beets with goat cheese and dill

my new favorite recipe:
made for remy and chelsea upon their arrival to a la maison. poor chelsea could not eat due to detoxing her body of illness. but we shall make that dinner again and again for it was lovely, so come on over chels and all others, lets dine.

beets with goat cheese and dill- as seen in williams & sonoma vegetable cookbook- modified by yours truly-

get a glass of wine, your preference. sip while cooking.

you will want:
about 1 1/4 lb. of beets- two large beets will do
2 shallots or 1/2 red onion shopped
1 tsp. sugar
salt to taste
1 tb balsamic
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tb extra-virgin olive oil
1-2 tb chopped fresh dill
3 oz fresh goat cheese

*preheat oven to 375 F.
cut large beets in 1/2. if you use smaller beets just leave them uncut for now. place unpeeled beets in a baking pan just large enough to hold them. pour water- depth about 1/2-1 inch. cover the pan with aluminum foil of lid (or just use another enchilada-type pan!)


place the pan in oven- roast beets, adding additional water as needed to maintain the oeiginal level, until they are tender and pierced easily with a fork (about 40-50 minutes).scratch that-they clearly are taking longer...must have used smaller beets last time. an hour.

remove the pan form oven and remove beets from pan. sip wine while waiting for the beets to cool; when they are easy to handle- peel them, slipping off the skins, using a paring knife in spots where they stick (or just get a french man who cuts beets like a champ!) then cut beets into wedges and remove the stems.

place the warm beets in a bowl, add all ingredients (not goat cheese yet!) and salt to taste. taste some more and add as needed.

spoon into bowls and sprinkle goat cheese as desired. heaps is best because goat cheese is delicious.

eat and enjoy. then repeat and invite me over.

breakfast, market for root vegetables, walk around in the cold fresh air, back home to rest, pagliacci pizza, the smell of brownies in the oven, cuddling on the couch. priceless weekends.

-gaming: the new american past time- and a little irony to boot-

while eating egg sandwiches and drinking coffee this morning, my husband and i pondered the divine moments that artists sometimes fall upon. it may only be for one song, and that is a gift in and of itself- so don't feel deserving; but there are moments of greatness for artists- a divine intervention of sorts, where a song comes together as it is meant to be. like it has always existed, it just needed someone to pull it together and strap it down. name it and claim it. own it and then give it away.
the sounds of mario 5 are haunting me as i write these words. john-james hooked up the nintendo i bought him, today, so its being played with a lot. i am relieved since i felt like a failure...
the thing is: sometimes i mess up.
like once.
ever.
but i did.
it wasn't a big mess up, some might call it minor. like stubbing your toe at the gym because you just couldn't be bothered to pick it up and away from the equipment because frankly, you're tired and weak, and the monthly female cycle that you universe has doomed you with isn't helping. and then you drop your cheap no-good always dying ipod which it was found on the floor of a show at WWU a few years back- when your then-boyfriend found it and instead of putting it in lost and found, just gave it to you, which was awesome- but yeah, you drop that, spill water on yourself as you refill your water bottle and think "i am exhausting my very life source" and decide to go stretch it out and tell your body you love it so it won't be mad at you and seek an awful revenge.
anyhow- bought my husband a nintendo, original, instead of the gamecube, which was actually 4 boxes later? (are they called boxes? should be. or rectangular foreign game machines which make me feel like i'm being picked last for...
for...
lets get back to that thought).

he likes it though! happy news! i just pride myself on GREAT gift giving and was OH SOOOO EXCITED about this one, and then i realized, about a second before he opened it- 2 weeks after christmas and many angry emails to the sender later- it wasn't the right one. i mean, i received what i ordered, but i ordered the wrong game...cube, rectangular game box machine of fun.

le sigh.

he looks really into it now though...and is currently humming along to the arcade tunes, so things are going well.
this is allll very interesting (meglett!!!!!!!!)

i was planning on segwaying... yeah that can't be right, into working out and my metabolism and food, but i bet no one really wants to read about all that. i sure would read about my work out habits, metabolism, weight, interesting drops in blood pressure, food- what influences me in different ways, the fact that i think i may be lactose intolerant...
but i gather no one else cares much.
whats with being lactose "intolerant?" like my body isn't necessarily allergic its just "not tolerated" this cheese crap? whats that about?

ok i better end this, its starting to sound like a bad stand up skit....

digging in the dirt-

So, the questions are as follows…
What do I like?
What am I good at?
I like reading, writing and playing/listening to music. I like people, photographs, the earth, stretching my limbs. I love cooking, especially with my husband. I like feeling a part of things, life, love, earth, community. I like grocery shopping and lists.
I want to get into gardening, currently am interested in farming but I’m not sure I have that destined life ahead of me. It’s a lot of work. Although I do wonder if farming, raising animals would give me a great sense of purpose and belonging to the world we live in. in A Dirty Life, my hero the farmer, claims that she felt a deep and great calm feeling when she realized that everything could fall apart, but as long as she’s on the farm, she will be fed.
That’s all we really need: nourishment.
Water. Air. Love.
Yes- I’m adding love into the list of essential ingredients to live because we are humans and humans are pack animals. (could be disagreed with but this is my rant, my rules). Pack it is.
Back to farming-
Farm life sounds incredibly hard, constant ache and labor. But the life is so simple, its very appealing to me. Harvest the land and you will eat. Harvest a lot and you can feed many. Use the money you received from the eaters to create more harvest. Repeat.

weekends are for wonder...

we had such a wonderful weekend. before the wedding it seemed like every week and weekend was filled-with planning, catching up/keeping up with friends and family, sketching out ideas, writing lists....
this weekend was the best: good meals, good exercise, great company. favorite moments include:
playing cribbage with mom and grandma.
blue moon burger with my bestest friend- blue cheese burger- getintoit.
making breakast at home and watching the game-well...i watched some and organized the house the rest.
fremont market with tum and carrie.
sleeping in.

i appreciate this time with my husband. its so easy to always be looking to the future, thinking whats next. its in my blood to plan and plot and try try try to make it make it make it. but really, there are times when you need free weekends and time to breathe. time to write, sing, read, watch, love. people continually ask us about whats next (babies is the popular question as you may guess) and truth be told, the next steps thrill me. but i don't want to be someone who is always so involved in what is going to happen, that i don't enjoy what is happening. and what is happening is life in all its glorious simplicity, forcefulness and complexity.