My Weekend
My weekend was quite the mixed bag of experiences. I'm not back to 100% after my brush with gastro-intestinal meltdown. So I had some really good moments and some not so good moments.
The not so good moments were usually when my tummy didn't feel so good and I needed to lay down. This happened roughly twice a day. I feel so much better than I did before, but I am looking forward to a time when I don't have weird crampy feelings going on in the background all the time.
Luckily the good moments outnumbered the bad stuff by a landslide.
Friday, Dev and I went to visit Tonya and Shane at their new house. We were mightily impressed. We were most taken by the back yard, which actually is big enough to plant a garden. We already know where we'd put everything! I can't wait to see what Tonya and Shane do with it. We hung out with them til around 9pm, then came home to vegitate on the couch for the remainder of the evening.
Saturday was the first occurence of the Farmers' Market. Dev and I got up, ate breakfast and rode our bikes down to the corner of State and Main Streets. After stopping into Milagros for a cup of coffee, we headed out to the market. There was not a lot of produce there yet, because our growing season is just kicking into high gear. But I did manage to buy 2 beautiful purple onions that still had the tops on them from the field, and several big red tomatoes.
After the market, we ran out to WalMart while it was still early enough to avoid the Darwinian Stew that always invades WalMart on Saturdays. We were in search of camping gear (thinking we might head out to Hooper to try out the tent). All we managed to find was a camp chair for Dev. We are still looking for a folding camp table and a decent camp lantern.
Lunch was left over pizza from Friday night.
Dev felt inspired and dug out his telescope. We fiddled with that for a little while- lots of dials and gizmos to deal with on that thing. It will be cool to take it with us when we do get to go camping.
Dev decided after that he'd like to to take a look at Fort Garland. So we drove out and crawled around for an hour or two. I really like Fort Garland. You get a real feel for what it would be like to live there. Lots of neat things happened there. I recommend a trip out there. But make sure you have enough time to go slowly and read the material with the exhibits. You will learn an awful lot about Colorado history.
So I had these 2 poblano peppers in my refrigerator that I really needed to use. When I think of poblanos, I think of stuffed peppers, so I decided that was going to be dinner. But I also decided that I was not going to look up a recipe and have to go to the store again. My goal was to come up with a totally original stuffing recipe, designed to use up the leftovers in my fridge. So here's what I came up with......
I had one piece of rotisserie chicken left, so I finely minced the meat and threw it in a bowl. After that, Dev sauteed half an onion and a clove of garlic and threw that in with the chicken. I had a little bowl of whole wheat couscous left over from something, so that went in as well. A handful of frozen corn suffered the same fate. I added half a can of petite diced tomatoes, a handful of feta cheese and about 1/2 cup of grated cheddar. Then I mixed it up and added a little of the leftover tomato juice to make it moist enough to bind together. Dev halved the poblanos, scooped out the seeds and trimmed the veins inside. I packed the stuffing in the peppers and sprinkled on a little extra cheddar. They baked on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 1/2 hour. The whole point of this exercise (other than using up leftovers) was to see if you could stuff the peppers without going through the roasting/skinning process- cuz that's just no fun. I am happy to report that this was a delicious. The peppers themselves were soft on the inside, but because the skin was still intact, it had some texture. I will definitely do this again, and I will also probably never roast/skin the peppers first.
Sundays are always lazy days around our house. Right now, we are watching Nigella Lawson on Foodtv (a Sunday tradition). We had a great breakfast of ham/cheddar rosti. I had never tried it before, but I've seen recipes in magazines quite frequently for the past few months. It's basically a hybrid of an omelet and a potato pancake. I consider it a technique more than a recipe, because once you know how it all fits together, you can use anything you want in it. The only necessary ingredients are eggs, frozen hashbrowns and cheese. I started with one beaten egg in the bottom of a large bowl. I added about a cup (I rarely measure stuff- but I probably should) of shredded ham (I used lunchmeat ham from my crisper drawer), diced purple onion (about a quarter of it- the recipe called for shallot, but so what?), about a teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary, a dash of salt and pepper, and a little shredded cheddar. I mixed that all up and added about 3 handfuls of frozen shredded hashbrowns. I heated up a tablespoon of olive oil in a nonstick skillet and patted the potato egg mixture all over the bottom. I left it alone over medium heat for 6 minutes. After that, I put a plate over the skillet and inverted the pancake onto the plate (ok I admit I had Dev do this part). I wiped out the pan, added a little more oil and slid the pancake back in. After another 6 minutes of leaving it alone, I slid it onto a plate and that was it! I served it with thick slices of farmers' market tomato. It was a perfect breakfast! The cool thing is you can add anything to this. I would like to do a veggie version with green peppers or you could use asparagus. Anything you can chop up will work.
This afternoon we are headed to the park for a summer concert. I am taking some cheese fondue with the customary dippers (bread pieces, cooked potato, summer sausage, pears) and a tomato basil filo tart. I can't wait to kick back in the park, listening to mariachi music and gnoshing on yummie finger food. It really doesn't get much better than good music, good food and good friends.
Here's to ending the weekend on a high note!!
The not so good moments were usually when my tummy didn't feel so good and I needed to lay down. This happened roughly twice a day. I feel so much better than I did before, but I am looking forward to a time when I don't have weird crampy feelings going on in the background all the time.
Luckily the good moments outnumbered the bad stuff by a landslide.
Friday, Dev and I went to visit Tonya and Shane at their new house. We were mightily impressed. We were most taken by the back yard, which actually is big enough to plant a garden. We already know where we'd put everything! I can't wait to see what Tonya and Shane do with it. We hung out with them til around 9pm, then came home to vegitate on the couch for the remainder of the evening.
Saturday was the first occurence of the Farmers' Market. Dev and I got up, ate breakfast and rode our bikes down to the corner of State and Main Streets. After stopping into Milagros for a cup of coffee, we headed out to the market. There was not a lot of produce there yet, because our growing season is just kicking into high gear. But I did manage to buy 2 beautiful purple onions that still had the tops on them from the field, and several big red tomatoes.
After the market, we ran out to WalMart while it was still early enough to avoid the Darwinian Stew that always invades WalMart on Saturdays. We were in search of camping gear (thinking we might head out to Hooper to try out the tent). All we managed to find was a camp chair for Dev. We are still looking for a folding camp table and a decent camp lantern.
Lunch was left over pizza from Friday night.
Dev felt inspired and dug out his telescope. We fiddled with that for a little while- lots of dials and gizmos to deal with on that thing. It will be cool to take it with us when we do get to go camping.
Dev decided after that he'd like to to take a look at Fort Garland. So we drove out and crawled around for an hour or two. I really like Fort Garland. You get a real feel for what it would be like to live there. Lots of neat things happened there. I recommend a trip out there. But make sure you have enough time to go slowly and read the material with the exhibits. You will learn an awful lot about Colorado history.
So I had these 2 poblano peppers in my refrigerator that I really needed to use. When I think of poblanos, I think of stuffed peppers, so I decided that was going to be dinner. But I also decided that I was not going to look up a recipe and have to go to the store again. My goal was to come up with a totally original stuffing recipe, designed to use up the leftovers in my fridge. So here's what I came up with......
I had one piece of rotisserie chicken left, so I finely minced the meat and threw it in a bowl. After that, Dev sauteed half an onion and a clove of garlic and threw that in with the chicken. I had a little bowl of whole wheat couscous left over from something, so that went in as well. A handful of frozen corn suffered the same fate. I added half a can of petite diced tomatoes, a handful of feta cheese and about 1/2 cup of grated cheddar. Then I mixed it up and added a little of the leftover tomato juice to make it moist enough to bind together. Dev halved the poblanos, scooped out the seeds and trimmed the veins inside. I packed the stuffing in the peppers and sprinkled on a little extra cheddar. They baked on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 1/2 hour. The whole point of this exercise (other than using up leftovers) was to see if you could stuff the peppers without going through the roasting/skinning process- cuz that's just no fun. I am happy to report that this was a delicious. The peppers themselves were soft on the inside, but because the skin was still intact, it had some texture. I will definitely do this again, and I will also probably never roast/skin the peppers first.
Sundays are always lazy days around our house. Right now, we are watching Nigella Lawson on Foodtv (a Sunday tradition). We had a great breakfast of ham/cheddar rosti. I had never tried it before, but I've seen recipes in magazines quite frequently for the past few months. It's basically a hybrid of an omelet and a potato pancake. I consider it a technique more than a recipe, because once you know how it all fits together, you can use anything you want in it. The only necessary ingredients are eggs, frozen hashbrowns and cheese. I started with one beaten egg in the bottom of a large bowl. I added about a cup (I rarely measure stuff- but I probably should) of shredded ham (I used lunchmeat ham from my crisper drawer), diced purple onion (about a quarter of it- the recipe called for shallot, but so what?), about a teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary, a dash of salt and pepper, and a little shredded cheddar. I mixed that all up and added about 3 handfuls of frozen shredded hashbrowns. I heated up a tablespoon of olive oil in a nonstick skillet and patted the potato egg mixture all over the bottom. I left it alone over medium heat for 6 minutes. After that, I put a plate over the skillet and inverted the pancake onto the plate (ok I admit I had Dev do this part). I wiped out the pan, added a little more oil and slid the pancake back in. After another 6 minutes of leaving it alone, I slid it onto a plate and that was it! I served it with thick slices of farmers' market tomato. It was a perfect breakfast! The cool thing is you can add anything to this. I would like to do a veggie version with green peppers or you could use asparagus. Anything you can chop up will work.
This afternoon we are headed to the park for a summer concert. I am taking some cheese fondue with the customary dippers (bread pieces, cooked potato, summer sausage, pears) and a tomato basil filo tart. I can't wait to kick back in the park, listening to mariachi music and gnoshing on yummie finger food. It really doesn't get much better than good music, good food and good friends.
Here's to ending the weekend on a high note!!
Comments
This is the camp table I have - its awesome - Heidi and Adam are using it on their excursion - if you can't open the link go to www.dickssportinggoods.com and look up item number 2425713