I hate making decisions about what's for dinner.  But I love cooking.  Yesterday leaving work I had no clue what I was making for dinner.  But when I got home there were many squash blossoms in the garden.  I'd heard about stuffed squash blossoms on NPR awhile back, and from a co-worker more recently.  I've been thinking I should try it, so when the opportunity presented itself, how could I resist?  I let nature decide what I was making for dinner!


The squash blossom stuffing contains: couscous, raisins, sunflower seeds, basil, cilantro, garlic and a little egg.  Then I rolled them in egg and flour and cooked them in a frying pan with just enough butter to keep them from sticking.  The veggie medley next to it is new red potatoes, green onion, swiss chard, sugar snap peas, and the remainder of the couscous stuffing.

This is a classic example of how I cook.  Everything in that dinner comes to the house with little help from me.  Eggs from the chickens, all the veggies, herbs and the potatoes are from the CSA.  The only ingredients I bought at a normal store are the flour and raisins, and I feel my cupboards are bare if I don't have basic baking supplies on hand.  Oh and the couscous.  If you're looking for a snack in my house you're pretty much out of luck.  My cupboards are full - but it all needs preparing.  I have jars of rice, pasta, couscous, corn meal (fine and coarse) oats and oat flour (I just put the oats through the food processor) wheat flour, barley, dried beans, lentils, you get the idea.  Same for condiments (vinegar: apple cider, white, balsamic or champagne?  or the apple cider with herbs steeped in it that I'm starting to make) same for spices.  I go to the store once a week and pick up cheese, some starch, and a specialty item or two.  Doing this every week lets me build up an awesome supply of things for cooking, without spending a ton of money (ok, without spending a ton of money all at once).  And I never have to run out to the store for "X"  I either have it on hand, or substitute.  Or I pick another recipe.  (This is especially key when the nearest good grocery store is 20 minutes each way)  In the winter veggies and milk will get added to the weekly list.  When we can afford it we buy meat from the local market or from my parents.  But it's not like we don't eat well without it!


For a snack, I'm much more likely to have sliced tomato, basil, mozzarella and a little balsamic vinegar then "chips" or "cookies'  (except when I make cookies!)  The most normal snack food in my house is bulk popcorn (and a whirly-pop).  Neil made crispy kale chips the other day - does that count?  Oh and pickles, pickles make a great snack and in the summer I'm always pickling something.  I buy local whenever possible, and bulk and/or organic when local isn't available.  I find this is the best balance for my budget, my conscious, and my stomach.

But most importantly, I don't have to decide what to eat - I let what's available both in season and in my kitchen guide my cooking.

My arms are so sore.  I spent most of this weekend reverse gardening - digging stuff out instead of putting stuff in.  It's been so rainy all those perennials are perfectly happy sitting on top of the soil.  Which has allowed me to do a thorough job of preparing the garden bed I want them in.  I've been threatening to remove all the non-blooming orange day lilies (ok, there was a handful of blooms last year, that's how I know what color they are)  When I went into the bed with a shovel I realized there were more day lily bulbs then dirt.  After a weekend of fun filled digging (and pruning dead willow shrubs, and pulling ferns and weeds) I have a nice, bare patch of soil where I can put all my new plants - just as soon as the rain lets up.  I also had this:

That's the back end of a full sized subaru - filled almost to the roof with day lilies.  Nothing else.  Just lilies.  I threw them all into the dtich on our property along the edge of the road.  This variety of lily usually grows well in such places - and hopefully they'll have space to actually bloom.

It takes a lot to keep going at a project like that all weekend.  So for breakfast on Sunday I made:

Ginger pancakes, fresh CSA strawberries, and home made whipped cream - with the cream scooped off the top of fresh milk from our neighbors and some honey.  Who cares if the whipped cream was a little runny, it was delicious.  I practically HAD to garden all weekend to work off the calories from eating a pint of whipped heavy cream though...

And in chicken-y news I think the babies are officially teenager birds now.  Well, it's not what I think so much as what mama chicken thinks.  Saturday night she and the babies bedded down in their little shelter, sunday morning she led them out into the world.  But on Sunday afternoon I spotted her nonchalantly picking bugs out of the front lawn with the babies no where to be seen.  I admit to panicking a bit.  But when I brought out some tasty grain and called all the chickens the babies came running just as quickly as the adults - just from a different corner of the yard.
At bedtime mama chicken went up on the roost with the other adult birds, and when one of the babies followed her she actually jumped down again, walked back to the little shelter with it, ducked inside.  And ran off again as soon as the clingy baby had settled down.  (we called him/her the failure to launch bird all evening)
This morning (it's raining) the babies didn't seem inclined to run outside with mom still ignoring them.  And in an unusual move Looney (our rooster) hung out inside with them.  He usually doesn't mind rain, so I wonder if he's figured out he's got a confused batch of new birds to keep an eye on.

I swear these fall weeks just fly by!

Last weekend, along with meeting the local firefighters I went to a picnic with friends and went contra dancing for so long that my leg still hurts a bit today (oops)  On sunday between my leg (I was limping at the time, I think I pulled something and kept dancing on it...) and the steady rain I spent the whole day on the couch knitting, reading, and watching TV.

( knitting project updates )

This weekend I'll be doing spinning demonstrations at the La Moelle Festival in Morrisville on Saturday.  This is the first year of this "celebration of french culture"  They're going to have french and indian war re-enactments, culinary classes, genealogy classes, and local merchants demonstrating classic crafts (including a blacksmith who I hope I get a chance to watch!).  The lady organizing the merchants is the Bee's Knees owner and she came to our knitting group looking for fiber arts people.  I'm not selling anything (I don't have anything to sell) but I'm the token spinner!  It'll be interesting since I've never done this before and I know I'm not the best spinner in the area, but I'm willing to give it a shot!  If you're in the area and want to stop by and give me some moral support I'd love to see you!

Hopefully on Sunday I'll find time to preserve more food!  We have corn (and hopefully more from the CSA today) and I really need to make relish from all my cucumbers (since I still have pickles from the last two years)  I'm a bit sad that this is the 2nd to last CSA pickup - it hasn't been a great year for veggies - but I'm glad to be supporting a local farmer in this economy and poor season and we've still had more veggies then we can eat - just not quite as many for preserving as usual.  I still need to re-cook the rose-hip jelly too...

ETA: lookit!  My name is on that La Moelle page!  I'm a real spinner now!

The people who run my CSA are awesome.

Seeds of Self Reliance