January 2023 – Little House on the Fairy Hill

We’ve migrated into the part of the year when we’re all supposed to be reinventing ourselves into new, better selves. As I sit at my kitchen table after a run on my treadmill (I’m training for a race, so eventually I have to run outside but right now it’s cold out and I don’t want to), I contemplate all my new improved self behaviors, such as patiently, rather than my usual impatiently, waiting for my husband to leave the kitchen so I can finish the leftovers by myself, or being excited when I accidentally drop a bath bomb intended to be used by the kids and break it, therefore making it fair game for me.

In my defense it is dragon shaped and apparently emits vegan sparkles.
I mean, wouldn’t you?

Our meal plan this week was just about flawless. Well, it was. Coming to the end of the first week of our pantry challenge, with a mantra of using up what we have, we had made a plan through Saturday to use what we had, with Sunday picking up on some added fruit, veggies and milk. Total spend for the 2 weeks on groceries? $66.61 + another $8.78 on a couple of gallons of milk from our local dairy. Not bad. We had plenty of apples, squashes, sweet potatoes and onions, plus some other random veggies in the drawers to use up. Our freezer had plenty of meat in it, and so far we’ve eaten pretty well. Then of course as we were taking stock for lunches we realized that we had definitely under-planned, and spent another $49.01. Way less than our usual, more than we had hoped.

Eli and I were by ourselves on Saturday evening, so my plan was stuffed spaghetti squash, a house favorite. And then I took a look at our 4 spaghetti squashes. Moldy, all of them. And I had just spent the grocery money that was supposed to hold us until January 20th, just under 2 weeks away.

The only thing between me and running to the store is our pantry challenge. That challenge is part of us cutting back spending to achieve bigger goals. But you know, I could have just run out.

I didn’t. I quickly started googling recipes for the ground lamb I had thawed in anticipation of stuffing the squashes, and mentally inventorying our food supply. Theme? I really thought I was going in a Lamb Keema direction, but since we’re short on our 30 plant based foods for the week, I was going to jazz it up. To be honest, we have a lot of root veggies to use up, so I peeled and chopped a few sweet potatoes and a rutabaga that had been part of our last winter CSA distribution, and melted some ghee in a glass baking dish. I had actually never cooked a rutabaga before, but I took 2 home as a challenge in late December.

And then, um, they sat in the veggie drawer.

I put the chopped sweet potatoes and rutabaga in the baking dish, tossed a bit more ghee on top, and popped them in the oven at 375 degrees F. I was going for nutritional density without heavy refined carbs. Not being totally sure how I wanted to season them, or even really if I was going to mix them in with dinner or have them as a side, I didn’t put anything else on them.

At some point I started mulling just how many vegetables I could stick in this meal. I have recently been targeting variety – 30 plant-based foods a week, which is supposed to be a huge differential in gut health. I had some baby spinach that needed to be used up, half an already-baked butternut squash from a recipe earlier in the week, and of course, onions and frozen peas. But the night prior, in a planned exception to our Uber Frugal Month I had dinner with a friend at a Tapas bar. She and her family are going through a thing, and sometimes you suspend your spending freezes and dry Januaries for a night of friendship.

I got a little inspired by the Potatoes Bravas we had shared, and went in the general tapas direction. Mostly.

I made the Potatoes Bravas sauce for the sweet potatoes and rutabagas, tossed them after they had baked for 45 minutes, and left them for another 45 or so.
There was a lot of sauce left, so to that I added a generous splash of red cooking wine, and the butternut squash, which had been baked into a soft mush. Stirred that around and it was surprisingly good.

In a separate pan I cooked the ground lamb, a package of frozen cauliflower rice, and the last of the spinach. I then combined it together in my cast iron skillet – I splurged on a Staub skillet a while back, and it is one of the best purchases I have ever made – and topped it with a hard cheese that we hadn’t opened over the holidays, called Casa de Medivil, in keeping with my not-really-but-maybe Spanish theme.

I toasted (ok, sort of burned) the last few pine nuts I had in my fridge, and added some olives and marinated peppadews and mushrooms to a plate of sliced burrata, then topped it with a little bit of Maple Bacon Aioli we had in the pantry that needed to be opened and used, and topped it with the pine nuts.

And that was dinner. Total plant-food count? 11, 7 of which we hadn’t had previously during the week. I don’t count the seasonings, although technically you can.

I did all this while Eli was putting on our new storm door, which required hours of creative carpentry, because nothing in this house was built to any standard sizes, since there wasn’t as much of that back in 1850. The new door is just about done and lovely, and my husband braving the cold to do carpentry on the porch is something I have endless gratitude about, especially considering I wussed out on being cold this morning even for the 5 minutes it would take me to break a sweat running.

Did we meet our 30 plant-based food varieties goal this week? I honestly don’t know, I totally lost track. Close…I think? I’ll track better this coming week.

Sunday I made a batch of chicken tortilla soup, and put together a shepherd’s pie, for Monday dinner I splurged on tortilla chips and fresh Pico de Gallo because it’s just not the same without.

I was traveling Tuesday and Wednesday, so Thursday I pulled some meatballs out of the freezer, cooked pasta, and added a jar of Rao’s sauce, and made some popovers and that, plus sliced avocado and peppers was dinner. Friday was bulgogi, also from the freezer, with rice, roasted broccoli, and some Trader Joe’s scallion pancakes I had bought on a whim and stuck in the freezer a while back. There were plenty of leftovers for weekend lunches.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and my plan for breakfast is two-ingredient pumpkin donuts (thank you @sydneyinsuburbia), fresh fruit, and breakfast sausage from the freezer. And then it will be time for steak tacos and more meal plans.

It’s all over. Christmas, and the big turkey feast. Trips to the grandparents for the kids to ice skate. A big evening out for Eli and I. A New Year’s Eve feast with the grandmas. In one short week, we filled our lives with wonderful meals, company, and so much of everything – fun, work, joy, celebration. So much time with family. Our hearts are filled with love from it all.

But we’re also weary.

But from here, it’s mellow. It’s January, and oddly warm as it is here, it’s the quiet part of winter. We have another couple days of vacation before life comes back to greet us, and I intend to use that time well for both rest and restoration, as well as to get a few things done.

We still need to dismantle the Christmas decorations, but from now until late February when I start my garden seeds, it will be the small things that really matter. Meals, routines, small cleaning or home improvement projects, time to do a puzzle. Later this month or in early February I’ll order more seeds, but not yet.

Because today and tomorrow the plan is to rest, to cook, to organize, and just be. It’s time to get my training going for the 10-mile race I am planning for April. This year is home-centered. We’ll spend some time away in the mountains and in Maine this summer, and depending on the adoption situation we’ll maybe get away for a few days over April vacation, but most of our time this year will be spent at home, and that contents me. Last year was a big one for trips, but being away from home so much meant that some things, like being an attentive gardener, or keeping track of what was in the freezer went by the wayside.

This year the focus will be much more on making sure we have time to breathe and spend in the yard.

Garden. Kids. Home. And in May, baby chicks. Most of our flock is almost 4 years old now, so it’s time. While we are still getting eggs after a prolonged pause, we are sporadically losing chickens and it’s time to replenish our flock.

But first, we are in day 1 of our pantry eat down and frugal month challenge, which means overall we’re just not spending money on anything other than bills. The biggest part of this is the pantry challenge. The rules are this – for the full month of January we can buy vegetables for planned meals, milk for drinking, coffee augmentation & cereal, as it’s an essential in this house, and fruit. Alternatives must be found (for example, toasted tortillas if we’re out of tortilla chips, etc) for anything we don’t have. Other than our monthly meat delivery, which I forgot, in the holiday madness, to put on hold for January our total budget for the month for food is $198, which is about 1/4 of the usual expenditure in this area, and we may be able to do it for less.

And a perk of the big cleanout is…cleaning out. As things empty – and our time is put into cleaning out closets and drawers, we clean as we go along. To say the house needs it is an understatement as clutter is creeping in everywhere.

Since we had our big Chinese feast last night, most of the meals so far today have been leftover oriented, but tonight we’ll need something healthy to offset all the heavy meals of the last week or two. I have some fresh broccoli and cauliflower, so I’ll pan roast them with a little garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil and serve them up with a simple chicken dish, maybe Butternut Squash Butter Chicken, or a simple stir fry. This week is the race to use up all the veggies in the vegetable drawers that I bought around the holidays. My budget starting next Friday is $72 including all groceries, and milk. If I want delivery, in order to stay out of the store, that has to include delivery and tip, so I’ll be very careful about our meal plan, but this week we have to be a bit more flexible to use up what we have.

Tomorrow I’ll make Chicken Parmesan that will cover lunches for my son as well, and prepare some sort of turkey soup with the broth I made for Tuesday, when everyone is back to work and school, and likely to be tired at the end. I’m thinking something along a Mexican theme, with salsa verde and tortillas toasted into chips.

Wednesday is just Eli and I, and I have the ingredients, minus the ground chicken (I’ll sub in ground beef) for a re-creation of Buffalo Chicken Enchilada Bake.

Thursday Eli is planning to make us Broccoli Cheddar Soup, and then this weekend, while the kids are at their Dad’s and we’re cleaning out closets and doing projects, I’ll stuff spaghetti squash, roast sweet potatoes, and maybe make some homemade Indian food dishes for us as well as preparing something delicious for Sunday night when the kids come home. Probably Shepherd’s Pie, which we haven’t had in ages, and will help use up the last of the red potatoes we bought for Christmas dinner.

Tuesday and Wednesday of next week I have to travel, getting home Thursday morning, so Eli will be on his own for food prep, but I’ll pick back up for Friday night dinner with the kids on the 13th, and cook straight through the weekend.

It might sound funny to take so much pleasure in using up what we have, but there’s something about January that makes me want to use things up and tidy, maybe making space for all the new that’s on the way in.

Happy New Year to you and yours. May today be restful for you, body and spirit.