Green Agave - Laura Ispass

Baked eggs on avocado – an absolute no-no

lauraispass — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:38:56 +0000

Mike and I found a recipe online, cracking an egg over an avocado and baking it. We both love eggs and we both love avocados, so we gave it a go. No. Don’t do that. It’s terrible. Avocados should not be baked. They do not taste good warm and mushy. The eggs came out rubbery and ridiculous; beyond what I have ever seen a baked egg do. Perhaps it was overcooked?

Nevertheless, the lesson is: do not bake avocados.

But instead, do try baked kale and steam artichokes with a pressure cooker!

Oh, it’s been a while

lauraispass — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:44:58 +0000

In July, I made my dad cherry ice cream for his birthday (his favorite).

The ice cream maker I had that I used to use a lot with great results wasn’t staying frozen and I ended up having to put the batch in a glass bake-dish in the freezer and stir it up every 40 minutes until is was a good consistency.

And, more recently…

I love winter squash! Or, more like I love spaghetti and butternut squash.

Another Green Beans and Tempeh Post

lauraispass — Mon, 23 May 2011 05:11:40 +0000

It’s been a while since I made this dish, and I have no idea why; it’s so damn delicious.

I put the green beans in boiling water for 6 minutes, drained, and ran cold water over it to stop the cooking (wasn’t ready to put it with the tempeh yet).
Once combined, I added cumin, paprika, and a “pepper blend” to the beans, tempeh, garlic, and white onion. Once the tempeh turned golden, I then transferred some to a dish and added feta, red pepper flakes, and red onion. I made a little too much, so I’ll be eating some tomorrow as well. Unfortunately, green beans don’t really stay good as leftovers, but the tempeh sure does!

Also, here’s a photo of Allister, because I just can’t help myself:

Chocolate Chip Ginger Cookies

lauraispass — Mon, 09 May 2011 03:04:16 +0000

These cookies, despite being a mess to make, are chewy and delicious and well worth it.

I used half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour.

Spring is here!

lauraispass — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:44:28 +0000

Here are a few things that have gone on in the past month:

My birthday was on the 20th, so Mike helped me bake a cake.

Recipe found here

Did some hiking at Wallace Falls in Washington…

as well as Lynn Canyon in North Vancouver, BC.

Seattle

lauraispass — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:15:25 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Within the past couple of weeks, I have moved to Seattle with my cat. There are definitely some differences between how people interact with each other here compared to Portland. Overall, I’m happy to be in Seattle and hope that it doesn’t take me too long to memorize the bus routes around here.

I feel bad not really having anything to offer in this post, so here is a photo I took with my phone from the Woodland Park Zoo.

Getting to the zoo by bike was pretty nice. I am still getting used to how hilly Seattle is. The zoo itself was great; most exhibits used moats as a barrier, rather than cages. However, the African Wild Dogs and Jaguar were pacing, which was a bit difficult to watch. I guess it’s hard to keep every animal content with the boundaries they’re given in a zoo. On a lighter note, one orangutan was interacting with the humans through the glass, which I thought was really great. I would love to work with primates. Also, it’s always such a surprise how large some of the creatures are when you see them up close, like giraffes and grizzly bears.

Latkes!

lauraispass — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 07:34:07 +0000

For Thanksgiving, I made sweet potato pie and pumpkin cookies. Sadly, neither of the goods were photogenic enough to share.

But, I did make latkes earlier tonight for the first night of Chanukah.
Grating the potatoes wore out my right arm. I used Yukon potatoes, yellow onion, garlic, eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and green onion (though, next time I’ll leave the green onion out and save it to be put on when served).
I like them topped with tzaziki or apple sauce.

Collection of photos from the past month

lauraispass — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:12:08 +0000

I’ve been falling behind on the updates.

Seattle has so many beautiful parks. I have made my way to a good handful of them, but there are still a few I really want to check out.

Most of the leaves have fallen off. The snow began to fall over the weekend, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

There’s a place near Seattle called Kubota Gardens. It’s a Chinese-style garden that’s free to the public. It’s a huge garden, and absolutely gorgeous!

more photos behind the cut.

There’s a conservatory at Volunteer park. They have a nice collection of exotic flowers and succulents.

around Volunteer park (plenty of squirrels!)

Discovery Park

Carkeek Park, where it first started to snow

and here are photos I took today of all the snow!

Halloween

lauraispass — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:04:14 +0000

It took four different methods.
Who knew it would take that much effort to dye a blonde wig another color?

Busy, busy

lauraispass — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:40:41 +0000

First of all, the variety of leaf colors absolutely amazes me. I can never get over it. Then again, this is only my fifth year living in a place that has a real autumn.
There’s a Japanese Maple variety outside this house that has the most brilliant coloring.

I need to press some leaves before they begin to fall!

I have been baking a few things lately, though I haven’t been keeping this blog updated enough or putting enough effort into my baked goods to use alternative sweeteners instead of cane sugar! It’s also a lot more difficult (20 minute drive, at least) to find bulk agave nectar in the area I’ve been living in.

Triple Ginger Cookies
these were delicious! A perfect autumn cookie.

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

I made these for a potluck. That was my first time making pumpkin cookies. They were pretty cakey, but not bad!
(apologies for the colors being a bit off. I was using a friend’s camera and neglected to fix the white balance).

Devil’s Food Cake Snowballs
I baked these as a birthday treat. They didn’t quite turn out how I wanted them to. They were incredibly dense. I won’t be making them again, but rather I’ll stick to cookies and muffins.

I am glad I put that baking sheet under the pan. Look how much it overflowed.

And of course, they look nothing like the photo. It’s also hard to tell how dense they are just from that photo. But trust me, it wasn’t light and fluffy like a cake ball.

I might be updating in a few days with a Halloween costume I’ve been putting together. I have been spending my last two days trying to dye a blonde wig dark purple. So far, I’ve tried three different methods without much accomplishment. Tomorrow, I will try one more method before I give up.

Also, the more time I spend in Seattle, the more I like it. There are so many beautiful parks (Gasworks is my favorite park with the best view so far) and tons of awesome bands have been through the city in the past two months. I need to start bringing my camera to Seattle with me.