Month: November 2012

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Delicious, Delicious Pot Pie

So, we make pot pie on a regular basis, but I think this one wins.  Here’s what we did:

First, I harvested some kale, rosemary, and peas from the garden.  I also grabbed some carrots from our farm box, and a potato and an onion we had lying around.

I chopped everything up, boiled the potato, carrot, and peas, and sauteed the kale.  I then chopped up some chicken and sauteed it with the onion and rosemary.

The veggies went into a baking dish.

Then I mixed the chicken in with the veggies.  Next, I made a roux with 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup flour, and then added almond milk until it looked right.  The texture was a little weird — more like a dough than a sauce, but once I mixed it up with the veggies and chicken, it worked out totally fine.  If I had to guess, I’d say I used maybe a cup of almond milk, but I definitely didn’t measure.

I then topped it with a pie crust that Matt made.  I believe the crust had butter, water, flour, and some herbs.

I popped the whole thing in the oven at 400 degrees for ~40 minutes, and it came out golden and delicious.

I will definitely make pot pie this way again.  In the past, we’ve made the crust with shortening, and we haven’t mixed the milk in with the roux.  Using a butter crust and mixing the milk (well, almond milk) into the roux were definitely good choices.

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Garden, before

A few months ago, we started renting a house near Downtown San Jose.  There are lots of great things about this house, but one of the things I’m most excited about is the garden.

When we first moved in, however, the garden needed a little love.

So, I spent a weekend pulling up all the weeds, raking the dirt, trimming the bushes, and removing the trash.  Afterward, the garden looked much, much better, but was still a little empty, except for the rosemary I decided to leave in and bring back to life.

The garden is pretty awesome — it has four raised beds, and a citrus tree.

You can see the base of the citrus tree in the above picture.  We think it’s some kind of orange tree.

It may be tough to see, but those black irrigation lines need some love.

This bed is ready to be planted!

Helo made sure to help.  Or supervise.

In future posts I’ll talk about what I later planted, how we solved the irrigation issues, and my worm composting.

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Crossfit 11 November, 2012

I’ve been going to Crossfit Moxie since the end of August, but I only recently decided to get the WOD (workout of the day) blog posts on my RSS reader.  I like not knowing before I show up what the workout is going to be, but I also like to be prepared if the workout happens to be one that requires special equipment.

It turns out that adding the WOD posts to my reader was a good idea.  Today, we practiced rope climbs and double unders, and even though I’m not very good at either of them, I was glad I wore long socks.

I’m so close to being able to do a double under, but I still haven’t quite been able to put together the full wind-up for the jump, moving the rope quickly, and at the right time.  I’m going to keep trying, though.

Today’s WOD was:

  • 4 minutes burpees
  • 1 minute rest
  • 4 minutes double unders
  • 1 minute rest
  • 4 minutes maximum distance run
  • 1 minute rest
  • 4 minutes rope climbs
  • 1 minute rest
  • 4 minutes max distance bike

We divided up into groups, and my group started with the rope climbs.  Since I can’t actually do a rope climb, the recommended modification was to lay on the ground, pull myself up to standing with the rope, and then lower back down.

For the run, we ran out to the 100m mark at the end of the Moxie building, then ran back to the start line.  We were allowed to count all increments of 50m that we’d finished by the end of the time.

My score was:

18 burpees / 0 double unders / 500m run / 15 modified rope climbs / 2031m bike

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Kale and Cornbread Dinner

Tonight, we did kind of a Southern dinner and made cornbread and sauteed greens.

For the cornbread, we used a Joy of Cooking recipe.   We substituted almond milk for cow’s milk, because my stomach doesn’t get along with cow’s milk.

For the greens, the basic recipe is below.  I used two kinds of kale from my garden.  I didn’t actually measure the vinegar, I just glugged.  Next time, I’ll definitely use less.

  • 4 strips bacon, cut in half
  • 2 cloves garlic, diced
  • 1 Large bunch greens
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

Cook the bacon till just crispy on medium heat.

While your bacon is cooking, chop the greens.  For large leaves, fold in half and remove the stem by cutting parallel to the stem, between the stem and leaf.  Then, stack your leaves, cut down the middle the long way.  Stack the halves, and cut down the middle again.  Then, chop up the greens across the short  side.  For smaller leaves, you don’t need the second cut down the middle.

Once the bacon is crispy, remove from the pan, lower the heat and add the garlic to the hot bacon fat.  Cook the garlic for a couple of minutes, until just soft and you start to smell lots of yummy garlic.

Once the garlic is ready, add the stock and greens.  Stir everything up until most of your greens are coated in liquid.  Turn the heat to high,

cover, and let sit for about 5 minutes.  Chop up your bacon.  Once your greens are g

ood and wilty, remove the lid and season with salt and pepper.  Stir occasionally until all liquid has evaporated.  Add the vinegar and bacon, and mix everything up.  Serve hot.

Freshly washed kale from my garden