Whew, this week has nearly gotten away from me, but I’ve been thinking about you.  How did your kitchen tool purging go?  Are you feeling lighter, and finding what you need more easily?  Are you scared?  If you can’t bear to give all those tools away just yet, put them in a box and put them somewhere way out of reach.  Anything you haven’t gone into the box to get in six months, get rid of it

On to part two – creating “stations” in your kitchen.  In a commercial and home kitchens, this happens naturally, as different jobs happen in different places.  But it can be really helpful to truly think about what actions happen in what spots, and what tools/ingredients are needed at that station.

We have a cutting station in our home kitchen – an amazing wood chopping block made for us by our friend Rob (he ate dinner at our house almost every night for a year, and then he made us this chopping block – a pretty sweet deal!), with my three most-used knives (a Wusthof chef knife, a Wusthof Santuko, and a Lamson & Goodnow offest bread knife) in it.  The little basket you see is for scraps to feed the chickens, and to the right (on the floor) is our compost bucket.  I chop, I put scraps right into the chicken basket or compost, I wash my knives, I put them right back in their spot.  Under the chopping block lives the tray I use to bring plates/silverware/food to the dinner table (and for clearing up after – a big time saver), and also some rolling pins, since I use the chopping block to roll out doughs.  The little white bowl holds butter at room temp, the cruet has some salad dressing in it, and the wine bottle is homemade vinegar.  Whenever we have leftover wine, we add it to this bottle (it has a little cheesecloth over the top, so it can breathe but flies can’t get in), and it turns to the best vinegar you’ll ever use.  Yummy!

Next to the chopping block is the mixing station.  In this corner, I keep my mixing bowls in the cabinets, measuring spoons, ingredients like baking powder, salt, oil and vinegar.  The cookbooks I’m currently referencing are lined up right there, and the knife block holds my other knives (steak knives, butcher knife, paring knives that are too small to live in the chopping block).  The big blue bowl holds a loaf of bread in a linen bag, and fresh fruit or veggies that don’t need the fridge.  The small bowl on the far right holds eggs from our chickens.

Lastly, a little station – the silverware drawer.  For years, since we switched to using all cloth napkins, I searched for the right place for them.  Next to the dinner table?  On the kitchen counter?  I’m not sure why it took me so long, but I’m pretty happy that I finally realized this – the napkins live next to the silverware!  (We use actual silver, instead of keeping it stored away, so that’s why my silverware drawer is lined with flannel.)

So, I think you get the idea.  Instead of having to walk back and forth across your kitchen each time you need to make a dish, try to gather your tools and supplies into groupings that make sense for you and your home.  Have fun!

Hello folks.  Hope you enjoyed time out in the sunshine this weekend, getting your hands dirty!  Ella and Ben created her garden bed, and she got right to work hoeing.

From last week, we’re still loving that sourdough challah.  On Saturday morning, I made Challah French Toast, which I think definitely makes the cut for a weekly tradition.  Indeed.  (Whoops, I just realized I used the same photo of Ella twice last week, haha!)  The Beet and Potato Salad was yum, and so were the Baked Hedgehog Potatoes (they’re really just potatoes sliced, with lots of garlic slices put in, and baked).  And the Green Smoothie Challenge has been awesome.  I’ll talk about it more soon, I promise.

This Week’s Menu:

*Lots of Kale Chips!  We shared our recipe here last spring – check it out!

*More Green Smoothies – we have ours at breakfast, and sometimes leftovers at mid-morning

* Fried Polenta (leftover) with black beans, portabellos, and onions

* Porkchops, and Whole Wheat Berry Tabbouleh (I’m going to test this out – if it works, I’ll share the recipe with you!)

* Spelt and Lentil Pilaf with Shiitakes (from the New Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas) and Cornbread

* Baked Potatoes with various toppings and Arugula White Bean Salad (from the New Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas)

* Julia Child’s poached chicken breasts again (they were really tasty, and we got more chicken breasts in this month’s meat share) with the Spinach and Feta Alligator (from the New Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas)

* Whole Wheat Crust Pizza with Black Beans and Root Veggies, with a side salad

* Potato Sorrel Soup with Cheese Popovers (the popovers are from the New Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas)  If you’ve never had sorrel before – it’s a cool weather herb that has an amazing lemon flavor, and is a great spring tonic.

* Spa Salad with Bitter Greens, Asparagus (it’s here!), and mint, with hamburgers (salad is from Anna Thomas – hmm, can you guess what book I got out from the library this week?)

This week, I’m grateful for the return of poetry to my life.

Spring Equinox

Today, we woke up

happy.  We fed the horse,

the sheep, we spread out a blanket

on the living room floor

and had a breakfast picnic,

giggling.  The sun warmed us,

we opened the windows, we remembered

this life’s perfection.

The day went on, and we forgot.

We were cranky, tired, our own

human selves.  We kept

the morning in our hearts, we tried

to remember again.

(c) 2010

I’ve got some inspiration I’d like to share with all of you, to help make your kitchen a lovely place to be.  It’s so easy to feel that we don’t have enough time to cook at home, and I have found (both in my home kitchen and our bakery kitchen) that organizing your space can have a big impact.  Having to look for your tools each time you try to make something adds up to a lot of wasted time, and a lot of frustration!  I’m going to talk more about organizing areas of your kitchen soon, but today, let’s start really basic, with your tools.

First off, I really really recommend taking about 15 minutes to look through all your kitchen tools.  Plan to give away (or throw away if they’re broken) half of what you’ve got.  That’s right – half of them.  Chances are you’re holding on to gifts you never use, tools that are partly broken (you’ve been saying you would fix it for how long?  Time to let it go.), and tools that seemed like they would be so useful, but are not.

Tools everyone needs: Good quality knives, and a steel for keeping them sharp.  Wooden spoons.  A good spatula, and a good thermometer (if you cook meats). A whisk, and probably a beater.

Beyond that, you may have your own tools you really use every week, or even a few times a year.  If you don’t use it, give it to the thrift store, so that someone else will.

Okay, now that you’re a few pounds lighter, organize.  In our kitchen, we have a jar by the stove that holds the tools we use every day.  In our house, wooden spoons, metal serving spoons, spatula, and whisk live here.  If you’re not reaching for this tool at least once a day, it needs a different home.  (My spatula, which I adore, is missing from the photo above, probably because I was using it!  It’s the Chef’s Slotted Turner from Lamson & Goodnow – an American cutlery company.)

The next level is tools that don’t get used every day, but we use at least weekly.  The drawer closest to the stove (this will depend on your kitchen’s layout of course) holds: oven mitts (we use these daily, but prefer them hidden), thermometer, tongs, hand beaters, salad serving spoon/fork, peeler, ladle, and fine grater.

Lastly, the everything else drawer.  Here is where you put those final tools that you do use (because you threw all those others out, right?), but not weekly.  Our canning funnel, pastry brush, grill spatula, can opener, extra salad spoon/fork, etc.  We use a lot of mason jars, so those lids are in their own drawer, but in your kitchen, they might live in this drawer in a little box.

The truly organized would have more tiny compartments for all these tools, but I’m somewhere in between.  I hope this is useful for you – it can seem like we don’t have time to invest in organizing, but we truly lose so much more time trying to find things.  Give yourself the gift of a tidy kitchen, and make sure everyone in your home understands how it works.  Labels or drawings can be very helpful, at least while everyone gets used to the new system.

Some books I love on this subject are:

Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece Schofield

Organic Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck (This is mostly a book about how to clean, but includes a great organizing chapter)

See you tomorrow for Gratitude Friday!

Hello folks – today a recipe, tomorrow we shall make your kitchen run more smoothly.  Sound good?  Here we go.

Last week we made the Rye Grits recipe from Lorna Sass’s Whole Grains Every Day Every Way (yes, I mention this book all the time.  That’s because she’s amazing, and one of the only resources that really talks about how to cook with whole grains, not just whole grain flour).  Anyhow, we made a lot of changes, enough that I feel confident calling the recipe below our own, adapted from hers.  I especially like this recipe, because eating rye berries whole or cracked is pretty unusual, but really delicious.  Enjoy!

(whole, uncooked rye berries – aren’t they beautiful?)

Savory Rye Grits

1/4 lb sausage or 1/4 lb bacon or 1/4 lb mushrooms (crimini, button, portabello . . .)

1 cup cracked rye (if you’re a member of our CSA, just pulse your rye in a blender or cuisinart a few times.  If you’re not a member, you may be able to find cracked rye at your local coop or health food store)

1 large onion, sliced

2 cloves chopped garlic

1/2 lb potatoes, grated (no peeling necessary!  Yukon Gold is a great choice)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley (optional)

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Put a kettle of 3 cups water on to boil.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, brown your meat or mushrooms over medium-high heat.  If you’re using bacon, you don’t need any additional fat in the pan.  If you’ve chosen the sausage or mushrooms, add 2 tbsp butter or olive oil.  Brown for about 5 minutes, until meat is browned, or the mushrooms have softened.  Move the meat/mushrooms aside to a plate.

In the same pan (with the meat/mushroom drippings still inside), cook the onions until golden brown (10-15 minutes).  Set the onions aside with your meat/mushrooms.  Add the cracked rye to the pan and toast over medium heat, stirring, for 1 minute (it will become aromatic).  Stir in the garlic and cook another thirty seconds.

Turn off the heat and protect your hand from any potential spattering.  Pour 2 cups of boiling water into the cracked rye while stirring, being sure to scrape up anything stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Stir in the potatoes and salt.  Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes and rye grits are tender, 10-15 minutes, and the water is absorbed.  (If the water is absorbed but they aren’t tender, add a few tbsp more water, but try not to stir too much – it will build gluten and make your grits gummy.)

Taste for seasoning, and add more salt or pepper if desired.  Turn off the heat, cover, and steam for 10 minutes.  Just before serving, stir in the onion, and meat/mushrooms.  Sprinkle with the fresh parsley (this really makes the flavor sparkle), and cheese if desired.  Delicious as a main course, or a side dish with eggs.

Bon Appetit!

This weekend, after a day spent grumpy for no real reason, I was reminded of this phrase:

How can I be of service?

Which was, for me, a needed reminder that our family’s intention  truly is to be of service, through our work, our personal lives, and this space as well.  We hope that this is a source of inspiration and also information.  So many times over our journey, we found that willpower and resources (especially information) were often the stumbling blocks between us and where we wanted to be.  These Monday Menus and our Ten Steps posts are not intended to show how gourmet we are, or how much greener than thou.  Our intention is absolutely to just share our ideas and experiences.  To show that eating whole local foods (even in the winter in New England) can be delicious, or to see how to continue carrying an intention to avoid plastic by planting seeds in potting blocks.

It can be easy to get trapped in our own minds and “needs,” when truly, we all have opportunities to be of service each day.  To pay a farmer or laborer fairly for their work instead of focusing on getting the “best deal”; to smile at a stranger walking by; to offer to help a friend, even with words of understanding; to be of service to our good earth by choosing to eat foods without pesticides, or reducing our carbon loads.  We have so many chances, and the incredible thing is that we ourselves benefit so much from serving others.  When we focus on our own stories, we can become trapped, and feel the need for more and more.  When we can begin to turn our gaze outward, we often find our own loads lightening.

So, thank you for being here, friends.  This week, I’ve got some fun things planned for you – some tips on organizing your kitchen to make cooking more fantastically fun, a new recipe, and perhaps some more poetry (it is National Poetry Month after all).  May they be of service to you.  (And by the way, if you have questions, or there’s something you’d like to see here, feel free to ask!)

From last week, I made the sourdough challah again – it’s really yummy!  And the Farro (emmer) with Portabellos and Thyme was easy and delicious (we used dried morels, oh my).  We all loved the Poulet Mornay from Julia Child, also, which was really simple.  Poach a chicken breast, make a roux, add the poaching liquid to the roux, stir in cheese and your chicken pieces, and brown under the broiler.  It was still yummy for lunch the next day (always a big bonus in our house).

This week:

* Salade a la d’Argenson (the only beet recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which seems rather odd!  It’s Beet Salad with Rice or Potatoes and Herbed Mayonnaise, which sounds amazing.  I never would have thought of herbed mayonnaise.)

* Baked Hedgehog Potatoes with Yogurt Mint Dipping Sauce (from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson.  I’ve used some great recipes from Heidi’s blog, so I was excited to get her book from the library.  A little nervous at first – sometimes cookbooks from California are impossible for a New England locavore to use, but as you’ll see from my list here, there’s lots of goodness inside!)

* Gnocchi all Romana (from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson.I’m going to make these with the Roasted Tomato Sauce from Ad Hoc, by Thomas Keller, using one of our two last jars of tomatoes).

* Winter Rainbow Gratin (from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson.)

* Lentil Crostini (from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson.)

I dream that I am a cabbage.

I find an unloved piece of land

and I begin to plant:

two rows of cabbages, and then

I fill the woolen earth with more

seeds.  Carrots, potatoes, squash, wheat.

They grow taller, I tend them gently, at night

I sleep in a bed of soft leaves.

When they are ready, my little cabbages gather their silk dresses

and begin to walk.  They each find another

piece of earth, hidden in cities or empty fields,

they begin to plant.

(c) April 2010

Tonight, we forgot all about our menu, and for dinner we had some bowls of locally made Dandelion-Leek Miso (oh how I love you, South River Miso!), with raw carrots and parsnips freshly dug from the garden, and some of this dip (a favorite from my childhood):

Yogurt Dill Dip

1/2 cup yogurt

1/2 cup mayonnaise (I like The Ojai Cook’s Lemomaise)

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 Tbsp fresh dill, or 2 tsp dried dill

Mix all together, and serve chilled with any sort of vegetable for dipping.  (Also works great as a sauce for fish.)   Only gets better as it sits.  Add some paprika or pepper flakes for a spicy kick if you prefer.

This week, I’m reading lots and thinking about these words in particular:

“The sage Abayei, orphaned from birth, was raised by a nurse he called Eim (Mother).  Said Abayei: “Eim told me, ‘To raise a child one needs warm water [for bathing] and oil [for annointing].  When the child is a little bigger, he needs things to break.’” . . . Arrange to ignore some benign mayhem . . . Give them a bit of privacy to be children, even slightly naughty ones. . . You are parents, not police or undercover agents.  Think of all of this as preventative misbehavior; the small temblor that releases tectonic pressure and forestalls a bigger earthquake.”  -from The Blessing of a Skinned Knee by Wendy Mogel (I’m rereading this one).

On karma:

“All phenomena are interdependent, with our every act conditioning the next one.  Nothing arises by itself.  In this verse, the Buddha shows the importance of thoughts in creating our karma:

The thought manifests as the word;

The word manifests as the deed;

The deed develops into habit;

The habit hardens into character.

So watch the thought and its ways with care,

And let it spring from love

Born out of concern for all beings.”

-from Buddhism for Mothers by Sarah Napthali

On anger:

“Anger, like the common cold, is a recurrent problem.  We may not like it, but we cannot ignore it . . . When we lose our temper, we act as though we have lost our sanity.  We say and do things to our children that we would hesitate to inflict on an enemy . . .Resolutions about not becoming angry are worse than futile.  They only add fuel to fire.  Anger, like a hurricane, is a fact of life to be acknowledged and prepared for.  The peaceful home, like the hoped-for peaceful world, does not depend on a sudden benevolent change in human nature.  It does depend on deliberate procedures that methodically reduce tensions before they lead to explosions.” – from Between Parent and Child, by Dr. Hiam Ginott (the emphasis is his).

I guess you could say I’m charging my Mama batteries.  Ella is definitely leaving behind her babyhood, and quickly becoming a child, which requires an almost entirely different set of skills.  I might not be ready, but here we go!

(Oh yes, and I’m trying [but not very hard!] to resist making everything in Meg’s new book Sew Liberated, but it’s awfully hard.  Seriously, have you seen it?)

Howdy folks.  I’ve got a little bean who’s decided, suddenly, that she is a night owl – hence my late post!  Here’s our menu for the week – hope your week holds lots of nourishing goodness.

* Oat Pilaf with Carrots and thyme, again (from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass)

* Farro with Portabellos (dried mushrooms for us) and thyme (from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass)

* Polenta with Mushroom – Tomato Sauce (Ella’s been begging for this one again, from Petit Appetit)

* Olive Egg Salad (from Petit Appetit)

* Lentil Greens Soup (I love the recipe from 101 Cookbooks)

* Rye Grits with Sausage and Potatoes (from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass)

* Poulet Mornay Gratinee (aka poached chicken pieces gratineed with cheese sauce, from Julia Child)

(from last May – a little garden dancing)

(photo by Seth Seeger)

This is taken from far away, but can you see Ella riding on Ben’s back here, while he drives Cole?  Ella, Seth, Cole, and Ben had a little adventure while Mama was baking yesterday afternoon!

(photo by Ben)

Grateful for our good earth.

Grateful for our winter wheat trials coming up, looking healthy and strong.

Grateful for flowers to come.

We are all so grateful for spring.  Blessings on your weekend.