Everything happens for a reason

This new year has gotten off to an eventful beginning. I ended the old year by surviving a freak car accident and kicked off 2012 by knocking around the Green Mountains waiting on new rear quarter glass to replace the one that got smashed out as a result of my 25-foot plummet over a bank. Thank you, black ice.

So far, 2012 has proven to be both eventful and productive. I've managed to finalize the print version of “Conscious Shopping” (yay)' re-organize my mother's kitchen (she's thrilled—just ask her); and treat myself to a couple of tragus piercings 

The latter lead to much grammatical pondering as I now have a ring in each tragus and I spent an unusual amount of time wondering about the plural form. Tragi? Traguses? Or is it like the plural form of status, which is spelled like “status” but pronounced with a long 'a' and 'u'? Depending on which dictionary you look in, that is. Merriam-Webster says it's “statuses” and OED lists the aforementioned status as being the correct plural form. So I'm back to Square One when it comes to more than one tragus. Whatever. They're both Bedazzled.

New Year's Lesson No.1? Live in the moment.

Comfort Food

All this in-the-moment living and grammar-obsessiveness puts me in mind of comfort food. After all, part of achieving balance is knowing when to take care of oneself. In a Vermont winter's snowstorm, all I want is soup. Warm, nourishing and hearty soup—and this is Kale & White Bean Soup is one of my favorites. 

Kale & White Bean Soup

Ingredients:
Olive oil
2 links sweet Italian sausage
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, 3 minced, 1 smashed
1 T fresh thyme
2 cans of white beans (rinsed and drained), divided
6 cups of stock (chicken or vegetable)
3 medium potatoes, cubed
4 C kale, stemmed and chopped
1 tsp sea salt
Freshly cracked pepper, to taste

Instructions:

To cook sausage, place in a skillet with 4 tablespoons of water over medium heat. Cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes. Turn the sausage and continue to cook, uncovered, for another 25 minutes or until golden brown.

In a large pot, saute onions and the three minced cloves of garlic in olive oil until the onions begin to soften (about five minutes). Add the fresh thyme and continue cooking for one minute (note: if you don't have fresh thyme, you can substitute one teaspoon of dried thyme). Reserve 1/2 cup of white beans and add the remaining beans to the pot along with the stock and potatoes. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft (about 20 minutes).

Meanwhile, place the reserved beans, 3 T olive oil and smashed garlic in a blender or food processer and puree until smooth, then add to soup.

Halve the cooked sausage and slice in 1/2-inch slices. Add to the soup and let it continue to simmer. Season with salt and pepper.

Saute the kale in olive oil until it turns bright green, then stir it into the soup and serve.

Makes 8 servings.

Note: This delicious soup converts easily to vegetarian by using vegetable stock and eliminating the sausage.

He says no—and so do I. 

Are we the only ones doing the math?

Frankly, I don't remember liking math too much as a kid, although these days I'm pretty sure the problem was Mrs. Lyford, my first grade teacher who was, like, a hundred, and who didn't make things like adding and subtracting seem all that compelling. I was way more interested in the real world application (like if Mikey kicks my chair one more time how many times do I have to clobber him before he cuts it out?)—a subtle foreshadowing, I suppose, of the fact that I would one day come to love the logic and dependability of numbers that add up. 

The Numbers Game

If you haven't seen Bittman's piece yet, go take a look… I'll wait for you. 

Cool. You're back. So what do you think? Is junk food really cheaper? 

According to Bittman's calculations, it would seem not so much, since “you can serve a roasted chicken with vegetables along with a simple salad and milk for about $14, and feed four or even six people”  as opposed to his example of a typical McDonald's order for a family of four that comes to about $28. 

Ah, serendipity! In the Conscious Shopping menu-planning guide, I used one of my favorite recipes—Roast Chicken with Oven-Roasted Vegetables—as the first example. 

I decided to test my recipe against Mr. Bittman's calculations. I figure if those pesky neutrinos can call Einstein's Theory of Relativity into question, I most certainly better check the math. 

Behold! The cost analysis using my recipes: 

one 5 lb. roasting chicken      $9.75 
one pound red potatoes         $1.35  
2 carrots                                    $0.50  
2 parsnips                                $1.00  
1 yellow onion                          $1.00  
celery                                         $0.70  
one apple                                 $0.70  
fresh rosemary                         $1.00 

For a total of                          $16.00

Plus olive oil, salt :& pepper and a clove of garlic which you likely already have on hand. 

My Simple Salad—aptly named in my upcoming cookbook because it requires no chopping—comes in at around $3 and consists of mixed greens, walnuts, dried cranberries, mandarin oranges tossed with a drizzle of olive oil, a spritz of apple cider vinegar with salt and pepper to taste. 

The total for this meal using my own recipes comes in at $19, which is slightly higher than Bittman's estimate, but I sprang for the all-natural, hormone-free, antibiotic-free chicken and some organic produce.

So far, so good, right?

But Wait! There's More!

My meal still comes in at $11 under the junk food meal. But one of the core components of my Conscious Shopping philosophy is not wasting food—and that chicken still has more to offer. 

Take a few moments to glean the remaining meat from the bone and use it to make a simple and tasty chicken salad. Throw in some dried cranberries (you have them on hand from your salad) and chop up some celery (you have that on hand, too) and you're halfway there. Not to mention, by taking this delicious homemade salad for lunch, you won't have to spend money on lunch. 

Haste Makes Waste

Don't be so quick to toss that carcass now that dinner's over and you're all set for tomorrow's lunch. Making chicken stock is so simple and you already have most of what you need on hand—chicken bones, the makings of mirepoix (fancy French name for the flavorful combination of celery, carrot and onion used in soups, stocks and sauces), a few herbs and seasonings… And if you're feeling really decadent, you can throw in a turnip for added flavor. Don't panic—turnips are super cheap. 

Homemade chicken stock! There's so much you can do. Make any number of soups! Use it to make rice or mashed potatoes more flavorful! Make gravies or sauces! Throw it the freezer and save it for a rainy day! 

Picture this

You made a really easy and simple, healthy and delicious meal for your family. You got creative with the leftovers (by comparison, there's not really much to do with half a leftover Big Mac and some limp fries, is there?) AND you just saved $11. 

Imagine how much more you could feed your family if you took that $11 and added it to your grocery budget. The secret of Conscious Shopping is planning your meals around a few key ingredients and making informed decisions about what you eat and how you buy it.  

So what's the verdict? Is junk food really cheaper? You do the math. 

By the way, Mrs. Lyford  wasn't actually 100 (I can count, after all), but she was also my mother's first grade teacher. And my grandmother's. Seriously. I'm so not kidding. That's small town living for you… 

Wasted Food = Wasted $

So let's talk about your refrigerator. When's the last time you took a look to see what's really in there? When it comes to wasting food—which translates to wasting your hard-earned cash—forgotten items in the fridge are a key culprit. One easy way to save money is simply to take a quick inventory of what's in your refrigerator before you head to the grocery store. See what you have on hand and figure out how you can use it. Plus, there's the added benefit of knowing beforehand what you're out of instead of making an unhappy discovery mid-recipe. 

Mostly, I check the fridge to see what's in there before I do my shopping for the week. Then again, sometimes I don't—which is what led to a recent stockpile of cucumbers, carrots and parsnips. See? Not perfect and perfectly happy.

Treasury of Soups

Let me just tell you how I feel about cucumbers. I love, love, love them. Peeled and sliced on a plate, in a salad or pickled in any way…I'm absolutely mad for them. But of my favorite concoctions is in a lovely green gazpacho featuring cucumber, mint and a hint of poblano. Now that the days are getting hot, Cucumber Mint Gazpacho is one very cool, refreshing and very easy-to-prepare soup. 

I also happen to love soup. My mother tells me that when I was little, I always wanted soup for breakfast. Why not? I still do. And lunch. And supper. 

So armed with a bunch of carrots, some locally grown parsnips and a few other goodies, I put on my [imaginary] chef's hat and went to work The result? Oven-Roasted Carrot and Parsnip Bisque. 

Moral of the Story

No food went to waste. The money I didn't spend on things I already had went toward fresh produce from the farmer's market—not to mention I had plenty of room for it in my newly cleaned out fridge. AND I made two simple and delicious soups to nourish me throughout the week! 

Give it a shot for yourself and be sure to let me know how it turns out…

New to the Humble Neighborhood? Here's the deal: I cook. You come and eat–and in the process you get to hang out with a bunch of really cool people. Sounds good, no?

Dinners will feature fresh, seasonal dishes and will take place on the second Saturday of each month from June through September. Here are the dates: June 11; July 16 (this is actually the third Saturday, due to a prior commitment on my part. Plus I couldn't very well call the series "Second Saturdays Unless I Have Plans and Move One to the Third Saturday in July." It loses the alliteration quality and doesn't flow as nicely); August 13; September 10. Appetizers and munchies at 6 p.m. with dinner planned for 7 p.m.

So…like I said, I'm thinking about it and I'd love your input. Take this quick survey and let me know what you think!

Some days nothing goes as planned. I don’t know why. It just does. I’m still new to yogurt-making and so I can’t say just what went wrong, but something did. No yogurt for breakfast—which is a good thing, really. I wanted to shake things up with this challenge and if I find a comfortable, reliable breakfast the first day and never progress from there, then I’m defeating my own purpose.

That said…

I love the fact that I can buy my eggs from the farm stand up the road. Sometimes they run out, and I have to wash them off myself (gasp!). The extra effort is well worth the comfort of knowing that there is nothing in my eggs that shouldn’t be there; the hens that laid them roam freely—I can go visit them if I have a mind to—and they’re not fed anything they shouldn’t be fed. All that leads to both a better egg and peace of mind for me.
       Breakfast, then, was a scramble of eggs and kale and onions from a nearby farm stand, accompanied by whole wheat bread and butter—both of which I made myself. I should mention here that I don’t actually spend my entire day kneading bread and churning butter. As much as that kind of quaint lifestyle appeals to a certain part of me, there’s another facet of me who is truly appreciative of modern conveniences like bread-makers and blenders. That’s not to say that I haven’t made both butter and bread by hand and from scratch, mind you…

Around lunchtime, I found myself experimenting with the wheat berries I cooked yesterday. The end result was a wheat berry salad with tomato, cucumber and onion tossed with a drizzle of olive oil, lemon and a little salt. On impulse I pinched a few mint leaves from the plant on my deck and added them, finely chopped, to the salad. I thought it was pretty good… That is, until I went back to the salad bowl for dinner. Can I just tell you what a huge difference a few hours in the fridge can make? So fragrant and delicious.

On to dinner…

I fell in love a while back with clay-pot cooking. Serious, head-over-heels, butterflies-in-the-stomach, chills-up-my-back l-o-v-e. Everything I’ve made so far has been out of this world. I found my first clay pot (I now have four) a couple of years at a tag sale. Pristine and unused. I didn’t even fully realize what it was, I just liked it and shelled out the whopping $1 it took to make it mine. Later—much later—like a year (I don’t always get to things right away), I came a clay-pot cookbook from the mid 1970s—and everything I’ve made, from Curried Chicken with Guinness to Eggplant Imam Baaldi, has been so tender and wonderful and just indescribably delicious.
       So for dinner I decided to revisit the recipe that got me hooked—Garden Fresh Chicken Breast. Here’s the recipe and a piece of advice:

If you have a clay-pot, use it; if you don’t, go out and get one—and then use it.

Garden Fresh Chicken Breast

Ingredients:
6 to 8 chicken breasts, halved (I like to use thighs or tenderloins, instead)
2 T flour (I use whole wheat)
2 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
2 T butter (I use olive oil)
1 clove of garlic, crushed
½ lb. mushrooms, sliced thin (great to experiment with different kinds of mushrooms here!)
1 C shelled peas (I leave these out due to childhood trauma over having to eat my peas)
2 bay leaves
2 stalks of celery, chopped fine
½ C dry white wine
2 T fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions:
Soak the pot (top and bottom) in water for at least 15 minutes.

In a paper bag, mix together the flour, salt and pepper. Add the chicken and shake until coated.

Brown the chicken in butter (or oil) and garlic. Put the browned chicken in the bottom of the clay-pot. Add the sliced mushrooms, shelled peas, bay leaves and celery.

Heat the chicken drippings in the pan and add the white wine and parsley. Mix well and pour over the chicken.

Place the covered pot in a cold oven (this is important—do not preheat the oven). Set temperature to 480 degrees and cook for 45 minutes.

Ta-da! So fabulously delicious—trust me. Just as an aside, I was out of dry white wine and I haven’t yet gone to a local winery to get more, but I did happen to have the right amount of sake leftover and sitting in the refrigerator just waiting for a purpose.

The above recipe is from “The Clay-pot Cookbook: A New Way of Cooking in an Ancient Pot” by Georgia McLeod Sales and Grover Sales. (Atheneum, ©1974 Georgia MacLeod Sales and Grover Sales).

 In two short days, I’m discovering that this project isn’t just about eating and the shopping and cooking that go with it. I’m thinking more about waste…food that doesn’t get eaten, time that gets eaten up by things that don’t matter, everything that goes into the garbage can.

I decided when I was mapping out the guidelines for this project that I would include the use of stuff I already had on hand—and actually, I made a concerted effort last week not to stockpile any items in anticipation of the coming challenge. I did, however, take a survey of the freezer and pantry and decided to incorporate a few of the things that are basically sitting around taking up space for no reason other than the fact that I haven’t felt like doing anything with them. 
       This week, in addition to buying only food that is locally grown, I’m facing my freezer. There’s no reason not to use up that package of frozen stew beef and in having a bit of a clear-out, I’m making room for more local fare.
       Normally, I think of beef stew as more of a cold-weather dish. But the last week or so has had its ups and downs and I felt in need of a little comfort food. What better way to marry together my fresh, local produce and nicely packaged freezer items than to throw them together in a slow cooker? All day long, whenever I walked through the kitchen, I felt transported somehow to my grandmother’s kitchen, which was always full of happy memories, thereby improving my mood and sense of well-being.
       What is it about our olfactory senses that make time travel seem so possible? How can a delicious whiff pull us out of the doldrums and onto Cloud Nine? If there’s one other aroma that can work its magic on me, it’s the smell of freshly baked gingerbread. 

My love of cooking doesn’t flow over into a love of baking. But when I do bake, I like to do it from scratch. To that end, the box of organic, whole grain gingerbread mix that someone handed off to me has been sitting on a shelf in the cabinet. Waiting.
       On a whim, I picked up the box to see just what would be needed to put the mix to good use: a cup and a half of milk, some butter and an egg. What a perfect way to use up the cup and a half of buttermilk left over from the weekend’s butter-making.
 
All in all, I’d say it was a good day. No food was wasted and now there’s more room for the local bounty from next week’s shopping adventures. The coming days are going to be even more challenging as my Items-on-Hand diminish and I continue to buy only local. 

In the interest of sharing a little comfort and joy, I thought I’d post the current version of my beef stew for the slow cooker, so here you go. Enjoy.

Beef Stew
Since I’m still making the transition to going completely local, I wanted to note the ingredients in this recipe that are local: flour, onion, carrots, garlic, red wine—and of course, the water.

Ingredients:
2 lbs. stew beef, cut in bite-sized chunks
½ C whole-wheat flour
1 tsp paprika
4 T olive oil
1 medium (or ½ large) onion, diced
2 carrots, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
2 parsnips, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
2-3 stalks of celery, sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
1/8 tsp ground cloves
3 ½ C water
½ C red wine
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions:
Combine the whole-wheat flour and paprika then dredge the meat to coat. Heat the oil in a skillet and when it begins to shimmer, add the meat, turning to brown it on all sides. You may need to do this in batch so as not to crowd the pan. Place the browned meat in the slow cooker. Add the vegetables and remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low for ten to 12 hours or on high for five to six hours. Make sure you remove the bay leaves before serving.

Note: You have noticed there are no potatoes in this recipe. When I made beef stew for the first time a number of years ago, the recipe I used didn’t call for them. To tell the truth, I didn’t even notice until I was eating it. I happened to have mashed potatoes left over from the night before, so I heated them up and spooned some on top of the stew. I liked it so much that, as my recipe has evolved, I’ve kept the potatoes out of it just so I can serve the stew with a dollop of mashed potatoes on top.

As far as cooking goes, beets are really wonderful because you can use both the greens and the roots to make completely different dishes. This week I started toying with that idea and ended up with a combination of oven-roasted beets (and other tasty root vegetables) and sautéed greens. These dishes are lovely on their own, but also delicious (my favorite) when served together.

I love this dish and wanted to share it, so I’ve decided to do is to post a few recipes in this blog in hopes of sharing and getting some feedback. I’d love to hear what you think!

Oven-Roasted Beets with Sautéed Greens

Ingredients:
A bunch of beets, including the greens
3 or 4 (or more, if you like) baby turnips, peeled and cut in chunks
6-8 fingerling potatoes
Olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 tsp butter (optional)
Kale
Mushrooms, sliced
Garlic, sliced
Balsamic vinegar

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Wash the beets and trim the greens (leaving an inch or so of the stalks attached to the beets) and set aside. You want to keep the beetroot intact, so that lovely color doesn’t run and turn the other vegetables pink.  Put the beets, turnips and potatoes in an oven-safe baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes to one hour, until vegetables are soft (a knife will slide in and out easily).

Meanwhile, wash the beet greens and kale (discarding the kale stems) and tear or roughly chop into bite-sized pieces. Wash and slice mushrooms. Slice the garlic.

When the root vegetables are nearly done, heat butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter stops sizzling, add the mushrooms and sauté until soft. (Note: if you don’t want to use butter, you can just use olive oil instead. I just happen to like the flavor combination of mushrooms and butter). Add the sliced garlic and sauté until it begins to turn golden. Add the greens and sauté until they turn bright green and begin to wilt. Remove from stove; add a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar and toss.

Arrange the greens on a plate and place oven-roasted vegetables on top. At this point, I like to rub the beets to remove the skin and then slice the beets before placing them on the greens.

Go Beets!

Light a Fire

Instead of barricading myself in my office and trudging through the day’s work—as I am likely to do when I feel myself getting into a funk—I decided to take a different tack. I could keep complaining about the weather and longing for that crackling fire or I could take the matter in hand. So, an armful of logs and an open flue later, I find myself curled up on the couch with my laptop in front of a crackling fire—ready to take on the rest of the day.

Soup’s On!

Now on to that soup! I’ve been thinking a lot lately butternut squash soup. I love the sweet creaminess of this soup and the golden color always seems to lift my spirits. Suddenly, I’m feeling grateful for such a grey and gloomy day; without it, I may not have been inspired to put on my “chef shoes”—a.k.a. fuzzy-lined Crocs—and start oven-roasting and simmering to my heart’s content. So it’s turning out to be a better-than-lovely day, after all, despite its dismal beginning.
    The moral of the story? You have the power to control what kind of day you’re going to have. And if it happens to include a happily crackling fire and a bowl of your favorite soup, all the better!

For my favorite butternut squash recipe, please sign up for my newsletter using the form on the right. You even get a free gift for signing up!

All I wanted was a crispy bit of whole grain toast. Too much to ask? I don’t think so. And the only decision I wanted to make was: sweet potato spread or freshly made homemade butter? That’s right, freshly homemade organic butter. Yum. The butter might have won out, I think, but I opened the breadbox and was surprised—and frankly, a little irritated—to find it curiously devoid of bread. Unless you count the three packages of carefully saved ends tucked neatly in one corner. Good for something, but not—in my opinion—toast.

The Search for Inspiration

I’m not a wasteful person and I simply can’t bring myself to throw it away–which is how there came to be three practically empty packages to begin with. What to do? Make breadcrumbs? Nope, did that with the last batch. Make toast anyway? Definitely not. I try to limit my bread intake (even if it is a nice hearty whole grain) and so I want to fully enjoy it when I do have it. Bread ends don’t cut it.
     What, I asked myself—out loud, alone in my kitchen and sounding more aggravated than I should have—what do people do with these things?! I wasn’t actually expecting an answer, but one came to me, calmly and rationally, anyway: they make bread pudding.
     Of course they do. I’ve done it myself. Once. With splendid results, even. Suddenly, the clear, crisp late summer day seemed like the perfect day to make bread pudding, particularly as my brain started inventorying potential ingredients…the buttermilk from my fresh butter-making project, the fresh peaches liberated from an upstate-NY farm stand over the weekend (not to worry—I paid for their freedom)… Ah, the exciting possibilities!

All’s Well that Ends Well

Well, those pesky bread ends ended up well; warm bread pudding with fresh peaches on a cool evening is a far cry from the brink of disposal, to be sure. This week, I have more fresh peaches and an idea or two for improving this already tasty dish. When it’s ready, I’ll be sure and post the recipe, I promise. This is going to be a fun week in the kitchen!

I never did make that toast.

Look Before You Leap
 
This is very important: If you’re using a recipe, read through it—in its entirety—first, thereby eliminating one of those “Oh, rats (or your favorite expletive)!” moments when you realize too late that you were supposed to chill, soak or otherwise prepare something ahead of time—or that the cooking time exceeds the time by which your guests will be arriving by several hours. Trust me. You’ll thank me for this.
This is also the time to make sure you have all the ingredients—or if you don’t, you can decide what substitutions you’re brave enough to make.

Get it Together

Get your ingredients together before you start cooking. In accordance with my Virgo nature, I line them all up on the counter in the order in which I’ll be using them. You can line them up any way you want to; the important thing is to get all your ingredients in front of you, so you can do a headcount. Make sure you have everything—and enough of it.
To simplify the cleaning-up process, I put away each item after I’ve used it. By the time I’m finished, all my ingredients have either been used or put away! 

Wash and Go

The clean-up-as-you-go method works really well for all your pots, pans and utensils, too. I use whatever spare seconds I have to quickly wash up any items I’m done with so I won’t have a huge mess to contend with when I’m done.

These are the tricks and tips that work for me—feel free to share your own!