Labor of Love

As I'm wrapping up the final touches on my book, due in to the publisher next week, I've been spending mornings at home, mostly writing, but early morning is also when I get the majority of my cooking done. The last bits I have to organize are some recipes from my personal files, so I thought it would be fun to revisit a few of them.

First thing I did however was to put a pot of turkey stock in the PC using the bones of my roasted turkey from last week, and then on to the leg of lamb. I'm pretty sure I posted the recipe for a spice rub that I love to use on a leg of lamb. One of the four ingredients is fresh rosemary.http://tracysfoodandthought.blogspot.com/2009/04/tis-season.html. Chopping fresh rosemary is a labor of love...in other words, it would be a drag to do if you didn't love delicious homemade meals made with the freshest of ingredients!

When I was learning to cook, one of my cooking teachers, Ruth, asked me to chop some fresh rosemary. I asked her how fine she wanted it, and she said, "Well, how'd you like to get a sharp hard poke in the gums from one of those (s she points to the spikey leaf of a sprig of rosemary), or one stuck inbetween your teeth?" From that point on I spend minutes making sure to chop my rosemary very fine! Spending 5 minutes chopping an herb is a long time in the world of food prep. Being only a small part of recipe but taking 1/3-1/2 of the time to assemble.

I always think of Ruth when I chop rosemary.

The other thing I threw together was some fresh salsa. I've been using fresh salsa in my guac smoothies and I'm lovin' it! I'm still lured in by discount food...but this time it was a couple of mangos....not 1/2 price candy! Anyway, I never buy, therefore never eat mangos. For a fruit they are seriously high in calories so I ususally pick some other fruit. But these were less than 1/2 price, so I thought I'd dice them and freeze for another time....like this was my last chance on earth to buy a freakin' mango! I'm weird.

I know I'm going to use my salsa for guac smoothies, and I thought throwing some diced mango would be delicious! Never made it to my smoothie today, but tomorrow for sure! I can't imagind it won't be good.

Making and preparing my own foods is a labor of love. Not for the love of food but love for myself, my body, my health and that of my family.