Slow Cooker Everyday Challenge day 6: Crock-pot El...

If you’re scrutinizing this slow-cooking challenge I’ve set myself (which is unlikely, I know, since who really would be), you’ll notice this post is out of order, and might conclude that I missed a day. If so, I must protest, that isn’t true! If there’s anything I’ve plowed through with fidelity this week, which has been rough and snot-faced and wearying, it’s this slow cooker plan....

Slow Cooker Everyday Challenge: Day 2, Chicken and...

In deciding this personal daily crockpot adventure week was for me, I predicted that my best chances of making it successful would be to make sure components were prepped the night before and kept in the refrigerator. I still stand by that prediction. I wake up early for a specific purpose, like getting in a workout that has a clear-cut timeline attached to it. Slicing and dicing, especially bleary-eyed, has too much...

Leftover Thanksgiving casserole and comfort cookin...

There is a poem by Randall Jarrell, entitled “90 North”, I find hauntingly compelling. It’s bleak, and achingly truthful; yet  somehow beckons to the fanciful, sleepy-eyed, dreamy, imaginative inner child who keeps us alive in the blind search for meaning.  The theme, essentially, is  pain and disillusionment. Not exactly a blissful affirmation, but in some twisted fashion I’m drawn to the keen, raw...

Simple, Tender Beef Short Ribs in Tomato Sauce

If a year ago you told me that I’d cook beef short ribs for dinner tonight and unabashedly enjoy them, I may have bought into the latest Rapture. I’ve never been a big meat eater, especially such notoriously fatty cuts of meat, but since we’ve been purchasing all our meats from Rocky Plains, LLP, I’ve been much more adventurous (and a little more carnivorously inclined), and have been discovering new...

Elk and Vegetable Cottage Pie

I’m not what you’d consider a big meat-eater, but since we started purchasing all our meat through our favorite family-owned, all natural supplier Rocky Plains, I’ve been feeling a little more like a carnivore, and I like it. Not that I’m actually eating any more meat than previously (maybe even a little less), but I have experienced a greater diversity in a matter of months than in comparison with the...

Not So Fit Brit Fare: Ham, Sausage and Egg Pie and...

Last weekend, I began mentally composing this post, but I held off because of extreme crankiness. I’m not sure if that was best for this blog or not, because on reflection, said crankiness was rather petty and irrational, but also essentially funny. At least I’m assuming it was, given that I, as the person who was caught in the blackness of the bad mood, can appreciate the humor. Now, a week on, I’m a bit...