Friday Food: Arizona Bound

Friday 

Short version: A melange of leftover meats, bread and butter, raw cabbage, sauteed beet greens

Long version: A. had the leftover steak, and the rest of the leftover rabbit, plus the beet greens. They were the greens from just one beet that I pulled because it was starting to go to seed. I sauteed the greens in butter with a bit of vinegar and garlic powder, and there was just enough for him.

The rest of us had the remainder of the accidental sauerbraten-like stew meat. I had mine in a salad with the singular beet, some sprouting broccoli, a bit of cheese, and some leftover peas. The kids had theirs heated up, with the raw cabbage and the bread and butter.

Random, but it worked.

Saturday

Short version: Sausage-y meatloaf, tater tots, Holy's cabbage, cucumber and dill salad

Long version: I thought I was out of ground beef, but then I discovered a few packages hiding at the bottom of what I thought was a box full of stew meat.

The excitement was real.

So I stretched the ground beef with some of the Sysco breakfast sausage, which actually makes for a better meatloaf, anyway.

And why are we having tater tots again? Because of the GIANT BAG I bought.

When I bought the tater tots, I of course looked for the store brand, as I almost always do for things like that. I mean, it's junk food. Does it matter if it's Ore-Ida brand junk food? No.

Anyway. 

The only generic tater tots came in this huge bag. "Yikes," I said. "That's a huge bag." To which A. responded with confusion, "So?" And I thought, Oh yeah. There is no such thing as too much anymore in our house when it comes to food.

So. Tater tots.

Cubby was thrilled to be having not only tater tots, but also meatloaf. And not only meatloaf, but meatloaf with sausage in it. Three of his favorite things, all at once.

The cucumber salad was just sliced cucumbers with a tiny bit of onion, sour cream, vinegar, and a TON of fresh dill from the garden. I actually thought ahead and salted the cucumber slices to release some water. But I actually don't like the result, which is soft instead of crunchy. No more thinking ahead for me.

Sunday

Short version: Green chili stew meat tacos, sauteed scapes and snow peas, pots de creme

Long version: How lazy have I gotten with the stew meat? So lazy that literally all I do is brown some of the meat (it takes too long to brown every single piece of the four pounds or so that I cook at once), then dump things in. No chopping, thank you. In this case, four cubes of green garlic puree, two cubes of green chili sauce, and half a jar of rooster stock that was in the refrigerator. I put some sour cream in there, too, when the meat was tender.

I think this was the last really big skillet of scapes and snow peas I'm going to have this year, which is sad. Because not only is it so delicious, but look how pretty:

Nothing is more vibrantly green than this. It's spring in a skillet.

Pots de creme was Calvin's toilet-cleaning-reward choice. I couldn't help but note how much easier it was than those Floating Islands. More universally appreciated, too.

Monday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, bread and butter, snow peas with ranch dip

Long version: I also discovered in the freezer a bag of hamburger patties I had made and frozen some time ago. That was like striking gold.

We hadn't had hamburgers in awhile, and everyone was very happy to see them again. All the children had seconds. Good thing I had fried a couple of eggs for A., too, which meant the eight hamburger patties went a little farther among the six of us. 

A. likes to stack his cheeseburger patties with the fried eggs and then top them with mayonnaise and ketchup. He calls this "The Tower of Power." I still don't see the appeal, but it makes him happy.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover green chili stew meat, fresh bread, beets, beet greens

Long version: I actually got beets of a usable size this year! Hooray! Last year's beet planting in the back pasture just got fried, I think, but this year's smaller cell* of beets in the propane-yard garden grew well and I pulled a few out for dinner.

I love beets. LOVE them. I keep trying to grow enough to pickle some so I can have them in the winter, too, but I haven't managed that yet. Next year, I'm planting twice as many.

Poppy, apparently, does not love beets. And Calvin doesn't mind beets, but does not appreciate how they stain the rest of the food on his plate bright pink. 

It is a little unappealing when your meat looks like it's bleeding, I must admit.

Wednesday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, chicken patties, fake baked beans, green salad with ranch dressing, leftover crepes

Long version: This is the sort of meal I make the night before we leave for a trip. Scrounged food to use up stuff in the refrigerator. The crepes the kids had for dessert fall into that category.

I made some baked beans with a pint jar of the canned pinto beans, plus ketchup, mustard, vinegar, dehydrated onion flakes, and maple syrup. They weren't bad. The three kids that like baked beans liked them, anyway.

Thursday

Short version: Camping food

Long version: And we're off! To Tucson, that is, for my brother-in-law's celebration of life. Although the trip can be done in one long day, we're splitting it up over two days. Which means camping. And because we're bringing our semi-feral dogs with us, that means wilderness camping.

We won't be at a campground or anything, just somewhere random in the mountains, so there is every possiblity that we won't be able to have a fire due to the drought conditions in our state. But we also might be able to have a fire!

So I planned for food that can be either heated in a campfire, or eaten cold. And that food is meatloaf. 

Meatloaf is greatly underrated, in my opinion.

Also, I had the remainder of a bag of potatoes to use, so I made a potato salad with an oil-and-vinegar (and mustard and lots of dill) dressing. There's some bacon in there, too. 

I used this recipe and actually added the sugar, against my better judgement. It's not inedibly sweet, but I don't think it needed the sugar. Certainly not that much, anyway. It's good otherwise, though, so if I ever make it again, I'll keep that in mind.

I made extra of the dressing so I can also tear up some lettuce and add it right to the potato salad. Two salads in one, a green vegetable with the starch, and it uses up some lettuce. I harvested most of the lettuce before we left. It's going to be hot, and I didn't want it to bolt (send up flower stalks--it gets bitter then) and become unusable while we're gone. 

I don't worry overly much about extra vegetables at meals while we're on a roadtrip, because we always have raw fruits and vegetables in the car with us that the kids snack on while we're driving.

For this trip, that's carrot and celery sticks, and a LOT of snow peas from the garden. (This is a gallon-size bag.)

I have some marshmallows, too, although if we can't have a fire, the kids can't roast them. In which case, I'm sure they'll have no problem eating the marshmallows cold.

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

* One of the most important things we have learned about gardening here is that every plant needs to be in a depressed area so it can be flooded with several inches of water. So things are either in trenches, or in cells, which have walls of soil all around to hold the water.