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?

God Bless the Teachers

Ever since I started working at our school five years ago as an elementary Educational Assistant (what we used to call a teacher's aide), which morphed into librarian, online English tutor, and frequent substitute for both elementary and high school classes, people have been asking me if I'm going to get my teaching license.

No. Nope. Not gonna do it. Louder for the folks in the back? NO, I DO NOT WANT TO BE A TEACHER.

In fact, I started college as an elementary Ed. major and switched to a plain old English degree after one semester because I disliked the education classes so much. It's just not for me. And working at a school has only strengthened my conviction that being a classroom teacher is not a good idea for me.

It has also given me a great gratitude for real teachers. I honestly do not know how they do it, but I'm so, so glad they do.

That said, I'm teaching this week because our 4/5/6 teacher is sick. I was her substitute yesterday, and will be again today. There are only 11 students in her room, but that's one of the bigger groups at our school, and there are unique challenges to dealing with three different classes of students in one room. To say nothing of the individual needs of each student within those three classes.

Personally, I find teaching three different math lessons within two hours to be the most challenging.

So that's where I'll be today: Pretending to be a teacher, and once again mentally thanking all real teachers for their choice to fill such a demanding role.

Or maybe actually thanking all real teachers, because I know at least some of you are real teachers. If you are: Thank you. You are so appreciated.

Also, what's your best classroom management tip? I can use all the help I can get.

Snapshots: Salad and Wet Football

One of my jobs at school is lunch monitor, and part of that is serving the elementary kids at the salad bar (middle school and up can serve themselves). I don't know if this is common in all schools now, but when I was a kid, we certainly never had access to a salad bar like this. 

So much to choose from.

This was a sandwich day, so it also included all the toppings for the sandwiches.

Every kid gets something from the salad bar every day, and it's great they have so many options.

On a less healthy note, my mother sent us home a couple of boxes of hot chocolate packets from our trip to Colorado, and this was a suggestion on one of the boxes.

Is it just me, or does this look like it would be impossible to actually drink with all that junk on the rim? To say nothing of cleaning a chocolate-encrusted mug. No, thanks.

Poppy and I stopped at church on our way back from the dump, and she asked if she could light a candle to say a prayer for A.'s dad, who had surgery a couple of weeks ago.

I love this girl so much.

I had promised to take the children to the home football game on Friday, so they could watch their friends on the JV team play. I still brought them even though there was pretty much a hundred percent chance of rain, for which I feel very virtuous.

Damp Friday night lights.

I also felt virtuous because I shared my umbrella with our priest, who was sitting in front of me on the bleachers without one when it started to pour. My umbrella was not quite big enough to cover us both fully, and my lower back got soaking wet, so I was damp and cold for the entirety of the varsity game. I think covering a priest with your umbrella comes with spiritual rewards, though, right? Right.

Lastly, for those of my family members that were concerned about my lack of dishwasher, rest easy. A. installed our new dishwasher on Wednesday.

Two for two on functioning appliances, hooray!

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.