Avacodo Update

It's time to announce some sad, sad news... Ready? ... The avocado is dead. Well, maybe not completely dead yet, but dead enough that I feel it's time to put him (or her) out of his (or her) misery. He cracked in half & has made no attempt to recover...

Doesn't look too bad, but has made no progress since the incident

Oh, and did I mention that the root cracked off while I was taking these pictures? That can't be good!

Farewell friend

It was fun while it lasted.

Until we meet again...

Rochester Real Beer Expo

This past weekend Peter & I attended the Rochester Real Beer Expo. They closed off a street in our South Wedge neighborhood & set up tents with over 60 craft brews, as well as music, area foods & wines. When we first heard about it & realized it was a less than 5 minute walk from our house, we were sold! It cost $40 per person, which seemed like a lot, but it turned out to be definitely worth it. This was its first year & it sold out, so we're hoping it will become an annual thing!

Let me preface the remainder of this post by saying that I unfortunately did not bring my camera to the event. Once I got there & saw all the photo opportunities I was sad that I left it at home. While I was only a few minutes away from home I decided that there was beer tasting I had to get to STAT! So I decided not to make the trip back home to get it. Thus, these are all pictures from my Motorola Bravo. Definitely not the quality that I was used to with my Blackberry Bold, but it will have to do for the time being.

Back to the subject at hand...

Early on we caught site of a tent where they were hand rolling cigars. It was a tent for Santiago Cigar Factory Inc that makes Dominican cigars. I enjoyed just watching them effortlessly rolling the cigars, while Peter decided he needed a sample.

Trying to look extra "manly"

A woman he knew gave him a hat that completed his "tough truck driver" look

Part of the beer area

more beers

Seriously?! I steered clear of this beer!

Our local BBQ joint representin'

Food & Wine area

More Expo

Attempting a self portrait is hard with my Motorola...

Really hard...

We finally got some nice gentleman to take a pic of us

Wine area... unfortunately the Motorola doesn't have a flash!

Things worth mentioning...

#1. While Peter was talking to friends I offered to grab him a beer sample. He told me "no pale ale, IPA, stouts, or wheat beers." Well, considering those were the majority of beers available I was concerned this would be a difficult task. I decided that I'd just find a cool sounding name & give it to him & pass it off as a lager of some sort. Well, he got lucky... I found McCHOUFFE. I just liked the name & the gnome on the label. I asked what kind of beer it was & was told it was a scotch ale! Success! I wouldn't even have to lie! Peter stated it was the best beer he tried all night.... yeah, I'm a pretty sweet wife!

#2. Goose Island Dominique is a Belgian sour ale. When I wanted to try one of the Goose Island beers I asked the guy behind the counter what was best & he immediately said, "Dominique! It's awesome!" I'm not quite sure of the background of this beer, and it's not even listed on the website. I wouldn't say I loved it, but it was interesting & definitely worth trying. It's tart, but enjoyable & unlike any beer I've ever had before.

#3. The Brooklyn Concoction This was a drink like no other! I initially was gonna get it, but tried the Dominique instead, so Peter went for the big guns & tried this out. We had no idea what we were in for. It was just a hodgepodge of confusion. Here's the description we read after our sampling:

The next beer to come from Brooklyn Brewery’s Brewmaster’s Reserve line is The Brooklyn Concoction. Based off a delightful Scotch-based cocktail called The Penicillin and combining peat smoked malt, minced ginger, lemon juice and wildflower honey, this brand new Concoction is just what the doctor ordered.

I would prefer you try it before I give anymore of it's interesting flavor away!

#4. Mort Subite Kriek Lambic I'm a big fan of lambics, so I was excited they had one at the expo! Yumm! I just loved how well the sweetness of the lambic & the sourness of the cherries went together.


Following the expo we headed out to a neighborhood bar to meet up with some friends. Unfortunately, it was movie night at the bar & the sight on the screen that announced what movie was to come was enough to scare me away & home to bed..... This movie is on my Top 10 DO NOT WATCH movie lists! I still maintain it's the scariest movie EVER! ......

Seriously?! Willy Wonka?! Who plays this movie at a bar?!

Garlic Scape Pesto

Today started out with me headin' to the gym for some cross training, strength training, and ... wait for it... running! I was so excited to run on the treadmill for a whole 3 minutes at 5 mph while listening to Miley Cyrus' "See You Again." Ah, it's the small things.

Why only 3 minutes of running you ask?

#1. I've done a lot of research & while my PA told me to ease back into running with 1-2 miles, I think his lack of running knowledge is setting me up for failure. It's definitely important to make sure my knees can handle a small amount of running before going overboard.

#2. I'm 100% certain that my knees are still not 100% recovered. I still get ocassional aches & pains, so I'm being super cautious.

#3. I bought these beauties:

New shoes!

Yes, they are Nike Free sneakers! They came in the mail yesterday & today I got to try them out. I'm smart enough to know that I should start slow with these new sneakers that are meant to help you run more naturally & strengthen your feet as if you were barefoot running (you didn't think that I was actually gonna just start running literally barefoot did you? or with Vibram 5 Fingers?! I might be a hippie, but I haven't reached that point.... yet). I must say that my first experience with them was quite enjoyable. I definitely felt the difference in my gait. I'm excited to continue training with these.

I also did the bike, elliptical & circuit training at the gym. I'll be new & improved in no time!

On to cooking...

I've been telling Peter that I want to make garlic scape pesto. I've been saying it since his garlic first sprouted. I then patiently waited for the scapes to form & finally it was time for him to cut them off! Yeah! Last weekend we only used one scape to make our hummus. Now I was going to use the remainder for pesto.

I did some research on recipes & took what seemed to be the best of them all & went to work.

Scapes!

~1 cup of chopped scapes

I'm always concerned about toasting my pine nuts. I'm finally getting better at it though. I've realized that once they start to brown take them out of the oven. They burn super quick!

1/4 cup of pine nuts. Before...

After!

I added the juice & zest of half a lemon

1/4 cup of parmesan

Now, here's where it took a turn for the worse... Everything was chillin' in my food processor. I added 1/4 cup of olive oil to get stuff moving & then the recipe I came up with called for 3/4 tsp of salt. That seemed like too much once I thought about it. I compared all the recipes & 1/2 tsp to 1 Tbsp was a common amount to add. I decided to start with 1/2 a tsp. Big mistake! Huge! I knew it was too much! The saltiness was undeniable. Grrrr. What's a girl to do? I'll tell ya what I did- I harvested a ton of my basil & even some arugula to add to the mixture.

Remember my little basil plants?!

They've grown up quite a bit, huh?!

Just a fraction of what was actually harvested!

After adding all those greens, I also added another 1/4 cup of olive oil & 1/4 cup of pine nuts. The verdict? Still too salty! Ugh! I'm not happy at all about this! It's definitely edible and once it's added to pasta I'm sure it won't taste too bad, but it's just so disappointing. I've put it in the fridge for now & plan to make homemade pasta to eat with it sometime this week. Maybe the flavors will have mellowed at that point... doubtful.

Looks good. Smells good. Tastes.... salty.

Pool Party!

Pool party with 3 supersweet pharmacy ladies, 2 pretty cute babies, 1 in-utero baby girl that's surely adorable, a cutie pie silky terrier & an awesome pool boy to serve us up some grub... yeah, that's a pretty fabulous summer day if you ask me!

NOTE: The strawberry bread was adored by all.

Scary Things & Strawberries

This morning at 7 am I finished up my last overnight shift, headed home to sleep for 7.5 hours & then headed to the gym for some cross training as recommended by my orthopedic PA. I didn't quite make it to 45 minutes on my elliptical. I had to spice things up & split my time with the recumbent bike to keep my sanity. Lots of strength training as well. Fun, fun, fun! After, I headed to Wegmans to pick up a few things. The ONLY benefit of going to a gym on Monroe Ave is that Wegmans is across the street!

On a slightly side note, I was surprised to find Sahlen's hot dogs in the meat section! Whoa! Peter got really excited that these were at our Father's Day outing this past weekend. We explained to my family that we can't get them in Rochester... apparently we were wrong! Rochester hot dogs simply do not compare to Buffalo ones!

Wegmans delivers once again!

Unfortunately, on my way out I spotted a clown in the Wegmans parking lot... epic fail... I'm not going to be able to go back there for a few days. I'd say I'd NEVER return there, but if you are from WNY, then you know that statement would be an impossible lie! I'll just have to figure out how to get over the travesty.... somehow.

Damn clown! I had to snap a picture & send it to KJ to warn him to stay far, far away!

On to the reason I went to Wegmans in the first place: STRAWBERRIES!

YUM!

When I decided to make blueberry zucchini bread the other day, Peter asked if I thought I could use strawberries instead. Hmmm, good idea, but do I use fresh or frozen strawberries? and would I leave them whole or cut them up? I hadn't a clue, so I looked for a recipe & found this one for Strawberry Bread! I have a pool party to attend with some wonderful ladies tomorrow, so I took this as my opportunity to get my baking on once again!

SLICED strawberries!

Typical other ingredients

As I started the recipe I quickly became wary. Despite it's fabulous reviews several things seemed odd about the recipe... but I'm a true believer in following the recipe to the letter the first time, so I humored it & kept my fingers crossed.

Weird thing #1. You mix the eggs, strawberries & oil together. You then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients that are already in the mixer. You mix just until the dry ingredients are wet & then stop. You are then done. This just seemed wacky. I always add dry to wet ingredients. Oh, well...

Eggs... I know, exciting!

Strawberries in lots of vegetable oil

The finished batter was pretty thick. The wet to dry order worked okay. I just had to do a little extra hand mixing since my Kitchen Aid wasn't capable of getting all the dry ingredients up & moving from the bottom (apparently it was confused as well). All in all, it seemed to be a success.

Finished batter ready to bake

Two fresh baked loaves ready to share with friends tomorrow pool side! Fingers crossed!

Well, they look edible...

Mmmm... I hope... I'll have to review it tomorrow!

The Big Day

The big day is finally here! "D" day! Doctor (ie Orthopedic Surgeon) Day!!!

So, you ask, how did it go? Well, my friends allow me to tell you the short version of my 70 minute doctor's visit this afternoon...

As I sat in the doctor's office having just relayed the details of my knee pain to the nice orthopedic surgeon's physicians assistant & his student I suddenly felt like I was living the book "Born to Run," by Christopher McDougall. Granted, I've actually only read the first 2 chapters of the book (it just wasn't something I could get in to), but Christopher McDougall was pretty much told the same thing I was about running. In a nutshell, "It's not good for you."

Erroneous! That's what I wanted to tell my PA. Apparently the world really is separated into 2 groups: runners & non-runners. Non-runners just don't get it. I actually think they don't want to get it & prefer to live thinking that they are superior beings! My PA told me he played soccer & basketball, but whenever he tried to run he would get hurt... I wanted to tell him that maybe if he was a little smarter he would know how to prevent running injuries (and maybe be an MD instead of a PA), but I held back... I figured that comment would get me no where fast.

The gist of it is that I was diagnosed with bilateral patellofemoral pain... runner's knee. (Surprise, surprise!) He said it could be something else & if the pain gets intense again that I should come in for a follow-up. However, it seemed like this was simply runner's knee & I've been doing all the right things. As much as this was a relief, it was also annoying 'cause he did leave it open to possibly being something else.

Then, he went on telling me that it's likely my body can't handle the mileage that I was doing before my injury & that I will probably have to settle for running no more than a 10K for the rest of my life... seriously. I nodded & smiled & agreed to up my elliptical time to 45 minutes like he suggested, but the entire time all I could think of was the book "Born to Run." I suppose if I'm going to use that book as my motivation to defy all odds & prove my PA wrong I should finish reading it, but I've read enough reviews to know where the book is going & thus where my running journey is about to take me... Barefoot Running! The time has come to venture into new territory!

Mystery Solved

In addition to Fathers' Day this weekend, we also had a housewarming party to attend. Because I have the continued itch to create in my kitchen I decided to take on the task of making blueberry cupcakes, and 2 different kinds of hummus to bring to the party. My Kitchen Aid mixer & food processor have been calling to me & I was happy to oblige!

Love 'em!

I started out with the blueberries

Very light & fluffy...

...and pretty

Whipped cream frosting with fresh blueberries on top!

Lookin' good...

...but next time I might try a pastry bag to put on the frosting...

...would probably look neater/cleaner/prettier that way.

Ready for the cupcake carrier!

Crazy cupcake carrier!

The next task of making hummus was a little scary... for one reason & one reason only...

JALAPENOS!

arch nemesis

You may recall my recent issues with jalapenos. I decided to put our issues aside & use the remaining jalapenos to make a Jalapeno Lime Hummus. I've made it before & it was good, so I decided to just go for it.

Interesting thing happened right around this time in my cooking that is worth mentioning. I checked my mail & as luck would have it my favorite magazine was awaiting me on my front porch!

Oh, how I love getting new issues!

Because I just couldn't contain my excitement I flipped through the magazine & saw this:

Do you see it?!

Yes, that's right!

They are extra big!!!

I was so excited to see this article! I thought it was hilarious since Peter & I were so confused about the size of our jalapenos! Apparently there really are big ones out there. The article said that you could find them at your local farmers' market, but ours were from good ol' Wegmans... now back to the hummus!

Chickpeas

Jalapenos

I used plastic bags on my hands as I dissected the jalapenos before putting them into the food processor. It was a bit cumbersome, but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do to avoid capsaicin contamination! (I hadn't planned on making this, so I didn't have a chance to get any latex gloves to use instead). I realized around this time that I also needed a blender for this hummus recipe, so I had to bring out more of the Kitchen Aid collection!

Peter wanted me to choose between the two of them on our bridal registry, but so glad I didn't

Below are the final products. In addition to the jalapeno lime hummus we invented a garlic scape hummus as well. I personally preferred the garlic scape one. The jalapeno hummus wasn't spicy at all! I even put in extra jalapenos! The last time we made it the spiciness was evident, so my conclusion was that after sitting in my refrigerator during the last two weeks, the jalapenos lost a lot of their spiciness. Does anyone know if this is in fact what happens?

Beautiful presentation by my husband!