Day 59: National Chocolate Souffle Day

Liz looked around for a place to get chocolate soufflé and the only place she found was Veritable Quandary. I've passed by this place a number of times on my way home from work, but I've never actually been inside. Liz also let me know that I should probably call ahead since soufflés take a while to make. I was a little bit of a confusing call since I only wanted dessert. It turned out ok though.

 

 

Since I work from home on Fridays, I had to essentially bike to work after I finished work. I was showing up during the slow hours so I got my pick of seat. Quite cozy. I' not sure that calling ahead helped much since it still took awhile to see my prize.

 

I look happy, don't I?

 

The soufflé was utter fluffy but not very sweet. All the sweetness came from the chocolate syrup they drizzled on it after they popped the top. Pretty good. I'd definitely order one again. Probably no time soon though.

Day 58: Strawberry

The strawberry is not actually a berry. It is called an 'aggregate accessory fruit,' or a false fruit. It is also NOT IN SEASON. So we had to settle for California strawberries, which are filled with pithy white stuff and nowhere close to as delicious as Oregon strawberries.

Alex liked them anyway.

Day 57: Chili

Chili is one of those dishes that can vary greatly from recipe to recipe, so in the spirit of familiarity, Alex got his mom's recipe (Thanks, Mo!). The most surprising part of Mo's recipe was the 48 ounce can of tomato juice, which I have to say added lots of flavor and made the consistency more liquidy. It turned out super good. I was slightly worried that it may have been too spicy, but I shouldn't have been. This is what Alex does to his chili:

Sour cream, cheese, Sriracha, cayenne pepper AND chili powder. He's nuts! He also made cornbread to go with the chili, which he calls johnny cake, and covered the whole slice in syrup. Crazy Wisconsinite. I prefer my chili a bit more traditional:

Just cheese, onions and oyster crackers. Delicious!

Day 56: Chocolate-Covered Nuts

I know that peanuts aren't really a nut, but they are close enough and only 10% of people would be annoying enough not to count it for these purposes. Anyway, I considered just eating some green peanut M&M's at my coworker's desk, but I've done that so recently. (By the way, the reason they are green is because they were Xmas M&M's, then Xmas passed and I ate just the green ones leaving just red for Valentines. After the 14th it was refilled, and I ate just the red ones to leave green for St. Patty's.) I stopped by Trader Joe's but only found chocolate-covered berries and almonds. Again most would count that as a nut (but still not a true nut), but chocolate-covered almonds is a different day. I then headed to Plaid Pantry to find some Goobers. Still no luck. I then hoofed it to Safeway. The seemed to be out of bulk ones since the entire bin was removed, but they did have Goobers.

It was a little annoying picking them up since I had to go to 3 places, but I always love me some chocolate. I tried to get a good pic of them pouring in my mouth. 18 rapid shots resulted in no good pics of a chocolate waterfall. Stupid camera.

Day 55: Tortilla Chip

Tortilla chips are a staple in our household. My favorite brand is Juanita's, which are made in Hood River. They are delightfully thin and salty. But how boring would it be for us just to grab a bag from our pantry and take a picture? Real boring. Instead, I researched how to make tortilla chips at home, and came up with a very simple recipe. All you do is cut corn tortillas into wedges, fry them in a high heat oil (I used canola) and dust them with salt. Easy peasy.

The frying went much more smoothly than I imagined. My 'first pancake' chips ended up a smokey shade of grey, but after that, I quickly mastered the variations in heat needed to fry the chips correctly. We let them sit for a bit and then had a lovely bowl of freshly made chips.

They were much thicker than storebought chips, but still good. We dipped the chips in Salsa de Rosa, which is made in Redmond, WA and is super flavorful. If you haven't tried it, you really should. Alex ate the whole bowl of chips.

Good thing we still have some Juanita's chips (for me). Making tortilla chips at home is a great way to use up tortillas that have dried out. I'll definitely do it again very soon.

Day 54: Banana Bread

Just look at this loveliness.

Alex got a banana bread recipe from his mom and whipped it up this morning. It is the perfect texture: crispy on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside. It's not overly sweet, and the taste of bananas is apparent throughout. Yum!

I've never spread butter on banana bread, but I have to admit that it tastes great. The basic banana bread recipe has been around since the late 1800s, but it gained traction during the Great Depression as a way to use overripe bananas. We always have bananas in the house so I think this may become a regular thing around here. The only trouble is, I ate too much banana bread and now my stomach hurts a little. Worth it!

Day 53: Margarita

Guest writer here. Jesse is the name.

Today Alex drank a little Margarita.  The problem with Margaritas is that they are f&cking delicious, like, so good. You know what else is good?  Kitty cats.

Jesse out.

Here is Liz (maybe Alex - I can't see, I'm wasted)


We are at The Conquistador, which is somewhat of a hipster-ish bar. I guess we are hipster...ish. So it works. We have a magical jukebox wrangler of a waitress who gives us delicious margs and yummy tamales. All is well.

Day 52: Sticky Buns

At first, both Liz and I though this might be the same as cinnamon rolls. It's not. It's mainly flaky pastry, maple syrup, honey, and nuts. I had to call around to a few places. Tabor Bread makes them, but only on the weekend. Petunia’s Pies & Pastries only had two. I needed at least two for me and one for Liz and a few more for my friends down at the Clubhouse. I was finally able to find a bunch at Helen Bernhard Bakery.

It was a bit farther than I wanted it to be, but it was close enough to make short work of.

They taste pretty good. They are just sweet enough and have a bit of savory to them. I could do without the savory, but I can get past it. They also live up to their name. They sure did stick to my teeth like crazy.

Day 51: Cherry Pie

I almost made a huge mistake. I had accidentally switched today with the 22nd. The only reason I noticed the mistake was because of my brother's radio show that I listen to from time to time. Their regular Thursday guest, Siri Freeh, happened to mention that today was National Cherry Pie day. This warranted a lot of Warrant drops here and there. So thanks, Ben and Siri, for notifying me of my error.

I then began my search for cherry pie in Portland. There are plenty of places that make pie, but most do there own fancy pies and a number of seasonal pies. Since this isn't July, I was out of luck and just picked up a Marie Callender's pie from Safeway on the bike ride home. I didn't get a standard pie though. I was too tempted by the Cherry Crunch Pie. It's basically a cherry pie, but with the sugary crumble of a dutch apple pie. It took an hour to bake and another two hours to cool. It was killing me to have to smell it while I did my after work exercise routine.

Damn good! Worth every minute of the wait. So good, I'm gonna have another slice.

Day 50: Chocolate Mints

This was the easiest one to do. I didn't have to do any shopping or spend any money. I just had to show up to work. One of my coworkers happens to have some Andes chocolate mints at her hexical (like a cubical, but not a cube). So once I got to work, I walked 20 feet and snapped a picture.

I let her know that is was national chocolate mint day and she was surprised at the coincidence since she usually doesn't have them. I grabbed 4 and headed back to my hexical to enjoy them.

I know that another coworker of mine has been on the look out for the reverse of these, with the mint on the outside and chocolate on the inside. They are called parfait thins and aren't seen in the wild too often.
Another interesting tidbit is that the Andes mint given at Olive Garden is actually a special flavor made exclusively for the restaurant chain. It doesn't taste much different though.

Day 49: Crab-Stuffed Flounder

OK. Maybe flounder is an East Coast thing or something. Because it's awful scarce around these parts. After attempting to special order flounder from New Seasons Market (dot com!) and failing, I tried not one, not two, but SIX fish markets in the Portland area. No dice. Finally, I contacted City Market, which used to be my favorite market when I lived in NW Portland. I got an answering machine and left a message, not really expecting an answer back. One hour later, after I had emailed Alex and said that we probably had to find an alternate food, City Market came through. They had flounder, or fluke, which is known as summer flounder!
Have you seen a flounder? Because I haven't. Here you go.

This was only the first hurdle in our flounder-fest. The recipe is not necessarily complex, but it is time consuming. I chopped onions, garlic, celery, red bell pepper and green onion, then sauteed that in butter. After that, I shredded crab meat and added Old Bay seasoning and bread crumbs. All of that is mixed together and then stuffed inside a flounder filet ($20 for one!), which involved creating a pocket accomplished by slicing the filet strategically. I pulled it off, albeit clumsily, and then the whole thing was seasoned with salt and pepper. I think it turned out lovely.

We squeezed lemon on top and then tasted it.

Alex didn't want to like it because of the crab, but that was his third bite (that's progress). He said it was fine, but a wee bit blah. I agree- it's a white fish, so it's not going to be super pungent or anything. I thought it was nice. I wouldn't necessarily crave it or even order it in a restaurant, but it turned out to be a solid meal option. The recipe I used called it 'elegant.' Maybe so. But I can't help but think I stuffed Sebastian the crab into Flounder from the Little Mermaid and then ate them both. Thanks a lot, Disney.

Day 48: Café au lait

Listen, mes amis- A Café au lait is really just coffee with steamed milk. Nothing too complicated there. But it is French, and fun to say, and delicious to drink!

Alex and I donned our best berets and went to Java Vivace (so much better when it was Java Macabre) for crepes and Café au lait. Alex hates coffee, so he was none too pleased to sip on it.

This is the face he made directly after:

Mon Dieu! If anything, he is pulling off the grumpy French look quite well. I, however, love a Café au lait, so I was pleased to finish the rest.

Aside from the messy foam (little bubbles are the key, people!), the Café au lait was delicious. Au Revoir!

Day 47: Almonds

Well... Almonds are quite mundane. We can't make them, or pick them, or anything cool like that. So we went to the mall, where there is a strange kiosk called Nuts On The Run. The second we walked up, the clerk was at the ready with bamboo tongs full of almonds to try. As soon as we tried one, he quickly offered another. We tried Coconut, Bacon Garlic, Rosemary, Cajun Spicy, Cinnamon and probably a few more. I mean, we ran the entire gamut of his almonds, which he had warming in a pan, oddly enough. I suppose it might make them taste better and compel you to buy them.
We were probably the easiest customers ever, quickly settling on a bag of coconut almonds and swiftly leaving as our new friend wished us "Happy Holidays."

The almonds are good, I guess. Perhaps a little too sweet for my taste. I would have preferred the Rosemary, but this is Alex's thing. So we got coconut. And they're pretty yummy.

Nuts On The Run is based in Eugene and definitely is worth a try. If you are for some reason forced to go to the mall, just get some almonds. And some jeans, like I did.

Day 46: Gumdrops

I picked up some gumdrops at Walgreen's. They are pretty big. I'm use to the much smaller ones. Though I might be thinking of spice drops. Of course, spice drops are exactly the same as gum drops but with sharper flavors.

So far I'm not a fan of the white ones. I'm not sure what flavor it is, but it's not a fruit I've ever heard of. While eating these, I can't help but think of the Homer Simpson quote, "Ooh, look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Laaaaane"

I look like I'm in pain here. Why do I do this?

Day 45: Creme-Filled Chocolates

Hey! A food that makes sense for the day that it's on. I was beginning to think we didn't do that anymore. So it's Valentine's Day and Liz brought home Moonstruck chocolates for me. Not really for V-day, but for the blog. We don't really do the V-day thing.

I've eaten all but 4 already. They are all pretty tasty and vary on flavor and creaminess. I'm sure I'll be done with it before an hour is up.

Have a lovely day everyone!

Day 44: Tortellini

Another lunch at work. I didn't so much mind this one. It actually turned out better than I thought. But let's not jump ahead too far. I looked up a few places downtown for tortellini and basically came up with either The Limp Noodle, Gilda's, or Pastini Pastaria. The first one seems to have low reviews on Yelp, plus I suck at finding food carts. I had already been to Gilda's for spaghetti and it's didn't really seem like a great place for a quick lunch. I settled on Pastini and noticed that I could order by app. I've never ordered food via app (though I do own the game Via Appia now that I think of it) so I gave it a try. Unfortunately, it could seem to find any restaurants in my zip code. Damn! I then attempted to order online, but that failed as well. Damn damn! So a call in order it was. I headed out on my bike and was there in no time.

I got my order and decided to eat outside in a nearby plaza since the weather was just so damn nice. The tortellini gorgonzola was very tasty and very cheesy, as made obvious by the picture.

I'm also glad they gave me some bread to sop up the sauce and pick up some of the left over tomatoes and spinach. Great meal and one of the most relaxing work lunches I've had in a while.

Day 43: Plum Pudding

We were baffled by this day: Plum Pudding, or Christmas Pudding, is very much a holiday treat. In November and December, you can find premade Plum Puddings at most grocery stores. In February, however, even dedicated British grocers do not carry it. So we had to make it. A recipe search turned up some super gross concoctions. The Joy of Cooking calls for suet, and treacle, and lots of other creepy things. Knowing that we probably couldn't (and secretly did not want to) locate those weird ingredients, we found a simplified recipe at Allrecipes.com. Plum Pudding does not actually contain plums, it's just what people in medieval England called raisins (dumb Dark-agers!).

Alex did a great job with this complicated-for-being-a-simplified-recipe recipe. We had to create our own self-rising flour (just found out that's pretty easy) and make some substitutions for things we definitely couldn't find (candied fruit peel). Then he had to combine all of the chopped, dried fruit with the flour, some butter, milk and spices and then STEAM the thing for TWO hours!

Many recipes stated that the Plum Pudding should be made up to a year ahead and then allowed to age. Ew. I guess this is Europe's version of the fruitcake, but it sounds pretty gross to me. We did not douse our Plum Pudding with Brandy and then light it on fire, as tradition calls for. We really should have. But we did serve it topped with whipped cream (no way we were making 'hard sauce' or whatever the eff that is).

This photo of Alex tasting the Plum Pudding sums our reaction up perfectly:

It wasn't...gross, but it wasn't...good. It tasted, to me, like gingerbread with strange fruit floating in it. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if we aged this thing a year. Hmmm...There is space in our freezer. Maybe.

Day 42: Peppermint Patty

It's been a real busy day, so we will leave you with this video of our peppermint patty taste test. I just went to the candy section at New Seasons Market (dot com!) and picked up all of the patties I could see.

Of course, Alex picked the old standby, York. I still think the Seely peppermint patty is the best. But I am a purist. No corn syrup for me!

Day 41: Cream Cheese Brownie

When I purchased our cream cheese brownies at New Seasons Market (dot com!), I was struck by how much they looked like the current state of our streets:

That's right, kids. The snow and ice has given way to rain, so now the streets are a slushy mess. Boo! If you can believe it, Alex has never had a cream cheese brownie. I think that's weird, especially considering that he comes from the land of cheese.

Gritted teeth aside, Alex liked the brownie, kind of. He said that the bottom was too wet, in fact, the whole thing was not dry enough. I tried to explain to him that that was the very role that the cream cheese plays in this treat, but before I could even finish, his brownie was gone.

Day 40: Pizza Pie

If Alex had to choose one food to eat every day, he would choose pizza. And he would always choose the same pizza: pepperoni and black olives with the occasional pineapple or jalapeno addition. So this is truly Alex's best food holiday. Look how happy he is!

Okay, that is a little bit of a crazed look, but we hadn't had pizza in a while, so it's understandable. We were worried about getting pizza from our favorite place, Rudy's, because of the wild winter weather. But a quick phone call allayed those fears, as they were open AND delivering. Hooray! So, heeding the message I received on my phone that said for all Portlanders to stay inside today, we watched Sherlock, played Agricola and had pizza (pepperoni and black olive with Italian sausage on half for me). So perfect.

Even with an amazing hand of advantageous cards, I still only managed to tie Alex. He always finds a way to catch up. Argh. At least Rudy's was on point as usual.

Day 39: Molasses Bar

I can't help but think of the expression "The secret ingredient is love." This is not one of those times. From the very start of this damn dessert I have hated this and have only grown to hate it more. Liz found a recipe from a site called Jen's favorite cookies and made a list of things I should pick up at Safeway. After she left for work, I bundled up and headed on my way through the current winter wonderland. I spent way too much time looking for things. I had no idea where the molasses was, didn't know what kind of cloves or ginger to get, and what the hell are cinnamon chips? I didn't bother with those. After asking for help with the molasses, I was out of there... ish. Once I got to the checkout I noticed that I had smashed one of the eggs with the basket handle. After getting new eggs, I was really out of there. I got home and started right in on making the damn bars. In collecting the ingredients I came to discover we were out of butter. I didn't bother rebundling up and headed back out into the white jungle. Plaid Pantry didn't have any so I made my way through the sludge filled crapfest to Walgreen's to pick up the butter.

Once I got home again I toiled at the list that seemed to nag at me. Why are there so many stupid little things on this list? I portioned everything first so I didn't have to keep referencing the computer in between mixing. I had to grind the cloves myself meaning I got to use the mortar and pestle for the first time. Not something I was looking forward to. Since I didn't get cinammon chips, I doubled the cinnamon and added some more chocolate chips. I slapped it all together and threw it in a foil lined pan. That seemed stupid to me because I'd probably have tiny foil bits stuck in the bars then. As I waited for them to bake I did the dishes. The bars didn't smell too bad, but I still hate them.

The bars turned out much more bread-like than I expected them to. I was assuming they'd be more brownie-like. They are kind of tasty. Not tasty enough to warrant me making them again. They'd probably be better if I had used cinnamon chip and less hate in the recipe.

Day 38: Fettuccine Alfredo

I've never been a fan of fettuccine alfredo. The white sauce just doesn't appeal to me that much. For lunch today, I stopped by Safeway and picked up some Barilla noodles and Bertolli sauce (with aged parmesan cheese).

I tend to make angel hair which is actually way easier to make. It has to cook for less time plus it doesn't stick to the other noodles like fettuccine does. I had a few sticking which made for number of very al dente noodles. Overall, it was pretty good.

This is probably the first of the foods that I was pleasantly surprised by. This doesn't mean I'll order it off a menu, but I won't quietly cringe inside if someone serves it to me.

Day 37: Nutella

Great snack to have after lunch, especially if you've just biked home in the snow because the office closed.

I always have my Nutella with Ritz or Town House crackers. I got that from Chuck. I had never had Nutella and he had brought some to a meet up in a parking lot for Laser Challenge. It sounded odd at the time, but I wouldn't do it any other way now.

Making sandwiches out of it all is the best way to keep your hands clean. I'm going to stop typing now and make another batch.

Day 36: Chocolate Fondue

Another food in a pot like thing. Another food that slightly burned my tongue. When we saw this day, we knew exactly where we were going. The Pied Cow Coffeehouse.

I had been to this place once before when we were looking for a good place to have pie late at night.  They don't have much in the way of pie, but they do have a good fondue. The medley is bananas, marshmallows, apples, and doughnut holes. They also have the option to add strawberries and other things for extra, but we knew we wouldn't even be able to finish the standard plate.

The mallows and holes get pretty heavy near the end. Our favorite by far are the bananas. That always goes first.  I'm so stuffed right now. Need...to...lay...down!

Day 35: Homemade Soup

Today is the perfect day for soup. Temperatures are in the low 30s and there's a nasty wind that makes it feel 10 degrees colder. We even had some snow. So when I came in from the cold and smelled the lovely aroma coming from the CrockPot, I was warmer instantly.

I've made tortilla soup a lot for myself, but there's  no way Alex would eat that (yes, he's nuts), so I made chicken soup with rice. Anyone remember this gem?

I was surprised at how easy this soup was. And it turned out to be delicious!

Alex ate a whole bowl and I bet he'd eat more if we had time. Om nom nom. So much warmer now.