Snapshots: Cheers to 23 Years

Today A. and I are celebrating 23 years of marriage.

On this day 23 years ago, A. imitated Napolean. I guess that makes me Josephine.

A. brought me flowers when he was returning from a midweek trip. As is my habit, I split the arrangement up into two different vases so I could enjoy them in both the dining room and the living room.

Table.

Bookcase.

The roses only lasted a few days, and then I removed them.

A rose-less table.

I got him a camping stove.

So romantic.

I saw this sticker on a car at the grocery store on Thursday. It seems appropriate for an anniversary.

Essential for a lasting marriage.

Our parish potluck is today, which actually works out nicely because I don't really have to make dinner. I'm contributing German potato salad and crispy rice treats. I hope someone else brings pasta salad. I do love pasta salad. I'm sure A. will eat many hot dogs and hamburgers. Happiness for everyone.

There you have it! Our anniversary life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Farewell Feast

Friday 

Short version: Omelet, leftover pasta and pesto, leftover baked beans and rice, carrot sticks

Long version: I divvied out the pasta and beans and rice depending on who likes what the most, and then A. made an omelet to fill everything in. He put parsley, feta cheese, and one last small garlic scape in it, and it was very good.

Saturday

Short version: Hamburger steaks with milk and onion gravy, more pasta and pesto, more rice, frozen corn, leftover cookies

Long version: We had exactly enough Mexican wedding cookies from the previous day's playdate for everyone to have two cookies. How satisfying.

Sunday

Short version: Leftovers in a skillet, cheater's fondue

Long version: A. and eldest were gone, and there was enough of the rice, chopped hamburger steaks, gravy, and corn to fry in a skillet for the three children at home. I had actually saved all of this in a bowl when I was putting away dinner the night before, thinking it would be enough for another meal. The middle son found it when he was investigating for lunch, and when I took it from him, saying it was for dinner, he expressed doubt that there would be enough food.

You doubt your mother, son? Behold, Mom Magic.

I chopped the hamburger steaks, added some more corn plus some milk to the skillet to re-heat everything, and then stirred in grated cheese.

Not only enough, but there were leftovers.

I had a salad with deli ham and provolone in it.

I hadn't made a Sunday dessert. In such times, melted chocolate chips and a bit of coconut oil to make a very fast fondue, with marshmallows for dipping, stand in for a homemade dessert. The kids actually love this, and were very happy to see it. There is something exciting about having your very own (small) bowl of melted chocolate.

And I didn't have to turn on the oven or the stove. Happiness all around.

Monday

Short version: Freezer cottage pie

Long version: This is not at all the sort of food that I want to be eating when it's 80 degrees in the kitchen, but I had a cottage pie in an 8"x8" pan I had frozen last time I made cottage pie. I hadn't used it yet because it wouldn't have been enough for the whole family. It was enough for the four of us at home, though, and it just needed to be heated up in the microwave.

Everyone was sweating while they were eating it, however. Definitely not a hot-weather dish.

Tuesday 

Short version: Baked beans and hamburger, rice, raw cabbage

Long version: I had thawed one two-pound package of ground beef, which isn't really enough for all of us unless I stretch it in some way. I did it this time by adding two cans of pinto beans and then all the things I use to make baked beans to make it all saucy. And then I served it over rice.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, cookies

Long version: I stretched the ground beef so successfully that there was enough of it for the four people who were eating. Enough leftover rice, too.

The cookies were chocolate chip ones I made in the morning. I made straight chocolate chip cookies, with no peanut butter, oats, etc., and of course my children loved them. I don't make them like that much because those are 100% a dessert and I usually try to make cookies that are more like a snack, but every once in awhile they get lucky.

Thursday

Short version: Ground beef and lamb gyros on homemade sourdough pitas, collard green salad, no-bake cheesecake with strawberry-rhubarb sauce

Long version: This was our farewell dinner for our priest's youngest brother, who is going to college next month. He's eaten at our house many times since he started living here in October, but he couldn't choose what he wanted for his last meal with us. So I chose for him.

He can only eat sourdough bread, which is why I made the sourdough pitas. I would have made lamb roast for the gyros, but I'm out, so I used one bag of ground lamb and two packages of ground beef and then spiced it the same way I would a lamb roast (garlic, onion, thyme, cumin, paprika). I also made hummus and yogurt sauce (strained yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper) and put out lettuce, tomato, pickled onions, and feta cheese for toppings.

I did the actual cooking for this--so the meat and pita bread--the day before. Mostly that was because I was taking the younger three children to the dentist (which takes half the day, given the 200-mile roundtrip drive), but also because I didn't want to have to cook in a hot afternoon kitchen. That sure was a good call. It was still 85 degrees when we sat down to eat, even though I didn't turn on the stove or oven at all.

I wouldn't typically make a collard salad of the sort that I typically eat for guests, but I know these two guests really like collard greens. I also know they like beets, so the salad was finely chopped and manhandled collards in a maple syrup vinaigrette with toasted pecans, pickled beets, pickled onions, and feta cheese. It was really good.

I used this recipe for the cheesecake and made some strawberry-rhubarb sauce for anyone who wanted it. Which was everyone but me, actually.

Refrigerator check:

Stuffed full.

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

Add Salt to Taste

As we look at a weather forecast that features high temperatures in the mid-90s,* I have excavated all the beer salt out of the back of the cabinet in preparation.

We even have one in a whimsical tiny beer bottle package.

We will need the beer salt to keep A. going when he's out working in the heat. He always does. He doesn't mind doing labor when it's in the 90s, but he does mind how awful he feels if he doesn't stay salted. Not just hydrated, but salted.

A couple of weeks ago when he was building a stone wall and weed-eating for a few days, he would consistently get to the afternoon feeling bad, lethargic and headache-y. He had been drinking plenty of water or lemonade, but was still dragging.

And then he realized it was because he didn't have enough salt.

He doesn't really eat when he's working like that, see, so he wasn't getting salt until dinnertime. As soon as he started adding salt to his lemonade, he was fine and could work all afternoon again.

Because he's putting it in lemonade, he prefers the lime beer salt. I don't know how much he puts in his glass, but enough that he can faintly taste it.

When eldest was working on a fencing crew--a notoriously physically-challenging job, and one he did routinely when it was around or over 100 degrees--his boss gave everyone beer salt on their breaks. They just ate it, which is also an option.

However its ingested, if you also need to work outside in high temperatures, make sure to drink enough, but also make sure to get some salt into you**. 

* I know this is not high for many of you, but it's pretty hot for us here. Even if it is a mostly dry heat. 

**This is, of course, already part of hydration drinks like Powerade, but we don't typically have those. Switchel works, too, but A. prefers the salted lemonade.

Snapshots: Double Cookies

I saw something bright red on the driveway that I couldn't identify, and I had to pick it up to examine it pretty closely before I could.

Can you tell what it is?*

The collard greens have recovered themselves sufficiently that I feel I can chance harvesting some for the salads that repel my family so thoroughly.

Featuring Very Pink pickled beets and radishes.

I've been putting off rendering any of the large quantity of suet I have in the freezer, even though I need the tallow for cooking. This requires very low heat, such as a Crockpot, which I don't have. I use my cast-iron Dutch oven, although I don't have a burner that gets quite low enough to keep it rendering without actually simmering. I thought I might put another skillet underneath to distribute some of the heat. A. suggested the griddle pan.

This worked very well. Smart man, that A.

The kids had some friends over on Friday. The little girls were of the opinion that we should have a tea party. I didn't really think summer weather is conducive to tea parties--especially given how much baking I typically do for tea parties--but I did make some cookies.

First Mexican wedding cookies, and then, since I had a bowl and pan dirty already and the oven at heat, I made some very fast chocolate chip/peanut butter cookies.

And last, flowers!

Last week's sunflower arrangements combined.

New table flowers.

And bookcase flowers.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* It was the top of a red mini bell pepper. It looked so much like a flower, though.

Friday Food: Double Fridge Photos

Friday 

Short version: Tuna noodle casserole, frozen peas

Long version: In the summer when it's hot, I often make dinner in the morning to just be re-heated at dinnertime. The best option for re-heating without heating the kitchen is the microwave. My 13"x9" glass Pyrex just barely fits in my microwave. So I could re-heat the tuna casserole in the microwave and then brown the bread-crumb topping quickly under the oven broiler.

I would prefer to put the peas in the casserole, but my children do not agree with that.

Saturday

Short version: Sausage and potato casserole, radishes, ice cream

Long version: Second day in a row of casserole, mostly because the two pounds of loose Italian sausage wouldn't have been quite enough for everyone cooked into patties or something. But combined with potatoes, tomatoes, beet greens, asadero cheese, and cream? It was enough.

I just kept pulling things out of my freezers to add to this.

It's the woodchuck version of mise en place.

This casserole was apparently specifically engineered for the Y chromosome. Poppy wasn't too wild about it, but the boys LOVED it. One described it as "beautiful." His brother raised his eyebrows at this and replied, "Maybe the way Danny Devito is beautiful." (It was not a pretty dish.) "But it's delicious, Mom!"

Sunday

Short version: Pizzas, ranch dip, carrot sticks, cake

Long version: A. told me he really liked the vegetable pizza I had made last time, so I made another one, this time with diced garlic scapes, bell pepper, and collard greens on it. And apparently, two of the children also prefer vegetable pizza. Hooray!

The other pizza had some deli ham on it that I was informed was unpleasantly slimy. I investigated and found that it was, but once I diced it and fried it in some butter, it made a good pizza topping.

The cake was the extra of the Bonnie Butter cake I had made for our Fourth of July flag cake. I baked some of the batter in a standard cake pan and froze it in the pan. I sliced that in half and layered the rest of the frosting from the flag cake in the middle with strawberry-rhubarb sauce, and then covered the whole thing with whipped cream.

The top layer of cake completely fell apart when I was picking it up to put it back on, but I pieced it back together. And whipped cream covers all problems.

Yikes.

All better.

Monday

Short version: Lamb burgers, pasta with pesto, coleslaw, cheesecake with strawberry/rhubarb sauce

Long version: Our newest fourteen-year-old requested this for his birthday. Well, he requested lamb, pasta with pesto, and cheesecake. I'm out of lamb steaks or chops, but I did still have a few bags of ground lamb, so I used a couple of those to make lamb burgers. 

All meat is better grilled, but lamb especially. So I used the grill to cook them.

And none of them fell through the grate, hooray!

The basil is doing pretty well so far this year. I used some of the fresh basil to make pesto, and then used the last few cubes of frozen pesto from last year, which was enough for a lot of pasta. And I had half a cabbage in the refrigerator, thus, coleslaw.

Birthday boy plate.

I used a different recipe for the cheesecake this time, which was stupidly simple and seemed just as popular as the much more complicated Cook's Illustrated recipe I had been using. I used the food processor to make a nut crust again, since I never have graham crackers, so I could use the food processor to make the filling, too.

I doubled it, which was a good call, but it is handy to have a cheesecake recipe that doesn't make a fifty-pound cheesecake. I mean, I don't need that at this stage of my life, but I might some day.

Tuesday

Short version: Roasted chicken, potatoes, carrots, green beans; leftover coleslaw; not-baked beans; butterscotch brownies and ice cream

Long version: I never think to buy whole chickens, but A. does. It was slightly cooler this day, and I thought maybe I could roast a whole chicken without turning my kitchen into one of Dante's circles. 

Because the oven was on for the chicken, I decided to bake a dessert before I turned it up higher than 350 degrees. I wanted to make some kind of bar cookie and did a quick search to see if there was anything new I could try that my family would like. I found this recipe for what were called "butterscotch brownies," although I wouldn't call them brownies. They're really more like chocolate chip cookies with all brown sugar.

I actually really liked this recipe. It was incredibly easy, thanks to the butter being melted and it being baked in one pan. I used just one (microwaveable) bowl and a spoon to mix it. The end result is very sweet--not surprising, given that there's more sugar in it than flour--with almost candied edges. It has a good flavor thanks to all the brown sugar, and my family loved them. It's definitely a recipe that would not be as good with sweeter chocolate chips; dark chocolate is the way to go.

After those baked, I turned up the oven to roast the vegetables and finish roasting the chicken. I made gravy for the chicken, too, with milk and cornstarch.

We had a last-minute guest join us for dinner, which is why I made some very quick not-baked beans on the stove using four cans of pinto beans.

Wednesday 

Short version: Chicken slop, sausages, rice

Long version: There was a surprising amount of chicken left over, mostly white meat, that I chopped up and re-heated in a skillet with the rest of the gravy. I added a bit of extra cream to it, too.

I had made chicken stock in the morning with the most recent chicken carcass, plus one from a rotisserie chicken that had been in the freezer, so I used some of that stock to cook the rice.

I cooked just one package of jalapeno/cheddar sausages for the three who like them. That way they didn't need as much of the chicken slop and there was enough.

Thursday

Short version: Meatballs in marinara, leftover pasta and pesto, pickled radishes, ice cream

Long version: A. brought the younger two to town for errands and a sports physical. They got Sonic there. 

I had made meatballs in the morning, using two pounds of ground beef and the other half of a big can of tomato sauce I had opened for pizza sauce on Sunday. I figured those would go well with the pasta and pesto we still had left.

There wasn't very much vanilla ice cream left, which is why I gave it to the two boys at home with me. Even split between two it wasn't much. Split between four would have been ridiculous.

Refrigerator check:

This was right after dinner.

And this was a couple of hours later when A. got home with groceries.

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

How Far Is Too Far?

Last time A. went camping with the kids, he bought a sleeve of those big red Solo cups for the gallons of milk and lemonade he kept in the cooler. When he got home, I collected all of those and washed them to use again.

I used one of them on the Fourth of July to give the son home with me a very patriotic-looking watermelon slushie. After he finished his slushie, he started to throw the Solo cup away. I stopped him and told him I would wash it to use again. He was incredulous.

"Mom. Seriously? I have never heard of anyone re-using a Solo cup."

Really? I mean, is that really that strange? They're thick plastic! They're easy to wash! Why wouldn't you re-use it?

He was also shocked that I wash out Ziploc bags. And empty sour cream containers. The tray with top that A. brought home from a McDonald's breakfast. Pretty much any glass jars. And I sometimes save sheets of aluminum foil if they haven't gotten dirty, although I don't go so far as to wash those.

I even wash and re-use birthday candles.

These have been used I think twice and have at least one more use in them.

It never occurred to me that any of this was really that strange, but maybe it is. What do you* think? 

* Although I suspect that if you read here with any regularity, you are most likely also a re-user.

Snapshots: Books and Mystery Flowers

One of the things I did while most of the family was gone was sort through all the books we had culled from our bookshelves when summer started. I went to World of Books, an online book re-seller that will also buy books, and entered all the ISBNs for each book to see if they would buy it. They make this process fairly easy. They even provide the shipping label for free and allow it to be shipped in any box that will fit the books.

In progress.

I had around a hundred books, and about a third of those were accepted. I duly shipped the box of books off and am now anticipating a check to arrive shortly for a little over thirty dollars. Not a lot of money, but more than I had before. The other two-thirds of the books were donated to Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

I managed enough flowers for both the table and the bookcase this week, including, excitingly, the very first sunflowers.

The sunflowers, like everything else this year, are small and sparse, but I'm happy to have whatever I can find.

A. brought me some of the mystery flowers that are growing in the crack at the edge of the schoolhouse gym, near where the horse trough was. I don't know what these are. They don't look like wildflowers to me. Maybe they're some kind of domestic flower that self-seeded there. I left them, hoping I would be able to get seeds from them to plant, given that they're clearly well-adapted to our climate. But it was nice to have a few for the vases.

They're an interesting mix of purple and white.

I don't know why I found it so pleasing that all the children chose different cereal before church on Sunday.

Cheerios courtesy of my mother. We don't typically buy those because the generic versions of them aren't that good and we buy the generic giant bags of everything.

And last, I'm still enjoying our flag in the dawn's early light.

So handy that the wind blows almost constantly to make the flag wave.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.