multiple realities

a week with less screen time

I've been in front of my computer screen much less than usual this week, with the Southern New England air finally turning warm, smelling so sweet, and my kids pulling me outside. 

I also needed a break from the intense blogging/social media frenzy surrounding the Listen to Your Mother show two weeks back.  Phew!  I am still "coming down" a bit from that whole amazing experience.  I started this week feeling a bit lost, and... well, meh.  Getting off the computer and into the physical world has helped.

While not writing or blogging or doing much photography this week, I've gotten to do some other lovely things.  To kick it off, I had a lovely Mother's Day here at home, spent with my kids, dear husband, and good friends.  We enjoyed a delicious brunch prepared by husbands. 

In addition to a relaxing day with people I love, I received a small handful of thoughtful gifts this Mother's Day... fun things that fall squarely on the "want" and not "need" list (don't you just love that sometimes?).  I got this t-shirt with a motto that's perfect for me, and this awesome navy fedora sun hat. And my husband got me this book I've been lusting after for a while now, about how to make no-knead bread in a cast iron dutch oven.  Heaven!

I also finished a pleated tote bag for my friend Betsy for her (belated!) birthday this week, started on some new funky curtain valances for our sun-baked living room using these colorful retro prints, and saw an incredible spoken word/dance performance by Lida Windfield, "In Search of Air," about her coming of age with dyslexia -- haunting and brilliant, it's a universal story about inclusion and exclusion and what constitutes "normal."

So those are some highlights from the week.  Of course, there was plenty of other mundane work that happened, including *finally* dealing with the insurance company about why they are systematically denying my coverage of in-network bills (gah!), ordering much-needed new glasses, and re-organizing the plastic bins full of toothpaste, hair ties, half-used moisturizer samples and other crap in my bathroom...

But who wants to hear about that?

It's beautiful outside.  My kids are calling from their cardboard box fort on the front porch.  Goodbye, I'm going out to play!

slow cooker shredded chicken and broth

In honor of flu season and getting through it (as we have been doing at my house this week), here's my very favorite slow-cooker chicken broth and shredded chicken recipe. 

Don't be intimidated by the multi-step process!  Making your own chicken stock (aka broth) in your slow cooker is super easy, and does not take very much hands-on time at all.  Your slow cooker does all the work. 

I make this chicken stock and shredded chicken about twice a month -- it's a super economical way to eat delicious and nutritious chicken.  And all the "work" can happen at naptime, before bedtime, and the next morning.  Each hands-on step takes about 10 minutes. 

In the end, you'll have about 4-6 cups of shredded chicken (I usually freeze half for later), and about 6-8 cups of super-good-for-you (especially if you have the flu!) homemade chicken broth.  As you may know, recipes calling for chicken broth and shredded chicken are easy to find and kid-friendly.

Step I: Start with a healthy 3-4 pound whole chicken -- pasture-raised, if possible.  We get our chickens from our CSA share at Pat's Pastured.  Rinse your chicken, including in the cavity, with cold water.

Step 2:  Chop up 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, a bunch of parsley, 1 onion and put it in your slow cooker with the chicken.  Add salt and pepper to taste (I usually add about 1 Tbs. salt and several grinds of pepper).  Then add enough water so that it fills about 2/3 of your slow cooker, about 6-7 cups.  Turn your slow cooker on low and cook for 6-7 hours until your chicken is cooked through (see below).  If you're unsure if it's fully-cooked, use a meat thermometer.  (Note:  I usually do steps 1-2 during the kids naptime, around 1pm, so that I can do Step 3, below, before going to bed.  But you can do this anytime you know you'll be around 7 hours later to cut the chicken off the bone.)

Step 3:  Once your chicken is cooked through, cut the meat from the bones.  Be sure you SAVE THE BONES, skin and fat to one side and the tender chicken meat to the other side. 

Your chicken will be very tender and will fall apart a little as you dig it out of the slow cooker, which is okay.  There's no totally graceful way to do this part and it doesn't have to be perfect.  I like to put a towel down in front of the cutting board so the hot broth doesn't leak all over me. 

Step 4:  Add the bones, skin and fatty parts back into the slow cooker to make the broth.  Add more water if you wish (I usually add about 2 more cups) and salt and pepper to taste.  Add a bay leaf if you want, and I like to add 1 Tbs. white vinegar which helps to draw the nutrients out of the chicken bones and into the broth.  Turn the slow cooker on low for another 8 hours (I usually let it cook overnight and I do Step 5 the following morning).

Put the shredded chicken you just cut off the bones into storage containers in the refrigerator or freezer for later use in other recipes.  If you freeze some of the chicken, be sure to label it with the date.  It should be good for about 2-3 months (though ours never lasts that long -- we eat it!).

(Note:  I should add that while the shredded chicken is super tender and will be tasty used in other forthcoming recipes, most of which will have you sauteé your shredded chicken with onions and spices anyway, it is quite bland coming straight out of this recipe.  My kids love the bland chicken, but I prefer to spice it up in the skillet before adding it to, say, enchiladas.)

Step 5:  After 8 hours of cooking, strain the broth.  (It's okay if your slow cooker stops cooking and turns to "warm" for a while; you don't need to strain the broth *exactly* 8 hour later.)

Using a soup ladle, wire mesh sieve with cheesecloth over it, and a large pot, strain the broth out of the chunky soup into the large pot.  Discard the chunky chicken and vegetable bits left in the cheesecloth.  (Or, if you have kids who like mashed up cooked carrots, mash up the carrots and serve 'em up!  My kids aren't so into mashed-up carrots, as it turns out.)

Step 6:  Let the broth cool off a bit and transfer to storage containers for the freezer or fridge.  Again, label and date it if you plan to freeze it.  If you want, do like I did and save 4 cups of the warm broth to make risotto for dinner!

And that's it!

enough

Today we are loading up the mini-van and heading to Connecticut to my sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving.  And putting up the Christmas tree.  And celebrating Hanukkah.  It's become our unique family tradition:  a smorgasbord of holidays mashed into a few days during Thanksgiving break, a time when we all manage to get together in spite of everyone's busy schedules and living in three different states.

It's easy to get caught up in the busy-ness and stress of holiday preparations.  With good reason!  I have found that cooking a Thanksgiving meal together with extended family, or alone, for many people, with your kids rough-housing underfoot, is often equal parts joy and stress.

Especially during this time of year, I appreciate being reminded that it's all enough. 

I'm enough.  The dinner is enough.  My family is enough.  Just as we all are.  Maybe messy, maybe cranky, maybe hungry and poopy and without a nap, but always filled with love. 

We are all enough, without striving for perfection, whatever unattainable idea that may be for us this time around.

Here's a favorite poem about "enough", below.  (Can you tell I've been kinda into poems lately?)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

**************************************************

Enough
by Danna Faulds

It's enough to offer love,
no matter how imperfectly 
received or given. It's
enough to try and fail at
a difficult task; enough 
to fall and rise, stumble,
fall again, sigh, and start
to walk, however slowly,
in the direction the soul
points. It's enough to
seek peace and find pain,
to gain nothing but a 
vision of truth, and take 
the long route home.

It's enough to feel 
temptation, the dance
of the senses, the hot
pull of desire; enough 
to call on God, walk
through fire, sleep and 
cry and fear or welcome
dying. It's enough to be 
and breathe, to feel the 
touch of wind on skin.

It's enough to take the 
day as it comes, to watch
the ripples on the lake as
the rock sinks to the 
bottom, to see the wild
reflection of the surface
calm into a mirror once
again. It's enough to
hear the voice of fear
and hide- or seek it out
and face the shame or
shadows. It's enough
to set out to tame demons 
and watch them multiply
instead. It's enough to
be buffeted by the winds 
of change and not blown 
over. I and you and all
of us, more than enough.

 

what to do with a whole lot of apples

For a couple of weeks, I've been wanting to post this slow cooker recipe (below) for "pieless apples a la mode" that I made using our heap of apples from our first apple picking trip.  But (sigh!) somehow real life just kept getting in the way!

Turns out this stay at home mom gig doesn't leave a whole lot of time for much else.  It's been a hectic fall here so far, I must admit.  That fall rhythm I thought would magically unfold promptly after labor day has decided to hold off until closer to Halloween.  Anyone else feeling this way, too?  I mean, what happened to September?

But alas, here we are, in mid-fall, the leaves in the full swing of foliage in Southern New England.  The air windy and crisp.  The mornings dark and cold.  The squirrels filling up on acorns and looking fat.  Pumpkins on the porches.  Gloves and hats on the playground.  Footed pajamas on the kids at bedtime.

And just in case you are also up to your eyeballs in apples this fall, without further ado, I give you...

Pieless Apples A La Mode (this recipe is from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, one of my go-to favorite cookbooks!)

4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar or a natural sweetener

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup golden raisins or sweetened dried cranberries (optional)

1/2 cup rolled (old-fashioned) oats

2 tablespoons nonhydrogenated margarine, softened

Vanilla ice cream for serving

Jenn's note:  I used assorted apples from our apple picking trip, maple syrup and molasses for my sweeteners (only added them in step 1), regular raisins (didn't have the "golden" kind), and butter instead of margarine.  I also added some shredded coconut to the oat topping mixture and put the whole thing in my 6-quart slow cooker.  Mmmm!  It made the whole house smell amazing!

Step 1.  In a large mixing bowl, combine the apples, flour, 1/4 cup of the brown sugar/sweetener, 1/4 teaspoon of the cinnamon and the raisins, if using.  Stir to coat, then transfer the mixture to a lightly oiled 3 1/2 -to- 4-quart slow cooker. 

Step 2.  In a small mixing bowl, combine the oats, the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, and the margarine.  Sprinkle the oat mixture over the apples.  Cover and cook on low for 3.5 to 4 hours.

Step 3.  Serve warm, spooned into dessert dishes and topped with a scoop of ice cream.

Mmmmm!  Enjoy!