Round Two - Day 19 & 20

Yesterday began the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner, which we are having at our house. I will chronicle all the efforts to make it from scratch on Friday. In the meantime I will try to sum up the last couple of days. Tuesday I soaked some beans for a bean soup I made yesterday. I threw in the left over bones from the pork chops I made last week, and cut up a couple of the saltiest pieces of bacon. I thought this might be enough salt, but actually it wasn't. I ended up having to salt it when I served it, which never works as well as when you are cooking it. But that's a good lesson. Also, the recipe I used calls for chili powder, which I don't have, so I used curry powder instead. It didn't have the kick that I would have preferred. I'm going to have to learn how to make chili powder. I also had some bread with butter and some of the cookie pieces.

For lunch we had some left over roast chicken from Tuesday night with broccoli and bread. I am pretty excited about this chicken. I have been reafing the Julie/Julia blog, and she mentioned when she made Julia's roast chicken that she (like me) didn't find it worth all the turning and basting work. She said that she makes a roast chicken by rubbing it with olive oil, salt and pepper and putting it in the oven "for a while". So this is what I did and I think it was the best one I have made so far. I cooked it at 450º for about an hour and twenty minutes. Finally, the skin was almost crispy! I think if I had left it in for another 5-10 minutes the skin would have crisped up even more without drying out the meat. I can't believe that roasting a chicken has become the easiest dinner I can make. Two months ago this was something I would have to psyche myself up for for a few days and think about all day. This time I decided right before I put it in the oven. It worked out perfectly because I set Baby J up in his high chair with his dinner, and prepared the chicken and cut up some potatoes and carrots to roast underneath while he ate. I put it in the oven and then started the process of putting him to bed. By the time he was asleep it was almost ready, all I had to so was sauté some beet greens with olive oil and garlic to serve with it and a real grown up dinner was ready.

I apologize for skipping around. Yesterday morning, we had cornmeal pancakes and bacon. We made our own buttermilk for the first time for these pancakes. As promised, it couldn't be easier. A cup of milk, and a tablespoon of lemon juice, left to sit for five minutes. It fermented just like buttermilk! This kind of thing is one of the best parts of this project, seeing science at work! I wish I had paid more attention in school. Perhaps I will have a strong understanding of all of this chemisty and biology by the time Baby J is studying it.

I already told you about Tuesday's dinner, for lunch we finished off the mediocre pumpkin stew from book club night and for breakfast eggs and bacon. Throw in some broken cookie pieces and bread with butter and perhaps a banana or two and that should about cover it.