Month of Suppers Project

Day 5: Grilled chicken over jasmine rice topped with avocado-corn-tomato relish,

with green beans, crisp green salad and buttermilk cornbread

This is day 11, and I'm more and more impressed by E.F.'s tenacity!

He has been creating dolls, while I'm shooting for a month of creative meals -- hopefully with no repeats. I can see why he used the term, "creativity boot camp." The biggest challenge so far has been to deal with left-overs. Like most families, every 3 nights (or so) we usually make a meal out of them. Frugal? Time saving? Fridge de-cluttering? All the above. For now, I'm either serving left-overs for lunch, or freezing them. I really must work on cooking for 3!

Follow me on twitter (eatwellathome) for daily updates. Photos and brief descriptions are on my flickr site here.

Blessed Cornbread Suppers

I'm lucky to live in Lexington, Kentucky. Sure, there's all that bourbon and horses stuff. But a less publicized jewel in our crown takes place every Monday night on Campsie Place.

There is no need for me to tell the Cornbread Suppers story. Rona explains it beautifully here. It's a glorious thing Steve and Rona do, week after week. Those of us who hunger for a little fellowship, a little comfort or stimulation, and of course -- food, show up. With or without a contribution, we are welcome. We are nourished.

Our hosts make lots of cornbread (usually advertised in advance on facebook), and guests bring a dish (or not -- no pressure). Rona has a small pad of paper conveniently at the ready, and we label our contributions as we set them on the large table in the dining room. Tonight we tasted Rona's fabulous cornbread with garlic from Blue Moon Farm (vegetarian and bacon-y version available),

Red and golden beets, and much more:

The buffet table overflowed tonight with pesto pasta salad, whole wheat fusilli, fresh green salad with balsamic vinaigrette, roasted pork loin, apple pie, watermelon soup... truly a feast.

Thank you S and R for such a generous community spirit!

Inspiration

This article (Or rather, this person) has inspired me. I'd like to jump in and say/do something equally grand, but I know myself. I will start with baby steps.

Besides the fabulous community-spirited and generous nature of EF's project, I am impressed by the commitment he has kept. If I did anything every day for a month, it would be a great achievement. Blogging is a sporadic activity. Eating, however, is something I do every day.

My husband has said that he has never eaten the same meal twice since being married to me. I'm hereby challenging myself: I will post every evening meal my family has for one month, via this blog or twitter -- (let's face it, not all meals are fully blog-worthy and should be limited to 140 characters!). This will be "warts and all." I promise to admit to those jaunts out for Mexican, and you may even be disheartened by a frozen lasagna saga. My goal here is to document how we really eat at home. I hope it turns out "well."

Let's get this party started!

Tonight: Marinated Flat Iron Steak, grilled to Medium-Rare, and thinly sliced across the grain:

Zucchini and summer squash, diced and sauteed in olive oil with garlic, grape tomato and fresh basil (from the garden!),

Baked potatoes, rubbed with olive oil and kosher salt.

A bit later:

Sliced strawberries macerated in a tad bit of sugar, served with vanilla bean ice cream.

Follow me on twitter at "eatwellathome" keep me accountable! If I can do this, bigger and better things are to come!

Pommery Mustard Redux

I'll say it again. This is the best mustard in the world.

For a wonderful and easy sauce, add 2 Tablespoons Pommery Mustard to 1/2 cup heavy cream. Bring it to a boil and let it roll...

until it reduces and thickens to a creamy consistency which will coat the back of your spoon. Remove from heat and add fresh dill. (Oops, I didn't measure my dill. 1 -2 teaspoons and you can't go wrong...)

This sauce is delicious on grilled chicken, roasted asparagus, a spoon... I ladled it over broiled Atlantic Salmon.

Now I have a real dilemma. Will someone please come to my rescue?