Friday Food: Lucky Pork

Friday 

Short version: Early chicken salad sandwiches, chicken and rice skillet, football food

Long version: This was the night I took the three younger children to the very wet football game. I gave them the choice of eating before we left, or bringing their own money for concession food.

They all chose to eat before we left. So they had chicken salad sandwiches, and then I brought beef jerky, dehydrated apples, and peanut butter cookies with us to the game.

At home, I left a skillet of chicken, rice, beans, spices, and cheese.

Saturday

Short version: Pizzas, cucumbers with ranch dip

Long version: One cheese pizza, one with pepperoni and some leftover bacon. The sauce was roasted tomato sauce, which is much superior to a sauce made with just canned tomatoes.

Sunday

Short version: Pork, cornbread, tomato/cucumber/feta salad, disastrous rice pudding

Long version: I cooked a very large pork shoulder, and some of it I shredded and mixed with maple syrup and mustard. Very typical for my kitchen. Standard cornbread, too.

And there they are.

The rice pudding is where it all went wrong.

I don't know why, but this time, the rice pudding, at the very END of the baking, dripped all over the oven. I have never had this happen before, so of course it must happen almost exactly one week after getting a brand-new oven.

If I were trying to find a substance that would wreck an oven more thoroughly, I couldn't have topped this one. The combination of rice starch, sugar, and milk is just impossible to get off the bottom of a hot oven. I turned the oven off right away and scrubbed for some time with baking soda and dish soap before I gave up and just resigned myself to the fact that my new oven is no longer pristine.

Sigh.

Monday

Short version: Leftover pork and pizza, cucumbers with ranch dip, cookies

Long version: This time I fried the some of the pork in its rendered lard. The pizza served as our starch for this meal. As did the cookies (oatmeal/almond/peanut butter/chocolate chip).

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover pork in burritos, more cucumbers, hot cocoa

Long version: I had to substitute this day, so it was lucky I had randomly cooked so much pork on Sunday. This time I just wrapped it in flour or corn tortillas with cheese and salsa. 

Hot cocoa because some people were still hungry. And there is something thrilling about getting hot cocoa--with a marshmallow!--on a random Tuesday night.

In case you're wondering, this is how I make cocoa: A tablespoon (I use an actual spoon, but I think it's close to a measured tablespoon) of sugar per mug of cocoa, plus one more for good health, slightly less than a tablespoon of cocoa powder for each mug, and a pinch of salt for each mug, all put in a pot. Add a bit of cold water and then heat this on the stove until the powders are dissolved. Then use a mug to measure out the milk, adding however many mugs of milk are needed. Heat and stir until as hot as you want it, then add a splash of vanilla. 

Marshmallows if you're feeling indulgent.

Wednesday

Short version: Meatballs, spaghetti, fried potatoes, yet more cucumbers

Long version: All the pork was gone and this is a work day for me, but I did have a bag of meatballs I had stashed in the freezer for just such a night. I took those out before I left for work, along with a bag of roasted tomato sauce. Then when I got home, I just broiled the meatballs and then roasted them with about half the sauce until they were done.

The other half of the sauce went on the spaghetti. I was too lazy to grate Parmesan, so I just added a large amount of butter to it, plus a bit of extra garlic powder and Italian herbs. 

I microwaved a couple of potatoes and then diced them to fry for A., who doesn't eat spaghetti.

Thursday

Short version: Roasted chicken pieces, roasted potatoes, sauteed calabacita/tomato/onion, raw green beans, bread with butter and honey or apple butter

Long version: Chicken leg quarters are always cheap, and so I tend to get those even though I dislike separating the thighs and drumsticks. But that way, A. and I can have the thighs, which we prefer, and the children can have the drumsticks, which they prefer.

There were four of each kind of chicken piece, and all I did with them was liberally spice them with paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a small amount of maple syrup, and then roast them at 425 degrees until they were done.

My favorite summer skillet of vegetables:

It's technically fall on the calendar, but it's still summer in the skillet.

The bread was the after-dinner, serve-yourself-if-you're-still-hungry course. We had gotten a jar of apple butter from some girls at school who had made it from apples they picked at their grandmother's orchard in the mountains. A couple of the kids really liked it and chose it for their bread. The others had the honey.

Refrigerator check:

A bit bare.

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