What's for Dinner

My menu plan said to make tartar sauce but I got lazy.  After all, what is tartar sauce?  It's basically just relish and mayo mixed, so I just put both on my fish. 

We were missing two children at dinner tonight, so I didn't even get any complaints about the fish.  Yay!  We really should eat fish more often but I hate the whining that goes with it.  (Oo, maybe a white wine sauce next time!)

There really were not enough veggies with the meal, hence the fruit.  Sometimes it's just easier and it's still the same food group.  I just realized that I grew nothing in this meal.  Not very local, I'm afraid.   

What's for dinner

I went to the library for the first time in a while this week, taking out two new cookbooks. One was a gluten free one which used a lot of weird flours. I'm probably not going to use that one because I prefer to use a GF flour mix that I've made and I can't make the conversions well with this.

But the other was about creating cheap dinners under $5. I didn't get it because of the cheapness, but usually those ones are also about easy meals, meals for families without a lot of time. And I was right.

The costs are all US and meat is definitely more expensive here. Also, you can't buy local or butcher-shop meat for those prices ever and for some things I'm trying to buy a bit more responsibly than simply paying for the cheapest cut of meat at Save-On. Have you watched Food Inc. yet? It turns you off the big agri-meat. The reality is that we can't afford organic local grass-fed either, but I'm trying more often to buy at our local Dutch deli who at least knows the farmers he buys from and a bit about their practices. And he doesn't rely on poorly paid, poorly treated employees to cut up the meat. He does it himself.

Anyhow, some of the ideas in the book apply to the way we live and cook though. There are all sorts of tips and references to growing your own veggies, or stretching your meat, using leftovers. That isn't just being cheap - it is smart and good for the environment and your health.

Seeing my menu plan on paper inspired me to try new recipes and not do too much of the same-old stuff. Today's menu: Potato Pizza and honey glazed carrots.

I had help. It was so scary to watch her grate the potatoes, but she didn't hurt herself and she has to learn anyway. And maybe it helped her to try the weird pizza.

It looked great and smelled good and was easy to make. But Pizza Hut it was not.

We all agreed that the grated potato crust with egg to hold it together would make a great breakfast. It was like eating hashbrowns, eggs and sausage. Don't get me wrong - it did taste good, but I don't know if it was really pizza.

I had a conversation yesterday about Spaghetti Squash. I don't mind it, but when you serve it with spaghetti sauce and meatballs, it's pretending to be something it's not. It's still squash. It may be a noodle shape, but it shouldn't be passed off as a noodle. It's deceiving and your brain expects something different. Serve them on the side with butter and garlic and it's good. Call it spaghetti and it doesn't work for me.

So the menu tonight was really Cheesy Hashbrowns with honey glazed carrots. And it was good.

And I really want to take the books back to the library because they found bedbugs in some of the books at that branch. Ew, ick!

Last Night's Dinner

Okay, I'm still playing with this "Blogger in Draft" thing and I'm not totally convinced it's a good thing. 

However, I did get my meal plan inserted.  Can you even read it?  I'm hoping it expands when you click on it.   The idea ot to organize myself and get food out of my head a bit.  Some days it seems like that's all I think about.  Not that I'm actually eating all day, but I'm think about it alot.  What do I need to prepare?  Do we have any meat in the freezer?  Are we eating the food I preserved or are we buying stuff we already have?  Other days I don't think about it at all and suddenly the kids run in the door from school with "I'm starving" out of their mouths before the door fully opens and I have nothing ready or planned.

Hopefully this will help.

Wednesdays are "Red Meat" days because we host a vegetarian's daughter on those nights and she relies on vitamins for her iron instead of the meat that makes her mother ill to prepare.  It's not a moral issue, so she's happy to have her daughter eat red meat every time she's in our home. 

Hamburgers and corn.  In the fall she helped us shuck the corn on the front lawn.  The kids would race each other.  Shuck three ears of corn, run around the house, and shuck three more.  "Farm games" she called it.  Now she gets to eat the corn she helped us prepare. 

I made ranch dressing for the first time from a Pioneer Woman recipe.  It was fine, but not fabulous.  And my carmelized onions turned out to be mostly burnt.  One of my burners is much hotter than the others and I regularly burn things that need to cook slowly. 

This is the GF version.  Long hamburger wrapped in lettuce leaves.  The kids had standard round burgers and buns. 

Our mocktails after school today look more appetizing really.  Lemonade, apple juice and variations of the two mixed with a grape on the side.  Laura likes making pretty drinks and we like drinking them. 

My Favourite Sites

Because I want to encourage you to spend as much time on the computer as I do, I thought I'd share my favourite blogs with you today. I've discovered a few new ones lately and just updated my list in the sidebar.

Here are the ones I've either subscribed to or check daily:

Diary of a Middle Aged Gardener

It's not that I can't just pick up the phone and talk to Rosa. I do that too, but I like to read her blog and see her perspective in pictures as well. Combining our two blogs, you might get a better idea of what I'm doing right now (If she's seeding, I'm likely to be doing it too, usually a week or two later because she leads me in all things gardening. If it's a snow day for her, it's a snow day for me, etc.)

The Greenhouse Diaries

Tamara is Rosa's sister. She's hilarious and creative. I don't travel or create videos or work as hard as she does or decorate as she does, so we don't share much. But she's entertaining and I admire what she does with/for her family and with the creative energy God gifted her with.

Deep Cover Day

And this is my sister. We don't communicate as often as we think about each other, and through our blogs I feel like we're a bit closer to knowing what's going on in each other's lives. She is also amusing and we think alot alike.

The Angry Turtle

This is also a relative (my nephew's wife on Yvon's side of the family) and I believe I met her once, although I don't remember doing so. I do feel like I know her now through her blog though. She is creative and crafty, a young mom of two kids. She has a great Christian perspective on life that I admire.

Dinner with Julie

This is what I'm going to try this year, but it will never be as amusing or pretty as Julie's dinners. I like that she likes simple foods too though, like kale, potatoes and chocolate chip cookies. She's one of those people who write honestly about life and you might hear me talk about her as if she's my friend. We're never met. I want to be able to cook like Julie.

Home Joys

This is a new one to me. Gina is a Mennonite woman in the US who seems to be travelling the same path as I am in terms of food, gardening and knowing your food sources. Like so many bloggers, she homeschools and lives in the country. I've been reading through her old posts as if it's a good book. She also brings religion into her posts so naturally.

An Avenue Homesteader

This is another new one. She doesn't post as often as I'd like, but when she does it seems relevant to me. She lives, gardens, cooks and shops in my city. She's motivated me to do some gardening on my big unused concrete driveway this year. Maybe potato bins or raised beds.

Down to Earth

I talk about Rhonda-Jean as if she's my friend too, but she is many steps ahead of me in terms of recycling and living simply. She lives life very deliberately and doesn't waste energy or money on things that are not important to her. She lives in Australia though, so our gardening is very different and therefore our "eat in season" foods are different as well. Far fewer lemons in my diet. Sigh. And if you like her, you'll like her peeps too. They run a forum that I can spend lots of time on.

And that's it. Those are the sites I go to most often for amusement, knowledge, recipes and links to similar sites and people. What are your favourites?

Dinner Plans

Hmm.  I wanted to show you my new thing but this weird Blogger change isn't letting me insert the image. 

I've been trying to put in a few more paid hours this year and so far that has been the case.  However, I'm finding that it means I might have to be a bit more organized in other areas of my life in order to still accomplish the same things. 

Eating is important to me, so I thought I'd start there.  Yesterday I made up a meal plan for four weeks.  That's a bit long and I'm sure it will change along the way, but I thought I'd try that and adjust as we go. 

I also thought that I might be more accountable if I journal about it here.  Rosa is going to do the same (it was her idea, actually) and we're going to blog "What's For Dinner" each day.  I'm hoping that I won't embarrass myself with night after night of KD or all starch meals.  Maybe we'll have some balance and I'll be be more deliberate about eating what I've grown.  Or maybe I'll be shocked at our portion sizes and learn something. 

So, here is tonight's meal:  An omelet-y thing with sausage and cheese and pork cracklings (from my last lard rendering), salad and gluten-free biscuits (for Yvon and I) and buns for the others. 

Notice the white eggs?  The ladies are slowing down and I had to actually buy some eggs.  I hope it's just a winter thing.

Having it planned in advance allowed me to prepare everything and put it in the fridge for a quick cooking between piano lessons and parent council meeting.  

The plan (if you were allowed to see it right now) also includes prepping things for the next day.  Tomorrow is burgers so I had to make mayonnaise today and defrost the meat.  Now that's done, I don't have to think about it tomorrow.  And the mayo was nice with our salad tonight, but a vinegary dressing would have worked too.

The GF biscuits (the first time I've made them) turned out okay.  Not awesome, but not overly crumbly either.  It's always an experiment at this point.

Beth thought it would helpful to all of my loyal readers (that's the two of you!) to show you what the non-GF version looked like.  It's only a difference of a bun, but it's a yeasty yummy bun.

So, if you're not into what's on my table, I'll still blog about whatever else is on my mind too, but I'll post those separately for easy skipping.  And I won't always be so verbose. 

Or maybe I will. 

Bear with me

I've been blogging for two years already and I've decided that the time has really come to add some labels. My "classic" template didn't allow me to do that, so I'm playing around with some new templates, replacing images and colors, and fooling around with HTML. There's a bit of guesswork involved for me, so I apologize for the horrible look at the moment.

And it may get even more horrible before it gets better. Sorry!

Creative energy

During the dark months of December and January I find I have no creative juices flowing at all. If Christmas and birthdays didn't occur to give me deadlines, I wouldn't create anything in those months. I'd just read, find new blogs and do the minimum to get us through each day. Each lots of sandwiches and eggs, pasta and potatoes and other no-think meals, do the launddry and make the bed.

There's something about the light in February that gets my creative energy going again.

February light started late last week already. Maybe it began earlier but until our new window was installed I couldn't see it.

Anywho, yesterday I got at the bathroom again (I know - will it never end!?) and clear-coated the hardwood. We're hoping to get some water hooked up this week since we were ready at Christmas already. This is the problem with relying on volunteer help. It's tough to nag when I know there are health things going on and family stuff and our project isn't exactly their top priority. Anyway, the floor now makes me want to move all the living room furniture out and do that floor too, but that's a bit more energy than even February gives me. That's a spring job when I can leave windows open everywhere.

After I did the floor, I allowed myself the rest of the day to sew. This is what resulted.

Yay! A new purse! My striped placemat bag (see this post) is looking pretty ratty and faded, my red wool one has a broken strap (see this post - and I know that the five stitches to fix the handle would have taken no time, but that wasn't what I was in the mood for yesterday) and it was time. I've had this fabric for a while, just waiting for my time and inspiration to hit at the same time.

It's got a long handle to cross my body and an exterior zipped pocket for easy hanky and epi-pen access.

The inside has another zippered pocket for things I don't want the world to see or to have falling all over the purse, a few pen slots and a couple of open pockets. How do Etsy sellers take such good pictures of their bags? It's tough to see any detail in this shot.

And it has a matching wallet! I love this and hope it works well. My last wallet lasted 12 years, but I don't expect that of this scrappy little thing.

The elastic loop is for a big button to close it, but I don't think I'll bother. Once I filled the wallet, the weight makes it nice and stiff and it will be a bother to unbutton it all the time. We'll see. It's there if I need it.

And it has a zippered section for money of the non-plastic variety.

After breaking two needles on the thick upholstery fabric, I realized that you can use a leather/vinyl needle and it goes through the layers like butter (almost). I still can't access my older strong Singer machine because of bathroom tools and stuff, so I've had to use my newer, less manly Janome for this project. It worked just fine once I switched the needle. Always something new to learn.