recipe time, cherry tomato episode

CD wants me to share a recipe I just made up. The kids certainly devoured it and it was so simple that I know I'll make it again.

We (read that as I)  am responsible for the middle school gardens this week. And next, because the payoff has been great and I'm ready to sign up for the rest of the summer. Or at least until the tomatoes are done producing.  I filled my colander with tomatoes the other day and then came home and picked another dozen off our own plants.

The first night we had pasta with cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil and Parmesan. Can't beat it.

But sometimes you need another cherry tomato recipe.  Today I made one up.

1 can corn (drained)
1 can black beans (rinsed)
1 cup pearl cous cous (measured uncooked-- you then have to cook the stuff)
lots of cherry tomatoes, halved
red wine vinaigrette, from the salad dressing shelf.  (Feel free to improve upon store bought dressing. It's what I had.)
parsley, chopped
basil, chopped

I served it with fish, but it could have held its own as a summer salad.  Yum!

from the box

Bug has been itching to make a recipe he read on the side of the graham cracker box. I finally took a look at it, decided he had good instincts, and bought chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk so he could give them a whirl.  He finally found the chance to test them this quiet* Saturday morning, and the results are quite good.

Odd little recipe--no eggs.  They didn't rise up much so they don't look like the picture on the box, but how often does that actually happen? Here's the recipe. I nixed the nuts and coconut because in my opinion they should not be in a good cookie anyway.

*Yes, I said that we were having a "quiet Saturday morning." Yes, it is baseball season. Yes, the calendar is developing a case of the rainbows. But not today. Today it is noon and we are all in pj's and we have fresh, hot cookies. Life is good.

will you eat them here, or there?

Happy Saint Paddy's Day to all. We had Green Eggs and Ham for dinner tonight. I started with this recipe, but I'm a bit prone to making changes. I think I doubled the bread b/c I had some nice Challah that was already stale, and so I also used some milk to be sure the bread would soften. I know I added extra spinach, just 'cause. I probably put more cheese on it too, come to think of it. Oh, and I skipped the seasoning salt and put salt, pepper and nutmeg in instead. But I stuck to just eight eggs because CD is out tonight and it only needs to feed three of us. Other than that, (!) this is the recipe I used.  And it is very green.

Ingredients

• 8 eggs
• 1 cup frozen chopped spinach (thawed)
• 6 ozs ham (chopped)
• 1 cup bread (cubes)
• 1/2 tsp seasoning salt
• 1/2 cup swiss cheese (shredded)  

So, what I really cooked was probably closer to this:

Green Eggs and Ham breakfast casserole

• 5 slices thick challah bread, torn into bits
• 1/2 cup milk
• 8 eggs, beaten 
• 2 cups chopped spinach
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 8 oz ham cubes (could have gone with more, had I had more)
• 2 cups shredded swiss cheese

It sat for about an hour before cooking to let the bread get good and sogged. Then it baked for 30 minutes and was lovely and green and filling. We ate about half of it. We'll have it for breakfast another morning.

a little of this, a little of that

I feel like I need to catch up here.

• The kids are outgrowing clothes. Pook hasn't put away the shorts but has worn long pants all this week. If he hadn't, I think the school might have turned me in. We had lows in the 20's. I went to a nearby thrift shop and bought him six pairs of pants for about $20. Glad the kid doesn't care about brands. Or, for that matter, doesn't care what he wears.
• The garden has frozen. The leaves still look wonderful however. I'm looking around for things that need help next spring. I must get better at cutting back fall bloomers so they don't get too leggy.
• I cooked teriyaki chicken with fresh baby carrots the other day and it turned out great. Last night we had some fresh spinach and everyone moaned with joy. (It had butter and Parmesan cheese on it.) We had about twelve leaves of swiss chard from our own yard. While I feel grateful that I have a family who likes food and all my cooking, Pook did surprise me by saying that "what really matters to me is just that it has calories." See #1, above.
• I sort of stole a four foot basil plant from Bug's old school. The cold was already predicted and the plant looked so neglected that I couldn't help myself. I made enough pesto to fill two ice cube trays. I didn't have many pine nuts so I tried pumpkin seeds and it turned out great. Much cheaper. Stolen basil is already pretty cheap however.
• The Halloween candy is gone; banana Laffy Taffy was the final sweet in the bowl. Bug doesn't like them, but ate one because "well, it was candy." I, on the other hand, am a candy snob.
• The Paid Job is good. I don't have a well defined job description, no idea what sort of title best describes me, and I forget to pick up my little paychecks since I don't always work the day they get distributed. I come home exhausted, but I really like what I'm doing. I have a nice blend of shadowing a couple of kids who need support and doing observations in other classes when teachers request it. I think I'm useful.
• Someone told me that the holidays "were upon us." I went into Starbucks and then Kroger one evening last week and discovered that Christmas had thrown up all over them both. Poor Thanksgiving.

gallons for ghosts

While CD and I were in Asheville for our anniversary getaway, we took a culinary tour of the city.  We visited 6 different eating spots and had food and/or drinks at each. All were great, but the sangria we were given at one was just spectacular. My comparison is pretty weak-- I tend to refer to leftover red wine mixed with orange juice and a splash of bottled lemon juice as sangria.  The one we had was very hearty. I'd decrease the spices a lot to have it in the summer. This reminded me more of a mulled wine and was lovely on a cold evening.  Our tour guide said to email her for the recipe if we wanted it, so I did.

In return I received the recipe for five gallons of sangria.

I suppose I could host a big party, but most people I know would choose beer or wine and then I'd be left with 4 3/4 gallons of sangria.  Instead I hit up google for help. Did you know there are lots of recipe converters out there? I could swap from liters to cups and also decrease the recipe down to a single gallon. We might need to go even smaller, but if I'm buying all that booze I'd need a use for it!

Just in case you want to make sangria for everyone you know, or if you want to put it out for the parents of Trick or Treaters (you'd be very popular!) here is the handy dandy recipe.

Sangria, 5 gallons

1.5 liters white wine

1.5 liters red wine

0.5 liters dry sherry

0.5 liters port

0.375 liters brandy

3 c. simple syrup

4 c. orange juice

1 c. lemon juice

1 c. lime juice

1 cup chopped ginger

5 broken up cinnamon sticks

1/8 cup anise

2 Tbs cloves

2 each chopped: orange, lemon, lime

4-6 cups ginger ale or ginger beer to taste

If you think this looks as tasty as I thought it was, and if you were thinking of having me over, you could use the scaled recipe, here. I'm not sure if we could polish off even the smaller quantity without inviting more guests, but the more the merrier.

Sangria, 1 gallon

* Recipe rounded to nearest cooking fraction

1 1/3 cups white wine (1/3 liters)

1 1/3 cups red wine 

½ cup dry sherry (1/8 liter)

½ cup port

½ cup brandy

2/3 c. simple syrup (1/2 sugar, 1/2 water)

3/4 c. orange juice

1/4 c. lemon juice

1/4 c. lime juice

1/4 cup chopped ginger

1 broken up cinnamon stick

2 Tbs anise

1 tsp cloves

1/3 each chopped: orange, lemon, lime

1 cup ginger ale or ginger beer to taste

cooking blog time

Before CD and I married we both cooked. We both worked full time and, for fun, we'd shop and cook elaborate meals together. We experimented with Indian curries, Thai dishes, a great from scratch gumbo and other fun projects.  Since then life has given us two kids. I stay home now and CD works. And I make dinners. (He gets full credit for making great breakfasts.)  I've always had this idea that we'd take up fancy cooking projects again after the kids left. I pictured us replicating cooking shows together on weekends.

But now that our kitchen is more cooking friendly, (I think the last drawer is going in today, therefore making this place still unfinished but photo ready finally) it is more practical to cook together again. Yesterday CD suggested we make the homemade pasta recipe I'd been discussing. I jumped at the chance!

From the PBS show America's Test Kitchen comes Homemade Pasta with No Fuss (named by me).

Begin by separating five eggs, saving the yolks for the pasta and keeping the whites around because you can't think why you would throw out perfectly good egg whites. In a week you can toss them out with no guilt. Add to them two full eggs.

Spin 2 cups of all purpose flour in the food processor. Add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil.

Dump in the five yolks and two eggs and give it a whirl for 45 seconds.

Dump the dough out. It should feel soft but not sticky or crumbly. If it is, I can't help you. Go watch tv again. If it feels good, hand knead it a tiny bit to get it all in one lump.

Form it into a six inch log. Then walk away and let it rest for four hours. Feel free to nap.

Now, go upstairs to the last unpacked kitchen box and dig under the vases which used to be wrapped in bubble wrap but are no longer wrapped at all, and under the lunchboxes and in the same place as some utensils you might sell or give away. Yes, there! Get the rolling pin.

Cut the dough into six equalish pieces. Form the first one into a 3" square and dust it with flour. Dust the clean counter with flour and the rolling pin too. Toss some on the nice new hardwoods just cause you know it will be there soon anyway. The kids are now interested in the goings on and the cooking date with your husband has become a family affair. Roll with it.  (Ha!) Roll the 3" square into a 6" square. Pick it up and dust it with flour anytime you want to make sure it doesn't begin to stick to any surface.Remember that this used to be a tile countertop and nothing could be rolled on it. Smile!

Your goal is 6"x20". The kids each rolled one and they all ended up the same thickness but not the same length.

 

The pasta should be thin enough to see through slightly but not so thin it rips. This wasn't a problem for us at all. Lay them on a towel to dry for 15 minutes.

This should be plenty of time to start a simple sauce with olive oil, garlic, basil and cherry tomatoes. It should also be plenty of time for your kids to set the table and pour drinks. Maybe.

Fold the sheets of pasta into a 2" roll and slice to your desired width. We made a pretty standard looking fettuccine. Shake them out a bit so they don't stay stuck to themselves. At this step I think you could pause in your pasta making if you wanted to do this for guests.

The noodles boil for three minutes. After draining, we tossed them in the sauce.

The result was incredibly tender pasta. We tried to eat slowly to savor each bite, but it was really good!  We had this as our whole dinner and we had one serving leftover. I'd say that in general it makes six servings.

bon appetit!

let's bake

Fruitcake cookie time!  Let's pretend we are reading a fancy cooking blog and it is going to introduce you to an amazing new cookie, invented at the House of Pook and Bug. You can follow along with the wonderful photos taken on the bloggers (husband's) new camera while your mouth waters and you decide when you'll have time to make them yourself.

You know you want to. I mean, look what's in them.  Relax at the word "fruitcake" in the label. These are no ordinary fruitcakes. First of all, notice that this is dried fruit, not that day-glo candied fruit, which is probably the reason no one likes fruitcakes.

Technically, this was three cups of dried fruit. I used dried sour cherries, apricots, pineapple and raisins. The first three are important. Raisins are a bit boring, but that's what I had.

Dried pineapple is just candy. You can't call this fruit anymore. Yum. Chop the fruit, but not too small; we love biting into chunks of fruit.

Now zing it up with some candied ginger. Your love of the taste should determine the chunk size here. It can be pretty intense to bite into large bits. If I measured (which I don't) I'd suggest using about two tablespoons, chopped.

You've got to put nuts in a fruitcake-ish dessert. Add in a half cup of chopped pecans.Toss the fruit, ginger and pecans together with 1/2 c. flour and a teaspoon of lemon zest. (If you have it, which I didn't. I faked it by putting some sprinkles of lemon juice on the fruit and nuts before tossing on the flour. I fake my way through a lot of recipes. But hey, I made this one up so I have all the license I need to alter it as I go.)

Time for the rest of the cast. I shop at Kroger. Can you tell? I'm a food snob in many ways. I grow my own herbs and I buy nice vanilla, but yeah, my spices are probably in need of replacing. My friends L and P toss out all their spices on January first and replace them with a set of basics, only buying weird ones when needed during the next year.

I left out some of the cast members. Let's take this from the top:
Cream a cup of butter. Real butter, two sticks at room temperature. (Or put frozen butter in the microwave on the power of one for one minute. It works here.) Add 1 1/2 cups brown sugar. None of the white stuff today. Get that all blended. Then add in two eggs, 1 teaspoon each vanilla, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda and a half teaspoon each of cloves, allspice and ginger. 


Once you have all that good stuff mixed together, take a taste. Oh, yeah. mmmm. I trust my source for eggs. His name is Keith.

Get out a cup of oatmeal and a half cup of apple juice. We always have apple juice around, but improvise if you must. You also need two cups of flour. Don't get all healthy now; use white flour.

The stuff is thick, so alternate dribbles of apple juice with the oatmeal so you can incorporate it all. Then, just when you don't think you can do anything else with the batter, add in all the fruit and nuts. Let your mixer do the work. It can handle it. Take all the tastes you want. The kids are at school and you get to lick the beaters yourself. (I might be talking about myself.)

Smear it into TWO pans (13x9") or drop them by the spoonful on cookie sheets. I have mixed feelings about these methods. Cookies are a pain in my tiny oven (I could only cook one of these at a time!) but I think they look better. The squares don't cut very neatly and get a bit crumbly in the cookie tin. Whichever.  Individual cookies should bake for 8-10 minutes and the bars take 25-30. Put the oven at 350° for either.

Do these look good or what? (I skip the booze part of the fruitcake. If you like it, I think that pouring something over the pan, hot out of the oven, would work well. Another option would be macerating the fruit in it.) When out of the oven, cut them into bars.

They're good. They're really good. They will convince you that fruitcake isn't a bad word. You will use them to convince others that fruitcake is alright after all. And then we will all eat.

braving it again

This year it was not Christmas, not haunted, and not eaten by critters.  This year I did not design it and our family did not eat it alone.

This year Pook designed a fancy, three room gingerbread house in order to share it at Grandma's house for Thanksgiving.  Although Bug, his Nana and I had made three pies, the gingerbread  house was nibbled upon by cousins, an uncle and Grandad (who nibbled off a whole row of candycorn when he didn't know anyone was looking!)  I've posted the recipe before but I'll include it at the bottom for you again.

I should send a thank you to Alpha for introducing us to this tradition.  The first years we made one house per family, all at his home. Each family brought candy to share. The big gingerbread men were decorated and eaten immediately, allowing the families to bring the houses home as decor for a few days before consumption.

Gingerbread through the years:

The first gingerbread house, 2006

Gingerbread house, 2007

Our haunted gingerbread house, 2008

Santa in the chimney 2009

Haunted again in 2010

The ill-fated gingerbread house of 2011

**********************
The recipe (in text) and traditional house patterns (pdf) are at www.merlab.com/gingerbread thanks to Alpha!

The dough is easy to make and it tastes great.  I use store bought icing in a tube because it sets up so fast.  The pick-a-mix candies vary, and the items made in the "yard" vary depending on what candies we have.  (Tootsie rolls make good woodpiles.)

1c. butter
1c. sugar
1/2c. molasses
2 eggs
1/4t nutmeg
1/2t salt
1/2t baking soda
1/2t cloves
2t ginger
2t cinnamon
5c. flour

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and molasses, mix in dry ingredients.  I chill it overnight but I'm not convinced it is necessary.  I roll it thin 1/8"? onto parchment paper, cut the shapes and remove the excess so I don't have to lift the house pieces.  It makes one house plus 24 large gingerbread cookies.  I lowered the oven temp to 300 this year and baked them about 10  minutes.  Keep a close eye on them b/c you don't want them to get dark but if the pieces are still soft they'll be more fragile. We use two tubes of white frosting to assemble and decorate.

who are you?

As Pook ambled his slow self to the dinner table last night, he asked what we were having. Nevermind that he could have simply looked. He'd been in the kitchen helping pour milk and had set the table earlier.  I tried to answer, but ended up simply listing the ingredients: "happy pig" sausage, rice, chick peas and kale cooked together with a little Cajun seasoning.

"What should we name it?" I asked.  CD, ever willing to entertain the boys, piped up with the suggestion of "Gerald."  Bug decided he preferred "Felix" and somewhere in the conversation Pook came up with "White on Rice". 

Tonight I invented again, browning fat slices of sweet potato and apple with leftover cubes of pork chop and a glaze of Hoisin sauce.  (Onions would have been a good addition.) "Felix" was suggested again. And no, I have no idea where the name came from. "Fred" is Bug's usual pseudonym.

Both meals were good. I've always figured ingredients which happily share a plate can happily share a pan. Well, maybe not always. But these did.

So, names anyone? Or must I refer to tonight's dinner as "Felix"?

soups on

We're pretending it's fall here. And in our defense, I have seen some leaves coloring. We have turned off the A/C and opened windows.  But, we're still in shorts.  Eating soup, wearing shorts.  Fine with me.

When I said I was going to make soup, Bug called from the other room "Make the black bean one!"  I'd already pulled out the ingredients.

This comes, originally, from Fitness magazine, (Feb. 2006). A printable can be found at recipezaar #151772. I got it from my friend Nadya.  The good recipes get around.

It uses chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. Buy it. Feel free to freeze the extra in portion sized amounts, but it isn't hard to find and it isn't expensive.


Black Bean and Coconut Milk Soup
In soup pot, over medium heat, saute
2 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. chipotles chilies in adobo sauce, minced

Get those onions nice and soft while you enjoy the smell.  A half cup water can be added to push the onions along.  Then add the rest.

2 cans black beans (incl. liquid)
1 can coconut milk
2 1/2 c. broth (veggie or chicken)

Bring your lovely mixture to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Just enough time to warm up some corn tortillas, a baguette, or make some rice to plop in the middle of your bowl.

I use an immersion blender to puree it all a bit. I still like to keep some of the chunks.

If you want to be all pretty, serve it with cilantro, fresh tomato and lime.  We had it plain and still loved it.

recipe

I have had multiple requests for my Perfected Pimento Cheese. I must have made it a dozen times with variations on ingredients, only to find fault with all of them. The flavor was sometimes good, but the texture all wrong. I grated the cheese by hand (good, but annoying) I tried putting in cream cheese (not helpful to flavor) I tried adding cottage cheese (had potential). Finally I realized it wasn't ingredients as much as technique.  So experiment with flavors you like, but treat the stuff gently.

Grate 1 lb. sharp cheddar with fine blade of food processor and remove it to a large bowl.
Blend  with food processor:
1 c. cottage cheese
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
3-5 T. mayonnaise
1 tsp+ Worcestershire sauce (to taste)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)
Mix 4 oz. pimentos into mayo blend
Pour over grated cheese and gently fold it in.

Some people like grated onion, garlic or jalepeno in their cheese. These are fine, but not what I was looking for. But, I think the ingredients are personal and the gentle mixing is what finally gave it the fluffy texture I wanted.

Maybe I'll make granola bars this week too. I've finally perfected that one to my tastes too!

what's cookin'?

We've been cooking up a storm here at the House of Pook and Bug. I think I'm restless without my babes here all day.

I've made a fresh salsa, perfect pimento cheese spread, and some hot pepper jelly. If someone gives you a large bag of mixed peppers, remember that hot pepper jelly doesn't call for many. I used the jalapeno ones, decided to dry the chilies, put the banana peppers on salads, and I think I'll pass the habanero peppers forward. If you or someone you know would like about 30 (probably) habanero peppers, please give me a call.

Here are some lovely photos taken by Bug of the gazpacho he helped me make. It is a perfect recipe for a kid to prepare.

Here is the snack Bug and I made with our new pepper jelly, cream cheese and crackers. Yum!

more than painting

I did more than painting today!  (I went to the farmer's market, the grocery, and the bagel store.)  I also cooked!  I've been holding onto a recipe from Cook's Illustrated for a veggie lasagna. I enjoy their show on PBS and have found all their recipes to be good and a few of them to be worth the effort. Tonight's dinner has not yet been judged for that effort to deliciousness balance.  But it looks good and with these ingredients, how could it be bad?

I started by cubing eggplant and tossing it in the microwave for ten minutes w/some salt. Seemed like a good time saver. While it cooked I picked up Bug from piano lessons and asked Pook to make the "no cook Alfredo sauce." He did, using cottage cheese, Parmesan and heavy cream. (We added milk because it seemed too thick... possible flaw in the recipe.) Then I sauteed yellow squash, zucchini, and the eggplant in two batches while I chopped more of each veggie, some basil and thyme from the garden and a few fresh tomatoes (to make up for the problem of not having enough canned tomatoes to make their "no cook tomato sauce" correctly.) All that layered with grated mozzarella and no-cook noodles. It is teetering over the top of the glass pan, but I blame that on my over-exuberant veggie purchasing at the farmer's market, not the recipe.

And the verdict is...

 ...worth the work..I think. We always need ideas for squash and eggplant in the summer, so this will be a keeper. I will decrease the amount of cheese and be careful that I don't overload the pan - meaning I should own a food scale so when a recipe calls for a pound I can give it a pound - but it was delicious despite the effort.

easy bake oven

Vidalia season. Time to pull out the worn out recipe for Vidalia onion pie. That would be recipes in the plural. At least one for quiche. A few called pie. Another, with a cracker base. Another, all scribbled upon.  Honestly, it doesn't matter which one I used last time. I always do the same thing. I mess with them.

No, let me rephrase that. First I mess with them, then I complain that they never turn out.  This year will be different.  The kids hear me mention "Vidalia pie" and get excited. "Are you making a quiche?" "Oh, I love Vidalia pies!"  See what I have to work with here? The pressure is tough.

I decide to start over, and I go online. Food Network has a five star recipe. I'll go back to basics and ignore all the scribbles for changes I've previously made.

Excellent.

Two pounds of onions. How much does an onion weigh? I bought five. That'll do.

"Do not brown the onions."  Huh? Are they completely wacko? Of course I'm browning the onions. I'll put them in the crock pot and I'll give them all day. What a great smell!

Oh, one commenter skipped the crust. That would solve so many of my problems. I hate making pie crust.

Really? Only three eggs? But then it becomes a side dish, and I don't have time to plan something else. I'll double it.

Hm. A cup of sour cream. I have most of a cup. But certainly not two. I'll add some milk.

Well, if it called for three tablespoons of flour, and I'm doubling it, that's six. But I used milk instead of the extra sour cream, so maybe just a little bit more.

I don't have much Parmesan. Maybe Swiss. Oooh, I have that wonderful Jarlsberg; that will be fabulous.

Preheated to 450... no, still not hot. Still not hot? What?! Why is that $%#& oven still not hot?  Well, I've done this before. I'll turn on the broiler until it gets hot and then the residual heat will be fine.

Twenty minutes. Got that. Now I can lower the temp (it will actually do this by itself since it isn't heating today anyway) and cook it another twenty minutes "or until done in the center." Ha! I know to set aside an hour for a quiche. I'm prepared for this one.

Or so I thought I was. I let the dish rest for five minutes, to the chorus of "I'm hungry"s, and then served up... raw egg on the bottom.   I turn the broiler on to heat the oven again, and set the timer for yet another twenty minutes.

It is now after 7pm. We make ham sandwiches for dinner. Everyone is crabby.

As we clear the table and decide to go out for ice cream, I check on the pie again. It looks fabulous. It has risen two inches and browned to a golden cheesy deliciousness.

Just like that, I've baked a wonderful Vidalia onion pie.

We'll eat it tomorrow.  I might need to make a few notes on the recipe however.

carpel tunnel candies

Where has December gone? Half through!  I think between the job and, of course, the holidays, I've been busy!  I have had time for these however:

Prepare your materials: mini pretzels, Hershey's kisses of all variety, M$M's

Peel/husk/disrobe the Hershey's kisses. Next time get the kids to help.

Pop a kiss on each pretzel, bake 3-4 min at 200', then place an M$M on each

My family likes the mint truffle and candy cane flavors best

happy cow

I'm having a cow.  (Sometime in 7th grade this became the phrase to say.  "Don't have a cow." --or don't get upset.  Why did we say it? I don't know.  It was 7th grade.)  But, I am going to have a cow.  On Wednesday Mr. Farmer will be delivering a full cow to my house.   

Our congregation was challenged to make a "Happiness Pledge" last year.  This was to be something that would simultaneously make the world a better place and make us happier in some way.  CD and I decided we would purchase grass fed beef and then eat much less beef than normal. Hopefully that would keep the cost reasonable across the time frame.

The farmer keeps about six cows at a time, completely back yard grass fed.  He also raises chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, goats, lamb, and pigs.  We call it "happy cow" and try to take a moment to thank the cow, in a Native American style, before eating it.  I like that the boys care so much about the source of their food.  They ask at most meals about who grew the food they're eating.  I'm pleased to say that we often know.  (Not that Kroger isn't frequently the source.)
This farmer brings meats to our weekly organic farmer's market so I purchased a few steaks to see if the family liked grass fed beef enough to make the leap before we each bought about 25 pounds.  Two families shared 1/4 of a cow with us. We kept our pledge and were successful in changing our eating patterns, and in becoming spoiled for really, really good quality meat!

Now, I'm not sure that meat should stay in the freezer for a full year, but I pulled out the last sirloin steak today, and it was still incredible. CD marinated it in soy and garlic and then put it on the grill.  That is some of the best meat I have ever eaten.  (That and some potatoes sliced and grilled with Dijon mustard, horseradish and olive oil which were referred to by the boys as "happy potatoes" since they were also grown on an organic, "happy" farm.)


This year I decided to spread the love.  I found eleven other families to share a full cow.  The price per pound goes down naturally as you buy more, so the full cow was my goal.  The meat is all cut and labeled and approved by the government, vacuum packed and pre-frozen before delivery. I've made everyone promise to keep complaints to themselves if they have any.  The cow will do its best but, for example, it has only so many ribs.  The coolers will not be identical, but I will try to make the distribution as fair as I can. CD thinks I'll regret this.  I'm just going to try hard not to have a cow.