Here’s another one for the slow cooker. You can eat it plain, add some BBQ sauce, make it into carnitas… The possibilities are endless.
Pork shoulder
1 onion, cut into large chunks
3 (or 4 or 5) garlic cloves
1 tsp. fennel seeds
2 tsp. Thyme
1/4 c white wine
Potatoes, quartered
Cook on low for 8 hours. This is a really basic recipe for pork, but it is oh so good.
The idea of Thanksgiving is so beautiful. Spending the day with loved ones, thinking about the things we’re grateful for and eating wonderful food makes me a better person. We’ll be spending Thanksgiving with The Artist’s side of the family, enjoying a huge amount of home cooked food, games, and wonderful nieces. I try to spend time everyday being grateful for the many things that make my life whole: a fabulous job, the cute little roof over our heads, The Dog, and mostly our generous, loving and supportive friends and family. It’s a veritable cornucopia of blessings.
This time of year is an especially good time to cultivate those moments of thankfulness. Thank you for taking the time to read our story, share in our tiny victories and be a part of our lives.
With Gratitude,
The Chef, The Artist and The Dog
These definitely fall into the recipes for lazy people category. I’m new to cooking fish, and kind of new to eating it. This was the easiest thing I’ve made all week, because it was essentially cheating. But it’s a recipe that’s good for cooking over a single burner, which we may be doing more of in our tiny house. Here goes!
Thaw the fillets. I used perch.
Melt some butter in a skillet. Let it get good and bubbly.
Crush up a bunch of savory croutons and rub into both sides of each fillet.
Fry ’em up, and serve. Sprinkle on some lemon juice if you have a fresh one.
Man oh man, are skylights a lot of work! Luckily for me, The Artist did most of it while I took a nap in the lawn. Seriously.
But the skylights are one of the best parts of this design. We’ve had the holes cut for some time, but boarded them up to protect the floors since we didn’t have the plexiglass installed. We spent most of the day getting the cedar shakes cut (each one had to be custom done), placing the plexiglass, and getting it sealed with silicone. Phwew! It was exhausting – and sometimes frustrating – but these are going to be one of the highlights when all is said and done!
#lightitup #greenlight #ohsonice
Now this one is good.
2 pounds mashed potatoes
butter
milk
salt and pepper
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. green beans
1/4 c. corn
1/4 c. carrots
1.5 pounds ground beef
1/4 c. vegetable broth
parsley
sage
rosemary
thyme
salt and pepper
Make your mashed potatoes: peel, quarter, put in cold water. Boil until tender. Drain and smash. Add milk (2 Tbl. or so) and butter (3-4 Tbl.). Add salt and pepper to taste.
In a frying pan, cook veggies over medium heat until softened. Add ground beef and cook until browned. Add veggie broth and herbs. I don’t measure the herbs but I use fresh when I’ve got ’em and sprinkle over mixture until lightly covered. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Put the beef and veg mixture into a pan, then layer with mashed potatoes. Cook at 350 for 30 minutes or so, until the potatoes start to turn golden brown.
#sogood #comfortfood #cheapskate
About a month ago, we moved from the schoolhouse into a tiny cabin. We absolutely loved living in the schoolhouse, but it just isn’t winterproofed quite enough for this very northern climate. And winter is coming. After a quick search, we found a tiny cabin in the town where I work that fit our needs beautifully.
At 180 square feet, our cabin is officially “tiny.” We thought it was probably a good idea to try a very small space and get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. Overall, we actually really like the cabin even though it was built without intentional design. Read: it’s a box. The layout is very different from our sheepwagon, which we know will be more versatile. We have gotten a good sense of what to include in our final design and here are some of our thoughts, in no particular order.
Flow is so important. Square footage wise, we’ll have a similar space. But the flow of the sheepwagon is designed so that we can be cooking, accessing storage areas, sitting on our comfortable spots, or eating at the table all at the same time if necessary. We designed the shape and size of the wagon to accommodate our dining booth (which doubles as storage). Our kitchen area will have enough counter space to cook on, and we won’t have appliances sitting on the counters when they’re not in use. We’ll also have a sitting area “carved into” the main storage area so that a person can sit and read a book undisturbed. Each of these items are all part of the overall flow issues we’ve had in the cabin.
We’ve also been applauding ourselves for building upward. The ceilings in our cabin are very low, and while it makes the place feel very cozy, it feels much smaller than our similarly sized wagon. The added height, although it doesn’t increase square footage, gives a much more open and airy feeling. And with the skylights? Forget about it! To be transparent, we needed to have high ceilings since we’ve chosen to loft our bed. But one of the indirect benefits is the way it opens up the entire home.
Another thing we hadn’t given a lot of thought to was laundry. We’ve both downsized our wardrobes considerably and have thought a lot about closet space. But what to do with dirty laundry is another story altogether. We’re noodling some ideas and we’ll keep you posted, but that was a great realization to make before we’ve begun constructing the inside of our home.
And I think I can say that lighting is the other beef I’ve had with the place. One of my dad’s wise first questions when we moved in was, “How’s the lighting?” He had a feeling it might be a little dim in here, and he’s absolutely right. We’ve added some lamps which certainly help, but in general it’s a pretty dark little space. The Artist has a plan, though, that was baked into the design from the beginning. He’ll be wiring our tiny home with both direct and indirect lighting, and all of it will be on dimmers. We currently have exactly one light in the tiny home, but it’s an overhead that really gives a nice amount of light. We’ll have lighting designed for the dining area, closets, and sleeping loft when all is said and done. And the best part? It’ll all be remote controlled. The Artist can hardly wait.
Life is great in this tiny cabin, even though it’s only a temporary home for us. Being a routine-oriented person (to the point of being almost obsessive, really), I love the lifestyle of living tiny. I cook simple meals one day at a time, we wash up after ourselves right away, and we don’t have clutter around because we just can’t. This afternoon, in fact, we spent some time working on Christmas gifts for our family members, and we just cleaned up as we worked. We have exactly three plates, two bowls, one set of silverware each. We’re not fancy nor frilly, but we have more than enough.
Thanks for being our home, cozy little cabin. You keep us happy!
I posted about the cedar shakes we had gotten last week, but didn’t really explain the process of adding them to the tiny house. So, please allow me to do so now…
Long before we started building, in a land far away, we did a lot of research on alternative home building. One method we seriously considered is cob building. Cob refers to earthen homes, built with a mixture of clay, straw, sand and water. It’s a very cheap way to build using natural supplies, and the designs can be completely customized. Imagine a life-sized sand castle, but with a little more stability. We ultimately decided against cob, at least for our main home, but all that research led us to steam bent shingles because so many cob homes have them.
Steam bending is pretty self-explanatory, but I had never heard of it before we decided to do it so I thought it was post worthy. There’s more than one way to steam bend a shingle, as they say, but here’s our homegrown method.
We started with a turkey roaster. Just your average, $30 turkey roaster. We flipped the inside rack upside down, put a shake or two at a time onto the rack, added a decent amount of water, and cranked that sucker. You literally steam the shingles, like you would broccoli, until they’re just pliable enough to form to the shape of your roof. Since The Artist created a wonderfully curvy roof, most of the shakes needed to be steamed so they’d conform nicely to the shape without cracking. It’s been a really fascinating process to watch.
Even though steam bending is pretty time consuming (since you can only steam a shake or two at a time using an average turkey roaster), I’m glad we went that way. It’s made the entire tiny house look so storybookish and welcoming. And ultimately, that’s what we’re going for
I am not a chef, and I feel that I should probably add that disclaimer to every recipe I post. Many of the dishes I make are tweaked from originals, or created in the grocery store (sometimes around the clearance bin), or are hardly recipes at all. I do love food, though, and I really enjoy working with it. Sometimes I think it’s the best way to shift gears, especially if you have a particularly emotional or cerebral job. I like to use my hands to slow down my brain in the evening.
I interviewed a chef once, who told me that he only creates recipes that use six ingredients or less. I asked him why six was the magic number, and he said anything more than that and you start to mask individual flavors. I liked that approach, and even though I’m not strict about the magic number, I started to cook more simple and straightforward meals. And as a result, I’m getting better at identifying flavors and deciding which ones I like to pair together. Win, win.
Another thing I use sometimes when I’m making things up is the flavor star. I don’t know who invented it and I definitely can’t take the credit, but it’s kind of fun to use it in experiments. I used this recently when I made up a spicy chicken recipe for the slow cooker. It was pretty cool to start with an idea (chicken), pour on some flavor (can of tomatoes with green chilies), add some salt and creaminess, and viola! A new favorite was born. When I think of a name for it, I’ll post the recipe. I’m sure it’ll be something really creative like Spicy Slow Cooker Chicken.
If you are the head chef of your household, keep fighting the good fight. And if food isn’t fun anymore, just start over and see what you can make on your own, maybe with six ingredients or less. Or just read this article, which is great. Happy chefing!
The degree to which we’re minimizing means we really are going to have to change the way we cook. Our refrigerator is slightly bigger than the average dorm fridge, we’re still undecided about whether or not we’ll have running water in the tiny house, and to be perfectly honest, we usually go on pretty big grocery trips.
I recently listened to an awesome story about food waste from NPR. According to the story, the average American family wastes 25% of its purchased food every year. That is astounding! But when I stopped to think about it, I don’t think The Artist and I are doing much better than the average. For the two of us, we often buy food to last us for a week’s worth of meals. But I have never gotten good at remembering that we’ll have leftovers after most dinners since there are only two of us eating.
Throwing away food is hugely disgusting to me. It’s like throwing away money. But when I cleaned out the refrigerator (“regular sized” refrigerator) today, I threw away several items that were beyond saving. (The NPR story, by the way, has some excellent tips for using foods that may be only slightly off.) One of my goals with this tiny new lifestyle is to stop wasting. Period. And I think food is a great place to start.
As I’ve started recalculating how to cook for two in a tiny space, I’ve come up with a lot of recipes that only require a handful of ingredients, can be made for two people or twenty-two people, and use only one pot/bowl/skillet, etc. These are the recipes I’ve been sharing on this blog, and these are the recipes I’ll continue to share.
For the record, I once interviewed a chef (a real chef) who gave me his secret: any worthy recipe should only have six ingredients. Any more than that, he said, and you can’t taste the additional items anyway. I haven’t been awesome at following that rule, but I do keep it in mind whenever I make something new. This recipe for BBQ Chicken easily fits within that six ingredient limit, and it is freakin’ awesome. Here goes!
2 Ingredient Spicy BBQ Chicken
Chicken Drumsticks
Trader Joe’s Sriracha and Roasted Garlic BBQ Sauce
Smother that chicken. Fire up the grill. Cook until blackened.
A fair warning: this BBQ sauce is spicy! But we love it so much we’ve carved out a space for it in our tiny refrigerator. It’s definitely a staple in our house. And we won’t be throwing any of it into the trash anytime soon.
We’ve got shakes! Cedar shakes. These were one of the “must have” items for The Artist when we started designing this place.
They’re really awesome, even though they can be tricky to install. If you use the wrong kind of nails or even nail gun, you can split them as you go. But the benefits of shakes are pretty awesome. If you use cedar, it’s kind of like having self-treated wood. It has lots of protective qualities without all the chemicals treated woods can have. And it smells awesome. That’s enough for me!
We’re really pleased with the shakes, though, and I think they give the place a homey feel. Since our roof is curved, The Artist used a turkey roaster to steam bend the shakes. They had to be done in small batches which required a lot of patience. (And is precisely why The Artist took on that project and not me.) But the result is so lovely and I can just picture our little sheepwagon parked in the woods somewhere, looking awesome. I’ll post some updated photos when the roof is complete.
We’re very close to being weatherproof now, too. Just a few more steps and we’ll be in business!
#shakeitoff #cedarking #thatsmelltho
thegoodenoughguide 