chef george, the father of our country?

wordless wednesday no. 30

what are YOU doing to celebrate?

Today is National Pie Day. What are you doing to celebrate?

Don't tell me you're going to eat 3.14159 pieces of pie, because then you would be confusing it with pi day, which is not until March 14th (3.14)

Personally, I plan to make a pie for dinner, and possibly even one for dessert...and who knows? If I'm up early enough, maybe even one for breakfast!

In honor of this most auspicious day, I'm re-posting my recipe for Veggie Pie, a favorite in my family.

~ Veggie Pie ~

(Recipe adapted a million years ago from the "Eat It" cookbook.

Written by Dana Crumb 
and illustrated by her husband, R. Crumb!)

1/2 onion, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

2 carrots, thinly sliced

about 1 and 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced

(I use cremini mushrooms, but you could experiment with any kind you like)

about 4 cups fresh spinach, chopped

1/2 cup each of two other veggies, like:

corn

peas

green beans

lima beans

zucchini

or whatever

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

2 TBS olive oil

2TBS butter

3-4 TBS soy sauce

freshly ground pepper

crust for a 2-crust pie

(I'm a terrible pie crust maker, so I use Pillsbury, but don't let me be a bad influence)

Preheat your oven to 400º

chop your celery, onions, garlic, carrots,

and any other veggies you like

heat olive oil in a large skillet and saute the veggies on medium heat until they're soft and fragrant and the onions are translucent

chop your mushrooms (halve or quarter them first if they're large)

Add the butter and throw in the mushrooms

While the mushrooms get all fragrant and start to soften and soak up all that lovely butter, chop 4 cups of spinach

throw the spinach in, too.

It will be a big pile, but stir and it will cook down to practically nothing in about 30 seconds.

see what I mean?

Add the soy sauce and freshly ground pepper to taste

(the whole 4 TBS of soy sauce might be too salty for some so take it easy and taste as you go)

then mix in the cheese until the whole mess melts into a mass of gooey goodness.

put your bottom crust into your pie pan, and fill with the veggie mixture.

put on the top crust, crimping the edges, and cut a few slits in the top to let steam escape

Bake for about 35 - 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. (But don't do what I did

and take your dogs for a long walk while it's baking)

Let it cool for a few minutes, and Eat It!

Okay, now it's your turn...got a yummy pie recipe? Here are a couple of ways to share:

1. Post a comment with a link to the recipe on your blog, or
2. Post a link to someone else's recipe on their blog, or

If you don't have a blog, email it to me, and I'll post it here as soon as I get it.

Happy Pie Day!

strange food

This morning I sliced into an ordinary tomato, 

and this is what I found:

I think the universe may be trying to tell us something.

your friday inspiration

band: Porkka Playboys, Finland

video: Antti Koivisto

Go get creative this weekend!

eleveneleveneleven

11/11/11. An auspicious day, according to my sources. A day positively chockablock full of holidays. Firstly, it's Veteran's Day, a national day to appreciate and celebrate those brave souls who have fought wars both just and unjust.

photo borrowed from this site

This date also marks Corduroy Appreciation Day,  earnestly celebrated by The Corduroy Appreciation Club, on the date that most resembles corduroy's very linear characteristics... Corduroy aficionados around the globe will be hosting gala events on 11/11/2011, perhaps the most important date for these devotees of the wale since, well, since  11/11/1911.

According to this article in the Daily News,  the club has also found a child born on November 11, 2000, who turned 11 on this most propitious day, and who may very well be the "Messiah of Corduroy".

photo by Jeff Bachner/News

(this is NOT the Messiah, but he could possibly be her father...)

But perhaps the most interesting holiday that falls on 11/11/11 is World Hoop Day:

The goal is to raise consciousness on the benefits of "hooping", and the organization's ambassadors have distributed thousands of hula hoops to needy children around the world. 

My friend Ann brought several of her hula hoops to work today and dazzled us with her moves...

and her enthusiasm was contagious!

For more 11/11 holiday facts, click here to check out Aunt Snow's post on Doves Today.

Happy holidays!

weekend wine report

I sure do love a good label, and having designed a few myself, I appreciate good art and snappy copy writing when I see it. Occasionally, I'm even suckered into tempted to buy something just because I like the label. Usually, the actual quality of the product doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the packaging, but every now and then the product almost lives up to the promise of the label.

 

Here are three bottles of wine that caught my eye a while ago at that bastion of good taste, Trader Joe's. I simply had to buy them, even though each of them exceeded my everyday wine budget of $4.99. I thought the artwork alone was worth the expense.

Lazy Bones is a Cabernet Franc from the Paso Robles area of the central California coast. (A region made famous in part by a starring role in the film Sideways). The label is a beautifully drawn and lettered    woodblock by Swiss artist Felix Vallotton circa 1896, so nice in fact, that I'd love to have a framed print of it. 

While I don't claim to be a wine connoisseur by any means, (see my everyday wine budget above) I do know what I like, and I liked this one. It has a lovely rich flavor like ripe (but not sweet) berries, and an earthy quality that reminded me of being in the forest. 

 The back-of-the-label story is almost as good

 as the artwork on the front:

Okay, so maybe the copy is a little over the top, but it's amusing, to say the least. All in all, not bad for $6.99.

Lost Sonnet is a Meritage, which indicates the wine is made from a blend of certain red grapes. This one is 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc.  The label described it as having "warm Christmas spice and earth on the nose," leading "into a verse of plush vanilla and chocolate covered cranberries." Personally, my impression was not quite as lyrical. 

I thought it tasted of burnt coffee beans, cherry pie baked in a smoky, oak-fired oven, and had a finish that scoured my tongue like hot steel wool. 

I got it way back in May, and at $9.99, it totally blew my budget. Critics say it should improve with age, but I don't think they meant only 2 months...I give the label a 10, though.

Cocoban was perhaps my favorite of the three.  It's light bodied, but full of fresh but not sweet cherry flavor. I have no idea what the blend is, but it definitely lived up to the description on the label, and although I didn't have a dark chocolate walnut cake with a cherry coulis to pair it with, it went quite nicely with Trader Joe's dark chocolate covered pretzels. 

I am, however, still waiting for it to take me to Nirvana.
At $6.99, that would be a heckuva bargain.

That's it for the wine report...

Cheers!

and it seems like only yesterday his art was on my fridge...

Last week, Matt hung his work

 in a group photography show at

 Portland State University's Autzen Gallery.  

  

Instead of an opening, they had a closing reception.

Even though I had already seen all the works in progress,

 I was still impressed with how good they looked on those clean white walls.

Father and son shared a touching moment

(pay no attention to the body language - apparently, it's hereditary)

Here's a group portrait of all three talented artists.

We trooped upstairs to see an older installation 

of Matt's graffiti series in the stairwell gallery

Seeing his work hanging in public made
 us so proud and impressed

...and it's so much cooler than hanging on our refrigerator!

and my husband thinks I spend too much time blogging...

I'm not always on the computer.

In my defense, I did spend about 45 minutes working on my giant rubber band ball the other day.

imagination unleashed

I love Anthropologie. Every time I walk into that place I'm inspired to look at styling in a completely different way, to play around and use the humblest of materials to elevate an idea into the realm of great design. Yesterday I stopped in to visit the Portland store and was transported to another realm, as I am almost every time I visit. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself:

scraps of fabric create a bohemian canopy bed

circles cut from old books and scrap paper, sewn together to make a fabulous curtain

a chandelier of twisted wire and cut-up plastic bottles adorns the fitting rooms

crazy cocoons fashioned from strips of recycled cardboard

I love this place!