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Some people receive a bouquet of flowers on their birthday or special occasions. I received a bouquet of chips.
Ahhh, the downstairs freezer. It was only a few short months ago I was cleaning out all of the frozen pizzas, burritos, packaged Indian meals, pasties, and store bought hamburger buns to get ready for my year of inconvenience.
I finally figured out that the reason I don’t like the boxed mixes is because there isn’t much about them to like.
When we pulled into their driveway last Saturday, we were greeted by two of their “temporary” residents named Christmas and Thanksgiving. Yes those were turkeys - I kid you not.
The sponge is my new friend indeed - and really when it comes down to it – the sponge is the reason anyone can bake bread at home and get something that is not only delicious, but a great replacement for anything you might buy from the grocery store.
What better time to pick to stand over a boiling pot of water and skin those little “apples of paradise” as my German Grandmother would have called them.
No my friends, what I actually missed about my own from scratch cooking that left me pining for the jar left in my pantry, was my granola.

I had this vacation planned for a while now. My nephew was getting married out in the San Francisco Bay area, which made it a good opporunity to tack on a week and stay for some vacation time with my partner and friends. Since I planned this trip before I started my inconvenient year, I knew I’d need a somewhat different set of rules for time away from my kitchen.
I knew that if I were going to have any chance of getting ahead of the meal planning game, I’d have to designate some time for some real meal prep. That day was Sunday. Read more...
Leaving on vacation the end of this week, so I’m thinking I need to have things prepared for when we come back, or re-entry will be umm…too difficult? Read more...
Inconvenient – from scratch vs Formerly Convenient – from Outpost Read more...
So how was my first week? Well it started out pretty good! This project was going to be fun and I was energized by the support everyone was giving me. I figured out a few meals we could make this week, wrote a list, and then headed to the co-op.m.
Do you see that crying garlic container on the right in this picture? That pretty much represents my feelings as I take each bottle and can of my beloved convenience items and sort them into bags for my local food pantry. This is all good food, actually great food with great flavors from my beloved Outpost Natural Foods. But it’s the food I will do without over the next 12 months as I prepare my pantry for the single ingredients that will take their place.
For me, November begins the season of cooking and the celebration of comfort foods. The smell of warm, freshly baked bread, or a pot of chili simmering on the stove, bring back strong childhood memories of comfort for me. I learned to cook from my Mom, who sent me off to college with a hand-written notebook filled with all the recipes I enjoyed at our family table. I still have the notebook, and some thirty plus years later, I’m still cooking some of the same recipes – many of them now with my own twist on flavor.