Skip to main content

bread and produce and such.

i brought my bread machine out of retirement today. it is currently concocting some italian herb bread to go with our soup tonight. i hope. it always amazes me how that little paddle in the bottom of the mixer can actually do everything it does. anyway, i’m hoping it will be yummy… especially since i had to play w/ the recipe a little bit. (of course.) it calls for 3 and a half cups of bread flour, which i don’t have. so i used 2 cups of AP flour and a cup and a half of whole wheat (because i’ve officially turned into my mother and can’t make anything with just white flour…) it also called for 1/4 cup of parmesan, which i’m out of (yeah, i didn’t actually PLAN to make this bread… the idea just sort of occurred to me as i was wandering the aisles at qfc this afternoon). so anyway, i hope it’s good.

i should really use the breadmaker more often. i don’t know why i don’t. we got it as a wedding gift from my aunt marilynne and uncle loren - yep, the one that just died – so i’m thinking of him as my bread is baking ;) and we used it a lot back then. made sandwich bread and everything. then after we moved back to WA, i don’t think it’s been used once.

anyway, i went to the yakima fruit market today and i can’t say i was overly impressed. the prices are good, but they didn’t seem to have any more organic or local produce than a typical grocery store w/ a good organic section. sooo… i’m kind of back at square one here. i visited the issaquah farmer’s market on saturday and got some great organic salad greens for a great price from a lady there, but that was all i wound up with. i wanted to get some strawberries, but i just can’t bring myself to pay $4 a pint. especially when my own strawberry plants have lots of berries on them and some are starting to ripen up already. so i decided to be patient instead. for some reason, shopping at a farmer’s market is very confusing to me. part of the problem is money. i have a specifically set budget for groceries, and i have a pretty good grasp of how far that money goes at the grocery store when i’m buying everything i want for the week. when i start getting this here and that there, i get really confused about it and numbers just start swirling around in my head… i’m not really a math person.  the other trouble i have is with having to reverse my thinking. since i’m not exactly the best or most adventurous cook, i have to be very specific in my planning. i’m not good at opening a cupboard or the fridge, seeing what i’ve got, and then somehow coming up with dinner from that. when i plan our meals, i pick out what we want to eat first, and then make my shopping list accordingly. when you go to the farmer’s market, you see what they’ve got that is in season and looks good. i always wind up looking at stuff that looks really yummy, but then i don’t know what i would do with it if i bought it. or i could buy whatever they’ve got that looks good, and have a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t really go together in any logical way to make a week’s worth of meals, but i blew a wad of cash and now i don’t have much left with which to buy the stuff that does turn into meals. you see?  aaagggghhh!!!! it drives me nuts that this is the only way i know how to shop and cook. i feel so non-creative and inadequate.

but it’s all a learning process, right? i suppose my family won’t starve… they might not be very happy with me for a while.

i’m also considering the organic farm box delivery from full circle farms. it’s $40 a week to have it delivered to a drop-off location that’s just a block or two from my house, or i could pay $5 more to get it delivered to my door. of course, that leads into the reverse planning thing as well, so i’m not entirely sure. anyway. i’m over-thinking things again, as usual. and i need to go get my soup started.

Comments

  1. HippyChickJune 17, 2010 at 2:12 PM

    I enjoy farmer's markets, too! What I do is buy whatever looks good (if the price is reasonable) if I don't have a specific recipe in mind, and then I Google the ingredient when I get home and find a recipe that looks good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LisaJune 18, 2010 at 3:25 PM

    By the way, I was at Remlinger Farms in Carnation and thought of you. The prices aren't AS good as Yakima's, but the have lots of regular stuff and all sorts of other stuff too. Just a thought...

    ReplyDelete
  3. LizJune 21, 2010 at 11:53 PM

    FYI: we get the small box from full circle. We eat a lot of produce and the small box was a bit much to eat in a week for us- we pick it up from a nearby place and it's $31 a week. We love it, and the fact we can sub out whatever we want for other things weekly is wonderful. Anyhow, good luck!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

christmas eve

christmas eve is probably my favorite church service of the year. our sanctuary is gorgeous with the trees and the poinsettias, with ALL 4 advent candles lit AND the christ candle in the middle… it probably helps that this is the church I grew up in and I remember waiting for all that stuff as the season progressed, and how exciting it always was when it FINALLY got there. And then there is the music. growing up as the kid of the organist, who did christmas eve “right”, I have high standards. we MUST start with “oh come, all ye faithful”, and we MUST end with “joy to the world”. the church is always packed, so the organ is played at full blast, with all the extra bells and whistles. it is unbelievably awesome. deanna, our new organist, does not disappoint. the music is always wonderful. near the end (right before ‘joy to the world’), we always turn the lights down and sing “silent night” by candlelight. I don’t know what it is, but I have NEVER made it through that without tearing up. ...
1 comment
read more »

Piano Concerto #2 In C Minor, Op. 18 - Adagio

I got tagged by Mary so here it is. Let's see what your music has to say about you... Here are the rules: 1. Put your iTunes on shuffle. 2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer 3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS 1) IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY? My Dreydel - Raffi 2) WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Slip Away - The Commitments 3) WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Sweet Talkin' Woman - Five Iron Frenzy 4) HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Nocturne #20 in C sharp minor - Chopin 5) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? Haru Ga Kita - Raffi 6) WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? My Style - Black Eyed Peas 7) WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Swinging on a Star - Frank Sinatra 8) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Undignified - David Crowder Band 9) WHAT IS 2+2? Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi 10) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Five Little Pumpkins - Raffi 11) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE P...
2 comments
read more »

random diaper musings

do you ever feel at odds with yourself? i constantly feel like i'm a big wad of contradictions. and being the living-in-my-head, overthinking type i can spend years, i mean hours pondering things. it can really get me down. example: diapers. one would think that this was a relatively easy thing to handle. i've got 3 kids. i'm pretty familiar with diapers. it seems so simple; your baby needs a change so you take the old diaper off and put a new one on. done. right? no. i have this constant dilemma going on. cloth or disposable. i have 25 perfectly good fitted cloth diapers that i paid a lot of money for when i decided a couple years ago that i was done filling up landfills. so micah wears them a good share of the time. but it bugs me that they're so bulky, especially with the covers on and clothes fit funny and that totally drives me nuts. so at home, he just wears the diaper w/ no cover and when we leave the house, i put a disposable on him. not usually...
6 comments
read more »

revisiting the 2010 bucket list

a month or so ago, i posted the beginnings of my ‘to-do’ list for 2010. i’m totally stealing this from kate and debbie, but it’s a good idea.  i had a good start of 6 items… but i know there’s way more i want to add to it. spin my own yarn spend more time in nature. read all of jane austen’s books. can my own veggies/fruits acquire a sewing machine re-learn to play the piano exercise regularly (more days of the week than not – really!) finish reading the entire bible make an effort to spend time individually with each of my children mellow out philosophically (if you don’t know what that means, just read a few of my posts and you’ll likely find some crazed post where i’m ranting about my strong disagreement about something generally accepted by the status quo) beat myself up less (again, just read a few posts) take better care of the dog. she’s 13 now and i need to make the most of the years i have left with her. (okay, this one i...
1 comment
read more »

how to make a bad situation worse:

around 7:30 on thursday evening, we had a situation like this: not a good scenario. about 2 hours later, we were in this situation: awesome, right? so how do we get from point A to point B? like this: see the awesome metal ‘edge of death’ on that bowl? yeah. that’s the weapon. in my effort to speedily get the bowl under layla’s face, I actually HIT her in the face with it, and the edge SLICED her upper lip open. yup. right open. it was NOT awesome. I freaked out, of course. she’s still in the middle of feeling terrible. dave was not home yet from a meeting. yeah. mom is majorly freaking out. fortunately, dave walked in the door just as I was sending the “GET HOME NOW!” text. it wasn’t really bleeding a ton, but it was obvious that this was not a band-aid situation. so I called my dad to come and stay with the boys while we took her in to the ER. it’s very nice to have an older kid, so we didn’t have to wait for him to get there before we could leave. but not knowing how long it...
1 comment
read more »