A new menu

I have been a little behind on sharing menus. (Sorry Jenny... :)). It's getting to the tough part of the year to be inspired about eating. The first harvests are not all that far away, but we're still in the dregs of what's in the cellars—or forced to eat produce from the other side of the continent and beyond. It's also the time of year when the lull of January and February, when we stay home for a few weekends, has subsided. Schedules pick up, and every extra moment that isn't stolen by my paying job should be devoted to catching up on my garden chores. As always, I'm so far behind, I'll never catch up. Sigh.

On the menu

On the bright side, here's next week's menu, and it mostly means we don't need to stop at the grocery store this week.

• Sat: Chick pea salad with feta, parsley and lemony dressing
• Sun: Chicken stew
• (Meatless) Mon: Lentil soup and a big salad with bleu cheese dressing
• Tues: leftovers
• Wed: Roasted cauliflower with parsley pesto, roasted peppers and black beans
• Thurs: Garlic shrimp over wilted spinach
• Fri: headed up to Northport... veggies and black bean puree in the truck
• Saturday: something grilled in NP

Lunches: leftover soup and stew

Breakfast: yogurt, fresh juice, smoothies

Testing a juicer: Jack LaLanne's

Speaking of breakfast, we just got a juicer. They were on sale at Costco, and since I've been contemplating it for 15 years, I decided to just get one and try it. So far I have found:

• It takes a lot of carrots to make 2 glasses of juice
• It's probably great for my compost, but eventually I'll feel wasteful tossing all that pulp
• Garlic in the morning is not so much the ticket
• Carrots, spinach, lemons and celery taste a lot like V8 without the tomatoes and make a bracing but energizing breakfast

Speaking of breakfast... yogurt experiments

I have been in the last 3 months pretty much making all of our yogurt at home. I read something about a favorite milk producer giving in to Monsanto feed, and said EFF IT, I'm going to figure out how to make my own yogurt and cheese so I can buy milk from a neighbor I can trust.

So, for the moment, I'm getting all my milk from Hilhof Farms (via the health food store in town) until I can find a good dairy share where I can get cow's milk and goat's milk. And, here's what I'm learning:

• The first few times went great. Heat up the milk to about 140, cool to about 100, mix in jars with live yogurt culture, and let sit in the oven with the pilot on overnight. 
• The second few times..... not sure what happened. Flavor is great, but texture is too liquid. Either I'm not heating it enough, or the culture is weakened. We'll experiment with adding an actual bacterial culture to see what happens.

Credits

We'll use basic Cook's Illustrated recipes to make the lentil soup. I think I learned the Chick Pea Salad recipe from a Bon Appetit about a year ago. As always, props to Hilhof and Creswick Farms for our dairy and meat, and to the regular old grocery industry for the rest. I can't wait until we're more self-sufficient. I'm anxious to be in charge of my own food.

Now I better get to starting seeds, for real.

Lenten Vows

We're co-opting Lent. We're not Catholic. In fact, we're not even really Christian. We believe in love and individual responsibility. Our cardinal rule is to live with integrity. So, what's up with the Lenten vows?

Two things

1. Lent is an excuse to participate in a cultural ritual with beautiful results. Self-imposed austerity--doing without--has a cleansing effect. It helps reset life, refocus intentions. It has a holistic dimension: spirit, body and mind are affected.
2. And, it's a convenient excuse to retool the way we think about some particular thing in life. What we give up for Lent, usually a vice or a bad habit, is symbolic. Forty days of doing without give us either a renewed appreciation for the thing itself, or help us move beyond it, let go of whatever it is that we needed before.

Reset: health

This year for Lent, we're changing the way we eat. We ordinarily eat fairly healthy foods, but in busy times (which seems like always, lately), restaurant meals and thrown-together dinners take precedence over thoughtful food. Easy pantry pasta. Roasted potatoes. Sandwiches. Two pizzas a week. Fish and rice. None of it is bad for you, but our consumption gets out of balance with our production. Meaning, we eat too much easy energy, without the chance to balance it out with care and investment of time and love. Literally meaning, we gain weight and we might be a little cranky.

The promise

Restore balance to our bodies: lose weight, build core strength, gain endurance

To do this, we decided to take a rather drastic measure for the duration of Lent: eliminate carbohydrates. After our fast is over, we'll go back to whole grains, albeit at a slower pace.

No pasta. No pizza. No beer, wine, whiskey or rum. No cereal. No sugar. Some are easy (like sugar... we consume very little of it.) Some are really hard (like pizza, which is a Friday night staple). It's a serious reduction in winter comfort food options. It challenges us to think about vegetables in more creative ways. And, it offers an interesting experiment: a byproduct of eliminating carbohydrates means we're gluten-free. I doubt we have a sensitivity to gluten, but I'll be paying attention just to see if it makes a difference.

The new menu

• Saturday: Spring mix with roasted citrus, toasted pecans and Greek yogurt
• Sunday: Vegetables à la barigoule (artichoke stew)
• Monday: (Still practicing Meatless Monday) Cauliflower "steaks" with tapenade and fava bean puree
• Tuesday: Poached fish and wilted greens
• Wednesday: Roasted beet and fennel salad with leftover chicken
• Thursday: Chick pea stew with squash
• Friday: Roasted celery root with buttermilk sauce, red pepper soup and wilted salad

For the freezer: Potato leek soup (using up those spuds, so we can eat them after Lent)
For lunch: Hearty cabbage soup
For breakfasts: Still figuring out what to eat instead of cereal and fruit...

Credits

I have been completely inspired recently by the Bon Appétit "BA Kitchen" section. Most of the dishes on this week's menu will be direct pick-ups or ideas based on recipes from the March 2012 issue. Inspired by my friend Laurie Arboreal of Eater's Guild farm, I'll be making my own yogurt and cottage cheese. Cabbage soup from the The Best Soups & Stews cookbook from Christopher Kimball's crew at Cook's Illustrated/Cook's Country/America's Test Kitchen.

In reserve

Of course, as I dream over what to eat, and what to put on the grocery list, I run across ideas that I'm saving for after Lent.

• French potato casserole (Cook's Illustrated, March 2012)
• Potato and fish puttanesca (Bon Appétit, February 2012)
• Shellfish and potatoes à la marinière (Bon Appétit, March 2012)

Two Menus, February 2012

First week

• Sat:was going to be a homemade meal, but ended up eating at Mia & Grace. (yum)
• Sun: road trip to Stevensville. Nourishment at The Livery.
• Mon: leftover chicken en mole
• Tue: I truly cannot remember what we ate...., but I made super tasty banana bread for Williams Group.
• Wed: Pulpo and risotto in a white wine and garlic sauce
• Thur: patatas a la riojana
• Fri: homemade pizza with red peppers, kalamata olives, and fresh mozzarella

Credits: thanks to Lisa Rose Starner for the mole sauce. It was awesome the second time too. Thanks to Creswick Farms for the chicken, and Kevin's trip to the Asian Market on Division for the pulpo. Banana bread recipe, courtesy Baking Illustrated.

Second week

This is advanced menu planning. We'll see how well we do at following it. (hint, things always change)

• Sat: fresh pasta al vino blanco
• Sun: roast chicken and something good I haven't thought of yet.
• Mon: baked eggs and greens
• Tues: Hearty cabbage soup
• Wed: roasted root vegetable salad
• Thur: poached fish with vegetable vinaigrette
• Fri: pizza

Lunches: carrot ginger soup, cabbage soup

Credits: pasta from Cook's Illustrated, March 2012--an issue containing many recipes that are inspiring. We've been subscribers for almost 15 years! Skillet eggs based on Bon Appétit recipe from Feb. 2012 (and the eggs overcooked... a technique that must require practice). Cabbage soup from The Best Soups and Stews.

Update: 2/23 - well, we barely followed that one. Life happened, I was too busy to remember what we ate, and much of this got recycled into the new menu.... c'est la vie.

On the menu

For years, I have made my grocery list from a menu. I started this right after I graduated from college, and Kevin and I had to make careful decisions about what we bought at the grocery store, because our limited dollars had to buy enough food to last us until the next trip. I made Kevin choose between wine and steak more than once.

Now that we're in a different financial position, I have kept this tradition of menu planning, because it means that we eat healthy, home-cooked food. It's better for us all around.

Living frugally is still a goal, driven by philosophy more than necessity. Living simply is an intention, a purposeful choice. For my own reflection in a year, and in case anyone else might be inspired to spend more time in the kitchen, I am going to share the weekly menus.

More than meatless Monday

In January, we're extending meatless Monday to several days a week. It's better for us, and better for the planet. Here's to health, and feeling better about bikinis come June!

Week 1 

(finish up the holiday leftovers...)

• Sunday: garden tomato soup and sandwiches (thanks Kelly!)
• Monday: Split pea soup with the rest of the holiday ham 
• Tuesday: Roast chicken with fava bean purée and a salad 
• Wednesday:  Stir fried vegetable matchsticks with sautéed mushrooms
• Thursday: Carrot-ginger soup and grilled cheese sandwiches
• Friday: pizza with the leftover holiday duck, roasted red peppers and kale

Week 2

• Saturday: Free day (surprise party) 
• Sunday: Chicken and dumplings 
• Monday: Skillet-baked eggs with wilted kale and yogurt sauce (inspired by Bon Appetit)
• Tuesday: Lentil soup 
• Wednesday: Macaroni and cheese with spinach and roasted peppers 
• Thursday: Fish en mole 
• Friday: Pizza 

Credit where credit's due

Props to Creswick Farms, where Nathan raises healthy, happy chickens, and to Behren's Hens at Beechwood Acres, and Rebecca, who drops eggs off at WYCE for Kevin to bring home. Also, thanks to Lisa Rose Starner, who made the salsa mole and traded us for some cider at the GRap Food Swap this fall.

May you all have a chance to enjoy good food, good health and good company.

The humble sweet potato

Meatless Monday Gnocchi

Another tasty vegetarian meal to celebrate meatless Monday.


For the gnocchi:

• 6 sweet potatoes
• 1 russet
• 1 egg
• 1 c. parmesan or similar cheese, grated
• salt
• nutmeg
• cayenne
• all-purpose flour

1. Roast the potatoes and cool until they can be handled. Remove the skins and press through a ricer. (I use the one that came with my Grandma's Kitchen-Aid. Old-schooler, but it works.) Mix the potatoes together and form a well in the center.
2. Beat egg with cheese and spices. Add to potato mixture (pour into the well) and gently fold together using a rubber spatula. 
3. Generously flour a work surface, and your hands, and working with a handful of dough at a time, roll it into a rope and cut into bite-sized pieces. 
4. Roll with a fork to score.
5. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silpat and freeze. 

Once they are frozen, portion onto quart zip-lock bags. They store nicely for several months.

To prepare, boil 3 quarts of salted water in a large pot. Add the frozen gnocchi to the boiling water, and leave heat on high, uncovered. Gently stir occasionally. The gnocchi will rise to the surface as they cook. When all are on the surface, boil gently for a little longer (a minute or two at most). Drain.

For Meatless Monday Gnocchi:

• Sweet Potato Gnocchi
• 1 lb. arugula, washed and spun dry
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• pecans
• salt
• pepper

Prepare gnocchi as above.

1. Heat olive oil in a 10-inch saute pan over medium-low heat. Saute garlic until it turns the color of straw, and sticks together. Add pecans, and saute lightly for a few minutes, until aromatic.
2. Add the arugula in layers, salting each layer as you add.
3. Stir together until arugula is tender (only a couple minutes).
4. Drain as needed (sometimes will be quite watery, depending on the arugula, and may need to be pressed to remove excess liquid).
5. Push arugula to the side, and add the cooked gnocchi over medium-high heat (augment oil if needed), stirring occasionally until lightly browned.
6. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with grated cheese or a balsamic vinaigrette. 

Meatless Monday

Every Monday, Kevin and I go vegetarian. It's a small, simple way to be intentional about what we eat, and how it affects the world around us. Last night: Pantry pasta and chick pea salad.