Yule Report

While you were spending Christmas in your comfy pants, eating peanut brittle and turkey legs while watching your favorite holiday movie with your family in your warm home, I was being tricked into doing a 12-mile hike. And it was fantastic!

I didn't go home this year, which marked my second ever Christmas away from my family in Minnesota. I've got a pretty big trip coming up in February (so epic that it involves anti-malaria precautions!) and have no vacation time to spare, as well as zero patience or money for peak holiday travel, aaaand my parents were just here two weeks ago, so quit judging me already, OK? Instead Beard and I had brunch with our friends Matt and Jenny, and then we all headed to Forest Park to take a stroll with their vizsla and visiting border collie mix.

As you can see from the photo, Portland suffered an identity crisis, and it was a gorgeous day. Sunglasses were worn. One thing led to another, and the next thing we knew we'd hiked up to Pittock Mansion, where the photo was snapped, then on to the rose gardens at Washington Park before looping back to the car, three adventure-hike hours later.

Then I promptly went home, put on my pajamas, and stuffed my face with pizza and Jubelale and watched Home Alone with some buddies. You really can have it both ways.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday, wherever or however you chose to celebrate it.

Stewing

You know that Dinty Moore beef stew, that comes in a can, with the mushy vegetables and the suspect-looking meat mounds? Most people have never considered actually eating it. But you know what? I love that shit. Loooooove it. So, with this in mind, imagine how much I adore its homemade, non-sketchy counterpart.

Free license to eat stew without scrutiny might be my favorite thing about winter. Apparently I'm pretty vocal about this, because a couple months ago at work, publishers started sending me a disproportionate amount of books about one pot meals - one of them being Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever. Seriously, that's the real subtitle. And I'm going to let it slide, because the book is amazing.

I didn't have to spend much time deciding what to make first - I wanted the stew from the cover, and I wanted it NOWS. Minus the corn. (I feel strongly that corn does not belong in soup. One of my coworkers also believes corn has no place on the cover of a book. So this was a double corn whammy. What a polarizing vegetable!) Anyway, the prep for this recipe was extremely easy, and I'm not sure the wonder of a crock pot will ever wear off for me. You put food in it, turn it on, and leave. And then it's a meal, ready when you walk into your house, which has incidentally been filled with amazing aromas. I can only hope that the Nobel Prize commission will someday recognize what this contraption has done for humanity.

So. Old-Fashioned Beef Stew. (Based on the version from the previously mentioned best cookbook ever.)

Ingredients:
4 yellow potatoes, quartered
2 medium onions, quartered
2 carrots, 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 lb beef chuck, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup beef broth
2 T olive oil
3/4 c flour
1 t dried thyme
1 c frozen peas

Throw your potatoes, carrots, onions, 1 t salt and 1/2 t pepper in your crock pot. Put 1 t salt, 1 t pepper and flour in a bag, then the meat. Shake. Heat oil in skillet, add meat, and cook until brown on all sides, but don't cook through. Deglaze skillet with the broth, scrape any browned bits, and put it all in the crock pot. Add the thyme, cover, and cook on low for 8 hours. Add peas, and cook for another hour. Voila.

I took photos of my stew, and then accidentally deleted them from my camera. But honestly, it looked just like the photo. Minus the corn.

I'm baaaaaack!

With the exception of 36 hours or so, I've felt like a crazy, deranged lady for the last three months. There aren't really good reasons for this. There haven't been any life-altering catastrophes, just a rotating roster of life stuff - and most of it has been enjoyable. Like trips and weddings, and positive changes. One being that I moved about a month ago, into a fantastic place, with a regularly sized kitchen! Look at it! Look at my kitchen! Well, look at half of it.
And while you're at it, look at my reading nook. Poang chair + bay window = win. The footstool doesn't hurt, either. But anyway, I moved. I've also been planning an epic trip. I'll be spending about a month in Southeast Asia, starting in February. More on that later. I've also been sewing! Sewing complicated things! Things that I am giving as gifts. So you'll have to wait until they've been given before I spill the beans.

Anyway, I'm excited to share some projects. Expect to hear about (and see evidence of) sewing milestones and a notable crock pot conquest very soon. In the meantime, I'm going to spend the weekend on the Oregon coast, with my visiting parents, hopefully doing a lot of this: