company

The summer has been a whirlwind of travel, eating, hiking, friends, and more eating. A cheeseburger at a roadside drive-in after a 5 day backpack can be supremely delicious, but meals at a friends house, or at our house with friends visiting truly stand out.

Recently, our friend was coming through town on an incredibly hot day and we fired up the grill for some fajitas. He commented that "Better Chicken Fajitas" were definitely better than college cafeteria food. Even better than most fajitas you pay too much for at a restaurant. We made fajitas again for other friends at their place and nothing was more simple or more delicious.


Chicken Fajitas
(who would I be without Cook's Illustrated, thanks guys)

Serves 4 to 6

1/3 cup lime juice , from 2 to 3 limes
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 medium cloves garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 jalapeno chile , seeds and ribs removed, chile minced
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro leaves
Table salt and ground black pepper
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 pounds), trimmed of fat, tenderloins removed, breasts pounded to 1/2-inch thickness
1 large red onion (about 14 ounces), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds (do not separate rings)
1 large red bell pepper (about 10 ounces), quartered, stemmed, and seeded
1 large green bell pepper (about 10 ounces), quartered, stemmed, and seeded
8 - 12 plain flour tortillas (6-inch

Mix lime juice, 4 tablespoons of the oil, garlic, Worcestershire, brown sugar, chile, and cilantro in a small bowl. Add 1 tsp salt and 3/4 tsp pepper. Measure out 1/4 cup of the mix and reserve. Add another teaspoon of salt to the rest of the marinade. Place chicken breasts in marinade for 15 minutes. Probably a good idea to keep the marinating chicking in the fridge. Brush the peppers and onions on all sides with the rest of the oil and season with salt and pepper.

On your gas grill, light all the burners on high and let grill heat for 15 minutes. Scrape grill once hot, then leave one burner on high while turning the rest down to medium.

Place chicken on hotter side of the grill and the onions and peppers on the cooler side. Cook chicken until nicely browned (4 to 5 minutes) and then flip. Cook on the other side until chicken is no longer pink (4 to 5 minutes, or 160 degrees with thermometer). Remove chicken to plate and tent with foil. Simultaneously, keep an eye on the peppers and onions. Cook pepers until slightly charred with blistered skin, flipping a few times (about 8 to 10 minutes). Cook onions until tender and charred on both sides (10 to 12 minutes).

Don't turn off the grill yet! Set all burners to medium and warm the tortillas, cooking about 20 seconds per side. Keep tortillas warm as they come off the grill.

Slice the chicken into nice sized strips (1/4 inch) and toss with 2 T of the reserved marinade. Separate onions into rings and slice peppers into strips and toss those two with the rest of the marinade. Serve up the chicken and veggies on a platter with the tortillas and enjoy. A little bit of sour cream is a nice accompaniment, but really these fajitas shine on their own.

chowder

Well, it started with a graduation party for a friend who is now a doctor of computer science. Besides kebabs, homebrew, and bubbly mojitos -- there were freshly dug clams from the puget sound. By the end of the night, the host was well into his celebration but only a fraction of the clams had been cooked and eaten. There was still a bucket full of the things sitting out on the back porch. I was gone only a minute and when I came back, Nick was graciously taking a bowlful of them for us. Long, flaccid tubes hung out of the clams' shell and the doctor was squeezing them to test for liveliness. We packed them in ice and headed home, both of us not really clam eaters. A few days later, and a few hundred miles down the road to our home, we still had a bright pink bowl full of shellfish in our fridge. When we would take them out and open the lid, they would move around slightly and squish their shells shut. Already afraid of poisoning ourselves, we broke out the oyster crackers and set out to make a chowder.


With chopsticks we poked and poked to make sure the clams were really alive and once we felt satisfied, we set about cooking them in wine, butter and herbs. The chowder was on the milky side, but full of good flavor and clammy goodness (admittedly chewy clams, but still). We gladly ate the spoils of the party, but decided that good chowder should be reserved for the restaurant. Not a month later, I had a bowl of gooey, congealed "chowder" and I longed for a little milky bowl of homemade.

forgotten

I realized that I have been slacking on my postings lately, but I didn't know that it was so bad that I would temporarily forget my own web address. Embarrassing! Luckily it all came back to me and I have renewed dedication to my writing. Not that I have much to say. Since February the plants have burst out of hiding, the skies have cleared and gone blue, and the spectre of summer is nearly visible.

I'll make a valiant promise to stay more up-to-date once school lets out. We'll see how that goes. Already summer is building up with activities and travel. But one of those plans is to make a pitcher of Sangria and platter of Paella. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

smoother than you think

In Washington state, one of the perks of being a pharmacist is the license to administer vaccinations. The thought of vaccinations and booster shots transports me back to a waiting room with asbestos tile floors, military green walls, and tattered Lil Golden Classic children's books. It was the county building and the place the children of our town learned to dread. With such a vivid memory of my own inoculations, I was a little trepidatious about being the person doing the sticking. Luckily, pharmacists don't do many childhood vaccines. However, when learning to perform injections, you have to start somewhere. And that somewhere is your own belly fat and the deltoid of your lab partner.

If I thought examining cadavers was surreal, its not nearly as odd as preparing yourself to stick something sharp into the arm of another person. But the needle seems to just glide right in and before you know it, the syringe is emptied and dropped with a satisfying plunk into the red sharps container.

Then it was my turn to receive a "vaccine" from my partner. Maybe it was just my imagination, but he seemed to insert the needle very slowly and I could feel the cool metal of the needle inside my muscle. It made me wonder how it had felt when I inject him just moments before.

The whole experience of giving and receiving injections once again drove home the reality of what I'm going to be doing in a few years. When I think of the huge responsibility of my future work, my knees feel a little weak. But like most things in life, the anxiety built up around an event is much more frightening than the event itself. When I'm licensed and legal I'm sure I'll feel more ready to take on such a role.

vegetable soup

Life has been a rollicking string of exams lately, tied loosely together by bike rides, movies, and spurts of knitting. The latest scarf in my collection, done in a slubbed, varigated wool by Berocco purchased by my mom as a birthday gift, has been completed just in time for some dastardly cold weather. Although here in the Pacific Northwest we can't hold a candle to the sub zero temps of the Northeast, nightime lows in the teens are enough to keep everyone bundled up.

This weekend began with an impromptu exodus to Portland. I returned home from classes on Friday to find the streets of unincorporated Pierce county littered with tree branches and downed powerlines. The high winds had even been strong enough to uproot a mature pine tree that had careened into a nearby house. Power had been out at my house all day which meant no heat and the inevitable onset of total darkness at 5:30 pm. After deliberating a few minutes, I packed up my knitting and my kitty and hit the highway south to a warm meal and lots of reading light.

So I finally finished up this scarf, named Vegetable Soup thanks to Deborah, while the cold winds blew outside. Hopefully as winter finishes up, it will keep me as warm as its namesake as I fantasize about summer and warm air.

freaks and their fennel

Given the look the cashier gave me, you would have thought that I was buying a dead rodent or some other foul thing -- not a creamy bulb of fennel for Potato-Leek Soup with Fennel. She didn't even really ask me what it was, just sort of stared at me until I told her what it was. When she found it in her produce glossary, she still seemed wary, as if it were really something different altogether. When I was a cashier and a customer purchased something I didn't recognize or hadn't used before I liked to hear what they were going to make with it. Assuming my cashier was curious as well, I launched into a brief explanation of fennel and what it tasted like and what I was going to make with it. She didn't even look in my direction.

I feel like somewhat of an outcast in this town - what with my basket piled high with produce, oils, and whole grain breads and everyone else shoving themselves full of everything pre-packaged and artificial. I think my gardening skills are going to have to vastly improve before we settle down in a rural area because sometimes its hard enough to find what I want here in a suburban area. I remember when a friend of mine moved to Wisconsin and lamented the lack of shallots at the grocery store. Its hard to be a serious food snob sometimes.

As for the soup, its a nice twist on the usual potato-leek. The original version calls for watercress, added at the end and wilted just slightly. I wish I could find it here and I can just imagine the looks I would get for buying something that looks like it was harvested from a marsh. If you can find it, it really brightens the soup.

Potato-Leek Soup with Fennel and Watercress
adapted from Soup (Williams-Sonoma)

2 leeks, cleaned and chopped
2 to 3 baking potatoes (about 1 pound) peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 bulb of fennel (about 1 pound) white part sliced
6 cups chicken broth
1 bunch watercress, stems cut off

Saute leeks in olive oil over medium heat in a dutch oven or stockpot until soft and lightly brown (5 minutes). Add potatoes and fennel and cook, stirring occasionaly, until softened (10 minutes). Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for a half hour or so partially covered, until potatoes are quite soft and can be mashed with a wooden spoon (20 minutes or so). Add watercress, if you can find it, and cook until just wilted. Take soup off heat and blend it, in batches. Return blended soup to the stove and heat on a medium-low flame until hot. Serve with some crusty bread. A dash of Tabasco gives the soup an extra kick.

resolve

It might be a little late to write a post about the new year, resolutions, promises, et cetera. I'm sure there are those out there whose best intentions for self-improvement have already been foiled. I've been thinking about my own intentions lately, partly due to the new year, partly because I just turned 27 yesterday. Having a birthday right after the year changes over gives some added weight to resolutions, at least to me. My resolution is to ignore my silver hair. No plucking, combing over, dying - nothing. I used to think that since my grandmother, also a redhead, stayed red until her sixties; that I had it made. But as the grays come in, I discovered that she dyed in secret. I'm ready to accept the fact that I'm getting closer to thirty, about to have a "career", and that my hair won't be red forever.

So, other than that, I'm taking it pretty easy on the resolutions this year.

And now that I'm living an extended life - being away from my core home most of the year and having family/friend networks in two cities- my birthday will be drawn out over several days. I don't mind really. It gives me a great excuse to eat lots of cake, drink lots of wine, and see the people I love over and over again. Those I don't get to see now, I hope to see again before I turn 28 and start writing about wrinkles, or some such thing.

by request

Molasses-Spice Cookies
adapted from The Best Recipe

2 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
12 T. unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup molasses

Oven heated to 375 degrees. Whisk dry ingredients together in a bowl. In another bowl, cream butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add egg, vanilla and molasses. Beat until combined, about 30 seconds.

Add dry ingredients and beat until dough forms, about 30 seconds.

Roll dough into balls, using about 2 tablespoons of dought at a time. Roll balls in granulated sugar. Bake until soft and puffy, 11 to 13 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets for a few minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.