The other night the boy and I were going to Trader Joe’s and I asked him what we should have for dinner. His reply was, “mac n’ cheese.” This shouldn’t be shocking. That child would eat mac n’ cheese at every meal possible. I said I wasn’t sure if daddy would really like mac n’ cheese for dinner. His reply, “well, we could put bacon in it.” Ahh, the child does know his father. Ok, it really is common knowledge of the trusty husband’s love of bacon. I told the boy that if we were having mac n’ cheese that I’d make it from scratch. He was a little bummed since he thought that he’d just get Trader Joe’s frozen mac n’ cheese and we’d add bacon to it. Now I don’t mean to brag, but my bacon mac n’ cheese is pretty tasty. It is basically an adaptation of Alton Brown’s Stove Top Mac N’ Cheese recipe.
16 oz. elbow macaroni
6 oz. smoked gouda (shredded)
6 oz. gouda (shredded)
4 T. butter
1 5 oz. can evaporated milk
2 eggs
3/4 t. salt
4-5 strips bacon
Boil pasta according to the package directions. Cook the bacon and drain well on paper toweling (we cook ours in the microwave). Chop the bacon into small bits. Whisk together evaporated milk, eggs and salt in a medium bowl. When pasta is finished drain and return to the pot and turn on low. Add butter to the pot. Add milk, egg, salt mixture. Add cheese. Cook on low until the cheese is melted. Don’t heat it too high or cheese will get grainy. Once the cheese is melted fold in the bacon. Drool.
People who know us well know that the trusty husband and I are very much about sustainability. This is particularly evident in our food choices. This is one area of our budget that I am fairly unwilling to compromise. Lucky for me I’ve found ways to stretch our food dollar so we can continue to eat as sustainably as possible. Granted there are a few things in our pantry that wouldn’t qualify under the “healthy or local” eating category, but for the most part I make everything from scratch and we purchase a limited number of processed foods. In fact, while typing this I had a craving for ice cream and pulled out the handy dandy ice cream maker and started a batch of mint-chip.
We are lucky that, in our area, we have a service that provides fresh, locally grown, organic produce. The company is called Terra Organics. We signed up with them about a year ago and when I did I signed up for the small mixed box to be delivered every other week. I had the option for the all Northwest box, but decided against it. I opened up the first box and pulled out beautiful peppers, mangoes and a lovely assortment of produce. As summer approached we filled in the gaps with items from our garden instead of making our usual trip to the vegetable market (I don’t buy produce at the regular grocery, that is for staples only). When the Fall came I decided to switch to the Pacific Northwest box. I have to say this was the best decision.
We live in a climate that, if given the energy and space, I could grow all of our own produce year round. It wouldn’t be overly diverse and we would have to change our eating habits slightly, but it is doable. Since I lack motivation in January and our garden space is currently limited we elected for the “vegetable box” method.
Every other week a box is delivered to our doorstep. Our challenge is to eat everything in our box before the next one comes. Often times a few items carry over from week to week because they will keep longer than if it were something I purchased at a store. For example, I have a leek in my fridge from January 21st and it is still perfectly good. I plan to use it in something this week.
This week we are getting wonderful items like rutabagas, apples, pears, red potatoes, sunchokes (which are not exactly my favorite), Brussels sprouts and a few other items. For fun I looked at the list of the previous type of box we got (the small mixed box). There were cherry tomatoes, lemons and a few other items from Mexico listed. I had to laugh. The thought of eating cherry tomatoes in February is just funny to me. The majority of our produce comes from Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and the furthest is very northern California. Granted Terra Organics purchases their produce from the Western United States, but southern California and Mexico are a little too far for my taste.
I like how we are choosing to eat locally and sustainably. There are more steps I want to take. They will take time. The point is, we are able to maximize our food dollar and still keep our priorities. Are you taking any steps to eat locally or sustainably? If not, what’s holding you back?
Yes, you get 2 posts from me today. I’ll be honest. I’ve been diligent about writing my posts a few days in advance and setting them up to post early in the morning. This way I can post stuff when I’m thinking about it. However, you get 2 today because I found the greatest program ever.
Our church recently underwent a major remodel. Like we added on a whole 2 story new wing. It kicks ass. (A side benefit of the remodel is that I got my own {shared} office yay!) The only bad thing about the remodel is that it was very expensive and we didn’t get to finish the kitchen. The kitchen space was expanded, but the actual kitchen wasn’t finished. Good news, we have money available for the remodel. Even, in an odd way, better news is that a local restaurant closed (boo, I loved that place) and we got a large majority of the restaurant pantry (yay I never have to buy spices again). The restaurant also sold all of their kitchen equipment on ebay and our church treasurer happens to be the master of ebay. He’s scored us a commercial grade carpet cleaner, an industrial food warmer and most recently, the restaurant’s refrigerator. Problem is there is no where to hook any of this stuff up.
We have 2 people who do the hospitality stuff for our church and they had the idea to put together a church cookbook. Church cookbooks are the best. They just wanted to do it for fun, but my idea was to have the money made from the cookbook go to something. Hey! We need a new kitchen.
I volunteered to be the one to coordinate the book and put it all together. After all, my job at the church is publications. Now I very well could to a cut and paste job on this book and it would look fantastic. However, one afternoon I did some searching for a cookbook program and wow did I find a gem.
I found Living Cookbook. I downloaded the trial and looked around at it, but didn’t think much about it. Well, the church newsletter was sent out today and one of the e-newsletter recipients sent me an email with her submissions for the church cookbook. I didn’t have anything to do this morning so I played around with the program inputting her recipes. The more I used the program the better it got.
First you can create your own cookbooks. I don’t like that you have to manually input all of the ingredients and procedures, but in the end it is worth it. The program automatically calculates the nutritional data based on your ingredients and servings for the meal. This can be a good or bad thing.
You can keep an inventory of your pantry. You can input stores you frequently shop at. You can create menus if you are having a dinner party. You can create menus for the day/week/month and then best of all, based on the pantry inventory you already set up you can tell the menu on the calendar to create a grocery shopping list for you. It will also create an approximate cost of the shopping list (or rather for the meal price). The whole program is integrated.
Moreover, you can print your cookbooks (and it comes with great cookbooks already loaded). You can upload images of the recipes. It has a glossary of cooking terms. It is the handiest thing.
You know I already create menus. That was a given. Usually I write the week’s menu on a 3×5 card and stick it to the fridge. I then go through all of the cookbooks looking at the recipes and writing down what ingredients I need to add to the shopping list. This program eliminates that step. I click here, click there and it makes my shopping list for me. In the future I plan on getting a little netbook (for my China trip) and I can load this program onto the netbook so I can just look at the recipes on the computer instead of hauling out the cookbooks.
If you are looking at getting serious about meal planning I highly suggest this program. No, I did not get paid to write this review. I purchased the program as soon as I saw how cool it was. (14 days before my free trial was up)
Wow, I now realize that last year was the 10th year I’ve cooked Thanksgiving dinner. It all started because in 1998 we lived in Las Vegas and the trusty family said they thought it would be fun to have Thanksgiving in Vegas. The trusty MIL thought we’d just go to some restaurant for dinner. I would have no part of that. Then the trusty aunts and uncles and vegetarian cousins decided they thought Thanksgiving in Vegas would be fun too and I am stupid and said SURE! come on over. Tracy, you can eat cranberry sauce. And thus my adventure with cooking Thanksgiving dinner began. It beats the heck out of running around from house to house eating 1400 turkey dinners.
I’ve been using the same turkey recipe for about 7 years now and I get rave reviews. Of course it is the same 5 people eating the turkey every year, but they wouldn’t lie to me… right? 3 years ago I switched to buying a fresh turkey. It takes the pain in the ass work out of hoping your turkey is defrosted in time. The trick is brining the turkey. Evidently, this is the hot new thing (as of last year). Guess I’m just a trend setter. So here is how you go about delicious turkey.
Take 1 preferably fresh organic turkey and pull out the bits that come with it (save those). Rinse it off and place it in a 5 gallon bucket (that is hopefully brand new and labeled “for poultry use only”). Add to that the brine. DO NOT buy your brine. You don’t need to. Brine is simple. Take 1 cup of kosher salt, 1 gallon of vegetable stock, 1/2 cup brown sugar and a bunch of peppercorns and bring it to a boil. Then cool that down to at least room temperature (refrigerated is best). BRINE! Place turkey, brine and a gallon of heavily iced water in the bucket and snap on the lid all the way. If you live in a colder northern state place the bucket on the back patio the night before Thanksgiving. If you live in a warmer state, well… invest in a 2nd fridge.
Thanksgiving day take the turkey out of the bucket and rinse it again. Put it in your roasting pan, tuck the wings behind the breast so the turkey looks like it’s lounging about. Make a shield for the breast out of double layer aluminum foil and set that aside. Put a sliced apple, 1/2 and onion, 1 cinnamon stick and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe bowl and nuke it for 5 minutes. Put the cooked apple and onion inside the cavity of the bird. Add 4 sprigs of rosemary and 6 sage leaves to that and then slather the whole bird with grapeseed oil. Have your oven preheated to 500 degrees and open every window in your house and turn on every fan. It will get smoky. Take down your smoke alarms if you have children with sensory issues like mine. Throw the bird in the oven. Cook it at 500 degrees for 30 minutes. Don’t open the oven. After the 30 minutes put the thermometer into the thickest part of the breast and place the previously made shield over the breast. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and set the thermometer for 161 degrees. A 14-16 pound bird will take about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Now you may have a martini. Let the bird rest about 15 minutes when it’s finished and reward yourself with another martini.
You have now successfully made Thanksgiving dinner. Who needs the rest?
Chocolate production season is almost upon me and I’m starting to think about how I’m going to feed my husband, child and maybe a few of the volunteers that come to help. The first two weeks of December my kitchen is basically coated in a fine layer of chocolate and it makes it very difficult to get anything besides candy done. Also, I cannot use my oven because it heats up the top of the stove and the top of the stove is where I coat all of the truffles. My plan is to utilize my 13 year old Crock Pot (or slow cooker for those of you from elsewhere). Trouble is, I have very few recipes for slow cooker food. I used to use the crock pot when I was a newlywed. The trusty MIL’s theory was throw anything in the crock pot, pour some onion soup mix on top of it and you have dinner. It works. Of course it took me almost 6 years to use up the Costco sized box of onion soup mix I had.
My go-to crock pot meals are whole chicken with vegetables, roast and chili. I do have a good enchilada recipe, but it takes more involvement than I will have time for. I have roughly 9-11 days (that I’m actively making chocolates) that I have to fill with meals. I can’t eat whole chicken, roast and chili over and over again.
So I’m turning to you dear internets. Send me your favorite crock pot recipe. Please don’t let my family starve.
