Friday Is Baking Day #1

Hey y'all! Forever ago I mentioned that I was trying to split the week up into a major chore a day, and this is the second week now that I've been trying it out. Wanted to wait until I was feeling more organized to start posting again, because the more disorganized I am the more posting tends to fall apart on me. To be honest, everything feels like it falls apart when I get disorganized, which is why I'm trying some not-so-new methods to get everything working. And it really is working!

Along about a month ago I was visiting with my Momma and G-Ma and we fell to talking about the ones what came before us and how they did things on a daily basis. Friday bake day, Monday wash day, and Tuesday ironing day really struck a chord with me, and I thought when I came back to the house I'd give it a try. Now everybody has what works for them, and I can't say that this would work for anybody else but what a difference it's made for me. Couldn't have seen coming that organizing the week like that would not only get those tasks done, but make me feel all freed up to get everything else moving along too! Heck, even snoozing better at night because I ain't up nagging myself about stuff that got forgotten about.

What's baking today? So far there's Whole Wheat Potato Bread dough rising in a big ol' stockpot and a Lavender Yogurt Cake baking in the oven, and more to come when I can run get some milk from the store.

Now if I could just get this posting cart hitched up and riding along.

Days Of The Week

A major chore for each day of the week is something I'm trying out.

Monday : Laundry

Tuesday : Ironing

Wednesday : Scrubbing The Bathroom

Thursday : Soup

Friday : Baking

Saturday : Grocery Shopping

Sundays are for taking it easy, and studying my Bible!

Organizing

Getting organized today, so I can get back to posting with a schedule. Yay!

Primo's : Sunday

Ok, ok. Yes, it's a stunning double hotel resort and the golf course is lovely and there's a great spa and three different pools and a lazy river and the rooms are posh enough to feel pampered but not overly done or wastefull feeling but...

When D was told his office was sending him to a big tech conference in Orlando, I spent the next month running around in circles with glee. Not because of any of those previouslly mentioned perks, because ya know, we don't play golf and the pool is iffy with this stormy time of year and fiddle players who garden have no use for manicures at all.

Primo's.

Primo's is my favourite resteraunt in the world, and for a week that's where I get to eat every night. This is where I wanna write all of these incredible descriptions of the place, but I ain't a good enough writer to make y'all understand even a tiny bit of why it's the best. This is my best attempt at it, so bear with me please.

First off, understand that I ain't anybody worth noticing really. It's a decently fancy resteraunt, and when I get to eat there I'm in sundresses from Target and have frizzy hair streaked with silvery bits and cut to the quick nails with farmer's cuticles. I spill peas from my fork, get embaressingly enthusiastic about what we're eating, and gawk like a hillbilly in a fancy bathroom the whole time. Actually, the bathroom in our hotelroom is really fancy, and it reminds me of my cousin Teresa who used to rate the bathrooms as a kid when we'd all go out anywhere, but that's another story and I ain't seen her for a while but she can probably still throw a pretty good punch so I ain't elaborating on that story right now. Quick summary, Primo's ain't gonna make the cover of anything by spoiling me, but...



They make me feel like visiting royalty every time. They're the friendliest, nicest folk and make you feel like regulars the first day you're there. Back in August, I ate there by myself when D ws taking his momma up to see some folks in South Carolina, and they pampered me so much they even sent me on with a complimentary box of assorted little truffles and cookies and a cook book by the owner chef! For the next few days, I wanna blog about how each evening went so y'all can share in some of the fun. Please forgive the pictures, it's kinda low light for no flash but I don't like using the flash when people are eating. They were so nice to let me take pictures.

Bread starts off the meal, and when shouldn't it? This is the best bread I've ever eaten, it's a roasted garlic focccio and the garlic cloves are on top with the herbs and they're so sweet and mild and delicious. The bread is moist and light as anything, and when I realized I forgot to take some with me back up to the room last night I about sobbed. 



There should be a cute little round bite here, they always offer you a one bite little yum of whatever they feel like playing with that day, and it was round and kinda like a mini hushpuppy with corn in it could've been? Bacon? A few seconds after I popped it in my mouth and let out a tiny little piglet grunt of pleasure, I realized I was taking pics and forgot to. Pretend there's one here.

The big appetizer was quail! This picture is a bit uglier than the others, but promptly after I took this one D accidentally knocked the blossom off into the creamy sauce and it didn't look as polished then so this is what y'all get. These are two little quail legs perched up on a fried green 'mater and some black eyed peas with a great sauce. If any of y'all wanna know why I wanna raise quail, try this!



D wanted some salmon, he's a fiend for it back at the house and he picked :

"Cedar Planked Scottish Salmon sunchoke and parsnip puree, crisp mustard spaetzle with sauteed lady apples, petite greens; maple glazed bacon and crisp apple chips"






















There was so much on the menu that I wanted, but I decided to try :

"Pan Roasted Local Red Snapper leeks carbonara, fresh peas, favas, and preserved lemon... parsnip frites"

How that fish stayed on the plate I ain't never gonna figure, it was so light and airy and clean it was like to float up! The veggies were so fresh it was like nibbling out of the garden, and I had to check and make sure I hadn't grown bunny ears. Who knew parsnips ruled the veggies you should fry up world?



The only thing about a working stay like this that sucks is we don't get to sit at the meal as long as we'd wanna, so we had to order dessert to go. The pictures didn't come out nice of the cake, but I can try to get some more since it's the dessert I usually get. The others sound delicious, but they tend to have either espresso or liquor in them and I can't have caffeine or alcohol. They brought these little things out on the house though, and ain't they the cutest? That's D grabbing for a truffle before I can take it's picture, he's such a punk! The little dark chocolate truffles are really in the deep cocoa category, they were my favs. The apple jellies were all tart and sweet and just charming, and the only ones I wasn't fond of were the citrus candied peel sort of things but it ain't a fair call since I ain't never been partial to 'em.



At the start of the meal, I brought my cook book with me to get it signed by the Chef De Cusine, but he wasn't in on Sundays and they said I could bring back the book on Monday for him. That was nice, but...

This was the real surprise! They brought back a menu for me, and look at what they did!



Y'all, it's no lie to say I about fell out the chair and clapped my hands like a little kid. Y'all know as soon as I can we're getting this framed, ain't it the best? You can read it better in some of the pics.






More tommorow, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

Half A Bust

Not sure that I'd call the day a bust, but it won't my most productive day neither. Had a good start on the morning, washing up dishes and setting things nice and neat, but long about the time D came on in we were distracted by the lure of a burrito from Chipotle's so off we went after one. It was a justifiable outing you see because we had to run something over to D's mom's which meant we'd be out anyway and we're weak willed when it comes to those burritos over there. Y'all know I told myself that I'd get back to it after we had dinner, but it was one of those days and we ended up playing games and making farm plans all evening so not a lick of work was done. Why can't my momma live closer so somebody can nag me to be useful? Didn't even practice my fiddle today, so y'all remember that when I put up some video about how it's coming.

Here's to more work tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

St. Patrick's Day In My Small Way

Y'all who know me ain't gonna be surprised if I say that I celebrated the day with cooking, because what holiday don't I make the food the star? If you're expecting to find corned beef and cabbage though (as was everybody at the farmer's market who commented on me buying cabbage), you'll be searching for some time to find it. It ain't that I don't love the stuff, but this day to me has nothing to do with a dish that was originally designed to hide many of the less than pleasant flavours of beef gone a bit past it's prime. Instead, today I spent most of the day cooking large amounts of good meat to put up in the freezer for quick meals when it's been one of those days. A chicken was done up nice and roasted in the french oven, and most of it turned into a nice cottage pie that we had for supper. A small wild boar roast was in the crock pot with potatoes and carrots and onions and a bottle of Irish Red, and now it's packaged away neatly. Cookie dough is frozen in little scoops, chicken bones are roasted and ready for stock tommorow. From this morning through Sunday evening I'm gonna be baking and making soups... and this is my celebration?

They came here looking for a better life, a chance for their children and their name to survive. They were hungry. Today as I make plans for our farm, bake our bread, fill our bellies it is thank you with each bite. I don't know of a better way to honour their memories than to keep working to make sure we ain't hungry.

Go raibh maith agat.

Thank you.

Happy St. Patrick's Day y'all!

Slaving Over A Hot Pan Of Popcorn

Last night, D and me were craving something to snack on as we sat around and were generally useless. his schedule is all messed up because of some overnight work he's had to do, so we were taking a bit of time to relax and play a video game together, it being too late at night to do anything else productive. Gosh, it just hurts me down deep in my soul when I *have* to be lazy. Take a moment with me and wallow in the agony.

Moving on, the snack urge called for something salty and crunchy and fun, which means popcorn! Between turns, I jumped up and threw a few tablespoons of oil into a big pan and a few popcorn kernels, turned it on medium low,and sat my butt back on the couch to play. A few minutes later we heard the pop of the test kernals, and I ran in to put about 1/3rd cup of popcorn kernels into the pan. Please note that by run in, I mean realize I forgot to put the lid on, grab up said lid like a shield, and approach the two unpopped kernels like a ridiculously short gladiator facing down a matched set of starving leopards. The cry of victory as I slammed the lid down over the shimmering oil was not at all melodramatic and/or out of proportion to my feat.

Right! So in the new kernels went, I grabbed the pan off the heat for a count of thirty seconds to let everything warm up nicely, put it back on the heat and sat my butt down again to play until I heard the first pop. Then it was just a minute of watching the popping goodness, shaking it a bit, and tossing some melted butter and salt over the bounty and back to sitting on the couch pretending to take over the world, pixlated style. It took less than 10 minutes from start to finish, half of which I was on the laptop. This incredibly fascinating tale is told as a lead up to this question.

What the heck is the point of microwave popcorn?

Microwave popcorn takes an average of four minutes to cook, stovetop popcorn took me seven. So far, that's the only thing the bagged stuff has over the do it yourself stuff. Stovetop tastes better, doesn't get your fingers all greasy, leaves only one unpopped kernel in the whole batch, and is all evenly cooked with no scorching (unless you just forgot it was on the stove of course). Stovetop also is never gonna give you Popcorn Lung. Not to kick up a fuss, but ain't that a neat and tidy summary of what's gone so wrong with our society? That saving three minutes is worth 10 times the expense, a mediocre product, and a whole new disease?

Try some on the stovetop today if you get the craving, it's one of the laziest ways ever to feel good about what you're eating and your skills in the kitchen. Stovetop popcorn, worth the effort!