New Creation

So, Gropius and I had grilled chicken, fresh sugar snap peas, and an orzo of my own creation tonight for dinner. And, I'm in love with the orzo enough that I have to share. It was a typical spur-of-the-moment creation of mine: southwestern-spiced, with nuts or seeds, and some sort of grain or starch added. Tonight's orzo featured a combination of sunflower and pumpkin seeds and pinon nuts because that's what I had in my pantry. I added some southwestern spices like cumin seeds, oregano, and thyme (along with salt and pepper) and then added some vegetables in for good measure like onions, garlic, carrots, serrano peppers, and red bell peppers. Very tasty!



If you would like to have the recipe to fiddle with for yourself, here it is:

Orzo Pilaf with Southwestern Nuts and Spices

olive oil
½ onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 carrots roughly chopped
1 serrano pepper, deseeded and minced

¼-1/3 c sunflower seeds
¼-1/3 c pumpkin seeds
¼-1/3 c pinon nuts
1 c orzo

roasted red bell pepper, chopped
dried thyme
dried oregano
cumin seeds
salt
freshly ground pepper

chicken (or vegetable) broth (if you want to keep it vegan/vegetarian)

Heat olive oil in nonstick skillet (w/lid) over medium high heat. Saute onion, garlic, carrots and pepper until softened. Stir in sunflower and pumpkin seeds, pinion nuts and orzo and continue cooking until browned and toasty. Add the bell pepper and spices, stirring well to combine.

Add enough broth to cover and bring to a slight boil. Cover the skillet and simmer, checking frequently (~ 5 min) to add more broth as needed until orzo is tender and cooked through.

Easily serves two hungry people (possibly up to 4 as a side dish?

Here are those delicious sugar snaps with the orzo in the background:

Napa Daytrip

So, Gropius and I took the in-laws to Napa on Sunday afternoon. I had the opportunity for some quick drive-by "shootings" with the camera.

The weather half-way cooperated with us: the last of 2-3 days of rain showers finally blew through on Sunday afternoon. So, we had periods of pretty intense rain followed by glorius sunshine. The freakiest feeling is seeing rain pouring out the windshield of your car when you're surrounded by blue skies (other than the one cloud that's obviously on top of you at the moment).

We started at the top of the valley in Calistoga. Calistoga is MUCH less commercial and touristy than further south, so it started things off on a good note. It's also important to point out that there were almost NO tourists around (which is NOT the case in summer!).

First stop was the CIA at Greystone (no, not *that* CIA: this is the Culinary Institute of America). Those gardens in the foreground are used in the kitchen btw. I tried to find an angle that would cut out the white traffic cones, but alas, no such luck! (notice the rainy/cloudy background)



Then, we went to a couple of tasting rooms (Beringer, Louis Martini, etc) and ended up our day at Domaine Chandon, sipping champagne. Gropius and I really like the Chandon Riche which we scoop up whenever it's on sale in the grocery store, so I was really excited about *this* tasting room! They had a beautiful sculpture garden outside, too. (note the bright sunshine now)





An artist also had a little fun with mushrooms which were very cool:



Think we could do something like this in our yard??



The tasting room was pretty busy, and we enjoyed our champagne. I had the pinot noir rose while Gropius and his folks had the reserve cuvee (or something like that). Much debate commenced on which is better: Gruet from NM or the stuff in our glasses. Personally, a full champagne flute in the hand is *always* better than two in the bush...



The room was decorated with white globe lights which I really liked. Don't you think this light...



...would look great in our living room? (esp. given that white globe lights are a trademark of the Streng houses)

Les Halles

For dinner last night, we had we started off with an assortment of cheeses including emmentaler, cave-aged emmentaler, and mahon:



But the acclaimed favorite was a 3-year aged Gouda:



Then, we moved on to Asparagus & haricots verts salad (w/a simple lemon juice & olive oil vinaigrette and orange segments)



Palette de porc a la biere (with dijon mustard, cider vinegar and beer)



Gratin Dauphinois (w/cream and gruyere)



compliments of Tony Bourdain's bistro cookbook. We haven't made a meal from that cookbook that hasn't been incredibly tasty and this one was no exception. God bless the French!

Afterwards, we settled in for some nice conversation and some after-dinner liqueurs, scotch, port (pick your poison!)



Considering we didn't sit down for dinner until close to 10pm, it was truly a French evening, much like the bistro Gropius and I enjoyed in Montmartre when we arrived approximately 10:30pm and when we left at 12:30am, the place was STILL hopping!

Greens

So, Gropius and I took the in-laws to eat dinner in San Francisco on Friday evening. We enjoyed a quick trip into the city, compliments of the carpool lane.



SF carpool lanes can be a b*tch since they require 3 ppl (not just 2), but if you have at least 3 ppl in your car, then you can pass through the toll booths over the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge without paying the toll. We left Sacramento around 5pm and pulled into SF around 6:30pm.

We arrived in plenty of time and enjoyed a nice evening dinner at Greens, a vegetarian restaurant associated with the SF Zen Center.



We enjoyed tasty Southwestern Gratin, Mexican Mezcal, Potato Soup with Savory, Scallion Pancakes, and Stuffed Mushrooms in a Port-Mushroom Reduction Sauce. Definitely enhancing the meal was the view outside the window:

Rubicon and Rhubarb

So, on Weds, the in-laws experienced the wonders of Sacto's light rail system and explored downtown, visiting the Crocker Art Museum, the CA Railroad Museum (but they missed the toy train collection upstairs!), and the Capitol Mall...while I experienced the joys of grading papers in my office for hours and Gropius was working in his office.

But, we met in the late afternoon at our favorite microbrewery, Rubicon, for a "schlug" to fortify us for the ride home.





The in-laws also examined the offerings from the Water Boy restaurant, the nicest one in town. (however, we are taking them to a nice(r) restaurant in San Francisco this evening)



Last night, to use up the rhubarb that had been sitting in my fridge for about a week, we made a rhubarb cake from Martha Stewart's website. Here is the unexciting photo of the entire cake:



And here are a few close-ups of the cake itself. It's really easy to make (like a "drop" cake) and the rhubarb is just cut up and stirred into the cake batter--there's no need to soak it or sugar it heavily, so it's quick to make, too! There is a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon on the top and we cheated by putting it under the broiler for a second after it was through baking to make the top nice and crispy crusty.

Dim Sum!

In honor of one of my colleague's pregnancy, another of my colleagues and I threw her a baby shower. But, since baby showers are an enigma to the Chinese, we turned it into a co-ed dim sum Sunday brunch instead. We made LOTS of dim sum that involved LOTS of effort, but (contrary to Hellen's opinion), I think the end result was worth it. Everyone had a good time, we didn't run out of dim sum and Joni got lots of useful presents. Honestly, what more can you ask for?

And what did YOU do for Easter, hmmm?

After attending Easter services, Gropius and I came home, changed clothes, and got started on our much-procrastinated yardwork. I planted flowers in the backyard. Red impatiens underneath the Heavenly Bamboo:



And, then I dug up the soil and planted flower seeds along the back fence:





If they aren't choked by weeds, here are the flowers that we should see:

A tale of two dinners....

Last night we had a nice dinner with some friends of ours and their newborn at a local microbrewery, Hoppy Brewing Company. Gropius agreed with Esen that it did indeed have a nice hefeweizen, even if it wasn't exactly the same as what you would get in Germany. I shocked Jess and Esen (who didn't realize I'm not a beer drinker) and enjoyed a nice pint of cider. Our research of local microbreweries continues!

I snapped this picture of Jess with Sophia:



Yeah, Jess is from North Dakota, how could you tell?? ;)

And the night before, we made a really tasty Asian-style Chicken Noodle soup, compliments of Martha Stewart. It didn't have any fat in it other than what is naturally occuring in the chicken breast and chicken broth we used. We had to add a bit more salt and I was pretty loosey-goosey with the red pepper flakes and we sub'd sugar snaps for snowpeas, but all in all it turned out well:



It went nicely with a cheap rose (the best kind!) we found at BevMo. Close up of the Udon noodles, red bell pepper, and chicken breast: