vanessa.oxygenvalve.com

I was cleaning up in the Sprout’s room and found an old photo of yours truly. HA! Look at that little devil face; OMG, we are so screwed!

My mother used to threaten me by saying, “I hope, when you grow up, you have a child just like you!” Maybe all parents say that to their offspring… but I’m starting to dread those words like a gypsy curse. Judging by what my Mother-In-Law has said about Mike, and how I know I acted as a youngster, this little boy is going to give us a run for our money!! I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Clearly, I don’t have a choice. :)

I don’t know what possessed me, but something made me do it. Maybe it’s because I had a bunch of heavy cream and didn’t want it to go to waste… or maybe I was craving it, but I made a chocolate cake last week—drum roll please—FROM SCRATCH! With fresh whipped cream on top! I know! I’m sort of shocked about it too.

I had been eyeing a recipe in Natural Health Magazine from way back in November. I dog-eared the page, and since it’s been in the bathroom… I’ve been seeing it a lot. Enough said about my tiny pregnancy bladder. I looked on the Natural Health website, but it’s not there. However, I found it here (recipe is at the bottom of the page). It’s the dark chocolate chile cake. The only omission I made was the pumpkin puree in the whipped cream. I didn’t want to buy a can of puree, only to use 1 tablespoon. Plus, I added a couple of shakes of cayenne pepper to the cake batter to give it a little kick (although Mike claims it could have been spicier).

Just revel in its chocolatey goodness! Mmmmm.

Given my experience with baking debacles (of which I’ve had MANY), this cake came out perfectly! I will definitely be making it again.

Coff-ay in my press-pot makes me happy...

I thought it might be fun to carry around the little Kodak V1073 we got from Vanessa’s last job (ew) the battery life is bad, and it doesn’t’ use batteries but it takes some really nice pictures for a tiny little camera! I make no promises… okay, I promise to post one photo a day. Until I run out of stuff on my desk. ;)

As you have read, Vanessa and I have basically rediscovered cooking. On Saturday we made pork vindaloo and man was it good.

I started-off making the curry in the afternoon, since this was a big undertaking. Seriously, I’m going from making toast and grilling in the summer to all-out ethnic dishes from all over the world! I toasted-up the nuts and then threw everything into the new food processor to blend it up. After a small disaster with the spatula (you should read the directions that come with your food processor) … lets just say I was lucky to find the small piece of spatula in the curry that it hacked-off.

Curry... now with NO ground spatula!

Later in the evening we started-in on the meal proper. Vanessa started in on the three-part process of making the rice. Yeah, you heard me… THREE steps for RICE. The recipe was pretty easy to put together. Here’s me with our new cutting board and knife. I wasn’t aware that you ever use the stem of the cilantro, I always see the leaves in salsa so figured the rest was crap.

Choppin' Cilantro!

One thing I enjoy about Jamie’s book is that it usually has pretty clear directions along with some pictures of key moments in the process. This was the first time I had to try and remove meat from the bone without it having been with my teeth after its been cooked. It was tricky, but I did OK.

Step 12, try not to go yummmmm over and over.

I’ve never used a dutch oven before and I have to say I really liked it. You don’t’ have to worry about spills and sputters so much because of the high-sides.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

In the end we had some pretty good looking grub that actually looked like the picture!

Needs an Alice in Wonderland like tag: Mix me!

I found that as with Tex-Mex, this dish is way better all mixed-up to get the yogurt flavor and the rice texture around evenly. Yum!

So as Vanessa said, I’m moving over here for my blogging fix, so hello!

Oxygenvalve has undergone MANY changes since its inception way back in 2000… Holy crap, it’s been that long? I just checked the anniversary date and it’s April 13, 2000. Happy 10th birthday Oxygenvalve!! (That’s ancient in web years!) Mike and I arbitrarily came up with the name based on the lyrics of a song we liked, and purchased the domain to use as a joint plot of web space — long before we even talked about marriage! We’ve had college projects, portfolios, photo galleries, etc; most of which are long gone.

We’ve been collectively blogging since 2003 — each of us with our own segregated web spaces. Over the years, Mike’s interest in blogging has waned to the point where the time span between posts is often months. However, he has recently expressed interest in collaborating on blog posts or doing an occasional feature on my blog instead of feeling guilty for not posting enough on his own blog. I am more than happy to oblige him! So keep an eye out for upcoming posts authored by Mr. Mike himself! I can only guess what he’ll have to say, but I suspect you might see posts on food, parenthood, homeownership etc… Please welcome him into this small tiny slice of the blogosphere. :)

Thanks for reading!!!
-Vanessa & Mike