june 9, 2013 dinner

belated dinner celebration for my dad's 60th: lamb/beef meatballs over cauliflower rice (dusted with chopped pistachios), alongside a crisp spring salad of lettuce, radishes, and avocado. no complaints here!

july 28, 2012 dinner

oysters on the grill! dinner at my dad and stepmom's, out on their deck.

a pretty plateful of sirloin steak, lamb heart, japanese eggplant, caulliflower, mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes and blueberries. the veggies were basted in garlic oil and i wanted more of them. i only had a nibble of the heart (not feeling lamby) and half the steak.

saved room for my stepmom's homemade blueberry ice cream, made with fresh blueberries, coconut and rice milk. perfect!



june 25, 2012 dinner

dinner is roasted lamb, served up rare. in the background is a mash of parsnips, turnips, onions and olive oil.

also, this was an interesting experiment - roasted beets and raw kohlrabi, tossed with lemon juice, olive oil and cilantro. the texture was a strange mix, but it was a refreshing and light dish to complement the richer flavors above.

june 16, 2012 dinner

good company warrants a good spread. alex and rachael came up from portland, and we met them halfway at potlatch state park on the hood canal. most of the campground is nothing to write home about, but we secured a sweet, secluded spot (93, if you're interested), way up in the trees and ferns. nobody around but jays and chestnut-backed chickadees.

this is alex's dinner, chicken grilled in foil, with tomatoes, zucchini, onions, and lemon-thyme from their garden, plus some fresh baby heirloom tomatoes and a few sheets of toasted sesame nori for good measure. looks delish!

rachael follows suit a bit later with the addition of roasted potatoes and a chicken sausage from otto's sausage kitchen in portland. quite good! (i ate the other half of that sausage, btw.)

we roasted some radishes in the campfire coals, a technique that my sister taught me when we were camping over memorial day weekend. radishes become quite mellow and slightly sweet when tossed with a little olive oil and folded up in some foil, then left to their own devices in the fire..

in the meantime, rachael broke out the strawberries, dipped them generously in marshmallow creme, and grilled them over the fire, s'mores-style..

we grilled up some asparagus, managing not to char them too badly..

..and set some lamb skewers on the grill shortly thereafter. they'd been marinating in olive oil, lemon juice, chopped fresh parsley and thyme, and so on. note the bay leaf still clinging to the lamb.

the super-yummy finished product. served up slightly rare, and still a bit mouth-scalding, but tender and juicy and all that grilled lamb eaten while camping should be!

june 15, 2012 lunch

soup! out to lunch with my dad, at vios in third place books (ravenna). this was the soup of the day today, vegetables (not specified, but tomatoes were certainly present) pureed with a roasted red pepper relish, and some haphazard arugula scattered on top. cheers!

and yay! meat! a skewer of lamb, coupled with braised greens, and roasted beets in walnut oil and cumin-red wine vinaigrette. what? yes, it's good.

june 6, 2012 lunch

some familiar faces here. the last of the leftover rogan josh, coleslaw, and greek salad for lunch. the spices really came together on the lamb in the last couple days.. the cayenne certainly packed a punch. yes, i am that coworker with the garlicky, cumin-y, bacon-y office. like that old shampoo gee, your hair smells terrific, but it's my office, not my hair.

(for the record, my hair smells pretty terrific too.)

june 5, 2012 lunch

lunch consists of leftover rogan josh atop an eye-rollingly-good rutabaga hash, homemade coleslaw, and the usual but yummy greek salad. good stuff.

june 4, 2012 dinner

happy-making rogan josh! it took some doing, but that there is braised lamb cubes (grass-fed),  generously salted and peppered, then started off at medium-high heat in ghee to sear the outsides (the trick is to wait for the meat to release from the pan on its own - when it's ready, it will let you know). i then added a paste of ginger, garlic, shredded coconut, and boiled, peeled almonds, a chopped onion, coconut milk, and a mix of many fun spices, including cumin, cloves, coriander, bay leaves, mace, cinnamon, aniseed, fennel, well, you name it, really. simmered for about an hour and a half in a dutch oven.

all this on top of rutabaga hash. perfection.