Friday Food: So Much Store Meat

Friday 

Short version: Leftover soup, cheese, leftover chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: After a seriously choppy night of sleep for various reasons and then waking up for the day at 3 a.m., and THEN going to work for our annual Friday to make up for having Labor Day off . . . I was not in good shape by the time I got home from work.

Thankfully, I had enough of the brisket and rice soup I had made for a sick child left over for everyone to have that for dinner, so all I did was heat that up and slice some cheese to go along with it.

We also had lots of leftover chocolate pudding, which is much more exciting than leftover soup.

I then took to my bed, where I slept for an hour before getting up again. And I still had no trouble going to bed by 9 p.m. and sleeping until six the next morning.

Saturday

Short version: Lamb and chickpeas, rice, cucumber/tomato/feta salad

Long version: I used a bag of lamb shanks to make stock, and then pulled all the meat off the bones when they were tender. I used this meat, along with some of the stock, some pureed tomatoes from the garden, a can of chick peas, lots of garlic, onion, and some yogurt and lemon juice, to make a kind of very thick stew to put over the rice.

It was good. I like the mixture of lamb and chick peas. It's a good way to stretch the meat, sort of like adding pinto beans to taco meat. I still have four pounds of dried chick peas to use, and we have two ram lambs going into the freezer as soon as it gets cold, so you'll be seeing this combination a lot more in the coming months.

Sunday

Short version: Chicken, baked potatoes, leftover corn, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, brownie sundaes

Long version: These were chicken leg quarters that I separated into thighs and drumsticks, coated in a spice mixture, and baked in the oven along with the potatoes.

Or rather, attempted to bake in the oven. After about half an hour, I smelled propane, went to check on the oven, and found that it had barely heated up and was definitely not cooking anything.

I'd been having trouble with the oven igniter that A. had replaced for me awhile ago. He had adjusted it, but then this happened. I assume it's related, but I don't really know. All I know is my oven stopped working.

So I pulled everything out, finished the potatoes in the microwave, and sauteed the chicken in skillets.

Not-baked chicken.

Luckily, the brownies had been baked earlier in the day along with some cookies in what turned out to be the oven's last gasp. We had those with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, cucumbers

Long version: There were leftover lamb and chickpeas, plus two pieces of chicken. I had baked extra potatoes, which I chopped up and fried--in fat rendered from the brisket last week--for the starch. There were also leftover brownies, which was fun.

Tuesday

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, potato chips, corn on the cob, cucumbers, peaches and cream

Long version: I had some buns I had made when I overproofed my dough that came out quite flat and small. They were sort of like English muffins. So I just made the hamburger patties small to fit them. Kind of like sliders, I guess. They were good, in any case.

This was the day I had been in the city and bought corn from the trailer on the side of the road.

And all these peaches came from our tree. We've now gotten peaches from two neighbors, and our peaches are the best of the three we've had this year. Nice to have the best peaches ten feet from my door.

Wednesday

Short version: Pasta with chicken, hamburger patties, cucumbers

Long version: I had bought a rotisserie chicken at Walmart the day before. I do this pretty much every time I go to Walmart, because I'm always leaving the city after lunchtime for my long drive home. So I get a chicken, eat the drumsticks as I drive, and then I have the rest of the chicken for something else later in the week. Good deal for seven dollars.

What I did with it this time was shred one of the breasts and add it to cooked pasta shells with the last of the roasted tomato sauce I made awhile ago, and some Parmesan. The children had that.

I had enough ground beef left to make four more small hamburger patties. I had one bun left, which A. had, along with two more of the patties. One boy had a hamburger patty with his pasta.

Thursday

Short version: Pork and gravy, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, watermelon

Long version: Pork chunks from the whole loin I bought awhile ago, fried, then I added a diced shallot, milk, and cornstarch to make gravy.

Pork chunks, pre-gravy, and potato chunks, pre-mashing.

I also got a seeded watermelon from the produce trailer when I got the corn. The last hurrah for summer, I guess.

Refrigerator check:

Awkwardly full. More eating is in order.

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

Out to the World

Please excuse my late post today. My oven stopped working on Sunday, which is something of a situation in my heavily-used kitchen.

I needed a new range, which of course meant a hundred-mile drive. As do most purchases here.

So after I got the kids off to school this morning, I took myself off to the city to buy a new range. While I was at it, I also (finally) bought a new dishwasher.

In for a penny, in for a pound! Or rather, several hundred pounds.

Unfortunately, I couldn't bring the range home with me today because we use propane here, which meant a gas range that had to be converted. And the guy who does the conversions wasn't there today. So I had to schedule a delivery for both appliances.

Amazingly, this store will deliver to my house. For free, even. They had a delivery set up in our area just next week, in fact, so I'll just be without an oven for a couple of weeks.

Of course I had to go to the grocery store while I was in the city. I always expand my horizons at Walmart.

I had no idea one could purchase ready-to-bake cookies shaped like footballs, pumpkins, and ghosts, for example. Not that I could bake them at the moment. (And not that I would buy them ever.)

I also stopped at the produce trailer on the side of the road to buy what is certainly the last fresh corn of the season.

This particular trailer was pulled by a de-commissioned school bus, which is just so . . . New Mexico.

So that's what I did today. I spent most of my day off--and all of my month's paycheck--buying appliances and groceries. 

I like to lead the glamorous life*, indeed.

* It's a song. The video is here, and it's so incredibly 80s. I had never seen it, and so have just now learned that Sheila E. not only sang, but played the drums. At the same time. Impressive.

Snapshots: Food, Flowers, Fun

A big day in the kitchen (cookies, banana muffins and bread, bread pudding).

The start of roasted tomato sauce season.

A road (our road) lined with sunflowers.

And some new additions to the sunflowers 'n' sage: a zinnia and a cosmo.

We have a new teacher in the phrase-cube classroom, and she put in this loft for her students to read in. I so want to nap in it.

I want to nap here, too, when I'm sitting in the darkened preschool classroom with actual napping kids around me.

Okay, so wanting to nap at work is maybe not really "fun" as suggested in the title of this post, but I couldn't resist the alliteration.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.