Oh my Goodness

I read about these today and started drooling. Two are easy to make appetizers and the other is an easy to make dessert. Proscuitto. Cheese. Lemon. Salmon. Mmmm. Where are my veins and needles. Must inject directly.

Enjoy.


 LEMON PUDDING "CAKES"
In the Oregonian today but found the link by searching google for Betty Rosbottom; found in Star Tribune, Minneapolis. The texture is a light spongey cake on top, dense pudding on the bottom. Can be made ahead. The article said they're great served hot, at room temp or cold. These definitely remind me of Kristen and Linda.

5 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing ramekins
2 to 3 large lemons
3/4c. sugar
3 eggs, separated
3 tbsp. flour
2/3c. whole milk
Water, for baking
6 strawberries, halved for garnish
Mint sprigs for garnish

Powdered sugar for garnish

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter six ( 3/4-cup) ramekins. Set them in a larger baking pan, such as a 9- by 13-inch Pyrex pan. Zest and juice lemons to yield 1/2cup lemon juice and 2 tablespoons zest.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat together butter and sugar until well blended, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping machine to scrape down sides of bowl occasionally. Then beat in zest. Beat in yolks, one at a time, then gradually beat in flour. On reduced speed, beat in lemon juice and finally the milk. Mixture will be somewhat thin and may look curdled; that's OK.

With an electric mixer on high speed and with clean beaters, beat whites in another bowl until soft peaks form. Then in three equal additions, gently fold whites into egg yolk mixture. Divide mixture evenly among buttered ramekins. Then fill large pan with enough hot water to come halfway up sides of ramekins. Bake on center rack of oven until tester inserted into centers of puddings comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Pudding cakes will puff up like little souffles and then deflate after being removed from oven. Carefully remove ramekins from pan. You can serve pudding cakes warm, at room temperature or chilled. (If serving chilled, cool, cover and refrigerate them. They can be prepared 1 day ahead.) Garnish each serving with a couple of strawberry halves, a mint sprig and a sprinkle of powdered sugar. Serves 6

Nutrition information per serving: Calories 264 Fat 13 g Sodium 48 mg Saturated fat 7 g Calcium 55 mg Protein 5 g Cholesterol 134 mg Dietary fiber 1 g Diabetic exchanges per serving: 2 other carb, 1 medium-fat meat, 1½ fat.
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These other two don't have accompanying recipes, but they don't look very hard to make. ExtraMSG wrote about these in his report of Portland's Taste of the Nation, 2006. I have never tasted anything he has recommended and NOT absolutely loved it.


 Viande's Spiedini Bianco
Brian, these remind me of you.

ExtraMSG's description:

Prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella with salsa verde. Bordering on excessively rich, I still ate a half dozen throughout the evening. The salty-sweet prosciutto with the creamy mozzarella and tangy green sauce made for a three element dish much more complex tasting than its preparation would suggest.

 Skamania's Polenta Cakes with Salmon
Kyle, these remind me of you.
No description provided by ExtraMSG, but I'm sure you salmonphiles know exactly what these taste like. Yum!

Stick me with your best shot

I went for acupuncture today at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine. I've never had acupuncture before. I've never even been for a professional massage before. But my hand's been bothering me and seeing as it hasn't gotten better, I figured I didn't have anything to lose.

So I went this morning for my 2 1/2 hour appointment. Lots and lots of questions followed by diagnostics to see what arm positions made my hand numb (answer: when my arms are raised and I turn my head to the left & up. I don't get the same feeling if I look to the right & up. Also found out that just turning my head to the left while she pushed down on my head had the same hand-numbing effect (but not if she pushed straight down or I looked to the right while she pushed down). Controlling for the experiment makes me happy.

Anyway, once she diagnosed where I was having the pain she brought out the needles. Seeing as my left forearm hurt, she inserted the 20 or so needles into my right shin, calf & ankle. Of course. Because that's where the pain is. I asked her why there and she told me it "had to do with the channels. It's all very complex".

Oh, OK... because that explains everything. Do you think I can use that explanation in my next paper? Anyway, I let it drop since I didn't want to hear any more about my Chi (which apparently is excellent, duh) nor the herbs I should be taking weekly (that's not going to happen either.... well, unless those herbs are actually strawberries and they happen to be dipped in 70% dark chocolate).

However, I did leave with less pain than when I went in and I was able to make a fist when I left. She mentioned the next 24 hours could be worse before it gets better, so we'll see how it goes. My fist-making has disappeared although I'm still able to move my wrist pretty well. I don't know if I'd go back for acupuncture again, but I'd definitely go back for one of their therapeutic massages. Sounds like 1.25 hours of heaven.

Oh, and they also told me not to pick any more weeds in mass-quantity. Yeah, like that's going to happen. Although I only have small amounts of weeds left, I didn't mention the recycled concrete path I'm planning on installing once my arm gets better.

Killer Easter Bunnies, 2006 version

In honor of Killer Bunnies, I made some cards of our own to put into the easter eggs (see post below). Here are a few of them:




 




 

 

 


 

An Easter like no Other

We ended up with about 15 people for Easter including the five weekend guests. Friday night we made carne asada tacos & hung out. Saturday, we went to Zell's Cafe for breakfast (yum), decorated easter eggs, made three trays of chocolate-covered strawberries & fabricated an Easter chick-ham (details & pictures forthcoming). We also picked up a keg for the weekend. By the time Sunday came, we had a full keg of Widmer's Drop Top Amber (didn't finish it; Brian Gaffney called it the K-egg), 5 magnums of champagne for mimosas (drank one), a ton of bloody mary mix & vodka (barely touched it) and the Jello shots that Taryn made in plastic easter eggs (totally ravaged and fought over).

So note to self: more Taryn drinks, less bloody marys, half a keg rather than full.

Easter in Portland is very different than Easter in Tucson. Tucson Easters are very hot, thereby requiring the hostess to hide the eggs 30 minutes before the guests come (the chocolate STILL melts). Portland Easters allow me to hide the eggs much sooner, although you have to wait out the rain & hail to actually search for them. The Easter games were very fun... an elaborate Easter version of Killer Bunnies rolled into a 325 egg 'Egg Hunt' (Ken won with the Taryn Carrot), a standard Jelly Bean Guessing Game (Ken won again, this time by guessing 204; correct=207), an Egg Run around the perimeter of the house (Adam S totally wrecked in the muddy driveway, thereby covering his new pants in Oregon mud; Ken won this too with a time of 19s. Brian Gaffney came in 2nd with 20, then Emily with 22s), the egg cracking contest (Rachel won), and an awesome pinata Taryn made depicting a chicken sitting in an easter egg (note to self: next time use something smaller than a softball bat).

In all, it was very fun. Rachel & Justin left Sunday night as did Taryn & Paul. Karl & Brian G. stayed the night, with Karl being upgraded to the guest room. The last guests left around 10 & I went to bed -- thereby getting 10 beautiful happy hours of sleep. I cleaned up the next day which wasn't too bad. Kinley's been great and, incidentally, isn't afraid of the shop vac... even when his mom 'accidentally' sucked up his snout. Apparently, curiousity mixed with unconditional love seems to be a recurring theme in our household.

Pictures coming soon. Happy Easter!

Match the Doctor to the Symptoms

3 Days ago:

I woke up this morning with shooting nerve pain going down the inside of my left forearm with bouts of tingly numbness in my middle two fingers. Painful numbness. It has been going on now for about 3 hours. I wouldn't think that much about it except that it hurts to pick up light things at work ( i.e. petri dishes) and I've woken up with numbness in my middle finger for most mornings for about a week now. And pain in my left forearm for most of the days. (I think it stems from a large amount of weeding a two weeks ago -- 450 lbs weeds; 1000 lbs branches -- we weighed it at the recycling place, so it's no exaggeration.) Perhaps I strained something....

Anyway, should I just load up on anti-inflammatories and take it easy or is it something more serious that I should look into?

I've been taking 6 ibuprofen a day for the past three days.

Today:

My arm is getting worse, not better. The numbness has expanded to my index finger and thumb. Also, I've been experiencing a lot more pain and limited range of movement. For example, I have pain when I rotate my wrist, hold my arm a certain way, and can no longer make a fist with my left hand.

I have awesome insurance and think I'm going to have it checked out. I just don't know what kind of doctor works on this type of thing?

Oh faithful readers, any ideas? Gardening season is coming up but more imminently, I can barely ride a bike without shooting pains up my arm or my fingers going numb.

Good Luck Dave!

At 10 this morning Tucson time, Dave Herman defends his dissertation. Which means by my calculations, he just finished.

Go Dr. Dave!

And so starts Easter Weekend

20 coming for Easter with 5 spending the weekend with us at Hotel Roko... Karl got in yesterday afternoon and came with us to our Dodgeball game last night (we tied). Rachel & Justin get in tonight at 7:45 -- they RSVPed & booked their tickets first; hence they get the guest room. Also coming tonight are Taryn & Paul, who will be sharing the office-turned-guest room with Karl. Good thing everybody already knows each other.

Should be a blast. No wonder Easter is my favorite holiday.

P.S. Karl & I stuffed 325 eggs yesterday to be hid throughout the yard. Can't wait!

What a difference

four days make. When I left to go back east, Kinley was sweet at home and a terror outside of the house. Not a terror, I suppose, but a stubborn puppy who'd rather play than listen. (Who can blame him, but I digress).

At obedience class they were teaching walking on a loose leash and "come" when there are other people around... neither of which he was getting. But my lovely husband persisted with the training and when he called on Sunday night to tell me they had a "breakthrough" involving loose leash, I expected it to be a one-time thing.

I didn't expect the heavenly walk that we had yesterday. Loose lease all the way to the park. All the way back. He even came to me and 'checked in' a couple times at the dog park. That hasn't happened before. I tried to hide my surprise and excitement, instead praising him for his good work.

Wow. I'd say the days of my puppy dread may be dimming -- which they are in the case of walking in public -- however, the looonnnng loose stool that required two full bags to pick up while I was gagging reminded me that having a puppy's not all roses.

And roses stink, by the way.

How to Get a 70 Year Old to Cry Like a Baby

I haven't posted the past couple of days because my brother, his girlfriend and I flew back east to surprise my dad for his 70th birthday.

My mom knew. My dad hadn't a clue. I arranged our flights such that Andrew & I got in within 20 minutes of each other. A family friend picked us up from the airport and brought us to the restaurant where everyone was meeting for dinner. Harry went in first and sat down. My dad was placing his drink order when I went up behind him and said "I'll have a Yuengling" (a PA beer). He turned and looked at me for several seconds before it started to register (He later said he was thinking "wow, that girl looks like Lisa"). Then he turned to see my brother on his other shoulder.

And then out came the waterworks.

Puddles McGee.

Apparently, even the restaurant staff started crying.

And so began the weekend of ridiculousness. The hilarity of all of us together. It was like nothing had changed since we were growing up except now my folks weren't upset about us sneaking beer. We had a great time -- family dinner on Friday. 70th birthday party with 65 people on Saturday. Breakfast, family time & bonfire on Sunday (aka my dad's real birthday).

Taryn even made my dad a skier pinata that I took home on the plane:


When he saw it, he laughed so hard he practically cried. And then when we showed him the stick to whack it, he kept evading it -- went to check the music, get a drink, etc. I thought it was just ADD, but when we insisted on his blindfold to whack it, he got really upset. "I am NOT going to hurt him". "He's terrific." We have a running joke in our family that everything is named Joey -- my brother named everything Joey when he was little, from stuffed animals to fish to plastic toys. Needless to say, when I asked my dad what he wanted to name the pinata since he had decided to save it, he said Joey. So Joey the Pinata made it through the weekend unscathed.

Monday we flew out. A short but great visit. We're all going back for Christmas. I have a feeling it will be silly as well, but on skis. Happy birthday Dad!

Fever!

Turns out Ken didn't give me his cold from Vegas. Or crabs.

But somehow I did manage to contract a 101.2 degree fever such that Ken had to put cold washclothes on my forehead and chest to stop the cold sweats. Fever broke by the next day but I've been out of it ever since. Just coming back from the excessive lung-hacking mucous. I'm exhausted

At least it's not Crabs

Ken brought me back an awesome head cold from Vegas. And chocolate, which almost makes up for the head cold and persistent cough.

It's great to have him home though. I really missed him.

Turns out his 11 pm flight arrived at 3:30 am on Friday (well, Saturday) due to delays. Then we had a friend stay with us for the weekend. We played a dodgeball tournament for 4 hours on Saturday and neither of us have been able to move since.

In other news, Kinley's first day of obedience class was yesterday. He does great at home... listens intently. But as soon as we get him out of the house and he sees another person (or more importantly) dog, he goes ballistic and just starts pulling. Happy pulling, but pulling nonetheless. They're teaching us to bribe him with cheese in front of his nose until he learns to turn, pay attention and come right away. We're also practicing walking on a loose lease -- which is difficult because of the above. I have a good feeling about it all though, Kinley has a great temperment. And he loves cheese & sleeping which is why he's my dog.