Black and White and Purple…

Black and White and Purple…

Originally uploaded by sonotthedrama

I know I’ve been very, very absent from this blog, but I’ve been busy… like very busy, baking a bun in my oven… THAT oven. You can check out my pregnancy blog at pregzor.wordpress.com.

Anyway, last night I decided to make black and white chili, which features black beans and great northern beans… and I decided that I was NOT going to buy beans in a can when a bag would be much cheaper… who cares if it takes a significant time longer because of soaking and cooking the beans!

Well, to save myself a dish and a minuscule amount of time, I decide to soak said dry beans in the same bowl overnight. I rinsed them and checked for rocks and bad beans and left them covered with a towel to soak on the counter. What I didn’t realize was that I was going end up with purple northern beans!

I guess we’re having purple and black chili tonight.

Food for the one I love

For our Valentine’s day, the husband and I stayed in and tried some new recipes.

For breakfast, I made blueberry-studded johnny cakes (cornmeal pancakes), fried turkey bacon and scrambled eggs. We ran some errands at the department store that I’m trying to wean myself of, then came back home to bake a chocolate cake and put dinner together: steaks, green beans, whipped “potatoes” and gravy.

Dinner was super easy! The steaks, a Christmas gift from family, went on the stove-top griddle with some salt and pepper. I had picked up some “steam-in-bag” green beans, so I didn’t even need to dirty a dish for those! The “potatoes” we make aren’t even really potatoes. I take a bag of frozen cauliflower, put it in a large bowl and sprinkle it with kosher salt. Then we steam them in the microwave until they are soft and slightly warm – but not hot! – to the touch, and then blend them in our blender with some butter, plain yogurt, black pepper, a few dashes of ground mustard and paprika. Then we heat them up the rest of the way – delish!

I also discovered “cheater” mushroom gravy – honest to goodness, I hadn’t looked it up online but just made it up as I went along… then discovered that people have been making the same sauce for decades… Eh, it’s Americana – what did I expect? I simply took a can of condensed mushroom soup, a splash of white cooking wine, some more ground black pepper and some leftover beef stock (maybe half a cup?) and warmed it up on the stove while the steaks cooked. So good!

After we finished dinner, we made chocolate yoghurt icing for the cake.  It was a bit sweet… like, omg-never-sub-sweetened-flavored-yoghurt-for-plain-even-in-a-sweet-recipe too sweet.  Though the cake itself came out just perfect, so I’ll survive.

I hope everyone had a pleasant Valentine’s day!

XOXO,
Salty

mmm… Salty heaven…

Huzzah! As of Sunday night, February 7th, I have assembled my first batch of sauerkraut! YAY!

Seriously folks, this has been a long time coming. I’d been saying I’d make it for about 13 months and twice I’ve even bought the cabbage to do so and whoosh before I know it, the cabbage is bad before I’ve even sliced into it.

It’s sliced and salted and sprinkled with a touch of whey… so now I just have to wait.

Ahhh! I want to eat it now!  Lightly warmed with a nice bratwurst and maybe even a beer… mmm… salty heaven…

While I wait ever-so-patiently, please, share your favorite sauerkraut variation for the next time I make this goodness or even your favorite pairing or dish!

Oh My! Is it New Year’s Already?

Sorry about the lack of update after I said I would – I’m still learning how to use WordPress and I accidentally saved the last entry as a draft and never published it.  Eep!  The post’s kinda irrelevant now so I’m not going to worry about it.

I know it’s the end of January but I thought you should know that I’ve settled on some New Year Resolutions.

1. Make (and eat!) more lacto-fermented food. This means actually make some ‘kraut!  Mmm, sauerkraut is so good!  Also, retry my hand at sourdough starter and use it to make bread.
2. Bake more bread. Use my bread-maker at least twice a week and find a recipe that works for the husband and I.
3. Stick to a laundry schedule: we don’t currently have a washer/dryer set at home so I absolutely have to work harder at keeping to a schedule.
4. Take the dogs on more walks.
5. Stress less about work: leave work at work and keep a clear head so that I can do more, more efficiently.
6. Be more supportive as a wife: do more of what he wants to do when he firsts asks.  Hang out with his family more.  Help him with his career search.
7. Pray more.  ’nuff said.

Things at home are a bit different than I was hoping they would be when I first started this blog, just 2 months ago, and I’m not getting to do the cool domestic experimentin’ that is the aim of this blog.  I assure you, I will continue to update when I can, but consider this blog to be on indefinite haitus.

-Your favorite salty wench.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve been crazy buzy and and currently I’m under the weather. Expect an update tomorrow midday.

I Need Order!

I seem to keep allowing myself to get behind on house-chores.  I despise that.  I fall behind and then someone wants to come over and OMG!  IMUSTCLEANEVERYTHINGNOOOOOOOOOOW!  And I get stressed out and feel bad because I inevitably don’t get to something obvious.

I’m re-establishing a weekly routine of “big” chores to accomplish.  It’s not easy to have a household routine when you have two jobs with “flexible” schedules like I do.  With the way my schedule works, two or three days of the week, I practically go from my office job straight to my retail job – and it’s not always the same days!  If I have a list and a deadline, then I can plan to “make time” for the house.  Also, having a list of things to do will mean that it will be easier to get my husband involved.

• Mondays or Tuesdays: Sweep/mop/vacuum/dust.  Set bread maker.
• Wednesdays or Thursdays: Groceries. Bathroom.
• Fridays: no specific “big” chores (I always work all day).  Set bread maker for Saturday morning.
• Saturdays: Household repairs & tune-ups.  Sort laundry for next day.
• Sundays: Wash at laundromat (boo!).  Cook at least one large meal for the following week.

Furoshiki and Tsutsumi

I am enamored with Japanese modern handicraft.  Origami and amigurimi, the abundance of cute stationary, their sewn decor.  The sensibilities of modern Japanese craft tend to value resourcefulness, compactness, and simple aesthetics all which are present in the traditional use of furoshiki.

The word furoshiki originally referred to cloth used to wrap up clothing and personal belongings in public bath houses.  Eventually their use spread to covering and transporting just about everything – think of it as a basket with an indefinite shape.  The use of furoshiki fell out of favor when our enemy the plastic bag hit the scene in Japan.  Now people all over the world are returning to the use of furoshiki as a way to make improvised carry-alls, lunch box covers/handles (and can double as a place mat), and gift wrap.

"How to Use Furoshiki."

The Japanese actually had a specific term for their style of gift wrapping: tsutsumi.  Tsutsumi-style wrapping involves a mentality that doesn’t seek “pizazz” but instead values the understatement. Tsutsumi doesn’t need flashy bows or mountains of sparkly paper.  In fact, one tradition says that part of what is wrapped SHOULD show.  It’s elegant and modest.

How does this aesthetic inspire me?  Well, when I can, I like to wrap presents in cloth or a reusable package.  It saves paper and resources and best of all, the simplicity often delights the recipient more than ripping off cheaply printed tissue ever could.  For my friend Cris’ birthday last year I gave her a large kerchief and a book, so instead of getting a cheap bag or finding a box to fit them properly, I lightly pressed the kerchief and then wrapped the book using it as a furoshiki.  This year I intend to give at least 1 scarf, so I will use the scarf itself to tie the rest of the gift package together instead of ribbon.  Also in the past, I’ve presented friends with nice purses or totes and tucked in pens, gum, and a notebook to round out the gift itself – tying a reusable ribbon around the handle attached to a card makes it obvious that it’s a gift.

Half of the fun of gift-giving is the presentation; if you feel inspired by the tsutsumi aesthetic or want to learn how you can incorporate furoshiki into your daily routine, check out this page by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment (http://www.env.go.jp/en/focus/attach/060403-5.html) which shows you some common ways to package items using furoshiki.  The image is also linked there as a .PDF so that you can download and share with friends.

The Beaufort

One of my most exciting wedding presents was a complete service of fine china.  DH’s grandmother gave us a beautiful antique pattern called “The Beaufort” and I don’t think she could ever understand how grateful I am to use it.

His grandmother personally owns several different sets of fine china herself and rotates through them regularly.  When we visited with my in-laws last Thanksgiving, every meal featured a different set from the meal before it.  She actually began buying her first set piece-by-piece when she worked at a department store during school – you could say it was part of her trousseau.  She’s extremely protective of all her china and she knows where or how she got each set AND she bought complete sets for all her grandchildren to recieve when they married.

The Mister and I would have never been able to afford a set as timeless and complete as the one she gave us – heck we don’t yet have any way to display it so we have to keep it in the closet of the spare room.  That side of his family is not exactly what I would call “warm and fuzzy” but when I get to use the china I feel connected to her and the tapestry of my husband’s family.

Thanksgiving 2009

We’re keeping this Thanksgiving celebration low-key. My mother will be in town from Wednesday afternoon until Friday morning so with her, I’m feeding a grand total of 3 adults.  I’ve worried over and over about what we should prepare for our meal.  Here’s what I’ve designed:

Turkey-free Thanksgiving Dinner

• Pork Chops, seared then cooked in the slow-cooker with apples, brown sugar, peppercorns, spices.
• Corn bread, possibly with cranberries stirred in.  I like Jiffy Corn Muffin mix for this; you should too.
• Fresh “classic” cranberry sauce.  That’s right:  just sugar, water and cranberries.
• Green bean casserole with frozen beans, bacon, a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, generic condensed mushroom soup and the ever present fried onions in a can.
• Roasted and whipped sweet potatoes – my secret is ground ginger and nutmeg with the basic honey, butter, milk/cream, salt and pepper.
• Cranberry-Pomegranate Terrine (basically a gelatin mold with nuts and fruit) modified from this recipe on foodnetwork.com.  I believe this is supposed to be more of a side dish but I’m going to go a bit sweeter and play a bit loose with the ingredients and make it a dessert.

My husband was a little disappointed hearing that we were not going with a “traditional” Turkey dinner like the ones he’s had “all his life” (and we prepared Thanksgiving ’07).  Okay, to be perfectly honest, he was shocked and appalled when I broke it to him over lunch yesterday.  I thought I had told him beforehand…  Luckily, we went to a dinner party last night to have a turkey dinner amongst friends – the hostess even set out supplies to make “apple turkeys” and feather headbands.  It was fun and he got his fix: crisis avoided.  My lesson from this: include him more in meal decisions for celebrations like this so that he is not surprised or hurt.

Do you always have the “classic” turkey-dressing-cranberry sauce-veggies-rolls dinner?  Do you have your own traditional menu that you follow everytime or do you make something different every Thanksgiving?

Hello there!

Welcome to the home of the “And a Pinch of Salt Blog”.  Get ready to follow me on my journey to domestic divinity!