A Day in the Kitchen

Really.  A whole ding-dong day in the kitchen.  That's what I did yesterday.  But it was worth it.

I've been thinking (ouch) and planning ahead to the coming busy season when my kitchen is frequently without a cook.  Getting the freezer stocked and as much food preparation done ahead of time is my current agenda.  I was able to cross quite a few items off my list of same yesterday and felt like I'd accomplished a lot.

Started the day with a double batch of spaghetti sauce.  (My stove top always gets a good cleaning when I make this sauce.  I simply can NOT make it without splattering sauce every which way 'til Sunday.)  I put meat in my sauce but usually also have meat balls (still on the list to do) in the freezer to add for that man I live with who needs more meat protein than I do.

Having pre-made burgers all ready for the pan is always a quick, easy meal for me.  (Blurry pic, I know, must not have had my glasses on.  Looks a lot like the spaghetti sauce, doesn't it, except blurrier.)

I mix seasonings in with the ground beef before forming it into patties and wrapping for the freezer.  I add prepared mustard, catsup, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, bread crumbs, onions and an egg for each pound of meat.

It's not homegrown pork (we're trying to simplify here, folks) but I've found a pork sausage mix in one pound packages at our co-op in town that we both really like.  I divide the pound into six pieces, form the pieces into patties and freeze in that form.

I made a batch of Italian bread and formed it into four small loaves.  They're wrapped and stored in the freezer and are wonderful for Garlic Cheese Bread.  Each little loaf is just right for two people to share.

Traditionally I bake sugar cookies at Easter.  In the shape of eggs 'cause they're so much easier to decorate than rabbits.  (My mama didn't raise no dummies.)

Mixed up the frosting and have it waiting in the fridge to tint pastel colors but won't decorate the cookies until Saturday.

These Chicken Squares are delicious and something a little special when having company.  The filling is chopped chicken, cream cheese and some veggies of your choice.

I serve them with Chicken Gravy so I made a big pan of it using some of our chicken bone broth.

The above took me until about 6 o'clock last night with three meals squeezed in there somewhere.

Why is it at the end of a day like this in the kitchen, I feel as if I'd done hard physical labor outside?  Awww, must just be my imagination.  Everyone knows being a homemaker and cooking from scratch is a snap.  (Cough-choke-gasp-chortle-snort.)

It's totally worth it though, and I wouldn't trade my job (or very soiled apron) for any other.

Breakfast for Lunch

It's not unusual for me to fix a traditional breakfast meal for dinner, but I don't think I've often done the same for lunch.

Long about 11 o'clock this morning, my stomach was signaling me it was EMP-ty and needed some refueling.  What sounded good?  French toast with haskap berry syrup.

I've whined and complained plenty in past blog posts regarding the sour and unpleasant taste of haskap berries fresh off our bushes.  Heck, we've even put them in a bowl swimming in cream and they still aren't pleasant to eat.

Other than the cordial dear daughter made with some of the berries this past Christmas time (the contents of that bottle of deep purple liqueur disappeared in no time and was excellent), I've found another way to use the berries that we simply love.

I tried making jam with them following my blueberry jam recipe adding no more sugar than I do in that recipe.  The end product didn't come anywhere close to jam consistency, but wowzer!  Do we have several jars of a really good tasting syrup.

Not the least bit sour, bitter or otherwise unpalatable.  We've been eating it over pancakes, waffles and French toast and enjoying it very much.  (I have a strong feeling the haskap berries would make an excellent wine, too, if anyone in this family ever got around to doing that.)

Haskaps are so loaded with high nutritional value including many times more antioxidants than even blueberries that we don't feel hesitant to slather the syrup on.

Today's lunch:  French toast made with sourdough bread we've been getting from a young entrepreneur who has been baking his bread in an outdoor oven all winter, part of it with some of the haskap berry syrup already ladled over it, homemade coleslaw from veggies from our root cellar, homemade applesauce from our orchard's bounty, and a sausage pattie not home grown, but made from bulk sausage purchased from our co-op in town.

Gotta say that lunch took care of my growling tummy.  I could eat that for breakfast, lunch or dinner any day.  Plus, now I'm loaded with a good dose of antioxidants from the haskap syrup. 

"Would You Like One Egg Or Two?"

Although our landscape and temperatures wouldn't give you the idea it was spring time, apparently our poultry received a memo that it is.

Between our chickens, geese and ducks, our egg production has been eggs-ceptional!  (Sorry, that was bad.)

For comparison of sizes, the eggs across the top of above photo are from our chickens.  The two on the left of the bottom row are from ducks, and the big honker, next to the avocado to give an idea of size, is a goose egg.

Goose eggs are . . . great, big eggs!

I fried the goose egg this morning.  The skillet it's in measures 10" across.  The yolk is a full 3" across.  Wouldn't it be fun to dye some goose eggs for Easter?  What about making deviled eggs with them?  Gollywampus!

We currently have 3 female geese and the egg shown is the first one we've gotten this year.  The 4 female ducks have gone into production in a big way, and for the past week or so we've been getting three or four duck eggs each day.  The 13 female chickens, not wanting to be called slackers, are giving us 10 to 12 eggs a day.

If this keeps up, I may find it profitable to put a stand out at the end of our driveway and start selling eggs.

Breaking the Silence

Yep, I know I've not put up a new post in a week, but haven't felt I had anything to share.  

I may be in a bit of an in between seasons funk.  Good sleep at night has been eluding me no matter what I try.  Neither outdoor exercise nor a capsule or two of melatonin does the trick.  And yet if I sit to knit or read during the day . . . you guessed it.  I fall asleep in a matter of minutes only to jerk awake wondering where am I, what day is it, what time is it, who am I?  I think if I let myself, I could be like the newborn babe with days and nights mixed up.

So I've been taking it really easy this weekend, avoiding most tasks on The List I could be accomplishing.

We have a fly problem equal to that of Jenn who writes the blog, 
Coffee on the Porch with Me.  The flies are those big ol' black ones that come out of the cracks and crevices and seem to immediately land belly-up (deader than a door nail, which is probably not a bad thing) all over the house.  Like Jenn, I have to spend too much time each day either sweeping or using the vac to suck them up and away.  Mine are especially bad in Papa Pea's upstairs unfinished office.  I think a few of them must crawl behind the insulation each fall and happily procreate all winter.  In the spring, the hoards emerge and die.  Kind of like the salmon  after spawning.  Darn good thing they're not the size of salmon because they conk out all over the house.  On any and all surfaces.

Our daughter is doing a two-week+ house sitting gig for good friends of hers.  She will be there over Easter Weekend and they have told her to treat their place as her own so she's preparing dinner there on Easter, and we're invited.  Don't know what she's serving but it won't be ham.  I've mentioned before she was raised vegetarian and has never developed a taste for most meat.  She says the texture of ham is especially bothersome for her so she avoids eating it.  I really don't care if we have egg salad sandwiches (all those colored Easter eggs, you know) 'cause as long as I don't have to prepare the meal myself, it will be a treat. 

Our snow continues to melt.  Although we haven't had a drop of rain  nor seen a snow flake in weeks, tomorrow is supposed to be one of those lovely (not) mixes of snow/rain/sleet/ice just to remind us that Old Man Winter has not yet "left the building."

Posts containing pictures are always so much more interesting.  Maybe that's why I haven't felt like doing much posting lately.  Our bleak white/gray/black scenery out-of-doors hasn't been enticing in the least.  As far as inside activity, I've been making some little items that will go in Easter baskets but, of course, I can't show them before the Easter Bunny delivers them!

The In Between Period

We've been having beautiful, sunny days above freezing so the snow is slowly melting.

Not the prettiest time of year around here, but we have to go through it to get to warmer weather and the beginning of another glorious, green, gardening season.

Speaking of which, I'm actually starting to work on the layout of this year's garden.  As much as I fight to hang on to my winter hibernation period, I'm actually getting a little itchy to see green plants and colorful blossoms where a solid blanket of white has been for several months.

I feel a good organizational kind of day coming on for tomorrow.  Lots of must-dos were taken care of today.   Laundry and ironing, I cleaned out the refrigerator (yay!), made some good food that will serve as yummy leftovers tomorrow so I won't have to do much cooking.  

Sunday night I baked an apple cake that isn't totally obliterated as of this hour so that should serve as a sweet should it be needed.  

I started to get out Easter decorations today but realized they just "don't go" with the winter ones still scattered in every room.

Yep, even though it's a long time before real spring hits us in our northern clime, I'm going to pack away all the blue and white snow-flaky decor tomorrow and put up some light and bright spring things.  Then I'll feel I can finish placing the Easter ones around, too.

The above shows the beginning of our driveway (just to the right of the big snow bank on the left) leaving our yard area.  Truth to tell, we haven't had a snow flake fall on us for a couple/few weeks now (sorry, Susan) and the slow melting that has been going on has enabled the moisture to seep into the ground without forming as much mud, puddles and ice as usual.  Not a bad way to slip into spring up here in the north woods.

The Kitchen Tour

On her post of Friday, March 9th, a new favorite blogger of mine, 
wisps of words, took us on a tour of her kitchen.  She asked if we readers would do the same by taking pictures of our kitchens to post on our blogs.

So here goes.  I grabbed my camera and started shooting with the sun streaming in through the south facing windows which proved to be not the best lighting for my pictures . . . as you will readily see.

Here I'm standing in the doorway of what we call our entry room.  Before we started adding on to our little hacienda here, it was the door that went directly outside.  The wood stove on the left is situated between the kitchen, a small hallway and our bedroom.

Without moving but turning to the right, you see down the kitchen in that direction.

Looking directly across the room from the same spot, you see our kitchen table and the south facing windows. 

Walking ahead and getting closer to the table, I start to turn right past the back side of the work island in the middle of the kitchen.  You can see just a corner of it on the right.

Now you see the refrigerator and more of the back side of the island.  To the left of the refridge is the door going into our living room.  That door is most often open but has proven to be handy to shut out noise from either room. 

As we keep veering right, you see the stove past the refrigerator and then the sink. 
 

Directly across from the island is the counter area past the sink.  The windows you see on the right look out on our unheated, enclosed porch.  When we remodeled, I wanted to take out the windows and build in a floor-to-ceiling storage unit.  I was out-voted and the windows stayed.  I still don't like looking out onto the porch though.

Moving down the "work" side of the center island.

Now we're almost back where we started.  The doorway past the two windows is where I was standing to begin.  The door at the far end of the little hallway leads into our bedroom.

When you look at wisps of words' lovely kitchen, you'll see it looks "magazine ready" which mine does not.  I didn't take the time to tidy up before taking the pictures.  As they say, "What you see is what you get!"

It's a comfortable size which I appreciate since the space, before we started our remodeling and adding on, used to be both kitchen AND living room.  My kitchen has turned out to be very convenient for me, and I love it.

Now how about a tour of YOUR kitchen?