Happy Thanksgiving!

It's that time of year again.  Time to bake, cook, and get together to visit with family and friends.  I feel I'm doing my part today.  Early this morning, I snuck back to the grocery store to get all our last minute items and to buy a few ingredients to make my special peanut butter cream pie (special request from Dad- his favorite).  Since I've been home I've cleaned a little, made 2 pies, cooked brunch, and started laundry.  Not too shabby for a day off.  I'm looking forward to a nap later this afternoon - my reward for all my hard work.

My other goals for this afternoon include finishing cleaning house before my house guests get here and taking pictures to post some new items in my Etsy store.  I hope to get several more items added quickly, so they will be available for this weekend's big shopping spree.  At this point, I've done what I could to take advantage of our almost instinctual-urge to go shopping the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I have set up a special weekend sale code (SMALLBUSINSAT112611) that will allow customers to save 25% on their purchase.  I've also registered with American Express for Small Business Saturday - so that my customers who use their American Express cards on orders of at least $25 will get a $25 credit on their next statement.  (Very cool).  I've got a few more things to tweak before this weekend, but overall I feel that the store is set up well and looks ready for our big sale.

Also this weekend, I look forward to a lot of time visiting with family members, which means time to knit.  This afternoon I need to go back into my stash and pick out which projects/yarns I will be carrying with me as I go from house to house to visit.  I've got a few projects started, but they are at the point where you need to think as you knit, so I may need to get some new yarn out and start something that involves a lot of basic knitting or stockinette stitches (I've found that the more involved I am in the discussion, the more likely I am to miscount or lose my pattern....which unfortunately I don't often realize until several rows later).  I've had a few requests for some items, so perhaps I can start of those.  Popular requests so far:  special winter hats and fingerless gloves.  This brisk fall weather is starting some of us thinking about bundling up for winter.  :)

Happy Thanksgiving.  During this time, I stop and think about all the things I'm thankful for in my life - my family and friends especially.  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Carmelized Onions & Sauteed Squash

Cooking Week:  Day 1

So it seems that I cook a lot more on summer vacation when I'm off all day.  Who knew?  This week is shaping up to be a week with lots of cooking, so it seemed appropriate that I blog about what's going on currently in my life. 

One of the things I love about summer is fresh vegetables.  Little produce stands start popping up around town, and everything just tastes so much better.  My summer staple is to get several of my favorite summer vegetables, and stir fry them up for the week.  Then I use the vegetables as toppings, side dishes, or just by themselves as meals through out the week.  Many of my summer meals tend to be vegetarian, because the vegetables are so good.

This week, I've visited the local produce stand, Whole Foods for some organics, and the grocery store for a few others that I missed along the way.  Yesterday afternoon, before beginning this week's process, here is what I had:

Yellow squash, Zucchini, Carrots, Green Beans, Broccoli, Corn, Onions, and Okra

Onions are always first.  I like them to be carmelized - cooked very well, and browned.  This always takes longer than the quick stir fry for the the other vegetables, so start them in their own pan first.

  

8 onions.  It sounds like a lot, but they cook down, and if spread out between several people or over several meals during the week, they do tend to go fast.  And it's easy to use my handy-dandy Bullet Express (thanks Dad) to quickly chop veggies into slices or shred.

4 onions fills up this large punch bowl, as you can see by the several chunks of onions still awaiting their turn through the food processor.  And one bowl of onions fills up a large frying pan:

To cook this big a quantity, I cook one bowlful of onions first, and then completely remove the cooked onions before starting the second bowlful.  You could add onions as these cook down, because they shrink down quite a bit, but then I worry about trying to keep the well-done onions from becoming completely burned while the new onions are cooking. 

Here are the onions, almost done.  You can see that they've cooked down quite a bit.

And that entire pan of onions - doesn't even take up half of this 4" plastic.  Both pans together will fit into this container.

Onto the other veggies.  Normally I mix most of my other vegetables all in the same pan.  However, this week I'm sharing vegetables with family and friends in a birthay celebration, so I'm cooking the squash & zucchini separately from the other vegetables.  This next pan will include okra, green beans, broccoli, corn, and carrots.

Okra - whole and then  chopped ready to stir fry. 

And the green beans - whole and then chopped ready for stir frying.

Here is the okra and green beans, starting to cook up in the pan.

Yummy young carrots, washed and then shredded.

Add the carrots to the pan.

Add some broccoli.  At this point, it's starting to get crowded, so it's time to
divide what's in the pan between two different frying pans. 

Fresh corn on the cob.  I love corn on the cob in the summer time.  It always tastes so good.  This corn was in water that was brought to a boil, to just get it barely cooked.  Then drained, and cut off the cob.

Add corn to the stir fry mix, and cook it for just a few more minutes.

Almost Done

And there you go.  2 pans full of stif fried vegetables, nicely mixed and cooked enough to blend the flavors, but still have a bit of crunch and texture.  This large plastic container is enough to feed a family for a couple of meals, or add vegetables to many of my meals through the week.

I'm not quite finished for the night.  I really love squash and zucchinni.  From the earlier picture, you might notice I have 4-5 of each that need to be sliced and cooked.  This fun cooking project took a little over 3 hours, so squash will be a project for another day.  I decided to quickly chop and stir fry one of each for tonight's dinner.

Well, 1 zucchini and 2 squash, if you are picky.  Sizewize, this worked out well.  Quickly - washed, sliced, and set up in pans.

This looks like a lot, but like the onions, it will quickly cook down.

Yum.  Now, ready for dinner.  Since I've spent all this time cooking vegetables, and used up all 4 burners on the stove at one time or another through this process, I'm a bit limited in my dinner options if I want something that won't take too much longer to make.  I decide to go for quick, and put some pierogies in the oven to bake while finishing up the last of the vegetables.  Whip up some guacamole, and then garnish with all the veggies.  This may be simple, but it's one of my favorite meals.  :)