august 6, 2012 dinner

 clockwise from top: takoyaki (filled with wheat and soy and sugar, oh my/oh well), saba shioyaki (salt-grilled mackerel, one of my comfort foods!) and renkon (lotus root) cooked in butter. what's the occasion? an old friend i hadn't seen in over ten years is in town. she's from chicago, and i'm from seattle, but we became friends when we both lived in japan, i in hiroshima, her in kure, about 15 miles away. (coincidentally, today is the 67th anniversary of the bombing of hiroshima.) a group of us met up at maekawa bar in the international district and ordered a bunch of small plates to share.

this was so obscenely delicious it made me want to dance down the street. it's like okonomiyaki without the batter and noodles and cabbage, just pork wrapped up in an omelet, drizzled with the same tangy, sweet sauce and mayo.

some gyutan (grilled beef tongue) was also consumed, which i quite enjoyed. it was sliced really thinly, and flavored sparely with salt and pepper. i did not get a good photo of it, probably because i ate it too fast. all in all, it was great catching up while enjoying some izakaya treats.



august 4, 2012

good morning! sleeping to the white noise of the river was so peaceful. that was the best night's sleep i've had in i don't know how long..

make way for grilled portobello breakfast sandwiches! we were excited to try out this idea. these were hearty, and had to be eaten with a fork, not as a handheld sandwich. assembly was simple enough:

first, we grilled up some portobello caps that we'd brushed with garlic olive oil.

topped each with a few slices of thick bacon..

then a fried egg for the next layer..

half an avocado atop the whole shebang, and she's ready to nom nom!

deliciousness. this steller's jay wanted a bite, but no dice.

july 12, 2012 lunch

i think the eggplant and sausage strata is officially no longer a strata, but the flavors really came together over the last few days! it is served up alongside the standard salad from this week and a cup of green tea.

july 11, 2012 lunch

more of the eggplant & sausage strata for lunch, plus salad with our homemade mayo dressing. have i mentioned lately how devourable the eggplant strata is? i might get sick of eating it everyday at some point, but not yet. good thing - there is a lot of it!

july 11, 2012 breakfast

breakfast was the last of the rutabaga & ham spanish tortilla, plus a brimming glass of cherry chia kombucha and a cup of green tea. i wasn't thinking, so i started to microwave the tortilla, forgetting i usually eat it cold. i am happy to report that it is also delicious served warm.

july 10, 2012 dinner

i ended up getting home late, but a bowl of leftover sausage & eggplant strata was ready for me. and i was ready for it!

july 10, 2012 breakfast

another slice of spanish tortilla for breakfast, this time with wee chairs!

july 9, 2012 dinner

ok, so you'd think well fed is the only cookbook i ever use, but this recipe for italian sausage and eggplant strata is absolutely scrumptious. like wanna eat the whole thing right now scrumptious. it's eggplant, hot italian sausage (we deviated a bit from the recipe, which just called for regular pork sausage), and a tomato-onion-basil-garlic sauce with a few beaten eggs thrown in for texture. it's one of those recipes that only improves as leftovers too!

july 6, 2012 lunch

yes, it's a restaurant lunch. california pizza kitchen's moroccan chicken salad, with beets, avocado, butternut squash, almonds, dried cranberries, hard-boiled eggs, etc. quite good, albeit high in sugar, and i wish they would put more chicken in it. the chicken you occasionally unearth are more shavings than chunks. but the flavor is good, and it is a treat to go out, so i'll forgive..

june 25, 2012 lunch

monday work lunch is a yummy salad of shrimp, hard-boiled egg, purple cabbage, red onion, cucumber, tomato, spinach, and romaine, tossed with a sauce of olive oil, spicy brown mustard, cayenne, garlic powder, dill and lemon juice. it is adapted from everyday paleo's shrimp flying saucers recipe.

june 21, 2012 breakfast

matt picked up some rainier cherries (just coming into season - so tart and sweet and good!) at the renton farmer's market for a song, so i decorated my plate of egg loaf with them this morning.

june 20, 2012 breakfast

happy first day of summer! from here on out, the days will just get shorter.. but at least up here in the mossy north, those days are plenty long. the official time of sunset today through july 2nd is 9:10 pm, although the sky stays dusky much later. on a cloudless evening, you can still see touches of pink and orange on the horizon until past ten pm.

that's all well and good, but the rubber chicken filed in my office is more interested in egg loaf.

june 18, 2012 breakfast

it's a corner piece of egg loaf, this time with sun-dried tomatoes for extra fun and games. of course, it's going to be thoroughly doused with cholula before consumption, but the unadorned version is much more photogenic.

june 17, 2012 breakfast

a hearty camping breakfast of sweet potato, bacon, red bell pepper, and onion hash, topped with two eggs over medium, half an avocado, and a handful of green onions.

june 16, 2012 breakfast

saturday morning quick breakfast. we need to skip town for a camping expedition by noon-ish, so as we pack the car, we throw together a speedy version of what we call 'godzilla eggs' - why is it called 'godzilla eggs'? it's the green avocado (godzilla) plus the red salsa (breathing fire). add a couple eggs, scroddled (broken directly into and scrambled in the pan) in some grass-fed butter, and a few chicken and sage sausages, and we're good to go.

june 14, 2012 breakfast

time for the second half of that bottle of kombucha. happy thursday!

...and the last of the spanish tortilla. did you know rutabaga could be so succulent? neither did i.

june 13, 2012 breakfast

top of the morning to you! i haven't had kombucha in awhile, so i had a glass before breaky. tart and fizzy, just the way i remembered it. i went through a phase about ten years ago when i would drink this stuff daily!

and breakfast itself should be no surprise - it's a rerun! spanish tortilla with ham, rutabaga, roasted red pepper and vidalia onion. i pledge to do something different next week, although it hasn't gotten old yet..

kara kara tako girl would like a piece.

june 12, 2012 dinner

we've got ham, what to do with it? i found this recipe online, and it was actually pretty easy to pull off. in the casserole are a couple of eggs baked atop a sauce of tomatoes, red onion, garlic, jalapeno, salt, pepper, and fresh basil from my apartment balcony. under that, ham, torn into pieces and quickly pan-fried before going into the casserole. more pepper on top and into the oven with it for 12 minutes or so at 350 degrees, then topped with even more basil. (my poor plant has been nearly picked clean, but hey, it encourages new growth!) to the side is a purple artichoke, steamed, with a side of melted grass-fed butter and lemon juice. this dinner earned not one, but TWO high fives from matt, my fellow eater in crime.
and yes, the backdrop is my leopard-print snuggie.

june 12, 2012 breakfast

another wednesday, another slice of spanish tortilla for breakfast. there has been a lot of ham lately, as we are trying to get through a big ol' hunk of it. we were happy to find a non-nitratey brand (applegate farms), but it came in just one (big) size, so we are working it into a lot of meals currently.

june 11, 2012 breakfast

the spanish tortilla was well-received last week, so i made another. the little green guy approves.