I have no shame in admitting that I am often very motivated by what’s on sale in the butcher/seafood case when deciding what I’m going to be cooking for dinner. Finding little Manilla clams at the store today was a nice unexpected surprise because I’m burned out on roasts, hams, turkeys, mashed potatoes, any all other holiday type foods.
Usually when I buy clams I steam them in white wine, garlic, and lemon. But because it’s winter and the weather is very Seattleesque, I decided to spice things up by steaming the clams in a red curry, coconut and ginger stock. Hello, lover. [click to continue…]
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2011 has been a roller coaster of a year for my family and I, one I wish I could have stepped off of before the year began. The year started as a blur, my mind in a complete fog. We buried dad New Year’s Eve and the following months would prove to challenge me in unexpected ways which I’m still dealing with and slowly processing. Mom moved into our “cozy” home, a home my husband and I bought eleven years ago. When we bought this place it was a complete fixer, pink bathroom tile included. It was a seller’s housing market back then and even the dumpiest of homes commanded premium dollars. But we were newly married with a determined vision. Together, we would roll up our sleeves and work on remodeling our house one room every year as our budget allowed. The sweat equity would eventually pay off as years went by. All my cake decorating experience would serve me well when it came to smoothing out drywall puddy. As a contractor friend once told me, if you can frost a cake smooth, smoothing drywall will be a cinch for you.
Slowly but surely our ugly, dumpy home started to transform into something beautiful and permanent. We gutted rooms, opened up walls, designed our kitchen, and added finishing touches like crown molding throughout the house. The process in which our home turned into a butterfly from a lowly caterpillar has been a remarkable journey of perseverance and celebration. This has been the only home my three children have ever known and our plans were to stay here until they were old enough to move out on their own. But sometimes life circumstances have a pesky way of changing plans. [click to continue…]
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Good morning! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Today I have a special treat for you. I will warn you in advance that you will either love me or hate me for these. Perhaps even both. But trust me, these lovely Nutella Banana Wontons are worth the love-hate relationship. Deep-fried to a crispy, golden perfection, these morsels are like potato chips, you can’t eat just one. Trust me, I tried. I stop counting after I ate five. But I am proud to say I didn’t eat the whole batch but instead shared them with visiting family and together they disappeared in five minutes. [click to continue…]
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I’ve been very distracted this week – with good reason. This is the first week my daughters have been out of school for summer vacation and we’ve been all trying to transition into our new summer schedule. It’s always a little strange at first to go from spending time with just my son all day to having all three kids with me all the time. Re-adjusting to summer break hasn’t been as easy as I hoped. Monday night I was so frazzled I wondered how I would manage the rest of the summer. But here we are, Thursday, doing incredibly well after a family meeting. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with stuffed portobello mushrooms. Well.. it has nothing to do with them except preparing them was a good reminder I need to just go with the flow while parenting and cooking. [click to continue…]
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When it comes to clams there are only two camps. You either really really love them or you really really hate them. As for me I love clams – always have, always will. Growing up in the Puget Sound we would go clam digging as kids spending hours looking for those suckers. At the end of the day my mom would prepare our loot by steaming clams and us kids would slurp the savory broth till the lost drop. We would collect all the empty shells, wash them (or not wash them), and store them in a secret box as our treasure. Those were the good old days. Last time I went clam digging was with my husband before having kids. Lets just say it wasn’t as nearly as fun as I remember as a kid, but eating them these days is just as comforting and delectable. [click to continue…]
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