Our little house is a shambles right now, though I'll be updating you as soon as we've made some progress on the repairs. So far, we're replacing studs and the header supports that have dry rot. It's much of the same type of work that we did the last time. We hope to have a new sliding glass door installed in the next couple of days, so when my Charles and I attempt that, I'll bring you the play-by-play. Until then, please enjoy my recap of my recent trip to Portland, originally posted on my food blog.I just got back from a business trip in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately due to luggage restrictions/items I needed to bring, I had to leave the camera at home. Since I didn’t get any Portland photos, I did the next best thing — I’m sharing one of the awesome velvet paintings my friend, Chris, has created for me. Chris lives in Portland, ergo, Portland photo! Erm, sort-of, right? Anyway… let’s move on. Portland is a foodie paradise, and even more, a beer-lover’s dream. I consumed way more beer than was good for me, but I had to pack so much consumption into such a short space of time, you really can’t blame me.
The first evening found us at Deschutes Brewery. There, I had the great presence of mind to order a Hop in the Dark. I was a bit skeptical — a dark ale with hops? The resiny flavor played nicely with the chocolate sweetness of the malt. Who knew the two could be such great friends?
My next stop was dinner. While I’ve been told the restaurant at Deschutes is dynamite, I was overruled by my group, so we moved on. After being disappointed that all of the food trucks were closed, we continued to what appeared to be (at least on the outside) a hole-in-the-wall eatery with some nice, outdoor seating. I have to say, the Dan & Louis Oyster Bar makes a spectacular salad. I enjoyed a half salad of the Dungeness Crab Louis with a marionberry vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was spectacular. I can’t recommend it enough. I’m going to need to replicate it, in fact. Dinner was washed down with a Fish Tale Organic Amber Ale, a beer I know quite well and just wanted to enjoy.
There was no hesitation when it came to our next stop, plus it was just down the street. It’s almost a requirement to get a unique concoction at Voodoo Doughnut when you’re visiting the City of Roses. I had their Bacon Maple Bar. It was… weird — keeping Portland as it should be, I guess. I ate the whole thing, odd or not.
Then it was on to a nightcap at Rogue. By this time my head was spinning, what with all of the, um, sugar and socialization, so I opted for an old favorite — Dead Guy Ale. I did indulge in a sample of Rogue’s ode to Voodoo Doughnut, its Bacon Maple Ale. I’m sad to admit that it was the first Rogue creation I haven’t enjoyed. The liquid smoke flavors coupled with the maple sugary-ness just weren’t my thing.
After a full day of learning, my next dinner excursion was at The Original. Holy mother of … really, there should be a special award for places that make food this delectable. I intended to get the beef stroganoff and had ordered my beer accordingly, but I was wooed by the braised pork shank. I was completely under the spell of the so-tender-it-was-falling-off-the-bone meat drizzled in a brown butter sherry sauce. I have no words. Recalling how staggeringly good that meal was makes me want to weep. Fortunately, the sauce allowed my equally amazing beer to compliment the meal. The Original had Fort George Bourbon Barrel Cavatica Stout on tap. What a gorgeous beer! Black, malty, sweet, and smooth — I wish I had purchased a case.
And that was it, a short adventure filled with brewed and culinary pleasures. I gained a lot of knowledge on new, awesome techniques in social networking, gained some new friends and colleagues, and most definitely gained some pounds. It was great. Stay weird, Portland, and stay yummy!
Recently, I needed to create a new food blog location for work. Seizing the opportunity, I created it for me, too. I'll be posting most of my recipes, coffee, etc. writing over there. I'm still deciding on wine and beer -- I may post both places, I may just post there. But if you enjoy my foodie nature, please visit Sapid Cellar Door.
 I had this amazing idea in my mind -- writing this awesome tutorial for turning an IKEA dresser into a bench. I thought it would be, well, epic. It was maybe an epic fail, but not a very good tutorial. I purchased a RAST. The idea of a $35 converted bench was so exciting. I ended up managing to make a seat -- for a little kid. It's small. It's cheap pine. It tried to split each time I waved the drill in its general direction. It didn't work. It is now destined for the thrift store
 Dinner tonight was a definite win. Cypress Grove's dill chevre, PsycheDillic, spread on Breadnik's Bread of the Month, Sunshine Bread -- basically a savory sweet potato bread -- and topped with fresh blueberries, walnuts, and local honey. I served it with a Navarro Gewurztraminer and a green salad... amazing doesn't even cover the awesomeness of the meal. Seriously, try it with comparable ingredients in your area. You'll thank me. You will. I'll accept gifts inspired by your gratitude.
 There's a bit too much Anne Shirley in me. I have a habit of getting into scrapes (more on my most recent one next week) and of not being able to follow recipes properly. Case in point, my Thanksgiving turkey this year. I got a recipe from Food Network in my inbox and thought, "This sounds mighty tasty." I'm a big fan of brining turkey, and the list of ingredients intrigued me. What's more, I was teaching a former vegetarian friend how to cook a turkey this year, and I thought the instructions sounded quite easy to follow.Thank goodness for my friend, Aimee! I picked up the ingredients in advance and began to prep the veggies that would be put in the brine. She noticed that instead of purchasing apple cider, I had gotten apple cider vinegar. Classic Mellisa cooking in action. We used the vinegar instead -- I thought the tang would be interesting, and the extra acidity would help with tenderizing the bird.The next morning, I was regretting that decision. What if we pickled our birds? This was Aimee's first Thanksgiving turkey -- what if my inattentiveness had ruined it? I racked my brain for options. I knew it needed to be in the same flavor profile as the vinegar. It needed to be sweet to balance the tanginess. What to use? Ah, apple butter would be perfect! The sweet and spicy and apple-y-ness would work wonders (I hoped). I picked up a couple of jars, dropped one off at Aimee's house, and took one home to my turkey.After patting the bird dry, I separated the skin from the rest of the carcass then liberally coated the between part with the apple butter and one stick of butter. I coated the cavity as well to make sure that everything would be graced with the apple numminess and followed the rest of the directions from the recipe PROPERLY.Thankfully, it turned out wonderfully. I may use the altered recipe again next year. It would make a splendid Christmas turkey, too. Of course, I could always try to follow the recipe correctly, but that might just be an impossible feat.
 My favorite lasagna recipe involves seasonal acorn squash and oodles of ricotta. It's a Martha recipe, but of course, I can't follow her directions to the letter, so my creation is a little easier to make -- I layer squash AND cheese on the same layers. Scandalous, I know! Of course, I also use whole wheat noodles I have to cook as well as real acorn squash I have to treat the same way, so in that sense, I've made it a more difficult recipe than the original. Be that as it may, I've made this dish a few times this fall, and it's always a hit.To prepare the squash, cut it in half and scrape out the seeds. Rub butter on the cut halves and place in a 350 degree, preheated oven. Cook about 45 minutes or until a fork easily slides into the squash. Let cool and scoop out of the shell. Add a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper and mash with a fork until nicely combined. Then follow The Martha's directions to create some tasty, tasty lasagna..
 After a late frost and a couple of heavy hail storms, it looked like stone fruits weren’t going to happen this year. I get as excited about peaches and apricots in summer as I used to as an eight-year-old on Christmas Eve, so I was feeling very heavy hearted when the farmers saw the blossoms on their trees falling.
What may have been considered a Christmas miracle, a bit early perhaps, happened when stone fruit actually began to appear in the local farmers markets, and when Chaffin Orchards offered a deal on a lug of peaches, I jumped at the chance. I couldn’t suppress my eagerness, actually, and purchased two lugs, basically 45 pounds of peaches!
That many beautiful, heirloom orbs of sweetness meant that I needed to do some heavy canning this weekend. I love to preserve food. There’s something almost supernatural about preparing food, putting it in jars, and making it become shelf stable with a thing as mundane as boiling water. Hearing jars seal makes me feel like I’m magic.
My favorite creation of the weekend was Peach Vanilla Bean Jam. It was an interpretation of a recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation and another from smells-like-home.com. I’ll include the recipe for my jam as well as including the measurements for a smaller batch.
Peach Vanilla Bean Jam
Makes 18 pints (or 4+ pints)
15 pounds peaches, blanched, skinned, and pitted (3 pounds)
1 ¼ cups lemon juice (1/4 cup)
2 packages Pomona’s Universal Pectin (1/2 package)
6 vanilla beans, cut open (1-2 beans)
20 cups evaporated cane sugar (4 cups)
Sterilize jars in boiling water, 10 minutes for sea level. Add a minute for every 1,000 feet above sea level. For instance, we live at 3600 Ft., so I sterilized the jars for 14 minutes.
Place peaches in a food processor and mix until peaches are crushed or crush by hand. Put crushed peaches in a very large pot, add lemon juice and pectin, and stir well. Place on high heat, stirring constantly. Bring to a full boil. Add vanilla pods. Add sugar and heat again to a full boil, stirring constantly. Cook for one minute more, remove from heat, skim if needed, remove vanilla pods, and spoon jam into hot jars using a ladle and wide mouth funnel. Leave ¼ inch of headspace.
Screw on both pieces of the lid and process in a boiling water canner. Process for 5 minutes at sea level to 1,000 Ft., 10 minutes for 1,001 to 6,000 Ft., and 15 minutes above 6,000 Ft.
Remove jars using a pair of canning tongs. Place jars on a towel on the counter and let sit until cool. As jam cools, the sound of the lids sealing will occur, and it sounds so cool!
This jam is the dream of anyone with a sweet tooth. It would be amazing on vanilla ice cream as well as being used on English muffins, pancakes, or anywhere else you can imagine jam hanging out. It’s also pretty awesome spooned straight from the jar.Google+
I'm guest blogging this month as part of the National Cooperative Grocers Association Eat Local! America campaign. Have you been missing my recipes of late? Then head on over to read my first ever cabbage recipe. Skeptical of that green stuff? So was I, so give it a read before you disregard our good friend, cabbage.On a house note, I didn't forget that I was going to share my creative console that I made out of a table my grandpa made (one the left) and my sewing table (on long term loan from my mom). Now I have a landing spot for my purse and the mail. I really like the way it looks. It might not work for everyone, but it pleases my Charles and me. Not only do you get a view of mail and my purse in this shot, you also get a great shot of our water glasses! We make it a mission to stay hydrated. Oh, and the lamp you can catch a bit of in the right hand edge was another inheritance piece. It's art deco, and I love it.
 My grandma taught me that wasting food was a Cardinal sin, and really, why do it? That said, there were always some things that found their way to the compost bucket instead of our bellies, and it bothered me. Then I realized that there wasn't any reason to compost all the onion ends and meat trimmings. If I kept them until I had enough for stock, there would be practically no waste. Now, I've written about stock before, but I wanted to share this aha moment. This last weekend, I made my first pot of stock with all of those bits, plus the remnants of a rotisserie chicken. It smelled and looked beautiful and made double what I usually get, full of nutrients and flavor. My compost isn't suffering either, as it still receives all of those lovely, garden-pleasing coffee grounds. But in these days of using everything and saving as many pennies as possible, keeping a corner of my freezer reserved for unused produce just makes sense. Plus, since I had double the stock as usual, it will save me the money that I usually have to spend for supplemental stock at the store, as I usually run out in between batches.
 I recently returned from Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim. It was a natural foods explosion! I have a bit of agoraphobia, so dealing with the crush of 50,000 people in one venue was a bit nerve wracking, to say the least.
 That being said, I found many things to amuse me, despite what may have otherwise been crushing anxiety. Take this image for example -- we arrived at Expo early, so many of the vendors were still setting up their displays. The fact that they were behind glass bubbles made it feel like we were looking at a zoo exhibit -- don't feed the animals!
 That amusement continued with cheesy experiences like hearing folk singers warble about the awesomeness of Larabars. Being sung to about a food product under a yellow sky and palm trees was surreal. Add to that the fact that I had to make myself very small to take this picture, and you begin to understand my experiences in SoCal.
 Luckily, I spent most of my time in seminars, where evidently, the light was very green. I was a student for a long, long time, so it was close to my natural element. I learned fantastic, new things about QR codes, new trends in social networking, and how the Non-GMO Project is gaining momentum.
 If only the crowds had stayed like this... Plus, I got to look down at the participators below me, feeling safe and above it all (not really). The true crush of humanity was on the Floor, where vendors were hawking their wares. This was my first Expo, but I was told by my Charles (who was also there as the Patch's grocery manager extraordinaire) that the free samples were not like they used to be. Sadly, another indication of the current economy. Of the samples I got to experience, my favorite was a tie between a honey candy and Tanka Dogs -- omfg, if we had these in the store, I'd want hot dogs every day of the week. They were THAT GOOD. Mmmm... Tanka Dogs.All in all, it was a good experience. I'm definitely not in love with Anaheim. I found the home of Disneyland to be dirty and depressing, full of desperate homeless people and outrageous prices for bad food. It was good to see people who really believed in what they were doing. I learned a lot in a handful of days, and while many people were there with green washed products, others were there with the real deal, trying to make a difference.
 Sometimes you just stumble upon something that ends up being a favorite. Such was the case with a quick dinner I whipped up while my Charles was out of town. Paired with a Zinfandel, I quickly found myself in gastronomic heaven. It was so good, I had to make it for dinner when my Charles came home -- and that was after eating it for three nights straight!Excellent Orzo
vegan
feeds two hungry people
1 cup (uncooked) whole wheat orzo
1/2 a container of cherry tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped
1 small can of sliced black olives
2 dashes Herbamare
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Dash of balsamic vinegar
Cook orzo to package directions. Drain in colander and return to pot. Slice tomatoes in half and add to pot. Toss all other ingredients together with orzo and tomatoes and serve right away.
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