Okay, before I begin our menu, I'd like to point out that this is Alex's first full week home from school for the summer.  Yes, I know that there will be an adjustment period.  Yes, I know that Ian will feel slighted as he's not my sole focus during the day anymore.  Yes, I understand that we all will need to adjust our schedules and expectations for this new way of life.  I'm still seriously contemplating strangling both of them.  They have been fighting almost non-stop for two days now.  The one saving grace has been the game Hullabaloo, which they find outrageously fun and can kill most of an afternoon playing.  It will get better, it will get better, it will get better.... at least I don't have to have Alex dressed, fed, lunch provided and coherent somewhere at 8am each weekday.  That's something.

Okay, on to the food!

This Week's Eats!

• Curried Paneer Potato Rounds w/ fruit raita & kale slaw
• Lasagna
• Pizza
• Local Breakfast for Dinner
• Sweet n Sour Tofu
• Cavatappi & Chard

Well, I've been alternating between sick and dead tired (except for when I've been both), so I haven't hauled out much creative lately.  Ah well, I'm sure you're still hanging on my every food-ladened word, right?  Here's the goods...

This Week's Eats

• Pizza
• Breakfast 4 Dinner
• Carrot-Walnut Quiche
• Mahogany Hoisin Noodles
• Lentil Soup w/ bread
• Cabbage-Cheddar Pie

And now, to review...

Week In Review

• Native American Toasted Walnut Soup:  surprisingly good.  It had a lovely, vaguely southwestern flavor, but not at all overpowering.  The walnut flavor came through very well, not too strong, not too bitter.  Not a hearty soup, though--definitely a first course, or a "with something else" soup, rather than a stand-alone meal.
• Burgers & Fries, Corn:  well, come to find out that our local meat people are out of beef until March, so we had BBQed pork sandwiches (from the same folks).  The fries came out fine.  I used my new slicer, which has a fry attachment.  The fries were far "flatter" than I'm used to (maybe 1/2" wide, but only 1/4" thick), but still good, and the slicer is waaay easier to use than slicing by hand.  I took some creamed corn I'd put up over the summer and made real creamed corn--you know, with onions, herbs and cream.  Worked very well.
• Palak Paneer:  aaaaah, to have real milk back in my life!  Palak paneer, how I've missed you!
• Bean & Mushroom Stroganoff:  yummy as always.

Hi kids.  Just sitting here, ripping CDs and dying of sickness.  The vague cold-like state I've been existing in for about a week seems to have finally kicked over into high gear.  But Brian's in the kitchen brewing beer, and I am functioning reasonably coherently, so I thought I'd tackle this little task.  On to the food!  *cough hack wheeze*

This Week's Eats!

• Brian's Potatoes
• Toasted Walnut Soup w/ bread
• Chili
• Pot Roast
• General Tso's Tofu
• Garbanzo Bean Curry

Week In Review
Short week, as I spent over half of it in St.L with my family.

• Crockpot Spinach Lasagne:  GAAAACK!  NASTY! ICK ICK ICK!  Okay, I do not wish to cast aspersions on the theory of making lasagne in the crockpot.  In fact, structurally, this seemed to work very well.  But the recipe I was using (specifically, the one in Dec. 07 Vegetarian Times) sucked out loud.  Truly.  I will be trying crockpot lasagne again, but this time I'm going to use an established recipe and adapt it for the crockpot.  Also, if you do make crockpot lasagne, do not expect to get pretty, well-defined slices (yeah, like anyone ever gets those out of lasagne in the first place).  But it'll come out looking more like lasagne stew in the bowl.  Meh.  It all ends up in the same place, as Grandma used to say.
• Penne w/ potatoes, cabbage & cumin:  a true family favorite, and great comfort food

At this moment, we have:

Cocoa snowflake cookies
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies
Double chocolate-peanut-butter chip cookies
Oatmeal Raisin cookies
Gingerbread cookies (rolled out, chilling in the fridge for cutting & baking later)

We also have a few dozen more of each (except the snowflake) in the freezer ready to bake at a moment's notice.  The only cookies on my slate left to do are Glazed Lemon Cookies, and maybe some Pecan Sandies.  Then I'll have to start branching out...  Heheheheee

When making butter spritz cookies, be sure to use the correct sized tip in your pastry bag.  The tip I used was too small.  This meant that (1) it was amazingly difficult to squeeze the dough out, and my hands both feel like they're going to seize up, and (2) the cookies are all bite-sized, rather than "eating" sized.  Ah well, you live and learn.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow...

Okay, so the first thing you'll probably notice is that almost half of our menu for this week is actually carry-over from last week.  Ah well, the best laid plans of, well, me.  Anyway, here are this week's eats!

• Waffles
• Mahogany Hoisin Noodles
• Palak Paneer
• French Onion Soup w/ no knead bread
• Chicken in a pot
• Bean & Mushroom Stroganoff

The week in review:

• Pumpkin Lasagne:  meh.  It was good, fine, and all that.  Certainly everyone at the game dug into it enthusiastically.  I was a bit disappointed by the relative lack of pumpkin flavor--the tomato sauce really overruled it.  I even had trouble tasting the smoked cheese, the tomato sauce was so strong.  I think it suffered from being a "no boil noodle" lasagne, which meant that I had to use ghastly amounts of tomato sauce so that the noodles would cook, and it was just overwhelming.  I think I will next time try a more white-sauce driven lasagne, or at least not go the "no boil" route.  But it was good, and if you're looking for a way to shove some pumpkin into your diet (and hey, who isn't?), then this is definitely one avenue to explore.
• Frozen veggie burgers:  mental note--make veggie burgers THINNER.  They had so much trouble heating through!  Durned near burned on the outside before even thawed on the inside.  But this is easily remedied in the future.
• Potato Leek Soup w/ no knead bread:  oh yeah, total yum.  I googled a soup recipe, looking specifically for one that called for at least a little bit of cream.  I modified it a bit (some lovage really set of the soup nicely), and with the bread it was to die for.  And, if you put it in the fridge for a day, it magically becomes vichysoise.  Yeah!
• the Thai feast:  fish sauce is your friend.  You only need a very little bit, it keeps forever (in the fridge), and it gives your Thai food "that flavor"--you know, the one that you can't quite identify, but as soon as you taste it you're like "oh yeah, that's Thai alright."  Sort of like fenugreek seeds for Indian food.
• Beef stew:  yeah, this also wasn't on our menu, but it was cold, rainy, and gross outside, and I just couldn't bring myself to make the Hoisin noodles.  I wanted something thick, stick-to-your ribs yummy.  So I dug a package of stew meat out of the freezer (it had been there since, shoot, I don't know when), and made up a beer-based stew.  Served it with some yummy beer bread (recipe from toddzgrrl02--thanks!!!), and a spinach salad.  Very nice.

Wow, talk about making a purse out of a pig's ear (note to K:  this is not a suggestion, step away from the pig!).  I managed to avert total dinner disaster, and make some really yummy yummy foods.  Okay, let's do this stepwise:

1. Utterly fail at making paneer for Palak Paneer.  NB:  do NOT NOT NOT use ultrapasteurized milk to make paneer.  Heck, if possible, do not use ultrapasteurized dairy products at all (unless you really enjoy milk that tastes of chalk-coated cardboard).  Anyway, I did not make a lovely chunk of mild, cut-able cheese.  Instead, I made something reminiscent of ricotta, but sweeter.  So my dinner plans collapsed.  What to do?
2. Dig through the Thai cookbook that K just loaned me and find three recipes for which we have, more or less, within acceptable tolerances, all the ingredients, mostly.  The dishes in question:
   
• Thai corn fritters
• Sesame Thai egg noodles
• bananas poached in rose-water coconut milk
3. Okay, total yum, all of them. 
   
4. This morning, I take the "ricotta-esque" mixture, heat it with some cream, honey and (it turns out) a bit too much vanilla.  Spread in fresh crepes, top with heated peach preserves.... *swoon*

And now we're watching Ratatouille again.  Yay. 

This afternoon B is going in to work to start his grading.  The kids and I will probably go hunting for a few more xmas decorations, maybe some walking shoes for me, boots for Alex, and then it's home to make spice cookies and write our letters to Santa!  So far Alex has a fairly specific list:  piano lessons, rollerskates, and to be turned into a superhero.

Okay kids, game on.  I'm gonna start this back up if it kills me (and that's possible, considering xmas is around the corner).  Anyway, I present you with This Week's Eats:

• Pumpkin Lasagne (got this recipe off of Grist, and will be guinea pig-ing our gaming group with it on Thursday)
• Palak Paneer
• Mahogany Hoisin Noodles
• Yeasted Waffles
• Veggie Burgers
• Potato Leek soup w/ no-knead bread

ZOH. MY. GODS.

Yeah, our anniversary was that good.

We had just about the most spectacular day one can have -- at least if you're one of us.  On Friday the Grandma came and got the boys.  Saturday morning we ate breakfast (a chilled peach soup with toasted anadama bread) outside on our patio set.   Then we biked to the Farmer's Market, got some goodies, came home, packed up some things and biked downtown to grab some lunch at Market Bella Rossa.  We had the lunch wrapped to go and headed for the movies, stopping briefly at Cat's Curiosities to check it our and to buy the Higginbotham book I've been jonesing for for awhile.  Got to the theater, bought our tickets for the 12:30 showing of Stardust, then sat on the floor in the front lobby eating our lunch, and head in to the movie.  Can I just say that Stardust is one of the all-time finest anniversary/date movies I've ever seen?  A true fairy-tale, in the good-hearted, charming, heartwarming, lovely sense.  I'm about as jaded a soul as one can be, and yet I absolutely adored this film from top to bottom.  It is heir to the fine tradition established by The Princess Bride and it was brilliant.

From the movie, we biked to Sycamore Farms Bed & Breakfast.  We were greeted at the door by the Innkeeper (how many "innkeepers" do you still know of??), were shown our room and the house, and were even allowed to use the renovated barn to park our bikes in.  We got around, showered (cause by this point we'd biked at least 15 miles in one day, which is one. hell. of. a. lot. for us), and then went down to dinner at the restaurant associated with the B & B, Buttonwoods.

Ooohhh.  Ohh the dinner.  Oh dear, the dinner.  I swear, there were several points I was almost crying the dinner was so wonderful.  At least once, while talking with our waiter, I think Brian actually did start crying over the dinner.  It was beyond wonderful.  Everything was exquisite.  Bloody expensive ($25-30/entree), but so completely wonderful I would never dream of complaining.  I think I'm gonna have to get a part time job so that we can go there at least once a month. 

( Absurdly pretentious synopsis of our dinner )
•  

And do you know what the best, the very very best part of dinner was?  Nearly everything we ate was locally sourced from people that we actually know!  I know Darren--he provided almost all of the vegetables.  We suspect, but are not positive, we know who grew the fingerling potatoes.  We're on a first-name basis with the Royers who provided the meat.  The dairy was provided by the Swiss Connection family (who's name is impossibly long and I can't begin to type it--something like Yeagehrlehnesignsksnso...?) who we've not actually met but I know people who know them.  I cannot possible convey how stupidly happy that made me.  We knew the veggies were grown organically, and are as fresh as fresh can be; we know the animals were well-cared for and fed a healthy diet.  We had a wonderful dinner, in a wonderful little B&B, that actually lived up to my own culinary principles (at least as far as I live up to them myself, anyway). 

This morning we even got exactly the breakfast Brian was hoping we'd get.  He really wanted something good, and competent, but not quite as good as what I could make at home -- I think just for the pleasingness of knowing what a good cook I can be.  And, in fact, we had a vegetable frittata with brown sugar bacon which was fine and competent, but not quite as good as what I could make at home.  =)  We then checked out, biked to church, came home, and went out with friends for some wonderful barbeque and good company.

All in all?  Pretty damned successful anniversary, I'd say.

Yeah...

Okey-dokey.  I'd do a "week in review" but it would be all about the wonderful coastal seafood we had in Oregon, and really that's just not fair, is it?  Mmm... sea scallops.  We even downloaded one of the "fish cards" from the Environmental Defense (gotta keep my enviro-cred up, right?).  Really did make it easier to buy fish that just might not kill myself or the planet (probably will anyway, but ah well).

This Week's Eats!  (can anyone explain to me why, during a week of 115F heat-indices, I have only hot dinners to choose from???)

• Pizza (who knows?  something good, no doubt)
• Chicken Tikka Masala
• Tempeh-mushroom Stuffed Cabbage
  
• Dilled Potato Frittata w/ eggs
• Garbanzo Curry
• Pasta Zucchini Pesto Thing

(NB:  I've changed from blue to green to note which dishes are predominately local--I kept trying to click on the blue ones, thinking they were hyperlinks... erg.)

Zee sky, eet iz about to be dumping zee rain laik a mad muffin upon our heeds.  Morte de dieu.

Okay, on to the food.  Brian tells me it's high time I brag about some of my local meals recently.  Well, I will as soon as I remember one...  But I'm moving along on it.  Here goes:

• Pizza:  an awful lot of the toppings will be non-local, but some will be from the CSA, some will be from our garden, and damnit, I MADE THE MOZZARELLA CHEESE MYSELF HOW MUCH DAMNED MORE LOCAL CAN YOU GET BOO-YAH!!!!
• Ravioli:  with homemade ricotta (!) from the whey off the mozzarella
• Creamy Guacamole Gazpacho soup with quessadillas
• General Tso's Tofu (hrm... haven't tried making tofu yet...)
• Alu paneer masala:  with homemade paneer and lossa veggies from the CSA
• Sesame Noodles

And now, I leave you with my mozzarella:



Eet iz zee magnificante, n'est-ce pas?

I'm gonna try a new thing here and color blue all the foods I plan to cook that are local (CSA, my garden, Farmer's Market, roadside stand, etc.).  I am not doing this to try and show off or anything (quite the contrary, I think it might end up being embarrassing).  I want to encourage myself to make these changes, and I want an easy way to keep track of it.  I know this system is gonna take some refinement, but for now I will count anything made with at least 50% local ingredients as local.  Maybe I'll work on a more subtle system as I go.

• Pizza
• Chicken with acorn squash and corn
• Creamy guac gazpacho with quesadillas
• Stirfry
• Crispy Waffles
• Cabbage & Cheddar pie
• Tagliatelle w/ lemon

Man, once I start getting the local cheese, at least 2 more of these can go on the list.  Now... looking for local flour?  Yeesh.

That's right, kids, we're back on-line with This Week's Eats!  There will be no week-in-review, unless you really want me to review the 874 smoothies, ice creams, milkshakes and other sundry "soft" foods I had.  I already reviewed my dinner at Olive Garden, and I feel no need to revisit that terrible day.

You will notice a preponderance of soft foods on this menu.  I'm still having a fair amount of discomfort when chewing--even the crust on my store-bought bread was a bit difficult to take.  And yesterday I took a flashlight and actually looked in the back of my mouth, an activity I do not recommend for anyone, and I saw any number of disturbing things.  The main one, I think, was discovering a piece of gum tissue between my last and 2nd to last molars that doesn't seem to be attached to much anything??  Erk?  It's just laying there against my teeth, but can be pulled away almost entirely.  That just can't be good.  I'm hoping it's a symptom of the swelling which still has not entirely receded; otherwise, I need to talk with my dentist about this.   But anyway, on to the food!

This Week's Eats!

• Four-cheese lasagne
• Palak Paneer
• Sweet n Sour Tofu/Seitan
• Pumpkin Quiche
• Breakfast for Dinner

I'm sure there's some of this that I'll be able to chew, right? 

Oh, I do have one review to do--ROSEWATER ICECREAM.  Yeahhhh.... tastes like a Wiccan Ritual (hey chuvusi, remember Rose Oil??)  Probably used too much rose water, but it certainly shows promise.  Next time, perhaps I will add some lavender.

Can anybody tell me why my bullet points always overlap with my userpic in this layout?  Damnit, that's annoying me...  Gonna just hafta space down a bunch.

FYI:  my mom is coming into town today, and staying until Saturday.  My mom does not know of the existence of this blog, nor do I want her to.  As such, I'll be AWOL for a few days -- I may be able to pop in from time to time, but don't look for me any time soon.  I'm also taking my first doula training workshop (!), so I'll be time-crushed & tired anyway.  But major props to my mom for watching the kiddos during my workshop (which still doesn't mean I want her to know about this blog).

I need to sort out my digital camera.  The one I've got is reasonably high-end, but also fairly old (it's probably about 6-7 years old).  I have been completely and utterly failing to take pleasing food-porn photos for my blog with it, and I finally got fed up and got out the manual and my old "Black and White Photography: A Basic Manual" to help out.  It took me 2 hours to figure out how to adjust the f-stops.  Damnit.  And if you're messing with f-stops, you have to have the on-board flash disabled (don't ask me why, you just do).  Sooo, either you need a IR-synched floating flash, or you need to be outside.  Damnit again.  It does have some ways to manually adjust the focal length, or the point-of-focus, but no way to really screw around with depth-of-field without messing with that whole flash situation.  And I must say, it is wicked-weird to adjust the focus by using little buttons on the top & back of the camera rather than swiveling a ring on the front.  This is going to take some adjustment, but I shall persevere!  The blogosphere needs to know what a properly half-finished Palak Paneer looks like!

Oh great.  My children are currently arguing--nay, screaming--about whether or not to put the tractors in the box ("Their home!!" cries Alex) or in the pocket of a tote-box ("Tractors in the pocket!" whines Ian).  There really ought to be a way to broker a treaty here, but signs point to no.  This ancient struggle may continue for ... well... days at least. 

And OH YEAH, I just mailed off my payment for my first DOULA WORKSHOP!!!  Yay ME!  And yay MOM (yes, she's still annoying, but sometime's she's benign).  She will be coming to town to watch rugrats while I'm at this 2-day all-day workshop.  Rawk. 

Anyway, on to the food, eh?

This Week's Eats

• Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes
• Sweet-n-sour seitan (I've heard tell this is good, hehe)
  
• Tempeh Patties
• Palak Paneer
• Pumpkin Quiche
• B-B-Q: this has been pre-empted by rain, but since the dry-rub is already on the ribs (the first meat I've cooked in months), I'm gonna hafta go with the oven on this one.  Ah well, maybe next week.

And now, for The Week In Review (I swear, I always hear the McNeal-Leher News Hour music in my head here)

• Mu Shu Tofu: worth making just so I can keep saying "Mu Shu Tofu", but in fact, good on its own merits.  I think that baking tofu that has been frozen doesn't work as well, though--it comes out weird & spongy. 
  
• Lemon Tagliatelle: Oh. My. Gods.  Please, everyone, make this.  Really. 
  
• Sechuan Green Beans:  don't make this with previously frozen GBs.  It's edible, but you just cannot get that yummy half-cooked, half-uncooked, half-practically burned effect with frozen.  (Yes, I realize that 3-halves = too many halves, cope.)
• Falafel:  It worked! It worked!  Yaaaay!  Okay, so it was Fantastic Foods falafel mix--who cares?  IT WORKED!

We're getting our piano fixed--yay!  I mean, it's not like anyone in our household actually plays piano or anything (well, if I'm staring at a piece of sheet music I can sometimes manage to locate half of the keys indicated by doing a lot of counting).  But still, having a big, nice, busted piano in our living room, while making a nice conversation piece, was getting a bit, how you say, gauling? 

Also, I got to take my first shower today in over a week!  That was delightful.  After my incision split back open, I couldn't take a shower, then I got it redone and I couldn't take a shower again for another couple of days, so in toto, I went from last Wed. to today sans full-body cleanliness.  Yick. 

And on that wonderful note, on to This Week's Eats!

• Sechuan Green Beans w/ tempeh
• Pizza (maybe an asparagus & white sauce one?  or broccoli?  hrm)
• Bar-b-que with potato salad and, possibly, slaw
• Eggs w/ Potato Latkes (from my friend Jason Johnstone-Yellin out of his new cookbook and recently published in Veg Times!)
• General Tso's Tofu OR Mu Shu Tofu
• Cabbage and Cumin Penne (I'll manage to make this someday)
• Falafel OR Garbanzo Curry

And now, The Week In Review:

• Garlic-Potato soup:  Yum.  Total yum.  I used a combo of onions & shallots instead of leeks, and I think the soup would be outstanding with the leeks, but it was purty durned good as is.
• Armenian Barley Yogurt Soup:  another good one.  Works well hot or cold, and is an unusual flavor for the american palate.  Flavored mainly with onion, veg stock, garlic, mint, and scallions, with the yogurt to make a sort of creamy binder.  Very nice.
• Buttermilk Corn Pancakes:  yum.  Good with high-quality maple syrup.

Now, to try my hand at making creme fraiche!  I've posted the video explaining how below.  If I pull this off, one of our dishes for the week will be subbed out with Lemon Creme Tagliatelle.

R.

Well, here's the food I'm servin up for the upcoming week.  Next week we get our order of pasture-raised beef and pork (*squeee*)--since Easter will bring an end to my Lenten vow of vegetarianism, I'm trying to plan something special with our new food for the holiday.  I can finally start to reincorporate a bit of occasional meat into our diet.  I've basically agreed to cook about 1 pound of beef and one chicken per month.  That's probably about 2-3 meals of each per month, which should really be more than enough for our household.  I'm fairly satisfied with the direction our eating habits are going--local, pastured, humanely raised/slaughtered meat and eggs.  Now I will begin to turn my attention to our dairy products.  *That* may be pricey, and will probably take longer... but I'm getting there!  (K, get your goat in gear!)

On a totally awesome side-note, my good friend and ex-"boss" (I was one of his T.A.'s for Ethics) had a recipe published in Vegetarian Times this month for potato latkes!  He is working on a new vegan cookbook called "Cooking with Tamara's Husband" and every single one of you had better buy a copy when it comes out or I'll de-friend you!  =)  Now, on to the food!

• Garlic-Potato Soup
• Armenian Barley Yogurt Soup
• Pizza (one pesto-feta and one polish sausage--odd, but I hear tell it worked)
• Cabbage & Cumin Penne
• Bean & Mushroom Stroganoff
• Buttermilk corn Pancakes

R.