Or maybe Clotilde Dusoulier? I was on a cooking kick. And by that I mean I cooked actual food for dinner 3 nights in a row and even coordinated a side dish! I consider myself very picky about choosing nutritious food for Biscuit but when it comes to Mr. H and I, I'm not sure what we eat most of the time and if we do eat dinner it's usually at 10 pm.
But in the past week I've made meatloaf (recipe in the January Country Living) with mashed potatoes and green onion fritters (saw those on Rachael Ray). Then Cauliflower Cheese Soup* with Dried Pear and Cheese Scones (from Chocolate and Zucchini). I was having so much fun cooking that I started thinking about New Year's resolutions along the lines of "cook my way through the Enchanted Broccoli Forest Cookbook" or "try 3 new recipes from every magazine I receive." My hopes were high. And then I remembered that I was on vacation last week. Hmm, maybe that had something to do with the time available for made-from-scratch side dishes.
Anyway, while on this cooking kick I was at the Farmer's Market and bought beautiful chard as well as cool looking oyster mushrooms and some really spicy jalapeno cheddar cheese. I had in mind to make a frittata since we have learned that frittata and quiche are pretty much Biscuit's favorite foods** (minus the jalapeno cheese for her). I was quite pleased with my "local food" meal (just saw Michael Pollan speak, Omnivore's Dilemma). [Have you read Stephanie's post this week on this topic? My thoughts exactly]
So I had my local, small producer meal, except the eggs which were, unfortunately, from some giant egg producer place. Thinking about my frittata I was feeling bad for the chickens (I'm not a vegetarian so you'd think I'd worry about the cows but I am currently worrying about the egg laying hens) Then I realized that we could have hens and gather eggs in our own yard. Our neighbor has hens and even a rooster so it must be legal. Umm, but Mr. H thought it was a really bad idea. The poop. The hassle. The bird flu (not really, I know). And then, in an unfortunate twist of fate, Dirty Jobs (have you seen this tv show?) aired a whole segment on the people who 'sex' chicks. It was really quite disguisting and affirming of Mr. H's fears of mess and hassle (but confirming my thought that you could order just hens sans roosters).
Until further notice eggs will be procured at the local grocery store.
*Quick note on the soup. Two weeks ago at the Farmer's Market I saw lots of cauliflower and resolved to find a yummy sounding recipe for cauliflower. Found the recipe, went back to the Farmer's Market, chose and paid for cauliflower and potatoes for soup, turned to deal with fussy baby, apparently left cauliflower and potatoes with the seller. Fortunatley did get home with head (my own, not head of cauliflower) and with Biscuit. Rebought cauliflower at the grocery store.
**She barfed up the entire fritatta. Mmm, not so good looking the second time around. She still doesn't chew much.
For Christmas, my mom gave me about 15 new cookbooks and renewed my subscription the the Pillsbury Cooking Magazine (I have a bit of an addiction to cookbooks, and she is my biggest enabler). So I have decided that every week I will try at least 2 new recipes.
I have also started a recipe project (Hubby was complaining that my cookbooks were taking over the house). I am going through all of my cookbooks and marking the recipes I like or want to try. If a cookbook contains fewer than 15 recipes that I am interested in, I am copying those recipes onto cards and donating my cookbooks to others. I am hoping to be down to one (5 shelf) bookcase by 2008.
Anybody need cookbooks? I can't promise them in a timely manner, but I really do need to weed some out!
Posted by: Kris H. | January 05, 2007 at 05:59 AM
WOW!!! That was really long!!! Sorry about that. When it comes to cookbooks, I just can't help myself!
Posted by: Kris H. | January 05, 2007 at 06:00 AM