This is what I'm bringing to Thanksgiving....

...because it isn't f***ing beige.

It also tastes great.  Crunchy, spicy, sweet and salty--it hits pretty much all of my happy tongue spots and is the antithesis of mashed potatoes, stuffing and turkey.  If you are a lover of Thanksgiving foods, then don't make this. Or at least, don't make it for Thanksgiving. If, like me, you dread the festival of beige, bland foods and yet have to do most of the cooking for it because you love people who love it, then do yourself a favor and slip this onto the sideboard. Most people will ignore it which is great because then there's MORE FOR YOU!

I plan to load my plate with this, the spicy cranberry relish that my sister introduced me to years ago that has kept me sane at every following Thanksgiving, and some roasted potatoes. This will also mean I will have plenty of room for apple pie (which is one beige food in the Thanksgiving spread of which I heartily approve).

Cabbage, feta, date salad
adapted from this recipe on Smitten Kitchen

• 1/2 of a medium head of red cabbage, sliced thin on a mandoline if possible (or use a very sharp knife)
• 1/2 C chopped Italian parsley
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 -3 T olive oil
• 1 T pomegranate molasses
• salt and pepper
• 1 t sumac (can skip this if you don't have any, but it gives an extra sharp burst of flavor that complements the lemon)
• 1 T of Aleppo Pepper flakes (use only 1 t or less of regular old crushed red peppers. Aleppo Pepper is milder and wonderfully addictive and you can order it online pretty easily these days.)
• about a 1/2 C dates, sliced lengthwise into halves and then crosswise into thin half circles
• about 1/2 C crumbled feta
• 1 T toasted sesame seeds

In a large bowl, toss together the cabbage, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, pomegranate molasses, sumac, salt and peppers. Taste for seasoning and adjust for how you like it. Then gently toss in the dates and feta and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Can be left at room temp to wilt a little or popped in the fridge if you like your cabbage crunchier.

England: Food

How much has food changed in England? I'm sure everyone already knows this but I can report from the ground: a whole bloody lot. My childhood visits were spent pushing bits of overcooked lamb and boiled cabbage around my plate and living off of the roasted potatoes (dinner), whole grain toast and bacon (breakfast), and dark chocolate digestive biscuits and good milk with cream floating on the top (all times of the day) that were thankfully plentiful. When I got older and began eating out in England, rather than just being fed by relatives, I suffered two intense bouts of food poisoning that I will never forget (I don't remember much about my aunt's flat in Wimbledon, but I can picture her bathroom floor very well since I was curled up there for a good 24 hours...)

But nothing of the kind now days. Not only did I not fear for myself or my family food safety wise, there was uniformly accessible and decent food nearly everywhere we went.

We ate amazing Indian take-away in the small Yorkshire village of Helmsley, where we were staying. I had steeled myself for disappointment but Helmsley Spice came through with flying colors. Sorry I didn't take a photo of it--I was too surprised by the quality of what we got and was greedily filling my plate, particularly with all the varied vegetable side dishes that we ordered.

We had some amazing fish and chips up in Whitby:

My haddock was almost still flopping on the plate it was so fresh. The restaurant even posted the variety of potatoes that were being fried up that day and the farm from which they originated.

Brian was very happy about the good beer that was available pretty much anytime of day or night. We even managed to make it to the Black Sheep Brewery, though we were too late to get a tour. We did manage sample all their wares and have a really nice meal in their restaurant.

We did a good amount of self-catering since we were in rentals with kitchens almost the whole trip. So we followed this butcher's suggestion and had lots of bangers for breakfasts. All the eggs that we purchased at even the most basic grocery stores were free range and had beautiful school-bus yellow-orange yolks.

I present the next category of food with an appreciation and a complaint: We are so, so, so sick of sandwiches.  I'm talking about the convenient, prepack sandwiches that are everywhere in England and are so inexpensive and really pretty decent that you pick them up just to make sure that no-one's blood sugar gets to a compromisingly low level. And then you end up eating sandwiches pretty much everyday and come home sick to death of them. There's a huge selection of sandwiches including egg and cress, ham-cheddar-pickle, prawn mayonnaise, smoked salmon with tomato and cucumber and curry chicken salad that goes by the name coronation chicken. There are also some crazy one's like the example pictured below:

That's the "All Day Breakfast": cooked egg, bacon, bangers (sliced lengthwise) and a smear of ketchup on multi-grain bread for less than 2 pounds. No idea how it tasted (Brian ate it and he remained functional.) Honestly, I'd be thrilled to have prepack sandwiches of this quality and variety available here for when you're on the run and just too damn busy to think about food. But the problem was that they were too decent and too cheap to pass up so we ate too damn many of them.

We only had one truly lousy English meal the whole time! And frankly, I didn't mind it much because it made me feel like I was visiting the England of my youth in which this type of meal was pretty much served by each of my relatives when we came to visit.  The nostalgia factor was upped for me since it was in the pub (aka the local) that is a stumble away from my grandmother's old house in Ingleby Greenhow.

That's where Granny lived: The Old Vicarage. The present owner was kind enough to show us around a bit and he's done wonderful things with the place including such innovations as central heating.

I have no photo of the actual meal because, really, who wants to look at overcooked beef in a puddle of Bisto gravy served alongside carrots and sugar snap peas that have been boiled to death? There was a decent desert of apple sultana tart served with its own little pitcher of (Bird's) custard. I will give you a few photos of the charming pub in which the mediocre meal was served.

The Dudley Arms has a hedgehog on a leash as a part of their coat of arms. No idea why the latin translates into "Whither Destiny Takes Me" and which is also the motto of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.

And here's the bar.

I didn't have any fantastic meals in London, though I know there are plenty to be had. I was traveling with my two suspicious eaters and, as previously mentioned, we were in self-catering accommodations nearly the whole time which saved us loads of money and reduced the stress levels considerably. Eating out when everyone is hungry, tired and grumpy is not something I enjoy--I'd rather stay in, eat boring-ish food and have everyone be nice to each other. It used to be really difficult for me to separate my love of food and my love of exploring the food of a different place from my expectations of what kind of travel is actually enjoyable with my family. Thankfully, now that particular-eater-#1 is 14 and particular-eater-#2 is 11 I seem to have finally stopped expecting food to be interesting on family trips. It's sort of sad, in a way, to give up the fight. But it is also a relief.

Summer Vegetables--an appreciation

I interrupt my blathering-about-England posts to share my present appreciation for summer vegetables. It is possible that my present status at day 13 of a 16-day solo parenting-in-the-summertime adventure has warped my perceptions (I have no idea how single parents--especially those with sole custody--do it, particularly not with a teenager who is riding the roller coaster of hormonally induced emotion.). I've hardly spoken to an adult face-to-face in the past two weeks, other than my son's piano teacher and the farmers at the farmers's market. So yes, I got a little weepy today when my son played "In a Sentimental Mood" (which he played this Spring and I had assumed he had already forgotten--such a beautiful, gentle piece and such a surprise when most of this week has been "I'll play the damn B flat, E flat and A flat scales and their related minors but I'll make sure you know that I am not enjoying it!" Who knew that piano scales could be such an effective way to communicate rage?) And the tears welled up again in gratitude when I sat down to this lovely plate of summer vegetables with accoutrements for dinner.

It isn't a fancy meal but it made me very, very happy. It's just kale, new carrots, corn and an allium of your choice (this time, a shallot), sautéed up and then splashed with sherry vinegar. But this simple preparation brings out the minty-sweetness of the carrots, the bright pops of the corn and the sturdy earthiness of the kale in a way that keeps me grounded. This is the third time this week that I ate it--that's what happens when you buy a big bunch of Tuscan kale and another huge bunch of new carrots at the farmer's market and you are only cooking for one (the girl critter will eat some of the carrots raw, but not cooked.) It's quite a lot of kale and carrots for one person to go through, but thankfully, I am happy to eat this combination until it is all gone (two or maybe three more meals, I'm thinking.)

Here's the general formula for the vegetable sauté (in per-person quantities. If you are lucky enough to be cooking for more than just yourself, then adjust quantities accordingly):

Take one large shallot, or about a quarter of a medium sized red onion, and slice it up. Sauté in some olive oil and then chuck in a good handful of new carrots that you've scrubbed and then halved or quartered lengthwise. Keep the heat at about medium and stir them occasionally while you cut the kernels off a cob of sweet corn and wash, stem and shred coarsely about five large Tuscan kale leaves. Sprinkle the carrots and shallots (or red onions) with a little salt and pepper and some chopped up fresh thyme if you have it (and don't worry if you don't), then put in the de-cobified corn. Give it another stir and go slice yourself some baguette. Then dump in the shredded kale, stir again and go decorate your baguette (I went with goat cheese on two slices and sharp cheddar on the other two). Drizzle about 1T of sherry vinegar over the kale and stir. Go arrange the baguette and some olives on your plate.  Pour yourself a glass of red wine because God knows you are going to need it to get through this evening's emotional antics once they inevitably arise when you are too tired to think. Then stir the kale and give it a taste--add more vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. When the carrots are tender crisp and the kale has softened, pile it all on the plate and go hide in a quiet place and enjoy the taste of summer.

Patterns/Maps/Plans (and the problems when you don't have one)

I've been feeling a little frantic lately. Halloween is approaching and I've been trying to figure out how to transform last year's bat costume into a dragon, for the girl critter. At least the wings are taken care of...but there's still a tail to construct and the pointy spikes along the spine to attach and part of me thinks it would probably be easier to start from scratch rather than trying to modify the old costume. Then I could go and buy a pattern and have someone else do the thinking part of how to craft it--all I'd have to do is follow the instructions. But the girl is rather attached to last year's costume (though won't be so easy going as to agree to be a bat again this year...) The boy critter wants to be an Ipod so that takes a big box and some time for him to trick it out--shouldn't be too big of a deal. But this week he also has his class Mythology Wax Museum and he chose to be Hermes, so we have to figure out how to make and stick some wings onto his sandals and on a hat, create a drapey toga thingy and a caduceus (thanks to the girl's reptile enthusiasm we have plenty of rubber snakes available).

I've also been preping like crazy for this year's NaNoWriMo. I'm working on a new (NEW!) novel and, though I'm hesitant to curse it, the prep has been going really well. I'm not letting myself write any of it until I've created a really detailed plot map, including a chapter synopsis and scene by scene summaries. I got lost in the narrative of the last book and realized that once I'd generated enough text for a three volume series (and it still wasn't finished...) that I really shouldn't have been writing without a map. Maybe someday I'll have the patience and distance to be able to go back and force a form on that text, but for now I'm going to let it sit and start with a completely different mindset. I'm pretty excited about November starting--I feel like a dog that's been kept on a tight leash and on Monday I get let off of it to romp and play and write all the scenes and chapters I've planned.

Of course I am a little worried about the necessary time commitment and the way everything else in our lives will go to hell.

Which brings me to my kitchen.  Maybe because my brain has been so preoccupied with stitching and plotting, I haven't had much energy left over for dinner planning. So instead of feeling free in the kitchen, for the past week or two, I've felt really stressed. The farm share ended recently and while I still have a big box of winter squash and bags of sweet and regular potatoes to work through, the rest of my produce is now of my own choosing. It should be liberating, right? I can cook whatever I want! But it's a different sort of thinking and I've been overwhelmed by the liberty, so there's been a lot of 5pm grouchiness where I dig through the fridge and/or freezer trying to figure out what sort of slop to heave on the table and pass off as dinner, while the critters subtly hint (by gnawing on my ankle) that they expect to be fed soon.

It's not going to get better once November 1st rolls around and I put food (even) lower on the priority list while I try to churn out the book. So, this weekend I'm going to take a little break from my Scrivener plot mapping frenzy to put together a meal plan along with a shopping list (so I don't find myself tearing through the crisper drawers looking for the cilantro I forgot to buy).  I'm thinking of getting really regimented for the month of November--making Monday Slow Cooker night, Tuesday Pasta night, Wednesday Mexican night, Thursday Stir-Fry night and Friday Pizza night. I'll probably feel a little annoyed with how repetitious and rigid this plan is (and I know it would drive me to despair if I had to do this forever), but hey, for the next month I'm going to keep reminding myself that prose, not food is the priority. If I can follow the map in my novel, I should be able to follow the plan in my menu.

And hopefully, stay sort of sane-ish.

cookie swap

Warning! After viewing the following photo, you may feel a surge in your blood sugar level:
That's right, this past Friday was the annual Michigan Lady Food Bloggers' cookie exchange!

I brought lavender lemon shortbread and molasses raspberry cookies (on the big white platter in the photo).

It'll be a little easier to name the cookies with the photo below, which contains the quantity I brought home, minus the cookies I ate while at Patti's, minus the cookies I ate in the car, minus the cookies Brian ate when I came through the door... (The cookies I brought aren't in this photo because I gave all of them away at the swap. I froze some extra dough so we can have some once we deplete this vast quantity of sugar and fat...maybe sometime in April...)

Starting with the top left corner and working vaguely clockwise we have: apricot and raspberry linzer cookies, white chocolate cookies, pecan snowballs, ginger snaps and molasses cookies, three different kinds of 'bastards': Oreo bastards (the white ones), lemon bastards (the yellow) and peanut butter bastards (the chocolate), raspberry rugulach, Hanukkah dreidels and stars, Spritz cookies, mini carrot cardamon muffins, date walnut spirals, anise cut outs, chocolate crinkles, and chocolate macarons.

I love this tradition--it is the best way to get variety in your cookie selection and I get to hang out with a bunch of cool women for an evening and I don't get guilt-tripped by my critters for ditching them for an evening. When they saw this platter of sugary bounty their eyes went all round and they started treating me like God.

Snacktime

I don't remember Summer asking my permission to be excused.

That's how I feel, like a grumpy mama whose kid ditched the table with their plate half-full. (This is a feeling that I am all too familiar with since both critters continue their disinterest in food...)

Perhaps it's because we had an extraordinarily wonderful summer (for humans, not so good for tomatoes) that I didn't really look forward to Autumn the way I usually do. Usually by the end of summer, I'm so beaten down with sweating and mosquitoes and sick of feeling dehydrated no matter how much water I drink that Autumn feels like bliss.

This year, not so much. I'm loving the critters both being in school full day (finally) and they are thriving, so it isn't as though Autumn hasn't brought good stuff with it. Somehow, I just wasn't expecting it so soon. (In fact, I'm not really clear on where August and September went...I remember about a week of each.)

So in order to make myself feel better and to be a wee bit more accepting of the present, I've been indulging regularly in my favorite snack/desert/even (ahem) breakfast:

One Jonathan apple and one square of dark hazelnut chocolate.

Jonathan apples are my favorite variety by far. They don't last long because they don't store well, but when they are freshly picked they are just what I'm looking for: crisp, spicy, tart and not insanely huge. They remind me of Cox's Orange Pippins--an English variety that, when we went on hikes up to Captain Cook's Monument or Roseberry Topping, my Granny always had stashed in her jacket pocket along with a bar of Terry's dark chocolate. Alternating bites of apple and dark chocolate, particularly on a windy, nippy day, helps me accept, even enjoy, my present environment.

If you're having trouble accepting the season, give it a try. Jonathans are at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market and even at Meijer's. Trader Joe's is my source for the dark chocolate hazelnut bar.

Fermentation time!

Brian may have his yeast beer buddies, but I've got my own microscopic friends. I've already been converted to making my own yogurt (which is so stupidly simple that I'm a little disgusted with myself for buying the stuff for so many years) and this week I deepened my relationship with lactic acid bacterias by making sauerkraut.
I snagged some of the brewing supplies that Brian wasn't using: an ale pail, lid and S air lock. Got out my 4 heads of Tantre cabbage (about 7 lbs total), my mandoline, knife and kosher salt.

Then I gave my right forearm a terrific workout shredding all that cabbage into the sterilized pail:Hmmm...not enough cabbage me thinks....

So I dashed off to Krogers (it was Sunday evening) and picked up 4 more huge organic cabbages (.59/lb which seemed pretty cheap to me). By the time I finished shredding those big old mama's my hand was getting numb. Maybe next time I'll use the food processor, even though I don't have one of the newer shwoopy kind with the wide mouth feed tube.

I stirred in the recommended amount of salt (about 3 T per 5lbs) and then ignored it for a while until the cabbage started sweating out its juice. Good god does that stuff ever sweat!
I put a clean plate on top of the cabbage and stuck on another container filled with water to weigh it down and keep the cabbage below the top of the brine. Then I stuck on the pail lid and plunked the thing down in the basement where it will stay relatively cool.

I hear you can get kraut in 5 days if you put in a probiotic, like one of those pills from the health food store, but since the only ones I had in the house were blueberry flavored chewables (from when one of the critters was having tummy troubles) I figured that I'd go the slow and traditional route this time.

So, now we wait for at least a couple of weeks. But instead of tapping my foot impatiently, I'm going to think of it as party planning time! We'll have no need to deal with the crowds at the German Park this summer: we have Brian on board for beer, Brian Pinkelman can make the sausage, I'll supply the sauerkraut, the library will provide the CDs of polka tunes and Sarah will make an appearance dressed as the St. Pauli girl. Right Sarah?

Our new friend

Last weekend, Brian decided to transform our crappy grill into something much more interesting:
It looks a little ridiculous with the big honking smoker attachment but I tell you people, it WORKS. (The alarming looking angle of the smoker is due to the way it is bolted to an angled side of the grill--not because the whole thing is leaning that way). I had my doubts when he was rigging the thing up on Saturday but I should know better than to doubt the man's mechanical abilities, especially when motivated by the possibility of churning out large quantities of smoked meat. And yes, it still works as a gas grill too. (If anyone is interested in how he did it, let me know and I'll pry it out of him. It did involve some noisy drilling at which point in time I ran inside and slammed the door.)

Allow me to display some of the beauteous offerings that he smoked on Father's Day (yes, he chose to spend his Father's Day enveloped in clouds of hickory smoke. We provided him with plenty of beer to keep him happy out there.)
The smoked salmon was revelatory. I made a tzatziki sauce to go with it.
A smoked chicken. Also mighty fine.
And his favorite, smoked pork ribs. I'm not the biggest rib fan (I prefer pulled pork) but I had one and they were good. We went with a simple dry rub that consisted of paprika, brown sugar, kosher salt and black pepper for all three smoked protein products. They were brushed occasionally with a little apple juice while on the smoker. That was it!

I made some sides, but neglected to photograph them: Alice Waters' Cole Slaw, a redskin potato salad with snap peas and avocado doused with the creamy salad dressing, and plenty of sweet corn on the cob.

I did remember to take a photo of dessert though:
Homemade chocolate chip cookies with (purchased) vanilla bean ice cream. Isn't this what Summer is supposed to look like?

Tantre farm share, week 2

Good thing we like greens over here because whoo boy, the table runneth over with greeny goodness:

From left to right: frilly green lettuce, butter lettuce, (tucked in front) tatsoi, Pink Beauty radishes with ample greens, spicy greens mix with lots of mizuna, 3 big bunches of spinach, peppermint, arugula, asparagus, and spring onions

What I plan to do with the bounty:

• spinach and green garlic soup (I have a load of green garlic in my garden)
• spanakopita with some radish greens and mizuna taking the place of some of the spinach
• lettuce, arugula, radish and spring onion and peppermint leaf salad with feta dressing (see below: really simple, really good). Sarah started chucking whole leaves of mint in her green salads and it is an inspired addition.
• tatsoi stirfry with tofu, dried shitakes, ginger and garlic
• Korean scallion and kimchee pancakes with those long spring onion greens
• raw asparagus with lemon and Parmesan (supposed to be pecorino, but parm will work fine)
• spinach, barley and ricotta salad

and if that doesn't use all the greens

• probably some more goma ae with whatever greens are left
• maybe a quiche with some blanched chopped greens

and if that still doesn't do it, then I'll just blanch and freeze some for use later.

Feta Salad Dressing:
Put about 1 C crumbled feta, 3 T red wine vinegar, 1 T water, 1/2 t dried oregano (or about 2 T fresh oregano), 1/3 C good olive oil and lots of fresh ground black pepper in a food processor or blender. Pulse or blend quickly to combine into a chunky dressing. Don't over blend or the olive oil might take on a bitter flavor. If you want a really smooth dressing, then leave the olive oil out until the last minute and add it at the end.

Tantre farm share, week 1

Last year I became incredibly curious what a week-to-week farm share looked like. I enjoyed reading about the creative uses the Gastronomical 3 ladies were doing with their split Tantre share and I loved Mary's Community Farm Kitchen blog (she not only lists the weekly full share, but if you are a part of her Kitchen CSA, she tells you how she will be preparing it for you).

If any of you are as curious as I was as to what a full-share looks like, I plan to post a photo of my weekly share from Tantre Farm. I also plan to briefly mention what recipes I intend to use to consume all this produce and would love to hear if you have any creative thoughts of what you would do (particularly when I inevitably get stumped by a vegetable!)

If you have a farm share that you'd be willing to photograph weekly, please let me know. I'd love to peek at your haul! I went with Tantre this year because one of the farmer-owners, Deb, came into my picky boy critter's class when he was in 2nd grade and actually got the kid to taste a tiny nibble of raw sorrel. I figure she must be magical because I haven't been able to pry his jaws apart for any leafy green in years and a magical farmer sounded like a good place to start.

So here is the photo of week 1 of my Tantre farm share:

The haul, from left to right: purple lettuce, green lettuce, some over-wintered fingerling potatoes, mizuna, asparagus, huge bag of spinach, french radishes, globe radishes, spring onions, chives

plus some rhubarb that sneaked out of the photo (rhubarb is sneaky like that):

What I plan to do with it:

• Lettuce: salad (duh)
• Fingerlings: roasted with olive oil, fresh rosemary and fleur de sel
• Mizuna and some of the spinach: Warda's Spicy Greens with Bulgur (Tchicha bel Khoubiz) probably served with something lamb based, maybe some kofte
• Asparagus: there are just a few beautiful spears (apparently some slugs have been having a field day with the asparagus crop this year) so I might supplement these with some from the store. I want to make a broiled miso asparagus dish called Dengaku
• rest of the spinach: goma ae (I'll share my basic recipe soon), probably served some variation of miso soup
• French radishes: my favorite cold soup, Chlodnik
• Globe radishes: roasted radishes with radish greens (Yes, you can eat the greens like, well, greens! And this bunch has gorgeous greens.)
• Spring onions: a couple saved for salad, the rest roasted along with the fingerlings
• Chives: I already used up some in a chive-ricotta omelet as soon as I came home. The rest will be used for more omelets and as garnish for the Chlodnik soup
• Rhubarb: pie (which will make my husband very, very happy since he knew he'd be getting lots of healthy food out of this farm share thingy, but didn't anticipate his favorite pie!)

Thoughts? Plans? Ideas?

Just a little update...

I lost my camera for a week which sabotaged plans for food postings. But I found it yesterday under a pile of crap on the desk so look forward to a recipe for a blackberry tart coming soon.

Other tasty tidbits:

• Need a laugh? read John Scalzi's interview with a stick of butter. I recently read his book Zoe's Tale which was a lot of fun.
  

• Most of the restaurants that are participating in the Main Street restaurant week (June 14-19) have posted their menus. Logan and Bella Ciao's look like decent offerings so I might be making some reservations if anyone is interested in getting together. I'm bummed that Pacific Rim and Cafe Zola aren't participating.
  

• And a little visual tasty tidbit (now that I downloaded the stuff that was on the lost camera):

The oh-so-satisfying 3-sausage sandwich from Eastern Seafood at Eastern Market in Detroit. I went a couple of weeks ago and bought a flat of herb plants at the market and fulfilled my weekly fat quota by eating one of these before driving back. My sausage selections were: andouille, bratwurst and smoked kielbasa, which was a very tasty combo. (John posted a prettier photo of his sandwich here).

mmmmmm....

Sometimes you just need to take a little break from the oatmeal/granola routine.

I went to my first Zingerman's Mail Order Friday warehouse sale yesterday and bought two packs of the Arkansas peppered bacon ($7 each, normally $16). Man is it good. I don't eat bacon that often (for which my heart thanks me) but when I do, I like to make sure it is the good stuff. Occasionally I get it from the Farmer's Market or pick up the Niman Ranch bacon that Trader Joe's usually has. But this stuff is even better. It probably won't be as appealing to my kids--more for me!--because it is heavily peppered, which I love. But we'll see. They aren't awake yet, despite the bacon fumes wafting through the house.

At the sale, I also bought a pound of the Ig Vella's Dry Jack cheese, something I remember from being a kid in the Bay Area ($10 instead of $24), a half-pound of the 1-year cheddar ($4 instead of $7) and two packs of the Vampire Gummies for my kids ($3 instead of $5). The girl critter happens to be on a Vampire kick (she disguised two of her stuffed Pokemon with fangs and wings and brought them along to the sale) so I couldn't resist. And hell, if I get bacon, they can have some candy, though I did have to draw the line at the Italian Chocolate Cigar that she wanted and that was still $12 (normally $20).

Click here to see a list of what was on offer yesterday. It changes weekly (I signed up for their weekly e-mail while I was there) and I can see a new Friday tradition beginning. The stuff at the sale still is expensive when it comes to my regular food budget, but considering the quality and the discount and the treat factor, it seems like a pretty good deal. Not to mention all the samples the girl critter managed to stuff into her squirrel-like cheeks...

I'm taking the cure...

..the Kitchen Cure, that is.

Today I'm cleaning out the canned food cupboard and the freezers. (Surprisingly enough, the fridge isn't too bad. I did a clean out and got rid of the scary stuff in there a couple of months ago and haven't been too bad about checking for mystery containers since then.) The freezer task is particularly necessary because last week I almost lost a toe to a quart of frozen turkey chili that leapt out of the freezer and bounced off my foot when I was digging for buried treasure trying to find something to make for dinner. Ouch. But hey, it got my attention and we ate the chili the next night for dinner.

I like the idea of the Eat This Week list that was posted on the Kitchen Cure blog. I try to menu plan by keeping a list of what I intend to cook in the coming week at the bottom of my shopping list so I don't forget key ingredients when I'm at the store or space out on what recipe I planned to use (before doing this I would spend a lot of time looking quizzically at some weird ingredient I bought but couldn't remember what I planned to do with it: Kate and the endive go head to head.) But this list is a little different because it serves as a reminder of what you already have in the house and what should probably be consumed soon (StillTasty is a good place to look when deciding whether to use or chuck something). I'm thinking of making a version of the list to post on the freezer that inventories what stuff is inside so that I don't have to rummage around (thus saving the toes) and (hopefully) wasting less food and making menu planning a little easier.

For example, tonight I'll be making a version of this Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta because it uses up the pound of shrimp I just found in the freezer (don't know when the hell I bought them or what I originally planned to do with them, but they don't look freezer burned so they can't have been in there that long) and one of the big cans of Muir Glenn diced tomatoes that I have in the cupboard. If I find some frozen artichoke hearts in my excavation, I might chuck some in. There are probably some olives that have been hanging out on the condiment shelf in the fridge a little too long that might get chopped up and scattered over the top. And who knows what else I'll unearth today?

One thing is for sure--I'll be wearing close-toed shoes while attempting the freezer portion of my task.

toast

My toast t-shirt that I recently purchased from Threadless (during their $5 sale) has been making me absurdly happy.

It is really hard to be a grouch, even on a day like today when it is pissing rain, when wearing this shirt. I just look down and smile at the happy toast spreading on the jam. What could be nicer?

And then I go make myself (another) piece of toast. Right now I'm working my way through a loaf of my new favorite bread-for-toast: Zingerman's 8-grain 3-seed bread, a bread that is equally good with thick cut orange marmalade and sharp cheddar cheese.

Maybe not such a good t-shirt for people on low carb diets, but awfully good for me.

Garden/CSA advice

Last year, my vegetable garden was a major disappointment. I didn't do anything differently, but had lousy crop yields on some produce that I usually want (and in a normal year, am able to produce) in abundance.

So this year, I am going to let the pro's grow the bulk of my vegetables. I signed up for the Tantre Farm CSA -- I've bought their produce at the market and have been reading about their lovely weekly CSA surprise boxes from Kim and the Gastronomical Three ladies. I had a major case of produce envy last summer. I also really love the idea of a weekly surprise box -- I eat pretty much every vegetable out there so there really aren't any particular vegetables that I wouldn't be happy to see. And I like the idea of using the mix to jump start my creativity in the kitchen.

I will still be keeping my garden going and this will give me the liberty to grow fun stuff (pumpkins, potatoes) and stuff that we can never get enough of (peas, spinach).

So I'm looking for a little advice from those of you who have had Tantre CSA shares in the last few years: Are there some vegetables that you would grow to supplement your share if you had the space/time? What vegetables, other than greens like kale and swiss chard which I have heard are always in abundant supply, did you get a ton of or should I definitely NOT think about growing?

Here are some of the vegetables I'm considering for my three raised beds this year:

• peas (can never have too many)
• spinach (ditto)
• potatoes (fun! store well)
• pumpkins (kids should get a kick out of them)
• basil (for annual frozen pesto supply)
• shell beans (the kind you dry, because it sounds like fun and they store well)
• lima beans (because fresh baby lima beans are so different from the mealy stuff we all grew up with)

Suggestions? Advice?

Resolution time

What with the 11 inches of snow that fell last week and half inch of ice that has formed on the inside of our weather-stripped, storm-proofed windows, you probably don't want to hear about virtuous New Year's resolutions. You probably would rather read Maggie's recipe for Candy Cane Cocoa that I'll get the critters to make today since it is too cold for school and I need a good bribe (ahem, "reward") for decent behavior for stir crazy kids. A mug of that delicious stuff would help you stay warm and comfort yourself from the hostility of the world.

So, sorry for the timing, but I have actually made a few modest food resolutions and dare I say, I think I might even be able to keep them.

1. My first resolution might comfort you if you are a certain type of person. I have some blood sugar and cholesterol issues so my first resolution is to eat a bowl of this every morning:
This is a bowl of virtue. Oatmeal, ground flax seeds, frozen wild blueberries, walnuts and a drizzle of maple syrup. All good for both cholesterol and/or blood sugar stabilization. Add a splash of milk and it turns into gray mush, but if I don't look too closely, it's fine. I'm more of a savory breakfast type so I need the resolution to nudge me to choose to eat this every morning instead of a bagel with cream cheese, cayenne pepper and raw onion. So far so good. I'm not ravenous for my second breakfast by 9:30 am and I'll get the cholesterol tested next month and see if it makes a whit of difference. And my kids don't flinch from the smell of my breath anymore! My plan is to switch to homemade granola come summer.

2. No seconds, except for salad. This resolution just requires a little self-control. And it really only applies when I make something so tasty (which, let's face it, is not a daily occurrence) that I am tempted to keep eating it even though I'm no longer hungry.

Christmas meats

I left it until the last minute, but today, on Christmas Eve, I started (and finished) a revision of the decorations to Brian's stocking. Some folks who've been reading this blog waaaay toooo long may have a vague memory of our personalized stockings. Fiona's robot decorated stocking is pictured here. Mine has a pile of books; Ian's has a train. And Brian's used to have an assortment of cheeses. But cheese just wasn't right (I think it was just the first word that popped into his head when I asked him what he wanted on his stocking. It could very well have been "pontoon" on a different day.) Don't get me wrong, Brian likes cheese just fine, but he does not fetishize cheese the way he does meat. This is a man who has a "wall of meat" display of weird meat-related items next to his desk at work.

Here's a close up of the meats:
Ham, bacon and sausage (with fluorescent mustard) in a roll. The sausage was by far the hardest to pull off. The meat-man gave an appreciative nod of approval to the alterations.

And today, poking around at the Vault of Midnight, I found the perfect item to stuff in said stocking:
It looks revolting, but will be warmly appreciated.

When it comes to real meat, tomorrow I'll be making a prune stuffed pork loin for Christmas dinner, loosely based on this recipe.

The annual granola factory

It's a good thing I got my fun baking done last week because this week, the granola factory has been churning along:

This year's variety: Cherry Cranberry Granola

Here are the bags, all lined up and ready to go.
We're dropping them off a day early since 7-11 inches (!!) of snow are forecast for tonight and my guess is the last day of school before the break will be canceled. I do not need 10 pounds of granola sitting in the house waiting for school to start up again in January!

And yes, I did mention fun baking at the beginning of the post. On Saturday I attended my first cookie exchange with the Michigan Lady Food Bloggers. Patti hosted us (again!) and I have to say, the selection of cookies way exceeded my expectations:
Now that is a groaning table of bounty!

I made the cookies on the three goofy floral plates at the lower center of the photo: chocolate chocolate chip shortbread, mini mince pies and cranberry orange shortbread.

Want a closer look? (Of course you do!)
There were mincemeat spirals, date nut spirals, Italian wedding cookies, chocolate espresso cookies, chocolate biscotti, chocolate chip with coconut cookies, ginger snaps, jam thumbprint cookies, gingerbread mittens, pistachio bars, ginger cookies with candied ginger, homemade toffees and truffles and probably a few others that I'm forgetting.

Whew! And it's funny thing, but there aren't very many left from the heaped up container I brought home. Fiona gobbled up the ginger snaps and gingerbread, I appropriated the Italian wedding cookies and anything with mincemeat, and Brian has been coming to bed with chocolate and nuts on his breath (Ian thought they all looked too scary. Sigh.) So I might have to do a bit more fun holiday baking to get us through until Christmas, especially if the 7-11 inches of snow trap us in each other's company with no escape. Butter, sugar, chocolate and spices are almost as good as therapy in such a situation.

5 stupid things I regularly do in the kitchen

I'm starting a new meme! My not-so-little internal self-critical voice is being more chatty than usual lately, so I though it was time to share:

5 Stupid Things I Regularly Do in the Kitchen

1. Use a metal knife to pry bagels out of the toaster.
2. Boil stuff over. Particularly beets because the magenta juice is fun to clean off of a white stove top.
3. Yell at my kids to get their own damn snacks and then realize I've put all of the possible foods out of reach on the top shelves of the cabinets. They can either stack chairs to reach them or they are left with dried beans, rice and flour that they can munch on. Yummy!
4. Forget to use my potted herbs that sit in the window behind the sink. My rosemary is turning into a shrub and I don't think I've remembered to use it in the past 6 months. I made roast chicken and potatoes last week and forgot--again--to snip off a little. I think I need to equip my herbs with microphones so they can yell at me. And brains. And mouths...
   
5. Blame the fridge-that-I-hate for my poor memory and habit of letting vegetables in the crisper liquefy before I remember they are there. I'm sure that one of the $1500+ fridges-that-I-covet-and-will-never-own would poke me or something before the scallions turn to slime.
   

So please, to the 5 people listed below, help me feel that I am not alone and share with me some of the stupid shit you chew yourself out about, and yet continue to do:

Teacher Patti at Teacher in the Hood
one (or all!) of the lovely ladies at Gastronomical Three
Mom at Mother's Kitchen
Ed, at Vacuum
Jen, at A2eatwrite

7 random food facts

Mother's Kitchen tagged me for a meme of 7 random (food) facts about me. Here goes:

1. I dislike intensely two words often found in food writing "toothsome" and "veggies". Not sure why, but they both make my skin crawl (or in the case of "toothsome", my teeth itch).
   
2. I often pick an entree at a restaurant based on the sides. In fact, I care a lot more about sides than main courses which I often think of as pain-in-the-ass necessities for blood sugar stability. I love the fact that in a lot of southern BBQ joints you can get a plate of sides and skip the meat (collards or mustard greens, slow cooked green beans with bacon, coleslaw, baked beans, mac and cheese and some sort of corn--creamed, fried, cob).
   
3. I have a salt tooth more than a sweet tooth. I like to bake deserts more than eat them which has probably increased my welcome at a number of sweet-toothed people's houses. Not that you won't see me indulging in cookies/cakes/pies, etc. but I don't really crave them and rarely binge on them. Potato chips, olives, and pickles are another story entirely.
4. I learned to cook as a defensive measure because my mother is British. She has many gifts but the kitchen is not the arena for displaying them. Thanks to her though, I have a pretty decent fake British accent and my kids make me use it to read Harry Potter out loud to them.
   
5. I presently subscribe to three cooking magazines (Gourmet, Food and Wine and Cook's Illustrated). At times in the past I have subscribed to 6 at a time, but I had trouble keeping up. Of course, I am thinking of asking for a Fine Cooking subscription for Christmas...
6. My favorite food? A good salad. Really.
   
7. I've bitched about it enough here that most people already know this, but my punishment for gluttony is having two kids who are suspicious at best when it comes to eating. When I think about the foods I enjoyed when I was their age (green bean and sweet potato tempura, curry, pomegranates, beets, SALAD!) that my kids would never put in their mouths, it makes me want to tear my hair out. I know, there are plenty of people who outgrow their kid-palate and I live in hope of the day I can share my pleasure in food and cooking with one of them.
   

Tag, you're it!:

Ed at Vacuum
Stella at so beautiful and so ordinary...
Jen at A2eatwrite