Friday Food: Ice Cream Tower

Friday 

Short version: Chicken drumsticks, leftover rice, carrot sticks, watermelon

Long version: I mostly made the drumsticks because I had the oven on anyway to bake bread, so I thought I might as well put the chicken in there, too.

A. had seen a method of butterflying chicken drumsticks that he thought might help to make them better, since neither one of us particularly likes the drumsticks.

I hate dealing with raw chicken, but I did try it. It was a pain, and I probably wouldn't bother with it again. Though it did make them cook faster. And there was more surface area for the spices I put on there.

I made an inadvertent food face in the morning:

Happy bacon.

Saturday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, baked potatoes, cucumber and tomato salad, more watermelon

Long version: And then I had to bake bread AGAIN, because I over proofed the dough the day before and it made very dense loaves. BOO. Baking again when it's this hot is not my idea of fun, but it did give me the opportunity to bake the meatballs and potatoes. 

I only used a little bit of barbecue sauce on the meatballs, since I don't have very much left. I used some ketchup to stretch the sauce, which works pretty well.

Sunday

Short version: Pork Spanish rice, pork soup, salad, ice cream

Long version: I used a can of commodities ground pork for this meal. Originally I was going to make taco meat with it, beans, and corn. But then I found the lamb-y rice still in the refrigerator that really needed to be used, so I dumped the rice right in with the meat mixture, added shredded cheese, and made it into a skillet meal.

The soup was for the child who came down with a sore throat this day. I had the liquid left from cooking the pork butt the week previously, so I used that, some of the ground pork, some already cooked onion, and some of the rice to make the soup.

The salad was for me, because I wasn't very hungry. It was a tomato and cucumber salad with feta.

Customized food: It's what's for dinner.

We still have three kinds of ice cream to choose from.

A tower of Great Value.

Plus chocolate syrup and peanut butter cookie crumbles.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, garlic bread, green salad with ranch dressing, plums, watermelon

Long version: I had eight chicken drumsticks left, and some meatballs. When I got home, I found the meatballs had all been eaten. Thankfully, I had also taken out a container of leftover chili from the freezer to thaw, just to make sure there would be enough food. The chili was enough for A., who had that and a couple of chicken drumsticks.

I had one of the drumsticks in my salad. Only two children were eating--I can't believe we only made it to the second week of school before pestilence struck the house--and they had the other drumsticks.

I had made the garlic bread when I was baking bread on Saturday and purposely saved it for this meal.

The plums had been in the refrigerator almost too long. They're not something I typically buy, but a child at the store with me had asked for them. And then I forgot about them. There were three left, which was perfect for the two children eating and A.

Tuesday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, boiled potatoes, tomato/cucumber/feta salad

Long version: I went to Walmart this day. I had to buy meat.

Sad day.

We're getting very low on meat in our chest freezer. A. has a lot of hunts lined up for the boys, but they're all still a couple of months away. So I bought meat. I hate buying meat at the store. It's so expensive, and so not good quality.

However. We must eat. So I bought it.

One of the things I bought was ground beef, with which I made the cheeseburgers. And which lost like 25% of their mass in the pan in the form of fat and added liquid, I suppose. Such a bummer.

The cheeseburgers were pretty good, though.

So was the salad.

I spy pickled onions.

There is actually a cheese factory in one of the towns we go to somewhat frequently. Sadly, the factory itself no longer sells to the public, but the grocery store there carries their cheese. For some reason, they rarely have the feta in stock. However, the last time I was there, the feta was in stock, so I bought five packages. I'm not sorry about it, either.

Wednesday

Short version: Beef and bean burritos, carrot sticks with ranch dressing, peanut butter cookies

Long version: I purposely saved some of the ground beef to make burrito filling this night. I accomplished that by simply adding a can of pinto beans, salsa, and spices to the browned meat.

The burritos themselves were just flour tortillas microwaved with cheese, and then the meat and beans put in them before rolling. Sometimes I put out all the toppings. But not on a work day.

Thursday

Short version: Sandwiches, chips, cucumbers with ranch dressing, cottage cheese and peaches

Long version: This was the last day in a string of days that had temperatures in the mid-90s. I am very tired of sweating, so I gave myself a break and made sandwiches with the ham and salami I had on hand. 

The peaches were canned, but I think soon we should be getting lots of peaches from Nick. I hope so, anyway.

Refrigerator check:

Those big bowls on the bottom both contain roasted green chiles. More to come on those later.

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

Another Onion Tip

A couple of weeks ago when I made my first batch of dill pickles, I found myself with just a little bit of extra brine. This pretty much always happens when I make pickles. I either have not quite enough and have to make more to top off the jar, or I have only a cup or so of extra brine.

I never throw the extra brine away. Usually I just put it in a jar and save it for the next time I have more cucumbers to pickle.

But this time, I happened to have half an onion from something else on my cutting board. So instead of just cooking the onion like I typically would, I decided to try putting thinly sliced onion in the brine, along with just a bit of sugar.

And now I will never be without pickled onions.

They are so good. They're kind of like green onions, in that they still have an onion flavor, but the pickling tames the bite of raw onion.

I love them in my salads. They are also great on sandwiches, and I've used them to top chili, too. It's amazing how many things I find for them to go on and in when they're just waiting in the refrigerator.

A tomato and cucumber salad can always use onion.

All I did to make them was cut my half an onion in half (to make shorter pieces), and then slice those quarters as thinly as possible. That filled a pint jar. I poured the hot brine over the onion, added maybe a quarter teaspoon of sugar, shook it all up, and put it in the refrigerator. They were ready to use in just a couple of days.

When I finish up the big jar of refrigerator pickles I have right now, I think I'm going to strain the brine (to remove any bits of dill and cucumber seeds) and heat it to boiling again so I can make a really big jar of pickled onions. This should work because I make my brine really strong to start with, so it doesn't get diluted too much from the cucumbers. 

You're never too old to learn new things in the kitchen, I guess. Or anywhere.

Snapshots: The Geeky Mayordoma

It's been a very good year for sunflowers. They line the roads all around here, and one of the most exuberant thickets is right outside our gate.

Sunflowers and my long shadow.

Quite a few of them have been chewed up by cucumber beetles and/or grasshoppers.

Raggedy sunflower.

But there are still lots of intact ones for my sunflowers 'n' sage.

A constant on the table this time of year.

Speaking of sun . . .

I have continued to run half an hour three or four times a week, but my running outfit has had to change with the season. No longer do I wish to wear long pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. But I do wish to be protected from the intense sun here.

I don't wear sunscreen if I can possibly avoid it, so I do actually run in long sleeves. But now it's my gardening shirt, which is a cotton button-down. I wear this with shorts--my legs don't have nearly as much sun damage as my upper body, so I don't worry so much about that--and my incredibly dorky Floppy Mom Hat.

It is, as the kids say, a vibe*.

A really geeky vibe.

I don't usually see anyone when I'm running around our ghost village, and the dogs aren't embarrassed to be seen with me anyway, so I'm good.

This month is one of my mayordoma months, so I went to the church yesterday morning to clean. The children were involved in some very fun game and none of them wanted to come with me, which meant I had the great pleasure of sitting in the silent church by myself for awhile without the lights on.

Peace.

I also took the opportunity to change the flowers on the altar. The same ones were there that I had put there after Easter, so I thought it was time to switch it up.

The yellow-and-white befores and the blue-and-white afters.

I wish we could have fresh flowers all the time, but we live too far from stores that carry them, and my garden does not produce enough, so fake flowers it is.

Lastly, I must share with all of you my great displeasure at the new scent in Dawn dish soap.

BOOOOO.

I really dislike the smell of this. It smells like baby diapers to me. Clean diapers, yes, but still. I think it's gross. And I can still smell it on my dishes after they dry. The last store I went to only had this new and "improved" kind, so I ordered several bottles of the original scent online. 

I hate fragrances so much.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* I actually have no idea if the kids still say that. Probably not. But it's been well established that I am not a kid. I mean, have you seen the outfit I run in?