I didn't realize just how much of a cold medicine fog I was in last week until today, when I made it through a whole day of work AND survived (and remembered!) the drive home. Also, I'm here writing instead of watching Dr. Phil and falling asleep on the couch at 6:30. Man, last week was brutal. But last week I promised good reports on all things, so here goes...
1. Write every day. I did write a bit, and cheated by reading a few lessons ahead in my writing book. Sometimes I get intimidated by this woman telling me what to write about all the time, but I guess that's part of the process -- trusting what I write. Also, I picked out two "writing places" in the house that are super comfy and kind of inspiring. One is in the big chair on my back porch that's going to be amazing when the weather warms up. Word.
2. Drink 60 oz. of water every day. Pretty sure I did this most days. PS, are you noticing the separation between the words "every" and "day"? I'm starting a revolution to take back the term everyday. It's an adjective, people! There's a difference! Would you say, "I go to Jack In the Box onceaweek?" NO. No you would not. (I pick on Jack in the Box because their giant window posters actually scream "Breakfast. Everyday." The brilliant minds who came up with the mini sirloin burger commercials can't quite get a grasp on the English language? Shame.)
3. Exercise 3 times a week. Hmmm... Oh! We joined the gym last week. I've yet to make it to actually work out, but I think tomorrow I will attempt a class. I give myself the "newbie at the gym" overwhelmies, but tomorrow it. is. ON.
4. Cook something new once a week. Still did it, though it's nothing to sneeze at - just "Chili Mac" from a recipe on the back of a box of pasta. Cheap, quick, and surprisingly easy to make when you've had a couple of greyhounds after inadvertently taking "Nighttime" cold medicine.
5. Read one book a month. I had every intention of getting my library card last week and checking out a book Shalet mentioned, but I didn't. Today I came home to find The Art of Racing in the Rain on the coffee table. Nobody's claimed it, and who knows when I'll make it to the library, so it seems that fate has sealed my February choice.
6. Finish the business plan. I still don't know what I'm able to divulge, but I will say this: after thinking long and hard, and spending inordinate amounts of time in front of Excel sheets and our Small Business Development Center counselor, we've decided to take a slower, smaller approach to our goals. We are no longer looking for land. As is the case with many people our age who want to 'get into' farming, we don't currently have the assets/capital to jump head-first into any sort of landowning possibility without taking huge risks that might ruin us should anything bad happen.
But, we are so incredibly lucky to be able to utilize land and resources on an already established farm. That, plus the stability of our full-time jobs (and some side jobs. Woo boy, the side jobs!) will maybe give us the headway we'll need to realize our dream of a small, sustainable, integrated farm/agritourismo/education destination. I know this is the smart decision, but I also wonder if there'll ever be a time that I regret taking the 'slow and steady' pace instead of just taking the risk--even though I've seen first-hand what risk-taking with few assets and subsequent debt can lead to. Yeesh.
7. Learn to bake bread. One word: intimidated. I've been poring over my stupid breadmaking book and am now entirely too overwhelmed to start. But I did promise to have something good to report...let's see...well, you know, I did READ a lot about baking bread, so I'm already more knowledgeable for when I DO try to make it...
Monday, February 8, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Weekly Tree #4
Not much happening this week in the way of tree evolution. I started this project because at the beginning of autumn last year, it seemed that our little tree changed almost daily. Now the only changes are the deeper hues of red that are growing on the edges of its limbs. I don't want to sound too expectant in what is only my fourth week of documentation (and the first week of February; appropriate given the decision of the groundhog this week, no?), because I know soon enough this tree will be laden with buds and alive with bees and flitting sparrows. Patience, grasshopper.
I watch throughout the week to try to catch the most opportune time to document the world from our tree's eyes. Today seemed to be the best. It was a dreary day, not much rain, but plenty of clouds and mist lilting over the tips of the mountains to the east. See those trees at the top of the hills in the background, right where the sky meets the mountains? Today they seemed to me like armed warriors upon their steeds, ready at any moment to be unleashed to storm the great Norcalesian valley. Or something. Maybe they're just the sentries of the great canyon below, shivering like my tree as the frosty winter rushes past to make its appointment in Nevada, standing proud nonetheless.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Cook Something New #3: Chicken Pot Pie
Ok, so here's what I'm most proud of myself for this week:
1: I'm learning to adapt to mishaps in the kitchen; therefore
2: I don't think every cooking experience is win-or-lose, in fact, I think about what I can do better next time.
With that said, here's my first attempt at chicken pot pie:
I'll give you a minute to stop laughing.
Done?
Ok. So here's the deal. We had a leftover rotisserie chicken that needed to be made into something. Also, John was sick all week and so our level of fine dining had dropped dramatically. All I wanted was to make something warm and hearty that he could actually enjoy after days of not eating, is that so wrong?!
I scoured the Internet looking for a great chicken pot pie recipe, but every single one of them used pre-made pie dough. Come on, I've mastered Grissini and Herb Rolls; I didn't want to sully my record with a Pillsbury confection. Could I have scoured further to find a pie dough recipe instead? In hindsight, yes. But instead I chose this recipe from Serious Eats that used biscuits for topping.
If anyone reading this is, like me, a late-20s newcomer to domesticity and fumbling your way around the kitchen, might I offer my first nugget of advice by experience? Do not try to squeeze all of a recipe calling for a 9 x 13 x 2 pan into an 11 x 7 x 1.5 one. It just won't work. Know what will happen? You'll have leftover biscuit dough. Know what you shouldn't do? Put all of the leftover biscuit dough on top of your confection anyway. Know why? Because you've already managed to deftly smoosh all of your chicken/veggie/cream/duck stock (instead of the chicken stock; we already had it on-hand thanks to chef John) into said pan and the act of all that dough sinking into an already at-capacity food vessel will, by all laws of physics and kitchen gadget trickery, cause rivulets of cream/duck stock soup (which you should have let simmer a little longer to thicken anyway) to flow with reckless abandon over the sides of your kitchy blue Pyrex dish and onto the counter...or onto the wooden cutting board sticky with biscuit dough remnants after you've decided to move the Pyrex because THAT will make it stop flowing...or onto the cookie sheet that you've now decided will have to accompany the Pyrex into the oven or else you'll have real trouble on your hands.
Know why else you shouldn't add all that biscuit dough to an already full pan of what appears before cooking to be quite a delectable dish? Because you'll have to layer it, or get super cutesy and fold the little circles in half to make them fit in between the rows of perfectly lined dough circles that don't quite meet in the middle because YOU'RE USING THE WRONG SIZE PAN and then they won't bake uniformly and you'll have crispy biscuits on the outside and oozing dough on the inside.
And for whatever reason, some of that dough will decide that this is all too much, that it was meant for something much greater, and it will take its chance on that rushing river of cream and duck stock making its way to the precipice of the dish because it seems to offer so much more, only once it gets to the edge and realizes its fate is eternal hellfire on a sizzling pan of what is now the deep-brown, caked-on remains of that river of promise, it can't stop what is already in motion and is carried away to its final resting place lodged UNDER the 11 x 7 x 1.5. And, as is sometimes the case in these high-action make-or-break culinary adventures, a few innocent peas will get caught up in the madness and suffer the same fate. Those poor peas. With so much promise. It's a damn shame.
All drama aside, the pot pie (or chicken and dumplings, maybe?) was damn good, save for the gooey middle of the biscuits, the lake of liquid left in the pan due to my thickening mishap and the cleanup afterward. I may try my hand at this again, only this time I think I'll use our Mario Batali Dutch Oven instead.
*My local ingredients for this round included:
Carrots from Pyramid Farms
Duck stock from Massa Organics duck
1: I'm learning to adapt to mishaps in the kitchen; therefore
2: I don't think every cooking experience is win-or-lose, in fact, I think about what I can do better next time.
With that said, here's my first attempt at chicken pot pie:
I'll give you a minute to stop laughing.Done?
Ok. So here's the deal. We had a leftover rotisserie chicken that needed to be made into something. Also, John was sick all week and so our level of fine dining had dropped dramatically. All I wanted was to make something warm and hearty that he could actually enjoy after days of not eating, is that so wrong?!
I scoured the Internet looking for a great chicken pot pie recipe, but every single one of them used pre-made pie dough. Come on, I've mastered Grissini and Herb Rolls; I didn't want to sully my record with a Pillsbury confection. Could I have scoured further to find a pie dough recipe instead? In hindsight, yes. But instead I chose this recipe from Serious Eats that used biscuits for topping.
If anyone reading this is, like me, a late-20s newcomer to domesticity and fumbling your way around the kitchen, might I offer my first nugget of advice by experience? Do not try to squeeze all of a recipe calling for a 9 x 13 x 2 pan into an 11 x 7 x 1.5 one. It just won't work. Know what will happen? You'll have leftover biscuit dough. Know what you shouldn't do? Put all of the leftover biscuit dough on top of your confection anyway. Know why? Because you've already managed to deftly smoosh all of your chicken/veggie/cream/duck stock (instead of the chicken stock; we already had it on-hand thanks to chef John) into said pan and the act of all that dough sinking into an already at-capacity food vessel will, by all laws of physics and kitchen gadget trickery, cause rivulets of cream/duck stock soup (which you should have let simmer a little longer to thicken anyway) to flow with reckless abandon over the sides of your kitchy blue Pyrex dish and onto the counter...or onto the wooden cutting board sticky with biscuit dough remnants after you've decided to move the Pyrex because THAT will make it stop flowing...or onto the cookie sheet that you've now decided will have to accompany the Pyrex into the oven or else you'll have real trouble on your hands.
Know why else you shouldn't add all that biscuit dough to an already full pan of what appears before cooking to be quite a delectable dish? Because you'll have to layer it, or get super cutesy and fold the little circles in half to make them fit in between the rows of perfectly lined dough circles that don't quite meet in the middle because YOU'RE USING THE WRONG SIZE PAN and then they won't bake uniformly and you'll have crispy biscuits on the outside and oozing dough on the inside.
And for whatever reason, some of that dough will decide that this is all too much, that it was meant for something much greater, and it will take its chance on that rushing river of cream and duck stock making its way to the precipice of the dish because it seems to offer so much more, only once it gets to the edge and realizes its fate is eternal hellfire on a sizzling pan of what is now the deep-brown, caked-on remains of that river of promise, it can't stop what is already in motion and is carried away to its final resting place lodged UNDER the 11 x 7 x 1.5. And, as is sometimes the case in these high-action make-or-break culinary adventures, a few innocent peas will get caught up in the madness and suffer the same fate. Those poor peas. With so much promise. It's a damn shame.
All drama aside, the pot pie (or chicken and dumplings, maybe?) was damn good, save for the gooey middle of the biscuits, the lake of liquid left in the pan due to my thickening mishap and the cleanup afterward. I may try my hand at this again, only this time I think I'll use our Mario Batali Dutch Oven instead.
*My local ingredients for this round included:
Carrots from Pyramid Farms
Duck stock from Massa Organics duck
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Weekly Goal Roundup #3
Even if posting these goals is a little TMI for all 25 people who sometimes stumble upon this schizophrenic blog (sorry if you're here to find out about cheese supplies in Sacramento; I've kind of moved on, but please feel free to poke around!), I'm finding it to be a pretty valuable resource. Because how many Sundays in a row can I say, "nope, failed on that one again this week" before I feel like a total loser? So, mostly for my own sake, I hereby promise that next Sunday I will have something positive to report on ALL goals. K? K.
1. Write every day. I do believe this is the least I've written in a very long time. It may be a case of the overwhelmies, or it may just be that I don't have anything to get out just yet. My biggest impulse to write usually comes when something monumental (to me, anyway) happens and I need to sort it out. My brain usually doesn't let me function adequately if there's something going on that I need to make peace with. And right now, I'm pretty peaceful. But maybe that's a good time to write, too. This week I'll attempt to write when I'm at peace instead of in turmoil and see what happens.
2. Drink 60 oz. of water every day. I was staving off a pretty nasty flu John brought home this week, so I surprisingly stayed on top of my fluid intake. Sixty ounces? Probably not, but close.
3. Exercise 3 times a week. Ok, this is getting ridiculous. I'm getting back to a point I don't like to be. My clothes don't fit, and though I'm eating amazing food cooked with our amazing wedding gifts that help perpetuate this feeling of wedded bliss and domesticity, I'm going to say this 3 times and hope it's enough to get me motivated: Fat Mandy Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Fat Mandy Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Fat Mandy DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. (And yes, before you blithely point out that all of my cooking experiments have included carbs to the nth degree, I do believe that if I really focus on Goals 2 & 3 I can do both, thankyouverymuch.)
4. Cook something new once a week: Done and done, though not such a raving success as the herb rolls or Grissini. My first attempt at chicken pot pie was a near (although somewhat hilarious) flop. Also, I'm still learning patience and innovation, so that's totally fine.
5. Read one book a month: Have I told you lately I will never own a Kindle? I mean EVER. It's enough I read the news online (and as a former journalism student I often feel guilty for not supporting the dying art of print), but a book?! Sometimes I feel like we're all just players in that Steve Martin movie The Jerk, when all these people buy those funny glasses but then it turns out that after a while it makes them all cross-eyed and they come after him with pitchforks or something. I mean, they're BOOKS! Beautiful, thought-out, fold-on-themselves-while-curled-in-a-chair pieces of our history! Why rob ourselves of that warm, cozy time in the bookstore where we can judge things by covers and inside jackets and can chat up that awkward but brilliant steward with the comb-over about the latest release? I have, heretofore, adopted what was begun by eastsidebride, and am pledging to read the printed word. That said, I am finishing Julie and Julia today, while enjoying my serendipitous leftover Boeuf Bourguignon a la Chef John and am promptly looking for a February book. Any suggestions?
6. Finish the business plan. Developments are underway, but I have not gotten the go-ahead to blog about them. They are not earth-shattering, "we're moving to the country to live out our dreams" developments, but rather the kind of sane, somewhat calculated, utilize-our-limited-assets developments that I think any financial or farm adviser would suggest. When I get the A-OK, I will let all 25 of you know (except for you, auntie and grandma and james, I'll e-mail you today!).
7. Learn to bake bread. Haven't made any real strides in this area this week. I did learn how to scrape dough and flour from surfaces without it turning into a pasty mess that you can never quite get rid of, which is good. Ok, this week, I'll attempt my first loaf. Oh lord, here we go...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Weekly Tree #3
Week 3 of documenting the tree outside my office!
The days are getting a tad longer. One day this week I stayed a bit later to make up for being gone for a meeting John and I had earlier in the day. Admittedly, I'd been oblivious to the longer days, until I realized when I left the office at a quarter 'til six it wasn't pitch black and I didn't feel the need to walk to my truck with my box cutter at the ready.
Anywho, here's Mr. Tree around 5-ish:
And here he is once I realized the nearly full moon was glowing just behind him:
You can't tell from these pics, but the tips of his branches are turning a dark red, I'm thinking they're starting the process of budding soon?
To follow along:
Week 1, The Beginning!
Week 2, After the Storm
The days are getting a tad longer. One day this week I stayed a bit later to make up for being gone for a meeting John and I had earlier in the day. Admittedly, I'd been oblivious to the longer days, until I realized when I left the office at a quarter 'til six it wasn't pitch black and I didn't feel the need to walk to my truck with my box cutter at the ready.
Anywho, here's Mr. Tree around 5-ish:
And here he is once I realized the nearly full moon was glowing just behind him:
You can't tell from these pics, but the tips of his branches are turning a dark red, I'm thinking they're starting the process of budding soon?To follow along:
Week 1, The Beginning!
Week 2, After the Storm
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