 

serene...

...and grumpy.

And of course, we can't forget the real deal. Just get a look at this guy!

Happy bird shopping! 

dan gets a haircut

Dan's hair was long.  Really long.  The whole week his parents were here they bugged him to get it cut.
 

When he shook his head, he kind of got that I'm-a-wannabe-vampire-from-Twilight kind of look.  Don't tell him I said that.  He'd probably kill me. And I'd probably deserve it.

Finally, after they left, he walked to the town barber shop to get it cut (yes, Eric's for those of you in the know, aka my mom).

 

It even prompted him to shave (well, the next day anyway).

When you've taken his picture too many times, Dan channels his inner 4 year old:

Geesh.

a recipe and a warning

To me, nothing says summer like strawberry-rhubarb pie.  I have been craving something strawberry-rhubarb every since the weather reached 70 degrees and I found a little rhubarb plant growing in the back yard.  So, I finally made something this week!  I ended up making a strawberry-rhubarb crisp, because I didn't want to deal with the pie crust and thought crisp might be more acceptable as breakfast food than pie is...not that I wouldn't eat pie for breakfast too...I mean seriously now. 

Okay to make this strawberry-rhubarb crisp, you must preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Then, you make the crumble topping with:

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3 tablespoons anise seed, coarsley chopped (this is what the recipe calls for....I put in about 1/8 tsp of cinnamon and 1/8 tsp of nutmeg)

The recipe calls for you to mix this using a food processor with a metal lade until large pea-sized chunks form.  I don't have a food processor, so I used a fork and my hands.

For the next step you'll need:

1 lb of rhubarb (about 3 cups)

1/2 quart of strawberries (about 2 cups)

juice of 1/2 lemon

zest of 1 lemon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

Trim the ends off of the rhubarb then cut it into 1-inch pieces.  Remove the stems from the strawberries and quarter them.  Gently mix the rhubarb and strawberry pieces with lemon juice, zest, vanilla and sugar.

Put the strawberry-rhubarb mixture into a 9-inch pie pan, then top with the crumble mixture.  Bake for 45 minutes or until fruit juices are bubbling.  

Of course, just as I'm feeling pretty impressed by myself, the whole thing bubbles over and covers the stove in burning sugar.  Now here's your warning: put this thing on a baking sheet before you put it in the oven so this doesn't happen to you!  Here's your next warning:  don't forget to clean out the stove and then try to roast beets at 450 degrees only to find smoke coming out of your burners 5 minutes later.  Sigh.  

Anywayyyyy....that's what it looks like out of the oven. Note the baking pan that I had to put underneath it on the counter, so it wouldn't create any more of a mess. If only I'd done that sooner.  

This is what I would recommend topping it with.  Yes, that's homemade whipped cream made with cream from a local farm stand.  It is oh so scrumptious. 

The final product.  Yum.  Even Dan likes it and he claims to not like rhubarb!  I will mark that as a victory in my book.  

Also, I actually used frozen strawberries.  Now, before you get mad at me for this, they are the ones that my mom picked for Dan and me in Cape Elizabeth.  We just had so many of them that there was no way we could eat them all at once without turning into strawberries ourselves.  So we froze about half of them.  Now, when the strawberries thawed, a lot of juice came out of them. 

And it seemed like such a shame to let all of this juice go to waste.  I was trying to think of what to do with it.  I thought about just drinking it like juice, but it was kind of bitter.  I remembered that I had some left over mint simple syrup I'd made when Dan's parents were here.  So I made two things:

First, I made myself a drink! I combined the strawberry juice with some mint simple syrup, vodka and seltzer water.  I put it in one of my favorite glasses and drank it from a straw just to make it feel extra special.  But guess what...it wasn't very good :(  I drank most of it anyway, because I really, really wanted to like it.

Then, I made my own attempt at Italian ice by combining the remaining strawberry juice with the remaining mint syrup and putting it in the freezer.  So fancy, I know.  I have yet to taste it...so we'll see how that goes.  Hopefully it's better than the drink!

summer colds are the worst

I'm on day 3 of a cold and I'm not enjoying it in the slightest (not that you ever would enjoy a cold). I thought my sore throat was going away yesterday, but it's only turned into a full on head cold today.  Sigh.

obsession: vases

I really like vases.  I think they make such a great addition to a room.  The fresh flowers that are usually in them don't hurt either...but even empty I think vases are great.  I've placed them all over the house and have a collection of them along the mantle in the kitchen.

These vases are empty most of the time.  I planted a garden so I could fill the vases, but I'm always too afraid that if I cut the flowers, none will grow in their place.  After much persuasion, my mom has finally convinced me otherwise.  Yesterday, I cut lots (okay, as many as I could stand) for my vases.  Here are the results:

These vases are often empty.

I impressed myself with how well these colors went with the print behind the vase.

Can you spot him?  That little guy came along for the ride.

This daisy matches the wallpaper.

From a different angle

Another color combination I like.

I love using other things as vases.  

And I love Smiling Hill Farm.  Especially their ice cream sundae bar.  Do they still have that?

The view from my kitchen window.

Again with the upside down view.  I like the light here.

Bright colors for a dreary day

The carnage. I h-a-t-e earwigs.  Sorry, but he had to go.  Hopefully, his friends wont try to follow him or I may be forced to become a mass murderer.