Happy Fat Tuesday!

I have mentioned before--maaaaany times--that my mother is from New Orleans. Because of that, certain traditions from that city have always been a part of my life. Mostly food, since that is a big part of the culture of New Orleans.

Pork, greens, black-eyed peas for our health, wealth, and happiness on New Year's Day. Red beans and rice. Grillades and grits. King cake for Mardi Gras. 

This year's king cake, sent by my mother from Haydel's bakery and eaten by us for Sunday dessert. Warmed up with butter, of course.

And now, jambalaya, biscuits, and pecan pie for Fat Tuesday.

This was not something my mother made when I was growing up that I remember. Not on Fat Tuesday, at least. The jambalaya was something I made for the very first time last year, just because A. was remembering Popeye's jambalaya so fondly, and I was sure I would be able to make something at least as good.

This year, I'm adding the biscuits (these butter-swim biscuits) because they were very much like the greasy Popeye's biscuits that A. also loved. And the pecan pie because I now have a really good recipe for it that everyone in the family likes (except I use dark maple syrup instead of golden syrup.)

So I guess I've come up with my own tradition for Fat Tuesday. It's funny to think that these are the things my children will carry forward into their own lives--or not, we'll see--and consider just family tradition because it's what they remember from their childhoods. 

I have become the tradition maker instead of the recipient. An inevitable generational shift, I suppose.

So tell me: What family traditions have you inherited or started yourself?

P.S. I used this as our wake-up song this morning. After it was over, one boy announced, "I like that song. It has lots of food in it." Indeed.

Snapshots: Spring!

It was warm last week! It wasn't painful to be on recess duty at work!

Ahhhh.

Poppy got some new little claw clips for her hair as a gift, and then I had to figure out how to use them.

Not the most secure, but good enough for church.

My eldest child had been telling me, completely out of the blue, that Post Malone (he is a . . . singer? rapper? some kind of entertainer, anyway) had his own Oreos now. Okay.

And then what did I see when I was at Walmart on Tuesday?

This is not an appealing advertisement to me, but I guess I'm not the demographic, anyway.

A. decided he needs to get a new ram this year, so we had to get rid of the old one. We did this by putting it in the freezer, of course.

We now bring this big wood bench A. made right into the kitchen to do the more-brutal part of the butchering on. I do not want a reciprocating saw on my dining room table.

All that butchering made it hard for me to get out into the garden. I really wanted to plant some seeds, though, in anticipation of rain this week. I was just planning on planting spring things--lettuce, radishes, arugula--right in the beds we dug a month or so ago to separate out the crowded rhubarb plants.

So when Poppy came in the afternoon to announce she was bored, I handed her the seeds, showed her how to make some rows with a stick, and set her loose to plant the spring garden.

I stayed in the kitchen with the raw meat; she planted the seeds outside. She got the better end of this deal.

And speaking of spring and gardens . . .

Crocuses!

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: More Chicken than Usual

Friday 

Short version: Roasted chicken pieces, roasted potatoes, frozen corn

Long version: This was one package of separated chicken leg quarters and one of just chicken thighs. Two big packages of chicken is too much for one meal, but I can always find a use for the leftovers, so I just roasted them all.

I made the corn only because I was (still) too lazy to go out to the big freezers to get peas, and the corn was in the freezer over the refrigerator. This resulted in a lively discussion at dinner about vegetables, starches, and how to categorize foods. Some of my family maintains that potatoes are a vegetable--technically true--although I use them as a starch. 

I also noted that corn is about the starchiest "vegetable" there is, so really, there were two starches on their plates. Which of course made them all happy.

Saturday

Short version: Chicken corn chowder, cheese, pumpkin bread

Long version: My mom used to make a tomato corn chowder from her Southern Living cookbook that I loved. This soup was kind of based on that, in that it used lots of basil and sour cream. This version, however, also had chicken, because I had made stock with the bones of the previous night's chicken and had a little meat I had pulled off the bones.

Cheese 'n' chowder. Pleasingly alliterative.

It was a good soup, but I usually try to have something extra on nights when I've made soup from leftover bones. That's why I used the last bag of pureed squash in the freezer to make a double batch of pumpkin bread. Pumpkin bread works as a side to soup, but also it's a pseudo-dessert. I doubled this recipe, except I didn't do the sugar crust on top. That way it was less like a dessert.

Sunday

Short version: Elk burgers on homemade buns, baked beans, green salad with vinaigrette, cheater's chocolate fondue

Long version: I was baking bread this day, so I made some extra buns and then made the burgers because I had the buns. Cause and effect in the kitchen.

Baked beans--made with some pinto beans I took out of the freezer--instead of oven fries.

I was at a church event in the afternoon with Poppy, and I was very tired when I got home, so I kind of punked out on dessert. I just melted chocolate chips with a bit of coconut oil in the microwave and then offered either two marshmallows or peanut butter cookies to dip in it. They all chose the marshmallows.

Monday

Short version: Chicken salad sandwiches, leftover baked beans, carrot sticks

Long version: I had two elk burger patties left, and one bun, so one child got to have a double elk burger. Everyone else had the chicken salad.

Tuesday

Short version: Last-minute chicken slop, pork, mashed potatoes, frozen peas

Long version: I had the pan heated up with fat in it at 6 p.m. to cook the lamb steaks I had taken out to thaw . . . which is when I discovered I had taken out lamb stew meat. Whoops. That's not going to cook quickly. At least, not in an edible fashion.

Plan change!

Luckily, I had been to the store this day, and I got a rotisserie chicken there. So I pulled the meat off that and used the juices, plus thyme, garlic powder, cornstarch, and milk, to make gravy for it. That's the sloppy part.

I had also thawed a random small bag of pork stir-fry pieces, thinking I would use it for dinner the next day. I didn't think there would be enough chicken, however, so I also cooked the pork, just frying it in bacon fat with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika.

I had already made the mashed potatoes, so I just microwaved the peas and ta da! Last-minute dinner in fifteen minutes.

I make magic in the kitchen, if nowhere else.

Wednesday

Short version: Assigned food, grapes

Long version: I had used the pork the night before that I was planning on for stir-fry this night. So I took out a container of lamb chili I froze last week when I had made a big batch. That was enough for A. and two kids, with cheese quesadillas.

One child had the last serving of baked beans, plus some leftover mashed potatoes and cheese.

The last child had the last of the chicken salad in a sandwich, plus some leftover mashed potatoes and cheese.

I had a salad with some of the chicken salad in it.

And everyone had the grapes, because assembling and plating all those different foods was enough work. I didn't feel like messing around with an extra vegetable. Serving a casserole or something is way easier.

Thursday

Short version: Lamb stew, bread and butter, pumpkin bread, ice cream

Long version: This was the lamb I had mistakenly thought was steaks. It was a shank, plus some very bony chops. I simmered those for awhile, pulled off the meat, and then used the resulting stock and meat to make a stew. I also used some calabaza to thicken it a bit, along with yogurt and cornstarch.

Ice cream to celebrate the weekend. And assuage the disappointment that inevitably comes with stew.

Refrigerator check:

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

Alien FFA Day

One of the unfortunate results of our school being under construction for two years now is that we have only one space big enough to gather together for assemblies and activities. It's the old gym. It's incredibly echo-y and loud, but also, it has the most unfortunate lights ever. They buzz and hurt your eyes, and for some reason, any photos taken in there turn out green.

But it's what we have to work with, and so we soldier on.

Last Wednesday was FFA Day. Our FFA chapter took the opportunity to present an Ag. in the Classroom activity for all the elementary kids. They all gathered together to talk about what FFA is and then they made some butter. They did this by giving each student a half-pint jar of heavy cream and telling them to shake it wildly.

Can you imagine the excitement for little kids? They have permission to spin around, jump up and down, shake and shimmy, and generally go wild AT SCHOOL! And then! There's butter! Which they got to choose mix-ins for--cinnamon/sugar, honey, chives, garlic powder, etc.--and eat on rolls.

Best afternoon ever. Even if it was green.

Seriously. What is up with this lighting?

Snapshots: Seasons

I'm too old to use the acronym LOL, but that is, in fact, what this valentine from one of the other teachers at school made me do.

It's funny because it's true; this is what teenage boys sound like.

We've been buying cedar wood from the firewood guy, which smells really good and also sometimes has some really cool patterns inside.

Mostly it's just a red heart, but this one was striped.

And I'm guessing this on the outside was from some sort of insect.

We had a very cold and icy day at school on Wednesday. All the trees were coated in rime. 

I particularly liked this one with each individually coated needle.

I think this drawing of a dinosaur was an inevitable consequence of being a girl with three big brothers.

Girly, but with fangs.

When I told her I liked the rainbow, she very seriously told me, "That's an arc, not a rainbow. It doesn't have the right colors* for a rainbow." 

Got it.

Speaking of colors! It's Mardi Gras season, and we have decorated accordingly.

Mardi Gras banner and birthday banner together.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* I never had the sequence of the rainbow colors memorized until watching an episode of "The Cat in the Hat" on PBS like twelve years ago, from which I learned the rainbow song. Now I can never forget they go "red, orange, yellow, then green, followed by blue, indigo, and violet, that's the rainbow song for you!"

Friday Food: Canned Aberrations

Friday 

Short version: Pork and gravy, chicken-y rice, peas and corn, ice cream

Long version: I did not really pull out all the stops for Valentine's Day this year. Or, um, any stops. In fact, right until I went into the kitchen to cook, I did not have a clear idea what I was going to make. One child was at a basketball game and one wasn't eating, so I was just feeding four people.

I started with the fact that I had a not-well child who thought he could maybe eat some rice. And I had chicken stock in the refrigerator. So that was the chicken-y rice.

Next, something to put on or over the rice? Because there were only four of us, I decided to use a can of the pork we used to get from excess commodities. I scooped out the fat from the can to fry the meat in, adding thyme, onion powder, and pepper, then used the juices from the bottom of the can to make a gravy. I typically use cornstarch for gravy, because I can just mix it with cold milk or cream and dump it in to thicken everything. I was out of cornstarch, though, and loathe to use a whole other pan to make a roux to thicken the gravy.

Can you make a roux in the microwave, though, if it doesn't need to be browned? Yup, you sure can. And that is what I did: A bowl to melt the butter, stir in the some flour and microwave a few more seconds to cook the flour, then whisk in the milk and dump the whole thing into the pan.

Nice to know that will work.

This whole skillet of food was quite sloppy and honestly looked like dog food, but it tasted pretty good.

I was too lazy to go ALL THE WAY to the outside freezers (ten feet from the door) to get another bag of frozen peas, so I just used the last of the bag that was in the refrigerator freezer plus some of the frozen corn that was in there, mixed together.

Steamy peas 'n' corn.

Saturday

Short version: Canned casserole, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: While I was trotting around the village on my morning run and pondering what to make for dinner--I do this a lot while I run--I remembered the can of Campbell's cream of chicken soup in my pantry. I found this can literally under my car at Walmart just before Thanksgiving. I had to get it out from under my tire anyway, so I fished it out and just brought it home.

I also had a can of, um, canned chicken in the pantry. I keep these on hand for fast meals to make fried rice or whatever, but I figured I could use it with the cream of chicken soup to make something like tuna noodle casserole, but with chicken.

So I cooked some noodles--small shells, because it's what I had--then mixed together the soup, chicken, some milk to thin it a little, onion powder, pepper, and grated cheddar cheese. After mixing that with the pasta, I tasted it.

SALT OVERLOAD.

It was so salty. SOOOOO salty. I mean, I like salt, and I salt my food pretty liberally as I cook, but that was a whole other level. Like, the kind of salty that almost stings. Guess I didn't need to salt the water for cooking the pasta.

Anyway.

To dilute the salt a bit, I started adding more stuff. First frozen corn. Then the last cup or so of pureed calabaza that was in the refrigerator. These two things toned the salt down enough to at least make it edible.

Also very yellow.

The finished product was okay. I mean, I didn't eat it, but everyone else liked it and took seconds, so I'll call that a success.

A good reminder of why I don't typically cook from cans, though.

Sunday

Short version: Brisket, pureed potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, strawberry/rhubarb crisp with ice cream

Long version: This was the birthday boy's delayed celebratory meal. He had originally wanted pork ribs, which I had, but I didn't know he would be feeling well enough to eat his requested meal yet. So I had defrosted the brisket. And then when he was feeling better and discovered I was planning on making brisket, he said he had almost asked for that instead of ribs anyway, so I went ahead and made the rest of his requested food.

The brisket was a serious undertaking. I had asked A. to get me some brisket before Christmas, because I was planning on using it to make tamales. He came home with a whole brisket. These are a pretty good deal, because they're just about $4 a pound. They are also around 20 pounds of meat.

That's a large hunk of flesh.

I did not have the time to deal with that whole brisket when he brought it home, so I just chucked it in the freezer, where it got in my way anytime I was digging for something else in there.

I finally decided to face the brisket and pulled it out on Saturday to start defrosting. It took all day Saturday and all night to actually defrost all the way. Early Sunday morning, I cut it into two pieces. One of the problems with a whole brisket is that you have to thaw the whole thing to cut it, but then figure out how to re-wrap the giant piece that isn't being cooked.

I did not feel up to that at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, so I decided to cook the whole thing. So I cut it into pieces that would fit into my biggest casserole dishes, anointed both hunks of meat with ketchup, maple syrup, mustard, and salt, plus a bunch of water, covered both dishes, and put them in a 325-degree oven for several hours. I think eight hours? I don't know. Until they were done.

Well, until one got a little charred, actually, because I didn't keep a close-enough eye on the water level. But they were tender!

Then I sliced them and put what we were going to eat back into the juices of one of the dishes. I let that sit in there all afternoon, which keeps the meat from drying out. I added some homemade barbecue sauce before I re-heated it for dinner, and it was very good.

The birthday boy likes his "mashed" potatoes completely smooth, so I used my immersion blender for them instead of the handheld masher that I prefer.

He did not have a preference for a vegetable, not being a huge fan of such things, so I used my own judgment for that. And went with a salad. I did make the ranch dressing instead of using a vinaigrette, though, because that's what everyone but me prefers.

His dessert request was a strawberry/rhubarb crisp with butter pecan ice cream. I had just enough rhubarb left in the freezer to make that.

Ugly charred brisket (only half--the other half was in a different pan) and pretty red crisp in progress. Beauty and the beast.

This meal was a welcome return to our typical meals after two days of canned food. We had a (adult) guest with us for dinner, and while he was getting his second helping of crisp, he remarked to the children that they were going to be very disappointed when they left home and realized that most food doesn't taste like this. 

Good thing he didn't eat dinner with us the previous two days.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, raw radishes

Long version: Cooking almost twenty pounds of brisket means plenty left for the rest of the week, hooray. We had it this night just re-heated, with a selection of leftover starches: chicken-y rice, mashed potatoes, and one serving of the salty chicken pasta.

Tuesday

Short version: Lamb chops, garlic bread, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: If you raise sheep, you can have Tuesdays be Lamb Chop Tuesdays, instead of Taco Tuesdays.

Lotsa lamb.

If you don't raise sheep, this is unlikely to be your plate on a random Tuesday night.

Luckily for this child, we do raise sheep.

Wednesday

Short version: Barbecue brisket sandwiches, carrot sticks with curry dip, canned peaches

Long version: I made buns for the sandwiches the day before when I was baking bread, so all I had to do when I got home from work was shred some of the leftover brisket and make a barbecue sauce for it to simmer in by dumping in ketchup, mustard, maple syrup, molasses, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce.

The canned peaches were not my peaches. They were Great Value canned peaches in heavy syrup. And very appreciated they were, too. Some of the family likes them plain, some likes them with cottage cheese. 

Thursday

Short version: Lamb chili and cookies at home, concessions food and snacks on the road

Long version: I made some lamb chili, plus peanut butter/chocolate chip cookies, and left it at home for A. and three children. I went to a basketball game in the afternoon. I had some egg salad before I left, and then I impulsively bought some potato chips at the very small grocery store I went to before the game. 

Very small grocery store pasta aisle.

I wanted to try the Crav'n kettle cooked potato chips. They were very good, so that's good to know.

The basketball player got his dinner at the concession stand, courtesy of the school. 

Refrigerator check:

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

Bleh

We woke up in a frozen cloud again this morning, and everyone's mood reflected it.

I could be projecting, but even the bulls looked grumpy to me.

I got everyone up, fed, and wrestled (literally, in one case) onto the school bus, and now I have a profound disinterest in doing anything further.

It has occurred to me, though, that I can actually just . . . give myself a day off. I don't have to go to work today. I mean, I have plenty of work to do at home, but do I HAVE to do it all?

Nope. I am my own boss when I'm at home.

So, I think in the interests of morale--my own--I'm going to do just the necessary things and then watch a stupid movie or something. Any recommendations?