Bread, aspargus, lemonade and more.

As promised, here is what happened in my kitchen on Sunday.

First I got out our bread machine, which I still love even though gluten is such an outlaw these days.
This all whole wheat bread recipe is the only one I make these days. It is perfect for morning toast which how most of our bread gets eaten.

It took me five minutes to assemble the ingredients which are very basic, and in 3 hours I had this wonderful loaf of bread. As it was baking the house smelled so good !!

Next while the oven preheated to 300 F, I got out the pork shoulder roast I was going to slow cook. We buy most of our meat from Fiesta Farms at our farmer's market. I love knowing that the animals were raised in my own county by caring farmers.
I planned to make this pork shoulder a simple version of these country style ribs. I browned the roast first in my enamel/ cast iron dutch oven. To the pot I added 2 cups of my own roasted tomato sauce, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, a half cup of barbecue sauce from Trader Joe's and one chopped onion. I put the lid on, put it in the oven and cooked it for 3 hours. I did check it every hour and turned it over once. It was melt it your mouth tender and provided us with meals for days. I served it with some quinoa potato pancakes I had in the freezer.

My next task was to make lemonade with some lemons that had been in my fridge a long time.
I added on of my own limes to add to this refreshing drink.

Remember those white beans I made last post ?? I finally got around to making the white bean and kale soup. By this time my kale had become salad so I used some baby spinach instead.

I have been lazy these days about making my own stock and I have forgiven myself.
Some time back, some friends told me about Better Than Bouillon, an easy to use organic soup base.
I used it in this soup and I have to say, I like it a lot. It is salty so I did not need to add any extra salt to the recipe, just the two tablespoons of bouillon base. It gave the soup a nice depth without overpowering the flavor of the vegetables and beans.

It is so nice that asparagus are still in season at my farmer's market. My last kitchen project was to roast the bunch of asparagus. You can certainly do this right before you serve them, I am partial to them cold and like to have them around to add to my lunch or dinner salad.

This week I have been eating the slow roasted pork with a quinoa potato pancake and a green salad one night. The next night I will have the white bean soup with homemade bread and cold asparagus.
Yum !!

Oh Jeez...strawberry rhubarb crisp, beans, beets and more

Has it really been since March 29 since I last posted... ????
I have been taking a break from making new food and from blogging about it.
I feel guilty and I have to admit it feels like homework I would rather put off.
I have had "blog" on my to-do list for weeks, maybe months.

I am still eating and still cooking just on a much smaller, less exciting scale.
Cooking lots of great homemade food from fresh local ingredients takes a lot of time and energy.
I am guessing you already knew that.

There was a flurry of activity in my kitchen this morning.
Here is what occurred.

I made strawberry rhubarb crisp using my own rhubarb.

I cooked some beets to make to make a beet, spinach and goat cheese salad.

I made yogurt, which will yog for 8-10 hours today.

 And I soaked yellow beans from the Lompoc Bean Store, which I will cook tomorrow in the crock pot and eventually use to make this wonderful kale and bean soup.

That wasn't so hard, except for all the interruption from texting friends and family...
My new goal is to to something like this every week or so, no promises.