Riding Squaw Valley

Y’all…. I am so excited. 

I have a day and a half of mundane office work, three more grad school applications to mail, and then… a full week of quality time with me, my mister, and my beloved snowboard in Tahoe! Whaaaa – freaking – whoooo. I am so ready for this trip…

The bf’s madre gave us a week at her timeshare as a Christmas present. Since we tried to move there (but had zero luck finding decent jobs) we already have season passes. Our expenses will be gas, food, and… er… maybe a new snowboarding coat?

Butternut Squash Gratin with Caramelized Onions and Sage

I learned to properly pronounce gratin (thats grah-tahn, folks) at the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco a few years back. Greens is a lovely vegetarian restaurant where vegetarian chef superhero Deborah Madison cut her teeth. I found this recipe in my favorite of her books, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. 

This gratin is rich and satisfying – without being weighted down by too much butter and cheese. We enjoyed it with a salad of  roasted beets and greens, and a delicious Paso Robles syrah. This is my adaptation of the dish… an approximation of my process in the kitchen Monday afternoon.

• 1 medium butternut squash, seeded, peeled and cubed
• 1-2 large onions, thinly sliced 
• 2-3 tablespoons fresh sage
• 3 sprigs thyme
• 1/8 cup fresh parsley
• 1/2 cup grated fontina
• 3/4 cup vegetable stock
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/3 cup flour
• olive oil
• salt and freshly ground pepper

1. pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. saute onion in olive oil over medium heat until translucent. add sage and thyme and cook until lightly caramelized. season with salt and pepper.
3. lightly oil the bottom of a gratin or casserole dish. create abase layer of caramelized onions. 
4. toss squash cubes in flour and brown in a skillet. Add parsley and season with salt and pepper. Layer over onions in casserole dish. 
5. Warm vegetable stock and pour over layers – cover with 1/4 cup grated cheese.
6. Cover and bake for 25-30 minutes. 
7. Remove from oven and top with breadcrumbs and remaining cheese. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.

A Fresh New Decade

I spent the majority of the last ten years galavanting about latin america; studying in the rainforest, lounging on beaches with the dense jungle at my back, diving on remote islands, hiking through Peru, visiting all of Neruda’s houses in Chile and drinking my fair share of cheap beer abroad. That decade of fun plus my student loans carries a hefty price tag I’m still working on settling as I embark of the journey of a new decade. I’m older and wiser (if I do say so myself) and things are already looking very different this time around… I’m anxious to see what the next ten years will bring! 

January 2010 Goals

1. Do my pilates dvd *almost* every day. A and I are going to Tahoe for a divine week of snowboarding at the end of the month and my core needs to be prepared! If this plan fails, booze and a hot tub cures most muscle soreness, right? 

2. Sign up for renters insurance! You may remember this goal from last year when our storage unit was broken into. Well, it happened again, and my snowboard was stolen! Its been a rough couple of days – but I am very lucky to have a not so secret admirer who found a board just like mine in a snowboard shop and surprised me with it last night. He gets one million gold stars. 

3. Get grad school apps into four schools. 

4. Hit my 15% goal by the end of February.

Applying to Grad School is Expensive!

Its that time of year again…. Grad school applications! Fun! Pricy! Nerve shattering! At this point, I’m trying not to worry about what happens if I get into a school, because the application process alone is a little financially overwhelming! 

Financial Shock #1: The GRE

This little monster will cost you a whopping $150. Make that $300 if you took it last year and didn’t do too hot so you’re taking it again. I have three words for you: free practice tests! Do them.

Financial Shock #2: Transcripts

I am applying to four schools and require seven copies of my transcripts to do so. Multiply that by the three schools I attended before finishing my undergrad and things start to get really fun. School number 1 charges $9 per copy, school number 2 charges $6.10 and school number three charges $3.50. Thats about $130 for twenty one lovely sealed and stamped white envelopes containing a few sheets of printer paper. Yikes. 

Financial Shock #3: Application Fees

I was going to apply to a fifth school, but decided the $80 application fee probably wasn’t worth it. $65 + $50 + $50 + $50 = $215

Early birthday present… to me?

I bought myself a little something to celebrate my twenty eighth(!) birthday next Monday… I’ve been eyeing it at anthropologie for awhile now, and it looks purrrrfect with my new Frye boots! Eeek!

O(mega) boost!

This was really tasty and I’ve been meaning to post about it since I made it for dinner two weeks ago! Its a long story, but somehow I got stuck with a two year subscription to Self. No offense to Self or anything – but I have a list of magazines I’d rather have delivered to me for two years. Note to self (me, not magazine): be more careful with “three free issues!” offers. especially when debit card numbers are involved. However, last months issue came complete with a tasty dinner plan! Salmon Florentine with Quinoa Pilaf! Delicious. I’ve linked to their recipe, since you’re already reading this, I’ll tell you how I made it too. 

• Four salmon fillets (budget friendly trick – you can get frozen wild salmon at trader joe’s for a decent price, and since you’re putting the tasty florentine mix on top before you bake it, I really don’t think fresh salmon would make a huge difference)
• One bunch spinach, chopped (Self calls for frozen spinach, which I find to be absurdly expensive. Fresh is where its at.)
• 1 shallot, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 5 sun dried tomatoes, chopped (these are pricy if you buy a whole jar of them – I live near a co-op and bought 6 from the bulk bin for less than a dollar! Soak them in hot water for 30 minutes before chopping and you’re good to go!)
• 1/4 t crushed red pepper
• 1/2 cup part skim ricotta 
• sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

If you’re using frozen salmon, allow it to thaw in the fridge overnight. Rinse and place in baking dish. Heat oven to 350. Saute spinach until wilted. Transfer to a colander and allow to drain. With olive oil, saute shallots and garlic. Add crushed red pepper, sun dried tomatoes, salt and pepper. Add drained spinach, and ricotta. Divide mixture and place on top of salmon fillets. Bake 15-20 minutes (until fish is cooked through). 

While your salmon is cooking, prepare your quinoa pilaf! You’ll need:

• 1 cup vegetable broth 
• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted in a dry skillet
• fresh parsley, chopped
• olive oil

Bring broth and quinoa to a boil. Turn heat to low, and simmer covered for 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Saute onion in olive oil. Transfer quinoa to a bowl and toss with onions, parsley, and toasted pine nuts. 

Impress your mister with your fish baking skills! Enjoy!

Life Updated

Holy shit. (I can swear on the blog because its mine. All mine. And I don’t condone swearing always. Sometimes its appropriate. Sometimes its not.) Its November. November. If you asked me in June where I would be in November, I would have told you Tahoe — but hey! I still live in Seattle! I have some good reasons, but lets save that for the list, shall we? I love a good list. 

1. I love Halloween. I especially love Halloween when it falls on on a Saturday and I get to go to awesome parties both Friday and Saturday. No one likes a repeat costume – so I dressed as my flapper persona “Curly Sue” Friday night in preparation for the big show on Saturday. Worked out better than I could have ever imagined. I did quite a bit of costume switching throughout the night… thus the photo with my buddy M. 
2. The New York Times reports that the jobless rate has hit 10.2% Yikes. As much as I love a good adventure, and A was really hoping for a break from Seattle, this seems like a terrible time to leave a secure job for a snow bunny job – not even for featherlight snow and views of Lake Tahoe from the gondola several times a week. 
3. I really did try to get a decent job in Tahoe. After several phone interviews, the best thing to come my way was a full time seasonal job for $10.50 an hour, with no benefits. 50% paycut? No thanks. I’m better off flying down there a couple times to make use of my season pass.  
4. Now that I’m not applying to Tahoe jobs, and my class is almost over, its back to focusing on the GRE, applying to grad school, and finding a new place to live that will give us a 6 month lease… in the event that I’m accepted from a school outside of the Seattle area. 
5. I’m skipping November goals. Sometimes you just need a break!

Single Ladies Twist

Thanks to my drunken agreement in a bar a couple weeks ago, I will be wearing a leotard for Halloween with two of my friends. Together, we are the Beyonce single ladies video. Damn you gin and tonic (x3!). I just stumbled on this version of the song and sort of love it. Enjoy.

Budgeting for Bikram

 I quit going to yoga over a year ago to a long list of excuses: too expensive, we have a gym in our building, I know the poses – I’ll just do them at home. While I do frequent the gym in our condo building, all that treadmill jogging combined with the bazillion hours I’m forced to sit in an office chair has left my hips, hamstrings and back feeling uneven and uncomfortably tight. I decided it might be time to go back to yoga. Can my budget handle it? 

My neighborhood kicks some serious ass, so I had quite a few studio options to choose from. Since hot yoga is my preferred method, I decided to give a Bikram only studio near my house a try. My old studio offered several types of yoga, so classes weren’t offered more than once a day, making it difficult to fit Bikram into my uber busy schedule. Their new student special is awesome. $20 for one week of unlimited hot yoga. Awesome. I started on Saturday, and have been twice already. The difference is my body, skin, and my mind is already apparent to me. I think I’m just the sort of person who needs a little hot yoga in their life. When my one week is up… I’ll have to consider my options. I can get a 10-class punch card for $125. If I bike to the studio, or show my student card, I can get a 10% discount. $11.25 a class doesn’t seem so bad?

A boot my progress…

“A boot” like “about” … get it? God. Its been a long day. 

Anywho…. I’m still lusting over those Frye boot. Must. Have. Them.

I got home about about 6:30 last night. Just enough time to throw in a load of clothes, unload the dishwasher, eat an apple and apparently, rifle through my closet before my friend L came over to hit the gym. At the end of it all, I had two big bags of clothes to take to my favorite consignment shop, Oh Bella. In the bag:

• 2 pairs of jeans. Both 7 for all mankind, one dojo and one ginger. Ohhhh ginger. How I wish you still fit me.
• 1 black velvet blazer I never wear.
• 1 chocolate brown bomber jacket I got at Zara in SanFran. 
• 1 Miss Sixty suuuuuuuper cute hooded peacoat I got last year but didn’t really wear because I love the way it fits EXCEPT how it flares out at the bottom. 
• 1 black wool toggle coat I’ve had for quite some time but hardly wear because I feel like it swallows me whole. 
• 1 super cute button up from J.Crew that…. surprise! Doesn’t fit me anymore.

If everything sells… I get a check for $144. I told Ronnie (the owner of my faaaavorite shop) all about my boots and she said she’ll cut me a check as soon as a couple things sell so I might have them that much sooner. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…she is a doll. I’m also loving my new, pared down closet. I love the idea of selling the things I rarely use, to get something new that I love. 

Boot Progress

$5.00 – book sales

$60 – jeans to friend

$100 – last consignment run

$144 – currently in shop

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$309 boots are mine!