I love a good Taco Tuesday. When Gabe and I lived in Los Angeles we had the best taco joint in our adjoining strip mall, and the Tacos de los Gringos had us pegged. Crunchy shell, perfectly spiced and dripping ground beef, cheddar cheese. Mmmmmm. Honky tacos are heaven.
That being said, homemade tacos, even with my beloved America's Test Kitchen recipe, just didn't cut it. That McCormick-style seasoning mix and some browned ground beef never tasted like the real thing.
Enter Google. Why had I never looked up "Mexican restaurant style taco meat" before?! I tried a few recipes, then did what any self-respecting cook does and morphed them all to make my own.
The results are ridiculous. I no longer have to leave my kitchen for a $2 Taco Night special to get my fix. Add in some homemade refried beans (try these) and easy-as-pie homemade corn tortillas (whoops, not this time), and your tacos will blow your mind. They key is boiling the meat. Sounds a little yuck, but try it once and you'll never go back.
Drink pairing: Gabe will go classic with a Negro Modelo, while I tend to hit up a nice farm Saison. Or a Mike's if I'm feeling down home.
Music pairing: New Jason Isbell, "Something More Than Free." I may be going out on a limb, but I think that kid has talent.
Restaurant-style Ground Beef Tacos
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 90 minutes
Ingredients:
2 lbs. organic grass fed and finished hamburger
1 yellow onion, diced
2 rounded tsp minced garlic
1 TB chile in adobo (puree the whole can and then freeze the rest in 1 TB portions)
1 rounded tsp pepper
1 rounded tsp Mexican Oregano
1 TB salt
1/2 rounded tsp Cumin
1/2 rounded tsp dried cilantro
4 C water
Place ground beef, onions, and garlic in a large sauce pan or stock pot. Cover with water. Add spices and then mash the mixture with a wooden spoon until the beef is broken up and the spices are mixed in.
Cover the pan and let mixture boil at a medium heat for 25 minutes.
Once the beef is cooked through, remove the lid and cook for another hour or so until the liquid has cooked down. Spoon off excess fat.
I make no secret of the fact that I live in a lovely community suffering from a longstanding invasion of ignorant asshats (see HERE). So, I should not have been surprised by the most recent local activity but it has indeed caught me off guard. Why did I expect more? Because this issue involves the children in our county and their health.
Graphic courtesy of http://www.schoolnutritionandfitness.com/
Douglas County School District has become the only district in the state of Colorado to opt out of the Michelle Obama-championed new federal student lunch guidelines at the high school level. What a distinction! While I love the general idea of bucking the system and taking a stand, this opt-out represents one of the worst decisions that our should-have-been-voted-out-there's-always-next-time school board has had a hand in.
In response, I had a whole blog planned on the history of school lunches, the current guideline updates, and ways to embrace the healthier changes and fight childhood obesity while teaching our kids to enjoy a balanced meal. I'm going to skip that though, in favor of a Q&A, in which I cast the school board/naysayers in the roll of Inquisitor, and myself as the Voice of Reason. (This casting is totally biased, of course, but that's a perk of writing your own blog.)
A quick background and some resources, if you are into things like research and fact checking:
INQUISITOR: The government is overstepping its bounds by dictating the composition of school lunches. What's next? Will we be forced to investigate and evaluate the sack lunches kids bring in the door?
VOICE OF REASON: Public schools are subject to government oversight. With government funds, comes government accountability. This is why DCSD lost its eligibility to be reimbursed for free and low-cost school lunches when it decided not to participate in the new school lunch program. But you know that. And I'm sure you weighed that estimated $167,000 yearly reimbursement (not too many poor kids in Douglas County!) against the $3M a year in revenue that the school district takes in from its in-house Subway franchises. Nope, not even Jared and his giant pants can make Subway sandwiches worthy of our kids in the eyes of the federal guidelines, so losing those fast food chains would have been a hit to the ol' pocketbook.
What was the other part? Oh yeah, government oversight of kids' sack lunches. That's kind of an inflammatory argument based on nothing, right? Did Rush put you up to this? There is no precedent or law that prohibits parents from feeding their kids a bucket of Cheetos if they want to. Being food stupid, on a private level at least, is totally in alignment with federal regulations. Phew!
INQUISITOR: The guidelines are too strict. Our chef made a pizza that adhered to the guidelines and the kids hated it. And his burrito had to be created in miniature in order to comply. What do you say to that, huh?
VoR: Who decided that our kids need foods like pizza, burritos, cheeseburgers and fries in their daily lunch? Because they like them? If we based our children's diets on what they liked, my kids would eat nothing but macaroni and cheese and Whoppers malted milk balls for dinner. Stop luring kids to the lunch line with empty calories covered in melted cheese. Here's a crazy thought: don't serve pizza. At all. The menus aren't set by the new regulations, just the guidelines. So, and I'm just spitballing here, what if the PTO sponsored a school-wide recipe contest, kids and parents could get involved, and there could be a taste-testing night to raise money for the school? Winning recipes, with nutritional information, could be handed over to the district chef and/or school lunch supervisor and incorporated into the lunch menu. Too crazy? You'd rather stick to selling wrapping paper? Okay, then take ten minutes, harness the power of social media, and call out for help from the world of food and mom bloggers. Provide them with information on cost stipulations and nutritional content per serving and see what those wacky kitchen creatives come up with. Or google it. Someone has probably already done this.
INQUISITOR: Just because you give a kid an apple, you can't make him eat it. We have the healthiest trash cans in the state - the kids are throwing away more than they eat!
VoR: Until healthy lunches are the new normal, there is going to be a learning curve. Remember turning 21? No? That's because you were blackout drunk. A natural reaction to your new access to the magical world of booze. But your liver couldn't keep up with that kind of routine for the rest of your life, so you adapted and started to drink in moderation at least most of the time. So it will be with our kids. As booze is to a hangover, so too is trashing your lunch to hunger. (Bonus lesson: This will also teach kids a natural consequence that is a direct result of their actions!) It will also help when you stop trying to feed students pseudo-cardboard, non-fat pizza. Again, pizza is now a treat in this new world and not a school lunch staple, so it can be delicious, gooey and full of fat outside of school bounds. For the school day let's find some new recipes, like hummus/cucumber/pita sandwiches for instance, and teach the kids about cucumbers. Involve them in the school garden. If there isn't a school garden, plant one! Seeds are cheap and the child labor is built in, which is part of the reason I myself had kids. I'm sure an inventive biology teacher can adapt a lesson on Mendel's genetics to be taught outside while the ninth graders weed the pea patch. Torn away from their classrooms and textbooks, the kids may actually listen and (holy shit!) become inspired.
INQUISITOR: For some kids, this is their only guaranteed meal in a day, and it is being wasted.
VoR: A truly hungry child will eat the healthy meal. A truly hungry child, who may not have access to fresh produce on a regular basis, will eat the apple and maybe take a second one as well. A truly hungry child needs the nutrition provided by the new guidelines, since a standard piece of pizza may fill their stomaches but leave them nutritionally starving.
INQUISITOR: Well what about our cooks? They aren't allowed to give seconds, so extra food goes right into the trash.
VoR: Come on, work with me on this one. Lunch rooms must adhere to strict food and cleanliness guidelines, which makes them perfect candidates for donating extra meals to churches and soup kitchens. All that takes is a little coordination and a phone call. If you are lucky enough to live in the Denver area, check out We Don't Waste. I'm pretty sure they'll take the call.
INQUISITOR: When I grew up, school lunches were delicious. Can't we leave well enough alone?
VoR: When you grew up, school lunches weren't competing with fast foods, and you only had 2 options daily, Take It or Leave It. "Foods" that can be found in current high school cafeterias weren't even invented when you went to school.
INQUISITOR: But what about a parent's right to choose without unnecessary government -
VoR: Enough! Enough with the justifications and the inflammatory what ifs. The Voice of Reason is going to lose her mind! Seriously, where is the common sense? Even the schools adhering to the guidelines are lobbying to get french fries to count as a vegetable and pizza sauce to count as a serving of tomatoes. If you used all of this loophole energy and transferred it into trying to make the system work, we could have nutritious foods in our schools, kids who have a greater knowledge of where food comes from and how it affects their bodies, and parents would have an ally in the age old battle of getting kids to eat broccoli. Is the new system perfect? Nope. But let's try it and then when we encounter hiccups work towards a logical solution rather than writing off the whole system as broken and tossing it away. Let's not make this about economics and politics and instead refocus on the real message of raising a healthy generation of kids. If we as a community are going to unite and take a stand, let's work together to introduce our children to exotic vegetables and a new variety of spices instead of reaching a point of mutiny to protect their access to a five dollar foot long sub.
Damn. Being the only voice of reason in the discussion is exhausting. And angry-making, apparently. This issue makes me nuts. What do you all think?
So, are goats a little louder than we'd planned on? Sure. More trouble than we'd anticipated to catch, collar, and milk? Yep. Do they poop a crazy amount and waste more feed than even the chickens? Yes again.
So why on earth, you may be thinking, would someone willingly keep goats? Well aside from their inherent sweetness, a frisky take on life, and personality galore, the only logical answer is cajeta. And what is cajeta? Only the most glorious thing that goat milk can achieve; a caramel sauce that by its sheer perfection will put all others to shame. And, you only need 4 cups of milk to make it, so even our tiny haul was more than sufficient after a few days of hoarding.
For the duration of this demo, picture me with the air conditioner cranked (we're having a heat wave) and a nice mix of alt country power ballads blaring over my stereo. Or maybe I'm belting out the lyrics to "Let It Go," Eddie Vedder style...My secret is safe with me.
First, gather your 4 cups of goat milk.
Then, place milk, a scant cup of white sugar, a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of vanilla into a 2.5 or 3 Qt pan over medium high heat and bring to a boil, stirring to prevent scorching.
When the milk boils, remove from heat and add 1/4 tsp of baking soda that has been dissolved in a TB of water. Stir stir stir - it will foam up. Then return the pan to the stove over medium heat and prepare to cook and stir for the next hour or so. Earn that cajeta!
At roughly 40 minutes, the milk started to take on a caramel color.
At about an hour, the milk had reduced to roughly under 2 cups and it was getting close!
And then, glory of glories, it was done. The milk had reduced to about one cup. Rumor has it that the longer you cook the milk, the sweeter and thicker it will be, but my arm gave out at 75 minutes, and it was damn good. Carefully pour the cajeta into a glass jar and let it cool.
While the cajeta cools, keep singing along to Idina Menzel...or someone more adult since the kids aren't home...and scrape the cajeta from the bottom of the pan and put it in your mouth.
The cajeta will thicken as it cools. After a few hours in the refrigerator, you will be rewarded with this. Well done, you. You deserve it. Cajeta is delicious heated over ice cream, as a fruit dip, or you can rely on my favorite pairing, a spoon. Dig in.
We all have a button, some kind of trigger, that immediately catapults us back in time to a moment from childhood. One of mine is peas.
For two glorious weeks in the summer, nature aligns and a garden will give you all of the sweet peas and new potatoes you can ask for. As a kid, this occurred during summers in Idaho at my grandparents' house and all I have to do is see a pea on the vine and I am transported. Nothing tastes like a young pea, straight from the pod.
When we put in the garden four doors down, my mom's sole request was to plant peas and potatoes. She's making memories with my boys, much like her own mom did with my brothers and me, teaching them how to pick the fattest pods and split them down the seam with their thumb to reveal the perfectly straight row of plump peas hidden inside.
And this weekend, we finally sat down to a meal of new potatoes and peas. What was once a staple on my Grandma's summer table has made it to my own weekly menu.
It's a great option for Meatless Mondays and a simple way to show off produce from the garden or farmer's market. And, if you're lucky like me, it will take you right back to being a kid.
New Potatoes and Peas - a loose recipe (the kind I hated when I first started to cook)
To serve a family of 4 with leftovers I dug up roughly 30 new potatoes of various sizes, and as many peas as were ripe. You can never have too many peas, so pick more than you think you'll need.
Wash the potatoes, quartering the larger ones, cutting some in half, and leaving the littles whole. Boil in a pot of heavily salted water until easily pierced with a fork. While the potatoes cook, shell the peas.
When the potatoes are done, turn off the heat and add the shelled peas to the hot water.
Make a roux. I used 4 TB butter and half a cup of flour, mixing over medium heat until it was a golden brown. Then whisk in whole milk - taking care to smash the flour chunks - until you have a thin gravy. There should be enough liquid to act as a sort of soup when combined with the potatoes. Liberally salt and pepper the gravy to taste.
Drain the potatoes and peas. Put in a serving dish, pour the gravy over the top, and serve.
So, like all good parents, we decided to take McDonald's away from the kids a few weeks ago. Kids love that!
No, we didn't do it because it is so gloriously unhealthy. Let's face it, sometimes we all need a fat burger and some fries. We did it because we felt like hypocrites when we were feeding the chickens organic fruits and veggies and allowing our kids to consume the flesh of a thousand sad cows in one filthy bite. And, that's how I sold Jude on it as well.
I talked to him about the difference between happy animals - like our chickens, and the cows we see in the fields around our house - and the cows and chickens who live their lives like this:
Harris Ranch feedlot
"Free range" factory farm chickens
And I have to say, I'm proud of Jude's response. He didn't freak, like I'd anticipated. Instead he wanted McDonald's to change their policies so that he could return to their burgers and, more importantly, their toys. He asked if we could go home, after our stop at animal-friendly Good Times (free range beef and Humane-certified chickens - it can be done!), and write Mr. McDonald a letter. He wanted me to put it in his mailbox. So, by the power of the internets, let's see if we can get it there. (He was dictating, hence the reference of himself in third person.)
Dear McDonald's,
Jude and Mama don't like your food because you be mean to your cows and chickens. Please be nice to them because you guys be really mean to your chickens and cows. Jude misses your toys and Jude loves animals. He cares for them very much. And when we get goats Jude will be very nice to them and not be mean so they don't head butt him and kick him in the face.
I have reached a new level of weird in my life in that I check my bugs for bugs.
A few weeks ago, my Saturday morning was devoted to learning how to check a bee colony for mite load. It's considered a given that a colony will have varroa mites - disgusting little things that suck their host's blood and can overtake a small or weak colony - and a certain level of mites is considered manageable.
Let's take a moment for a group shudder. I despise parasites like mites and ticks. When our dogs had fleas thanks to a bad boarding experience a few years back I went psycho on my house and disinfected, Boraxed and bleached for weeks. If I ever had bed bugs, I would just have to move and buy all new things. So how is it that this girl now inspects tiny bees for wee little mites? Life. Crazy.
Back to bees.
Don (bee mentor extraordinaire) started our day with a lesson on mite control. He is against the use of miticides, yet another reason we get along so well, as it leads your hives down the terrible pesticide cycle of working...not working as well...needing more poison...working again...well, not so much anymore...etc. The mites that survive the poison are the ones who show a resistance, and these ones are left to breed. Don wants to turn this cycle on itself and instead of breeding stronger mites, skip the poison and breed stronger bees. Darwin say wha???
Rather than using miticides, Don allows for a "survival of the fittest" situation within the bees. If a whole colony is lost to mite load, then it wasn't strong and he starts over. But, if a colony is able to survive with mites, and overcome mites, and shows a resistance to mites and an ability to thrive in their presence, then these bees are able to continue to live and flourish and reproduce. (In my own hives, the Great Grand Girls have a queen who was bred specifically to produce workers with an ability to detect and destroy larval mites in the hive - here's hoping! Colorado residents interested in such a queen should look into Highland Honey Bees.) Don also naturally disrupts the mites' breeding cycles by doing splits, but that is a lesson for another day.
If you aren't planning on using a miticide, then testing for mite load is more a practice in knowing what's happening in your hives and reaping the benefits of that age old axiom of knowledge being power. And, it's kind of grossly fun. We used the Powdered Sugar Test. If more than 10 mites are detected, a serious infestation is present.
First, gather all of your equipment. We used an old light colored dish tub, a makeshift plastic bee funnel (the black plastic thing in the picture), powdered sugar, a 1/2 C measuring cup, a TB measuring spoon, and a Mason jar with a wire mesh lid. And the smoker of course. These are post-Solstice agro bees and we are not crazy people...just odd bee people.
Then we went in to the hives to find a brood frame with a solid amount of bees, but NOT THE QUEEN! It is fairly important that the queen not be a part of this test. A few bees will be lost, and you don't want it to be that one. There are thousands of others to put to the task, so taking the time to ensure the queen isn't on your brood frame of choice is well worth it.
The next steps came really quickly, so line up your supplies and if you can, use a buddy. The bees get super pissed.
Shake the brood frame over the funnel (any long v-shaped piece of plastic or whatnot will suffice) so that a bunch of angry bees fall off. Quickly pour the funnel of bees into the wash tub. Gently scoop a 1/2 cup of bees, pour them into the Mason jar, and put on the lid.
Dump the remaining bees that are left in the washtub away from where you are working so that they find their way back to the hive without deciding to take a detour up your pant leg. Next, add a TB of powdered sugar to the top of your mason jar and gently force it through the screen and in with the bees.
Now, turn the jar on its side and gently roll the bees for the next two minutes. This part is interesting since the sugar makes the bees body temperatures rise (which in turn makes the mites fall off, which is why this works) and it looks like the jar is smoking. Watch the video below and sample a mini lesson from Don as well.
Next, shake the jar over the dish tub. It should fill with powdered sugar and dislodged mites. If this proves slow or annoying, you can do what we did and just pour the bees into the tub.
Time to look for the bloodsucking little assholes who are trying to eat your bees alive. It helps to have a magnifying glass on hand to separate the mites from random little specs of dust. In this pic, there is one mite right in the middle, and another on the bottom left.
Don was lucky this day. Of the 3 hives we checked, the highest mite count was 3. His girls seem to be doing quite well without the use of poisons, thankyouverymuch. So make whatever choice you will, but know that good results are possible with minimum interference.
Wondering what we did with the sugary bees after the test? Dumped them back on the top of the hive so that their sisters could lick them clean. Not a bad way to end this day at the fair.
As for me, I did not test my own hives since they are in their inaugural year and I am fairly paranoid about not disturbing my bees if I don't have to. I will do a mite check before and after my 2014 summer splits though, so I'll get my own numbers then. I am more than a little curious to see if my stronger nuc colony (Cherokee Girls) has more or less mites than the package bees with the replacement queen (Great Grand Girls). Assuming they all make it through the winter. Come on girls!!
In theory I've always loved pasta salad. A quick meal in the summer. An easy side dish for get-togethers. Something I can make the night before and dinner is already taken care of the next day. In actuality, most pasta salads I've tried have been pretty to look at and nothing for the palate to write home about.
So, I made up my own. You may think it looks just like everybody else's, but the key is in the type of ingredients. And a homemade dressing. I encourage you to make it once, as is, before you stray. Also, I am not responsible for a lesser choice in tortellini, meats or cheeses.
Boil pasta according to package directions. Add peas in the final 30 seconds if fresh, 60 seconds if frozen. Pour contents into colander and rinse with cold water. Allow to drain while you prep the vinaigrette.
Mix all four dry ingredients gently in a large bowl. Mix in vinaigrette, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour, preferably overnight. If it's a little dry when you serve it, add a few dashes of red wine vinegar. The acid balances the meat and cheese.
When accompanied by crusty bread and sliced fruit, I can easily feed my family of 4 with lunch leftovers for my husband and I. We drank an excellent three-buck-chuck Shiraz with dinner and found that it paired quite nicely. Enjoy!
I am relegated to a container garden this year as we are overrun with deer and rabbits in our neck of the woods. (Seriously, where have all the predators gone?) Normally I love the wildlife, and am enamored by Aidan running to the sliding doors every morning and calling out "Deer? Rabbits? Are you?"
Until a month ago, I was also in love with the container garden. Virtually no weeding. Pretty colored pots. Giant lovely tomato and pepper seedlings courtesy of my favorite plant-pushers, Seed Savers. I was set up to have the most successful, trauma-free garden of the last four years. Two of my plants were taller than my toddler! I should have taken a picture because, as we learned from our old pal Pony Boy, nothing gold can stay.
Enter the deer.
Sad little garden.
They took me down to the stalk. Then the plants recovered over the course of a week! And then the bastards took me down to the stalk again. Only the prickly-stemmed squash escaped unscathed.
Deerpocalypse 2013!!!
Like a discarded popsicle stick...
The sight of two speckled day-old twin fawns frolicking in the trees outside my window almost made me offer up my plants directly...and then I remembered how delicious summer tomatoes are fresh off the vine, hot from the sun, and I toughened up. I taught Aidan to say "No deer! Bad deer!" and we returned to the garden.
Photo bombed!
I wish we could blame the dead yard on the deer too, buddy.
I sprayed the plants with liquid capsaicin from the local feed store. So far so good. Apparently Bambi is not into food that registers on the Scoville scale. We're 3 weeks out from the last deer blight and the plants are making a strong comeback.
Heritage plants unite!
I'm hoping for one solid round of fruit before the frost, and then I'll chalk this up to a lesson learned for next year. If the capsaicin doesn't hack it in 2014, I have a girlfriend who can get me a bag of deer-deterring hair from her salon (it's Aveda, so it's designer!) and there is an African lion rescue 30 miles down the road that gives away free lion poop to spread as a natural form of deer-be-gone. Ah, country life.
I can thank my Italian grandma for my great hair, pleasing peasant build, and this recipe that takes advantage of baby zucchini and (eventually) my own eggs. Farm to table in 8 minutes or less.
Zucchini and Eggs
(serves 1)
Ingredients
2-3 baby zucchini (less than 6 inches)
1/2 TB butter
2 eggs, slightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste
fresh salsa (or pesto...or a nice slice of stilton...maybe a fruit compote...)
I write a guest blog, Hey Neighbor, for Dwell Denver Real Estate once a month. This was June's post.
*****
Hey Neighbor,
What has two thumbs, 12 chickens, and more poop than she knows what to do with? This girl!
Urban farming has been an adenture so far. Harder than I anticipated when reading about it, but more gratifying than I could have imagined when I see our hand-raised chickens scratching for bugs, or the bees coming and going at the hives by the dozen. Lately we've turned our attention to waste, both the noun and the verb.
The chickens are great garbage disposals and save a lot of food scraps from the trash. But once they process said scraps, there is a different kind of waste to deal with. Since I'd love to divorce myself from buying big box garden soil, a compost bin was the logical conclusion. And then I priced them. Yeah...After building a 200-square-foot chicken palace out of cedar, we were a little short on farm funds.
So, I hightailed it to my local feed store. I purchased used wooden pallets for $2 each. I saved myself $94 and saved the wood from the trash heap.
The fastest way to compost, besides having a huge pile of grossness rotting somewhere in the yard, is a three-sided bin with no top, no bottom, and plenty of air and moisture. Our perfect pallet composter was assempled and in use in under 10 minutes.
Think you need 5 acres in the country to be able to compost? Think again. We are lucky and can hide the compost bin in the trees, but we've seen bins stashed at the side of the house, in a corner of the yard, hidden by bushes, painted to match the lawn furniture, and right smack next to the garden in all its rotten glory.
Composting is easy, and virtually smell-free, if a few basic rules are followed:
1. Try to keep a 3:1 browns to greens ratio.
Browns (carbon rich): dead leaves, small animal bedding, cardboard, newspaper, dead flowers and plants, sawdust, straw.
Typical work day at home - it's 12:30, I've only consumed caffeine since waking up, I'm starving, and there are still 18 things on my To Do list.
Today's solution rocked it. Cooked and eaten in under 10 minutes. So great I had to share.
Sauteed Spinach Delight
Ingredients:
splash EVOO
small handful pine nuts
a few cloves garlic, chopped
3 large handfuls of spinach
feta
tomatoes
half a lemon, juiced
salt and pepper
Put a saute pan on medium low heat. Add EVOO, pine nuts and garlic. After pine nuts start to brown and the garlic is fragrant add spinach. As spinach wilts add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Turn off heat and stir in crumbled feta cheese. Top with grape and cherry tomatoes.
I made do with what I had on hand in the refrigerator, and no measurements were precise. Change it up! This would have been a perfect dinner for one if topped with a soft fried egg. I can't wait for my chickens to start laying! As it is, I gave them the extra stems I chopped off of the spinach. Added bonus, I get to cross "blog entry" off my To Do. Only 17 more tasks and it's wine time...
I'm always on the the lookout for dinners I can make at Chef Boyardee speed that don't ever, EVER, involve actual Chef Boyardee products. Because if I were going that route I'd just serve Alpo over rice. Mmmm...hungry yet?
This is my new favorite go-to meal. A rare find that everyone, including the macaroni and cheese set, devours. I found the original recipe on wittyinthecity.com, and she modified it from a Trader Joe's recipe book. Any iteration is delicious and you can modify the ingredients to your family's tastes.
Best thing for working parents - you can prep this meal in 5 minutes in the morning or the night before, throw it in the fridge for the day, and put it in the oven as soon as you get home at night. By the time everyone is settled dinner is ready.
DIJON MAPLE BAKED CHICKEN serves 2 adults, 2 kids (excellent as leftovers so consider a double-batch!)
Ingredients:
1 lb boneless, skinless organic chicken breasts (any cuts work)
1/2 C dijon mustard
1/4 C pure Grade A organic maple syrup
1 TB rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper
chopped fresh rosemary
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
NOTE: If your chicken has been prepped in the morning and sitting in the refrigerator all day, place it in the cold oven and allow it to heat gradually as the oven warms up. Then bake as normal.
Cut chicken breasts into thick pieces. Place in a single layer in an 8x8 Pyrex dish. Salt and pepper chicken. Mix the mustard, syrup and vinegar to make the sauce. Pour over the chicken and bake in hot oven for 30-40 minutes or until chicken is done. Serve over quinoa, rice or pasta. Top with fresh rosemary.
To cut time on really busy days, I use parboiled quinoa or brown rice like these that can be heated in the microwave and ready in 90 seconds.
VARIATION: If you like a sweeter sauce, reverse the dijon:maple ratio. Toss in some diced pineapple and jalapenos before baking and skip the rosemary.
Remember way back to the beginning of this blog, when it was all about simplifying and starting a garden in the suburbs? I was so young. So naive. So unaware that a garden isn't simple and that it would lead me down an increasingly complicated path.
Gardening ignited a compulsion for cooking, and cooking fueled a kitchen-based addiction. My old-timey kitchenware proved to be a gateway appliance that led to a sewing machine. Making things with my hands lit a passion for all things Etsy and Organic and recycled. Which led back to the gardening, but on a more obsessive scale. Then life shifted in a surprising and wonderful direction, and we find ourselves living in the country with 5 acres and bees and chicks arriving in April.
Maybe I got in over my head.
Rachel, of the sage "ounces make pounds" advice from blogs gone by, reacted to this news by asking me if I knew that chickens pooped. A fair enough response from someone who knew me when I used to paint my nails on the weekends and wouldn't go to the grocery store without showering and spackling on a little makeup for show. But that girl is now 2 kids and 2 dogs deep and has dealt with her share of shit. And vomit. And various other messes that would have sent the college me running for the hills with a novel, a thermos of tea, and a picnic quilt in all its picturesque glory. Escapism at its best.
Back here in the real world I am more worried about not getting stung to death. I'm taking a few classes at Denver Urban Homesteading, which has me pretty excited. Honestly, I am in love with the term "Urban Homesteader." My pioneer roots start to throb and I feel the need to chop and cook something. (Truth told, I've got a pot of butternut squash soup in an enameled dutch oven on the stove right now.)
I've been stoking the fire with a bunch of great starter books that I recommend if you are having similar homestead cravings:
So, here goes nothing. Our future farmstead site is currently snow covered, but this time next year I'll be wading out into that mess to check the chickens and give sugar water to the bees. Yes, the stuff of Little House on the Prairie-style fantasy will shortly become my reality. I only hope that no one dies of dysentery or gets swept away when we ford that inevitable river...
Okay, we are two and a half months in to our diapering adventure and drumroll please...we LOVE the cloth diapers! Instead of merely using them a few times a day, we use them 90% of the time. They are adorable, easy to use, and create so much less waste. It's also wonderful not to drop $50 on diapers every time we go to the grocery store. The absolute best part? Look how cute my baby's bum is. (And here I thought we couldn't improve on perfection.)
These diapers are also ideal for summer, when no one wants to wear any extra clothing.
I'm glad we did a trial before going whole hog on this thing though. If you'd like a recap of our initial investment, the original blog post is here.
RESULTS:
The Good.
The GroVia hook and loop diaper shells are the best. We've tried both hook and loop (or "velcro" to normal people) and the snap shells, and velcro is the easiest and most like the disposables we were used to. They are also the fastest to secure on your kid, and this is key in winning the 7-month-old Wiggle Olympics. They are comparable in bulkiness to a disposable diaper (bonus!), so Aidan's clothes still fit.
The snap-in Soaker Pads are super. They are lined on the backside so that they trap moisture and help control leaks. They also produce less laundry than I expected since you simply unsnap the liner, toss it into the dirty clothes, and reuse the shell. Paired with a reusable organic Booster Pad (a versatile new addition to our arsenal), they can last for a few hours between changes. The soakers do take a lot to dry though. I flip them inside out, put them through a full cycle, and then let them air dry as well if needed.
The disposable Biosoakers are a nice standby when all of the soaker pads are in the washing machine. I've also used them on short excursions when I anticipate a diaper change but don't want to be stuck carting a used diaper around. (Gross. I am not that mom.) A note of caution, while these disposable inserts look similar to disposable diapers, they do not retain as much moisture and will leak if not changed in good time.
In general, since cloth diapers are not as dry for a baby as disposables, I do recommend the Bummis fleece liners or a booster pad so that something dry is against the baby's skin. If we leave a wet diaper on Aidan for any amount of time he gets a bit of a rash from the damp.
Finally, Bioliners are a must have. They look like a dryer sheet but are much more vital - they contain the poops and make it easy to flush the whole shebang down the toilet. Hooray for that.
The Not-So-Good.
Compared to disposables, cloth diapers in general are much more prone to leaks. A disposable diaper can hold a lot of liquid. In our house we call them 20-lb pee diapers, as in "That was a long day out. Looks like we got ourselves a 20-lb pee diaper here." Because of this, we will continue to use disposables for overnights as well as long afternoons spent running errands. And for car trips. And honestly for any kind of travel. Once again, I am not the mom to cart around a bag of dirty diapers waiting to be laundered. Blech.
Concerning specific products we bought and don't like, I am not a fan of the "all-in-one" style of diaper. The snap closures are odd and hard to secure on a moving target. They are also the first to leak and result in a lot of laundry for a simple pee diaper. I only use these now when everything else is dirty and I ALWAYS pair them with an organic booster pad. Otherwise they are totally useless. These are also the bulkiest diapers of the bunch.
Using a different brand of prefold diaper insert (we tried OsoCozy) is ridiculous. They are way too big to fit in this sleek little diaper shell. They also made my baby look like a fat old man. Not a waste of money though - my baby's a puker, and these make the best spit rags.
Finally, the initial investment is steep but you have to do it. We bought so few supplies to start. It made for a good trial, but not enough equipment to sustain our cloth diaper revolution. We were always out of inserts. I've since upped our count to 2 all-in-ones, 4 shells, 8 soaker pads, and 4 boosters. I'm going to purchase 4 additional shells and another dozen soaker pads and call it good for the next year.
Hot Tips:
We got a great recommendation from a friend and purchased a bumGenius Diaper Sprayer for our toilet to make rinsing poop diapers easier. It will also be useful for cleaning out a training potty when we get there again. And, according to the box, it can even be used as a personal bidet! (Again, gross. If you come to our house and use our bathroom, please do not cleanse yourself with this little sprayer. You will not be invited back.)
Secondly, we bought a Planet Wise Diaper Wet Bag to store the dirty diapers between washes. I wash the diapers every other day and the bag every few cycles. Between bag washings I spritz the inside with Febreze and let it air out. Works just fine. We need to buy another for the upstairs though.
Final adjustment - flushable toddler wipes instead of traditional diaper wipes. We were at a loss - throwing wipes in the trash without the convenient package of a disposable diaper was nasty, and flushing them is bad for your plumbing. Storing the used wipes in a smaller wet bag and tossing the contents a few times a week was a recommendation that I couldn't stomach, and we were NOT going to go so far as to embrace reusable cloth wipes. (My eco-conscience only extends so far. Apologies, Gaia.) Flushable wipes are a lifesaver.
And there you have it. Our little effort to conserve, one diaper at a time.
