Wednesday, January 6, 2010
BARKING!!
My senior citizen dog, Sandy, keeps barking at things that exsist only in her old lady mind! She is driving me NUTS!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Grilled Pizza
Back in November, when I first was home full time, I started cooking less meat. Much less meat. We are not vegetarians, and I don't think we ever will be. However, I do think that we as a society are eating too much meat. I think our means of raising animals for meat is wrong. I just don't trust that some enormous corporation is making decisions based on health or reason and not the bottom line for the corporation. We have driven past chicken processing plants traveling down the East Coast. These are not farms, they are factories. And they stink...and not in a farm way...in a gross way.
So, we have been buying our meat mostly from a local farm, Hemlock Hills. They are a family owned farm in Westchester County. A farm with a red barn, and rolling hills of grass and clover. Hemlock Hills raises only the animals that they have room for, even if they have to turn away orders. This makes sense to me. It feels right to buy meat from this farm instead of from a cooler in a supermarket wrapped up in plastic and Styrofoam. Buying this meat also means we are paying more. I'm okay with that. I think that the goal of food should not be to get the biggest package for the least amount of money. I think that food should be nutritious and wholesome. And not necessarily 'cheap'. I love that we will spend a thousand dollars on a television to put on our walls but want to pay ninety-nine cents for chicken at a drive through that we are putting in our bodies.
Anyway, to compensate for the expensive happy chickens, we are just eating less meat. So, overall we aren't spending more money and we are eating more veggies!
The change to more veggies has changed how and what I cook and I 'm loving learning some new tecniques, like grilled pizza. We LOVE grilled pizza! I was always afraid to try making grilled pizza. I was sure that when I put the raw dough on the grill, the parts in between the grates of the grill would fall down into the fire and the parts left on the grates would burn and stick. But, it doesn't and the pizza is soooo good.
The trick is to make the pizza right on the pizza peel with plenty of corn meal. Get the grill really hot, like 500 degrees. Turn down the heat, oil the grates and pull the peel out from under the pizza fast. The first time, the pizza was a bit misshapen and burnt...but, by the 2nd try I had figured is out. Try it, you'll love it.
Also, the trick to pizza sauce is to just let it simmer until it reduces and becomes really thick. I follow the recipes for the dough and sauce in the Gourmet cookbook. I use whatever we have around for the toppings...I get creative. Also, fresh mozzarella is the best.
So, we have been buying our meat mostly from a local farm, Hemlock Hills. They are a family owned farm in Westchester County. A farm with a red barn, and rolling hills of grass and clover. Hemlock Hills raises only the animals that they have room for, even if they have to turn away orders. This makes sense to me. It feels right to buy meat from this farm instead of from a cooler in a supermarket wrapped up in plastic and Styrofoam. Buying this meat also means we are paying more. I'm okay with that. I think that the goal of food should not be to get the biggest package for the least amount of money. I think that food should be nutritious and wholesome. And not necessarily 'cheap'. I love that we will spend a thousand dollars on a television to put on our walls but want to pay ninety-nine cents for chicken at a drive through that we are putting in our bodies.
Anyway, to compensate for the expensive happy chickens, we are just eating less meat. So, overall we aren't spending more money and we are eating more veggies!
The change to more veggies has changed how and what I cook and I 'm loving learning some new tecniques, like grilled pizza. We LOVE grilled pizza! I was always afraid to try making grilled pizza. I was sure that when I put the raw dough on the grill, the parts in between the grates of the grill would fall down into the fire and the parts left on the grates would burn and stick. But, it doesn't and the pizza is soooo good.
The trick is to make the pizza right on the pizza peel with plenty of corn meal. Get the grill really hot, like 500 degrees. Turn down the heat, oil the grates and pull the peel out from under the pizza fast. The first time, the pizza was a bit misshapen and burnt...but, by the 2nd try I had figured is out. Try it, you'll love it.
Also, the trick to pizza sauce is to just let it simmer until it reduces and becomes really thick. I follow the recipes for the dough and sauce in the Gourmet cookbook. I use whatever we have around for the toppings...I get creative. Also, fresh mozzarella is the best.
Friday, January 1, 2010
What it's all about.
I never really wanted to ever 'do' anything but be a wife and mother. I didn't have any dreams as a kid of being a teacher or a doctor. I didn't even dream of being a movie star or a princess. I had visions of making dinner and food shopping. I tried different career paths. I worked in Corporate America for a few years. I went to school to be a pastry chef. I worked in a bakery, tried a non-profit. All of these had their pros. Money was the biggest pro, it paid the bills. However, I would find myself dreaming about being home. Wishing I had time to make dinners and garden. When I looked out the window of my office building at the sun shining and the breeze blowing on a summer day, I would think about hanging laundry out on the line in the backyard. I understand that these are not the dreams of most but, they made me happy.
So, I now find myself home full-time. My house is cleanish and dinner is made...but I am a complete drain on my families finances. I even adopted an awful little dog who barks, bites and has health problems and vet bills. I'm not sure why my husband has agreed to support me...I'm thinking its the background as Pastry Chef.
So, I am home. And I love it. And I have come up with an idea to feel like I am accomplishing something more than dinner at the end of the day. The Red Barn Project. A year of living life sans excess. A year of making it from scratch. Growing it myself. Finding it second-hand. Doing without. A year of avoid grocery stores and department stores. A year of limits and work that I hope brings satisfaction, reward and happiness. A year of sweat, laughter, love, homemade hard cider and family dinners.
So, I now find myself home full-time. My house is cleanish and dinner is made...but I am a complete drain on my families finances. I even adopted an awful little dog who barks, bites and has health problems and vet bills. I'm not sure why my husband has agreed to support me...I'm thinking its the background as Pastry Chef.
So, I am home. And I love it. And I have come up with an idea to feel like I am accomplishing something more than dinner at the end of the day. The Red Barn Project. A year of living life sans excess. A year of making it from scratch. Growing it myself. Finding it second-hand. Doing without. A year of avoid grocery stores and department stores. A year of limits and work that I hope brings satisfaction, reward and happiness. A year of sweat, laughter, love, homemade hard cider and family dinners.
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