Friday Food: Thrifty Fun

Friday

Short version: Macaroni and cheese, green peas

Long version: The last time I made macaroni and cheese was pretty dismal, so I decided to actually follow a recipe this time. I screwed it up in multiple ways, but it still came out well. I started out making half a recipe, but then when it came time to cook the pasta I dumped in the whole pound, and then I had not enough sauce, so I added a little bit of extra milk after I had already assembled the casserole.

I was using homemade sourdough bread instead of white sandwich bread for the bread crumbs, so I should have made much smaller crumbs and used a lot more butter for them. They were kind of dry. Also, I only had store-brand sharp cheddar and some mild cheddar, so I wasn't starting with the greatest quality ingredients.

But like I said, it still came out well. Cubby asked me whose recipe it was. I said it was Martha Stewart's. He asked if I had her address because he wanted to write to her and tell her how delicious the macaroni and cheese is.

Perhaps Martha Stewart might actually enjoy receiving such a letter? Just don't tell her what a mess I made of her recipe.

Saturday

Short version: Cube steak in gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans

Long version: Cubby and Charlie returned this day from their trip. They spent the day before hiking the Guadalupe Peak Trail. Guadalupe Peak is the highest peak in Texas. The trail is 8.4 miles, rated "strenuous," and there's an elevation gain of about 3,000 feet.

They did the whole thing. THE WHOLE THING. Charlie, may I remind you, is six years old. I didn't even want to do that kind of hiking when I was sixteen years old. (Just ask my dad.)

He said it was fun, but cold. I should think it's pretty much always cold at almost 9,000 feet above sea level.

Anyway. I thought after all that exertion I'd better make something pretty hearty. So I cut up cube steaks into, um, cubes, browned them, simmered them with garlic, then made a gravy with milk and cornstarch. I also added some balsamic vinegar and already-cooked chopped onion I had hanging around at the end. It was okay, but it did kind of remind me of Salisbury steak.

Sunday

Short version: Bunless hamburgers, rice, roasted sweet potatoes/onions/cabbage, vanilla pudding

Long version: You can tell this was St. Patrick's Day because I added cabbage to my roasted vegetable mixture, and also gave the children--who do not like roasted vegetables, the weirdos--wedges of raw cabbage for their vegetable. I'm at least half Irish, and A. has quite a bit of Irish ancestry too, so I felt I should acknowledge that with cabbage.

I also planted some cabbage starts this day. I thought it was appropriate, even though much of this cabbage will probably be used for sauerkraut. I also have German ancestry.

I would have made potatoes, too, but A. planted the rest of my bag of potatoes, so rice it was.

I had already planned on making pudding when I stopped in at the tiny store in the village after church to get a gallon of milk. The guy running it gave me the two gallons he had left for free because they had reached their "best by" date the day before. He said he was glad I came in, because with "all those young 'uns" he was sure it wouldn't go to waste. Nope, sure didn't. I used most of one gallon to make a double batch of pudding and froze the other to make yogurt with next week. The young 'uns were very happy with their pudding.

Monday

Short version: Cheese omelets, use-it-up rice dish

Long version: Usually when I make eggs for dinner, they're scrambled, because that's the easiest and quickest way to cook as many eggs as I need to make for this horde. This time, I decided to indulge Cubby's dislike of scrambled eggs and make cheese omelets. I made three omelets with five eggs each, and was reminded anew why I don't make omelets for dinner. It took like half an hour. What a pain.

I was amused by the variety of egg sizes in the eggs I most recently got from Jack's preschool teacher. A few of them were huge. Not double-yolked, either, just huge eggs.

That's one overachieving hen.

The rice dish was one of those pleasing things that uses up a multitude of random bits and pieces. The last three pieces of bacon, diced and fried; plus about a quarter cup of partially-cooked onion from a couple of days before when I needed only a tiny amount of onion for tuna salad but didn't want to store the rest of the raw onion in the refrigerator; plus the rest of the carrot sticks from A. and Charlie's road trip (diced); plus a little bit of collard greens that I hacked off the frozen chunk in the freezer; plus some green peas and the leftover rice.

It was quite tasty, except oversalted because the little metal pourer on the salt container fell right out as I was doing the final seasoning, resulting in the salt rushing out a little too fast. Whoops. It was still good, though. Everyone had seconds and the entire (full) skillet was eaten.

I also used the rather water-logged cheese left in the cooler that A. brought home from their trip for the omelets. I am totally in the running for Thrifty Homemaker of the Year.

Tuesday

Short version: Indecisive steaks, fried potatoes, green beans

Long version: I took out a big pork roast from the freezer on Monday, congratulating myself for taking it out to thaw ahead of time so I wasn't dealing with my usual almost-totally-frozen chunk of pork situation when it was time to cook it.

But then I thought, "Wait. We just had eggs. I should save the pork for when we've had beef for like five nights in a row and I need a break from the cow."

So then I took out some ground beef because Cubby has been requesting shepherd's pie.

But then I thought, "Wait. I have that duck fat I need to use up. I need to fry some potatoes. But I don't want to make hamburgers again."

So I took out some steaks. They were really good, as were the potatoes. Those I thinly sliced on the mandoline side of my box grater--a hated task--then put in the skillet with the duck fat, salt, and pepper, cooked them covered on medium heat until they were almost done, then turned the heat up to brown them some more.

I had planned to make a vegetable requiring more prep work than frozen green beans, but just before I was going to start cooking, I got pinned in my chair by a double nap situation.

I elected to sit there and let them sleep rather than get up to prep vegetables. I have no regrets.

Wednesday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, garlic bread, roasted broccoli/cauliflower/onion

Long version: A. left in the afternoon this day for a trip to New York. I would normally use his absence as an opportunity to make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and call it a meal. However. I had all that meat in the refrigerator. So the kids got lucky and had meatballs for dinner instead.

I save pieces of sourdough bread for bread crumbs--mostly the end pieces--which are still pretty coarse even after going through the food processor. Therefore, I make sure to soak them for at least five minutes in milk to soften them, then I squish them with my hands before I add the rest of the ingredients (in this case, ground beef, eggs, diced and sauteed onion because I loathe bits of raw onion in meatballs, salt, pepper, and garlic powder). The bread crumbs incorporate much better this way.

I made the garlic bread because I was baking bread anyway right before dinner, so I once again stole some dough to make a loaf of garlic bread. This time I kneaded some garlic powder and extra salt right into the dough instead of just putting it on top with the butter, and it was much better that way.

The broccoli and cauliflower was already-prepared florets in a plastic bag labeled "steam in bag." No. Never. Much healthier to cook it in a cast-iron skillet in the oven.

It was a very visually appealing meal.

A steamed plastic bag of vegetables would not have the same aesthetic value.

Thursday

Short version: Flank steak, Miss Amelia's chicken rice, green salad

Long version: Miss Amelia gave me some rice she said she had made with leftover chicken. It was short grain rice that had been cooked so long it was kind of like mush. She cooks on a woodburning stove, so I think everything gets cooked a long time.

Anyway.

It was pretty bland, so I added some Parmesan cheese and lots of pepper. It was okay, but I think I'll use the rest for a soup base.

I marinated the steak in a balsamic vinaigrette that I also used for the salad. Not that I put the marinade from the raw meat over the salad; I just saved some for the salad. But I'm sure you didn't think I would do something like that, right? Right.

Wait! We can't have a Friday Food post without a picture of the baby! This is the only recent one I have.

Blurry baby eating bread and butter in her room with no pants on. What a life.

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

Another Chance To Shine

I'm afraid that I have a history of questionable hostessing experiences.

There was the time that the MiL came to visit us in northern New York and I forgot to give her blankets for her bed. Luckily, the MiL is pretty chill about such things (ha--get it? chill? chilled because of no blankets? yeah), but I was still kind of embarrassed by that one. I haven't forgotten blankets since, either.

There was the time I got shingles the day my parents came to visit us here and they spent most of their time taking care of my kids and driving A. to the airport.

And there have been many, many times that my sister has been the recipient of my particular brand of hospitality. She has come to see me only to spread manure, dispose of a rotting deer, sleep in a room with a tower of bed frames (or just on a fold-out couch in the living room), and take my sons skating on the ice rink of our driveway on the Canadian border.

I don't know why she keeps coming to visit me, but she is even now en route from her home in Florida to our remote outpost of New Mexico. But I think this will her best visit yet. I have an actual room for her, with an actual bed and a door and everything!

Okay, so actually it's Cubby's room. I made that into the potential guest room by bringing home a queen-sized bed my parents were going to donate because my dad made a king bed for their guest room. I took the bed planning to put it in Cubby's room and kick him out of there to sleep in his brothers' room should we ever have a guest that needed a room.

That day has arrived.

It took some doing to transform that room from a room that is clearly inhabited by a nine-year-old boy into an acceptable guest room. But I'm pretty proud of the end result.

So of course I took some pictures for you. I should have taken "before" pictures so you could fully appreciate the remarkable transformation.

Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything about the hideous floral border thing near the ceiling that I didn't have a chance to paint over yet. Thanks, Dale.

That white bedspread will not stay on the bed when Cubby is back in residence.

I'm sure my sister will appreciate the cheesy '30s-era illustration of a lumberjack in a log jam. And the mason jar for water because I don't have any actual drinking glasses. Mason jars are still trendy, right?

Incidentally, that "bouquet" there? That was a stretch, for sure. The room was kind of bare looking, but it's not as if I have access to any fresh flowers. It's too early for anything much to be growing outside, either. Literally my only options were that feathery green weed that was growing near our fence and some branches from the apricot tree that is alllllmost about to bud out.

Can you see the teeny tiny pink buds?

It's not exactly a room at the Ritz, but it's a far sight better than some of my previous options for housing guests. And more importantly, I feed guests really well. I figure if I fill them up on homemade pizza and carnitas tacos, they'll be in too much of a food coma to stay awake to notice their rather basic quarters.

In any case, we're very excited to have SuperAunt come for another visit. And I am NOT going to have her help me plant the 49 Arizona Cypress trees that just arrived yesterday. No, I am not.

The most gracious of hostesses; that's me.

Making Dreams Come True

Clotheslines are very important to me. I've been hanging clothes outside to dry almost exclusively for years now. I like it, and I like not paying for the propane or electricity for a clothes dryer.

And now, settle in for a short history of my life with clotheslines. Whee! With many links to pictures of Clothesline I Have Known, because I appear to have a slight fixation.

Ahem.

The first clothesline I remember using was when I was growing up in Tucson. We had one on our back patio and my dad was pretty militant about us using it instead of the dryer. It takes clothes about two minutes to dry there, so I can see why he was so insistent about it. I found it kind of annoying at the time--teenagers are like that--but it started my clothesline experience.

The clothesline at Blackrock was always between two trees, as there are many, many trees to choose from there. First it was between the sweet gum tree and a cedar tree. (Bonus photo of that clothesline, because yikes, I have a LOT of photos of clotheslines on this blog.) Until the cedar tree almost fell right over from rot and had to be removed.

Then the clothesline was moved to a spot between a basswood tree, a utility pole, and a tulip poplar tree. Until the tulip poplar blew over in a violent storm. Then we just had the shorter clothesline between the basswood and the utility pole.

At our house in northern New York, there was no clothesline until A. put one up for me under the elevated porch. We eventually moved it to a spot between a birch tree and a spruce tree, so the clothes would get more sun and also not be right outside the back door. It was a pretty short line, though, so it wasn't good for much except hanging out blankets or whatever.

I never did get a clothesline put up at our rental house in the village here, mostly because there was nowhere convenient to run it and we didn't want to dig a giant hole in the yard to put in a standalone one.

When we moved to this house, A. put up a temporary clothesline for me between the fence and the shed. I never intended that to be the permanent spot because it wasn't long enough and also it was exposed to the often-strong winds here that would blow things right off the line with some regularity. The wind also blew loose dirt all around there.

I was determined that at this house, where we anticipate staying for many years and where the weather is good pretty much all year for line drying, I was going to have a clothesline that really worked the way I wanted it to, not just a random one put up wherever there happened to be supports for it. After all my experience with clotheslines in the past, I knew exactly what I wanted.

The preferred style of clothesline in this area is two T-bars of heavy pipe to make a double clothesline. I liked this idea very much and told A. that's what I wanted. With two full-length clotheslines, I would finally have enough space to hang two loads of laundry. I have never had this much clothesline space, and now that I have to do two loads of laundry every other day, I could only hang all my clothes out if I did a load every single day. And then I still couldn't put up sheets and other things.

I also spent some time thinking about where I wanted the clothesline positioned, eventually deciding on the backyard, which is completely enclosed by the house on the south side and a high board fence on the other three sides. This blocks the wind enough that even when it's blowing a gale everywhere else, there's never more than a pretty good breeze back there. Also, there are no trees there, which means no birds perching over the line and soiling the formerly-clean clothes with their droppings.

Gross.

A. built the clothesline I specified, in the place I requested. I bought some heavy-duty clothesline to put on the frame, some really awesome metal clothespins to anchor the clothes on the line even if the wind is strong (and also to replace most of the wooden clothespins I have always hated because they seem to break far too frequently).

We think it could use an additional prop in the center to hold everything up properly, but other than that easily-remedied issue, I have the clothesline of my dreams now:

Happy sigh.

And as a bonus, A. also made me a compost bin so I wasn't just dumping garbage in a pile in the corner of the back yard:

Incredibly ugly and cheap afghan left behind by Dale. Nothing is more patriotic than a compost bin.

Three cheers for A. He sure knows how to spoil a woman.