February in the Kitchen

In the dolls’ kitchen: a new Whole Foods shopping bag.

What’s new in my kitchen this month? I’ll start with a few items that we brought back from our 10-day trip to Virginia, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania. While visiting our relatives, we also cooked for our hosts, and enjoyed foods that they cooked for us. I’ve already posted about most of the trip and the kitchens where we visited. I’m sharing this post with Sherry’s In My Kitchen and other bloggers who also share kitchen stories each month.

In My Kitchen

Magnets from the National Museum of the American Indian and from an Alexandria craft shop.
I try to bring home a few magnets from each trip, and retire the older ones as the new ones arrive.

New placemats: a gift from Arny and Tracy. We had artichokes for the first time in ages.

New tablecloth, also a gift from Evelyn & family.

New mugs: a gift from Evelyn, Tom, Miriam, and Alice.

New Foods

Condiments from the market in Lancaster, PA

Seriously, a new flavor of Cheerios? It’s unexpectedly good.

The “cosmic creme” to me tastes just like the white mystery filling in ordinary Oreos.

At least they were a bargain!

Instant dinner after a 9 hour car trip home. The broccoli quiche was much better than the spinach quiche.

Quiche from Trader Joe’s.

Cooking at home and while visiting

Prep for sheet pan green-beans with olive oil, onion, garlic, and cheese.

Bread-baking tools and dishes.

The loaf of bread.

Steaming the artichokes in my silicone steamer.

Smoked salmon, pimento cheese, and veggies. A nice meal.

Frying vegetables and sliced deli roast beef.

At Arny and Tracy’s house: Tracy made mushroom pasta and salad.

White beans, chicken, and peppers. Vegetable garnish. A great chili!

From the New York Times Recipe Archives

In February, we made four new-to-us recipes from the New York Times cooking archives. I’ll give you a hint from our recent experiments with NYT recipes: we always feel that there should be more sauce. We now double the sauce ingredients for recipes from this source. Here are the recipes that we made:

• Roast Cauliflower and Garlic Soup was bland and disappointing. I added several items, including pepper flakes, feta cheese, and white beans, to improve the leftovers. (Recipe here but not recommended as written: Roasted Cauliflower and Garlic Soup Recipe.)
• Mark Bittman’s Vinegar Chicken was delicious and quite different. We used the mushroom and lettuce garnish from a different version of Vinegar Chicken, which is a Lyonnaise dish made popular by Paul Bocuse. (Vinegar Chicken Recipe)
• Adobo Chicken — which Len made at Evelyn’s house — was a good recipe that Len had wanted to try. The NYT calls it “the national dish of the Philippines.” (Chicken Adobo Recipe)
• Pasta Puttanesca, an Italian classic, was very tasty, thanks to lots of anchovies, garlic, and other good flavors. (Pasta Puttanesca Recipe).

Note: NYT recipes are behind a paywall, but I  have included the links for completeness.

“America today is truly a factory farming nation.”

I like to look at the big picture of food and farming from time to time in my end-of-the month blog post, but understanding the statistics is a burdensome challenge. A recent article in the Guardian, “America is a factory farming nation’: key takeaways from US agriculture census” (link) explains the recently released data about American agriculture. The subtitle summarizes the result of this vast survey: “Small farms and Black farmers are going out of business, while corporate-controlled farms are booming, raking in subsidies.”

A Michigan farm around a century ago (source).
In 1920 US farms numbered 6.5 million. In 2020: two million.

One of many important facts about meat production:

“In the past five years, the US lost 34% of dairy farms, 9% of hog farms and 7% of beef cattle farms but the livestock numbers stayed more or less constant. That means fewer, but much larger, concentrated lots – which are linked to an array of harms including water and air pollution, poor animal welfare, labor abuses and climate impacts.”

Blog post © 2024 mae sander