Saturday was endless – we were up at 4:00 a.m. EDT to catch our 6:40 flight.  (If it had occurred to me that Beloved, as a frequent flier, has all sorts of “premium” and “platinum” status and can bypass all sorts of lines in airports, we’d have slept until at least until 4:30.)  We flew from Cleveland to Minneapolis, then from Minneapolis to Las Vegas, arriving at 10:40 a.m.  Which means we’d been up for 9 hours.

We then rented a car and drove out to Darling Daughter’s Elks lodge, since we couldn’t check into our hotel for another 4 hours and met all of her friends there – as well as her beau, Mr. Fix It (he supposedly can fix anything).  After a few hours, we checked into our hotel, then took Darling Daughter and Mr. Fix It to dinner, then we went back to our room to pick up our tickets to see Jimmy Cliff, who was performing at our hotel.

We were about 45 minutes late for the concert at that point, and Beloved and I had been up and running for nearly 20 hours straight.  As we rode the elevator down, it stopped a couple of floors below us and a young Caucasian man in a Jimmy Cliff t-shirt and a camera slung around his neck got on, accompanied by a small, thin African-American man with a goatee and the shiniest gold shoes we’d ever seen.

Beloved cracks, “Oh, good – we’re late to the show, but so is Jimmy Cliff.”

We all chuckle.  We all know Jimmy’s already down there – these guys are photographers for the show or some such.

We go down to the concert – a very nice venue at the “beach” and wave pool at the Mandalay Bay – and catch the very last of the opening act.  They leave the stage, and preparations for the main show begin.  The band files out and a very elaborate introduction begins when Darling Daughter and Beloved look at each other and both say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the guy in the elevator really was Jimmy Cliff?”

And out on stage bounced a small, thin African-American guy with a goatee and the shiniest gold shoes you ever saw.

I don’t think it would be inappropriate to say that we all began to squeal like a bunch of teeny-bopper fan girls at that point.  Well, except for poor Mr. Fix It, who probably wondered what the hell he’s gotten himself into with this family.

We’re puttin’ the “toddle” in “toddler”!

Have a lovely day, y’all.

I do believe I’m suffering from a bad case of bloggy burnout.  It’s not unusual for this time of year, especially for someone who has been blogging for any length of time (read: 2½ years).  I just need a break.

So, I’m going to be taking one.  On Saturday, we head down to Las Vegas for several days – Beloved is going to a conference and I’m going to spend lots of time with Darling Daughter.  We get home very late on Thursday, then turn around and pick Darling Daughter and her fella at the airport Friday evening, Oldest Son and The Young One on Saturday morning, BON (Beloved’s Only Niece) Saturday night, then head down to Hocking Hills for 4 nights on Sunday.  Darling Daughter goes home Friday afternoon, Oldest Son returns Saturday morning, and we’re going to see Emmitt Smith inducted into the Football Hall of Fame Saturday night.

In order to get ready for this, I have a TON of stuff to do here at home and the office.  I’ll probably blog some this week – I have a couple of recipes – but I may not be around to comment so much.  I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises.  I don’t intend to blog at all while in Vegas and will not be able to while in Hocking Hills – no internet connection.  But rest assured that I will return the second week of August, armed with photos and stories of our adventures – and maybe even a recipe or two.

That was either a threat or a promise.  Take it how you will. 

And have a lovely Monday, y’all.

I was big on canned chicken broths for years, until I realized that MSG gives me headaches and makes my ears ring.  So, I started looking for canned/boxed broths that have no MSG – and that’s damn hard to find, because even if a label claims it is MSG free (Swanson’s, for example), it still has MSG in it.  If a list of ingredients says “autolyzed yeast extract” or “yeast extract” or “natural flavors” it contains MSG, and the USDA labeling standards allows the manufacturer to claim their product is “MSG free.”

Don’t you love it.

In fact, pick up a can of chicken broth and read the label – you’ll very likely see an ingredient list that looks like this:

Chicken broth, salt, monosodium glutamate, dextrose, flavoring, hydrolyzed soy protein, carrots, hydrolyzed corn protein, celery, onion, chicken fat, sugar, disodium guanylate, autolyzed yeast extract.

Mmm, mmm – what a tasty way to get your daily allowance of chemicals and genetically modified food organisms.

Making your own chicken broth is not hard at all, although it is a tad time-consuming.  But what you’ll have when you’re done is a pot of wonderful, healthy chicken stock that is so tasty you’ll wonder why you ever bought the stuff in a can or box (I know I do).  It is every bit as convenient, too. because you can freeze it in different amounts so you’ll have exactly as much as you need.  Just need a little?  Freeze some in ice cube trays and bag the cubes – the average ice cube is about 2 tablespoons, so two chicken stock cubes would be fine for a recipe calling for 1/4 cup of chicken broth.

Along with a good-sized stock pot you’ll need cheesecloth, but that’s inexpensive easy to find – it’s one of the few things I still buy at the grocery store.

Note: You can use the carcass of a chicken you’ve roasted or use a whole chicken, which is what this recipe calls for.  Reserve the meat for recipes that call for cooked chicken.

Chicken Stock

Chicken Stock

1 two to three pound chicken, or bone-in chicken parts with skin

3 carrots

3 stalks celery

2 onions

2 tablespoons peppercorns, cracked

4 bay leaves

2 teaspoons sea salt

Water to cover

Thoroughly wash carrots, celery and onions – you don’t need to peel them, but you may want to trim the ends.  Cut them in half (quarter the onions); they’ll be easier fit into the stock pot.

Rinse the chicken well with cold water and remove any giblets, if necessary.

Combine chicken, carrots, celery, onions, peppercorns, bay leaves and salt in a large, heavy-bottomed stock pot.  Add enough water to cover; bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.

Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for two hours.

Remove the chicken from the pot; carefully pull the meat off of the bones and return the carcass and skin to the stock.  Continue simmering for another hour; taste.  If the stock is not rich enough, continue to simmer, tasting every 15 minutes.

When stock has reached desired richness and flavor, turn off the heat and allow to cool for one hour.  Strain the stock through the cheesecloth into storage containers, label with the date and freeze.

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Posted in participation of Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday

I’m open to suggestions.

In the meantime, I give you this recipe for Beef and Green Bean Stir Fry.  Normally, my stir fries are of the “grab a bunch of stuff, hurl it in a pan and pray” variety; not so this one.  This one, in fact, is a huge pain in the tookus to prepare, but it is oh, so very good that it’s worth it (even if I only make it two or three times a year).  Based on a recipe by Barbara Fisher at her now-abandoned blog Tigers & Strawberries, it employs a method called “dry frying” which confuses me, because there’s nothing “dry” about it.  Dry frying involves frying thin strips of beef in “a moderate amount of oil” (or in my case, rendered beef tallow) for an extended period, cooking most of the moisture out of it – perhaps that’s why it’s referred to as dry?

Beats me – all I know is that the method of cooking gives a marvelous chewy texture and absolutely wonderful, well, beefy flavor.  Add to that some fresh green beans that are cooked in the beef-flavored fat for an extended period, leaving them with a wonderfully soft texture in contrast to the chewy beef, the addition of fresh ginger and other vegetables cut into matchstick-size pieces thrown in at the last minute and a spicy, savory “sauce” and you have what I consider to be the best darn stir-fry I’ve ever tasted.

The original recipe (Barbara is a professional chef, btw) calls for Sichuan chili bean paste, which I don’t normally keep on hand so I used red curry paste, which I always have on hand; she also uses Sichuan peppercorns and fresh chili peppers, something else I didn’t have when I made this last night, so I used dried pepper flakes and regular black peppercorns.  I throw in different vegetables, depending on what I have in the kitchen, although carrots and fresh ginger are a must as far as I’m concerned; last night I seeded and cut a lone yellow summer squash into little matchstick-sized pieces and slivered a good-size shallot because that’s what I had on hand.

You can, of course, serve this over steamed rice – I’ve tossed in cooked rice noodles before – but it is just fine on it’s own.

Note:  Shao Hsing wine is a Chinese cooking wine; you can find it in most Asian markets.  Barbara also warns to be cautious of flare-ups from drops of oil igniting or that the wine may catch fire while adding it to the wok but I’ve never had that happen.  Which is kind of disappointing.  It could be that I’m just not doing it right.

Beef and Green Been Stir Fry

Serves 4 to 6

1 lb. top round or flank steak cut into slices, then into thin strips

1/3 cup melted tallow, lard or vegetable oil

2/3 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 2″ pieces

1/4 cup Shao Hsing wine or dry sherry

2 tablespoons red curry paste

pinch of salt

1 large shallot, peeled and slivered

1 two-inch piece of ginger, peeled and slivered

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon dried pepper flakes (optional)

2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchstick-size pieces

1 yellow summer squash, seeded and cut into matchstick-size pieces

1 tablespoon black peppercorns, crushed

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Heat your wok or large, heavy skillet over high heat until it until it begins to smoke. Add your fat or oil and heat for about a minute; add the beef.  Cook, stirring continuously, for about ten minutes; the fat/oil will become cloudy with the moisture from the beef.  Keep cooking until the moisture evaporates and the fat/oil becomes clear again and the meat sizzles and browns.

Remove the beef with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate.

Add the green beans and cook, stirring continuously, until they are wrinkled and browned and becoming soft.  Add the beef back to the wok or skillet, and stir to combine.  Drizzle wine carefully around outer edge of wok or skillet, and stir. (It’s at this point that Barbara warns that the wine may catch fire; she says this is fine, just be prepared for it and stay out of the way of the flames – they should die down fairly quickly as the alcohol burns off.)

Add the curry paste and stir it into the beef/green bean mixture until it becomes nice and fragrant.  Add the salt, shallot, ginger, garlic and pepper flakes; stir fry, tossing it all about vigorously inside the wok or skillet. Add the carrots and squash and stir fry about another minute longer. Add soy sauce and peppercorns and stir fry for another minute.  Turn out onto a platter and serve (with steamed rice, if desired) immediately.

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I suppose I could post a recipe (White Girl Stir Fry, anyone?), but since I’m all out of stories about obtaining Chuck, I’m saving that for tomorrow while I worry and obsess about my Fight Back Friday post.  So, you all know what that means, right?

That’s right – pictures of The World’s Cutest G Man.

The work week is half over, so have a lovely Wednesday, y’all.

The G Man Cuddlin'

The G Man Posin'

The G Man Thinkin'

The G Man Yellin'

The G Man Crawlin'

I haven’t participated in Random Tuesday Thoughts for awhile, so here we go.  Grab the the purple button, link up with Keely, and play along.

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Is it just me, or is there something infinitely comforting in the knowledge there’s a full carton of half-and-half in the refrigerator at work?

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We returned to White Feather Meats yesterday and ordered an entire pig – and extra baby back ribs, much to Beloved’s delight.

We’ve decided to name our pig Arnold.  Beloved kept wanting to call him Wilbur, but I read Charlotte’s Web too many times as a child and cannot eat a Wilbur, even if he is “some pig.”

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Okay, it is my opinion that The Learning Channel has simply gone too far.

We are heading to Hocking Hills the first week of August where we will converge with Oldest Son, Darling Daughter and her significant other, The Young One, Jolly and her significant other and the G Man, and Beloved’s Only Niece (who is just a hoot and a half) to terrorize frolic in the various parks there for four days.  One of the things we want to do is rent one of those pontoon “party” boats for a day and let the kids spend their leisure time falling diving into Lake Logan.

Jolly, however, adamantly refused (at first) to let us take the G Man into the lake.  Not on the lake, but in the water itself.  Why you ask?

Because she watched a show on The Learning Channel about some flesh-eating virus that lives in fresh-water lakes.

Thank you, TLC, for forcing Beloved and me to point out that we’ve both swam in many lakes in the nearly 50 years we’ve both been on this earth and not only is our flesh still in tact, there’s far too much of it.

Can someone point me in the direction of a lake with a fat-eating virus, please?

~~~~~~

Darling Daughter recently acquired a kitten when the management of her apartment made her find another home for her rottweiler mix puppy (even after they told her there were no “breed restrictions”).  Until recently, the kitten had no name – I believe they were simply calling her “Kitty.”

She has one now, according to Darling Daughter’s most recent Facebook status:  Princess KittySkankButtface.

Seems like an awfully long name to burden a poor kitten with, if you ask me.

~~~~~~

I have been plagued by nightmares lately.   And as afraid of the dark as I am, my nightmares rarely, if ever, include monsters.  No, my nightmares always have something terrible happening to one of my kids.

There’s nothing like getting up at 2 a.m. to IM your eldest child, knowing he will still be awake, to make sure he’s all right and to remind him to look both ways before he crosses the street.

Those bus drivers never look where they’re going.

~~~~~~

Since we’re on the subject of nightmares, I started to have a doozy of one last night.  Started, but didn’t finish because I made myself wake up.  In it, I was approached by The Young One, who said he had something to tell me.  I waited patiently enough, figuring I knew what it was, when the word “vampire” came out of his mouth and I immediately made myself snap out of it.

Apparently, I can handle being told that my kid is gay, but not a gay sparkly vampire.

(However,  if the history in the internet browser on The Young One’s computer is anything to judge by, the boy is definitely NOT gay.  You didn’t know Mom checked on that, did you dear?)

~~~~~~

Oddly enough, I haven’t had a nightmare about Darling Daughter in awhile, which is odd since she is the one zooming around Las Vegas on a damn scooter.

Maybe the fact she’d name her poor cat Princess KittySkankButtface is frightening enough.

(Oh, I kid – Mother loves you and you know it.)

Actually, I was quite busy this weekend – on top of grilling some filets from Chuck and smoking a free-range chicken we picked up at the farmer’s market, we pitted and froze five pounds of sweet cherries I found on sale for $.199/lb, made homemade chicken stock from a “soup chicken”- an old laying hen past her prime – and (believe it or not) made dog food for Scooter, using the meat from the old hen and a kidney from Chuck.

Yes, I guess we’ve gone off the deep end.  I should have never read the ingredients on the bag of kibble we’ve been feeding him; it was simply appalling.  I wouldn’t eat that stuff; why feed it to my furry, four-legged child?

At any rate, since we’ve got the grill/smoker cranked up full throttle for the summer, salads are still the order of the day.  We’d picked up some lovely tomatoes and cucumbers at the farmer’s market this last weekend and have been trying to consume a seedless watermelon for several days (there’s only so much watermelon you can eat at any given meal, and I’ve been resisting the urge to pull the ice cream maker out and make a sorbet with it), so voilá!  A Tomato, Watermelon and Cucumber salad.

Quick, easy, tasty, refreshing and oh-so-good for you, too.  What more could you ask for?

Note:  A mandolin will make quick work of the cucumber and onion.

Tomato, Watermelon and Cucumber Salad

Tomato, Watermelon and Cucumber Salad

4 to 6 servings

4 cups cubed watermelon

1 large, ripe tomato, chopped

1 large cucumber, sliced very thinly

1/2 large, sweet onion, sliced very thinly

1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced

3 teaspoons sugar or Splenda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Combine the watermelon, tomato and cucumber in a large bowl; toss with the sugar or Splenda and salt.  Let it stand for 15 minutes.

Stir in the onion, thyme, vinegar and olive oil.  Cover and chill for 2 hours.  Taste; season with pepper.  Serve on lettuce leaves, if desired.

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Well, to confuse the issue even more, there are three different kinds of nutritionally important omega 3 essential fatty acids:  αlpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).   EPA and DHA are provided by animal products (most notably fish oil and that grass-fed beef I’ve got such a fondness for these days); ALA is provided by plant products (most notably flax and canola oil).

EPA and DHA are the long-chain omega 3s that provide the human body the benefits of essential fatty acids.  Your body can convert ALA to EPA and DHA, but it does it very inefficiently – about 15% of ALA converts to EPA and only 5% converts to DHA, and there are factors that will inhibit the conversion even more; including, but not limited to:

• A high consumption of linolenic acid (the type found in omega 6 fatty acids)
• Ethanol (read: alcoholic beverages)
• A deficiency of vitamins B3 (niacin) and B6, as well as zinc and magnesium

So, individuals who depend solely on vegetable products for their omega 3s need to be even more careful about their consumption of omega 6s, consumption of alcohol and that they are getting plenty of essential vitamins and minerals (from natural sources rather than supplements), and also need to be aware that even then they may be unable to convert enough ALA to EPA and DHA to achieve optimal levels of the longer chain omega 3 essential fatty acids.

If you don’t have a problem eating fish (some people do), you can get plenty of the right kinds of omega 3s from the regular consumption wild, fatty fish like salmon or tuna.  Note the word wild; a lot of farm-raised salmon are fed grains which – yup – throw the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio all out of whack and pretty much mitigates the benefit of eating them in the first place.  As for tuna, there’s the whole thing about mercury so if most of your consumption of that fish is in the form of tuna steaks or sashimi, as it is in our case, you might want to limit the amount you eat.  (Note:  Canned tuna is generally made up of smaller fish, so the mercury content tends to be lower.  But, please, try to make sure the canned tuna you buy is ethically caught and is packed in water, NOT vegetable oil.)

So, where does that leave us?  With fish oil supplements.

You can take the capsules, although I’ve had a lot of people tell me me they don’t like them because of the “fishy after affects” (yeah, you might be burping it up for quite awhile afterwards).  There’s also the problem that fish oil will go rancid fairly quickly if not used quickly and/or properly stored and a rancid fish oil is not a healthy fish oil; you need to bite into one of your capsules every now and then to make sure they’re still fresh.

That doesn’t sound appealing?  It doesn’t to me, either, so I found an alternative to the capsules.

As recently as a generation ago, the use of cod liver oil was widespread.  High in vitamins A and D as well as EPA and DHA, it was routinely administered to children because, among other things, it prevented rickets; adults consumed cod liver oil to mitigate the symptoms of arthritis, as well as to keep skin, nails and hair healthy.

Somewhere between my mother’s generation and my own, that practice stopped.  I’m not sure exactly when, or why – all I know is that I never touched the stuff until recently.  Which is a shame; it’s really good for you, and if you are conscientious about the type of cod liver oil you purchase it will be free of contaminants and not be awful-tasting.

We’ve begun taking Carlson’s Cod Liver Oil every day; it comes in a green glass bottle (light can damage cod-liver oil, and the glass eliminates any danger of harmful chemicals being leached into it) which we keep in the refrigerator.  It has a light, lemon flavor and is regularly tested in an FDA-regulated laboratory to insure that the oil is free from many common contaminants, including mercury, lead and PCBs.

How are you getting your omega 3s?

Posted in participation of Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday

When I called Jon Berger and asked about buying some of his pastured beef, he suggested we pay a visit to White Feather Meats in Creston, Ohio – the people who process his beef exclusively – and buy some in their retail store before we made up our minds.  So we did, and we were very pleasantly surprised by what we found.

White Feather Meats

We’d been in the retail stores of a local beef farmer before – bustling places with huge counters stuffed with just about every kind and cut of beef you can imagine and people waiting in line to be served.  This was not our experience when we arrived at White Feather one Saturday morning at about 10 a.m.

First, there were no long counters full of meat waiting to be weighed and wrapped, just several freezers full of vacuum-packed meats, a small counter and a window into a back room that was dark and quiet.  A tall, dark-haired young man who introduced himself as Seth Perkins greeted us and asked if he could assist us in any way.

Seth's Brother, Scott

And assist us he did – answering all of our questions patiently, not only about their relationship with Green Vista Farm but their own business, which isn’t confined to Jon’s grass-fed beef.  In addition to processing and selling the products of many local farmers, including beef (both pastured and grain-finished), pork, lamb and some chicken, they also raise, process and sell their own bison.

Bison Steaks

It’s darn tasty, too.  Yup, in addition to several cuts of Jon’s pastured beef (which included a brisket) we bought some ground bison along with a couple of bison steaks, a bison brisket and some bison stew meat (I’m going to make chili with the stew meat in the fall).  We were so impressed with the quality of the beef and bison, we’ve been back several times and purchased pork chops, sausage, bacon, lamb chops and ground lamb – I haven’t gotten around to the lamb yet, but I have to tell you the pork we’ve purchased is so good that we’re going to source a whole pig through White Feather, as well.

Yummy Ground Bison

It isn’t just the taste and quality of the meat we’ve purchased that has made us such strong advocates of White Feather Meats and the Perkins family, it’s their passion for and knowledge about what they do.  On one of our subsequent trips to their farm, we spoke to Seth and his brother Scott about their processing methods and just couldn’t have been more impressed.  They explained to us, chart in hand, about the various cuts of beef, where they came from on the steer (only steers go to market as beef) and how they should be cooked.  These young men also did a marvelous job in explaining the advantages of pastured beef – so much so that they accomplished something in twenty minutes that had taken me weeks:  convinced Beloved that this was absolutely the right thing to do.

Cutting to customer specifications

I was also very upfront in questioning about their slaughter methods; Scott, in turn, was very upfront about answering.  Not only are their methods humane, they far exceed the USDA requirements as outlined in the Humane Slaughter Act.  They are also USDA certified, which means there is always a USDA representative on the premises during the slaughter process.  All of the meat is then dry-aged for at least 14 days in temperature-and-humidity-controlled facilities before it is cut to customer specification, vacuum-wrapped in USDA approved material and quickly frozen.

And they don’t prevaricate or fabricate in order to gain business – when I asked if the pork they sell is pastured, Seth was quite honest in answering “No.” But, he explained, the farmer they do business with treats his animals ethically – they are housed in clean, uncrowded living spaces, never given growth hormones or treated needlessly with antibiotics and are never fed any of the dangerous garbage and GMO-laced feed that are the normal diet of industrial, CAFO animals.

“We wouldn’t do business with him otherwise,” Seth said.

All reasons we are vocal advocates of supporting small, local businesses, ethical and sustainable farming operations and the folks at White Feather Meats.  They have loyal customers here at the Sushi Bar.