Friday Food: A Failure

Friday 

Short version: Throwaway meatloaf, baked potatoes, last-minute egg salad, salami and cream cheese, raw green beans, baked mystery apples with cream

Long version: Starting right off with the failure here. I had had ground beef in the refrigerator since Monday, when I bought it at the store. I had meant to cook it earlier in the week, but heat and tiredness from in-service week derailed me.

Our meat is so fresh out of the freezer that I never have a problem keeping it in the refrigerator for a few days. I wasn't sure about store meat, though. I did smell the meat before forming the meatloaves, and it smelled okay. But as it was cooking, it started to smell . . . not okay. Not bad, exactly, just kind of funky.

It tasted that way to me, too. I'm very sensitive to flavors, though, so I had A. taste it, too. He thought it was okay. So I served it. 

A. ate a few bites and vetoed it. He said it tasted gamey. Again, not really rotten, just not very good. 

So I quickly grabbed other available sources of protein, which were some hardboiled eggs I had on hand that I made into egg salad, and the salami and cream cheese.

The apples were from a grafted branch on the tree next door. A. had grafted several varieties onto the existing tree there, and we didn't know which variety this was. This is the first year there's been apples on that branch. They were quite large, and partially red, so I was hoping they would be good saucing apples. When I started peeling them, however, they were pretty dry and hard to peel, also almost inedibly tart when I tasted them. 

I peeled and sliced them anyway, and cooked them most of the way in the microwave, to see if they would get soft. The small green apples on that tree never do get soft when cooked--although they are delicious raw and perfect for drying--so I thought I'd better try that out first. They did get soft. I finished baking them in the oven with a lot of maple syrup, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves, and they broke down even further.

A. thinks these were an old variety of apple that are meant for pies. One of the varieties he grafted came from his uncle's farm near Blackrock, and they were pie apples. That's why they're so large and tart. 

So the meal ended well, even if it started disastrously.

Oh, and I ALSO completely burned the garlic bread I had baked with the regular bread and had intended on having for dinner after the first day of school.

Definitely not my best day in the kitchen.

The one kid that had eaten most of his meatloaf before A.'s pronouncement didn't get sick in any way, so I guess the meat was okay, just overaged. I still gave it to the dogs and chickens, though. That made me feel a little better about wasting fifteen dollars' worth of meat. But just a little.

Saturday

Short version: Lamb, rice, green peas

Long version: Pretty much all the meat I have left needs to be braised, stewed, or otherwise cooked a long time to get tender. Like the bag of lamb shanks and stew meat I pulled from the freezer in the morning. I put it, still mostly frozen, in a pot with water, onion ends, carrot, and celery, and simmered that until I could pull the meat off.

I used that meat and a little of the resulting broth, along with onion, garlic, tomatoes (from the garden, yay!), paprika, oregano, thyme, lemon juice, and cornstarch plus yogurt, to make some saucy meat to go on top of the rice.

It turned out quite well. Shanks really do produce some nice, tender meat if they're cooked right.

Sunday

Short version: Tuna-rice skillet, dressed-up ice cream

Long version: I hadn't taken any meat out to thaw, so I planned on making tuna/salmon patties. But then I didn't have any bread crumbs, and I didn't want to haul out the food processor to make some. I did have leftover rice, though.

So!

Rice+one big can of tuna+onion+mayonnaise+butter+a tiny bit of milk+grated cheddar=something like tuna noddle casserole. But with rice. In a skillet.

We had three kinds of ice cream on hand: vanilla, cookies and cream, and mint chocolate chip. So everyone got to choose their ice cream and then dress it up with either chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookie crumbles from the freezer, or chocolate syrup. Or all three! It's a Sunday! Anything goes!

Monday

Short version: Fried pork, bread and butter, pickles, ice cream

Long version: First day of school! And work for me. I knew I would be exhausted, which is why I had stashed a bag of cooked pork butt in the freezer. I took that out to thaw in the morning and fried it with spices when I got home.

I didn't have the energy to even cut carrot sticks, but I do have a lot of homemade pickles on hand right now, so everyone got one of those. And then A. remarked several times how good they were with the meat, so I guess that was a winner.

Ice cream because it was the first day of school. I didn't put out all the toppings, though, which is what differentiates Weekday Ice Cream from Sunday Ice Cream. I guess.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftovers, lamb-y rice, raw radishes and green beans, lemon jello

Long version: Tuesday is one of my days off from work, so I wouldn't typically need to have a meal of leftovers on this day, but I was in the city with a child at the doctor. So, A. had the leftover stewed lamb with the rice, which I had cooked in a jar of lamb stock that had been in the refrigerator long enough. Two children had the last of the fried pork, plus the lamb-y rice. Two children had rice and beans, just made with a half can of pinto beans that had been in the refrigerator awhile, with the addition of butter and garlic powder.

The jello was for the sick child, but he didn't want it. Everyone else was happy to finish it.

Wednesday

Short version: Sandwiches and Crunchy Cheese Snacks at school and home; cottage cheese, cherries, and bananas at home

Long version: We had a Vigil Mass for the Assumption of Mary at 5:30 p.m. this day. Our school is in the village where we go to church. School gets out at 4 p.m. I decided it wouldn't be worth it to rush home only to leave again an hour later. So I brought dinner with me to work.

By that I mean I threw sliced bread, rotisserie chicken meat, salami, ham, mayonnaise, and mustard in a bag to make sandwiches after school/work. I also brought the Crunchy Cheese Snacks I had bought at the store the day before. These are a store brand version of crunchy Cheetos. Unlike the store brand of Fritos, these don't taste just like Cheetos, but they were okay.

We got home a bit after 6:30 p.m. A. hadn't had a chance to eat because he had been driving the school bus, and Poppy had been playing with her friend, so she hadn't eaten either. I made them sandwiches and they got some Crunchy Cheese Snacks, too. 

Two boys who had eaten sandwiches already were hungry again. They had the cottage cheese and bananas (not together). We all had cherries, which tasted SO GOOD after a very hot church service. It was over 90 degrees and our church has no air conditioning. Cold, sweet cherries were very welcome after sweating profusely for 45 minutes.

Thursday

Short version: Sausage and potatoes, or pasta with pesto and chicken, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, watermelon

Long version: I had a little of the meat left from the rotisserie chicken I bought at the store on Tuesday, so I chopped that and added it to pasta with pesto. 

A. and I had the sausage, which was the very last package of smoked sausage I bought a long time ago from a store that is not close enough for me to get to often. There were two baked potatoes in the refrigerator from Sunday, so I diced those and added them to the pan with the sausage. I also found some already-cooked diced onion in the refrigerator, so that went in with the sausage and potatoes.

I was very excited to find a real watermelon (with seeds!) from Texas at the grocery store, so of course I bought one. It was a really good one, and we're going to save the seeds.

It was, of course, giant. As all watermelons with seeds are.

Refrigerator check:

Lots of watermelon in there.

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