Dahlia Bakery Foodダリアベーカリーの食べ物

We went to Bainbridge Island again this weekend to talk to Sussy and Q-chan about their restaurant. It was a gorgeous day, so we walked down to the ferry. On the way we stopped at the Dahlia Bakery. There we got a sandwitch and cupcake for lunch.

今週末シアトルから３０分のフェリーに乗ってベンブリッジのすっしーとQ ちゃんのところに遊びに行きました。天気が良かったからフェリー乗り場まで歩いていきました。その途中でシアトル有名シェフのトム・ダグラスのダリアベーカリーに寄り道して昼ごはんのサンドイッチとカップケーキを買いました。

The sandwitch is marinated tofu with some other Japanese influenced toppings. Nile really liked it, and she doesn't usually like sandwitches. Matt thought it was okay. The cupcake wasn't quite as good as the Orange Chiffon cupcakes that Matt made the other day, but it was okay.
サンドイッチは豆腐の味噌マリネしたものに貝割れ大根、なます、そしてしいたけが入っていてナイルはおいしいと思ったけどマットはいまいちでした。カップケーキは見かけだけで味はマットが作ったオレンジシュフォンカップケーキのほうが全然おいしかったです。

On the island the magnolias were in bloom. We saw this one on the way to Sussy and Q-chan's house.
スッシーとQちゃんのうちに着く前にとってもきれいな木蓮が満開でした。

Stawberry Pancakes イチゴパンケーキ

We are starting to venture out to make some yummy things again. With the rest of the stawberries (left over from the donut incident) Matt made Straberry Pancakes. We hope that we're clear of our curse now!

少しづついろいろまた作り始めています。今朝(この前のドーナツの残りの）イチゴを使ってパンケーキを作ってくれました。これで悪運が終わったことを祈ってます。

All-purpose Flower vs. Cake Flower 中力粉と薄力粉

Since Nile made the Crab Suffed Mushroom, our kitchen has been cursed. Nothing since then has worked. Nile thinks it is because she made somthing yummy without trying all that hard.

Matt made strawberry donuts that flopped as part of it. Matt adapted a recipe from his Professional Baking book, but "to be safe" used cake flower rather than all-purpose flour. Therefore, we are posting this on our blog so we can all learn a lesson from this. When making donuts, don't use cake flour.


この前蟹肉詰めマッシュルームを作って以来運が悪いうちの台所。手抜きした罰が当たったように何もおいしくできない最近。マットが張り切って前の日の夜から準備して次の日の朝作ったイチゴドーナツも失敗でした(涙)。

イチゴドーナツのレシピがなかったから前使ったドーナツのレシピを使って作ったところ中力粉じゃなくて薄力粉を使ったのが間違いでした。

これを機会にみんな学習しましょう：ドーナツは中力粉。

Crab Stuffed Mushroom 蟹肉詰めマッシュルーム

The other day, Nile had to go to Whole Foods for Takashi, and found this at the fish section: Crab meat stuffed portebella. She bright it home and cook it at home and it was yummy. Easy food can be great when you get it from a great source.

この前家のお父さんのお使いでホールフーズ(とてもおしゃれなスーパー）行った時に魚売りのコーナーで見つけた蟹肉詰めの巨大マッシュルーム(ポートベラ）。家で焼いて食べたらとてもおいしかったです。手抜き料理もいい所からだとおいしいですね。

Smoked Salmon Salad スーモクサーモンサラダ

We went to the Pike Place Martket and got some smoked salmon and made a salad with it. It was very good (although the salmon here is burried with other toppings).

この前シアトルで有名なパイクプレースマーケットに行った時にスーモクサーモンを買ってきたからそれでサラダを作りました。(サーモンが他の具に隠れて見えないけど)とてもおいしかったです。

Donut 1

While Nile was hard at work this morning, Matt made donuts. First he researched donut recipes online and put together a spreadsheet with the baker's ratio comuted for each of the key components. He also added the recipe for "Airspeed Donuts" from the back of the Top Pot donut box.
The recipe used was:
1c flour
1/8c milk
1/2T vinegar
1/4T butter (melted)
1 egg
1/4c sugar
1/4t soda
1/8t salt
1/4t vanilla
1/8t cinnamon
1/8t nutmeg

Cook in 375 F oil for 1 minute per side until light brown.

The recipe was based on the median donut recipe from the research he did. It was a very soft dough, and he was unable to cut it successfully without adding more flour. This resulted in a slightly over-worked dough.

Still, pretty tasty. :-)

squid!

Nile has been watching a lot of NY Times videos. This is a recipe by Mark Bittman that contains jalapenos. We wern't sure how hot it would be with the seeds, so we took out the seeds. Next time we're going to leave the seeds in. The recipe can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/dining/141mrex.html?ex=1175140800&en=693590bf8709ad64&ei=5070. For greens we used arugula.

Hanami 花見

We found a nice afternoon (that seem to be far and few between these days ) and had a picnic at Volunteer Park. We sat under our favorite tree and had a great time.





Since we sprung forward, we didn't stay till sunset. Maybe we'll go back before the end of the cherry season.

Stinkey day at UW greenhouse

Nile went to visit the UW greenhouse, that happed to be a very stinkey day.

dinner on March 9th

Nile was feeling especially creative that day so she cooked a few 1st time foods:
kabu radish with tofu skin (age), bacon with collard green and kabu leaves, stuffed Thai eggplants.

Snow Shoing

We wanted to go snow shoing on Superbowl Sunday, and thought it would be a great day since everyone else would be watching the game. Unfortunately, everyone else thought it would be a great idea, and it was all booked up. So, we got the next available date which was the first Saturday in March!

Here's Matt playing in the snow. He's never seen so much snow in his life. There was 12 feet of accumulation and 20 or more pushed up from the plows.

We went with Russell and John. They were nice enough to drive, which we really appreciated. Even though our car has seen snow before, we've never driven on a mountain pass. Fortunately the weather was perfect.



Snow shoes were included as part of the hike. They wern't the tennis racket kind that we wanted, but instead were much more functional and bright red.


This outhouse was completely snowed in. It was only partially accessible because the tree well created by the tree standing next to it. The tree in the other picture is completely hollow on the inside, but still healthy. This is possible because all of a trees nutriance flows through the few inches near the surface of the tree. The core is only for stability.



Here our guide is telling us about some hazards of snow shoing. This hole in the ground goes down 12 feet to a small creek below. Falling in could mean that you'd be stuck for quite a while. Matt was just excited to see a big hole in the ground. Our guide also talked to us about some ecology of the area in the winter. This lichen is food for deer, and some other animals. Humans don't have the enzymes to digest it, so you shouldn't try eating this to survive if you had to.



Matt liked these natural snowballs. The tree looks a lot like a snow man, and the snow ball on the right was created by a small piece of snow that rolled down the hill and got bigger and bigger. Literally, the snowball effect. :-)

Vancouver Aquarium

After 4 days of Seattle, we went up to Vancouver for a day and a half with Meiko.

On the way up we drove through a snow storm. We were afraid it would be snowing in Vancouver, but it wasn't. :-) Our first stop was the Vancouver Aquarium

Seattle in 4 days!

While Meiko was here, Nile and Meiko went around Seattle. Here are some things that they saw:

The new main branch of Seattle Public Library. (Picked as one of the 100 best modern buildings in the U.S. by Architectural Digest.)

At Volunteer Park, Meiko pokes her head through the Black Sun.

Nile gave a tour of the Conservatory. Here is Nile among her collection of cacti and succulants.


They did a drive-by of Safeco Field where Meiko got to see a giant poster of Ichiro while Nile watched the traffic lights.

Kerry Park--the vista of Seattle. We went back that night too.

The new Olympic Sculpture Park!

The also stopped by the SAM (under construction) and saw the famous sculpture.

Nile and Meiko went to the first Starbucks.

Meiko brought some origami paper for Matt, so they folded some origami together. They made a hermit crab and orca together.

Here is the completed hermit crab.