A Non-political Poll

We have a poll of great import today, and it has nothing to do with the presidential election. It may be divisive, however, so I'm asking everyone to please remain respectful. 

The question at hand: What is the best Halloween treat? 

I am of course thinking about this because we've had the Halloween haul in our house for the past week, and it's always interesting to see what everyone chooses to eat first.

So much to choose from.

One son goes right for the Skittles.

One will allow no one to touch his Reese's.

Another can't choose and eats indiscriminately.

And Poppy? Her favorite was this weird novelty thing that looked like a paint roller and was rolled over the tongue.

A. has a great fondness for popcorn balls, which are a packaged thing I had never seen before moving here. He will also eat all the sour things, chewy things, and generally non-chocolate things that I always considered the garbage candy. He even likes Laffy Taffy, which is sort of inconceivable to me.

As for me, I'm mostly with the Reese's kid--particularly Reese's Pieces, although they are rare--but I do love Hundred Grands, which don't really seem to be a thing anymore. I don't think any of the kids got any this year.

Luckily for me, I seem to be particularly sensitive to chocolate that picks up the taste of other candy, which happens when they're all jumbled around in a bag. The chocolate will taste a bit like the lollipops or whatever, which I find disgusting and which keeps me from eating it. No one else seems to notice this, though, so I guess that's just me.

So tell me: What is your favorite Halloween treat? And bonus question: Do you notice that weird flavor transfer to chocolate in a mixed bag of candy?

Snapshots: First Freeze, Halloween, and All Saints

Our first freeze was Wednesday night, which meant everything remaining in the garden needed to be harvested.

Beets.

The mostly red tomatoes, plus a few peppers.

And the mostly green tomatoes, that will ripen slowly in that box for the next couple of months.

Not pictured is the basil, with which I made quite a bit of pesto for the freezer. The parsley and thyme can survive a light frost, so they're still out there for now, but otherwise, the 2024 garden is done.

Next, Halloween.

I remembered that someone--I think the MiL--had given us a bat cookie cutter, and it seemed like I should use that somehow for Halloween. My bread is not big enough for the width of it, though, so I cut the scrambled eggs with it. It only sort of worked.

Egg bat. If you use a lot of imagination.

I arrived at the school at 3 p.m. for the elementary Halloween party absolutely laden with bags.

Costumes and party offering of cheese and crackers.

The children were not enthused about trick-or-treating this year being in the daylight, but they did greatly enjoy their candy sorting and trading.

One very meticulous child's sorting. I particularly like the Twix laid out in a "T."

November is one of my mayordoma months, which meant I needed to change the altar linens for the feast day of All Saints on November 1. The color for feast days is white, so I went ahead and changed the (fake) flowers, too.

All Saints altar.

Somewhat relatedly, this time of year the rising sun makes some very cool patterns of light on the cross and religious art on a wall of my living room.

May our light shine before all.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Week of Illness

Friday 

Short version: Boneless pork chops, baked pasta, cucumbers, rhubarb/peach cobbler with cream

Long version: I was sick with a cold this day, so I used the low-effort method of throwing everything in the oven at the same time to bake to get dinner on the table.

In that oven were the pork chops I had cut off the pork loin, which I just drizzled with olive oil and spices. I had to put them under the broiler at the end to get them a little browned, and then they were overcooked. Always a danger with lean, boneless pork.

For the pasta, I used some roasted tomato sauce I already had in the refrigerator, heavy cream, the last of some milk left by a child, and a bunch of asadero cheese.

The fruit was frozen. After it had baked awhile, it had reduced so far that I decided to make some sweetened biscuits for the top to stretch it a bit.

Biscuits before baking.

I hadn't sweetened the fruit enough and had to add some more sugar when I was serving it, but it turned out pretty well.

Saturday

Short version: Mom food

Long version: This was the night of the village Halloween celebration. One son was quite sick, and I stayed home with him. He wasn't eating, so I just had to feed myself. That meant I rummaged around in the refrigerator and combined a bunch of things in a skillet:

A leftover pork chop, sauerkraut, roasted carrots, and cooked onions from the freezer.

The rest of the family had baked potatoes with lots of toppings and hot dogs at the party.

Sunday

Short version: Last-harvest pork stir-fry, rice, fresh bread with butter

Long version: I spent much of this afternoon harvesting everything that was left in the garden in anticipation of a freeze on Wednesday night. That included tomatoes, peppers, beets, and green beans. The basil I left until later because I was too tired to make pesto that afternoon.

I used the peppers, green beans, and beet greens in the stir-fry, plus some broccoli my sister had left us, onions, carrots, and pork.

Obligatory beauty shot of the pretty vegetables.

I declared this day to be the beginning of our pre-Halloween sugar fast, which is why I did not make a dessert. I had baked bread just before dinner, though, so everyone got to have a piece of fresh bread still warm from the oven, with butter. Almost as good as dessert, even without the sugar.

Monday

Short version: Tuna salad sandwiches

Long version: I went directly from school/work to a volleyball game with the cheerleader. I made tuna salad in the morning so those at home could have sandwiches. And I made a tuna melt for the cheerleader when we got home. 

No vegetables were consumed. That happens sometimes.

Tuesday

Short version: Chili, tortilla chips

Long version: This was the day I was very ill. I was at least semi-functional by dinnertime, although not at all ready to eat. Both A. and one of the boys had been sick with the same thing and were also not eating. Thankfully, I had a container of chili in the freezer, so all I had to do was heat that up and set it out for the three children who were eating, with some tortilla chips my sister left.

Wednesday

Short version: Hamburgers, rice, pasta with pesto, cucumbers with ranch dressing

Long version: The three of us that had been sick were ready to eat something unchallenging. I figured plain hamburgers and rice would be a good option. 

I stayed home from work and so was able to harvest the rest of the basil and make pesto--with a lot of breaks while stripping the basil leaves, because I was still pretty weak and tired--so I made pasta with pesto for the other children.

Thursday

Short version: Candycandycandy . . . and soup

Long version: This year, due to an event in another village that was starting right around dark, the trick-or-treating in our village mostly happened before dark. So we just stayed after school let out at 4 p.m. and went trick-or-treating. Thus, no dinner before candy time.

Daylight treat gathering.

And then! While we were letting the kids run around in the dark with their friends at the village park to work off some of that sugar, I got a text from our neighbor that Bill the Pony had escaped his pasture and was wandering around by the post office.

Great.

Hop in the car, kids! We have to go home to catch a pony!

Luckily, Bill is pretty amenable to being led with horse food as long as we're bringing him back to his buddy Cora, so it didn't take too long to get him back where he was supposed to be.

One of the children drolly remarked that Bill was playing a trick on us so he would get a treat. I wouldn't put it past him.

Anyway. This meant we didn't get home until about 7:30 p.m., by which time everyone was very ready to eat something not containing sugar.

Good thing I anticipated this. I had made some chicken and rice soup earlier in the day by simmering my bag of frozen chicken bones until there was broth and I could pull off the meat. Then I used already-cooked and frozen onions and some of my many frozen carrots, plus rice, to make a very easy soup.

I had cheese slices left from the cheese and crackers I had brought for the elementary Halloween party, so I melted some cheese in there too (for those who could handle eating cheese) while I was heating the bowls of soup up in the microwave.

Dessert was unnecessary. To say the least.

Refrigerator check:

Lots of eggs, thank goodness. We keep running out now that the chickens aren't laying much.

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

Happy Halloween

A rare Thursday post mostly to show you A.'s pride and joy:

A. calls it The Plumpkin.

This came from some random seeds of a squash that hybridized. Quite obviously one of the parents was the Atlantic Giant A. grew a couple of years ago, because it got bigger than any pumpkin we've ever had. A. was very excited about it, and decided he just had to make it into a jack -o'-lantern to put by our front gate. So he did.

My contribution to the Halloween decorations was on the table, of course.

Orange zinnias, cosmos, and calendulas, plus some buffalo gourds.

A seasonally appropriate breakfast table.

We will of course be trick-or-treating in the village this evening. This year, we'll have an Arab, Jim Corbett, a lumberjack, and a ballerina. My most important job for the costuming is doing a proper ballerina bun for Poppy. It involves rolling her very long hair around a sock, and it's harder than it seems.

Wish me luck, and happy Halloween! Are you doing anything fun?

Mom Down

A thing you probably don't know about me--unless you know me in real life, I mean--is that I always get dressed first thing in the morning. And I do mean dressed, and I do mean always. Jeans, t-shirts (and a sweater if necessary), the zero-drop shoes I wear instead of slippers so I can go outside whenever . . . first thing in the morning. Always.

I do not wander around in pajamas.

The only notable exception to this is when I am very, very sick. In those cases when I can't be more than a few feet from a bathroom lest I risk disaster and spend hours huddled in bed, I will wear the pajama pants my sister gave me probably fifteen years ago, and the fuzzy socks from the same source.

That's what I'm wearing right now.

Sick apparel.

I woke up with the family stomach bug in the middle of the night and spent the next ten hours in a very unhappy state. Bad time to run out of gelatin. After all the jello I've made in the past few weeks, there's no gelatin left for me to make it for myself.

But I do think the very worst of it is over. I am left now with the all-over aches that follow such an episode, along with a headache and general weakness. Which is why I still have my pajama pants and socks on.

Everyone except Poppy has now gotten this wretched illness, and I'm crossing everything I have that she doesn't come down with it at all, but especially right before Halloween. She would be so sad to miss trick-or-treating.

Anyway. That's where I'm at right now: Wallowing in my sick clothes and waiting for my body to recover. 

Snapshots: From the Germy Trenches

This week's cascading illnesses of a cold plus a really nasty stomach bug going through the family have meant a lot of this:

A blanket nest on the floor with a vomit bowl.

Switchel jello. I have made so much jello this week.

But also this:

I spent most of Friday morning dealing with the entirely-too-numerous (and HUGE) carrots.

About 55 pounds pounds of them, actually, now mostly in the freezer, blanched, unblanched, and grated. Plus a couple of quarts of pickled carrots.

Also this week, I finally had my one BLT of the season.

So good.

And I stopped in at church to get some much-needed peace.

All is calm. 

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: So Many Carrots

Friday 

Short version: Birthday sausage, oven fries, corn on the cob, green salad with vinaigrette, chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, vanilla ice cream

Long version: This was the birthday girl's requested dinner. My sister got the corn on the cob for me before she came to visit, which was good, since I was not near a grocery store in the week leading up to the birthday.

I ran out of fresh eggs earlier in the week. Good thing I had some in lime still.

Situations like this are exactly why I preserve eggs in lime.

I completely forgot to take the cake layers out of the pans before they cooled, and then they . . . really did not want to come out. Crumbs everywhere. 

My sister had the good idea to make cake pops out of the crumbs and a bit of frosting. We used those to decorate the cake, along with M&Ms and colored sugar. I mostly covered up the thrashed cake with the frosting, but it was definitely one of my uglier cakes.

Colorful, though, which is just how the birthday girl likes it.

Saturday

Short version: Pork tacos in homemade corn tortillas, pinto beans, rice pudding

Long version: I had a lot of the pork left from the giant roast I cooked on Friday. I cooked the bone-in piece more with some liquid so I could pull it off the bone, then fried it with taco spices. 

It's been some time since I've made tortillas. Mostly because they heat the kitchen up unbelievably and are thus not something I want to be cooking in the summer.

Rice pudding because I had the oven on to cook the pork. And also to make roasted tomato sauce, although it was not so much roasted as just baked, since the oven was on at a lower heat. Still good, though.

Sunday

Short version: Meatballs, pasta with pesto, green salad with vinaigrette, chocolate-covered frozen bananas, marshmallows with chocolate

Long version: The tomato sauce I had made the day before went on the meatballs. 

I wasn't planning on making a Sunday dessert, since we had had dessert the previous two days. However, I had some of the chocolate shell left from my sister making the cake pops. And I had several elderly bananas that I had frozen in chunks.

I used to make chocolate-covered banana pieces somewhat frequently, especially in the summer, but I hadn't done it in awhile. So I did. And then I let the kids finish the last of the chocolate shell with the marshmallows, just so it wouldn't be hanging around.

Monday

Short version: Lots of leftovers

Long version: One child had pasta with pesto and the last three meatballs. 

One child was sick and just had some of the soup I had made on Sunday with the leftover sausage, mostly to be my work lunches, but it came in handy as a cold descended upon us.

The other two children had the last of the pork in corn tortillas with cheese. Not homemade tortillas. It was a work day.

A. had the last two slices of roast pork, and I microwaved and fried a potato for him, too.

Tuesday

Short version: Leg of lamb; roasted potatoes, onions, and carrots; cucumbers with salt and vinegar; lemon jello; oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Long version: Only if you raise and butcher your own sheep will you just casually pull out a leg of lamb to roast on a random Tuesday. I just coated it in olive oil and spices and put it in the oven at high heat until it was done.

Meat 'n' veg.

The vegetables went in after the meat had been in for awhile. I should have put them in earlier, because I did have to cover them with foil for the last ten minutes or so while the meat rested, to make sure they were soft enough.

I made the jello for a sick child. And the cookies for everyone else.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork burritos or scrambled eggs and pasta with pesto, corn on the cob, tomato/cucumber salad, cookies

Long version: I had frozen the rest of the taco-spiced pork for a future meal. That didn't turn out to be very far in the future, as I was kinda stumped on dinner for after work and ended up just pulling that bag of pork out of the freezer in the morning.

I did toast the kids' burritos in a pan, which I feel is very ambitious of me for a workday. Especially as I was starting to feel the first symptoms of the family cold.

The child who had stayed home from school with said cold said his throat hurt too much for toasted burritos. So for him, I scrambled eggs and added that to the last of the pasta with pesto. I ended up eating that, too.

Corn on the cob brought by my sister. The dressing on the tomato and cucumber salad was actually made by Poppy. She will occasionally go out into the garden and gather things to make me a salad. She did that this past weekend--green beans, tomatoes, basil, and parsley--and then made ranch dressing for it. Her ranch dressing included sour cream and milk, dill and mayonnaise, but no garlic powder. It was pretty good, actually. Good enough that I saved the extra and actually used it.

Thursday

Short version: Lamb curry, rice, cookies, switchel jello

Long version: The leg roast from Tuesday had quite a bit of meat left on it, and just like with the pork roast, the best way to get it off is to simmer it in liquid. I had plans to cook some split peas to add to the curry to thicken it and bulk it up, but then I felt pretty rotten with the cold, so I just put the lamb bone in a pot with some tomatoes and onion ends and simmered that until I could easily get the meat off. Then I chopped all the meat and heated it with already-cooked diced onion from the freezer, frozen peas, the rest of the lamb, onions, and carrots from the roast, some more tomatoes, curry powder, garlic powder, and heavy cream. 

I also cooked the rice in some of the lamb broth from cooking the lamb bone more.

The most recently ill child came down not with a cold, but with a wicked stomach bug. This child is also the one who loves switchel, so I decided to make him some jello with switchel instead of the lemonade I typically use. It worked very well, and he appreciated having that when he finally felt able to put something besides water in his stomach.

Of note this week in food: I stopped by church on Tuesday and saw outside our parish hall a big bin with dozens of bags of giant carrots.

So many carrots.

There were more carrots in that bin than there are people in the village. So of course I brought a bunch home.

So many carrots in my kitchen.

My plan to blanch and freeze a bunch of them got derailed by my cold, which is why my refrigerator looks like this:

Literal trash bags of carrots.

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