Eating With St'yle: Kyle's First Pizza

(Posted by Kyle)


According to Steph's New Year's post, we will be presenting some of the kinds of meals we eat, for the entertainment of some, and the edification of others who sometimes wonder what exactly we do eat. So here's the first installment.

GREEK PIZZA WITH WHOLE WHEAT CRUST

From Moosewood Restaurant Cooking For Health

Unless my memory is completely on the fritz, I believe this is the first pizza I have ever made by myself from start to finish. I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've made pizza dough, anyway.

The dough: Mix 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast and 1 tsp sugar in 1 cup warm water and set aside until yeast is dissolved and is bubbly. Stir in 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp olive oil,  and 1 tsp salt. Cover and place in a warm spot to rise for 45 min.

In a food processor, puree one 15 oz can garbanzo beans (drained), 3 Tbs water, 4 tsp lemon juice, 1 Tbs olive oil, and 1/4 tsp salt. Set aside.

In a skillet, cook two cloves of minced garlic in one Tbs olive oil for a minute. Add 10 oz (5 cups) chopped fresh spinach. Cook until spinach is wilted and still bright green. Set aside.

Oil a 14 or 15 inch pizza pan. Use a spatula to scrape the dough onto the pan. Flour your hands and push and pat the dough evenly over the pan, forming a ridge at the edge.

Spread the chick pea puree over the dough, and top with the spinach, 2 cups chopped tomato, and one 14 oz can of drained and chopped artichoke hearts. Sprinkle with 1 tsp dried oregano, ground black pepper, and 3/4 cup grated kasseri, feta, or asiago cheese.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until crust bottom has browned.

We used a goat's milk feta cheese, and added kalamata olives to half. The garbanzo base is just a Tbs of tahini away from being hummus, so you could probably use store bought hummus if you're like me and don't like cleaning the food processor.

We were very pleased with how this turned out and will be making it again for sure.

Willow's New Favorite Toy

(Posted by Kyle)

Willow's Grandma Cromer gave her a new toy for Christmas, and she's taken to it like I've never seen her take to anything. Willow, for as long as I've known her, has not engaged in very much dog like activity. I try to get her to chase sticks and tennis balls and get nothing. But now she goes crazy over these three little squirrels. She carries them around in her mouth, brings them back to us when we throw them, and can't wait to get back into the house after a walk to play with them.

The squirrels came in this plush tree trunk. You are supposed to put them in the trunk and let the dog get them out. It increases your dog's intelligence, so the box claims. Willow is still struggling with this part, and loses interest pretty quickly. She can get her whole head in the trunk, though, and that's pretty funny to watch.

That's me in the back timing her.

Willow says, "Thanks, Grandma!"

Potato Bologna

(Posted by Kyle)


While in Muscatine for the holidays, I was able to observe the Cromer family tradition of making potato bologna (or is it baloney? It's got a swedish name I can't remember, spell, or pronounce).

Getting the meat and potato mix ready.

Finding the end of the intestine.

Using a metal funnel to stuff the intestine.

Ta da!

Keep the comments clean, people. I've shown great restraint in captioning these photos; all I ask is the same from you all.

Happy New Year!!!!

Provided the zombie apocalypse doesn't happen this year (dramatic recreation above), it should be another interesting year:) We've got holiday blogs coming in the near future, as well as a recurring special segment for 2010 called "What do Kyle and Steph eat?" with recipes and pictures!

Enjoy the first day of a new decade, and know that we are thinking of you, our closest friends and family- the only people who would find this blog even remotely entertaining. Love, peace and happiness to you all!

Happy Holidays!

We are heading up to Seattle tomorrow and catching a plane into Chicago on Sunday. Hope you all have a great holiday season and a happy new year.

Victoria, Part Two

(Posted by Kyle)

The second day of our Victoria trip was rainy. We started with a really nice breakfast at the hotel's brewpub, then decided to do some shopping and take in a couple of the touristy attractions that our guide books suggested we avoid. They were both awesome.

First stop was the undersea aquarium.

It was kind of tiny and cramped, and the viewing windows needed cleaning, but it was full of pretty neat stuff. (Frommers took it to task for not representing the indigenous sealife.)

Steph is deciding whether or not to touch any of the stuff in the aquarium's petting zoo. (She finally did.)

There was a brief show during which a scuba diver swam around, picking up the sea creatures and holding them close to the windows. The crabs seemed like they wanted to be left alone, while there was a wolf eel that seemed to revel in the attention. It moved too fast for me to get a picture, but often swam in front of the diver when he was trying to show us something else.

The aquarium's resident octopus, which the diver left alone because they thought it was laying eggs that day.

Next up was Madame Toussad's Royal Wax Museum, dubbed cheesy and overpriced by the travel guide.

 

There was plenty of British royalty on display.

And the Hall of Creepy Ex-Presidents.

Here's the Madame herself, perfecting her wax technique on the guillotined heads of the French Revolution. I learned during our tour that she was volunteered to make death masks of all the severed heads.

At the basement level, you had to choose a path through the Chamber of Horrors or skip it. We chose the Chamber of Horrors, where a twitching severed head creeped Steph out so bad that she was jumping at real people by the end of the tour.

There were some pretty graphic displays. Mostly ways people have been tortured. This is the "Albanian Hook."

Joan of Arc or Princess Leia? You decide.

The rain let up a little by the afternoon, so we walked around a little before our ferry left.

The Parliament building is right across from the ferry dock.

We also walked over to the Thunderbird Garden, a park full of totem poles and a long house that sits next to The Royal BC Museum (which we need to go to next time).

There seems to be a strong street performer culture in Victoria. Even being off-season, we saw many of them out on the streets during our two days there. As we were heading for the ferry, we saw this guy:

A violinist in full Darth Vader gear, playing out in the rain.

The end.

Victoria

(Posted by Kyle)

Steph and I took a short trip to Victoria, B.C. over the Thanksgiving weekend. Here are some pictures.

This is the ferry, the Victoria Clipper, that we took from downtown Seattle to Victoria's inner harbor. It makes the run in about 3 hours, and it is a catamaran type boat so it runs on top of the water, making for a pretty smooth ride. (All info I got from the onboard announcements.) We discovered on the return trip that the captain of the ship was a guy that Steph knew back in Iowa City.

The first thing we did in Victoria was have lunch at the rebar restaurant. We have been making recipes from their cook book for the last several months and they have all been delicious, so we were excited to actually go to the restaurant itself. I sampled one of their almond burgers, which is not in the cook book and is a 'secret' recipe. It was really good.

It was a nice sunny day, so we spent much of the afternoon walking around checking out the inner harbour area. Later, when we got hungry again, we went to the bakery that is run by the rebar restaurant people. It is right next to a yarn shop, and I took this picture of Steph and a bike that was wearing a sweater.

This is the Empress hotel, which was designated a 'must-see' in all the travel guides. They suggested having high tea there, for fifty bucks. We passed. It's an impressive looking building, though.

We spent the night at the Swan's hotel, a combination hotel/brew pub/bistro/art exhibition. They have a collection of original art that rotates through the rooms.

The painting next to the bed appeared to be of two naked men in the back of a truck. Hm.

There was a loft above the kitchen, with a door, lights, carpeting, and outlets, but no way to get to it. Hm.

Steph deemed the bed the most comfortable one she'd ever slept in.

It was a very nice space, with high ceilings and a kitchen fully stocked with plates and pots. Some summer we are going to live in the hotel for a month and check out the rest of Vancouver Island.

After having dinner at the rebar restaurant (I really can't say enough nice things about it), we went back to the hotel's brew pub, which has live music every night and is a favorite bar of the locals. We had some coupons to taste the beers, so we got six samples. A taster turned out to be 8 ounces, which is a pretty good amount. Their 'pints' were 20 ounces. So we got a little buzzed and watched some very enthusiastic dancers.

To be continued . . .