Go Mariners!

Woo Hoo Hoo!!! Ok, this is a delayed post, so don't interpret this as a response to the Ms loss earlier this evening.

We went with Jo & Rich to the game on sunday - against the As. It was probably one of the best games we've been to in a long time (I know! I say that everytime I get to watch the Ms win :)) But this was seriously awesome! And it was 70s night! I finally got to connect a face with the name 'Erik Estrada'! Yay! (I still have no clue what CHiPs is all about! But I do know SeaLab!)

Great weather, fabulous seats - that's the great thing about being at Safeco - it is such a neat stadium that pretty much any section seems to have a good viewing experience. This is the second game where we've sat in the 300 section over first base and had a great view of the goings on.


Just as we thought the Ms were running away with the game (we did lead 7-1), the As fouight back and soon lead 10-7. What with Sexson and McLaren being thrown out, it seemed like the Ms were out of sync. But awesome Ichiro and Broussard came to the rescue and we fought back. And we finally won 14-10.

Awesome. And we even had the 70s bad hair dancer to keep us entertained!

Shasta rocked!

Yeesh! July has been a month of minimal posts! Between crazy work and travelling, it has been almost impossible to write about most things I seem to think about.

But the blog just cannot go on without mentioning Shasta. It was divine, except for when it started raining and we had to run downstairs and sleep inside instead of on the houseboat like we did for the first few nights. Speaking of sleeping on the top of the houseboat - the night sky was fabulous. Even more so since a clear night sky is so hard to come by in Seattle! And we constantly regretted not taking the field guide. So, instead of checking out new constellations, we stuck with the good old dippers and orion and sirius :)

The water level kept dropping as the week went by. Until it started raining!!


The water was warm, the tubing was so much of fun! Sucks that it took me three days to finally do it!


The stretch at the top of this hill was the only place where Shy and I were able to do our running in the morning!


We took this last picture the morning after it started raining.

Woooo! I can see some beans!

My p-patch is happy, very happy! I see a couple of bell peppers already! Several beans are out, a handful of tomatoes are on their way, the endive is growing like crazy! As are the leeks and beets :)


My one lonely squash plant - it's doubled in size already since I took this picture (it has been 3 days!)


I still need to plant some peas, maybe more tomatoes and some of that spicy salad greens that I'm always eating off Autumn's deck garden! :)

Squash Blossom Quesadillas

The Redmond Farmers' Market had bags of squash blossoms for sale. The only time I ate these, they tasted awesome, couldn't wait to try a recipe with them. Besides, the gal at the market totally sold me on these, as well as some great-looking beet greens. Yum!

Most recipes seem to just lay out the blossoms with grated cheese and maybe some grilled onions. But I really wanted more veggies in there. So, this is what I went with:

Squash Blossom Quesadillas
=======================
5-6 tomato tortillas (PCC carried these for a few weeks *yummy*!)
1 onion - sliced long
1/2 green bell pepper - julienned
1/2 red bell pepper - julienned
1 carrot - grated (medium or large shreds)
1/2 can black beans - rinsed
kernels from 1 ear of steamed corn
15-20 squash blossoms
salt and Marie Sharp habanero-carrot sauce for seasoning
1/2 cup of grated pepperjack cheese
1/2 t of olive oil

Heat oil and saute the onions till they turn brown. Throw in the bell peppers and carrots and saute for about 6-7 minutes. Add the beans and corn and let it simmer for another 3-4 minutes. Turn off the stove and throw in the squash blossoms and seasonings.

Spoon out the veggie mix onto a tortilla and sprinkle with some grated cheese. Top with another tortilla, press it down. Cook both sides on a griddle till tortillas are crisp and the cheese is melted inside.

The flavors of the squash blossoms was awesome! The slightly sweet flavors seemed to blend quite well with a tangy pineapple salsa.

Yay!

Fish does taste good!

We wanted to make something out of Jay Solomon's caribbean cookbook on the 4th, but we kind of took the reverse route - figured we'll pick the most interesting fish and then find a recipe to go with it :)

Madison Market had happy-looking ling cod - *yay*! Another first :) So, we frantically started browsing our book for an appropriate recipe. And we found one that we could work with - it was hot enough to want something light, maybe lemony, so this is what we worked with:

Ling Cod in Cilantro & Lime Marinade
=============================

6 ling cod fillets - 4-5 oz each
Juice of 2 lemons
1 bunch cilantro
7-8 fresh garlic cloves
1 t paprika
1 T cayenne
1/2 t coriander powder
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t cumin powder
kosher salt to taste

Grind up the cilantro and garlic and add the rest of the spices. Coat the fish with the marinade and refrigerate for about 1 hour. We could have grilled the fish or baked it - we chose to do a combination of baking and stove-top cooking instead. We first baked the fish covered in foil for about 5-7 minutes. Then, we took the fish out and cooked each piece in a pan for about 6-7 minutes, turning the pieces constantly. Guess the fish was pretty thick, it cooked a lot longer than we expected. But it turned out perfect. Yummy!

We had a couple of sides with the fish - one was roasted gold potatoes with garlic and walla walla onions. The other was this sunburst squash dish:

Sunburst squash curry
=================

8 sunburst squashes - diced
1 t mustard
1 t urad dal
1/2 t asafoetida
2 chopped red chillies
1 t sesame oil
2 T shredded coconut
salt to taste

Roast the mustard, dal, asafoetida and red chillies in the oil, throw the squash and coconut and saute till the squash is cooked. Add the salt and saute for about a minute more. Garnish with chopped cilantro. This turned out awesome! Sunburst squash tends to let out less water than zucchini or yellow squash and absorbs a lot more flavor - the red chillies+coconut perfectly complemented the slight sweetness of the squash.

Surprise! (07/08/07)

Time for another hike! This time, the foursome (Varun, Neha, Vodka and I) headed off to Surprise Creek off Highway 2. This is a pretty long hike to the lake (over 9 miles RT), there was no way I expected to finish it with kids in tow, but it sounded scenic enough to be gratifying even if we did just part of it.

Sunday turned out pretty cloudy and muggy. After a little searching, we found the unmarked service road (past mile marker 58) to the right of Hwy 2, about 10 miles past Skykomish. We drove over the railroad tracks and went on a bumpy road for about 1/4 mile to get to the trailhead. It was a lot more crowded than we expected, tons of overnight backpackers. In fact, V&N were the only kids on the trail! And no llamas on this trail :)


The trail initially starts out under the power lines, but soon veers away into the forest. It is pretty well maintained, lots of wooden steps along the way. The first creek crossing is really cool - a huge fallen tree across the water.


Obviously, the kids decided this was the coolest part of the hike - we crossed the bridge about 20 times as Vodka kept splashing around in the water below!! There are tons of waterfalls and wading pools along the first couple of miles. We probably went up another 3/4 miles - as the trail started switchbacking up the valley face. Neha was getting tired by then, so we stopped at the next flat area. The sun started coming out just then, it was beautiful to see the light on the waterfall below.

Time to head back, I ended up toting Neha on my back most of the way down - almost 40 lbs ==> good training for Rainier :)

Pretty neat writeup about the trail here.

First hike of the season - Melakwa Lake (07/01/07)

Finally, finally we started hiking this season! With all this damn running, it has been hard to find time for hiking! We were originally thinking of hitting Mt.Forgotten or Mt.Dickerman on sunday, but we got a somewhat late start (like always :) ), so we picked a closer hike - Melakwa Lake (Exit 47 off I-90).

After getting lost in the maze of the Denny Creek campground, we finally found our way out to the real trail. Wait! We're supposed to be hiking alongside llamas? Is that a good idea? And does this mean Vodka can't be on this trail?!

It was a beautiful day, there were several folks on the trail, but it definitely wasn't overcrowded. We saw tons of native plants along the way - trillium, polygonatum, dogwoods, columbines and more.
. The first waterfall was pretty crowded - guess a lot of the campers at Denny Creek were hanging out here - bummer we couldn't hang out here - I love hopping around on the bare rocks near the water.


We crossed the bridge and continued hiking up towards Keekwulee Falls (we even saw some skinny-dipping action from afar!) The trail got steeper and we soon hit the switchbacks across the boulder fields.


We finally crested at Hemlock Pass after trudging through a couple of slick snow patches. From here, it was about 1/2 mile down through mud and slush to Melakwa Lake. We then made our way along the western edge - across the steep snow face to this outcrcopping on the north-western edge of the lake. Sorry Autumn, we'll try to avoid such adventures next time :)


Time for lunch - amazing how food tastes *so* good after all that hiking! Scrambled egg sandwiches, grapes, cherries ... *yum*! Just as we finished eating, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and a cool wind started blowing - too bad, we were hoping to take a dip in the water! Instead, we plodded back through the snow to the south end of the lake and tried to take a few more pictures until the bugs chased us back down!


Phew! Even with all that scrambling across the snow, our kneecaps escaped the Duval Curse :)