I'm Moving!

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Family Visit

This month Rob and I had the wonderful priviledge of hosting some of my family members for a visit: mom, dad, Jeff and Christie!! I kept asking before they even made their plans why on earth would they ever want to come in May - for god sakes it rains the whole month of May in Oregon. Still, they went ahead and booked it and wouldn't you know: in some freak twist of fate it was sunny the entire time! Let's stop and contemplate this for a minute. They were here for a whole week in May and IT DIDN'T RAIN ONCE. Hallelujah! Praise (Buddy) Jesus! We had originally planned that if we had just one sunny day, we would take the fam up to Mt St Helens, but we ended up being able to spend every day outside. I want to reiterate to my family (who now LOVE Oregon and want to move here - you know you do...) that it is not normally this nice in May. IT RAINS. Anyway, what they experienced is more like the amazing summers out here, but I won't elaborate on that at the risk of making it seem too nice here and convincing too many other people to move here, hence crowding out the Oregonians(kind of like you Massholes who move up to New Hampshire - you know who you are. I'll admit, I'm one of them).

Anyway since we had such glorious weather, we tried to give everyone a taste of the best of Oregon: a ride through the wonderful town we call home, a hike up Multnomah Falls, the Evergreen Air & Space Museaum, the Saturday Market, skiing @ Mt Hood, superstar seats @ the Roller Derby All-Star game, Mt St Helens, wine tasting in the Willamette Valley (for mother's day - love you mom!!), the fish ladder @ the Bonneville Dam and a walk through both of the mythical gardens (after talking up the Japanese and Chinese gardens for a whole week, we ended up finally going on the last day - they DO exist!).

Rob and I were also enthralled to find out that our dog Sheena will now stay in her crate without destroying everything inside it - thanks to Rob's genius creation we like to call "The Peanut Butter Solution" (in which he coats the inside of her hollowed-out bone with a small amount of peanut butter - not to be confused with the 1985 movie). It keeps her busy for hours and she no longer needs day care when we need to go out for just a few hours. We also found out that she loves my mom - she hearded her to the inside of the path all the way up to the top of Multnomah Falls (well, almost the top, the last section of path was washed out - go figure) and slept in her lap the whole way to and from the Bonneville Dam.

It was so great to see everyone and to be able to take advantage of the nice weather. Now we just have to get Joe and Kristen out here! Take a look at the family vacation pictures on my Flickr page.

Homemade Oregon

It all started with yogurt. I don't know how it came to me. Maybe it's the exorbitant amount of yogurt we eat every week, or the suggestion from my friend Wendy years ago that popped back into my head (that I could use some of her yogurt culture). I had never really looked into it before. Recently, I came across a recipe for homemade yogurt and I laughed to myself - could it really be that easy?? So Rob and I got a gallon of milk and a new cooler. We followed everything in the recipe, all the while scratching our heads saying, "Are we really making yogurt right now? It can't be this easy!" But the next day, voila! 9 jars of thick, creamy yogurt in our fridge! Here is the break-down: for the cost of a $3 gallon of milk, 20 minutes in the kitchen and 3 hours waiting, we could make enough yogurt equal in cost to a third of what we would have spent in the store - and it tastes BETTER than the store-bought yogurt!! Go figure! The new cooler has since been designated "The Yogurator" - Quite an appropriate name don't you think?

So each week, we go through this process now and it's so satisfying. Each time we make a new batch, it tastes better and better. Last weekend we made our second batch and with that, we started thinking - are there other things that are this easy that we could make ourselves? When we had our farm share in New Hampshire years ago, I used to use the ridiculous amounts of basil we got every week to make homemade pesto. Did you know you can freeze pesto? You can put it in a zip lock bag and break small pieces off when you need it. It thaws in about 5-10 minutes. Anyway, we didn't make pesto (because fresh basil isn't out yet) but I made my first attempt at homemade wheat thins and homemade hummus. Both came out amazing! Who knew it was so easy to make wheat thins? Or hummus? What's the best part about making homemade wheat thins? You can roll the dough a million times and it won't fall apart and you use a pizza roller to cut the little squares, which makes it fun! What's the best part about making homemade hummus? Um hello, do you have to ask? Instant gratification, of course! It whips up faster than baking cookies from a Nestle Tollhouse log. Here's the entire process: Add ingredients to food processor. Press button. Done.

Rob and I also happened to buy 3 horseradish roots at the grocery store last week. It was inspired by my sister-in-law Kristen, who had made incredible horseradish a few years ago. It was also inspired by our frustration with all store-bought horseradish options - not one horseradish at our grocery store is made without high fructose corn syrup. What's the point of adding HFCS anyway? I don't get it! Anyway, Kristen told us her story about how she accidentally leaned over it after she ground the root and it stung her eyes so badly - it's about 1000x worse than cutting an onion. So Rob and I were very careful. After grinding the horseradish root in the food processor, waiting 10 minutes, then adding the remaining ingredients (we also had the kitchen fan and 2 other fans going in the house), Rob donned his old gas mask - that's right people, he put on a GAS MASK - in order to transfer the completed horseradish into the jars. It's one thing to put on a gas mask in the kitchen and another to put it on and actually need it. And let me tell you, he needed it! I had to leave the kitchen because the air was so spicy-hot. It was all worth it though, because now we have horseradish without the HFCS and is also hotter than the gates of hell, which is how horseradish should be if you ask me.

So in one weekend, we made yogurt, wheat thins, hummus and horseradish. We had so much fun in the kitchen together (and everything was so easy) that I had to blog about it. We aren't always this industrious by the way...