drinking vegetables

 So, December is happening this Saturday, and the holiday parties and events are already starting to fill the calendar. December is by far, in my opinion, the unhealthiest month. It's super hard to stay committed to healthy eating when your cube mate has brought in triple chocolate banana fudge bread topped with candy canes for the third day in a row. I have already been sick twice this fall, and I don’t want the holidays to take me down for a third time. I’m a little stressed out about it, so I decided to take some serious action. Enter our juice machine. I haven’t been much of a juicer unless there were extra carrots around our house that needed to be used up, but this week Anders and I specifically planned to start each morning with some sort of veggie juice concoction. I literally gagged on the beet, carrot, cucumber juice, but the carrot, ginger, apple is really good (I'm beginning to think all juices need one apple!). Next up, cabbage juice…although honestly, I’m really scared about that one. If anyone has a veggie juice that they can recommend, please send our way!
Merry Carrots! 

i dream of sushi

Words can not begin to explain the epic dining experience Anders and I had last night. Let's start at the beginning, though. A few months ago, Anders and I watched the neatest documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi about an 85 year old sushi maker in Tokyo. Jiro is the oldest person ever to win 3 Michelin Stars even though his restaurant only has 10 seats in it and is located in a subway station. You learn all sorts of fascinating things about Jiro in this documentary including the fact that he has never taken a day off in his life except for national holidays and funerals. We also discovered that Jiro's restaurant is one of the top ten hardest reservations to get in the world. Phew! Anders and I loved this documentary and immediately put Tokyo on our MUST travel list. 

In a perfect world, Anders and I would leave for Tokyo tomorrow, but, unfortunately, that can't happen just yet. However, to our delight, we found the next best thing. His name is Shiro, and he is one of the greatest sushi chefs in the city of Seattle. Turns out, he studied under Jiro for eleven years. He has been making sushi for 50 years and is literally the person who brought sushi to Seattle. We arrived at his restaurant 15 minutes before opening and put a request in to sit at the sushi bar. Shiro only works three days a week, and he only makes sushi for 7 seats at the sushi bar. If you want Shiro to make your sushi, I recommend getting there early!

Anders and I tried almost every nigiri roll available...salmon, tuna, squid, mackerel ..you name it, and it put every single piece of sushi I have ever eaten before this moment to shame. His sushi made me smile every time I took a bite. I highly recommend this restaurant! I'm already planning our next trip back! And not only was the sushi good, but I learned a lot of valuable things as well. For instance:

1. You can eat sushi with your hands. It is 100% polite and much easier than trying to coordinate those chopsticks.

2. When Shiro is making sushi, you don't dip it in soy sauce. In fact, he begs you not to, and he's right. It does not need it at all.
3. Put the entire piece of sushi in your mouth. No biting it in half.

4. Even if you've eaten a salmon skin roll or octopus or squid and hated it at other places, try Shiro's. I thought I hated all those things, but when Shiro makes them it takes your breath away. He is the best. 

Here is the trailer for Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Anders and I highly recommend it along with Shiro's!

carols on the lake

Now that Thanksgiving is officially over, people are in full Christmas mode around here. On Saturday, a Christmas ship set sail on Lake Union carrying the Dickens Carolers, and while the ship cruised around they also broadcasted the lovely songs the carolers sang out across the lake. Anders and I, along with some friends, rented a boat from the Electric Boat Co. and chased after the Christmas ship to hear the songs. We ate chili and drank wine and felt very festive. And even though it's not quite December yet, we embraced the holiday spirit just the same. You can find the entire caroling schedule here.

giving thanks

Our dear friends, Cory and Colby, hosted Thanksgiving for a large group of friends at their lovely home. It was the best kind of chaos with 20 adults, 8 kids, 4 deep fried turkeys, a whole lot of side dishes and more dessert than we needed (just kidding. not possible). It was a lot of fun and made me so very thankful for my life and this zany group of peeps I get to call friends. Here are some pictures from the day!

The schedule for the day

It's noon...must be time for the tempura

Getting bird one ready

Meanwhile...let's shoot some oysters

The bird is ready

Imagine this x four

 A picnic in November? Why not.

Yes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

getting warmed up

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with turkey and pie. Lots of pie.

Anders and I are spending Wednesday night practicing with a giant turkey leg. Gotta get our bellies ready!

homemade cioppino!

So, I'm one of those annoying people who likes to tell everyone that I NEVER get sick. In fact, I can't recall having the flu ever in my life. I'm sure I had it as a small child, but I don't remember. I haven't had it since. Well, that is until this week. Yes, the girl who never gets sick, got sick, with the flu, and it was possibly the closest to death I've ever felt. Dramatic, but true. Anyway, I'm feeling much better after four days of doing nothing but laying on the couch, sweating out a fever and watching a lot of Bravo TV. 

To celebrate my return health, Anders made us homemade cioppino! He made the whole thing from scratch...even the stock and it made such a difference in the soup that I think I'm going to start requesting homemade stock from here on out. Sorry, love!

Here is his recipe:

Anders' Homemade Fish Stock and Cioppino

Serves 8

For the Stock:

1 cup of chopped fennel

1 large carrot, chopped

1 yellow onion, quartered

4 cloves of garlic

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 cups of dry white wine

Pinch of red pepper flakes

1 T. oregano

Splash of red wine vinegar

2 teaspoons olive oil

The shell of a 1.5 pound lobster (save the meat for the soup)

The carcass of a 2 lb rockfish (bones and head) or any other lean, mild white fish, broken into pieces (save the meat for the soup)*

*If you don't want to filet your own fish, just ask the fishmonger to filet it for you, skin removed and save everything.

Stock Directions:

1. In a large stockpot, heat 2 teaspoons of oil over medium heat. Add fennel, carrot and onion and saute 5 minutes until they start to sweat and soften. Add garlic, oregano, red wine and red pepper flakes and stir.

2. Add the lobster shell and fish carcass and saute 5 more minutes.

3. Add the dry white wine, cover and let simmer for 10 minutes. Stir often. Since the wine is open, go ahead and drink a glass.

4. Add water until contents are covered, about 5 cups, and simmer for a half hour minimum...longer if possible.

5. Strain stock in a separate bowl. Save stock for later, discard the rest.

For the Soup:

3/4 lb of spot prawns (shells on)

1.5 lbs of lobster meat, diced small

2 rockfish fillets, diced small

3/4 lb of bay scallops

1 lb of clams

1 onion, diced

1 shallot, diced

1 cup of fennel

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Red pepper flakes

1 Tb. oregano

1 teaspoon of salt

28oz can of diced tomatoes

3 tbs. of tomato paste

1 tbs of olive oil

Soup directions:

1. Add oil to the same stockpot you used for stock and saute onion, fennel, shallot and garlic over medium heat until soft about 5 minutes. Add oregano, red pepper flakes and salt. Stir.

2. Add lobster and saute another 5 minutes.

3. Add fish, scallops and spot prawns and saute another 5 minutes.

4. Add the can of diced tomatoes, tomato paste and the stock you made earlier.

5. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, add clams and simmer an additional 15 minutes.

6. Serve and enjoy!

very superstitious

Sport superstitions are nothing new. A lot of people have them, and Anders and I are no different. I'm not exactly sure how it all started, but we have a rule that every layer we wear when bundled up for a game HAS to be a Seahawks layer...even if no one will ever see that layer (like socks! and underwear!). 

It's only weird if it doesn't work.

happy veterans day! (yesterday)

I love our Veterans, and I love card stunts. Most fun pre-game show ever.

To all of you who are serving our country or who have served our country...thank you is not enough! 

Hope you all had a nice Veterans Day!

let's talk mushrooms

Anders went foraging for the first time this week. He was in search of matsutake, and I have to admit I was a wee bit jealous. Mushroom hunting has been on my adventure to-do list for awhile now, but, alas, I had to work. Anders only found one large matsutake, but he also found some chanterelles and had enough to make a big batch of mushroom rice. However, I think he needs to go back out and bring me along this time. I might have some secret mushroom hunting skills we don't know about. Plus, I have a list I'm trying to work through...

Stuffed Mushrooms

Mushroom Lentil Burgers

Mushroom and Spinach Enchiladas

Garlic Butter Roasted Mushrooms

Chanterelle Soup
Pasta with Bacon and Mushrooms
Sliced Mushrooms with Mozzarella and Thyme

Also, we are thinking about training Maggie to be a truffle hunting dog.

heart love soup

Last year, around this same time, my good friend Dina started a gratitude project where she made homemade soup and delivered it to a new recipient every night for the ENTIRE month of November. The idea behind it was simple…be grateful for what you have and give back to others. Anders and I were lucky enough to be one of those recipients of her delicious soup. Remember this post about it? Well, Dina has decided to start up her project again this year. I know she is trying to not repeat the same people, so you can imagine my surprise when pea soup with bacon showed up in our mailbox overnight! We were thrilled to be included in her sweet project again. It not only feels so good that she considers us worthy enough friends to be on her soup drop list again, but we also get to eat her amazing soup! She makes the BEST soup. If you haven’t heard about her project, you can read her first post here, and you can read about our specific soup drop here. She is already seven days into her project, but it’s definitely not too late to start following along. It’s not only inspirational, but you’ll snag some killer soup recipes as well.

Dina, thanks again for thinking of us and good luck with the rest of your soup drops!

two things

Two cool things from the Seahawks game yesterday (and I'm not even counting our win)

This awesome pumpkin carved into a hawk

And rockin' our new tie dye shirts while tailgating.

Hope you all have a fun Monday!

not so scary

Well, despite carving pumpkins, lighting them and setting them by our front gate, locking the pup up so she didn't bark, vacuuming my living room, setting out candy and candles…we received no trick-or-treaters (actually, I lie, my cutie niece and nephew stopped by, but they are obligated seeing as how they live next to us, and I would have hunted them down otherwise). All that was left to do was sulk in my huge bowl of candy. Seriously. The scariest thing to happen to me all night was witnessing Anders cook this giant octopus.