tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78592281810958928722026-08-11T02:44:56.463-04:00"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all." -Harriet Van HorneUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger193125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-6118523378291006132015-07-12T19:43:00.000-04:002015-07-12T19:44:14.211-04:00

First, we probably need to address the question of "WTF is a garlic scape". Garlic scapes look like this: Oooh, snakey!  They're the stems that a bulb of garlic sends up out of the dirt as it grows. If they were left alone, they would eventually flower and die off, but of course we don't leave them alone because: HUMANS. Instead, we cut them off before they have a chance to flower

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-57550936900119356422015-06-27T16:35:00.000-04:002015-06-27T16:35:06.526-04:00

Friends, I am back! We've had a very busy spring around Chez One Girl - moving apartments is some majorly time-consuming shit. Thankfully, we're all settled into the new Chez O.G. now and really enjoying it. We're in a very pretty spot with lots of nice quiet road for walking the our small canine overlord, plus there's woods and a brook in our back yard so I can go out and get my hippy Earth Mama

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-67962951860826448442015-03-17T21:16:00.000-04:002015-03-17T21:16:14.333-04:00

Carnitas are, essentially, chunks of braised pork butt. As the braising liquid slowly evaporates from the pot, the fat renders out of the pork and collects in the bottom of the pot (because fat is more dense than water. SCIENCE!). Eventually the water all cooks out and you're left with succulent spiced pieces of pork that crisp up in their own fat. It takes several hours and is all very torturous

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-52070154823561662312015-03-14T12:16:00.001-04:002015-03-14T12:16:37.860-04:00

This past week, boneless pork loin was on sale at the grocery store, so I bought a huge one and we've been having pork for dinner every night this week. I did pan-fried chops one night, I did a roast another night, we had the leftovers from the roast with some braised cabbage the following night, and last night I used the last of the loin to make stir-fry: I like stir-fry, because not only is

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-64088104948531077192015-03-06T11:13:00.000-05:002015-03-06T11:13:32.466-05:00

No, I will never tire of post-title innuendo (in YOUR end-o!). Not even sorry. Anywho. I've been kind of obsessed with the half-stove-top, half-oven method of cooking chicken thighs lately. It's an easy and reliable way of getting super crisp skin on the thighs without having to coat them in something like panko or cornmeal. I'll admit, it's kind of messy if you don't have a splatter shield,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-48062653777081807662015-03-02T13:19:00.001-05:002015-03-02T13:22:43.067-05:00

You all know of my deep and abiding love of all things pork, but I have been keeping a dirty little secret from you: I am not a fan of pork tenderloin. I love the texture of it, but similar to beef tenderloin, it has very little flavor in and of itself, and to a card-carrying meat lover, that's kind of sad-making. That, along with the fact that tenderloin is super lean and easy to over-cook have

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-454596198375187492015-02-24T13:09:00.000-05:002015-02-24T13:09:12.290-05:00

The meat-department gods saw fit to put pork butt on sale this week, my friends. You know what that means: another installment in the "what do I do with all this leftover pulled pork" files! Today the answer happens to be, "Stuff it in your sweet potatoes", which sounds like not only an awesome euphemism but also a good culinary idea. Everything is better with cheese. FACT. Obviously, this

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-85669291956898490332015-02-04T18:50:00.000-05:002015-02-04T18:50:20.046-05:00

Mmmm. Graaaaavy. My Nana's mushroom gravy is the gravy yardstick I measure all others by. Any time I've ever asked her how to make it, she has just smiled and said, "Well, it's just gravy with mushrooms in it". I've been trying to re-create her gravy for YEARS, and I think this is about the closest I'll ever come. It IS very simple, but it's certainly not just gravy with mushrooms in it! I

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-64492004844527693162015-02-03T13:44:00.002-05:002015-02-03T13:44:47.420-05:00

This afternoon, I made a post on Ravelry about one of the more ridiculous key-word searches that showed up on my StatCounter for this blog lately: I have a blog, and because I am a nerdy nerdy data nerd, I use StatCounter to see how much traffic I get on my posts (when I actually post regularly, anyway. Ahem). One of the functions on StatCounter is a report that shows you recent keyword

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-874601881013223992014-11-30T17:33:00.000-05:002014-11-30T17:33:05.647-05:00

Pork is my favorite meat. Shocker, I know. There's just something about pork, though. Something delicious. I could never be a vegetarian, because pork. Any other type of meat, I could easily do without - but take my pork away and I would be a sad panda indeed. Last weekend I did a bone-in pork rib roast slow and low, and it turned out fantastic. I didn't take any pictures of it because I wasn't

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-87828770345030791492014-10-05T10:17:00.002-04:002014-10-05T10:17:47.951-04:00

I am not a morning person. That's not to say that I don't LIKE mornings, because they're actually my favorite time of day - but I do not like being expected to function in any sort of productive manner before about 10am. Trying to feed myself and my husband a decent breakfast tends to be at odds with my desire to maintain a sloth-like morning agenda. Most mornings lately, I've been having a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-37653795280739577562014-09-26T19:40:00.000-04:002014-09-26T19:41:06.142-04:00

Truth time. I had a pumpkin smoothie for breakfast, rather a large amount of broccoli at lunch, and then washed this curry down with a glass and a half of porter. I predict things are going to start getting musical (and fragrant) around here in about, hmmm...let's say four hours or so. The effect will of course be doubled because the Ginger Beast had the same dinner as me (and is generally far

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-15410326384387815472014-09-17T20:33:00.001-04:002014-09-17T20:43:00.714-04:00

Sometimes the rest of your dinner has nothing to do with guacamole, but you just have to say fuck it, and make the guacamole, because it's delicious. This was that dinner. Look at that guacamole, hiding in the background. Sneaky. Pretty simple - seared chuck steak, sweet potato mash, sauteed baby kale with mushrooms, and the aforementioned random guacamole.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-91492667724262539122014-09-16T15:30:00.002-04:002014-09-16T15:30:39.661-04:00

I've decided I'm going to try doing a series of food / drink experiments. I'm calling it "How Bad Can It Go" because I like to tempt fate, and because it's kind of my default mode of operation. Because I decided to do this while I was at work, and being of a very impatient constitution, I had to find something immediately accessible to use as my first experiment. That something ended up being a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-68531055623545652162014-09-07T08:50:00.000-04:002014-09-07T08:50:11.798-04:00

It's that time of year again - PUMPKIN SPICE ALL THE THINGS! I, for one, welcome our new pumpkin spice overlords not only because their arrival is a harbinger of my favorite season, but because pumpkin stuff is just plain GOOD. Plus, it can be good for you, too - pumpkin is packed with vitamin A, potassium and fiber, hooray! There was a can of pumpkin on my shelf left over from something else

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-23081912780270500212014-09-02T20:37:00.000-04:002014-09-02T20:37:39.278-04:00

I really like broccoli salad. You know, the kind with bacon and cranberries or raisins and nuts and bacon. Mmm, bacon. What? Oh, yeah. Salad. So, broccoli salad is kind of a pain in the ass to make. There's a lot of chopping involved - more chopping than I want to do on most nights after work, frankly. I decided to try using a bag of shredded broccoli slaw instead, and it worked very well.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-40790591721843574362014-09-01T20:22:00.001-04:002014-09-01T20:22:28.438-04:00

Hehehehe. Fish bags. It's fun to say, try it! Fish bags, fish bags, fish bags. I'm not high, I swear to you. ANYWAY. Whilst grocery shopping yesterday, I spied with my little green eye some parchment bags made for steaming shit in the oven. Well, not shit, but you know. I was immediately entranced with the pretty picture of perfectly cooked fish and veg on the box, and I had to have them. HAD

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-69343551969010008992014-09-01T19:32:00.002-04:002014-09-01T19:32:30.489-04:00

Have you fully accepted the amazingness of chicken thighs into your life? If not, you should. Yes friends, I am here today to preach the gospel of chicken thighs. They are cheaper and more forgiving than your mom, and they taste better too. Seriously, though. Chicken thighs are hardly ever more than $1.89 a pound at my local Hannaford. That's for the bone-in ones, mind you. The boneless ones are

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-63663586279175368892014-08-31T14:52:00.003-04:002014-08-31T14:52:50.112-04:00

Have you ever wondered why I seem to post for a few months pretty regularly, then disappear for months, then kind of pop back in here and start posting again? No? Well, tough tits - I'm about to explain it anyway. I suffer from an anxiety disorder and depression. I've struggled with them for as long as I can remember, but "officially", as in, known by my doctor, since about 2004. I have been on

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-51884382089583894562014-04-01T20:00:00.000-04:002014-04-01T20:00:46.899-04:00

Beef short ribs are something I've always wanted to try cooking but either couldn't find them, couldn't AFFORD them, or was intimidated by them. The stars aligned today, though - short ribs were in stock, they were on sale, and I wasn't afraid to throw them in the crock pot and see what happened! What happened was this, and it was so, SO good: mmm, beef! The fact that I was ever intimidated

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-62984608470846436002014-01-14T19:48:00.001-05:002014-01-14T19:48:09.359-05:00

Today I was talking about how excited I was to get home to my slow cooker full of oxtail, and a friend mentioned that she found oxtail quite intimidating. I totally understand - oxtail is pretty weird-looking, and thinking about eating...well...a tail...squicks some people out. Plus, I think many people worry that like other offal, oxtail needs to have a lot of stuff done to it in order to make

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-40173836897207250432014-01-12T15:57:00.001-05:002014-01-12T15:57:33.176-05:00

This weekend we had some pretty horrible weather here in Vermont. It was warm, for one thing. It's not supposed to be warm in January. Then it started raining. Then it didn't STOP raining for like an entire day. Needless to say, our driveway and lawn are now skating rinks with a nice layer of water on top, just for extra added terror when trying to walk around. Hurrah! Combine epic bad weather

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-84335174963229397732014-01-10T14:02:00.000-05:002014-01-10T14:03:23.592-05:00

We started a Whole30 on January 8th at Casa De Ealachan - our first ever, in fact! We have been eating mostly Primal (basically, Paleo with dairy) for a few years now...minus vacations and a few, errrm...extended trips off the wagon, shall we say. The holidays this year were one such extended trip off the wagon for us. We pretty much went back to the Standard American Diet from Thanksgiving right

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-59907543844246711092013-11-13T19:42:00.004-05:002013-11-14T09:30:22.317-05:00

Sometimes I throw random vegetables into my curry, just to see how it tastes. I've yet to do this and end up with something I didn't want to eat, which is a plus...but sometimes I hit on a combination that's not just edible but actually really tasty. This was one of those instances. I had a bunch of kabocha squash hanging around that I needed to use up. It was all cleaned and sliced, but I only

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859228181095892872.post-59759918478196537362013-10-30T19:56:00.000-04:002013-10-30T19:56:18.798-04:00

Last week when chicken thighs were on sale, I bought a whole bunch and froze some. This week when I was menu-planning, I was trying to think of something quick and yummy to do with the chicken thighs and decided I'd try them with the tapenade that I usually make for fish. If it works for fish it ought to work for chicken, right? Right. tapenade-tastical!  It actually worked really well.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0