In My Kitchen in April

Two new dragon eggs, just starting to hatch. Evelyn’s latest creations.
I’m starting my kitchen wrap-up with these great ceramics though they are actually in the living room!

What’s new in my kitchen in April?

Magnets from my visits to the African American History Museum and Mount Vernon: American Heroes.
George and Martha Washington, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King.
Also magnets from Lancaster and Longwood Gardens: everywhere we went in April.

One of two small bowls Evelyn made.

Inside our new kitchen cabinet.

A new rack for skillet  lids and a new insert that
makes our biggest pot into a steamer.

New ceramic-clad skillet (as Consumers’ Reports recommends).
In the skillet: salmon croquettes.

Ever-Green Vietnamese by Andrea Nguyen.
Newly published cookbook! We hope it re-energizes our
vegetable-focused cooking efforts.

New storage containers in place of the repurposed cookie
boxes I’ve been using. Recommended by the NYT (link)

From our kitchen: food and drinks

Mushrooms in red wine with new potatoes. A great non-meat dish!

Mushrooms cooking in our new ceramic-clad skillet.

Asian shrimp, bok choi, and rice. And some nice wine.

Kung-pao chicken. Another dish from Len’s Asian recipe adventures.

A leg of lamb ready for the oven, coated with mustard sauce and rosemary leaves. Our favorite roast!

This is Julia Child’s recipe from the original Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

The lamb and broccoli were served at our Passover dinner.

West-Indian lamb curry. Using lamb from the leg of lamb in the previous photo.

Steamed eggs made in the new steamer. The recipe comes from Fuchsia Dunlop’s cookbook.

Vegetarian baked spaghetti with cheese/crumb topping.

Drinking: LaCroix from Costco.

In Carol's Kitchen

Carol's Indian chicken (from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook), Jason's spinach paneer, and Carol's rice.
Good food for a family celebration of a cousin's graduation.

Celebrating a Michigan graduation: the father of the graduate made an unbelievable mousse cake
decorated with the Michigan "M."

Before the cake was cut.

Recycling and Composting in my Kitchen

Kitchen garbage such as fruit and vegetable parings, coffee grounds, and bones can be placed in
compostable bags (like the one in the photo) and collected with garden waste. Now that our weekly
compost collection has resumed this spring, we are trying to comply with local garbage rules..

MOTIVATION: “In the U.S., food waste is responsible for nearly 3 percent of the country’s emissions, according to the EPA—and that’s before considering the methane that leaks from landfills, where food waste is the single largest category of material that gets dumped. Diverting even some of that waste is a win for everyone involved, and more cities across the U.S. are at least trying to persuade people to separate their scraps from their trash.” (source)

We also respect the recycling rules!

Cans and bottles in Michigan have a deposit
of 10¢ — a very good law!

In my kitchen retrospective, which I publish on the last day of each month, I try to select an issue of importance to me and to society. April, is a celebration of the Earth, with Earth Day and all, so I’ve chosen to highlight my efforts to handle kitchen waste responsibly. Fortunately, Ann Arbor, where I live, has very enlightened trash disposal practices, and allows composting and recycling where possible.

Blog post & photos © 2023 mae sander

Shared with Sherry at her monthly blog party In My Kitchen.