foods are good

I'm still getting into the groove of cooking around here. It's strange when I'm not the one controlling the grocery shopping, when basil on a shopping list does not result in quite what I was hoping for in the fridge. (How am I supposed to make pesto with a tiny little amount? I meant a big fresh bunch ... but oh well.)

There are things on the menu that excite me, though. A pesto, as I mentioned above, to change up my pasta meals. Because if you're anything like me, you're probably sick of alfredo by now. There might also be some tacos, because ground beef was on sale this week. And baked sweet potatoes, served with ribs. Mushroom risotto is on the menu, but that's nothing really new, either. Maybe perogis, maybe or else dumplings and fried rice.

I also have a new cookie recipe to share, and it was pretty amazing. Hopefully I'll do more baking this week, but we'll see. It's pretty hot out there.

shopping my freezer

I don't do so well with cooking for just two people. Luckily, Bunny and I both enjoy having leftovers for lunch and we have a huge chest freezer to hold any extras. We keep the freezer pretty stocked, between vacuum sealed cuts of meat from Costco and tupperwares full of leftovers. At any given time, we can count on the freezer having a quiche or two, leftovers from a couple of random dinners, and at least half a dozen containers of soup.

Once again, we haven't really gotten around to going grocery shopping this week. I've been a little bit consumed with some other projects and strangely haven't been dying to get into the kitchen, so we've been eating out of the freezer. Last night was a vegetable quiche, and the night before that was a barley lentil soup for me and cauliflower cheese soup for Bunny. His lunches have even been coming from the freezer this week, since I haven't been cooking in the evening. (Please note, I've still been making plenty of cookies. Nothing stops that.) The number of tupperware containers we have rescued is remarkable.

Annnnd, it makes room for us to make way for new leftovers in the freezer, when I'm back in a cooking mood. I love the rotation we get there.

So now my question for you: what are your favourite freezer-friendly recipes?

boring menus, and meal inspiration

No one who knows me would be surprised to learn that I do the menu planning around here. Shocked? No? Good. Sunday or Monday evening I sit down and think through what we're going to eat for the rest of the list. I look through the fridge, I think about what we've eaten recently, about what flavours I've seen on tv that I want to try and I try to come up with a guideline for what we're eating for the next week.

Bunny has some say, but has told me that if I want to run the show it's mine. So I run the menu by him, ask if there's anything he doesn't like the sound of, anything he wants to change or replace, and if we need to add anything else to the menu. Mostly he just says "that's good".

It's hard sometimes not to fall into a rut. Not to have chicken breasts with sauted spinach and mashed potatoes three weeks in a row. We have either a stir fry or a fried rice almost every week, lately we've been alternating these with curries as well. Soups make constant appearances, so we try to change the flavours.

Some weeks, I look at the menu plan and get really, really sad. Because shit, didn't we eat exactly that last week? Don't we ever do anything interesting? How many roast beefs and pastas-with-alfredo sauce can we eat?

Then I look at it a little bit more. And sometimes, sometimes I see things differently. I wander around the living room and catch sight of the new stir-fry book Bunny bought for me. I see a sad bunch of droopy green onions and think about something new to do with them. I open up the "Sheryl's Recipes" tab in my bookmarks and look for word or recipes that I haven't made yet to jump out at me and say HEY! MAKE ME! USE ME!

Wheels start churning, and I start salvitating. "Chicken with sauted spinach and mashed potatoes" doesn't look boring anymore, but it's not going to work, because suddenly I am thinking about a soy-ginger glazed chicken and who wants spinach with soy-ginger glazed chicken? Stir fried baby bok choi is a very good substitute for spinach, in keeping with the dark, leafy greens. Mashed potatoes can be replaced with basmati rice, or glass noodles.

The whole dish transforms in my mind, while the basic structure of it is the same. Just as easily it could have transformed into an orange chicken with spicy green beans. Or seasoned heavily with paprika and served with a shredded cabbage and roast potatoes.

So when I'm uninspired and bored with all my meal ideas, I still put them down on the menu. Because it's a place to start.

the kitchen, and things to come

A lot is said about a kitchen, and about a person (or couple, or family) by the things in it. By the choices of cutlery and plateware. The pots and pans you own and use, the layout of the space. Bunny and I have been trying to slowly reclaim our kitchen from the disaster area that it has become (part of which includes a reorganization of our pantry that was completed the other weekend). We're always thinking hard about the new gadgets we want, and researching them before we purchase them.

We don't, however, have much of a grand, overall plan. We know that there are cooking utensils and gadgets that we want. We want more dutch ovens and serving dishes. That we like classic whites in slightly unexpected shapes like sloped oval bowls, and that we would like our kitchen to have a rainbow of colours (for which reason we always look for a colour we don't already have when buying things like dutch ovens). We're never going to have that perfect set of KitchenAid Empire Red, because that would be boring.

Usually there's nothing we need that's too pressing. We have the basics, or enough of the basics to get by. So we tend to have a hodge-podge strategy of buying kitchen things. Whatever inspires us, as we can afford them. Right now, that's not going to work.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, we're getting married, yo, and people keep asking us to register for stuff. So, we need to give some thought to that. Secondly, we're having a crisis of basics.

Cutlery is disappearing. As in, I wash the same spoons four times a day some days because we have so few. We can just get by on what we have, but it makes it awkward when we want to have friends over for dinner/drinks/what have you. Glasses are breaking. We have broken wine glasses, tumblers, everything. Currently we are reduced to drinking water out of coffee mugs or 6 ounce juice glasses (which tends to be enough to have one sip of water, and then refill.) We also need new plateware. Really we need a 12 set, so that we have enough for a family of four or five one day. Right now it's not unusually to not have enough plates for dinner.
At the behest of one of my best friends, I'm refraining from going out and buying new glasses and plates when I see ones I like on sale. But it also has me slowing down and thinking more closely, asking myself "would I want to use this plate for the next 20/30 years?" If my friends are buying something for me that I've asked for, I'd really like it to be something we will use for the rest of our lives. It also has me thinking about how these pieces work together - these are the sort of basics I haven't had to think about in a long time.

There are a few things that I know make both Bunny and I happy in kitchenwares. So we need to really look into those in order to actually build an approrpriate registry, and a kitchen that actually works together.

everyday dinners

You know those recipes that find their way into your oven week after week, month after month? The ones that are just the easiest fallbacks ever? Those are some of our favourites around here. We go back to them again and again. Recipes you make without looking at ingredient lists, mostly just by feel.

Those tend to be the favourites, here at least. It's fun to change things up, but really, these are our own version of comfort food. The things we make a million times over.

We have a more than a few of these, and they're just so darned easy. Here's a selection:

• Roasts of any sort. These are our easiest go-to.
• Quiche! My mother taught me to make this so long ago I don't even remember how I learned. The great thing about quiche is you can go simple or fancy, traditional or just whatever's in the fridge. It's also not significantly more work to make two quiches than it is to make one, and they freeze beautifully. Also - I am sad to note that I haven't attempted to give you my quiche recipe yet. Don't worry, we'll work on that.
• Macaroni and cheese. Swoon.
• Fried Rice. This one surprises me, because I only started playing with this out of curiousity, but it's fast become one of Bunny's favourites.
• Soups. Butternut squash is our go to .... and we'll hopefully be re-attempting the sweet and spicy butternut soup soon. But anything works: broccoli, leeks, potatoes, carrot, anything. Even when soup's not that great it's easy.
• Chicken and gravy. Champagne gravy. Any kind of gravy. This is just easy and fun.
• Pasta of any kind. It's just easy.

The great thing, is that this list is ever growing, ever evolving. What I want to know, though, is what are your go-to favourites? What amazing everyday meals am I missing out on?

Three Kitchen Projects plus upcoming busy-ness

I haven't really done all that much today, but a lot has gotten accomplished. It's actually continuing on the theme from Monday, where I played in my closet and organized things, put some things into semi-storage and put half a dozen items into consideration for donation. (If I don't want to wear them and come up with a good way to wear them in the next week or so, they're gone.) I even went through the bathroom cart and cleaned/rearranged/purged quite a bit. It was nice to feel like my things are in order and that I have a somewhat organized home.

Today's been a different story, though. It's been (of course) a story of the kitchen.

Project One: Oatmeal Bread is already in the bread machine and finishing its last rise. I half feel like I'm cheating, but that's ok. It's going to be delicious. This was actually the first type of bread I ever made in the machine. Now I'm noticing that I do throw a little caution to the wind with the recipe - I'm not as afraid to mix two recipes from the same book. The bread might not look perfectly, due to baking in the machine (although that's an easy fix!) but it generally turns out delicious.

Project Two: Caramelized Pear Upside-Down Cake found here, is just barely started. I've got all my ingredients prepared except the pears, and I'll in a few minutes I'll start peeling and slicing them and putting together my caramel. Most likely I'll mess with a few things here, and I'll certainly let you know how it goes.

Project Three: Dinner was originally going to be a spinach quiche with mozzarella, but now I'm not so sure I have a pie shell, or enough butter to make one. So, I'm likely going to turn that into a frittata, baked in the cast iron. I'm also thinking of tossing in some caramelized sweet onion and mushrooms. Maybe even some red pepper.

Beyond all that, there are some exciting things on the horizon.

A possible visit to a friend in Mississauga soon ,hopefully. If Bunny doesn't get sick we are having unValentines dinner at Terroni on Saturday. That was supposed to happen last weekend, as both of us preferred to avoid the day itself, but then I went and got all sickly.

Bunny and I also have some decorating to do around the house. We have things to put on our walls! Three small canvas paintings (a gift, a prize, and Bunny's work) as well as a statement mirror and an heirloom family print that my mother no longer wanted. Plus, we need to figure out where Wilbur (our bright red pig art. Yes, yes we do have that) should live and we might have to move the clock and the reproduction van Gogh (from my mom's friend, who also gave me a wedding dress) in order to make room for everything. It's driving us crazy having bits sitting everywhere. PLUS we need to look at all our photo frames, organize our photos and decide what we'd like to frame (we have about a million) and where we are going to put things.

I also have this sneaking suspicion that I might have to make carrot cake with cream cheese frosting this week. Yeah, that's going to happen. Plus I have a million frozen bananas. I should do something about those, too.

Oh! And we have to plan a wedding, mostly, still.

Yeah, I'm busy. I loves it.

oh my meat

Full disclosure: this post becomes more hilarious when you realize that I used to be vegetarian, and am still not a big meat eater. On the other hand, Bunny would have half his diet be meat if you let him .... so thus, the quantity.

Sunday evening and Monday morning were largely occupied by one thing: separating, chopping, and vaccuum sealing a large haul of meats from Costco to put up in the chest freezer. This is a big part of Bunny and my grocery routine. Every three months or so, we trek up to a Costco and come home with a somewhat ridiculous amount of meat, which we then vaccuum seal for later consumption.

We came to this conclusion about a year ago, and it works a dream for us. By buying in bulk, we get good prices on better cuts of meat than we might otherwise purchase. Having a large quantity and variety of meat in our freezer makes it much easier for us to plan our menus around what's onhand. (Also, it stops me from freaking out at the grocery store on a weekly basis. This is a good thing. Somehow I also manage to not at all freak out at Costco when spending the big money.)

This trip was particularly funny, as my mom took Bunny and I on the trip. The whole time we were in the meat section I swear her eyes were bugging out of her head. Bunny's eating habits have much more of an influence on the Costco trip than mine do, and it took her awhile before moms clued in.

When we left, our freezer had about four pork roasts and a few filets of fish, and that was it. Now? We have chicken (breasts, thighs & drums), we have pork chops, we have beef in both sirloin and eye of round (and we have roasts, stewing chunks and even a few steaks). Plus, we also brought home 10lbs of carrots and 5lbs of sweet onions. And gum. And bread. And so on.

Shopping in bulk is an interesting proposition when you're only feeding two people. I mean, I brought home an eye of round longer than my arm. A whole sirloin bigger than my head. FOR TWO! This wasn't a decision we arrived at overnight - we significantly changed a lot of things in order to accomplish this.

Bulk shopping for two - or even for one - requires some extra thought and attention. Questions we asked ourselves:

• Where will we store this? (We bought a chest freezer. Also: our dog food is all frozen, which takes most of our normal freezer space, so the freezer made sense.)
• How will we store this? AKA - how will we manage freezer burn and packaging? (We have a vaccuum sealer. We love it.)
• Will we eat these things that we purchase?
• Am I comfortable buying in bulk - making large food purchases?
• How will these foods fit into our current habits? (For us, it was the same foods with just different buying habits, and some consumption changes)
• Do I currently shop my pantry? (We try to - bulk buying made things better in this respect)

Bunny and I have learned a lot about our eating habits through this. Examples include:

• We eat (or want to eat) more chicken than we think. This means that we really need to buy more chicken than we plan to.
• Roasts are our go to meal. I was surprised by this at first, but it makes sense. A roast is the easiest meal ever, just chuck it in the oven and go.
• We never eat 10lbs of potatoes before they go bad - but sometimes it still makes sense to buy them that way.
• We buy more pork than we actually need. Constantly. Partly because it's Bunny's favourite, and partly because it's cheaper than anything else. (Also: please note, Costco's pork chops are large enough that one feeds me AND Bunny. I mean, me eating half a pork chop isn't a shock - but Bunny? Wow.) For us, this meant we needed to start looking for other cuts of pork to buy, because we still wanted it, but were sick of roasts.
• If Bunny had his way, meat would be on the table every day. If I had mine, it would only happen about twice a week. So: we make more meat than I like, and I simply eat smaller portions, or skip it altogether when I'm not into it. This also gives Bunny a chance to have more game meat when I'm not really in the mood.  On the other hand, Bunny has to be ok with more frequent veggie meals. I'm lucky to have a man who likes tofu.
• Our meal plan needs to incorporate leftovers and lazy days.
• Leftovers - because when you make a roast for 2 there are bound to be leftovers. So, fried rice, stir fries, pastas etc are all requirements for us. We plan to make too much and use the extra later.
• Lazy meals - as ambitious as I may want to be, I know that there are days that all that gets on the table is Kraft Dinner. Or frozen pizza. And that it's ok.
• I like using frozen meat. This was a revolutionary idea to me - I had never been a fan before. But this works with our lifestyle and kitchen style and that's the most important part. We cook in a way that's intuitive to us.

grocery habits

Over the years, as my relationship with Bunny progressed from seeing each other on weekends as we lived in separate cities, to spending most of our time together, to living together, our grocery and eating habits have evolved a little bit, to revolve around joint preferences. I have a feeling that to some extent this is fairly standard. Of course, through that we've also had several changes in circumstance: Bunny leaving his job to go back to school, me being unemployed and the financial consequences in both our grocery shopping habits have changed quite a bit.

In the begining, for instance, we would shop mostly for "meals" - elaborate plans we would make to impress each other, but without the long term planning to keep a fridge stocked. Over time, we began to slowly stock up on joint staples: soups, peanut butter, tofu, cheese, vegetables etc.

When we first lived together, we would grocery shop at the Leslieville Loblaws, and shop with our eyes, being creative about things. What vegetables looked good? What proteins and starches were appealing. Was there anything frozen we wanted? How about snacks? Treats? We would still shop for "meals", and as those got somewhat rarer, we would go to fancy butcher shops and vegetable stands. We looked to get things on sale, but only to stock up on favourites, never to just choose the best price. We would eat out, or order in as we pleased because the money was there.

Around the time Bunny started to think about going back to school, we had to re-evaluate. Our grocery budget needed to get more under control, because our division of expenses and available income pool were about to shrink. We were giving up the car, so we couldn't get to our old grocery store, but there were several grocery stores (less expensive ones) within walking distance. We wanted to plan our menu more closely, take more advantage of sales and coupons than we already did, trim the excess from our grocery budget.

This meant a lot of changes. Having a solid number that we could spend in our heads. Having an outline of what we were going to eat, and when. A list of what we needed, compared against what we have. Buying meat in bulk at a discount, and freezing the excess. Working more grains and legumes into our diet.

Recently, this has also meant re-evaluating how we consume some things. We've never gone through much more than a litre of milk, if that, a week; recently, though that has changed. I'm home, and drink lattes every morning. Bunny likes to have milk to drink and with cereal sometimes, and I use it a lot in my baking. We've started going through two litres a week. So, this week, we decided to buy a 4 litre bag for, get this, the same price as a litre carton.

Another change was that I planned my menu this week around the flyer. 10lb bags of potatoes for $2.49, 3ilbs of carrots for $1.49, a brick of cheese for $4.99. Chicken was on sale, so we picked some up. We picked up cauliflower (also on sale) for potato cauliflower curry, parsnips to do a dish with the carrots, peppers to turn into a stir fry with both the carrots and some items we already had in the fridge. The menu was built around the prices.

We`re still limited, of course, by what our arms can carry home but shopping and planning around the flyer has been a great plan for now.

What changes have you made to your grocery habits that have saved you money in the past? Bunny and I are always looking for hints.

kitchen appliances unearthed

Like many a person growing up with a fondness for cooking, I grew up in my mother's kitchen and learned her tricks. Starch water for gravies, that shepherd's pie is best made from leftover prime rib roast and that the gravy is the perfect sauce. How to make eggs and things - her way. I grew up with her wisks and wooden spoons, food processor and handheld mixer, and her little tools. Fairly standard, I think.

Every now and then my mother likes to clean house. When my mother cleans house, what tends to happen is that my house comes out significantly more full. I end up with leather skirts and jackets, old suits that haven't fit anyone in years but are only a size away from what I currently wear, candles and antique clocks. Sometimes, I end up with kitchen gear. Snag a proper spoon here, get a wisk there.

Very occasionally, I end up with antiquated kitchen appliances. A pasta maker that I think was a wedding present 25 years ago. Bunny and I use it gladly whenever we're in a pasta making mood. A chafing dish that has yet to be used. Old cookie sheets. Sometimes, I get hand me downs that really kick it out of the park.

About six months ago, my mom called to say "I'm getting rid of the bread maker, do you want it?" The bread maker. A Christmas gift one year, that I remember quite clearly. Probably got about six solid months of use, but hadn't been pulled out since before they split. The bread maker that probably didn't work ... but I needed to at least try it, right?

So, the breadmaker. Beautiful fresh egg bread and country bread. Cinnamon bun dough. I feel like I'm cheating at everything when I use this, but it works so breezily and it makes my life so simple. Plus, who doesn't like fresh baked bread? Or buns.

It's an appliance I would never have bought on my own. It takes up more kitchen space than it really has any business doing. Would I get rid of it? Not a chance. It's useful, fun and oh does it make my kitchen smell good. That's really what matters, right?

Bunny's been bugging me for the cinnamon buns for weeks on end. Today I was finally in the mood. Right now, we have cinnamony goodness bubbling up in my oven, rising to deliciousness. I could not be more excited. (And hey, the damn bread maker even comes with its own recipe book. the work is done for me!)


On another note, I don't have a menu yet for the week. This is very odd to me, but that's ok. Currently I'm just trying to work around what I have available:

• A head of fennel (I'm thinking baked? ideas?)
• Haricots vert (perhaps with a beef or pork roast?)
• Leftover broccoli (cheesy soup to come, methinks)
• Lemons, oranges and apples - will be used as needed
• Mini red potatoes

I think I have a few plans for these, and I have a few more ideas bouncing around my head for the week. We'll see what I come up with.

Holiday Win: carrot & turnip mash

The circles I follow within the blogosphere have been talking a lot about one thing, lately: how to navigate the early(ish) years of a relationship and newly married life in relation to the holidays. The give and take, the things that you do just to make your significant other happy, the things you miss out on - and sometimes the things you gain.

In Bunny and my holiday scheme, I have an urge to shout out "I WIN!" Because for the most part we do have the easiest holidays ever. The only thing that separates his mom's front door from my mom's front door is a driveway, so we bumble over here and there all the time. Our first year we really did our holidays separately but met up on the drive every hour on the hour, and both spent some time with each other's family. We've since moved to primarily spending different days with one family or the other, but we do see them both fairly equally. Both our parents are super understanding, and we also have to be respectful of his sister, brother-in-law and neice's holiday plans, so the flexibility comes easily.

That's not what I mean by "I WIN" though. What I mean, is I get all the best benefits. I grew up with big extended family on my father's side, and would spend large chunks of time over the holiday travelling for family dinner after family dinner, seeing a million cousins and aunts and uncles. Ever since the divorce, though, and other messiness, I don't get that. The closest relationship I have on that side of the family occurs on Facebook. My mom's family (grandma, aunt, cousin) all come down for the holidays, but it's not a super festive big exciting thing.

I get a big family gathering back, though, with Bunny's Dutch side. This is only the second year that I've gone, but I do feel very welcomed into the fold there. Win. I love the extra love there.

There's another holiday win, though, that comes from his mother's kitchen. I think the first time I had this was a couple of Thanksgivings ago, when we all (and by all, I mean BOTH our families) piled into Bunny's living room to eat. It was better than the mashed potatoes ... and for me to say that is something else.

Mama Bunny's Carrot & Turnip Mash
a rough approximation of Bunny's mom's recipe

Ingredients:

• Carrots - 1 to 2 cups, peeling and roughly chopped
• Turnip - 1 to 2 cups, peeled and roughly chopped
• Note: very the amount of vegetables based on your audience. I make 1 cup each carrots & turnip if I'm only feeding Bunny and myself, plus leftovers
• I like to use equal portions carrots and turnip, but if you prefer to load up on one over the other go for it!
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Butter or Margarine - 2-3 tbsp (or to taste)

Directions:

1. Prep your vegetables. Peel, cut into pieces roughly the same size. Dump vegetables into large pot, cover with salted water. Bring to the boil.
2. Boil approximately 10 minutes, until fork-tender. Drain water. (If making a gravy or sauce, set some of this aside. Vegetable water adds a little more "oomph" to gravies.)
3. Add butter to the pan, and then MASH away. If you prefer you can always use a blender or processor to make it super smooth, but I like my carrot and turnip to be a little bit chunky.
4. When thoroughly mashed, taste. Add more salt or butter as necessary.
5. Enjoy! They don't replace mashed potatoes, but they're easily as good.

Also, leftover mash is amazing when mixed with breadcrumbs & parmesan and fried up. In fact, it's maybe even better than the original.

Plans

This is a slow week in the kitchen for me. There's no real meals on the horizon that I intend to make this week. Mostly that's because we have a fridge and freezer full of leftovers and Bunny and I would really like to eat our way through them. I will throw out food, sometimes (when it's gone bad, or when it's just two mini roast potatoes that neither of us are going to eat that night, or what have you) but I really don't like to.

Anytime I clean out the fridge or throw out food, poor Bunny gets an earful. So we're trying to avoid that.

I'd be lying, though, if I said there wasn't a bigger reason that nothing's happening in the kitchen. It's this little itch in my hands, the back of my mind just begging for me to scratch it. Something sitting, still in its box, down in the foyer waiting for us to create space for it and start using it. Something that comes in beautiful, gorgeous Empire Red. Not to mention the hand mixer and the flan dish and mini casseroles that ALSO came home with us for Christmas.

Really, nothing can be done in the kitchen until Bunny and I re-organize a few things and create more usable space. First, we need space for the KitchenAid, and it needs to be both stable and near a plug. I don't want to put it on the bench table we use as a counter, because it's away from the walls and it isn't stable. Seeing as my mother is of the bigger-is-better mindset and bought me the biggest available mixer, I need to make sure it's stable.

So, plan at this point, is to bring Bunny's workbench in from the back balcony and move all his engine stuff to that so I can have the dining room table for the mixer. Yeah, we don't use our dining room table. Plus we will need to reorganize our cupboards and find space for the hand mixer, flan dish and mini-casserole dishes.

Next week, though, I have some kitchen dreams. They include:

• Risotto! I finally have arborio rice, and I'd like to pick up some fancy mushrooms.
• Fruit tart! I'm thinking maybe pears? And my own flan dish certainly calls for making my own pie shell. I could do a quiche in there, but where's the fun in that.
• Gratin of some sort. Maybe scalloped potatoes (I think I'm going to pick up a mandoline in the next few weeks), but some sort of beautiful gratin served in my new mini casseroles.
• So many mixer recipes - meringues (and then macarons, when I get the meringues right), cookies and cupcakes, mousses
• BUTTER! Because how cool is that, really? And then buttermilk pancakes with the leftover milk, of course

Surprisingly, the casserole dishes are lighting my imagination slightly more than the mixer. I look at them and all I can think of is having guests over for dinner, serving mini mac and cheese side dishes, souffles, so many ideas. Yum.

dinner plans

Not that three posts in a day isn't a little overkill, or anything ... but I'm thinking about dinner. Actually I am thinking about dinners as tomorrow night's dinner is equally on my mind.

I have some chopped up chicken pot pie filling dethawing in my sink from the last time I made pot pie. I don't think it's quite enough for an entire pie on its own, so I have also got a package of chicken thighs dethawing with them. Even if it's overkill, I can always do with a few extra helpings of meat in my fridge. They shape into great lunches/breakfasts for Bunny as he's a protein hound.

Plus, they'll help me with the gravy, as that has yet to be made.

Tomorrow night's dinner I'm really excited about. I'm going to do some kind of slow cooker or braised beef. Figuring out the details still, but I have some eye of round in the fridge that will serve nicely. I'm thinking of beautiful beef slow cooking with big chunks of carrot and onions, served with some barley and maybe a little bit something extra. Oh! The extra head of broccoli that's getting old in my crisper. That will do nicely.

Four days of dinners revolving around meats is a lot here, but it's got Bunny happy. I for the most part just sniff around them and mostly ignore the things.

I'm certainly enjoying all the time I get to spend with my kitchen lately.

cozy Saturday mornings & Christmas cookies

The temperature has really dropped overnight here, so I'm quite glad that Bunny and I are planning a quiet Saturday in. I think he's going to play video games, and I'm going to read and work on my cross stitch.

I'm also thinking I'm going to maybe whip up a batch of gingersnap dough to portion out and freeze. Because even prior to my lay off we had severely slashed our gift budget compared to the past few years, we are doing a little something extra. (Have I ever mentioned how my first year as a full time employed non-student I spent over $1,000 on Christmas? And I only buy "big" gifts for 6 people, plus smaller ones for extended friends & family. It was a little overkill.)

It's actually super convenient - I whipped up a batch of dough, using all recipes I've enjoyed in the past (I might add one or two new ones, but I'm not really inclined to go too outside of my comfort zone for gifts). When I had the dough ready, I baked off a tray for Bunny and I enjoy that night/the next day, portioned the rest out and froze it. Now I have bags with directions waiting for just a little bit of extra attention from me.

I'm rather excited for the idea of Bunny and I having two weeks at home together. Some time for us to just chill out before he gets back into his next semester and I start seriously working on my job search.

Currently, I have frozen bags of three different types of cookie dough resting in my freezer: Chocolate chip cookies (with walnut pieces, which I've never done before but I quite enjoy), snickerdoodles and chocolate sugar cookies. Bunny and I were thinking 4-6 kinds of cookies, so gingersnaps will pull me up to my minimum and I'll think about maybe doing some others through the week.

kitchen woes

Sometimes, my kitchen drives me nuts.

It's not so much that it's small, with limited counter space. That's not actually a problem for me, as I tend to exclusively use the space covered by the wooden cutting board and a six inch space beside it. The space frustrates me more in how it limits appliances and bakeware ... the KitchenAid stand mixer I lust over would take up so much space I'd end up loathing it, but really, I can live without the mixer.

It's more the gaps in our tools and bakeware. For example, I don't have a mandoline, or an extra large dutch oven ... those I can live without. It's the bakeware that really drives me nuts, since bakeware is what I use. I don't have beautiful serving dishes, or a gratin pan, and I don't have a square cake pan.

Or a 9 x 13 rectangular baking dish. This one drives me nuts. That, and not having a proper pie pan.