Dan made dinner last night. He was miffed (I think) that I defrosted a whole chicken this weekend and didn't get around to roasting it myself. But he's done it before, I knew he could!
I arrived at home to a chicken roasting away (and smelling delish!), chopped rutabaga and potatoes on the cutting board, cooked bacon and minced rosemary and garlic. He was going to mash the rutabaga and potatoes, I knew. And he had called asking about bacon cooking. I couldn't believe how delicious the bacon-rosemary-garlic-mashed rutabaga & potatoes were! Wow. I whipped up a red wine gravy from the roasting pan to go along with it. AND he warmed up some applesauce with fresh apple chunks in it for another side dish. What a guy I have, huh? I wish I had taken a picture of his beautiful bird.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Mexican Stew + Fresh-Baked Bread = Divine Fall Dinner
I'll have to take a picture of the stew I ended up making for dinner last night--so divine! This is what I did:
Sauteed onion and celery. Added salsa I froze last summer plus a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (one of my favorite convenience foods), diced potatoes and some water. Let that cook a bit. Then I added sliced seeded yellow crookneck squash, chopped collards and lacinato kale, diced roasted red pepper chicken sausage and cooked white beans. Oh my! Topped with a bit of sour cream and some hot sauce, it was the perfect dinner for a rainy fall evening.
My bread was pretty much a success. Perhaps I didn't bake it long enough--though it sounded hollow when I tapped it, it was a little soft. It was slightly challenging to cut. That being said, between dinner last night and breakfast this morning, it's almost gone. The rest of the dough is hanging out in the fridge. Maybe pizza tonight? I'll have to bake another loaf tomorrow I imagine.
Sauteed onion and celery. Added salsa I froze last summer plus a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (one of my favorite convenience foods), diced potatoes and some water. Let that cook a bit. Then I added sliced seeded yellow crookneck squash, chopped collards and lacinato kale, diced roasted red pepper chicken sausage and cooked white beans. Oh my! Topped with a bit of sour cream and some hot sauce, it was the perfect dinner for a rainy fall evening.
My bread was pretty much a success. Perhaps I didn't bake it long enough--though it sounded hollow when I tapped it, it was a little soft. It was slightly challenging to cut. That being said, between dinner last night and breakfast this morning, it's almost gone. The rest of the dough is hanging out in the fridge. Maybe pizza tonight? I'll have to bake another loaf tomorrow I imagine.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Fall is here in Vermont
Fall is here. It's a hard time for me because I love fall, it's my favorite season by far, but I don't love winter. I like it enough but I wish fall was longer and winter was shorter. Here are my musings for the day.
Our CSA this summer got hit by late blight. We received nary a tomato. The wet weather also made it a low harvest season. But I feel I still got my money's worth. I was saddened when they sent out an email telling us how hard each crop was hit by the blight or the weather. And one member told the farmers they were upset they joined this CSA again this year. How dare she. That's part of the fun, the adventure, the risk. Welcome to reality.
Our garden was an interesting experiment. The community garden we're in also got hit by late blight. I did manage to get a few tomatoes from the pots at our house. The things that did really well were mustard greens, ground cherries, beets, green beans. We grew head lettuce for the first time. We were too busy to preserve much this summer. We got things in too late and we end loaded our summer with out of town activities to do any meaningful putting up projects. Hopefully next summer we can do more.
Dan made me sad the other day when he said he didn't want to do the winter CSA. He said he's sick of having to eat what we have. I guess we've been in a CSA for over a year now. I can see how he feels that way. He wants to make things that involve other produce we're not getting from the CSA and it's hard for me to justify buying more produce when we can barely eat what's in the crisper now. I guess I have to indulge him occasionally so he'll indulge my love of eating locally.
Today's rainy and blah. I'm trying a new bread project today. I've already made the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. IT was fine, but I really want a whole-wheat bread recipe. I found Alexandra's Kitchen blog yesterday, who wrote about successfully making the recipe with half whole-wheat flour. So, that's working right now.
I also have a pot of beans simmering away on the stove and a chicken defrosting. I plan to roast the chicken later so we can make pho this week (one of the dishes Dan's been craving). Then the beans will go into a Mexican-inspired stew. I defrosted some salsa still lingering in my freezer from last summer that tastes more like chili base than salsa. I think I'll put potatoes and mustard greens in the stew and some chicken sausage along with the beans.
Our CSA this summer got hit by late blight. We received nary a tomato. The wet weather also made it a low harvest season. But I feel I still got my money's worth. I was saddened when they sent out an email telling us how hard each crop was hit by the blight or the weather. And one member told the farmers they were upset they joined this CSA again this year. How dare she. That's part of the fun, the adventure, the risk. Welcome to reality.
Our garden was an interesting experiment. The community garden we're in also got hit by late blight. I did manage to get a few tomatoes from the pots at our house. The things that did really well were mustard greens, ground cherries, beets, green beans. We grew head lettuce for the first time. We were too busy to preserve much this summer. We got things in too late and we end loaded our summer with out of town activities to do any meaningful putting up projects. Hopefully next summer we can do more.
Dan made me sad the other day when he said he didn't want to do the winter CSA. He said he's sick of having to eat what we have. I guess we've been in a CSA for over a year now. I can see how he feels that way. He wants to make things that involve other produce we're not getting from the CSA and it's hard for me to justify buying more produce when we can barely eat what's in the crisper now. I guess I have to indulge him occasionally so he'll indulge my love of eating locally.
Today's rainy and blah. I'm trying a new bread project today. I've already made the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. IT was fine, but I really want a whole-wheat bread recipe. I found Alexandra's Kitchen blog yesterday, who wrote about successfully making the recipe with half whole-wheat flour. So, that's working right now.
I also have a pot of beans simmering away on the stove and a chicken defrosting. I plan to roast the chicken later so we can make pho this week (one of the dishes Dan's been craving). Then the beans will go into a Mexican-inspired stew. I defrosted some salsa still lingering in my freezer from last summer that tastes more like chili base than salsa. I think I'll put potatoes and mustard greens in the stew and some chicken sausage along with the beans.
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