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.
I’m making some bread. MMMMMMMMmmmmm can’t wait for it to be done so I can have that first, piping hot slice slathered in butter. The real thing…Creamery butter. Absolutely sinful.
