Schrodinger's Kittie

Too precious for words

Well, I decided to put the kibosh on the layette set I was making. Instead, I’m working up a sweater of my own design. It will be a little large so it should fit the tyke come fall/winter time, with room under for a comfy t-shirt or whatever for extra layers. Making it like a little Guernsey. It will be a natural cotton – I’m contemplating using light blue for the cabled areas and then the cuff and neck in the natural like the base of the body. We’ll see. Now to make sure I get the proportions correct on this little sweater so it doesn’t come out all wonky.

We moved last weekend into an RV park in the middle of the Cleveland National Forest. I love it. No, I’m not living in an RV. I’m living in a ‘model’ home. It’s got two rooms, a living room, bathroom, kitchen, patio and fire ring. The view is just excellent, and the park pays for all utilities except propane and TV. It’s a bit more space than what we had before – at nearly a $400/mo savings after everything is considered. Seemed like the smart move. We have satellite television and internet – yes, we are that remote. No phone service. We drive about five miles down the road and call from the lookout…absolutely amazing signal there. **laughs**

Porch view

Friday night, we started up a fire in the fire ring and within five minutes of the smoke hitting the air, one of our neighbors showed up, beer in hand. We visited for several hours, cooked some turkey dogs on the fire and just really enjoyed the evening. The following night, several of the neighbors got together and visited for several hours by a large fire. It was very enjoyable. A little more company than my introverted soul enjoys at one time – but, even so, it was great to discover that we have so many wonderful neighbours. The Grove’s community is just special. Each and everyone we’ve met, so far, has been a pure joy. It has been a very long time since I lived in a place where people not only were curious about their neighbors, but made the effort to get to know them all – and to make it a true community. That is a priceless thing.

Saturday, we went on a major shopping spree to fill the larder. I got three full roasting chickens and popped them in the oven to cook while I put the rest of the groceries away. Then just relaxed on the couch while I came up with the plan and design for Gibson’s sweater. After the chickens finished (3 chickens cooked at 375 for ~2 hours), I pulled them out of the oven and separated the breasts, legs, thighs off of two of the birds and froze them. The third one, I pulled all the meat off, shredded it and put it in a Tupperware container in the fridge – now I’m ready for my recipes that call for chicken in the upcoming week.

The drive

I took the juices from the roasted chickens and dumped it into a stock pot. I added an equal amount of water and then as I was separating and shredding the chickens, I put all the fat, bones, necks, hearts, skins, etc into the stock pot. I added two bay leaves, some oregano and basil, onion (we had a witherd up bi that really needed to get used ASAP), the leaves off the celery and the itty bitty celery hearts, two carrots and a couple mushrooms and left it to boil for two hours. I strained it out and froze the resulting stock – three containers in the freezer prepared for chicken ‘n’ dumplin’s or whatever else I may wish to make that requires chicken stock.

I have planned out a tentative menu for the next few weeks. Nothing for any particular day; but, we went shopping with specific recipes in mind. That being the case, it was really so much more cost effective to purchase several whole chickens and just prepare them at home and make my own stock rather than buying it all in separate bits. We figured it out and we saved approximately $25 doing it this way. A whole chicken cost us $4.11. The breasts (four in the package) were freaking $12. The thighs were $7 for a rather goodly portion. M prefers the dark and I prefer the white, so I tend to cook with a mix of both – it just made buying the whole chicken a lot more cost efficient. And, really, it wasn’t that difficult to do. Sure, it was a touch time consuming to debone and skin them…but, I didn’t have anything pressing to do other than work on Gibson’s sweater. And, an hour to debone and skin three chickens is really not that big a bother – esp when it saves me $25 off my grocery bill!!

The house

Last night, I made a homemade pizza – prepackaged pizza crust (I was feeling lazy), marinara sauce, chicken (from the chickens I roasted on Saturday), chopped asparagus, mushrooms, diced broccoli, diced zucchini, feta and mozzarella. Considering the grumbling from M about some of the ingredients, I was happily surprised when he devoured it. Yay for another successful meal. So, in my moment of happiness, I decided to bake up some brownies. I availed myself of our neighbour Kurt and borrowed some vanilla (yes, people actually do still borrow ingredients from each other – amazing!). I gave him one of the brownies this morning as he headed off to work. **chuckles** These were brownies from scratch, not prepackaged. I had everything except vanilla. I used cacao nibs and cacao powder, sugar, butter (yes, the real deal), flour, vanilla and baking powder. I was informed that the only thing missing was pecans. Since I can’t stand nuts in my food, I disagreed…however, next time I’ll put pecans on his side…and, I think I will try adding cherries to my side. Sounds pretty tasty to me.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (precooked to save time)
2 cups frozen, mixed vegetables (peas, green beans, carrots, corn and lima beans)
2 cans cream of chicken and mushroom condensed soup
1 small potatoe
½ white onion
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon dried thyme
Black pepper
2 nine inch pre-made pie crust

Directions:

1. Preaheat the oven to 395° F.
2. I used large muffin tins (six muffin, deep)…use one of the pie crusts to line each of the cups with pie crust, so the crust hits just the top of the tin.
3. Dice the onion and potato.  Put a dab of butter or a bit of oil in a medium sauce pan and cook until the onion is translucent.  I find butter gives a better flavor, for me; but, it’s up to individual taste.
4. Once the onions have reached their translucent stage, toss the mixed vegetables into the pan with the onions and heat them through – stirring occasionally to ensure they do not burn.
5.  While heating the vegetables, pull the chicken off the bone and rip into chunks and toss into the pan with the vegetables.
6.  Pour the two cans of soup over the mixture in the pan and add the thyme, bay leaf and black pepper.
7.  Heat for 20 minutes on med-low heat.  Pull the bay leaf out.
8.  Using a ladle, put the mixture into the muffin forms.
9.  Put the pie crusts on the top of each mini-pot pie and pinch the edges down.
10.  Cut a few holes into the top of the mini-pies to allow the steam to escape while cooking.
11.  Place into the oven and cook for 30 minutes.
12.  Remove when golden brown and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
13.  Serve.

If you work it, you can get six mini-pot pies out of the pie crusts.  I only got five, but I was being lazy.

There will be filling left over – it would taste great over biscuits the following day.

Ingredients:

Tasty Empanadas

1lb ground meat (I used bison… but beef, turkey, ostrich – even a quality ground tofu will work)
10oz can mild Rotel Tomato & Green Chilies
1 small onion
1 small potato
2 cups shredded cheese
Tabasco sauce
Mrs. Dash Original
1 tin premade flaky biscuits (or tortilla – see note below)
½ cup flour (not needed if going with the “fried burrito” option)
Vegetable oil (not needed if going with the empanada option)

 Additional items:

Cookie sheet (not needed for “fried burrito” option)
Rolling pin (not needed for “fried burrito” option)
Medium skillet

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F.
2. Place the meat in the skillet over medium heat.  No oil if you are using meat.  If you are using ground tofu, a very, very tiny amount to keep it from sticking is useful.  But be stingy with it.
3. Add three dashes of tobacco and two dashes of Mrs. Dash.  Literally, yes, dashes.  Take the bottle and shake that many times.
4. While the meat is browning, skin and dice the onion.  Add it to the skillet with the meat.
5. Stir occasionally while skinning and finely chopping the potato.  Add this to the skillet as well.  Cover the skillet.
6. Open and drain the Rotel and add to the mixture in the skillet.  Stir and cover.  Let simmer while you prepare the biscuits.
7. Put a handful of flour on your working surface and over the rolling pin.  Pop the tin of biscuits and roll them out very flat.  Sometimes it helps to pick them up and let gravity assist you in the stretching.  You want to get them as thin as possible without them getting holes.
8. Place the rolled out biscuits on the cookie sheet to await the filling.
9. When the potatoes have cooked through and the meat is thoroughly brown, drain the mixture that is in the skillet and turn off the heat.
10. Using a large spoon, place a small amount of the filling in the middle of one of the rolled out biscuits.  Put a bit of shredded cheese on top of the filling. 
11. Fold the biscuit over and using the prongs of a fork, press the edges of the dough together to seal it shut.  If you want to, bend the sealed dough into a crescent shape.
12. You can have these very close to each other, so don’t worry about space on your cookie sheet.  Repeat the stuffing and sealing for all the biscuits.
13. Once they are all filled and sealed, put the cookie sheet in the oven and let bake until the dough turns golden brown.
14. Remove from the oven and serve hot.

 This recipe should serve four comfortably.

Fried Burrito

Note: There is an alternative to baking with the biscuit dough.  Take large tortillas and put the filling and cheese inside them like you would for the empanada.  Fold them closed and fry them in a pan of hot oil.  The oil should only come up halfway on the folded tortilla.  When the side in the oil is brown, turn to fry the other side.   Remove, pat dry and serve with salsa of choice.  Mike actually prefers it this way as opposed to the empanada way.