Category: Food

The Ethics of Cooking Dinner

Happy Thanksgiving! It seems that the appropriate thing to write about for today is food. That is what I have been thinking about and planning for weeks. Though I do think about food most hours of everyday (except when my children are asleep and no one is asking me for a snack). It is one of those things essential to our survival, but there is also an element of ethics to preparing a nice meal.

When one gives a dinner in honor of something or someone, one is going to put care into the food preparations. Whether, they hire a caterer or do the food preparations themselves, there is value in what they are doing. And I have always thought that it makes a food more special if it is homemade. For example, my mom always made our birthday cakes. We never had store bought cake, or even frosting. Her act of making a cake for me had meaning, and I experienced her love for me through that act.

Thanksgiving is a day when many people come together and make a feast, and the time and the care put into these preparations is not without value. In the story of Martha and Mary, we have Mary sitting and talking and Martha in the kitchen cooking food. We never here if Martha is an amazing cook, but I imagine that Jesus could enjoy a good meal. When he calls Mary’s act of listening to him the “better part”, he implies that Martha’s act of preparing food is also a good.

When people share a meal, they are united together in a deeper relationship, and what the food is effects the relationship as well. I have noticed that when I get together with other moms and their kids, the shyest kid will always warm up to the other kids once they have eaten food together. I would say that there are different levels of relationship building food. The lowest is the simplest family meal, maybe mostly out of a box or the freezer, but the family is still together and eating and discussing. There is also the homemade meal, where a little bit more time has been put into it. The conversation may be the same, but homemade chicken soup is much more satisfying than the canned stuff.

Then there is the holiday feast. Cooking has been going on for days, and finally the turkey is being carved and the table is set. The planning, the labor, the love, they make this meal special, but also what is being honored. Today we are thankful for our many blessings in life. And the highest family meal is the Last Supper, where Jesus, Himself, took on the role of the servant, washing feet and transforming food into his Body and Blood. It is not a coincidence that good food unites people together.

Originally posted at Truth and Charity.

Pate De Canard en Croute: Boned Stuffed Duck Baked in a Pastry Crust

I first really learned about Julia Child two years ago when we saw that recent movie about her, and I was intrigued. Cooking has always been a love of mine, and French cooking was a natural next step. I used some gift money to purchase her cookbook, and tried a few recipes. I try them from time to time, when I feel up to cooking for hours on end. M has been asking for me to try the “boned duck” recipe for awhile, and I have been viewing it as something I should try to test my abilities. I saw duck for sale at Aldi about a month ago and the need to fit a turkey in the freezer meant that it was time…

“The memory of a good French pate can haunt you for years.” –Mastering the Art of French Cooking

 The poor five pound duck, did not know what was coming. I am not a huge fan of taking apart poultry raw or cooked. So, this step was not exactly the most pleasant for me. Julia Child said to count on it taking 45 minutes. This is where I was after 45 minutes…

 G started snapping photographs and caught me up to my wrists in duck goop…

 Here I am with the legs and wings left to bone about 90 minutes in. If this picture looks like it was taken by a child, that is because it was.

 The skin in all its glory. At this point I chopped up the meat and mixed it with cognac and spices and wrapped it in the filling to make the pate.

Here is the pate of ground pork, ground turkey (poor man’s veal?), ground pork fat, spices, sauted onions, cooked down cognac, and diced duck sewn up in the duck skin. It reminds me a a slug.

Now it looks like a weird little alien browning in my massive cast iron skillet. I stopped for the night at this point, after five hours of labor. I made the pastry dough and we watched a Downton before calling it a night.

The next morning I discovered my true delight in all things baking related and it took me about 45 minutes to roll out the dough, wrap the pate and decorate it to this point:

  Then it went into the oven for 2 hours.

 F watched it closely a good amount of that time.

 Once it reached 180°F, it was finished. I took it out of the oven to cool.

Hot and fresh. It had to cool for hours before it was ready to be cracked open.

 This part made me extremely nervous. I was not sure how the shell would hold out. We removed the trussings and got it safely back into the crust.

 The main course is served.

 The inside view.

Some after thoughts: Pate is not my favorite. I was not exactly sure what to expect, but think a gourmet, large hot dog made with actually good meat and wrapped in bird skin. Plus, a fancy handmade bun. The taste-testers (dinner guests) all gave it high praise, and M even had seconds. I am not sure I would do it again. I think I would rather have a really nice steak…

From Market to Purée: How to Prepare Pumpkin

 
I purchased this pumpkin back in October, and the poor neglected squash sat on the back console table for nearly a month. Fortunately for me, winter squash have a great shelf life. I finally got to roasting it.

How to Roast a Winter Squash:
-Preheat oven to 400°F

-Cut squash into quarters and remove all strings, seeds, and hard stems

-Prick fleshy side all over with a fork
-Brush with olive oil

-Sprinkle with a little salt

-Place fleshy side down on rimmed cookie sheets 
-Roast in oven for 50 minutes or until fork pricks through easily (for me it got so soft that the squash lost all structural integrity)
-Set aside until cool
Making the Purée:
-Skin the cooled squash pieces and cut into small chunks
Chunks O Squash

-Purée in food processor (or blender if you are holding out to buy a food processor until you can splurge on the Kitchen Aid Brand)

The pureeing in this 5 year old blender took me an hour.

-Measure into 15 oz. portions and put into a freezer bag

15 oz is the amount you can buy canned to make one pumpkin pie.

 -Stack and freeze:

I spent $4.00 and 3 hours of labor on my pumpkin squash for 7 cans worth of potential pumpkin.

Seven Quick Takes, Oct. 18

This is my second post of the day after a weeks hiatus. Let’s just say that mothering three children does not always allow for blogging…

1. For number one, I want to thank Fr. Z for turning my latest Truth and Charity post into a “Guest Post” on his blog. I really appreciate that he read my email and took time to read my post. Thanks, Father!

2. The Saga of the Leaky Pipe Continues… Here is the current look of our basement:

This one is not quite current, the ceiling in this family room is mostly put up.

The laundry room is painted.

Spare Oom. Maybe we should skip carpet and go for a marbled cement look?

While entertained hopes of the basement being finished by next week, the carpet is not due to be manufactured for two more weeks and the ceiling is slow in going up…

3. I was trying to convince L (2.75) to go outside today by telling her that it was going to be cold soon. Her response: “When it gets cold out then it will snow and then we can go ice skating!” She has no clue what ice skating it like… though maybe we need to look into taking her sometime this winter…

4. I bought a large squash at the farmer’s market this morning. The farmer told me that it would be good for pie. He cut one open to show the inside. It looked orangey-red and fleshy. I think it will be good. Last year we tried out the blue hubbard squash, and it made delicious pies and breads.

I am not sure what kind of squash it is, but it looks like a pretty close relative of the pumpkin.

5. I first read Dostoyevsky while in college, starting with The Brothers Karamazov. It took me a really long time to read the book. Until now I thought it was because it was a long book, but now I am realizing that it probably was because whenever I read Dostoyevsky I get so caught up in the story and the characters that I lose track of myself. I started Crime and Punishment a couple of weeks ago, and am only about 70 pages into it. Wednesday I spent about 30 minutes of naptime reading it, and got caught up so much in Raskolnikov and his emotions, thoughts, and actions it took me about 10 minutes to realize that I had not just committed an awful crime for which I was probably going to get caught for… Dostoyevsky, yeah… read him.

6. I am currently watching Game 6 of the NLCS with my MLB app.  It is possibly the last baseball game I will watch this season because of our voluntary lack of television. If the Cardinals hold onto their 9-0 lead then I will have to listen to the KMOX broadcast of the World Series games.

7. And I leave you with Carly Simon singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” And the video I want won’t imbed so you have to go there.

Head on over to Jen’s for more Quick Takes!

Apple-icious! Yes, We Canned!

Last week we were in Buffalo, NY. M had been invited back to his alma mater for some philosophy activities and the whole family tagged along. We stayed with friends who lived across the street from the North Tonawanda Farmer’s Market. I could not resist apples for $8 per half bushel, so we bought 1.5 bushels and hauled them back to Minnesota. Tuesday we made 22 quarts of apple sauce. We were only able to can 19 quarts because we ran out of lids.

 I have decided that Western New York apples are some of my favorite apples. Maybe it is because they were the first apples we canned in our marriage, or maybe they were the perfect consistency for making into sauce. Maybe we will just have to head out to Buffalo every apple season for apples… 😉

In order: canner, blanching apples, pot of sauce, food strainer for separating good stuff from bad, bowl of blanched apples.

The goods.

Seven Quick Takes-Friday, Aug 23 (Caution! Scary Basement Pictures!)

1. I write these quick takes as I listen to my first St. Louis Cardinals game this season. It is almost September. I feel like an awful fan. I am really sorry about this guys. I have been checking the standings all season and reading my St. Louis Post Dispatch baseball app occasionally. I am not sure what happened this summer, maybe we moved and then the basement was chaotic. Listening to games reminds me of when I was in high school and would listen to every single game playing solitaire the whole time, or keeping score on my homemade scorecards. Before the games I always listened to “Sports Open Live” on KMOX. I even called in a few times. I was pretty obsessed with baseball. I am trying to convince M to let me display my Mike Matheny bobble-head when the basement is finished. I am thinking he won’t go for it…

2. Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!! You are a wonderful and holy woman. Thank you for your example of a beautiful life!

3. I harvested my first tomato from the garden today. I think maybe that I am not watering the plants enough, but it was pretty good anyway. I am going to wait until it is a little redder next time:

4.  Saga of the Leaky Pipe Update:  We first found the leak on June 29. This week was demolition week. A demolition team came out and spent two days riping out knotty pine paneling and the drop ceiling. The basement looked worse than ever with piles of rubble on the middle of it. I did not take a picture of it since it was painful. Today they surprised us and sent out a carpenter to do the framing for the drywall including that for our spare room (egress window to be put in at a future date). I think I am going to call it “the sewing room” in hopes that I actually sew something. And now I am going to treat you with some pictures.

The “Sewing Room” framing. One day this might have two bunk beds and teenage girls in it…      
The laundry room through the “sewing room” wall.
The family room, stairs, and door for M’s study.

5. Soon we will have to decide on wall and carpet colors. We are getting the same carpet in the study, stairs, family room, and sewing room. The question is, what style would be good for all four places and what color. I really want the basement to be a happy, cheery, warm place to be, but I want a carpet style and color that won’t look outdated in a few years. I feel like the choices are a beige color or maybe gray. Would grayish carpet be too gloomy in a basement? As for walls I really want a nice soft yellow color.

I found this palette on Pinterest.

Any thoughts on using the yellow for the walls and the gray or cream for carpet? Will this look totally outdated in a few years?

6. M’s summer night class that he has been teaching is over. I have learned a lot about my vocation having to put all three kids to bed two nights a week. I am not sure I want to go into detail right now, but I think I am closer to the kids because of it and have more confidence in my ability to care for the children at bedtime alone…

7. I feel like I need to make a big deal about our first day of home school preschool for G. I am feeling a little left out with all these “first day of school” photos on Facebook. But you see in Minnesota, I have heard it is not acceptable to start school before the end of the State Fair which ends on Labor Day. I think this is reasonable, since in Minnesota Winter is so long and Spring comes so late. It is good to give the kids a few more weeks to run around outside before they are cooped up for 6+ hours a day (another great reason to home school). If you are my Facebook friend, we are still having summer here, so look for the first day of school photos after Labor Day.

For more Quick Takes head on over to Jen’s Conversion Diary.

Kuplink! Kuplank! Kuplunk!

The two girls each had a little tin pail as they eagerly ran to the blueberry bushes. Kuplink! One found a blueberry and dropped it in her pail. Kuplank! Her sister found a berry. Kuplunk! That is how it went as the girls ran amongst the bushes picking a berry here and a berry there, asking to try them, and looking for the bears.

Their excitement at picking blueberries was inspired by the Robert McCloskey’s book, Blueberries for Sal. It is a sweet little book about a girl and her mother who go to Blueberry Hill to pick berries for canning and a bear and her cub who are also on the mountain. I love the simple story, and the depiction of a small child wandering about eating blueberries to her heart’s content. The illustrations are really nice as well; my favorite drawing is the canning scene at the end of the book. I admire the mother in the story for canning with a toddler in the midst of her canning supplies.

We checked the book out of the library mid-July and, as we are with library books, held onto it for about three weeks. The girls asked to go blueberry picking, so we made a family outing of it the last week of the blueberry season. The whole week leading up to it they talked about how they each needed a little tin pail (I found these in the $1 section at Target!) and how the blueberries were going to sound as they dropped them into their pails. It was a lot of fun, and next year we hope to go at the height of the season so that we to can get some blueberries for canning.

Another highlight of the trip is that I reached a new level of mom-skills: nursing a baby who was in the baby carrier that I was wearing. It is definitely not my preference, but when the baby is fussing and we are out in a field picking berries there is not really any other option. Further, I had to point out to M what I was doing for him to be able to notice. 🙂

Poached Eggs on Toast, Why do You Quiver?

For my final post of the seven posts in seven days challenge (follow the link to find more bloggers who did this) I give you my Sunday brunch-lunch: eggs benedict with homemade English muffin bread and hollandaise sauce (using the recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking).

The making of the sauce. I whisk too fast for the camera. I was aided by my second giant mug of coffee of the day which can be seen photo bombing this picture.

As a girl I always wanted fast whisking skills and admired my mother’s ability to whisk.

Sunday brunch. 🙂 M and I have mastered the art of poaching eggs for the sake of eggs benedict.

Delicious!

My Dream Garden

Our current garden (framed and fenced by previous house owner) of two pine trees (planted by previous owner), weeds, a basil plant, six tomato plants and a mean old creeping thistle with lots of shoots.

A few years ago I posted about my dream kitchen, and some of the things are realized (or not needed) in our current kitchen. (Hooray!) And not that we have a yard, I have been thinking about the type of food I would love to grow in it. 

Here are some of the things we have in mind for our future garden:

1. A garden along the length of the back fence.

We would probably go all the way to the gate, though not the depth of the original garden. We are thinking of taking out the shed for more garden space.

2. Lots of vegetables: tomatoes, lettuces, spinach, peppers, summer squash, cabbages, and more!

3. Berry bushes: I am thinking raspberry and blueberry. We spent way more than I would have liked on fresh local berries at the farmer’s market yesterday, so why not grow our own.

4. Apple tree and/or peach tree: My parents had a peach tree in their first houses yard. I love peaches, and especially love home-canned peaches. If I have my own tree, then I would have lots and lot to can! M loves apples, so that is why apple would be good. 🙂

5. A grape vine: There seem to be a number of grape vines on peoples fences in the area. I would love this so that I could have grape leaves for making stuffed grape leaves without spending $7 on a jar of 50 leaves.

6. Learning the art of Japanese gardening with the two pine trees:

This photo is by Quinn Dombrowski posted to flickr.

We are thinking of keeping them small and gnarly. M once had a bonsai plant, but died. Maybe we would have better luck with a tree outdoors?

That is it so far. Any recommendations on books or websites that give really good advice/instructions on vegetable and fruit gardening? I am a total novice here, so I want something really informative.

On Thistles and the Fall

I am joining in on the “epic blogging challenge” of “7 posts in 7 days“, motivated by Jen of the 7 quick takes. I plan to have a post everyday this week Monday-Sunday.

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I finally have a yard this summer and now finally have a garden. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have been fighting off a thistle that is in my tomato and basil vegetable garden. Every time I go out to the garden there is a new shoot of this creeping thistle, and every time I dig it up I can’t help but think of sin. And how sin is something we have to dig up and seek the root of to be rid of it.

A thistle coming up (again) in the shade of my tomato plant.

If I break the thistle off and not get the whole root it will grow back again and again. The thing about this thistle in my garden is that no one did any gardening last year and this thistle was allowed to run wild. It is a creeping thistle which means that it creeps underground with the same root system. I don’t think there is any way for me to pull up all the roots of this thistle; I will just have to keep on digging up the sprouts as they come up and they have spread into at least a ten foot diameter circle of area. Eventually I will wear down the plant. My other option is an herbicide, but here is the thing, it is a garden where I hope to grow food for myself and my family, so digging it is.

Creeping thistle on the lawn of the ecclesial community behind our home.
I will have to go around and did them up!

I never understood what a thistle was like until I met one in person, and a few weeks ago I heard this passage at Mass from Matthew 7:15-16:
–>

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?”

Knowing what a thistle was like made this passage make so much more sense. I thistle just won’t go away and it is prickly and will choke out other plants. It takes a lot of water to grow, so it will take water from the plants around it. In no way does it bear good fruit except the seeds of more thistles. It makes a great example of sin in our lives. Then reading in Genesis, I discovered that thistles are described as one of the consequences of the Fall:
–>

“And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, `You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)

It is only just that thistles grow in my garden; laboring with weeds is only part of growing my own food. So, I will fight this thistle, and use it as an opportunity to grow in virtue, offer up the annoyance of weeding the same weed over and over, and hopefully eat some yummy tomatoes and basil this summer.

P.S. According to Wikipedia (see “Uses”) the roots and the leaves of thistles are edible, the taproot being the most nutritious. However, since it represents sin, it has the uncomfortable and socially awkward side affect of flatulence.