Time, more Time Please

All this talk of food and food sources brings up another question. How does one blanance work, motherhood, wifely duties, and so on and cook good healthy food from scratch and locally produced? It takes a lot of time to plan menus, make the food, whether it is bread, crackers, stew, pie and so on, let alone clean up after a toddler. It must come down to a couple of phrases I learned in college. "KISS" and the "6 P's" Keep It Simple Stupid and Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

I was talking to my mom last night about a Gauva Cheese Cake made up and she was telling me about her Enchildas. So I asked her how she made hers. She grew her own Tomatillos and canned them then added green enchilda sauce to them. Her way issimpler than the way I do it even though I buy my tomatillos. I roast or boil a whole chicken, then shred it, roast the veggies for the sauce, grate my own cheese, chop onions and cilatro, sometimes I even make my own corn tortillas. (I really need to get my own tortilla press, the rolling pin takes forever.) It takes all day! I need to buy a case of tomatillos and tomatoes and make my own sauce and can it. Maybe that would help with the time factor. But then where do I store it? My house has a great lack of pantry space. My Dream is a great big huge green house to grow this stuff and learn how to forage for wild greens and mushrooms...

Oh bother, I need to feed myself and come up with a dinner menu. Last night was Bacon and Onion Tart, Spinach and Mushroom Salad with Warm Lemon Dressing and the Gauva Cheese Cake/Tart. UMMM good.

Found Now What

Okay, this past month was very busy. Had a surprise party for the husband, started a new job, and found a full time job. Did a bunch of research on-line about grass fed animals in Colorado. Everything was was too far away and rather pricey. Then I brought home a weekly local news paper, flip through it and scan the classifieds. I found a source of local grass fed and finished beef! I called Cap K Ranch to get a few more details and they are even going to raise chickens also! You can visit the ranch, just make a phone call to set up an appointment. Trying to get some friends to go in on a half a steer with me. They need a freezer. So that has slowed the process down.

I took Dante up there to check it out and he really didn't want anything to do with the animals at first. They have a llama, some goats and chickens along with the cattle. Very clean, neat and orderly operation they are running. The goats were a 4-H project. The child raising them decided he wanted pets instead of meat... The llama is a pet. The chickens are a new project for the ranch started after the ranch Manager Dave read the Omnivores Dilemma. Apparently when you buy chickens they are cheaper to buy un-sexed so the chickens are a bit on the noisy side. His six year old is supposed to pick one rooster to keep. Dave sent us home with 5 eggs and some ground beef to try. I am so looking forward to it. Dante and I made corn tortillas last night so... Taco night here we come.

There were several things that impressed me. The neatness of the houses and barns. I almost felt like I was back in Austria, where they seem to use a straight edge and ruler to maintain their yards. The cattle are a Saler (pronounced "Sa-lair") breed. That do well with the elevation and terrain. Cap K Ranch has also worked with the Department of Wildlife in the past to try and control the whirling disease that the local trout have. It seems to have been successful. All in all a great experience and a nice little operation. Here is the link to the Trout Unlimitted Article http://www.tu.org/science/aquatic-invasive-species-ais/pathogens/research/cap-k-ranch-tam-filtration-0

Is that really FOOD?

Aghk. I just dived into Michael Pollan's The Omnivores Dilemma. What we as a population eat is disgusting in more than what meets the eye. If you buy a boxed item of food, very little of that is anything but corn. Corn is part of why we are in this economic mess, it is a huge part of why we Americans are so unhealthy. It is just awful what we have allowed our government to do to us. This obsession with corn as a nation is our downfall. We no longer trust or know how to grow our own food or even cook it. We don't have time to eat and we are so obsessed with having to get it done yesterday we forget to live in today. We wouldn't be heading towards a population crisis if it weren't for corn.

Do you know that it is legal to feed our beef cattle parts of themselves?! They are herbivores! They eat grasses and have a stomach that helps them convert grasses into needed nutrients. WHAT THE $%#** ARE WE DOING TO OURSELVES! I sure hope I can find some grass fed and finished beef. I am going to stick to making my food from scratch. Okay I am not a hunter so I am not going that far and I am a novice Gardener. But I am definitely trying to get my food from as close to the source as possible.

Actually since I started cooking from scratch my family health has improved. When I became pregnant my obession with good wholesome food was kicked into gear. Most of the pregnancy literature out there emphasizes how important it is to feed yourself good wholesome food to help the baby develop properly. They talk about avoiding certain foods due to mercury content, while encouraging you to eat fresh products due to higher nutrition content. Good simple food goes so much farther for us than those crazy complex boxes of food.

Eating basic pronounceable ingredients tastes way better than anything in a can or box. I remember my first stint at a restaurant. It was a Thai place after the initial conversation with the chef the Chef Owner gave me a can of Coconut water. I could taste the horrible preservatives. I grew up drinking and then eating the coconut. My family would go to the ocean for the weekend and on the way home we would stop at this little gas station and have chilled coco then snack on the coconut meat. After a day in the mangroves playing in the salt water there was nothing better.

Dante's Waffles

Wet Ingredients
3 lg eggs
2 cups buttermilk
4 TBSP melted and cooled unsalted butter
3 TBSP Sugar

Dry Ingredients
270g all-purpose flour (2 cups)
1 TSP baking powder
1/2 TSP baking soda
1/2 TSP salt

Optional Dry Ingredients
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (used a Cuisinart)
1/4 cup brown sugar

blend sugar and nuts in Cuisinart set aside


Directions:

1. Preheat waffle iron according to manufactures directions.

2. Mix dry ingredients in a Cuisinart by pulsing for 5 seconds. Remove and place in medium bowl and add the sugar nut mixture and mix a bit.

3. Mix eggs into cooled butter, then add to the rest of the wet ingredients in separate bowl from the dry ingredients.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix gently. You want the batter to be lumpy.

5. Scoop batter into waffle iron and cook.

If making for many people you can preheat the oven to 200 and turn it off. Then as you make the waffles keep them warm until you are ready to serve them. Enjoy with butter, maple syrup. peanut butter and various berry sauces. Enjoy!

First Post

Okay Just watched Julie and Julia last night for my birthday. What an inspiring movie. Weird coincidences like August 13 keep popping up. I am trying to gather my ideas and take them to the next step. I love cooking, the more I learn about food the more obsessed I become about food sources. I am a big fan of Michael Pollan after reading In Defense of Food so much that I had to get the other book The Omnivores Dilemma. I first heard him being interviewed on NPR and with out thinking too much changed the way my family eats. It probably helped that about the same time I made a huge career change and am in the process of becoming a Chef.

Side thought what really makes one a chef, formal education, or experience or both or can you do it on just experience and lots of reading and experimenting in the kitchen? When do you become a chef officially? I ask these questions because my friends either assume I am a chef and others ask me. My question: What really is a chef? There are some blogs and websites that scare the living daylights out of me when they describe a chef. Seems that they are part crazy, part work-o-holic. Okay maybe a lot of crazy. Its the work-o-holic part that scares me. I really crave balance in my life. Especially as I have a very active and smart 2 year old. - (Mom braggin' rights.)

DZ the 2 year old wanders in and out the kitchen at will and 90% of the time it is no problem. I've learned to step over match box cars and stuffed kittens, along with the dog Jerry and our Maine-Coon Mickey who really is almost a dog anyway. The problem is when I am sauteing in or need to pull something out of the oven NOW. I so do not want to burn him. he can do it to himself but Mommy would feel awful if she caused any harm to him.



He has made his own chicken soup from scratch and waffles. He loves waffles and likes to help make them. The recipe is on the next post.