Friday Food: School Days

Friday 

Short version: Lamb ribs, curried split peas, garlic bread, roasted carrots and green beans

Long version: I'm trying to clear some of the bulkier packages of meat out of the freezer in anticipation of having an entire steer to cram in there in a few weeks. The lamb ribs qualify a bulky.

All I did was marinate them in lots of apple cider vinegar, garlic, salt, and pepper, then cook them covered for a few hours until they were tender.

Cubby tells me lamb ribs are his favorite meal, and if he had a million dollars, that's what he would buy.

We don't have a million dollars, but we do have the sheep from which we can harvest ribs. Lucky Cubby.

I doubt there are many millionaires who eat lamb ribs, anyway.

Saturday

Short version: Bull and gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans

Long version: The other thing I'm working on from the freezer stock is pressure-canning more of the bull meat. It's much more useful to me in the pressure-canned form, since that means it's tender. Since I had the pressure canner/cooker out, I used it after I did my canning to pressure cook about ten pounds of bull steaks. 

The pressure cooker obviously seals in all the juices, so I used the liquid from the cooker to make gravy ("lots," at Cubby's request), and then just sliced the meat and covered it with gravy.

Gravy=meat juices, onion, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cornstarch, and milk.

I rarely make gravy, but both Jack and Cubby wish I would do it much more often. It is pretty good.

Sunday

Short version: Roasted chicken, roasted potatoes, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, cow patty cookies

Long version: A. butchered another white meat chicken for me. We're down to three. I'm trying to just eat them fresh, rather than freeze them, to conserve freezer space for the steer.

Potatoes and cucumbers from the garden. Yay!

And . . . the cookies.

Cubby was looking over my shoulder a few days before when I was looking up a recipe and saw a video for these cookies. And then he chose them for his Sunday dessert choice.

I don't know why my children never choose anything basic like chocolate cake or chocolate chip cookies or something.

Anyway. The recipe is flourless, which means almost the entirely of the cookies is powdered sugar and chocolate chips. And egg whites.

There is much discussion of the egg whites, with the recipe calling for two or three depending on how dry the dough is as you're mixing it. I apparently don't have the same definition of "too dry," because I added the third egg white and ended up with something less like cookie dough and more like cake batter. That is, wet.

The dough is supposed to be rolled with your hands, but there was no way my dough/batter was rollable. So I just plopped it right onto the cookie sheets, where it promptly started spreading. And then it spread even more in the oven, until . . .

Yeah. Like I said, Cow Patty Cookies.

They ended up pretty tasty, although very sweet. As you would expect given the ingredients. The rest of the family enjoyed them quite a bit. Calvin even said they tasted like pots de creme, which I'm pretty sure is the highest compliment he can give.

I wouldn't make them again just for me, but Cubby wants to try again to see if we can make them more cookie-like and less . . . cow-patty-like.

Monday

Short version: Leftover chicken and gravy, leftover mashed potatoes, bread and butter, frozen peas

Long version: First day of school for the boys, first day of work for me, leftovers for dinner.

You'll see this a lot on Mondays and Wednesdays, which are my work days. Rummaging in the refrigerator and re-heating is the best way to get dinner on the table in short order.

I feel just like Poppy looks when I'm riding home on the bus at the end of the day. The bus aide is discouraged from napping, however. More's the pity.

Tuesday

Short version: Rooster tacos, carrot sticks

Long version: Our elderly neighbors brought us two more roosters, which A. killed and skinned for me, and I pressure cooked.

Then I picked the carcasses clean, shredded the meat, and combined it with salsa, garlic powder, and chile powder to make very fast taco meat. It was good.

Those young roosters always look they have no meat on them, but after the meat is stripped off, it's a surprisingly large amount. I really dislike picking meat off bones, but it's always worth it.

Wednesday

Short version: Barbecue beef, chicken tacos, carrot and cucumber sticks, bread and butter with apricot jam

Long version: Another workday! Hence, the random foods.

The last of the pot roast simmered with barbecue sauce for A. and me. That meat also went into sandwiches for Jack and Poppy.

Calvin had the tacos. And so did Jack. He ate two tacos after his sandwich. Jack is currently eating more than Cubby, who is quite a bit larger and also has three-hour football practices every day.

Kids' eating phases are weird.

All the kids had the bread and jam after Cubby got home from practice. Because sometimes, you just need to fill in the corners with bread and jam.

Thursday

Short version: Chicken stir-fry, rice

Long version: Surprise work day, to sub for the other teacher's aide. Luckily, I had made rice on Tuesday to have on hand for this dinner.

After getting home and lying down for a half hour or so--the first week of school is exhausting for everyone--I put together two bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables, the last of the leftover roasted chicken, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic powder, and peanut butter, and called it dinner. 

Forgot the ginger. Bummer.

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