Friday Food: A Pork Triple Play

Friday

Short version: Ram chops, mashed potato cake, green peas

Long version: I tend to get very repetitive in cooking, especially with meat. So when I pulled a bag of ram chops out of the freezer, I did what I've been doing with them every time lately: marinate in salt, garlic, olive oil, and vinegar, then fry and finish with a sauce of the old red wine I'm still trying to use up. And cream. Sometimes I use cold butter.

Always good. And we don't have them often enough that anyone is tired of this yet.

The potato cake was the previous night's leftover smashed potatoes--which were not universally popular due to their texture--that I mashed further, mixed with an egg and some grated cheese, and then fried in a skillet with a lot of tallow. I couldn't flip this over whole, so I just sort of flipped sections of it until there were quite a bit of browned spots. It was still pretty soft, though. Everyone loved this. Much more popular than the smashed potatoes.

Before . . .

After . . .

And after on a plate.

Saturday

Short version: Irritating pork, butter-swim biscuits, sorta slaw

Long version: I had a very, very large pork shoulder in the freezer that was taking up way too much room. It was going to relatively cool this day, and also the next-day's birthday boy had requested the rice pudding that takes hours in the oven, so I decided to cook that giant hunk of pork.

And then I regretted it.

The first thing that happened was the rice pudding boiled over a bit and dripped onto the oven floor. Rice pudding is the WORST to get in a hot oven. So much smoke, so much mess.

Then, the pork was too big to fit in the deep casserole dish with a lid, so I put it in my biggest Pyrex casserole* and covered it with foil.

This never works well. I can never get the foil to stay tight. Maybe I don't use enough, I don't know, but it always ends up getting pushed away from the sides and then the liquid evaporates too quickly. 

This casserole was too shallow, which meant the liquid kept bubbling over the side and onto the floor of the oven. Which was already kind of mess from the rice pudding mess. There were just clouds of smoke coming out of the oven. I had to actually turn it off to let it cool a bit so I could clean it out. 

I also decided at that point to move it into the deeper dish I prefer to use, since the meat had shrunk a little. It was still just a bit too big for that dish, but I just found a spot where I could cut a small piece off next to the bone and kind of wedged it all in there.

And then I had two giant, greasy dishes to wash. YAY.

I also had to pour the liquid from the one dish to the other, and that, of course, ran down the outside of the dish and got all over the counter and dripped onto the floor.

Some day I'm going to be cooking, like, three small pork chops, and this sort of thing will no longer be a part of my life. And I'll miss it, right? Right.

Anyway! I made the biscuits because the oven was on anyway for the pork and I had a batch of yogurt that my children complained was lumpy. I make one and a half of this recipe in a 9"x13" pan, which uses up a lot of yogurt (in place of the buttermilk).

The slaw was a last-minute thing I made up. Just half a shredded garden cabbage with a shredded carrot, the last of some mustard vinaigrette on the counter, onion powder, and a couple of spoonfuls of yogurt. It was even less creamy than the coleslaw I typically make, but actually pretty good.

Sunday

Short version: Birthday sausage, pasta with not enough pesto, still-frozen peas, brownies and ice cream

Long version: The July birthday boy always wants pasta with pesto for his birthday dinner. This is handy, since I always have basil in the garden in July.

Except this year, the grasshoppers want to eat the basil. I actually made the pesto a few days earlier, because I noticed grasshopper damage and was afraid if I waited there would be none left at all by Sunday.

The plants were already pretty small, so to get any basil at all, I had to carefully harvest just a few leaves from every plant. I stretched this just a bit with some lamb's quarters (a weed sort of like spinach), but it was still a very small amount of pesto. The plants had grown back just a little by Sunday, so right before dinner I harvested a few more leaves of basil and made another miniscule batch of pesto. This was still not enough for the amount of pasta my kids want to eat, but it was the best I could do.

I had two packages of the Albuquerque-purchased Italian sausage left, so that helped to mitigate the pesto disappointment. 

The birthday boy had only asked for ice cream for his dessert, but when I asked if he would like some brownies maybe too, he said yes. Poppy wants to enter brownies into the county fair this year, so I had her make them while I was in the kitchen. She did a good job, although they were slightly overbaked.

She put all the candles in, too.

Monday

Short version: Pork, roasted potatoes, corn, fresh bread with jam, later ice cream

Long version: Always a lot of pork left from a pork shoulder, which I suppose somewhat makes up for the irritation in cooking it this time. I had baked bread just before dinner, so while the oven was still hot, I left it on and put in a skillet of the par-roasted potatoes from the freezer, along with the pork and frozen corn.

Since I had four bread pans hanging around waiting to be washed, I put the pork in one and the frozen corn in the other to put in the oven.

I neglected to get a photo of the full pans, so here's the aftermath.

Then everyone had fresh bread with butter and the strawberry jam I had made the day before.

And THEN, since we had eaten early because I just made dinner when the oven was already on, everyone had some ice cream at about 7 p.m.

Tuesday

Short version: Pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, potato chips, more ice cream

Long version: I made some buns the day before when I was baking bread, and heated the rest of the pork with half store-bought barbecue sauce and half things I added to the pot to approximate more barbecue sauce--ketchup, molasses, vinegar. I do this because the store-bought barbecue sauce I get is too spicy for me and Poppy straight.

I had made the coleslaw the day before with the last of the garden cabbages, so it was a very easy meal.

Poppy and I had been in the village earlier in the day, so I let her go into the tiny store and pick out a bag of chips for dinner. She chose cheddar and sour cream.

A very summery dinner.

More ice cream because the two younger boys and A. had been down the hill building a stone wall for seven hours and needed to replace a lot of calories. Also, it was hot.

Wednesday

Short version: Ram enchilada casserole, raw radishes, pureed calabaza

Long version: I found a small bag of already cooked ram meat in the freezer that I wanted to use up. I also had some leftover corn, pureed calabaza in the refrigerator, and the last of a can of refried beans that needed to be used.

I put all of that in a casserole with corn tortillas, cheese, and (homemade) enchilada sauce.

I forgot to drain the canned tomatoes I made the sauce from before I pureed them, which made for a rather wet casserole. The tortillas pretty much just disintegrated. Oh well. It tasted good, anyway.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover casserole, pulled pork, and calabaza at home, barbecue meatballs and potatoes on the road

Long version: A. took the younger three kids to Colorado so one son could attend a livestock judging camp. They were going to stay in a hotel this night, and then camp the next night. I had made barbecue meatballs and boiled potatoes for them to take. I wrapped it all up in aluminum foil so it could be heated in the campfire, but A. ended up just dishing it out onto the paper plates I sent and heating it up in their room's microwave.

Traveling food.

The eldest child home with me had the leftover casserole. I had the pulled pork and calabaza.

Refrigerator check:

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

* I replaced the 15"x10" one that exploded. 

A Root Beer Test

It somehow came to me last week when I was at the grocery store with the three younger children that we should find some different kinds of root beer and do a taste test. I got three "fancy" brands of root beer and we did the taste test on Sunday as part of our birthday celebration for our new teenager. 

The contenders.

I was just going to have everyone try them to see which they liked best. But, my family being what it is, we ended up having this whole big thing with everyone taking notes and expounding upon foam and "root notes" and I don't know what all. It was pretty funny.

We did the tasting without them knowing which was which, as is proper, so then they all guessed which number corresponded with each brand. No one got any of them right, which was interesting, but all of them liked IBC the best. That's handy, since that's one of the brands available at the tiny store in the village.

It was fun, and everyone else is already planning what we can taste-test on their birthdays. Any suggestions?

Snapshots: Many Flowers

This week's flowers, some from below the hill and always a work in progress as I add new ones I find and take out the ones that are starting to fade. 

For some reason the flowers in this one look like those fake flowers you can buy at craft stores. None of them are fake, though, I promise.

Kinda weedy, this one.

Much better, thanks mostly to the hollyhocks. I have to be very vigilant to catch the hollyhocks right as they open, lest they get chewed to tatters by the grasshoppers.

Last week's taller arrangement all lit up:

This was its spot on the altar.

The whole altar. The flowers are more visible in person, but still pretty small. Which is fine, because they're supposed to be a complement, not a focus.

In non-flower news, I replaced the slider on the deli drawer yet again, and as always, I used my beloved Leatherman multi-tool.

I needed both the screwdriver on it, and the pliers to bend a small piece of metal straight.

That Leatherman was the very first gift A. ever gave me--at my request--and here we are 22 years later and I still have it. The only reason I still have it is because I keep it in a drawer in the kitchen and everyone in the family knows that if it ever goes missing, I shall be very put out.

The most recent gift A. brought for me was very unexpected.

Say what?

He was at the store with a list I had made for him that included "dill pickle chips." What I meant was dill pickles cut into rounds, because I have a child who loves pickles on sandwiches and I don't have any homemade pickles right now. A. did not know that product existed. Likewise, I did not know dill pickle flavored chips existed. Hence, a very amusing misunderstanding. 

All of the children loved these chips, though, so I guess it was a happy mistake in the end. Although I still don't have any actual pickles.

And last, guess what I found on my pillow. (It was not a chocolate.)

Out, damned grasshopper! Out, I say!

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

P.S. As of today, we have a new 13-year-old, which brings us to two teenage boys and counting.

Friday Food: America Food

Friday 

Short version: A patriotic feast

Long version: In honor of Our Great Country, we ate a lot. This is the one day a year that I ask A. to grill. We have a kettle grill, and we had charcoal, but we had no lighter fluid. This meant he had to build a fire with kindling under the charcoal. He did. And then he grilled some beef steaks he had bought at the Mexican market, where they're like half the cost of the stores around us, as well as some marinated ram steaks.

I made American potato salad (with mayonnaise, hard-boiled eggs, dill pickles, etc.), coleslaw, and baked beans as sides. All of this could be done in the morning, which is always handy.

For dessert, we had our traditional flag cake. I made a Bonnie Butter cake this year, along with this buttercream frosting, and then Poppy helped me decorate it.

Multiple people noted there are only 20 blueberry "stars" on this cake. That is why I started saying it's a historic cake from 1817, which is the year the 20th state (Mississippi) was admitted to the Union. So there.

We ate the cake with ice cream. And then we lit the burn pile in the pasture and toasted marshmallows. A glorious Fourth, indeed.

Saturday

Short version: Sausages, leftovers

Long version: I had lots of sides left over, but not a lot of meat. So I cooked a bunch of different sausages--cheddar, andouille, jalapeno-cheddar--to serve with the leftover beans, coleslaw, and potato salad.

There was a little leftover cake, too. Happy Fifth of July.

Sunday

Short version: Primal burritos, Mexican slaw, "healthy" Scotcheroos

Long version: I used some of our primal ground meat mix--elk and beef heart--to make taco meat with already-cooked onion, salsa, and a cube of pureed red chile from the freezer. Then I set out all the toppings, toasted some flour tortillas directly over the burner flame on our propane stove and let everyone make their burritos.

We're about a week from having tomatoes from the garden, so those are from the store, but the green onions are from the garden.

Poppy requested the coleslaw. She liked the vinegar-y slaw my sister made while we were visiting, so I made that for these burritos. I had discovered earlier in the day that while the grasshoppers don't really eat kohlrabi and collards, they do eat cabbages. They had gnawed off the top of the small cabbages left in the garden. So I harvested them, cut off the gnawed tops, and shredded that for the slaw, along with a carrot, some pickled onions, cumin, garlic powder, and vinegar.

I have never made Scotcheroos before, but I had crispy rice cereal, not enough marshmallows to make crispy rice treats, and a disinclination to turn on the oven to make dessert. Scotcheroos are traditionally made with butterscotch chips--hence the name--which I did not have. So I made a recipe for "healthy" Scotcherooos that subbed maple syrup for the butterscotch chips. I did not use brown rice cereal or dairy-free chocolate chips, though.

They were not healthy, but they were delicious. And very filling. I kind of hate the name, though, and it wasn't too appropriate since I didn't use butterscotch chips. I need to come up with something else to call these. Any suggestions?

Monday

Short version: Pork chops, cornbread, sauerkraut and carrots, leftover Scotcheroos

Long version: I had completely forgotten that I bought pork chops on sale a month or so ago. They surfaced when I was digging for something else in the freezer, so I took them out for dinner. All I did was heavily salt and pepper them, then brown them in batches and finish them by broiling them on a sheet pan, with some extra spices on them.

I made the cornbread earlier in the day when I had the oven on to make cookies. My broiler is one of those drawer ones on the bottom, so I re-heated the cornbread by putting it in the main oven while the broiler was on.

The sauerkraut was a jar from last year, rinsed and then sauteed in butter with some frozen shredded carrots.

Tuesday

Short version: Various combined leftovers, cherries

Long version: I made some rice. And then I had one and a half plain sausages left, which I sliced and re-heated with the last of the baked beans and served over some of the rice for the two youngest children. 

To the rest of the rice, I added the leftover primal burrito filling, frozen corn, a cube of frozen green chile puree, salsa, the last of the grated cheese from the burritos, and sour cream. That's what A. and the older two had.

As always, not pretty, but still eaten.

I had a leftover pork chop and some of the sauerkraut and carrots.

We all had cherries. I love cherry season.

Wednesday 

Short version: Oven barbecued chicken, baked potatoes, cabbage things, cherries

Long version: It was really warmer than I would have liked for cooking chicken, which takes at least an hour in the oven. However. It was going to be even hotter the next day, so I decided to make the chicken this night. It was drumsticks and thighs, which I salted, then covered in a spice and brown sugar mixture before roasting.

Potatoes in with the chicken.

The cabbage-y things were the last of the Mexican coleslaw and the last of the sauerkraut and shredded carrots. A couple of kids had raw radishes instead of anything with cabbage.

I bought two bags of on-sale cherries, which is why we had cherries again. Yay.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover brisket and chicken, smashed potatoes, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, banana ice cream

Long version: There were several pieces of chicken left, but not enough for all six of us. So I also took out a bag of the cooked brisket from when I cooked the entire brisket a couple of weeks ago. I heated the chicken and the brisket in the same skillet, using the liquid from cooking the chicken the day before.

Meat medley.

The potatoes were two and a half leftover baked potatoes that I scooped out of the skins and heated up with milk and lots of butter and salt. I roughly mashed them with a fork, but didn't do anything else with it.

I think this is the first time this summer that I've made the fake ice "cream" with frozen bananas. I had four bananas that were past their prime, so I sliced those in the morning just to make the ice cream. Much appreciated by the family on a hot and muggy evening as thunderstorms were moving around us. I don't love it as much as they do, so I just had some cherries. Again.

Refrigerator check:

I finally got the deli drawer slider and replaced it. Again. I think this is the fourth time.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

A Teaser

When we went to Colorado, A. stayed home to take care of the animals. He also took the opportunity to completely demolish the children's bathroom. There were leaks in the tub, toilet, and sink that were causing the floor to buckle, as well as forming an unwelcome swampy area under the trailer. The toilet only flushed with help from an extra bucket of water, and the bathtub was the original avocado-green plastic fixture from the seventies.

It was way past time to address it, is what I'm saying.

So while we were gone, A. pulled out the toilet, the tub, and the entire floor.

The old tub out the back door, awaiting its trip to the dump.

The new plywood floor. Delightfully solid underfoot.

With a great deal of hard work, he managed to have the floor and toilet installed before we got home. Then we chose some peel and stick vinyl floor tiles to cover the plywood. Since these tiles are going in our 1970s trailer-with-additions, we definitely do not need to worry about resale. So we chose exactly what we wanted.

And what we wanted were Moroccan-style tiles in blue.

We're waiting on the tub and shower fixtures to be delivered this week, and then A. can finish putting in all the plumbing. 

I'll post some pictures when it's done. Stay tuned.

Snapshots: A New Mexican Church

A. has been working on and off on a big masonry job down the hill. On the very last day he was there with two of the boys, the van wouldn't start when they were ready to leave, so I had to go down there and pick them up. 

It's a very cool ranch in a beautiful location.

The van needed a new starter. We were very grateful that it broke down where it did, because it could just be left there rather than having to be towed. A. was able to go to town the very next day, stop at the ranch where the van still was, put the new starter in, and ta da! Fixed van.

Poppy made sure the refrigerator was appropriately decorated for the Fourth of July.

And another child contributed one of his small flags for the middle of the table.

The dark red asiatic lily isn't my favorite color of lily, but it was certainly appropriate for the day.

We had a lot of watermelon still on hand on the Fourth, so I de-seeded some of it, cut it into chunks to freeze, and used it to make an adult slushie with vodka and lemon juice. I was actually not a huge fan of this--too sweet--but it was definitely the right color.

Well, maybe a little more pink than red, but at least close to the right color.

We have several far-flung historic mission churches in our area that no longer have a congregation large enough to justify a weekly Mass, but our priest does travel to them to celebrate Saturday Mass once a month. These are beautiful churches, and I'm very glad they're still maintained.

We used to sometimes go to one that's about forty minutes from our house, but we haven't been in about three years. Poppy didn't remember the church and asked if we could go. So I took her to Mass at the mission church yesterday.

One of the more striking things about this church is that it's in the remnants of a village, itself isolated, but behind the church there is nothing but rangeland. It makes me feel that the church is an island on a sea of grass.

The interior is also quite striking.

I always wonder who did the paintings in these churches. Did they hire professionals when the churches were built? Or was there a very talented local? Probably the former, because almost every church here has incredible decorative painting.

The family that takes care of this church also serves at the Mass. The mother and two teenage daughters are the choir. They truly have lovely voices, and they sing all the parts of the Mass that can be sung, mostly in Latin. Their harmony really sounds angelic, and I love listening to them. This church has a choir loft in the upper back, so we can't see them, only hear them. It's one of my favorite parts of going there, because while we do sing at our church, we don't have a choir or any trained singers like that.

And last, while we were below the hill, Poppy and I stopped to gather some of the below-the-hill wildflowers growing in profusion on the roadside. There are just a few sunflowers that have started blooming up here, but down there, they're in full bloom. There were also some smaller yellow flowers, and some kind of thistle-looking flower (but without the spiky plant) that is purple before opening, and then is a fluffy white with a purple fringe when it opens out fully.

I also added some ornamental sage and grass heads.

I'll bring that arrangement to our church for the altar today. I have to have taller arrangements for that because the altar is so big and the people are kind of far away from it, so anything small is just kind of lost. And yes, Poppy and I will be going to church again. It's a mayordoma month for me.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Ham for Days

Happy Independence Day! Time to eat!

Friday

Short version: Barbecue brisket sandwiches, coleslaw, cherries

Long version: The rest of the brisket from our meal on Wednesday was just enough for sandwiches this night. I had baked bread the day before, so I made some buns for the brisket. I made the coleslaw in the morning, which meant that at dinnertime, I did nothing but re-heat the brisket and put the plates together.

Made-ahead food is nice. And a theme in my un-air-conditioned summer kitchen. Four p.m. in summer is no time to be firing up the oven or stove for an hour of cooking.

Saturday

Short version: Ham, scalloped potatoes, collard greens, raw cabbage

Long version: Why did I make essentially Christmas dinner in June, on a day that was going to be almost 90 degrees? Because I had a ham that had been in the freezer for months, and I could cook it in the morning when it was cool and then just re-heat it for dinner. Also because if the oven is on for the ham, I might as well also cook the potatoes. Those re-heated well at dinnertime, too. I just used the microwave for both things so as not to heat up the kitchen.

Anyway, there is no one in my family except me who ascribes to theory that meals should be lighter when the weather is hot. So I had my salad, the rest of the family had their heavy hibernation food, and everyone was happy.

His 'n' hers dinner.

Sunday

Short version: Leftovers, sour-cream cake with rhubarb-currant compote and Chantilly cream

Long version: I fried some of the ham slices in butter, which makes them crispy and really much better. Store ham is way too wet. We also had both leftover mashed potatoes and scalloped potatoes. 

A. had pureed calabaza as a vegetable. The children had the very last of last year's frozen green beans. We'll see if this year's green beans, which germinated very well, can manage to survive the grasshoppers.

I made the cake because I found the last half quart of soured heavy cream in the freezer and decided to use it up. I did this by making a double batch of this recipe, but this time with only half the baking soda. It was much better that way. It rose just fine, and tasted better. I made 12 muffins, and then a single cake layer.

This cake layer I cut in half, and sandwiched in between the halves a mixture of stewed rhubarb with some of the currant jelly I had made with the golden currants the children foraged at an abandoned house in our village. And then I covered it all with sweetened whipped cream.

It was pretty much like the Father's Day cake I made this year, except the Bonnie Butter cake was better.

Monday

Short version: Extra-creamy pasta with ham, lemon jello

Long version: And then I found ANOTHER whole quart of cream in the back of the refrigerator that was past its use-by date and getting slightly sour. Ugh.

So! I diced some ham and fried that with a clove of garlic, frozen peas, and a LOT of cream. Probably at least two cups. I simmered all of that for awhile, then added cooked pasta and some grated Romano. All of this went into a casserole dish, which I topped with bread crumbs mixed with melted butter and more Romano, and then I stuck it under the broiler to toast the bread crumbs.

This was, unsurprisingly, very popular. Hard to go wrong with that much cream.

I had made the jello for the kid who had had a delicate stomach for awhile. He was starting to feel better, though, and actually ate some real food, so I let everyone else have some of the jello for dessert.

Tuesday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, mashed potatoes, grape tomatoes

Long version: To make the meatballs, I used the big log of ground beef that A. brought home when he got the whole brisket. Just like with the brisket, the package of ground beef was still whole--circumstances when he got home with all this meat were such that I didn't have the chance to separate any of it before freezing--but I definitely did not need that whole 10 pounds of ground beef. 

To thaw it, I put the whole thing in my sink and wrapped a bigger part of it in a plastic bag. Then I ran some water over the smaller part I wanted to separate and left it for a few hours. I was then able to saw off the still-partially-frozen smaller part and wrap the bigger, still-frozen part back up for the freezer.

It's way easier to just do it when it comes in the house, though.

I made the mashed potatoes mostly to use up the last of the soured cream. Which I did. Yay.

Child's plate of meatballs.

Wednesday

Short version: Ham, fried potatoes, curried split peas, cucumber, watermelon

Long version: This was the last of the ham, which I fried in butter again.

The potatoes were some of the 50 pounds I got from excess commodities a few months ago. Some of them I had par-roasted (prepared for roasting and then just roasted until they were soft, but not browned) and put in the freezer. I dumped some of those in a skillet with extra tallow and fried them until they were crispy.

Do curried split peas go with these things? Eh, dunno. I found the jar with the leftover split peas in the refrigerator and decided it needed to be used up right away, so I just put a couple of spoonfuls on everyone's plates and let them decide what to do with it. Some dipped their ham in it. Some dipped their potatoes in it. Some just ate it. In any case, it was all eaten.

Seeded watermelons are usually available in stores around the 4th of July, and I always get one when I see them. This one was pretty good. A bit mealy in the center, but sweet.

Thursday

Short version: Tuna salad sandwiches, pasta salad, apricots

Long version: I had baked bread in the afternoon, which made me decide to have sandwiches and take advantage of thee fresh, soft bread. That's why I made the tuna salad.

I made the pasta salad because I had quite a bit of plain pasta left from the entire pound I had cooked on Monday. I've only made pasta salad maybe half a dozen times in my life, which is weird, because I love it.

Actually, that's why I don't make it. I would eat too much of it.

Anyway.

Pasta, grape tomatoes, pickled onions, frozen peas, cheddar cheese cubes, the last of some mustard vinaigrette, and a couple spoonfuls of mayonnaise.

A. brought the apricots home from town when he went to get a new starter for the van. The apricots were good, and the van starts now, so wins all around.

Refrigerator check:

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?