I made a batch of meatballs the other day which were delicious, but interestingly enough, also stretched just under two pounds of meat into at least four meals if not six. I’m looking at a lot of cookbooks right now for BookSlut, and this recipe is very loosely adapted from the one in the A16 cookbook. I used buffalo because it’s readily available here, and because this story in the New York Times (and this one about how Costco actually tests for E. Coli) only amped up my deep suspicion of all ground beef, even when I know the butchers…
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Hi folks — the heat finally broke and since my sweetheart has been longing for a Lasagne! for a while, and since yesterday I had a big pot of brand spanking new tomato sauce on the stove, I took a flyer at it. This lovely lasagne was brought to you not by any of the many authentic Italian cookbooks I have on my shelf, not by Mario or Marcella or even Patricia Wells (Trattoria), or even by my beloved Dom DeLuise (Eat This .. It’ll Make You Feel Better). No, this gorgeous, gooey, wavy lasagne that is all brown on…
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Ugh. So Saturday afternoon I thawed out some of last year’s antelope, marinated it, and made some skewers with a few onions out of the garden (for Chuck) and with onions and tomatoes and zucchini for me. Three in the morning and my sweetheart is not well. I’m a little rumbly in the tummy, but he is Not A Well Man. It was very very sad. And a long night. Morning strikes and he is still Sick Like Dog. He sits in the living room watching football and ignoring a cup of black tea while I go out back and…
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We’re in that little window of time in which we have ripe tomatoes here in Montana. It takes a long time to grow a tomato. I started these from seed in the basement in March. So far, the most productive have been the Mountain Princess, Jaunne Flamme, Prairie Fire, and Perestroika. The nights are getting cool enough that I probably need to go put the plastic over them. Our usual first frost comes in around the 17th of September most years, but for the last couple of weeks we’ve had sunny, warm, dry dry dry weather. Because someone in this…
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Here it is — our whole pig, butchered, cut, wrapped, with the hams and bacons smoked. Chuck drove over to pick it up and he said it was a very festive atmosphere over there — a big refrigerated truck filled with orders. We paid $290 for this pig, which means we’re looking at $1.75 a pound for a local 4-H fair pig. We were late to go look at the animals with the kids, so what we saw was pigs and lambs being loaded onto trucks. It’s a rural ranching community here — that’s what happens after the fair, you…
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It’s been interesting, this “self-employment” thing. I must admit, I’ve taken a very big break — amazing how many things one can get behind on after working a real day job for ten years. I realize that most people work “real day jobs” for their entire career, so I’m not trying to be disengenuous, but before the Big Corporate Job That Vanished, I was a grad student and a ski bum and a raft guide and worked a lot of odd jobs and retail. I’ve worked since I was fourteen, and for most of that time I had more than…
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Yes folks, that’s an 8.4 ounce morel! Chuck found it up behind his cabin yesterday morning, growing just at the waterline of the irrigation ditch. It was a monster, but we managed to slay it, cook it in butter and vermouth, and enjoy it on rice (along with some pork chops) last night. It’s the only place we’ve had any luck this year at all, up behind his cabin. He found a couple of really little yellow morels, and one other black one, not nearly so big as this. It did rain a little this week, so here’s hoping the…
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The chickens spent the first night in their coop last night — we still need to build the fence, but the Carpenter came by and put the door on, and built a ramp for them — I think we’re putting the fence in tonight — they are very funny — they like exploring around, but they’re chickens, they’re not very brave. So this morning they poked their heads out of the coop, and negotiating the step to the ramp seemed very daring for most of them — the rooster of course was the first one out, checking out the scene…
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Here they are — the first morels! (I always want to sing that to the tune of The First Noel.) The Carpenter and I had a great time this weekend finding morels up behind his cabin — mushroom hunting is SO MUCH FUN! I get SO excited when I see one sticking up out of the duff (he laughed at me as I splashed through the irrigation ditch in my haste to get to a patch of three on the far side). Saturday night we had morels sauteed in butter with onions and garlic over steak, and last night I…
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Things have been a little crazy — work is work, life is good and I’m sort of just enjoying living it without the self-consciousness of blogging. But there are a few things I’ve been meaning to link to — First off — my friend Craig Arnold, who I went to grad school with at Utah, is missing in Japan. He was researching volcanoes and went missing last week. He’s an award-winning poet (author of Shells and Made Flesh, teaches at the University of Wyoming, and has a teenaged son. It’s all very upsetting — if any of you would like…