Butternut Squash Ravioli

Finally I am knocking another item off my list - thanks in very large part to Scott! We had him and Christie over for dinner last night, and Scott provided the pasta maker attachment to the KitchenAid. This was a looooooooooong process, but luckily Scott also brought a little amuse bouche for us to have first ;) (except we each ate way more than one bite each, but whatever)

This was persimmons cooked with onions and some other things (all I remember Scott saying is grape juice) over cream cheese on bread - yum! It definitely hit the spot since all in all it took TWO AND A HALF HOURS from when Scott and Christie got there to when we ate. Since I need to eat approximately every 2 hours throughout the day, the appetizer was necessary.

I found this blog post for butternut squash ravioli on The Paupered Chef - he had a lot of great details, but it was kind of hard for me to know exactly what to do, especially with the actual making of the pasta - luckily Scott has done it a few times so he showed us the ropes.

yeah, that one got a bit long :) we used less dough per sheet after that

I took my turn making a sheet too - it seemed to work out ok :) Eventually we worked out a system where Scott made the sheets, I put the filling on and rubbed egg around to seal the edges, Scott put another sheet on and then I cut it out. Ben sometimes took over my role when my feet hurt too bad to stand any longer :)

A wine glass worked GREAT to make the raviolis!


Filling was tasty and used the HUGE butternut we got from the CSA


Teamwork!








Butter sage sauce, and then pan fried the raviolis a bit in the sauce


Final product, topped with parmesan - DELICIOUS!

This definitely took longer than I'd spend making a normal meal (mostly due to roasting the squash actually) but it was fun. I'd like to try out making just fettuccine noodles sometime to see how quickly that goes... maybe it is worth it to get the pasta maker attachment someday!

Pasta with Peppers and Tomatoes in a Cream Sauce

I mentioned in a previous post that we had an abundance of peppers from the CSA that we needed to use up - we did get some great ideas, but then Scott (who gets the same CSA as us) said that he tried the "recipe" from the newsletter. It wasn't really a recipe, it just said to try sauteing the peppers with sungold tomatoes in olive oil with a little sage, adding cream, and tossing with pasta and parmesan or gorganzola. Sounded good to us! As most probably can tell by now, give me a pasta in a cream sauce, and I'm just as happy as can be :) Plus, this was ridiculously easy. We made this twice, the 2nd time didn't have the tomatoes and I didn't think it was lacking anything. This was SO good - we both loved it!

This isn't really a recipe, but more of an idea, so these measurements are approximations.

Adapted from Driftless Organics Newsletter

1 cup chopped sweet peppers (we used mini sweet peppers, or bell peppers, or larger sweet peppers)
1/2 cup halved sungold tomatoes (optional)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup cream
1 tablespoon chopped sage
1+ cup parmesan cheese
Salt & Pepper
1/2 lb pasta (I prefer the cavatappi)

Bring a pot of water to a boil, and add pasta. Try to time this so that you are putting the pasta in the water at the same time you start cooking the peppers.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a medium skillet, add peppers and cook for a few minutes. Add tomatoes and sage and saute a few more minutes. Add the cream and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

Drain pasta, return to pot. Add cream and pepper mixture, and toss to combine. Add cheese and stir to create a creamy sauce. Serve immediately.

25 weeks (and 5 days)

Taken in front of Baby Grand in St. Paul

Phew, those Portland posts took me so long that my pregnancy update is a day late - I hope you all weren't TOO upset ;) As of today, there are 100 days til my due date!

The BIG news this week is that I don't have gestational diabetes!!!!!! I had my checkup on Friday - now I'm up 16 pounds, blood pressure was low, and baby's heartbeat was at 145. She also kicked the doppler and the midwife a few times :) Before my checkup I had to chug the orange drink (which wasn't bad at all), and then after the appointment wait until an hour had passed to get my blood drawn. For some reason I was pretty nervous - mostly because I did NOT want to have to take the 3 hour test! Just not eating until after this appointment (done at 9:45am) was hard enough for me... I got a call later in the day saying I passed both tests - the glucose tolerance test, and the one that tells if I'm anemic - yay!! I celebrated by having one of those cookies with the thick icing that are filled with preservatives and stay soft for like a year. Awesome :)

In other pregnancy news, I am just starting to see the faint beginnings of a linea negra (the dark line that goes down the middle of the belly). My mom had this (but no stretch marks!) so I suspect I will too. My belly button is also about ready to flatten and then come out, which kind of grosses me out but I guess that's just the way it goes. While at Hot Mama (where they have $70 t shirts and $180 maternity jeans) my sister pointed out this product to me - frightening.

When my mom came over this weekend, she brought my baby book - we already have Ben's, so I took pics of a few of the photos in there (we don't have a scanner) to try to see what our baby will look like :) Here are a few - I think we actually look kind of similar as babies, so probably a good chance our baby will look kind of like this as well - we shall see!

Erin about a day old


Ben, probably about an hour old :)


Erin a few weeks old


Erin at 4 months


Ben a few months old

Portland - Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18

We again rose fairly early on Saturday and were greeted with passable weather - cloudy but no rain just yet. The last night we had planned to go to the Portland Farmers Market, and I knew there would be plenty of food there so we headed out to walk over there. We went to the one on the Portland State University campus so it was only 1/2 mile from our hotel. Tried to stop at the same Starbucks as yesterday but alas, that was closed - luckily the iPhone found another coffee shop for us quickly :) Unfortunately, there were no real independent coffee shops near our hotel which was kinda sad.

We got to the farmer's market at about 9 or so and started walking around checking things out - there were a TON of booths selling food items so I was glad we hadn't eaten much yet (I did need to split a donut at Starbucks.... just too hungry). The sun ended up coming out - it was a gorgeous day to be at the market! We stayed for awhile, sitting down to enjoy our food items and people watch. We saw a ton of people with the Ergo baby carrier, which I registered for, so it was nice to see that in action :) LOTS of baby-wearers in Portland! The farmers market was probably one of my favorite things we did in Portland - the food was delicious, and the weather for that hour was just perfect - it was so beautiful there!

Ben had a bread wrapped sausage










We enjoyed a delicious pear


My former co-worker Megan recommended this place to me, so I made sure to get a biscuit


Warm biscuit and marionberry jam - DELICIOUS!

We had plans to meet my friend Sonja later for lunch (she took the train down from Seattle) and had a few hours to kill. Ben for some reason wanted to go to the Nike store, so we headed up in that direction. He looked around for a bit while I talked on the phone :) After that, I found that one of the supposedly cute stores I read about in the design*sponge article, AM Living, was close by, so we walked over there. The store was cool, but really not what I had been expecting - I thought it would be things for kids, and while some of it COULD conceivably go in a child's room, it would need to be FAR out of reach since most everything was pretty expensive and fancy. Think rich mahogany and leather bound books. Oh well, glad I went there since I was curious about it!

We STILL hadn't killed enough time yet, and I saw we were near a Stumptown Roasters which I wanted to make sure we hit up at some point - supposedly the best coffee in Portland, so we walked over there. We went to a tiny one that was adjacent to the Ace Hotel and luckily I was able to snag one of the few seats - the place was packed, probably since it was still raining quite hard. I was quite damp by this point - my "rain jacket" really isn't actually a rain jacket, more of a ski jacket I guess. Not 100% waterproof, that's for sure!

We warmed up in there for awhile, me with my elaborate hot chocolate, and Ben with his... something. Americano maybe. He did say it was good, so if you're into coffee, check one of these places out, although I think there are larger locations where they have more seating and options.

Sonja called to let us know she was in town, and we planned to meet at Mother's Bistro downtown. We walked over because I heard it was often quite busy, and put our name on the list - it was about a 30 minute wait. This place was pretty large - lots of different rooms. It was very cute, I loved the decor! Very homey but yet felt upscale because of the ornate nature of some of the chandeliers and wall hangings. It was obviously packed, but service was pretty good and the food was delicious. I had the ham and gouda frittata, Ben had pulled pork, and Sonja had the Reuben.

After lunch, we headed over to the Saturday Market, which is an arts and crafts market along the river. I'm not a huge fan of markets like this, but it was fun to check out the things for sale. There was live music and a Rogue booth too, so Ben got to enjoy a beer and sit there while Sonja and I wandered around.

This would have looked quite cool against a nice blue sky :)


View of the market from the bridge

When we had our fill of the market, I decided we should go to another brewery and chose Laurelwood NW Public House because I liked that area. We took the bus over and when we got there, it had stopped raining so we enjoyed a nice walk up 23rd Ave and found our way to Laurelwood. I guess they have a much larger spot on the east side of town, but I really enjoyed the one we went to - it was in an older house and was really cozy and warm. Ben and Sonja enjoyed a few of the brews, and I enjoyed a water until it was about time to head back over to the east side to meet Sonja's boyfriend Matt.

For some reason we always take pics with our drinks. Just doesn't look as good with a water!

Matt and Sonja wanted to try out Doug Fir, a pretty well known live music spot in Portland. We got there slightly before Matt so we sat in the bar area for awhile - it was definitely a more club-like atmosphere than the other places we went. It was still super early, like 5:30 or so, so nothing crazy at that time. I didn't take any pics of the food we ended up eating, but it was decent. Randomly, within a few days of us being there 2 artists from MN had been at Doug Fir - Bob Mould (who was there the night before - if I had known that I just might have gone!) and Mark Mallman. After dinner, Sonja and Matt headed out to some garage punk bands concert and Ben and I ventured back to the Northwest area for dessert.

Our nice little nook in the lounge

I'd read in a few places that Papa Haydn has amazing desserts, and it looked really nice when we'd walked by a few times so we went there. There was a 45 minute wait at about 8:45, so we just sat in the bar for awhile. Ben spent most of the time trying to find the channel that the baseball game was on, to no avail. Obviously it wasn't like we were starving, so the wait went by fairly quickly. When we got to our table, we saw the HUGE menu of desserts - 2 pages. It was quite overwhelming since obviously everything looked awesome. I spent some time checking out the display case and ended up choosing the lemon chiffon cake and hot chocolate (to satisfy my love of lemon desserts AND my craving for chocolate) and Ben picked the baked Alaska, which seemed like an odd choice but ended up being totally delicious. YUM - everything was great and it was the perfect way to end the evening for this pregnant woman :) We took the streetcar back to the hotel and got there at about 11 - a pretty late night for us ;)

Our flight left at 2:15, so we planned to meet Sonja and Matt for brunch. I used the Yelp app on my iPhone to find a suitable restaurant near the hotel since all the other brunch options on my trusty map were far away. We ended up at Bijou Cafe which was lovely - pretty casual with tasty food. Ben and Matt got different variations of hash, which is apparently what they are "known" for - I went for the pancakes with apple compote and whipped cream which of course was WAY too much for me, and Sonja got an omelet. Another good brunch option downtown, but I did like Mother's Bistro better, which is right down the street.

We were out of there by noon and walked the block to the light rail and headed toward the airport. It took approximately 2 minutes to get through security - the airport was basically empty. The flight even left early. It was like the travel gods were paying us back for the horrible flight out there :) Thus ends our Portland trip! We had a great time, and I'd definitely like to return to Oregon when I am not with child to hit up the Willamette Valley wine region and the coast.