Tag Archives: photography

Food Cult: Dinner at Plum

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One of the best parts of traveling is meeting new restaurants. For Tech Kid’s birthday, we went to a highly touted Oakland restaurant, Plum. I’m still struggling with my cameras, but I just had to share photos of the inventive work of Plum’s chefs.

Beet Boudin Noir, with brussel sprouts and turnip

Avocado Risotto with pistachio,lemon, and cucumber

Raviolini with mixed milk ricotta, nettles, and green shallots

One perfect raviolini

Samples from the Plum Charcuterie with pickled vegetables and violet mustard. I’ll leave you to guess what’s in these delectable morsels.

King Salmon with fava, potato, radish, and vandouvan (curry-like spice blend).

Roasted Pork and Belly with young chard, new onion, and mustard

I’m not sure what this wonderful dessert was — it was ordered specially for the birthday boy.

This lonely little turnip is all that was left on the plate when we finished this sumptuous and scrumptious meal.

If you are visiting Oakland, I highly encourage you to seek out this very good restaurant (make reservations!). The portions are on the small side, but every bite is full of interest.

Food Cult: Pasta Bake in the Grill

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This going back and forth between my two blogs is feeling kind of incestuous already…

On Saturday, my first full day of retirement, I made a nice dinner for Music Man (he actually did the grilling) and blogged about it here. Today’s post is to talk about using up the leftovers in our refrigerator for Sunday supper.

I decided to make a baked pasta dish using the leftover chicken from Saturday and some fresh mozzarella that was at the end of its useful life. I also had a pesto container that had a crack in it and I needed to get rid of the pesto. Voila! I had the beginnings of a really good supper.

Now that I’m on the cooking with the grill kick, I decided to try baking the pasta in the Weber. I remembered I had a cast iron skillet in the shed and cleaned and seasoned it. I put together the pasta dish, put it into the iron skillet, covered it with aluminum foil and baked it at 350 degrees for about an hour. Since the pasta and the chicken were already cooked, I was just melting the cheese and heating it all up. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of how cute the dish looked when served in the cast iron skillet. I was just hungry!

We also needed to use up a lot of bits and pieces of veggies, so I made a chopped salad and added the last of the spring mix. Finally, we topped off dinner with a mixed fruit salad.

Easy peasy once again! The whole meal took a little more than an hour to put together including pasta boiling time, and we enjoyed sitting outside feeling the breeze come through after a scorcher of a day. We also got two meals out of that lovely $5 chicken and used up stuff in the fridge that needed to be eaten. All in all, a win-win day.

Baked Pasta with Chicken and Fresh Mozzarella

1 bag whole wheat pasta (any shape will do)

1-2 cups cubed cooked chicken

1 onion, caramelized (I used the leftovers from the roasted chicken)

8 oz. fresh mozzarella cut into cubes

4 tbs. basil pesto sauce

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup chicken broth

Directions

Cook the pasta to al dente and drain. Combine all ingredients in a baking pan, cover with foil, and bake for about 1 hour at 350 degrees. Remove aluminum foil for the last 15 minutes if you want a crispy top. Recipe serves four with good-sized portions, but we split it into two halves and froze the rest for another meal in the empty nest.

I’d also be forever grateful if you also stopped by Retirement 365 and give me some follow and comment love! Since I get about 80 hits on Got My Reservations every day because of this photo which I did not even take myself, my poor new blog is feeling very lonely over there. 🙂

Orchid Week: Thursday

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I’m in my last week of teaching — is that even possible? — and won’t have a lot of time to blog this week, so I’m leaving you with a series of photos of orchids that I took at the nursery. Enjoy!

 

Today’s teacher task: Cleaning my classroom and end-of-year luncheon. The party is always fun and will certainly be meaningful this year for me!

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Orchid Week: Wednesday

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I’m in my last week of teaching — is that even possible? — and won’t have a lot of time to blog this week, so I’m leaving you with a series of photos of orchids that I took at the nursery. Enjoy!

Today’s teacher task: Graduation rehearsal and cleaning my room, followed by graduation in the evening. It’s always bittersweet to participate in graduation festivities.

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Orchid Week: Tuesday

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I’m in my last week of teaching — is that even possible? — and won’t have a lot of time to blog this week, so I’m leaving you with a series of photos of orchids that I took at the nursery. Enjoy!

Today’s teacher task: supervising cleaning out lockers and making sure my kids don’t put usable school supplies in the trash. We donate good stuff to less affluent schools. Then they will go through their portfolios from eight years of elementary school. They absolutely love seeing their stuff from when they were little and also seeing how much they have grown in their eighth grade year with me. It’s usually a feel-good activity for the last day of classes.

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Orchid Week: Monday

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I’m in my last week of teaching — is that even possible? — and won’t have a lot of time to blog this week, so I’m sharing a series of photos of orchids that I took at the nursery. Enjoy!

I loved the look of these against the blue background. I have no idea what the name of this orchid is; I forgot to write it down, I was so overwhelmed by its beauty.

Today’s task: give my last final exam and enter the grades in the online grade book. Woot!

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Flower Stories: Alstroemeria

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Music Man came home from the store with flowers — our signature flower, the alstroemeria, and some lilies. Alstroemeria is an inexpensive, common “fill-in” flower that is sold in grocery stores everywhere. To us, however, the humble alstroemeria is a symbol of our love and commitment to each other. We used them in our wedding flowers and they have been our signature ever since.

Resembling a miniature lily, alstroemeria, often called the Peruvian Lily or Lily of the Incas, was named after its discoverer, Baron Claus von Alstromer, a Swedish baron who collected the seeds on a trip to Spain in 1753. Today, this popular flower can be found in a range of colors – from white to golden yellow, orange to apricot, pink to red, lavender and purple. Symbolizing friendship and devotion, the alstroemeria’s leaves grow upside down, with the leaf twisting as it grows out from the stem, so that the bottom is facing upwards – much like the twists, turns and growth of our friendships. — Source: Teleflora

Flower Stories: The Rose That Could Cover Chicago

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My New Dawn Rose has been here for years — long before we moved in. My next door neighbor told me that if I moved it next to our house, it would cover the entire house and ruin our tuck pointing. So — we built it an arbor of its own. I bought elbow-length rose gloves to tie it up and it’s my weekend project.

But that doesn’t take away from its beauty. Every year, I am overwhelmed by the prolific blossoms that come back again and again all summer, even if I cut it back all the way to the roots.

I think I’d better tie up the canes that are hitting the car as I drive by, though. 🙂

Happy weekend!

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The Irony of the Muffins

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Over the weekend, I decided to make a batch of mini muffins, using a recipe featured by my niece on Vanderbilt Wife. I already had frozen zucchini and some leftover chocolate chips, as well as amaretto cocoa that came in a Christmas gift basket. Woot!

Unfortunately, the first batch I baked got too crispy on the edges because I baked them a tad too long. You should have seen Music Man’s face when I dumped them into the trash bin. I decided I HAD to make another batch, since we were entertaining a Cordon Bleu trained chef for dinner. I mean, really! How embarrassing to serve crispy muffins.

The next batch got the addition of wild dried blueberries, so we ended up with zucchini-blueberry-chocolate muffins and they were delish! I was careful about the time in the oven, and I had enough batter left over from the mini muffin trays to create three full size muffins. From thence comes the irony.

Tonight, as I opened the oven door after turning on the broiler for the chicken breasts, I discovered the pan of three muffins that had been forgotten in the frenzy to make a second batch of mini-muffins and then get on with our dinner. I had turned off the oven when I took out the minis, and the big muffins were only a little bit the worse for wear for a couple of days in the oven and a blast from the broiler. They were only a little crispy on the outside and still moist on the inside — a welcome treat with our dinner tonight.

In the words of the immortal Alanis Morrissette —

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

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