Clamming obsession

So during my time away from school and blogging, I spent a couple of days at the Oregon Coast with Craig and his parents, and a couple of their friends.  The tide was low on Wednesday and Thursday of June 15/16, so we spent the mornings digging for razor clams, and the evenings drinking, chatting, cooking, and having fun.  I'd never been clam digging before, but am now OBSESSED.  It was a lot of fun procuring food for the dinner table, and the fact that my shellfish license had been bought and unused (a whole $7 for residents in Oregon), it was well worth the money.  The clams were delicious, and I couldn't wait to go back out...now to just wait for a super low tide!

Craig's dad even bought me a brand new clam gun! And it's blue!!  How awesome is that?!  Being that I couldn't wait to go back out, Craig and I went to the coast yet again to harvest anything we could...this time, it was mussels.  We went out for only one night in Warrenton, OR and stayed at a cute little beach house.  It was our friend (and my save the date/invitation designer extraordinaire), Seyoung's, birthday the day before, and she and her boyfriend let us tag along for the trip.  Craig and I harvested mussels on Saturday afternoon, and we all went back to the house to clean them up and make some yummy chowder.  I will admit, it was quite a chore, as the house was equipped with wood stove (seriously) to cook on, and an couple of low-heating separate electric coiled cook tops.  We probably cooked a total of 6+ hours making that chowder, but it was such a blast!  We drank wine, ate cheese, crackers, and chips, chatted, and overall just had a blast.  We also made a nice little fire in the backyard and had some smores (which Seyoung had never made before!!!), had more libations, and finally tried our "chowder" at around 1:30am.

We ended up eating the chowder the next day for...brunch?  It was a great trip, and I was so happy to be able to do this before rotations started up for me (this week).  Thanks, Zach and Seyoung! We had a blast!

Phone picture--the chowder with crusty garlic-Parmesan cheese bread! Yum!

From my phone--the mussels all cleaned up:)

Me, being a turd in the kitchen.

Seyoung and I in the kitchen cooking up a storm...and drinking;)

Craig and Seyoung cleaning mussels

Enjoying the smores, beer (from chalices), and the awesome fire.

Just as a side note, invitations are coming along slowly, but surely.  My friend, Seyoung, really is super talented.  She's also an awesome writer.  READ/SUBSCRIBE TO HER BLOG!!  She does a lot of makeup reviews and writes funny comics:)  You can also check out her artwork here.

Love making this...

Such an easy way to make tasty asparagus and eggplant.  Love that I can prep this and walk away (to study), and come back to a super easy veggie side to go with rice, pasta, etc.

Got some fresh asparagus from the farmer's market:)

eggplant...I usually cut them kind of big
so that I can use the big slices on sandwiches after they're roasted.

Olive oil, salt, and pepper (cajun seasoning is good on this too)

~20 minutes (?) at 350 degrees...I usually just eyeball it,
and turn the veggies once when they're about half way finished.

Yum!

Fish Tacos

Dinner tonight was delicious.  Can't go wrong with fish tacos!

Craig, frying the fish for our tacos

Beer batter!

Yogurt with jalapenos, dill, and other yummy crap.  

St. Patrick's Day

So instead of drinking bad beer dyed with green food coloring (ok...I admit. I love this, and the green almost makes the beer bearable. ALMOST), or eating cabbage and corned beef, Craig and I made biscuits and gravy for his school's FFAFF (free for all food Friday).

Originally, someone else was planning on making biscuits, and because of our love affair with B&G, Craig wanted to bring gravy.  We've eaten a lot of B&G in the past few years together, but had never actually attempted making our own til now.

I made the biscuits with this recipe.

Craig made the gravy loosely following this recipe

Both recipes were easy and would be very easy to manipulate.  I only wish Craig had left me some for this morning's breakfast!

The First

And so begins my blog...maybe this will be easier than keeping a diary. HA. Doubtful...at least a diary is pseudo-portable. Being that my laptop is basically only functioning as a desktop, a good old fashioned spiral might better suit my needs...it IS lightweight and takes up a minimal amount of space.
Anyways, it's a Wednesday. I should be at Block 15 enjoying a delicious beer right now and playing shuffleboard...alas, the night is young. There will be time for that later, so long as I don't fall asleep at 9:30 pm...again. I just cant seem to get good sleep these days. Wait--I lie. I slept wonderfully Monday night.
Spring term is in full swing now. I should be thinking about projects, studying, tests, etc. Yet, my mind is consumed with books, good cooking, and this summer. YES. Senioritis...and I've got another three years ahead of me. Wonderful. I guess it happens to everyone. Maybe I'll go to the beach this weekend. Ugh. Not very helpful. It's so rare to get a nice sunny day in Oregon, though.

Just last week, I went to a little taqueria in Portland with a friend for happy hour. I had a delicious sangria and ceviche. I actually enjoyed the ceviche so much that I had to find a recipe to try...which I did last night. Here is an approximation of how I made it. The recipe seems somewhat customizable; just make sure there's enough of the acid to "cook" the shrimp, fish, octopus, or whatever you use.

Shrimp Ceviche

• Lemon juice from 3 large lemons
• Lime juice (the store's limes looked aweful, so I just bought the juice and mixed it with the lemon)
• 1 Pound Shrimp, cut into pieces
• 2 Jalepenos diced (I removed the seeds/insides to keep it from getting too spicy)
  
• 1 Large white onion diced
• 4-5 Tomatos diced
  
• 1 Bunch of cilantro, minced
• ~1TBSP Worcestershire sauce
  
• ~1TBSP Ketchup
• Sliced avocado
  
• Salt/Pepper to taste

Devein/remove the shells from the shrimp, and soak them in the lime/lemon juice for about 5 minutes, until they are opaque. Then you can add all of the remaining ingredients, except for the worcestershire, ketchup, avocado, salt, and pepper. You can probably add these, but I didn't. Mix everything thoroughly, and put it in the fridge overnight. You might be ok with only putting it in the fridge for an hour, but I'm a little leary of uncooked seafood. Plus, leaving it overnight allows the flavors to really meld. When you're ready to eat this, add the worcestershire, ketchup, avocado, salt, and pepper. I eyeballed these amounts--it would be pretty hard to ruin this dish by adding too much of any of these ingredients.
Serve on a toasted corn tortilla, or with chips. You can also put this in a martini glass with chips along side. This is really easy to make, but keep in mind that it takes a lot of time to chop everything up.


Anyways, I really liked the ceviche. I'll definitely make it again!