I made bread today (thank you thank you honey oatmeal sandwich bread from King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking!) I know people talk about how good bread makes store bread seem even more horrible, but holy CR@P! I am hoping we become less susceptible to its filthy wiles, because of the 2 loaves I made… only 1.33333333 are left several hours later.
For dinner: Ham, eg, and cheese sandwiches on this bread, toasted. The ham was from a local family that raises their own pigs (although not entirely free of all the stuff I would like). Ben sizzled the ham in our cast iron skillet and then we made a thin omelette. Add a little fresh minced roasemary… and we can’t stop drooling.
We’re gearing up for our very first Thanksgiving holiday in our very first house as a family, Baby, me and my fella makes three. Plus his parents. And sister. So I guess that’s really six. And the cats, so eight. We usually travel to one set of parents or the other (alternating TG and Christmas each year), but this year it is kind of nice to be able to be in our own place. As much as I miss the traditions with my parents of which there are many, I am looking forward to being in our own home with our own baby making our own food. I am getting such deep satisfaction from cooking these days, and from doing the best I can to eat healthy/organically/freshly/locally foods!
I am contemplating getting another freezer to store food that I have prepared, either leftovers or stuff I made extra of just to have (encouraged by this post at Living Small). Our current freezer is very long and thin, and I had to actually remove a shelf to get a 13 lb turkey into it. I have been daydreaming recently of moving out further into the country and having a large enough garden to feed the three of us with enough to can, but for the moment I will have to be satisfied to support our local Farmer’s Market. I also want to get a pig, after reading Wooly Pigs. Not sure how much I would have been able to get done with a new baby, either!
In any case, I will be taking pics of our preparations. I don’t think we’ll be doing anything super out of the ordinary food-wise, but hey, it’s our first! Maybe one of our traditions will be to make something new and different each year.
It’s a good thing I didn’t sign up for that month-of-writing-posts thing. I haven’t done much writing lately, even though I have a ton of stuff to talk about! I made some really good cranberry hazelnut muffins yesterday (thanks Ina Garten!), and documented some of the process. I think I need to be better about taking pictures of the things I do, especially when it’s new to me.
For instance, I have never shelled and skinned hazelnuts before, and I had to do that to get the hazelnuts for the mix (you just crack ‘em open, and bake at 325 for about 10-5 minutes, then dump a handful at a time into a kitchen towl and rubrubrub and the skins come right off! very cool. and tasty.)
Jack kept looking at the muffins and reaching for my coffee this morning, so I guess he likes the way both smell.
Also, I made spinach pesto last night from scratch. I don’t know why I ever thought pesto was hard. It was one of the simpler meals I have made. With some roast chicken cut up on top of the whole wheat pasta/pesto, it was yummy. Too bad jack has learned how to scream in sch a way that every mommy-nerve I have is put on edge! He sounds completely hysterical, but there’s nothing wrong with him as far as I can tell. I need to see if he’s teething.
