Two of my Favorite Guys

Just a photo of two of my favorite dudes. They are pretty fun!

Food for February

February has brought a few fun meals so far. First up: I officially believe corn starch is the answer to delicious tofu.

For Coconut Kale Tofu:
-Drain, press, and slice tofu. Thinly coat with corn starch, then pan fry in a tablespoon of olive oil. 
Remove from pan, set aside.
-Sautee 1 chopped onion and 1 sliced red pepper for a few minutes, then add 1 can tomato paste blended with a bit of water and 1 can coconut milk. Simmer until it thickens a bit, and flavor with garlic, curry, and pepper.
-Add washed and torn kale for just a minute at the end, along with the cooked tofu. Serve with rice.

When we aren't eating stir fry, February calls for soup. At least in my world. This fact, combined with my ownership of a stick blender, means we have had variations on a theme: blended soups with avocado. Curried sweet potato soup topped with roasted cauliflower...

 Followed by garlic potato and corn chowder. Both topped with avocado. Because life is better with avocado.

 Gratuitous Gertie and fam shot from Jeff's visit. A brisk and sunny (and quite lovely) walk!

 First homemade pasta. And homemade french bread. All courtesy of Robin.

 Don't forget cookies!

 Our newest kitchen appliance. Homemade pasta is officially our newest obsession.

 

Unrelated, but this weekend was my dear friend A's bridal shower. Pretty fun to see where she was raised outside of Kansas City.

And now off to homework...and homemade pasta. Guess which one I am excited about?

Activist Pup.

Gertie takes a stand against urban deforestation.


(Or, Gertie finds a fun perch to watch the dog up the street. I like the first idea better.)

Foooood

While C was with us, we made some pizza. Delicious - homemade crust (thanks Mom) and kale makes everything better. Plus C could "help" me put the cheese on which was pretty fun.

Sweet potato soup: a standby at our house. This time I used some regular potatoes, as well as some sweet potatoes. I roasted cauliflower florets while I was making the soup, and they were delicious. Sweet potato soup = so easy! Boil whatever potatoes you are going to make in slightly-watered down broth. Add curry, chili powder, cayenne pepper. If you're lucky like me, use your immersion blender to blend it (I like to maintain a few clumps, but that's just me). Served with roasted cauliflower, avocado and fresh cheese is hard to beat!

 Next up, artichoke dip for a dinner get together with friends. Again, goes under the super-easy category. To make this, I used:

-1 can artichoke hearts
-1/2 block neufchatel cheese
-1/2 cup parmesan
-1/3 cup frozen spinach, drained and thawed
-1/2 onion, browned
-Garlic, seasoning salt, and pepper, to taste

Blend all ingredients in food processor, add to oven-safe container,  cover with foil and bake 350 until warm (30 minutes?). I remove the foil at the end to get the top a little brown. I served it with toasted slices of olive bread. Delicious! Honorable mention to both sets of in-laws for the containers: platter from D and J, ramekins from K and BH.

Hope your weekend is delicious!

Lazy Weekend

This weekend was filled with time with mr. C, including a rainy walk at the botanic gardens, brownie making, book reading and a lovely nap. There are few things I can recommend more than making brownies and reading with a 2 year old. Add in a video chat with my parents and a run with P and the pup and it was quite lovely.

C LOVED making brownies. So fun. Wish I had documented the mess we created when pouring them, but my hands were covered in batter ;).

C and Robin both love the climatron! 

Holy Mama!

Or rather, mother-in-law...

 A new apron for me, handmade by Kathy! So so lovely. It was a lovely birthday, complete with seeing family on MLK weekend, dinner with Phoebe and Nick, and a get together at our house. I made an apple cake from This recipe.  I neglected to take a photo, but it did not look as lovely as Martha Stewart's. However, it was quite delicious.  I also modified this recipe, to accommodate my borderline obsession with kale, and Robin made bread. All in all, a great success.

Unrelated thoughts:

Next time [you] visit, have us take you to Pho Grand. Delicious.

School is hitting with force now, but a snuggly puppy during homework is the best.

Hoping [you] have a wonderful week!

Fixed Up A Bike!

One of the year's most unexpected Christmas surprises came in the form of a great project for this red-headed cyclist: a 1997 Cannondale R900 road bike that my Uncle Jack had bought new but was no longer riding. Although it had not been ridden for several years, it seemed to be in great shape under the dust and mildew.

Since being the beneficiary of Cervélo's decision to shut down aluminum frame production (thus receiving a more valuable full-carbon warranty frameset when my frame cracked), I'd been seeking a way to have a more commuting-friendly (i.e. less expensive) road bike that I could take to work, ride in the winter/spring muck, etc. This bike would fit that bill precisely, so once I got the steed back in my 'shop' in St. Louis, I got to work:

(Yes, I forgot to take a "before" picture, but here's a shot post-cleaning and post-stripping-nearly-everything-off-the-bike)

The only core piece that needed replacing was the headset, which had pitted from the bearings. This bike was probably one of the last models to use a threaded "quill" stem, which means headset availability can be tricky (but there's something sleek and classic about this Cinelli quill). The A&M Cyclery up the street from us had me fixed up in no time though, smooth as ever with a new headset.

(Brinelling of the lower headset race)

Next came the wheels. Both got the royal treatment: thorough cleaning and overhauled hubs. No problems with the races here, and everything cleaned up great:

(Grime grime grime)

(Clean clean clean)

(Grease grease grease)


(Happy hub)


(True!)

Remarkably, and definitely to my uncle's credit, all the components looked essentially brand new after a good cleaning. For mechanical parts that were assembled when I was probably 11 years old, that's amazing.

New cables, housing (gold, naturally), chain, and cassette, and things started to look good. I noticed quickly, though, that the right shifter did not shift. Kind of a key function... The general diagnosis for malfunctioning Shimano shifters is "replacement" (at $130+ even for an identical 15-year old pair of Shimano 600s...eek). With some helpful encouragement from Google though, I found that I only had to remove a few caps, nuts, and springs before getting enough access to the innards to unleash a deluge of TriFlow spray lubricant. It took a lot of spray and working it in everywhere, but things eventually started to ratchet properly. Success!

(Partly disassembled shifter after being soaked with TriFlow)


(Reassembled and ready to go!)

The final trick was getting the brake pivots to quit binding (which left the lever with a disconcerting dead space for the first half of the brake action). The pivot functions around a plastic washer that sits around the pivot bolt, within the brake body.

(The washer sits on the bolt, hidden against the inner face of its hole in the brake arm.)

The bolt threads through the back arm of the brake to allow the front arm to snap back into place once cable tension is released. A locknut on the back holds this finicky adjustment in place. Cleaning and more TriFlow seemed to do the trick here too.

Ta-da! A spare saddle of mine, some newer Look A 3.1 pedals (these, but black) donated by my dad, fit measurements translated from my other bike(s), and here it is, still in the basement:


A million thanks to my uncle for a terrific gift - it's a great bike, and was a fun project. Rides really well and shifts great. Even the frame pump still works!

Now, what bike project would be complete without a series of gratuitous, artsy photos??