A wedding reading

I was honored to be able to participate in Erica and Martin's Wedding.  I had the great pleasure of reading this:

A reading from The Awakened Heart by Gerald May

There is a desire within each of us,
in the deep center of ourselves that we call our heart.

We were born with it,
it is never completely satisfied,
and it never dies.

We are often unaware of it,
but it is always awake.  It is the human desire for love.

Every person in this earth yearns to love,
to be loved,
to know love.

Our true identity,
our reason for being,
is to be found in this desire.

Love is the ‘why’ of life: 
why we are functioning at all,
what we want to be efficient for.

I am convinced it is the fundamental energy of the human spirit,
the fuel on which we run,
the wellspring of our vitality.

And grace,
which is the flowing, creative activity of love itself,
is what makes all goodness possible.

Love should come first;
it should be the beginning of and the reason for everything.

Two Breakfasts

The cold morning and extremely busy Whole Foods couldn't stop me from my breakfast needs.  So I decided to make two. One for now, one for the rest of the week.  The sandwich was great.  Fulfilling, tasty and textured.  The granola, still warm out of the oven (yes I had a few tastes) was great.  I think a little too much liquid as it wasn't quite loose like granola should be, but it's damn tasty.

It's good to start the day off like that.  I have my batch of granola and some rice milk at work for this week's breakfast pleasure.

The base for the "breakfast sandwich" includes smoked ham, swiss, avocado, tomato, carmelized onion on a whole wheat baguette with salt and pepper.

A perfectly fried egg to top it off

add said egg

And, it's a great sandwich.  Some of the avocado slipped out when eating, but it was delicious.

Granola (Rolled Oates, Cranberries, Cashews, Maple Syrup, Brown Sugar, Cinnamon and Cardamom

Close up on the Granola

Panzanella, The Perfect Summer Salad

Panzanella with Yellow Heirloom Tomatoes, Cucumber, Anaheim Pepper, Red Onion and Fresh Mozzarella (Ciliegine sized). I made a simple vinaigrette. I admit it might have been a bit over-dressed but it was good and pretty easy.  

Yellow Heirloom Tomatoes

Tomatoes, Cucumber, Red Onion

In the bowl

The results

I accompanied it with seared London Broil and Basil Pearl Couscous.  A good summer meal.

Fresh Pasta in the Summer

Jenn and Martyn (Sister and Brother-in-law) had me over for dinner on Friday.  Martyn made fresh pasta that was light, decadent, and filled with thyme (perhaps my favorite herb).  I was prep monkey and diced up squash and cherry tomatoes for the sauce that included a great pesto, even though pesto isn't my favorite.  I also prepared a simple salad of heirloom tomatoes and fennel over arugula.  A great, simple, and perfect summer meal.

Enjoy the fresh pasta photos.

Linguine with thymes (freshly cut)

Close up on a small bundle of joy

All the Pasta (and my Gin and Tonic)

A better shot of the bounty

Pork and Greens

Martyn (Bro-in-Law) and I cooked up a great grilled meal. Pork chops and grilled bok choy and garlic scapes. We had an additional salad of mixed greens, cucumbers and tomato. It was simple and delicious. I made a creamy salad dressing with a slew of leftover cheeses. The meal was great after a hard fought softball victory.

Pork Chops

Grilled Bok Choy

Garlic Scapes

Creamy Dressing with Assorted Cheese

The Final Plate

Morocco - Good Eats

Breakfast at the Dar. Rolls, hard-boiled eggs, fresh OJ, goat cheese, and Jam

Cucumber slices, Lentils and Beans, spiced Cauliflower, spicy olives, and roasted eggplant. The Cauliflower was awesome and so was the eggplant. I wish I spoke Arabic so our house cook could have given me the recipe.

Fried anchovies at the outdoor Asilah restaurant. Fish french fries!

Lamb Tanjine with potatoes and parsnips

Pigeon Pastilla - sweet and savory

Celebrating with Dessert

My sister is becoming quite the baker. I mean she is fearless to try a new recipe so for the Easter weekend (or Yeah, Jesus rose from the dead Day!) she set out to make two difficult, from scratch recipes. I was, of course, along for the ride and more than willing to help. The one recipe was the cold water biscuits, passed down from Martyn's grandmother. They are good folks. Not easy or quick, but delicious. It's a lot of proofing and the 2 extra hours in the car of final proofing really expanded they're sizes. The rolls were epic big, in a good way of course. We also set out to make a coconut cake. It was quite the process. Note to all readers, egg whites in the carton do NOT whip into meringue. Also, delicate cakes can sometimes spontaneously fissure over night. Also, an egg white icing does not like fluctuating temperatures. But this Cake was good, it was all from scratch and good looking.

The age old, tried and true, rice krispie treat also made an appearance with the addition of a popsicle stick and a little caramel. We also had a store bought, Key Lime Pie.

Jenn sent this picture along of her wonderful biscuits!

A walk on the mall

It's Spring. The Cherry Blossoms are at peak. It was time for an evening walk.

Spring Training 2010

Some highlights from Florida 2010 Spring Training. The first is that I got my first foul ball on the last day. The lowlight was the temperatures, they were low, too low for my liking.

The Phanatic

Jayson Werth Sporting the beard

Jimmy Rollins in St. Patty's Green

Ryan Howard up to bat.

Tailgating on St. Patrick's Day.

Breakfast at Lenny's. So I had the sampler with 2 eggs, homefries, one bacon, one sausage link, one sausage patty, and one Canadian bacon slice, all with Rye toast.

Yes he's admiring a good golf shot.

Freezing in the seats.

Slice, Hook, or straight? Your guess is as good as mine.

Capitals beat the Lightning at the St. Pete Times Forum. A little non-baseball fun.

Breckenridge Dog Sledding

Coming out of the woods.

Mushing up the hills.

Some short dog-sledding video.

High Altitude 3-Bean Chili and Lentil with Flowering Kale Soup

So it turns out that feeding 17 people can be quite a challenge and for an additional test of skill, do it at altitude (10,000 ft) in a rental house kitchen with dull knives. Well we pulled it off. With my two friends, Megan and Jenn (Jenn doubles as my sister), we cooked up quite the feast. On a few scraped knuckles later, we had a triumphant meal for 17 with Grilled cheese with Fontina, White Cheddar and spinach, 3-Bean Citrus Chili and Green Lentils with Flowering Kale Soup.

It became quite hard to predict the amount of ingredients needed to pull of this feet. But sticking to the basics of creating a good foundation with the Onions, Celery, Peppers (the trinity) for the chili and a mirepoix (carrots, celery, and onion) for the lentils, we pulled it off. I added jalapeño to both as well as garlic and diced tomatoes.

The hightlights were definitely the flowering purple kale in the lentils, the zest and juice of 2 oranges in the chili, and the perfect grilled cheese with spinach. And of course my two cooking companions, Jenn and Megan.

Megan and Jenn

Another highlight was mushing this team of dogs!