Farmer's Market deliciousness

Here are the yummy strawberries that we found at the farmer's market this past sunday. It was a strawberry day. I wore my little strawberry shortcake shirt(a gift from matthew, many years ago) and ate delicious strawberry pancakes for breakfast and then bought quite the bundle of strawberries for munching purposes. Actually, I plopped them in the fridge until monday and then made my most favorite salad(and matthew's least favorite salad) of all times, a strawberry and spinach salad. Matthew's aunt Kathy is the origin of this recipe which is basically just ripe strawberries, spinach and toasted almonds dressed with a poppy seed dressing.*

We'll also have to eat the obligatory strawberry shortcake for dessert tonight. Really, I think strawberry shortcake is my all time favorite dessert. But, I never like the fancy kind. Just a rustic biscuit style shortcake and lots of whipped cream is best. The horrible little layered things and the angel food cake are not even worth wasting the strawberries and whipped cream(two of the world's best ingredients, particularly when eaten together) on.

* Poppy seed dressing(I've never made a full recipe but I do love the leftover dressing)
1 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. poppy seeds
1 teas. salt
2 teas. dry mustard
whip with a whisk
Yum!

A little note on the photos in this post. They are of the strawberries that I didn't cut up for either shortcake or salad. They look so pretty because I saved the loveliest ones for just plain old munching. The wee strawberry is my pet strawberry. I think he is so cute and lovely so I had to give him a special spot on the blog. So cute So cute. Matthew was actually quite concerned that someone would think that I didn't take these photos. They were just taken in the lovely sun on the balcony outside my apartment. It is a nice spot for photos.

Busy month

My favorite but the most exhausting activity was having my mother and brother visit so that we could all attend my cousin Aaron's wedding. This was exhausting because I spent a good couple of days driving through LA County. For the old granny driver in me, this was a harrowing experience, but provided a nice chance to see my sweet and crazy little relatives.

I bought a really odd dress for the wedding, it is essentially a daffodil yellow toga. Too bad the weather was way to cold for me to ever take off my jacket. Anyway, that was fun to wear something out of the norm and slightly cheesy.

I'm training a new girl at work. She is very small, shorter than me, and cute. I'm not very good at teaching people the things that I understand very well. Maybe this is good practice.

Over all a fun month because it has been full of new and mostly fun experiences.

Easter

Easter was fun and relaxing; I didn't go to church this year. Church is always odd on easter, never like a normal service so we just sat around at home and ate a yummy lunch/dinner and drank champagne with rose syrup.

Bunnies in a little pool of water.

Bunny altar.

Easter Tulips

the best fake german dinner ever

Okay, so Matthew and I love German food. I have a great and very authentic german food cookbook but the recipes are often time consuming, although scrumptious. Last monday, I made a random cauliflower casserole with ham and swiss cheese but i didn't bake it until wednesday or thursday. Anyway, I thought it needed a bit more to go with it so I made a delicious pork roll with paprika and parsley. After I had that in the oven, I realized that the pork would taste delicious with some red cabbage, so for this I took an actual, authentic recipe from my german food cookbook. Anyway, by the end of it all, I had a delicious, but not not very authentic german meal and a very late dinner. Probably it tasted so good because we were starving.

Cauliflower casserole
1 head cauliflower cut into bit size pieces
1-2 cups chopped ham
a cup of swiss cheese, grated
2 cups white sauce*
a few tablespoons thyme leaves(a total pain, but well worth it)
a couple tablespoons ground nuts(I'm not sure what I had in the freezer, almonds or hazelnuts, I think)
salt and pepper to taste

Layer half of the ingredients into a dish, in this order:
cauliflower, salt and pepper, ham, cheese, thyme, white sauce, nuts. Then repeat. you can save a little extra cheese for the top if you want. I ended up cooking mine for way too long and I forgot to take the lid off during cooking. But it was still incredibly delicious. Anyway, cook at about 350 or 375 for 40-50 min. You can cook it longer if the cauliflower doesn't feel done. And you can take the lid off, or not depending on if you want it soupier or not. Mine was a total soup but so so good.

Pork roll
cut a pork loin into a nice sheet of meat. Then, salt and pepper it and sprinkle tons of paprika on it(probably use a tablespoon or more), then sprinkle freshly chopped parsley over it and finally lay thin slices or garlic all over the top with about 1/2-1 inch between each slice of garlic. Then roll tightly and tie with string.
brown roll on all sides in an oven proof pan and bake along with the casserole.

Just use any jarred red cabbage or find a sweet and sour cabbage recipe.

* Okay, so my white sauce is always just thrown together on the fly. I don't have exact recipes for all the different amounts you might need, like my grandmother has. Also, I don't buy milk so I always end up using almond breeze or buttermilk.
So, my rough recipe for white sauce
Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan. whisk in a sprinkle of flour and keep sprinkling and whisking it in until it makes a bubbly paste. Pour in milk or almond breeze(usually about two cups) until it looks right, which is to say, until it looks thicker than regular milk. I don't know, just spend years watching your grandmother make white sauce and you'll know how it should look. Then cook the sauce over medium-low heat, all the while whisking it until it thickens. You can salt and pepper the sauce if you want.

The new puppy

Well, the new computer seems to be fitting right in with the family. The two lappies have met and seem to get along alright. I'm still using the old one as my primary computer while we're setting up the new one.

a new addition to the family

Recently, Matthew and I broke down and ordered a new laptop to replace my 8 year old behemoth that it still going strong, but slow. My old Hewlett Packard Pavilion was a high school graduation gift from my parents. It is the most expensive thing they've ever bought me and one of the most useful gifts I've ever received from them, or anybody for that matter. After the first 6 months of working out the kinks, my lappy and I have always maintained a fantastic relationship and I dearly love it, which is why I get teary eyed at the thought of replacing it.

Now that my new lappy is on it's way I've grown increasingly anxious about how the two lappies will get along. Actually, I avoided buying a new one for quite some time because of that very reason. I didn't want to hurt the old lappy's feelings and I really expected it to die years ago. It has been a good and dutiful computer for ever so long and to just casually toss it aside for something new and shiny and light(yes the old lappy weighs at least 10 pounds) seems too cruel. Admittedly, for the past 2-3 years, my baby lappy has only worked while plugged in and during this past year it has taken a good 2-4 minutes for Firefox to start up every morning. And starting up any other program is just a joke. But still, I worry about it's little feelings. I'm just sure it's going to start acting up the very minute the new one gets here. Just like an old dog does when a puppy joins the house hold. Either that or the old lappy will give up and decide his little sweet life isn't worth living.

Either way, I worry about it's sad little fate.

Astounding displays of bad parenting

Alright, I know I've never been a parent and I really have no desire to become one, but I'm 100% sure that I know when I see amazingly bad parenting. On our Saturday afternoon stroll around the San Diego Zoo I was amazed to hear one mother calling her son a craphead. Yes, it sounds hilarious and it was rather hilarious in the, "I can't believe that grown woman actually used that word and on her tantrum throwing 8 year old child. What kind of wacko world does she live in?" kind of way. We kind of stared in disbelief, while fully aware that people use all sorts of inappropriate language towards their children. Really now, if anybody had ever used that sort of language towards me when I was a child I would have grown up to be a rather miserable little wretch. I was just so sensitive, it would have been severely detrimental.

The other amazing display of bad parenting technique was just odd. A mother was walking around a cute little pond full of giant Koi, turtles and ducks, with her two sons(one pre teen and one about 4 years old). We saw the little guy throw a rather large rock into the pond and were relieved that it didn't hit any of the fish. We assumed that the mother would scold her boy and so turned back to watching the fish, but the stupid woman just stood there while he picked up two more even bigger rocks and threw the smallest one at a turtle, just missing it by an inch or two. Finally I realized that neither the mother or the older brother would intervene and so I walked over and said "No, don't throw rocks at the turtles and fish. That is mean." And I stared and him until he stopped his naughty little throwing. What a naughty little boy. His mother still didn't really react. Maybe she was too tired to do anything but in that case it's just time to leave the zoo. How horrible!

So, I'm just an interferer, and I'm sure that my scolding won't stop that little boy from a life time of throwing rocks at little animals, but at least someone has told him not to do it.