Friday Food: Birthdays and Burritos

Friday 

Short version: Leg of lamb with yogurt sauce, roasted potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, crustless pumpkin pie with whipped cream

Long version: This was A.'s birthday, and he requested lamb for his birthday dinner. I used a boned leg roast from the ram we slaughtered a bit ago, marinated it in olive oil, vinegar, garlic, and salt, and then just roasted it in the oven. The yogurt sauce is just drained yogurt, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and garlic. It's delicious with lamb, and also on the roasted potatoes.

The roasted potatoes are cut up potatoes covered in fat--this time the lard from the pork roast I had made recently--and salt, and then, well, roasted at high heat. Way better than they have any right to be.

After making our pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, I had enough pumpkin cooked down with sugar and spices for another pie. I had frozen that, so making this crustless pumpkin pie was as simple as thawing the pumpkin, adding all the dairy to it, and baking it on Thursday to have it ready for the Friday birthday dinner.

The baking is where it all went sideways. 

It wasn't even close to done after 25 minutes, so I left it in there. And then we were doing Zoom school because of the snowstorm, and the one boy's basketball game got moved up two hours so I was getting him out of the house to meet the bus . . . and I forgot about the pumpkin in the oven.

It ended up baking for I think just over an hour. It seemed very . . . firm when I took it out of the oven. Overbaking custard--all the eggs and cream and all makes this basically a custard--is disastrous because it separates and gets all weepy and wet. Not appealing. I crossed my fingers that the squash in this would make it sturdier and better able to handle (way) overbaking, and stuck in the refrigerator until Friday.

And lo, it was fine. Tasty, even. 

Nice to know that pumpkin pie filling isn't ruined if you forget about it for a few minutes in the oven. Or an hour. Ahem.

Saturday

Short version: Thrifty lamb stew at home, spanish tortilla and cocoa on the road

Long version: This stew is the sort of thing that makes me feel very clever.

I had quite a bit of the leg of lamb left, but leftover lamb is definitely not as appealing on its own. A. was feeling poorly, so I decided a stew was in the order, using the leftover lamb.

I also used the liquid from cooking the pork roast, some of the last tomatoes from the box in the kitchen, cooked in the microwave and pureed, the last of the garden parsley that's been in a jar in the refrigerator for, um, two months, AND the last of the yogurt sauce with some cornstarch in it to thicken the liquid. Many things were used up. This makes me happy. And it was very tasty.

Thrify stew.

I was driving a couple hundred miles to a basketball game, so I left the stew for the ones at home. I brought with me some of the spanish tortilla I had also made earlier in the day. I mostly made this because I had some bacon that really needed to be cooked. It also used up the two egg whites left after making the pumpkin pie filling, and the very last of the garden tomatoes.

So long, tomatoes.

The basketball player and I ate this in the car on the way home. A reasonably portable food, and way better than anything at the concession stand.

Sunday

Short version: Pork ribs, elk steak, fresh bread and butter, broccoli, crispy rice treats

Long version: I had one rack of baby back ribs in the freezer that I cooked this day, although it wasn't quite enough for everyone given how many ribs my boys will eat. So I had some leftover elk steak, and I supplemented A.'s two ribs with some steak, too.

And then everyone ate two pieces of the bread I had just baked, which rounded out the meat.

I left some of the broccoli raw for the children and gave them ranch dressing for it.

And the crispy rice treats were a bit I took from the big batch I made for our new nine-year-old's birthday treat. Well, one of his treats. Since his birthday was on Monday, he had both school and his First Communion class. He asked me to make chocolate cupcakes (Grandma Bishop's, of course) with peanut butter frosting for his school classmates, but he also wanted to bring something for his First Communion class. 

There are only five students in this class, but then there are parents and a bunch of younger siblings that stay for it, so I needed enough for about 15 people. And I was not going to be baking and frosting more than a dozen more cupcakes. Crispy rice treats are way easier. They also have the advantage of being dairy-free, gluten -ree, and nut-free. And delicious, of course.

Monday

Short version: Birthday sandwiches, barbecue potato chips, ice cream sundaes

Long version: Our new nine-year-old requested this meal. He loves sandwiches more than anything, and I first thought it would be fun to get one of those giant sandwiches for him at Subway. Then I found that the Subway nearest us--60 miles--doesn't make the really big sandwiches. And the cost of getting a foot-long sub for every family member would be . . . a lot.

So instead I got three long loaves of french bread, three kinds of deli meat, three kinds of cheese (pre-sliced, because it was a party), lettuce and tomatoes, added mayonnaise and mustard, and let everyone go to town.

That's a big sandwich.

We actually only ended up using one and a half of the loaves this night. One half had been used for bread pudding for the requested birthday dessert. That left one whole loaf, plus more of all the meat and cheese, for another meal.

I made salted caramel sauce the day before, then chocolate shell (melted chocolate chips+coconut oil) and whipped cream this night, and set out chocolate and vanilla ice cream and sprinkles and everyone got to make a sundae.

First Communion class was canceled, so I had a big pan of crispy rice treats at work with me that I didn't need. So I just made a tour of the school, giving treats to everyone I encountered. In this way I got rid of all the treats and didn't have to bring any home. Yay.

Tuesday

Short version: More sandwiches

Long version: I went to the school staff Christmas party this night, and A. used the rest of the bread and things to make sandwiches again for the children. No complaints.

Wednesday

Short version: Breakfast burritos

Long version: Scrambling eggs with cheese and salsa and putting that in tortillas was about all I was capable of after work this day. It's not a bad dinner, actually. Uses a lot of eggs for this crowd, though. I used fifteen.

I also had some weird "ranch-style" beans we had gotten from commodities that I used in some of the burritos. They had a gross tomato sauce on them, which I rinsed off, and also jalapenos in them. That's why only some people ate them.

Thursday

Short version: More burritos, carrot sticks with ranch dip, ice cream

Long version: I had taken out a bag of elk fajita meat to thaw and I was sort of planning on making stir-fry, but then one of the kids was sent home with the remains of a seven-layer dip. It was mostly beans with some salsa, cheese, etc., so I decided to use that with the meat to make more burritos. 

Please note I managed a vegetable this day. But then it was followed by small servings of ice cream with some of the leftover salted caramel sauce, which the children definitely did not need after all the treats at their school Christmas parties. 

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