1. I remember my mother talking about her favorite meal as a kid. It was a pork roast cooked in whole yellow peas. I think she said it was her Aunt Ellen's recipe...which was the Swedish side of the family. I've tried to find a recipe and I do find lots for a Swedish whole yellow pea soup but not one for pork roast in yellow peas. My mother said that my grandmother wouldn't let her clear the table on nights they had that because she knew my mom would just keep nibbling on it in the kitchen. I love that. As I recall Mom said the pork roast was cooked in all the whole yellow peas and then the peas were served alongside it. If anyone has any ideas or has heard of that let me know.
2. I loved all the responses to my Dinners in the 70's post! I thought Kirstin's comment was so interesting about the fact that we are probably the last generation to remember the menus and foods shaped by the Great Depression. That of course just made me think about how our menus and foods today----the farm to table, tips to tails, urban homesteading-----are in turn a reaction to the convenience and prepackaged foods of the 70's. Funny little predictable creatures, aren't we? We always want what we don't have....
3. The other day the U of I Meat Lab sent out an email saying they had just gotten 200 heritage chickens in that had been processed in Arthur. Ernie stopped by and picked up a couple and what a pleasure it was to cook a chicken that seemed reasonably proportioned. It didn't have the slightly watery humongous breasts and tiny legs and thighs of the grocery store chickens but seemed like a normally proportioned animal. I cooked it in my Le Creuset with garlic,mushrooms and pearl onions. Then I totally ruined the lovely juices by attempting some sort of weird rice pilaf with my last baby red cabbage and celery. Yuck. Sometimes experiments work and sometimes they don't but at least the chicken was good!
4. I've got a big pot of homemade chicken stock in the refrigerator. Whenever we cook chicken we throw the the backs and necks into freezer bags and when they get too full----as they did the other day----I just pull them out and throw them in a big pot of water. I've also gotten away from adding much to it as it cooks....the other day I threw in some leftover mushroom stems and the celery stems but other than that just a dash of salt. Now I need to decide what to do with the stock. Any ideas?
5. And for some reason I forgot to post the pictures from the Valentine's Day dinner that Owen made us so I am adding them here....
