Friday
Short version: Tacos with leftover taco stew meat, green salad with ranch dressing
Long version: Nah.
Saturday
Short version: Very exciting bull stir-fry, leftover rice, fresh bread
Long version: Lately I've gotten very lazy with my stir-fries, relying on pressure-canned bull meat and bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables from the store. There's nothing wrong with this, and it does make a tasty dinner very quickly.
It is, however, nowhere near as good as this stir-fry was.
I took out a bag of bull meat labeled "stir fry" in the morning. Every time we butcher, I save some of the cleanest lean pieces and slice them very thinly, labeling them this way for (I bet you guessed this) stir fry.
However, knowing what I know now about the toughness of this bull meat, I elected to cut the thin slices of meat again in thin slices in the opposite direction, thereby creating much smaller thin pieces. Those I marinated in soy sauce, corn oil, vinegar, garlic powder, and ginger powder all day.
I was going to use one of those handy bags of frozen vegetables, but decided to take a tour of the garden first to see what it had to offer in the way of stir-fry vegetables. This is what I found:
Sunday
Short version: Pork and sauerkraut, baked potatoes, roasted green beans, lettuce with vinaigrette, Floating Islands
Long version: I used the very last pint jar of last year's sauerkraut on the same day I harvested the very first of this year's cabbages. I didn't use the fresh cabbage to make sauerkraut, though. You'll see that later this week.
Is it a salad if it only has lettuce in it? Not sure, but that's what it was: just lettuce with a vinaigrette.
And then we have the Floating Islands. What is Floating Islands? Well may you ask. It's what I made for Sunday dessert. The full story will be coming shortly. Until then, you'll have to live in suspense. Or take the time to Google it yourself if you're really desperately curious, I suppose.
Monday
Short version: German (?) stew meat, fried potatoes, coleslaw, chocolate pudding
Long version: I cooked the stew meat in the morning with just onion, green garlic, and some chicken stock I had hanging around int he refrigerator. I didn't have any specific plan for it. At dinnertime, I decided to make it sort of like barbecue, so I put in some ketchup, mustard, vinegar, and maple syrup. Then A. tasted it and exclaimed, "The flavor! It's German!"
It was kind of like sauerbraten, actually. I was maybe a little heavy-handed with the vinegar. Luckily, I love sauerbraten.
I made this pudding the day before because I had six egg yolks left from making the Floating Islands. The pudding was way better than the Floating Islands.
Tuesday
Short version: Wascally Wabbits, mashed potatoes, beet greens, leftover coleslaw, leftover pudding
Long version: Is "Iron Chef" still a thing? That was the show where the contestant/chefs didn't know what ingredients they were getting until it was presented to them and then they had to scramble to make it delicious.
I feel like I could do a rural mom version of that show. This day's episode would have featured the two rabbits that appeared in my kitchen at 10 a.m.
The reason they appeared in my kitchen is that two of the rabbits were out of the casita. A. thinks they may have been out there since the last time the door was forced by some predator, and those two had just been living like wild rabbits, hiding during the day and coming out to eat at night.
In any case, since they were out, they were, uh, harvested.
So we had rabbit.
Because I have a lot of dill in the garden right now, I separated the rabbits into pieces, browned them, and simmered them with diced onion, lots of dill, and some rooster stock. Then I added some sour cream at the end.
The meat was tasty in the end, but you know, I just really don't like the rabbit meat that much. I find it to be a lot of effort to make palatable, and even then, it's not great, just pretty good.
Anyway.
I cooked beet greens because the heavy rains we got beat down my beets*, so I pulled out the worst-looking ones. The beets were very small, and I ate those in my lunch salad. The greens I cooked for dinner--butter, vinegar, salt.
Wednesday
Short version: Leftovers and randomness, leftover meringue and caramel sauce
Long version: The majority of the family had leftover pork and sauerkraut for their protein. Cubby had leftover rabbit. He also had leftover mashed potatoes heated up with cheese. The other kids had tortillas with cheese as their starch. And everyone had frozen green peas.
I had just a little meringue left from the Floating Islands, and quite a bit of caramel sauce. So I drizzled some of the sauce on the meringue and the kids had dessert yet again. Calvin announced of this, "This is pushing the limits on sugar."
Yeah.
Thursday
Short version: Steaks, curried split peas, rice, sauteed garlic scapes and snow peas
Long version: I did some harvesting earlier in the day the resulted in this:
A beautiful sight indeed.
I sauteed the scapes and snow peas just with olive oil and salt until the peas were tender and the scapes were a little crispy.
Crispy garlic scapes are one of my favorite vegetables. Hooray for A.'s excessive garlic. I will eat all the scapes he lets me have.
This was one of those meals where the children just kept on eating. Every one of them had seconds of something, some had thirds. I don't know why they do this some nights, and other nights barely finish their servings.
Anyway, they ate a lot. It was a delicious dinner, I must say. A. cooked the steaks and he does better keeping them rare, so that probably helped, too.
Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?
* Jack was really into their homophone lesson in school last year. He would appreciate that sentence.
steak, chicken breast, asparagus, garlic bread, strawberries
ReplyDeletepotato & ground beef taco meal in crockpot, garlic bread, asparagus
shrimp taco's, broccoli
roasted carrots, ground beef & zucchini skillet, strawberry shortcake
chicken stir fry with rice, strawberry shortcake
turkey & cheese melts, roasted squash, strawberry shortcake
And for tonight grilled chicken breasts, salad, strawberry shortcake
I know that you are thinking that's alot of strawberry shortcake...I eat mine with the traditional not too sweet cake & milk. Husband however, likes whipped cream on his. I did break down & make homemade whipped cream, as I had extra whipping cream in the fridge.
Linda
Linda: I would never think that's a lot of strawberry shortcake. I am familiar with the glory of strawberry season in the Northeast.
ReplyDeleteAccording to this chart you'd need about 12-to-1 ratio of fresh grated ginger to powder: https://www.reluctantgourmet.com/converting-fresh-herbs-to-dried-ratios/
ReplyDeleteI remembered the conversion as 3-to-1 but it turns out that's only for leafy herbs, and basil (which I'm currently growing) is one of the exceptions to that.
I don't measure herbs, I just add what looks right and adjust as I go, but I was surprised by just how much different the ginger was. I'll definitely have to up that next time I do stir-fry.
I have so much admiration for how game you are for cooking random...game. I love to cook, but if a whole rabbit or chicken (not even going to imagine the bull) appeared in my kitchen, I'm not sure I could "process" the carcass to the point of getting edible pieces.
ReplyDeleteDrew: Ah. That's a lot of fresh ginger. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteLauren: To be fair, A. does the initial processing and delivers it to the kitchen relatively ready to cook. I don't skin/gut/remove heads/etc. That said, it's still not as ready to cook as a chicken or something from the store.
Garlic scape pesto on gf pasta for dinner tonight!
ReplyDeleteI used to cook rabbit years ago (my husband trapped it) and I found the same thing. However much I wrestled with it and however I spiced it up, it was still just rabbit.
ReplyDeleteFriday-meat pies
Saturday-meatballs, potatoes, strawberry shortcake
Sunday-cornbread and sausage, broccoli
Monday-my daughter had a cookout for Memorial Day. Brats, coleslaw, seven layer jello
Tuesday-potato and carrot bake
Wednesday-wilted swiss chard and lettuce, sourdough biscuits
Thursday-eggs, leftover sausage from Sunday, potatoes, salad
Friday: charcuterie platter at the local watering hole
ReplyDeleteSaturday: gathering with family so lots of grilled chicken, pork ribs and various side dishes. My contributions were a chicken caesar salad with a lemon dressing and a black bean and corn salad that the vegans could eat.
Sunday: leftovers from Saturday
Monday: more leftover food from Saturday. No one is ever hungry after our family gatherings and I didn't really have to cook for 2 days.
Tuesday: beef and bean tacos
Wednesday:grilled chicken, crazy good rice, tomato cucumber salad
Thursday: shakshuka on crazy good rice, chapati. I tried making the chapati myself and they were ok but not great.
Pam in Maine