Recent Food Hauls

Well, Doc and I are in our new house and we love it. We've been busy getting settled, entertaining visitors, and fixing things! In the coming months I'm sure I will be posting many "before and after" photos of our progress.

Switching topics: I wanted to share my recent delicious food hauls.

We now live very close to Dovetail bakery (among many other wonderful vegan [and non] establishments), which means I can expect to put on a few pounds. Just under three weeks ago, after our LOOOONG day of moving, I stopped by Dovetail to pick up some breakfast goodies. I am in love with their assortment of scones. The people at Dovetail are so nice. I even got two free chocolate chip cookies!

cinnamon pecan scones

sticky buns with pecans

cinnamon buns

chocolate chip and black and white cookies

I'm loving the connectedness of this town. Our Realtor set us up with a great painting company, the hands-on owner of which told us about the farmer's markets that his wife coordinates, including one at their home, a couple of blocks away from us. After stopping by last weekend, Doc and I signed up for Late Bloomer Metro Market's CSA-like deal and last night we were delivered this:

two dozen Tokyo Rose, Gala, and Sansa apples

seven Stark Crimson pears

a bunch of purple and golden fingerling potatoes

three ears of corn

four beets

a head of cabbage, large cucumber, and large yellow onion

two zucchinis and two yellow squash
(I'm not a huge zucchini or yellow squash fan, but I have big plans for making zucchini bread, especially now that the weather has turned cooler.)

aromatherapy tea in a cute little beaker

All organic or transitional for $29!

The boys checking out the new digs.

Mini Guava Turnovers

I've been making my way through a tin of guava paste. First I made guava cake. Then it was guava puff pastries. Now, as the heat wave has ended here in the Portland area, I've turned the oven back on for guava turnovers. These are extra special because they're mini!

If I can stop eating them (I've already had 4 sitting here writing this post!) we might just top them with vanilla ice cream for dessert later.

Very simple to make, these babies come out so cute and tasty, you have to try them!

Ingredients:

Dough:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup Earth Balance
3- 4 tbsp cold water

Guava paste (approx. 3-4 oz), cut into 16 squares
(opt.) turbinado sugar for the top

Steps:
1. Mix the flour and salt. Add the EB, cutting and stirring with two knives until the mixture is lumpy. Add the water and knead with your hands a little. Form the dough into a ball and refrigerate for half an hour.

2. Roll out dough onto a greased cookie sheet with a rolling pin until very thin.

3. Using a pizza cutter, cut the rolled dough into a square. It doesn't need to be perfect. (Set aside the remaining pieces to use for an ugly jumbo turnover.) Using the pizza cutter, cut a line through the middle of the dough horizontally, then vertically. Then divide those sections each in half again, so you end up with 16 squares.

4. Place a square of guava paste on each square so that it's closer to one end than the other. Fold the dough square in half to create a triangle. Pinch the sides together and use a fork to further seal the pastry. Repeat for the remaining 15 turnovers.

5. Sprinkle the tops with turbinado sugar and bake at 375 degrees for approximately 15 minutes or until the turnovers are golden and some of the filling has spilled out.

Enjoy right out of the oven!

Update: Yes! Vanilla ice cream and mini guava turnovers (reheated slightly in a toaster oven) are a winning combination!

rescued loveseat gets another look

Anyone remember this love seat?

Before

After

After After

I grew tired of the bright orange and decided to subdue it a little with varying shades of green. You'll also notice I added another back cushion. The middle cushion cover came from Ikea a while ago. The other two I purchased on Etsy.

Waterfalls of Looooove

Photos of the many waterfalls we saw on our hike at Wahkeena Falls yesterday.

Marriage begins with a waterfall. The years pass swiftly over the rocks, love and passion transform like water to mist, to water again. There are obstacles. There are multitudes of paths. There are springs and streams before the fall and there are rivers and vast oceans after. Life's journey, navigated by love through trickles and torrents, sometimes sees a waterfall, that breathtakingly, achingly beautiful crescendo, that misty existence where love and beauty, heartache and understanding are experienced in the intertwining of life.
Okay, with two years of "official" partnership under my belt I'm hardly the authority on marriage. So, you know, ignore my ramblings. This week with family in town and Doc's and my two-year wedding anniversary, I've been thinking about happiness.
I am married to a wonderful person, who is very much my partner in every way, have great friends and family (several of whom have already visited us in Oregon since our move!), am so completely thrilled with our new community, and am all around pretty blissful. There are downsides, sure, but that's life and isn't life wonderful? If you think about it, how lucky each and every one of us are to have a life, have relationships, have flowers and art and rain- you can't help but realize our shared existence is something that should be appreciated and savored, not unlike a piece of good vegan cheesecake.

(It was a very long hike, especially the "up" part.)

Happy anniversary, my wonderful person. <3

Miniature Update

Oh gosh. It's been forever since I last posted. I promise to post soon- probably after my family leaves town next week.

We are in the middle of a sale for our lovely new house. If all continues to go smoothly, we'll be in our beautiful 1928 Portland bungalow September 1st! More to follow.

For those that know and love ferns

Since arriving in Oregon, my camera has barely made an appearance. However, DocDufresne and I snapped a few photos during a lovely hike in Tillamook State Forest, where we saw many kinds of ferns including a mystery fern, seen in the first two photos. Anyone know ferns of the Pacific Northwest? I'd love to identify it.

Mystery fern

In other news, we've been house hunting, which is both exciting(!!) and a little daunting. Doc and I are both really looking forward to living in Portland, as opposed to the suburbs, where we're temporarily residing. We're excited to (at last!) have room for a garden and still live in an incredibly walkable/bikeable area. Tonight we're taking a second look at a house that may be the one. Wish us luck!!

Driving across America

It's been four weeks since we've been in Oregon! I figured it was about time to talk about our trip here!

The four-day drive from Philadelphia (technically we started in Baltimore) to Portland (technically we ended in Hillsboro) was mostly a rainy one. We didn't take very many photos along the way, mostly due to the rain, but also because there wasn't much time dilly-dallying. That being said, we did see some amazing sights on the road. This is certainly a beautiful country and I was thrilled to see so much of it.

Doc and I shared the driving, thank goodness.

The hand of god, pointing us in the wrong direction.

Sunny Colorado. Finally, no more rain...for a short while.

Snow in Colorado!

Some of the many windmills we saw along the drive. So cool.

Potty break with prairie dogs, unseen by car-riding dogs.

I tried to capture a photo of the two doggles in the back seat, drugged and cuddling with each other. However, Honda Civics don't afford much room for photo taking, and nothing came out. Andy and Emerson are not the best car riders. Usually Emerson is crated in the back and Andy "sits" on the lap of whomever is not driving. We decided that wasn't going to work for this loooong trip. I found this contraption, which worked beautifully! The first day Andy and Emerson found ways to stick their heads through the bars, but for the most part they settled down after that.

Much to Ladybeth's dismay, we also have no photos of food, although we did have some good eats along the way. My favorite must have been the burritos we got from Bandit Burrito in Des Moines, Iowa.

Overall, it wasn't too bad of a trip. Our time constraint made things difficult (Matt started work a day and a half after we arrived in Oregon!), but it would have been challenging to have the dogs in the car for a longer amount of time.

My biggest piece of advice to those that may move across country: Leave your stuff behind! Have important items shipped, but otherwise just get new "stuff" on the other end. Believe me, it'll save you THOUSANDS of dollars! Sigh...

We're here! And we're excited to begin our lives in Oregon!


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