Friday Food: Summer Vacation!

Friday 

Short version: Lamb chops, rice, raw radishes, sauteed asparagus, ice cream

Long version: This was the day I spent the whole afternoon in the garden and man, I was SO TIRED by dinnertime. 

Is this how I know I'm aging? Don't answer that.

Anyway. I had taken out a bag of lamb chops to thaw, and had put some garlic powder, salt, and vinegar on them for a sorta marinade. Then I fried them in butter with a bunch of chopped new garlic and parsley.

And then while I was cooking this meal, it occurred to me that if we had homegrown potatoes instead of rice, the entire thing would have been our own home-raised food.

The French Breakfast radishes did pretty well this year (for here, anyway). I should have planted more.

This thought is why I remembered the sprouting potatoes in A.'s office. And why we went back out after dinner to plant them.

So tired. So, so tired. Good thing the next day was a rainy day, because both A. and I needed a day inside to recover.

Saturday

Short version: A few lamb chops, pizza, cucumbers, ranch dip

Long version: I made one pizza, just because I was baking bread to give to teachers as end-of-year gift. I also cooked the last few lamb chops for anyone who wanted one.

I put the last of the ground bull taco meat on the pizza, which sounds weird, but is actually really good. Taco pizza? Sure.

Sunday

Short version: Mother's Day Frito pie, ice cream

Long version: I make my own special-occasion food, because I like my own cooking best. I had a container of ground beef taco meat in the freezer that I took out, so I could eat without actually cooking.

I had thought we would eat that with tortilla chips, like nachos, but then I saw the Fritos on top of the refrigerator while I was pulling out all the toppings and decided Frito pie would be even better.

It was.

Monday

Short version: Vaguely Spanish rice, raw radishes

Long version: I didn't really have anything planned for dinner, so before I left for work, I pulled out a container of burrito filling I had frozen from extra when I was packing camping food for A. and the kids. It was pork, beans, and cheese. 

When I got home, I added this to the leftover rice, added more salsa and spices, and the rest of the grated cheese from the Frito pie, and that was the Spanish rice.

Tuesday 

Short version: Shepherd's pie, ice cream

Long version: Of course we had shepherd's pie. If I'm going to be doing early-morning cooking for the priests, I should definitely do it for us, too.

So many shepherd's pies.

I didn't have any big pans left for our shepherd's pie, so I split it into two smaller ones. We had the one in the skillet this night.

I was at the FFA end-of-year ice cream social at dinnertime, so A. gave the non-FFA kids dinner and then let them have some ice cream, too.

Wednesday

Short version: More shepherd's pie, roasted asparagus

Long version: I baked the smaller shepherd's pie this night, along with some asparagus in a separate pan.

I sure did get a lot of mileage out of that early-morning shepherd's pie. Much appreciated during the very busy last week of school.

Thursday

Short version: Breakfast burritos, hummus and chips, ice cream

Long version: Last day of school! There were hummus and pinto beans sort of languishing in the refrigerator, so we ate the hummus with chips and the pinto beans in the breakfast burritos.

In the interests of honesty, I had chips and hummus and a vodka cocktail for dinner.

Vodka+lime+seltzer+strawberry jam. Yay, summer break!

Refrigerator check:

Needs milk.

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

A Peek Into My Crazy

It has been well established here that I spend a great part of my life thinking about, growing, and preparing food. The hundreds of posts on that subject here prove that beyond a doubt.

This is why it is not even 5 a.m., and I'm about to peel a few dozen potatoes.

Lemme 'splain.

About a month ago, our priest mentioned that he was hosting all the other priests from the area* and that typically, some of the ladies from the parish would help with the lunch that they have after their meeting.

He was sitting at our table, eating dinner with us when he said this, and it was about the most blatant hint imaginable. There aren't very many "ladies" in our parish to start with, and very few that he would ask something like this of.

So of course, I asked him if he would like me to make lunch for them, thinking it would be for at least a dozen people.

Nope. He said there would be about six of them. Oh, so basically cooking for my family? Yes, I can handle that without any problem.

Fast-forward to this week, which is the last week of school, with all the insanity that this entails. Of course the priests' gathering has to be this week. Today, actually. So is the FFA end-of-year ice cream social, for which I was volunteered by my FFA child to provide cookie crumbles for the ice cream toppings.

The count of priests I'm feeding was revised to eight. And of course, I still need to feed my own family of six.

That means that for today, I'm on tap for lunch for eight, dinner for six, and cookies.

I have spent all week thinking about how I can most easily cook lunch without being there to serve it (since they eat after their meeting, I'm not walking into that meeting to deal with food, and the time is uncertain anyway). Also considering that I work on Mondays and therefore wouldn't be making much ahead.

Plus, cookies.

The cookies were easy, at least. I made the requested peanut butter cookies on Saturday and froze a container for the FFA.

When I got home from work yesterday, I made crispy rice treats. After I spilled several cups of cereal on the floor while I was opening the giant bag of Malt o' Meal Crispy Rice, that is.

Good day for the chickens.

I have to drop off all the food for the priest party (as my children have been calling it) this morning before their meeting starts at 10:30 a.m. I decided to make shepherd's pie. 

The appropriateness and humor of making shepherd's pie did not occur to me until just recently, but it is pretty amusing. (Priests are our shepherds, get it? Yeah, my sons didn't think it was as funny as I did, either.) 

Anyway.

I'm making three pans of shepherd's pie--two for them, one for us--which will require about five pounds of meat and around ten pounds of potatoes. Also broccoli slaw--because it's the only other vegetable I have--and brownies, along with the crispy rice treats.

Overkill? Probably. But that's how I operate with food.

Anyway, it's a lot. And that's why I'm going to peel potatoes at 5 a.m.

Catch you on the flip side.

Update: 6 a.m.

Potatoes for mashing are boiling on the stove, and another pan for us is waiting elsewhere. Getting up at 4:15 a.m. has its benefits.

* The "area" in this case being the entire northeastern part of the state, which is large and relatively unpopulated.

 

Snapshots: Rain for Mother's Day

Well, actually, rain the day before Mother's Day.

Shrouded windmill yesterday.

It rained off and on all day yesterday and the previous night. I woke up to puddles on the ground this morning. It's been so long since we've had that much rain that I can't even remember the last time there were puddles. Certainly several months. 

Rain is such an important thing here that everyone has a rain gauge so they can talk about exactly how much they got. We got exactly 9/10 of an inch, which is so, so needed.

Thanks to the miracles of modern weather forecasting, we knew this rain was coming. That's why we spent several hours planting in the garden on Friday. 

Invisible peppers.

Basil in jugs.

The beginnings of what will be a jungle of plants in September.

I forgot about these potatoes from last year that were in A.'s office. They REALLY wanted to grow.

Altogether, I put in 40 tomato plants, 14 basil plants, 10 pepper plants, a couple dozen potatoes, a thyme plant I picked up at the grocery store, a new bed of beets because the first planting never came up, ditto some carrots, more green onion seeds, cucumbers, and delicata squash.

I also, and unusually, had a bunch of flower seedlings to plant, thanks to the new cook at school. She had said she would like to have some of my numerous cabbage seedlings, so I brought her a few. I told her I didn't really need any plants in exchange, but she brought me some anyway: snapdragons and yarrow. And then I got zinnia seedlings from one of the children for Mother's Day. And a packet of wildflower seeds as part of Teacher's Appreciation week.

I planted all of this in a separate bed in the front of the vegetable garden by the fence. It has to be in the garden, or it will never get watered.

I had the children edge it in stone for me, just to make it look a little nicer.

It was a very tiring day in the garden, but worth it, as the rain watered everything in very nicely and the 80-degree temperatures by the end of the week will get everything growing well.

Incidentally, by the time we get to those 80-degree days, we will be on summer break because this is THE LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL, HOORAY. 

The children think they're the only ones who are sick of school. Little do they know how I and all the other staff at the school feel . . .

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

P.S. Happy Mother's Day to my fellow mothers. I hope your day is just as you wish it to be.