Friday Food: The Ponudo That Won't Quit

Friday

Short version: Pork chops, not-at-all-baked beans, bread and butter, green salad

Long version: I had a ton of beans left after forgetting to serve the pinto beans I made on Thursday. I thought maybe I could do something different with them by using some of the cooked beans to make baked beans. Except not actually bake them. And I didn't actually follow a recipe (as always), instead just adding in bacon, tomato juice, ketchup, mustard, vinegar, and maple syrup kind of at random.

I think I went too far in the mustard/vinegar direction, though, because they were much more tangy than regular baked beans. I loved this, but the boys weren't as enthused. They ate all their beans, but I think would have been happier with Grandma Brown's.

Then again, Grandma Brown isn't here and I am. Mom's Not-Baked Pickled Beans it is!

Random photo break:

The children eating popcorn at our newly expanded table. Poppy is in my chair, which she likes much better than her boring, safe chair with straps, because in my chair, she might fall off or crawl right up on the table. Excitement abounds.

Saturday

Short version: T-Bone steaks, rice, fried cabbage and onions, frozen green beans

Long version: I am seriously considering not serving rice again until my children are old enough to eat it without half of it ending up on the floor. It is a nightmare to clean up. It sticks to the floor, you see, so it can't be swept up easily. Little bits of it always remain.

Confession: I usually just leave the rice explosion on the floor until the morning, when it's dried and can be swept up completely. Unfortunately, Jack dropped his plate in the kitchen while he was carrying it from the table to the counter, leaving rice all over the exact middle of the kitchen. Couldn't leave that without it getting smashed into the floor, so I had to sweep and get on my hands and knees with a rag to get the stuck bits.

This is when I started to consider a ban on rice.

A. had another bowl of his ponudo. And still didn't finish it. I think it multiplies in the refrigerator, like loaves and fishes. Perhaps we should refer to it as the Miraculous Ponudo.

Sunday

Short version: Hamburgers, spaghetti with Marcella Hazan's Famous Sauce, green peas, coconut cookies with chocolate lentils

Long version: Well, I don't know how famous Marcella Hazan's four-ingredient sauce really is, but it's pretty famous online. I've read about it many times and finally decided to make it, largely because there is no chopping involved. All you do is simmer a can of tomatoes with a peeled onion and butter, then take the onion out and smash down the tomatoes. The fourth ingredient is salt.

Now, I've read at least one of Marcella Hazen's cookbooks. She's militant about using quality ingredients. In fact, I seem to remember in one of her recipes the instruction that if you didn't have the very best tomatoes on hand, not to even bother making the recipe. Given this, I'm pretty sure she would have chastised me severely for the liberties I took with her sauce. I used store-brand canned tomatoes, my onion was starting to go bad so I had to cut part of it away, and I used salted butter instead of unsalted.

It was still surprisingly good. It's not going to become my new favorite sauce--mostly because it doesn't have garlic in it, which doesn't seem right at all--but we enjoyed it.

I made our standard coconut-flour cookies for dessert--using honey instead of maple syrup this time--and proceeded to totally ruin the virtuous nature of these cookies by adding ersatz M&Ms.

Cubby and Charlie each brought home one of those plastic tubes topped with a plastic heart top on Valentine's Day with what I thought were M&Ms inside. So I thought I would use the M&Ms in place of chocolate chips in the cookies. But when I started to open the tubes, I noticed that they were knock-off M&Ms that for inexplicable reasons were called chocolate lentils.

Yes. Chocolate lentils. Is that supposed to be appetizing? If so, it fails miserably.

The candy wasn't particularly appetizing, either, with ingredients such as "natural waxes" and various dyes. I almost threw it away, but I knew Cubby and Charlie would be mad. So I completely ruined our virtuous cookies with luridly colored fake candy.

The original recipe states that the author used "allergen-free mini chocolate chips." I think "chocolate lentils" sounds just as virtuous, don't you? They're (not at all) lentils! Lentils are healthy! Too bad they're gross. I was the only one who thought so, though. Everyone else ate them.

Monday

Short version: Leftover hamburgers, leftover rice, ponudo for A., frozen green beans

Long version: We eat a lot of frozen peas and green beans. This is mostly because every member of the family will eat these. I could expand their palates with broccolini or bok choy, but those things aren't available around here anyway. Know what is available? Frozen green beans and peas. How convenient.

A. finished his ponudo, finally. But only the giant container in the refrigerator. There's another slightly-less giant container still in the freezer. I bet it's multiplying as we speak.

Tuesday

Short version: Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy, buckwheat waffles, frozen peas

Long version: I make buckwheat waffles almost every Sunday morning (buckwheat flour, melted butter and oil, eggs, a small amount of baking soda and salt, yogurt, and milk) and I always eat half a waffle straight from the waffle iron with nothing but butter while I'm cooking them. While I was doing this last time, it occurred to me I could try making a version of chicken and waffles, but with chicken-fried steak.

I ran out of rice, potatoes, and pasta this weekend, so it seemed as good a time as any to try it.

There was much confusion among the children seeing waffles on their plates at dinner. Without maple syrup. And it wasn't Sunday. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?

They liked it, though, especially when I told them they could have a waffle with syrup after they ate their dinners.

Of course, this would normally be a meal laden with wheat flour, but my version was entirely gluten-free. I coated the steak with corn flour, the waffles are made with only buckwheat flour (buckwheat, despite the name, is naturally gluten-free), and the gravy is thickened with cornstarch. Ta da! Totally gluten-free chicken-fried steak and waffles that don't taste gross.

How trendy of me.

Wednesday

Short version: Sirloin steaks, fried bread, pan-fried sweet potatoes, frozen green beans

Long version: I walked in the door at 5:15 p.m. with all four children. We had been at a 4-H meeting. Whee.

Steaks on the griddle pan, bread fried on the pan after the steaks came off, very small pieces of sweet potato pan-fried in olive oil, frozen green beans in the microwave, and we were eating thirty minutes after I got home.

I am still very sincerely grateful that I don't have to do this every evening after working all day. Working women feeding families, I salute you.

Thursday

Short version: Pork chops with leftover cream gravy, garlic bread, green salad

Long version: Let's end with a beauty shot of the garlic bread, shall we?

Beautiful (and tasty) inside and out.

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