but don’t try it yet, because it suddenly stopped working!

promises to update more frequenly!

some stuff i’ve made for dinner recently that is going in my permanent rotation:

1. sweet potato risotto. it makes this great big batch, but i usually eat it all that night. as opposed to any rice dish i usually make that usually turns out to be too much no matter how i cut down the recipe. i’m obsessed with discovering “the best” of things i use, so i read about the best risotto brand on cooks illustrated website (RiceSelect Arborio Rice).

here is the recipe, adapted from REAL SIMPLE MAGAZINE

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 small sweet potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, (i always use the garlic press, baby!)
1 cup Arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (2 ounces)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, 4 to 6 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes.

Add the rice and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring frequently, until absorbed.

Measure 3 1/2 cups of water. Add 3/4 cup at a time and cook, stirring occasionally and waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding the next. It should take 25 to 30 minutes for all the water to be absorbed. After you add about 2 cups, taste to see if it’s the firmness you like. I stop adding water at this point.

Stir in the Parmesan and sage, more fresh ground pepper.

ok, more delicious dishes later. i’m tired.

each event deserves its own post for sure.  

thursday we drove to san luis obispo, ca to get some firestone.  

ok, the first thing we did was eat at firestone, 

but we actually went to attend gavin and melanie’s wedding and all the accomanying festivities.   

gavin and jake have been best friends for years, since they were little kids,

13 years old here, but friends since early grade school.

and gavin was best man at our wedding.

photographers love these guys. they are not camera shy. clint, shane, matt, jake, gavin, pat.

we stayed in a vacation rental house a couple miles from the ceremony site.  it was beautiful, on a couple of acres in the countryside of Arroyo Grande.

we got to see gianna, 5 months old, shane and amanda’s baby.

adorable, no? those cheeks are edible. she was an angel the whole weekend.

shane was in our wedding, and gavin and jake were in shane’s. 

gavin, shane as groom, pat, jake.

we stayed in the house with all the groomsmen, matt and lisa, chad, john, jason and his girlfriend erica.

the ceremony was on a bluff overlooking shell beach in pismo beach.

the view for the guests. the hazy sunset created a glare in this picture.

mel and gavin at the rehearsal. jake being goofy in the background.

even though gavin and melanie live on the east coast, they wanted to get married near cal poly, where they–and jake, shane and pat, and matt and amanda–went to college. 

college was where they did crazy stuff like this:

for halloween, they went as the awesome boy band “476 degrees” (they lived at 476 chorro street in slo.)

i don’t have any pictures of the actual wedding because my camera was commandeered the night before the wedding and 75 of virtually the same picture was taken (of all the people staying in the house) in downtown slo after the rehearsal dinner.  this enthusiasm wore out my camera’s batteries.  fortunately, they thought to hire a photographer, whose pictures probably turned out better than mine would have.  click here to view some of said pictures.

the reception was at holland ranch, prompting me to tell jake we need to get our hands on an old barn quick and join the wedding business.

as promised it was an awesome reception, where we sang (sweet caroline, livin’ on a prayer and so much more), danced (sexyback, sexyback and sexyback)  and drank root beer floats , breaking wall fixtures while trying to do the “dolphin” (okay, that was only shane) doing the “carlton” dance to the tom jones song (okay, that was just amanda), and had to be practically kicked out of the barn at the end of the night (pictures to be added later, i hope).

then there was the lovely sunday brunch, because the party should never stop, especially when everyone is there together!

and THEN we came home to the news that…………………………………………baby kai was about to be born!!

to be continued……

i have, to my own chagrin, the song “rock me sexy, jesus” running through my head most days of the week.

i am smitten with smittenkitchen. i just made grapefruit yogurt poundcake, and i am in the middle of making kefta and zucchini kebabs. it smells so good i want to eat the meat raw. but i won’t, i promise. i wish i had more pictures, but i cook in the later evening and it’s dark when everything’s done.

i just heard a good joke. it’s not only that was bush born on third and thinks he hit a triple, but bush came into the office on third and then stole second. i’m listening to the speeches at the dnc on the radio. i’m pretty sure that most people reading this are republicans, so sorry.

i went back to school august 11th, school started the 19th. it’s always a busy time. the counselors have to set up summer school before we leave, so it’s hard to prepare for the beginning of school, and since i’ve been there, the schedules haven’t been “loaded” until we get back from summer, so there is tons and tons of work to do in less than a week. i worked last saturday and sunday, trying to get everyone’s schedules fixed before school started. maybe i was a wee too enthusiastic, because i completely strained my wrist, giving myself tendonitis, or wrist strain, unspecified. i like that phrase, unspecified. it’s much more upscale than random. random has gone the way of totally. they used to be legitimate words, now they’re just valley girl speak.

some one threw away these old athletic bags at school, and someone else dug them out of the trash, washed them, and gave them away at the staff party on saturday. i was pretty pleased with them and snatched two. there were extras…i don’t think everyone appreciates the vintageness of them.

this is the fate of most of brophy’s toys…poor little bear.

driving by the ocean twice a day, but getting the best view on the way home from work, which is amazing every single time. it’s been looking especially aqua lately, which is my most favorite color.

having the check engine light turn out to be nothing, and not even getting charged for the service guy to figure that out.

not seeing a flea in two days.

recipes are difficult to write, because if i don’t make it all up, i use a mixture of recipes i find online and adjust them as i see fit. i’m sure you do the same. especially for salad, you don’t need to measure, you just use as much of each ingredient that you think is good, or how much you actually have. aside from the salad dressing, such is this recipe.

kelly’s awesome taco salad

1.25 lb ground turkey
half an onion
two cloves garlic
olive oil
cumin
chili powder
cayenne pepper
salt
less than one can pinto beans
less than one can black beans
about 1/2 cup corn kernels
romaine lettuce
half a tomato (because only i eat tomato)
avocado
trader joe’s organic white corn tortilla chips

dressing, adapted from martha stewart:
3/4 cup lowfat plain yogurt or light sour cream thinned with milk (i tried both, they taste about the same)
half cup cilantro, very finely minced or just throw all dressing ingredients in the blender
salt
juice from half a lime
a wee bit o’ very finely minced jalapeno…i started with about a teaspoon because i didn’t want it to be too hot, and it was enough to make it very mild.

so, when i make taco meat, this is how i do it: cook the onion, super finely chopped, and minced garlic in olive oil until very soft (medium low heat) add turkey, salt it, and chop up so it’s finely crumbled when cooking is complete. brown, drain the fat. i use a ratio of two parts cumin to one part each chili powder and cayenne pepper, differing amounts depending on how much meat i’m cooking. about two T of cumin for a pound of turkey (or beef). then i add about 3-4 T of unauthentic la victoria red taco sauce. for the salad i added the beans, probably about a cup, just until it looked pretty.

then i just piled the meat/beans on some lettuce, added some corn, tomatoes, half an avocado for each of us, dressing and crumbled up chips. i bought some cheese (pepper jack) for it, but i think it was complete without it!

q's sushi a go-go on state street

so, five years ago today, i met jake at Q’s in santa barbara. holly and i went downtown for fiesta.
it turned out that jake knew a co-worker of mine and had watched her baby for her. though this is the only time in his life he has ever baby-sat, holly misunderstood what i told her and assumed i was interested in dating a “manny.”

but it did give him some credibility with me, so i gave him my phone number before we left.