Let's kick this off with a fun Friday Food fact: I have now recorded our every dinner for FOUR STRAIGHT YEARS. I started doing this on March 2, 2018, and I have not missed one single Friday in that whole time.
I'm not sure if that's impressive or lame. Maybe both.
Regardless, let's carry on, shall we?
Friday
Short version: Salmon patties, mashed potatoes, sauteed zucchini/tomato/onion with feta cheese
Long version: We got several cans of salmon from Miss Amelia some time ago, and I've been saving the last four cans for Lent, knowing I would need it for Friday meatless meals. I used all four cans to make 13 large salmon patties (salmon, eggs, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, mustard, pepper, dill).
Random stove shot:
Saturday
Short version: Many leftovers, sauteed green beans, raw cabbage
Long version: My refrigerator was way too full, so, even though I had a guest, we had leftovers. I don't consider leftovers to be a hardship if the food was good to begin with.
So everyone had some combination of salmon patties, lamb, carnitas, rice, and mashed potatoes. A. finished his pigs' feet chile (except for the couple gallons I froze). And I could once again put something in the refrigerator without playing Tetris to make it fit.
The green beans were a last-minute save of a bag I got from Misfits Market a week and a half prior. They were way overdue for cooking, but I only had to give a few to the chickens. Yay me.
The adults ate the green beans. The kids ate raw cabbage.
Sunday
Short version: Meatballs, spaghetti, roasted peppers and onions, fried mushrooms, peanut butter balls
Long version: You may celebrate Pi Day. I apparently celebrate Ball Day. Meatballs, peanut butter balls, so many balls rolled, and all delicious.
(I will not be making any off-color jokes here about that. This is not that kind of place.)
Monday
Short version: More leftovers
Long version: Work day, leftover day! I did go to all the effort of heating up the leftover pork with sauerkraut and a chopped potato that I microwaved, so that was my sole concession to having a guest.
Otherwise, it was leftover meatballs, leftover spaghetti (no sauce left, so I just heated it up with butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder for the children), and various leftover vegetables.
I told the MiL I should have my hostess certification revoked for serving leftovers twice to a guest, but since no one has bothered to actually give me a certificate for hostessing, no one can take it away. So there.
Tuesday
Short version: Bare-bones tacos, still-frozen green beans
Long version: Two pounds of ground beef browned with some already-cooked onion the MiL made when she was making potato soup for feverish Cubby (she remembered that you should always just cook the onion), cumin, garlic powder, paprika, and green chile. Drop that into corn tortillas microwaved with cheese on them, and that's it. That's the taco.
I was not feeling ambitious, quite obviously.
Wednesday
Short version: Leftovers, rainbow carrot flight
Long version: Even less ambitious. A choice of the same basic tacos or leftover meatballs with bread and butter.
The only interesting part of this meal was the selection of carrots that arrived from Misfits Market this very day. Just for the novelty factor, I chose a bunch of "rainbow" carrots, which meant there were two each of orange, yellow, and purple carrots. I cut each carrot into pieces and allowed the children to do a taste-test of every color.
Verdict: Yellow was the clear loser. Purple and orange were more or less interchangeable.
Thursday
Short version: Leftovers+green food
Short version: Leftover meatballs and for A., some more of his pigs' foot chile that I froze. Because it was St. Patrick's Day, I also made pasta with pesto. Not Irish--at all--but green! And a tradition in our house.
I had to sub for a teacher, so I delegated green cookies to Cubby. He was home recuperating from the nasty fever that laid him out in the earlier part of the week. He was mostly recovered, just still a bit weak and needing rest, so he stayed home again and I gave him the cookie project.
The cookies were a kit my sister brought us for, um, Halloween. They're supposed to be "monster" cookies--green with eyeballs--but we never got around to making them for Halloween. And then I thought we could make green cookies for Christmas, but there was so many other treats around at Christmas that I never did it then, either.
But there is yet ANOTHER holiday for which green cookies are appropriate!
13 comments:
pizza, salad
chicken taco salad, corn chips
pork stir fry, rice
taco salad w/tilapia, corn chips
turkey tenderloin, sweet potatoes in crockpot, broccoli/cauliflower
zucchini pizza, roasted potatoes
tuna melts or turkey sandwiches, broccoli
Linda
Tuesday night: eggs on gf toast. Wednesday: red cabbage, as I made a whole cabbage according to Luchow's recipe. Thursday:. A chunk of ham steak and more red cabbage, which turned out to be the best I had ever made.
Frozen pizza and frozen corn dogs because hubby was gone a good chunk of the week.
I admire your consistency in recording your meals! That’s about 1,000 days- wow! Since it’s just me here now, I’m pretty loose about planning and recording, but it was really helpful when I did. I was lucky to have a non-picky husband, and he probably would have eaten pig-feet chili, lamb whatever, some organs, mystery commodity foods- he liked everything except bananas, milk, and eggs! Apparently was force-fed these as a tiny boy.
I used throw-away/extra/charity calendars to try to plan a month at a time. First I’d cross out when we wouldn’t be eating at home or known late work or have-to-eat-fast-and-early days and plug in easy and quick meals. Then special occasion dinners or guests. Then I’d fill in by alternating meat main dishes (chicken, beef, pork, veg, fish) so we wouldn’t be having the same kind of thing too often. Also could fill in by types of meals (soup, salad, breakfast, sandwiches, casseroles) or cuisine styles ( Italian, Mexican, Asian). If I needed inspiration, I looked through my big cookbook collection, or some blogs. Then I kept the calendars when they were done for future use, marking what we didn’t like, trying new recipes or combinations to keep myself somewhat interested. I kept a pretty well-stocked pantry and freezer, and always had fresh veggies for salads or sides. It was easy and got easier. It took minutes a month, making grocery lists, and looking at sale ads took minutes a week, and I could cook ahead for busy days since I had everything already. I was glad I had a pleasant and workable system when friends or co-workers woul say at 4 pm that they had no idea what to feed their families, still had to shop, paid lots more for fast food or prepared/convenience meals!
But, I don’t live out in the wilderness or have four kids! You are amazing!
Another week of uninspired dinners here in the Midwest. Tuna salad, homemade pizza (given that I rushed the crust and raised it for only half the required time, they were great!), probably chicken and vegetables, fried rice, roast beef sandwiches, grilled cheese , instapot corned beef and Irish soda bread.
I usually have broccoli or string beans around. Always cookies- though I bought oreos thus week instead of baking!
You could call your meal appropriately Sphere day, given that balls= spheres and certainly have something to do with pi.also less lascivious sounding.
Hello, this week we ate:
Monday - Ham, broiled pineapple, cucumbers, bread.
Tuesday - Ham, green onion and cheese quiche, orange slices, toast.
Wendsday - Still had a small chunk of ham left so I sauted it with peppers and peas served over rice, passed the sweet and sour sauce and called it dinner.
Thursday - Shrimp scampi over angel hair pasta, green salad, bread to mop up the sauce.
Friday - Picked up some strawberries and blueberries so I'm thinking blueberry waffles topped with strawberries....what?...breakfast sausage to go with.
Breakfast for dinner for the win.
Happy weekend everyone.
your Friday food: impressive. Not lame.
Friday-vegetable soup because of Lent, cheesy biscuits
Saturday-St. Patrick's Day early. Corned beef (a tiny can so everybody got about two bites, but fresh corned beef was $8.39 a lb and I'm not paying that), oven-fried potatoes, broccoli. 7 year old had yogurt, but then tried a tiny bite of corned beef and approved of it. Molasses cookies.
Sunday-ham and cheese on sourdough biscuits, salad
Monday-leftover cabbage soup, fresh bread
Tuesday-stuffed peppers
Wednesday-eggs, oven-fried potatoes, broccoli
Thursday-barbecued pork on a bun, coleslaw
4 years of meals is pretty darn impressive. Do you write it down during the week? I have to think hard to remember what I ate 3 days ago and often simply can't remember. At least I (almost) always have tacos on Tuesday and pizza on Saturday so those days are easy.
Friday: pork roast in the crockpot which turned into pulled pork with barbecue sauce sandwiches topped with coleslaw, baked potatoes
Saturday: had a late lunch with visiting family and decided not to cook anything. Those that were hungry later in the evening ate leftover pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw and baked potato
Sunday: pizza topped with barbecue sauce, shredded pork, baby kale and cheddar cheese. I forgot to make the quick pickled red onions to put on this which really makes this an incredibly good pizza
Monday: leftover pizza still with no onions but my husband had a few raw veggies with his pizza
Tuesday: fish tacos experiment 1, seasoned baked pollack topped with a slaw made with a spicy mayo/sour cream dressing
Wednesday: fish taco experiment 2, leftover pollack from Tuesday topped with a slaw made with sesame oil/rice vinegar/chilli sauce dressing. Experiment 1 was the winner but not by much. We both preferred the spicy mayo dressing to the spicy vinegar dressing
Thursday: Irish bangers, colcannon
Pam in Maine
Such fun! I love your creativity in the kitchen. Do you like Misfits Market? I've been considering them, but haven't jumped in yet.
Daisy: Misfits Market has been nothing less than life-changing for me here in the middle of nowhere. I did a whole post about it a couple of months ago. If you want to try it, you can click on the link in the post, and you'll get $10 off your order (I also get a $10 credit).
Pam: I usually start the post on Monday or Tuesday so that I remember accurately the beginning of the week, and then add to the draft once before doing the final writing on Thursday. I do have a remarkable memory for food, but I would probably forget some side dishes, etc. if I didn't have an ongoing record during the week.
Kristin...love all your posts! would love to have the mil's recipe for the red cabbage. getting ready to plant all types of cabbage soon with red being in the lineup. Thanks!
Jackie: The recipe the MiL uses is the same one I used to use when we lived with her. It's from a cookbook from a long-closed German restaurant in NYC called Luchow's. I used to make a pretty big quantity of this red cabbage every fall and freeze it. I found it online here https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=561762
However, I remember there were changes I made to it, so I'll write it up for the Tuesday Tip with those suggestions. Thanks for the idea, and for the kind words.
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