Ever been to a restaurant and see staff eating takeout from somewhere else?
Or go to a wine store where the owner doesn’t drink?
It reminds me of this old saying.
People who don’t use their own product are telling you something about themselves, or about their product. At Ninja Cow Farm, we have the opposite problem.
You see, last week we had a trip to the beach planned. I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t they just get back from the mountains?” Yes, yes we did. However for years I’ve not been able to go with the family when they went to the beach and this year I was determined to make it. Had I known how much of a dent SWMBO was going to put in our store’s inventory, maybe I would have stayed home and worked!
In preparation for leaving, SWMBO popped into the store and went shopping. We were only gone a few days but we cooked every meal so we needed enough goodies to get us by. Two baskets worth should cover us. The only discussion I was part of was what proteins did we want to take? Lamb? Chicken? We never get the prime cuts like steaks because they are always grabbed by customers but what did we want to take? Is there something that’s getting old in the freezer (nope), is there something we have too much of? (Yep) In the end we decided pork chops, chicken breasts, and boneless stew beef.
Our first dinner was a quick one.
Pork chops thaw pretty fast on the counter and I was happy to open some wine and cook when we arrived in late afternoon. However this being the beach, I couldn’t find anything in the cabinets and I’d forgotten to bring my cast iron pan. The chops cooked slowly because of the poor pan quality and electric stove. They also seared poorly because the pan was warped and didn’t get hot enough. The end result is they were fairly tough and the flavor was lost in the overcooking. I’ve said before, cooking matters, and boy does it. But it is always eye opening to see what a difference it makes between good cooking and bad cooking. These exact same chops, cooked properly, are stunning. Overcooked, they are meh. But we were tired and now full so it all worked out.
Breakfast each day was eggs, yogurt, omelets, etc. Our milk from our milk cows, our own eggs, our bacon, our sausage. You get the idea.
The next dinner was my wife’s favorite, chicken marsala. It’s one of the first things I ever cooked for her and she claims it’s why she married me. She loves it when I cook chicken marsala, claiming hers is never like mine (it isn’t).
However what you see here is not my chicken marsala. You see I sat on the beach, in the sun, and fell asleep, for about 5 minutes. “Get up, we’re going to the pool.” Groggy, I went to the pool and sat down in a different chair. I dozed back off for about 5 minutes when SWMBO decided we needed some together time and started chatting. I woke back up, groggier still. Then shortly it was time to go up to the room. I went in and fell asleep in the bed, this time sleeping about 30 minutes before I was awoken with the request to come out and make dinner. Folks, I was done. Starting and stopping my sleep like that had hit the master reset and I couldn’t form a sentence, much less cook. SWMBO, sadly, had to cook her own meal and I barely drug out of bed to eat then went back to bed. Sorry Sweetie!
The last meal was a special one because it was one of Lucy’s recently posted recipes. This one was beef stroganoff. SWMBO always likes to fact and quality check the recipes on our site from both Lucy and Drew. One, it’s a quality assurance thing. We don’t want to give you bad recipes, or not notice an ingredient is missing. Two, if the recipe is off, we can give the writer a hard time so we get to have that fun. And three, the ingredients are all ours, so the shopping is easy.
After these three meals, we asked the kids what they liked the best. The votes were overwhelming for the stroganoff however there was some discussion over whose is better, mom’s old stroganoff recipe or Lucy’s new one. Looks like we’ll be having a cook off at the Moore house shortly. I love cook offs!