eat, drink and just be!

yellow stone and grand teton

it was our anniversary and there's no better way to celebrate it in the wilderness. we hiked a lot, saw tons of wild animals and unique landscapes. we saw beautiful geysers and hot springs in yellowstone. tons of beautiful herds of animals such as bisons and elks in the gorgeous hayden valley and lamar valley. even a couple of grizzly bears; three of them eating a dead bison. we had wonderful hikes to some beautiful scenic mountains at grand tetons and enjoyed being surrounded with cold water lakes on the mountains.

the only thing that was a bit rough while camping in yellow stone and grand teton was finding diverse ingredients for grilling at nights and sandwitches for hiking. so we ended up eating pretty monotone for most of the week. eggs or omlettes in the morning, cheese or other cold cut sandwitches for lunch, and grilled saussages, and vegetables at nights.

having only one mini burner and a very hot fire could be challenging some times. i guess after this trip we mastered the tempretures for grilling on the camp fire and cooking omlettes on our burner. the vegetables we grilled were usually corn, tomatoes, bell pepper, garlic, and potatoes. we even made use of some of them in the omlette of the next morning.:-) 

the only fancy dinner we had was on our anniversary night at Jackson Lake lodge with a fantastic view of a valley with moose, elk, and tons of birds. i totally recommend their huckleberry margarita while you are sitting in the balcony. i should say the quality of fine dining was not comparable with any fine dining experience in the big cities, but at least there was a nice variety of local ingredients such as: elk salami and bison carpaccio as appetizers. elk salami was very lean and enjoyable. the bison carpaccio was a bit bland for me but maybe it was just the way they prepared it and the meat itself might be more flavorful. my main dish also was a nice cut of elk meat but the sides were not very special. what i enjoyed a lot was a chocolate dish as dessert which included a very heavy chocolate mousse (not a moose though) and a very nice cold mocca.

i totally recommend yellow stone and grand teton for the wonderful adventures and volcanic activities in the area. i could bear  the lack of diversity in food since those unique views are totally worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

loubia polow (rice with green beans)

polow in persian means cooked rice with meat, fruit, and vegetables arranged in layers steamed together. to make polo you first wash the rice, parboil it, drain it through a large and fine-mesh colander, then steam the rice together with other ingredients. we got a ton of fresh green beans(loubia) from farm fresh. no better way to use them than in loubia polo. ingredients:

- one cup of rice for two portions

- one onion

- two cloves of garlic

- two pound of stewing meat or ground meat

- six large fresh tomatoes

- three carrots

- two pounds fresh greens

- ground cinnamon

- persian spices

- two spoons yougort

- one teaspoon saffron dissolved in hot water

 - butter

- salt and pepper

boil the rice with 1.5 times more water, salt, and butter. after it boils ten minutes, drain it. in a pan saute the onion, garlic, and the meat in some olive oil. add cinnamon, persian spices, salt and pepper. let them cook ten minutes on medium heat. then add the tomatoes and let them cook together another ten minutes. add the beans,carrots and a cup of water or more tomatoes and let them cook together. 

combine yogourt, rice and saffron. place a layer of rice in the pot, add a layer of green beans and meet mix, add another layer of rice. repeat, alternating layers in the shape of a pyramid. sprinkle some cinnamon, persian spices, salt, pepper and butter on the top. cover and cook for twenty minutes over low heat. nosheh jahn!

 

family reunion

although this is my food blog, this post is not only about food. it's mostly about family, which is kind bf related to food as well.:-)  when i get together with family there's always a great amount of fantastic food, but since i get very distracted to catch up with the family i forget to take pictures of good food. my family is in different parts of the world. my sister and her family live in austria, my parents and brother and his family live in vancuver and after living in austria for many years me and my family moved to san francisco. so in order to get together we have to coordinate a lot. it's not very easy to have holidays at the same time and fly all over to get together. last time we all got together was at my wedding five years ago in vienna. other than that our reunion happens only through Skype which is also very complicated with time differences. at least in the recent years since my parents are not in tehran any more, we have only two time zones to match and not three which makes things easier.

this year we were lucky that my sister and brother in law flew to vancouver to see the rest of the family and celebrate my nephew's 17th birthday. since we are only a couple of hours flight away from vancouver, we joined them too and we had a great weekend all together. fortunately the weather was also fantastic and we could celebrate my nephew's birthday by a gigantic grill feast. unfortunately i forgot to take enough pictures of food because it was more important for me to spend time with family but as it was a collaboration you'd see my mom preparing the burgers and my brother grilling them. the only cooking comment i can add to this post is that persian make burger like koubideh kabob, which means we add ground onions to ground meat and some persian spices to the meat to make it more flavorful. if you want to learn how to make persian kabob, check out turmeric and saffron's post on how to make a home made kabob.