I've been bad!

I've been bad - very, very bad about maintaining this site and I promise (myself) to do better. I would post pictures of the food we had in Denmark, but I won't since I'm pretty sure most who read this blog have seen them on facebook. New adventures soon!

Best Brownies

I felt like making brownies tonight and thought I had a mix. No such luck, so I pulled out the Bakers Unsweetened Chocolate Squares left from making Grandma L's Chocolate Supreme pie at Christmas and, sure enough, there was a brownie recipe printed on the inside of the box. Very easy recipe and VERY tasty!!

The recipe calls for lining the pan with foil and buttering the foil (I used cooking spray). I guess you wouldn't have to do that, but it did make cutting the brownies later a lot easier.
The finished product.
And the not-quite-cooled-but-already-cut brownies! (Who can wait???) : )

Rice Salad

I made this salad today for lunch and it was really tasty (we also had fried razor clams - yummy)!

Here is the link to the recipe from a website called Start Cooking.  It's a really good site and explains every step thoroughly.

Geocaching

While Rving this past winter, JC and I discovered "geocaching" which is a kind of game that involves finding "treasure" using GPS coordinates (we have a hand held GPS receiver).  Today we decided to do some geocaching on Vashon Island, just a short ferry ride across the sound.

This was our first find - just off a parking lot near the Vashon ferry docks.  
As you can see this was a really tiny cache.
The next one we found was under this block of driftwood at the opposite side of the island in a church camp that apparently hasn't started the summer season yet.
We left a magnet and took the car on this one.  (It is customary to take a trinket and leave another in its place on the full size caches - otherwise you just log in that you have found the cache.)
Part of the walk down to the water at the church camp - beautiful site!
The final cache on Vashon was on the other side of Quartermaster Harbor from the church camp.  As you can see, this one was hidden in a rotted out log.
These people are serous about this!
Took a car and left an easter egg on this one.
We came back to the city and decided to do three "urban" geocaches.  The first was near Bell Harbor and involved deciphering the GPS coordinates through a serious of clues such as counting the number of sections on the tail of the fish fountain to get one of the coordinate numbers.
We finally solved all of the sections of the puzzle and eventually found the "micro" cache.  As you can well imagine, hiding a cache in the city takes some ingenuity and they are often "muggled" (jargon for destroyed or taken by someone who doesn't know or care about geocaching).
This one was a coke lid screwed on to a container no bigger than the lid itself.  

Unfortunately, we were not successful with the other two we were looking for.  The first we could actually see, under some urban "art" on our block, but it looked too nasty for us to retrieve.  The other one we just could not find and thought it might have been muggled.  When we came home and went to the web site, we saw that it had been found once today.  We may try that one again.  Had to go to Zeeks for pizza after that - this geocaching is hard work!!

Comfort Food

One of the joys of living on the west coast is the abundance of fresh seafood.  This is a favorite meal of ours:  Halibut, pan seared and oven roasted until just done, with a white wine reduction; oven roasted sweet potato fries; fresh spinach, sauteed with mushrooms and green onions; and campari tomatoes, salt and peppered and drizzled lightly with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Healthy and delicious!

Myrtle Edwards Park

JC and I found it difficult to exercise like we should when we were on our RV trip, so we are trying to make up for it now.  Our favorite place to walk/run is Myrtle Edwards Park on the shores of Elliott Bay.
The entrance to the park is also the Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park - I just don't get how a giant typewriter eraser is art - whatever!
The sleeping giant.

The Rose Garden.


This place is so beautiful that even walking it on a cold, rainy day is a treat but, when the sun shines, it's glorious!

Tilikum Place Cafe

As you know, we've been out of town for a few months, but our friends A and G have kept up with the dining scene in Seattle and tonight we went to a new restaurant they discovered called Tilikum Place Cafe on Cedar and 4th.  Wow - it's good to have friends who know the food scene because this place is really tasty!  JC started with the mint julep, a southern staple that is rarely found on the menu in the Pacific NW.  It was well done and delicious!

I started with bitter greens with warm bacon vinaigrette, dates, and orange.  The greens were beautifully wilted with a smokey bacon vinaigrette - delightful!!
A's romaine with shaved parmesan (let's just call it a Caesar, shall we?) was a work of art.
JC's salad was light and had a lot of lovely blueberries.
G had the stuffed calamari - delicious!
JC ordered the pork chop with pureed sweet potatoes and grilled cabbage - tender and delicious.

The rest of us had the seared chicken with various accompaniments - really good!!
JC did the tasting menu which allowed him dessert - cream puffs, stuffed with ice cream and glazed with a caramel sauce - wow!!
We will definitely go back - can't wait to see what A and G  have discovered since we've been gone that will top this or Gambas!!