Friday Food: Pesto Pizza

Friday 

Short version: Hamburgers in camp, leftovers and eggs at home

Long version: A. took all four kids camping (although they got rained out and came home around 9 p.m.), so I packed them some pre-made hamburgers to heat up in the fire, plus bread and butter, trail mix, apples, and marshmallows.

I had leftover cabbage and mashed potatoes and cheese with a fried egg.

Saturday

Short version: Split pea soup, grilled cheese sandwiches

Long version: I'm finally making some headway with the split peas! I figured since it was relatively cool, I could make some soup with some of them. Also, I had a ham bone in the freezer I wanted to use. So I made the soup. 

It was okay. As split pea soup always is. I just can't get into it. Cubby, however, LOVES it, so I pressure-canned the remainder of the double batch I made in pint jars. That way, he can just open one for lunch whenever he wants. And we don't have to slog our way through the leftovers for a week.

Sunday

Short version: Italian sliders, pasta with pesto, corn on the cob, leftover calabacitas, pots de creme

Long version: I still had about half the ground beef left from when I made hamburgers a few days earlier, which I used to make the sliders. Those are just very small hamburgers with tomato sauce (I used a small container of leftover pizza sauce I had stashed in the freezer, plus some of the pesto I made earlier in the day) and asadero cheese melted on top.

I bought the corn on the cob when I was at the store earlier in the week. It wasn't the freshest corn, but given the fact that we don't live anywhere near corn-growing country, it's the best we were going to get. And the children were very happy with it.

Calvin chose the pots de creme. As he nearly always does on the days when it's his turn to choose.

We took a family outing to the canyon in the afternoon. 

Every outing requires a picnic, be it ever so humble (cheese, crackers, beef jerky, and grapes).

Monday

Short version: Barbecue bull sandwiches, carrot sticks with curry dip, applesauce and cream

Long version: I was making bread anyway, so I made some little buns for the bull meat. Also mixed some mayonnaise with curry powder to make the dip for the carrots.

Really going above and beyond with this meal, obviously. Ahem.

The real excitement, though, was the applesauce. There's a tree at an abandoned house in one of the villages that has red apples on it, so we stopped to pick some. Most of the apples here are green, and no good for sauce. I was hoping the red apples would be.

They were, but they were also incredibly wormy. I could only use about a quarter of the apples we picked, but from that I made two quarts of very good applesauce. Good flavor, and I didn't even need to add any maple syrup or anything to sweeten it.

The children were thrilled to have applesauce again, especially with cream for dessert. The boys are old enough to remember the gallons of applesauce I would make every fall in New York, and they miss it. So this was nice for them.

Tuesday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, bacon, corn tortillas with cheese, cucumber spears with ranch dip

Long version: Nah.

Wednesday

Short version: Last-minute pesto pizza, split pea soup, carrot sticks with ranch dip

Long version: This was not my plan for dinner. Because it was a work day for me, my plan had been to make tacos with the leftover pressure-cooked bull meat.

However.

This was also Poppy's very first day of school, ever. And she was feeling maybe a little delicate by the end of a long day. So, to celebrate her first day and make it a little bit special, I made a pizza.

I cut a small loaf of sourdough bread into three slices the long way, then spread those with the pesto I had made a few days earlier, topped it with asadero cheese, and baked it in a pan covered with olive oil. The children were very happy.

A. and I had the soup. It was not as good as the pizza. Of course.

Thursday

Short version: Steaks, boiled potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli, brownies

Long version: These are the very last steaks from the steer we got in February from our neighbors. And we ate them on the very day we got another steer for the freezer from a different neighbor. This steer was much bigger, and should last a lot longer than six months.

I used this method for making the vegetables. I considered growing broccoli next year, but the appearance of cabbage loopers on my cabbages has me reconsidering it. I really dislike finding caterpillars in the water when I cook broccoli.

I made the brownies with Poppy and her friend (I'm watching her friend a couple of days a week while her mom is figuring out more-permanent childcare) to celebrate their first day of preschool the day before. I had told Poppy we would have the brownies on the actual first day of school, but that didn't happen. So the next day it was. 

They tasted just as good the day after the first day of preschool.

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