Our Patio Garden and a Delicious Lunch

Now that the nights are warm enough, we finally got some window boxes mounted on the railing of our deck. On Saturday at the farmer’s market, we bought herbs, leaf lettuce, and a Thai hot pepper plant. Here’s a photo of farmer Abby watering them in.


Here are photos of each box. The first one has Thai basil, red basil, and sweet basil. The second has oregano, cilantro, and mint.


The third one has rosemary, thyme, parsley, and our pepper plant. The fourth box is all assorted leaf lettuces and arugula.



It’s just a small garden, but it really makes us happy to have it. Our porch has a whole new ambiance.

And now on to the food. For lunch today I made Bulgogi, which is Korean marinated and grilled beef. We had it Kalbi style, which means wrapped in lettuce leaves with rice, grilled green onions, and Korean hot red pepper paste. (It’s also traditional to include sliced raw garlic, but we skipped that.) We also ate the grilled stalk of the Chinese lettuce from the farmer’s market. It turns out that Chinese lettuce grows on a thick stalk like Brussels sprouts do. You can peel and eat the stalk just like with broccoli. It was mighty good and tasted a little bit like sweet corn. Here’s a photo of the spread.


Finally, and most exciting, in What’s for Dinner news, Abby received her first payment for an order to her reorganized business. Hooray for Abby! I’m really proud of her for starting her own business. Be sure to check out her redesigned website at www.whatsfordinnermissoula.com.

David

Our anniversary weekend and WFD news

David and I went to Walla Walla WA for our anniversary. We had an absolute blast and stayed at this adorable B and B. We had the whole top floor of this house to our selves with our own bathroom. Here is David in the garden in the back of the house enjoying the koi pond in the garden.

The flowers were all in bloom and smelled amazing.


We did a fair bit of wine tasting in Walla Walla and also went to a goat/sheep fromagerie. The baby lambs had just been born a few weeks before, and they were too cute.



Here I am in the breakfast room on our last morning in Walla Walla. We had a menu to pick from for breakfast both days. On our first morning we had quiche with bacon, asparagus, and cheese served with fresh fruit, an English muffin, and apple pecan coffee cake. The second morning we had blueberry waffles, bacon/ham, fresh fruit and scrambled eggs with Tillamook OR cheddar cheese. Yikes!

Then at night the inn keeper would make creme brulee and leave it in a mini fridge for us to have in bed when we got back from dinner. We literally had to tear ourselves away on Monday to drive home.

In What's for Dinner News I have found a commercial kitchen space, it has been inspected by the health department and they have given me the green light to go ahead with my business. My new website is up and running and has the ability to take orders online, and handle credit cards. Check it out at www.WhatsForDinnerMissoula.com

In addition to offering meals, fresh and frozen, my friend Laura from Le Petite is going to do desserts for WFD and sell them on the website as well. I'm really excited about being able to take orders and getting the business going in full swing.

Keep your fingers crossed!

We hope that everyone is enjoying the beautiful spring weather. My herb garden will be planted this weekend, and I am too excited about getting plants into the window boxes.

Lots of love
Abby and David too

Spring has Sprung

Is it just me or in the spring does everything seem like new? David and I both have been feeling more than a little stressed out with taxes (this year we were a little complicated...$425 to an accountant complicated...ick) and credit card bills (who knew moving was expensive...did I mention that one or both of us have done it 4 times in the last two years? double yikes!)

But friends and family we are pleased to an announce that the fog has lifted, and we are once again the happy kids you have grown to know and love. We are sorry this winter we were such downers, but the credit cards have been consolidated and we are making huge dents in them every month. Our goal is to be debt free in a year and then start saving! We are finally feeling good about being here... enough with the yucky financial stuff and on to the fun stuff!!!

Abby's Business

In my business news, David and I have been looking at commercial kitchen spaces for me to rent. The idea is that I could rent a kitchen space, and then make meals in this rented space, and then deliver the meals to people's homes. Lots of ladies in the Missoula Businsss Women's Network said they would love to have the meals delivered. We have looked at one kitchen, and hope to have another meeting with another kitchen this week. In the mean time I have had some more bites in my personal chef service. Another reason things are looking up for us.

Hike in kilt

Our weather has been decidedly springy lately, so we went for a hike on Friday morning. One of my co-workers told me about a trail that goes up into the hills around town, so we went to check it out. David wore the kilt that he made this winter, and may I say, he looked quite dashing. We had a great time on a beautiful day and we really wish we had had time to hike further on the trail. Here are some photos of us.



Barbara's agent weekend

And in non-us news, Barbara went to Madison the weekend before last to shop out the manuscript for her book to some agents. She met with several, all of whom were interested. She's taken some suggestions on the manuscript and is doing some work before she sends it out. We're both really proud of her and we know that there will be a publisher in her future sometime soon!

Happy Eating

We haven't posted much of our food lately, but we have been eating--I promise. The only thing we've remembered to take photos of lately is this...

It's Thai green curry pork with a nice salad and peanut dressing. We made the green curry paste from scratch and cooked boneless pork ribs in it low and slow. It was really good!

We've also made our own mustard from scratch and grown our own mung bean sprouts, but sorry, no pictures. They both were delicious, though!

We hope everyone is enjoying spring!

Love,
Abby and David

Happy Eating Times Two

Hi All! Sorry it's been so long since we've posted to the blog. Abby has been cooking twice a week for her first client and we're both working hard to find a commercial kitchen space for her to rent. Her client absolutely loves the food, and I'm really, really proud of her for starting her own business.

For happy eating number one, here's our dinner from last weekend.


Since it was finally warming up, we fired up the grill and cooked two ribeyes. We also made a caesar salad, twice baked potatoes, and roasted asparagus and yellow bell peppers. We were two happy eaters!

Our second happy eating is a late St. Paddy's day dinner. We decided to brine our own corned beef like we did last year. Unfortunately, we forgot that it takes TEN DAYS to brine a corned beef! So on Saturday this weekend, we put our brisket in the crock pot with some carrots and celery. We roasted some potatoes in the oven and braised some red cabbage. It was delicious, but we neglected to take a photo.

Sunday morning, however, we made corned beef hash from the leftovers. And we remembered to snap a photo.



I think the red cabbage really adds something to the hash, don't you? It was an awesome breakfast, and we had just enough corned beef left over to make delicious reuben sandwiches for lunch today. If you've never corned your own brisket, I highly recommend it. (We use Alton Brown's recipe from Food TV.)

We'll try to be better about blogging. Hope everyone is well.

Love,
Abby and David

Wednesday, Feb 25th, 2009

Valentine’s Day and What’s for Dinner
David and I had an amazing Valentine’s Day as a married couple. We made each other a delicious dinner of honey soy salmon, ginger risotto with peas, and roasted brussels sprouts. David made an awesome double chocolate malted tart for dessert.



We ate at the dinning room table with candles. We couldn’t figure out what wine to pair with our dinner so we made cosmos (cranberry juice, vodka, triple sec, lime juice) but swapped the cranberry juice for blueberry pomegranate juice. We also exchanged gifts. We had a $0 limit, so I was really excited to see what David would come up with. I made him an illustrated fairy tale of how we met, and he wrote me a beautiful hand written love letter. It was perfect.

In totally unrelated news I have decided to change my business plan. The good people of Missoula MT want their meals delivered, and who am I to deny them? So I am looking into renting commercial kitchen space, to make meals, and deliver them to the good people of Missoula. In this financial market I feel like the least I can do is be flexible! Lots of the women in the Missoula Businesswomen’s Network (MBN) have said that they would love to have meals delivered. This network, which I am a member of, has 300 members and is a great group of busy working women.

I also have a personal chef client who is interested in starting in March!! I am really excited about having my first client!!

I hope that everyone is having a good week, and a good Ash Wednesday!

Lots of Love
Abby

It's a Kilt!

Well, I finished my kilt yesterday before work, but I didn't have time to take photos before I had to go. Here's the finished product--front, back, and pleats:

I really love it! Of course, it will be a few months before it's warm enough to wear around here, but I think I can wait. It's been at least 15 years since I've done any sewing, but I think I did pretty well and my new used sewing machine worked like a champ--even through six or more layers of fabric. I can't wait to start my next one.

David

Happy Eating Plus a Craft Project

We’ve had some pretty good weeks since we last posted. We’ve been making it up to our local ski hill, Snowbowl a few times a week and we’ve been eating especially well. Our first photos are from Snowbowl. First, the view of Missoula from one of the runs.

Second, here’s a photo of Abby in the middle of a nice glade run we were skiing last week.

And now on to the food! First up is a photo of our Superbowl feast. We made Velveeta salsa dip in the crock pot, hot wings in a Korean-style sauce, and a big pot of chili (not pictured). Add a few bottles of quality Big Sky Brewing Co. beer and it was quite the spread.

Next up is our meal from last Saturday. We made Moroccan lamb tagine with a lamb shoulder from this summer’s farmers’ market. On the side we had couscous with almonds and dried apricots and some homemade naan with a delicious flavored dipping oil.


For the crafting portion of our evening, I’ve been working on making myself a kilt. I’ve been wanting a Utilikilt, but they start at $150 and go up, so that’s not in the budget. (If you've never seen a Utilikilt, you can see them at www.utilikilts.com) I found a set of instructions online and I used some Christmas money to buy a used sewing machine and the materials I need to make a contemporary kilt. Here are some progress photos. First, this is the piece of fabric I started with. It’s 57 inches by 2.25 yards.

This is the fabric after I cut it in half and sewed it into a piece 4.5 yards long.

Here it is after sewing in all the pleat edges.

And finally, here is a shot of the pleats all bar tacked down.

Since this photo, I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to taper the waist and have it sit straight. I think I’ve got it pinned down how it needs to be. So what’s left is to sew down the tops of the pleats, tack the aprons in place, and apply the waistband. Then I’ll have my kilt!

Hope all are well.

Love,
David and Abby