The Internal Ledger

Warning: Gratuitous Meat Content

Liz Neerland — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:04:22 +0000

We have a meat grinder that attaches to the KitchenAid mixer. We were given it as a wedding present. We even requested it. (In part because of a story involving Josh needing ground pork for a recipe, and only having pork chops and a blender on hand…) Despite this, the meat grinder has sat in its box unused all this time.

Well, I finally got around to using it.

My awesome cousin Thomas (who owns a great little joint in New York you may have heard of) gave me the Frankies Spuntino cookbook for Christmas. I decided this was a great chance to make some from-scratch spaghetti and meatballs, so I dusted off the meat grinder box.

from Clancy's

second grind

This bowl contains awesome.

ready to bake

I also made the tomato sauce and Caesar dressing from the book. Both rocked.

But, alas, by the time I got to the finishing and plating and eating part of things, I forgot about the picture taking.
It looked something like this:

Portrait of Dinner as it May Have Appeared

(thanks)

Hard to believe

Liz Neerland — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:15:11 +0000

It really does still seem surreal. First, that we made the crazy decision to jump off this particular cliff. That we found the right space. That we moved in a blizzard. That a year later I still get excited when I walk in the door.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: We had an idea, and a whole lot of people thought it was a good one. And a whole lot of people helped it go from an idea to a reality, even better than we could have imagined.

To everyone who has done anything in the past year: THANK YOU.

If I stood in the same spot today, I'd be in the bathroom.

Moving day. Seems so peaceful inside...

Mitch spent most of the day plowing.

We didn't call it a day until the truck got stuck.

The pipe for the grid gets delivered.

That's a lot of multi cable. And it was free.

All able-bodied people were put to work.

We celebrated opening night in style.

Striking "The Balcony."

Doug & Sarah's wedding reception. Sorry about the broken air conditioning.

Kubla is very good at lying on things to make sure they stay in place.

Also, just for comparison:

December, 2010

December 2011

Pasta!

Liz Neerland — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 03:47:31 +0000

I attempted homemade pasta for the first time tonight. It’s pretty easy, but definitely falls into the “more trouble than its worth to do often” category.

I made butternut squash ravioli, with a simple butter sauce.

Roasted squash

Making dough

Rolling (thanks for the roller, Drea!)

Filled with yummy goodness

The main problem with this meal was that it took a looooooonnnnnnng time to prepare. I’m pretty sure Josh snuck out, grabbed something at La Grassa, and snuck back in while I was still assembling raviolis. The dog was eventually begging me for his dinner, since he usually eats when we do.

But, at long last, the ravioli was on our plates. Worth the wait.

NOM

They were fairies…

Liz Neerland — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:40:38 +0000

…although, fleece jackets combined with the hat Ida insisted on wearing did lead one person to ask her, “Are you a hiker?”

I'm a fairy, damn it.

(I always say that these posts are for the grandparents, but I ask all twelve of my readers to admit it…you all love pics of the Wee Sisters Neerland.)

Elder Fairy

Treat...

...or trick

Super fairy power activate!

Daddy's little girl

Ready to go

Fairies in action

Alright, everyone say "Christmas card!"

I come around. Eventually.

Liz Neerland — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:21:41 +0000

A few years ago, I was looking through Josh’s kitchen and came across a box of old Ball jars and lids. ”Can’t you get rid of these?” I asked him. ”No,” Josh told me, “I haven’t been able to in the past few years, but I do want to can things again sometime.”

I scoffed. Who had the time or inclination to can things?

Fast forward to 2010, when I discovered that homemade salsa really is the best, and canning is actually not that hard and pretty fun. Especially if done with a group of friends and some beer and football.

This year, Mat and Monique came over for our day of tomato adventures. We all headed to the Farmer’s Market, and soon were headed home with, among other things, four bushels of tomatoes.

That’s a lot of tomatoes.

It took all day (and night – I think it was 1am when I took the last jars out of the bath) but we ended up with many many jars of different salsas, tomato sauce, and my new super-awesome smoky ketchup.

Just beginning (note the time)

Peeling and chopping

So many tomatoes...

So, so, so many tomatoes...

Obligatory Kubla photo

Not for Chuck.

Salsa

Still chopping

We ran out of room in the kitchen (that's the entryway table)

We also ran out of room on the stove. Good thing the grill has a burner.

Making sauce

So many tomatoes...

Yum.

Forget biscuits

Liz Neerland — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:37:20 +0000

Pepper jelly is where it’s at.

Start here…

About an hour later…

Crack.

(more to come…)

Worth turning the oven on for

Liz Neerland — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 22:00:05 +0000

What will get me to turn the oven to 475 in August? Pizza. Pizza topped with local in-season awesome.

The crust was practically sourdough, because I had made the dough about 5 days earlier, but that night we ended up having cocktails with the neighbors for 4 hours and didn’t get around to cooking dinner.

Leeks, romas, and red peppers from the Farmer’s Market. Basil from our garden. The cheese came from Target. That counts as local, right?

Tanum

Liz Neerland — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:58:15 +0000

I owe y’all a catch-up post for the last few days, but first I’ll tell about Tanum, where we were yesterday (Sunday). This area, on the western coast of Sweden, has one of the highest concentrations of Bronze Age rock carvings anywhere on earth. Most of the carvings date between 1500bc – 1ad.

I will let them speak for themselves.

bull pulling the sun

mourning woman

This one means "Don't drop your cell phone off the boat."

This is the biggest rock carving of a god/dude. Ever.

Sacred reindeer doing that sacred thing he does...

These guys are fighting the Celts. You can tell because their shields are square.

fertility goddess

These guys are hunting with their dogs. Can you tell I miss Kubla?

Sea Kayaking, Modern Art, and So On

Liz Neerland — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:18:27 +0000

Sorry for the lack of posts. Usually sleeping has been more on my mind than blogging when we get home at night.

Monday we just explored the city a bit. Josh and I explored the neighborhood of Sodermalm for a while, then we took one of those cheesy tourist boat tours. It was actually pretty nice – it was a full two hours, and went all around the city.

Tuesday (yesterday) Dani joined us and we headed out to the archipelago. The Stockholm Archipelago has something like 30,000 islands. Some of them are large and have towns on them, and some are just a bit of rock and a tree above the water (tho it seems all of them, even the tiniest, have a summer cottage of some sort on them.)

Our first ferry was all old and made of wood and awesome.

We ferried out to Grinda, which was about a two-hour boat ride from the city. We enjoyed a lovely lunch and chatted with a nice Swedish couple (Swedes are very fond of striking up a friendly conversation with you and then telling you how unfriendly their countrymen are.) Josh and I then rented kayaks and hit the water. We paddled part of the way around Grinda and explored some of the smaller rocky islands.

Alas, no photos can be taken from the helm of a sea kayak. (At least not with the cameras we possess.)

Today (Wednesday) Josh, Dani and I hit the Moderna Museet. They had a lovely exhibit about Siri Derkert that was very cool. They also had a great collection of various Picassos, Dalis, Rauschenbergs, Johns, etc.

A goat wearing a tire - must be modern art! (So excited to see this for realz!)

We also visited the Livery Museum, which contains such awesome artifacts as the Masquerade costume King Gustav III was murdered in (complete with bloody shirt and the actual shot they removed from his body) and the stuffed war horse ridden by King Gustavus Adolphus. The horse died in 1633. (The horse outlived the king.) This museum also included several of the magnificent state carriages, which I surreptitiously snapped photos of.

Now we are off to find some Ethopian food. Yay!

Holy Crap the Vasa is the Coolest Thing I’ve Ever Seen

Liz Neerland — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 21:55:05 +0000

Today we went to the Vasa museum. The Vasa was a war ship that King Gustavus Adolphus commissioned. It set sail from Stockholm for it’s maiden voyage in 1628 and promptly sank. Very promptly. I think it made it 1500 meters before the wind capsized the ship because it was too top heavy and didn’t have enough ballast. It lay at the bottom of the harbor for three hundred years before they re-found the wreck and raised it to the surface (intact) in 1961. They then salvaged everything, restored the ship, and built a museum around it.

All of this sounds pretty neat. But none of it really can possibly describe how amazing this thing is. Seriously. You walk in the door and are just struck dumb. Photos can’t really do it justice, but I’ll try. You just have to go see it for yourself.