Deceptive Cooking? I'm a believer!

I learned of this book titled 'Deceptively Delicious' by Jessica Seinfeld (yes, Jerry Seinfeld's wife) where she teaches of hiding fruits and vegetables in food - it is geared toward children, but let's face it - how many of us adults are even getting enough of these necessary nutrients in our diet? I know in our house, it's not even close!!! So, I tried my first 'deceptive' recipe today, the Scrambled Eggs. Although they did not taste just like traditional eggs cooked in butter they were still great! According to the health expert that contributes to the book the added vegetable gives 19 grams of protein per serving!!

SCRAMBLED EGGS
2 large eggs
4 large egg whites
1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1/2 cup cauliflower puree
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
Pinch of salt
Nonstick cooking spray
1 teaspoon olive oil

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg whites, sour cream, cauliflower puree, Parmesan and salt.
Coat a large non-stick skillet with cooking spray, then set the pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the oil. Add the egg mixture, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring frequently with a silicone spatula, until the eggs are scrambled - firm but nice and moist - 2 to 3 minutes.

I personally like them a little less moist, so I cooked the eggs a bit longer. I can't wait to keep trying more of the recipes! If you want to try the same thing, buy the book - I highly recommend it! Here's a quick link right to it on Amazon.com:


For the record, some of the reviewers mentioned another book titled 'The Sneaky Chef'. While they are both fundamentally similar, Jessica's book is better. The interior is spiral bound (much better for laying it open to follow a recipe), has a lot of color pictures and she does the puree thing different as well. 'The Sneaky Chef' takes up the first 1/3 of the book with a lot of talk, I just want the puree instructions and recipes - Jessica delivers!!

Most dedicated Survivor Fan?

So, do we qualify?

Last night we had a pretty heavy windstorm hit Western Washington courtesy of the remnants from Typhoon Ling Ling. Our power was out for about 5 hours. Well, it was Survivor night!! Fortunately I have a very handy husband who took a power inverter, hooked it up to his truck battery, then ran an extension cord from the garage into our living room where he plugged in a small tv from my office. The reception wasn't great from the rabbit ears, but hey, we got to watch Survivor!!

Well, now we know in extended power outages we can plug in our refrigerator (for a little while anyway), unless of course our favorite tv show is on. :-)

Blake Island

Our last boating trip of the season a few weeks ago was to Blake Island, just 7 miles South and West of Seattle. You can see the Seattle skyline from the Island. This is a really popular place among boaters and the marina commonly fills up. Unfortunately - even though it was past the busy boating season for the area the marina was still full. So, we pulled into the bay, dropped the anchor and had lunch. It was so peaceful listening to waves hit shore behind us, watch other boats pass by and look at the changing colors around us. After eating lunch we sprawled out on the back seats and soaked up some sunshine.

Blake Island is a marine park, meaning the only access is by private boat or tour boat. The island has an Indian village on it, called Tillicum Village, where they have salmon bakes and traditional Native American dances.

We will go back next year for sure!!!

Welcome Back Emily and Jesse!

Ok, so this post is more than a month too late, but better late than never! :-)

We were SO happy to have Emily and Jesse come back to visit over Labor Day weekend. This time we took the pace a little slower, but still saw plenty of cool stuff.

They arrived on Wednesday August 29th, late in the evening. Thursday morning we got up early and put the boat in the water. It was beautiful and sunny - we headed to Port Townsend. On the way we spotted a harbor seal on a buoy and another trying to get up. They sure can jump!! The harbor seal already on the buoy was not happy about a prospective companion. We stopped for awhile to watch their antics before pushing on. The water was so smooth - Emily and Jesse enjoyed taking turns as our Captain. :-)

Once in Port Townsend we walked through the historic homes area, then into a park along the Strait of Juan de Fuca (ocean), walked the beach and then back into the marina area. We went back to the boat for a picnic lunch of sandwiches (turkey or roast beef), chips, alcohol (of course!) and brownies. After lunch we walked around the downtown area of Port Townsend and ended with dessert in an old fashioned soda shop overlooking the bay.

On our way back since it was still early we wanted to try heading North of our starting point, but the water (pretty suddenly) got really rough... we were experiencing chop of about 2-3 feet. Since it generally gets worse in the afternoons we decided to just bring 'er in for the day.

Friday we went to (our favorite breakfast place) Maltby Cafe before heading on to the Chateau St. Michelle winery for a tour. What a beautiful place this is! It just so happened that Stevie Wonder was playing a show there that night, but tickets were sold out so we couldn't attend. (They actually sold out in 18 minutes). We experienced good wine and a nice tour, then off to another tour....

Red Hook Brewery - for fine crafted beer! $1 gets you 5 samples, totaling almost 2.5 pints! Now this is the way to drink! We had a blast, but now it was time to find some food. We stopped at the local farmer's market for fresh vegetables and then on to the store for steaks to grill up.

Saturday morning we took off early driving down to Mount Rainier for the day. Wow, this place is breathtaking. It is just stunning - the pictures I'll post below don't do it justice!!


Sadly Sunday it was time for us to part - but we did spend the day walking around downtown Seattle... another amazing visit with such wonderful friends. We miss you and can't wait to see you again. I'm already gathering a list of new places to take you...