Comfort Food

When it comes to cooking, the best advice I was ever given was that recipes are only guides. I think in baking, you have to follow recipes more carefully (more science than art), but when it comes to dinner creations, the sky is the limit. Substitutions are allowed and encouraged. Let the spirit move you!

My cousin was visiting with her two young kids for dinner tonight. Bud was great at entertaining the toddler while I got dinner on the table. While it would have been a perfect evening to grill, it may not have been practical with the young children around and would have taken a long time with our charcoal grill. I made macaroni and cheese instead. The recipe is based on Christopher Kimball's Baked Macaroni and Cheese found in his Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook, which I love. No fancy kitchen equipment is needed for any of his recipes. Some can be quite labor intensive, but the mac and cheese below is not.

Ingredients
12 oz of elbow pasta

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons flour

5 oz of grated (or cut into small pieces) cheddar cheese (picked up at our local deli that still wraps cheese in paper and string)

5 oz of grated (or cut into small pieces) American cheese (NOT cheese product)
4 T of butter
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated of Parmesan cheese
a little dry mustard (I just used some spicy "wet" mustard I had in the fridge, since I don't keep dry mustard on hand)
a little ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt


Basically, you cook the pasta. While the water is boiling, in a sauce pan, melt 2T butter over medium heat. When the butter is done foaming, add the flour and cook for a minute or two. Then add the milk. Whisk until it thickens ( a minute or two). I then added the nutmeg, salt and mustard. Then added the grated cheeses and stir until melted over the heat. Add the pasta to the cheese mixture and voila. Finito. You can eat it now or put the yummy stuff in a pyrex baking dish (2-3qt) and bake it which is what I prefer. To bake with a crispy top, you will want to melt the remaining 2T of butter in a saucepan and then add the breadcrumbs and let them cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat, add the parmesan cheese and then sprinkle over the mac and cheese. Stick under the broiler for a couple of minutes. I made this dish a day ahead, so I actually had to heat it in the oven at 375ish for about 20 minutes before broiling.

For vegetables, we had some pea pods for the kids and a delicious salad combination that my husband came up with earlier in the season and I tried to replicate:

Herb salad:
Lettuce
finely chopped herbs (whatever is available in whatever combination: mint, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, basil)
Feta cheese
almonds
ground pepper
dressing of your choice

All of us went out to the ice cream stand for dessert!

Food for Thought

I started to write a completely different post, but if I wanted to share all of my thoughts on food, and the food industry today, I would need a book. Instead, here is a glimpse.

My mother had the week's menu planned out, every week, without fail. In this regard, I am not like my mother. Food preparation and consumption in our household is more unstructured, particularly in the summer and fall when our choices are most abundant. This doesn't mean we don't plan what we're eating. Often times, dinners will piggy back on each other (the left over chicken we roast on Sunday will be used in fajitas on Thursday). We have settled more into the spontaneity of the season . Find a source of protein, find a carbohydrate, find some vegetables. Usually, the carbohydrate is the hardest part to come up with.

My mother also did one major grocery store shopping trip each week. I remember going with her on many occasions and it was surprising how fast the cart would fill up to feed a family of five. In this regard as well, I am not like my mother. I don't think I've used a cart (unless I have to pick up something large like charcoal or a package of paper towels) since I moved to the farm. If I can't fit it into a hand basket, I don't really need it...immediately. I also tend to go to several different grocers to complete a shopping list, because each vendor has its particular niche.

So, how do such frequent, small trips make my life simpler? Simpler does not mean more efficient. Nor does it mean more convenience. Simpler means everything that is done is done with intent or meaning. I will purchase my loaf of bread from Alice, my aged New York cheddar from Shirley, and the rest of my groceries from Ellen. Sometimes, I may go to the supermarket if Ellen is closed or if I need an item like paper towels. I will take my time, catch up on the local intrigue, and not get flustered because there are no mobs of discontented people surrounding me. I will not waste fifteen minutes in aisle 12 agonizing over which brand of bread to buy, getting sucked in by all the advertising gimmicks because the choice has really been narrowed down to three options (white, wheat or a French loaf). I will not feel like a cow getting corraled as I wait in line. I will not have to succumb to the restlessness of those around me needing to be somewhere at some point too near in the future. Instead, I will find all the customer help I need since Ellen, Alice and Shirley all know me and they all know the products in their stores. And I know that the products they sell are those that were produced with integrity. When I went to France as a student in 1995, I remember doing the shopping with my host family and visiting several different establishments to find everything on the list. At the time it didn't make sense to me. Now it does.

Scavenging

This post has nothing to do with the turkey vultures across the street feasting on some decaying animal. Rather, it chronicles my most serious foray into snatching up free furniture (not including the time I was able to obtain a significant portion of my parents' furniture for our house when they downsized and I got married).

The objects in question were science storage cabinets. Lovely, you think. How 19th century farmhouse. Well, yes, and that was my first thought too. But when opportunity knocks, it behooves one not to knock back, or so I learned. All of the high school science labs are being renovated this summer. All fixtures are going to be replaced, which means the current ones were sort of, kind of up for grabs. As long it was done inconsipicuously, under the cover of dark (seriously!), and you spoke with the groundskeeper in hushed tones about your plans, you too could take whatever fixtures you wanted. I balked at first. Too much trouble. Too heavy. I don't really have space. Too time consuming. I have no truck to transport (yeah, a farmer without a truck; we'll discuss in a different post). But other faculty were coming out of the woodwork the last few days of school, some whom I'm sure have never stepped foot in a science lab before, claiming these sturdy 7ft, 18in deep cabinets. Some even claimed the counter tops (I would have taken one, except they were black), and one luckly soul claimed the beautiful soapstone sink. I realized that if I didn't bite then, I was going to lose out. Similar cabinets would probably go for at least $500, and wouldn't be constructed nearly as well. The realization of how much "stuff" I could place in them thus decluttering my life was appealing to me (anything that helps in decluttering my life is appealing to me). So I called my other half and said something along the lines "Hi, there are cabinets that the science department is getting rid of. Can you borrow a truck and help me move them? And they need to be out of here by Thursday." It was more of a directive than a consultation. My darling husband heeded my words, came by with a screw gun the next morning and we removed the cabinets from the walls. The following day, he had borrowed a truck (without a sideview mirror, which will come into play later), and we loaded them up without incident (hardly worthy of a story).

Unloading them, without the help of a dolly or an extra set of hands (or a sideview mirror to avoid hitting the porch railing and breaking it), was another issue. Plus, the timing was not great as I had to show up at a schmoozy hotel for lunch within the half hour. The glass door cabinet above just barely fit into our low-ceiling living room. The cabinet is 7 feet and we have a false ceiling that must make it only 7 1/2 feet.

I also learned a valuable science lesson. Just because the sliding doors worked on the track in its first home, doesn't mean that is where the track wants to be in the new place. After struggling with the glass-door cabinet for several hours, my darling husband just let the doors hang aplomb and put the track on where the doors wanted it to be. How come it took several hours to think of this common-sense solution, who knows? But, there was absolutely no way I was going to let the cabinet sit there without the glass doors. We decided not to put the doors on the other cabinet in the shed as not nearly as much stuff could fit in there (as you can see). It makes it easier for the 8 year old (and us) to find things as well.

Dutch Oven

It may sound like a mundane topic, but having a good Dutch oven makes cooking a whole lot easier. We bought one soon after we married, and use the thing all of the time. The only other pots we use are a stock pot for making stock (duh) and boiling water, and a couple of small sauce pans for reheating soups, making rice, etc. Anyway, the workhorses of our kitchen stovetop (and oven) are the cast iron skillets (we have two) and the cast iron Dutch oven (5 qt). Some of our favorite uses for the Dutch oven are:

popping popcorn
making tortilla chips
creating soups, stews, and chilis (our winter staples)
roasting beef and lamb
deep frying chicken (holds temperature well)
frying potatoes
concocting chicken and rice casseroles/ beans and rice, and other similar dishes

Basically, you can use the Dutch oven to saute, brown, slow cook (as you would a slow cooker...just stick it in a low temp oven for several hours), bake, simmer and fry. It's also super easy to clean, and it is much less expensive than all of the stainless steel pots and pans (although, as mentioned above, I have a couple of those).

For more information visit Lodge. Additionally, Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated fame, has a few things to say about cast iron.

Laundry soap

An easy, 20 minute recipe for laundry soap that will save you money!

4 cups hot water

1 Fels-Naptha soap bar

1 cup washing soda (NOT baking soda)

1/2 cup borax

-Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full with hot water.

-Add melted soap, washing soda and borax.

-Stir well until all powder is dissolved

-Fill bucket to top with more hot water.

-Stir, cover, and let sit overnight to thicken

-Stir mixture in the morning (or whenever you next check on it)

-Fill a used, clean laundry soap dispenser HALF full with the soap and then fill the rest of the way with water.

-Shake before each use.

OPTIONAL: Add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons (add once soap has cooled)

Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons (remember, you're diluting what you have in the 5 gallon bucket once you put it in the soap dispenser).

Front loading machine: 1/4 cup per load (640 loads)

Top loading machine: (5/8 cup per load)

I live on a farm, and have a very active stepson. We wash lots of clothes. This stuff works and lasts forever! It cost me $12 for the materials, and I still have most of the borax and washing soda left for future preparations.