Will it Blend?

Nathan Can Chew :)

2012-04-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

We are very excited to announce that Nathan has regained his status as a card carrying member of chewing society. He still has a little pain from the swelling (it should continue to go down as time passes), and we have a couple more check-ups, but as long as we avoid really crunchy stuff he should be good. :)

In light of this exciting news we have decided to create a real blog that centers around more than blenders (although, I'm sure our blender will still show up on occasion)

Come find us at our new blog home at www.heybales.us. (<-- hahaha so punny!!! hey bales, hay bales... ok, I might get a little too excited about that...)

Our Family!!! haha bales... haha.. ok, I'll stop...

Hope to see you soon!
Elizabeth and Nathan

Happy Easter!

2012-04-09T00:28:00.002-07:00

We always making deviled eggs for the annual GCF potluck. However, this year I stumbled across something amazing! About a week ago I was on Pinterest (or maybe Google+ or Facebook? I can't remember...) and saw a picture of deviled eggs that were decorated to look like chicks. I forgot to actually pin the original site, but I googled the recipe and it looks like Rachel Ray did a segment on how to make them, so maybe she is the inventor? The basic idea is you make regular deviled egg filling but you slice the top off the egg instead of cutting it in half. Then you pipe the yolk mixture back in and make little eyes and a beak out of olive and carrot slivers.

All in all, they are pretty cute but also a little disturbing. To appease our consciences we decided to make a few but enforced a strict "no paprika" rule since adding red splatters seemed to be in poor taste... maybe we'll reconsider for Halloween.

Hunkered down with the dill deviled eggs

Making only a couple eggs into chicks also turned out to be a good idea because they are pretty big and it basically means you have to eat two deviled eggs at once, which is kind of a lot. In the end we made 5 chick-eggs and 38 regular deviled eggs.

Penguin approves of the results... probably because he doesn't realize these are eggs... otherwise he might have been traumatized.

We put one chick-egg per egg plate, these guys didn't last very long. Poor little dudes. Notice there is paprika is on the regular eggs but the chicks are paprika free.

In the end I'm glad we made them. They were a little more time consuming to make but they are pretty cute too. :)

Ingredients:

12 - eggs (hard boiled)

1/3 cup - mayonaise

2 tsp - dijon mustard

salt

pepper

dash of tabasco (more if you want more kick)

1 or 2 - olives

1/2 - carrot

Directions:

1. Cut the top of each egg (low enough so that you can easily scoop out the yolk).

2. Next slice a thin layer off the bottom of each egg to make a flat bottom so that your chick will stand up without wobbling.

3. Combine yolks, mayo, mustard and spices, in a bowl until well combined, we used a hand mixture for this part to make it extra smooth.

4. Pipe the yolk mixture into the yolk cavity of each egg. Make sure there is a good amount sticking out the top of the egg because you will need that to make the face.

5. Place the egg top back on the egg at an angle to make a little hat for your chick. Then add two small olive slivers for eyes and a small carrot piece for a beak.

6. Admire you masterpiece. Your done!

Happy Easter!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Tooth Update!

2012-04-04T12:45:00.003-07:00

Today was the big day! Nathan Finally got to see the dentist about his broken teeth! We had to wait a while since you have to be able to open your mouth to get teeth fixed and mouth opening has only been a recent development. We have an awesome dentist here in San Diego and he was able to put a cap on Nathan's tooth so that it no longer looks like he was in a bar fight... or in a bike ->face/pavement fight.

He would only make silly faces for me, but hey, at least you can see the tooth. :)

The cap is a trial and he's not supposed to bite into anything too hard, but we figured we'd give it a go and see how it worked (hopefully it will hold out until we have real jobs). The really good news is that his tooth was still a "Happy Tooth" in the words of my little second cousins (as opposed to the other option of root canal).

As you can probably tell from our most recent posts, Nathan has also started eating non-soup foods this week (and a little bit last week). They still have to be pretty soft, but he's eaten quinoa, carrots, noodles, and even a piece of pizza (the pizza was a slow process but he finished it, even the crust!). We'll post some of our non-soup recipes soon, and probably few more soup ones too. :)

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Chinese Egg Custard

2012-04-02T17:48:00.004-07:00

I recently started using Pinterest, and I saw this recipe go by. It's for steamed eggs which it turns out are really good (and soft and easy to eat). The blog I linked to says they are Korean, but they seem to be common in Chinese, Korean and Japan cooking as well. Wikipedia seems to suggest they are Chinese in origin so I'll go with that. I also asked my mom and she said Chinese grandmother (my PoPo) made them when she was growing up so it's kind of fun to revive a tradition.

Ingredients:

2 - eggs

1/2 cup - water or broth

1/4 tsp - salt (less if you are going to top with soy sauce, or include salty ingredients like dried shrimp)

Optional ingredients:

mushrooms

Chinese sausage

green onions

dried shrimp

anything else that you think tastes nice in an egg

Start by mixing your egg, water and salt. Pour the mixture through a strainer to get any lumpy bits out of the egg (this results in a smoother texture). Then place the ramekin in the steamer basket of a rice cooker or steamer pot. We used our rice cooker so that I could make quinoa at the same time. :)

As it cooks it might puff up a bit, that's ok, it will settle back down when it cools. I haven't figured out how to get a smooth top to my custards like in the link at the top of this post, but they still taste great and have a nice smooth texture.

Now for toppings!! The best part! I splash a little soy sauce, sesame oil and sriracha on my egg before I cut into it. You can use any sauces of toppings you like to make your own masterpiece. :)

Directions:

Mix the egg, water, and salt together and pour into a small ramekin (for an extra smooth egg custard strain the egg as you pour it into the ramekin). Add any extra ingredients you would like such as sausage or mushrooms and then place the ramekin in the steam basket of a rice cooker, or in a pot on the stove with a steaming compartment. Steam for about 10 minutes or until the egg is set (it will still be jiggly like jello but shouldn't be watery.) Garnish with toppings and enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Dill Roasted Carrots

2012-03-30T12:05:00.001-07:00

We have come to that point. My first not-blended food post. For the past 5 weeks Nathan has been living off of a purely liquid diet (with rare exceptions for cookies and recess peanut butter cups which he rips apart into teeny tiny pieces and eats over the course of an hour, THAT is dedication folks). We are now boldly moving forward into a world of soft foods that are not blended. Here's a first glimpse into the land of the chewing.

These are Dill Roasted Carrots and they are probably the best food ever. The first time I made them was when Nathan was still really early in his recovery (which was kinda mean since he couldn't eat any.) It turns out I have zero self control and I may have accidentally eaten 15 or so carrots the first time I made them... and then I made them again the next day bringing the total to 25 carrots in two days. I had to promise myself not to make them for a while after that because I was afraid of turning orange.

This recipe is for making them with dill, but you can use any spice you like. I've made them with curry powder and that was super tasty too.

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Ingredients:
8-10 carrots
olive oil
dill
salt and pepper

Start preheating the oven to 400degrees. While you're waiting for it to heat up wash, peel and arrange the carrots on a baking sheet. I lined mine with foil so that it would be easy to clean.

Drizzle olive oil over the carrots and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dill. Be relatively liberal since not all of the spices will end up sticking to the carrots. Use your hands to distribute the oil and spices evenly on each carrot. When your oven is hot pop the carrots in and set a timer for 20 minutes.

When your timer goes off, pull them out and flip them over so that they will brown evenly. I used chopsticks to do the flipping since these are hot 400 degree carrots. You could probably use tongs or something else grabby if you didn't want to use chopsticks.

just grab and flip!

Pop back in and time for another 20 minutes. I had very thin carrots so 40 minutes was enough, but depending on the thickness of your carrots they might need just a bit longer to finish. The finished carrot should be just a bit crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. If you need more time just flip them again and pop them in for another 10 -15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Wash and peel carrots

3. Drizzle with olive oil and spices, use hand to evenly distribute oil mixture on each carrot

4. Bake for 20 minutes

5. Flip carrots

6. Bake for another 20 minutes

7. Check for doneness (varies with carrot thickness) Flip and bake for 10-15 more minutes if they are thicker carrots.

8. Serve and enjoy! (they are best when still warm from the oven.)

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Will it Blend? um... maybe not...

2012-03-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

Failures at blending.

Most things blend. Really.

I've been told that even hamburgers blend (I don't have the guts to test this theory, but I believe my source none the less).

Blueberries however have become the bane of our blending existence. We tried twice to make fresh blueberry milkshakes and each time the result was something akin to chunky sweet blueberry cheese. ewww.

A brief scan of the internet seems to confirm that we are not alone in our fresh blueberry troubles, blueberries apparently have a high acid content which makes any dairy they come in contact with curdle. That wasn't the big surprise. The part where it gets weird is that apparently because of a high pectin content the curdled bits quickly start to re-solidify into a semi-solid block or chunky blueberry-dairyness. This makes the whole thing about a million times worse than regular curdled dairy product.

So basically, this post is just a warning, don't mix fresh blueberries and dairy, it's really really gross (and you'll feel sad because you just wasted expensive blueberries). Also, if anyone has a solution, let us know!

Get well soon!
Elizabeth and Nathan

Easy (and healthy!) Broccoli Soup with toppings!

2012-03-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

It got a little stormy this weekend. We had blue skies and warm weather Saturday and Sunday morning, but by Sunday afternoon there was rain and palm tree parts flying around outside. Palm tree parts are probably the worst part about storms here, they are pretty large and end up all over the place when it's windy.

We might have underestimated the weather when we went out for a walk on Sunday... (at this point Nathan was saying "stop taking pictures we need to get home!" and I was trying to figure out how to take pictures without getting rain inside my phone)

Palm trees weren't the only casualties, there were also a couple of trees that lost largish branches in the park by our house. Nathan was considering taking one home (about 12 feet long), 'cause it would be a cool trophy from our walk, but in the end we left it under the tree it fell out of.

So basically to sum it all up, Sunday was a perfect soup day. We settled on a broccoli soup since we had a big Costco bag of florets in the fridge. This soup is super full of vegetabley goodness, and is super simple to make. We hope you enjoy it!

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Ingredients:

1 - onion diced

1 lb - broccoli

32 oz. - chicken stock

1 cup - water

1 tsp - garlic powder

red pepper flakes and salt to taste

Optional toppings:

bacon bits

sautéed mushrooms

cheddar cheese

tabasco sauce

cashews

Get all your ingredients ready. For this soup I used a bag of ready cut broccoli florets. That made it super easy to prepare since I could just dump them into the pot. I kinda feel like that was cheating, but for some reason they were actually cheaper precut at Costco than whole at our Von's, so in the cart they went!

These bacon bits are pretty good, they are kind of like bacon and kind of like beef jerky. A friend left them at our house after a baked potato party and they worked really well on the soup.

Start by sauteing your onion in a little butter or oil until they cook down and get soft. Now just dump your broccoli on top. Throw in your seasoning and add your chicken broth and water.

Bring the whole thing to a simmer and cover with a lid. Cook for 10 minutes or until the broccoli gets tender.

While you're waiting for the broccoli to soften you can work on making some of the toppings. We bought a box of mushrooms at Costco so I decided to use those as one of the toppings. I started by selecting and washing 5 medium sized mushrooms. You can totally skip this step and make other toppings if you like. I think cheddar cheese would be good, we were out, but next time I make this I'm getting cheese.

and of course I took the picture before washing them... ewwww...

Wash them and slice them thinly.

Throw them in a pan with a bit of butter.

Now just poke them around a bit until they cook down and look like cooked mushrooms.

Ok! Now back to the soup! Your broccoli should be pretty soft now so we can start going after it with the immersion blender. There may be some broccoli sticking up out of the liquid try to smoosh it down as you blend (this is why the broccoli needs to be super soft). Also, be careful, immersion blenders can shoot hot soup at you when they are not fully immersed. If you are worried about this whole immersion blender/scalding hot soup thing you can always use a traditional blender instead, I was just feeling lazy.

smooshing broccoli with my immersion blender

partially blended

fully blended!

Now that you've blended everything check to make sure the soup is the consistency that you want. It might be a little on the thick side, if that is the case you can thin it a bit with some more chicken broth or water. If you are feeling daring you can thin it out with a cream to make a cream of broccoli soup. Serve it up hot and cover with your favorite toppings!

poor little bread bowl getting photographed on our wet balcony.

We ate ours with a loaf of sourdough bread from Boudins, and yes I reused my bread bowl from lunch... we're still students and I have this compulsion to always take my leftovers home. Maybe that's weird.. but I'm going to vote for frugal. :)

Directions:

1. Saute diced onions in butter until soft

2. Add broccoli, spices, and chicken broth and bring to a low boil

3. Cover and let simmer for 10 min or until broccoli is very tender

4. Blend the soup adding more liquid (broth or water) to achieve desired thickness (add cream to make a cream of broccoli soup).

5. Serve up and cover in toppings!

6. Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Goodbye Arch Bars!

2012-03-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Last view of Nathan's arch bars

these babies are GONE!

We are happy to announce that as of 4:00 today Nathan is arch bar free! No more pokey wires jabbing his gums, no more getting his lips snagged when he tries to talk. He had to go under anesthesia to get them taken out (they were embedded in his gums somehow, I prefer not to think about it too hard). The whole procedure was pretty quick and when he came out he was super chipper and chatty, I think a mix between recovering from being "under" and excitement about being able to talk pain free for the first time in weeks. He's still pretty happy, in fact, he just walked by and showed my his gums again (you know... as you do).

The nurse informed me that his first words when he came out of surgery were "I can smile!!" Which was nearly on par with his first words when he came out of surgery last time which were "I can run across the parp!" (albiet in written form since he couldn't talk last time). Click here for context.

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Fresh Strawberry Milkshake

2012-03-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Now that Nathan's starting to feel a bit more chipper, he's started creating his own concoctions on the Vitamix. Here's his latest success, a fresh strawberry milkshake:

This recipe is the simplest so far, and is honestly, it is probably the best thing we've made with strawberries. If you have access to fresh ripe strawberries this is super duper yummy since it captures and highlights the flavor of the fruit.

Ingredients (makes two servings):

1 lb - fresh strawberries

2 cups - vanilla ice cream

Directions:

Place your washed, destemed and hulled the strawberries in the blender and pulse until completely liquified. Add the ice cream and continue to blend until smooth. Poor into glasses and enjoy immediately.

I am only medium ashamed to say we had these for dinner earlier this week... I mean what's the fun of being a grown up if you can't have shakes for dinner once in a while... right? :)

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Sunday Lunch Test Run

2012-03-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

We have a weekly tradition of going out to lunch with friends after church. Sadly we haven't gone since the surgery, as there are not many places that serve broken jaw compatible food. Last night Nathan announced he wanted to give eating out another shot, so after church today we headed out with our housemate Lauren and her boyfriend Nathan (yes, we have a lot of Nathan's running around here) to Boudin's for lunch.

I didn't get the memo to make a funny face, I'll try to do better next time. (you can click on the photo to make it bigger so you can fully enjoy Nathan's expression)

Lauren and her Nathan, enjoying yummy sourdoughy lunches.

Lunch was a super success and Nathan was able to eat his chili and most of his bread bowl (the crust proved to be a bit too chewy, but the rest was fine). We also owe Lauren a a big thank you for telling us about the Boudin's rewards program. Basically every month you can get a free loaf of bread fresh bread if you eat there. So we also picked up our free loaf today, yay!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Updates!

2012-03-24T21:57:00.001-07:00

It's been a little while since our last post so here's the latest news! :)

Nathan holding a Pi Pie and looking skeptical.

First off Nathan is doing really well. He can now:

1. open his mouth!! (and he only has to wear his rubber bands at night!! yay!!)
2. eat with a spoon!!
3. walk without causing pain to his jaw.
4. smile nearly symmetrically (and he even has his dimple back!)
5. talk on the phone and be understood by the person on the other side.
6. sort of "chew" soft things!!!
7. wink his left eye (and bonus, he can now close his left eye well enough so that he doesn't get soap in it)

We are still waiting to see how much his facial nerve continues to recover, they said it can take months before we'll know. Parts of his face are still numb, and while he has move movement in his left eyelid, his left eyebrow is still recovering (ie. it doesn't move yet, this has allowed Nathan to perfect his new "skeptical look" which consists of him raising his right eyebrow exclusively, it's a pretty convincing look). Monday he goes in to get his wire bands taken off, and Tuesday he has his dental appointment for his broken tooth!

He's also jokingly promoting the "wired jaw diet." The oral surgeon said it's normal for people to lose around 15 pounds when they break their jaw (due mostly to it hurting a lot to eat and drink in the first weeks post surgery). Nathan is no exception and has lost his 15 pounds; turns out weight loss is easy if you can't eat anything. Probably not the best or healthiest way to reach your goal weight, but there you go. We'll be working on incorporating exercise back into our routine slowly and hopefully we'll be a bit more balanced and healthy soon (Nathan couldn't do much running or walking earlier because the impact jostled his jaw).

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And now as promised, here are a couple exciting events from the past week or so:

First off, we had a lovely Pi/pie day on March 14th (3-14) with our small group. We made two pies to celebrate, a chocolate pudding pie and a chocolate oreo pie. We made the choice for pudding because 1.) Nathan can eat it, and 2.) We already had all the ingredients. :)

Pi Pie!!!

We also went out to eat for the first time since the accident (and ordered real food!!). Our friend Margaret just passed her Master's defence this last week so we took her out for a celebratory dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery. Nathan got the Bacon Mac and Cheese and was totally up to the challenge. :)

I forgot to take my camera, so this is an image I found online of Rock Bottom regular Mac and Cheese. Please imagine bacon on top for a more representative image.

Lastly, we were lucky enough to have our friend from Seattle visit us. :) Nathan was stuck grading the day she was here, so we had a girls night out at Disneyland which was super fun. I tried to convince her to move down here so that we could go to Disneyland together all the time, but she seemed hesitant, something to do with already having a house and a job elsewhere.... sigh... it was worth a try...

riding Charger on the King Arthur Carousal... Yes, we named our horses

Mine had a lion painted on the side, so at first I thought I'd name him Aslan, but then that seemed like a weird horse name, so I tried to change it to Bree, but the ride was already halfway over... so I'm not sure if it counted.

About to get spooked at the Haunted Mansion!

That's it for now, more recipes and updates to come soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Beach Day

2012-03-16T12:38:00.002-07:00

Another chewing free date!

We had originally planned to go to the zoo together this weekend, but Nathan's swelling got pretty bad and he was feeling pretty tired. The San Diego Zoo is not a place to go if you are already feeling exhausted, so Nathan took me to the beach instead. Here's some pictures from our day out. :)

Note: there's still time to visit us before we move! This beach could be yours too!

View of La Jolla Cove

View of La Jolla Shores

Love Ducks!

Scripts pier

Nathan!

Pelicans and palm trees

We had a really fun time, although it was a little too cloudy to have a good sunset. I think I'm going to miss living by the beach! :(

Get well soon!
Elizabeth and Nathan

Hearty Turkey Chili

2012-03-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

We haven't had any meat since the accident since we've been a little scared of blending meat. (Well, actually, I did blend some chicken the first week, but it didn't turn out too well...). Up until now Nathan has been getting most of his protein from dairy, tofu, beans and quinoa. However, this week we decided it was time to give meat a second chance.

my bowl, since avocados make Nathan throw up... poor dude.

Chili seemed like a good place to start, since it's already soupy anyway. I ate mine unblended (see photo above), and Nathan ate his blended (photo at the bottom of post). Both turned out well, and when Nathan can chew again I might still blend a couple cups of the chili and mix it back into the main batch because it makes it extra thick and yummy.

Ingredients:

1 lb. - ground turkey

1 - onion diced

4 cloves - garlic diced

2 - jalapenos diced (less for less heat, or sub a green bell pepper to avoid spiciness altogether)

2 Tbsp - chili powder

28 oz. - crushed tomatoes

16 oz. - chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

There is way too much chicken stock in this photo, I don't know what I was thinking.

Start by sauteing the onions, garlic and pepper in olive oil at the bottom of your soup pot. Wait for them to get a little soft, around 5 min.

Next add your chili powder. Stir the whole think around for a minute or so, add a splash of the chicken broth if things begin to stick.

Throw in your turkey.

my turkey was still a little frozen, but I slowly broke it up and all was fine. Who needs defrosting, not me! (maybe... might have to revisit that stance later...)

Cook until turkey is thoroughly cooked. If the turkey was not very lean you can drain some of the grease off now.

Now add your tomatos and chicken stock. Mine were frozen in a ziplock bag in the freezer (we buy the big cans from Costco and freeze them in usable portions, really cheap that way).

Let everything simmer for about 15 min to let the flavors mingle.

Garnish with cilantro, lime, avocado, cheese, sour cream, or anything else that sounds yummy to you.

Enjoy!

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Optional Blending Steps for Broken Jaw Folks:

Toss some in the blender with a few sprigs of cilantro

Blend on high until you get a soupy consistency. Add more chicken broth here if it is not liquidly enough (You want to make sure it's thin enough that you can easily drink it).

Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Cheddar Broccoli Soup

2012-03-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

Our poor celery had been in the back of the fridge for several weeks and didn't look like it was going to survive much longer. To give it one last shot at a meaningful life we decided to make this tasty broccoli soup. :)

The celery from the back of the fridge... sad celery?... or possibly hip mustache celery?

If you ever find yourself in this situation know that you can partially revive celery by cutting of the bottom and sticking it in a cup of water. However, if you are putting on making a blended soup you can skip reviving it since the goal is to make it mushy anyway.

Ingredients:

1 - onion

32 oz. - chicken stock

3 - garlic cloves

2 - small heads broccoli (or one big head, our grocery store only had tiny ones left)

3 - stalks celery

1/2 cup - cream

1/4 - tsp red pepper flakes (more or less to adjust spiciness)

1 cup - shredded cheddar (which I totally forgot to put in the photo! sorry!)

salt and pepper to taste

Start by dicing the onion, garlic and celery. Don't worry about uniformity, since we're going to blend it later.

Saute the diced onion, garlic, and celery in butter until soft. While you're waiting cut up your broccoli into small chunks (smaller chunks make it cook faster which is good!).

When the onions are soft add the broccoli and spices and stir around.

Next add your chicken stock and let the whole thing simmer until the broccoli pieces are tender. Transfer the mixture to the blender and blend adding the cream and the cheese.

Enjoy!

Note: If you are reading this and, like Nathan, are recovering from jaw surgery we recommend leaving out the cheddar cheese. Even though it was melted Nathan still had trouble with it getting stuck in his wires. That made this soup hard to eat durring the rubber-banded phase of his recovery.

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

We got a Ferrari!

2012-03-11T18:40:00.002-07:00

ok. I lied. we got a blender.

but it's a Vitamix, which Nathan says is the Ferrari of blenders. :) Costco carries them in the warehouses every so often and today they were there!!! I am so super duper excited!

I would like to note that I am not alone in my love for blenders. The lady who checked our receipt at the door was also super excited for us when she saw we had one in our cart. I danced all the way to the car in a blender induced daze of pure happiness and joy. When we got home I asked Nathan to take pictures of me with it in the parking lot, because... it turns out I'm a blender dork.

I love you Vitamix,

we are going to blend great things together.

Opening the box

Taaa Daaa!!! Blender Parts!!! :D:D:D

Oh! and a cookbook full of blender recipes, I think we can put this to good use :)

Everything together.

Blending a batch of Fresh Asparagus Soup.

So far it's been awesome. I think the biggest difference is that the resulting mixture is much easier for me to strain because the the Vitamix is capable of blending to such a fine consistency. For example, when we make strawberry smoothies I have to put the whole thing through the strainer to remove all the seeds (since Nathan still has to drink through his teeth, if we don't get the seeds out then they all get stuck everywhere in his mouth, not good considering brushing is not trivial). Last night when I made a strawberry smoothie I went to strain it and there were NO SEEDS! MAGIC! I think this blender was invented by unicorns and rainbows and happiness and sunshine and I love it SOOOOO much!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Fresh Asparagus Soup

2012-03-10T14:21:00.003-08:00

You may have noticed that nearly all the food I've posted about is orange or red. We noticed that too and figured it was probably time for a green soup. This one is super good and fresh tasting. I think we'll be making it again really soon.

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It's asparagus season here in San Diego and when I saw these bunches in our supermarket I couldn't pass them up (especially since they were just $0.99 a pound!) A friend sent me this recipe and the following is my variation on it. We made it both the way in the original recipe and the way documented below. We found that the soup with just asparagus (no peas) tasted fresher and brighter so that's the variation I included here. Let's get started. :)

Ingredients:

1 bunch - asparagus

1 - onion

2 Tbsp - olive oil

32 oz. - chicken stock

1/2 cup - cream

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup - parmesan (optional) more for garnish

The last time Nathan and I cooked asparagus (back in the chewing days) we ran into trouble because we forgot to cut the tough woody part off at the bottom. This led to some difficult chewing situations, and I'm pretty sure it would also be a problem in the blender. We mentioned this to our friend who shared this wonderful asparagus tip with us. Basically to find out how much of the asparagus stalk is woody you hold it between your hands and let it break wherever is natural natural. Because the tender part is springy it will always break at the boundary between the tough and tender part. Genius! We made a video that explains how to do it, check it out below.

Ok, now that you've removed the tough parts, chop up your asparagus into 1 inch lengths.

Chop and saute the onion in the soup pot. Once the onions soften up add in the chopped asparagus.

Add the seasoning and the stock and let simmer until the asparagus is tender.

Unfortunately it looses some of it's pretty green color, but we really need to cook it long enough so that it will blend and go through sieve nicely. And don't worry, it still tastes fresh and springy even though it's not bright green.

ok, looking pretty tender now.

Blend in batches in the blender, add the cream while you blend. If you are using the parmesan you can add it durring this step as well.

Blended!

soup pictured with the bike that started it all... hmph... grumbles...

When serving the soup, garnish with parmesan cheese and enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Bubble Tea Date :D

2012-03-09T18:52:00.000-08:00

Most date places are out for the moment, but one place that remains on the list is Tapioca Express, the bubble tea shop around the corner from our apartment. When we were dating in college we used to go to a bubble tea place near campus all the time, but when we moved to San Diego we stopped going as often. Now we have a great excuse to renew the tradition. Yay!

Here Nathan shows off his new advanced single eyebrow raising skill. Bruising a nerve can embue you with all kinds of temporary skills like this.

For now Nathan has to avoid ordering drinks with the tapioca at the bottom, since swallowing them whole is not advised. Good thing these drinks are still taste pretty tasty without them. Well, that's actually a stretch, most of them taste good. Nathan for example got a Thai Tea flavored drink which was pretty good. I got a tea called "yogurt green" which tasted odd, the flavor overall was good, but they made the drink super SUPER super sweet. Next time I might skip the adventure and just get the safe black tea flavor. It makes me feel like a boring person every time I order it, but then, it always tastes good, so maybe it's good to be boring sometimes? :)

"yogurt green" flavor tea, not actually recommended...

We are super looking forward to when Nathan is allowed to chew again (he already has a list of places he wants to go when he's better). Until then it looks like fancy drinks will be our stand in for fun dinner dates.

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Spicy Pumpkin Curry Soup

2012-03-08T23:36:00.002-08:00

I figured it was just about time for a cheery picture so I thought I'd share this one from our 2nd anniversary. You can tell that Nathan loves me a lot because he wearing a silly hat for me, and he is still smiling.

You can be really happy too, because originally instead of a cheery picture, I was thinking of posting a picture of Nathan's stitches. Then I realized that might put you off from making soup so I went with this instead. Yay!

Ingredients:
7 oz. - pumpkin puree
1 - onion diced
1 tsp - nutmeg
1/2 tsp - cayenne pepper
1/2 Tbsp - curry powder
1 Tbsp - peanut butter (or substitute, we used sunflower butter cause I'm allergic to the real stuff)
2 Tbsp - butter or oil
32 oz. - chicken stock
Sriracha to taste

Start by sauteing the onions in the butter. Once they are soft, add the spices and stir around for about a minute. Then add the pureed pumpkin and mush it all together.

mush mush mush.

Chicken broth is next, just dump it all in and bring it to a simmer. Now add your scoop of real or fake peanut butter. If you can eat the real kind I am SOOOOOO jealous! It should just melt into the soup and disappear.

Run everything through the blender and garnish with a little (or a LOT) or Sriracha. :)

More Sriracha is ALWAYS better. :D

Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

2012-03-06T19:30:00.002-08:00

Well we are in week 3 now. Nathan's starting to feel a bit more peppy, but it's still a slow recovery. When they did the surgery they had to move one of his main facial nerves which resulted in his face being mostly numb on his left side. Recently his nerve has begun to recover (yay!) but that also means that he's getting random bursts of pain now that he can feel that part of his face again (boo!).

Today Nathan rode his bike again for the first time since the accident. I think we need to take it into the shop to get it aligned, but it worked ok for the short distance we went today. It's important to show the bike who's boss, wouldn't want it to get any crazy ideas.

While Nathan did get some of his rubber bands taken off last week he still has enough on that he can't open his mouth to get a straw or a spoon in so we're still doing the super pureed soups so that he can drink it through his teeth. Here's the recipe for a butternut squash soup we just made. :)

Ingredients:

1 - largish butternut squash

1 - onion

32 oz. - chicken stock

1/2 cup - cream

1 tsp - marjoram

dash - cayenne pepper

salt to taste

Start by chopping the onion and softening it in a soup pot with the butter.

Next start peeling and dicing the butternut squash. This is kind of a pain, and actually I read later online that instead of doing this you can just cut the squash in half and roast it in the oven for a while (here's a link to some instructions I found). Then when you take it out you can just scoop the soft insides out. I think I'll do it that way next time.

But, since I did do it the hard way, I though I'd show off this nice bowl of butternut squash cubes. The squash I picked filled two bowls of this size.

Ok, and also a close up, cause that was hard and I'm not doing it again. :)

Once the onions are soft toss in your cubes (or your mushy roasted squash if you used the roasted method)

Next add you spices, mush everything around for a minute, and then add your stock.