Photo update

Took the pumpkin I never carved and roasted it to make homemade puree for recipes:



and roasted the seeds...first time ever! They were underdone, but still delicious.

My first bento! The star-shaped rice is my FAVORITE part. And it worked! The star didn't fall apart as I was eating it or anything.

My old, icky stove. Left side is a grill that has remnants of food from everyone who's ever lived here. Only two burners, but couldn't ever use the smaller one when my most frequently used pan was on the big burner, since the burners are too close together.

My beautiful new stove (thanks, Mom and Dad!). Four burners, one warming burner. Three of the burners have multiple sizes on them. The controls aren't pressure-sensitive, they're people-sensitive, so accidentally tapping them with utensils or pots won't change it--it's gotta be a finger. Pretty cool, unless there's splattering oil in a cooking disaster (and, yes, I've ALREADY experienced that disaster, practically on the first day of the stove!).

Bread #3: Golden Pull-apart butter buns

Thanks, yet again, to King Arthur Flour, I found a magnificent recipe for Golden Pull-Apart Butter Buns.

Nice and soft. Delicious.

Well, to tell the truth, they were a bit on the, um, buttery side, but that should be expected from their names. But I have this weird thing where I don't like the taste of butter... but normal people, I'm sure, will highly appreciate this recipe.

The softness was the best part. Nice.

Bento!

New obsession: bentos!

Bento is a Japanese lunch packed in a box....umm... that's not a good description. The thing I like about bento is that they're FUN. Check out this Noah's Ark bento, with animals made out of rice: http://www.aibento.net/2009/02/02/noahs-bento-upper-deck-300/.

No way would I ever put THAT much effort into making bento, but I love the idea of making food fun, with shapes and colors and animals and fun picks and cute sauce bottles.

And, no, I'm not making the Japanese food to go in the bento, but I am pilfering the funness out of it. I made my first onigiri (rice ball) in the shape of a star out of leftover rice from today's dinner. We'll see if it holds its shape or if I need to buy short-grain rice...

Maybe I'll plan to be gone all day so I'll HAVE to make a bento for Zade and myself... or maybe I'll even make one for Jacob. :) I think I'll start with a small snack bento for church on Sunday so I can get through the 3 hours without feeling faint.

Tofu!

Today's recipe attempt was risky: tofu. Never cooked it before. I've tried it once or twice and thought it was okay, but nothing spectacular.

The recipe I used (from How to Cook Everything, by Bittman) was incredibly easy and delicious! Well, I did burn the ginger a bit, but other than that, it was great! Zade practically breathed it in--I think he especially liked the soft texture.

...

This whole trying-new-recipes thing is actually working. I groaned at the idea of cooking dinner tonight, and the thought of requesting fast food (uggggh!) even crossed my mind for a second. But when I saw that the menu I'd planned had tofu slated for today, I got excited again. I like to cook new things.

I went in maniac mode a couple weeks ago and planned recipes for the entire month of December: most of them are new recipes. I'm EXCITED about that. Hopefully that means that I'll end up cooking most of them, even as my energy seeps away in these last weeks of pregnancy.

Thai chicken

Thai chicken in the crockpot.
I must say, I'm not a big fan of meat in the crockpot... turns out rubbery most of the time. And I've never used garlic before, and hardly ever use onions. And don't get me started on red pepper flakes! Whew!

Plus, the ingredients are weird. I mean, does peanut butter and chicken and lime sound good? Sounds ick to me.

But it is good.

Amazing.

I got the chicken thighs on deep sale, so this was a really cheap, easy, and delicious meal.
And it does NOT taste like peanut butter chicken. good. It smells pretty strongly of peanut butter at the end, but Jacob was surprised when I mentioned that there was peanut butter in it.

And you can't taste the red pepper flakes (either the cheap mexican brand ones I got were flavorless or else the flavor dissipated among the mix... I'd like to think the latter) and garlic/onions aren't overwhelming.

Cooking like the pros

Today was Turkey and Biscuit pie . I tried out that thing the cooking show pros do, where you measure everything out first and put it in little bowls.

Actually worked. Especially for a new recipe I've never tried before. And since almost everything is dishwasher-able, it didn't create a load of dishes. Nice.

Fourth (or fifth) time's the charm!

I've tried to make granola bars three or four times before now, and they never turned out as bars...more of a crumbly mass.

But yesterday, I DID IT! Bars! YAY!

The secret was to use parchment paper (my new baking friend!) so I could get the bars out of the pan to cool. No stickiness, no gooey half-left-behind pieces. Perfect.

The recipe is here, at King Arthur Flour.

Turkey!

And it was just as delicious as it looks! De-meating the carcass almost makes me want to be a vegetarian, though.... gross job.''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Bread #2: Pumpernickel

The advantage of making pumpernickel is that, since I've never had it before, I don't know if I made it wrong. So let's assume I made it right. :) It's a very dark bread, made with molasses and rye. Many recipes call for coffee beans or espresso powder (and that's why I've never had it before), but this one called for cocoa powder, so that worked.

It's a very hard, whole-grain bread (besides rye, there's whole wheat flour). I think next time I would substitute some all-purpose or bread flour to lighten the texture a little.

Attempt #1: curry

I love the Golden Curry mix: add it to chicken and veggies and, poof!, instant delicious curry.

In an attempt to both move away from pre-processed foods and an attempt to become a better cook, I tried this recipe for curried chicken crepes today.

MMM.

Turned out great. Took a picture, but, silly me, I lost both the cord to my camera AND the memory card adapter, so I can't upload pictures. Ever. Until I find the adapter.

Anyway, it's the sort of food that I probably won't be able to eat again until I'm no longer pregnant (pickiness comes with the big belly) because of the texture (coconut milk is slightly grainy), but it's DEFINITELY a make-again. In fact, the recipe made enough that I froze two servings for fast and easy meals when the baby comes.

Today, I was lazy and didn't want to make crepes, so I put it on rice instead. And I didn't have coconut milk powder, so I just used 1 3/4 c canned coconut milk and put it in with the sour cream. Worked out great. Much saucier, but that's perfect for rice.

And Zade loved it! (Jacob's at work late so hasn't tried it yet.) I think Zade ate more of it than I did. I thought the curry or coconut would throw him off, but he gobbled it up as fast as I gave it to him.

The Ultimate Update

Ah, haven't updated this blog since July. Here's the update of updates.

I've been converted.

Yes, that's right. With the help of sites like The Prudent Homemaker and Little Homestead in the City, I've decided to become as self-reliant as possible. The ULTIMATE goal is to be able to live out in the country one day, no problem, but I've got TONS of stuff to learn before I can be at that point. And most of it, I've realized, can be learned while living in suburbia, such as:

• 100% out of debt, including house, in 5 years
• Grow most of my own produce (gardening!)
• Composting
• Preserving all that food I grow: freezing, canning, etc...
• Eat a wholly unprocessed (I should say un-pre-processed) food diet: that includes homemade bread, homemade snacks/crackers/etc... MAYBE even homemade pasta, we'll see how far it goes first
• Make my own cheese..at least some types (looks really easy, but we'll see how it goes) and yogurt
• Fresh eggs from real chickens
• Energy efficiency
• Build up and use a REAL year's supply of food storage

Stuff like that. I expect to be able to chronicle some hilarious disasters as I try some of these things out. And, of course, gotta take everything one step at a time. Like the non-pre-processed foods. First, my goal is to bake one new type of bread a week for a year. 52 types. Nice. I made pita bread this week. No, they didn't puff enough to make REAL pockets, but that's okay--they were DELICIOUS anyway.

Since I'm such a beginner at gardening, I'm going to go for the square foot garden method first. I'm totally inspired by my sister-in-law's garden, which is amazing. Eventually, I'd like to transform into edible landscaping, which means you get a pretty yard and still have a garden. Nice. I'll start my garden in the spring, after I've recovered from having the baby.

Chickens will definitely be a MUCH later stage of this process... plus I have to check if it's legal here... preliminary investigation says that as long as they're not too noisy, they'd be okay. Hm.

I hate to say I want to "go green," since that's so trendy. And I don't consider myself an environmentalist. But I hate waste and, besides, the less energy you use, the more self-reliant you really can be. Most of that will happen after we've paid off the house--then we can pay cash for energy-efficient appliances and get our attic all radiant-barrier-ed or whatever we need to do.

So anyway, yeah. Going from city girl to uber-homemaker. Should be an interesting--and at times hilarious!--transformation. With lots of updates on this blog!