anthrogrrl’s Neighborhood

Before Halloween, we tried Lili's Ladybug costume on her and she totally loved it.  Here we are trying to get her to fly.

We picked the most lovely warm day to go to the Pumpkin Patch.  Lili had a fabulous time.  The Clydesdale horses kept going by to her great enjoyment, we rode the Tractor Choo-choo Train and then she got to ride a pony!  Her pony's name was Buddy.  We also got a mommy pumpkin, a daddy pumpkin and a little baby pumpkin.

Here's a little glimpse of some of our Halloween fun.

Liliana was a ladybug and she really, really loved her costume.  She said it was "pretty".  I was a "Mommy Doll" (yes, I am dealing with issues of being a stay-at-home mom now that I don't have much work), and Peter was a "Lady Larvae" or "The Creature From the Black Lagoon". 

We recently took a trip down to visit friends and family in California and had a great time.  Lili travelled so very well, much better than the rest of us!
We seemed to take most of our photos on the first day when we made our only stop (besides lunch in Grants Pass) to run around at The Big Tree in Prairie Creek State Park.  I had forgotten just how big and impressive the redwood forest really is.  Lili thought they were great and she really took to heart when we asked her to hug the Big Tree - that's my girl!

It's the last day of July and this will be the last new post for Wasabi Prime on Vox, but fear not, it lives on at another location, so if you hadn't already heard about it, rush to your nearest computer to bookmark it like mad!! I look forward to growing into the new format, continuing with photography improvements, and as always, trekking forward like the members of the Starship Enterprise, boldly going wherever hunger takes me. Thank you for your continued readership and I appreciate your patience during this changeover. Good things most certainly lie ahead on the foodie highway!

Head on over to http://wasabiprime.blogspot.com and see what's cookin'! Many, many thanks!

The house is almost ninety degrees and it's 10pm at night. Earlier in the afternoon, I looked outside and the tall evergreens looked like they were wilting from the oppressive heat. It's official: the Pacific Northwest is in Hell. I'm not entirely sure what mortal sin the Puget Sound Area committed, but it must have been pretty serious to cast us into the flaming pit of Hades without easy access to air conditioning. All that being said, a girl still needs to eat, so I had another dinner, sans heating element.

It's gettin' hot in herrre... so have a salad - Photo by Wasabi Prime

To see more pictures and read more about un-cooking with WP, go to the new location of the blog at http://wasabiprime.blogspot.com I know, I know -- laaaaaame, putting such a teasery post and making you go somewhere's else. But I swear, you won't be disappointed! There's more pretty pictures and the eventual total move-over is coming soon, so please bookmark the new location, as I would be most grateful. I appreciate your support and following!!

The summer heat caused a serious case of Couch Potato-itis in the Wasabi household this weekend. I tend to develop a mild addiction to the Turner Classic Movie channel in the summers, and recently recorded King Solomon's Mines (1950) starring Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger on our DVR. It's a gorgeous Technicolor-riffic movie and both the leading actors are rather gorgeous themselves. I think given the hot weather, I wanted to see people suffering in the heat along with me, and searching for the fabled diamond mines in the deepest, darkest heart of Africa seemed a lot worse than languishing on the sofa.

O bring us a figgy dinner... and bring it RIGHT NOW - photo by Wasabi Prime

Given that state of inactivity, there was no way in hell I was going to turn on the stove or even BBQ. Thankfully, a bounty of summer goodies were at the ready, from both the store and our garden, so an uncooked summer dinner was on the menu for the warm evening.

Embrace of proscuitto and cheese? Yes, please - photo by Wasabi Prime

The star of this meal was undoubtedly a pile of fresh figs from Whole Foods, courtesy of Michelle, a fellow foodie-in-arms. I do love figs. They have a light, nuanced flavor that plays nice with both sweet and savory pairings, and the texture of soft and crunchy is just fun. Along with the figgy bunch, we had multicolored heirloom grape tomatoes, goat cheese crumbles, Sopressata salami, and proscuitto, procured from Trader Joe's. Our garden was able to provide more fresh snowpeas, basil, and romaine lettuce. A slice here, a chop there, and a caprese-inspired salad with the tomatoes, cheese, and basil was paired with goat cheese-stuffed figs, wrapped in proscuitto, and finished off with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Chunks of the Sopressata were nestled alongside some garlic-stuffed olives for snacking. I like my bubbly, so I always keep a bottle of the very affordable Domaine Ste Michelle Blanc de Blanc in the fridge. It helped cool our jets while we sat in the backyard with our faithful dog, Indy. She sure looked cute, but not cute enough for proscuitto-wrapped figs stuffed with goat cheese. Sorry, pup.

A dinner of fig-gasmic proportions - photos by Wasabi Prime

To further add to the evening's atmosphere, Brock had music from Hey Marseilles playing. They're a local group with a delightful Parisian sound that is reminiscent of the movie Amelie. They were playing at the Capitol Hill Block Party this weekend, but our summer laziness prevented us from attending. If anyone went and heard them perform, drop the WP a line!

** NOTE** In the very near future, I will be moving Wasabi Prime over to Blogspot, at this NEW ADDRESS. In the interim, I will do dual postings, so feel free to bookmark the new location. Stay tuned -- Wasabi Prime is movin' on up, Jefferson's style!

I saw this on a license plate frame today: "I used to be schizo, but we're OK now." That's a good description for how things are while I move the Old Wasabi at Vox to the New Wasabi  at Blogspot. I promise the recent confusion will subside, and I thank everyone for being patient with the changeover. To alleviate some of this self-imposed busybody-ness, I decided to bake blueberry muffins, as baking can sometimes be a calming thing. Everything leading up to the baking part went smoothly, but I was telling fellow blogger, Ms. Picket Fence, that I wished I lived near or around Crater Lake, Oregon, because then I could have called these Crater Muffins. Let's not ruin the post quite yet and just gaze for a moment at this serene tableaux of ingredients, shall we?

Still life with muffin ingredients, prior to "the Crater Incident" - photo by Wasabi Prime

Per some earlier Tweets this week, I was inspired to do something with blueberries. They're in season and incredibly well-priced right now. I decided to go with the blueberry muffin recipe I found on the charmingly funny blog, Omnomicon. The recipe was originally from Food Happens, and Omnomicon's Aleta had given it a foodie thumb's up. Bless her heart, she wisely advised to lighten up on the pecan and brown sugar topping, as that tends to cause the center of the muffins to collapse a bit while baking. I made sure to heed that bit of advice.

Food pr0n alert!! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

However, I'll be the first to admit that I made a substitution mistake, replacing the buttermilk part of the recipe with Greek yogurt. The recipe said yogurt could be used as a swap, but I think the thicker Greek-style yogurt made the batter more concentrated. I don't know what kind of mad science took place during the baking process, but it wasn't the kind of mad science that creates sexy Kelly LeBrocks from Barbie dolls. No, this crazy mad science created Crater Muffins that, instead of rising into fluffy mounds of goodness, they made a vertical dash for their neighbor and I wound up with sunken-in, crazy Siamese Twin pastries. But you know what? They were still damned tasty.

Pecan and brown sugar topping. It looked better before it went into the oven - photo by Wasabi Prime

While not pleasing in an aesthetic sort of way, the finished muffins were still pleasing in an om-nom-nommic sort of way. I had no trouble eating a couple, and in an act of nutritional defiance, calling it dinner. This was probably the least offensive photo I could take of the finished muffins. I placed a little coffee mug with the Finnish cartoon characters, Moomin, as a crutch of happiness to lighten the gravity-stricken baked goods.

Moomin make everything better - photo by Wasabi Prime

Overall, I can't be that discouraged over the result, especially since I knowingly put the batter in harm's way with an untested substitution. I also swapped regular flour with whole wheat, hence the darker color, but I think the Greek yogurt 'twas what done this batter in. Live and learn. I'm still pleased with the photos and weather permitting, may try this recipe again, minus ingredient swaps, before the blueberry harvest peters-out.

I believe it's time for an ingredient montage! - photo by Wasabi Prime

 

** NOTE** In the very near future, I will be moving Wasabi Prime over to Blogspot, at this NEW ADDRESS. In the interim, I will do dual postings, so feel free to bookmark the new location. Stay tuned -- Wasabi Prime is movin' on up, Jefferson's style!

I discovered two things today: our laundry room makes for a halfway decent photo studio, and Pad Thai is just as delicious without the rice noodles!

The Puget Soundians were given a day of respite from the summer heat, so efforts were quickly mobilized to use the stove and play around with the digital camera to actually take some halfway decent photos of ingredients and the plated food. I notice when it's hot, I tend not to feel the Epic Hunger that I normally do, so maybe that's what allowed me the virtue of patience to make a better effort towards food photography. At the risk of sounding like the star of the I'm Awesome Show, I'm quite pleased with the efforts, and it's encouraged me to put forth more effort in future posts!

The motivation behind this dish was a major jonesin' for pad thai. I have the exact opposite effect with food -- I had Thai food recently and instead of feeling satisfied, I felt like the Audrey II, hungry for seconds. Feed me, Seymour! Sadly, as I write this entry, I just realized I totally forgot to add peanuts into the dish. Crap. And I made the extra trip to the store to make sure I had them! The little Homer Simpson that lives in my head is yelling DOH! right now. What... no one else has a little Homer Simpson living in their head...? No...? Well, moving on...

In lieu of the traditional rice noodles, I was able to use half of the bountiful harvest of snowpeas that are taking over our garden. We went from a small handful of peas to a green pod invasion within the last month. Thankfully the bugs and backyard wildlife have not seen fit to feast upon them, so with any luck, we will be blessed with an abundance of green pea-ness. *giggle*

Along with the snowpeas, I snipped some garlic chives and some of the heartier scallion greens from our veggie garden. A few defrosted chicken breasts sliced thin, stir-fried in a wok with diced tofu, scrambled eggs, and then a healthy dose of the premade Por Kwan pad thai sauce from Uwajimaya, and it was a picture-perfect dinner made for the om-nomming.

 

** NOTE** In the very near future, I will be moving Wasabi Prime over to Blogspot, at this NEW ADDRESS. In the interim, I will do dual postings, so feel free to bookmark the new location. Stay tuned -- Wasabi Prime is movin' on up, Jefferson's style!