Genkinaonna

Next up, a trip to one of the panaderias/pastelerias dotting the area. This one's called Espiga Dorada. It's about 5 minutes from my house. They have mexican pastries, churros, galetas, etc...a pretty big selection. Some is in bakery cases and some is on rolling racks. It works like this: there's a stack of half sheet pans and tongs next to the bakery case. You take one of each and pick out the pastries you want, then take them to the front register and they are individually wrapped and bagged. They vary in price from 75 cents to 2.00 per pastry. We got a napoleon type pastry, custard and pineapple filled empanadas, a custard filled bread horn, two caramel filled churros,a cheesecake slice, a bread pudding slice, and a puff pastry type thing filled with custard called a taco. Our total cost was $9.00 including $1.00 for three cones of piloncillo. Here are the cases: They also had some Mexican candies, pinatas, and some general grocery items. The last picture was about half of the shelf of hot sauces, they had about 10 different ones to pick from. The woman working there was really nice about explaining what everything was. A lot of the buns weren't filled but they were covered in sugar, I bet they'd be great with hot chocolate.

Lilith-It's like you were walking around in my head! I had Uwajimaya and New Seasons planned for this afternoon. They just opened a new Penzeys not far from my house, and since it's a Wisconsin company, and I'm still a Wisconsin girl at heart, it's nice to see them here. I actually live in Beaverton, so I've been to most of those places. I'll have to check out the taco truck, I usually go to Ely's on the corner of 185th and TV Hwy...there's also a new place that does amazing pollo asado about 5 min from my house. I'll have to look up Townsend Tea too, although with the kids bouncing around, quiet times are few and far between. I do love to read though, maybe I can convince my husband to wrangle the kids so I can check it out, purely for research purposes, of course! And another family cooking skills update: I have been instructed to tell the kind folks reading this that my mother is in fact a perfectly competent cook. She just does not enjoy it and chooses not to indulge in said activity. Let's see who else in my family I can annoy by week's end...

Allrighty, I'm back and now that I'm not famished I can focus fully on the task at hand. Here's the fridge: And the freezer: I'll admit I'm not as good at utilising what I throw in there as I should be. It's basically where food goes to die. I'm hoping to get better about this since I have a new vacuum sealer. The things that we actually USE from the freezer are the frozen pretzels (my husband's a junkie for them) the frozen peas (Gio's favorite snack veggie) and the frozen blueberries (my daughters' favorite means to destroy their clothes) along with the yeast, nuts, and ice cream. Everything else pretty much languishes until I guiltily throw it away...I seriously need to participate in one of the eGullet freezer cleanouts sometime soon! Next up, cookbooks. Stay tuned!

I'm going to take a little break to eat lunch. It is half of the meatball sandwich I didn't post from lunch yesterday...but I assure you it was tasty. Here's what it looked like at the restaurant. If you squint, you can see it in the fridge pic I'll be posting soon too! It's from Bugatti's, which is one of my favorite restaurants. They have killer calamari and focaccia bread with garlic olive oil too. There's some advertising, guys, feel free to give me some gratis meals!

Chris- I'm open to going to some kind of interesting cocktail place. Is there one in particular you'd like to see? Darienne-I've not had a lot of luck making bubble tea at home, I'm sure you could get it in Toronto. It's definitely possible to get bad bubble tea, if the bubbles aren't cooked enough they're too hard in the middle, and if they're cooked too much they turn to sticky mush (appealing, huh?) so it's a fine line. You want them to be springy, but not rubbery. And the tea/juice needs to taste good too. It depends on what kind of powders they're using, and what kind of tea. Thanks everyone for all the kind words! It's nice to know you're finding my blog interesting. If anyone has a particular thing they'd like to see, please let me know!

Here's the pantry. I have wine at the top, mostly red and some dessert wines, I'm not a wine person by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy a glass now and again. Oregon has some amazing wineries, which you'll see more of on Saturday. I also have a big basket of tea up there. I love tea, mostly black, but I've been drinking quite a bit of white tea lately as well. It feels more virtuous than coffee, since I don't add sugar or milk to my tea, and coffee gets lots of sugar and creamer. The next shelf down is pasta, mostly. I didn't realize how much we had until I reorganized the shelves. There's also a bowl with shallots, onions, and garlic, plus some oil and a bin of beans/grains. The next shelf down is canned goods and prepared stuff on the left, and baking/dessert type stuff on the right. Below that is cereal and bread. The bottom shelf has Gio's food and snacks in the lego bin, treats and snacks for the girls in the middle, and various kinds of rice in the basket on the right. On the floor we've got pretzels, disposable coffee cups, and some other misc big things. . The next cabinet over is liquor at the top, we don't drink a ton but I do use alcohol a lot in my baking, measuring cups in the middle, and coffee and tea accessories and syrups on the bottom shelf. On the other side of the sink is my baking cabinet. The top shelf is gelatin, flavor compounds, and cookie cutters. The middle shelf is nuts on the right, chocolate on the left, and vanilla beans at the far right. The bottom shelf is extracts and flavors on the spinner and my pastry tips and some of my gum paste tools on the right. On the next wall, the cabinet has canning stuff at the top, measuring cups and the large boxes of salt in the middle, and the specialty salts and honey at the bottom. The final cabinet is for my cake deco tools and materials. The top shelf is chocolate and fondant molds and food coloring/luster dust. The middle is cupcake papers and gumpaste (hence the label saying "gumpaste") and the bottom shelf is sprinkles and dragees. I recently made room for the deco cabinet by putting all my spices on a ginormous spice rack in the pantry. I have the spices organized by savory, baking, chilis, large bags at the bottom, and vinegar on the second to last shelf because that's where it fit! Here's the top: And the bottom: Just looking at how neat and pretty the spices look all lined up makes me smile!

Now onto my cabinets. I just reorganized, I tend to enjoy buying interesting food stuff, and it was getting hard to keep track of everything. I'll start with the pantry and work my way around the room.

Okay then, on to the kitchen shots. I think I may have mentioned earlier that nothing lights a fire under your butt to get your kitchen organized like sharing it with the world...I assure you, this is the most organized my kitchen has EVER been. Generally cleaning the kitchen is something my Dad does, which I deeply appreciate, but since I'm the one who cooks and buys the food, I pretty much determine where everything goes. Here's the layout: To the right where you can't see it is the fridge and coffee/breakfast counter. We had the house built in 2003, so everything is pretty new, but because it was in a subdivision, we were pretty limited in our choices. For example, I would have much preferred more drawers and less cabinets, but I make it work. Here's my primary workstation: It faces out into the dining room so I can see the kids playing or, in Gio's case, so I can tell him to stop shmearing pesto in his hair and just eat his damn food already... The appliances I use the most are on the shelf next to my workstation. I just moved my kitchenaid to make room for the SVS and I think it works much better on the lower shelf. It's a lot easier to see in the bowl and scrape it down. Other big appliances go opposite the half wall between the kitchen and dining room...my Vitamix, vacuum sealer, and slow cooker. The ones I never use go in the dining room on the upper shelves. On the other counter is all the coffee stuff, plus the toaster oven that I loathe and avoid using at any cost. Hmmm...I think that might be my worst picture yet. Next, we'll look inside the cabinets, and the fridge, if you dare...

So if you've been avidly following this blog, hanging on my every word, breakfast is going to amaze and delight you. Here it is, drumroll please.... Tah dah! It's that oldie but goodie, Cream of Wheat! Now, new and improved with the power of dark muscovado sugar and a big ol' slog of whole milk. Trust me, it tastes better than it looks... Also on the menu, Tillamook vanilla bean yogurt and (hangs head in shame) half of a leftover iced Charbucks coffee from yesterday. But it was ready, required no preparation, and most importantly, possesses the requisite caffeine needed to wrangle the anklebiters, er, my darling children all day. Next up, the highly anticipated kitchen shots. But first offspring #3 has a date with his crib...

So the trip to dinner was a success...we went to Kimsatgot, a korean place specialising in street food. Everything was delicious, and in an area where late night restaurants are few and far between, this one was a real find. We had spicy pork bulgogi: Udon: Fried Chicken Wings: Spicy chicken bulgogi And Peach Shochu cocktails: The last of which means I'll be in bed and asleep in 15 min...tomorrow, pics of the kitchen and some baking! Night night all : )

I'd say my change of location definitely effected my cooking style, for the better...people are more into food here, and it's impossible not to be inspired by the farmer's market!

On our way to a Korean place we haven't tried before. Will have pics upon return...stand by.

This just in-I've been informed that I was in error, and my dad was, in fact, an excellent cook. Mom couldn't boil water and fears/loathes seasoning. Just so it's clear. Okay then, back to your regularly scheduled blog.

I'm posting a little bit out of order, after we went to the farmers market, we headed to Powell's, which I posted earlier. Attached to Powell's is another store I'm inordinately fond of, called Pastaworks. Doesn't the front just make you want to dive right in and start consuming? Yeah, thought so. Here's the whole store overview, pardon my lack of photography ability, which you've probably picked up on by now... And the dry goods aisle: Lots of interesting grains, lentils, etc...made me want to make some kind of rustic peasanty-type dish. And since our week of 70 degree weather is apparently over, that might work. Here's about half of the produce. They also had big bags of stinging nettles, which I almost bought, although I have no idea what to do with them. I tend to buy interesting produce and let it languish in the fridge, slowly turning to mush, so I showed some self restraint today. Aren't you proud of me? I didn't even want to know how much the fiddleheads cost, but they were gorgeous. I then made my way to the meat counter, which had a lovely assortment of local meats, including a whole case of salumie and other charcuterie. Mmmm...meaty! I bought the coppa pork roast I mentioned earlier. Here's the pastry case, but I didn't buy anything since I plan on baking something myself a little later tonight. And my favorite, the cheese case. We bought the cheese they were sampling, which was a super creamy, sharp fontina type cheese called Crucolo. I'm thinking that may also play a part in the aforementioned Modernist Mac later in the week. Or maybe I'll just eat it for breakfast! I also bought some gorgeous foccacia bread, all olive oil-y and delicious. I can never get mine to turn out, so I leave it to the pros. Pastaworks has another store closer to my house, but it's also by a couple of my favorite restaurants, so I usually get sidetracked and am too full to go in after I eat!

Generally we go to the Beaverton Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings, since it's huge and right by our house, but we ended up at a birthday party yesterday, so we opted to go to the Hillsdale Farmer's Market today instead. It's much smaller, and we got there late, so there wasn't a ton, but they have a pretty diverse group of vendors and everyone is really nice. Plus there's lots of parking, which is a good thing. It's really cool that all the farmer's markets around take EBT cards, so low-income families have access to great produce as well. The Hillsdale market goes year-round, although it's only every other week during the winter. Here's a wide view of the market. The Beaverton Market is about 5 aisles of similar length, this one's just two, but there are some of the same vendors, so we saw some familiar faces. You see a LOT of gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, and other special diet-type baked goods out here. One of the children at the preschool I worked at had a daughter with Celiac disease, and she used to have such a hard time finding things to feed her. It's amazing how much that's improved over the last 5 years or so. I personally don't see the point of vegan baked goods, I'm all about the butter and eggs, but, hey, to each their own, right? Besides, that leaves more napoleons for me! This woman had a whole buncha different specialty baked goods, plus some mixes for semi-DIY baking. Kookoolan Farms was one of the vendors we don't see at the Beaverton market, they sell poultry, rabbits, and eggs. They also have a bunch of cheesemaking supplies and classes at their store. Unfortunately, said store is about an hour from my house, so I haven't made it out there yet. I got a class schedule, maybe I'll take a cheesemaking class there sometime this summer, if I can convince my dad that he really wants to wrangle my kids all day. Being a part of the Pacific Northwest, there's no shortage of good coffee. This guy roasts his own beans, and brews cups to order. My husband said the coffee was pretty tasty. I bought a cannele from this place, just because I like the name "Brownie Farm." What a wonderful farm that would be! I also bought a tri tip to sous vide later in the week, from these guys: And that's GRASS fed beef and lamb, you guys! Get your minds out of the gutter! My last two purchases were some forelle pears, from the lovely ladies at Draper Girls Country Farm, which will be going into some sort of baked good in the next couple of days, and a Kielbasa from Olympic Provisions, which makes much yummy charcuterie, which will be starring in a meal opposite some Modernist Mac and Cheese later in the week. Our timing was great, it started to pour just as we were getting back in the car.

Alrighty, then. Children are in bed, now I can share the rest of my day. After Dim Sum, we went across the street to: For some deee-licious bubble tea. For those of you not familiar with bubble tea, it's a drink, either tea- or fruit-flavored, with large tapioca pearls, and sometimes agar-based jellies in the bottom. You drink the drink, chew the bubbles, it's like a drink and snack in one! The kids and I love it, my husband thinks it's disgusting. There's no accounting for taste. This particular store has a really large menu. They relocated to this strip mall about 4 years ago, and made their menu a lot more accessible to American tastes. At the prior location, everything was based on a really strong tea, and they had a lot more typically Asian-style desserts, like things with sweet green and red beans, etc. Now the drinks are more fruity, you can get them fruit based with no tea at all, blended, with one of three different kinds of tea, hot, or cold. Lots of options. Here's the interior: Note my children reminding the person making the tea that they'd both like a PINK straw, thankyouverymuch! Here's about half of the menu, hot drinks were on the other side: I opted for the coconut snow bubble tea, which is a creamy, non tea-based coconut flavor. Yum. Although I always feel a little sloshy when I'm done drinking one...

So one of the more well known landmarks in P-town (as all the cool kids refer to it) is Powell's City of Books, which is a ginormous bookstore downtown. Powell's also has several smaller stores throughout the city specialising in specific types of books, like technical books, and, my favorite, cookbooks. That store was the one I visited today. I try to only go in this particular store with my husband, since that forces me to show some self restraint...today I found out that taking an antsy 5 year-old and a recalcitrant 3 year-old serves the same function. Reminding them to stop messing with the books lest they be Craigslisted took about fifty percent of my focus. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure my husband didn't put them up to it...anyways, I didn't end up buying anything. Here are some pics of the store: Various kitchen stuff: Three big aisles of cookbooks: The aforementioned non-obedient children touching the books: All I can say is I'm so glad this store is a pretty long trek from my house, or they would have all my money!

Has anyone here worked with a pork coppa roast before? I got one because it looked tasty, I'm thinking braising, or maybe a ragu? Thoughts? Suggestions?

We just hit a street with some interesting food and a cookbook store...will post pics when I get back home.

Prasantrin-I may have to check that donut place out if I'm over that way. Rice balls are what i call the shrimp balls covered in steamed rice, they probably have a chinese name too.

So our Sunday morning ritual is Dim Sum at Jin Wah. It started when i was pregnant with my third child and had horrible morning sickness. The only things that didn't make me really nauseated were shrimp noodles and rice balls. It became a routine with us and now that Gio's older, he eats it too. The staff know us, and they are super indulgent with the kids, to the point of spoon feeding them fried rice. Here's one cart: And another: We got hargow, soup dumplings, shrimp noodles, shrimp on sugarcane, potstickers,edamame, siumai, and pineapple fried rice. Aria's a big fan of the rice balls: And for dessert: Egg tarts and custard buns. As per usual, we waddled out after totally stuffing ourselves...

Darn, I guess that giant burger and homemade sausage I had for dinner will stay with me...my husband pointed out that maybe the Rapture DID happen, but we're all just sinners! Although I can't say I feel particularly pestilence-y yet...

Heidi- You'll get pics of the kitchen later today...it's amazing how showing your cabinets to the world can light a fire under your butt to get organized! Darienne-I haven't tried any of the recipes in My Sweet Mexico yet...any recommendations on where to start?

Is Annie's donuts in Portland? Because I'm always down for a new donut experience! I was planning on going to a place right by my house with amazing donuts since I think Voodoo's been overexposed...although it is tasty...

As for the origins of my avatar name, it's one I use as a screen name a lot...it means (sort of) "happy energetic girl" although I'd say it's less accurate now that I have three kids bouncing around!