Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Mind over matter

After a bit of debate, I decided to officially toss my hat into the unemployed ring and file for unemployment.  This is a completely new experience for me, but after the initial paperwork and approval process, I’ve settled into the routine of filing a weekly claim.

It’s pretty easy since it can be done online, but I have to report in person every four weeks to one of the local career centers.  For my first four week report, I drove to the nearest location, which was more or less on the way to my MIL’s, where I headed afterward to pick up Gabriel.

Last week, I planned my second four-week check-in to coincide with a time when my father-in-law was coming over to watch Gabriel for a couple of hours.  The night before, I realized that there was no excuse for driving the car to the career center and no reason I couldn’t bike there.

Still, I spent that evening and the morning-of flip flopping between biking and driving.  At less than four miles away on familiar streets, the trip was completely doable by bike, but most of my bike trips these days have been of the 2-4 mile round trip variety, and this would be more in the 7-8 mile range.  And, while the route was plenty familiar from inside a car, there were parts that I hadn’t biked before.

The heavy rain overnight and the gray clouds, with the threat of more rain, didn’t help sway me toward the bike.  Still, as my departure time approached, it wasn’t actively raining, or at least not much, and the radar revealed that the clouds’ bark was probably worse than their bite.

In the end, the opportunity to get some exercise on the way to and from a not so fun errand won out, and I dressed for biking (and the possibility of getting wet).  I rode Baby Jake for the first time in quite awhile (I’ve been riding Bub exclusively since we moved here in June), and the hardest part of the whole ride was just getting the bike ready for the errand — tires aired up, milk crate reattached to the rear rack, etc.

While I encountered a few sprinkles as I set out, I reached my destination invigorated and relatively dry, happy in my transportation choice.  By the time of my return trip, the sun broke through the clouds to reveal a beautiful fall morning.  I arrived home, very happy that I’d silenced the excuses in my head and opted to go by bike.

Injera stew

One of the many restaurants we tried in Portland was Queen of Sheba, an Ethiopian restaurant.  While we have an Ethiopian restaurant we like quite a lot in St. Louis, Queen of Sheba made the cut for its mushroom dishes and the fact that it was an easy walk for picking up take-out.

Given many of the green efforts I witnessed at various Portland eating establishments, I was disappointed by the plastic take-out containers.  I mean, I knew take-out would generate waste of some form or another, and we were able to recycle the containers, but it was not ideal.

Anyway, the food was quite good, but we were left with our standard Ethiopian meal dilemma — leftover injera.  While the various Ethiopian stews reheat quite nicely, I can’t say the same for injera, the sourdough “pancake” that is both a bed for the stews and the means of scooping up the food.

A couple of searches for uses for leftover injera didn’t turn up much, so I decided to wing it.  I should add here that Matthew was very skeptical of my approach to this dish, which in turn made me a bit nervous, especially since I was cooking for his sister and her boyfriend as well.  However, I continued with my impromptu plan and heard no complaints as we devoured most of the stew in one sitting.

Injera stew

Recipe by Melissa
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
5-6 c. vegetable broth, or water plus vegetable boullian
3/4 c. orange lentils (small and quick cooking)
2-3 c. prepared tomato sauce or tomato puree
4-6 c. veggies, including onions, carrot, garlic, kale or other greens
4-5 cups chopped leftover injera
1 t. cumin

Directions
Place lentils in large pot (we’ll be adding other ingredients to the pot later).  Cover lentils with water and cook until tender.  While the lentils cook, chop and saute the veggies in a mix of butter and olive oil.  The veggies should be tender-crisp, just enough of a saute to pick up some fat and flavor — they’ll cook more in the stew.

Add sauteed veggies, broth, tomato sauce, injera pieces, and cumin to the pan with the cooked lentils.  Stir to combine, cover, and simmer to 20 minutes, or until vegetables reach desired tenderness.  Stir every once and awhile, and add more broth or water if it gets too thick.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve hot in large bowls.

Portland eats

We embarked on our Portland trip with a long list of recommended restaurants, and a good bit of our time there (and most of the money we spent) revolved around food — the norm for us.  We needed plenty of good food to fuel our week of biking, walking, and hiking in and around Portland.

We didn’t have time to hit everywhere on our list, so we prioritized eateries and food that we are less likely to find in StL, with a few home-cooked meals interspersed, to sate our love of cooking and save a bit of money.

Our first meal out in Portland was lunch at a farmers’ market, where we enjoyed artichoke-goat cheese tamales.  That evening, we had burritos at Cha Cha Cha — the Oregon Harvest burrito was our favorite.  Despite being stuffed, the neighboring ice cream shop lured us in for a scoop of amazing browned butter almond brittle, which we shared as we walked home.

Over the next few days, we enjoyed “The Oregon” pastry from Ken’s Artisan Bakery, house-made ramen noodles at Boke Bowl, ice cream at Ruby Jewel, and Ethiopian take-out from Queen of Sheba.

Over the weekend, we drove to the coast to camp in yurts and enjoy some grilled goodies.  I took charge of the grilled corn project, with unexpectedly good results (stay tuned for tutorial post).

The feast also included grilled bread with delicious Oregon tomatoes, grilled crackers with smoked Brie, veggie dogs, and baked beans.

The only thing missing was hot chocolate (it was cold at the coast!).  We remedied that with a stop at Cacao for some drinking chocolate, but not until Monday when we were back in Portland.

Other than chocolate (and more pastries), our final days included not one, but two (very different) Thai meals, homemade injera stew (recipe later this week), and a vegan BBQ food truck.

The [very] spicy mushroom salad at Pok Pok, which is known for authentic Thai street food.

Our vegan BBQ meal included tempeh ribs, seitan pastrami, and some tasty sweet potato fries.

We capped off our visit with a date night at Kuhn Pic’s Bahn Thai.  Tucked into an old Victorian house, Kuhn Pic’s is a labor of love for couple who run it (she cooks, he takes care of the front of the house).

The restaurant puts the S-L-O-W in “slow food,” which is important to know ahead of time — have a good-sized late afternoon/early evening snack, plan on spending at least two hours there, and you’ll be ready to enjoy some beautiful and delicious Thai food.

Our feast included the spring rolls, with the amazing peanut sauce for dipping, and two entries we shared — pad see ew and drunken noodles.  We left tired and happy, my head filled with crazy ideas of attempting some kind of similar restaurant concept in StL.

Bike Portland

I knew I couldn’t go to Portland without experiencing the bike scene firsthand, so I was thrilled when Matthew’s sister told us she would have bikes and a trailer for us.  There would also be two extra adult helmets awaiting us, so, with Gabriel’s helmet in our checked bag, we were good to go.

When we arrived, we toured the Bike Cave and saw our rides for the week – two shiny blue road bikes and a Burley double wide trailer.  I was a bit apprehensive about Gabriel in the trailer, since he very much prefers the front seat at home (as do I), but after looking at it, we’d decided it didn’t really make sense to bring the IBert with us.  (The seat is small compared to a trailer, but it would have required another checked bag.)

As anyone who bikes often knows, there’s no bike quite like YOUR bike.  Matthew and I both missed our properly fitted bikes, nose-less  saddles, and more upright riding positions.  That said, bringing our own bikes on this trip really wasn’t feasible, so having two nice bikes, outfitted with locks and lights, no less, at our disposal for the week was quite nice.

Our first ride was a short jaunt to a weekday downtown farmers’ market.  We used the Broadway Bridge to cruise into downtown, noting that we’d be heading uphill on the return trip.  After lunch at the market, we headed home for Gabriel’s nap.

Unfortunately, as Matthew was shifting on the uphill approach to the bridge, his chain derailed.  Hot midday sun, chain wedged tightly, tired and uncomfortable baby, stressed parents, and baby falling asleep in trailer and being rudely awakened combined for a not so great return trip and the decision to trade in the bikes for feet for the rest of that day.

In the interest of maximizing our time and trying to keep to a fairly regular nap schedule (and because Matthew, especially, was uncomfortable on the bike), we compromised and made more trips in the car than I would have preferred, but such is life these days.

On Saturday morning, Matthew and I enjoyed a solo bike ride to visit a couple of bakeries and make a grocery run in preparation for our trip to the Oregon coast.  I enjoyed shopping at the Trader Joe’s located right in the middle of Portland – very accessible by bike.

So . . . a few thoughts and observations on biking in Portland
Well, I am pleased to report that I did not get ticketed or arrested for refusing to let the paint think for me (i.e., obey their mandatory bike lane statute) while cycling around the city.

Going into the “Best Biking City in America,” the number of cars surprised (and disappointed) me.  But after putting things into perspective (bikes make up a 6-8% mode share in Portland, which, while huge compared to most American cities, still means that less than one out of ten trips are made by bicycle) and settling in a bit, I did notice some differences.

First, hanging out at the house in the evenings, we heard a slow but steady stream of cyclists passing by on the small street, something that does not happen on our similarly sized street at home in St. Louis.  Second, most motorists seemed pretty tuned in to interactions with other road users (both cyclists and pedestrians).  Most surprising to me were the multiple occasions where four lanes of traffic stopped at an intersection (when they didn’t have to, unless there’s some ordinance I’m not aware of) to allow bicyclists stopped at a stop sign on the smaller cross street to cross.  Without this courtesy, we would have been waiting quite awhile for a break in the traffic.

Most of these interactions happened at intersections on bikeways.  In Portland, bikeways are regular streets (open to all types of vehicle traffic) that have just a few tweaks to make them better for bicycling – well-placed sharrows, 20MPH speed limits, and minimal stop signs.  Some of the bikeways have low, broad speed bumps, designed to not be a big deal for bikes, while still serving as traffic calming for motor vehicles.

On the other hand . . .
The “bike accommodations” on the bridges were basically extra wide sidewalks.  I felt pretty uncomfortable riding across the Broadway Bridge, with the relatively low height of the railing and my higher center of gravity on the bike.  I wouldn’t have wanted to ride there in heavier bike traffic, because I felt a simple crash could send me plunging into the river far below.

In such a situation, I would have been better off traveling in the normal traffic lanes (especially for the downhill trip), but I’m not sure what reception I would have received from other drivers (both car and bike) for not being where I was “supposed” to be.

On that note, I did hear one person tell us to get on the sidewalk/bike lane as we approached the bridge that first day, right before the unfortunate chain incident, so even Portland has its ignorant and discourteous types.

I also saw plenty of bicyclists who could use a good cycling education course, though I have to admit that figuring out the various types of bike facilities at the same time I was navigating a new city made my own actions a bit less predictable than ideal.

We preferred the routes with “regular” streets or the bikeways to roads with bike lanes.  When we found ourselves on the bike lane roads, we usually opted out of using them, or rode in them with EXTREME caution, mindful of the dangers of being in a less visible position.

All in all, it was a good experience.  Navigating a new city by any mode can be a bit intimidating, but I’d rather figure things out on a bike (or on foot) than in a car any day of the week.  Gabriel did much better in the trailer than I expected, and we all enjoyed experiencing Portland by it’s most heralded (if still a minority) form of transportation.

I hopped off the plane at PDX with my babe and a carry-on

Hi there!  For those not in the airport code know, we recently returned from a little trip to Portland, Oregon.  With a 14-month along for the ride, it was most definitely NOT a vacation, but all-in-all, things went well.

We enjoyed our time and our adventures eating, biking, and hiking our way around Portland and surrounding areas.  We definitely had the too much to do/too little time issue, and between that and the aforementioned babe toddler, we stumbled, rather than hopped, off the plane back in StL.

Unfortunately, Portland tales and pictures will have to wait until later in the week, because we returned home to no internet.  Long story short, let’s just say it’s a shitty situation (literally), and I’m in serious email/blog/net-surfing withdrawal.