Domestic Arts

Sunday afternoon, on the way to the airport, my mom and I stopped by my grandmother's house for a lunch of soup and cornbread. For a long time now, I've been wanting to do that once-a-month cooking thing; I hear those who do it save a lot of money. Certainly my grandmother has done it as long as I can remember; in fact, in that picture I linked, she and I are standing in front of the deep freeze, which is packed with soups, vegetables grown by members of my family, pies, and other goodies.

So I was at the grocery store this evening, and, inspired by both my grandmother and Lauren, I was seized by the urge to make a big pot of soup. I reviewed what I already had at home that would be good in soup -- brown rice, beans, chicken broth, and just-thawed chicken -- and I bought two cans of roasted garlic diced tomatoes. I baked the chicken (three breasts) in olive oil and a BIG pinch of Herbes de Provence, threw the rice, beans, chicken broth, and tomatoes in a pot, diced the chicken in the CorningWare dish so that it would sop up the remaining olive oil and Herbes de Provence, then put it in the soup. I added some red pepper flakes, but no other herbs or spices. It's fantastic, and there are now four jars of it in my freezer.

I did a lot more knitting than I did cooking during the holidays. A couple of projects include this k2p2 ribbed scarf made from Ecological Wool yarn:

Then I started this one from cotton yarn and squiggle yarn, also k2p2 rib: