Experiments in cooking documentation #1.

It seems like a common feature of food blogs is the illustrated recipe. Since I am but one girl with a Canon PowerShot POS, this isn't the prettiest attempt, but it seemed worth a shot given the simplicity of the recipe.

If you can call "spaghetti with spinach and garlic" a recipe. Which it isn't, really, so much as an assemblage of edible items I happened to have around when I was hungry for lunch.

First, the ingredients:
-Whole wheat spaghetti
-Olive oil
-Garlic cloves, crushed and chopped, as many as you can handle
-Red pepper flakes
-Baby spinach, loosely chopped
-Freshly grated parmesan
-Almond meal
-Black pepper to taste

Next, the how-you-do:


Remember to salt your pasta water just before it boils. Cook as much and whatever type of pasta as you feel like eating.

The next part is pretty straightforward, really.


If your spinach is wilted before your pasta is done cooking, take it off the heat until it's ready.

The next part might seem a little odd, but I swear it's a useful thing to know: adding cooking water from your pasta to whatever sauce/veggies you're serving it with helps it become... saucier. Moister. Better.


Take the water from the boiling pot after the pasta's been cooking for a few minutes. The starch and salt suspended in the water are what will help your dish come together. The amount you use is variable; I'd set aside about 1/3 cup and use as much as you need.

Now, once your pasta is done, turn the heat back on your spinach and drain the cooked pasta. Next thing you know, you'll be dumping your drained pasta into the pan with your spinach and garlic.



Now you could add your cheese and mix it all up in the pan, but that just makes the pan harder to clean. That distracts from the "lazy" aspect of this so-called recipe. Instead, you can dump the contents of your saute pan into a bowl and add your pepper, almond meal (adds protein, crunch, flavor--try it!), and cheese.

And a good week was had by all.

First of all, I am sorry I didn't call everyone in Seattle. Wait, scratch that, I'm not really sorry, because I had a good time with the people I did see, and any more may have done me in.

Which is to say, I just got home from a week-long road trip to the Pacific Northwest with Kevin and his dad. We made it to Seaside just before sunset last Saturday. The next day, my mom and I headed to Olympia to visit Becky and her mom while Kevin and his dad took a scenic, coastal route up to Seattle to visit Kevin's sister and her baby daughter.

My mom and I got into Olympia mid-afternoon and headed straight to Becky's mom's house. We spent a comfortable evening and morning in their company (and that of the nice big dog and Becky's cat), eating spaghetti for dinner and looking at photos from Europe. Becky's mom had some shots from Paris that were hilarious (such as the B.M. Pressing sign). Becky also gave me a Mayan abdominal massage, which was really interesting, informative, and good. I would definitely seek this out in the future.

In the morning, we got coffee, thrifted at Value Village, got lunch and more coffee, then headed to North Bend to visit my aunt, her son, and his wife at their new “family compound.” We helped out with some unpacking and grocery shopping for them and enjoyed the tranquil surroundings. Their backyards look out onto grassy acreage, trees, and Mount Si. You can barely see any neighbors. It's completely ridiculous.

The next afternoon, my mom took me into Seattle to spend time with Kevin and his family. I was looking forward to meeting his 7-month-old niece, Zoe, and I'm glad I did: she has the most piercing blue eyes, a beautiful smile, and is a completely adorable baby. I am not really into babies, but I liked Zoe instantly. Kevin was happy to see me and I ended up staying over at their house.

I also heard from the few Seattle friends I had bothered to try to contact, so I got to see people on the 4th of July. First I walked around Green Lake with Christine. In jeans. In 85 degree heat. Smart! Then I walked another mile to Chris's house and met his new girlfriend and had lunch at Chile Pepper in Wallingford, which I always passed by and somehow never tried. I missed out: the cheese enchilada with mole sauce was delightful. Kevin met up with us and talked to Chris and Sara for awhile before joining me at the low-key (but completely jammin', by which I mean they were drunk-ish and making raspberry jam) holiday get-together at Lauren's house, co-hosted by Josie. Lauren finally made good on her threats to raise chickens (three non-roosters per household being allowed within city limits), one of which she named Jonathan Franz-hen after the owner of her house. Kevin had to leave suddenly when my mom, who was in the neighborhood to find some grub and pick me up, noticed a cop and some tow trucks near what she soon realized was Kevin's car and called me to make sure it didn't get towed away. (The no parking signs were put up after we checked, for the record.)

Mom wanted to get out of town before the post-fireworks traffic frenzy, so we did just that. We headed back to Olympia, thinking about maybe seeing a movie, but the times weren't right, so we drove by an old friend's house and stopped in to say hello. It was a nice visit with someone I haven't seen in a long time, someone I looked up to when I was in high school. Then we crashed at Becky's mom's house again, so I got to hang out with Becky some more and talk to her mom in the morning.

Thursday afternoon we drove to Portland and picked up my 6-year-old niece, Kahnya, and took her to see Ratatouille. I enjoyed the movie, and though I think a lot of it went over her head, she enjoyed enough of it that she wanted to help us cook dinner afterwards. After dinner, I took her and her little sister to the neighborhood park. In the morning, we read books in the backyard and waited for Kevin and his dad to appear. Yes, I have been dating the same guy for almost five years and this was the first time he met my Cambodian family. They warmed to him after awhile, once he crawled inside the playhouse with them and let them lay cards on his legs and arms (a strange game I cannot really explain).

I said goodbye to my brother and his wife and kids, as well as my mom, and headed south with Kevin and his dad. We grabbed lunch at a Whole Foods just south of Portland, then stopped only once to pee before making it to Mr. Shasta for the night. Kevin drove like a man on a mission: a mission to get home with one day of weekend left to spare. Kevin's dad loves Mt. Shasta and already knew where he wanted to eat and stay. We took it easy in the morning, taking time to check out the 4th of July street fair on the main drag before driving five hours straight home, stopping for lunch/dinner at Habibi in Fremont. I was so hungry I damn near licked my plate clean, and had dessert, too, but in my defense, it was pretty much the only meal I had yesterday.

Once home, Kevin helped me set up my new bed frame, which is pretty and gets me up off the floor a little more than I anticipated. It's very comfortable. This morning I made it back to my farmers' market and found plenty of goodies to get me through the next few days before we get our CSA share again. By the way, does anyone know what to do with fresh black-eyed peas?

Yeah, I fell off the face of the Earth.

I do that periodically.

So I turned 25 a week ago Monday. Kevin was sick with a nasty cold all weekend, so nothing exceptionally fun happened. I had to cancel Friday dinner, but I did bring the curry over to their house on Saturday instead, and we had a nice little dinner. I also baked a ton of cookies AND a gingerbread apple pie.

Sunday, after much ado about Kevin's well-being, we went to Santa Cruz for some low-key family birthday co-celebrating. First up was his mom, where we had the pie, hung out, and exchanged a few gifts. Kevin conspired with his mom and gave me a really sweet Canon PowerShot, dudes! So my poor Panasonic Lumix with the burnt-out LCD backlight has been eclipsed. (I do still want to get that puppy fixed, if the price is right, and possibly pass it along to my mom.) He also gave me a Gorillapod, which is an articulated tripod, and his mom gave me a nice, simple case for the camera. Actually, I think today is her birthday, so happy birthday to Kevin's mom. Next, we went to his dad's for dinner and some more presents. His dad's girlfriend is another December birthday. Dinner was dahl, mixed vegetables, and rice, yum. I can't say no to anything with lentils (provided it's vegetarian). Then the three birthday people blew out candles on a pecan tart and opened more presents. I received a silicon baster (since they knew I didn't have anything to brush, say, butter on bread for cooking) and a 2GB camera memory card. Sweet!

Monday was my actual birthday and of course I had to work. In order to avoid having cake and candles and singing, I brought in a big tray of my delicious, vegan, homemade cookies (and some of the really awesome Thai sweet and spicy nuts) for everyone and told HR not to make a thing of it. My boss took me out to lunch, my choice, so I chose Rico's for being one of two restaurants we both actually like. (Even for my birthday, it wouldn't be nice to drag my boss to a Middle Eastern or Thai restaurant when I know she'd order the blandest thing and have to pick half of the accoutrements off, anyway. That's just sad.) After work, with Kevin still sick, the Editor and his fiancee took me out for dinner -- I'm a cheap date, I just wanted falafel and a lemonade at Yiassoo -- and a movie, so we all finally saw For Your Consideration. It sucked about as much as all the reviewers said, but as Christopher Guest fans, we felt content having seen it at all.

Tuesday I lucked out with another birthday lunch, this time courtesy of one of my coworkers, from Just Laziz, a really cool Lebanese bakery that specializes in phenomenal manakeesh (like pizza, Middle Eastern-style) and where my coworkers are obsessed with the baba ganoush. In the evening, Kevin's dad was in town, so we took him to our favorite Thai restaurant. He was suitably impressed. We also found Kevin a suit at Burlington Coat Factory so he could attend my company's Christmas party in something other than holey slacks. But that's another goddamn story and I'm going in chronological order. Anyway.

Wednesday I wanted to kill my boyfriend because he had buyer's remorse and wanted to beg off the fancy dinner, and I let him do it. So after work I went and finally saw Borat and was generally in a bad mood despite that. Also I had to cook for my company's potluck lunch the next day -- the Ethiopian spiced lentil dish I think I've linked to in a previous post.

Thursday was the company potluck. It was really a fantastic spread this year. A lot of home cooking, excellent home cooking. My lentils were awesome, of course, but another coworker friend (the one who likes coming to the Campbell farmers' market) made butternut squash penne and cheese, which was amazing. The gift exchange had a number of hilarious moments. My secret santa recipient really enjoyed her favorite bottle of wine and selection of four dark chocolate bars, and I was given a pair of Century movie ticket gift certificates and $10 for La Pizzeria, yum! In the evening I watched the 1-hour The Office and pondered the similarities between Michael Scott and our own CEO. You know, your typical "water cooler"-type viewing.

Friday I was totally coming down with Kevin's nasty cold. I had a half day of work and spent most of the afternoon napping, then preparing for the party. The party was good, but afterwards, I went to bed and practically did not get up for the rest of the weekend. The cold was just that bad. I did have to cat-sit, but Kevin had to cover for me on Sunday.

This week has been just plain work and avoiding doing the dishes due to stubborness and laziness. I'm leaving for Portland/Seaside/Seattle on Saturday afternoon. Christmas shopping is pretty much done. Just have to pack now.