Kitchen Litter (by Kat)

Reduce.

Reuse.

Recycle.

Recycling is easy--rinse off and toss in the proper bin.

Reusing is near and dear to my heart. Every rubber band from the newspaper or the heads of broccoli we buy at the store goes into the drawer. Plastic liners from our cereal boxes are shaken free of crumbs and used again, allowing us to forgo using a new Ziploc bag. Plastic sour cream containers are our freezer containers, glass jars become vessels for popcorn kernels. Bits of string left over from crochet projects get tied into fluffs for the cats to play with.

Reducing waste, though, can be hard. We don't buy a lot of stuff, and our normal purchases are not the type that come with lots of plastic packaging (mainly because I can never get it open!). I don't buy new clothes with anything close to frequency. The sweats I'm wearing right now pre-date my daughter's birth nearly 13 years ago and my socks have holes. And (oh dear am I really admitting this???) the pony tail holder holding back my hair is one I found on the sidewalk a few weeks ago. Gross, huh? But it looked new, and I washed it, and...yeah. Moving on.

Reducing waste in most of the house seems dependent upon not buying extra. That I can do! But reducing waste in the kitchen is really hard. I take my own bags to the store, re-use vegetable sacks, and consciously choose products with the least packaging. I actually pay 10 cents more to buy the two gallons of milk without the accompanying cardboard box than I would have to pay if I bought the two gallons in the cardboard box. Only in America, I think, do you have to pay more to get less.

Looking in the kitchen trashcan, I'm perplexed about how to make less waste. Plastic wrappers from our blocks of cheese can't be recycled. The empty lye container can't be recycled. The styrofoam and plastic wrap from the chicken can't be recycled. Tissues, cracker wrappers, junk. Meat, dairy, chemicals. These seem to be the big contributors.

But the kitchen waste from tonight's dinner was a little bit different. Let me show you.

Here's how we get our lambchops from the butcher:

Open the box and...

a plastic bag.
Open the plastic bag and...

Pull out as many chops as you need...

and seal the bag back up.

This box holds about 24 chops, so that's twelve meals from one plastic bag (non-recyclable) and one cardboard box. I can feel okay about that, I guess.

But, combine that with mashed potatoes (maybe another 12 meals from one non-recyclable plastic bag?) and roasted carrots from our garden (no plastic, hooray!), and not only do you get a good meal, but there's minimal waste.

The peels from the carrots and potatoes went to the chickens, the newspaper was shredded and tossed into the compost.

So, this meal wasn't too bad as far as taste and waste, but tomorrow's meal involves ricotta cheese and several other packaged items that are going to keep me awake tonight.

How do you guys reduce kitchen waste? Is there something I'm missing?

Italian dinner (by Kat)

When someone mentions Italian food, do you think of tomatoes and mozzarella?

I do. But I should know better. My favorite Italian food has neither. And as much as I love making and eating cheese, I stand by my comment.

Tonight's dinner was broiled lamb ribs, olive oil rolls, and red potatoes from the garden.

I don't make olive oil rolls very frequently because I can't stop eating them. It's an addiction stronger than fudge, or caramel, or even cheeeeeese.

The rolls come from this book, "The Italian Farmhouse Cookbook" by Susan Herrmann Loomis.

I just noticed that I've talked about two cookbooks on our little website so far, and both books have bright cheery orange covers. Hmmmm. Do I judge cookbooks by their cover? Am I that shallow?



My favorite recipe from this book, by far, is for olive oil rolls. So it's fortuitous that they're sooooo easy to make!

In a bowl, whisk together 1 1/3 cups of warm water, 2 teaspoons yeast,
1/2 cup olive oil, and 1 tablespoon salt.
Add flour, about one cup at a time, for an approximate total of 4 1/2 cups of flour.

Stir as much of the four in as you can, and then plop it onto your counter
and knead briefly, about 4 minutes.

Ta-da!

While the bread dough rises, open your package of lamb ribs.
Mine was about 2 pounds.

Inspect the meat, cutting off any excess fat, and rinsing the meat
if that's the kind of thing you do.

I don't bother.

Gather some fresh rosemary from the garden, or dried rosemary
if you have that instead.
Grind the salt and rosemary in the mortar with the pestle until fine.

Next, coat the ribs with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally
with the salt and rosemary.
Check out this garlic from the farmers' market.
Pretty!
Mash it up, and rub that onto the meat as well.

See the salt crystals, the rosemary needles, and the garlic?
To me, it looks like candy.
This is true food porn!

Ok, let the meat sit on the counter and do it's thing while you go back to work on the bread.

When the bread dough has doubled in size, punch it down and let it rest for a few minutes on the counter. Tear off about an ounce at a time and roll into a snake.

Roll one end of the snake toward you, the other away from you, and then pick up the ends and move toward each other.

The dough will twist into a cute little spiral. Pinch the ends, and place on a sil-pat or parchment paper-lined cookie sheet to rise.

Bake at 350F for 25 minutes. Don't let them get too brown, just a teensy bit tan.

As soon as you remove them from the oven, brush with a little olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt.

Can you handle a close-up shot?

Are you drooling? I am, and I already ate about a dozen of these guys!

When the bread comes out, crank the oven up to broil.
See the salt crystals on the meat below?
Nope! They've been dissolved and absorbed.
The rosemary still sits on the surface, as does the garlic, but their
flavor has infused the ribs throughout.
See how juicy that meat is now?

So, when the broiler has come up to temperature,
put the ribs in the oven and watch closely.
Test the rolls to make sure you've put on *just* the right amount of salt.
Flip the ribs over after 10 minutes, and wait for the other side to crackle and crisp.
Test a few more rolls for texture, for flavor, or for whatever you reason you can think of.

Done!

We ate our ribs and (more) rolls with fresh new red potatoes from the garden. This is a very traditional northern Italian meal, and perfect for a cold almost-winter dinner.

Excuse me now while I go eat another half-dozen rolls!