Friday Food: Proprietary Zucchini

Hey look! It's our food in exhaustive (exhausting?) detail!

Friday

Short version: Tacos, pickled carrot and cucumber ribbons

Long version: Yes, tacos again. I had a plan to make meatballs, but we were gone a lot longer than I anticipated, and taco meat is quicker.

This time I had two pounds of ground beef and one pound of ground turkey. I've never bought ground turkey before, but it was a quarter the cost of the beef, so I figured I could try mixing the two. I couldn't tell the turkey was in there after everything was cooked, but dude. Raw ground turkey is GUH-ROSS. I don't think I can buy it again just because of the revolting task of squeezing it out of the wrapping.

Saturday

Short version: A Michaelmas feast of roast chicken, carrots, corn on the cob, rice, and devil's food cake

Long version: I grew up Catholic, and had no clue about the story of St. Michael. But I do now, because St. Michael is one of A.'s favorite saints. I must admit that the St. Michael prayer is pretty rad.

A. wanted to celebrate Michaelmas, which fell on Saturday this year. So I looked up some traditional Michaelmas foods. People get reeeally into their food traditions on saints' days. I was not that motivated (when am I ever?). The chicken was the closest I could get to the traditional goose. The traditional carrots were no problem. I made them "fancy" with butter and maple syrup.

But the cake was the best part.

See, St. Michael is most well-known for battling the devil and casting him into Hell. So apparently a lot of people make a devil's food cake and then stab it with cocktail swords.

Well! I know some boys who are ALL ABOUT stabbing anything with pretend swords. Sounds like a plan to me.

A devil's food cake is just a kind of chocolate cake. I used this recipe for a coconut flour cake, so everyone could eat it. I added a few tablespoons of leftover coffee to the wet ingredients, but I should have added some yogurt or something too. It was a bit dry. It also could have used more sugar, which is not something I often say about recipes, so I sifted some powdered sugar on top. This was a popular decision with the boys, who stabbed and consumed their cake with great enthusiasm.

I got the world's worst photo of St. Cubby vanquishing his devil's food cake.

Corn on the cob has nothing to do with St. Michael. I just had a bunch of ears I got in the city on Wednesday that I needed to cook.

This provided Poppy the opportunity to clutch a chicken bone in one hand and piece of corn in the other. It was a good night.

Sunday

Short version: Tacos with leftover meat, black beans, sauteed zucchini and onion, pan-fried sweet potatoes

Long version: It's very rare that I have enough taco meat left over for a whole other meal, but I guess everyone was too full from the late afternoon birthday party food to eat as much as they normally would. Works for me--I didn't have to cook it all again.

Well, I cooked the zucchini and sweet potatoes, but the beans came from a can and somehow it doesn't seem like real cooking if I don't have to cook meat.

Oh! And this zucchini didn't come from Rafael; it was my very own! The former owner of our new house had two zucchini plants in the yard, so our purchase price included vegetables. He didn't try to charge extra for them either. So generous.

Monday

Short version: Beef with mushrooms and onions, bread and butter, corn on the cob, fried cabbage/carrots/onions, tomatoes with mayonnaise, cucumbers

Long version: The beef was this very thin and extremely long cut that was just labeled "fajitas beef." After looking it up, I think it was a skirt steak. I also think it should have been marinated, but I didn't have time by the time we got home from shopping and I got everything put away. Next time.

My cowgirl boots* and the wide-open road. I'm trying to embrace being an official resident of New Mexico.

I obviously didn't use the meat to make fajitas, because we had just had tacos. So instead I just seared the seasoned meat (lots of salt, pepper, and garlic powder) on both sides, took it out, cooked mushrooms and onions in the pan while the meat rested, then cut the meat thin across the grain and added it back to the pan with the mushrooms.

I introduced the boys to my childhood tradition of buttering corn on the cob with buttered bread. They thought it was great fun to slide their hot corn along the buttered bread, and I thought it was great that I didn't have to butter the corn for them. Everyone wins.

Tuesday

Short version: Pork shoulder, porky rice, creamy cucumber salad, leftover zucchini, baked apples

Long version: I made the pork shoulder in the morning, because it was actually way too hot to have the oven on all day. But I already had the pork shoulder out and it had to be cooked. Thus, morning cooking. The early cooking allowed me to pour off the liquid and refrigerate it before dinner so I could separate the very gelatinous juices from the rendered fat.

I used the fat to fry chunks of the pork with lots of garlic, and I used the juices to cook the rice. This kind of thriftiness satisfies me on a deep level.

I accidentally put too much sugar in the sour cream dressing for the cucumbers, which pretty much ruined it. That salad relies entirely on getting the balance of acid/salt/sugar right, and I did not get it right. Everyone ate it, except Cubby, who complained that it didn't taste right and he didn't want to eat it. I had to agree with his assessment, so I didn't make him.

I made a big casserole of baked apples in the morning with the pork, with yet more apples from Mr. Billy the Apple Man. I can never remember his real last name, so we just call him Billy the Apple Man.

Baked apples for me, if you don't recall the time many months ago I explained this (and there's no reason you should), is basically pie filling without a crust. Apple slices with sugar (brown and white), maple syrup, lots of cinnamon, and a touch of salt and apple cider vinegar. These apples don't break down at all, so the slices are still very much intact instead of kind of mushy and saucy, but it's still delicious.

Charlie was particularly pleased to have baked apples and cream for dessert. It's rare for Charlie to admit to being pleased about anything, so this is noteworthy.

Wednesday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, leftover black beans, tomato with mayonnaise, green salad

Long version: Um. I fried the potatoes in some of the rendered lard from the previous day's pork roast. That's all I got.

Oh no, wait! I have exciting egg news! Jack's preschool teacher has chickens, and I am now buying eggs from her. She only has a couple dozen a week, which means I still have to buy some at the store, but two dozen home-raised eggs brought right to the school every week for me is a pretty awesome deal. I don't know what I'm going to do when we move and the boys are taking the bus. Somehow I doubt I can trust them to get a carton of eggs home with no breakage.

Thursday

Short version: Pulled pork sandwiches with the leftover pork, leftover rice, raw cucumbers and carrots

Long version: The boys ate sandwiches, A. and I ate pork and rice; and the week is over. Amen.

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

* The boots--and a hat that I never wear--are from my two summers in college working at a dude ranch in Colorado almost twenty years ago now. Thanks for buying them for me, Mom! They've certainly held up. I am very far from a cowgirl, however, so I feel kind of like a tool wearing them, but I do anyway sometimes.