A Delicious Dinner

Dinner was cooking all day today. Well at least part of it.
When I came back home from shopping and running errands the house smelled heavenly of roasted chicken. I finally tried my hand at roasting a whole chicken a few months ago. I'm not a fan of touching raw whole chicken but I finally got over it and just did it. First time I roasted it in the oven and the second time I roasted it in my best friend, the crockpot and I used olive oil instead of butter on the chicken. I was afraid the skin wouldn't brown in the crockpot but it did although the skin does not get as crispy as in the oven but that doesn't matter to me as I don't eat the skin

This time I used butter on the chicken and it didn't seem to brown as well as the olive oil so next time I will go back to the olive oil.

Also maybe the skin didn't brown so much because I kept the crockpot on low. The first time I had the crockpot on high the whole time so it would cook faster. It really was done. The legs just fell apart and the meat was all tender and juicy.

I keep my roasted chicken pretty plain. Butter or olive all over the chicken inside and out then I put two or three slices of a lemon, a sprig of each rosemary and thyme inside the bird cavity and salt and pepper the whole chicken inside and out. Oh, I forgot I added three cloves of garlic to the inside of the chicken this time.
I cut an onion in wedges and put in the bottom of the greased crockpot for the chicken to sit on and to keep it from sticking to the bottom. You should tie the legs together with kitchen string but I did not have any this time. The crockpot kind of helps keep the chicken together because of its small size.

Along with the chicken I wanted roasted vegetables and I found this recipe for roasting them. I kept to the recipe for the most part I just changed the veggies to what I had on hand: sweet potatoes, red potatoes, zucchini, summer squash, red bell papers and yellow onions.

 Love all the pretty colors of the veggies.

 Once the veggies were chopped it was time to get the oil, seasonings and herbs going. The recipe called for 1/4 olive oil but instead I used a sundried tomato and Parmesan garlic flavored olive oil and two Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. Mixed this well and chopped up some fresh

 thyme and rosemary and

 added that to the olive oil mixture.

 Next you pour the olive oil mixture over all of the chopped veggies and gentle stir until all the vegetables are completely covered with the oil mixture.

 Here are the vegetables on my Demarle silicon pan all ready for the oven. Set your oven to 450 degrees and put your vegetables in when the oven is preheated. It said to bake 35 to 40 minutes stirring every 10 min. I have a convection oven and I think it cooks faster so I only baked it for 22 min stirring only twice.

 They smelled and looked so yummy when they were done. They were nicely browned too.

 Roasting really brings out the flavor of vegetables especially sweet potatoes. I love roasted sweet potatoes!

 I made the chicken and roasted veggies and my son, Travis cooked up some soaked and sprouted  lentils.  We also had some Ruby Red Kraut to finish off the meal.

The kraut is raw otherwise I wouldn't touch it. I can't stand the smell or taste of cooked cabbage. I also don't care so much for beans to be sprouted (seems like your eating a plant instead of a bean) but you are able to get more nutrients from spouted so I ate them. I actually mixed the lentils with the kraut because there is so much flavor in the kraut and not so much in the lentils so they compliment each other very well. The ruby red kraut is a mixture of cabbage, beets (hence the red color) and carrots. It is naturally fermented and is suppose to help your gut flora and aid digestion.

It was a pretty delicious meal with lots of flavor and color from the veggies and kraut and best of all it is all healthy. The chicken is organic as well as all of the vegetables, lentils and kraut.
Wish we could eat like this every day.

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Teresa

Mini Vacation

Just got back from having a girls weekend with my daughter, Amber. Except it really wasn't during the weekend because she works most weekends. So it was Sunday evening through Tuesday afternoon. I drove the three and a half hour trip Sunday afternoon and arrived at the hotel at 6:00 PM. Amber arrived around 7:00 after she was done at work and we hung out for a while and thought about where we wanted to eat dinner. I was up to pretty much anything just as long as it was a place I had never been to before. While traveling I always like to eat at places that we don't have in our hometown.

It was finally decided that we would try out a place called Oswego Grill in Willsonville that was new to both of us.

 It was amazing food and service was great also. I had the Stuffed Chicken Breast. The chicken was stuffed with provolone and mozzarella cheese and spinach then topped with a capper cream sauce. It also came with Alfredo pancetta pasta and apple hardwood grilled asparagus. I especially loved the capper cream sauce as it went really well with the stuffed chicken.

Amber had the chicken fajita which came with sour cream, guacamole, cheese, pica de gallo and I think it came with some kind of sauce. It was fresh and awesome too!

We decided to have a glass of white wine with our dessert which was heavenly. It was a simple dessert (which sometimes can be the best right?) of two slices of pound cake with some vanilla ice cream sandwiched between the slices of cake, sliced strawberries drizzled with a warm strawberry sauce and topped off with whipped topping. It was divine! We both agreed this would be a place worth coming back to.

If only our hike we had picked out to do on Monday would have turned out as good as our restaurant choice it would have perfect but alas it was pretty much a failure. Although we made the most of it. Either we couldn't follow the book's directions or the road signs. We never did figure out where we went wrong. But we did know that after spending all morning and into the early afternoon and some 100 miles later we still hadn't been able to find the trail head that would have led us to Memaloose Lake.

But like I said we made the most of it and did see some beautiful sights along the way.

 We knew we were climbing up but didn't realize that we had drove this far up until we caught sight of this view.

 Even though it has been so dry all summer a few wildflowers were still blooming.
Just so you can see what some of the back roads we were driving on looked like I took a couple of photos.

Yep, they were pretty narrow, mostly gravel and full of pot holes, boulders and you had to be careful of branches sticking out over the road and there were lots of squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks that kept running across the road. I tell you it was slow going some times. We did meet someone else on the road so that was a little tricky getting by each other. We stopped to ask if they had any idea how to get to the lake and found out they were just as lost as we were except they were trying to find a rock quarry. We ran into them two more times and we wondered if they ever found it. They seemed just as determined to find their destination as we were.

This is Amber's car on one of the back roads and this was not even the worse one. One was a four wheeler track but that was where her GPS told us the lake was. So we just parked the car and hoofed it up the track that eventually ended. We couldn't figure out why someone would build a road that went no where.  Any way it was nice to get out and stretch out our legs before heading back the way we had come.

On the way back we decided to stop at this tiny, peaceful lake.

 It was surrounded by lush vegetation,

 and it was another chance to enjoy the sun and stretch our cramped legs.

We also thought there might be a trail of some kind but no such luck. By this time we had finally given up and found another hike in the book that was pretty close and the directions seemed a bit better. So we were off to chase down another adventure.

On the way back down the mountain we caught a glimpse of Mt. Hood.

Well to make a long story short we couldn't find it either so heading back home we came across  Milo Mclver State Park and decided to give that a try. There must be a trail we could hike there. First we found a picnic area and ate our lunch then set off to find us a trail to hike.

 We did find a sign for a trail so we pulled off the road by this pretty grove of pine trees to park the car. We walked down the road to where the trail began and started walking just happy to have a trail to walk not knowing where it would lead or how long it was.

 The next thing we realize we are back by the road and oh look there is a car just like yours!

 Because it was her car and there had been a path to the trail right across from where we had parked. We totally missed it! We had a good laugh from that.

Most of the hike was in the woods which was nice since it was hot out.

 

We did find the picturesque Clackamas River at the end of the trail.

 

It was a relief to sit on a rock, dip our hot feet in the cool water and just enjoy the scenery and quietness before heading back.

 We also saw what I think was a blue heron but I'm not sure. Any way it was cool to watch it.

 We made it back to the car without any mishaps and drove back to the hotel to clean up. Our plans for the evening were to go shopping then dinner, which all went very well.

I think I will finish up our mini vacation in another post as this is long enough.

Thanks for stopping by!

Teresa

 

Mini Vacation Part Two

Now for the rest of the story: Amber and I got up early to eat breakfast in Portland at a place called:

We wondered how they came up with the name Slappy Cakes. I can understand the "Cake" part but "Slappy" I'm not getting. The place was pretty busy by the time we got there and we had a 30 min wait so we took a walk down the sidewalk looking at stores and the different businesses when we came upon a tiny store that was selling handmade hats, headbands and other accessories. It was called Flipside Hats and was a pretty cool place. By the time we were done browsing it was time to head back to Slappy Cakes where we waited only a few minutes longer. We were soon siting at a table that had a griddle in the middle of it. See you get to make your own pancakes any way you want them.
But first off we started off with a bubbly drink, a grapefruit mimosa.

 I think I like grapefruit even better than orange mimosa's. We just had to ask our waitress what kind of champagne they used. She brought the bottle out because she couldn't pronounce the name. It was called Jaurne Serra Cristalino Brut. Never heard or seen it before. All I know is it makes a great mimosa. Has anyone ever had this champagne?
The next step is to decide on your pancake batter. Amber went with buttermilk and I had...

 their seasonal batter which was zucchini. Different but not too crazy right?

 Next you pick out what you want to put on or in your pancakes. Amber picked strawberries, chocolate chips and shredded coconut while I had bananas, pecans and organic maple syrup. The batter comes in the squeeze bottles. I really need to get one of those bottles it was so easy and fun to make pancakes with them.

 Now the griddle is hot and its time to cook the pancakes. Amber put the chocolate chips right in the pancake batter so they were all soft and melty and...

...they looked like this and were very yummy.

 And this is how mine looked and they were yummy too! It is also very easy to share each other pancakes.

 Since we knew we both weren't going to be able to eat lunch we order a plate of bacon and eggs and an English muffin to split. Otherwise there were enough pancakes to fill us up. Needless to say we were stuffed and we each had at least enough batter left to make one more pancake each.

 Amber tried her hand at making a smiley face. We had watched the two girls sitting beside us make all kinds of pancake creations: hearts, basketballs and different shapes. I'm sure they had been here before.

 After we were done with breakfast we went to Leach Botanical Gardens.

 

The house was built by Mr and Mrs Leach back in the 1930's. It has lots of windows and each window has a gorgeous view. Mrs. Leach was an amateur botanist. She was very interested in the  native plants. I believe there is 14 acres that is developed and another 14 or so acres that is not developed.

 

This side of the house faces towards the river at the bottom. Where the big windows are that is the living room which has a great view of the river and opposite side of the high bank.

This is the opposite side of the house that faces the river. From this side of the house you get a great view of the rock garden which you can see some of it in the photo above and you can also see what they called a carriage house but was never used as one. It now houses the full time gardener.

I think weather vanes are kinda cool.

This is the back of the house and where they hold weddings and other outside events. I guess I forgot to take a photo of the front of the house.

A better photo of the rock garden. I think it would be better to visit in the spring or early summer as I think most of the plants had already bloomed but we did find some pretty blooms.

 Don't forget to click on each photo so you can see it better.

 Oregon Grapes

 

The red of the tiny wild strawberries stood out so pretty among the green foliage.

 Here is the creek that runs at the bottom of the house. The whole place is quiet and serene and very few people were there. Of course it probably helped that it was Tuesday and not a Saturday or Sunday.

 Amber and I loved the quaint little stone cottage which is what the Leach's lived in while their house was being built. I believe the roof is tiled with slate.

 Love the old wooden door.

 You may have noticed some of the stones looked lighter than others upon closer inspection they looked like wood.

 It was wood but it was petrified wood. How cool is that?

 Back side of the cottage.

 This part of the trail looked kinda cool with the sunlight gleaming between the trees.

 This is a small shed built close by the cottage.

 

There was also an outdoor fireplace which I think they may have used to cook on. There might not have been a kitchen in the cottage as it was pretty small and in the summer cooking inside would have made it very hot and a fire hazard as well.

 On the left side of the fireplace was a little door and if you open it there is a little space about the size of a loaf of bread. I wonder if it was used to keep something warm or to cook.

And that was the end of our little vacation together and I drove back to Washington after dropping Amber off at home so she could get ready for work. The bright spot is I know I will be seeing her soon.