The Flyvemaskine Diaries

I’ve never been one for antiquities, but with heirloom tomatoes, I can make an exception.  This week I’ve been trying to come up with as many ways as possible to eat tomatoes without cooking or otherwise covering up the flavor. After all, once they are gone for the season, it’s back to the flavorless mush they sell at the grocery store.

Last week, it was no-cook tomato sauce, which was a huge hit. I did it something like this:

No-Cook Tomato Sauce

Dice or quarter a few tomatoes and place in a large bowl. The tomatoes are preferably at room temperature as the refrigerator can make them mealy. Add chopped basil and minced garlic to the bowl and throw in some kosher salt and pepper. Maybe even some red pepper flakes if you’re into that. Add some good olive oil, maybe a fourth of a cup and combine.

Let the mixture sit covered and unrefrigerated for 30 minutes or more (more is better!) Bring water to a boil and add a pinch of kosher salt just before throwing the noodles in, so its salty like the sea.

Drain the pasta, saving a little of the water just in case. Put the noodles back in the pot, and add the tomato mixture. Let it sit for a minute or two and serve.

To garnish, I added some toasted pine nuts as well, as well as some fresh grated parmesan.

Something is fishy in Portland

Today, the cupboards were almost bare, with the exception of the tomatoes. This calls for fish sauce. What is fish sauce? It’s better not to ask, but if you must know, wikipedia has your answer. If you don’t have this in your kitchen, you are missing out.

Dice up some tomatoes and throw in the fish sauce,  a little salt and pepper, and I was in heaven. Try, you’ll see.

This past weekend, Eric and I went to Pullman (our old stomping grounds) to WSU to watch Eric’s brother Jamie graduate. It was really fun, including the dinner we made for Jamie, their brother Danny and a few of Jamie’s friends on the night before graduation.

Eric made one of his classic recipes - it’s pasta shells with pancetta, asparagus, green beans, shallots, creme fraiche and butter. It’s creamy, fatty goodness and it pretty much melts in your mouth. Yum.

I worked on my forearm muscles by whipping up some fresh cream to adorn our strawberries with for dessert. It was a great meal for the night before graduation. Thanks to Danny for taking all the photos in this post!

I won the life lottery. Why? Because my husband is wonderful, and because he loves to cook. He’s been busting out his culinary moves lately and he’s made me some scrumptious meals.

The other night when the culinary bug struck, Eric whipped up a salad made with fresh kale and grapefruit sections which was mouth-watering, and just as good the next day. But the real event was the main course: pasta shells with grilled mushrooms, bacon, green onions and crème fraîche. Oh my goodness. It was pure heaven.

Then he made chocolate mousse from scratch for dessert, which I sadly don’t have any pictures of. I love having a cook husband!

We do love living in Portland. A few weeks ago, we went out apartment-hunting on round one. We’re not quite ready to take the leap, but we will be soon and it’ll give us lots to share on the blog as we learn to live on our own yet again.

Of course, one of the great draws of living in Portlan is the great restaurants. There are seriously so many great places to eat in this town. A great spot we discovered recently is Ten01, which is in the Pearl District. It was voted the best restaurant in Portland last year, but we were feeling a little poor when we went, so we hit up happy hour and I am not exaggerating when I say that the burger above ($5) was one of the best I’ve ever had. Not to mention I’m dieting, so the smaller size of this burger was completely perfect.

Speaking of dieting, I’m going on a little quest to lose 15 pounds by the 4th of July - it’s weight I’ve needed to get off for awhile, and since I’ve got a busy wedding season this summer, I want to be a lighter version of myself so I can keep up with all my hard work. The above shirt is a shirt I totally fell in love with at J. Crew last week, and my mom told me that she’d buy it for me if I hit my goal by the date set - so far, so good - I’m about ten days in and I’ve lost 6.5 pounds already! I’m way ahead of schedule. So stay tuned for pictures of me photographing a wedding in my shiny new champagne-colored blouse this summer!

I’ll leave you with this non-dieting image (although if you run enough, gelato can be a reality of everyday life!) We stopped by Mio Gelato in the Pearl last week also, after our fantastic happy hour burgers. I totally recommend the cinnamon, pictured here.  Happy sunny weekend, and I’ll blog again soon!

It should come as no surprise to this blog’s readers that Eric and I like to cook. But even better than I like cooking, I love baking. I have loved baking since back in the day when my quickbread won first place in the Oregon State Fair when I was a 4-H member.

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