Cheesecake

The first "restaurant" I ever went to in the US was Cheesecake Factory... like lots of foreign college kids I guess. I don't like cheesecake but they look sooo good. This is a pic I took last week while my parents were in town (they flew back to Paris today) - Cheesecake Factory is sometimes the fastest and easiest solution to hunger pains...

David's Dominican Chicken

David is Dominican and every now and then he indulges us with some of his famous chicken. Last night, he made grilled chicken with tostones (fried green plantains), rice, beans and fried platanos amarillos (yellow plantains).

Due to the amount of components and pictures I took I will post the chicken recipe right now and will share the rest in a future post... it's really more because I'm still learning how to make everything look good in 1 picture...

Step 1: take the skin off chicken thighs (think 2/3 per person) and place in large pan (note: Dominicans typically leave the skin on.)

Step2: juice 1 whole lemon, add salt and pepper and add 1 packet of seasoning to the chicken (David uses Goya's Sazon con culantro y achiote)

Step 3: cut 1/2 red pepper and 1/2 yellow onion

Step 4: add the onion and red pepper to the chicken. If you have cilantro (we ran out) add to the pot at this point. I love cilantro so we usually put a whole bunch but if you're not a fan, you can leave it out.

Step 5: season with oregano and garlic powder. You can be generous with the garlic powder OR use real garlic, up to you and what you have in your kitchen.

Add the juice of 1 whole lemon (yes, that's 2 so far) and THEN, the fun part: put your hands in it and mix, mix, mix...Store in a ziploc bag or other container until cook time or until you feel the meat has absorded enough of the flavor. David likes using large Ziploc bags so that 1) he can flip the bag over to make sure the juices goes on all sides of the meat and 2) so he doesnt have to wash the container afterwards.

Note that you will only be cooking the chicken - everything else is just to marinate the meat and give it its delicious dominican flavor.

David loves his grill so step 6 was all natural: GRILL IT.

et voila:

Final step: don't forget to compost!! Here's a picture of my composting pile for today's meal.

Tostones, rice and beans and platanos amarillos recipes coming shortly.

Timberline

My parents are visiting from Paris this weekend and each time (I swear, each time!) they come to Portland for a visit the weather is sunny and warm. It's disconcerting and almost annoying since they think I exaggerate when I tell them it rains most of the time in Oregon.

We went up to Timberline yesterday, spent the whole day skiing (last day of the regular season) and slept the night at the Lodge. AMAZING.