Author Archives: Tasha

Home again, home again

Jiggity jog!

Well, we got the hog. We also toured the farm (my friend Dylan & I – Bill had to work). It was fun & I’ll post a few photos later. I will say right here & now that I appreciate Jeremy of Meadow Haven’s willingness to take a solid hour out of his day and show us a goodly chunk of what they’re doing. We saw their meat chickens, laying chickens, cows and, of course, hogs.

I also appreciated his generosity in giving us a dozen eggs for each of the 7 shares of hog. A gift of 7 dozen eggs! That was lovely. And tasty.

But, for now, I want you guys to know something important. Today, I experienced VICTORY. For today I learned my freezer can, in fact, hold a whole butchered hog.… Continue reading →

To market, to market

To buy a fat hog!

Okay, not to market, and the hog will already be mostly butchered into cuts we want to eat, so who knows if it was fat?

We’ve mentioned a couple of times that we are buying a hog with several of our friends. Today’s the day we go to the farm to pick it up. One friend can’t come with us, but he loaned us his car. We’re taking our coolers and a couple other friends loaned us theirs.

Over the course of the weekend, I’m going to try to post everything we do that’s hog related. Tomorrow isn’t hog related, so there won’t be much of a post, but Sunday you should get a post about today’s farm activity (if I don’t get it up sooner), and Sunday we’re making sausage, so I’ll be photographing for that.… Continue reading →

Dead blender

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  • Friday, June 17, 2011
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Okay, I think I asked this before, but maybe not. What blenders do you all have and like, love or hate?

Our stick blender, the one that couldn’t really handle frozen fruit, has recently left the building. Sadly. So, we’d like recommendations on blenders. Any kind, stick or upright. Just something that can deal with crushing ice & frozen fruits.

And now I just realized tonight’s dinner plans might go a little awry. I want to do corn chowder, but I don’t have a blender for pureeing.

Grrr.… Continue reading →

Smoothies, anyone?

No photos today, just a quick recipe & question.

It’s insanely hot here in Chicago. I just passed a paper that said we’re having record high temperatures for the month, and it’s making June feel more like August. They’re really not wrong.

In good & bad news, this is really suppressing my appetite, and Bill’s as well. Bad news, because it means less cooking & tasty food. Good news because it means less eating out & spending money.

However, we have taken on making smoothies again. This is partially to clear out the freezer of berries we froze almost a year ago. It’s already getting to berry season, and we still have old berries! Yikes! That, and our freezer is about to be very full of pork, but more on that later.… Continue reading →

My “garden”

One of the things I wanted to commit to this year was growing a little of my own food. I had these great intentions, back in December, of finding and participating in a community garden.

Then, in January, I got caught up in life, the universe and everything. And also a comunity market that’s stolen my heart (and free time) Thoughts of joining a community garden persisted, but weren’t really acted on.

Well, that didn’t change my desire to grow something for Bill & I to eat. It just limited what I could do. We’ve areas that are not impossible to grow on, but it’s a challenge. We have a small balcony & some large windowsills. The windowsills face south & east, the two best directions, I’m told.… Continue reading →