M.K.Duke

Chicken Satay and Peanut Sauce

megan — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:30:25 +0000

A few nights ago I made homemade Thai food it was so good and easy! I made the marinade early in the morning and allowed the chicken to marinate for 6 hours before grilling this picture was taken just before grilling…

The peanut sauce was made 30 minutes before serving but it keeps really well because I have been eating it all week with the leftover rice and chicken…

we ate outside on our patio and enjoyed an early summer thunderstorm, everything turned out so well it tasted so much like Thai food from a restaurant I am so excited to make this dish again…

Chicken Satay:

Ingredients

2 (6-ounce) boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into strips and pounded with a meat mallet to tenderize before marinating)

1 Cup unsweetened coconut milk (Thai Kitchen brand)

2 cloves fresh garlic, minced

2 Tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro (from our garden!)

2 Tablespoons fish sauce

2 Tablespoons curry powder

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper or to taste

Kosher salt, to taste

1. combine coconut milk, garlic, cilantro, fish sauce, curry powder and pepper in a large bowl. Add Chicken strips and marinate for at least 30 minutes or up to overnight.

2. Thread the marinated chicken strips onto soaked skewers; season with salt. cooks for about 3 minutes on each side on a medium-high gas grill, make sure to oil the grill with canola oil prior to grilling to prevent sticking. Serve warm with peanut dipping sauce and cucumbers.

Peanut Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk

1 (packed) Tablespoon light brown sugar

2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste (I used Thai Kitchen brand)

1 1/2 teaspoons fish sauce (I also used Thai Kitchen brand for the fish sauce)

1 1/2 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter (I used smart balance brand peanut butter)

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1 clove of fresh garlic minced

1 Tablespoon crushed roasted peanuts for garnish (I omitted this and it was still delicious)

1. Shake the can of coconut milk vigorously to combine the thick cream with the thin milk. Combine all of the ingredients except crushed peanuts in a small sauce pan over medium heat; stir to combine.

2. Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. (I didn’t adjust anything it tasted great to me) the recipe notes: if the sauce breaks or becomes oily, vigorously whisk in 1 Tablespoon of peanut butter to re-emulsify, this didn’t happen to me either.

3. Allow to cool before serving, serve at room temp. I also heated my peanut sauce the next day and had it over Jasmine rice it tasted good hot too.

Yum!

Farmer’s Market kick off!

megan — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:19:13 +0000

Saturday was the first day for the Salt Lake Farmer’s Market and my friend Lori and I were there to greet it with open arms! Although it was more of a rainy Oregon day we still had a good time getting fresh veggies and sampling yummy foods from all the vendors, here is Lori at the Wyomatoes stand making an early season purchase of tomatoes, yum!

There was a handful of musicians, these two had by far the best outfit…

We had some delicious “Happy Cakes”…

These pancakes had everything on them and then they drizzled them with an apple cider syrup, it was so good…

megan — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:45:06 +0000

I have gotten a bit behind on the blogging scene despite lots of recent going-ons. Last week we returned from our trip home to Oregon, it was another whirlwind trip but still good to be back and smell the clean air. I am always so shocked by how green it is, flying into Portland is such a contrast compared to Salt Lake (even though Utah has been having a “wet” spring). I was able to see almost all of my family, Jason flew in a few days after me and he managed to squeeze in a lot within his few days as well. I spent some time in Longview at my Mom’s, Jenna played hookie from school we hung out for the day and then went to visit Mom at work, here she is showing off the baby chicks in her classroom….

Dan and Kathy hosted a BBQ and we hung out Oregon-style around the fire pit…

Erin drove up from Corvallis and we toured the Japanese Gardens…

Chinese Gardens…

And we ate cupcakes at St. Cupcake…

Jason and I met up with Steph, Jenna, Mom and Jim to watch a Portland Timbers Game, afterward we met up with Lindsay to have drinks at La Merde and dessert at the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House.

We went on a hike with Dan, Kathy and Steph to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge…

Everything was so lush and green…

We also got to visit with Corey, Alyssa and the new addition Carson! I didn’t get any pictures but man is he a cute one, I enjoyed cuddling with him, so tiny! I miss you Oregon and everything and one that lives there!

The nook project…continued and finished!

megan — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:43:09 +0000

This painting project took way longer than I would have wanted but so it goes when you are renting and at the mercy of your landlord. Anyway, the hold up was a giant crack that was hiding behind the wallpaper; I had to wait for Rod to patch it up before I could paint, this was no small crack, it was about 3 inches wide at the biggest opening and extended from the ceiling down to the bench, sadly I did not catch a picture of the crack before it got patched but you can see the patch in this picture below…

Surprisingly Rod did an amazing job patching the crack, here is the wall after I put two coats of primer on it…

And then one coat of Lemon Chiffon…

a shot without all the tape…

I am so happy to have it done, it really does brighten things up and it is so much fresher than the old wallpaper!

Spring is in the air

megan — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:42:47 +0000

The days are getting longer, the hills are greener and my garden tools are getting anxious to get growing! I was told that once there is no longer any snow on the Ochre Mountains (that is the name of the range to the West of SLC) then you can begin to plant your garden without fear of frost. We might have one more snow day ahead of us but man it feels and looks like spring around here! Taking inventory of the yard I found a giant Mullein plant which is a desert thriving, drought loving easy to care for garden treat, it will likely bloom next year which will be cool since it shoots up a stalk that can reach a height of 10 feet!

My chard seedlings are coming along…

I planted a few pansies and they have held strong through three snowfalls yet again proving they are tougher than their namesake…

a few more tulips are popping up late to the scene…

I planted some calla lilies along the driveway strip that we cleared out last summer, I am still working on that area so no pictures yet but I will be looking forward to my sorbet assortment of callas to pop up in the late spring/early summer. Jason and I had some friends over for a bbq yesterday after yard work and a long bike ride. I was in the mood for pie so I tried out Jason’s Great Grandmother Atwood’s no fail crust recipe (thank you Kathy for the recipe cards in my Christmas stocking!) it turned out great! I was really hoping for peach pie but those aren’t in season yet so I went for apple instead…

I have been having pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner, it kept me going on my long and ridiculously busy 12+ hour shift today. I am hoping that I will have time to work on the Nook painting project Thursday so long as I am not totally exhausted after working for three days in a row, ugg. Anyway, I know I shouldn’t complain, so I have been chanting to myself in the morning when I wake up for work “I love my job, I love having a job, I am good at what I do” and this makes me feel better at least for a little while :) I have been looking into internships to advance my nursing career and of course the NP program at University of Portland is on my tentative plans for when we move back to Oregon. time to go have some pie, happy spring everyone!

Weekend Warriors

megan — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:22:37 +0000

Last weekend Jason and I both happened to have three days off so we decided to make the trek down south to see Arches and two districts of Canyonlands NP. The weather was perfect, 80 degrees, sunny and clear blue skies. It was the first camping trip and sunburn of the season! We camped along the Colorado River on highway 128, primitive camp sites for 8 dollars a night!!! That is how much camping should cost, I can’t remember the last time I paid that little for a campsite. There weren’t any showers but they had pit toilets and we were only there for two nights so we could do without showers.

I had worked the night before and had thought that I could sleep in the car on the way down but the excitement kept me awake. We set up camp and then took a drive through Arches which was only 1 mile or so from our campsite. We hiked part of the Devil’s Garden trail it was perfect no one was there except us…

This is what 30 hours without sleep looks like when you are in a National Park, not bad! My feet were dragging but it was worth it!

I can imagine that this place is a zoo in the summer, luckily we had the place pretty much to ourselves on our first day but it filled up on Saturday. The next day we drove about 40 miles to the Needles district of Canyonlands NP. It was pretty excellent, I think not very many people must visit this park because again we had the place to ourselves despite Arches being totally flooded with cars. We saw some petroglyphs!

Some of the glyphs date back to pre-columbian times but as you can see the “wheel” was most likely done during the time of the pioneers. Either way it was pretty cool, I love the little goat glyphs. We drove back through Arches on the way home and caught a glimpse of Delicate Arch, the parking lot for the hike up to the Arch was full, ugh, so we went to the other parking lot for the viewpoint…

So we are going to have to go back for a more close up picture perhaps even earlier in the season to avoid the crowds. We also hit up the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands to see Mesa Arch. I think this was probably the most impressive view/arch that we saw and again we were one of two cars in the parking lot which made it even more excellent…

and another view from under Mesa Arch…

We had a nice sunset here, the sun was behind us and the last rays of the day were shining on the distant rocks…

and another…

It was a perfect mini trip to get us psyched for summer. We crossed off two more NP’s now we just need to hit up Zion and the other two districts of Canyonlands. We also are planning on going back to Capitol Reef to do some backpacking/mountain biking, yea for living so close to cool places!

Spring Cleaning

megan — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:12:34 +0000

As some of you know the huge selling or renting point for our current house was the breakfast nook. I have a history of renting houses based on one feature alone (purple toilet in Corvallis anyone?) but really that is the luxury of renting you can be ridiculous without signing your life away. Ever since we moved in I have been dying to rip down the hideous wallpaper in the nook and put a fresh coat of paint up instead but I held off on asking permission from the landlords for fear of being rejected. Well, this spring weather got me in a painting mood and I couldn’t take the nasty wallpaper any longer, I mustered up the courage to ask and they said YES! I am so pumped, I have all the wallpaper down, it surprisingly came off without any aid. Now I am nearly done washing the walls to remove the old glue and then I should be painting in just a few days, once I recover from my night shifts that is. Here is a picture of the nook without wallpaper (there was old pink paint under the old wallpaper)…

As you can see I have some shades of yellow, right now I am leaning towards Lemon Chiffon, I like the way that sounds, it is a little more sophisticated than when I painted my room in college a shade of green called “Salty Margarita”. Below is a picture of the nook with the wallpaper…

Coming soon pictures of a fresher nook!

April Fools?

megan — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:16:41 +0000

Woke up to a fresh blanket of snow this morning! What?! I thought it was spring and so did the daffodils! The mountains are apparently getting hit with tons of snow, we are still really behind our average snowfall for this year so hopefully this will help with water levels but honestly I was done with winter and had already traded in my snow shovel for my garden hoe!

Mom and Jenna

megan — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:11:42 +0000

My Mom and Jenna came to visit over their spring break. We had a good time, went hiking in the foothills near my house and then had a picture perfect day of hiking on Antelope Island (polar opposite from my visit two weeks ago with Kirsten)…

They were loving the dry and warm weather that we were having, we saw lots of lizards sunning themselves while we were hiking, but they were too fast for us to snap a picture. Antelope Island is such a weird place, it is only about 45 minutes from my house but the landscape is so different it seems as though you are much further…

It was sad taking them to the airport last night; was so nice to have a couple of days with them and not have to work. Hopefully I will be able to get to Oregon in May for a visit, I am longing for Oregon rain and some green in my life right now, just doesn’t seem right to have spring come without some moisture.

friends

megan — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:27:03 +0000

Kirsten, Joe and Joe’s Dad came to Salt Lake last week for a skiing vacation and to see us of course! Kirsten and I went to nursing school together and also traveled to Belize last year, it was great to see her and catch up. We went skiing with them a few days and then Kirsten and I went to Antelope Island to track down some buffalo! Below is a picture of Kirsten and I skiing at Alta on a nice sunny day…

Kirsten and Joe at Solitude…

Kirsten and I stalking a large Buffalo at Antelope Island…

And a picture of Jas on the Supreme lift at Alta…