TravelBLOG: Mags & Val go to Musicfest NW

Hey, KDP-ers! Long time no updates. Sorry, but it’s been an eventful summer up here in the Last Frontier. We’ve been super busy conquering mountains, catching giant fish, picking massive amounts of berries, and generally complaining about the weather.

Dorks on a mountain.

 

Internet, meet Tina the halibut. She was delicious.

 

My view for 90% of this summer.

Around the beginning of July, Val and I decided we were going to need a respite from the Southeast Alaska rain and get at least a few days of real summer. Fueled by the shitty-weather-sads and, as usual, some generously portioned whiskey cocktails, we purchased our tickets to Portland in September for four nights of live music and, fingers-crossed, sun.

(This is going to be a massive post. Sorry, scrollers.)

9/6/12

We arrived in PDX on Thursday afternoon, and set off on the Max to find Val’s cousin’s apartment. Surprisingly enough, these two country mice made it with pretty much no incident and were able to sit down in front of the air conditioner for a few minutes before setting out on our first night of Musicfest NW. (80°+ is really damn hot when you’ve spent the entire summer in 60° rain.) After delicious tacos and margaritas at the appropriately named ¿Por Qué No? Taqueria, we headed to the Crystal Ballroom for Passion Pit.

And then we drank too many whiskeys and I elbowed a drunk chick in the head.

9/7/12

The next day, we woke up late and headed downtown for the ubiquitous out-of-town shopping day.  We headed over to Mother’s for lunch as the temperature outside slowly crept towards 90°. We ate salads, each with their own respective fresh Oregon fruit, and drank nearly a gallon of water before heading back out into our tiny slice of 2013 summer. This also marks the day that we tried chocolate macadamia nut frozen yogurt and will be remembered forever.

For dinner we shared some appetizers at Paragon, one of which was pretty much just a plate of heirloom tomatoes (heaven).

 

The other plates were pulled pork sliders and some awesome calamari.

Full and happy, we set off to see Beirut.

 

People who don't like crappy concert picture may want to skip this whole post.

They were wonderful. (Disclaimer: the author of this post may have been so starved for live music that every show was the best show ever.) The main concerts were held in Pioneer Square and being outside in the nice weather in the middle of downtown Portland was amazing. We stood in the pit for Beirut, since we got there a little late, but it turned out for the best because we had a great view of Zach Condon’s dreamy hair.

After that concert, we headed back over to the Crystal Ballroom to see Helio Sequence. My head cold was starting to kick my ass, so we got some cocktails and scouted out a seat in the balcony. The band playing when we first got there was Portland-based Unknown Mortal Orchestra and were a pleasant surprise.  Helio Sequence was still definitely the main attraction. Their live music comes across much differently than their produced stuff (more fun?) and the drummer, Benjamin Weikel, is a kick-in-the-pants to watch play.

9/8/12

On Saturday, we went to brunch at Meriwether’s and enjoyed some pretty fabulous mimosas (Irish coffee for Val) and phenomenal farm-fresh veggies.

 

One half of the unfairly good-looking couple that hosted us.

After a bit of time for digestion, we met up with an old friend at a Rogue Taproom where we sat in the sun and drank too many Hazelnut Brown ales (beer flight for Val).

After that it was time to get ready for the next big show: GirlTalk!

 

In this picture, you can just barely make out all the half-naked ladies.

Which of course provided the best part of the evening:

Bota bota bota box! Like they knew we were coming!

Opening band Starfucker was awesome. GirlTalk definitely puts on a show, but before too long I was jonesing for something a little more rock and roll. So, we packed up and headed over to Ted’s Berbati to catch a band I had been listening to recently, Brooklyn-based DIIV. (It’s pronounced “dive”, by the way. Guess how long it took us to figure that out.) The smaller venue and awesome performance made for one of the best shows we saw the whole trip.

After that, we booked it up to the Roseland Theatre to catch the last bit of Sebadoh’s set and wait patiently for Dinosaur Jr.!

 

I want to be this cool when I grow up.

The energy of that show! We almost got bowled over by a mosh pit consisting mostly of 30+ year olds. Unfortunately, my head cold started to take its toll and we checked out a little early to catch the bus home.

Inked.

9/9/12

It’s good we headed home when we did, because we were texted a wake-up call early-ish the next morning that we were late to meet more of Val’s family for breakfast. In a record 20 minutes, we were on the road to the Tin Shed. After grapefruit mimosas and delicious breakfast (I had a scramble with chicken apple sausage and brie, yum!) we headed out on our next adventure: wine tasting.

The view from the White Rose tasting room.

Neither Val nor I had ever been wine tasting before. (I guess that’s what happens when your favorite wine comes from a box.) Drinking 12+ different wines in the course of an afternoon, plus eating our weight in cheese? New favorite vacation activity.

 

Best cheese ever invented?

When I got home, my dad asked me if we figured out how to taste wine without getting shit-faced. He should really know better.

In this picture, we see drunk Mags trying to remember which vineyard she's currently visiting.

After a refreshing nap in the car, we made our way back downtown for the (arguably) main attraction.

Val: "Bass player's got a bad case of the babies." (Twins! Girlfriend had to play her axe all the way to one side.)

We somehow managed to keep our pants on through an entire Silversun Pickups show.  It was a little touch and go for me when they started playing “Catch and Release”, but I am a lady and kept it together.

After the show, we headed over to Nostrana for a farewell dinner with Val’s incredible, accommodating cousins. (Seriously, Aaron & Stephanie, if you ever read this, you guys are amazing.) We split some pizza, drank some more wine (gin for me!) and told embarrassing stories until it was time to head home to pack and get ready for our morning flight.

9/10/12

After a mix-up at the airport (a story I will only tell you if you buy me a drink), our 8:30 a.m. flight ended up being a 6:00 p.m. flight. Val and I suddenly had time for more shopping and at least one more meal in Portland!

At Aaron’s recommendation, we found ourselves in the garden of Veritable Quandary, sipping cocktails and pretending to be important amongst the besuited professionals around us. We also had some of the best pasta salad I’ve ever had, which we will hopefully be recreating here soon.

Properly boozed and broke, we got on the plane to return home, already plotting our next adventure.

Dudes, one of us is GETTING MARRIED. (I'll give you a hint: it's not me, or Val, or Hannah.)

She's so hot...like a (green halibut) curry - BOOM!

They're so hot, they're making me sexist. Bastards.

This post wasn’t actually brought to you by Flight of the Conchords, but it was brought to you by several things, including but not limited to: Bota Box Shiraz, two lovely ladies and fellow contributors to assist me, and Milo the Cat.

The Lovely Ladies

Alright, down to business. Like I said, WINE. Pour yourself a glass. Or three. Or pour yourself a whatever; I don’t care, just get it done. This curry doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, or even super-complex ingredients, but it does need a little time so you’ll want to be sure you have something delicious to sip on. I almost always make a green halibut Indonesian-style curry. It’s not that I don’t enjoy or appreciate other curries (well, that’s a lie. I’m actually not really down with Indian curry. I just don’t care for it, ok? Give me a lamb-something that’s Indian and lots of garlic-cilantro naan to eat it with, and I’m fine. Otherwise, I don’t care for it) but I’m really just partial to this particular curry. Furthermore, The Wife (Margaret) requests it just about as often as she requests my pork adobo - another time, kids - which is to say, constantly.


If you don’t remember my last post, here are a few ground rules:
1. Don’t sass me.
2. Pour yourself a draaaaaank before you get underway. It helps. Swearsies.
3. Understand that there is a lot of room for variation in these dishes, so adapt it for your own tastes/whatever you have on hand, within reason.

Ingredients, assemble!

Green Halibut Curry
Oil, such as canola or peanut oil (olive in a pinch; something with a higher smoke point is better if you’ve got it)
1-2 large shallots, halved and sliced thinly
1 ½ to 2 tblsp green curry paste, Mae Ploy if you can get it (for the love of Christ, stay away from Thai Kitchen)
½ a yellow onion, sliced in to ½ inch chunks
¾ lb crimini mushrooms, quartered
2-ish crowns of broccoli
1 bell pepper; red/yellow/orange are best to add some color
1-ish lbs of small red or Yukon potatoes with the skin on
2-inch chunk of ginger, sliced thinly (peel it with a paring knife or leave the skin on)
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans of coconut milk, preferably light
1 – 1 ½ tblsp fish sauce (this is some smelly stuff – be wary and keep it in the pot or else you will smell of The Fermented Sea Apocalypse forever and ever)
4-6 lime leaves
1-2 lbs of halibut, depending on how many you’re feeding and how much you have
Handful of cilantro, chopped roughly
Small handful of Thai (or regular, if you can’t find Thai) basil, chopped roughly
A lime or two, sliced for squeezin'

Choppity-chop-chop

Heat up a wok, a really wide and deep skillet, or a Dutch oven - whatever you’ve got that’s closest. It needs to be pretty dang hot. Throw some oil in there, about a tablespoon. Once it’s hot, throw in your shallots and move those suckers around in the pan with your stirring implement of choice. After they start to get translucent and then a bit crisp, add the green curry paste. Obvs adding less will make it a little more mild and adding more will make it more spicy, but green curry is meant to be an herbaceous, medium-heat curry. Get the green curry incorporated with the shallots, add a little more oil if necessary, and then throw in your mushrooms and onions with just a sprinkle of salt to help draw out the moisture.

I put the bell pepper in a bit early; I'm a rebel like that.

 You can leave those on their own for the most part – move them around a bit so that the onions don’t get too brown but you can finish your last minute prep right now if you need to, such as cutting up the fish. I like to do large chunks, about an inch square, but you can do them a bit smaller if you prefer. Halibut will flake nicely so you’ll end up with bite size pieces anyway and keeping them a little larger will help you control the cooking process better, especially if you’re not totally comfortable with cooking fish. Put the fish aside in a bowl with some salt & pepper.

Many thanks to Margaret's dad, who doesn't know he contributed this delicious halibut.

 Put your potatoes into a bowl with some water and toss some plastic wrap over the top, then put it in the microwave for about five minutes. You want to par-cook the potatoes so that they cook faster in your curry while absorbing the flaaaavas. Throw your broccoli and bell pepper into the pan and get it moving around with all the other goodness; after a couple of minutes, throw in the garlic and ginger. After about thirty seconds, empty your cans of coconut milk into the pan and add the fish sauce, stirring well. Throw the lime leaves in, turn the heat to low, and throw a half-cocked lid over that bad boy. I recommend eating rice with this (I guess you could eat it as-is, but I’m all about shamelessly doubling up on the carbs) or maybe some kind of rice noodle, so get your rice or whatevs going while your curry slightly simmers away.

Don't be a bunch of filthy perverts (like Liz). It's just coconut milk in slow-motion.

 While that’s all doing its thaaaang and getting happy, slice some limes into squeezable chunks, then chop up the cilantro and Thai basil. I happen to have some nice little ramekins that I put each of these into, because I’m fancy as fuck like that. However, you can literally throw it all in a bowl or pile it on a plate or do whatever you gots to do. If you’re working with larger chunks of fish, put it into the curry about ten minutes before the rice is done, gently folding it in so that it gets covered with yummy, thickened coconut milk.

Mmm...like so.

FINALLY, once the rice is done (man, seriously, rice and I aren’t friends. Half the time I totally eff it up – like I did this time – and have to start over. Rice and frosting: they are both a culinary Waterloo for me) and the curry has been getting happy for awhile, put that good stuff in a bowl.

Sprinkle your lovely additions over it with maybe some soy sauce/Braggs amino acids, perhaps some Sriracha, and then put your face in that bowl. For real.
Face.
Bowl.
Repeat.


We played the new Santigold album, Master of My Make Believe, which I have been digging on for the last week or so because NPR had it up on their First Listen site, along with new Rufus Wainwright, the new Royal Headache, and the new Norah Jones/Dangermouse collaboration.

After a couple glasses of wine, we also listened to some Pitbull. Keep your shade to yourself, haters.

Finally, the answer to your public drinking dilemmas!

Ok, this isn't a recipe post. But I would argue it's BETTER.

Alaska readers will know that summer here is mainly comprised of 18+ hours of daylight, drinking too much on weeknights, and trying to find the right beverage to accomplish said drinking if it's nice enough to be outside.

Beer is obviously the beverage of choice, but you GUYS, look what someone invented:

Those are stackable, plastic wine glasses, PRE-FILLED with wine.

Apparently you can buy it here, but I haven't checked to see if they can make it up here yet. (Edit: Just checked, they totes do. I am going to be the classiest girl at the bonfire.)

Happy Birthday KDP!

Kitchen Dance Party is one year old. 

To celebrate, we made you a present. 

Subtitled: 

Ode to cookie butter;

Trader Joes should come to Juneau; 

We don't know how to use a webcam, or edit videos;

We secretly desire to become Youtube sensations. 

Moral of the story, KDP video blogs are only going to be a special occasion event.
Here are some pics from the day (especially of the camera shy Liz and Mags)

Matzo Brei

Yes, it looks like cat vomit.

(serves 2)

You'll need:
2 sheets of matzo (or 14, depending on how you roll)
2 eggs (or 8, see above)
salt
pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil

-Break the matzo into 1/2 inch pieces. Put in a bowl. Rinse under hot tap water for 30 seconds. Drain.
-Whisk eggs in another bowl. Mix matzo and eggs, season with salt and pepper. -
-heat oil in a skillet. Put batter in skillet, either in one fell swoop or in smaller pancake style discs.
-Fry into golden.

Cookie Butter

Tasty things to make them taste like something:

applesauce
yogurt
cookie butter
peanut butter
pesto
sriracha
fruit
cinnamon
nutmeg
syrup
jam
peanut sauce

Music Land: I just posted about this, but we legit spent the weekend listening to Of Monsters and Men. See my previous post.

Sorry, I had to learn my way around iMovie (let's be honest, Mag's did the majority of it). 

But video blog easter egg- There might be some David Bowie love in KDP's future. 

How to Be Succesful at Your Office (Without Really Trying)

Hey y’all.

Today’s the day that Mags gets all semi-homemade in this bish.

Everyone who works in an office knows the quickest way to your co-workers' hearts is by providing an eating opportunity. If it’s your birthday, it’s your lucky day. Everyone will appreciate you more because they know you are the underlying reason behind their 3:00 piece of carrot cake.

But what if you’re the one responsible for the cake? This is a ridiculously easy recipe for when you forgot to bake something the night before and you’re getting sick of Costco apple pie. (Note: this is impossible.) It’s hard to describe what is so great about this cake (it's definitely not its given name, that's for sure); it’s easy, gooey, and amazingly tasty (especially under some vanilla ice cream.)

I was too slow to get a picture of the finished product.

This is all you need.

Dump Cake (from one of my favorite co-workers, Michelle.)

1 box yellow cake mix
1 stick butter (1/2 cup) (melted)
1 21oz can cherry pie filling
1 21oz can crushed pineapple
chopped walnuts (as many as you want)

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Spray the bottom of a 9”x13” glass baking pan. Pour in cherry pie filling and pineapple and mix until evenly distributed in the pan. Sprinkle cake mix over the fruit and, well, poke it with a plastic spoon until just a little bit of the fruit starts to show through the powder. This shouldn’t be completely combined, there will still be a lot of dry powder on the top of the cake. Drizzle the butter evenly over the top and sprinkle with the chopped walnuts.

Michelle demonstrates the poking procedure.

Bake 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and bubbly.

Let cool for a few minutes or you will suffer a molten-cherry related incident.

Serve with ice cream, trust me.

TUNES:

I’m probably a little late to the table but, YOU GUYS. Listen to this!

Cookie Butter

Yeah, I know. Two posts from Mags in the same month. Try to keep your pants on.

I was re-reading my soup post, and I realized I forgot to include the amazing dessert I made afterwards because I was feeling sorry for myself.

While scrolling through ye olde FoodGawker, I noticed that all the bloggers were losing their shit over something called Biscoff spread. Now, I live in Alaska. I gave up hope long ago of being able to find new, trendy ingredients in our local Fred Meyer; it just doesn’t happen. So, IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when I walked into my neighborhood grocery store and right there, next to the Nutella, was a little glass jar of Biscoff.

YOU GUYS, Biscoff spread is peanut butter except instead of peanuts they use CRUSHED UP COOKIES. I shit you not. It is now possible to spread cookies on your morning English muffin.


I decided to make cake. 

Biscoff Mug Cake

4 Tbs self-rising flour (if you don’t have self-rising flour, you can use regular flour and ¼ tsp baking powder)

3 Tbs sugar

1 egg

3 Tbs Bischoff spread

3 Tbs milk

3 Tbs oil

1 tsp vanilla

Put all of the ingredients in a mug and stir until combined. I used a fork.

Microwave for 2 ½ to 3 minutes. This is the hard part. After two minutes, risk the brain cancer and keep an eye on it. You might have to stop and start it a couple times towards the end so it doesn’t overflow.  You can tell when it’s done if it looks like cake when you take a forkful of it. (The surface may still look shiny, but the rest of it is done.)

Let it cool, or you will destroy your mouth.

So tasty I forgot to take a picture of it.

 Then cue up last week’s “Downton Abbey” and dig in! 

Tunes:

You now have my permission to lose your pants. I know I did.

Coming Clean

Listen, you guys, I have to to get something off my chest. Let's treat this like confession and maybe I can still go to heaven.

Forgive me, Father, I have told a lie: I keep telling my friends and family that I hate soup.

I say "I hate soup", but in my head it goes: “I hate soup. Well, except for phô. And tom yum soup. And Liz’s french onion soup with the cheese on top. Oh, and when Val makes beef stew. Does stew count as soup?” It goes for days. 

Mags’s Stupid-Easy Coconut Chicken Soup

4 cups chicken broth
1 can coconut milk
1 jalapeno, diced (I seeded mine)
2” piece of ginger, minced
like 6 cloves of garlic, minced
zest of 1 lime
juice of that same lime
1 stalk of lemongrass, cut into 2” pieces and bruised
1-2 lbs chicken breast, cooked and sliced
1 red pepper, chopped
¾ bag of snow peas, cut in half
Mushrooms, cut in half
Sriracha
Sambal
Salt
Cilantro (if you’re in to that)

I’m not kidding, this is the friggin’ easiest soup ever. Put the broth, coconut milk, jalapeno, ginger, garlic, lemongrass and lime zest in a big pot and bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

Simmer-y.

Stir in lime juice, then add the chicken (left-over chicken works really well) and veggies, and simmer for 10 more minutes. (You could add onions or like par-cooked potatoes or zucchini or broccoli or whatever sounds good. I just used what I had.)

Just before service add sriracha, sambal and/or salt to taste. I usually put a fair amount of spicy stuff in it because the coconut milk tends to cancel some of it out. I am also kind of a masochist when it comes to spicy things.







Serve over rice.

I put a shitload of cilantro on it before I eat it, but that’s not required.

AND YOU’RE DONE. Take a damn bow.

Another thing about this recipe is how simple it would be to make it vegetarian. Just substitute the chicken broth for veggie broth and throw in some tofu for protein instead of chicken.

Mmm... soup.

If you’re cooking for one (I feel you, bro) this keeps pretty well in the fridge for a few days. It might separate, but just mix it up before you dish it out and you’ll be golden.

Tuneage:

Holy butts am I addicted to this song:

I could just listen to it on repeat for days. I hope the album is this good all the way through.

Blogger friend!

Just a quick post to tell you all about a friend with a new (awesome) blog!

The Bean Countress!

Some of us have known the Countress since we were teenagers, so we are just thrilled to follow her new blog. Go check it out!

KDP Reunion + Epic Blogsgiving

Connie and Mags visited for Thanksgiving!

And Monagle crashed in the spare bedroom while he looked a place of his own.
It was the reunion to end all reunions.

They'd never been to New York before.
They were scared of the subway.
They are still scared of New Yorkers.
They got lost pretty easily.
I don't know how life happened before Google Maps.

But...
We made a pumpkin pie at 2am.
My kitchen capacity was tested with 3 people. (Monagle doesn't cook... See Fig Newtons)
We cooked a lot.... A LOT.

Keep an eye out for T-day recipes/adventures.

2 am Pumpkin Pie

Roasted Pear and Cranberry Salad

Ninja Bread Men

Cranium + Wine= The reason why Hannah's not allowed to play board games 

There are more photos coming, as soon as I can raid Connie's camera. Look out for sidewalk sushi picnics, sleeping on public transportation, pumpkin hummus, gingerbread whales, waiting in line to see Harry Potter dance and sing and many empty bottles of wine.



This is pretty amazing:
The Recipe Project

If you love me, you'll buy me this book.
It's a band that's put together a book and CD.
They take top chef's recipes and sing them word for word.

There is something that is so right about a world that can create this.

Zucchini Bread. Challenge accepted.

Hey guys!

I got a tweet from @hannahjwolf at some ungodly hour (time zones, man, seriously) that I never posted this recipe.

This was originally supposed to hit the site in September, when the zucchini seems to multiply like rabbits. But then I forgot about it.

Seriously, zucchini? Ever heard of birth control?

SO, close your eyes and pretend it's still summer. You know you want to.

Also: I seem to have misplaced the photos I took while baking this. Hello, Google Images.


Zucchini Bread (adapted from The American Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)

This zucchini looks like a duck.

Let me tell you a secret, guys. When I say “adapted”, I usually mean “too lazy to go to the store to get the right ingredients”. This particular recipe was made with whatever I could find in the fridge/pantry. What I’m going to do is put the ingredients I actually used and then put what I will probably use next time in parenthesis next to it. That way you can be inspired to make EVEN BETTER zucchini bread.

Ingredients:

2 zucchini, normal sized or just 1 if it’s gigantic

1 - 1 ½ cup sugar (Less sugar is better.)

6 Tbs butter, melted and cooled

2 large eggs, slightly beaten

¼ cup vanilla cultured coconut milk “yogurt” (Next time I will use real yogurt, probably something of the greek variety. Coconut milk yogurt is pretty tasty, but it can leave a weird fake-sugary aftertaste even though there’s no fake sugar in it. Totally weird.)

If you like diet soda, you might like coconut milk yogurt.

Vanilla, as much as you want. I trust your judgement.

2 cups all purpose flour (The only reason I didn’t do half whole wheat flour was because we didn’t have any.)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

>1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp cardamom

½ tsp salt


Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375°. Grease two 8” loaf pans.

Shred the zucchini onto a pile of paper towels (I usually go with 3 paper towels) with a large-holed grater. (Giggle because I totally just said “holed”.) Squeeze out as much excess water as you can by wrapping the towels around the now shredded zucchini and, well, squeezing it over a sink or bowl. This step is pretty important if you enjoy your bread to be bread-textured rather than pudding-textured.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, butter, eggs, yogurt and vanilla.

In a totally separate large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and salt. (I should interject here that usually this kind of spice bread calls for allspice, which I totally would have added if I had any. Man, I am the worst food blogger ever.)

Fold the wet ingredients and the zucchini into the flour mix until just combined. I’m going to be honest, I totally mixed instead of folded. Shut up, it turned out fine.

Divide the batter between the two loaf pans and bake (at 375°) for 30-ish minutes. Check them at twenty. When they’re brown on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, they’re done.

Let cool in the pan until you only burn your fingers a little when you dump them out on the cooling rack. Let cool a while before you eat it.

This is what it looks like when Emeril makes zucchini bread. Aim for this.

Music:

Honestly, I was watching “Sons of Anarchy” while I was baking this. I have a big crush on Ron Perlman.

Do I love Ron Perlman? Or do I love the eight tons of prosthetics he pulls off as hellboy?

BUT RIGHT NOW I am listening to almost my entire punk library because I was feeling old this morning.

Fountain of Youth mini-playlist:

"We’re Only Gonna Die” – Bad Religion

"Beat My Guest” – Adam Ant

“No Voice of Mine” – Strung Out

“Dismantle Me” – The Distillers

“Never Heard of Corduroy” – None More Black


Enough of me. Go hassle Hannah about the KDP New York reunion posts we're all waiting for.