Dark Days Week 2

Last week was finals and I admit I didn't do much cooking. . . or laundry or cleaning or sleeping or eating for that matter. I threw things together for dinner every night for the kids, but didn't even take the time to sit down and eat with them. It was a rough week, but my quarter is over now and I got 2 A's and a B. Not bad for a single mom with two monsters just coming back to school after a nice long (six year) hiatus. I had been waiting for the quarter to end to get in my kitchen and get a few things done besides the usual cooking. I have bones waiting to be made into broth, squash waiting to get dealt with, apples (previous batch pictured here) and lemons to dehydrate. . .but now Christmas baking has taken over and none of that has happened yet. I also haven't made the ribs my kids have been dying for or cooked the chicken I got. I hope the chicken will be my Dark Days meal this weekend and I know last year in the google group I asked about making a chicken and then never ended up getting one. I will be going back to those suggestions again and if there are any others feel free to share! This will be my first chicken, so wish me luck! I can't mess up because I have not eaten chicken in almost a year, when I pledged to not buy meat from the store anymore. I thought that would be easy, but I didn't realize meat has seasons too and you better be in line for certain things. Sign up for the chicken CSA begins soon and I will not miss it!

On to the meal I did pull out of last week, it was obviously a weekend dinner after finals were over, but I did forget to take pictures! I remembered as we were eating away, but thought you'd rather not see bones and scraps all over. I cooked some Pork loin chops (TLC Ranch) in a skillet with some again not local olive oil, rosemary from my garden and salt and pepper. The salt actually is local, which was a great find here in Northern California. Farmhouse Culture which makes some delicious sauerkraut also sells a sea salt at the market. Oh and let me not forget their Kraut shots! For $1 you get a "shot" of kraut juice. The Smoked Jalapeno one is great and though it kinda burns going down, it's worth it and Delicious! So with the pork chops we had "fries", roasted parsnips with sea salt and the kids dipped in ketchup (not local). I said as I served, "Here's your pork chops and fries" and my son said "these are potatoes?" as he bit into one and I responded, "Well, parsnip potatoes"...I know it's wrong, but sometimes just the words can ruin it. Because he ate them up and said I loved those"fries"! I too love parsnips and this was a nice hearty meal after days of barely eating!