Kitchen Day

photo by Jeremy Pullen

Today is Wednesday, which makes it grocery shopping today. It's also the first Wednesday of the month, which makes it pickup day for our monthly co-op bulk order. As a result, much of my morning has been spent shopping for, picking up, sorting, and putting away food. For anybody who likes food as much as I do, it's a pleasant way to spend part of the day!

Once that was done, I thought I'd extend my time in the kitchen a little by doing some baking. I don't think I've made cookies (or brownies or anything else for that matter) since before I was pregnant--the first few months I spent as little time in the kitchen as possible because I was so horrifyingly nauseous, and more recently, we've been trying to ration our pricier ingredients, as well as make it a priority to insure that everything I/we ate was as nutritionally sound as possible. Finally, though, I decided it was time to break the stalemate; we have the ingredients right now, and when you're cooking with pure fresh better, soft rich brown sugar, farm-fresh eggs, and freshly-ground whole-wheat flour, it's hard not to feel like you're nourishing yourself (and, of course, your baby!) on all kinds of different levels. As I write, some are baking and others are cooling, and several others (both cooked and uncooked!) have taken up residence in my belly. Yum.

I'm also intrigued by the convenience of this idea for easy artisan bread, so I whipped up a batch of starter in a 1-lb plastic lettuce tub. It's in the fridge now, and we'll probably bake from it on Friday night or Saturday. We'll let you know how it goes. I used 4.5 cups of whole-wheat flour and 2 cups of white as a starting point. I'm especially interested in how she said it began to develop a slight sourdough aroma as she reused her tub.

I think I'm also going to make up an enchilada casserole so we can just pop it in the oven for dinner tonight. We both have chiropractor appointments this evening, and so dinner will be a little later than usual, and it's nice to have something almost ready to go.

Other than that, I'm laying fairly low today. Yesterday I didn't feel well at all--achy, crampy, tired--and today I feel better than that, but still a little less than 100%. I work the next two days, so I'm trying to rest up for that.