Roasted chicken, seasoned fries, and baby green salad

This was my lunch yesterday.

Roasted chicken leftovers, pan-cooked in organic butter to warm it up, organic baby green salad, and homemade seasoned french fries.

The organic, pastured, happy roasted chicken originally cost $16, but I so far have gotten 4 meals from it, and still have 1/3 of the carcass to go. 

The greens cost about 50 cents.

The organic potato for the fries was from my CSA box, so I estimate about $1 cost. 

I used Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute and some Trader Joe's Sea Salt. 

I fried the potato in lard that I rendered from organic, hormone-free pork fat trimmings that I got from the butcher.

I'll overestimate and call it a $4.50 lunch. It took about 22 minutes to make, and it was super tasty. 

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Tuna with pancetta weapped asparagus

Super-easy dinner! 


Pancetta from Whole Foods, about $4 worth, and still have some left.
Organic asparagus from my CSA, about $2 worth.
Wild-caught hormone-and-nasty-stuff-free tuna from Trader Joe's freezer section, $3.94. 
Organic lemon from the tree over the fence, free.
Olive oil for the tuna pan, maybe 15 cents worth. Also a bit of salt and pepper.
Total cost for 2 people: $10.25, with a bit of leftover fish for Gabriel's lunch salad. Compared to what we usually would spend at a fast food place, that saved us $4. Compared to a restaurant, about $25 saved, aside from drinks and tip. Total prep and cook time: 18 minutes, or about what it would take for me to get to a restaurant and get my drink, but not yet place my order. 


Makes you think, huh? 


I'll be doing how-to's on simple, delicious dinners like these. I hope you will find them helpful.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

This is one of those books that sticks with you.

A long time ago, I was having a rough time of it.

I was eleven. My parents are both different sorts of people, neither of which quite knew how to deal with me in a tough point in their lives. I'd been in a religious cult for most of my life. I was socially awkward. My parents had split only two years earlier, and my "stepdad" Bill had just died. I had been told he was murdered. My mom and I were rendered homeless by his death. We had to give away both dogs and all the cats, since we had nowhere to live. I was in the unenviable position of keeping the homelessness issue under my dad's radar and outside his knowledge. My mom was unbalanced. We were staying in a shack in the woods, which belonged to a "friend" who turned out not to be. I wanted to die. I wanted to die every single day.

But in that shack were these two books by Anne McCaffrey: Dragonsong and Dragonsinger. They were very short books, and I read them repeatedly. I was a fast reader even then, but mom never figured out I was re-reading the same two books. Mice ate holes in my last pair of jeans. We were living off sea rations, showering under a tree amidst scorpions, and heating water on a Coleman stove. We slept on the floor. Mom would kick me in the head when I snored. I never knew I snored before then. But I stopped caring about all that, and lived in these two books.

They are about a girl named Menolly, a fourteen-year-old on a distant world, and she loved music more than anything else. The one person who understood and protected her had just died, and her parents were cruel. It resonated with me, as you might expect.

I can't really reveal too much plot, since the books are so short, so I'll say this: since I read these, I have been a life-long Anne McCaffrey fan. I met her once, and I do hope she forgives me for bursting into tears. I certainly will never forget her hugging me, even though she didn't know why I cried. She saved my life, and I just couldn't voice that. These stories got me through when I had absolutely nothing else to look forward to, and I managed to stop thinking of ways to die.

Is there any wonder I grew up wanting to be a writer?















Dragonsinger (The Harper Hall Triology)
The Harper Hall of Pern (Dragonsong; Dragonsinger; Dragondrums)

Pork pita and cheddar

This is the leftover pork stuffed in a homemade pita, with baby greens and a few slices of grass-fed New Zealand Cheddar on the side. NUMMY. I should note that I spent $12 on two large organic, hormone-free pork chops, and that was stretched into 5 servings, plus bones for stock. Not bad at all!


Making pita at home is really easy. I followed this basic recipe on one of my favorite food forums. Sniff around, and I'll bet you'll find something fantastic! Anyway, Gabriel and I destroyed the first batch of pita very quickly, so I made another batch two days later. For the time invested, it is a very good bread to make. I'll likely make some more soon, but with whole wheat. 


I should also note that I tend to make my doughs overwet and knead them via a method called French folding. You can find a video here on the folding technique. I don't have a Kitchen Aid mixer with dough hook (yet), so I do all of my kneading by hand. I've been trolling estate sales for a mixer, but I might have to wait and get one via my wedding registry. At any rate, a mixer makes the kneading part easier, but kneading itself is kind of relaxing, and I don't mind it so much.


If you haven't baked much before, give the pita a try! 

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Green garlic soup with port wine whole grain bread

I used this recipe, but I didn't quite have enough chicken stock. I also doubled the potato, and used a bit of extra half-and-half, since what I had was about to expire. My potato was also a russet potato, because that's what I had on hand. At any rate, the soup was fantastic. Keep in mind that spring garlic or green garlic doesn't nearly have the spicy bite or scent that mature garlic has. The result was phenomenal. It made two very generous bowls and two cups left over. In fact, I'm going to go have those leftovers. Right. Now. 


Total cost for the soup was maybe $4, including the half-and-half that was about to be trashed and the rather expensive chicken broth concentrate I had on hand. Not bad at all!


The port bread was sliced and grilled in a pan with butter. Gabriel destroyed five slices, it was so good. However, it deserves its own post. That will come soon. Very soon!


Eat well, my lovelies!

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Swordfish dinner with homemade fries

Not pictured: baby greens salad. Total cost for dinner for two: $7.50. For freaking swordfish. Long live Trader Joe's! 


The potatoes were part of the CSA delivery this week, greens purchased inexpensively at the farmer's market, the pan-fried lemon was pulled from the tree branch over the fence in the yard, and the wild-caught swordfish was in the frozen section for a few cents under $6. 


The potatoes were cooked in organic, hormone-free lard which I rendered from free trimmings saved by the butcher at Whole Foods. The trimmings also yielded about a pound of free pork bits, which are ideal for stock or stir-fry. Can't argue with free! 


Yes, lard. Animal fat gets a bad rap. 

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

CSA box for April 10

Just ignore the two massive leeks on the left - they weren't even in the box! They were free additions. Well, I wanted to make leek soup, so here we go!

So, everything else was slightly less than $20. All organic, all tasty. I've never cooked artichokes before, so I suppose I better figure those out pretty quickly.

This week, I added eggs, some celery, some onions, pears, and baby greens to my farmer's market bags. I've been eating the greens like chips lately, even so far as to taking some in a bowl for the drive to work. Talk about fast food! But I am certainly feeling better lately, so I must be doing something right.

So far this week, I have made swordfish steaks with french fries and roasted chicken with a herb I've never tried before called za'atar, which is kind of like oregano on steroids and an attitude. I baked potatoes smeared in bacon fat again, and they were delish! I've started buying a pasture butter for table uses like these, and I think I'll keep on with that.

I need to put up my photo from last week, which has my green garlic soup and grilled slices of my port wine whole grain bread. SO tasty!

But the best news is this: ALBUS IS BACK!!

Albus is my kitty who got out a couple of days after Isis died, and we didn't trap him until Saturday. Oh, he is skinny! He is malnourished, dehydrated, and coated with fleas (yuk), but he's back, and I'm happy about that.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē