Friday Food: We Made Bullburger

Friday 

Short version: Spaghetti and meatballs, raw kohlrabi, peach/blueberry crisp

Long version: To make the sauce for the meatballs and spaghetti, I used the last quart jar of roasted, pureed tomatoes from last year's garden, a few cubes of frozen green garlic puree from last year, and a few cubes of frozen pesto from last year. That's all. And it was SO GOOD.

The ingredients really do make the difference. Alas for grocery store food. Always so disappointing.

Anyway.

I have never managed to make a crisp with peaches and blueberries that is actually crisp. The topping is inevitably submerged in the juices from the fruits. Also, the filling needed more sugar in it. Not that anyone refused to eat it.

Also, both the peaches (Nick's) and the blueberries (Sysco) came from the freezer as well. I often say I shop my freezers rather than stores. This meal was a good example of that.

Saturday

Short version: T-bone steaks with caramelized onions and herb butter, mashed potatoes, green salad with herby ranch dressing

Long version: Steaks and caramelized onions from the freezer, too. Herbs--parsley and green garlic--from the garden. The salad dressing had the same parsley and green garlic, with the addition of dill.

I love garden season. And my freezers.

Sunday

Short version: Thanksgiving in June

Long version: It all started with a request from one child that I roast the whole chicken A. had bought. While I was getting the chicken out of the freezer, I found the last two bags of pureed squash from the garden last year. I decided to use these to make pumpkin pie for our Sunday dessert. This reminded Poppy of Thanksgiving, and so we decided to make a sort of pared-down Thanksgiving dinner.

So! Roasted chicken and gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing (bread cubes, lots of butter, onion, celery, chicken stock, sage), green salad with herby ranch dressing, and not one, but two pumpkin pies.

I made two because I had enough squash for two, and the pie dough recipe makes two crusts. However, I only have one pie pan, so I used a  cake pan. This is when I discovered why pie pans are shaped the way they are: On a straight-sided pan, the pie dough slips right down to the bottom, leaving nothing on the sides.

Except for that tiny little bit poking out on the side there.

I used a different recipe for the filling this time, which A. declared the best ever in terms of texture. I think next time I'll add more spices to it, though. And of course, I whipped cream to go with it.

The children's favorite part of holiday meals is that I set the food up in a buffet on top of the liquor cabinet, so they can serve themselves. So that is what I did for our Thanksgiving in June, and they were happy.

Monday

Short version: Chicken rice soup, leftover spaghetti, leftover pie

Long version: I used the chicken carcass to make a stock, then pulled about a cup of meat off the carcass after it simmered a few hours. That is what I used--along with rice, mushrooms, onions, carrots, peas, and some finely chopped kohlrabi greens--to make the soup. Those who had soup also had rye crisps and cheese.

Others had leftover spaghetti with diced chicken, and leftover peas.

This worked out well, as there wasn't enough spaghetti for everyone anyway, and not everyone likes soup.

Tuesday

Short version: Shepherd's pie

Long version: I had quite a lot of mashed potatoes leftover from the two nights we had them previously, so I took out a package of ground beef and made some shepherd's pie. I have one child who dislikes cooked carrots, so this time I only used green peas and pureed calabaza for the vegetables in the meat.

The same child dislikes calabaza, but it's indetectable when it's pureed and used in something like this. Sneaky.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: Shepherd's pie for the children, steak and pureed calabaza for A., and a salad with diced chicken for me.

Thursday

Short version: Bull and bean tacos with homemade corn tortillas

Long version: When I organized the chest freezers, I found we only have around a month of meat in there. But that wasn't counting the bull meat that I still-still!--haven't cooked, even though we've had it for over two years now.

The problem with the bull meat is that it's just soooo tough. Even after being pressure-cooked and food-processed, it's still dry. Fine in casseroles, I've found, but still difficult to use.

However!

I actually bought a manual meat grinder five months ago, thinking we would use it to make sausage, since we can't get good sausage here. I hadn't used it yet, though. But now it's summer! I have so much time! I can grind things!

So I took out some bull steaks and the extra fat from the cow we got last year, and enlisted A. to turn the handle.

Grinding.

The grinder part worked pretty well, although we couldn't get it to suction to the counter, so it was all wobbly. 

It definitely ground the meat, though, and that's what I used to make taco meat, along with some pressure-canned beans.

I figured since we had gone to all that work to make the ground beef, I might as well make the tortillas, too. So I did.

The meat was good. It definitely had more texture to it than most ground beef, but it wasn't chewy or anything. Which means we're going to be doing a lot more grinding in the near future.

Oh! And we had the first garden lettuce of the year for the tacos, too.

I also harvested a cabbage and a single asparagus spear, but I didn't use those for the tacos.

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