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.

Friday Food: Another Cooking Lesson

Friday 

Short version: Tuna things, ice cream

Long version: I am not a huge fan of tuna, but I had some tuna salad in the refrigerator that needed to be used. The only way I like tuna in my salads is if it's sort of disguised with a bunch of other things, and I also like something sweet in there.

This one had a lot of carrots, some bell pepper, cheddar cheese, and dried cranberries.

And then, ice cream. With chocolate sauce.

Saturday

Short version: Upstate chicken barbecue, ugly flag cake and ice cream

Long version: The chicken barbecue fundraiser is a staple of central New York summers. Organizations such as fire departments, VFWs, Knights of Columbus--anything with a bunch of old guys--will do these huge barbecues to sell chicken dinners and the proceeds go to whichever group is sponsoring it. It's always chicken, and the chicken is always Cornell chicken.

Cornell chicken was developed in the 1950s by a Cornell University professor. It involves a very vinegar-heavy marinade--with, oddly, an egg--and a charcoal fire. 

The chicken is always accompanied by salt potatoes, which are another central New York tradition. They arose from the salt mines that are all around the lake, and are just new potatoes boiled in such heavily salted water that a salt crust forms on the outside of the potatoes when they're drained.

So the chicken dinner would be half a chicken, salt potatoes, baked beans, and a roll. This tradition was getting more scarce even when we lived there, probably because the old guys that spent hours preparing it were getting more scarce. 

Chicken barbecues may be harder to find upstate, but they're non-existent here. Unless I do my own. Which I did, for the Fourth of July.

Cornell University helpfully provides the original instructions for the Cornell chicken with a link to a PDF, which includes an amusingly detailed explanation of how to build the barbecue out of cinder blocks. I didn't have poultry seasoning, so I used mostly thyme and oregano. I also didn't have enough apple cider vinegar, so I used half white vinegar. And I only used 2 tablespoons salt. It was all fine.

I made the full recipe, though I could have made 2/3 of it for the just over five pounds of chicken thighs I had.

I also elected to make baked beans--starting with canned navy beans--and coleslaw instead of the roll.

Oh man. This was so good. I love Cornell chicken.

I also made our traditional ugly flag cake. However, since there was only one child at home to eat it, I split the Bonnie Butter cake recipe into one 8-inch cake pan, one small rectangular pan, and several cupcakes. I froze the cake-pan cake, and then decorated the small rectangular cake and the cupcakes.

Last year I got some flak for not having 50 blueberries/stars on my flag cake. This year, it occurred to me that I could make a Betsy Ross cake with just 13 blueberry/stars in a circle.

It didn't occur to me until after I made the historically-inaccurate number of stripes, though. Next year. Next year I will get it all right.

I was going for a firework sort of thing on the cupcakes, but instead they looked like bloodshot eyeballs. OH WELL.

Sunday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I had some leftover chicken and coleslaw. Eldest had a late lunch and wasn't hungry at dinnertime. He ate some baked beans, and then cake and ice cream before bed, I think.

Monday

Short version: Chicken, etc.

Long version: I had a salad with leftover rotisserie chicken in it. Eldest had leftover rotisserie chicken, baked beans, salt potatoes, and radishes.

Tuesday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, garlic butter rolls, sugar-snap peas and garlic scapes, beets, chocolate pudding or peaches and cream

Long version: This is quite clearly not the sort of meal eldest and I were eating when it was just the two of us. And that is because it was not just the two of us. 

Our priest and his younger brother came over for their second round of cooking lessons. They wanted to learn to make shepherd's pie and yogurt. 

Shepherd's pie isn't hard, but it does take about an hour before it's ready to eat. Given that they couldn't get here until after 5:30 p.m., I thought it would be better to feed them something that I made ahead of time so they could just eat when they got here, and then they could make a shepherd's pie to take home and bake whenever they wanted.

That's why I made the meatballs, etc., for our actual dinner. I had made the rolls a couple of days previously when I was baking bread and then just re-heated them in the microwave with butter and garlic powder.

I didn't plant any peas this year, so I had to buy the sugar snap peas, which I did specifically because I wanted to cook them with the garlic scapes that were ready to be harvested. So good.

The beets were also store-bought. I didn't get good germination on my beets this year, and what did germinate died, so I bought a few large ones to make Aunt Belva's pickled beets. I had roasted them while I was baking the bread, so all I had to do was peel and dice them and add the butter, vinegar, and sugar. Then I heated them in the microwave at dinnertime. I know beets are a divisive food, but I love them, so I made them. And then apparently everyone else loved them too. Gratifying.

I had made the meatballs in the morning and just stuck them in under the broiler when it was time to eat. This meant that everything was actually cooked way before it got hot, and all I had to do was re-heat.

I made the pudding with milk that was about to go off, and the peaches were some I bought from the roadside truck in the city the week previously that were likewise reaching their expiration. So everyone could choose one or both. The peaches were the more popular option. 

After we ate, I supervised the making of their shepherd's pie to send home with our two guests. And I showed them how to make yogurt and gave them some starter for that. 

Our priest is already making sourdough bread with the starter and instructions I gave him, so he's well on his way to being a real homesteader. Or at least feeding himself reasonably well, which is the actual goal.

Wednesday

Short version: Lamb steaks or leftover meatballs, mashed potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, chocolate pudding

Long version: The rest of the family got home in the late afternoon. I didn't have quite enough meatballs for everyone to have that, so I also took out a bag of lamb steaks. I had a little of the Cornell chicken marinade from the Fourth that I hadn't used, which worked very well for marinating the lamb steaks. I also made a little bit of sauce in the pan by adding about a tablespoon of tomato sauce and a bit of cream and water.

I did have enough chocolate pudding left for everyone, thanks to the popularity of the peaches the night before.

Thursday

Short version: Cheeseburger patties, leftover rice, cucumbers with salt and vinegar

Long version: It was actually just the children who had the cheeseburger patties, because I only took out one package of ground beef. That's two pounds, which is how much they will eat, if not more.

A. had the last bit of leftover lamb steak, plus a few leftover meatballs. I had meatballs in my salad.

The rice was particularly good because I took the cheeseburgers out of the pan when they were cooked, added a bit of water to scrape the pan clean, and then re-heated the rice in that pan so it soaked up all those juices. Yum.

Refrigerator check:

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

Before and After Kitchen

Before we moved into this house eight years ago, I did a lot of painting. I painted the living room and entry, the dining room, the hallway, and Poppy's bedroom. Even though I got a lot done, I always regretted not painting the kitchen.

The kitchen was in bad shape. I don't know when it was last painted, but it looked terrible. The paint on the cabinets was bubbling and impossible to clean without actually scrubbing the paint off. It was nasty. But having my constantly-in-use kitchen out of commission for days to paint it was not very appealing.

So I never did it. And it got more and more gross.

However! When A. was planning his trip to New York for ten days with three of the four children, I knew my time had come. Accordingly, I asked him to buy me white paint for the ceiling and something yellow-toned for the cabinets.

The only pre-mixed, non-gray paint he could find when he went to Walmart, though, was an almond color. So that's what he got. And that's what I used.

First I painted the ceiling.

In progress.

I sent this photo to A., and he responded that he thought I was going to use the almond paint on the cabinets. I did. The brown you see in the top right is the color of the ceiling before painting it white.

He couldn't believe how gross the ceiling was. 

It certainly was.

To the remainder of the white paint, I added just a bit of the almond paint, to make a slightly lighter almond, I guess. I used that for the small area of actual walls. And then I painted the cabinets with the almond color.

I hate painting. I am not good at it; I am not particularly careful; and I don't find it enjoyable. But I got it done.

The paint was still drying, hence all the cabinet doors ajar.

I specifically asked A. to get something besides white for the cabinets so they wouldn't show smudges so readily. I actually prefer the look of the original white cabinets, but I don't regret using non-white. Everything looks SO much cleaner. And I can actually clean it! I can just wipe things down! Hooray!

I didn't have enough of the white paint to do the ceiling in the adjacent dining room, which desperately needs painting, but that can wait until I get back to Walmart for more paint.

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.