Friday Food: Fishing and the Fair

Friday 

Short version: Barbecue bull, boiled potatoes, raw green beans

Long version: I should probably be saving the easy things--like the already-processed bull meat fried with barbecue sauce--for the beginning of the school year, when I have much less time. But, well, I didn't. And there's plenty of bull still in the freezer.

Saturday

Short version: Meatballs, garlic bread, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: I had to bake bread, so while that was in the oven, I also roasted a small pan of tomatoes and a few cloves of garlic. Then I used my immersion blender to puree that with fresh basil and balsamic vinegar, and that was the sauce for the meatballs.

I had a mostly empty bottle of mustard, so I added olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper to that bottle and shook it all up to make a salad dressing. That's what I used for the tomatoes and cucumbers. Yum.

Sunday

Short version: Steak, mashed potatoes, carrot sticks with curry dip, brownies

Long version: I don't know why mashed potatoes seem like a cold weather sort of food, but I certainly don't make them much in the summer. Maybe because all that mashing makes me too hot.

Monday

Short version: Pork, leftover mashed potatoes, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: Pork country ribs cooked in the morning in the oven (along with some blueberry/oat muffins), then fried in their own rendered fat at dinnertime.

I am very happy it's the season for tomato and cucumber salad. It's one of those things that is really not worth making with the tasteless produce from a grocery store.

Tuesday

Short version: Tuna/rice skillet, apricot popsicles

Long version: We went fishing!

This big lake is an hour from us, but only about fifteen minutes from Cubby's friend's house. He stayed there Monday night, so we took everyone--including his friend--fishing after we picked him up on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the only fish caught was a small catfish, so we had canned fish for dinner instead. I didn't actually plan that, but I'm always wrecked after a fishing expedition, and tuna is easy.

All I did was dump some cooked, frozen rice into a skillet with a bunch of butter and bacon grease and fry that with two cans of drained tuna and some frozen peas. And then mayonnaise and shredded cheese. Sorta white and bland, but serviceable.

Wednesday

Short version: Barbecue stir-fry, fresh bread and butter, carrot/cucumber sticks and raw green beans

Long version: I had taken out beef stir-fry meat, but didn't actually have the motivation (or the appropriate vegetables) to stir-fry. So instead I marinated it in the last of the mustard vinaigrette, fried it in butter, and added barbecue sauce.

This is the time of year when our vegetable is whatever I pull from the garden, usually raw. Although when I start to get calabacitas in greater numbers--like next week--there will be more cooking of vegetables.

Thursday

Short version: Pork tacos, cucumbers, canned peaches

Long version: We spent over five hours at the county fair, watching animals get prepared for showing, viewing the horse show, and running around like maniacs with friends.

Well, that last one was what my kids did. Despite my lack of actually running, I was still totally wiped out when we got home. The fair has that effect.

Maybe I should have taken a break midday like Jack did.

So all I did when we got home was fry a can of commodities pork in butter with garlic powder, chile powder, and cumin, then put that in corn tortillas with cheese.

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

T.T.: De-Shelling Hardboiled Eggs

I really dislike peeling hardboiled eggs. Even when the shells come off easily, the little pointy bits of shell always make my fingers hurt after a couple of eggs. And then, of course, everyone knows those particularly infuriating eggs that refuse to release their shells without half the egg going with them.

So, except for when I'm making deviled eggs, I don't actually shell them. Instead I use a spoon. You can do this for anything in which the eggs are going to be chopped up anyway.

Start by using the edge of a spoon to tap and gently crack all the way around the equator of the egg. Then break it in half and pull the two halves apart. 

Next, use the spoon to scoop the egg out of the shell on one half.

Let the spoon do the work.

Repeat with the other half, using the spoon to scrape off any egg that's sticking to the shell.

And that's it. A shell-less hardboiled egg with no sore fingers or shredded egg sticking to the shell.

Snapshots: Two Inches of Rain!

Behold:

It has been months since we've seen anything like this in our rain gauge.

All that rain filled some of the holes the children have randomly dug in the pasture. And so of course they must play in them.

Just like a wading pool, except mostly mud.

And another good puddle outside the gate that apparently is perfect for lying down in.

All that rain has of course meant that I haven't had to water the garden lately, which I very much appreciate. I'm starting to get some good harvests of summer vegetables from it. 

That's basil in the colandar, which I made into pesto for the freezer, and those big cucumbers became refrigerator dill pickles.

Speaking of the garden, A. built a stone wall in the front of the vegetable garden by the driveway to replace the rotting board fence with peeling paint.

Old nasty fence with the wall behind it (and a LOT of tomatoes in front of it).

And with the boards removed. But posts left so I can put fencing on them next year for green beans.

And finally, I was able to pick the first sunflower for the return of the sunflower and sage table arrangement.

Now we know it's summer. (That greenish yellow thing in the front is a flowering head of dill, which I was using for a contrast to the purple until I had the sunflower.)

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.