crunch crunch

Quite by accident, I've been sliding down the slippery slope into being some kind of homesteader.

It started, likely, with my childhood love of crafts. I learned sewing, knitting, crocheting, beading, quilting, loom knitting, moccasin-making...if there was a kit for it, I probably tried it.

In college, I learned to knit socks. When you make your own socks. you don't want to throw them away when they get their first hole, so you start learning how to darn holes. I was also on a very strict student budget, so I cleaned almost exclusively with baking soda and vinegar. After that, I always made my own cleaners. I've never quite stopped being cheap frugal.

Pre-Instant Pot yogurt making on the stove. Warning: this may require effort.

After I got married, I started making my own chicken broth. You see, before I had children I was on a kick to make lots of things from scratch, like bread, granola, and yogurt (the latter two in the crockpot, because that was before the fancy Instant Pot entered onto the scene). Some of that went away for a while when my son was born, but later came back. Some I never really did again after having children. It's a lot cheaper and easier to buy our sandwich bread at Market Basket.

The trifecta: pressure canner heating up jars, stockpot heating up broth, and Instant Pot making dinner.

When you make your own chicken broth and cook family-sized meals, you either need to dedicate a lot of freezer space to the broth--even if you cook it down to gelatinous, concentrated stock--or learn how to pressure can. So I started pressure canning my broths, which was a slippery slope to preserving food through jam-making and fermentation and sourdough starter babies.

With the quantity of broth we were going through, I started religiously freezing vegetable scraps and bones so that the broth was far cheaper to make. Meanwhile, I was growing cherry tomatoes and herbs in pots every summer and buying bagged compost. So, I eventually decided to stop throwing away perfectly good coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable scraps, and eggshells, and make my own compost. At the apartment, I used an old plastic storage tub with holes drilled on all sides outside (we did have a yard, but I wanted something closed to keep curious children and animals out) and added lots of shredded junk mail since we didn't have much in the way of yard waste. I collected compostables in a washed-out yogurt container, but eventually upgraded to a 2-gallon bucket when we moved and the trip out to the compost bin got longer.

Fancy.

Our outdoor compost bin is now five wooden pallets (four sides and a top) held together with zip ties. It cost me about $3 in zip ties and whatever amount of gas it took to make three trips to and from the nursery ten minutes away (which was getting rid of the pallets). Despite the freezing temperatures we had in the last two months, I can see the materials breaking down when I get around to turning the pile. As I said, I've never stopped being cheap frugal.

My crunch cred regarding cloth diapers has already been addressed, although I'll confess that we use disposable pull-ups at night now that both kids are potty-trained. Does homeschooling count?

What's next? I'm excited to start a larger vegetable and herb garden next summer, now that we have a large yard. I may risk starting some of our plants from seeds, now that we have older children and enough living space that they probably won't inadvertently kill the seedlings. I'm not sure if our town bylaws allow chickens, but since we live on a small dead-end street I would rather stay on my neighbors' good graces anyways.

What's For Supper? {link-up}

Rather than attempt to write up all that I've been doing lately in a coherent blog post, I'm joining in Simcha Fisher's meal plan link-up.

Saturday
Mr. Husband made dinner that night since the kids and I had just returned from a visit to my parents in North Carolina. He made Two-Ingredient Crockpot Chicken, pasta olio e aglio, and steamed sugar snap peas. I sat on the couch while the kids tore through all of the toys they hadn't seen in a week, and talked about how tired I was.

What's For Supper? {link-up and a recipe}

Linking up with Simcha Fisher. I'm getting back on the horse of meal planning. Italian food is featured heavily this week, mostly because being a busy musician makes me feel more inclined to make family recipes that I could cook in my sleep.

What's for Supper {pt. 3}

Linking up with Simcha Fisher.

Let's pretend that I actually planned our meals this week instead of what I really did, which was wing it with whatever needed to be used up out of the fridge.

Saturday
Despite our resolutions to junk our collapsing gas grill, a half-full tank of propane is a terrible thing to waste. More grilled chicken + barbecue sauce, pasta e olio, and nuked frozen veggies.

Sunday
Mr. Husband was working another late shift. Incidentally, we had a repeat of Friday's dinner, which was macaroni and cheese. I tried to alleviate the shame of my utter laziness by adding a few things from the refrigerator that really needed to be used up: spinach and bacon. Fancy schmancy.

Monday
At 1 PM, I realized that not only did I not have a dinner plan, but I had to be out of the door by 6:30 to get to my first orchestra rehearsal of the season. I made Two-Ingredient Crockpot Chicken with rice and broccoli. We were actually out of salad dressing, but I found a 1/3 full can of pizza sauce in the fridge that did the job nicely.

Tuesday
A red bell pepper in the fridge and a can of Ro-Tel in the pantry inspired me to improvise a Tex-Mex -ish chicken stir-fry. I cubed some boneless skinless chicken breasts, browned them in a pan, added chopped pepper and onion, then the Ro-Tel, heaped on cumin and chili powder, and served it over rice. It came out better than I thought it would.

Wednesday
Meatballs. My half-Italian heritage seems to come with a biological imperative that I make this dish at least once a month or I'll crave it constantly. That being said, based on what was in my pantry and the perfectly-browned-in-the-pan-meatballs gene skipping a generation, I had to deviate from the old family recipe.

Instead of using flavored bread crumbs, I pulverized our freezer cache of hamburger and hot dog buns.

Instead of pan-searing or broiling the meatballs briefly, I cooked them most of the way in the oven.

If I don't do this, my meatballs fall apart and my kids learn new four-letter words they shouldn't know.

I cooked the sauce separately and added the meatballs at the very end. Nobody complained.

Buon appetito.

Thursday
I tried to have an off week from it, but then some last-minute company had me resort to it. P I Z Z A. It's an easy way feed a bunch of people because it's easy to make, inexpensive, and everybody likes it. Including Sir Toddler, who is auditioning to be the next Little Ceasars guy.*

Friday
Enchiladas. I know, I know. They've been on every link-up. But I had decided a month ago to deliver an enchilada meal to a friend who's just had a baby, and the day for that was yesterday. So now I'm in the mood for them again.



*We took him to Uno's once and ordered him a kids' pizza. He ate all but one slice. HE'S TWO. The pizza was bigger than his head.

What's For Supper? part disappointing {link-up}

Again, I shall join in Simcha Fisher's link-up, even though our meal plan for the past week turned out very unexciting. When I proofread this post, I found an overuse of the words "easy" and "tasty," so I guess those were the themes of the week.

Saturday
Mr. Husband was working a 4-12 shift, so I took the night off. Sir Toddler and I ate hot dogs with frozen peas (as in, not defrosted), and Lady Infant feasted on steamed broccoli. If I give Sir Toddler cooked peas, he just mashes them, so "ice cold peas" work just fine for me. We had watermelon slices for dessert with a side of shame.

Sunday
I didn't actually cook. Mr. Husband's parents were given 12 lobsters from a family fisherman. FOR FREE. Sir Toddler ate a hamburger and veggie sticks dipped in hummus, and his parents and baby sister had lobster with baked potato wedges and corn on the cob. I offered Sir Toddler a bite, but he was too busy playing with his uncle's "car shoes," a.k.a. roller skates.

Monday
I didn't really cook this meal either, as I was frazzled from trying to purchase and install the bed rail. Mr. Husband grilled some chicken brushed with Sticky Fingers barbecue sauce and served it with pasta e olio and mixed veggies. Our grill is rusting and the frame is falling apart, so it might be the last grilled chicken we make for a while.

Tuesday
Chicken enchiladas, baby. I make these at least once every two weeks because they are just so easy to throw together and the ingredients are cheap. Again, I used the America's Test Kitchen recipe, except I always forget to buy the chiles and I never have fresh cilantro so I just leave them out. This time, however, I remembered to take a picture. I also cooked the chicken in the crockpot, instead of my usual boil-at-the-last-minute, because 95º weather makes for a miserable cooking environment. Even with central air conditioning.

Wednesday
Chicken and "dirty" rice with broccoli. This is a family recipe that is one of my favorites and a snap to throw together. Just sprinkle paprika, garlic powder, dried thyme, and salt on bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces (we usually make drumsticks and thighs), and put them in a broiler pan. Or in a rimmed baking pan if you don't have a broiler pan. Cook at 350º until the meat is just about done, then broil the skin.

My skin always gets burned because our oven has one of those crappy amazing broiler drawers. Not being able to see it cook + two small, mobile children underfoot = oopsie.

While you're cooking the chicken, make some rice. I usually sautée some chopped onion, then add 1 part rice and two parts chicken broth. When rice and chicken are done, plate your chicken and throw the rice in the chicken pan. Scrape up all that yummy fond and drippings and mix it into the rice. The more chicken you make, the "dirtier" and tastier your rice will be.

Thursday
Homemade pizza. Again, we tend to have pizza at least once every two weeks because it is easy and inexpensive. It can also make use of any little leftover bits of meat and vegetables for toppings.

Friday (today)
Mr. Husband is working another late shift at his per diem job after his salaried job. He has the car and the fridge is mostly stocked with condiments. I'm not sure what we're having for dinner, but this blueberry cake (muffin recipe in a 9"x13"x2" pan) I made for our playdate this morning may play a starring role.

Happy weekending.

What's for Supper? {link-up}

Linking up with Simcha Fisher.

Now that Lady Infant has started eating solids, we are burning through produce faster than a Salad Shooter, and our grocery expenditures are starting to go through the roof. Part of Mr. Husband's and my plan to address this issue is to go back to planning our meals for the week. This is something that I did very consistently when I was in grad school and was gone two nights a week, but haven't done consistently at all since Sir Toddler was born. This is what we've been eating this past week.

Saturday:  We had dinner guests that night with a planned Amerimexican theme (my second oldest brother-in-law makes amazing margaritas) so we had loaded nachos with pulled pork, refried beans, olives and cheese (duh) on top, and guacamole and salsa on the side. Since the meat sales weren't particularly promising that week, we actually purchased premade pulled pork in barbecue sauce. It was much better than I thought it would be. I don't know if throwing a bunch of ingredients on chips and tossing it in the oven until the cheese melts really qualifies as cooking, but the margaritas were made from scratch.

Sunday: Mr. Husband was out that night. Usually that's my cue to make breakfast for dinner, but I had some tomato sauce already made from earlier in the week, plus some zucchini to use up. You may be thinking that I did some fancy veggie spiralizing, but that is blasphemy to my half-Italian heritage so we had Market Basket brand tortellini with the sauce and baked zucchini (slice into half-coins, add olive oil, salt, and pepper, bake at 400 º until browned) on the side.

Monday: I planned on meatballs, but I realized rather late in the day that we were not only out of breadcrumbs, but we had also just used up all of the sandwich bread. So bolognese sauce it was, plus green beans and rigatoni.

Tuesday: Chicken enchiladas (with grocery store guacamole) from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. The great thing about this type of recipe is that we use fewer pieces of chicken when it's shredded and mixed into something rather than serving a chicken dish with sides.

Wednesday: Pasta with chicken and pesto. It was really the last hurrah of my basil plants; they look dreadful now. I used the pesto recipe from The Joy of Pasta minus the pine nuts because I never have those on hand. Again, I shredded chicken into the pasta to stretch our chicken supply a bit.

Thursday: Pizza. I never make more than three pizzas (we had a dinner guest) so I make the crusts from scratch in my stand mixer, but I discovered six months ago that it made no difference in cost to buy the little cans of sauce, pre-sliced pepperoni, and pre-grated mozzarella. I usually sautée some peppers and mushrooms for toppings and assemble.

Friday:  My meal plan was originally a rice and beans dish (an attempt to cut down on our meat expenditures by eating less of it) that involved cooking the beans all day in the slow cooker. I forgot to get the beans cooking in my rush to fit in a morning run/playground romp so we had Two-Ingredient Crockpot Chicken with lemon spaghetti and (previously frozen) peas.

I'll post the lemon spaghetti recipe later, as Lady Infant is currently using my legs and torso as a pull-up bar.

7 QT...because why not?

Lady Infant is napping, and Sir Toddler is enclosed in his crib for his lately inconsistent "nap" time, so here we are with my first ever link-up with This Ain't the Lyceum. Here are a few thoughts  kicking around here these days.

1. I made fancy shmancy oatmeal.

There's a (boring) story behind this: I've been trying to shake up breakfast a little bit since I've gotten really sick of cold cereal and the sugar crash that comes with it. Although my recipe of choice lately has been just salt+pepper+butter+oatmeal (bulletproof?), I did really fancy it up after I tried a recipe that called for 8 oz. of ricotta. Naturally, the grocery store only had 32 oz. containers, so I had to use up quite a bit of extra in the four seconds it takes for ricotta to go bad after it's opened. I made a (not pictured because we gobbled it up) ricotta cheesecake from The Italian Slow Cooker, and still had a bit left, so I decided to add it with some leftover lemon juice and sugar to fancy up some steel-cut oats. It was like having ricotta cheesecake with oatmeal, which was much tastier than it sounds. Try it!

2. It's August? How is that possible? Maybe because we had such a long wait for nice weather in New England, this summer has flown by, and I feel like my inability to get out the door before lunchtime with both kids has meant that we've barely taken the time to enjoy it. I'm trying to get over my disgust with our shared backyard-with-no-enclosure-full-of-weeds-and-anthills and the pointlessness of trying to improve rental land that is also a minefield of dog feces.

The rope is my attempt at a barrier to keep him out of several stinky messes. Seriously, what is wrong with people?

3. Lately, if I leave the two littles alone for a few minutes, I've been walking into scenes like this:

It warms my heart to see their relationship as siblings budding.

4. When do toddlers drop their naps? I'm hoping we have a few more months of napping, but my inability to get us out in the morning plus some probing for potty readiness means that Sir Toddler doesn't always get out the wiggles. We've been trying to get out in the morning here and there to help him along. 

He's learning how to walk with me instead of riding in the stroller, which helps wear him out even faster.

5. Lady Infant is finally starting some solids. She continues to earn her nickname of Queen Baby, as her Majesty won't sit in the high chair for very long without fussing, and showed very little interest in solid food at all until I whipped this out and stuffed it with chunks of cooked sweet potato:

She does have eyes. We're just not ready to plaster the internet with public pictures of our kids' faces.

I know there are easier-to-clean feeders out there, but someone gave us this one for Sir Toddler as a baby, and since he cried every time I tried to give it to him, it was just laying around unused.

6. Does anybody else hate the word "chunks"? And all other related words (chunk, chunky, etc.)? I'm stretching this, I know. #1 is so long, though!

7. If I've heard it once, I've heard it many times that it's pointless to force potty training on a kid who isn't ready. The thought of the whole process gives me nightmares because I haven't done it before and I'm not eager to spend so much time scrubbing poop and pee out of all of the upholstered purchases in the house. However, we spent two mornings now where Sir Toddler played peacefully sans pants and diaper for an hour, asked to put his diaper on, and then promptly soiled it. So I'd say we're halfway there.

Unrelated, I know. But how lucky are we to be walking distance from a construction site?