Start Date: December 1st

[LadyLisbette]

No, SPAM isn't compliant! LOL Speaking of compliant, congrats on the food freedom from dairy, and not missing it! It's one thing to understand how adaptable we are in theory, and another to experience it, right?

So glad you liked the Holy Mackerel Cakes. Yesterday I ate them cold for the first time and was happy at how good they were that way, too. Assuming that the Washington Post had permission to adapt Mel's shrimp patties recipe (right?), here is the link – hope you enjoy! I have to make a double batch pronto. https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/shrimp-patties-sesame-snow-peas/15695/?utm_term=.4396eff3369c I skipped the snow peas in favor of a bahn mi theme, but I made the sauce in the recipe, and it was yum.

But first the chicken - I've got a bunch of chicken breasts waiting, and also some ground ckn for those fried ckn meatballs that sounds very novel.

Thanks for all the great tips on fermenting. You've inspired me to give it another go - I tried once with my handy Kraut Source kit, recommended by my brother who like you, LOVES to ferment, and it wasn't that great. My fault, I'm sure...it was tender but not very sour. I think I filled the jar up a little past the shoulder, and maybe also could have let it sit longer than 4-5 days, from what I'm learning from you. I love working with cabbage on my cutting board, and feel a little calling to try again. I'll put cabbage on my shopping list and keep you posted. Also, my quart jars are light blue, I think I'll splurge on some new clear ones...I know how fantastic it is for our health, and I'm getting visions of sauteed onions and red peppers and kraut over grilled sausages...mmm. Standard cabbage is fine, yes? Or do you also use other types of cabbage? Do you find it makes any difference in taste and texture once it's done? I like the lacy texture of napa and savoy, but all of it feels awesome under my knife  

Your recovery meal sounds so delicious! I see in addition to liking it spicy, you like it super sour, yes? Are you a big fan of lemons as well? I find a day without lemons is a sad day. This has me thinking that making the kraut pretty sour is going to make me happy - I'm looking forward to trying it out – thanks!

Anticipating visiting my brother, I was thinking about taking him our Grandma's modest, depression-ear wedding ring set. Sadly, I learned that I was allergic to the nickel so common in that vintage of settings. I loved it as my engagement and wedding ring, but it gave me a rash, and after ruling out a soap irritation, it's been sitting in a drawer. I figure anything I wear on that finger is a wedding ring, and I got over it. Then I remembered that since W30 I was able to forego the seasonal allergy meds, maybe I'm okay with the ring? I've been wearing it for a few weeks and so far so good. I will still leave it to my brother's children, but maybe not for awhile! So, W30 ways gave me back the lovely inheritance! 

 

[hollysmokes]

What a lovely NSV! I too wear my grandmother's wedding rings. I have to wear them on my right hand now because of all of the problems on the left but at least I can wear them again. I have problems with nickel also so only gold or surgical stainless steel works. The funny thing is that I allergy tested positive for frankincense & myrrh so my husband always says I'm allergic to wise men!  I have a really cool seed pearl necklace that he gave me but it gives me a rash if I wear it too long and makes me itch within an hour or so. I started putting prescription cortisone cream on my neck before I put it in and try not to wear it for a long period of time and that seems to help.

I use napa cabbage in kimchi and either regular or savoy in kraut. The regular is easier to find so that's what I tend to use. I saw a recipe for a coleslaw that did a quick ferment like you did then dressed it to turn it into slaw and I've been wanting to try that- maybe when my Mom's here. Length of fermentation is totally a personal thing. Some like it crunchy and not too sour and some like it super soft and tart; there is no wrong way. That's one of the cool things about it. Sandor Katz, the fermentation god, told a story about a series of presentations he was doing over several weeks. He had his crock of kraut in his car so people could taste it and by the end of his journey he was embarrassed because it was so soft. An old German lady tasted it and said it was OK but called it coleslaw not kraut; she was used to it being fermented for a couple of years and being really soft. I'm going to do a radish & fennel combo this week. It's a little different with hard veggies because you have to make the brine and pour it over but it's still easy. I love fermented radishes even if they do smell a bit farty and I think the fennel will be a really nice addition.

Thanks for the shrimp cake link; I already forwarded to home and to my Mom. Now I just need to get some shrimp! My shakshuka wasn't a total fail! The eggs did soften a bit as they sat in the tomato sauce. When I took them out of the oven, you could tap on them and it sounded like you were tapping on the countertop! I need to look for ground chicken. I saw a recipe yesterday for chicken apple sausage and it looked really easy. I thought it might make a good base for my breakfasts next week.

[LadyLisbette]

Have crock of kraut, will travel...the woman who ferments for a couple of years...wow. All so fascinating! Radish and fennel sounds so good! I love fennel.

Last night my husband said that next time I should make 100 mackerel cakes so we won't run out in a while. That made me laugh...it's not a bad idea.

Two days ago one of our dear staff gave two-weeks notice and will be moving away. Her partner got a better job with more pay a few hours away. We're so sad! And I've been scrambling with my HR hat on to find and interview candidates, etc. I was so preoccupied with it all that last night I hardly slept a wink! We have a good candidate, and may have another good one...but I'm a bit on edge. And there is a water issue in our district with a boil advisory in effect, so I'm not in the mood to cook, though that would be okay...I just feel a little icked out of my kitchen, or, am using that as a reason to indulge my stress and eat out at the Mexican place. 

That's so funny about the eggs! Who knew? Glad they were edible after all! If you like the chicken apple sausage I would love the recipe!

off to bed, to sleep per chance to dream and not wake up fried like I did today!

[hollysmokes]

Oh! You have more drama than I do! I've never had a boil order except after a hurricane or flood. We had a massive 500-year flood here in 2010 and the first thing we did was fill up our bathtubs with water- SOP before a hurricane. Ha! What we didn't know was that neither tub held water very efficiently and it all went down the drain. Do they know what the contaminant is and where it came from? Would your gravity-feed purifier that ya'll take hiking help? Even if you still boil afterwards, it helps with the ick factor.

We've had massive cat drama. Yesterday was six weeks since our big boy went missing. We've called the county animal rescue before when he's been gone but never had any luck. Because we're so rural, I guess we figured he'll wind up being taken out by a predator. Well, yesterday my husband decided to give them a call and they recognized his description but said he had been adopted. They explained that whoever adopted him had no legal requirement to give him back so we might not be able to have him. We understood but figured that as long as we knew he was OK and had a good home, it was OK and better than him being dead. It turned out that a local cat rescue group had him and had brought him to PetSmart waaaay on the other side of town. He was still there so I left work and went to see if it was him. It was (holy crap!!!) and they let me take him for the price of a cardboard cat carrier. He's not acting like himself so I'm still really worried about him and our little girl cat keeps hissing at him so I guess he doesn't smell like himself either. We're going to get him chipped Saturday and are trying to keep him inside but that's hard to do; he goes outside to go to the bathroom.

I was planning taco night for last night but realized that I had let us run out of cheese. Pre W30 that would have been a crisis! I really didn't want to cook last night and it's supposed to rain for days (but they always say that!) so my husband took off for a motorcycle ride before the deluge starts and came home with a rack of ribs. I made some slaw and baked beans (for him)- lucky man got potato salad and baked beans all in one week! And a cat. I guess that was our Memorial Day BBQ and we have lots of leftovers. My hubbie likes the mackerel cakes, too. I wasn't sure if he would. 100 might be a few too many but next time I'll make a double batch so I can stash some in the freezer.

Good luck with your HR issues. It's so hard to find good employees and then you get close to them and it's hard to part on a personal level so that makes the change even harder. I really need this three-day weekend. I hope it pours down rain all weekend and I can just hole up in the house and let everything get back to normal- or at least as normal as we ever get!

I'm fried. Hope  you are better.

 

[LadyLisbette]

Gasp! Your cat! Your feelings are so understandable. I'm thinking about trauma, and recovery from trauma. Maybe it's true for cats what I think is true for us (must be!) that there is a place in us that can't be harmed. From that place we recover. Like a little seedling we grow from there and flourish again. I know it sounds corny. I think the best things sound corny, sometimes, in theory, but in practice are not corny at all but so essential, even holy...maybe in time, he will recover. I have to believe this. The familiarity of home, food, routine, consistency, all the smells (even if his smell is different), learning to trust again...is this the cat that can open doors, or am I imagining that? Oh heart throb, that cat and his journey!!! So glad he's home, big boy. I just can't even find the right emoji, heart on chest! So far is he coming in and out pretty quickly? Is he hiding in the house? Letting you pet him, purring, anything that looks like his previous normal?

I think they're testing the water after the pump broke to be sure that it's clean, but they don't know yet. It usually doesn't take too long to test. Oh, and you were quicker to think of the camping filter than I was! The hubs thought of that, too, and we may resort to that if needed, but for now, the gallon containers I keep on hand will keep us in drinking water and coffee = ) One of my besties here is the manager of our local county services district, and I should learn more from her about how this works, and what happened, but even though I have regular access to her (her office is right next to our store!), we always have more pressing things to talk about! This is a case of taking for granted what is right in front of me...must learn more.

I'm switching up the proportions of how I spend my time in our family business, also in my own practice (I am an acupressurist, and I work with general public but I specialize in elders, illness, hospice), and the volunteering. I'm letting go of doing table work with healthy folks to focus on hospice (my great love), to work more at the store, and I'm doing a big letting go of so much volunteering that I made time for when I was mainly doing a home practice. It's really helped me put roots down in the community for 5 years, but all of our store staff have retired (2 died in 5 years!) and hubs needs me...and for the first time in 5 years, I want to be there...Now that I'm helping run the store, that will be the main dish, with a side of hospice work, and most of the volunteer stuff just has to go!...today I'll let one of my groups know I'm stepping back. So, we know that change is hard, but it's resistance to change that is the hard thing, and we have some control over our resistance...and in practice that is trickier than in theory! I guess my point is that I intend that when it all shakes out, I will have more home time. Work at the store 3/4 time, 2 hospice appts/wk, and then, please God will I have more time for domestic goddess stuff? I think so. More will be revealed. 

Oh, I hope you get to hunker down and enjoy the rain all weekend, or if it doesn't rain, the same: rest and rest and rest! We're having a cold spell and the mighty summer temps will start to climb next week. It will zig zag up and down until it's 97, 98, 99 and even triple digits, and once it hits those high temps will stay mostly that way all through until about Thanksgiving, and then it will zig zag back down until it's glorious mild again. We all live for the winter and spring around here. Summer weeds out the riff raff, and is otherwise the price of admission...trying to be zen about it. Again, that resistance thing!

[hollysmokes]

So many changes for you! I think you hit the nail on the head. Resistance to change is like a form of inertia. After it's all over I always regret the angst that I inflicted on myself and try to learn from the experience. One of the biggest changes I've ever made was to move up here after Katrina. Looking back, I wonder how I did it and even took it in stride instead of trying to plan and control it like I typically do. We bought our house when we moved here but still technically owned our house in New Orleans even though we had given the keys to our friend that was buying it. Two houses and no jobs is not the most ideal set-up but it was such a "right" move for us that I had no doubt that it would work out. Let me tell you, that is NOT typical for me! It sounds like you have a good plan and have thought it out well. I hope you are as happy with your changes as I am. Ahhh, is there ever "enough" domestic goddess time?

Your acupressure work sounds wonderful- actually more like a calling than a job. It's so rewarding to be able to contribute something so meaningful at a point in people's lives when there isn't a lot of good things happening. A friend of ours passed away this weekend and had been in hospice care for several weeks and the hospice nurse that took care of my Dad last fall was wonderful and made everything so much easier.

We had some nice down time this weekend, got in the garden between rain days and tried to maintain a sense of normalcy for both cats. Things are calming down a bit and our big boy is starting to get back into his old habits but I think the whole experience has aged him quite a bit. I'm only hovering over him a little The little girl is hissing less but is still confused so I've been trying to make sure she gets lots of attention.

We made a nice run to the farmer's market and got some beautiful chard and kale. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it but I'll come up with something. I'll probably just sauté the chard with some garlic and olive oil; it has such a nice texture like that. I save the stems and add them to my breakfast-y stuff so they don't go to waste. We weren't going to fire up the grill this weekend because of the weather but it was barely drizzling yesterday evening and we were both craving buffalo wings. My husband decided that we should grill them so he stood out in the drizzle and I made some ranch dressing for dipping. They were so good and now I have leftovers for lunch along with some broccoli and cherry tomatoes to dip in the ranch.

I had grand plans about how much I could accomplish in the house with a three-day weekend and now I just want to know where it went!  

[LadyLisbette]

It sounds like your move away from New Orleans after Katrina was a giant leap of faith in the truest sense – suspending the usual habits of planning. And your new place sounds like it suits you and your husband so well! Thanks for the encouraging words! Last night we hired our new employee, so I had the best sleep I've had in a week. And letting go of one of those volunteer gigs was hard just for the moment of truth. Life will go on without me, and those peeps will always be my pals. So that's checked off the list. I'm inching towards wrapping up the other ones, too...progress!

Down-time so precious! What will you be cooking up this week?

In the last week I noticed that under stress I off-roaded a little bit, mainly eating bread two days in a row. No biggie by the usual standards, but I really didn't like it, and psychologically my self esteem took a dive. So on the weekend I was a tasmanian devil in the kitchen, bound and determined to have a good week with *plenty* to eat at home. I made a quadruple batch of mackerel cakes and froze them all. A pot of chicken chili using Kashmiri chili powder from the Indian market. It's *bright* orange, and very tasty.  And then a double batch of Mel's classic pork sausage, subbing chicken. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of chicken these days, as an experiment. I washed a huge head of gorgeous red leaf for salads, and also tore apart two Costco rotisserie chickens for broth. I wasn't going to do store bought rotisserie chickens aymore, but it was like a security blanket.

And since I'm not expecting clients in the massage room (it was actually a joy to refer people to my colleague who I'm so fond of, and she was happy!) I brought out my weights and incline bench from the closet, and yesterday took on a post-hike strength training. I'm pleasantly sore, and liking it! The knee P/T and abs work has been a little inconsistent, but I feel momentum now and a sense of hope.

Have a great week!

 

[hollysmokes]

I was so disappointed to find out how much yuck was in the Costco rotisserie chickens! I just look at them longingly as I go by but, truthfully, we had a couple of them that were a little weird texturally- kinda squishy- so that makes them a little easier to pass on. Unfortunately that's what we'll be using in October to do the backstage food for our friends' music festival. We're trying to serve tasty food on a shoestring budget and it doesn't get much cheaper than those chickens. It takes 8 of them to make a 50 qt (!!!) pot of gumbo. I'd like to say that I'll be strong and won't eat it but I know better. It also has ham and, of course, some flour to make the roux so it's definitely an off-road thing.

Wow, a X4 batch of mackerel cakes; good for you! Your bright orange Kashmiri chili sounds fun! I can't find ground chicken at any of the farmer's markets so I've never used it. I saw organic ground turkey at Costco but it was really unappealing to look at and I was afraid I'd get 3 lbs of it home and hate it so I passed. I thought about getting some of their organic chicken thighs but they're skinless so I wasn't sure if it would be fatty enough to be tasty and I had a bad experience with their chicken and am a little leery about its quality. Agonizing over chicken

I hear you on the stress-related off-roading. I had a Reese's cup yesterday and not even an organic dark chocolate Justin's one. It was delicious, I'm sad to say. I also had a big snack of peanuts one day and pistachios another. I haven't snacked in ages even though my husband essentially has a 4th meal in the afternoon. I haven't worked out in over a week and I'm feeling all of it. I don't have a cook-up plan. My house needs some TLC desperately. And on and on... I need to put on my big girl panties, suck it up and get back on my bike.

I'm going looking for the momentum and sense of hope you found. I know it's here somewhere...

[LadyLisbette]

As usual, you have my respect and admiration for your commitment to food re. farmer's markets, and your ability to walk past Costco chicken. Farmer's market is so out of my reach...being in a major growing area you'd think I'd have access...actually I have a CSA, and a 45 min drive to a farmer's market that my schedule doesn't give me access to. Meanwhile, I have my head in the sand about those rottiiseries, don't tell me! Denial, I know..actually, my local grocer carries organic ground chicken. When I re-up I'll take notice of the details in case it's helpful. The owner is really responsive to taking requests. At my request she now carries all kinds of things, including organic ghee, and the organic chicken may be from my request, too, I'm not sure, but I was getting "regular" ground chicken there by special order...I have friends with the same bragging rights, asking for things that are now on the shelf all the time.. this means a lot to us in our tiny little town! And yesterday, a staffer brought in a bag of EPIC pork rinds chili lime and oven baked from our grocer that I didn't even know existed. They were yummy! But like you, I am not a snacker, at least not when I'm in a good place.

If it was delicious, that pb cup, my hope for you is that you can just enjoy it and not be sad. Don't look back. So it wasn't Justin's, oh well. Believe me, I'm looking in the mirror at myself when I say this, but these are good problems to have, right? But I know the feeling of doom, if that's what you felt...I've done that, too, more recently than I like to admit, and then it's back to paleo basics, boing boing boing <insert sound effect> meanwhile you are still awesome, smokin' Holly. Maybe a day off? And the elves? Where are those good for nothing elves? Harumph. Can you hire someone just once to get you up to speed vis a vis a little vacuum cruise around? That's what I call it. If you're like me, you'd sooner die than pay actual money to have someone do something so intimate as clean your house, but sometimes we need help.  <insert little voice, help. help.> This might be grace, and good for the local economy 

I've been reflecting on the pace of our modern lives since I read your post yesterday, and I think we modern humans really don't get enough chill time. How's that for marvelous obvious? I don't know about you, but a personal day can really bring me out of a slump. I've read that pre-agrarian people had a lot of time to rest and play. No wonder we dreamed up all the symbolic expressions of art, theater, dance, all the humanities. And got such big brains. We need play time.

The new woman starts today, and I am so happy about it. I'll have a double batch of shrimp cakes to make tomorrow if all goes as planned, and it will be a very fishy week with those, and the mackerel cakes in the freezer...I have non-compliant sausages to put over spaghetti puttanesca for the hubs, too, if that works out. Bracing myself for the first of the no-exception-long-hours weeks that are coming until the new person has training wheels off. Then we're going out of town the last week of June, and when we return, I'm off to WI for that trip to my brother. It will be a big letting go for me to leave the business in someone else's hands. Good thing I'm getting some practice with big batches for the freezer. Usually I just cook enough to eat and I haven't frozen much.

Onwards and upwards, Holly!

[hollysmokes]

Once again I am not getting notifications of these posts- so frustrating but glad I checked! Those EPIC pork rinds sound so good but I'm afraid to try them. I love pork rinds anyway and those sound even more delicious. When we were in BB, my sister-in-law brought an artichoke something something dip and we used pork rinds as the dipper-YUM!

I enjoyed my peanut butter cup, I've moved on and I have not repeated! I didn't have a big cook-up this weekend but I got enough done to keep my head above water. I'm feeling very frugal with my breakfasts this week; I think it almost all scraps! Broccoli stems, Swiss chard stems, green onion tops that were a little tired sauteed in the bacon grease left over from Sunday breakfast.  I used a can of coconut milk for some additional fat and holding power because I couldn't make up my mind about adding a protein. 

Are you familiar with garlic scapes? I wasn't until a couple of years ago  and now we have them in our garden. It is the stalk with a flower bud on it that the garlic puts out but if you're trying to get your garlic to form bulbs, you don't want it expending all of its energy into a flower so you cut them off when they're about 10 inches long. Only hardneck garlic puts them out and I couldn't remember what we planted and bought a small bunch of them. I should have known better! We now have a lot of garlic scapes and some of them are a little bigger than they should be. Since they can get fibrous when they get big, I've been slicing them thinly and adding them to my onion saute for various things. I made the BEST Swiss chard Sunday w onions & garlic scapes sauteed in bacon grease then just wilted down the chard in all of that delicousness. I have two enormous bunches of Russian red kale so I might do the same thing with that. Garlic scape pesto is the next experiment with them.

I got a little housework done Saturday while my hubby was off getting 17 bales of straw to mulch the garden and got a little cooking done when he went back to get 11 more on Sunday! We weeded the whole garden (11x50 foot rows) and we spread the first batch of straw so that pretty much took over our whole weekend. It looks so good, though. When I leave in the mornings, I slow down to admire the garden and it's only a matter of time until I take out our neighbor's mail box! It's brick; I really shouldn't do that

Bob Dylan has a song called "Everything's Broken" and that's where we are right now. After 3 trips, the A/C guys finally got their act together and finished servicing our units. Hub's truck took two trips to the garage to get fixed, we're waiting on an electrician to come replace a motor in a ceiling fan and the clutch quit on the vacuum cleaner beater bar thingy (my husband said I can still use I just can't beat anything ). In a couple of weeks, we'll start the really big project- replacing the siding on the house! Yaaay! Rest and play? What's that? Truthfully, though, I love working in the garden but I don't know if I can call it play! We got plums this year! They're tiny but they're there. We planted pairs of fruit trees up the driveway about 5 years ago and this is the first year we've had plums.

It sounds like June is going to fly by for both of us. My Mom will be here in two weeks and it'll be nice to take some time off to spend with her. One of our projects will be to pick out the new color for the house plus we always have a bunch of cooking projects. I haven't cured any bacon in ages and she loves my bacon so I'm getting a pork belly Saturday so it'll be ready before she gets here. I NEEDED another project! Oh- the radish/fennel ferment is delicious! I think I'm going to get another batch going while I can still get local fennel & radishes. It only took a week to get where I wanted it and just a few minutes to put together.

Yeah my elves are slackers so I hope yours are being more productive than mine. How is the new employee shaping up? I hope, for your sake, that she's one that catches on quickly. 

I AM going to work out this afternoon. I AM.

[LadyLisbette]

Like so many things I've learned from you, garlic scrapes are new for me - giving me more visions of your back yard land of plenty! And it sounds delicious, all those hearty greens sauteed in all that flavor! Yummmm. I picked up a bunch of plain old gorgeous curly kale to make a mushroom apple kale hash, and otherwise need more greens in my fridge right now!

Your mom must be so excited about the upcoming visit! I still have a cabbage waiting for me to get fermenting - d'oh!! Oh time, where do you go?

Did you get your work out? I'm with you, bound and determined. I got a quick 2-miler in yesterday and a bunch of floor work. i was reading about 7 minute workouts, and realized that's sort of what I'm doing. Core, lower body, upper body. Last time I was a wee bit too sore, though I was sore in all the right places. So I eased up yesterday and will work towards, well, yeah, work towards. Just to keep at it. I'm trusting the process and doing it for my joints as much or more for weight loss!

Your husband is funny! That got me thinking of Michael Jackson's song Beat it! Love Dylan. Might put Blood on the Tracks in my car, thanks for the nudge! Murphy's law in action? It all comes at once! Aargh!

In news of the zig zag path to food freedom, I had two actual slices of pizza yesterday for our sweet staffers farewell party. She loves pizza. I had a good lunch packed and ready, but I wanted to share in the pizza pie, and so I did. And it didn't hurt me (windy weather) like I thought it would! Of course, I'm back on game today....and that lunch is waiting...

better get on the hiking trail, and then to make the hash, all in a big race LOL...I got a decent 7 hours, but I'm still sleepy!

[hollysmokes]

Well I wouldn't call it a work out but I did some stretching and moving in between putting dinner together. We've gotten a bit of a break in the weather and it's been just gorgeous outside. We finally got a basket to make grilling veggies easier so I cleaned out the grill and got it ready to go. Cauli, onions and red bells tossed in harissa and olive oil and grilled chicken breasts seasoned with a butt rub I usually use on pork but I will definitely use on chicken from now on. Here's the link to the recipe and I just leave out all of that sugar in spite of his plea not to https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/spice-rubs-and-pastes/meatheads-memphis-dust-rub-recipe. I had a little container in the freezer that said "Mel Joulwan's green sauce" but I can't find any such thing on her web site. I'm going to have to look in my recipe software and see if I put it there because it was really good on my leftover grilled chicken. I have a feeling I  might have mislabeled it and it's really Michelle's  https://nomnompaleo.com/post/7486821187/my-sisters-phenomenal-grilled-green-chicken. Sometimes even when it's labeled it's a mystery!

Yummmm real pizza. Good for you for having pizza, enjoying it and getting right back on track! It has to be worth it. Someone was having a party at work yesterday and smelled up the entire place with pizza. It was from an OK pizza place nearby so it didn't tempt me but it sure put the idea in my head to go get a great slice (or 2). My husband would be ecstatic if I suggested pizza but I'm afraid I'd be heading down a slippery slope if I did it. Except for an accidental nibble on St. Patty's day, it's been 6 months since I've had any flour!

Work towards! I like it.

[LadyLisbette]

Thanks for the recipe -a keeper. That's funny about the green sauce! Way early in our December thread I think I mistakenly wrote "Mel's wonton meatballs". It seems that these two favorite-paleo-people are like bookends of our shared universe.

I sort of have one foot in stable W30 territory this week, and the other, not....yesterday morning I spent a cushion of pre-work time making a big pot of hash, and took some in for a late lunch (that might have sufficed as my last meal of the day) with some roasted yams and a huge pile of broccoli, but I was still hungry a few hours later, and I know it's because I didn't include enough fat...and I know better, and it points to being organized. Whispered confession: I ate chips with dinner. Argh....will have a better day today. I need to set myself up at work, and stock our little workplace "kitchen" modest as it is with some staples that I may need since I will be there more hours than usual. That should help. The time management thing is a moving target, but it is what it is, right?

Six months without any flour! That is something! It would have to be reallly good pizza, and deliriously worth it to break that stride. Thumbs up!

I have this idea to put apples, onion, maybe yams or carrots too in a crock pot wth boneless skinless chicken thighs, and some marsala wine, broth...I haven't googled it yet, that will come next - does that sound good to you? Any suggestions? A crock pot may be a good ally for me during these long days...

Have you ever spiralized daikon radish? I saw a post that suggested it as a favorite "noodle". I tend to prefer not to think of spiralized veg as pasta, but as a fun way to eat veg, to avoid disappointment...I think Mel writes that, too, in one of her cookbooks, ie, let's be honest, it's so not pasta LOL

If I move now, I have time for a quick exercise...I don't want to but I know once I start I'll be glad. Do you listen to music when you exercise at home?

Sigh!

[hollysmokes]

That sounds like a crock pot full of deliciousness! Let me know how it comes out; I think I even have some Marsala. 

I usually don't listen to music when I exercise. I guess from doing yoga I've gotten used to being mindful during my practice and like the peace and quiet of just paying attention to my body- except for when my muscles are screaming and I have to hold a plank or lunge or something for 30 more seconds. Then it's not so peaceful and some music as a distraction would be great.

I've only spiralized turnips and that was pretty recently when I made sauerruben but I love daikon radish so I bet it would be good. Maybe some faux pho? My husband flat out refused to eat cauli mash because it didn't taste like mashed potatoes. I finally convinced him that it wasn't supposed to; it was just delicious in its own right. So, yeah, I agree it's def not pasta but it's its own entity. I've learned not to call it cauli "rice" but rather shredded up cauli seasoned with whatever. Can't pull the wool over his eyes!

I am so sad about Anthony Bourdain. I have all of his books, see him as a judge on Top Chef and have watched a lot of his shows and poor Eric Ripert who found his good friend dead. Funny, he was in Big Bend at the same time I was and I almost met him in a very uncool, but typical for me, way. My canoeing partner and I were navigationally challenged and pretty much went up the river in a big zig-zag pattern. Our theory was that we had twice as much fun as everybody else because we went twice as far. On one of our bigger zigs (or it might have been a zag) I looked at the two guys we were about to T-bone and it was him!! We missed him by about two inches and he just laughed and kept paddling. I've been trying to keep an eye out for that episode but now I wonder if they'll ever show it. Now I wished we'd smacked right into him so I could have said hi; I was in the bow so I probably would have wound up in his lap! 

 

[LadyLisbette]

I love your story of meeting Bourdain, and can just see him laughing as he paddled! – I'm sad about it, too. I really admired him so much, for so many reasons. I enjoyed Kitchen Confidential, and his whole approach in his televisions shows, letting us ride shotgun with him as he learned and explored, teaching history along the way and raising up the cross section of food and politics. Rejecting all pretensions. Encouraging us all to explore. Yessss.  I also really admired his support of the #MeToo movement, and how he reflected how he may have empowered the meatheads in kitchens, his thoughtfulness and raw honesty. I was really sad all weekend, and have to stop listening to/reading all the commentary about suicide. Just take a break.

I like the quiet, too, during exercise...funny, last week during a weights work out I put on some Patti Smith, and I did complete my work out but also ended up dancing around the room afterwards, and all through the house. That was fun. I think I'm on to something with the work outs if I can manage it 3x per week I think that's my goal. Short hikes as warm up for coming home to do floor work, weights, and then the stretch. On the alternate days, a warm up and stretching, or just a quick warm up at home and at least 5-10 minutes of yoga as a minimum. For a better day and better week! I somehow got my few Sunday chores done, alternately reading and resting. As for the crock pot, I found a guideline ratio online of 1 lb per chicken to 1 cup of sauce/liquid. So I opted for marinara sauce. It's just okay. Next time I'll add fresh rosemary and more flavor...next time, marsala, and mushrooms. 

My self image changed with the wobbly week (ie seeing myself blimped out as in funny mirror, argh), but two different people commented that I look slimmed down. I don't understand. For all my (perceived) self awareness, I feel a little distorted in my self image lately. Is that happening to you in these post W30 months? I need a good few weeks leading up to my vacation...

Have a great week!

[hollysmokes]

I like your work out plan! 

Again, we're on the same page! I hadn't gotten on the scale in a while but felt like it was starting to head in the wrong direction. I've been eating well (mostly) but haven't been very mindful in the way W30 makes you plus I slacked off on my work outs and have been imbibing in a few too many adult beverages of late. So bloated and flabby-feeling has been it for the last little while but this morning I felt pretty great. I weighed myself this weekend. My weight was right where I left it (in more ways than one!!) but, for some reason, I felt strong and in control so I'm going to fly with that. Maybe it was just good to know that I was able to maintain even when I wasn't trying consciously. 

I had a good cook-up this weekend. I think I mentioned a while back that my mom has a good braised brisket recipe that she got years ago but it was really labor intensive. I made it once and was able to pare down some of the steps that I deemed to be unnecessary. This time I used a chuck roast (because it was available and cheaper then brisket) and pared it down even more so it's still a little time consuming but not difficult. The time is spent caramelizing onions like you would for onion soup but, other than that, it gets thrown together in a pot and baked until tender. The onion, carrots and celery all get pureed into the sauce it cooks in to make the gravy- no flour needed. I even made notes as I made it so I can get it entered into my recipe software- finally.I made some cauli puree  for me to have with it and my hubbie can have rice or potatoes, his choice. 

I got another radish/fennel ferment going and a half gallon jar of gardiniera. Breakfast this week is another clean-out-the-fridge  casserole- do I really need to hang on to daikons and turnips that I picked out of the garden in November, for pete's sake? I even took the dregs from a jar of salsa and put it on my breakfast. My treat to myself was to buy extra eggs and meat so I don't have to go to the farmer's market this coming weekend-yaaaay! I like going but it sucks up my whole morning and the parking is atrocious so I have to be there when they open. I like lounging around on Saturdays & Sundays with a couple of cups of coffee and don't want to have to rush out of the house- that's something to look forward to! 

I'm ready for a few good weeks as well. No drama. No broken things needing repairs. No marathon dental appointments. In a week I'll be off of work for a week so I want to amp up my workouts to take advantage of the free time. Time to get back in a nice routine. 

[LadyLisbette]

Oh yes, do lounge on the weekend! Gosh, I want another Sunday asap.

Feeling a little shy to ask, but, what is recipe software? Not a folder, not a database, but, software? I'm bracing myself to be knocked out by you again. Bring it on, I'm ready. LOL

OMG the brisket recipe description has my mouth watering. I want to try it. Recipe please, the pared down version. Thank you. 

I've been eating the chicken-apple-onion-kale-mushroom hash (with apple pie spices) with leftover roast yams and brussels, and you know what, it's really good cold with a dollop of mayo. I think my new safety net, and I've played around with this, but would like to use it like a life raft, is a decent M1, and then a late, decent M2, and then either that's it, or a small snack sized M3 while hubs has dinner. Depending on hunger. That so often works for me!  If I'm nourished and satisfied, do you think there's any reason not to do this?

Why am I not surprised we're still cruising a parallel path? LOL. I'm starting to get this sense of my brain developing in the follow-up months to the last W30. I devastate myself a little with transgressions, but I make really good recoveries, and I'm seeing myself as someone who makes good recoveries. Now, playing backgammon since i was 11 taught me to make good recoveries, but I have NEVER seen myself that way in regard to food. In my entire life. Like, I saw myself always as resilient, absolutely, but not in that one area. 

What's your work out schedule? I'll keep you honest and vice versa!? Could that work? Bet it could.

We got pummeled today, and still cleaning up from last week, but I have help tomorrow with the new person, yay! For now, to bed. And tomorrow is a go-in early day, with graduation action afterwards, so i might not write until mid week. Cheers til then!

[hollysmokes]

MacGourmet is what I use and I really like it (if you are into Apple products)- love my Macbook and don't care that it's 9 years old. My husband says it's fruit; not a computer- he's not allowed to touch it It's a program that lets you enter and categorize recipes. It's super easy to cut and paste things into it but also not terribly painful to enter recipes from scratch. It comes with some preset categories but you can add your own (like Fermentation or Charcuterie) and then drag & drop the recipes into as many categories as you like. Not sure why I've never built a W30 category-duh! I guess I'll put that on my to-do list. It's a life saver for me because I'm too much of a ditz to remember where I've seen recipes AND I tend to modify them anyway so I can enter the source and be able to give credit where it's due. It's also easy-peasy to email recipes out of it. I've never messaged anyone directly from these forums but I just looked at your profile and it's as easy as clicking "message". As soon as I get that recipe entered into my computer, I'll send it to you.

That hash sounds so good! I got some mushrooms to make it but got sidetracked with all of the bits and pieces I needed to use up. I would love to have a big pan of that hiding in my fridge right now. I love cold chicken so I bet I'd like it cold as well. At first I wasn't too sure about the mayo but the more I thought about it the better it sounded. I have an egg out on the counter right now to make more mayo; we're almost out. I cooked some beets this weekend and that always means I'll have to make another batch of mayo. My husband tends to have a big pile of beets to go with his bigger pile of mayo.  Speaking of big piles, I have a giant pile of pole beans- the long flat green beans. That's what they call them here but in NO they were called Italian green beans. Whatever the name, I love them so I went nuts at the farmer's market and bought 4 lbs!! There's a bbq place here that puts them in a disposable pan with chicken broth, onions and bacon and SMOKES them. I tried it once and they took about 6 hours and were still tough so yesterday I decided to blanch them first. I brought them up to a boil and cooked them for 2 minutes but now they're cooked- def not what I intended! They are so good I can't bear to cook them any more so I think I'm going to saute some onions in bacon grease, add chicken stock and reduce it until it's a little thick then just add it to the beans.

You typically just eat 2 meals? I mostly adhere to W30 guidelines but I'm never sure what to do in the afternoons. I get up at 530 and eat M1 about 7 and M2 about 1130 or 12 but we don't usually eat dinner until about 7 so I have that long gap in the afternoon that used to be my snacking downfall. That's when I work out or garden now but sometimes I'm hungry before dinner is ready and I don't want add a bunch of calories and definitely don't want to start the snack dragon up again. Not sure how to handle that. I don't have a regular workout schedule right now and I really need one. I'm a creature of habit. I did a big weight workout yesterday and we need to get in the garden today so I'll combine that with a few trips up and down our driveway. Do I get extra brownie points if it's a billion degrees outside? We've got a good support system going; I bet we could expand it!

Graduation? No worries! Take it easy and have a great week!

[LadyLisbette]

Ah, end of week near...Your pole beans sound so good! I'll keep a radar up for that - I love love love beans. Oh, we already touched on haricort vert, yes? Is the texture kind of like that, tender and toothy, just bigger? Thanks for the tip on MacGourmet, I'll look into that. I love my Macbook, too. The hubs is really into his linux system machines, and in theory that seems like the way to go, but not until the mightly Macbook I'm typing on now takes its dying breath....then, maybe!

Well, I don't always eat just two meals. But often it works. I'll start with a pre wk out snack around 7am, then have breakfast before going to work at 10. I'll eat M2 around 3 or 4, and if all goes well, I'm not hungry at dinner, and sip tea or broth. Last night my shrimp salad with loads of crunchy veg didn't hold me, and I was hungry so I ate a M3. I'm experimenting...it motivates me to eat well at M1 and plan for an ideal from-home M2...I've seen mods on other threads caution about this but also admit that if the nutrition is right, it can be okay, though it's not strictly W30. So I'm in the zone of personal scientific laboratory.

My local CSA is now offering custom boxes, so I'm enjoying my first, which included Armenian cukes, something new for me. I like them! And beets! The slow cooker chicken with marinara is not our favorite, but it's almost gone, and this weekend I'll try making slow cooker butter chicken, which looks promising. Bell peppers are on the shopping list, and the larder is well stocked with yummy coconut milk and all the Indian spices I need, so I'm really looking forward to that. Another hash is on the agenda, too. I've been eating the holy mackerel cakes out of the freezer for M1 with piles of steamed veg and mayo, and that is getting a little gaggy, and I don't want to lose my palate for them, so it's time to switch it up.

Oddly, the knee discomfort is gone (yay!), replaced by new alarm bells in the hands and the left foot. I wonder if I have a stress fracture in the left foot along the 4th and 5th metatarsal region from suddenly being on my feet all day, all week...I am very conservative with shoes, super comfy all the way. So this is a tad alarming but I'm keeping an eye on it. The joint issues are adding new super-motivation to drop some poundage.

I'm happy for you that your mom is coming to visit soon, next week, yes? How's your kitty? Are you finding your routine? Is all not-broken now? So many questions. I'm debating whether or not to do the long drive/shopping after work tonight of after work tomorrow afternoon. It would be nice to close shop on Sat afternoon and not have to go anywhere but home. 

[hollysmokes]

I'm always picking up something new from you! I had never heard of butter chicken and it looks.so.good. I love all of those warm spices. After perusing a couple of recipes from my google search, I have a couple of questions. Do you marinate your chicken in yogurt and spices first? And do you use fenugreek leaves? I saw that as an ingredient in a couple of recipes and then I saw one without it but an Indian cook gave them a tongue lashing for being really, really NOT authentic and that was one of several things she cited. I have fenugreek but not fenugreek leaves. I think that would be a fun dish to do while my mom is visiting. She'll be here Tuesday and I have some beautiful chickens in the freezer. I've never eaten or seen an Armenian cucumber but I've heard of them. Are they very different? I picked our first 3 cucumbers a couple of days ago and it looks like there's a bunch more coming! Yep, the pole beans are nice and tender when they're fresh and have that sweetness about them like haricot vert. I'm seriously thinking about going downtown to get more even though I set everything up so I wouldn't have to make that trip this Saturday. The plan for this weekend is to apply some spit and polish to the house.

So glad your knee is in a good place but foot problems are awful, too. I battled plantar fasciitis a while back and I have one joint that gets whiny but I've found that as long as I'm either barefoot or wearing barefoot shoes, my feet are pretty happy. Anything with an arch that pushes up on my foot is a no-go for me. Unfortunately the barefoot shoes are not cheap and a lot of them are not pretty either. I found some good information, foot exercises and such from the sock-doc's web site. Joint issues were one of my big motivating factors to re-do a W30 to decrease inflammation- yeah, poundage, too! I did 2 really good weight work outs this week and have another planned for tomorrow. My weight hasn't budged but that's because my workouts came to a grinding halt in the face of adversity. That's when I should have put more effort into it instead of less. That cat really threw me! He's getting to be more of his usual self- brought in a critter to dine on one day, woke me up in the middle of the night for a purr-fest another night. He's gaining weight and looking less frail so all is good on the kitty front.

Your meal plan sounds good and well thought out. I didn't eat dinner until 8 last night and was hungry but not ravenous even though M2 had been at noon. Maybe it's the fat-adapted part that's letting us be more mindful and thoughtful with our eating? I had a burger patty with sauteed 'shrooms and sishedo peppers so I didn't have a very big meal but it was enough and it was delicious. Hash on the menu for next week for me too. Not sure what else I need to cook-up this weekend. Maybe more cauli tortillas; it's nice to have a stash of them in the freezer and I have some cauli that needs to get used up.

Have a lovely weekend!

 

[LadyLisbette]

I've been enjoying butter chicken for years, but have never made it myself. I found a W30 recipe for it and will finally put it in the crock pot today before I leave the house, with fingers crossed. It's pretty simple compared to the more traditional recipes you were looking at (which sound heavenly, yogurt marinade and all!!), so I hope it's as yummy as I imagine https://www.peanutbutterrunner.com/slow-cooker-butter-chicken-paleo-whole30/

The other related W30 Indian-ish recipe I'd like to try is chicken tikka masala, another American favorite on Indian menus, available at TJs and sometimes Costco!...but this seems like a dream, having time for new recipes. The good news is that the training of the new person is going well...somehow we're going to get through this week, have Sunday off, and leave for our week-long car-camping trip for the hubs bday that we do every June, and as soon as we get back I'll be packing for the WI trip to see my bro. I've gone into a kind of a) zen calm or b) defeat and denial state of mind about all that is not getting done, including food planning. But hey, it's summer, and camping will be a much needed rest. I had a little breakdown on the weekend and through tears admitted that I can't possibly cook up all our food for the week of camping like I usually do, and to my great surprise and delight, we discovered there's a Trader Joe's 40 minutes away from where we're going, so I've compleeeetly let go my anxiety about food. It will be a bunch of off roading, but I'm just going with it, a real adventure. We'll be at Lassen Volcanic Nat'l Park, where you really have to stay on the trails or else, yes, volcanos. So the only off-roading will be food LOL

Yay for a good weights work out!! I got one in yesterday, which included some insights about form - IOW I corrected myself in a couple of areas, and am feeling good about that. I'm not one to set up a camera IG style to look at my posture or angles etc and don't want feedback from the hubs (private! door closed!), so, just tuned in and got honest. That's something, eh? Learning.

Thank god for the hash I made on Sunday, and the roast veg, and the marinated beets...it's getting me through breakfasts this week, and many lunches, supplemented by a grilled ckn salad from the Mex place next door. I'm giving the take-out chips they include to the hubs...yay!!

So glad kitty is recovering! I'm staying with the idea of recovery and hope after trauma...all these detention centers...sorry, off-topic, but so heart breaking. It makes me want to really take action, which I haven't done in a long time.

I have a little separation anxiety knowing I'll be seldom able to write and read here during these travels...but I'll check in when I can. When does your mum arrive? Is she already there with you? More soon! LL

 

[LadyLisbette]

PS on butter chicken: I'm reminded of what my friend from Mumbai says about adapting Indian recipes to be more healthy (his American wife, also my dear friend, was wanting to do early in their marriage), "just don't. enjoy it as it is, but you can't "healthify" it. Just leave it alone."....um....YEAH. Surprisingly, my husband liked it, because/and he arrive without any preconceived expectations about the dish. I don't recommend! Better to off-road at a real Indian joint, or, make the traditional recipe you found for a treat! Blech!

[hollysmokes]

That zooming sound you just heard was June!! There's so much to tell and I've been wildly busy. I keep telling myself that you're out adventuring and won't see any posts for a while but I'm thinking you might be back now? How were the volcanoes? And how did the non-plan for food work out? We try to do too much out of a sense that it's the"right" thing to do but sometimes giving ourselves a break is the right thing to do.

My Mom's visit was a blur of activity. We cooked, we worked out, we scrubbed the deck (def not a planned activity!) and planted flowers. We always make a gigantic list of everything we want to do when we're together and most of the time don't even come close to finishing it- not this time! The only thing we didn't get to was the Holy Mackerel Cakes but we'll just add to the top of the list for next time.

First of all, the butter chicken was AMAZING!!!! I used Floyd Cardoz' recipe from Serious Eats and I thought it was going to be a pain in the patooty but it wasn't really. There was a lot of the yogurt marinade left so I froze it to reuse on a couple of chicken breasts later. It also made about 3-4 cups extra gravy so I froze that as well. I used a whole cut up chicken instead of the thighs the recipe called for but, other than that, followed it to the letter (except where I screwed up and put the fenugreek leaves in with everything else instead of waiting until the end). I think it would be really easy to W30 this recipe: ghee instead of butter, coconut milk instead of cream and some other kind of yogurt for the marinade. I don't think that would "healthify" it too much!

We also made a fermented slaw that I've been wanting to try for a couple of years. It's a quick ferment and a mix of cabbage, peppers, onions, carrots, apple and celery root. This was my first experience with celery root and we loved the slaw. It fermented about a week then we used the "juice" from it to make a gingery dressing with olive oil and it was great! Since it's fermented, the slaw doesn't get soggy & wilted like fresh slaws do so I'm still eating it and it's still delicious. Next time I'm going to try using regular celery since the celery root was $4/lb and I only needed 1/4 lb- seems silly. I tried to roast the rest of it w veggies for hash and it got weird, spongy and hard. I finally found the chicken and apple sausage; that's what we used in our hash. I didn't dislike it but my W30 palate found it to be pretty sweet so I think I'll save it for an occasional change of pace but not put it in the regular rotation.

On the fermentation front, I've had to dive DEEP into pickles. Our cucumber plants are producing at an insane rate and all I could think to do with that many cucumbers was to give away as many as possible and pickle the rest. On the 1st, I put up 3 gallons of pickles in various sizes and flavors! So far, so good but my biggest experiment is to try to make a hot & sweet pickle. I have a stevia plant so I pulled a couple of big sprigs from it and added a few jalapenos to the jar. I know the stevia isn't fermentable but I'm hoping it will lend a little sweetness without having to add sugar. If it's successful, I'm going to try it with spiced beets.

On the gardening front, we harvested all of the garlic last week, the zinnias are in full bloom and look fabulous and everything else is growing like crazy. I was able to use our cucumbers, mint, garlic, onions, dill, stevia and tarragon in the pickles plus grape leaves from the side of the hill to add tannins and keep them crispy.

New upcoming adventure: we're heading to Perdido Key, FLA to join my brother and his fam to celebrate my Mom's 80th birthday. My husband's daughter and grandkids live nearby so we get to see them as an added bonus. If my Dad's wife joins us, and I hope she does, there will be 7 adults and 3 voracious teenage boys to feed. I can't quite wrap my head around the amount of food that's going to be necessary but after everything running so smoothly in Big Bend, I think it will work out just fine. We'll have a long weekend in the middle of August and I know it will be here in a flash. Egads, I have to find a bathing suit!!! I'm having a great day so I think I'll ruin it and go bathing suit shopping this afternoon

I can't wait to hear from you and hear about your trips! I hope the trip to your brother's was everything you hoped it would be.

[LadyLisbette]

Heya Holly! I did hear that rushing zoom sound! So much life unfolding, and activities from sea to shining sea, eh? OMG! You made butter chicken!!!! Waaaaahhhhh! That is SO cool, and I'm at an all time, "beam me to Nashville, Scotty" high: excited, curious, envious, and admiring. Oh, and hungry, yeah, it sounds so, so good = ) Your mom's blur-of-activity visit sounds so awesome, with more celebration and family time on the horizon. Yes, the middle of August will be here in a zooming flash as well! You've done so much harvesting lately, will that continue through the summer? Things are blooming like crazy, so I imagine you will stay very busy keeping up with all that grows and grows...what is next? Good eats abound at your place!

Where to start!? The visit was deep down wonderful, and much needed. Long story, but, deep healing, and a feeling of a new era, moving forward. When the wonder-kids went to bed we stayed up late, every night later. Each night we brewed fresh coffee around the midnight hour. Finally on the last night my sis-in-law and I were up until 4am.  Lots of bonding and therapeutic processing, connecting lots of dots. Of course, sleep is brief with young ones getting up very early. I slept in a lovely attic studio apartment, and let myself sleep in a little later than dutiful mom and dad, but oh boy, it was a deliriously wonderful and highly sleep deprived experience, and I wouldn't change a thing. Sigh! I admire their parenting so much, and am in awe of the boundless energy it requires. This is my family group - there are a few other near family members but everyone is scattered and also splintered if you know what I mean, and so we really sealed the deal of family relations all over again. I'm thinking I want to visit twice a year until they are in a place where they can also travel to me.

You put it so beautifully when you said

On 7/5/2018 at 9:14 AM, hollysmokes said:

We try to do too much out of a sense that it's the"right" thing to do but sometimes giving ourselves a break is the right thing to do.

Yep. I immersed myself in the culture of the house without resistance, and enjoyed it. My brother is into fermenting (nothing on this trip), and I know he would really appreciate all of your slaws and pickling, and recognize a kindred spirit!! And the bread I mentioned - it was delicious. We ate beautiful sandwiches, and even his masterful homemade pizzas. Also lots of fresh produce. It was a time to suspend judgment (self and others), and know the liberation of unwanted advice/help, force of agenda of any kind. In fact, we had a lot of discussions of the nature of help in the context of their four year old and parenting in general. Unwanted help being a nuisance and all of that...so the seedling in my brain, "you can recover from this food trip and spring back" is flourishing now...I just got home yesterday, as close to exhausted as I can ever remember being and slept a long sleep....woke up very hungry, and only pbj is an option with the morning coffee for now...but I am a woman with a plan. Really the plan is vague, but the intention is clear...Let the bounce back begin.

So the volcano trip the week before was also amazing! That's when the food flexibility began - groceries from TJs all week...yummy but definitely the exception and not the rule...so that was week 1 of vacation, bro's house was week 2, and now we go into week 3 that will ironically be my week of recovery, and my husband's big challenging week at work (short staffed on his end of the operation)....so I will not have time to go "down the hill" for food shopping, and will shop later today for the week at our local kinda expensive but decent food store. I'll have to firm up my plan before leaving the house...reading about your food creations really inspires me, and I will sit down with my books later today to find what I know I can handle. On pickles, have you ever seen the 1998 film Polish Wedding? I always think of this family on the subject of pickles. 

I adore tarragon, and don't think I have ever seen it fresh, just dried. The herbs you mentioned, all out of your garden, sound so good! I'm craving making the shrimp cakes again but I don't think it's realistic for this week being short on time. Can you send of picture of your zinnias? And/or any garden photos, I have to see.

Chili would be do-able. Salad fixings. Chicken thighs. Keep it simple this week. Hash!! Salmon with ghee/lemon/garlic. Loads of steamed veg, mashed cauli. Nothing too time consuming lest I end up with a face full of Mexican food....goal: no Mexican this week. And if I cave: NO CHIPS. I can do this. I know you're smiling in support. Thank you for that.

I'm a bit out of my mind on caffeine now...hubs is still sleeping. I'll stretch and shower and get my list going.

Nice to see you again, Holly!!!

 

[hollysmokes]

It's so nice to see you, too! And, yes, "NO CHIPS" made me laugh; you can totally do it!

How did your food flexibility treat you? Nothing beats a great loaf of bread as long as it doesn't wreck you afterwards. At least the fermentation process of making sourdough helps mitigate the phytates and increases Vit B-something. We were going to splurge on a really great slice of pizza while my mom was here but hubby was sick the whole time (still is) so we decided to save it for the next trip. We did check out Zoe's Kitchen after seeing it in one of Melissa's emails and it was really good; I was surprised that we had one here. Going out to eat can be such a chore sometimes that it's just not worth it but they're all set up for W30 and don't bat an eye over special requests. We did get their baked feta but drew the line at pita chips and asked for cucumber slices for dipping. Staying on track has gotten to be so normal that, hopefully, recovering from your food trip will be a smooth transition back to your normal. Good plan to keep it simple and it's great that you have week to recover.

It warmed my heart and made me sigh to read about your "family group" - very much how I felt after getting to spend so much time with my family last Oct/Nov and then again this spring. I pushed for the trip in August to celebrate my mom's birthday so we wouldn't lose all of that. I know it was our choice to move so far away and every now and then I wonder if it was a mistake but even when we were much closer geographically, we didn't take that much advantage of it. Everyone is busy and you know they're just a couple of hours away and can visit anytime but then "anytime" turns into a few months before you know it. I think the trick for me is to stay focused on how joyful it was to be together and make it happen more often.

This time of year gets to be challenging for us (me) to plan good meals. Working the garden isn't even half of it because then you have to DO something with all of it. Tomatoes are just starting to ripen but I'm up to my eyeballs in cukes, onions and garlic. My cook-up this weekend mostly consisted of "putting up" veggies. One of the few kitchen prep chores that I really hate is cleaning garlic so, of course, that's what I did all weekend. I have one pint jar of garlic cloves doing a regular ferment in brine and another is filled with honey to do a different ferment. I've never had either but I've heard that they're both delicious and the garlic honey doubles as a tonic for cold/flu season. Neither of them needs to be stored in the fridge ever so that's nice, too. I ran a big pile of them through the food processor with just a touch of olive oil so I can keep a garlic "berg" in the freezer and just shave off a little when I need it- no sticky fingers and garlic paper everywhere. Two more gallons of pickles are motivating me to pick every day so the little boogers don't get so big. Pickling 20-30 cornichons is way easier than dealing with  a giant bag of the big Kosher dill-sized cukes. I'm running out of air locks, jar lids and wide-mouth quart jars! I had to juggle stuff out of one type of jar and into another just to try to make room and turned the last gallon jar into a long refrigerator ferment because I was out of lids that could accommodate an airlock. I'm going to taste my first batch of Kosher dills this afternoon and I hope they're good because I've made a second batch already. Going to look up Polish Wedding- gotta like a movie with pickles!

Pork chops, chicken breasts and veg to go with them- my "keep it simple" plan. I have the potatoes to make holy mackerel cakes so that's on my list this week even though I didn't get to it yesterday and I'm going to repeat a new roasted cauli dish that was a giant hit last week. I just eyeballed the amount but the original recipe called for 1C mayo:12 oz cauli florets. I probably used about 3/4 C mayo but you just need enough to generously coat it then add curry powder, some extra turmeric and salt to taste. Toss it all together and roast at 400 until it's golden brown, crispy goodness. I tried something new-ish for breakfast and it has room for improvement. My dad had a recipe for an eggplant tomato casserole that has a cheesy layer in it and it's really delicious even though veg cooked down in tomato is usually not my thing. I though it would be good with a couple of fried eggs on top for breakfast but it has no texture; it's very tasty mush! Can't win 'em all and at least I have breakfast done for the week. I think if I had added some ground meat and cooked it so it was a little drier, it would have been better. Next time.

I'll work on getting some pics of the garden.  I promised my mom that I would send her some, too. I wanted to cut some zinnias to put on my desk but I was almost running late this morning so I'll have to get them tomorrow. That and the butterflies are the perks of planting a hundred or so flowers. I tried to take a close-up of a giant mauve zinnia the other day but the pic didn't do it justice. It was the first time I had seen that color and it was so pretty! 

Welcome home!