Lake Como, Italy

After a long drive through the Alps, where I suffered quite the bout of motion sickness, we arrived at Lake Como, which I believe is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen (it ties with Santorini, Greece).  I totally understand why George Clooney lives here for half a year.  It's tucked away and very private.  The people are friendly, the views are incredible, and of course the food is fantastic.  We had dinner at a small pizzeria where we ate such treats as: marinated olives, bruschetta, proscuitto pizza, and a lemon almond tart for dessert.  Holy cow, I was in heaven.  And what made it even better was that surrounding the restaurant were tons of tomato and basil plants so when a summer shower hit while we dined on the back patio, the rain water hitting the plants make them release their perfume into the air.  It was so fragrant it felt like I was swimming in tomatoes and basil!
Lake Como - we will for sure be back to visit you again.
(Attached is a quick snapshot of our breakfast, on a patio overlooking the lake.  Coffee, juice, croissants with Nutella, yogurt, meat and cheese.)

Switzerland

We arrived safely back home from our travels abroad.  Three countries in one week is the exact definition of a whirlwind vacation but we really enjoyed ourselves.  I just love Europe and I look forward to living there someday.  (I'm hoping, at some point in my life, Chris and I can rent a villa or apartment in England or Italy for a few months.  I think it would be a cool experience and I'm sure we'll find some way to make it happen.)
The first stop on the trip was Switzerland where we walked the town Zurich looking for a cup of coffee (Zurich is a ghost town on a Sunday morning).  Finally we found a place that was open; enjoyed a cappuccino, and then hit the road to Lucerne.  There we dined on the local meal of cheese fondue.  The cheese didn't taste that awesome to me, but I enjoyed the experience none the less.  And after lunch we walked up to the Lion of Lucerne, which is a large carving out of the side of a cliff.  It was beautiful and a great way to start off the trip.

Baby Butternut Squash

I have a baby butternut squash growing in my community garden bed!  I've been wrestling with pests eating the leaves on the plant, so I worried whether I would get any fruit this year.  I'm so glad I have at least one growing!  Let's hope some more sprout up in the coming weeks.  :)

Roasted Chiogga Beets

I harvested a huge batch of beets on Monday night, for dinner with friends.  I pulled up at least a dozen of the tasty tubers.  I know it's summer when my kitchen sink has dirt and mud in it.  :)

I roasted the beets in aluminum foil, with EVOO, salt and pepper, on the grill for about 10 minutes.  (I had sliced them up, which helped them cook quickly.)  This was the first time, that I could recall, where I cooked up the greens as well!  After giving them a thorough rinsing, I destemmed the leaves with a paring knife.  Then I heated up some EVOO on the stove, added some diced onion, some minced garlic and simmered those until fragrant.  Then I added the leaves, which I had torn into smaller pieces.  It took about 3 minutes for the leaves to wilt.

I then grabbed a dish and loaded up the greens, added the roasted beets, and topped it all off with some herbed goat cheese.  The dish was a hit with my friends!

We're having a heat spell here in the Chicago area so my friends and I opted for a dinner of summer salads.
Other items we dined on that night:
-arugala, pumpkin seed, feta and watermelon salad in a balsamic dressing
-diced tomatoes with basil
-white bean and chick pea puree
-fresh baked bread and butter (I love being friends with a baker!)
-and homemade macaroons dipped in dark chocolate

and to drink we had arnold palmers with fresh made sun tea and lemonade.  YUM!

New York!

My company sent me out to NYC for business this past week.  Technically I only worked on Monday and Tuesday but Chris and I took advantage of the opportunity and flew out for the weekend prior to take in food, theater, and time with friends.

First up, the food.  Here's a list of the fun places we dined at:
1.  Shake Shack (of course!)
2.  Peanut Butter & Co in the Village.  It was a fun place to grab lunch.  I had the Nutella and PB sammy.  Chris had a double decker.  We both devoured our glass of milk (very much needed with such rich sandwiches).
3.  Lupa - we met up with my friend Julie (we're friends from L.A.) and her husband Scott for dinner here.  Chris and I dined here last summer and the food is always amazing.  We had marinated olives, salami and prosciutto for an appetizer.  I had the potato gnocci with fennel sausage for the main course (Chris had the lamb).  Then we had Prosecco and a chocolate tartufo for dessert.  SO GOOD.
4.  Stanton Social - I'm pretty sure next time we're in NY we will dine at Stanton Social again.  The restuarant serves small plates, meant to be shared.  There wasn't one thing we ate that we weren't incredibly impressed with.  Our plates included: potato and goat cheese perogies, Grilled apple and brie quesadilla, Haricot Vert with almonds and asiago cheese, the Kobe beef slider, and the Grilled Aged cheddar slider with jalepenos.  For dessert we had the warm donuts with caramel, raspberry, and chocolate dipping sauces and Chris had a milk shake shot (with Maker's Mark). OMG.  Save room for the donuts, people.  Save room for the donuts...

Now on to the theater we saw!  I saw 4 productions in 3 days.  What a whirlwind!
Saturday we saw a matinee of Rent, which Chris had never seen.  The show was alright...I remember seeing it in the 90's and it felt so edgy and exciting.  But now it feels a bit dated.

Saturday night, after our dinner with Julie and Scott ran a bit long, we literally jumped out of a cab in Times Square and ran into the first theater we saw to buy tickets.  That theater happened to be showing Chicago (ironic, I know).  It was a fun show and we only missed the first 5 minutes.  It's sort of an old school musical, which is fun.

Sunday we saw a matinee of "One Man, Two Guvnors" which was by far the best thing we saw that weekend.  This play is HYSTERICAL.  I can not recommend it enough!  (And later that night, the lead actor won the Tony for Best Male Lead in a Play!)

Monday night, after work, I walked from the Upper East Side to Midtown and bought a ticket to see Peter and the Star Catcher.  This was a creative, imaginative play about the Peter Pan story.  It was really impressive how they handled the stage and props and such.  And it was neat seeing the play on Monday, because the night before they swept the Tony's for all sorts of awards.  :)

New York twice in one year.  I'm a lucky girl!  Next up, Switzerland/Italy/France!  We fly out in two weeks.  I can't wait!

Turning up the Heat

I've spent the last year trying really hard to up my tolerance for heat in food.  Coming from Iowa, and raised in a Norwegian family, the only 'spices' we used growing up were sugar, maybe salt, and maybe a little pepper.  But rarely pepper.
I've always been a mild food eater, afraid to try anything that might have even the smallest amount of heat.
Then I realized that I was missing out on some incredible food all because of my wuss of a palate.  So about a year ago I started add a bit more heat to my food.  It started with my chili, which I spiced with some chili powder, red pepper flakes, and cayenne pepper.  I tend to eat my chili with cheese and sour cream, which helped cool my mouth between bites.  After a few months, I was able to tolerate a decent amount of heat and was ready to graduate into something heartier.
I took a cooking class at Flavour cooking school in Forest Park where we cooked with pablano peppers.  We grilled them and blended them with other ingredients to make a green salsa.  It was hot.  But I could handle it.
Friday night I cooked up some homemade creamed corn, which called for chipotle peppers in an adobo sauce.  They were nice and hot and smokey and they made the dish sing with flavor.  And I had a second helping!

So I'm not quite to the point where I'm chomping on jalapenos (jala-painfuls, as someone I once knew used to call them), but at least I'm working my way there!

Backyard Garden Update

I snapped this pic of my backyard garden so I can update you on all the goodies growing!  You can see in the back of the frame that my potatoes are getting HUGE!  It looks like one giant shrub.  :)
The back of the larger bed now houses 1 tomato plant and 2 bell pepper plants.  To the right side of the peppers are some yellow onions.  The turnips are getting large and my row of beets are coming in strong too!  You can see a small row of lettuce and arugula at the front of the bed and a few random bush green bean sprouts popping up here and there as well.
My snap peas (not pictured) are climbing strong up the trellis.  My one pole bean sprout was eaten by some critter so that's a lost cause.  My strawberry patch is growing strong and beginning to flower and my asparagus are tall and starting to fern out!
I also have two pots with herbs: basil, parsley, and thyme.  I was able to use the thyme this week in a recipe for a spicy cilantro lime marinade for skirt steak.  I love being able to step into the backyard and pick fresh herbs!
This weekend I want to plant another seed or two of bush beans and I will check in on my squash and watermelons at the community garden.  So far everything is coming up beautifully!

Corner Garden: Community Garden

Friday night we finished building the community garden.  We have 25 beds in total, one compost pile, a huge mound to grow a pumpkin patch on, and 2 larger member beds for high yield produce.  It was a lot of hard work but man am I excited about this project. 
I spent Sunday morning planting butternut squash and sugar baby watermelons in two of the garden beds.  My 'neighbors' in the garden are Tina (who is also planting squash) Melissa/Matt (who is planting a whole bunch of produce using the square footage gardening techniques) and Charles/Lisa (who are planting potatoes). 
I'll be sure to post photos throughout the summer as the garden fills with yummy produce!

Corner Garden

Chris and I spent part of the weekend helping build a community garden, "The Corner Garden", in Brookfield.  Our church, Compassion UMC, is organizing and overseeing the garden.  We're hoping the garden will bring people together, offer folks an organic space to grow vegetables, and help provide some food to our local food pantry (for those in our town who are hungry).
Friday night a group of about 12 of us got together and started on the project.  We built 20 raised beds out of cedar planks, I picked up two trash bags full of garbage off the lot (seriously people, stop littering!), and we picked up rocks to prepare the space for tilling.
Today my friend Karl is tilling the soil and tomorrow night we will lay out the beds and fill them with organic soil and compost.  Then it's time to plant!

I have taken on two of the twenty beds.  In one bed I want to plant butternut squash and in the second bed I want to  plant sugar baby watermelons.  I thought it best to grow these crops in the wide, open field of this community garden versus my back yard, because squash and watermelon like a lot of room to stretch their legs and I don't think Fred will take kindly to them stretching all over her lawn.

We will also have 2 large member beds where we will grow large yield crop.  Anyone who tends a small 4 x 4 bed, can pick any of the produce from the two larger member beds.  We plan to grow summer squash, cucumbers, basil, rosemary, tomatoes, and hot peppers. 

I'm really excited about this project.  It's a lot of work but this space is just an empty lot in Brookfield.  I feel good that we've picked up the trash and we're turning the space into something beautiful and useful.  :)

Garden - May update

Here is an updated photo of the raised beds in our backyard!  In the bed closest to the camera, you can see the potatoes have sprouted!  In the center bed you can see my thick row of turnips followed by a thinner row of beets.  And at the front of that bed are a few arugula sprouts.
And in the farthest bed you can see my strawberries are growing.

Not pictured are the asparagus that are growing tall and the snap peas that have begun trellising up some netting attached to our fence.  It's going to be a delicious summer.

Baking Bread

Some people are born bakers.  I am not one of them.  But, luckily, I surround myself with fabulous people and my friend Tina is for sure a born baker.  Every couple of weeks she whips together homemade bread for her and her hubby to enjoy.  Last weekend she allowed me to help bake the bread and she made it look so easy, and yet I know bread is a tricky, tricky business.  Here's her recipe:
4 T oil
4 T sugar/sweetener
2 T salt
1 c hot water
4 c room temp water
3 t or 2 packets instant dry yeast
1 bag bread flour

In large bowl mix oil, sugar, salt and hot water until salt and sugar is dissolved.
Add room temp water, the optimum temperature the mixture should be for yeast is 90-110 degrees, but cooler is better than hotter.
Add yeast, mix just enough to make sure all the yeast gets into the mixture, let sit for a few minutes until the yeast "blooms" if you do not mix the water, the yeast when it gets going will actually balloon up through the water, but as long as it look fuzzy and cloudy, it is ready.
Add three cups flour (if adding other kinds of flour, add some white, and some variant)
Mix until all flour is moistened
Repeat
Add three more cups white flour
At this point you should have a pretty thick batter, or very wet dough. If using a stand mixer, put half the dough in the mixer. Add one cup of bread flour and slowly work in. Mix for about a minute. Continue to add a little more flour to dough at intervals until the dough comes together and no longer sticks to the sides. Let machine knead dough for 7 min. Repeat with other half of dough
If kneading by hand, do the same, adding flour to the dough gradually and kneading it for 10 min, until dough is a smooth and firm, but not hard.

Set aside in an oiled bowl to rise for 30 min to 2 hrs, until doubled and when you poke it with a finger it deflates.


Dump out and knead lightly, divide and form 3-4 loaves. Put in oiled pans.

Set aside, after 10-15 min start preheating oven to 375. When the bread has risen (better to put in the oven too soon than too late), this is when you would take a straight sharp blade to split the tops, and put into the hot oven.

After 10 min, reduce oven temp to 350. Bake for 20, then check internal temp of loaves with meat thermometer, ideal is 180-190.  Remove from oven, cool slightly and enjoy!

Now those are Tina's instructions.  I think my instructions would be "Become friends with a born baker.  Enjoy her tasty creations."  :)

Chitting Potatoes

My raised garden beds are officially installed!! Wednesday night I planted lettuce and arugala seeds. Last night I planted strawberries and potatoes. I hope that this weekend, between thunderstorms, I can plant the Amish snap peas and Chiogga beets as well!
To prepare potatoes for planting, it helps to first do the process of "chitting". When you receive your potato seedlings in the mail, I ordered mine from an awesome company called Seed Savers Exchange that specializes in heirloom varieties, set them out in an old egg carton in a warm room with plenty of sunlight. I set mine on our kitchen island near the south facing window. Be sure to place the side with eyes facing up (one side of a potato has eyes and the other does not). Then wait and watch...
1 to 2 weeks later you will start to see sprouts coming out of the eyes of the potato! Feel free to cut up any larger potatoes into smaller sections, making sure there are at least 2 eyes per section. A good rule of thumb is, if it's larger than golf ball size then cut it up. Let the cut potatoes sit for a day or two until a thick callus forms over the exposed flesh (this will prevent them from rotting once planted).
Next dig a hole into the earth and place them sprout side up. Cover loosely with soil and water!

The potato variety that I purchased is called Mountain Rose. You can read about it here

Columbia, South Carolina

Chris and I flew down to Columbia, South Carolina for Easter weekend to spend the holiday with Chris' great-aunt Katie. She's turning 90 years old this year but my gosh she has more energy than most 40 year olds I know!
We had a blast spending time with her and she was the most excellent tour guide. We were in town for just a short while but I feel like I got a good sense of the town.
On our short visit we toured the Botanic Gardens, toured the historic Hampton-Preston house, got a driving tour of the university (where Katie's husband was a law professor), and got to explore some fun restaurants.
For lunch on Saturday we dined at a hip new restaurant called The Motor Supply Bistro. Katie had a veggie salad, Chris ordered a steak and I had a turkey sandwich. The food was really good but I found that they are very limited on their ingredients. When I asked to change the type of bread my sandwich was served on, they said I wasn't able to do that. I asked if I could change the cheese from Swiss to Cheddar and they hemmed and hawed and said "they would see". I did eventually get Cheddar cheese, but boy they made a big deal out of the request.
I would still recommend the place though. It had great food, a fun atmosphere, and all their ingredients are sourced locally and sustainably (which I always appreciate).
On Saturday night, one of Katie's dear friends Karen joined us for dinner. Karen is a judge in the appelate court in D.C. She's one of the judges overseeing the Guantanimo detainees. To say the least, she was one heck of a lady and it was wonderful having dinner with her.
Happy Easter!

Yoga!

April is my two year anniversary for practicing Ashtanga Yoga. It's been an incredible journey comprised of facing obstacles and slowly, with dedication and patience, overcoming those obstacles. The practice has given me flexibility and strength, no doubt about that, but it's also taught me patience, humor, humility, and joy. :) Here are some photos of my practice in the park last week.

Make the Potato Chips

This is about the easiest recipe I've ever done; thank you to my sister for telling me about it!

Recipe for homemade potato chips.
Slice up a potato on a mandoline (or slice thinly with a knife).
Spray a dinner plate with Pam.
Lay out potato chips in a single layer on the plate.
Spray tops of potatoes with Pam.
Sprinkle with salt.
Microwave for approx 4 minutes.
Repeat until all chips are nuked. YUM!!

Dig Right In

It's been a busy couple of weeks at Hein household! We hired my talented friend, Alida Coury, to design our master bedroom. She did a fantastic job but boy am I glad to be done with the project. Between paint fumes, wallpaper fumes, and assembling new furniture...we're ready to just enjoy the space the again!
But, because I'm always a list maker and a project do-er, I've got our next project in full swing. We've hired a local, green landscaping company called Dig Right In to landscape our front and back yard. My sister-in-law, Jenn, used them last year to put in her raised garden beds and paver's patio. She was very pleased with their work and I'm excited to have them work on our yard!
We already have a pretty big paver's patio in the back yard but we're asking them to put in some decorative shrubs and flowers along with 2 or 3 raised garden beds and trellises.
Raised beds should allow me to really grow my gardening skills and harvest a bountiful load of crop!
I'm posting some before photos of the back yard. They aren't that great of shots because they don't show the whole yard but you can see that we have lovely lilac bushes and a large crab apple tree that all bloom super fragrant! The landscapers are putting in flowers that will attract butterflies and bees to help pollinate the veggies in my garden. :)

Puppies - Sosua, DR

Reason # 46,852 why we loved staying at Casa Vientuno in Sosua: Saskia and Marc are dog lovers.

There are a lot of stray dogs on the island of the Dominican Republic. It's quite sad to see so many pups searching for food. (It reminded me of Athens, Greece...lots of stray dogs there too. It's heartbreaking.)

Shortly after Marc and Saskia moved to the DR, they found Blanquito (the bigger brown dog). He and his sister were puppies and they were squatting in an abandoned house down the street. The house was being demolished so the puppies had no place to live. One neighbor took the girl pup and Marc and Saskia took Blanquito. He's such a sweet dog.

Then about 3 months ago one neighbor found out their dog was pregnant and just kicked her out onto the street. Marc and Saskia took the dog in, the black dog named Puka, and cared for her through the rest of her pregnancy. She had a litter of 3 puppies, 2 of which had been adopted by the time we arrived on the island. But she still had a 10 week old puppy, with Saskia named Cartouche (Flemmish for Ink Cartridge). Cartouche was so much fun to have around the week we were visiting. She would attack blades of grass and palm leaves. She would sneak up and steal your flip flop while you lounged by the pool. And sometimes, if I was really lucky, she would lay on my lounge chair with me under the shade of an umbrella.

Seeing Cartouche makes me want to get another puppy. I told Chris this and he just laughed and shook his head. :)

Herb Garden - Sosua, DR

Casa Vientiuno had a lovely herb garden on site which provided some tasty pesto for my penne and some sprigs of mint on our desserts. Chicago is so deprived of the color green in the winter that I was quite obsessed with smelling the fresh herbs every morning. Aren't they lovely!

Dorado - Sosua, Dominican Republic

Sorry it's been awhile since I last posted. Chris and just got back from a trip to the Dominican Republic which was such an awesome vacation. We stayed at Casa Vientiuno in Sosua, which is one of the best B&Bs we've ever stayed at. It's really more like a private resort, with only 3 rooms and a small restaurant.
Saskia and Marc, the owners, were so incredibly kind and generous! They were the perfect hosts, showing us around town and making us feel like we were at home. They were truly a blessing!


One of the things I enjoy most about Casa 21 is that they source as much of his food as possible from local, organic farms. They have their own fruit trees (coconut and mango!) and a lovely herb garden on the property. Most of their vegetables come from a local farm and their fish comes from a sustainable fisherman.

On Thursday 3 large Dorados (Mahi-Mahi) arrived and Marc allowed me into the kitchen to photograph. They smelled like salt water and Marc showed me what it looks like when their fin is raised. :)
I was so grateful to Marc and Saskia for allowing me into their kitchen to document the arrival of the fish. They answered all of my questions and appreciated that I cared so much about where my food comes from.



I couldn't resist snapping a photo of the "after" photo. The fish was cooked perfectly and the white wine and garlic sauce complimented the fresh tastes just perfectly.

Make the Pasta Sauce

I understand that every now and then dinner needs to be quick and easy. I mean, really quick and easy. And on those nights, I have no problem opening up a jar of premade pasta sauce to pour over noodles. But if I have an extra 20 minutes to simmer my own pasta sauce, that's exactly what I try to do.
When cooking with any sort of canned tomato, I only ever buy Red Gold tomatoes. I saw an episode of America's Test Kitchen where they taste tested canned tomatoes and this ranked #1 with their testers. The diced tomatoes are stored in tomato juice, not water, so there is a strong tomato flavor with these tomatoes. The runner up canned tomato was Muir Glen (organic canned tomatoes).

Easy Pasta Sauce Recipe

• 1/4 cup onion , grated
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 garlic cloves , crushed
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons fresh basil , chopped

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add 1/4 cup grated onion. Saute 2 minutes. Add oregano and 1/2 tsp salt. Cook with stirring 3 minutes until onions begin to brown. Add crushed garlic. Cook 30 seconds. Add crushed tomatoes and sugar. Turn heat to high and cook with stirring until simmering. Turn heat to medium low. Simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in olive oil and basil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over pasta.

Makes 3 cups, enough for 1 pound of pasta