Friday, April 26, 2019

Friday Food: Nachos for Easter


Friday

Short version: Tuna salad, scrambled eggs with green chili and cheese, bread, crackers, carrots with ranch dressing

Long version: Everyone ate their meatless food in whatever combination pleased them. Works for me.

Saturday

Short version: Pork chunks in barbecue sauce, rice, green beans

Long version: I still had the sort-of-barbecue sauce from the brisket, but no meat in it. So I browned some of the pork sirloin, dumped in the sauce, simmered until thick, and done. It was surprisingly good.

Sunday

Short version: Build Your Own Nachos, coconut-flour cupcakes with lemon glaze

Long version: Last year for Easter dinner I made hamburgers, french fries, and milkshakes. This year I made nachos. I think my holiday theme is restaurant-style junk food at home. But in all honesty, I would much rather eat nachos than ham, so I did.

Life is too short to be a slave to unappetizing traditions.

I did feel I should make some effort for a dessert, even if the kids had stuffed themselves with chocolate at 7 a.m. So I made coconut-flour cupcakes from a recipe the MiL got out of her BJs magazine like six years ago. They don't have any wheat flour in them, so everyone can eat them. The lemon glaze isn't in the recipe, but it is good. Just lemon juice mixed with powdered sugar and poured over the cupcakes while they're still warm so it soaks in.

And here we have the early morning Easter helper:


The early bird gets the cracked Easter egg for first breakfast.

Monday

Short version: Miss Rebecca's green chili casserole

Long version: Miss Rebecca is Miss Amelia's daughter. She stopped by on Sunday afternoon on her way to bring Miss Amelia home from their family Easter celebrations to deliver a casserole she had made for us. It was a kind of enchilada casserole with corn tortillas, ground pork, green chili sauce, and cheese.

It was very good. Unfortunately, Miss Rebecca, unlike Miss Amelia, has no problem with spicy food. This was way too spicy for me. Too spicy for Jack and Poppy, too, who had tacos with some of the leftover meat from the nachos. Charlie ate his serving of green chili, but didn't ask for more. Cubby ate two servings and announced that he likes the way spicy food feels in his stomach.

He'll make a good New Mexican yet.

Tuesday

Short version: Beef and sheep stew, sauteed mushrooms

Long version: I amused myself by thinking of names for this stew that combined the two meats in it. It could be Beep Stew, or Sheef Stew, or, going in another direction, Button Stew. Get it? Beef and mutton?

Anyway.

It was really good. I used some bacon in it this time, along with quite a lot of garlic and about half a can of tomatoes, so it had a very good flavor. Sometimes I find stew to be bland--even stew I make myself, which is annoying--but this wasn't. Bacon and garlic have that effect.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: Another 4-H meeting at 4:15 p.m. seemed like a good excuse to eat leftovers. Anyway, we had stew, green chili casserole, and taco meat left, so there were plenty of options.

Thursday

Short version: Ribeye steaks, boiled potato chunks, frozen green beans

Long version: We bought another house this afternoon. Not because we're moving out of this house, but because this was the property adjacent to ours, and the house is about 200 yards from our house. It's been abandoned for about a decade, so the price was right.


There's no electricity hooked up at the moment and one of the bedrooms appears to have the remains of a pigeon scattered about it. So, you know, it won't be appearing in the pages of House Beautiful anytime soon.

We celebrated our dual homeownership with steaks and a tour of our gracious new abode. Which is when we discovered the remains of the pigeon. Also, this is the kitchen.


Dale's kitchen doesn't look so bad suddenly.

As long as I don't have to put curtains on my (current) dining room windows to keep neighbors from looking in, I don't care about the kitchen. And as long as I don't actually have to cook in that kitchen*.

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

* A kitchen, incidentally, that did not have running water and electricity until the 80s. The 1980s. Like, after I was born. Modernization was slow in coming here, to say the least.

15 comments:

  1. I don't suppose the former owners left an oven rack behind--

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  2. MiL: There's no oven. There was only a wood-burning cookstove, which has sadly already been removed.

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  3. I vote for "Button Stew."
    Congratulations on your second home. Wow! You have lots of room for a larger garden & fruit trees.
    Saturday - Salmon burgers, roasted potatoes, frozen asparagus
    Sunday - Easter buffet at a nearby American Legion, as this is what my dad likes to do for holidays.
    Monday - grilled chicken breasts, (YAY) HOMEGROWN asparagus, HOMEGROWN lettuce salad
    Tuesday - fish tacos, homegrown asparagus
    Wednesday - grilled pork chops, homegrown asparagus, another vegetable, but I can't remember what
    Thursday - chicken breast, cabbage, onions, garlic, mushrooms in crockpot
    Friday - roasted chicken legs, roasted potatoes & mushrooms
    Linda

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  4. As they say, don't want all the land, just the land touching my land. You are off to a great start. That kitchen though is nightmarish.

    No particular order because I am too lazy to write down our meals.
    -sweet potatoes twice
    -bbq chicken, jasmine rice, broccoli
    -cauliflower soup
    -random veggies fried rice
    -potato soup
    -general tso chicken (freezer leftovers so no one got much), lots of jasmine rice and broccoli though
    -to fill out the above I also made oatmeal cookies and yogurt last weekend.

    Rather skimpy selection compared to yours. I call any week with hot food each day a major win though. Thankfully we are not picky.

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  5. I was just reminded that the sweet potatoes were actually breakfast/lunches a couple days, not supper. I made a big pot of excellent jambalaya either Sat or Sun. We then ate on it for several meals (lunch and supper)until gone.

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  6. BBQ chicken, pasta salad, corn
    Hamburgers, slaw
    Pork Chops, mac n cheese, green beans
    Spaghetti
    Chicken and yellow rice, peas
    Burrito Bake, salad
    Beef Roast, rice and gravy, green beans

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  7. Friday slipped my mind, but I'm sure it was good because my mom and sister made it.
    Saturday, fire-roasted hot dogs and peeps. This is the only way I'll eat hot dogs and a truly fantastic way to consume peeps.
    Sunday, church potluck. It was very odd to have 5 p.m. church but the potluck was great.
    Monday, leftover scalloped potatoes with ham.
    Tuesday, no idea.
    Wednesday, beef and bean enchiladas with mysteriously salty chili gravy, corn/peas.
    Thursday, steak, mashed potatoes, corn/peas, peach crisp.
    Friday, ham, cornbread muffins, broccoli.

    Super curious what your plans for the house next door are. You continue to prove the hard-core-ness assessment, btw.

    Karen.

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  8. Oh, Tuesday was "crack" layered chip dip.
    Karen.

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  9. Karen,

    What is "crack" layered chip dip?
    Linda

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  10. Linda, it's a household staple. ;)

    Spray a 9x13 pan (or similar) and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

    Brown and drain a pound (or pound and a half) of hamburger. Mix in a couple tablespoons of taco seasoning. Drain and rinse a can of black beans and add them to the burger, then add either a can of tomatoes (not drained) OR a can of tomatoes with chilies (not drained) OR a short jar of your favorite salsa. Mix these together pretty well.

    Use a spoon to press two 8-ounce cubes of cream cheese in the bottom of the pan, then spread a can of refried beans over that. Spread the burger mixture over the top.

    Bake about 20 minutes, then pull it out and add a layer of shredded cheese, such as cheddar or cojack or pepper jack or Mexican blend or, you know, whatever you like and however much makes you happy. Return it to the oven until that cheese is nicely melted. I usually let it bake until the middle is bubbly because that ensures the cream cheese has a consistent texture.

    Then you can serve with tortilla chips and whatever taco-y toppings you like.

    Karen.

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  11. Karen,

    I am totally writing down that recipe and I plan to put it to good use. My dad LOVES mexican dishes that can be made quickly end enjoyed after a long day of work!

    Kristin,

    I love all of your weekly eat recaps. I am pretty sure I would fail if I ever tried to recreate what you share BUT maybe one day I will get up the guts to try to recreate something you make ... but I may ask for step by step instructions. Haha!

    Have a great weekend in the new house ... do you plan to keep it or do you plan on knocking it down??

    -- Lindsay

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  12. Thank you, Karen.
    I'm writing that recipe down right now!
    Linda

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  13. Lindsay: Sometimes I fail myself trying to recreate something I've made before. Hazard of never following recipes. :-)

    The new house is a hand-built stone house with walls about two feet thick, so it's actually in pretty good shape and A. thinks he can fix it up. So no, we won't be knocking it down.

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  14. Twenty thousand awesome points for buying history.

    Karen.

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  15. Saturday - pizza with red sauce, green pepper, mushrooms and bacon
    Sunday - roast leg of lamb with a mustard vinegar coating, roast sweet potatoes, crazy good rice, asparagus sauteed with garlic, chunks of fresh pineapple
    The rest of the meals this week involved using up leftovers from both Easter dinner and the Easter breakfast that my husband cooks for anyone who wants to attend after the traditional sunrise service. There were a lot of leftover scrambled eggs and slices of ham.
    Monday - ham sauteed up with leek, garlic, green pepper and half a head of cabbage on crazy good rice.
    Tuesday - scrambled egg, chorizo and black bean tacos
    Wednesday - everything that we ate on Sunday for Easter dinner
    Thursday - clean out the fridge night in which we continued to eat up the leftovers
    Friday - the last of the ham, the last of the rice and some sauteed dandelion greens
    Phew! The leftovers were all gone but it sure was a nice easy week of dinners.
    Pam

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