Tag Archives: food

In today’s edition of “My Cute Kid”

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So Shanna’s birthday is on Monday. We are having the aunts and uncles over for dinner on Sunday. I asked her if she wanted a cake for her birthday and she was completely adamant that she wanted cupcakes. Fair enough. Then we get down to that eternal battle… vanilla or chocolate. I tried to talk her into vanilla by explaining that vanilla is my favorite. She categorically refused to consider not having chocolate. She explained to me that it is Daddy’s favorite. Right. I can see how the wind blows around here.

I got started with the process while she was still napping. Basically what I did was premeasure everything into small bowls so that she could do all the combining herself. She was really excited about doing that and was looking forward to it all day. When she woke up she came out and we got started in earnest. She did a fabulous job. I was quite impressed. She didn’t grab at anything (one of our more frequent counter issues) and she was extremely careful when she poured. In fact she did substantially better than me because I got flour everywhere. When that happened she told me in a very stern tone of voice, “Mommy! You need to be careful!” I was torn between glaring at her and giggling so I gave her a very tiny dirty look while I smiled. “Yes honey, I need to be more careful. You are right.”

When I finished putting the batter in the cupcake shells she acted like she died and went to heaven. She got to lick the beater and the bowl. I think this is her favorite part. 🙂 Now the cupcakes are in the oven and a friend is making me vanilla cupcakes this weekend because I whined on facebook. Hilarious and awesome. Yay!

Tomorrow I get to put the finishing touches on Shanna’s play kitchen. There is no doubt in my mind that she is ready for it. I think that her helping in the kitchen is going to expand tremendously at this point because she is far more mature about it than I thought.

ETA: I totally forgot to say the super cute part! I often absentmindedly sing, “There Are No Cats In America” from An American Tail. Shanna is now wandering around singing “There are no cats in Mary with cheese”. I can’t stop giggling. 🙂

And in other news…

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It looks like I am buying a whole cow again. I am hoping that some of the reliable people from last time would like to buy some again. 🙂 I like having ethically raised meat in the house and this is by far the most cost effective way to do it. So if you were easy to deal with last time (and I probably let you know if I was pissy) please do contact me again. 🙂 So far I have 3/4 of a cow spoken for and they don’t really want you to buy it in that volume. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100 lbs of meat I am happy to sell.

They raised the price a little and with the delivery fee the cost is $6.50/lb. this year. If you eat ethically raised meat normally it is FAR more expensive than that. This is potentially 1/4 of the price if you buy steaks at Whole Foods. My pickup date is June 1. 🙂

Followed up on the milk.

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I sent an email to our co-op host and she replied with a long winded version of, “I’m not doing anything wrong! Their receipt is messed up and I don’t know why!” I get the impression I’m not the first person to ask about it and she is feeling kind of defensive.

So I called the dairy. 🙂 The prices we are being shown on the receipt are the prices you get if you drive to the dairy yourself and pick it up. The driver of the delivery truck has a faulty machine and he has been told to stop using it. Apparently he was told a while ago and he isn’t following directions. We are being charged what my co-op host charges us.

Debs–the reason the whole milk is so much more expensive is because they make $9/pint on cream. They have trouble getting rid of the skim. 🙂 So of course they charge less for it.

So I’m glad I asked. I’m also glad I asked in a polite way. I’m also glad I followed up with the dairy because now there is no doubt in my mind that my co-op host is on the up and up. Yay for certainty. (I apologized for any perceived slight upon her character.)

And… a random whine.

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So I’ve been participating in a raw milk co-op for about a year. The co-op is presented as “everyone pays the price the milk costs plus a $1 delivery fee each drop off”. Not a problem. Last drop off one of my milks wasn’t there so the whole group had to share the cost of the milk. Erf, but ok.

Today I looked at the receipt left with the milk because I was the first person to pick up. The prices listed were $3/skim milk and $5/whole milk. Thing is, she charges us $4.75/skim and $6/whole. Uhhh… wait a minute. If she wants to charge a markup and make money, fine–but be fucking honest about it. And why in the fuck do I (the only person who buys skim) pay a much steeper markup than the whole milk people?! That seems inappropriate. And why is everyone charged a delivery fee when she is already making money?! And why do we have to share out the cost of a fuck up when she is already making money?!

I’m feeling cranky. If I’m going to be fucked over on the cost of milk I might as well buy it at a grocery store where they are at least honest about fucking me over.

Oh MY GOD!!

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I am so excited. I managed to get reservations to The French Laundry. Then I managed to arrange babysitting for Shanna so we can stay overnight. Then I found an awesome B&B. This is going to be a rather expensive weekend (it blows our ‘fun’ money budget for ohhhh six months) but it will be worth it! I am so excited I can barely sit still!!!

Oh man. Now I have to figure out what to wear. I’m just pregnant enough to look really fat (and not be able to wear most of my awesomest clothes) but not pregnant enough that I have that “awww what an adorable pregnant belly” thing going on. It’ll be great! I don’t care!

Happy dance!

Plugging along

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Mudding and sanding are completely done. Today I am going to sweep and mop the garage. Then the kitchen. And then we can vacuum the rest of the house. 🙂 Tonight the garage will get the first coat of primer. I think two coats are a good idea given some of the areas of funk (the wall next to the house is stained and the beams are all pretty foul). The second coat will probably happen on Thursday. The inspector came this morning so I’m about done with this stage of the project. Yay! Decorative painting is going to wait a few months until there is more money in the kitty.

So I will probably start moving stuff out to the garage on Friday and Saturday. I only need help for the biggest pieces and then I can handle the rest of the work by myself over the next week. YAY!

Cookie baking is done. Cinnamon rolls are happening on Saturday.

Christmas cards are completely done and in the mail.

Yesterday I made a whole bunch of Aloo Gobi Mattar and it is really really good. Today I am making corned beef and cabbage (and potatoes, of course). Tomorrow is some cut of beef that Noah took out of the freezer; I should probably figure out how I am cooking that. I should also make veggie soup today or tomorrow and that will use up the vast majority of the veggies in the house. With the generous help of Sarah’s freezer foods I think we will be set for meals (except for Christmas dinner) for basically the rest of the month. That’s kind of awesome. 🙂

Wow. I have cleaning, cooking and wrapping presents left on the agenda for this week and setting up the garage for next week. I think this may be my lowest stress Christmas in years. 🙂 Everything is coming together easily and in advance. Yay!

busy week

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Based on what I have read and how much is left to do I can probably get the mudding completely done this week in the garage (thanks to the generous help of awesome people) and I can probably even get the garage painted with primer if not with colored paint.

I need to get baking done. I have barely started. I could also stretch this into next week if I have to but I would prefer not.

I need to get the holiday cards addressed so they can go in the mail the day I get the pictures back or they won’t go out at all.

I need to get cooking done that uses up this week’s vegetables.

And there is the constant avalanche of crap inherit in living with a toddler. I would love to just ignore this part for the whole week but Noah gets cranky.

And let’s not get into how desperately my bathroom needs cleaning.

I’m tired before the work even begins.

It may not be sexy

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But I’m pretty darn sure I want a food processor for Christmas. Given the ridiculous amount of cooking from scratch I do (daily) the chopping of vegetables is way old. Mmmmm more power.

Of course I am doing research online, but it seems to be a toss up between Cuisinart and KitchenAid. Any strong opinions you want to share with me on this topic?

Today is an awesome day

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Cookie season is upon us! It’s the time of year when we must all worship Fat Satan. (Blame Noah for that bit.) Six dozen chocolate chip pecan cookies. Shanna is very much Noah’s daughter. She’s kind of obsessed with the cookie dough. It was cute.

Shanna is currently down for her second nap of the day. We haven’t done that in a while. I think it’s because she woke up at FIVE THIRTY THIS MORNING. Freakin kid. Doesn’t she know I was out late drinking? Sheesh. No respect. 😉

I’m really enjoying the “whoo hoo winter is coming” feeling of the day. On that note, I think I’ll go have some hot cocoa. 🙂

Out of town event

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We are thinking about going to the Hoes Down (http://www.hoesdown.org/) hosted by the farm we get our CSA from. It looks like a lot of fun. It’s a drive up on Saturday drive back on Sunday sort of event. It would be a lot of fun to go with other folks. It is the weekend of October 3-4. We have a HUGE tent that could easily hold another two to four people in addition to us depending on how cozy we want to get. We could potentially take one more person up with us if we pack pretty light. 🙂 I’m always up for that sort of challenge.

Would anyone be interested in this?

hm.

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I made banana bread and brownies and those are both good. 🙂

I made jam and it didn’t set. Poopy. I think it’s cause the fruit was over-ripe. My reading says it is a common problem. That’s fine, we’ll use it on ice cream. 🙂

And Shanna was a bit shocked after the first shot and burst into tears after the second shot. She only cried for a couple of minutes and then has been fine all day. We are now in negotiation with the pediatrician as to which vaccines we will be doing next. Have I mentioned that I love my pediatrician? He’s an awesome guy. He’s trying really really hard to sell us on flu shots and he had some great statistics to back up his point of view. I’m going to do more research but it may be that we get flu shots this year due to some issues with H1N1 and pregnancy. We’ll see. We also need to decide about DTaP. That one… I have a lot of conflict about but it might make our schedule. MMR and Polio will both happen before our next overseas trip. This thinking about vaccine stuff is very anxious making.

She dropped percentiles on weight again. However she did gain half a pound which is upward progress and I’m happy about that. She is down to the 30% on weight. (21 lbs 4 oz) She is at the 81% on height (this is kind of neato). (31.5″) And head circumference has dropped a little but it’s still high. I can’t remember the exact number and I can’t find the piece of paper. 🙂

He was impressed with her vocabulary. 🙂 I am too so it’s awesome to be validated. 😀

I think that’s it for now.

(Icon because I just got out of the shower and I’m naked. 😛 )

Whoo hoo

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Adventure! We are going to Santa Barbara for the weekend. I’m excited. I’ve never actually been down there. And I asked the boyfriend of a friend to pick up our farm share and he said sure. Yay! That was a rather easily arranged weekend. 🙂

Today I need to: make banana bread, make jam, and pack.

Tomorrow Shanna has a checkup, more shots. 🙁 Luckily Noah can go with us because I just can’t hold her down for the needle. 🙁 I do believe that the choice we are making is right but it sucks.

And we are going to a festive grown up party tomorrow night. I’ve got some high hopes about that but I’m not completely sure how I would like it to go. There are so many choices! Mmmm I like thinking about my options. 🙂 And I am even more excited that I know some particular people are going because that makes my options so much more appealing. 🙂

searching for sauce

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The internet is not giving me what I want. Stupid internet. I want to make a whole bunch of pasta sauce (I am now canning enabled!) and all of the recipes are for 2-5 cups of sauce. I know I can just multiply the recipe but I would feel safer knowing that a recipe was intended as a large batch one because sometimes you don’t really want to just multiply straight across the board.

Stupid internet.

Food combinations

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This week we are getting:
# Asparagus
# Green Garlic
# Chard
# Salad Mix
# Spinach
# Radishes
# Sugar Snap Peas
# Tokyo Turnips

We still have spinach, some salad mix, kale, and fennel in the fridge as well. I’m trying to figure out meal planning for the week.

We have (in the freezer) chicken, different kinds of sausage, and several cuts of beef.

We have cheese (cheddars mostly, but also some parmesan), eggs, pasta, and rice of several kinds.

Of course there are other things in the house but those are the biggies. Any suggestions?

Experimental cooking

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I’m going to boil some spaghetti noodles and chard. Then I’m going to stir fry them with garlic, oil, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, maybe a splash of soy sauce.

Hm. I wonder if this will work out.

ETA: I added harisa which is a blend of hot red peppers, olive oil, spices, and garlic.

This is hella spicy but really good.