Friday Food: A Tale of Two Fats (and Cream Cheese)

Friday 

Short version: Tuna noodle casserole, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I make tuna noodle casserole once a year, during Lent. This was it. I had a can of cream of mushroom soup from excess commodities that had been sitting around for a very long time, so I used it in this. 

Half the kids loved it. Half were ambivalent. This is the usual ratio of food appreciators:food detractors.

Saturday

Short version: Barbecue chicken sandwiches, green salad with ranch dressing, chocolate pudding, fresh bread with homemade cream cheese

Long version: I was baking bread, so I stole some of the dough to make buns and then made sandwiches by dicing the leftover chicken from when I made stock a few days before and adding barbecue sauce.

I've been having a lot of salad lately because I asked A. to buy me some more of the big clamshells so I'll have them to plant my tomato seeds in a couple of weeks. I don't know how anyone has room for those big, inflexible boxes of plastic in their refrigerators. So inconvenient.

I also had a couple gallons of milk that were at their best by date, so I made a recipe and a half of pudding. No one ever complains about pudding. And I managed to make it in my smaller pot, even though that meant it was literally almost overflowing.

I didn't spill a single drop of this. I was very impressed with myself.

The reason I had to use my smaller pot was that my bigger pot was full of cream cheese. 

Yes, I made cream cheese. I had been meaning to try it for awhile, and bought the starter culture and rennet for it some time ago. It wasn't until I had some more time over spring break that I actually tried it, though. It just requires half and half, the culture, rennet, and salt. It was very easy, very delicious, and a big hit with my children.

I made a pound and a half of cream cheese and it was all gone in two days. Yikes.

Cream cheese draining.

I think cream cheese, like yogurt, can actually be kept going indefinitely by using some of the previous batch to inoculate the next batch. The question is whether I want to be making cream cheese every week in addition to everything else I already do in the kitchen.

Stay tuned.

Sunday

Short version: Brisket, mashed potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, rice pudding or baked apples

Long version: Since I was going to make the rice pudding and that bakes for four hours, I also put in the brisket. That takes even longer, of course. About ten hours. So I also baked the apples in there, just a couple that had bad spots and needed to be used. I have one child that doesn't like rice pudding, so he was happy with the apples and heavy cream.

Brisket always results in quite a bit of rendered fat, which of course we all know better than to throw away, right? Right. 

Monday

Short version: Chopped chicken patties, leftover mashed potatoes and cheese, raw cabbage

Long version: My plan had been to have eggs with the mashed potatoes, for a quick workday meal. But then I got all the leftover chicken patties from the school lunch, so instead I chopped those up and fried them in butter to re-heat them. They ended up kind of like chicken nuggets, I guess.

Tuesday

Short version: Grillades, rooster rice, raw cabbage

Long version: I used the saved brisket fat to brown the meat before braising it, and then the remainder of the brisket liquid to cook it.

I very much enjoy the alliteration of "rooster rice," but it also happens to be factually accurate, as I made the rice with a jar of rooster stock that didn't seal when I canned it.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, frozen peas

Long version: The one child who loves sandwiches finished up the barbecue rooster meat. Poppy had a chicken patty and rice. The other boys had brisket and the rest of the leftover mashed potatoes and cheese. They all had the peas.

Thursday

Short version: Meatloaf, roasted potatoes, pureed calabaza, sauerkraut, raw cabbage, Mexican wedding cookies

Long version: I made the cookies in the morning with Poppy, mostly because I have a lot of nuts on hand and Mexican wedding cookies use almost as much nuts as flour. I used this recipe, but I added a bit of salt, because every recipe needs a bit of salt.

I also made the dough entirely in the food processor, as I had to use it anyway to grind the walnuts. This worked fine, although it is a very thick, stiff dough, so I had to scrape it and rearrange it a few times in the processor.

Because these are rolled in powdered sugar after they're baked, they're not a great cookie-jar cookie--they get a bit sticky--and I certainly wouldn't send them to school as a snack, but they were a fun weekend cookie.

The only reason I made roasted potatoes with the meatloaf is because I had the two cookie pans that could be rinsed off and used again before being washed, so I used one for the meatloaf and one for the potatoes. 

Also, I had all that fat in the refrigerator that needed to be used. In addition to the brisket fat, which was a bright orange from the tomato sauce I had put in with the brisket, I had the bright yellow chicken fat taken off the top of the rooster stock before I canned it.

So cheery.

Perfect for roasting potatoes. I finished off the brisket fat and used a little of the chicken fat, too. It made for some very tasty potatoes.

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