A winery, burger, and a trip to the emergency vet

Sounds like your typical Saturday, eh?

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and head down to Oliver Winery. It's a great local vineyard about an hour south of us. They make some fabulous wines, with my favorites being Oliver Soft Red and Skyy Dog Red. We packed up a picnic and the pup, and left town around noon. Can you tell how excited Eli is?

Once we arrived we realized about 200 other people had the same idea. The tasting areas were so packed, we grabbed the first bottle that sounded good, Oliver Harvest Watermelon and picked out our spot by the pond. We wasted no time setting up the picnic.

YUM!!! We had pasta salad (recipe below), potato salad, fruit salad, hummus, cucumbers, Laughing Cow cheese, crackers, and salami. The picnic was my excuse to make pasta salad, one of my favorite foods. I love it in part because you can make it with whatever you have on hand. Here's today's version:

Pasta Salad

8 oz penne pasta

4 oz sliced baby bella mushrooms

8-10 asparagus stalks, cut into 1.5 inch pieces

1/2 red onion, large dice

10-15 cherry tomatoes, halved

2 garlic cloves

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

3 tbsp + 1 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp dijon mustard

1/4 c shredded parmesan

Fresh oregano, basil, and parsley, finely chopped

Salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of water to boil, salt, and add pasta. While pasta is cooking, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tbsp olive oil, mushrooms, asparagus, and red onion. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until veggies are soft and onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Remove heat, add tomatoes. Meanwhile, in the bottom of a large mixing bowl, add red wine vinegar and dijon mustard. Grate garlic cloves into vinegar mixture. Slowly whisk in olive oil. Add herbs (whatever you have on hand is fine). Toss pasta with dressing immediately after cooking. Add veggies. Cool to room temperature, then add cheese (ricotta salada would have been perfect with this, but ours was not looking too good and wound up in the trash). Refrigerate.

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After lunch, we settled into some reading. Andy was finishing up Brave New World and I was just starting Breaking Dawn.

We stayed for a few hours, and by the time we left nearly everyone had met Eli. He was more of a hit than the Soft Red for a quite a few people!

For a late dinner after the fabulous picnic, we decided to have burgers.

I had some simple Omaha Steak burgers defosted, so I decided to dress up the outside with sliced tomato, Gorgonzola cheese, carmelized onions and dijon mustard. With asparagus on the side, it was a perfect summer meal. Or it would have been....until we monentarily turned our backs and Eli scarfed down the asparagus, burger toppings, and half a burger. After first flipping out about the couch and scrubbing it furiously (whoever invented microfiber upholstry is seriously on my list of the Top Ten Coolest People Ever), I realized what was on that burger. Onions....which are toxic to dogs. And all the other things Eli ate, which wouldn't be a problem for most dogs. But Eli is a High Maitenance Dog. He has food allergies, and he reacts to everything but his special d/d dog food. Everything. Including organic, unpeeled, unwashed (by the producer...washed at home for sure) carrots (we tried). So not only would he have a potentially toxic reaction to the onions, he would have an allergic reaction to all the food.

Approximately 5 seconds later we were on the phone with the emergency vet and were told to bring Eli in immediately. The vet did her thing (I'll spare you the details!), and warned us Eli would be lethargic the rest of the night, but should be okay and keep an eye on him (specifically, his gums) for the next 5-6 days. Lethargic my butt....he's currently running in circles around the house, so I'd say he's making a fine recovery.

Whew, what a day! Here's hoping tomorrow is slightly less eventful.

My first foodie post!!

There is one very important thing to know about us here at The Bungalow---we love food. Pretty much all boxed and premade food is banned (with Easy Mac being a key exception....because, really, who wants to live without Easy Mac?). Every dinner and lunch is made from scratch. In fact, right now I am enjoying a late lunch of homemade baked potato soup. I probably made this two months ago and froze it for a day like this, when I need something fast.

For the inaugral foodie post, we will do not one but THREE recipes!! YAY! These are from Fajita Night on Monday.

Guacamole, aka "The Best Food Ever"

Guac is one of my most-complimeted recipes, and I do have to agree that it's fabulous. This recipe came about after many, many experimentations, and is very flexible to omissions, deletions, increases, and decreases in ingredients. It's all about how it feels. And tastes. Here's what I used Monday night:

Guacamole
3 avocados (when cooking for a crowd, I usually allow 1 avocado per person)
2 roma tomatoes
1/2 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 jalapeno peppers (actually, on Monday Fresh Market was out of jalepenos so I subbed 1 serrano pepper)
2 limes
Cilantro
Sea salt

Halve avacadoes, remove goodnessy green stuff. Mash with fork until it reaches desired consistency (Andy likes his chunky, I like mine smooth. Hehe.). Add the juice of two limes, both for flavor and to help prevent oxidation (or as you non-science people know it as, "Make it stop turning brown!"). Halve tomatoes, removing seeds. Dice tomatoes, onion, and jalepenoes, and add to avocado mixture. Finely dice garlic, then add sea salt to it. Mash into a paste. This ensures that the garlic will evenly distribute throughout the guac and you won't bite into a big piece of garlic (but would that really be so bad?). Add to avocado mixture. Chop cilatro and add. Stir, taste, and add additinal salt if needed.

Guac tip: to store leftover guac (if this is even a possibility at your place!!), place in a Ziploc bag, and squish out all the air. This will help prevent it from oxidizing.

Salsa

Salsa

2, 28 oz cans of San Marzano whole tomatoes, drained
2 cans of Rotel, drained
1 large Vidala onion
2 limes
2 jalepeno peppers
3 garlic cloves
Cilantro
Salt

Yes, you must cough up the $3/can and buy San Marzanos. It will change your life, and you will never touch a can of Hunts tomatoes again.

Using an imersion blender, chop up the whole tomatoes and place in a bowl. Add drained Rotel. Ask your fiance why we chop up the tomatoes, then add diced tomatoes....would it make more sense to not chop tomatoes as finely? Receive The Look from your fiance, and tell him never to question your cooking abilities again.

Add onion, jalepenos, cilantro, and garlic to a food prcoessor. Pulse until it reaches a fine dice. Add to tomato mixture. Add the juice of two limes. Add salt to taste. Proceed to eat salsa on everything for the rest of the week.

Spanish Rice (adapted from The Joy of Cooking, aka The Bible)
This is probably one of my favorite recipes from Joy. I hated buying those mixes of Spanish rice, and once I tried this recipe I knew I would never have to do so again.

Spanish Rice
1 tsp vegetable oil
3 slices of center cut bacon, minced
1/2 large Vidala onion
1/2 large green bell pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup minute brown rice
1 3/4 cup chicken broth
2 cans of Rotel, drained
1/2 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F. Add oil and bacon to an oven proof skillet with a lid. My trusty Le Creuset buffet casserole works fabulous for this! Cook, stirring as needed, until bacon begins to brown. Add onion and bell pepper, cook for 5 minutes. Add garlic, stir, and cook until onion is translucent. Add brown rice, and stir until well coated. Cook for 5 minutes. Add and bring to a boil remaining ingredients. Stir, cover, and transfer to oven. Bake until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender (25 minutes). Uncover and let stand for 5 minutes before serving (great time to throw tortillas wrapped in foil in the oven if you are serving this with fajitas).

Here's what our spread look like on Monday:

YUM!!! This was enough for two hungry diners, 4 lunches, and a few of Andy's "salsa salads"--salsa and crushed up tortilla chips. He's weird.