Homemaking Skills that I Lack

Homemaking skills. Whether you are a stay at home mom or dad, single or married, working full time or part time, living alone or with roommates...these are the skills needed to run a household. At some point most everyone is going to have to learn how to do their laundry, clean their toilet, and buy groceries. They may even have to learn to do it for more than just themselves.

I think I've always been pretty self-sufficient in most homemaking areas. My mom taught me how to cook and clean. She taught me how to iron a dress shirt. I can sew on a button. I can tell if a fruit is ripe or not. Whether I choose to change my bedsheets once a week or once a year, I at least know how to do it.

But I have a bit of a confession. I have zero planning savvy when it comes to food.

I work full time and live in an apartment with a tiny kitchen. I only have two mouths to feed. Maybe I don't really need planning savvy yet. Maybe it will be learned naturally someday if I'm a stay at home mom with a slew of kids to feed. But to be honest I am completely jealous of my friends who are good at this and I wonder if they were just taught these skills all along or if they figured it all out as adults.

In college I had a roommate who was really good at prep work. She would buy in bulk, freeze, bake from scratch (always having plenty of supplies) and did it all with less trips to the store and less money spent then the rest of us.

I've never been good at buying in bulk. I try to plan my meals ahead and buy them for the week but things seem to never be as much as I thought and often my produce goes bad before I get to it all. I spend too much and too often.

I don't know how to can vegetables. I've never tried to bake bread. I don't have a very big freezer. I only know how to make soup in a crock pot. And I'd be totally lost trying to garden.

I don't know how this happened. My mom and dad always had a garden. My mom canned. My mom baked bread. My mom planned meals. My mom did a produce co-op and always had bulk vegetables and fruit. I learned a lot from her and my grandmother, but apparently I never really learned the planning stuff.

Now, I can call my mom to ask how to do things. I can google recipes and how-tos. But what I really want is someone to teach me hands on how its done. Someone to show me how to can and to start my garden with me. Can the Pioneer Woman come stay with me for few days?? No??

Okay okay, I don't need Ree. I'm pretty good in the kitchen and ahead of most in the homemaking skills arena. I think I'll be able to teach myself the stuff I don't know. But for now, I just have to admit I lack certain homemaking (and post apocalyptic survival) skills.

Parmesan Roasted Corn & Summer Squash Penne

This past week I was craving barbecue chicken. I have no idea why (it's not a favorite food or anything) but it was essential that it be done on the grill because it was that charred smokey flavor that I wanted. I don't typically share recipes here but I tried out two new recipes over the weekend that turned out great so I just couldn't resist passing them along.

I'm not very picky and I like to cook so Food Network and I get along swimmingly and I grab recipes off their website fairly often. These recipes are not off the website but they are from some Food Network chefs. I wasn't ambitious enough to make my own barbecue sauce, but I did find a corn idea that looked amazing (and was!).

(John Paul --master of the grill)

Okay, I confess, even though I like cooking one of the reasons I love grilling out is because John Paul does the grilling. I hate cooking meat and he likes to grill so it works out great. For this particular meal we went with Dinosaur Bar-B-Que's Wango Tango sauce (a favorite) which is tangy and kind of spicy. I marinaded the chicken in it for a few hours (while we went on a movie date) before we grilled it. It was a joint effort meal (also a favorite) since I was making the side dishes. All of the sides were pretty standard except that I finally got to try out a grilled corn recipe that I was sure John Paul would love. For some reason I just think everything tastes better on the grill. I love grilled veggies. We grilled our corn but that was just step one.

This recipe for was an "Italian-style" grilled corn on the cob which was covered in herbs and parmigiano-reggiano. You rolled the corn in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then dredged it in parmesan cheese and sprinkled it with red pepper flakes and fresh chopped mint.

(My dredging station)

(Meal complete)

Okay here's the official recipe (which I halfed for John Paul and I):

"Corn as Italians Would Eat It"

(Mario Batali recipe)

INGREDIENTS

6 ears corn, shucked

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 to 1½ cups freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

About 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Hot red pepper flakes

Makes 6 ears

DIRECTIONS: 

Preheat a gas grill or prepare a fire in a gas grill.

Place the corn on the hottest part of the grill and cook for 3 minutes, or until grill marks appear on the first side. Roll each ear over a quarter turn and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, then repeat two more times.

Meanwhile, mix the oil and vinegar on a large flat plate. Spread the Parmigiano on another flat plate.

When the corn is cooked, roll each ear in the oil and vinegar mixture, shake off the extra oil, and dredge in the Parmigiano to coat lightly. Place on a platter, sprinkle with the mint and pepper flakes, and serve immediately.

Okay one more. Yesterday, I made a penne dish that was surprisingly good. It's different and doesn't really have a sauce but it was great! Here's the recipe (which I again halfed for John Paul and I):

(This is obviously not the dish I made, but it was the one with the recipe and it's just so much prettier)

Pennette With Summer Squash & Ricotta

Recipe courtesy of Molto Gusto (ecco 2010)

Serves 6.

INGREDIENTS

Kosher salt

1 cup fresh ricotta

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1⁄2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus extra for serving

2 to 3 tablespoons warm water

1 pound summer squash or zucchini, or a combination, cut lengthwise in half and sliced into 1⁄3-inch-thick half-moons

Maldon or other flaky sea salt

1 pound pennette rigate

6 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh mint

Coarsely ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot and add 3 tablespoons kosher salt.

Meanwhile, whisk the ricotta and 3 tablespoons of the olive oil together in a small bowl. Add the Parmigiano, whisking until it is evenly incorporated. Whisk in 2 table- spoons warm water, then whisk in another tablespoon of water if necessary to loosen the consistency.

Heat the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the squash and cook, stirring, until just tender and golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Season well with Maldon salt and remove from the heat.

Drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook until just al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving 1⁄3 cup of the pasta water.

Add the pasta and the reserved pasta water to the squash, stirring and tossing over medium heat to mix well. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and allow to steam together for 2 minutes.

Stir in the mint, season with Maldon salt if necessary and with pepper, and transfer the pasta to a serving bowl. Garnish with dollops of the whipped ricotta and serve immediately, with additional grated Parmigiano on the side.

Five Finds for Friday

I've been posting a lot of lengthy serious posts lately, so in the spirit of simplicity I'd like to "simply" share a few of my most recent "finds" aka new discoveries that I find awesome. :)

Newest Blog Find

Simply Vintage Girl

Faith. Photography. Vintage. Handmade. Recipes.

Lots of my favorite things and an incredible layout.

Crafts

Page Corner Bookmarks.

*Chomp*

Design/Decor

In home library with "reading nook"

(Though, I'd settle for an oversized chair)

Style

Hair Envy.

Hmm...Mermaid Hair.

Food/Recipe

Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies

.....yum!

Marketing Energy

I'm completely exhausted today.

and

I've always been fascinated with the energy drink trend.

9 years ago, energy drinks came into popularity and a huge new market opened up. Since then there have been dozens of popular energy drinks ranging from Red Bull to Monster. There has also been the backlash and general wave of knowledge that energy drinks are not healthy---usually containing tons of caffeine and sugar and often twice the size of a soda. But that didn't stop you from drinking 4 Monsters to stay awake while you wrote that paper, now did it?

Admittedly, I hate Redbull and could never drink anything with as much sugar as a Monster without throwing up. But most of my friends know I've always been borderline addicted to XS Energy drinks, and I've gotten teased about it more than once. But with no sugar, tons of B12, ginseng and other vitamins and hardly any or no caffeine...they can't be that bad for you, right? I'm not going to claim they're ultra healthy because they're still carbonated and not "alive" like juice...but they've always made me feel great. They're the same concept as 5 hour energy...you are more alert but not jittery. But I hate the way 5 hour energy tastes. XS has 15 flavors, most of which are carbonated (but some teas that are not) so it's literally the only energy drink that's relatively healthy and taste good, in my opinion.

At this point I'm probably at risk of sounding like an ad for XS but today I read that XS is the only approved energy drink for the NCAA and felt a twinge of pride. I knew it! Vindication!

If you've never heard of them, well you're not alone. A major food and beverage magazine recently put out an article called "The fastest growing brand you've never heard of" about XS. A quick trip to Wikipedia will show you that in their first year of sales they made $51 million, second year over $72 million, third year over $90 million and the forth year over $120 million. By this point (2006) they were offiically the fastest growing brand and the #2 selling energy drink in America behind Redbull.

So how is it that you've never heard of XS? Because they're not sold in stores, and they're not advertised. Amway Global is the exclusive distributor. Amway is a very polarizing company. You either love them and think they can do no wrong, or you hate them and think they're absolutely evil. So naturally I fall somewhere in the middle because I don't like being forced into extremes. Regardless of how you or I feel about the company, I'm a big fan of the XS products.

Another energy drink that I think is pretty healthy is Vemma. This is yet another company that self-distributes but has a good product.

I think I am a little annoyed that the only energy drinks I like aren't sold in stores and have to be ordered by the case. This makes finding a resource to solve my mid afternoon crash on the fly, very difficult. But I also find the whole phenomenon incredibly interesting. I'm curious to see when the energy drink phase will die out or which brands will survive.