My New Favorite Food

One more recipe to complete the trilogy-

Chilaquiles

1 Tbs olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, chopped (I always add more)

2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, plus 1 Tbs adobo sauce

coarse salt

28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes

4 cups of chicken (cut up) if you want chicken chilaquiles, or you can use eggs....we prefer eggs and use 4 

1/2 cup lightly packed cilantro

4 cups (about 3oz) tortilla chips

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup feta cheese or queso fresco cheese

Combine oil and garlic in large frying pan, cook over medium heat until sizzling, about 2 minutes.

Add tomatoes (with juices,) chipotle peppers and adobo sauce, and 1 cup water.  Smash up tomatoes.  Heat until boiling, add salt, then reduce heat but keep it at a high simmer for 6-8 minutes until it thickens.

If you want chicken, add chicken.  If you want eggs, scramble 4 or more eggs and add to pan.  Throw chips in and mix them around so they soak up some of the tomato, then add cilantro and turn off heat.  Serve with sour cream and cheese.  

Pepper Beef (or chicken)

3/4 lb flank steak (or any thin meat that's cheap, or chicken)

2 Tbs soy sauce

1 Tbs chinese rice wine, rice vinegar...something like that

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

2 Tbs canola oil, divided

1 cup vertically sliced yellow onion

1 1/2 Tbs minced garlic (or if you like garlic...a whole bunch of garlic)

1 cup thinly sliced red bell pepper (about 1 pepper)

1 cup thinly sliced green pepper (about 1 pepper)

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups hot cooked short grain rice.

Cut steak or chicken into small strips. Combine meat pieces, soy sauce, vinegar/wine, sugar, and black pepper

Heat a wok or big frying pan over high heat.  Add to Tbs oil to pan.  Add onion and garlic to pan, cook until onion begins to brown.  Add bell peppers, cook until crisp tender.  Spoon bell pepper mixture into large bowl

Add 1 1/2 tsp oil to pan, add half of chicken or steak to pan.  Cook until browned.  Add to bowl of onions and peppers.  Repeat with remaining 1 1/2 tsp oil and remaining meat or chicken.  Put everything (onions/peppers/rest of meat) back in pan and sprinkle with salt, stir fry 1 minute or until heated through.  Serve over rice

4 servings...or two if you're pigs like us.

Dang Good Salmon Fish Tacos

This is for Kelsey, but also anyone that wants to try it out. Kelsey- we like stuff pretty spicy, so we always add more peppers.  If you follow the recipe it isn't super spicy, but probably too spicy for Rory...maybe taste some of the chipotle pepper to feel it out.  Suzi-  these are the really good tacos I've mentioned.  If you can find chipotle peppers in adobo sauce that don't have wheat in it, everything else is gluten free.

You'll need this blackening spice, which is REALLY good and works for chicken too...if you don't want to make it you can use whatever you like to use to season salmon.

Blackening Spice

2 Tbs kosher salt

2 Tbs sugar

1 Tbs pepper

1 Tbs plus 1 tsp cayenne pepper

2 Tbs paprika

1 Tbs dried thyme

1 Tbs dried organo

Just put it all it a ziploc bag and mix it up.  Lasts 6 months according to the recipe or 2 years if you don't care like me. ha!

Chipotle Sauce

1 cup mayo (we use non fat, its just as good)

3 Tbs sour cream

2 minced canned chipotle chlies in adobo sauce (sold in a can in the mexican section of regular grocery stores)

2 Tbs minced cilantro

1/4 tsp kosher salt

Mix it all up, lasts 3 days in fridge

Rest of the tacos

About 1 1/2 lbs salmon (this amount is for two tacos for six people)

1/4 cup blackening spice

12 corn tortillas

8oz finely shredded cabbage

3 green onions including green tops,  diced up

3 Tbs lime juice

2 ripe tomatoes, diced.

Chipotle Sauce

***This particular recipe had a ridiculously complicated way of cooking salmon.  Here is what we do:

preheat oven to 450 degrees

Put blackening spice on salmon, put salmon on a piece of foil, put salmon in the oven for 15 minutes.  This almost always cooks the fish perfectly.  Check to make sure the fish is flakey and opaque.

In a medium serving bowl, toss together cabbage, green onions and lime juice.  

If you like your tortillas warm, warm the tortillas in the oven for about 8-10 minutes while you're cooking the salmon.

Assemble tacos with salmon, cabbage, tomatoes, and chipotle sauce.  

Things I will not miss about Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara is a beautiful place.  I used to love to come visit Suzanne in Ventura and then drive up to Santa Barbara and go shopping.  The weather is almost always great, there are lots of neat little shops and restaurants...I always had a great time.  Then I moved here.  

I got over it.

The blogger at www.dooce.com  wrote this about Santa Barbara:

"Santa Barbara has to be the most simultaneously beautiful and boring city on earth. Every street and passageway is flanked by gigantic palms trees and inordinately large pink flowers drowning in sunlight the color and intensity of gold. Yet, my cronies and I spent the entire afternoon at a small booth in a Subway sandwich shop and in our parked car sipping Mike's Hard Lemonade bought at a grocery store. We couldn't find a bar or a patio or even a shop where the average pulse of its customers was over 15. Made no sense to me."

Sums it up perfectly.

Some things that drive me crazy about Santa Barbara-

1.  There is a ridiculous amount of horrible drivers here.  The other day, I was on the freeway in the middle lane, with a semi to my right and a Suburban in front of me.  The suburban was going WAY over the line, almost slamming into the semi.  This is a normal occurance.  People don't feel the need to go when the light turns green.  I've been behind  cars at a red light and had to wait for the next cycle because the cars took so long to make it through.  In parking lots, I'm pretty sure that people have their eyes closed while driving.  When Wendy came to visit me in Goleta for the first time, she noticed the bad driving in less than 5 miles, so I know its not just me.  Oh, and I've been rear ended twice, when I was stopped at a red light and the person behind me decided not to stop.

2.  As if all the bad driving wasn't enough, pedestrians are lacking in brains as well.  In parking lots, they just walk wherever they want....as slow as they want.....while staring at you as you wait for them.  On Cabrillo (the main road along the beach) people just dart out from between parked cars, trying to run across the street, and give you a dirty look when you have to stop fast.  People on bikes do this too.  Then they act like you should be arrested for not realizing they were going to dart out in front of you.  You're on a bike! You're supposed to be following the same rules as a person in a car!  You're not even bothering to pose as a pedestrian and use the crosswalk.  

3.  Everyone thinks of Santa Barbara as this great coastal beach town, but here's a little secret.  The beaches here (at least compared to San Diego,)  SUCK.  My idea of a great day at the beach does not end with picking tar off your shoes or feet.  That's right...TAR.  Its all over the beaches.  Totally gross.

4.  The cops here are really bored.  I got pulled over once because the cop said I had swerved over the line on the freeway.  I had been in the fast lane....there was a center divide directly to my left (the way he said I swerved.)  I would have slammed into the concrete divide.  I didn't swerve.  It was 2am.  He asked if I had been drinking.  I said no.  He asked if I had anything with dinner.  No, I didn't.  Also....dinner was around 6pm.  If I was still drunk 8 hours later we have a problem.  Then he asked to see my ID, saw I was from San Diego, and got all excited, started talking about how he used to live there.  Then he let me go.  I'm pretty sure he just wanted someone to talk to.

5.  I was walking around the grocery store the other day.  There was this seemingly crazy woman with disheveled crazy hair, really messy, dirty, baggy clothes...she was talking to herself in a ranting, crazy tone.  I was like wow poor homeless lady.  She left when I did and got in a Mercedes and drove away.  In Santa Barbara these are rich eccentric people....anywhere else they're homeless.

6.  It hasn't been too bad lately (knock on wood) but the traffic here is ridiculous.  You could be stuck in traffic for half an hour, not moving at all....then you get to move and you're looking for some major accident.  Nothing.  Nothing at all to explain what was going on.  Or you're at a slow crawl for 40 minutes and then suddenly going 80.  (Where's that cop now?)

7. Speaking of traffic, there's only one freeway through Santa Barbara, so if anything happens on the freeway, you're not going anywhere.  For hours.

8.  When I first moved here I nannied for a nut job family that didn't put their baby in a proper carseat, even though I'm assuming they had the money, since they lived in Montecito and put the baby in a Mercedes.  They seemed to think I was supposed to be honored to work for them since they were so loaded and amazing.  They treated me like "the help" and got mad when they caught me talking to their rich "french cousin."  The help doesn't talk to the family...just the children.  The "french cousin,"  who had driven up in a vintage porsche, had started the conversation.  I quit.  I've had a couple great nanny jobs since then, but that turned me off big time.  Oh, they also were kind enough to let me know about their friend who had a place for me to live in exchange for the equivalent of $900 a month in babysitting.  It turned out to be a small room attached to the top of their house....with no closet or kitchen.  At all.  They let me know they didn't have to find me a place, it was just out of the kindness of their hearts.  Thanks.  Did I mention these people paid me the least amount of anyone I have worked for since I moved here?

9.  Santa Barbara is very against growth...they want to keep their small town feel.  That's a nice idea.  The result is that there are no Targets or Walmarts, just a disgusting run down Kmart....and virtually no drive thrus.  How can you have a Kmart instead of a Target?!

10.  When you order food from a window, and get 2 sandwiches and some fries, it should not cost $20...if it does, you're probably in Santa Barbara.

Oh Santa Barbara....I will not miss you.

Let Me Count the Ways

20 reasons I am excited to move to Oregon

1. I read here:  http://wweek.com    that there was a salon in Portland giving away a $75 deep conditioning if you would stand outside their building and reenact the scene from "Say Anything" where John Cusack wears the trench coat and plays "In Your Eyes" from his boombox.  The promotion is over but how cool is that?!

2.  The idea of visiting all of these delicious looking, cheap sources of food  http://foodcartsportland.com

There is pho!!!! and dim sum!!! and thai!!!! and EVERYTHING!!!!!

3. Being in the home of the coolest place on earth  http://www.mcmenamins.com/

4.  Weather

5.  Not having to smog my car unless we live in Portland.

6.  No sales tax

7. A house with a washer and dryer and TWO bathrooms AND A YARD.

8. Maybe college will be fun this time?

9. Living two miles from school after having commuted 45 minutes each way for two years.

10. I already have a bunch of friends in Oregon

11. The beef jerky place on the way to Corvallis

12. Closer to lots of Brian's family.

13. The green in Oregon makes California look brown.  No offense California, Oregon is just really green.

14. The beaches

15. An excuse to be pale.

16. Have you had beer in Oregon?

17.  I always loved that game Oregon Trail

18. We won't have to drive to Oregon every Christmas.

19. Powell's books

20. River Phoenix was born in Oregon, enough said.

Know what's really lame?

My hair.  

My hair is naturally super curly.  I have always hated it.  I don't hate curly hair in general, its just that I can never count on my hair to look good when I need it to.  If I straighten it, it looks good, but if I get sweaty or it rains or its foggy it will get so frizzy that I can't do anything to make it look ok again.  If I let it stay curly, it might look great, but it also might look like a freak show.  Can't predict which one will happen.  If I put it in a ponytail at any point during the day, it will totally mess up the back of my hair and leave a totally stupid looking dent in the curls.  This sucks, since I take care of babies and they will pull my hair unless I have it up.  

The second Christmas Brian and I were together he bought me a miracle.  I got my hair permanently straightened at a salon in Beverly Hills.  Its a special form of Japanese hair straightening developed by this guy Joe Kanno.  So Joe straightened my hair, even though I was convinced it would either all fall out, still look curly, be straight but look super damaged, or some other disaster would occur.  Yeah none of that happened.  My hair was straight, shiny, perfect looking.  Even the color looked new and better than ever before...and my hair was like 6 inches longer than it had been when it was curly.  When they sent me back to take off the robe thing I had been wearing, I looked in the mirror with my glasses on for the first time since they had straightened it and almost passed out.  I couldn't wash it for three days and it smelled like bacon, but I didn't care.  When I finally did wash it, I left it wet and just combed it, and it dried and looked perfect again.  Even better, it never got tangled, always looked perfect even if it rained, and didn't get dents in it if I had my hair up (or at least not as bad as before.)  Since the straightening was permanent, it stayed perfectly straight until it started to grow out, and even then it look pretty much straight, but the top of my head would get a little frizzy sometimes.  Barely anything compared to how it had been before.  After about 7 months I got it done again, and 7 months after that I got it done again.

I haven't gotten it done in a year and I think I am done with it.  This decision haunts me daily.  I decided to stop doing it because 

A. Its expensive, really expensive.

B. I will only let Joe do it and if we are moving to Oregon I don't really want to go to LA twice a year for the specific purpose of getting my hair straightened.  The Governator might go once a week, but he's the governator (yes, he goes to this specific salon once a week, and I have seen him while getting my hair done.)

C. Straight is awesome but it makes my hair REALLY straight.  As in, won't do anything at all except lay flat on the sides of my head looking nice and shiny but boring.  and flat.

D. Part of me feels like I'm living a lie and being someone I am not....walking around with straight hair makes me feel fake.  Not a lot, but a little bit.  If I had a daughter one day who had curly hair, I would feel bad that I was parading around as a straight haired person.  Its a thought that's way back in my head, but still.

So my hair has been growing out since last March and its doing weird stuff.  It pretty much still looks straight, which is crazy.  The new curly hair has grown down to about earlobe level, but the top still looks straight.  At the point where the new hair and old hair meet, there's a crazy weird triple dent.  That's the best way I can describe it.  It succeeds in making my hair look neither curly nor wavy....just messy.  I got 2 inches trimmed off the other day in the hopes that it would make the messy dent a bit more curly or wavy but it didn't.

That's about it, my hair is just lame.

wait wait wait back up

Ok so I guess I left a lot out of that last post.  First of all, I didn't write anything for 2 months.  That is basically because I had meant this blog to be about the big move we are embarking on, and I wasn't sure about the details and hadn't told the appropriate people (ie employers) so I didn't want word to get out too much.  Also, I just got really busy.  So we had Christmas and New Year's, spent 2 weeks in Oregon during a crazy snow storm that everyone kept assuring me was NOT normal, and Pat (the same Pat I had just written about) thought it would be fun to go get a brain tumor and scare the crap out of me.  Turns out its not cancer, which is nice.  Didn't find that out for like two weeks though, and then there was another two weeks of the hospital and gibberish text messages from him at 2am.  Found out later that the hospital stay included a couple reactions to meds and meningitis.  Since he didn't share that info in his drugged stupor, I just thought he was being his weird self.  Truth be told, he has had weirder moments when nothing was wrong with him.

Also, I've applied and been accepted to Western Oregon University and we are moving at the end of June or beginning of July.  WOU is in Monmouth, near Salem, OR.  Also, Monmouth is not a dry town anymore, some people feel very concerned about me living in a dry town.  Really, it will be ok.

I love Oregon, I am totally excited.  I will miss being close to family in Ventura, and some friends and definitely the kids I take care of...but the truth is that Santa Barbara definitely doesn't feel like home and Ventura isn't quite right, and I'd like to try something different than San Diego.  When we move to Oregon we will be close to lots of Brian's family, and lots of Brian's old friends who I have gotten to know during our trips up there.  Yes, I know it rains there a lot.  I don't mind rain though, and now I will have an excuse for being so pale.  Oh, and its cheaper.  SO MUCH CHEAPER.