Summertime, and the Living's Easy

Why yes, the title of this post did come from a Sublime song! And if you don't like Sublime, you're wrong and you should probably leave now. (Just kidding!)

The beginning of summer was pretty crazy, especially with starting an (amazing!) new job and moving into a new apartment.  Now that my roommate and I are settled in, my first big task of summer has been attempting to add some style and function to our microscopically tiny apartment.  Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely grateful to be living where I'm at now.  It's close to campus and there is plenty of green space for walking the dogs.  But at the same time, two bedrooms, two busy students, and two very energetic pups means that we need both form and function.  Luckily, we're slowly moving the towards the achievement of those things!

The first project that I tackled was relatively easy and involved spicing up our very tiny kitchen.  A few finds from local thrift stores hung on the wall and a bright row of herbs growing in our sunny window was an easy first project that quickly added to the degree of homey-ness.  A few different baskets and bowls on the ledge between the kitchen and living room help to save precious counter space.  I can already see myself baking up goodies and cooking hearty soups throughout the fall and winter.  To me that's a sign of a job well done!

Next, I decided to execute a dream that I've had for quite a while: creating my own herb garden.  After finding a variety of pots, herb markers, and plant stakes on clearance at Target, I knew it was time! So far, I've planted four varieties of basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary,  chives, and parsley.  Now if I can just keep them alive all will be well.  In the picture below you can see some of the herbs that we have growing on our back patio.  The soup mugs in the picture above are actually serving as temporary planters for the four varieties of basil.  Yay thrift shops!

The living room is still a project that I'll probably work on over time.  So far, I've started a kind of wall collage with pictures of friends in colorful Ikea frames that I found at a thrift store and plaques that my roommate has been painting.  I'm really pleased with the look and love that we'll be able to continue adding to it throughout our time here.  It not only brightens up the small space, but the encouraging quotes and memories of good times bring me joy every time I see them. 

Another thing that can help change a space from house to home is the addition of little touches, as seen above on the lower left.  For me, these touches have come in the form of deliciously scented candles waiting to be burned on a side table, a few framed photos of my sorority sisters, and blankets and throw pillows placed on chairs.  These may be minor details, but to me they make a huge difference!

I also finally hung the TLU coat rack that my dad made me over a year ago. There wasn't really a place for it in my old house, but now it's become the perfect place to store dog leashes, keys, sweaters, and scarves.  My next organizational project will be figuring out how to corral all of our shoes that have made their home underneath this rack!

Well, I suppose that wraps up the tour of our new apartment! Again, I'm so sorry for accidentally ignoring this poor little blog.  Hopefully the coming months will bring plenty of fun projects, tasty recipes, and most importantly--time to blog about them!!  Until then, remember that there are always brighter days ahead!

Good Things

Have you ever forgotten to publish a post? I apparently have because this list of Good Things was left in my drafts from LAST August! How it never get published I cannot tell you. What I can tell you is that it's too nostalgic to be deleted.  So here we are!

Good things from the week of August 22, 2012:

• Last opening convocation with Emily and realizing that we're SENIORS and that we can sneak down the stairs a tad bit early and no one will care
• Super melty grilled cheeses for dinner
• Lots of puppy kisses during class on Tuesday night and getting to spend some time with the dogs at the Seguin Animal Shelter
• Going for walks around the neighborhood with Lance and my roomies between classes
• Seeing familiar faces all around campus

I have neglected this hardcore.

But have no fear!

School will be out for summer soon and then I'll have more time to spend on this little project.  Upcoming topics for posts will include: pup cakes, cyanotype printing on fabric, alternative process photography, glass etching, and hopefully some book reviews.

Stay tuned!

Currently

School has started again which means less time for blogging.  And just when I was getting into the swing of things.  New goal: write at least one post a week even though I'm pretty sure that the only people who read this are my mom and my sisters and possibly Kelsie! (Hi guys!! If you do read this, comment! :D)

Seawolf.  Leaves in the River.  I may be addicted.
  

This album has been on repeat intermittently for several days now.  Yes, it's from 2007, but there's something that feels so perfect about it for right now.  I have yet to discern the actual source of this feeling, but if I actually figure that out then I'll probably have something to say about it.

In other news, I have discovered once more that Tumblr sometimes yields really awesome art finds.  For instance, the gems in the Flickr photostream of Kael Kasabian.  Below are some of my favorites.  Check it out if you want and let me know what your favorites are!

Galgo de colores by Kael Kasabian on Flickr

Skull de color by Kael Kasabian on Flickr

Musakhan Chicken and Pita Bread

Well guys, I think a tradition has been established!  This past Wednesday, Emily and Drew came over and we had cooking night again.  On the menu this time was Musakhan Chicken and Pita Bread.  It's a traditional Palestinian dish and definitely one that I'll be making again.  This meal was surprisingly quick and had a great turn out.  The pita bread took the longest, but mostly only because of the rise time.  It was easy enough to get started and then do something else while it was rising though.  Once we started preparing the chicken, it only took a little over half an hour to put together.  The flavor was delicious, full of cumin and peppery goodness with just a hint of cinnamon.

 Here are the recipes that we used, both from Paul Gayler's Meditarranean Cook.

Pita Bread, or khoubz arabieh
Ingredients:

• 1 oz. fresh yeast
• pinch of sugar (We discovered that we didn't have sugar at the last minute, so we used a good squeeze of honey instead!)
• 1 3/4 cups warm water
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• sunflower oil for greasing (Our HEB didn't have sunflower oil, so we just used olive oil!)

Method

1. In a bowl, mix the yeast with the sugar and 4 tbsp. of the water and leave the liquid to become bubbly about 10-15 minutes.  Mix the flour and salt in a  mixing bowl, make a well in the center, add the yeast mixture, and then work into a dough with the remaining water to firm consistency.  Knead for 10 minutes.
2. When the dough is smooth and pliable, shape into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a damp dish towel, and set aside in a warm place for 1-1-1/2 hours or until doubled in volume.
3. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F or to its highest setting.  Turn out the dough onto a floured surface.  Punch down the dough, then divide into eight equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball, dust with flour, place on a board, cover with a dry dish towel, and proof for another 15 minutes.
4. Grease three large cookie sheets lightly with oil and place in a hot oven for 5 minutes.  Roll out each ball of dough on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin into a rough circle around 6 in. in diameter.  Transfer two or three at a time to a hot cookie sheet.  Cook in the oven for about 6 minutes until puffed up but still quite pale in color.  Repeat with the remaining pitas, cooking them a few at a time.
5. Place on a cooling rack, then cover with a dish towel to keep them soft.

Musakhan Chicken

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 2 onions, sliced
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp. sumac (Again, our HEB didn't have sumac, but a little Internet research told us that we could use 3 tbsp. paprika and a good squeeze of lemon juice as a substitute!)
• 2 3/4 cups chicken stock
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 2 tbsp. fresh cilantro, chopped
• 4 pita breads or shirak (Shirak is an Israeli flatbread.)

Method

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan.  Season the chicken and add to the pan; cook for 1-2 minutes until golden.  Remove to one side.
2. Add the onions to the pan, cook for 5-10 minutes until golden, then add the cinnamon and sumac.  (Again, we added the paprika and lemon juice here.) Return the chicken to the pan, add the stock, and bring to a boil; cook for 5 minutes.
3. Remove and cut up the chicken into bite size pieces; place in a bowl and squeese the lemon juice on top.  Add the pine nuts and cilantro.
4. Cut the pita breads in half lengthwise and fill with the chicken and pan juices.

Recent Creations

A Night with the Greeks

What better way to begin 2013 that with good friends, good food, good memories, and good laughs?  Drew, Emily, and I rung in the new year together, and then on New Year's day we came up with the idea of creating Greek food dinner.  Emily and I travelled to Athens on a school trip last summer, and since then she's started somewhat of a tradition of preparing our favorite foods from that adventure.  For this dinner, we decided to make Greek salad (naturally!), moussaka, and pomegranate seeds with vanilla and honey Greek yogurt.

We started with a trip to HEB, gathering delicious and fresh ingredients.  I can't wait for all of the farmer's markets this spring! I would describe moussaka as a cross between Shepherd's pie and lasagna.  It's filled with eggplant, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, and ground beef with a fluffy parmesan cheese sauce topping that bakes up into a delicious golden brown crust. So amazing!!


For our Greek salad, we used cucumbers, tomatoes, a red onion, salt, pepper, olive oil, and of course some delicious feta cheese.  Just a quick side note: any restaurant that serves Greek salad with lettuce is lying!! There is no lettuce in a true Greek salad, I repeat, there is no lettuce in Greek salad!

We started by preparing the moussaka, which involved peeling and slicing our eggplants into thin layers that we covered in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then, we broiled these in the oven for 5 minutes on each side.  While Emily and I did that, Drew sautéed together chopped onions and garlic in olive oil.  After that, he added in the ground beef.  Traditionally, ground lamb would be used here.  Then, a can of tomato sauce was added.  Once the eggplant was broiled and the meat filling was done, we layered the two together in our pan and made the cheese sauce.

For the cheese sauce, we melted butter and then whisked in flour and half and half.  Once this was bubbly and thick, we added a beaten egg and our parmesan cheese.  Then, we just poured it over the rest of our layers and put the whole thing into the oven to bake! Then it was time to quickly prepare the Greek salad while we waited the 45 minutes that our moussaka would have to bake.  

Once we finished that, we still had a bit of time so we decided to take Lance for a quick walk around the neighborhood.  Part of our reasoning was that we would work up our appetites even more, but we also just wanted to be able to walk into a house full of the delicious smell of tasty moussaka!!  Unfortunately, we came back to discover that we forgot to turn the oven on! Oh well!! Forty-five more minutes it was and we definitely won't make that mistake next time.  After it was done cooking, for real this time, it looked absolutely scrumptious and smelled even better!

Here's a picture of our table:

And of course, who could forget desert? Pomegranates are absolutely one of my favorite fruits ever! The Greek myth goes Persephone was a beautiful and much-loved young woman, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of harvest.  Hades, god of the underworld, wanted her for himself so one day when she was out picking flowers he made the ground open up and grabbed her, with only Zeus and the all-seeing sun Helios seeing what had happened. Demeter was distraught and brokenhearted over the loss of her daughter, until Helios revealed her daughter's fate.

After that, she became enraged and drew into loneliness, leaving the earth to become infertile.  Knowing that this couldn't continue, Zeus sent Hermes to the underworld to make Hades release Persephone.  While she was there, Persephone had not eaten or drank because she knew that anyone who ate in the Underworld would be bound there, even a goddess.  But before she went, Hades gave Persephone a pomegranate.  She ate 6 seeds from it, meaning that she would have to stay.  However, Hermes made a compromise with Hades that Persephone would spend six months with him, since she had eaten 6 seeds, and six months with her mother Demeter on earth.  This explains the cycle of the seasons, as fall and winter are the six months in which Persephone was away and Demeter grieved the leaving of her daughter.  Spring and summer are the times in which Persephone returned, giving Demeter great joy.

This was one of the best meals that I've gotten to prepare in a long time, mostly because it was prepared with friends, lots of love, and even more laughter.  We even decided to make this a new tradition, with a challenge to ourselves to go "Around the World in Eighty Plates". Our next stop will be Israel! I hope that everyone else is having a lovely new year, and that it was filled with just as much love and laughter as ours was!

Also, the recipe we used was Kittencal's Greek Moussaka Recipe on Food.com!

Happy New Year!!

Declaration of Intention by Emily McDowell

This year, I will live life to the fullest.  I will let go of past regrets and burned bridges and embrace the possibilities of the future.  I will honor my dreams by nourishing them even when they seem impossible and love myself more by taking the time to do the things that I love. I will stand up & share my happiness and hope with the world. 

This year, I will remember that I am loved and I am enough.