Meet the hummingbirds, part deux

Watching the hummingbirds grow up has been so fascinating and has in fact become a bit of an obsession for me.  I will usually look in on the birds while coming and going from work and occasionally a couple of times during the evening.  An interesting development is how quickly the birds have been growing which means that the mother hummingbird no longer fits inside the nest with the babies.  I don't know where she sleeps, but she'll stop in periodically to check in and say hello while perching on the side of the nest.  Apparently a hummingbirds feet are only good for perching and if they need to move even a couple of inches they will fly instead of walking.

The babies don't look like babies anymore.  They are almost the size of mom and seem to be having trouble fitting into the nest together.  There must be enough room for them to move around a little bit because sometimes they are facing the same direction and other times they are sitting beak to tail.  I am afraid that the day is fast approaching when I will look into the nest one morning only to find that the babies have begun their own lives.  When that day comes I might become an empty-nester, at least for a day or two...

Cottage Cheese and Apple pancakes with Berry Sauce

Jackie recently received the Moosewood Cookbook, which is full of delicious vegetarian recipes, and wanted to give a few of them a try.  The first recipe on the list (and there is an ever growing list) was Cottage Cheese and Apple Pancakes. There were 3 options for toppings (I think that "real" maple syrup was one), but we went with the berry sauce because lets be honest, YUM!

So, when I got home last night Jackie was in the midst of a cooking frenzy measuring and mixing ingredients.  I quickly washed up and dove in to try to help where I could, although Jackie had things very well under control.  My first task was to grate the apple which meant it was time for my mandoline...no not the instrument...the amazing kitchen gadget.  By the time I was through peeling and grating the apple the only thing left to do was beat the eggs and fold them into the batter.  We decided to only use the egg whites, but in the future we might include 1 or 2 of the yolks to add a little fat to the pancakes.

Once the skillet was hot enough I dropped the batter onto the skillet and sizzle sizzle sizzle!  A couple minutes on each side and our pancakes were ready.  Jackie made up the berry sauce using a pack of frozen berries, lemon juice and some sugar which we then applied to the steaming pancakes.  Delicious!

Cottage Chese and Apple Pancakes with Berry Sauce
Prep time: 30 minutes
Yields: 4 servings

Ingredients:
4 eggs, separated (yolks optional - use all, some or none)
1 cup cottage cheese (lowfat okay)
1 cup (packed) grated tart apple
3/4 cup flour
1 to 2 tsp. lemon juice
optional: 1 Tbs honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
optional: 2 to 3 Tbs finely minced walnuts or almonds
oil or butter for frying
1 cup fresh (or frozen, defrosted) berries
1 to 2 Tbs sugar
a few drops of fresh lemon or lime juice

Directions:
1. Beat egg whites until stiff
2. Combine all other ingredients (except toppings and frying oil) in a medium-sized bowl and mix well. Fold in the egg whites
3. Place berries, sugar and lemon/lime juice in blender or fodd processor and puree. (optional: strain through fine sieve to separate out seeds.)
4. Heat oil or melt butter in a skillet. When it is hot enough to sizzle a drop of batter on contact, add spoonfuls of batter. Fry on both sides until firm and lightly browned.
5. Top with berry sauce and serve right away.

Recap of our Portland Adventure

It has been awhile since I was on here, but I thought I would talk about the recent trip to Portland that Jackie and I took. We had been talking about taking a trip for quite awhile so one night Jackie starting researching the trip and in no time she had booked the entire adventure from start to finish!


The trip started out at 5:00 am when we had to wake up in order to get dressed and catch our bus into downtown Seattle. By 7:30 we were checked in with Amtrak and boarding our train for the 3 hour ride into Portland. The trip was relaxing and scenic and although I don't think that it saved us time I do think that it was much easier and less stressful than driving and fighting highway traffic. After arriving in Portland we set out for the Bed and Breakfast where we would be staying.

Portland has a great light rail system that makes getting around the city very easy so we bought our tickets and set out from the train station. It wasn't until later that we realized that we were riding in a free ride zone and didn't actually need a ticket...oops. Our B&B was a 15 minute walk from the light rail station which gave us an opportunity to get our first taste of the city. The B&B that we were staying at is called Portland's White House Bed and Breakfast and it lives up to it's name! The building looks like a small version of the White House and the decorum continues throughout the entire house.

After checking in we dropped our bags off in our room and found 2 fresh baked oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies which were to die for! We then spent the rest of the day wandering around the city browsing through fun shops and eating and fun restaurants and cafes. If you are ever in Portland and have any appreciation for books, magazines, reading, or literature then you must go to Powell's Books which is by far the largest book store of new and used books that I have ever seen. The science fiction section alone was bigger than some book stores and contained authors that I have never heard of. Eventually I was so overwhelmed that I had to leave otherwise I don't think that I could have ever pulled myself away.

The second day in the Portland ended up raining all day so we spent most of the day sloshing around the city dodging into shops to dry off. We spent most of our time in the Pearl district which seemed to be a little more modern and boutique than the rest of the city that we had seen. After a nice lunch at the Deschutes Brewery we started back for the train station to begin our trip home. The train ride home was not quite as relaxing and stress free as the trip down due mainly to the 8 year old girl bouncing around the cabin with no response from her parents. Eventually we arrived back in Seattle and made our way into the Seattle bus tunnel to catch a bus back to Kirkland and spend the remainder of our weekend vacation relaxing and preparing for the week ahead.

Getting out of the city for a long day and a half was great and I am looking forward to our next excursion. Amtrak just recently resumed service to Leavenworth so maybe that will be in our future.

Can you really trust a groundhog?

Good morning, afternoon and evening and welcome to the newest installment of "Our Life", costarring the adroit and beautiful Jackie and the dashing and whimsical Dave. So, how is that for an introduction to my first blog post, eh? I'm sure Jackie will be rolling her eyes at this point, but it is all part of my whimsical nature and boyish charm!

Between work and social commitments life has stayed busy for Jackie and me, but there has been plenty of wonderful experiences to keep life interesting. For instance, for Christmas we received theater tickets from my aunt Jean and last week Jackie and I went to the 5th Avenue theater to see the new play, Memphis, which is a story about the beginning of Rock 'n Roll in the South back in the 50s. We laughed, we cried, we laughed some more and then at intermission we shared a cookie bar; all-in-all it was a wonderful evening! With all of the oppurtunities for theater, symphony, opera, etc. we will hopefully be attending more of these events in the near future.

Jackie's step-brother, Chris, his wife Tina and their children (Jackie's niece and nephew) Noelle and Landon were up visiting from California a couple of weekends back. Although Jackie is probably slightly biased I have to agree that her niece and nephew are absolutely adorable. We spent most of Sunday afternoon at Redmond Town Center and then Jackie went back to Bremerton where she spent Monday searching for rocks and shells on the beach with Noelle and building a small snowman. The snowman wasn't so much a snowman as a small mound of snow with a pair of stick arms and a little nose, but it was enough to make the kids happy and was a great introduction to snow.


Although Seattle has been getting more snow than usual, the Cascade mountains have been getting slightly less than usual. This however has not stopped Jackie and me from trekking up to the mountains to brave the icy slopes and man-made snow in the name of adventure and a small hope on my part that conditions will turn out to be better than expected. Conditions haven't been horrible, but I am still holding out for more snow as we move into the Spring skiing season. In fact I was so confident about the Spring season that I recently bought a new ski rack for my car so we can place our skis on top of the car instead of taking up the entire back of the car. The best part is that we can now bring additional people with us and still have room for everyone's gear. An added bonus is that we will be able to use the same rack to mount a bike rack on top of my car so our bikes don't have to be shoehorned in the back seat anymore.

Speaking of biking and skiing, this last weekend I had the immense pleasure of doing both in the same weekend. Where else but the Pacific Northwest can a person go biking on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon and then turnaround and go skiing in the mountains less than an hour away on Sunday, in February no less? The bike ride was fairly short, but in that time I realized that I am not quite in "biking shape" anymore. However, the purpose of the bike ride was, while a great excuse to get some exercise and some wonderful fresh air, primarily a means of getting myself to the grocery store. My shopping list consisted of a long list of ingredients which I eventually used to make (excuse me while I brag a little) some of the best vegetarian chili around! Originally I had even planned on using all fresh, dried beans and rehydrating them, but decided to go with canned beans for the sake of time. What I had not fully considered was the fact that 12 cans of various varieties of beans and tomatoes weighs quite a lot which all needed to fit in my backpack...yeah I am glad it was a short bike ride. Did I mention that the chili was amazing?!

So, as some people may have heard, our little fuzzy friend Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday which calls for another 6 weeks of winter. I don't know about other people, but when it is consistently getting to be in the upper 40s to low 50s and it hasn't rained in Seattle for 2 weeks I start to think about Spring, not winter. But who am I to second guess a 123 year tradition? After 123 years that little groundhog probably has a pretty good handle on the meterological patterns of the lower 48 states so if he says we will see another 6 weeks of winter then I will be waxing my skis and loading up on handwarmers and long underwear!

That about does it for this post, I plan on posting again soon.