Read you loud and clear.

I spent a good part of Thursday night/ Friday morning in the hospital, and the better part of Friday during the day as well. Turns out I have a Kidney infection. This week hasn't been all that awesome. Flat tires, feeling terrible, and not getting stuff done. However, it's an important reminder to find the time to take care of myself, in all the other caringiving that I do, otherwise stuff like this happens. Right. 

Lesson learned, Universe, lesson learned. 

This Moment

A sunny Sunday morning on my porch. Last night's campfire is still smoldering, and it smells amazing out here. Crickets and the rushing of the river is all I can hear. Peaceful and still, with peace in my heart too, knowing that this is where I am meant to be. 

Black Bean Burritos

This is an old recipe,  from our old blog.  When I searched it tonight (on my own blog) to cook it up, I knew I had to share it again.  Damn, this is one of the easiest, yummiest, most leftover-est meals in the book! 

I'm not a recipe posting kind of gal, but since I got "promoted" to head chef, I've recently been looking for new things to add to our repertoire. I've also been on the hunt for more vegetarian recipes to add to our meat-tastic household, in an effort to eat more healthy and get some veggies in our lives. This one I had to share.

Seriously easy. So easy that even I can't screw it up. Seriously good. Leftovers included.

So, get yourself:

A can of black beans
A can of diced tomatoes (I'll likely use fresh ones when the garden explodes)
A pack of 10 flour tortillas (the big ones)
A bundle of fresh cilantro
Package of cream cheese (Ed: I actually skipped this tonight because I forgot about it, and it turned out just fine!)
Rice
One Red pepper - you could do one green one too, but since Steve thinks green peppers are from the devil, we skip them
One onion
Garlic

You want about 4 cups of cooked rice when it's done, so get that party started first. (We like the PC Jasmine rice, because it cooks up about twice as fast as regular rice.)

Chop up your onion and pepper(s) and a clove of garlic or two and saute them in a bit of oil, and about a 1/2 tsp of salt. Add the tomatoes, and bring the whole mess to a boil, and then let it simmer for a bit to cook off some of the tomato liquid. (Juice. I think they call that tomato JUICE.)

(Special thanks to my brain for kicking in just in time there.)

Add the black beans, stirry stirry.

Add 1/2 a block of cream cheese, about 125 grams (don't ask me what the hell that is in ounces, it's 1/2 a block, ok?) More stirry stirry. You have to keep with the stirring once the cheese is in, to make sure that whole sucker melts.

Add your 4 cups of cooked rice. Again with the stir.

Now, cilantro - there are 2 camps when it comes to cilantro, and we live in the WE LOVE CILANTRO! camp. If you happen to live in the WE HATE CILANTRO! camp, you're gonna want to skip this step. Chop up a bunch - I think I did about a 1/4 cup, and toss it in there. Maybe if you're a hater, you could try parsley instead?

If you like life a bit hot and spicy, here's where you could add something hot and spicy. Sauce? Red pepper flakes? Go wild, pick whatever you like.

Me, not so much with the hot and spicy.

You could also add a squeeze of lime juice here. The one lime I had in the fridge kind of looked like it had been there since 1987, so I skipped this step.

You end up with a big (note: BIG - you need a BIG frying pan for this) pan of yummy, that looks a little something like this:
Now, grab your tortillas, and fill 'em up! This recipe makes enough for AT LEAST 10 tortillas, usually with a bit of the mix leftover, which from now on I will feed to the kid since last night he kept FREAKING out about his tortilla falling apart. (Ed: Three years later and the kid has finally figured out how to eat a burrito full on.  Three cheers for progress!)

You can chuck them in the oven if hubby is late for dinner - they stay nice and warm in there and the tortillas get all nice and cooked-like too. Or you can just eat 'em right away, just like that.

Bonus - these make fab leftovers, and taste just as good cold as they do warm.

Dinner - prepped in 20 minutes start to finish. Rock on.

Providing.

When we decided to raise meat rabbits, rather suddenly, about a month ago, I was feeling all butch about it.

"Who is going to butcher them?" was a common question I got from curious folk.

"Oh, I will." I said with (false) confidence.

I commented earlier (on Facebook, of course) that tonight was time to "put my money (or my bunny, as the case may be) where my mouth is," and see if I was really made of the country girl fibres that I thought I was.

We got a few "practice rabbits" tonight.  We were just going to buy processed ones, and cook them up so that the kids could have a taste (we realized they've never actually eaten rabbit) but they were cheaper to buy UN-processed, and there was no time to learn like the present.

As I was getting ready to leave the house tonight (I was staring at my closet, and wondering "what the hell does one wear to butcher a rabbit?" I wasn't sure how messy the job was going to be. I settled on camo pants, a black t-shirt, and my Bludstones, in case you're wondering. I brought an apron...and my coveralls along...just in case.  Truly, I had no idea.) Steve pointed out to me as I was getting dressed that I had never intentionally killed anything larger than an earwig.  (Which is not true, I've had my fair share of mice battles in my life...but I've never done anything like this before.)  I had no idea if I could truly pull this off.

But I did.

I watched and learned the first time around, and did it on my own the second time.  From start to finish, I processed the rabbit.  Slowly, and not so gracefully, but I did it.

There are improvements to be made for the next time around - I look forward to getting a proper butcher block of some sort, and a good knife of my own, but all in all, I think I did pretty good.

It didn't hurt that I had two excellent teachers.

Two of my neighbours (one a chef, and one a wood carver) have some serious butchering time on their resume. They answered my questions, let me try stuff that I had read about.  And just having someone there that's done it made it so much easier!  I don't think either one of them thought I was going to do as well as I did, and I'm always glad to exceed expectations.

I'm proud of me too.

I'm happy and excited that this can be a viable food source for us, and now I know that I can raise my own meat from start to finish.  I feel grateful for the opportunity. I feel a little chuffed.  I feel a little butch. And I feel like I can provide.

Provide for my family, that's all that I've ever wanted to do.  In a healthy, sustainable, loving way.