Friday Food: So Much Excitement

The Summer of Fun continues apace, with many exciting dinners. That is, if you find charred meat products consumed on a hot, sunny beach to be exciting, as my children do.

Friday

Short version: Birthday dinner, hooray!

Long version: See this post.

Saturday

Short version: Beach party dinner, hooray!

Long version: See this post.

Sunday

Short version: Grilled London broil steaks, grilled zucchini, potatoes with pesto, ultimate summer salad, frozen chocolate-covered banana chunks

Long version: The salad was the ultimate because it was late lettuce with early tomatoes. The time period in which those two things overlap is brief, but delicious. The lettuce was a delicate Buttercrunch variety, from the farmers market, as were the tomatoes. So, so good.

I made the bananas using this recipe, because we had five bananas that were not improving in our latest heat wave. I made the chunks because I didn't have the skewers, and I used my fingers to hold them and dip them, because it was fast and easy, if messy. Then I just had to lick my fingers, which was not a hardship. Yum.

I only used one cup of chocolate chips, despite the recipe calling for one cup of chocolate chips for only two bananas, and I still had some of the chocolate mixture left. Those would have to be some huge bananas to need that much chocolate for two.

It is a really good chocolate shell mixture, though. I think the MiL's idea of cutting ice cream into squares and dipping those into the chocolate mixture is brilliant. She said it would be like a homemade and much superior Klondike bar. I am totally going to try that. I just have to decide on a flavor of ice cream. Decision paralysis.

Monday

Short version: HOOOOOTTTT. Nevertheless, chicken, sweet potatoes, leftover steak, pesto bread, green beans

Long version: I had rashly promised Charlie we would have chicken drumsticks for dinner. It was 95 degrees with punishing humidity. Roasting in the oven for an hour was not happening. Instead, in the afternoon I shook some vinegar, salt, and pepper over the half-frozen (and enormous--what is WITH the gross overly large chicken legs here?) chicken leg quarters for a half-assed marinade. Half an hour later, I put the still-partially-frozen chicken in the MiL's Crockpot and turned it on high.

There was more room in the Crockpot, so I put in two foil-wrapped sweet potatoes just for kicks.

A couple of hours later, I took everything out, put the chicken on a pan, covered it in barbecue sauce, and broiled it until it was crispy. I also broiled the leftover steak, sliced and mixed with leftover pesto, and the pesto bread (slices of bread spread with leftover pesto).

I got a lot of mileage out of that pesto this week.

Tuesday

Short version: Fun beach cookout! Italian sausage, pork, bread and butter, tomato and cucumber salad, Fritos

Long version: The MiL had some friends coming over for cocktails before going to dinner, so I thought it would be a good idea to remove my feral children from the civilized adult cocktail hour. Thus, we packed up our food and cooked on the beach.

The children had no complaints about this.

The pork was those same odd, thick-cut "western-style ribs" from last week. This time, I noticed they were labeled as coming from the shoulder. Mystery solved.

I put the bag of bread and butter on a cottonwood stump in the sun to melt the butter while the meat was cooking, which made me think that I definitely need to get into solar oven cooking in New Mexico. It's the new woodstove cooking. I just have to get A. to make me a solar oven. I don't think he'll have any problem with that.

You know what's cool about Fritos? They have only three ingredients: corn, corn oil, and salt. I mean, they're not health food or anything, but as far as chips go, they're not bad. Plus, they're delicious. I still remember putting Fritos on my baked potato during a car trip when I was kid and eating it all together.

What, you didn't eat baked potatoes on car trips? You were totally missing out. Especially with a Frito topping.

A. gave this girl a few crumbs of Fritos and then informed me that the baby loves Fritos. A chip off the old  maternal block. Get it? A chip? HAHA. Mom humor.

Wednesday

Short version: Meatloaf, chicken-y rice, chicken-y mushrooms and onions, steamed broccoli

Long version: I didn't realize until after I had made the meatloaf (loaves, actually--there were four) that we were almost out of ketchup. I was going to put barbecue sauce on top of them, but then I remembered the rhubarb sauce the MiL had brought up from the cellar. This exact rhubarb sauce, as a matter of fact. I figured it's close enough to barbecue sauce for meatloaf.

I spread it on two of the loaves, and then put ketchup on top of the other two in case no one would eat the rhubarb sauce. In the end, everyone but Charlie--it's always Charlie--liked it and added more of the sauce to their plates at the table.

I cooked the rice in the saved liquid from Monday's Crockpot chicken, and the mushrooms and onions were fried in the chicken fat I scooped off the top of the liquid. Thrifty! And chicken-y.

Thursday

Short version: Broiled ham steaks, leftover meatloaf, leftover rice, roasted sweet potatoes and onions, roasted beets, roasted garlic, beet greens, corn on the cob

Long version: Local sweet corn season has arrived, and there was much rejoicing among the children.

I've always found it cruel timing that sweet corn gets ripe in the hottest summer weather, and the traditional way of cooking it is to boil it in a big-ass pot of water. Who wants to be bringing a huge pot of water to the boil in an already punishingly hot kitchen? Not me. Luckily, it is absolutely possible to cook corn in the microwave. I shuck it and wrap it in a damp towel, then nuke it for about two minutes per ear. Works fine, and no boiling water. Amen.

I had all the roasted stuff because I had to bake bread in the afternoon, so I just put in the sweet potatoes, onions, beets, and garlic while the oven was on 415 degrees anyway.

A. ate the entire head of roasted garlic while I was making the rest of dinner.

I can't cast stones, though, because I ate all of the beets at the same time. There were only three, and they were really small, and they were the first of this season's beets I got at the farmers market last Saturday. I meant to serve them with dinner, but they were so sweet and delicious, I just couldn't resist them while I was peeling them.

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