Lazy Wednesdays (Or A Wrap-Up of Things)

So, I figured now is as good a time as any to do a bit of a "What's been going on in the meantime" post. So, here it is:

We made a pretty decent Ox-Tail soup from the Paleo Slow Cooker book. It was fairly decent, but a little heavy for the hot day that we chose to cook it. I declined to add the hot pepper because I'm not really into super spicy foods, but I think if I make it again, I'll go ahead and toss that in. It was a simple recipe that was pretty much "Brown meat, put in slow cooker, chop veggies, put in slow cooker, add liquid, cook for 8 hours."

We also did Apple Cakes from A Feast of Ice and Fire which is a companion cookbook for the George R. R. Martin series A Song of Ice and Fire. They were waaaay spicier than I had thought they'd be. I think this was once again another case of Right Food, Wrong Season. I don't know much about bread making, but this was super easy and the book itself is very well put together.

While I neglected to get pictures of both of these recipes, I did get a picture of the super crusty bread we did. We had hoped to make soup bowls but...

They're a bit too flat for bowls.

They did excellent with the fromage blanc we got at the local farmers market and dipped in the oxtail soup, though.

Speaking of local eats, one of our grocery stores carries a pretty good (but not exactly local) non-hormone milk. 

It comes in a pretty sturdy glass bottle. They charge a $2.00 deposit on the bottles if you don't have any you're bringing back, but it's sooo good. You do have to shake it up to mix the cream back in. I have a friend who doesn't because she likes the taste, but I can't do the texture in of cream in my morning coffee.

I also got a cute little gift from Molly:

Tiny terrariums!

The FT stands for Fly Traps and the D stands for Dragon Tree. She got them for me from Michael's while she was in town (I can't find the terrarium kits online, sorry). I'm pretty stoked for them, even if I need to repot them at some point.

Also, delicious mango: 

Lucki's Introduction Thing-ummy.

Hello! No one reads this blog yet. This is the very first post. It's way early in the morning and I just had to get out of bed (which was warm and comfy, by the way) and come type...something. So, I thought I'd start with a small simple introduction.

My name's Lucki. I grew up in southern West Virginia in a low-income household with 5 brothers and 3 sisters (I now live in Virginia, in an area much like the town in WV). My grandparents live just up the holler from us (yes, holler is an accepted term to describe the area my family lived in). Now, grandpa and grandma had an amazing garden full of cabbage and tomatoes and corn and runner beans and besides enjoying all these foods, the only thing I remember about the garden is that I HATED helping out in it. It was hard labor, pulling weeds, tilling soil, planting seeds, carrying water buckets, checking for slugs, bugs, and other nasty things. I didn't enjoy it. I'd get tired, grouchy, sunburned, and filthy dirty (which didn't bother me so much as annoy me). 

(Just to throw an extra spin on my life, despite living in the middle of the woods in a nice little cabin, my dad's an awesome artist and tattooist, my brother just got a degree in microbiological engineering or something like that, and I grew up with a love of rock music and books)

My dad didn't like it much either, but he did it anyway. And he made sure that if one of the kids didn't like it, we did it anyway. But, turning your nose up from something for so long kind of doesn't make it stick in memory. So, despite having grown up a farmer's granddaughter, I've been really ill-prepared for growing my own food. I know practically nothing about growing things. Last year, Molly and I got a basil plant from the farmers' market down the road. While I did preserve some leaves in olive oil (in ice cube trays, in the freezer), the plant died way sooner than I was led to believe it would (the jalapeno plant, though, still has 2 more peppers on it).

Our current housing situation doesn't lend itself to outdoor planting and with limited sun exposure on one window, I need to come up with something fast. So far, growing in my window I have the most ridiculous things for living in southwest Virginia.

Like this pineapple:

Or these lemons (all of whom have B names):

And also the aforementioned jalapeno plant, which I neglected to photograph.

So, a lot of citrus. Which won't do very well in this temperate climate. BUT! I'm hopeful that I'll be able to put them in large pots and bring them inside when it gets cold. Maybe it will work, maybe not.

Currently, we do a lot of interesting cooking with locally grown produce and locally raised meat-stuffs. I'd like to be more green, so you may see some posts on how a forgetful daughter of the land is re-learning how to do things. I'm trying to be more active in the local (small) LGBTQ community, so there may be some fabulous pictures of my queer friends. I'm learning to sew, so maybe some project pictures. I know how to knit already and I'm fair at simple hand sewing repairs. Basically, this will really be a catch-all for me, a fat, queer, post-punk hippie, to catalog what's happening in my life and what kind of projects I'm taking on. Simple enough, right?

Now, I'm off to make coffee and wake Molly.