Yep.

 

I saw this at Little Homestead in the City and just HAD to share it.  If you don’t know what they’re about, then please check them out! (Rhyme unintentional.)

The Day After

I’m not the type to wake up early on Black Friday, haphazardly wielding plastic all up and down town.  In fact, I’m not really much of a shopper at all, save garage sales and farmers markets.  I guess I like to know the person I’m transacting with, even if that relationship is little more than eye contact and a few sentences back and forth about the good for sale.  By the time afternoon rolled around, however, I had an odd urge to leave home and go shopping.  Not mall shopping, but just some time to hit up some thrift stores and a used book store.  So I didn’t exactly BUY NOTHING – Husband came home with a used copy of Faulkner’s The Hamlet (he needs it for his Faulkner class next semester, Superchunk got a box of diapers from Costco (because I stupidly left the house without any), and my friend T and I got some vegan chocolate chips and Earth Balance to make cookies that my daughter could eat.  And maybe we could have a few, too.

 

For dinner, we made a Guinness Stew using whatever we could find.  The Guinness had been in our refrigerator for a long time, so it seemed like a good way to use it, since it was well past the expiration date.  I’ll post pictures and a recipe later, since they’re on T’s camera.

Yawn.

I haven’t written much this week amid the Thanksgiving week chaos, but since that’s all behind us now, it’s time to reflect.  So here’s what we had:

 

Turkey (from Trader Joe’s — should’ve ordered local months ago, because they sell out quickly!)

Stuffing (one in the bird, another made separately)

Mashed potatoes

Gravy

Roasted sweet potatoes (sort of like candied yams, but dairy-free and not out of a can)

Roasted Brussels sprouts with olive oil and sea salt

Green bean casserole (the old-school kind using cream of mushroom soup and fried onions)

Corn casserole (a friend’s specialty — it was really good!)

Macaroni salad (in memory of my late Grandma Cullison)

Cranberry sauce with nuts and oranges

Rolls and sweet potato biscuits

Pumpkin pies and a blueberry pie (a friend made this with local berries from our summer picking)

 

I’m probably forgetting something, but it was lots of fun.  The best part: we usually keep our thermostat at 62, but the oven heated the house up so much that it’s still at 70 degrees (and we turned all the ovens off six hours ago).

Husband’s New Blog

Husband decided to create a new blog, so let’s see if he actually keeps it updated.  Visit it here.

Menu Plan Monday: The Thrown-Together Thanksgiving Version

 

Too many hours of effort were put into Thursday’s meal for this to be a well-thought out week, but we should have lots of yummy leftovers, anyway!  I really just can’t wait for everyone to fly in.  So have a great Thanksgiving, however you spend it!

 

Monday: Sausage Skillet Dinner (I’ll post a recipe for this later)

 

Tuesday: Mediterranean Chicken

 

Wednesday: Braised cabbage and turnips, plus whatever leftovers we can clean out of the refrigerator

 

Thursday: Thanksgiving…more details later this week!

 

Friday: Thanksgiving leftovers

 

Saturday: Dinner at the Brick Store Pub

 

Sunday: Finish up Thanksgiving leftovers!

 

I’m not sure if anyone else is menu-planning this week, but if so, check out Organizing Junkie and Geek, Poet, Housewife Wannabe for more menu ideas!

Favorite Destinations: November 21, 2008

I’m very tired from many days of crankiness from the 11-month old.  Is the milk I’m drinking affecting him?  I hope not.  I’ll probably have to end that soon anyway, though.  So here two things I enjoyed in my limited free time this week:

 

Properly Prepared Grains at Kelly the Kitchen Kop — very informative!

 

Soup Parties at the Nourished Kitchen — I totally want to try this!

 

Not a long list, but it’s been a crazy week.  Let’s pray for some cooperation from the littles tomorrow so I can actually get something done.

Fab Stock in the Crock Pot

I always read about people simmering vegetables and/or bones on the stove all day to make stock, but that just seems like one more thing for me to have to babysit.  And if you know me at all, the LAST thing I’m looking for is one more thing to babysit! (As my BFF Tricia would say — I’m only 30% joking.)  The solution: why not try the slow cooker?

 

I had a bunch of spent vegetables and a chicken carcass left over from Sunday night’s dinner, so I threw them all into the pot and covered it all with water.  I started it on high around noon on Tuesday, then I switched it down to low before I went to bed that night.  Wednesday morning, I turned it off and let it cool, then I divided it into usable portions to freeze for future use.  Two of the portions are in quart-sized freezer bags, and the other two are in plastic storage cups.  This was my first time making stock, so I wasn’t sure what the best way to go about storage was.  Any ideas?  I’d like to do something eco-friendly (meaning not disposable) and preferably not made out of plastic.  Are there any inexpensive glass storage containers for the freezer?  I will have to do some research.

 

That local chicken turned out to be a great deal.  The $15 spent on a whole chicken seems like a great value when you look at everything I got out of it:

 

* Four meal-sized servings of stock — $8 value if I were to buy the organic, free-range stock at the store

 

* Four chicken meals (the Sunday roast, the enchiladas, plus two servings to freeze) — $16 value if I were to buy high quality boneless, skinless chicken breast at the store

 

…the verdict: I saved $9 over buying this stuff at the store!  My local chicken (which was raised in a sustainable, Joel Salatin-style fashion) is a great deal.  Even if it wasn’t, it’s still more nutritious than those factory farm chickens, and the bone broth derived from it will do much better in terms of taste AND nutrition.

 

The only downer: we won’t be able to get any more chickens until spring.  Eating seasonally has a few drawbacks, but none that are deal-breakers.  So I’ll still buy chicken from Whole Foods over the next few months.

An Impromptu Evening Out in the ATL

I totally forgot (until Husband reminded me yesterday) that we were going to the High Museum tonight.  They have a special Educators’ Evening every so often where teachers plus one guest get in for free.  Since the kids are also free on account of their young age, all we had to pay for was gas and a quick dinner beforehand.  So my menus will be off a day.

 

This was our second time visiting the High, and we only spent an hour there.  D really like the Terracotta Army exhibit, but she got tired of walking around soon after.  Husband and I were really into the Medieval and Renaissance Treasures — they had one of Da Vinci’s sketchbooks on display, how freaking awesome is that? — and they’re going to have a whole Da Vinci sculpture exhibition next year.

 

Afterwards, we headed over to the Barnes & Noble in Buckhead to see if we could catch John Hodgman.  Yes, you do know who this is — he’s the round-faced, bespectacled guy who plays the PC in those Macintosh commercials.  We only caught the last ten minutes or so, but it was worth it.  I won’t share the highlights here, but I’ll tell you in person if you ask.

 

The best part of the evening: the kids went right to bed when we got home!  Too bad we can’t go out every night.

Blustery Fall Days

Why I enjoy living in Georgia:

 

1)  The seasons actually change.  I don’t remember the range of colors on the falling leaves being as brilliant during my 25 years growing up in California. 

 

2)  I’ve met some AMAZING people here who have inspired me in many areas of my life.

 

Hmm…I was hoping this list would be more impressive.  It means a lot to have great friends, though!

 

I’ve been really busy in the kitchen the last few days.  I finally got around to preparing the chicken I ordered from a local farm — it was (humanely) slaughtered on Friday, so I roasted it for Sunday dinner and made some mashed potatoes, gravy, and sauteed green beans.  I forgot to take a picture of the entire chicken, but here is what Husband’s plate looked like:

 

 

Not a very colorful picture, but there were some carrots, too, that were roasted inside the chicken.  It effortlessly fell off the bone, but next time I’m going to try for a crispier skin. 

 

This was my first time roasting chicken, so it was a strange experience for me.  (Being a vegetarian for a large part of my life, I’m still learning how to prepare meat.)  The hardest part was the initial washing of the bird: the uncooked, whole chicken felt like a newborn baby, that flaccidity with bones inside.  I’m no longer uncomfortable with eating meat, however, as long as it’s raised humanely and sustainably.  Michael Pollan talks about a contract between animals and their keepers, and how factory farms violate that sacred pact, so as long as I know exactly where it comes from (in this case, from a farm five miles down the road), I feel better about it.  As weird as it was to handle that chicken, I think that visceral connection to my food is better than buying some anonymous, plastic-wrapped chicken breast at the store.  This is not to say we don’t buy the stuff at the store, but we’re trying to move away from that.  Baby steps!

 

Another thing I don’t like about buying grocery store chicken is that I feel bad knowing I’m only eating parts of a once living creature.   I have many meals’ worth of leftover chicken, so I will use some tonight in my enchiladas and freeze the rest.  I will also make a nourishing bone broth later today with the bones, connective tissues, and other inedible pieces that I can store for later use.

 

I ended up making spaghetti last night, so tonight I will make the enchiladas — chicken for Husband, bean and potato (leftover from Sunday night’s dinner) for the rest of us, with cheese optional.  I also made a pot of pinto beans (for the enchiladas and for lunches this week) seasoned with cumin, salt, and pepper, some chocolate chip cookies, and a batch of sandwich bread.  This might not sound like a big deal, but finding the time in between dealing with children is a bit of a challenge. 

 

Oh, and did I mention that I haven’t yet started buying food for the Thanksgiving dinner I’m hosting?

Menu Plan Monday: November 17, 2008

 

It’s yet another week of belt-tightening; by the time we bought a few (essential!) items at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, I realized I only had $27 left over for the week’s gas and groceries.  To thicken the plot, I’m supposed to bring a meal to a family with a new baby on Tuesday.  Well, I’m always looking for a challenge!  Here’s what we have planned:

 

Monday: Enchiladas (bean or chicken — cheese optional), rice, radish salad

 

Tuesday: My Spaghetti, salad, Italian bread (make double for sharing)

 

Wednesday: Ahi steaks, quinoa pumpkin pilaf, braised turnips

 

Thursday: Buckwheat pancakes, blueberries (in freezer from summer picking!), sausage

 

Friday: Lentil soup, braised cabbage

 

Saturday: Eat out before play (we’re seeing Aristophanes’ Lysistrata)

 

Sunday: Burgers, sauteed broccoli, fried potatoes

 

For more menu plans, visit Organizing Junkie.

 

For more veggie-ful menu plans, visit Geek, Poet, Housewife Wannabe.