Friday Food: Costco Meat by Way of Arizona

Friday 

Short version: Soft tacos, beans, and treats

Long version: My mom had planned this meal, and she packed it all up and schlepped it over to our rental house so we wouldn't have to get back in the car to go to her house. She had bought a bunch of pre-cooked and shredded meats at Costco--beef, chicken, and pork--which she and my sister heated up for tacos. She had also made pinto beans, and my sister made some Spanish rice. There was also guacamole. That I did not make.

What did I make? Nothing. I ate, though. It was very luxurious.

My mom had also brought chocolate chip cookies and these little individual brownie things, both of which came from Costco and thus were in GIANT tubs. My children were thrilled, with both the indulgence of not one, but two dessert options, and by the sheer quantity.

It may be a good thing we don't have a Costco nearby.

After eating as many sweets as they could get away with, they all went to run around on the surprisingly verdant lawn with their cousins. Excellent mesquite trees for hanging a tire swing, too.

It's amazing what water will do in a desert.

Saturday

Short version: Spaghetti and meatballs, green salad

Long version: And what did I contribute to this meal? Again, nothing. We went to my parents' house for dinner, and again, my mom and my sister did everything. Well, my mom did ask me how I make meatballs, so I guess I provided a recipe, but that was the extent of my involvement.

The children ate poolside after burning approximately a million calories swimming. 

They could get used to this lifestyle.

Sunday

Short version: Salami, cream cheese, crackers, grapes, tomatoes, animal crackers, graham crackers with peanut butter

Long version: On our way home. We were trying to drive out of some terrible weather--heat, wind, ominous clouds, and what looked like smoke or dust--before camping, so we were in the car until just after the sun set. That's why the kids ate various snack foods for dinner.

They had the graham crackers and peanut butter after we finally set up our camp in the middle of nowhere. And that's all they had, because then it was dark.

Setting up the tent after the sun was down, but before it was completely dark. 

Monday

Short version: Chicken tacos, frozen corn

Long version: We made it home around 9:30 in the morning, so I had plenty of time to make dinner. What I did not have was the energy. Luckily, my mom had sent me home with all the leftover, unopened packages of meat from our Friday meal, so I used two pounds of the pre-cooked and shredded chicken breast to make taco meat. It didn't have any seasonings other than salt and garlic powder, so I added salsa, chili powder, cumin, and more garlic powder.

The lettuce I used both for my salad and the taco topping wasn't mine. My mom had also given me one of the fruit trays from Saturday's event for my brother-in-law, and the grapes and so on were on a bed of green leaf lettuce. I suspect a normal person would have thrown that lettuce away.

I, however, am not a normal person. I am a person who lives many miles from the nearest store-bought produce, and I have spent enough time without fresh produce that I could never bring myself to throw any away. So I brought it home. It was fine.

Tuesday

Short version: Sun-baked chicken casserole, pinto beans

Long version: I live in a place with very, very high UV levels. The combination of the blue, cloudless New Mexico skies and our high elevation means some extremely strong sun. So why, I have been asking myself, do I not have a solar oven?

Because someone has to build it, and A. is so busy all the time, he hasn't had a chance to do it yet. I mean, this is rad, but it would take a lot of time to build.

So I decided to experiment with the simplest possible solar oven.

I was just planning on making a casserole with the leftover taco chicken anyway, so I didn't even need to cook anything--just warm up and melt cheese. And it's certainly been hot enough; we arrived home just in time for temperatures well over 90 degrees every day.

I used my cast-iron dutch oven, because it is dark and retains heat well. I covered the bottom with corn oil, then a layer of the chicken (to which I had added some onion, green chili sauce, finely diced beet greens, and sour cream, plus the remainder of the cooked corn), then a layer of corn tortillas (thriftily using up the pieces from the ones that I had ripped in the bag), then some garlic powder, and then shredded cheese.

I covered the dutch oven with a glass lid and set it outside on the hood of the Honda.

This is actually my idea of fun, yes.

I put it out around 3 p.m., which is why I had to prop it with the rock, to get the angle right so it would get full sun. I left it out there about an hour, at which point the cheese was mostly melted, the chicken layer was warm, and there was some condensation on the underside of the lid. Unfortunately, some thin clouds covered the sun at that point, so I figured it wasn't going to get any hotter.

We actually could have eaten it like that, but I put it under the broiler for a second anyway, just to get the cheese all the way melted. 

So it kind of worked. If the clouds hadn't come over the sun a bit, I think it would have definitely worked. And it tasted really good.

Wednesday

Short version: Italian chicken, pasta, frozen peas

Long version: Yet more of the pre-cooked, shredded chicken. Since it's all breast meat, it's basically a blank slate, flavorwise. So this time I cooked some bacon earlier in the day, then I cooked some onion in the bacon grease. To that I added the chicken, a cube of green garlic puree, olive oil, and the last bag of Finny's sauce from the freezer.

For the kids, I cooked pasta and added butter, cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, and garlic powder, then mixed in some of the chicken mixture. A. and I had just the chicken topped with Parmesan and Romano cheeses.

It was a very good combination.

Thursday

Short version: Barbacoa tacos

Long version: This was the last of the several pounds of Costco meat my mom sent home with me. This package had barbacoa, which is chili-seasoned beef. Since it actually had a sauce with the meat, I didn't have to do anything but heat it up.

Actually, it had too much sauce, so I drained some of it and saved it for flavoring plain pinto beans. It didn't have any weird ingredients in it, and it tasted good, so I definitely wasn't going to let it go to waste.

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