Friday
Short version: Tuna melt sandwiches, carrot sticks with ranch dip
Long version: A. finally managed to catch the owner of the tiny store in the village when he was there (I struck out at least twice last week trying to get eggs), and found that he had a bag of carrots in his cooler. Hooray!
You don't know how exciting carrots can be until you live 60 miles from the nearest produce department.
So the kids had carrot sticks with their sandwiches.
I had the very last of the somewhat sad-looking lettuce with my tuna salad, along with grated carrots (hooray again!) and cheese.
Saturday
Short version: Cheese pizza and frozen peas for the kids, randomness in a pot for the adults
Long version: I had half a can of tomatoes in the refrigerator, a large block of asadero cheese (our substitute for mozzarella) in the refrigerator, and I was making bread. Sounds like pizza to me.
I only made one, but since A. and I didn't eat any, it was just enough for the children. They had the still-frozen peas as their appetizer. I do this a lot when whatever they're having for dinner doesn't lend itself to a separate vegetable. I suppose I could have put the peas on the pizza (or the exciting carrots), but I think there would have been some strong pushback on that.
I made the pizza sauce entirely in the microwave by simply mashing the tomatoes with my potato masher, adding salt, pepper, dried onion flakes, garlic powder, and dried basil, and microwaving it uncovered until the liquid was reduced. Cubby said it was the best pizza he'd ever had, so maybe I should do it that way from now on.
The randomness I made for A. and me was a soup that consisted of pressure-canned bull meat, the juice and a few of the tomatoes from a can, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, the last cup of mashed squash in the refrigerator, a can of green beans (from commodities that one of our neighbors gave us), and some of the dried lamb's quarters that I dry every spring and store in the pantry in a quart jar for the inevitable Lean Vegetable Times.
The only purchased ingredients in that soup were the onion, celery, the few tomatoes, and carrots. And it was surprisingly good.
Cheap eats 'R' us.
Sunday
Short version: Rib steaks, fried potatoes, frozen peas, dry chocolate cake with maple whipped cream
Long version: I don't usually fry potatoes, but I didn't get cooking early enough to make roasted potatoes. If only I had known Karen.'s tip about pre-cooking in the microwave. So instead I cut the potatoes thinly and fried them. They were popular.
Poppy had requested chocolate cake for Sunday dessert, and I agreed because it was my dad's birthday. Not that he was here to eat it with us, but the children were happy to eat his share.
Unfortunately, just as I put the cake in the oven, I asked the children if they wanted to play The Game of Life. An old version of it--based on the clothing of the family on the box, I'm guessing 1980s--was given to me by a retired teacher at the school.
Had I ever played this game before, I would never have suggested it to the children. It's like Monopoly; it goes forevvver. And there's all this money and math involved, so I had to be the banker.
In all the excitement (ahem), I forgot about the cake, so it baked about twenty minutes longer than it should have.
It didn't burn, but it was a bit dry. So instead of frosting, I whipped cream with maple syrup and broke the cake up into pieces so I could cover them in the whipped cream. Then I made the children sing Happy Birthday to my dad before I let them eat the cake.
I had made the rice in the morning for the dogs. See, we ran out of dog food on Tuesday, with no opportunity to get more until A. goes to pick up the van from the mechanic. Whenever that may be. But it's not as if we're lacking in meat and rice, which are main ingredients in a lot of homemade dog food.
So I made the pot of rice, and then they've been getting liver, bull scraps I trimmed off while preparing for canning, and some of the nasty pre-cooked hamburger patties from the giant bag the school cook gave us before Thanksgiving.
Those dogs are living the high life, and will probably not be enthused about the reappearance of kibble.
They'd better not get too used to it. I do enough cooking just for the people of the household. I don't need to add to my kitchen time by preparing custom dog food.
Thursday
Short version: Various foods
Long version: I used the pot of beans I cooked on Tuesday to make chili with some ground beef. This was a taste of my childhood; we always had beans and ground beef in our chili.
Cubby ate his chili over rice. The other three children had it as tacos with corn tortillas and cheese. And, thanks to A.'s trip to the grocery store, there was avocado for the top, which is always appreciated.
Last week's refrigerator. (A. also got a new lightbulb for me to replace the one that burned out last week, so it's not only fuller, but brighter.)
A., who doesn't eat beans, had the last of the leftover steak and some leftover cooked carrots.
The dogs had rice, bull scraps, liver, and some canned tomato soup we got from a neighbor that I offered the children for lunch and they refused to eat. After one taste, Cubby said, "You can give this to the dogs." So I did. The dogs didn't refuse it.
Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?