Grilled Vegetables with Garlic Aioli

Marinated Grilled Vegetables

This can be grilled or oven roasted. For the oven, I found I needed to finish them with a few minutes under the broiler to get them truly browned.

Vegetables

1-2 eggplants

1 lb zucchini

1 lb sweet mini peppers

1 lb asparagus

1 red onion

Instructions: 

Cut eggplants, onions, and zucchini in 1/4-inch thick slices. Salt the eggplant slices, and leave in a colander for 20 minutes so the bitter juices drain out. Rinse and pet dry. Wash the peppers, and leave whole. Wash and trim asparagus. Brush vegetables with marinade and grill or roast.

Vegetable Marinade

1/4 cup olive oil

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 garlic cloves, smashed

1 Tbs dry oregano

salt & black pepper to taste

Whipped Goat Cheese

1/4 cup goat cheese

2 Tbs whipping cream

salt to taste

Aioli

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

1 tablespoon lemon juice fresh

½ teaspoon salt

1 to 2 garlic cloves small, peeled, roughly chopped

1 cup oil, blend of canola and extra virgin olive oil

Place egg, egg yolk, mustard, lemon juice, salt and garlic in a jar that works with your stick or immersion blender (a 1 pint wide mouth worked well).

Pulse the blender to mix the eggs and combine them with mustard and lemon juice and also to start breaking down the garlic.

Slowly add the oil to allow the emulsification process to take place. Occasionally, lift the blender out of the mixture to allow some air to be mixed in. Continue blending. You should notice that the aioli starts to emulsify and thicken.

Continue blending until thick and emulsified. 

Upcycling a Vintage Wool Jacket

I bought this vintage boiled wool sweater jacket on eBay for $7.50 ($17 total with shipping). It came with some holes and was missing its buttons, but I liked the princess seam shaping in front and back. A quick search on the brand name indicates it was made in Hong Kong, probably in the 1980's. Another indication of how durable wool can be. I bought some vintage buttons on eBay as well.

Sweater listing

When it arrived, I gave it a good soaking in Woolite to clean it, and laid flat to dry. Next, I tackled the holes. Gray is my favorite color, so I had yarn and wool roving in close colors. I untwisted wool yarn so I was working with just one ply, darned the bigger holes, then needle felted over them. Smaller holes I fixed with needle felting. The sleeves were ridiculously long. I cut off 4 inches saving the knit bands, tapered the bottoms of the sleeves, and reattached the bands with a zigzag stitch. After a good steaming, you can't tell they were shortened. I defuzzed the jacket with my sweater shaver. 

I searched for a simplified view of the Minneapolis skyline and cast it onto the TV so I could adjust the image size then trace it. I did the same with another simplified skyline I found online so I had enough skyline detail to go around the bottom of the jacket. 

Casting skyline image to TV

Tracing onto tissue paper

Traced Mpls skyline

I used the traced patterns to cut out the wool felt (purchased on Etsy) then needle felted it onto the bottom of the jacket. 

Cutting the felt

Bugle Snack Mix

 

6 C original bugles

5 C nacho bugles (or another bag of regular bugles based on preference)

4 C Cheese Its crackers

6 oz. colored goldfish crackers 

3 C mini pretzels

2 C Crispix cereal (or corn Chex)

2 C cashews (or substitute more of the other ingredients if there are allergy concerns)

¾ C butter flavored popcorn oil (vegetable oil is a fine substitute)

2 – 1oz. envelopes of Hidden Valley Ranch DRESSING mix (4 Tbsp)

Optional:

1 bag of puffcorn


Combine first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Combine oil and ranch powder and mix well. Pour over cracker mixture and toss until evenly coated. Divide among 3 – 10X15 baking sheets.

Bake at 250 for 45 minutes stirring every 15 minutes. Cool in pans over racks.

I got this recipe from our neighbor friend Brenda. Recently she told me to add puffcorn to the mix, and she's right that it's a great addition.

Andy likes the regular bugles more than the nacho. Meg likes the nacho bugles but says I can leave out the goldfish, so this is clearly something we'll tailor based on the audience.

Version without nacho Bugles and with puffcorn added

Egg Bites

I don't have a lot of time in the mornings in my current job and I'm looking to boost my protein intake, so I thought I'd try egg bites that can be batch cooked (and even frozen) then reheated quickly.

Yields about 24 egg bites 

• 12 eggs 
• 1 lb. bulk breakfast sausage, browned and drained 
• 16 oz cottage cheese 
• 5-6 green onions, thinly sliced 
• 1/2 cup finely diced bell pepper 
• Pinch of salt and pepper 
• 1 cup cheddar cheese 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease about 18 cups on a muffin tin. (I use the silicone muffin pan and bake two batches) 
2. Whisk eggs in a large bowl until slightly frothy. Stir in cottage cheese & salt/pepper to taste. 
3. Add cooked sausage, green onions, peppers & the cheddar cheese. Stir well to incorporate. 
4. Pour egg mixture into each muffin tin filling about 3/4 of the way full. Don’t overfill as it will expand a little while baking.  
5. Bake in preheated oven for about 20-25 mins or until fully set.  

To freeze, let them come to room temperature, then chill in fridge. Pack in freezer bags and freeze.

To reheat: microwave for about 30 seconds for every 2 bites.  

Refurbishing Cornhole Boards

Cornhole boards are surprisingly expensive- even used ones, and I've been lurking online for reasonable used ones for a few months. I wanted regulation length of 4 feet. I'd seen a few on FB Marketplace, but if you don't move fast, they're gone. I finally caught a pair on FB Marketplace that were posted only an hour or so earlier. After a drive to Apple Valley and $35 these wood ones with the Apple Valley hockey logo were mine.

On closer inspection, I saw that the surface was really some kind of contact paper. Fortunately, it peeled off in one pull, but the logos still persisted underneath. 

Contact paper peeled off, behind

I gave them a quick sanding for rough spots, then primed them, two coats on the fronts and one on the backs, which were unfinished wood.

After priming

After much thought and rejected design ideas I decided to go with a Swedish flag- the design lends itself to the shape, and the colors are bright. Using the published flag proportions, I did a little basic math then used a measuring tape and straight edge to pencil the outlines. I had more paint mixed that I used on the benches, and applied two coats of each.

Flag dimensions

Taped and ready for paint

One Bowl Brownies

I got this recipe from a colleague, Jodi, back when I was a PT. It's written in her handwriting on an old scrap of paper from the clinic. I've made it a lot over the years- it's a reliable winner.

One Bowl Brownies

• 4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate (I use the Pound Plus chocolate from Trader Joe's)
• 1/2 c butter (1 stick)
• 2 c sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 c flour

Melt butter and chocolate in a medium saucepot over low heat stirring until combined. Stir in sugar, then eggs (one at a time) and vanilla until combined. Stir in flour. Spread in greased 9x13" pan, bake at 350 for 30-35 min.

Members of the household will say you need to stir in a bunch of stuff- nuts, M&Ms, chocolate chips, etc. Sometimes I just like a straight-up brownie. Some will also grumble if they're not frosted. Sure- frosting is nice, but also not always needed for the great flavor and texture of these brownies.

Mix everything in the same pan you melt the chocolate & butter in

Camping 2025

Another great year of camping, including our first 2-week camping trip. Andy bought a new mattress, custom sized for our camper and sleeping is much more comfortable. 

Whitewater, May

Hiked Sat and Sun to the top of Coyote Point. On Sunday we had to carry Harriet up the stairs all the way up the hill, which put us really out of breath. Dad was excited about the baby ferns. We ate Friday dinner at the St Charles Moose Lodge, and Sat dinner was porkchops in mushroom gravy.

Fort Ridgely, July

Back at one of our favorite nearby parks. This weekend was HOT. We did a couple of hikes (one with Harriet, the next with her chilling in the camper's AC). We were sweating just sitting. We struggled to put up our new-to-us screen tent and eventually learned we were trying to put it up inside out. One of the neighbors at the camp across the road eventually wandered over to see if he could lend aid. It was pretty ridiculous, really, that two pretty high-functioning adults couldn't put up a tent. We cooked pork chops in our sour cherries and baked potatoes in the coals. The air conditioning cycled on and off all night and it sounded like we were in a rocket. Not very restful. We left Sunday at 9 AM. We're discovering that we like camping better in the shoulder seasons- July, not so much.

Enjoying the blooming prairie

Glacier and Banff, Sep

See post here

Minocqua, Sep

We'd been hearing about Beef-a-Rama in Minocqua from Will and Cara and decided to meet there for a weekend together. We stayed at the nearby Indian Mounds State Forrest campground, which was lovely, with a site right on Tomahawk lake. We did the 5K, enjoyed the booths, samples and beef sandwiches, then went back to the campsite Saturday afternoon, where Cara's parents cooked a great meatloaf dinner over the fire. It was a great weekend.

Before the 5K

Even Harriet enjoyed the festival