1 Chicken- 3 Ways

Since the other members of my family like meat and kind of want it on the regular, I have to figure out a way to get them off my back. I bought a frozen whole chicken, thawed it out, ripped it apart with my bare hands, flinging salmonella rich chicken juice all over the kitchen walls and clean dishes in the other sink, as well as on my face and body and possibly in my slightly ajar mouth (ajar from the sheer effort, my concentration face). The whole event was peppered with me shrieking hysterically at my husband to get the baby out of the kitchen and growling exorcist style at him for daring to attempt to wash a plum in the same sink I was wrestling with the chicken in.



I got almost as much out of this chicken as I could. I could have made some faux foie gras from the innards but I'm pretty sure no one, not even the dogs, would have appreciated it. I baked the legs, wings, and back at 350, after sprinkling with some Cajun seasoning. I grilled one chicken breast, seasoned with salt and pepper. I ground one breast and 2 thighs in the food processor, seasoned lightly, formed in 1/2 inch balls, rolled around in Panko crumbs, and fried until golden...my version of chicken nuggets.



My husband had the 2 wings and 1 leg for dinner with some veggies. The chicken breast will be served to him for lunch in a salad. The back and remaining wing will be served in another dinner to him with more veggies and couscous. So that is 3 meat laden meals. That should get me off the hook for at least 2-3 days.



The chicken nuggets are for the baby. He seems to like meat a lot. He ate 5 or 6 nuggets, which is a good bit for him. I made about 2 dozen. Possibly I will freeze some for future use in bento boxes.



I'm glad its over and this whole ordeal just re-confirmed why I hate food prep when it involves meat. Nagging from my husband be damned, it will be a while before I do it again. I am posting a picture below, not because I am proud, but because I think the image perfectly conveys the level of throw-it-togetherness I approached this task with...

RAW chocolate smoothie

Whenever I am totally bored with preparing food, which is sadly pretty often, one thing that always perks me up is experimenting with vegan and raw recipes or even coming up with my own. I'm not religious enough to commit to either of these lifestyle choices 100% of the time, but I flirt with the idea often enough to get my husband all up in arms.



Typically, I make fresh coconut milk 1-2 times a week. I'm not sure why I do it so often because usually I am trying to figure out ways to use it before it goes bad. Today was no exception to that routine. On top of that I had a bag of raw cocoa nibs and some medjool dates that had been sitting in my cupboard ignored for longer than I care to think about.



Usually, if I have a breakfast smoothie it consists of fresh coconut milk and frozen bananas and possibly whatever other fruit I may have on hand, but I used the last of my frozen bananas 2 days ago and also I have a raging sinus infection that has been marked with violent enough sneezing sessions that I believe I actually threw my neck out during one of them, if that is even possible... The bananas come into play in that they seem to make me more snotty, so yeah I won't be re-upping on them.



So I decided to soak the dates, grind the nibs finely, and whir it up in my blender. Also, I want to note that I used 1.5 cups of the cream (the stuff that separates to the top) of the coconut milk, in hopes that it would make the smoothie thicker. I used 2 heaping tablespoons of the nibs, and about 7 pieces of dates with the pit removed.


After whirring in my blender, I finally accepted the fact that the nibs powder wasn't going to dissolve completely and while the taste of the smoothie was great the texture was grainy. I immediately added this experience to the list of reasons justifying the purchase of a $400 blender, ya'll know which one I'm talking about. No really though, I must figure out a way to make this recipe work and still maintain its RAW-ness. I'll update when I do.

Bento Box- 2nd attempt

Manny is off to Nanny's house today and I decided to send him with another lunch. I made efforts to improve on the first bento box lunch which was mostly fruit, no veggies, and heavy on heavily processed pre-packaged snack items. This time I included a homemade eggroll, sweet potatoe patty, some fresh blueberries, broccoli florets, and a small piece of a Luna nutrition bar. I really just included the nutrition bar to take up some space on the side and also because he seems to like them. He always eats mine! He loves fruit as well and since I have plenty of blueberries on hand, I figured it wouldn't hurt to include those as well. I can't wait to hear how he liked it!

Bento Boxes

So if you haven't heard of Bento Boxes before, it is basically a portable meal that is proportioned and packaged/presented creatively. Since discovering this style of meal prep, I have taken a renewed interest in presenting my 19 month old with solid food. He isn't terribly interested in eating solids when I am around, but when I am not around he eats well from what I hear. The other day I dropped him at his great-grandmothers with a Bento Box lunch and she said he LOVED it. My heart smiled and I immediately began thinking of ways to improve these meals. The first one I made wasn't all that balanced and had quite a bit of processed food and no vegetables. Either way, it was a step in the right direction!

Garden Update!

My banana trees died and even though I spent about $30 on them with shipping I just don't feel like sending them back. Many of my herbs didn't even germinate. Chamomile seeds germinated into cotyledons that died from lack of water I suppose. Radishes, beets, and carrots are coming up niceley, along with a row of spinach. Me and grandma made four rows and planted purple hull peas, some cucumber plants, tomatoe plants, and mustard greens. Anyway, just wanted to go ahead and log that into my journal...

Spring Gardening 2010!

Yeah baby! Spring is in full swing and I actually got off my ass enough to build a raised garden bed (well actually, Jarvas did a lot of it) and do a whole mess of other things to get my container garden ready for planting. Sowing the seeds was the easy part, now all I have to do is wait... Anyway here are some pics of my work. Hopefully everything will grow in and look beatiful in a couple of months. I planted lots of herbs, 3 kinds of tomatoe, 3 kinds of lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, and radishes. Later I hope to plant some pole beans, we will see...

Garden Update

I started my seedlings in egg crates a couple weeks ago and had them germinating on top of the fridge under a fluorescent light. They came up quick and grew well for almost a week, then they wilted and died... so sad. I put so much effort into it and I'm not terribly sure where I went wrong. Possibly, I shouldn't have started the seeds in a compost mix that I baked to sterilize it? I am going to start seedlings in pots outside in about a week. Hopefully that works, I really don't know how many set backs my optimism can take before curling up to die...

Buh Bye Holiday Season!

Well, the holidays are over and now I'm looking forward to Spring because I can't wait to get my garden started! Last summer's was a bust, and the spring garden I only planted lettuce and greens, which was fine but it took a lot of work to get what I got and I wasn't a bit satisfied with the way the yard/garden looked. Weeds everywhere! I couldn't possibly spend the 4-5 hours/week working out there. I need something super low maintenance after the initial installion. So, my plan for this year is to nix the yard garden and do raised garden beds. I am not entirely sure how high I am going to raise them but I think it would be really cool if they were around 2 ft tall that way I could sit on a stool or chair and work in them. I am not sure what kind of structure I can build that will still be shallow enough and strong enough to hold a good bit of sod. I am thinking maybe I can stack a burlap lined crate on top of some cinderblocks? That seems cheap enough and also easy to take apart if I change my mind about location later. We will see. In addition to that project, I also want to work on landscaping the backyard a little better. Several trees need to be cut down and my grandpa says he will take care of it some time this year. Also, I am planning on adding an avocado and lemon tree to the "orchard" as well as some banana plants to help the already existing banana plants bear fruit, I need to find out what the deal is with the existing plants...

I really want to extend my grandparents patio to fit the picnic table and barbecue grill so that it will be more comfortable for entertaining out there. We will see....

Training britches!

Well I made my first pair and I nixed the wool part because I don't need them to be waterproof, anyway here is a pic of the first pair I made, they are plenty cute and plenty functional, they just take a while to dry because I put 8 layers in the wet zone, Also the workmanship is a little shabby, I need to practice and find a better method of attaching the waist and legbands...

Getting my life together...

Its about time that I got my life together, and by life I mean my home. I need to organize and purge and purge and purge. Okay, I probably don't have that much to purge, seeing how I am constantly editing my material possessions and carting them off to the goodwill. However, somehow, I always seem to amass enough items (each season) to make a good trunk full of stuff to haul to the goodwill. It really goes against everything I believe in.... this over consumption and disposal of goods, but I really don't know how to avoid it. How do you avoid something you don't see coming? I don't shop that much, the majority of money is spent on food items. Where is this stuff coming from? Lets see if I can make this make sense...

1. My son- I do have clothing items (bought to fit me during pregnancy and after childbirth) that no longer fit because my size has been slowly decreasing since I gave birth and these items (mainly pants) don't fit flatteringly anymore (this is coming from my husband whose opinion I value on matters concerning the appearance of my butt in aforementioned pants).

2. My husband's mother- Ok, she doesn't really hold any blame here, but I am going to go ahead and assign her some. First of all she constantly calls me to ask me what size my baby is wearing because she is out shopping and just found an unbelievable sale at Children's Place or BabyGap or some such other store.... it doesn't matter if I say we don't need anything, if the deal is good enough she will certainly buy the items and justify it by saying that SOMEDAY he will be able to wear it and if not she has 4 more grandkids, etc.... How this relates to my current clutter, ummmm... well, ummm there are at least 1 or 2 baby items here that I don't need, I am sure... let me just look around for a minute...

3. My husband- this jerk wanted to keep a vodka bottle because it was shaped like a skull last week. Obviously I unceremoniously hit the dumpster with it while he was at work. This is one small example of his attitude toward decluttering and organizing. (eta: people may think I shouldn't call my husband a jerk on a public blog, but it is a fact, he tends to be a jerk, it requires a certain amount of constant self-awareness for him not to be, and that self-awareness is often lacking. Just stating the facts, doesn't mean I love him any less...)

4. My neighbors- I blame them for not moving out of the bigger house that my family is renting to them that I would like to move into. If I had more space I could organize my stuff better...

Okay thats enough of that, I am going to be a big girl after I finish playing on the computer and my sweet baby wakes up and go get started!

Vegan Flourless Chocolate Cake

ETA: Ok, I made this recipe a couple more times, and I don't know what I was smoking the first time I tasted this cake, but YUCK!


Ok, I stumbled across this recipe whilst googling for a flourless chocolate cake recipe and must say that I was intrigued. A cake recipe based on black-eyed peas.... hmmm. Now, for some reason I have a strange and sometime-y aversion to legumes, that is if they are prepared in the traditional sense. I do occassionally relish a bowl of 5 bean chili or baked beans, but not as a daily dish. Now, seeing how I also have an even greater aversion to store-bought meat, I think that legumes should be incorporated into my daily diet for nutritional reasons. In this recipe, I have found a pleasing if not addictive way to do just that. Here is a link to the recipe http://www.noveleats.com/daringbakers/vegan-flourless-chocolate-cake/.





The cake certainly satisfied my sweet tooth and was decadently rich. I will say that next time I will bake for about 10 more minutes because the center of the cake was still kind of wet, I cooked it for 60 minutes. I also iced it with a chocolate buttercream glaze, made with chocolate morsels and vegan butter.

Training pants

Ok, I have to type quick because my baby daddy is trippin'. I keep telling him over and over again you can't "babysit" your own child, its called parenting... Anyways, I wanted to quickly go over my latest project: training pants for Manny. He is now 8 months old and pooping almost exclusively in the pot, however I miss a lot of pees, so I would like some trainer pants that pull up and down. I just got some organic bamboo velour and fleece and I already have some wool interlock, so I'm thinking about how I can combine them to create something like this http://doityourselfec.blogspot.com/2008/01/wool-in-two-training-pants.html.

Hickernut

Ok, I really didn't want that for the title of my blog but after entering a million cool titles into the "choose a title" engine and all of them coming back as already taken, I just typed "Hickernut Central" in to see if anyone had ever thought of that. Well what I didn't realize was that once I clicked enter I would be stuck with it as a title, that there was no reverse button. Maybe there is, I don't know, I'm too lazy to look and try to figure it out, and besides I will just assume it is destiny, my blog shall be called "Hickernut Central".