Horsin’ Around in Chicago

While I do wish that more of my friends from college lived near me, one of the fun things about having friends spread out around the country is that we can travel to see each other! Time becomes more of a scarce resource as we get older, but the three of us have tried to meet up at least once a year. Sandy has made the trek over to the West Coast many times, so this time Jenni and I flew back to Chicago for a weekend of gourmet feasting.

 
(Wildberry and tiramisu pancakes from Wildberry Café)

We’re splitting up the posts about this trip, and if you’re into food, you should eagerly anticipate some of the upcoming posts. The weekend was a mesh of gourmet eats and cheap college favorites. Jenni and I got in close to midnight, so our first meal was a 24-hour Steak and Shake. Frisco melt! The next morning, we went to the nearby Wildberry Café, where we had some very yummy pancakes and French toast.

 
(left: banana bread French toast, right: horses at Chain O’ Lakes State Park)

Afterwards, we made our way to Chain O’ Lakes State Park to do some trail riding. It was a little chilly as we waited for horses to become available, but it warmed up and ended up being a nice day. Jenni was probably missing her warm California weather, but the blue skies were a welcome change from the continuous September-to-June Seattle rain. It was very peaceful to ride through big, stereotypically Midwest cornfields, and the park felt like a pretty retreat from the suburban area we were staying in.

 
(cornfields and grass fields in Chain O’ Lakes State Park)

Much to my dismay, there was a sign saying that all trail rides were at a walking pace only. However, this and my 20+ year old horse did not stop me from trying to trot. The horse really wasn’t interested in exerting himself (I can relate), but I did figure out that when he was very willing to trot when going uphill, probably to get it over with quicker. Of course, as soon as my horse trotted, the horses behind mind followed suit. I’m guessing the ride leader wasn’t very amused. Next time we’ll have to find a place that gives us a little more slack. We’ve ridden near Seattle and near Chicago, so that leaves San Francisco… They were strict with their horses, too. Some of them had buckets over their mouths to keep them from eating!

 
(riding in a line)

We had an early dinner that day, so after riding, we had a really small lunch. White Castle! :D It’s funny what we end up missing when we move to other areas of the country, isn’t it?

~N (pictures are from all three of our cameras)

Food for thought

In light of the recent debates about over-consumerism/shopping addiction/big elephant in the room/money on the various Anthropologie blogs, I felt it probably wasn't the right time to talk about new purchases. Therefore, you all are going to get treated to a rambling debate with myself about the next new big purchase that I am contemplating.

Dog Food!

I'm such a good puppy, feed me please.

Yes, dog food. Sasha came with a giant bag of food from the shelter. We continued to feed her from it because she's used to it, and hey - it's free! However, we're down to the last box of it or so (we split the bag into several airtight - or semi airtight - boxes to try and keep it from going stale) and it's now time to contemplate a move. I don't like the current food. She's not digesting a lot of it (read: there is a lot of poop) and the ingredients on the list don't have me thrilled. I don't know what to change to, though. Nina wanted me to post pics of my puppy, and I figured since two pictures don't constitute a post, I might as well argue with myself over dog food.

About six years ago, I got my first dog, a lovely little dachshund puppy named Cally. I was so incredibly thrilled. I'd wanted a dog all my life and now here he was, my dream dog! So I was determined to be a dream owner. I marched happily into Petsmart and chose the coolest looking, most impressively labeled dog food I could find on the shelves. I was such a good owner! That was, until I went to puppy kindergarten with Cally. In one of the classes, our instructor told us to bring in the ingredients label from our dog food. And then she said ...

I won't tell you what to feed your dog, but I'll tell you some important facts.

1) The ingredients are listed in order of quantity. The first ingredient makes up the biggest portion of the food, the last one the smallest.

2) There are a lot of fillers in the food that do nothing for your dog's health, besides fill him up, such as wheat, corn, beet pulp, etc (hence the name).

3) Meat by-product is actually a lot of junk left over from the slaughtering of the animal that is ground up, rendered, or whatever they want to do with it - stuff such as feet, bones, chicken feathers, intestines.

I am probably slightly off on some of these facts (take my word with a grain of salt) but the basic points my instructor was trying to make seeped into my mind. Wheat = bad. Corn = bad. Meat by-product = ewwww!! And oh joy - they're all at the top of my current puppy food's ingredients list!

I junked that food fast.

There is more debate online about various chemicals and pro-biotics and raw diets. It makes my head spin, so I won't get into it. But the above facts were enough to spur me into searching out pet stores nearby that carried premium dog foods. This became even more important when Cally developed allergies that restricted him from a lot of foods. And now, it's carried over to selecting food for Sasha.

Disclaimer: Not trying to lecture you on why your grocery store dog food is bad or talk you out of your favorite food, just mumbling to myself over dog food choices of my own preference.


Canidae was the first food I picked up for Cally (i think it was chicken and rice). It had high reviews online and the chicken meat was from a human grade facility. It didn't contain any wheat or corn. I was pleased with it, and Cally enjoyed it greatly. I could add this into Sasha's food rotation. However, I've heard that they changed the formula since I've last used it, and some of the latest reviews have not been as favorable.

Cally moved over to Innova Evo (turkey and chicken small bites) after we finally figured out what allergies he had. This was one of the few foods that didn't include corn, beef, peanuts, barley, or peas (the pea thing killed me, really. So many foods looked good, but ended up with peas in them! Argh!). He really liked this food. I heard that Proctor and Gamble bought Innova recently. I think someone said there was a 2 year ban on changing the formula, but I am wary about what changes they might make for this, although I still like this food and might use it for Sasha.

I also fed Cally Nature's Variety Instinct Raw medallions. These were probably the love of his life. These are frozen chunks of formula made with raw meat. I LOVED the ingredients label. You could understand just about every ingredient! And it was short!! They do include some ground up bone mixed in, to add essential minerals they need, there's fruit, vegetables, eggs - everything is recognizable! I really liked this food. I am unsure about adding this for Sasha as Cally loved this to the extent that he began ignoring his kibble in favor of this - and since this food is softer, it doesn't clean teeth to the extent that crunchy kibble can. I may choose to add in more raw foods to Sasha's diet in the future, but I want to keep her on kibble for now.



Orijen is one of the samples I received from the local natural/organic pet store and was recommended by an employee who was familiar with all the agonies I went through finding food for Cally. This has rave reviews and one of the few five star ratings on dogfoodadvisor.com. There are also pro-biotics added to this food, I believe, to help digestion. Sasha is currently sampling the 6 Fish food along with her current kibble, and she LOVES it. There are comments about some dogs not doing well on such a high protein food such as this. I am strongly scrutinizing her waste to make sure she's digesting this food okay. If all goes well, I will probably start her on this.

Other samples we received included Pinnacle Holistic (Trout and Sweet Potato) and Nature's Variety Instinct (Beef and Lamb) that I also might try out soon. I am not very familiar with Pinnacle, but I'm obviously familiar with Nature's Variety Instinct (from the raw medallions above) and might try more of the Nature's Variety Instinct kibble in the future.

I love food. Have I mentioned I love food? Feed me.

Creamy Polenta with Fresh Leeks and Corn

I’ve been cooking a lot again this summer, thanks to the weekly supply of veggies from my CSA. But I haven’t been all that great about posting about it because most of what I’ve been making has been really simple. For example, tonight, I fixed some Rice-a-Roni, but I added half a can of cannelloni beans and two shredded zucchinis. Actually looks like real food, but I can’t write a whole post about it.

About a week ago, I felt like doing something that was a little more involved than steaming vegetables or making a chopped salad. I’d eyed the summer issue of 30 Minute Suppers by Cook’s Illustrated / America’s Test Kitchen after seeing it in an airport or something, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay $8 for it. With 40% off at one of the Borders closing sales, though, I snapped it right up. I’m actually a terrible fit for America’s Test Kitchen because they go to all this effort to find the perfect recipe, and I never follow recipes exactly and these days I don’t even bother measuring most things. But whatever, I liked the pictures in this magazine.

It was also kind of dumb because most of the recipes in the magazine involved a lot of meat, and I’ve basically stopped cooking non-seafood meat at home. But when I saw the recipe for polenta with leeks and corn, I knew I had to make it. I love polenta. I love leeks. I LOVE corn. I even had leeks from my box. And if it were last year, I’d have corn, but for some reason it’s really late in the boxes this year.

Butterflies, Robin Hood, and a puppy.

I stopped by Anthro today. Nothing interesting sale wise, but some new arrivals were in, so here they are!

Winter Tree Shirtdress $178

This is my favorite of the bunch. I love shirtdresses and these colors are a bit darker than I prefer, but I loved the print, so decided to try it anyways. It's a wrap dress, which I was a bit wary about, but it ended up draping really nicely. The silk is really nice and I really liked it on me, except for the fact that it was too big. This was my usual Maeve size 2. I think I'll have to try it again in a 0.

Steamboat Rock

A few years ago, I went to Eastern Washington and camped at Sun Lakes State Park, looking for a good place to see the Perseid meteor showers. We only spent one day out there, and we ended up driving down a forest road and parking illegally (after being shooed away by a ranger at a more visible spot) to watch the stars. While driving up Banks Lake, we found a campground and turned in, looking for a convenience store. It was such a gorgeously situated place that I said to myself, “I have to come back and camp here.”

(driving by Grand Coulee)

Easier said than done. First of all, this area is far away. On our first trip, we camped near Wenatchee on the first night to split up the drive, and the drive home seemed to take forever. So it was a bit of an ordeal to make the drive to a campground that was even further from Seattle than Sun Lakes. After camping for a few years in Western Washington, last year when I was doing my annual campsite booking, I decided that it was time to go to Steamboat Rock. Washington State Parks reservations open up exactly 9 months before the start date of the reservation you want. So I went to the site exactly 9 months before a July Friday and… nothing was available. The next week, I woke up at 6:50am to hit the website exactly at 7am, when the reservations opened up. There were two sites available when I loaded the page, and when I tried to grab one exactly at 7am, it was gone. Same thing happened the next week. I was getting pretty tired of waking up so early to get nothing, so I was ready to give the whole thing up and find another option. But as luck would have it, I checked a few weekends back, just out of curiosity… and there was a site open for the weekend after the 4th of July! Someone must have booked it and canceled. MINE!

Summer Quiche

Last year, I was all about throwing things together in a pot to make risotto. So far this summer, my obsession has been quiches. Quiches aren’t new to me – I’ve been making this Chard Tofu Quiche for years. But for some reason, I’d only think about making a quiche when I had chard I needed to use, which meant I always made the same one over and over again.

This year, I was reading my CSA’s weekly newsletter and saw a recipe for asparagus quiche. Coincidentally, I had a bunch of asparagus in my fridge and many of the ingredients I needed to make a quiche, so I did it! I feel really guilty making an egg-only quiche because of the number of eggs that go in it. Tofu-only quiches don’t hold together as well as they should. So I compromise by using half eggs, half tofu, and it has worked out well.

(quiche with duck eggs, cheddar cheese, spinach, onion,
asparagus, and shiitake mushrooms)

I’m not really big on measuring things or following recipes, so admittedly some of my quiches have been a little too watery or not watery enough (in that case, I end up with veggies at the bottom and a solid tofu-egg mixture at the top). Still, it has been a great way to use up a bunch of whatever is in my box that week, and I’ve been doing quite a few weekly quiches. For reasons I can’t explain, stir-fried vegetables don’t sound like an appropriate breakfast, but vegetables in a quiche are just fine. So it’s a great way to get veggies in three meals a day.

One particularly interesting week, I had a bunch of basil, some grape tomatoes, and a few zucchini. So I shredded the zucchini and made a caprese-inspired quiche, perfect with some aged balsamic vinegar drizzled on top!

(quiche with basil, zucchini, tomato, garlic, cheddar
cheese, and mozzarella cheese)

My extremely approximate quiche recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• Half package extra firm tofu (~7 oz), chopped into 1 inch blocks
• Storebought pie crust
• Shredded cheddar
• Milk
• Assortment of vegetables (spinach, asparagus, tomato, mushrooms, peas, etc.)
• Spices/salt/pepper

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350. Prebake the crust as instructed on the package.
2. Cook the vegetables as needed – this is different depending on what you’re using. You should season appropriately as well.
3. Using a food processor or immersion blender, blend the tofu, eggs, some milk, and spices/salt/pepper.
4. Put the veggies in the prebaked pie crust and pour the tofu/egg mixture over it.
5. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until firm.

~N

Hiking in Seattle’s Backyard

West Tiger 3
6 miles, 2100 ft elevation gain

I’ve done a lot of hiking over the last two years, but people are often surprised to hear that I haven’t done the popular hikes closer to Seattle, like Rattlesnake Ridge, Mount Si, and until this weekend, Tiger Mountain. Instead, I’ll drive an hour or more to go hike elsewhere.

Why? Mainly because what I get to see is more spectacular when I hike in the Cascades, and the hikes closer to Seattle tend to be extremely crowded due to their convenience.

But this time, Mike and I wanted to take a hike before going to the Seattle International Beerfest, and all the hikes I’d normally consider were buried in snow except one in Eastern Washington. So we went for the most popular hike on Tiger Mountain, West Tiger 3 – a short but challenging hike to one of the three summits of West Tiger Mountain.

The convenience of hiking close to home can’t be denied. As you can see from the map above, West Tiger is just minutes away from Seattle’s East side suburbs. A short drive + a short hike = time to do other things that day. It was a quick 1.5 hours up to the summit and about 1 hour coming down, with stops.