Sunday, January 25, 2009

Dark Days of Winter Challenge - week 10


Week 10! Only three months until asparagus! (I hope - spring can be fickle in the Midwest.)

This week's meal was one of my attempts at keeping meat portions small and vegetable portions high. The starch portions were a little high as well, but homemade stuffing is one of the great joys in life.

The meat portion was one boneless chicken thigh (I pan-fried it with the skin on for flavor then removed it for waistline issues.) It was just okay; I am so used to using fresh chicken that I found the frozen stuff a little weird. (Next time it will go in a stew.) It was from Speckled Hen Farm in Cardington, Ohio.

Next up was the pan gravy. I had some of the gnarliest chicken stock imaginable (from North Market Poultry; it was made from chicken feet and came from their own kitchen, as they were out of the usual stock in the butcher case.) It made a tasty and delightful gravy, as you might imagine.

Vegetable dishes were corn with butter and adobo seasoning (I am currently crazy about the combination of corn and adobo!) and green beans with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Starches were mashed green mountain potatoes (skins on of course!) with butter and milk from Hartzler's Dairy, and homemade stuffing (the bread was baked at the grocery store, but the celery was from my garden and the onions from H-W Organic Farms.

I wouldn't want to cook a meal like this every day, but it's nice to eat like this every once in a while. Especially if someone else does the dishes!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Garlic and adobo is another great combo I think... makes almost everything better :-) I can't wait until spring either. Did you preserve/freeze the corn from the summer? I had the most intense craving for popcorn last night but no local source!

Anne said...

Yep, the corn was from this summer. I lost track of how many dozens of ears I put up! The freezer is still plenty full (and I suspect corn with garlic and adobo will be on this week's menu!) I cut most of the corn off the cob for freezing, but there are a few packages of ears (from a day where I was too exhausted to do anything more.)