food Archives - Page 2 of 3

Challenges are challenging

October 2, 2014 by Jana 24 Comments

Back at the beginning of September, I joined the Choose Your Own Adventure challenge. I love the concept of this because a) there’s basically no rules except to stick with the theme and b) who doesn’t enjoy a little goal setting?

September’s theme was fitness which was great because I had just purchased Focus T-25 and was totally committed to making it through the first 5 weeks. And I started off really well, too. Didn’t miss a day. And then. New Orleans happened.

It is amazing how just being away for 5 or so days can really disrupt your exercise routine. I have been exercising regularly for the last 2 years, mostly as a way of managing my depression, and since I’ve gotten back, my motivation to exercise (or do anything, really) has been non-existent. I’m losing weight, which is good, but I need to get back into working out before another episode happens and things get ugly again. Depression Jana is a mess, and she’s ugly. Like, UGLY. I actually look worse than this:

No one needs that. Which means I should probably find some sort of motivation and get my fat ass moving again.

But I digress, and as far as the challenge goes, I think I did okay. I mean, half a month of success is better than zero month of success, right? RIGHT??

Moving on.

For October, the theme is food. In the fall, I usually spend my Sundays cooking and baking, and not only does it keep me distracted while the husband is watching all the football games I don’t care about, it means we save money since there’s ready to eat meals in the house so no spontaneous going out to eat (we’ll get back to this in a minute). I don’t have any time in October to cook on Sundays because each and every Sunday means a cheer competition and of course they’re far away and we have to be there at the ass crack of dawn, and by the time we get home, all I want to do is nap. There’s no time for cooking. So, instead of committing to finding new or interesting or creative recipes to try for this challenge, I’m deciding not to drink any diet soda (and Nadine is joining me. Peer pressure, Nadine. PEER PRESSURE). It’s probably the only thing I can choose that wouldn’t be setting myself up to fail.

Now that we’ve covered the Choose Your Own Adventure challenge, let’s address Steph’s Wallet Watch. She did this back in April and it was a resounding success for me so I’m going to try it again this month.

Like the other challenge, this is a make your own rules deal. So here are my rules:

No unplanned going out to eat. My husband’s birthday is this month, and I know we’ll go out for that, but it’s planned so it doesn’t count. But we have gotten so lazy on the weekends, and it’s costing us a fortune. So that needs to stop.
Stop abusing my Starbucks gift cards. I have a few. I have a raging affinity for their green tea. Since I’m not actually paying, I’ve been going almost every day, which isn’t leaving much in my gift card reserves. I think it might be better if I just bought the tea bags and made the stuff at home.
Stay away from nail polish and other makeup. I did a huge refresh on my makeup and nail polish stash in August and September and anything I do now is just unnecessary. I don’t need to spend the money and I’m slowly running out of storage space.
Find as much free stuff to do as possible. Cheer competitions are expensive, and we have so many this month that they’re taking up all of our fun money. If we want to afford things like food and electricity, we need to cut back somewhere. Fortunately, I love my library books and my Netflix and Amazon Prime and Redbox (with coupon codes, of course) so sticking to this rule should be easy. One exception: I am taking myself to see Gone Girl. I’ve been waiting for this movie for a long time. I don’t give a shit that a matinee ticket cost $9. I have a big purse so snacks and drinks will be coming in with me. #savingmoney

I’ll let you know how both of these go in November. I’m going in confident. We’ll see how I end up.

Are you guys participating in any of these challenges? Do you do monthly challenges on your own?

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The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Homemade Butter

April 23, 2014 by Jana 14 Comments

It’s been awhile since I posted an actual project update. That’s mainly because I’ve been too lazy to work on any but this week, I decided I’d had enough of that. And also it’s spring break so I figured my daughter and I could ~~kill~~ spend an hour or two working on one.

I went through my Pinterest board of projects ideas and settled on a fairly simple and relatively inexpensive one–homemade butter. The timing was perfect, too, as I’m finishing up Little House in the Big Woods for next week’s book club discussion and Laura painfully details the butter making process. So it worked for ease, theme, and cost.

Since I don’t own butter churn and have absolutely no desire to ever own one, I used the instructions for making butter in a stand-up mixer (which I only have courtesy of my mother-in-law’s hand me down). I opted out of coloring the butter orange like they did in the book because shredding a carrot and combining it with boiling milk sounded like unnecessary work and more dishes to clean. Yellow butter works just fine for me.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients–3/4 tsp salt, 1 quart heavy cream
My daughter making a rare appearance on the blog as my helper pouring the cream into the mixing bowl
The butter starting to form and separate from the milk.
The mess that happens even if you use a towel and cover the mixer because towels have a limit on how much they can absorb.

Not pictured: the whipped cream phase that happens before the cream turns to butter, draining the buttermilk through a colander and rinsing the butter. Not sure why this last one is necessary but the directions said to do it and I did. Also not pictured are my disgusting, greasy hands.

After you mix everything up (takes about 20 minutes and you need to check it fairly frequently), you get butter that sticks to the paddle and buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. Then you drain the milk through the strainer and it looks like this. Right now, it’s stored in a glass container in my fridge and if you have a recipe that involves buttermilk so I can use it up, please share.

This is the actual butter. After I washed it and rung out what was left of the buttermilk, it was kind of like a butter ball. I left it in a lump as I saw no need to mold the butter into anything fancy because I don’t care about that shit. And aesthetics mean nothing when you make butter that actually tastes like butter. Which I did, y’all.

This project was amazingly easy, albeit messier than I would have liked. Next time, I’ll still use the towel but lower the speed to prevent splatter and decrease the mess (and by extension, clean up time). And as far as cost, it’s really no more expensive ($4.49 for a quart if heavy cream at Walmart) than buying a pound of already made butter.

I cannot imagine having to do this with a butter churn. I completely understand how it took them all day to do. Before I was all “how the fuck did it take them all day? This is so easy! How slow did they move?” But now, having done it myself, I get it. I saw the effort my badass stand up mixer had to put forth to get it done. And just letting it go for the 20 minutes or so before I had to rinse, separate and mold felt like it took an eternity. Having to do it with my own strength and patience? Forget it that. My family would never eat butter.But if you have a stand-up mixer or even an electric hand mixer, I’d recommend giving this a try.

Oh, and the butter lasts about 4 weeks. I think. I’ll let you know in 4 weeks.

Have you ever made homemade butter? Did you follow similar directions?

Tips for beginner container gardening

April 14, 2014 by Jana 8 Comments

One of the reasons I started this project was to prove that you do not need 846 acres to live a more pioneer-like life. I wanted to show that you can live in a townhouse (which is what I lived in when the idea originated), apartment, house with almost no yard space, or any other dwelling and still develop the skills that helped keep the pioneers alive. Particularly gardening. Because, you know. Food.

Not my plant. I wouldn't grow cauliflower. I found this picture on Flickr. — Not my plant. I wouldn’t grow cauliflower. I found this picture on Flickr.

Having lived in a townhouse with very ~~strict~~ thorough and comprehensive HOA rules for 9 years prior to moving into our house, I know how hard it is to want to be more self-sufficient in your food production yet not have the ability to do it. Fortunately, my husband and I found the best way to get around the rules and limited space.

Container gardening.

Container gardening is absolutely perfect for not only beginner gardeners but also those who can’t plant food or honestly, are too lazy to do it (which is me. Completely. All that digging and raking and shit? No thank you). It also gives you the satisfaction of growing some of your own food without having to deal with pain in the ass HOA board members or having to lose some precious backyard space, although you will have to deal with losing some patio or balcony space. Unless you use a window box and only plant things like herbs and spices. Which is fine, too. Fresh herbs and spices are awesome.

But let’s say you decide to do some container gardening and use a window box for something pretty like flowers or as a trap for Twiddlebugs. First, I commend you on making a good choice. Second, if you’re going to have a container garden, there are some lessons I learned from years of ~~doing it~~ watching my husband that I think will make your garden successful:

Pick one to two plants. Three at the most. Any more than that and your containers will start to overtake your small space and then it becomes some sort of vegetable jungle instead of a garden. No one wants to battle a rogue tomato plant on their way to work.
Pick plants you will actually eat. Radishes may be easy to grow but if you’re not going to eat them because you’re not a Fraggle, it’s a waste of money and labor. The point of a garden is to have fresh fruit and vegetables and save money at the supermarket. That doesn’t happen if you’re planting stuff you won’t use. It’s food waste and money waste, and your pioneer friends would be upset.
Evaluate your space. You’d have to do this with a regular garden, too, but for container gardening, you need to know precisely how much room you have, which spot is the best, and how much sun it does or doesn’t get. This will also impact what plants you grow. If the only spot you have is mostly shady, you can’t grow a plant that needs full sun. So after you evaluate your space and know what you can grow, make sure you’re paying attention to the necessary growing conditions of the plants you select.
Pick plants that will produce a lot. If you are growing only a few plants, you want them to give you a whole lot of food. Plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries are known for being great producers. But have a plan for the extras to avoid food waste. Some suggestions: start canning, give some away or sell some to your neighbors in a quasi-farmer’s market setting.
Get creative. Even if you have a tiny, tiny balcony and don’t want to give up space, you can still garden. Besides using the aforementioned window boxes, did you know that there are tomato plants that grow upside down? You can also grow similar types of plants in one container, giving you variety without the real estate. How about some hanging plants? A little creative planning can give you a good garden and enable you to still have some room.

Don’t forget: even though you’re growing the plants in a container, you still need to water, prep the soil, prune, and do all of the other stuff you would if you had planted them in the ground. Fortunately, it’s not nearly as much work. But it is still work. Work that’s worth it, though. Because anytime you can eat your work, that’s a good thing.

Have you done container gardening? What tips and suggestions did I miss?

Start living like a pioneer today, part 1

February 27, 2014 by Jana 7 Comments

Remember that old Heinz ketchup slogan “good things come to those who wait”? In case you’re not as old as I am, it was popular when ketchup was still regularly sold in glass bottles and you had to hit the 57 on the bottle in order to make the ketchup pour out without waiting until everyone else was finished eating before you started because it was so damn slow.

I think they could have simplified it by saying “be patient, asshole. The fries can wait and so can you” but perhaps that’s why I’m not in marketing.

Anyway.

Getting started on your pioneer project is just like waiting for the ketchup to come out of the bottle. It’s a slow, arduous process that makes you want to throw something. You have to exercise a tremendous amount of patience, even when you hit the 57 to make it go faster. You can’t rush it because the reward at the end is so worth it.

You do not have to shoot anything to feel more like a pioneer.

I read somewhere that it took the pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail roughly a year to save up the money and supplies they needed to travel. A year! That’s a long time, especially when you’re waiting to move–literally–on with your life. It’s necessary, though, because you need to make sure you have everything in place to make the transition as quick and with as little pain as possible. You need to be prepared for all the emergencies and situations, and when you get there, you want to reap the rewards as soon as you can.

I’m sure that for those guys, that year moved like an eternity. Like it was never going to be the time to go. At least that’s how I felt starting this project. It took me months before I had the scope and nature of the project outlined, gathered most of the supplies I needed (I still don’t have them all), and it was the right time to start. However, unlike traveling the Oregon Trail, you don’t need to wait for the perfect time. You can start your pioneer project at any time–today, even–by doing a few of these things:

Use natural light. Don’t get me wrong. I love my electricity. I do not, however, love high electric bills. Besides, pioneers didn’t have electricity in their homes. You can practice living like a pioneer by opening blinds, curtains, window shades, or whatever you have and allowing the natural light to come into your home during the day rather than turning on the lights.
Air dry your clothes. Again, without electricity, pioneers couldn’t use washers and dryers. So they air dried their clothes. You can do this, too, by hanging a clothing line in your backyard or, if you don’t want to freak out the neighbors with your underwear, set one up in your house (preferably in a room without carpeting. That will just cause a dreadful smell). You can use a drying rack, too.
Make your own butter. Pioneers churned their own butter. I don’t really know where to get a butter churn so I went searching for more modern directions. Although I haven’t done this yet but based on the instructions I found, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be too difficult. I will not be doing it by hand, however. I will use my stand-up mixer. But if you do this and do it by hand, let me know. I’d love to hear how it went.
Bake your own bread. Pioneers also made their own bread (probably to go along with their churned butter), and they did so often. So you can spend an afternoon making some loaves of bread. If you don’t have a bread machine–I don’t–there are dozens of recipes for making bread in your oven. Or, if you’re too scared of starting with a loaf of bread, you can follow the recipe below for drop biscuits. It’s a start!
Sew something. If you’ve read a Little House book, then you know how much time the Ingalls women spent sewing things. Curtains, doll clothes, dresses, quilts, shirts…they sewed it all. Which is why learning to sew is high on my list of skills to tackle for this project. But making the aforementioned items takes a skill level I don’t have. So I’ve been practicing by making napkins, sewing ripped seams and missing buttons, and working on 9 square quilts for my daughter’s dolls. If that’s not your speed, you can always go to the craft store and pick out a cross stitch to work on.

I have 5 more suggestions that you can do to start living more like a pioneer today, so look for those next week!

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The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Sesame noodles with broccoli

February 24, 2014 by Jana 7 Comments

As I get deeper into this project, and the more research I do, the more I learn that there’s a pretty distinct set of pioneer values. And, as I learn more about those values (or, at the very least, create what I think are those values), the more I try to incorporate them into my daily life. Because at the end of this, I hope not only become more self-sufficient but change some of my ways of thinking.

One of the areas I’m working on a lot is food waste. Overall, my family does a decent job of not wasting food. Sure, there’s the occasional cucumber that might liquify or a container of leftover pasta sauce that sprouts some fuzzy friends or maybe a bottle of salad dressing that lives longer than it should. But for the most part, we’re good about not wasting food. When it does happen, and I have to do a major cleaning of my fridge and I throw out more food than I should, it bothers me.

That happened this past weekend. And there was absolutely no reason it should have. And now I’m on a mission to make sure it doesn’t happen again (at least in the volume it did).

Because the pioneers didn’t have the option of food waste. They had to find a use for everything they had. There was no excess to just toss into the trash. They had what they needed, used it all in some way, and that was that. To start incorporating that into my life, I’ve established three ways to put our food to use and reduce food waste in my kitchen:

Leftovers
Composting
Repurposing

Recycling is its own entity and we do recycle everything we possibly can. My tree hugging, renewable energy field working husband wouldn’t have it any other way.

As far as the list, I’ll explain each one in detail in its own post (particularly the repurposing, which I know sounds strange. But think of it along the lines of popsicle stick crafts, macaroni art, or noise makers out of dried beans), and for this post, we’re going to talk about leftovers.

My family is big into leftovers. Not only does it reduce food waste but it saves money so there’s a double bonus to them. My husband and I eat leftovers for lunch most days and if there’s a big batch of something like rice, I’ll find a way to incorporate them into another recipe. That’s what I did with pasta.

I don’t know about you, but when I make pasta, I usually wind up making enough for 87 people. As we are a family of 3, we don’t need that much. So I typically find at least 2 recipes to make with a box of pasta or I leave the leftovers in the event that my daughter refuses to eat what I cook (the rule used to be if she didn’t like it, she got pb&j but she brings that for lunch every day. So now it’s pasta). Last week, however, I wanted to do something different that adding the noodles to soup or making two dishes to accompany the pasta. So I went through my trusty recipe binder (pics are forthcoming but it needs a major overhaul first) and landed on sesame noodles.

You seriously cannot go wrong with cold noodles in a peanut butter sauce. And I had a lot of noodles.

Looks are deceiving. There's a lot of pasta in there. — Looks are deceiving. There’s a lot of pasta in there.

Then I pulled the rest of the ingredients out of the pantry.

And I mixed a few of the ingredients with the peanut butter.

photo (1) — Peanut butter, soy sauce, and broth.

Then I added the rest and it looks a little gross but looks are deceiving.

photo (3) — Pay no attention to the burner that needs to be cleaned.

When the sauce thickened a bit and was smooth, I poured the peanut buttery goodness over the noodles.

For more efficient mixing and less dishes, use the container the pasta already sits in.

Wait about 3 hours for the noodles to chill and spoon into bowl (you can also eat directly from the container. No judging). I added broccoli for some extra nutrition and flavor. And also to not waste the broccoli in the fridge.

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Challenges are challenging

The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Homemade Butter

Tips for beginner container gardening

Start living like a pioneer today, part 1

The Pioneer Kitchen Diaries: Sesame noodles with broccoli

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