Friday Food: Christmas Approaches

Friday 

Short version: Sirloin steaks, oven fries, green salad with ranch dressing, leftover pumpkin pudding

Long version: This is what I would have made the day before for A.'s birthday if I had been home. Since I wasn't, it had to wait until the day after his birthday. Appreciated all the same.

Saturday

Short version: Leftover steak, spaghetti with pesto, frozen peas, pureed squash

Long version: I have never managed to have enough basil in the garden that I can make enough pesto to not feel momentary regret for having used some in the winter. It sure is good, though.

Break for a Jasper action shot.

He leaps from windows with the greatest of ease!

Sunday

Short version: Birthday spaghetti and meatballs, green salad with ranch dressing, chocolate pudding with whipped cream

Long version: Jack's birthday request. Well, actually, it was his second choice. His first was pizza, but since I didn't have any usable flour, I had to give him a raincheck on the pizza. He chose spaghetti and meatballs as the runner-up meal.

He hasn't had a cake on his birthday in some time. He always chooses something like pudding instead. As a matter of fact, almost all of my children prefer dairy-based desserts to flour-based ones. Good thing, given my lack of flour.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: The younger children and I went to the church right after school to help decorate it for Christmas, so we didn't get home until almost 6 p.m. Good thing all I needed to do was heat up the leftover spaghetti and meatballs for the children.

A. had leftover steak and rice. Cubby had gone to lie down during dinner, saying he wasn't hungry. He appeared just after every last scrap of food had been eaten to announce he was feeling better and wanted to eat meat.

And because I am magic, I made some appear. He got about a cup of bull enchilada meat that had been in the freezer for awhile. I microwaved it with some cheese on top and he shoveled it down.

Tuesday

Short version: Meatloaf and baked potatoes; and then ham, scalloped potatoes, rolls, green beans, and lemonade cheesecake at school

Long version: I made the meatloaf and baked potatoes mostly to have leftovers for after work the next day, but they also ended up feeding Jack and A., who stayed home while the rest of us went to the school Christmas program. 

I also gave Jack the leftover birthday pudding. Poor guy. He was bummed to miss out on performing "The Gingerbread Dude" Reader's Theater his class was doing.

Poppy sang a seasons song and "Jingle Bells" with her preschool class. Calvin recited part of a sort of cowboy "Night Before Christmas" his teacher wrote, as well as performing the chicken dance and "Jingle Bell Rock." Cubby's job, as part of the FFA that was hosting it, was to set everything up, serve dinner, assist with the auction, and clean up.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, cake

Long version: Oh man. I was so deliriously tired when I got home after work. Poppy and I had gone to the church to decorate the Christmas tree there, so we didn't get home until after 5 p.m. I heated up leftover meatloaf and potatoes, plus rolls from the school cafeteria and some of the posole that had been lunch at school. We also had baby carrots, because I came home with much of the fresh vegetables from the school salad bar. Then the kids had some of the chocolate cake that Cubby had bid on and won at the auction the night before.

Thursday

Short version: Spaghetti with meat sauce, posole, carrots and bell peppers, molasses cookies

Long version: I found a bag of meat sauce in the freezer when I was cleaning them out that I think was some from the school cafeteria I froze awhile ago. I had two big, hard, tasteless tomatoes from the salad bar that I had brought home, so I diced those and microwaved them to get them soft, mashed them with a fork, and added them to the meat sauce along with garlic powder, more salt, and dried basil. That was for the children.

A. had more posole.

I had a salad with mostly things from the salad bar--spinach, pickled beets, carrots, cheese--plus the last small bit of meatloaf and some pecans. And I made the dressing with olive oil and the way too vinegary juice from my own pickled beets. I tried a new recipe for them this year that uses less sugar, but it made them almost inedibly vinegary. The brine is good for salad dressing as a vinegar substitute, though.

I don't know about at your house, but Christmas excitement is running high around here.

Poppy's drawing of our family with a Christmas tree reminded me of the Whos in Whoville around their tree.

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