Snapshots: The Glorious Fourth

Happy Fifth of July! Let's see what happened this weekend . . .

I did not purchase this absurdly large metal rooster at Tractor Supply, despite its obvious patriotism.

I did grill, though, which is practically obligatory on the Fourth of July.

And I had a vodka watermelon slushie. Cheers to 250 years!

We had a big dinner, which resulted in quite a few dishes. I started on them and discovered that the kitchen sink wasn't draining.

BOOOOOO.

I had to call A. in New York to ascertain which pipe drains the kitchen sink and dishwasher. It drains out into the pasture, to water grape vines, and was very easy to find. Eldest son dug it out for me, and then flushed it out with the hose.

But the sink was still not draining. Dammit.

We tried many other things, working on it for about an hour before admitting defeat and telling A. that it would just have to wait until he got home. Eldest set up this woodchuck situation for me so I can still use the sink.

Woodchucks rely heavily on five-gallon buckets.

At least I still have running water and can do the dishes, even though I have to do them by hand and then dump the bucket.

The last time A. was gone for a week, it was the sink sprayer I had to Macgyver so I could use the kitchen sink. I'm cursed.

Anyway. I do have some flowers.

Table flowers.

Bookcase flowers.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Long May She Wave

By the dawn's early light, and every other time, too.

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans.

Friday Food: Just the Two of Us

Friday 

Short version: Tuna quesadillas, carrot sticks with ranch dip, watermelon

Long version: The FFA boys got home from their camp in time for dinner but weren't hungry, so the rest of the family just had tuna quesadillas. This is like a tuna melt--tuna salad and cheese--except in tortillas instead of bread.

Saturday

Short version: Chicken drumsticks, rice, leftover restaurant food, watermelon

I spent about five hours in the kitchen in the morning making three different meals for my friend with three kids who had back surgery on Monday. This was the same friend who had given me a ten-pound bag of chicken drumsticks a few months ago when she didn't have room in her freezer for it. Given that I had to thaw the entire bag at once, I had in the back of my mind that whenever I cooked them, I would give some of them to her.

And so I did. 

I used this recipe and method for the drumsticks, and they came out very well. Unusually for chicken drumsticks, which are not the best cut of chicken.

I didn't have enough of the drumsticks for all of us after I had packaged up what was going to my friend's family, and A. isn't a huge fan of drumsticks anyway. For him, I made a breakfast burritos with the kids' restaurant leftovers from a breakfast they had on their trip. It was the remains of a breakfast burrito, a sausage patty, and some hash browns. I added another scrambled egg to it.

I had a salad with leftover hamburger in it.

And we've been eating watermelon non-stop, thanks to the three watermelons from commodities that our post office lady gave us. Our family of six is certainly much more able to get through a full-sized watermelon than the typical single elderly person that is the majority of our population in our almost-ghost-village.

Sunday

Short version: Steaks, leftover mashed potatoes or spaghetti, carrot sticks, pumpkin custard

Long version: At 3:30 p.m., I had one boy moaning and groaning in dramatic agony because he couldn't believe he had to wait an hour and a half for dinner. So I told him if he started the charcoal on the grill, I would cook the steaks I had thawed and we'd eat whenever they were ready.

This was actually just a ploy on my part to teach him how to get charcoal ready for grilling, so I can delegate that task in the future. And of course, it takes awhile for charcoal to get really hot, so in the end we only ate about fifteen minutes early.

Really good steaks, though.

Grilled meat is the best meat.

The pumpkin custard was just this pumpkin pie minus the crust. It's not particularly seasonally appropriate, but I made it because I had the oven on anyway for over an hour the day before to cook the chicken, and I wanted to put something else in there, too. And I still have a few bags of squash puree in the freezer from last year's garden. I prefer this without the crust, myself. Pumpkin pie crust always just seems soggy and unnecessary to me.

Monday

Short version: A succession of randomness

Long version: A. flew to New York this day with the three younger children, leaving me at home with the eldest, who was sick. Luckily, he wasn't going on this trip, anyway, so he was free to stay home and blow his nose.

Eldest had leftover mashed potatoes and spaghetti (not together) for dinner, and then some of the butterscotch pudding I had made to use up excess milk.

I had spent all afternoon painting the kitchen.

All the junk from the top of the refrigerator and the counters. How could there be so much?

I was extremely tired by the time I finished up around 3:30 p.m., it was really hot, and the kitchen was still in its chaotic state awaiting the next coat of paint the next day. 

I was not going to cook anything. I didn't even want to chop things for a salad. So I didn't.

First I had some vodka and seltzer. Then I had a hardboiled egg. Then I had some granola with milk. And finally I had some of the butterscotch pudding I had made to use up excess milk.

Not the healthiest progression of food, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Tuesday

Short version: Salad

Long version: I did my painting in the morning this time, so I wasn't quite so wrecked at dinnertime and had the strength to do the chopping for a salad. It was pretty low on additional vegetables because I really need to go the store, so it just had bell peppers and canned peas with the lettuce (from the garden, yay!). And then I added a hardboiled egg and some feta cheese.

Eldest had been gone all day, volunteering at an outdoor event in over hundred-degree heat, so he wasn't feeling all that well when he got home in the afternoon and didn't want to eat.

Wednesday

Short version: Fried steak and potatoes

Long version: I had one small steak left. This would not have been enough by itself for me and the son at home, but combined with potatoes, it was.

I microwaved a couple of potatoes until they were cooked, then diced them and fried them in bacon grease with the steak, onion powder, frozen peas, and shredded cheese.

I have posted so many photos over the years that look just like this. It's a theme.

Thursday

Short version: Salad, ice cream

Long version: I made the trek to Walmart this day and got a rotisserie chicken while I was there. I had some of it in my salad.

And there it is.

Then I had some ice cream. Because it's summer.

Son made himself a toasted chicken burrito when he was hungry, which was a lot later than I ate. He had some ice cream, too.

Refrigerator check:

Getting kind of full with only two of us eating.

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

Embattled Collards

Last year's exuberant collard greens were an unqualified success in the garden. A. was delighted and declared we will grow collards forevermore. Accordingly, he bought six collard starts in April and we planted them out.

Then it didn't rain. Like, at all. 

It's interesting that not all water is created equal for plants. Our garden plants will, grudgingly, survive when watered by a hose with well water, but they don't really thrive. They want rain water. I'm guessing this has something to do with the minerals in our well water? I don't know, but I do know that there are definitely some seeds that won't even germinate on well water (notably, root vegetables like carrots and beets), and that the garden doesn't grow well until it actually rains.

The collards were displeased by the well water and just kind of sulked there, waiting for rain.

Then it started to rain! Hooray! 

And then the harlequin beetles showed up, right on cue.

Behold, the destroyer.

The harlequin beetles arrive in great numbers at the beginning of June every year, and brassicas are their favorite plants to eat. They're not that hard to get rid of, it's just that there are so many of them. When the infestation is the worst, I use a bucket of soapy water and drop them in there to drown. Thereafter, I just inspect the plants whenever I'm out there and squish the ones I find.

Incidentally, if you ever have to hunt harlequin beetles, it's helpful to know their habits. When they sense you hovering, they'll scuttle to the underside of a leaf to hide. If you grab at them and miss, they'll drop to the ground, where they can be squished quite easily. They never fly, which is helpful.

Anyway.

The rains also came with two separate nasty hail storms, about a week apart, that were particularly detrimental to the big, spreading leaves of the collard plants.

The end result of all of this is, well, sad.

Not a picture of health.

However! The nice thing about collard greens is that they grow new leaves from the center, so even when they look like that, there is healthy new growth coming. 

Of course, I'm also starting to see the first small grasshoppers coming as well, which will be the next wave of attack on these hapless plants.

Will we ever actually eat any of these collard greens this year? Stay tuned to find out.

Snapshots: Sheep 'n' Stuff

Let's say hello to the sheep, shall we? 

We had another ewe lamb born last week, so now there are three lambs, all female.

Our neighbor Ms. Amelia's daughter texted me out of the blue awhile ago asking me if Poppy would like a bike. Poppy has a bike right now, but it will be too small for her pretty soon, so I said sure. And that is how Poppy got the cutest bike ever.

It's too big for her right now, but I bet she can ride it next summer.

At our little church, when the priest processes up the aisle from the front door, he had been just saying "Please stand," before starting Mass. I thought maybe it would be nice if there were a bell he could ring, instead. He thought this was a good idea, so I had the enjoyable task of finding a suitable bell. I wanted an older one, figuring it was more likely to be heavier and therefore have a nice tone.

I found the perfect bell on Etsy.

Obviously, I couldn't listen to it before buying it, but I was pleased to find it has just the right sound.

A. has been saying for years that he was going to build a small table for next to his chair in the living room, just large enough to hold his coffee cup. I finally decided this Father's Day to just buy one for him. He is very happy with it.

Table from Amazon, tile coaster from Poppy.

We got one of the commodities boxes that are delivered to our post office on the last Tuesday of every month. There are a surprising number of things in there.

Including a watermelon with seeds, hooray!

I had one small avocado left after last Sunday's taco dinner, which meant I had the perfect breakfast.

Fried eggs with salsa and avocado, and buttered toast. So good.

This past school year proved to be the death knell for the little L.L. Bean backpack I bought for my first child's first day of kindergarten. Which means this backpack lasted through 11 years and three little boys.

The strap ripped off on the bottom and I decided it was time to say good-bye.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Kristin's Cooking School

Friday 

Short version: Tuna salad, bread, frozen peas or radishes, ice cream

Long version: The children and I went down the hill to swim with our friends this day. We do this every summer, and I know it's a long day that tires everyone out. Me included. I made tuna salad before we left, and then put that on plates with slices of bread. I put butter on the table and let everyone choose whether they wanted to put their tuna on the bread for sandwiches, or eat it separately with bread and butter.

Saturday

Short version: Toasted burritos, corn on the cob, ice cream

Long version: I just made easy taco meat and beans (meaning with salsa and spices) to put in the burritos. I did go to all the effort of frying the burritos in butter, which always makes them better. The corn on the cob was sort of an odd pairing with the burritos, but I had forgotten about it for a couple of days in the refrigerator and wanted to use it.

And then everyone had ice cream. Most of them had both black cherry and butter pecan, although Poppy agreed with me that the black cherry was no bueno. She does love butter pecan, though.

Sunday

Short version: Kristin's Cooking School

Long version: My family all left in the morning for a trip to the mountains to drop the eldest off at an FFA camp before going camping and fishing and then dropping middle son off at the camp a couple of days later.

I spent some time in the kitchen on Saturday making camping food for the travelers. This means things that can either be heated up in the coals of their fire (I wrap it all in aluminum foil), or in a motel microwave if they end up not camping one night.

Barbecue meatballs (with not-pictured boiled potatoes) and Spanish tortilla. They also took the leftover taco meat, flour tortillas, and cheese so they could have more burritos one night. 

This means I was by myself at home. Not for long, though.

Our priest, who is a relatively young guy and has become a pretty good friend, doesn't really know how to cook. I mean, he feeds himself, but certainly not well. His younger brother is living with him this summer before he goes to college, and he also does not know how to cook. He, however, wants to learn. Last time he was at our house, he was looking at my tortilla press and said he'd like to learn how to make tortillas.

This gave me the idea that he could come when I was here without so many people to cook for and learn how to make the tortillas, plus what goes in them. I figured it would be much easier to do this when I wasn't having to make such a large quantity of food, and would actually have the focus to teach someone else.

And then one of their other brothers (there are six brothers in this family) who I also know, happened to be coming into town. He came too, so I ended up feeding four people anyway.

I taught them how to make ranch dip (for the vegetables and tortilla chips I set out before dinner), corn tortillas, taco meat, and refried beans. I actually wrote out the recipe for the ranch dip, and then they were making notes on their phone for what to buy next time they go to the store for the other stuff.  Like lard and garlic and spices, which apparently they don't currently have. What a sad kitchen.

Anyway.

I also made pots de creme for dessert, but I didn't teach that one to them because I made it in the morning before they came.

Monday

Short version: Eggs and fried potatoes, canned peas

Long version: I actually was by myself this night, as you can tell by my dinner. I love fried potatoes with eggs, but rarely eat them. I just microwaved a small potato until it was mostly cooked, then chopped it and fried it in bacon fat before also frying an egg in the pan.

I still have a couple of cans of peas from commodities, and I still like them well enough that I will just eat them plain. There's no denying the power of childhood conditioning.

Although I cook my egg totally hard, breaking the yolk so it cooks all the way through, which is certainly not how my mother did it. So I guess that conditioning didn't stick.

Tuesday

Short version: Taco meat and tortilla chips, green salad, ice cream

Long version: It was almost 100 degrees this day, which made me very thankful that I did not have to feed anyone but myself. And I had leftovers.

The salad was the remainder of the lettuce, tomato, and avocado toppings from Sunday's tacos. Because there was avocado in it, I didn't even need dressing.

I had enough taco meat left over, plus grated cheese, that I just heated that up, added some sour cream, and scooped it up with chips. It would have been healthier to just eat the meat in the salad, but I do love anything eaten with chips.

I also love ice cream, especially when it's hot in the house, which it was. Just not fruit ice cream.

Wednesday

Short version: Salad

Long version: A. returned home with the two youngest children in the afternoon--leaving the older two at FFA camp--but none of them were hungry for dinner. So I just had a salad with a hardboiled egg and some grated cheddar in it and called it good.

Thursday

Short version: Cheeseburger patties, garlic bread, green salad with ranch dressing, watermelon

Long version: I had made the garlic bread and thawed the ground beef the day before, but since no one was hungry, didn't serve them until this day.

The lettuce in the salad is my lettuce, yay! I tried growing a romaine variety this year for the first time, thinking it might not bolt as fast. I am very pleased that it doesn't. The green leaf variety I have in the garden is inedibly bitter by now, but the romaine is okay. It's a little bitter, but certainly not inedible. 

The commodities delivery this month included a LOT of watermelons. There was a whole pallet of them in the bigger village, apparently, and the lady at our post office (where some of the commodities are left for people in our vicinity) kept giving us watermelons when we went there. We ended up with three. And they have seeds. Yay!

Refrigerator check:

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

To Each Her Own

I was at the grocery store with the oldest son last week and I told him he could choose an ice cream flavor. He surveyed the options for a minute before deciding on black cherry.

That was pretty much the last flavor available that I would have chosen. 

These were the small cartons of ice cream, so I also got butter pecan for the rest of the family. All of them like that one, although again, I don't care about it at all. It doesn't actively repel me like black cherry, but I still won't bother eating it.

I did choose one for myself, though: chocolate moose tracks. Chocolate, peanut butter, and more chocolate? That's more like it.

A tale of two ice creams.

A. has always preferred fruit-flavored candies, ice creams, and desserts. I have always preferred chocolate. Preferably with peanut butter. He does not understand this. I likewise do not understand why anyone would eat black cherry ice cream when they could have chocolate moose tracks.

Variety is the spice of life, they say, and I guess that means our lives are plenty spicy.

So tell me: What kind of ice cream do you pick, given the choice?