Grandma Skills - a new series

In my last blog post I wrote about hubby and I being on a quest for simplicity, sort of a “back-to-nature” kick. We have really enjoyed it, so I decided to start a new series of blog posts detailing our efforts. I’ll include the good, the bad, and the ugly so you can learn from (or laugh at) my mistakes.

I couldn't decide what to name the series, so I reached out to a friend for help.  While I was trying to describe what I had in mind I kept coming back to “the kinds of things that our grandmothers knew how to do, but we usually don’t”.  So, I decided to go with the obvious and name the new series “Grandma Skills”.

Most of my posts will probably center around cooking since that is what I enjoy the most. However, I will also cover things like gardening, needlework, sewing, cleaning, and home repair/maintenance.  

Now, I’m not going to get all crazy with this. I’m not going to swear off modern conveniences and I will definitely use tools that my own Grandma never had (like my beloved KitchenAid mixer). However, I will try to keep things as “grandma like” as possible. No bread machines allowed!

A Very Earthy Kind of Day

Last Sunday was a kinda weird but amazingly fun day. The hubs and I have been talking for quite awhile about changing our lifestyle and starting to live more simply and organic. This week-end we decided to finally put those plans into action.

The day started with us planting two new fruit trees. By "us" I mean "hubby" - I stayed inside and made a grocery list.  Poor guy had to dig two big holes in the clay that we call soil.  He then planted the trees and put lots of good new soil around them. I can hardly wait until they start blooming so I can share pictures.

The next big event of the day was mine. I have been fascinated by the art of bread baking for as long as I can remember, but I had never tried it. I was really intimidated and afraid of failure. On Sunday I finally got my courage up and decided to teach myself to bake bread. I did lots of research, then just dove headfirst into the flour.  It worked!  I produced an absolutely delicious (if I do say so myself) loaf of bread and pan of pull-apart rolls.  I am so proud!  It was actually not as hard as I expected and I had so much fun. There will definitely be more bread baking in my future.

My first attempt at bread baking. Pretty awesome, right?

The last new thing for the day was setting up our new composter. We got one the kind that is fully enclosed and spins so you can keep the greens and browns nice and mixed up. After I cooked dinner I went out and proudly deposited the potato peels into it. Now I just have to get in the habit of doing it regularly.  We will be planing a vegetable garden this spring, so I can hardly wait until we have some compost to put on it.

By the end of the day I was feeling very much like a tree-hugging granola-munching earth mother and I LOVED the way it felt!  Here's to many more week-ends like this.

One of Those Days

Have you ever had a day that was so bad that you either have to laugh about it, or just go back to bed and pull the covers over your head?  That is what today has been like for me. 

My day started off with horrendous traffic.  There were two different wrecks that resulted in lanes being completely shut down.  It took me an hour and a half to get to work!  I had a 7:00am meeting, but luckily I was able to call in from my car. Thank goodness for Bluetooth!

The unholy traffic also caused me to have to slam my brakes a couple of times.  Unfortunately, today is our holiday potluck and the cupcakes that I stayed up late baking and decorating went slamming into the floorboards. They were in a cupcake keeper, so most of them were salvageable, but a few of them were just completely destroyed.

I finally made it into the office and decided that since it has been such a horrible morning I deserved a little treat. Since Coca-Cola is my biggest vice, I decided that a little caffeine and sugar was just what I needed. Guess what happened?  You guessed it – I opened it and it spewed all over me and my desk!

The really sad part about all of this?  It is only 8:30am. This cursed day has a whole lot of time to spring more nasty surprises on me.  It is too late to go back to bed, so I think I’ll just have a laugh about the ridiculousness of this day and eat those destroyed cupcakes.

Inventing Recipes - Pork Chops in Hard Cider

I enjoy cooking, but I rarely have time to do it during the week thanks to a long commute.  Whenever I get a chance on the week-ends, I really enjoy either tweaking existing recipes or inventing new ones.  Tonight I invented a new one and I’m really pleased with it. 

My new invention is for bone-in pork chops braised on the stove top with hard cider.  This recipe would work fine for 4 chops, but since it is just the two of us I only cooked two.  Actually, I wouldn't even call this a recipe since I rarely measure anything when I cook.  Think of it as more of a guideline.

I started by putting a glurg of olive oil in a skillet and tossing in some sliced yellow onions. I cooked them until they started to get soft, then added the chops that I had sprinkled with one of those “everything but the kitchen sink” spice mixes.  Once the chops had browned on one side I flipped them over and browned the other.  Then I took the chops and the onions out of the skillet. I used one bottle of hard cider (a single serve size bottle, not one of the huge ones) to deglaze the pan.

After the pan was deglazed I added in about a cup of organic chicken broth, then put the chops and the onions back in.  After that I chopped a granny smith apple into large chunks and added them to the skillet.   After the liquid started to boil, I dropped it down to a simmer, covered the pan and let it simmer away for a while.  Mine took about 20 minutes, but that will depend on how thick your chops are.  Be sure that your internal temperature gets to the acceptable level for food safety.

Pork chops simmering away

Once my chops were done I pulled out the chops, tented them with foil and let them rest. While they were resting I brought the rest of the stuff in the skillet back up to a good rolling boil.  While it was boiling (and thickening a bit) I mushed up the chunks of apple to get all of their goodness out.  After it got to the consistency I wanted I strained it through a fat separator.  Be sure to squish the apples and onions in the strainer to get all of the juices out.

The next step is the best part. Put the chops on your plate, top with sauce, and eat it up.

I was really pleased with this recipe.  The next time I make it I will probably add a little bit of butter to the sauce just before it is finished.  That will make the sauce a bit thicker and will add a bit more dimension to it. Otherwise, I think that the apple and pork flavors were well balanced.  It didn't have much onion flavor, which is how I like it. If you are an onion fan you can always add more onion, or serve the onion with the chops.  I tossed out my onions once the sauce was done since I just wanted the flavor of them.

The finished product with risotto. This was before I poured sauce all over it. 

Normal people would probably want to add a veggie.

My husband thinks I’m a genius and my dogs are following me around the house kissing me.  So, I think the whole family rates this new recipe as a winner!

Why I Love Working From Home, part 2

Today is the second part of my “What I Love About Working From Home” series, and it is all about food.  Managing to have a healthy breakfast and lunch was darn near impossible when I worked in an office.  I always intended to get up early enough to have a light, sensible breakfast and pack my lunch, but I was much too fond of the snooze alarm to make that happen.  So, I wound up skipping breakfast and grabbing fast food for lunch. Bad, bad, bad.

Now that I am working from home I have so many more options when it comes to my food choices. I’m not limited by what can be reheated in the microwave or whether there is room in the breakroom fridge.   I’ve never been much of a breakfast eater, so most days it is just a hard boiled egg and a piece of fruit or maybe a toaster waffle.  Sometimes I just wait and make myself an omelet and have brunch.  That is definitely something I couldn’t have done in my cubicle!

For lunch I try to have leftovers whenever possible.  On days that I don’t have leftovers I usually just heat up some soup or have a sandwich.  Yeah, I know that is all stuff I could have done in an office, but I was always so bad about forgetting to pack them along. 

Another great thing (especially in the winter) is that I can put on a pot of stew or chili or pop a roast in the oven during the day. My house stays toasty warm and dinner pretty much cooks itself while I’m working.  I get to feel like both super employee and super wife.  Can’t lose situation!

My favorite stew. Nothing but meat and potatoes.

The Secret Ingredient

I was always extremely close to my grandmother.  I was named after her and me & my mom even lived with her for a while when I was young. When she passed away I was heartbroken, but I resolved that I would find a way to keep her spirit alive.  

Grandma was an excellent cook. She was not formally trained and she never used cookbooks.  She learned out of necessity.  She had eight kids and lived on a ranch. There was never much money, so she had to be clever to find ways to keep everyone’s bellies full and satisfied. Regardless of how good the rest of her cooking was, she was always known for her pies. As long as she had some flour and some Crisco she could make a pie out of just about anything.  Her pies were always so delicious, but she swore there was no secret ingredient.

I decided that the best way to keep her spirit alive was to take over the mantle of “Barcy the pie-maker”. I knew better than to try and master everything she could do, so I decided that I would just concentrate on apple pie.  My first few efforts were pretty horrible.  I never did master her way of making crusts, but once I switched to a butter crust and started using my food processor I learned to make a pretty decent crust. I pride myself on never using canned apple pie filling.  I always use at least two varieties of real apples & lots of cinnamon.

However, the most important thing in my kitchen when I make a pie is a framed picture of Grandma. I always set her picture on the counter and have a nice little conversation while I’m peeling apples and rolling out dough. Maybe it is all in my head, but I swear I can feel her there.

Prepping for pie making with Grandma

My grandma will always live on in my heart. Through making pies with her memory, I have finally figured out the secret ingredient.  It should have been obvious the whole time. Grandma always added lots of love.

The finished product