Menu a la Week: 5/31/08 - 6/6/08

Menu planning has got to be the hardest part of this whole enterprise. Okay, it's the menu planning and calculating the nutrition information (which, I know, I still haven't done for a good number of this past week's recipes) that stretch my brain a bit. Anyhow, here's the menu for the cooking week starting today, Saturday 5/31/08 and ending Friday 6/6/08. I reserve the right to switch around the appearance of any of the meals based on the week's activities and our mood (so just try and hold me to it!).

Dinner for tonight, Saturday, was just a bunch of snacks. Normally I would cook dinner (it should've been turkey meatloaf on Saturday and roast chicken on Sunday), but a lot's been going on, so considering my mindset, toast and tea seemed like a good dinner to me (neither of us was very hungry). I made the meatloaf, we just didn't eat it. So it's ready to go for dinner later this week.

Menu 5/31/08 - 6/6/08
Saturday May 31, 2008
Turkey meatloaf [prepared]

Sunday June 1, 2008
Roast chicken
Smashed potatoes
Asparagus

Monday, June 2, 2008
Turkey meatloaf
Brown rice
Spinach

Tuesday June 3, 2008
Asparagus Soup
Salad

Wednesday June 4, 2008
Chicken-Spinach-Rice "Casserole"

Thursday June 5, 2008
Turkey meatloaf sandwich
Fried potato cake (aka "fri-ta-toe")

Friday June 6, 2008
Prosciutto pasta (or some other quickie meal)

TGICCS: Thank God Its Chicken Caesar Salad...

and not some really long, complicated dinner. It's the end of the work week, we're both tired, and we just need something easy and nutritious. All the grilled chicken was prepared on Monday, so for dinner tonight we just have to put together some salad (lettuce and onions in this case) and make the Caesar dressing. Since my husband is allergic to all manner of shellfish and fish (and nuts and mushroom, and furry little animals), we don't bother with anchovies. Besides, I'm really not all that fond of them. All told, the recipe probably takes about 15 to 20 minutes. (By the way, we didn't go to the SOFA art exhibit last night or tonight; we'll be going either Saturday or Sunday so that we have enough time to see everything)

Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad

Serves 2

Salad:

1 head of green leaf or 1/2 head of romaine lettuce

1/2 onion sliced

1 grilled chicken breast cut into pieces (about 8 to 10 ounces, cooked)

Dressing:

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon hot sauce

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2-3 lemons)

1/4 cup grated Parmesean cheese

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions

1. Combine torn lettuce, onion slices, and grilled chicken in a bowl.

2. Make dressing: combine all dressing ingredients (except olive oil) in a blender, blend until smooth, then add olive oil in a steady stream. Adjust seasonings.

3. Toss half of the dressing into the salad and store the remainder in the refrigerator.

Variations: You can add any vegetables to the salad that you like (cucumbers would've been nice and maybe even some baby spinach). You can also make and add croutons (another good use for old bread). I don't think a blender is absolutely necessary for making this dressing. A good whisk and a strong arm would probably do the trick too (though in all likelihood it wouldn't be as smooth).

Nutrition Information per Serving

Calories: 345; Carbohydrates: 9 g; Protein 16 g; Fat: 27 g; Cals./g: 3

*Points:

Note: When one of our recipes calls for a whole chicken breast, it means both halves/sides that make up all the breast meat on a chicken.

Easy Breezy Dinner Tonight: Tuna Sandwiches

Sticking with the plan/menu, we had tuna fish sandwiches tonight. Nothing fancy. No ahi. Just good old tuna from the can. We've been mixing it up between white (albacore) and light tuna so we don't mainline mercury month after month. Please check out this chart for eating tuna safely from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Apparently, since I'm no lightweight, I can eat a can of white albacore tuna once every nine days.

Lemon Tuna Salad Sandwiches
Serves 2, 1 sandwich each

1 can tuna
juice from 1/2 small lemon
1 tablespoon of Hellmann's reduced fat mayonnaise (formerly known as "Just 2 Good")*
1/8 teaspoon celery salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6-8 slices (thin) cucumber
2 very large slices of panella bread (or four slices of any normal-sized bread)

Directions
1. Drain water from can of tuna.
2. Mix together tuna, mayo, lemon juice, pepper, and celery salt in a bowl.
3. Toast bread.
4. Spread all of the tuna onto one slice of toast.
5. Spread the cucumber slices over the tuna in one thin layer, then top with the other toast slice.
6. Cut in half and enjoy!

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: 272; Carbohydrates: 29 g; Protein: 25 g; Fat: 6 g;
Cals./g: 1
*Points: 4

*Oh no! I just looked at the Hellmann's Web site and could not find Hellmann's Reduced Fat Mayonnaise Dressing on the Products page. When I used the Product Locator to search for stores in my area that sell it (Reduced Fat is in the dropdown menu), it pulled up some local supermarkets, but the search had automatically changed the product to Hellmann's Low Fat Mayonnaise Dressing. The low-fat mayo is 1 g of fat per serving and the reduced fat is (or should I say "was"?) 2 g of fat per serving. Time to send off an e-mail to the folks at Hellmann's/Best Foods to see if they've discontinued the reduced-fat mayo. (I got nervous and checked the expiration date on the bottle, and it's still in the future, August 12 2008. Proof that the bottle hasn't been sitting in my refrigerator for that long.)

Fishs Eddy Expedition

Since the chicken pot pie we ate tonight was only "individual size" in name only, I went to Fishs Eddy at lunch today in search of true single-serve ovenware for baking future pot pies. At this very quirky housewares store, I bought six dishes: four (two oval-shaped bakers with tab handles and a set of two smaller oval dishes without any handles) were made by Hall ($2.99 each), and the other two (round with tab handles) were from Syracuse China ($4.99 each). The store didn't have many of the Syracuse dishes left (there were only a few marked up ones remaining), which means, given my luck, those will probably work the best for my pot pies. Feeling guilty about the number of paper cups I use for coffee at work each day, I also bought a large "notebook" design mug. Visit Fishs Eddy at 19th and Broadway for all sorts of interesting dishes and glassware or online at http://www.fishseddy.com/.

One last note: I haven't been including the nutrition information for the last few recipes I've posted. It takes time to calculate that information, so it will be posted later this week when I have a bit more time.

One Chicken Pot Pie for Two

Tonight's chicken pot pie is so big that even though it's too good to share, you really should if you want to walk, and not waddle, away from the table.

I've adapted this recipe from one by "Barefoot Contessa" Ina Garten. I've made this before and I knew that it would amount to too much of a good thing. The first time I used four 18-oz. Apilco lion's head bowls. So, this time I used smaller bowls: five 16-oz. Emile Henry lion's head bowls (yes, I have a lot of lion's head bowls), and still it made too much. My husband and I shared one of the pies tonight, and it was plenty (as the pictures show). So, by my calculations, this recipe makes enough for 10 servings, not 4.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we made the chicken stock for this recipe from two chicken carcasses hanging around in the freezer. The chicken meat also came from one of those already-cooked-and-eaten birds. After we had eaten the breasts, I picked the bones clean and saved as much meat (white and dark) that I could for future meals. (Don't worry, the next time I do this I'll write about it and take many pictures.)

The pot pie recipe was adapted from Ina Garten's recipe that was online at the Food Network at some point; I can't find it in any of her books that I own (and I'm pretty sure I have them all).

Chicken Pot Pie
Serves 10

4 cups of cooked white and dark chicken meat (shredded and/or chopped)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
5 cups homemade chicken stock
2 chicken bouillon cubes
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups chopped onions
3/4 cup all purpose, unbleached flour
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 cups unpeeled, diced carrots (blanched for 2 minutes)
2 cups of frozen peas
1.5 cups frozen pearl onions
1/2 cup minced flat-leaf Italian parsley leaves

For the crust:
3 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour
1.5 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco)
1/4 pound cold butter (unsalted), diced
2/3 cup ice water (you might not use it all)
1 egg

Directions
Make the filling:
1. In a small sauce pan, over medium to medium-high heat, dissolve the bouillon cubes in the chicken stock as you heat the stock.
2. In a large pot, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes or until translucent.
3. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly for 2 minutes, then add the heated chicken stock to this mixture.
4. Simmer over low heat for another minute, stirring until thick. Add the salt, pepper, and heavy cream, then mix in the chicken, carrots, peas, onions, and parsley.

Make the pastry:
5. Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor (with the metal blade already in it).
6. Add the shortening (in bits) and butter and mix quickly with your fingers until each piece is coated with flour.
7. Pulse 10 times, or until the fat is in small pieces and the entire mixture looks crumbly.
8. Add the ice water while the processor is on and stop when the dough just comes together (when most of it suddenly clumps together on the blade).
9. Knead the dough quickly into a ball on a floured pastry board (don't overdo this!).
10. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Assemble:
11. Divide the dough among 5 or 10 ovenpoof bowls (like pretty Apilco or Emile Henry lion's head bowls) and roll out until about an 1/8-inch thick (or maybe a bit thicker or thinner depending on the ovenware you are using.
12. Wash the tops of the bowls with the beaten egg and pastry brush.
13. One at a time lay the dough on the top of the each bowl, then crimp the dough over the top edge of each bowl to secure it. I pinch the dough along the top edge with my thumb (placed along the inside rim of the bowl) and forefinger (positioned along the outside the rim of bowl), essentially pinching the top of the bowl AND the dough between my fingers. This method leaves a depression along the inside edge while creating a raised, puffy center.

If you are freezing your pot pies for another day, stop here. Carefully wrap in aluminum foil and put in a freezer bag. Then store the pies in the freezer. Defrost in the refrigerator a day or two before baking.

Bake:
14. Brush the tops with egg wash and sprinkle Kosher salt and fresh black pepper on top. Slit the tops (to vent for steam) and bake on a baking sheet for 45 minutes to an hour at 375 degrees, until the top is golden and the filling hot (about 145 degrees).

Note: Be careful of the pearl onions! They might be extremely hot in the center (like little balls of napalm).

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: 711; Carbohydrates: 49 g; Protein: 25 g; Fat: 45 g; Cals./g: 1
*Points:

Asparagus Again and Again

But of course we're having asparagus again! I love love love love love asparagus. I used to hate it, but that's because when I was little, my mom used to always make the canned soggy stuff. This spring, I can't get enough of it.

With our secret weapon for work-week meals (soup), dinner only took about 10 to 15 minutes to prepare. That included a fresh salad from scratch.

Tonight's dinner: asparagus soup (reheated), green salad (green leaf lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and celery) with homemade mustard vinaigrette, and a few leftover pieces of last night's potatoes (also reheated). A nice light meal for a warm spring night.

I'll post the mustard vinaigrette recipe at some later date. This vinaigrette was a bit of a rush job. I was trying to use up the rest of the dijon mustard so I didn't measure any of the ingredients: I just poured them into the mustard bottle. That's a great time saver—unless you're trying to recreate a recipe. And, of course, this last batch was the best-tasting mustard vinaigrette I've ever made. I think it was heavy on the mustard, which might've made all the difference.

Memorial Day Simple Grill

As planned, we had our cookout today in the backyard: chicken, asparagus, and potatoes. My husband grilled enough chicken for the two of us for dinner and then some. There's a whole breast for the grilled chicken Caesar salad we'll have later this week. Plus there are three extra half breasts that I've stowed away in the freezer for some unspecified meal at some future, unspecified date.

Note: We put the potatoes on the grill after the chicken had been cooking for awhile. In retrospect, it would've been a good idea to put them on at the same time. The potatoes weren't hard but they had quite a bit of bite to them.

The extremely simple "recipes" are:

Grilled Chicken
8 servings, 1/2 chicken breast each

2 to 2.5 lbs. of chicken breasts (cleaned and trimmed)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 1/2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Directions
1. Fire up the grill.
2. Brush chicken lightly with olive oil then sprinkle with and salt and pepper.
3. Grill the breasts (turning occasionally) until cooked through (about 25 minutes).

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: 77; Carbohydrates: 0 g; Protein: 5 g; Fat: 6 g; Cals./g: 2
*Points: 3

Grilled Potatoes
2 servings

2 whole baking potatoes
2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
Pinch of minced fresh flat leaf parsley (optional)

Directions
1. Peel and quarter the potatoes.
2. Par boil until about a quarter of the way cooked (about 7 minutes), then drain and cool.
3. Place potatoes on sheet of aluminum foil and coat them in olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.
4. Place all on grill. Turn occasionally until cooked through and lightly browned (about 25 minutes). Garnish with minced fresh parsley.

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: 325; Carbohydrates: 64 g; Protein: 7 g; Fat: 4 g; Cals./g: 0
*Points: 4

Grilled Asparagus
2 servings, about 6 spears

12 large spears of asparagus
1 teaspoon of butter
4 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions
1. Wash asparagus.
2. Cook on grill (about 5 minutes or longer).
3. Serve with butter and lemon juice.

Note: To prevent the asparagus from falling through the grill, make an asparagus "picket fence": Pierce through the thick bottoms of several spears with a wooden skewer then place on the grill. Other sources suggest making an asparagus "raft" using 2 skewers, but it's hard to do this with skinny spears. We found one skewer to be sufficient; just be careful when turning the asparagus over.

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: 43; Carbohydrates: 5 g; Protein: 2 g; Fat: 2 g; Cals./g: 0
*Points: 1/2

* The calculation of WeightWatchers points are based on our own inputs. The points we are including here are estimates and are not guaranteed to be accurate nor are they endorsed by WeightWatchers.

Top of the Charts: Seasonal and Regional

I found a number of great sources for eating seasonally. I tried posting the charts here, but apparently my HTML skills (or, more precisely, my copying and pasting skills) aren’t up to speed. I imported the charts and calendars into both Microsoft Word and Excel. I "paste special-ed" the images as pictures, bitmaps, enhanced metafiles (whatever those are)—the whole universe of image options—but to no avail. I'll keep trying, but, for now, I’ll just post the links.

Strangely enough, one of the most useful charts for the United States is from the United Kingdom. It lists the nationwide, month-by-month seasonality of fruits and vegetables as well as for meats and fish. I spotted this chart on several UK-based web sites but have been unable to discern the original source:
http://www.sustnable.org.uk/1_act5a.htm

This harvest calendar for New Jersey was prepared by the State of New Jersey Department of Agriculture:
http://www.state.nj.us/jerseyfresh/searches/availability.htm

Some eco-politics news: Jon Corzine, the Governor of New Jersey, was trying to abolish this department to balance the budget. But, this month, after a budget windfall was found (and amid public and farmer outcry) efforts to abolish it have been abandoned—for now. There’s always another budget shortfall looming in the future. Now that it’s been in the crosshairs once, the D of A will likely be a target for any future cuts. So long Garden State, which is fast disappearing anyway. In the last 15 years, the “highest and best use” of farmland in New Jersey has been for McMansions and sprawl. I’m starting to think that landlords, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and real estate developers are the only people making policy decisions in this state.

Other seasonality resources that I have no plans to reproduce here:

An interesting interactive chart from the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture:
http://www.cuesa.org/seasonality/charts/vegetable.php

The Natural Resources Defense Council has seasonal charts for every state (I found this via a link from Sustainable Table):
http://www.nrdc.org/health/foodmiles/default.asp

And, each month, I'll identify what's in season (in New Jersey) on the main page of this blog (look to the right...)

Asparagus Soup and Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Canapes

Tonight's dinner was a success. Asparagus soup and goat cheese-prosciutto canapes made a nice meal. Below are the recipes and the nutritional information, which I've calculated from both WeightWatchers* and RecipeNutrition. The asparagus soup recipe was cobbled together from various sources.

RecipeNutrition is quite a site. You have to register (it's free) to use the calculators, but it's well worth it. Plus, you can view and post shared recipes. RecipeNutrition's recipe builder can be hard to use at first. Finding the specific ingredient you are looking for by searching, sorting, and scrolling through each category and subcategory can be difficult. For the canape recipe below, I couldn't find prosciutto and selected "Pork, cured, shoulder, arm picnic, separable" as the most nutritionally equivalent ingredient, though the figures, especially the sodium and protein are off (the sodium is way off). I will likely e-mail them and ask them to add prosciutto to the the list of ingredients.

Asparagus Soup
10 servings, 1 cup each serving

4 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 stalks of celery
3 pounds of fresh asparagus
1/2 tablespoon salt (preferably Kosher salt)
1/4 tablespoon ground black pepper
2 large onions
10 teaspoons light cream (optional)
10 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (optional)

Directions
1. Chop onions and celery and set aside. Save (i.e. freeze) the leafy celery tops for stock.
2. Bring the 4 cups of chicken stock to a boil in a medium-sized sauce pan (about 8 minutes).
3. While the stock comes to a boil, wash the asparagus then chop the woody bottoms off.
4. When the stock comes to a boil, add the woody stalks of asparagus and let simmer for 20 minutes. Place the other asparagus (tops) aside.
5. In a large stock pot, add 2 tablespooons of olive oil and sauté the celery and onions until they are translucent (about 10 to 12 minutes).
6. When the onion and celery mixture is done, strain the stock into this mixture (and discard the woody asparagus bottoms), add the asparagus tops, and cook for 20 minutes or until asparagus tops are soft.
7. Once the asparagus tops are soft, place the entire mixture into blender/food processer and blend until smooth.
8. Ladle soup into bowls and add a splash (1 teaspoon) of light cream and 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar. Both of these splashes are optional ingredients. For a tangy taste, use 1 teaspoon of nonfat plain yogurt in place of cream.
9. The remainder can be freezed (we froze some of ours in 2-cup glass Pyrex containers).

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: 119; Carbohydrates: 4 g; Protein: 6 g; Fat: 5 g; Cals./g: 0
*Points: 2 (with balsamic and light cream); 1 (without balsamic and light cream)

Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Canapes
4 Servings, 2 canapes each

8 slices of fresh Italian or French bread (1/2-inch thick)
4 slices (2 oz.) of thinly-sliced prosciutto
1-1.5 oz. herbed or plain goat cheese

Directions
1. Slice the Italian or French bread into 8 thin slices (1/2-inch or even thinner).
2. Spread goat cheese thinly on each slice.
3. Divide the prosciutto evenly among the tops of all 8 slices.

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: 132; Carbohydrates: 10 g; Protein: 6 g; Fat: 6 g; Cals./g: 3
*Points: 2

* The calculation of WeightWatchers points are based on our own inputs. The points we are including here are estimates and are not guaranteed to be accurate nor are they endorsed by WeightWatchers.

Menu a la Week: 5/25/08 - 5/30/008

As promised, here's the inaugural edition of Menu a la Week. This feature is a list of the meal plans I devise every week to make shopping and cooking just a bit easier and more time efficient (I work in New York City and get home after 6 p.m. on most evenings, so knowing what's for dinner days in advance is a big help).

Often, the menu will feature items that get "reused/recycled" throughout the week. Some meals are already sitting in the freezer (or some major parts of a dinner are in there), and others will be cooked on a weekend day and then retooled as the week progresses. During the week, meals from scratch are limited to what can be cooked—or thrown together—quickly.

Each day, I'll post the recipes for what we've cooked (or links/references) as well as the best information I have regarding the nutritional content (often using Internet reources). Breakfast and lunch are usually some combination of yogurt, fruits, cereals, organic breakfast bars, hard-boiled eggs (well, the whites at any rate), sandwiches, salads, and, I admit, the occassional NYC bought—and not brought—lunch. In the future, I'll likely post about those meals as well.

Below is the dinner menu for the week of Sunday May 25, 2008 to Friday May 30, 2008. I may choose to substitute any of these dinners for another (it helps to be flexible). Asparagus is featured as it's in season and, of course, Memorial Day features a grilled meal. The dinners for this Thursday and Friday are planned as light meals because one of those nights, my husband will be meeting up with me in the city for the SOFA (International Exposition of Sculpture Objects Functional Art) exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory. We'll either eat out or fix tuna sandwiches when we get home.

Menu 5/25/08 - 5/30/08
Sunday May 25, 2008
Asparagus soup and small sandwiches (goat cheese and prosciutto?)

Monday May 26, 2008 (Memorial Day)
Grilled chicken (enough for several days)
Grilled Asparagus
Grilled potato wedges

Tuesday May 27, 2008
Asparagus soup and salad

Wednesday May 28, 2008
Chicken Pot Pies (already in the freezer!)

Thursday May 29, 2008
Tuna or other light sandwiches

Friday May 30, 2008
Grilled chicken Caesar salad

Work Day at the CSA

Today was a work day for our CSA (the Westfield Area CSA's home page is at http://westfieldareacsa.wordpress.com/). Our farmer, John Krueger of Starbrite Farms in Hardwick, N.J. (and also Good Hand Farm in Andover, N.J.), put us to work on the greenhouse—a humongous stainless steel frame structure (think airplane-hanger size) in the middle of a field. We needed to cover it with a plastic tarp. It was, for all intents and purposes, a modern-day barn-raising.

It took us hours to get the pre-existing frame covered in plastic. I wouldn't be suprised if it took less than half the time for wood barns to be put up the old-fashioned way. Though we had more than 20 people participating (most were members of John's CSAs, though a handful were farmhands), we had our difficulties. Most of us surbanites really didn't know what we were doing. No wonder we had to do it twice. It's probably best to just blame it on the wind.

After attaching hoist lines to the tarp with clips, about half the group stood on the south side of the greenhouse. One by one the lines (tied to stout sticks for weight) were thrown to John, who was hanging in the steel-tube rafters like a tightrope walker about 15 to 16 feet off the ground (which looked a lot higher to my eyes!). John would catch each rope then toss it over the center and topmost rib of the greenhouse, making sure it cleared all the other horizontal steel "ribs." A person on the northside of the greenhouse would then secure the rope to the frame temporarily. There were 11 lines in all.

The plan? To hoist the tarp up and over the topmost center support of the greenhouse, in effect, covering the entire top in clear plastic. As John, my husband, and another guy climbed around the rafters, I stood on a five-foot-high platform. Our job was to "scooch" the tarp up towards the center. As the people on the southside of the greenhouse helped unfold it, those on the northside would pull on the lines, dragging the tarp towards them. The whole operation required some finessing as just pulling on the lines to drag it over all at once could result in the tarp ripping, rendering it useless. So those of us on ladders, scaffolds, and in the rafters had to simultaneoulsy pull, hold, and guide the tarp towards the topmost support.

The tarp's leading edge had nearly cleared the entire center support, when suddenly a fierce wind kicked up. The tarp bellowed and flapped. Many of the clips tore through the plastic and the lines and tarp were ripped from most people's hands. After all that work, we had to start over.

We were disappointed but one CSA member suggested that as the wind was blowing northward, it'd be best if we hoist it up from that side instead. It worked. It wasn't easy and we still had the wind to contend with, but we got it up and over and then secured the plastic to the frame using a steel wire and track system.

We learned from John that this greenhouse will be used for drying onions and keeping a future crop of heirloom tomatoes (which are predisposed to fungal dieseases) out of the humidity and rain.

The CSA work day was originally supposed to be last weekend but the tarp hadn't arrived and the weather forecast was for rain. So my husband and I put last Saturday (May 17) to good use: we cleaned out our freezer. It is no longer the avalanche risk it once was. Several months' worth of bread heels, ends, and stale slices were baked and dried, including a Bobolink Dairy woodfired round loaf, some Calendra's panella bread, and bit of rosemary epi from Bobolink (Check out Bobolink Dairy at http://www.cowsoutside.com/). I varied the temperature but mostly kept it at 250 degrees. I tried grinding it up in our new blender (as suggested by some other web sites and blogs), but that was largely unsuccessful. The top slices never found there way down to the bottom and, therefore, the blade. I wound up using the food processor (which I had been trying to avoid). I have almost 1.5 lbs of unseasoned breadcrumb now tucked away in a plastic freezer bag in the freezer; it probably takes up a twentieth of the space all that bread occupied.

My husband made chicken stock from the two frozen chicken carcasses (one from a dinner in November and the other, a much smaller organic chicken, from a roasted chicken meal we had in March) and a bunch of leek leavings, some frozen diced peppers, onion skins, and some other vegetables and herbs that were laying around. In all, he made 14 cups of chicken stock. About 4 cups of the stock was the basis for some chicken pot pies I made later that Tuesday.

Chicken Stock
14 cups

2 tablespoons olive oil
16 cups water
2 chicken carcasses
½ bunch of celery
¼ cup frozen peppers
2 carrots
8 onion peels
6 bunches of leek tops
12 peppercorns
½ bunch dill (fistful)
¼ cup white wine (optional, for deglazing only)

Directions
1. Heat olive oil and brown chicken bones.
2. Add vegetables and cook until soft.
3. Deglaze pan with water (or white wine if you have any on hand).
4. Pour in 16 cups of water. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, and cook for 3 to 4 hours, replacing liquid as needed.
5. Strain stock and let cool.

Home Ec-O Manifest-O

Gas prices, global temperatures, my weight: they’ve all been on the rise. And they’re all interconnected. We could be doing more for ourselves and for the world, and I’m convinced that with a lot of planning and a little discipline it won’t be that hard to improve both—really!

My husband and I have been improving areas of our lives bit by bit over time. We’re cooking at home more than ever before (no more take-out or pizza deliveries night after night), and we both quit smoking last year (yay, us!). We’re also recycling more and more, so much so that we only throw out one small bag of garbage per week. If it can be recycled, it doesn’t go in the trash. We’ve also been trying to save more money (eating at home and quitting smoking has certainly helped with that).

With these small steps, my husband and I are now ready to embark on a more ambitious experiment: to combine all our ambitions for cooking, recycling, saving money, and losing weight/getting in shape into a single, unified theory of home economics and ecology, or Home Ec-O.

The principles of Home Ec-O:
1. Eat better
2. Save money
3. Save the environment

How do we plan to accomplish all of this? Eating in season and in region, buying fewer processed foods with less packaging, and cooking wisely and making the most of our meals.

A major source of inspiration is my mom. She always worked a full-time job and still managed to cook a homemade meal for dinner every night (minus the occasional pizza night). Mom could feed an army at a moment’s notice. Her secret? She prepared a lot of meals on the weekend. I’ve learned to do the same and have discovered that with a little planning, leftovers need not be boring or overly familiar.

Another important resource: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. It was an eye-opening book and I recommend it unreservedly. I can’t even look at organic food the same way anymore. (If you haven’t read the book yet—and you really must read it—one of the most important things you will learn is this: organic does not necessarily mean sustainable.) It was because of The Omnivore’s Dilemma that I joined my local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which I found at http://www.localharvest.org/. I can’t wait for the first harvest in June!

Our Home Ec-O blog will feature: recipes; nutritional analysis of our recipes (including Points where possible); our shopping costs; cooking tips; gardening tales and hints; product information; books and book reviews; and other resources.

Nourishing ourselves and leading healthful and sustainable lives are some of the most important things we can do for ourselves. Ultimately, with this blog we aim to explore how to best:

Reduce: Our weight and food costs
Reuse: Our meals
Recycle: Everything and anything possible