When Life Gives You Lemons? Preserve!

Okay Here's what we have so far:

Friday February 1st:
Cereal,
Leftovers
Scallop potatoes with smoked salmon (my own recipe)
and cauliflower roasted with cumin seed, yogurt and pomegranate
from Smitten Kitchen

Saturday:
Cereal
Bread and cheese and fruit
Tuna casserole re-engineered with artichoke tapenade and lemon zest (winged it.)
Broccolini sauteed with garlic

Sunday:
granola and yogurt
more bread and cheese
Egg and smoked salmon sandwiches with apple salad ... ( I was tired... and it was so tasty!)

I think the key to my happiness in the kitchen is to have some ingredients that I just toss in to make it look like I tried harder.
For gourmet homemade condiments I like:

• candied pecans ( on salads-on top of mashed sweet potatoes-with cocktails..YUM)
• Lime and cumin pepitas (More salads toppings,  snacks with beer and popcorn, but great mixed with grain salads as well)
• Reduced orange and rosemary infused balsamic vinegar (drizzled on roasted beets, yummy with beef, instant salad dressing)

I will have all those recipes on here very soon!

Today I made:

I used 5 Meyer lemons from my Mystery Box

 and a lot of kosher salt (almost a 1/2 a cup)

Clean lemons and cut off ends and quarter them.

Layer in the jar:

salt- lemons- salt- lemons. Start and end with salt.

(use Kosher or sea salt to avoid any chemicals added to table salt)

Wait for the lemons to juice up. The salt should draw the juice out.

Eventually you want enough juice to cover the lemons.

After a few hours, add extra juice if you need it.

This is what it looked like while I waited. I added juice to cover later.

Now I'm keeping it in a bag  in the coolest part of my little kitchen

(all the recipes/ forums said keep it in a dark cool place and refrigerate after a couple of weeks)

 and shaking it a couple times a day, tucking down floaters,

 to keep all the salts and acids preserving away

Easier than pie and in a couple of weeks of shaking I will have another luxury condiment that will fancy up soups, stews roasts and marinades,  basically reinvent tuna salad... not to mention be the basis some of your trendy cocktails.

I'll let you know how it turns out. Tonight I think a potato leek or cream of broccoli soup as we have some Acme sourdough bread and three different dinnertimes to contend with.

Chow!

The Challenge

So tomorrow we start a new month. February. The short month. And I'm starting a new blog, a new project... And what better to make sure I have something to talk about than to challenge myself to a mini resolution?

Food from Home February. For a whole month I plan to eat meals from home. This is a pretty serious adjustment for my household. I think on an average week we probably eat an average of 4 (or so) meals out or take out. Which doesn't even count solo lunches and snacks... an addition number which can and does give me pause. That is quite a bit.

So we talked about cutting back... and I, in a delusional moment, thought that I might more impactfully hit the reset button on my blissfully self indulgent lifestyle choices if I went Cold Turkey. So I suggested that for one month we eat every meal and snack from home. (I hear the screams...wait.. was that me?)

Seriously, the mind reels. What a concept. We could save money...get healthier...do the whole family togetherness thing. Ya think? What could go wrong? I guess I can find out!

It actually intimidates me a little, but no one is in a better position to succeed at this than I am. I get amazing ingredients from the farm I work for. ( see the picture? YUM...) I work part time and I'm living in central California, an amazing place to shop, cook and eat. I will primarily combat only my own inertia and catch as catch can method of menu planning.

Anyway it will be interesting for me. Hopefully somewhat interesting to someone out there in the world wide web.  ( Mom?) I'll link to recipes for anything I cook that I like, share my inspirations and tools and all that good stuff. And hopefully I will try to and eat some pretty yummy stuff.


Back Feb. 1st with some planning and menus for day one!
Bear with me, I haven't been writing much lately and I'm hoping it will get better as we go!

Testing Testing 123

I'm finally trying to get this project up and running!