Friday Food: Repetitive Steaks

Friday 

Short version: Egg salad, cottage cheese, leftover spaghetti, crackers, leftover coleslaw

Long version: I already had all the eggs hardboiled, so I just made the egg salad and set everything out for everyone to choose their own combination.

A very modest buffet.

Saturday

Short version: Lamb steaks, rice, green peas

Long version: Some of the leg of lamb steaks, marinated and fried. Rice, peas, whatever. 

Sunday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, one lamb steak, beans and rice, leftover peas, brownie sundaes

Long version: I had one lamb steak that didn't fit in the pan the night before, so I cooked that for the one child who doesn't like scrambled eggs. Everyone else got the eggs.

The beans were the pintos and ham from the big batch I made a few months ago and froze. This was the last of it. I should do more big batches like that. A very handy thing to have in the freezer.

I had promised the kids I would make brownies for Sunday dessert, and I had made chocolate syrup earlier in the day. So those two things, plus a choice of vanilla or mint chocolate chip ice cream, made for some very exciting brownie sundaes.

Monday

Short version: Elk steaks, bread and butter, coleslaw

Long version: I found one last bag of elk steaks while I was rummaging in the meat freezer, so we had those. I just fried them in tallow and made a gravy for them with milk and the onions I had cooked after dicing what I needed for the coleslaw.

Tuesday

Short version: Cheeseburgers (with buns!), home fries, corn

Long version: I had made the buns on Sunday when I was baking bread, figuring I'd find something to put in them at some point. Which I did: Ground bull.

Again, too hot to turn the oven on for oven fries. So microwaved potatoes chopped and fried in tallow had to do.

The corn was just frozen corn kernels I had bought to have for shepherd's pie. I consider corn to be more of a starch than a vegetable, but the children were very pleased with it.

Wednesday

Short version: Lamb steaks, potatoes or bread and butter, green peas

Long version: Fourth day in a row with some kind of steak, yes. In fact, this meal had both lamb steaks AND an elk steak, since there was about half an elk steak left from Monday and some children prefer the elk to the lamb.

I had some already-cooked potatoes that I fried in the pan with the steaks, but I didn't have enough for everyone. Thus, bread and butter.

Actually, the same children that had the elk had the bread and butter. Concidentally.

Thursday

Short version: Many meats, potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw, American flag cake, ice cream, s'mores

Long version: A. bought a giant package of bone-in pork butt instead of ribs for our Fourth of July barbecue. He was going to buy pork ribs, but they were marked way up for the holiday. So instead, he bought the pork butt, boned it, and cut, well, steaks from it.

Despite the size of the pork butt, it didn't make all that many steaks when it was boned out. So I also took out a bag of lamb steaks, and then I added some hamburger patties I had formed and frozen awhile ago.

The Fourth of July is about the only day A. is willing to grill anything. Meat always tastes better cooked over charcoal.

I made American potato salad--with mayonnaise and hard boiled eggs in it--instead of the vinaigrette-dressed kind I often make. Because it was America Day, and that calls for a mayonnaise-based potato salad. Obviously.

Baked beans made from two jars of frozen pinto beans, coleslaw left over from a few days before.

And our traditional American flag cake. Which, also traditionally, was pretty ugly.

Even uglier than usual, actually.

Ice cream with the cake, and also because we had a guest with us who doesn't eat gluten.

I had promised the children we would have a fire on the Fourth of July, which seems to demand s'mores. It was supposed to be a big bonfire with all the scrap wood we've been collecting as we clean up the property, but it ended up being too windy for a really big fire. So we had a more restrained fire, but it was enough to make s'mores, and that's the important thing.

Refrigerator check:

Many leftovers.

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