Sustainable Wife! I mean... Life!

 So today we are 24 weeks pregnant, also meaning six months. It's hard to believe that we're this far along. We have 16 weeks to go, and our child is alive and kicking! Hardcore. I mean, really, you don't understand. :) This baby has feet and fists that wiggle my uterus. Sometimes. Not every time.

So before this picture was taken, Ben went to work out, and I took over the kitchen. :)

But first, the epic events of yesterday:Yesterday, you probably weren't aware, but I roasted a chicken. Now this was an exercise of patience for several reasons. We'd put it in the refrigerator from the freezer the night before, but the hunker was over eight pounds, and hadn't budged in it's frozen ness. This would be fine and all, but the dang giblet bag was frozen into the cavity of the bird, so I valiantly tried to unthaw it by spraying hot water into the anus of the bird. This did nothing. So while I was waiting for the fattie to unthaw, soaking it in hot water in a large bowl in the sink, I began removing the skin from the bird. Ben preferred his chicken to have a low percent of body fat (like himself), so I obliged by peeling/ripping/cutting the skin from the dead bird's body. There were many points in this process that I wanted to murder the bird for being such a pain, only to remember that it was already dead. After I'd removed mostly all of the skin, the giblet bag was still frozen in the depths of the bird, so I returned to spraying it with hot water, yanking on the bag and removing various organs (they could hire me at a chicken processing plant. . NOT.) FINALLY, the bird let it go. In the process, I was fairly certain I'd severed the spine of the bird. Anyway, I tossed it in the roaster and seasoned it with liberal amounts of salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary and put it in the oven. It was done within two hours, even though the package says 6-8 pound birds should take 2 to 2 1/2 hours. It had lost some weight in the process. After finishing roasting, I waited for it to cool, and deboned the meat for the week.

We use the chicken during the week for sandwiches and other recipes to feed my hungry husband and my baby belly. This saves us time and money on lunch meat, not to mention sodium, nitrates and nitrites, and other preservatives.

Crockpot and lovely blender.

 We use the crockpot a couple times a week, and today we used it to make black beans for Ben. He's addicted to their deliciousness and protein content. I just like it because we can leave it for hours and don't have to be nearby, and it's only dirtying one dish. How wonderful. It also saves us money on canned beans, which cost more per ounce, and the black beans we get in bulk are actually organic. Plus, most cans are lined with BPA, so we are avoiding that as well.

I also unloaded the blender today to make a lovely chocolate banana soy smoothie. The blender has a capability to chop fresh veggies and I hope to use it to make salsa or pico de gallo sometime this summer. :) Fresh is best!

My whole wheat oatmeal bread rising on the stove.

Ben and I live to eat fresh bread.  We like it best when it's fresh from our oven, whole grains, and uses ingredients that we can smile about. At the beginning of May, we discovered a white whole wheat flour that is unbleached (it's a different wheat than the red wheat berries used in most whole wheat flours). It gives bread a pretty yellow tan color. We use butter for our non-stick spray on our glass pans, and this time, Ben requested olive oil. In addition, I used brown sugar instead of white sugar to use a holistic sugar. I might try molasses in the future, and have used honey in the past, but we're low on honey from our weeks of having coughs and making homemade cough syrup (1 part honey + 1 part apple cider vinegar).

 Here you can see the chicken and fresh black beans in the fridge waiting to be eaten. Yesterday, we also made many cups of brown rice at one time, because it takes SOOO long to make for just two servings (and last time I burned it). I think we'll use chicken broth to cook it next time, for flavor and to use the chicken broth.... This makes me crave plough! Oh you have to try that recipe. It's LOVELY.

 Here we are in our kitchen, with our awesomeness. :) We're ready to eat all the food NOW!

Also, we found this epic raw choconana pudding recipe that we're going to try. It was in a Mothering magazine from May-June 2010. It's made of
an avocado
1/2 a banana
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1/4 c. honey
1 Tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend in a food processor. Can't wait to try it.

What do you do for sustainable and time-saving yumyums?