It’s been a crazy day, so what’s for dinner, mama?

Today was particularly eventful in our household. We’ve been having poultry predicaments for a few days. This resulted in us moving our meat birds (set for slaughter soon) up to the front of our house, directly outside my bedroom window, and eventually to a friend’s coop.  The reason we moved them was because our egg layers are showing signs of illness, and we’ve decided to treat the whole egg-laying flock with antibiotics for a couple of weeks. We didn’t want to give the meat birds antibiotics so close to slaughter, especially since they are new to the flock and show no signs of illness.  We had to buy eggs today **gasp** because we can’t eat our hens’ eggs for around three weeks.

So, we’ve been dealing with sick chickens, and one of our dogs has been faking an injury for several days because I hurt her feelings (that might be another blog post in itself). Overall, though, we felt like we had things under control.

This morning started out rather uneventfully. My second-grader, Mr. Drama, left to ride to school with the neighbors. I hung a load of laundry on the line and drove Cowboy to preschool. Then, as Sergeant Princess and I head back in the door, we are followed by Opal, the hound dog pictured in the last post.  I turned around, and there she stood, staring blankly off into the distance covered in dirt and blood. She reminded me of the baby rabbit we found injured on the road a couple months ago, which we tried in vain to save.  I looked her over, and it was clear that a wild animal had attacked her, and she needed veterinary care. While she wasn’t critically wounded, I worried about all the infectious microbes she may have been gifted along with those bites. The morning was a frenzy of logistics in trying to get an immobile and wounded 6-inch tall, 55-pound dog into a minivan and to the vet’s office. Roxie valiantly refused to leave her companion’s side, which is very sweet, when you are not trying to figure out how to get a 6-inch tall, 55-pound dog into a minivan without furthering injury and while wrangling an oblivious toddler. The added complication of repeatedly removing a spry and agitated shepherd from the van was a bit more than my patience could bear at that moment.

Luckily, Opal was not severely injured. The doc looked her over and determined that she had been bitten by coyotes, first in her (ahem) lady parts and then by another coyote in her side as she fell over. The most care the vet gave her today was irrigating her lower eyelid which had been packed full of soil during the scuffle. He believes that her extremely loud bellow was the key to her survival. He actually thinks that terrible hound sound sent the coyotes running like a couple of thieves bolting at the sound of a car alarm. She is just stunned, and the vet aided her emotional shock with a healthy dose of narcotic pain relievers and a dash of antibiotics and said, “See you in the morning.” The afternoon was spent checking on all the sick and wounded animals and working through the list of things I had intended to complete during the morning hours.  Before I knew it, Mr. Drama was home from school, and I hadn’t really thought of dinner.

I seriously contemplated the box of packaged beans and rice hidden away in the cupboard, but I thought I could do better in less time. (It would take 25 minutes to cook up anyway).

Here’s the spaghetti dish I came up with instead:

Diced garlic, onions, mushrooms, and zucchini, sautéed with olive oil, rosemary, thyme and wilted basil.

Wilted basil sounds like some fancy culinary thing, but the truth is, I had great intentions to start my own herb garden, and purchased a basil plant, which I have wholeheartedly neglected. It is dying a slow sad death, and wilted basil is what it has left to offer me.

After I sautéed the veggies until nice and soft, I added a can of organic stewed tomatoes with Italian seasonings. After learning about why commercial tomatoes taste so bad, we purchased a boatload of canned organic tomato products from Costco to use when farmer’s market tomatoes are not an option.

I added a bit more rosemary and thyme and allowed it all to simmer for about 15 minutes, while I cooked the pasta.

Though we really like to start from scratch with most things, we haven’t purchased a pasta maker (YET). So, we settle for Organic Spelt pasta. This stuff is great, and the ingredients?—Organic spelt flour and water. Yep. ZERO sodium, and 9 grams of protein per serving.

I tossed the cooked pasta with the veggie mixture, added a bit of parmesan cheese, and voila: another additive free, nutritious vegetarian meal that enticed my children to eat three bowls each. Total cost was probably about $6 for the family, and prep time was less than 30 minutes.