Cooking at Lost Lake

Night one...steak with marinated veggies and garlic bread in foil.


Morning one...bacon on the Wilson Handy Camp Grill (we didn't use the steel rod for the grill as we already had the campfire grill in place).


Eggs with leftover foil wrapped veggies. Yummm...

art, gingerbread house, pantry, theme cooking

Really, just some random stuff from the past several weeks...


Sabine's been doing a lot of drawing lately -- this is her "Mr. Toast" -- in this one he might be a fairy (see the wings and wand?) but then again, there's a baseball cap...hmmm...



We wanted to make 2 gingerbread houses, and got half way there. The girls had a blast decorating this one (bought pre-assembled from Costco...someday I'll make my own gingerbread/royal icing/etc...but not this year...)


And for Memet...the pantry! Bret built the shelves -- it really makes my (not overly cabinet heavy) kitchen WORK to have this space. While I sort of miss the doorway that used to be there, it was totally worth it.


We went to a Mad Men (1960s) themed holiday party in December. I had found the orange flowered tray recently, and it made the perfect vehicle for the cucumber herb butter mini sandwiches. The mandoline made easy work of creating ultra thin cucumbers.


Us, with friends Ben and Kristen at said party. My dress was bought at Deseret Industries for $6 (and it's hand made!), gloves belonged to my grandmother, Mimi, Bret's vest and tie are from my Great Uncle Lionel -- the tie clip says "GE - The Golden Value Line of the 60s". Classic.

What we're eating

I've been inspired by Annie over at Sensible Living who has been sharing what she cooks, what tools she uses in her kitchen, etc. I also took a great class called "Hello Pantry, So Long Supermaket" from Lost Arts Kitchen a few weeks ago, and while I'm not ready to buy 50 lbs of flour and other grains just yet, I do want to reduce my grocery bill and trips to the store...so with that in mind I planned a month of meals, did one BIG shop at the less expensive grocery store (WinCo) at the beginning of the month, and plan to do smaller trips for produce/meats/etc. at New Seasons/Trader Joes/Limbo to supplement during the month. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming BIG farmers markets...we'll see how this changes things.

Chris at Lost Arts talked about how she cooked one type of meat each week (here's her blog), and then makes a variation of things each week - roast night, taco night, pasta night, stir fry night, you get the picture (and I couldn't find the exact post where she wrote about this, so I don't claim I remembered it exactly right...). While I would like to do that, I just crave more variety...and one thing I really liked about Chris is she said to do what works for you and your family -- there's not just one answer.

We're still eating a little more meat than I would like...and I'd also like to incorporate more fish...but it's a start. I'm hoping to put all these recipes into Google Documents and link them to the calendar at some point, but only have a few in so far (if I have it, the link to the recipes is below the meal title, you might have to copy and paste it). Or you can scroll down on the blog and get the recipe there...if there's a recipe that looks really intriguing, let me know and I'll get it done first. I had to make the calendar narrow to fit in the blog, but you can click on a recipe and it will show the whole thing.

Oh, and there are some "blank" days to make up for times that we'll just eat leftovers, or have friends over and make special dinners, or...gasp...go out to eat. Gotta have some fun and spontaneity!