New background

I just updated the background to my blog, and then I realized I had picked a Christmas theme. I like the layout better than anything else I saw, so I'm going to keep it and just keep celebrating the season, no matter which season it is.

Still Snowbound

Well, we're still stuck here with about 14 inches of snow on the ground with 3 to 8 more forecasted for tomorrow and Thursday. We've been working from home during the day and doing a lot of reading and movie watching at night. I've been cooking. Last night I made bagels, because really, what better time is there to try a recipe you've always wanted to make that when you have the whole evening with nothing to do and nowhere to be. They were actually very easy and tasty too.
For lunch today we took a break and headed down the block to have lunch at a pizza buffet because we both needed to get out of the house. Things aren't too bad on foot, but the roads are still a mess. Some of the snow is melting off of the house into icicles, but the rest of it seems to be staying put.
We're hoping that we get a break in the weather soon, ideally with enough time to still make the drive to California for Christmas, but the weather folks aren't being too encouraging.

2008 in Review

It's December, and another year is nearly gone. Thanks to a number of weddings, we got to spend quite a bit of time out of state and connect with many friends and family over the course of the last year. Looking back, we are very thankful for all of you, and we thought that we would wish you a Merry Christmas and share a few of our favorite memories from the year past.

In writing this up, we realized that we're not terribly exciting or are extremely forgetful, because we don't have anything to report from the first five months of this year. Our first notable adventure took us out to Joseph, a small town set at the foot of the Wallowa Mountains in northeast Oregon, where we celebrated our 2nd anniversary in May. While in Joseph, we took in some fantastic scenery while hiking, stayed in a cozy bed and breakfast, went bowling (Erica won a free game with her tremendous skill), and of course, dodged the raindrops.
Over the summer, we took a ten day trip bookended by two weddings. The Kriegler wedding in Los Angeles was the first stop. Fred was a groomsman in the wedding and got to introduce Erica to many of his friends from college. This was also Erica's first trip to the Los Angeles area, so some sight-seeing was in order. We were able to go to the beach in Malibu, spend some time with our friends Christopher and Amy and Fred's Aunty Jane, and check out the Harvey Mudd College campus where Fred went to school.
From Los Angeles, we flew out to Missouri for Erica's brother Ryan's wedding. Ryan and Sarah were married in the small town of Altenburg, where Fred got to experience many southeast Missouri traditions. After the wedding reception on the top floor of the Knights of Columbus reception hall, we strolled down to the bottom floor to crash Erica's 10 year high school reunion.

In August, Erica participated in the Portland to Coast walking relay with several of her co-workers, which is the version of the better known Hood to Coast Relay for people who don't like to run. Despite a serious lack of training and a late-night leg fueled by a blue cheese and bacon burger for dinner, Erica had an enjoyable time and came through relatively unscathed.

In November, Fred donned a tuxedo one last time for friends Josh and Yi's wedding in El Segundo, California. Erica got her second taste of California sunshine and got to meet another batch of friends from Fred's college days. Josh choreographed a heartwarming song and dance routine to cap the wedding ceremony. Fred and the other groomsmen played a supporting role in the act, which actually landed on YouTube.
Just recently, we've had some additional excitement thanks to some unusual weather. Portland is known for it's rain, but not necessarily for its snow. In fact, we are woefully unprepared for snow, which makes the several inches of snow that we got last weekend such a big deal. Then, this weekend's snow left us snowbound with plenty of time to pull this update together.
We hope that this letter finds you all well. Have a Merry Christmas, and may 2009 be a blessed year for all of you.

Love,
Fred and Erica

Thanksgiving

This is a bit late, but I finally downloaded the pictures from Thanksgiving. We had a really nice time. Fred's parents, his sister Sydney, and her boyfriend Dan spent the weekend with us. We had all of the traditional Thanskgiving foods, but the most talked about item was the 6 pound sweet potato that Fred and Sylvia brought with them from Califiornia--by plane. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of just how big it was:


The six of us ate maybe one quarter of the sweet potato at Thanskgiving dinner and made a batch of sweet potato biscuits for breakfast the day after. I froze enough to make two more batches of biscuits and we still have about a quarter of the potato left. I plan to cook it this weekend and try my hand at sweet potato pie.

Aside from eating, there was also time for everyone to compete in Wii bowling and boxing, which was a lot of fun.


The big excitement around here now is that it's supposed to snow this weekend. Portland doesn't really get a lot of snow, so when it's in the forecast, it's a big deal. I thought the newscasters in Missouri got worked up when a winter storm was in the works, but they've got nothing on Portland. The forecast has been for snow starting tonight at elevations below 500 feet (most of Portland). One news channel has had someone stationed at the top of Sylvan hill, which is high enough to usually see the first of the snow, since yesterday morning--when it was still about 45 degrees out and not even raining. We're not too worried about it all--we're well stocked to stay warm at home, and if things really are bad by Monday morning, we can both work from home. I wouldn't mind seeing some snow, but I have a feeling that all of the hype isn't going to amount to much.

Blooming!

I'm very excited--in the summer of 2007 I took some cuttings from one of my Grandma's and one of Fred's Grandma's Christmas cacti. They didn't bloom last year, but at least some of the cuttings are blooming now. I guess that at least one of the cuttings is from a Thanksgiving cactus, not a Christmas cactus.


We've been busy lately. Last weekend we flew to LA for Fred's friend Josh's wedding. It was a nice wedding, but a tiring weekend. We both had long weeks at work, so it was nice to have a relaxing weekend at home. We did some errands, ordered our Thanksgiving turkey, and did a little bit of work around the house. Last night I used some of pumpkin puree I made last month to make a pumpkin bread recipe that I'd been wanting to try. (If you look up the link--I made the yeast bread, not the Trader Joe's version, although I made that a couple weeks ago, and it was easy and tasty).

Anyway, the recipe made enough for two loaves. We only have one bread pan, so I made one loaf and used the rest to make pumpkin cinnamon rolls. They were really good--one of the best batches of cinnamon rolls I've made from any recipe.

Fred liked them too. He pretty much likes all cinnamon rolls--except for the first batch I ever made for us. I made the mistake of baking them in one of my stoneware baking dishes that I'd used previously for a beef roast. Unfortunately, that left an unpleasant beefy taste in the cinnamon rolls. I've learned to only use that dish for savory dishes and use Pyrex for desserts.

Cooking for fall

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen today--by choice. The weather was very fall-ish, so I made a big pot of chili for dinner and to last us through the week. This is my second pot of chili in less than a month. Fred makes fun of me because I'll only make it in the fall and winter (and probably well into the spring here, since it stays rainy and cool into June), but to me chili just doesn't seem like summer food.

I also roasted some butternut squash and sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes are for making biscuits, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the squash. I have about 6 cups of mashed pumpkin and squash in my freezer, but when I see it on sale I feel like I need to get more to stock up. I'll be able to bake a lot of pumpkin/squash bread through the winter.

I made a batch of the sweet potato biscuits to go with dinner tonight, and as always they are almost gone. I found this recipe last year after Thanksgiving when we had some leftover roasted sweet potatoes. If I remember correctly, they are excellent with cranberry sauce, but they're great by themselves. The recipe is modified from a Paula Deen one from the Food TV website. I consider it healthy, since it only has 1/4 cup butter in the whole batch (if, like me, you don't brush them with butter after cooking).


Anyway, if you're interested, here's the recipe:

Sweet Potato Biscuits
Makes 8-12

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 heaping tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter
2 to 4 tablespoons milk (depending on the moisture of the potatoes)
2-3 tablespoons flax seed (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix the sweet potatoes and butter. Add the flour mixture to the potato mixture and mix to make a soft dough. Then add milk a tablespoon at a time to mixture and continue. Be lazy like me and drop spoonfuls of batter onto your baking stone, or be like Paulal and turn the dough out onto a floured board and toss lightly until the outside of the dough looks smooth. Roll the dough out to 1/2-inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter. Bake for about 15 minutes. (Watch your oven: If the biscuits are browning too fast, lower the temperature.)

Crafty

A few weeks ago Fred and I made our annual fall trip to Hood River to visit the farms on the fruit loop. We bought lots of apples, pears, and cider and visited an alpaca farm. They had some really cute babies, and all of the bigger alpacas looked funny because they'd been shorn recently.


They have a yarn store at the farm, and I got some great alpaca yarn to make a warm winter hat.



I'm happy with how it turned out, and I'm hoping it's cool enough to wear it tonight when Fred and I go to a corn maze with some of my coworkers. I don't know if anyone who reads this blog knits, but if you want to give this hat a try, I modified the pattern for the hat found here.