Lots of Updates--Part 2

Here's the second installment of updates, enjoy!

David's Gelateria(By David)

I decided that we should make use of our ice cream maker this summer, and I found an absolutely terrific recipe book. It's called "Making Artisan Gelato" by Torrance Kopfer. We've only tried two recipes from it so far--blueberry and pistachio--but they were both fantastic. They're the first homemade ice creams we've made that don't freeze into a block of impenetrable ice overnight. I highly recommend the book to anyone with a home ice cream maker! Here are some photos of me making pistachio gelato last week.

First, here's a photo of the raw pistachios toasting on the stove and the milk and most of the sugar heating up.

Once the milk came to a simmer, I added the pistachios, simmered for 15 min, removed the pan from the heat and steeped for an hour. Then I pureed the milk and pistachios in the blender and let it steep another hour.

Here's the milk and pistachio puree heating up to 170F along with the beaten egg yolks to temper into the milk.

Once they were tempered together, I stirred them until the custard coated the back of my spoon. The finished custard went into an ice bath with a little heavy cream to begin chilling, and then into the fridge overnight to let the flavors marry.


The next day, I stirred in some vanilla extract and poured it into our ice cream maker.

I packaged it in 8oz containers so it would be easier for us to eat some without the rest getting all melty and then icy when it refreezes.

It's some pretty darned good pistachio gelato if I do say so myself--and I do say so!

Visitors from MN (by Abby)

In other new on our way home from visiting folks in MN and WI I got a call from my friend E who I went to Stout with. E is a flight attendant with Northwest and I have been bugging her to come and visit us in MT since the day after we moved here. She called and announced that she would be visiting us the weekend after we got home from our Midwest adventure. She had told her folks about her trip to MT and they decided that they wanted in too. It ended up that E’s dad got bogged down at work and couldn’t make the trip so it was David and me and the Hanson ladies.

We had a great time hiking, shopping, eating, and drinking far, far too much wine. It was so great getting to know Mrs. Hanson better, and getting to sit on my patio and have some much needed girl talk over a bottle of wine...or two…or three with E. She and I took wine classes at Stout and in Spain together and had a blast recalling those crazy college days over some vino. Here is a photo and E and I on a hike in the Rattlesnake. Don’t we look outdoorsy?



Julia Child’s Birthday Dinner

On August 15th we celebrated Julia Child’s Birthday with a meal Julia herself would have been proud of. We made Julia’s Roast Chicken (which has onions, lemon, herbs in its cavity, and is then smeared with a whole stick of butter) mashed potatoes, and beautiful green beans. We watched our DVD of “The French Chef” and watched Julia make the perfect omelets and watched as she used a saw to break down a whole swordfish. Where in 1960’s you could find a whole swordfish in Cambridge Mass? I have no idea. Or where the housewives in the Midwest were supposed to find one as they watched her show on PBS is anyone’s guess. But God love her. We hope all of you had a great Aug 15th, and toasted Julia’s 97th.




Don't worry, there are more updates coming shortly!

Love,
Abby and David

Lots of Updates--Part 1

We have quite a few things to put on the blog, so here's part one:

Way back in the last week of July, we drove down the Bitterroot Valley to go on a scenic hike to the Blodgett Canyon Overlook. It started off a little shaky with a sign at the trailhead warning about an aggressive mountain lion that had chased some campers from their campsite that week. We read the info on what to do if we saw a lion and got all prepared to look big and throw things, but we didn't see it. Here are some photos from the hike, including lots of wildflowers and the scenic overlook at the end of the trail. You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

This last photo is a grouse we saw on our way down from the overlook. It's right next to the nearest tree trunk. It's much easier to see if you enlarge the photo.

The first week of August, we went home to Wisconsin to see our family and friends.

And what a whirlwind that was! After driving 21 hours, straight we collapsed at Abby’s Aunt’s. We got up; feeling very jet lagged, and went to visit Gram who was feeling a bit under the weather. 4 hours later we were in the ER with her. We were all terrified at the possible scenarios that were being thrown at us by ER doctors who looked younger than me. David and I were happy to be there for hand holding and supporting my aunt and little cousins, and eventually my mom and dad who drove to MN. She came through it and is recovering at a rehab facility. She’ll be back at her usual digs in no time. I told her it was quite a stunt to pull to avoid a humiliating loss to me at Old Maid (My grandma never loses Old Maid, she is so cute and little but deep down is a card shark)

With Gram out of the woods by Saturday PM we were able to keep our date with my friends from college. We hit Bucca’s and then went to a bar in uptown. Here are some photos of some of my favorite people doing what we do best. (Eating too much…Drinking too much… Laughing too loud…)

The one of David and Leigh I think should be their Christmas card. Aren’t they the perfect brown haired couple? How adorable! Oh wait he is my husband! SO in retaliation the blondes had to step it up.

After our crazy weekend in MN we headed home to Wisconsin.

David headed off to hang out with his folks in GB and I stayed in Shawano with my folks. While in Shawano my friend Zac took time off from getting his PhD to hang out with my folks and me. As our adventure/project du jour we went blueberry picking and made scrummy blueberry jam.

Mom and I made Zac work for his supper, but we had lamb chops that night, so it was worth the picking and jamming. Doesn’t he look so domestic in the photo of him jamming? The next Martha Stewart for sure!

Other excitement from Shawano was that I found a bat in my room, or he found me by dive-bombing me. Dad and I fearlessly (ok we were both a little freaked out by Batty) took on the bat and cornered it in Wade’s old room. We swooshed him out the door so he could play with his bat friends. A few days later my folks had another bat in the down stairs of their house. My mom thinks its because she has been reading books about vampire this summer!

Creepy!

Here we are with my folks at the chef’s table in the kitchen at Chives. Aaron Rodgers has sat at this table so we felt especially honored that we were allowed to sit there too.

While home we also enjoyed having lunch with David’s Grandma, celebrating Don’s (David’s dad’s) 70^th birthday, hung out with David’s best friends from high school, and their wives, and David and his mom went to see the new Harry Potter movie. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go and pretend to be into wizards ;) David and I also played a little pac man at the Spinning Wheel, a Shawano institution for the best perch fry. Chris beat both of us by about a million points, but he has had a few more years to hone his skills.

We had fun at home, but it was nice to be back to our quiet lives in MT.

More adventures to come in a few days, and then we'll be all caught up! Finally!

xoxoxoxo
Abby and David

Whats For Dinner News etc

First off, sorry its been so long since we last blogged. Its been a little crazy!

David has been alternating between the over-night shift 9pm to 5am, and the morning shift 5am-1pm. He rotates every 6 weeks, and it seems like just when we get into one schedule he switches to another. Its been nice though, because either way we have evenings off together and can take in some of the fun things in Missoula in the evening. We have made a habit of going to Salsa dance lessons every Tuesday night, and going to the park to listen to live music on Thursday nights. We are trying to hike and play tennis as much as possible, and enjoy the nice (aka HOT) weather.

Today we went to our local public water park and cooled down in their lazy river, water slides and pools. It was in the 90's for the 5th straight day and time to cool off a little!!

In my news I finished my time at the bakery on June 29th. It's nice to be done with that chapter, and be able to focus solely on What' s For Dinner. Our meal delivery service is up and running and the website has gotten over 1500 hits in the last month. More and more orders coming in every week, which is promising.

David and I have also secured a booth space at the farmers market, which is pretty fun. We always have samples so we draw quite the interesting bunch of folks. The booth is a great way to get the word out about WFD. People seem really excited about stumbling onto our booth and we have had a few orders already from the farmers market. It's fun getting to talk to people about what we are doing and have them get excited about our business.

Mom sent me the apron last week, and people at the market loved it!

Work is keeping us busy, but at least now we can both say that we are doing something we love.

We hope everyone is having a great summer and we can't wait to see as many Midwesterners as we can fit into our visit the first week of Aug.

Lots of Love
Abby and David

A California Weekend and Copper River Salmon

Last weekend, we went to visit Wade in Berkeley. We got there on Friday afternoon and had dinner at Wade’s (Ali was still on safari in Africa.) Our friends Jason and Kaitlin came over for dinner and we also got to meet Kaitlin’s sister, Molly. We had a great time visiting with everyone and we did our best to help Wade deal with his surplus of beer and wine. We didn’t take any pictures, but dinner was delicious and we really had fun.

On Saturday, we headed up to Napa for the day. We met our friend Denise and her kids for a picnic and visited our former co-workers at Dean and Deluca. It was great to get to chat with everyone. Next, we went to our favorite winery, Elizabeth Spencer. We’re wine club members, so we got to do a complimentary library cabernet sauvignon tasting with cheese pairings. The wine was terrific and we were in their new tasting cottage. Here’s a photo of Abby and Wade at our table with all the wine.



After the tasting, we went to dinner at our favorite restaurant there, Ad Hoc. Dinner was great as always. The entrée was grilled lamb loin and dessert was tiramisu. Boy, we miss that place.

On Sunday, we went to the Berkeley campus for coffee and a pastry. Here's Abby and Wade by a statue--they'd just had some pretty strong coffee.



In the afternoon, we went to the Sho Chiku Bai Sake Factory. It was really interesting. They had a movie about sake making and a museum of traditional vessels and tools. Then we went to the tasting room and got to try a whole range of different sakes. I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of sake! Between the three of us, we tried twelve different sakes. Here’s a photo of us enjoying some sake and one of the display of bottles.



We had to head back to Missoula on Sunday afternoon, but we sure had a fantastic weekend staying with Wade and visiting so many of our friends who live there.

Happy Eating

Last week, our neighborhood Safeway had Copper River Salmon so we splurged on a side and grilled two servings for dinner last night. It was an absolutely beautiful piece of fish and was completely delicious grilled with just a little salt and pepper. Abby made a garlic beurre blanc sauce to serve over it. We also sauteed some carrots and pea shoots from the farmer's market and boiled some pearl couscous in homemade chicken stock. And we opened a bottle of Elizabeth Spencer sauvignon blanc, the white wine from our wedding. We decided that there was no one in Missoula eating as well as we did last night. Here's a photo.



For dessert, we made a bread pudding with some brioche from Abby’s work. It had walnuts and brown sugar in it and we finished it by topping it with sugar and putting it under the broiler till the sugar caramelized like on a crème brulee. It was pretty darned good with some sliced farmer’s market strawberries on top.

We hope everyone is well.

Love,
Abby and David

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