Thursday, February 29, 2024

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

11 comments:

  1. Hello,
    I like your new magnets, placemats and the tablecloth.
    I have not seen the frosted lemon cherios.
    The quiche looks yummy and I would love the mushroom pasta.
    The bread looks delicious too.
    Take care, have a great day!

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  2. Looks like you had a lovely month. White bean, chicken chili is one of my favorites. It is just pure comfort in a bowl. I'm trying to remember the name of the documentary that I recently watched about US farming. The conditions these animals live in on these farms is horrific for the animals and the area residents. It's sad what has happened. I'm lucky to live in an area with a number of family farms that are doing well.

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  3. I love seeing what souvenirs people collect when they travel. Your magnets are delightful. I used to collect cookie cutters on my travels but these days I try to seek out a Christmas decoration. You have been busy in the kitchen this month and everything looks delicious. Those oreos look out of this world (ha, see what I did there?!)

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  4. hi Mae
    thanks once again for joining in this month! So you have a dolls' house? How marvellous. Yes please to broccoli quiche. One of my fave veg. I love that tablecloth. We have a few that hubby bought on a trip to France, and some we bought locally - I think they're Indian. Years ago friends gave us artichokes to eat for dinner; I had braces at the time (yes I was an adult) so trying to eat them thru metal was not pleasant :) Have a great month; and thanks for the heads-up about the nuisance IMK posts. I have deleted them!
    cheers
    sherry

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  5. In the case of farming, more is not better! The artichokes look so good, and I hope your horseradish has a nice 'bite' to it. I can never find one strong enough for me. Pasta Puttanesca is one of my go to recipes :)

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  6. You brought some fabulous things back from your trip! Beautiful gifts, fun magnets and lots of tasty things! All this marvelous food has my mouth watering!

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  7. The horse radish looks especially tempting!
    And the quiche, ohhhhh.... ALL so yummy!!!
    The German farmers are on strike still. It is sad.

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  8. The broccoli quiche caught my attention!!

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  9. Your kitchen looks like lots of fun and good food and company as usual Mae. And I really appreciate your thoughts on food production. That is really sad to see how many farms were lost in the past 5 years. In Australia (and possibly similar in the US) our supermarkets are charging crazy high prices but the farmers don't seem to see much of the profits which is not great for the development of our agriculture landscape.

    I really love the dolls house Whole Foods bag (esp as I got my first Whole Foods bag last month), am curious where your retired fridge magnets go, interested to see your tick of approval on the cheerios but not sure they will be in our shops, love the colours on the oreos but find that cream filling quite sweet, yum to the quiches and that bread and plate of vegetables beside the salmon. And was interested to hear your feedback on the NYT recipes.

    Thanks for your comment on my blog re that you would like to see the kitchens from my travels - it is taking quite a bit of time to get all my travels on my blog and I am including photos of our accommodations in each city but did not think to include them in my IMK post especially as it was so long - but time permitting, next time (and if I get to change this post) I would like to link to these photos or do a collage of kitchens. Thanks for the useful feedback!

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  10. Frosted lemon cheerios! I love random flavoured cereals but I find I don't have the commitment to get through any box. Did you know that a lot of cereals in anglophone countries are fortified with vitamins & minerals because kids eat a lot of cereal, but that it is an uncommon practice in France? I found this out because I was looking for iron fortified cereal when I was pregnant! As usual your kitchen looks like a wonderful haven of different foods, thanks for sharing and have a great month :)

    Nancy from dreams of sourdough http://ayearindarwin.blogspot.com

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  11. It sounds like you had a lovely time with wonderful food. The news about farming is very sad.

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