Nathan Can Chew :)

We are very excited to announce that Nathan has regained his status as a card carrying member of chewing society. He still has a little pain from the swelling (it should continue to go down as time passes), and we have a couple more check-ups, but as long as we avoid really crunchy stuff he should be good. :)

In light of this exciting news we have decided to create a real blog that centers around more than blenders (although, I'm sure our blender will still show up on occasion)

Come find us at our new blog home at www.heybales.us. (<-- hahaha so punny!!! hey bales, hay bales... ok, I might get a little too excited about that...)

Our Family!!! haha bales... haha.. ok, I'll stop...

Hope to see you soon!
Elizabeth and Nathan

Happy Easter!

We always making deviled eggs for the annual GCF potluck. However, this year I stumbled across something amazing! About a week ago I was on Pinterest (or maybe Google+ or Facebook? I can't remember...) and saw a picture of deviled eggs that were decorated to look like chicks. I forgot to actually pin the original site, but I googled the recipe and it looks like Rachel Ray did a segment on how to make them, so maybe she is the inventor? The basic idea is you make regular deviled egg filling but you slice the top off the egg instead of cutting it in half. Then you pipe the yolk mixture back in and make little eyes and a beak out of olive and carrot slivers. 

All in all, they are pretty cute but also a little disturbing. To appease our consciences we decided to make a few but enforced a strict "no paprika" rule since adding red splatters seemed to be in poor taste... maybe we'll reconsider for Halloween.

Hunkered down with the dill deviled eggs

Making only a couple eggs into chicks also turned out to be a good idea because they are pretty big and it basically means you have to eat two deviled eggs at once, which is kind of a lot. In the end we made 5 chick-eggs and 38 regular deviled eggs.

Penguin approves of the results... probably because he doesn't realize these are eggs... otherwise he might have been traumatized.

We put one chick-egg per egg plate, these guys didn't last very long. Poor little dudes. Notice there is paprika is on the regular eggs but the chicks are paprika free.

In the end I'm glad we made them. They were a little more time consuming to make but they are pretty cute too. :)

Ingredients:

12 - eggs (hard boiled)

1/3 cup - mayonaise

2 tsp - dijon mustard

salt 

pepper

dash of tabasco (more if you want more kick)

1 or 2 - olives

1/2 - carrot

Directions:

1. Cut the top of each egg (low enough so that you can easily scoop out the yolk). 

2. Next slice a thin layer off the bottom of each egg to make a flat bottom so that your chick will stand up without wobbling. 

3. Combine yolks, mayo, mustard and spices, in a bowl until well combined, we used a hand mixture for this part to make it extra smooth. 

4. Pipe the yolk mixture into the yolk cavity of each egg. Make sure there is a good amount sticking out the top of the egg because you will need that to make the face.

5. Place the egg top back on the egg at an angle to make a little hat for your chick. Then add two small olive slivers for eyes and a small carrot piece for a beak. 

6. Admire you masterpiece. Your done!

Happy Easter!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Tooth Update!

Today was the big day! Nathan Finally got to see the dentist about his broken teeth! We had to wait a while since you have to be able to open your mouth to get teeth fixed and mouth opening has only been a recent development. We have an awesome dentist here in San Diego and he was able to put a cap on Nathan's tooth so that it no longer looks like he was in a bar fight... or in a bike ->face/pavement fight.

He would only make silly faces for me, but hey, at least you can see the tooth. :)

The cap is a trial and he's not supposed to bite into anything too hard, but we figured we'd give it a go and see how it worked (hopefully it will hold out until we have real jobs). The really good news is that his tooth was still a "Happy Tooth" in the words of my little second cousins (as opposed to the other option of root canal).

As you can probably tell from our most recent posts, Nathan has also started eating non-soup foods this week (and a little bit last week). They still have to be pretty soft, but he's eaten quinoa, carrots, noodles, and even a piece of pizza (the pizza was a slow process but he finished it, even the crust!). We'll post some of our non-soup recipes soon, and probably few more soup ones too. :)

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Chinese Egg Custard

I recently started using Pinterest, and I saw this recipe go by. It's for steamed eggs which it turns out are really good (and soft and easy to eat). The blog I linked to says they are Korean, but they seem to be common in Chinese, Korean and Japan cooking as well. Wikipedia seems to suggest they are Chinese in origin so I'll go with that. I also asked my mom and she said Chinese grandmother (my PoPo) made them when she was growing up so it's kind of fun to revive a tradition.

Ingredients:

2 - eggs

1/2 cup - water or broth

1/4 tsp - salt (less if you are going to top with soy sauce, or include salty ingredients like dried shrimp)

Optional ingredients:

mushrooms

Chinese sausage

green onions

dried shrimp

anything else that you think tastes nice in an egg

Start by mixing your egg, water and salt. Pour the mixture through a strainer to get any lumpy bits out of the egg (this results in a smoother texture). Then place the ramekin in the steamer basket of a rice cooker or steamer pot. We used our rice cooker so that I could make quinoa at the same time. :) 

As it cooks it might puff up a bit, that's ok, it will settle back down when it cools. I haven't figured out how to get a smooth top to my custards like in the link at the top of this post, but they still taste great and have a nice smooth texture.

Now for toppings!! The best part! I splash a little soy sauce, sesame oil and sriracha on my egg before I cut into it. You can use any sauces of toppings you like to make your own masterpiece. :)

Directions:

Mix the egg, water, and salt together and pour into a small ramekin (for an extra smooth egg custard strain the egg as you pour it into the ramekin). Add any extra ingredients you would like such as sausage or mushrooms and then place the ramekin in the steam basket of a rice cooker, or in a pot on the stove with a steaming compartment. Steam for about 10 minutes or until the egg is set (it will still be jiggly like jello but shouldn't be watery.) Garnish with toppings and enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Dill Roasted Carrots

We have come to that point. My first not-blended food post. For the past 5 weeks Nathan has been living off of a purely liquid diet (with rare exceptions for cookies and recess peanut butter cups which he rips apart into teeny tiny pieces and eats over the course of an hour, THAT is dedication folks). We are now boldly moving forward into a world of soft foods that are not blended. Here's a first glimpse into the land of the chewing.

These are Dill Roasted Carrots and they are probably the best food ever. The first time I made them was when Nathan was still really early in his recovery (which was kinda mean since he couldn't eat any.) It turns out I have zero self control and I may have accidentally eaten 15 or so carrots the first time I made them... and then I made them again the next day bringing the total to 25 carrots in two days. I had to promise myself not to make them for a while after that because I was afraid of turning orange.

This recipe is for making them with dill, but you can use any spice you like. I've made them with curry powder and that was super tasty too. 

___________________________________

Ingredients:
8-10 carrots
olive oil
dill
salt and pepper

Start preheating the oven to 400degrees.  While you're waiting for it to heat up wash, peel and arrange the carrots on a baking sheet. I lined mine with foil so that it would be easy to clean.

Drizzle olive oil over the carrots and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dill. Be relatively liberal since not all of the spices will end up sticking to the carrots. Use your hands to distribute the oil and spices evenly on each carrot. When your oven is hot pop the carrots in and set a timer for 20 minutes.

 When your timer goes off, pull them out and flip them over so that they will brown evenly. I used chopsticks to do the flipping since these are hot 400 degree carrots. You could probably use tongs or something else grabby if you didn't want to use chopsticks.

just grab and flip!

Pop back in and time for another 20 minutes. I had very thin carrots so 40 minutes was enough, but depending on the thickness of your carrots they might need just a bit longer to finish. The finished carrot should be just a bit crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. If you need more time just flip them again and pop them in for another 10 -15 minutes. 

Enjoy!

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Wash and peel carrots

3. Drizzle with olive oil and spices, use hand to evenly distribute oil mixture on each carrot

4. Bake for 20 minutes

5. Flip carrots

6. Bake for another 20 minutes

7. Check for doneness (varies with carrot thickness) Flip and bake for 10-15 more minutes if they are thicker carrots.

8. Serve and enjoy! (they are best when still warm from the oven.)

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Will it Blend? um... maybe not...

Failures at blending.

Most things blend. Really.

I've been told that even hamburgers blend (I don't have the guts to test this theory, but I believe my source none the less).

Blueberries however have become the bane of our blending existence. We tried twice to make fresh blueberry milkshakes and each time the result was something akin to chunky sweet blueberry cheese. ewww.

A brief scan of the internet seems to confirm that we are not alone in our fresh blueberry troubles, blueberries apparently have a high acid content which makes any dairy they come in contact with curdle. That wasn't the big surprise. The part where it gets weird is that apparently because of a high pectin content the curdled bits quickly start to re-solidify into a semi-solid block or chunky blueberry-dairyness. This makes the whole thing about a million times worse than regular curdled dairy product.

So basically, this post is just a warning, don't mix fresh blueberries and dairy, it's really really gross (and you'll feel sad because you just wasted expensive blueberries). Also, if anyone has a solution, let us know!

Get well soon!
Elizabeth and Nathan

Easy (and healthy!) Broccoli Soup with toppings!

It got a little stormy this weekend. We had blue skies and warm weather Saturday and Sunday morning, but by Sunday afternoon there was rain and palm tree parts flying around outside. Palm tree parts are probably the worst part about storms here, they are pretty large and end up all over the place when it's windy.

We might have underestimated the weather when we went out for a walk on Sunday... (at this point Nathan was saying "stop taking pictures we need to get home!" and I was trying to figure out how to take pictures without getting rain inside my phone)

Palm trees weren't the only casualties, there were also a couple of trees that lost largish branches in the park by our house. Nathan was considering taking one home (about 12 feet long), 'cause it would be a cool trophy from our walk, but in the end we left it under the tree it fell out of. 

So basically to sum it all up, Sunday was a perfect soup day. We settled on a broccoli soup since we had a big Costco bag of florets in the fridge. This soup is super full of vegetabley goodness, and is super simple to make. We hope you enjoy it!

__________________________________________

Ingredients:

1 - onion diced

1 lb - broccoli

32 oz. - chicken stock

1 cup - water

1 tsp - garlic powder

red pepper flakes and salt to taste

Optional toppings:

bacon bits

sautéed mushrooms

cheddar cheese 

tabasco sauce

cashews

Get all your ingredients ready. For this soup I used a bag of ready cut broccoli florets. That made it super easy to prepare since I could just dump them into the pot. I kinda feel like that was cheating, but for some reason they were actually cheaper precut at Costco than whole at our Von's, so in the cart they went!

These bacon bits are pretty good, they are kind of like bacon and kind of like beef jerky. A friend left them at our house after a baked potato party and they worked really well on the soup.

Start by sauteing your onion in a little butter or oil until they cook down and get soft. Now just dump your broccoli on top. Throw in your seasoning and add your chicken broth and water.

Bring the whole thing to a simmer and cover with a lid. Cook for 10 minutes or until the broccoli gets tender.

While you're waiting for the broccoli to soften you can work on making some of the toppings. We bought a box of mushrooms at Costco so I decided to use those as one of the toppings. I started by selecting and washing 5 medium sized mushrooms. You can totally skip this step and make other toppings if you like. I think cheddar cheese would be good, we were out, but next time I make this I'm getting cheese.

and of course I took the picture before washing them... ewwww...

Wash them and slice them thinly.

Throw them in a pan with a bit of butter.

Now just poke them around a bit until they cook down and look like cooked mushrooms.

Ok! Now back to the soup! Your broccoli should be pretty soft now so we can start going after it with the immersion blender. There may be some broccoli sticking up out of the liquid try to smoosh it down as you blend (this is why the broccoli needs to be super soft). Also, be careful, immersion blenders can shoot hot soup at you when they are not fully immersed. If you are worried about this whole immersion blender/scalding hot soup thing you can always use a traditional blender instead, I was just feeling lazy.

smooshing broccoli with my immersion blender

partially blended

fully blended!

Now that you've blended everything check to make sure the soup is the consistency that you want. It might be a little on the thick side, if that is the case you can thin it a bit with some more chicken broth or water. If you are feeling daring you can thin it out with a cream to make a cream of broccoli soup. Serve it up hot and cover with your favorite toppings!

poor little bread bowl getting photographed on our wet balcony.

We ate ours with a loaf of sourdough bread from Boudins, and yes I reused my bread bowl from lunch... we're still students and I have this compulsion to always take my leftovers home. Maybe that's weird.. but I'm going to vote for frugal. :)

Directions:

1. Saute diced onions in butter until soft

2. Add broccoli, spices, and chicken broth and bring to a low boil

3. Cover and let simmer for 10 min or until broccoli is very tender

4. Blend the soup adding more liquid (broth or water) to achieve desired thickness (add cream to make a cream of broccoli soup).

5. Serve up and cover in toppings!

6. Enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan