Friday Food: Elk and Pork

Friday 

Short version: Elk and gravy, mashed potatoes, frozen peas

Long version: I found two bags of elk stir-fry meat at the bottom of the freezer, which just means it was carefully trimmed and cut very thinly. Instead of making stir-fry with it, though, I fried it and made a gravy for it with a diced shallot, milk, and cornstarch.

Gravy requires mashed potatoes, so I made some of those.

Unrelated photo of the traffic situation on my way to pick some things up one day.

Saturday

Short version: Lamb chops and rice, burritos, cucumber slices

Long version: I made this meal very quickly in between getting home from the county fair rodeo and going to the county fair dance. I had to wait until all the ironing was done at the table before we could eat, but that gave me time to fry the last few lamb chops from some I had thawed a few days earlier. A. had those with the rice. 

The children had the burritos, which were just leftover bull taco meat with cheese in flour tortillas.

Sunday

Short version: Elk stir-fry, rice, chocolate pudding

Long version: I had maybe a pound of the elk meat that I hadn't cooked on Friday. It wouldn't have been enough on its own, but in a stir-fry, it was enough. I used the one bag of stir-fry vegetables that had been in the freezer a very long time, which were mostly cut green beans. To that I added carrots I had pre-cooked in the microwave, plus the soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and onion powders (too lazy to actually cook an onion), ginger powder, and peanut butter.

I made the same recipe for chocolate pudding I always use, but the cornstarch got away from me a little bit, and I also used some cream that was about to go off. Both of those things made the pudding much thicker. Not bad--especially with heavy cream poured over the top--but definitely a different texture.

Monday

Short version: Burritos and leftover pudding at home, chicken drumsticks on the road

Long version: I was with one child in town at dinnertime, so A. fed everyone at home with the leftover taco meat and pudding. Since I started my long drive home right around dinnertime, I picked up a container of rotisserie chicken drumsticks at the grocery store and shared those with the kid in the car with me.

Tuesday

Short version: Pork, smashed potatoes, green beans, cookie bars

Long version: It's really been too hot to cook something like a pork butt that needs the oven on for a long time, but I really don't have a lot of meat on hand at the moment that's fast-cooking. So I made the pork. 

I started it at 6 a.m..

Early-morning pork.

I took it out around 11 a.m., so at least the oven wasn't on during the hottest part of the day.

Late-morning pork.

The potatoes baked while the pork was in. At dinnertime, I just cut them in half, scooped out the flesh with a spoon, and re-heated them before roughly mashing them with lots of butter and salt.

I also made the cookie bars while the oven was on for the pork. They were oatmeal/chocolate chip/almond.

And I FINALLY had enough green beans for a side dish. I only have half a dozen plants, so this is not going to be a banner year for green beans. With these, I sauteed them in bacon grease, and also added a diced shallot. So good.

Wednesday

Short version: Pulled pork sandwiches, Crunchy Corn Chips, carrot sticks with curry dip, strawberries and cream

Long version: I had made sourdough buns a couple of weeks ago when I was baking, and I just stuck them in the freezer for a future meal. This was it. It was brutally hot, and I had been at teacher in-service meetings all day, so this was an easy and relatively fast meal to make.

Crunchy Corn Chips are store brand Fritos.

Strawberries because they had been on sale when I was at the store on Monday.

Thursday

 

Short version: Various leftovers, spaghetti with pesto, grape tomatoes, ice cream

Long version: Another full day of meetings, another quick dinner when I got home. For A., I used the last of the leftover stir-fry and rice to make fried rice, just by adding a couple of scrambled eggs and, um, frying it.

I had made spaghetti before I left in the morning for the child who hasn't been feeling well. I cooked a whole pound of spaghetti, so I used some to make pesto pasta, with a few of the remaining frozen cubes of pesto from last year's garden. The kids had that with leftover pork and the tomatoes.

I had the last of the pulled pork, plus a tomato/cucumber/feta salad made with my own garden produce, yay!

Roma's are not a great fresh-eating tomato--kinda mushy--but I take what I can get.

We had ice cream because I wanted some. Our meetings this day included all the wretched required trainings for child abuse reporting, suicide prevention, active shooter scenarios, and so on. I hate this day of training. It's so depressing. I should not use food to comfort myself, I know, but I do. Thus, ice cream.

Refrigerator check:

Not too bad.

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