Off the Waffle, Ankeny Vineyard & Wild Abandon

I’ve mentioned my love for my little farmer’s market Belgium waffles. But Off the Waffle in Eugene, OR takes Liège waffles (or Belgium Pearl Sugar Waffles) to a new level. 

On top of this sugary, chewy, dense (awesome!) waffle was avocado, goat cheese, a fried egg, fresh basil and smoked paprika.

Action shot.

My mom ordered the waffle with avocado, tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil. Really outstanding. Sophie chose this gem for us to stop in for lunch, before we dropped her off at her new cute house right next to the U of O campus.

On our way back from Eugene, my mom and I stopped by Ankeny Vineyard to do a little wine tasting.

It was a gorgeous setting with amazing weather.

Their dessert wine literally tasted like alcoholic honey – in a good way. But we both agreed no one ever drinks dessert wines, so we opted for the rosé.

The trip home took a turn for the worse when we hit commuter traffic and went approximately 30 miles in 2 hours. We painstakingly number crunched to figure out that we went 15 miles an hour for 2 hours…ouch. Good thing we didn’t have to make dinner when we got home!

I had two pieces of the garlic bread and the Willamette Dream Salad from Wild Abandon.  The Dream included “prawns'” read: shrimp, with grilled apple, currants, candied pecans and gorgonzola.

Somehow eating and drinking all day has worn me out! It’s time for some book reading in bed.

Orange Sesame Glazed Salmon

Another day spent eating my way through Portland. We don’t usually retrace our steps with restaurants since this city as so many of them, but Mom and I brought John and Sophie back to Meriwether’s to experience the Reuben and finally try the bread pudding we’d been eyeing.

Melted chocolate bread pudding with a burnt sugar banana. I’ll admit it’s an aggressive after lunch treat, but it was moment-of-silence good.

I wasn’t going to mention this. It’s slightly embarrassing. Actually kind of gross, in my case. But I must share with you what a stellar bowler I am.

At first I was discouraged because I only brought one sock. But after I found a local brew at the bowling alley’s bar and started whoopin’ the others butts, things improved. Maybe it helped to only have one sock on.

Don’t worry, I have since sanitized my foot to ward off any staph infections.

Speaking of embarrassing things, I must express the daily embarrassment I face as a food blogger. Not only with family and friends, but taking pictures of your croissant in a crowded bakery forces you to swallow your pride. Telling your family “no touching!” the dessert before you can snap a few pictures isn’t easy.

John captured me in the act at dinner last night. So much for being discrete.

Tonight’s message on my teabag was very appropriate. I should embrace my food blogger identity with pride, so I’m working on my embarrassment - but it’s tough!

Back to tonight’s dinner. We decided on a salmon recipe from one of my new fav blogs: Simply Scratch.

Half of the marinade becomes the salad dressing, which is yummy, salty-sweet.

For a salad, we combined spinach, arugula, cabbage and added bell pepper, carrots and cucumber.

And a side dish of grapefruit, bananas, blueberries with mint and honey.

Orange Sesame Glazed Salmon

3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
Juice and zest from half an orange
Red pepper flakes
4 6-ounce wild caught salmon filets
sesame seeds
olive oil for pan

Whisk together the first 4 ingredients in a small bowl. Pour half the mixture over the fish filets, and reserve the other half for dressing the salad. Preheat the broiler while the fish marinate. Transfer fish to a foil covered pan and broil for 8-12 minutes. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the fish right before they’re finished cooking to briefly toast the seeds.

Chicken Salad & Veritable Quandary

Meet Stella.

She’s basically the best dog ever. Her breath could be improved, but besides that she’s perfect.

At approximately 11:36 this morning I made my lunch. Luckily I have the excuse of time zone change on my side. Plus, there was leftover chicken salad chilling in the fridge just waiting to be turned into a sandwich.

I had to take advantage of a refrigerator stocked with fruits and veggies, so I loaded those onto my small plate. Haven’t you heard? Small plates = portion control. Though they probably don’t account for my overloading technique.

Lemon Tarragon Chicken Salad

4 cups diced cooked chicken
1 rib minced celery
1/4 cup chopped fresh tarragon
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

In a medium bowl, combine chicken, celery, tarragon and almonds. In a small bowl, combine yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add to chicken mixture and toss to coat. Chill.

This also pushed up happy hour on the deck to 4:45.

Thank goodness Sophie and I fit in a yoga + improv-zumba session this morning or I would be feeling pretty darn guilty about my indulgent dinner at Veritable Quandary.

John and I both opted for the salad (ha!) that consisted of a poached egg atop butter lettuce, crispy cornbread, smoked bacon, pickled onions and buttermilk white cheddar dressing. I love eggs in strange places.

Sophie got the ravioli with lemon and fromage blanc, summer vegetables, basil, arugula pesto and toasted hazelnuts.

Mom chose the blackened cod with pineapple, slaw and Yukon gold potatoes. Dinner was great, but the highlight was dessert.

The peanut brittle banana split with Belgium chocolate hot fudge, Chantilly cream and homemade peanut brittle ice cream.

And the peach blackberry crisp with frozen lemon custard. There were threats of licking the plates in public. Serious threats.

When I got home, I immediately put on a pot of tea – not before changing into loose PJs– to help settle my stomach. All symptoms of a fabulous dinner.

White Bean Tuna Salad & Goat Cheese Cherry Bruschetta

It’s a miracle. I made it home in one piece and on the right date. Air travel is always a gamble. I didn’t help anything by showing up at the wrong airport. DC has too many airports! It could happen to anyone, probably. The breakdown/stressball that I became during the mad dash from Dulles to Reagan was fun for everyone…especially that toll booth man I screamed at. That was unnecessary.

I just had to get home. It’d been over 5 months! It felt amazing waking up in my own bed - minus the small stress hangover – and going for a nice long run to get my engines back to neutral.

Mom and I had a celebratory lunch at Meriwethers in my favorite Portland neighborhood. Super cute outdoor patio and their produce is grown on their own 5 acre farm nearby.



We split the nectarine, tomato, ricotta and prosciutto salad.

And the most delectable Reuben sandwich ever. I couldn’t even speak when the waiter asked us “how everything was tasting”. Is it just me, or do other people get rendered speechless when eating amazing food? The homemade Russian dressing with little pickles was on point.

There was shopping, napping, dog walking and other productive activities like that, before we started on dinner. My mom’s cherry and goat cheese bruschetta (originally a Whole Foods recipe) is brilliant. And a million times more fun to make when you have a cherry pitter.



This could become a really daunting appetizer without a cherry pitter.

Sisters hard at work.

Goat Cheese & Cherry Bruschetta

6 crusty bread slices,toasted
4 ounces goat cheese
2 cups cherries, pitted and quartered
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
handful fresh mint, chopped

Mix cherries, orange juice and mint together and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Spread goat cheese on toasted bread, then top with cherry mixture.

Purrty rainbow tomatoes to go into Giada’s White Bean Tuna Salad.

White Bean Tuna Salad

2 6 ounce cans white meat tuna, packed in water
2 15 ounce cans cannelini white beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup small capers
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
1/2 medium red onion, diced
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
6 fresh basil leaves, julienned
2 cups arugula
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Add first five ingredients to a large bowl. Toss together and let flavors marry while you chop the vegetables. Add onion, tomatoes and basil to mixture and toss to combine. Mix lemon juice and olive oil, then dress the arugula. Plate tuna salad over a bed of the arugula salad. 

Lots of yummy recipes and restaurants to come!

PS. Why is it that the most amazing food is found on the west coast? Maybe it's the weather.

Peach Salsa

Tomorrow is our office’s wild and crazy end-of-fiscal-year party at my boss’s house. I’ve heard rumors of margaritas, karaoke machines, and most importantly, free dinner. I couldn’t pass this opportunity up to make something for the group. 

During my daily blog trolling, this Summer Peach Salsa recipe jumped out at me. It’s easy and yummy and colorful. The trick to the recipe is blanching the peaches to make the skin easier to peel off.

“X” the bottom and throw it in some boiling water for 1 minute, then immediately into ice water.

The skin comes right off! Unless it’s not ripe like one of mine, then its still a pain in the neck to peal.

I bet this would be delicious on top of fish, or in shrimp/fish tacos. But it works just fine with chips.

Recipe:
3 ripe peaches, about 1 pound
1/4 cup red onion, diced small
1/4 cup red bell pepper, seeded and diced small
1/2 - 1 jalapeno pepper, minced (more or less to taste)
1 tablespoon minced fresh mint (or more to taste)
Juice from 1/2 lime
Kosher salt, to taste

First you need to peel the peaches. Fill a large stockpot with water and bring to a boil. Cut a small X into the bottom of each peach. Drop the peaches into the boiling water for approximately 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, remove the peaches and immediately submerge into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Gently peel the peaches using your hands or a paring knife (the riper the peach, the easier this will be). Dice the peaches into small cubes.

Combine the chopped peaches, onion, bell pepper, jalapeno, mint, and lime juice. Season with a pinch of kosher salt. Chill for one hour to allow flavors to combine and serve immediately.

Exposé on Tryst and Mint Oreo Truffles

I know, I know. I’ve made Oreo truffles at least 3 times on this blog already. But these are mint Oreos. And they’re for a very important event: Bachelorette Finale. JP or Ben F?!

There is a coupon-like website that's called scoutmob that has daily deals to restaurants in your area - but unlike other sites, these are free coupons!  Tryst, a coffee house/bar/restaurant in Adams Morgan was featured on their site last week, so Evan and I went to try out it.


The place is cool and funky, with old mismatched sofas, a copper plated ceiling and an even funkier clientele. This shouldn’t have been an issue, but I kid you not, I think we were discriminated against for not being funky enough. I ordered a banana, strawberry and pineapple smoothie to start and when it arrived it was just the smoothie in a glass.

Around us, I noticed people who had ordered the same thing, but they were served with a garnish of pineapple AND animal crackers. I was suspicious, but after a 25 minute wait for our deli sandwiches – and noticing others getting their food way before us – I put it together. We must have had Starbucks written all over us. Other than that, the food was delicious.

I had the turkey, avocado, sprout sandwich with homemade veggie cream cheese.

Evan had the roast beef with red peppers, feta and tahini dressing. I’ll probably go back for the food, there were just too many interesting sandwiches to try!
Hip, Hip, Hooray! It’s August! That means I’m closer to going home to Portland (6 days!), trip to Charleston!, brisk mornings, football Saturdays in Chapel Hill, sweaters

The things I will definitely miss will be the fresh fruit and tomatoes. Ah, and the Summer House sandwich from Jetties: