Fresh Goodies from the Market

Bender and I decided together this morning that we wanted to go to the Vancouver Farmer's Market this morning, walk around, and maybe even buy a few things.  And that's exactly what we did. 

The weather was very cooperative, sunny and warm but not hot.  There was a nice crowd there, but it was laid back and pleasant.  Bender got several pettings and scored a couple of free cookies from the vendor booths. 

There were many booths that had a lot of the same types of things in them:  Fresh fruits, vegetables, and beautiful fresh cut flowers.  It would have been easy to go crazy buying things that I didn't really need.  There were some very big, juicy looking blackberries that I struggled to pass by, and now wish I had bought some for baking.  Dang it.  Hindsight's 20/20, right? 

I did end up with quite a nice bag of goodies, though!  I've decided to try to turn over a new healthier leaf, so this is the first of what I anticipate being many steps towards that goal.

A couple of zukes (I have a couple from my garden, but wanted more!), a couple of pattypan squash, some sweet bell peppers (aren't they just beautiful colors?), some french green beans, a couple of portabella mushrooms, and one cucumber. 

I have some fresh dried pasta that I bought when I was in Seattle that's a sweet tomato flavor, and I'm planning to use the sweet peppers and some Italian sausage I bought from Top Choice Meat Market to make a new dish.  I'll share it on here when I do that in the next few days. 

And since I'm a sucker for squash, I couldn't pass up the pattypans, although I've never cooked with them before.  I'm sure I'll figure out something and I'm sure I'll like it. 

I have big plans for the mushrooms and green beans as well.  Oh, I am so excited!

I am going to try something new with the cucumber - maybe a facial mask of sorts.  Stay tuned...  there are definitely several delicious postings coming up in the near future!

Also going on this weekend at Esther Shore Park is the Vancouver Brew Fest.  As tempting as it was, especially since it was dog-friendly, I passed and came on home.  If the mobile entertainment that was going on outside of the gate was any indication, it's likely going to be a good time!  :)

And, lastly, here is Mr. Dog with one of his free cookies.  He wouldn't eat it at the park, but once we got home, he took it in his mouth and just trotted around with it for several minutes.  It's always funny when he does that.

That's all I've got for now!  I think I hear a glass of iced tea calling my name! 

Holy Heck It's Hot.

Well, I guess I asked for it.  I've been taunting my poor ol' brother with reports of our nice, cool weather up here in the Pacific Northwest, and then, BAM!, next thing you know, it's 102 degrees outside my house.  Cripes.  Even at that, Oklahoma's 113 degree weather still makes my 102 seem kinda wimpy and unworthy of complaint.

I do hope that they get beyond this dry spell and that the fires ease up.  I worry about my family, friends and the people that are out there fighting the fires in what is already extremely hot weather. 

So, this evening, I finally baked an easy and delicious new recipe.  It's from Pillsbury's Prize Winning Bake Off magazine and it's called Streusel Spice Cake.  Here's a pretty picture of the finished cake.

It's super easy, using a cake mix (which I usually avoid because I often don't have cake mixes handy).  Here's the recipe:

Cake:
1 pkg yellow cake mix
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup softened butter
5 eggs
1/4 cup flaked coconut
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted

Filling:
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2-3 Tablespoons milk
    (NOTE:  you can just use 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract if you don't have vanilla bean paste)

Heat oven to 350.  Grease and lightly flour bundt pan (I use the baking version of Pam). 

Beat together the cake mix, milk, butter and eggs.  Stir in coconut and nuts.  Stir in the melted chocolate, using a spoon or spatula to marble the batter.  Here's what mine looked like.   And I must apologize because I'm having a particularly difficult time editing my pictures tonight - so there's all sorts of glare and extra stuff in them that I don't necessarily want to include.  Blah!

In small bowl, mix the ingredients for the filling.  Reserve 1/2 cup of the filling. 

Poor 1/2 of the batter (about 2 cups) into the prepared bundt pan.  Sprinkle the filling on top of the batter. 

Poor remainder of the batter over the filling.  Top batter with the reserved 1/2 cup filling (hence the "streusel"!).

Bake in 350 degree oven for 55 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for about 5-10 minutes and then flip onto cake round or serving dish to allow cake to cool completely. 

Once cooled, prepare glaze.  Mix all ingredients, adding just enough of the milk to get desired consistency.  Spoon/drizzle over the cake. 

This particular pan made a beautiful cake and the glaze just slid into the tracks and made it even more pretty!!  The crunch of the nuts and the coconut give this cake nice texture and flavor. 

Easy peasy.

Now that the house has cooled off (yes, I did make a brilliant decision as to when to bake a cake in terms of the weather...), I believe it may be time for me to hit the hay.  I can't believe it's already another Monday tomorrow.  To that, I say, "Blah."

Stay cool, peeps!!

Sleeping Soundly in Seattle

First off...

Happy Birthday, Dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully you spent the day doing what you enjoy without causing any injury to yourself. 

So, for my recent adventures, I spent a couple of days up in Seattle.  Maybe I was celebrating my Dad's birthday for him a little early.  :) 

I took the train from Portland to Seattle and stayed at the Moore Hotel, which is nicely located so that I was able to get around very easily without needing a car.  It was just a few blocks away from Seattle's famous Pike Place Market. 

I love this market place.  There are so many shops and such a variety of wares.  It's easy to spend a lot of time in there! 

Also, just near the market is the brand new Seattle Great Wheel.  It was huge and I immediately headed there for a spin. 

Up close and... up:

And a view of the city:

That evening, I met some friends for some artisan pizza at Serious Pie.  I enjoyed the roasted king trumpet mushroom pizza with truffle cheese.  It was delicious.  Seriously delicious.  Others had the fennel sausage pizza, which was also very tasty!  Much to my happiness, Serious Pie was less than two blocks away from the Moore Hotel, so it couldn't have been much more perfect.  The only down side is that the wait was a bit long, about 1 1/2 hours for a table.  And it didn't seem to be an unusual situation.  So if you go, anticipate waiting - but know it's worth it!

The following day, I spent a fair amount of time at the market and then headed out via taxi that afternoon to the Pacific Science Center which is where the King Tut Exhibit is located.  The King Tut Exhibit was amazing.  I still can't believe how detailed and beautiful the artifacts were.  It was a great experience.  Here are a few pictures. It's hard to tell the size of the items, because there's not much to scale them to. 

The sarcophagus for Prince Thutmose's Cat. Aw, kitty.  It is about the size of a laundry basket, if a laundry basket was a heavy box made of stone with a lid.  I REALLY wanted to touch this one, but I refrained, surprisingly: 

Kneeling statue of Hatshepsut.  Hatshepsut was a queen who broke tradition and took over the throne ruling as pharaoh.  You can get an idea of the size of it from the people standing behind it.

Statues of King Khafre and Menkaure.  Khafre (the statue on the left) is the pharaoh whose face is on the Sphinx.  Menkaure is Khafre's son. 

Gold Canopic Coffinette.  This was encased in glass (many exhibits weren't) so you can see the reflection of a couple of people in the picture.  This piece was fairly small, but so amazingly detailed.  It held King Tut's stomach.  Oh yay!  You can kind of see if you look along the right side edge that it is a two-piece item that goes together and closes. 

 Statue of King Tut.  This was huge.  I don't know how tall, but it was really big and amazing. 

King Tut's bed that it's thought he used while living. 

So, after doing my exhibit tour, I hoofed it about 3 minutes down the street to Key Arena to watch Neil Diamond in concert.  I LOVED it!  I would go see him again in a heartbeat.  As one person said as we were all making our way out the door afterwards, "He's a class act."  And I agree!  I had a good seat, but not a great one.  It was down on the floor directly in front of the stage and I couldn't take my eyes off of him and his band.  I only took two pictures, and neither turned out very well, so I don't have any to share.  I'm still savoring the performance.  Awesomeness. 

Well tomorrow is the company picnic, so I'm really hoping to share a new recipe sometime soon.  I feel so neglectful of my oven lately!!  :)

Again, a big ol' happy birthday to my dear Dad.  I'm still hoping that you get a much deserved foot massage.  :)

Meet Me In Montana...

Hello, out there!  What a busy last few weeks I've had, both at work and in the personal realm!  Most recently, work took me on a new adventure to Montana.  I've never been there before - ever - and was excited to see what I've heard so much about.  And I have to say that Montana did not disappoint me!  It was beautiful!  I spent a little time in Helena and a little time in Butte.  And because of the timing of things, I was able to enjoy some non-business moments with two friends and co-workers doing some very fun things!

As far as the non-business side of the fence goes, the first outing included going on a boat ride up (or down?) the Missouri River, tracing the path of Lewis & Clark.  It was a beautiful, well guided, dramatic tour of the Gates of the Mountains.  The link about the tour can be found here.  

Rhino's Horn:

Devil's Slide:

The river:

This river ride is extremely relaxing and the guide that we had was amazing in his story-telling.  And another plus:  You can take a cooler with beer on the trip with you!  How can that be bad?? 

The following day, we went to Butte for the Montana Folk Festival.  There were so many excellent bands that were playing there, one of which was Diunna Greenleaf and and the Blue Mercury Band.  I LOVED them!  Here is a picture of me with Diunna that we took as she was signing my CD.  This woman has an amazing, strong, beautiful voice that gave me shivers even though I was sweating in the heat of the Montana sun!  I think people so related to her sound and her words that they were drawn to her.

Also while at the festival, there is a small garden of flowers that we walked through and took lots and lots and lots of pictures.  It was hard not to.  But here is one of my favorites that I snapped.  It was very pretty. 

I also completely fell in love with the handiwork of Theresa Gong.  She had some beautiful pottery pieces that I anticipate being an eager collector of over time.  I purchased one piece while I was there, and then my wonderful hostesses purchased another piece for me as a sweet gift!  You can go see Theresa's work here:  Theresa Gong Porcelain Pottery and Theresa Gong Porcelain Pottery Gallery. 

Lastly, I have to mention a brewery we stopped at, Quarry Brewing, and had a sampler of some very nice beers.  I learned that I really DO like porters (they have a fabulous one!).  And, as a group, we all voted positive for their summer brew, the Apricot Ale.  It was really, really good.  I was completely taken with the Mug Club that they have there.  If you click on the link above, you should check it out.  I thought it was pretty clever. 

Unfortunately, all of my busy business has not afforded me the time to do any baking whatsoever.  I barely have even had the time to cook regular ol' meals of late.  I do expect things to slow down here in the next week or two, and I'm anxious for it because I do have several new recipes that I've been saving up to give a try.  So stay tuned!!

It's fair to say that my first trip to Montana was a successful one.  I hope to get to return. 

As for other happenings, all the animals are doing well.  Bender recently started destruction work on his most recent "baby."  I don't know what it is about these types of babies, but they last him a long time before he starts tearing into them.  I think he's had this one for several months now, and I think it might even be a record.  Once he starting in with the de-stuffing, though, he seems to thoroughly enjoy it. 

For now, I think that's about all I've got!

Take care out there!!

Low Profile Sunday and Frito Pie Dinner

July is gonna be busy.  It started off that way, and will end that way.  One thing I will absolutely not be doing this month, however, is visiting Oklahoma.  It is way, way, way, way, way, way too hot for me in the summer. I am pretty sure that anything over 90 degrees will cause me to melt, and since they're in the triple digit heat range, I fear spontaneous combustion.  I'm thinking more along the lines of October for that trip! 

In the meantime, I (think I) have recovered completely now from The Mob's visit.  I did have visitors again this weekend, some family that was headed out to the airport this morning for a trip to Disney Land in Cali.  They were up for just relaxing and doing a big ol' bunch of nothing last night, so we watched a marathon of America's Next Top Model.  I'm slightly embarrassed about that, but I suppose it is time for me to just admit to the world that I really do enjoy that show!  I even skipped a season not long ago thinking I didn't really need to watch such a silly show anyway, and eventually, I went crawling back. 

Anyhow, for the first time in a very long time, my alarm clock, my phone alarm, and my coffee pot were all set to do their things at 3:30 a.m.  Anyone that knows me is fully aware that I am in the prime of my much needed beauty (and probably more importantly mood stabilizing) stage of sleep at that fine hour.  I guess I should note the obvious:  I did survive, despite myself and was able to safely drive the family to the airport and get myself back home.  Oh, yeah, and back to bed... 

I spent the better part of my day running between a couple of different pharmacies, taking Bender to get his vaccinations updated (yuck) and doing laundry.  This evening, the plan has been and is panning out to be all about just chillin'.  Showered, watched some non-brilliant television, painted my fingernails and then went for broke and painted my toenails, too.  (Different colors, even!)  In case you haven't guessed, that song, "Life in the Fast Lane" was written about me.  And to continue on with my daring activities of the day, for dinner, I had the "oh-so-easy-and-unhealthy-but-delicious- Frito Pie."  And a diet ginger ale.

One might would think that my fast-lane life would keep the animals in a state of high energy, but you could guess again. 

Oops.  this was obviously taken pre-toenail painting. 

I haven't had time for baking much, but did make a Raspberry-Blackberry Crisp on the 4th of July that was pretty delicious.  I'm going to experiment with it just a little more before I post the recipe here, but it'll be coming along shortly!

Stay cool and take care!

Traci

What do you find under a ponytail?

A friend and co-worker has decided that he is going to go hiking on a regular basis.  As part of this proclamation and with a little urging, he roped another friend (and co-worker) and me to go with him this past weekend.  Oh yippee, yay, whoohoot.  Ok, really, I'm not much of a hiker and I have a little bit of a difficult time making it "fun" for myself.  It is supposed to be fun, right?  And I live in a place that is covered with kazillions of hiking trails.  Amazing hiking trails.  I should be more appreciative.

So, Bender and I got up Sunday morning and met Russ and Lyn at Horsetail Falls, just east of Portland.  The hike started off a little bit steep with about five or so switchbacks, and then it leveled out.  At switchback three or four or so, I was totally ready to throw in the towel!  But I'm glad I didn't. 

This is Horsetail Falls which is visible from the roadside.  Very pretty!

As you hike the trail, you come across another waterfall, Ponytail Falls.  It is cool because it's beautiful AND because there is a dug out area beneath the falls that you can walk through and have an underneath view of the fall. 

I wish I had known about this trail and these falls when The Mob was here!! They would have loved the little cave-like area! 

Of course, the view from high up was amazing.  It overlooked the Columbia River and a wetland area. 

On the trail, we popped out in a different spot than where we started, so we had to walk back to our cars on the roadside.  During that stroll, we went through the Oneonta Tunnel that was rebuilt in 2009, but it smelled like fresh lumber.  It smelled good!

After our hike, we drove over the Bridge of the Gods into Stevenson, Washington and had burgers, beer and tea at the Big River Grill.  It was a nice day for it, and Bender and I were glad we went! 

Independence Day is quickly approaching.  I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!  Please remember that while fireworks are a way of celebrating our country and the men and women who have fought to protect it, there are ways to support our retired and active military year-round and directly.  Stay thankful!

Beach, Bumpers and Brave!!!

"Someone" has been very busy!!  The Mob left to return to Oklahoma on late Monday night, and I'm just now getting around to posting about our final outing to the beautiful Oregon Coast!!  For starters, we seem to be having an extra long winter here, so the temperature has been between 60 and 73 degrees and often cloudy or raining.  And when it feels cold here, it feels even colder on the coast.  I think I've acclimated (and truly LOVE!) the weather here, but The Mob was freezing most of the time during their visit. 

When we got to the coast, it was misting and cloudy and slightly foggy.  We stayed at The Inn At Cannon Beach, which was lovely.  I will totally stay there again.  They had a beautiful court yard, they're pet friendly, and there were little bunny rabbits all over the place (the tiny little brown spot in the middle of this picture by the ornamental grasses is a baby bunny!!)! 

Cannon Beach is special to me.  It's the very first place I ever went whale watching upon moving to Oregon back in 1999.  Time flies... 

Upon our arrival, we dumped our stuff in the room and headed straight to the beach in our sweatshirts!

Some of us walked the surf.  Others were a little more daring in the 55 degree (or close to it) water.  We enjoyed the drama that Haystack Rock provides to this part of the coastline. 

During low tide, The Mob was able to walk out to the base of Haystack Rock and check out some tidepools.  I didn't go - I went to the beach and parked my keester on a large piece of driftwood and just enjoyed the view and the peacefulness that the ocean brings to me.  I love it there.  A lot. 

One of the days we were there, we left Cannon Beach and headed about 10 mies north to Seaside.  Our first stop was the Seaside Aquarium.  They have a pool of harbor seals that are awesome.  The aquarium sells food that you can toss into the seals, and some of the seals have learned that if they do a special trick, they're more likely to get more food.  There's one seal, Regan, that will actually splash onlookers when he wants attention and food.  It is so funny because it can be quite surprising to the unsuspecting feeders.  Here's a slightly fuzzy action picture of a Regan splash moment!

While there, we also visited the bumper cars and tilt-a-whirl.  I was riding on the tilt-a-whirl, so no pictures of that, but Chaini and Talon were fierce drivers in the bumper car arena!!  Yes... Chaini is the blurry one because she was travelling at the speed of light practically!! 

When we left the beach for good, we decided to head south a little bit and head to Tillamook Cheese Factory for a quick tour.  Really, it was more for the ice cream and the cheese curds.  Who are we kidding? 

The drive down Highway 101 is just spectacular. 

So, we did finally make it back home.  On their last day here, we went to the movies and saw Brave in 3D at Cinetopia, my favorite theater ever.  Here's a picture that Talon took of The Mob rockin' those oh-so-cool glasses.

I did have to take a nap that day.  I finally ran right out of gas.  I'm glad to report that The Mob has safely returned to the surface of the sun (as my brother put it) to 100+ degree weather.  They are no longer chilled, needless to say. 

It was great fun to see my family.  Getting to spend time with my nieces was priceless!!