Eating
Who needs a few deliciously wholesome and easy meals under their belt/in their hat? Me! Me! I had tried to do a meal plan through a wholesome mama website. Gotta admit: the recipes she shared were bland, uninteresting, and not well received by the family. The trouble is, I thought I needed someone to give me a list of what I’d make every night, complete with a grocery shopping list, and then, THEN, I’d have a meal plan for the week and always eat healthfully and never cry at 4pm when no meat was defrosted and all I could offer to poor AA was scrambled eggs without bacon (in the freezer, duh). As it turned out, I didn’t need someone else’s meal plan. I needed to take the time to master one new recipe a week, and then write down what I wanted to cook on Sunday afternoon, shop for it Sunday night, and just make myself do it. Just do it. Nike’s slogan should have been, just do it, NOW, for the procrastinators among us. Here are four simple recipes that make a wholesome dinner. It’s less about the recipe, and more about learning how to prepare tasty food from what’s in your pantry (grains and beans), and how to make veggies firm & delish with butter and salt and no soggyness. I firmly believe in Alice Water’s principles of food tasting like the best version of itself, not someone else all gussied up. I can’t recommend Alice Water’s…
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Don’t laugh. In Minnesota we indoor garden. Yes, this is because it’s mid-May and we can barely plant even now. Yes, we had snow recently. Yes, we do chose to live here. And yes, I’m blog about our compost, {Compost} {More on Compost}, and our garden so much there’s a whole section on it. Our solution for my dearest urban farmer husband’s insatiable desire to plant and eat the work of his hands? Start from seed. Early. Grow indoors. Then someday hope to get it outside. His office is a jungle of green house mess. He is probably the healthiest man I know who sits at a desk for 11 hours because he’s surrounded by plants providing him with fresh air! Kale from last year’s garden AA unearthed and kept alive indoors all winter. This is the only branch that made it. He & SuperBoy planted seeds and placed these pots in the kitchen windowsill. And they’re growing! This guy lives under the light we keep on in the hallway for the kids, and then during the day, migrates to the bathroom windows. It’s a morning ritual SuperBoy reminds me of if I forget. It’s working. This whole photosynthesis thing. We did a replant of green onions. Works like a charm! Also can do this with lettuce, celery, etc. {Repurposed Gardening} And they’re on AA’s dinner plate every single night (regardless of what we’re eating!). And here’s AA’s office green life: Who cares if any of it produces? The best…
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It’s true. Moms need more calories. This is not about lactating or gestating–my adoptive mama friends have this too. We just have hearts that are stretching and swaying with our children all the day long, and boy, do we need the calories to keep up with it all! Okay, this may not be medically accurate, but I’m going to roll with it. Here’s what I’ve been baking lately, with fairly good success. And a few tips are thrown in. Just for the heck of it. And a new watermark on my photos. Pretty, right? Thanks to my sissie. 1) Lemon Bars. Farmgirl Susan? Oh yeah, we love her pizza dough recipe, and focaccia bread. Take a peek at her Lemon Bars. I kinda burned the bottom part that you’re supposed to bake for 18-20 minutes. I shoulda taken them out at 12-15 because I do know my oven runs hot. But I ALWAYS forget when trying a new recipe. The topping was delish! I would look for a recipe that doesn’t use sweetened condensed milk in the future, but I did use the good kind from the coop. Does that count as “real food” still? Hahah. 2) Caramel Rolls. I used Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Everyday recipe here for these bad boys. Check his book out here. It calls for an overnight rise in the fridge, be warned. And that makes all the difference. The dough was so flakey. I mean SO flakey. Best rolls ever. Some of them I…
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Passover, Easter, whatever you’re celebrating this weekend, we know aside from the beautiful church stuff, the gist of it is foooooooood. We love food around here. Food, food, food. This pic is from Christmas a few years back. We like meat (except my sister Bridget, who lovingly hates it). I’ve blogged about our feasts before {Feasts!}. We also like a fancied up table: This Easter will be no different. Although we have a smaller gathering than usual, with my East Coast sibs not coming back in town, it will be delicious still. I hope. Unless I burn the ham. 1) Ham. My aunt Helen is a rockstar among chefs. She’s teaching me on Saturday how to make her amazing ham. Nota bene: I hate ham. Always have. It’s nasty. But I’m open to a mouthwatering recipe (apparently) and open to using this little 8 pound bone in number I picked up at the Co-op the other day. So I’ll have to share the recipe with you afterwards. As I understand it, it involves brown sugar, cloves, dried mustard, butter, and yes, you guessed it, a ham. 2) Sweet Potatoes. I can’t get enough of these. Both kids love eating them, they’re tasty and have so much more of a nutritional punch than regular ole potatoes, and AA will eat them cold. Sold. So the recipe I’m going off of this year is from Farmgirl Fare: Farmgirl Susan’s Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Apples & a Hint of Orange. What? You don’t…
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A girlfriend who recently moved to the East Coast brought me the most amazing bread in the world after we’d had SweetPea. I finally hit her up for her ah-MAZ-ing recipe. She gave me a collection. This is the first in the series. Nummy nummy is all I can say. Look for a comprehensive post on bread baking next week–a lesson from my eldest sister! Peasant Boule Makes 4 1-lb loaves 3 C lukewarm water 1 ½ tbsp granulated yeast (or 2 packets) 1 ½ tbsp kosher salt (or other coarse salt, not table salt) 6 ½ C unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour 1.5 tbsp of wheat bran added by yours truly Equipment: pizza stone, empty broiler tray, pizza peel and cornmeal (or parchment paper) *When preheating, have your pizza stone on the middle rack, and an empty broiler pan on the bottom rack. In a 5 qt plastic bowl or container (with lid that’s not airtight), add the water and then yeast and salt and mix together. Then add all the flour at once and mix together ingredients with a wooden spoon until it is uniformly moist. Do not knead! Cover the container with the lid and allow to rise at room temp for at least 2 hours, until it begins to collapse or flatten on top. You can use the dough at any time or may refrigerate the dough for up to two weeks. Lay out a sheet of parchment paper or dust a pizza peel with cornmeal.…
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What’s that slogan? Kid tested, mother approved? The slogan for this meal would be mother tested, kid approved. I had a big bag of organic farro from Costco (you know, when Dad calls and he’s going up and down the aisles looking for various organicky goodness to bring home and he calls out “how about some farro?” and I think how do i cook farro?). I googled. I came upon 101 Cookbooks. It’s a recipe journal blog. Fabulous food. I’ve made it a number of times since first discovering it. SuperBoy loves it; AA loves it; I love it. Farro and Millet Risotto Recipe, modified from the 101 Cookbooks recipe. The italicized parts are a direct quotation from the recipe. Forgive some of the photos; it was smartphone cameraing. Ingredients: 3/4 cup uncooked millet 4 tbspn extra virgin olive oil rich salt–coarse kosher or sea salt 1/4 cup unsalted butter 2 medium yellow unions, cut in half and then sliced thinly 1 clove of garlic, smashed & chopped 2 cups farro about 7 cups broth–veggie or chicken 2 big handfuls of grated parm or pecorino romano one medium bag of frozen peas, or delicata squash when in season, or whatever veggies you bought at the coop on sale that are living in your fridge or freezer Directions Pull out two saucepans: one for the millet, and a larger one for the farro. Toast millet in a dry saucepan over medium heat, then add 1 3/4 cup water, 1 tbpn oil, and few pinches…
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