Erin – Page 38 – Frozen Spaghetti

Lemon Curry Corn Chowder Part 2 @ On the Deck Now – Bellingham

August 9, 2020August 9, 2020by ErinLeave a Comment

David just got back from a quick run up to Twin Sisters Brewery.

Twin Sisters is not in the top 5 of things I will miss, but top 10 for sure. It has first date spot from my first trip up here plus where I fell in love with malty-beer vibes..

There is this famous drive a little bit south of our house up here called Chuckanut Drive. We stayed at a lookout there once and did the whole art of nothing thing, sat on the perch up in the trees, listened to the water, read, guitar, made up songs and ate from a selection of things I picked up from the bulk foods aisle at Whole Foods. Today reminds me of that day :)

I decided to roast the potatoes (2 fat yukons and a handful of small red ones) in butter, chardonnay, thyme and cinnamon before putting them in with the chowder. The base with the corn is smelling so good. I took it off heat and am letting it chill out for a minute, figure out its identity, before I put the potatoes in – the rest of the wine – bring it to a boil and round it home.

David has apparently taken some master class series on how to not listen to the answers of questions you ask your wife. I am being comical, of course. A different part of my cycle on a not so beautiful day may have me annoyed, but it’s out in the open and we are officially playing a game called “guess thing thing you just agreed to” where I check in that he was thinking with head, heart and stomach on how willing – for example – he is to wait for chowder.

(I mean, given that we are in a blog series about it, I need to make sure tomorrow at sunrise is an acceptable time to eat… just in case I believe this chowder needs to be set out for some kind of midnight ritual after I sage the kitchen…)

Which reminds me, I am neither drunk nor stoned while writing this. Or while cooking this Christ child of a chowder. One of the great feats of my life will be the day when all who love and surround me accept that I was simply born kind of stoned, with a lot of ideas and – coincidentally – kind of droopy eye lids.

He is snacking on this thing I made yesterday (grilled jalapenos, yellow peppers, shrimp and onions with angel hair pasta, lemon and capers) and just asked me to hang on to that recipe. Recipe. Smile. Sigh.

I keep these little notebooks in my kitchens (about to be one kitchen, which does have me thinking about which notebook will be kept in the kitchen once we move) that I just write when I am figuring something out. One time I ended up putting popcorn in a stew I had going in the crockpot. That was terrible and that page was ripped out.

We went to Vancouver the next day and redeemed our entire foodie journey by eating our way through Chinatown. (Which I highly recommend…)

Okay – this post has zero point except that writing without edits for this amount of time is how long the potatoes should roast before you mix them in the chowder and round it home.

Words in Sentences

Lemon Curry Corn Chowder @ The Perfect Sunny Day – Bellingham

August 9, 2020August 9, 2020by Erin2 Comments

I am in the process of making what I am calling Lemon Curry Corn Chowder on one million percent the most gorgeous August day your heart can imagine. It’s about 68 degrees, perfectly sunny, and all doors open with birdsong a-go.

We have people in and out of our front yard picking up Facebook finds and Craigslist ads… it’s sad to see the kayak go, the house up here empty, etc but it’s exciting to see our petty cash bucket fill up and think about the things that we need slash want for our Webster house to take root.

Primarily a dishwasher, but – specifically a tv for David’s Saturday morning soccer – I mean football games, the lumber for our Urban Chestnut brewery inspired dining hall and two new black ceiling fans for me.

I am excited to get all the kids under one roof and be responsible for feeding them and telling them, lovingly and with big wide space for self-exploration, what to do.

I am eager to get school schedules and such together and start figuring out what that is going to look like. I am already planning a family friendly Avenger character development learning series and am thinking that I’ll do silent reading time where the readers get waited on hand and foot that flip flops with kitchen time where the young women in the making get taught basic cooking functions, how to be a generous spirit to others and how to – in general – not burn the house down. (Primarily taught by my own sharing how I leave the burner on and it drives David mad.)

The chowder is exploratory and the house smells delicious. I went to the co-op downtown Bellingham (which is in the top 5 of “Things I Will Miss”, without a doubt) and picked up $90 worth of local, organic cheese, fruits, veggies, bread and pork to make up a couple days worth of brioche french toast, chowder and oven friend pork chops.

Okay – so this is for sure part one of the chowder series.

Oh, the person was for the kayak. WOW. David’s fishing kayak is gone.

Chowder recipe so far:

Diced up 2 cloves of garlic, half a red pepper, 1/4 of a red onion, 1/4 yellow onion, 2 carrots and put on super low with some butter and olive oil.

Let that go while I cut up a small sweet potato. Added that in with a tablespoon of chardonnay and what looked like 2 teaspoons of yellow curry.

Stirred it up for a minute just to mix it well.

Let that go while I shaved 6 ears of corn on the cob. Mixed the shaved corn in a bowl with celery salt and a pad of room temperature butter and a tablespoon or so of seriously minced almost gone yellow onion.

that’s going now… official recipe will have to read “mix the corn in and let that simmer with a cup of water and juiced half lemon for the amount of time it takes to write a blog post and cut up the rest of the potatoes…”

“Rice to Beet Blue” @ Thinking About a Salad I made – Kitchen Table, Bellingham

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020by ErinLeave a Comment

Made a salad yesterday and it is for real “a keeper”. Sharing because sharing is caring and you’ll really love it, I promise.

Start with making a little rice base. I used brown rice and cooked the rice in a combo of water and pineapple juice and threw in a vegetable boullion cube for fun. There is a red line under boullion but I’m pretty sure that is a word and that it is spelled correctly…

*while the rice was cooking*, I put a strainer *over* the pot and put in peeled and sliced beets. Cut like cute little beet red moons. When the water boiled, I turned the heat to simmer and then put the lid to the pot over the beets, in the strainer, over the rice (and through the woods….)

In a bowl, I ripped up spinach as tiny as I could because I have control issues. Then I crumbled up some goat cheese. Nothing fancy just 365 via Whole Foods.

When the beets were soft, I put them aside to cool while the rice (it was that like 45 minute rice, gah. why) finished up.

I added a couple of handfuls of blueberries to the salad. And a hearty scooping(s) of pine nuts and tossed it together, a lug of olive oil, juice of half of a lemon – squeezed to my heart’s content. Tossed again. Put in the beets and mixed it up.

Put the bright pink rice on the plate and put the salad on top. I suppose it could have been prettier if the goat cheese and the pine nuts were sprinkled on top but I wanted it mixed really well.

David’s favorite bites: a blueberry beet combo

My favorite bites: goat cheese pine nut beet combo

And there you have it “Rice to Beet Blue” – (“Nice to meet you”, obviously) – A Frozen Spaghetti kitchen concept…

:) I would add a picture but we ate it.