Monday, December 30, 2013
Getting older and hopefully wiser
Maybe next year (and the next say 20 years) we will host Christmas? Last year was not so bad, we had to drive 6 hours max with a sleepy 8 month old. This year we drove 8 hours with an angry toddler and could barely fit all of us and the inevitable stuff in our car on the way home, that and the drive home was an adventure as the weather was quite uncooperative, but thankfully we all made it home safe and I am tempted never again to leave it, at least until well into spring! I do not think there are blizzards in June in these here parts! Christmas in July isn't such a bad idea… The winters are milder here than what I am used to but the weather gets very hairy when it decides to have a bad hair day and staying home is a good idea, if possible. In my young stupid days I would probably not worry too much about driving through the night or facing terrible roads but I am now old and have other lives to consider. I am getting old! Next I'll be telling stories about walking to school in said weather and how we did not even have Facebook…yeah, I'm that old!
Saturday, December 21, 2013
The Haphazard Gourmet?
I now own a set of 'real' cookware! No, I did not spend $1000 on some top of the line set of pots and pans, but we bought an actual set of pans that cost just slightly more than $19.99 to replace the eclectic set of hand-me-downs that I have been using for the last decade, inherited from various mothers, aunts, and even great grandmothers. I actually have a picture of me as a baby playing with some of the pans in said collection, definitely time for something new! So, now that I own this much coveted set of cookware and have a 'mommy blog,' I may now torture anyone silly enough to be reading this with my cooking adventures! Watch out Rachel Raye! Actually, she would probably keel over in shock should she ever read any of my cooking tips.
I have been both a busy professional with a full time job who needs to get dinner on the table after a long day at work and now a professional housekeeper/short order cook...I mean mom, so I do not do this either professionally or elegantly, but it works. Be warned, I am veggiphobic (if that is not a word, it should be), like gluten, and cannot afford to eat organic. I also live 200 miles from the nearest 'Yuppie Foods,' so things like edamame and arugula are not even in the vocabulary; the local Podunk Foods is happy to have milk, eggs, and potatoes. And no, I do not like goat cheese. I also live on the tundra so most fruits and veggies will be frozen or canned for nine months of the year. 'In season,' means that you eat as much fresh sweet corn in a two week period as you can until you are so sick of it that you are good until next year. A 'hotdish' for you non-midwesterners is basically a casserole (a starch, meat, veggie, and sauce all in one dish). If it comes from a plant it is a vegetable unless it is a starch (think wheat, potatoes, rice) or an obvious fruit (peaches, apples, bananas, etc.); not scientific, but functional, this is not a botany blog. I do not know where tofu fits in this classification, I am not even sure it is native to earth. Also milk is milk, not any liquid derived from non-lactational plants (see tofu); how does one milk a soybean?
Equipment...as mentioned above, my kitchen armory is not very high tech, but there are a few things I really like. A bread machine and dishwasher make life very nice for the busy cook. A good mixer is requisite for many cooks, but I can live without mine. It is nice for cookie dough but otherwise it just collects dust. Many people use it for bread, but I like my bread machine, it does all the work on its own and keeps the dough warm during rising. My mixer does not have a brain or a warm personality. When choosing a bread machine, the simpler the better; too many bells and whistles mean the thing is either impossible to use or will break down very shortly after purchase. I have a sunbeam, my second, I literally wore out the pan on my first and it was only slightly more expensive to buy a new machine than to replace the pan. You can use it for not just bread and rolls but just about any flour based product, not limited to croissants, pasta, pizza crust, bagels, pretzels...any thing that requires dough can usually be made in the bread machine. Tasty and lots of fun, not to mention you get to control the ingredients (all natural?, gluten free?, whole wheat?, no preservatives?, organic?, whatever!).
I will be posting a food article every so often since that is half of what I do, so all you professional foodies, be warned, the amateur has entered the blogosphere!
I have been both a busy professional with a full time job who needs to get dinner on the table after a long day at work and now a professional housekeeper/short order cook...I mean mom, so I do not do this either professionally or elegantly, but it works. Be warned, I am veggiphobic (if that is not a word, it should be), like gluten, and cannot afford to eat organic. I also live 200 miles from the nearest 'Yuppie Foods,' so things like edamame and arugula are not even in the vocabulary; the local Podunk Foods is happy to have milk, eggs, and potatoes. And no, I do not like goat cheese. I also live on the tundra so most fruits and veggies will be frozen or canned for nine months of the year. 'In season,' means that you eat as much fresh sweet corn in a two week period as you can until you are so sick of it that you are good until next year. A 'hotdish' for you non-midwesterners is basically a casserole (a starch, meat, veggie, and sauce all in one dish). If it comes from a plant it is a vegetable unless it is a starch (think wheat, potatoes, rice) or an obvious fruit (peaches, apples, bananas, etc.); not scientific, but functional, this is not a botany blog. I do not know where tofu fits in this classification, I am not even sure it is native to earth. Also milk is milk, not any liquid derived from non-lactational plants (see tofu); how does one milk a soybean?
Equipment...as mentioned above, my kitchen armory is not very high tech, but there are a few things I really like. A bread machine and dishwasher make life very nice for the busy cook. A good mixer is requisite for many cooks, but I can live without mine. It is nice for cookie dough but otherwise it just collects dust. Many people use it for bread, but I like my bread machine, it does all the work on its own and keeps the dough warm during rising. My mixer does not have a brain or a warm personality. When choosing a bread machine, the simpler the better; too many bells and whistles mean the thing is either impossible to use or will break down very shortly after purchase. I have a sunbeam, my second, I literally wore out the pan on my first and it was only slightly more expensive to buy a new machine than to replace the pan. You can use it for not just bread and rolls but just about any flour based product, not limited to croissants, pasta, pizza crust, bagels, pretzels...any thing that requires dough can usually be made in the bread machine. Tasty and lots of fun, not to mention you get to control the ingredients (all natural?, gluten free?, whole wheat?, no preservatives?, organic?, whatever!).
I will be posting a food article every so often since that is half of what I do, so all you professional foodies, be warned, the amateur has entered the blogosphere!
Thursday, December 19, 2013
The Mutation
Greetings all and sundry,
If you are reading this, either you are lost or completely bored, but if you must know, yes this is a blog written by a super-mom. After all, my 1.5 year old eats from the four major food groups every day (crackers, cheerios, milk, cheese) and my house is a show piece of modern art (multicolored toys strewn about varicolored carpet is all the rage, somewhere). Why am I not content to write about life, literature, etc. on my more mature (cough), er...excuse me, older blog? Why must I pollute the blogosphere with another mommy blog? Excellent question, but not difficult if you ponder that I am now at home, alone, eight to ten hours a day with someone who does not speak any known language and has a three second attention span with an inborn talent for making messes and shrieking very loudly. Mommies blog for the sake of their sanity, it is an outlet for what little remains of their creative juices and a hopeful attempt to connect with understanding others, that they might seek solace in knowing they are not alone in their strange domestic craziness.
If you are familiar with my rather obscure writing blog you may know of late my life has turned upon its head. I was once a professional working full time, possessing a doctorate in a medical field, and have only recently mutated into a professional mother. I lost my job, my husband found one (eight hours from our then home and quite literally in the middle of nowhere), and within two months life shifted drastically. I am now at home with our 1.5 year old son while my husband works. My diplomas hang on the wall and I hope my working knowledge is still stored somewhere in my brain, perhaps behind the grocery list and the diaper inventory? I am still using some of my old skills, mostly in diagnosing colds and other minor illnesses, but today I got to fix a broken leg and an ear laceration (the small one got into the nativity set and we needed the emergency super glue).
We have moved, unpacked, decorated for the holidays, I have done laundry and cooked, it even snowed and I got to shovel during nap time. That accomplished, it is time to blog (please refer to sanity reference). That being said, I am not a super mom, perhaps a crazy mom, but not super. This blog I fear will degenerate, as my story blog has, into a random commentary on life, the universe, and motherhood, but that is better than me degenerating into a crazed sock organizer. So I will admit it from the first: my kid eats strange things, my house is not picked up, all my socks are the same color to save time with laundry, and I occasionally cook out of a box or can. But that is real life, and that is what this blog will hopefully be about.
Welcome!
If you are reading this, either you are lost or completely bored, but if you must know, yes this is a blog written by a super-mom. After all, my 1.5 year old eats from the four major food groups every day (crackers, cheerios, milk, cheese) and my house is a show piece of modern art (multicolored toys strewn about varicolored carpet is all the rage, somewhere). Why am I not content to write about life, literature, etc. on my more mature (cough), er...excuse me, older blog? Why must I pollute the blogosphere with another mommy blog? Excellent question, but not difficult if you ponder that I am now at home, alone, eight to ten hours a day with someone who does not speak any known language and has a three second attention span with an inborn talent for making messes and shrieking very loudly. Mommies blog for the sake of their sanity, it is an outlet for what little remains of their creative juices and a hopeful attempt to connect with understanding others, that they might seek solace in knowing they are not alone in their strange domestic craziness.
If you are familiar with my rather obscure writing blog you may know of late my life has turned upon its head. I was once a professional working full time, possessing a doctorate in a medical field, and have only recently mutated into a professional mother. I lost my job, my husband found one (eight hours from our then home and quite literally in the middle of nowhere), and within two months life shifted drastically. I am now at home with our 1.5 year old son while my husband works. My diplomas hang on the wall and I hope my working knowledge is still stored somewhere in my brain, perhaps behind the grocery list and the diaper inventory? I am still using some of my old skills, mostly in diagnosing colds and other minor illnesses, but today I got to fix a broken leg and an ear laceration (the small one got into the nativity set and we needed the emergency super glue).
We have moved, unpacked, decorated for the holidays, I have done laundry and cooked, it even snowed and I got to shovel during nap time. That accomplished, it is time to blog (please refer to sanity reference). That being said, I am not a super mom, perhaps a crazy mom, but not super. This blog I fear will degenerate, as my story blog has, into a random commentary on life, the universe, and motherhood, but that is better than me degenerating into a crazed sock organizer. So I will admit it from the first: my kid eats strange things, my house is not picked up, all my socks are the same color to save time with laundry, and I occasionally cook out of a box or can. But that is real life, and that is what this blog will hopefully be about.
Welcome!
Only a matter of time...!
It was only a matter of time, one cannot be a stay-at-home mom without having a blog, thus may you rejoice in knowing that there is yet another mommy-blog amongst us. Rejoice, yawn, shudder, whatever your reaction...Merry Christmas!
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