Friday Food: Many Cheesy Things

Friday 

Short version: Scrambled eggs with chili beans and cheese, cornbread, raw broccoli

Long version: We have a lot of eggs on hand now. Our chickens have started picking up their laying, so we get four or five a day from them. My friend at school with way more chickens has a lot right now, too, so I've been buying them from her.

One day's production from our chickens.

I like having excess eggs. I can preserve the really clean ones in lime for future use, and I always have a quick meal at hand when I need one.

Like this night, when I opted for very easy scrambled eggs. Adding the chili beans and cheese gave them more flavor, though. And I did take the time to make cornbread, so it was slightly more like a dinner and less like breakfast.

Saturday

Short version: Fried chicken in sandwiches (or not), baked beans, bread and butter, raw radishes

Long version: We had quite a bit of the grocery-store fried chicken left. Two boys wanted the pickle and mayonnaise sandwiches again. The others had the chicken just re-heated (in the oven, because chicken should never be heated in a microwave) and plain, with the bread and butter.

We had a lot of beans this week. Because I cooked a lot of beans, both chili beans and baked beans.

Sunday

Short version: Elk burritos in homemade tortillas, chili beans, custard

Long version: I had thawed a bag of elk stew meat, but didn't want to make stew. Instead I made basically a chili with it, but cooked it down until it was more saucy than liquidy. That was the filling for the burritos, along with more of the chili beans I already had.

Because it was Sunday, I took the time to make homemade flour tortillas. I wanted to make them like those translucent ones you can buy from the ladies in Tucson who sell them door to door in apartment complexes and things. I figured the translucence comes from lard. So I used a recipe that called for lard.

They puffed satisfactorily, which is always fun.

They were very good, but not translucent. Needed more lard, I bet.

I made this custard, which I haven't made in awhile. But now is the time for it, because we have lots of eggs.

I didn't overbake it. Yay.

Monday

Short version: Elk skillet, more radishes

Long version: I made rice before I left for work for the child staying home with a sick stomach. When I got home, I used that rice, plus the rest of the chili elk and the last of the chili beans, and grated cheese, to make this skillet meal. 

Tuesday

Short version: Bacon and cheese omelets, bread and butter

Long version: I had to sub this day, and didn't have anything made ahead of time for dinner. Fast eggs again. The omelets also used up the three egg whites left from making the custard. I fried a few pieces of bacon to put in the omelets, which was my great effort for dinner this night.

I didn't manage a vegetable. Oh well.

Wednesday

Short version: Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, Snow's clam chowder, apple slices

Long version: Still working! Still no prepared food! But we did have some deli ham with which to make toasted sandwiches.

It made A. very happy to sit down to a melty sandwich and Snow's. Incidentally, should you ever feel moved to buy Snow's, make sure to get the condensed kind. You add your own milk to it, which means you're not paying for water in the can, and also you can add whole milk and/or cream to it. This of course makes it better. 

Since I served cheesy sandwiches with the Snow's, I made it with just milk this time.

And look at me, serving produce! Very proud of myself for cutting up some apples, yes.

Thursday

Short version: Lamb, mashed potatoes, sauteed zucchini, raw radishes, lemon jello

Long version: Finally not working, so I had time to make something that did not involve melted cheese. 

The lamb was a boned leg roast that I marinated for a few hours, then browned in a skillet, sliced, and returned to the pan to finish cooking. I also added the rest of the diced onion from burrito night, chopped garlic, apple cider vinegar, and cold butter to make a sauce.

The zucchini was from commodities. All I did with that was slice it and saute it in olive oil with garlic and salt.

I made the jello for the most recent child with an upset stomach. I buy lemon juice in bulk, so I pretty much just made lemonade, then added gelatin. I added more this time--five tablespoons of gelatin to about 10 cups of liquid--and it gelled properly this time. This made a very large Pyrex of jello. Luckily, although the child I made it for didn't like it much, the rest of the family did. A. was particularly enthusiastic about it.

Refrigerator check!

Not too empty, actually. We are getting a little low on milk, but A. will be near a grocery store tomorrow.

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

A.P.D.: Books!

I have to sub at school today--today I will be imparting wisdom to the second and third grades--so it seemed like an opportune time for an Audience Participation Day. Also, I have a question for you. Which we will get to at the end.

So! Let me tell you what I'm reading right now. (Can you guess the question yet? Bet you can.)

I don't actually have a lot of time or mental energy for reading at the moment, since life seems to be moving at a rather breakneck pace right now. But that doesn't mean I don't read. It just means I usually re-read something.

I'm a big re-reader. And my favorite books to re-read are my Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters books. I have a couple dozen of the many she wrote during her career, and they're good for re-reading because they don't require a lot of brain power, and are entertaining.

My current re-read is Houses of Stone, which I must have read at least eight times, if not more.

The second re-read right now is one I've only read once. I'm re-reading it at work on my lunch breaks. It's 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement, by Jane Ziegleman. It is, as you might have guessed from that very long and descriptive title, a food history book.

The last thing I'm reading is the Bible. Despite being a reader (obviously), I have never read the entire Bible. I thought about doing one of those guided reading things, that give passages to read every day with little lessons about them, but that seemed like too much work. So I just started reading. I'm currently finishing the Book of Numbers. I only have the mental strength and focus to read the Bible first thing in the morning when no one else is awake, but it's going fairly quickly. Luckily, I'm a fast reader.

And now, the question! What are you reading? I need some new ideas. Hit me.

Closing with a rare photo of a unicorn spotted in my hallway.

Snapshots: Some Spring Things

First, and most exciting: WE HAVE FLOWERS OUTSIDE!

Hi, crocuses!

I know that A. had many other ideas for this old mechanic's pit that would have been much more practical, but seeing all these bulbs come up is making me so happy.

Also outside: Rapidly growing lambs.

Can you spot the lamb?

The terrible wind last week blew a board off our back fence, which separates the sheep flock from my garden. Thankfully, it's too small for any of the sheep to actually get through, but it's just the right size for a lamb to stick its head through and try to eat the dead grass right there. I was just about a second too late to get a photo of its head through the fence, though. Boo. It was pretty funny.

This is definitely the season of eggs. We're getting four or five a day now, and I'm also getting them from my friend with a much larger chicken flock. That means it's time for . . .

Lime preservation is starting, yay!

Even though I get sick of it by the end, I do love the season of food preservation. The eggs are just the beginning. I also started tomatoes yesterday, which I hope to be preserving starting around August, Lord willin' and the hail (and grasshoppers) don't destroy them. 

I didn't take a photo of the tomato containers, but I do have one of a shower chair.

See, after the last foot surgery when the cast had come off and the post-surgical child could shower again, but still couldn't put weight on the foot, I remembered that we had an actual shower chair that the kids had dragged out of the shed of the house next store that we own. 

What are the odds?

This was duly scrubbed off, brought inside, and used for the week or so before he could stand on both feet again.

We're at the shower-chair stage of the recovery again, so the giant white plastic chair with drainage holes in the seat is now in residence in the kids' tub again.

I was informed after this was taken that I had put the chair the wrong way. It should face away from the water, so you're not drowning in a waterfall to the face the whole time. Makes sense. Never having used one, however, I had to be told this.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.