As many of you know, I am a complete techy geek. I have built websites in the past and I really enjoy having complete control over design and other features. I decided to make the switch from WordPress.com (free) to WordPress.org (not free). So, from now on I will be posting at ramblingsbyrach.com. If you want to continue to have my ramblings delivered to your inbox, click the link below. Or for you RSS savvy folks, be sure to update your reed reader. Hope to be posting more again soon, lot’s of excitement to share!
Our Weekend In Seattle
Holy moly summer is flying by! A few weekends ago we took a quick trip up to Seattle for the night. Being the nerds that we are, Alex and I wanted to see the King Tut exhibit before it went back to Egypt forever! We got a great package deal at The Paramount hotel. It was a very nice place to stay in the ideal downtown location. We were able to walk pretty much anywhere we wanted to go.
The exhibit was amazing, but VERY crowded. Apparently we picked one of the busiest weekends of the year to visit–it was the Bite of Seattle. There were pretty much people swarming everywhere, and fortunately we didn’t have to wait in line due to our VIP status. Totally love the feeling of walking past a giant line of people. Suckers! But if you are planning a trip to check it out I would try to go during the week, or at least not during a holiday weekend.
We also took our token stroll through Pike Place Market, laughed at the people waiting in like for the original Starbucks, stared at fish, couldn’t believe how cheap the flowers were, and managed to make it to the flagship Nordstrom twice and The Rack once. Alex even requested a Nordies trip, which once again confirmed I married the right man.
We were lucky enough to get a chance to see our camping buddies again who live nearby. It was nice to once again gorge ourselves on some fantastic food, and perhaps even better without the Jurassic sized mosquitoes. I would highly recommend checking out Lola if you are in the area. Everything on the Mediterranean menu sounded amazing and we tried as many things as we could. The grilled octopus was hands down the freshest and most non-rubbery I have ever had–you are just gonna have to trust me on that one. The salads and seafood kabobs were amazing. And for dessert we shared a serving of the Earl Grey ice cream. Sooooo good.
Lot’s of other exciting things going on here, hope to have an update soon!
Summer Is Flying By!
Wow. Can’t believe how long it has been since my last post. Guess this is because summer is FLYING by! Last month we went camping with some friends at Potlach State Park off the Hood Canal in Washington. Although it may be hard to tell from the photos, this is what June on the Olympic Peninsula looks like! Yes, while all my friends and family back east are melting in a pool of their own sweat, we are bundled up.
The actual campground was across the street from the park. Overall, a nice spot. We reserved a very quiet and isolated spot in the back. Unfortunately, without the breeze from the water, this was where the mosquitoes liked to hang out. Mosquitoes here have gotten their hands on steroids. As in they were as big as small moths. So, if you ever head up this way get a well ventilated spot and take a good shower in bug spray.
We don’t mess around when it comes to camping food. You may notices that Trader Joe’s sponsored our first course. Always the planner, I chopped and seasoned veggies and potatoes to grill in packets (I hate prepping food while camping, so messy). I learned from previous camping let downs and pre-cooked the potatoes in the microwave before we left. Pure genius folks. The chicken sausage from Ottos Sausage Kitchen here in Portland. If you live in the area and haven’t been, do so ASAP. It really is the best reason to venture into our Woodstock neighborhood. And last, but not least, I followed through on a brilliant idea from Pinterest. For every 30 hours or so I waste on that site, I make about one project/idea/recipe that takes about five minutes. (Perhaps not a great return on investment??) But seriously, grilling strawberries dipped in marshmallow fluff is perhaps an even better idea than pre-cooking the potatoes.
There was much good conversation around a picture perfect fire. Alex and I were privy to stick drawn diagrams of how to rebuild Subaru engines. I also survived a rare Godzilla attack!
Although there was threat of rain the entire trip, we for once timed it just right. After a morning walk around the water we got on the road just as the sky opened up. Perfect camping trip in my book!
The State of Our Garden
Summer has made a rather brief appearance in Portland. Two 80 degree and sunny days in a row! I took advantage of this break in rain by putting some much needed time into the garden. There was lots of wedding, cutting, aphid fighting, pea training and tomato staking to be done. But I would say it is off to a nice start. Lots of little baby veggies are on their way! The roses are coming to an end in our yard, but we have had some real beauties this year.
A Baby Shower – Dr. Seuss Style
When my best friend, also named Rachel (but spelled the “wrong” way) told me she was pregnant, my Mom and quickly volunteered to throw her a shower. We knew right away that a traditional shower just would not do and decided to go with a Dr. Seuss themed shower instead. As you can see from here, where I showed off her invitations, my Mom and I were going to go way overboard. I don’t even want to think of the number of hours we spent Pinteresting and Googling Seuss themed parties to borrow ideas from. The day was a huge success, but I must admit we were so frantically busy I barely had time to take any pictures! Would do it again in a heartbeat though 🙂 Beware, this post is epically long. Feel free to just check out the pictures if you aren’t planning on having your own Seuss party.
We welcomed our guests to the party with some red and blue bead. It was nice to give everyone a bit of Seuss flair to wear. The guest of honor of course got to show of the boa and Seuss hat as part of her outfit. While all the details of the party were left a surprise, we gave her the heads up that she might want to wear something that would coordinate well with the theme colors!
On the bar, we had some fun Seuss pinwheels from a kit with our special drinks for the day. I can’t believe I didn’t get pictures! We served “Pink Yink Drink” from One Fish, Two Fish (“This one, I think, Is called a Yink… He likes to wink and drink pink ink.”) It was a mixture of vodka, pink lemonade and beer. Yeah, sounds weird but tastes good! There was also some “Moose Juice” from Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book which we interpreted as iced coffee with a bit of chocolate syrup mixed in.
The quality is pretty poor on these pictures, but they will have to do! For appetizers we served Goldfish in a fish bowl and “Hop on Pop” popcorn. It is seasoned with olive oil, salt and Penzy’s Greek Seasoning. To make them look fancy we wrapped boxes with some fun wrapping paper. We also served homemade Jalapeño “Pebbles” from If I Ran the Circus (“And you’ll now meet the Remarkable Foon, who eats sizzling hot pebbles that fall off the moon! ”), which I of course forgot to take a picture of in all the last-minute madness. My Mom and sister tried about 4 different frozen store-bought jalapeño poppers which were all inedible. We ended up making these instead served with this dipping sauce. If I was looking for a seriously good and fatty appetizer I would definitely make these again. Although I probably wouldn’t use the panko bread crumbs, mine didn’t brown up all nice in the oven and looked like raw flour instead. Regardless, these were a hit and disappeared rather quickly.
For lunch we served an entirely Seuss themed menu (pictures to follow). Thankfully there are so many creative people out there who posted food ideas on the internet for us to steal borrow!
Green deviled eggs with sliced ham rolled and held with toothpicks and green olives from Green Eggs and Ham. (“You do not like them, so you say, Try them, try them and you may.”) We will never try and make deviled eggs again. Not sure what was wrong with our eggs, or us, but we could not get them to peel. Yes, we even tried all the methods that were supposed to do the trick. After going through about 3 dozen we had enough usable ones and served green egg salad with all the duds. Of course a few days after the shower my sister discovered that Trader Joe’s sells already peeled hard-boiled eggs. Go figure. While the ham was nice for display, not too many people ate it.
Roast Beast Roll-ups with cream cheese and veggie strips from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (“And he, he himself…the Grinch…carvedthe roast beast.”) Can’t find the recipe we used, inside the roll is a mixture of cream and blue cheese with sliced red peppers and watercress.
Three Cheese Trees from Fox In Socks. (“Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew.”) Costco sells already cubed cheese that we put on toothpicks and then stuck into styrofoam cones wrapped in wrapping paper.
Noodle Poodle Salad from Fox In Socks. (“And the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles.”) We served a cold peanut noodle salad. Can’t say it was anything special, but people seemed to enjoy it.
Grin-itch Spinach Salad inspired by What Was I Scared Of (“Then one dark night in Grin-itch…I had to do an errand there and fetch some Grin-itch spinach.”) I totally have never heard of this book. In fact as we were researching ideas for the party I came across about a dozen that I missed out on as a kid.
Truffula Tree fruit kabobs from The Lorax (“And I first saw the trees! The bright-colored tufts of the Truffula trees!”) This was fruit on skewers stuck in styrofoam. We served extra fruit in a bowl which everyone ate first. Apparently our “trees” were just too pretty to eat!
And of course, the crumbs from The Grinch made it on the table as well. Now on to more important things, like dessert.
Yertle the Turtle Chocolate Caramels (“I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me! For I am the ruler of all that I see!”) For this we took small pretzels, melted a Rolo on top, flattened it with a spoon and pressed in sliced pecan pieces. I don’t want to be vulgar, but I HIGHLY recommend slicing or crushing your pecan pieces. We had a rather unfortunate incident with our test turtle. I can’t post the picture of here, but let’s just say it resembled female anatomy parts. I am still laughing about this incident, so I am really glad we made this blunder. And it would have been oddly appropriate for a baby shower.
Sneetch Treats inspired by The Sneetches. This dessert really could have been anything, but we decided that peanut butter pie shooters would fit the bill. These were A-MAZ-ING. Very easy to make and since they were in individual cups, easy to serve. Definitely no low-cal, but seriously worth it.
A Seuss themed party would not be complete without Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes! We took a major shortcut here and used boxed cake mix and canned cream cheese frosting. No one seemed to notice, especially since half were red velvet and half funfetti! There is never a good reason not to serve funfetti at a party. Printed out the cupcake labels from here and attached with a glue gun. Word to the wise: if you are going to make these and it is hot and humid out DO NOT attach the cotton candy (which we got in plastic tubs from Wegman’s) until right before you serve the cupcakes. It will quickly melt into a pile of blue gooey sugar in the 90% Washington D.C. humidity (you can see the beginning stages of this in the above picture). It will still taste good though. The awesome banner hanging over the cupcakes was purchased from here and printed out at Kinko’s. I seriously ran out of steam by this point and decided the cost of the digital banner was an amazingly good deal.
We decided to forgo the cheesy organized shower games and go for a simple guess the number of gummy fish in the fish bowl and write your “Wishes for Baby”. This was a good choice for the number of guests we had.
And last, but not least, favors! I spent more time than I care to admit putting bamboo skewers through Swedish Fish and Gummy Sharks. I was able to get a better deal on candy by the pound at my local candy store than I could bulk online. The shipping pretty much kills you unless you need 15 lbs of candy. I got the idea for the favors from here and the tags from here. If you ever try this yourself, I found that putting a little bit of olive oil on the skewer helped the gummy slide on without sticking to the skewer too much. I designed my own tag using clip art I purchased from here which I used for the food signs as well.
Hope you enjoyed a rather detailed look at our shower. It was far more planning that my own wedding, but somehow my Mom, sister and I are still speaking and managed to have a great time ourselves!! Truly the sign of a good party!
Ramblings by Rach 