Friday, August 08, 2008

The things you see when you haven't got your gun.

In no particular order:



Yes, Lina is very much her mother's daughter, complete with glares.



This is rapidly becoming my favorite dessert: marionberry shortcake, with ample whipped cream (of course). The berries were fresh from the farmer's market, the shortcakes were courtesy of Bisquick. Sue me, I'm lazy!



More uses for a mei tai.

I spose it's time to start posting about the food budget challenge, since I went shopping for next week's food today. I spent about $60 today; yes, I know, that's more than I'm supposed to spend for a week's food, even if you count Lina towards the total. However, that wasn't all food (we slipped a couple of soda-type drinks in, and I also added a $5 food container), and some items will stretch for weeks or months - for example, the tahini I bought to make hummus with. All in all, I feel pretty good about today's purchases.

I also went a little crazy this evening with food pre-preparation. After a yummy bowl of leek and potato soup (leeks bought a week or two ago, potatoes delivered from our CSA), I randomly decided to start using up my white bread flour (unbleached, natch) by making some pizza dough to freeze for later use. For the curious, this means I made the dough and gave its first knead, then popped it in freezer bags (one ball of dough to a quart bag, two quart bags to a gallon bag, air squeezed out as much as possible) and into the freezer. The dough will rise in the freezer, but very slowly; the double bag method means that if any should burst their initial bag, the outer bag will contain the dough. Honestly, I don't expect it to last long enough for that to be a problem. When I'm ready to use a ball of dough, I'll pull it out of the freezer and let it defrost; by the time it's room temperature, it will also have finished rising. Then, since I had momentum (if only sort of energy), I chopped the veggies for the pot roast I'm making tomorrow. We're actually having some folks over for dinner, and since I like to cook my pot roasts until the fall apart in the pan (which takes forever), I want to make sure that I start the roast early enough that it's actually ready on time. I figure that having the veggies all ready to go will expedite things - it won't necessarily save time, since I generally do them while the roast is browning, but it will certainly save energy and brainspace (which will promptly be used up by the above cutie pie). I also started some chickpeas soaking to make that hummus I mentioned earlier; it seems that I've corrupted my picky-eater husband into liking it, and since it's WAY cheaper to make than to buy... you do the math.

4 comments:

Jessica said...

I just got a bag of my whole wheat pizza dough from the freezer to thaw in the fridge for tomorrow night's dinner. Since I have an abundance of roasted veggies from tonight's dinner I figured they'd be good thrown on the pizza! Glad to see I'm not the only one with the frozen pizza dough method. The only difference is that I wrap mine tightly in plastic wrap and then a ziploc freezer bag.

Looking forward to seeing more meal ideas!
Jessica

Anonymous said...

Allen here -

What did you mean by the title of this post? I know what it would mean down here in Los Lunas (nothing good), but Lina's too cute to prompt a feeling of the need to be armed. Color me confused...

Mama Nirvana said...

Glad you're posting more to your blog. You are very ambitious with your food prep -- good for you.

Your Lina is just beautiful!

Amy

Unknown said...

i'm with allen on the title, but i suppose that dealing with newborns can make anyone consider death ;))
give that girl a belly raspberry for me!
re: food budgeting--- i am collecting info on permaculture and organic gardening-- the produce seems to be the most expensive thing, so eff it, i'll just grow it myself! you are doing fabulously on the budget thing, though. cooking in mass quantities and using every inch of our freezer is what's been helping us.
love you muchly!!
r