Entries from December 2008
I’ve been trying to hash out my goals for this year, and I’ve come up with several categories: spiritual life, parenting, personal finance, reading, writing, gardening, cooking, and sustainability. Maybe I’m being overly ambitious? I’m going to try to keep the goals very simple, though, which is something I’m not very good at – keeping things simple. Here’s what I have so far…
1. Spiritual life
· Read my bible three times per week. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but right now I’m doing it a lot less than that!
2. Parenting
· Be more organized about planning out the day.
3. Personal finance
· Save half the money needed to buy a new (to us) vehicle (about $5000). This is a little ambitious, but our largest car – a 1995 Honda Accord – will likely not work for us at some point in the near future when it needs an expensive repair or our family outgrows it. We just want to be prepared if/when one of those things happens!
· Eat out no more than once per week. We’re almost there, but we really need to renew our commitment to this.
4. Reading
· Re-read the Aeneid.
· Read Don Quixote for the first time.
5. Writing
· Write 500 words per day. I set a goal earlier this year to write something daily, so I want to up the ante.
6. Gardening
· Start earlier this year.
· Learn more about canning/buy a pressure canner.
7. Cooking
· Make sourdough bread.
· Learn how to lactoferment.
8. Sustainability
· Continue to seek out more local food sources.
· Reduce plastic consumption.
Many of these categories overlap, and most of the goals need to be fleshed out further to form a plan of action. So I will be working on that over the next couple of weeks!
Are any of you working on similar goals?
Categories: Productivity
Thanks to sickness, the holidays, and procrastination in general, my house looks like a warzone. So I worked all morning trying to clean the house, and I still didn’t scratch the surface. For instance: there were two cookie sheets sitting on the counter near the sink, still bearing the remnants of roasted Brussels sprouts and sweet potato fries from Tuesday night’s dinner. And the casserole dish with mac and cheese stuck to it from the night before. Oh, and how about the dried egg remnants all over the island? I will stop there.
I did, however, learn a valuable parenting lesson today: children will entertain themselves all day with a certain kind of manipulation. While I worked on the kitchen, I kept telling my little girl to pick up her toys so we could do something fun. But instead of picking up the toys, she would get distracted playing with them. This worked very well for my ends, namely, the complete scrub-down of the kitchen. We can get to picking up her toys tomorrow!
Categories: Parenting · Uncategorized
I’ve been eyeing Klean Kanteens forever, but I didn’t want to shell out $15 for a water bottle. Instead, I leave the house with a glass — yes, an actual glass — of water whenever I go places. This is unwieldy, not to mention unsafe (considering there are usually kids in the car). My thoughtful husband, however, picked up this aluminum knock-off at Home Goods for $6.99:
What a great stocking stuffer! I also got some raw milk cheese, a Dagoba dark chocolate bar, and some McVities’ Digestives (the English biscuits). So pardon me while I mop up the drool puddle in my lap…
Categories: Sustainability
This is totally inspired by the Banana-Stuffed French Toast at $5 Dinners. I decided to try out her recipe for my February article, then changed it according to what I had on hand.
Peach and Banana Strata
4 slices of bread (a great way to use stale bread!)
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk (I used rice milk so my daughter could try this!)
1 mashed banana
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups peaches, frozen or canned
Tear bread apart and place into a large loaf pan. Stir together eggs, milk, bananas, brown sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour mixture over the bread. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours to set. To cook, bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, or until eggs begin to golden on top. Let cool a few minutes before serving.
This would probably be good with some blueberries, too, but I didn’t think about that until later. Especially because I still have a whole gallon-sized freezer bag full of blueberries from this summer’s picking. Thanks again to $5 Dinners for the idea!
Categories: Breakfast · Dairy-free
Tagged: Banana, Breakfast, Dairy-free, Peach
December 24, 2008 · 1 Comment
Why is a new camera so exciting? Let me count the ways…
Father-son bonding.
Silly moments.
Quiet moments.
Once-in-a-lifetime moments. (Yes, that’s Simon walking!)
And — of course — food pics.
Thanks SO MUCH again, Carizza!
Categories: Uncategorized
I realize that not all of you are on the raw milk bandwagon. But don’t you think people should be able to decide for themselves whether they want their milk pasteurized? We can legally eat our steaks rare despite risks of e. coli, but in many states (including the one I live in — Georgia), a farmer can be jailed for selling raw milk. There are some ways we get around all that here, but why should we have to look for loopholes?
Thankfully, the Obama administration is looking for input on what is important to Americans. If you would like to keep the government’s nose out of your food decision making, go here to vote for this issue. The last time I checked, it was still in first place under health care issues, so that is a good sign.
I voted for some other things, too, but I won’t discuss them here.
Categories: Real Dairy Products
Tagged: Raw Milk
December 19, 2008 · 1 Comment
I don’t normally throw together a bunch of packaged things and call it dinner, but I’m still climbing out of the ditch from last week. I also totally forgot what I had planned tonight, so this was not on Monday’s menu plan. Impromptu dinner: chili, cornbread, and sauteed chard. This is how we did it…
Whole Foods has cans of chili beans (meaning they’re already seasoned) on sale for 37 cents, and I bought some a few weeks ago just because. I also bought a bag of Trader Joe’s Chard of Many Colors last week, because I knew I didn’t feel like doing a lot of prep work. So those were my prepared foods.
Husband’s been craving a chili made with beef, so I sauteed a shallot, some bell pepper, and tomatoes in a pot and then browned half a pound of ground beef. Just add the canned chili beans, and there’s the main dish. These were all items I just happened to have on hand.
The chard is easy to prepare, even if you don’t buy the washed/cut/bagged variety. This mixture from Trader Joe’s was really good, though, because it had a few different types of chard and kale. Just prepare this the same way you would spinach — put a tablespoon (or more, if you prefer) of olive oil in a skillet, throw in some minced garlic once it’s hot, then wilt the chard. I just dump it all in and use tongs to evenly distribute the hot oil over the leaves.
Isn’t that pretty? I like to cook it down a bit so it’s not too crunchy, but not so much that it’s like canned spinach. You can taste test it while it cooks to find the perfect texture for you. This cooks pretty quickly, so you do have to watch it so it doesn’t get too mushy.
Earlier in the day, I made some cornbread to go with all this. I always have the cornbread ingredients on hand, and it’s incredibly simple to make.
Yummy!
Categories: Beef · Chilis, Soups, Stews · Dairy-free
Tagged: Chard, Chili, Cornbread, Dairy-free
1. Dehydrating half a bushel of apples.
Yes, I’ve already had to throw some of them out, but it’s just not going to happen today. On top of my recovery, I now have a little girl recovering from a stomach virus. On her birthday, too!
2. Roast, puree, and store ten pounds of sweet potatoes.
This will probably get done tomorrow, though.
3. Make D’s birthday cupcakes.
That’s okay; we’re not having the party today anyway!
4. Clean the bathrooms.
Hasn’t been done in two weeks. Yuck.
5. Clean out the refrigerator.
I’m still finding lots of old food. Luckily, I catch most of it just before it’s too late, while we’re still able to eat it. Also, there are the dried remnants of an almond milk spill.
6. Christmas preparations.
This includes cards, shopping, everything but the decorating. I really suck in this area.
Categories: Uncategorized
