Friday Food: So Many Carrots

Friday 

Short version: Birthday sausage, oven fries, corn on the cob, green salad with vinaigrette, chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, vanilla ice cream

Long version: This was the birthday girl's requested dinner. My sister got the corn on the cob for me before she came to visit, which was good, since I was not near a grocery store in the week leading up to the birthday.

I ran out of fresh eggs earlier in the week. Good thing I had some in lime still.

Situations like this are exactly why I preserve eggs in lime.

I completely forgot to take the cake layers out of the pans before they cooled, and then they . . . really did not want to come out. Crumbs everywhere. 

My sister had the good idea to make cake pops out of the crumbs and a bit of frosting. We used those to decorate the cake, along with M&Ms and colored sugar. I mostly covered up the thrashed cake with the frosting, but it was definitely one of my uglier cakes.

Colorful, though, which is just how the birthday girl likes it.

Saturday

Short version: Pork tacos in homemade corn tortillas, pinto beans, rice pudding

Long version: I had a lot of the pork left from the giant roast I cooked on Friday. I cooked the bone-in piece more with some liquid so I could pull it off the bone, then fried it with taco spices. 

It's been some time since I've made tortillas. Mostly because they heat the kitchen up unbelievably and are thus not something I want to be cooking in the summer.

Rice pudding because I had the oven on to cook the pork. And also to make roasted tomato sauce, although it was not so much roasted as just baked, since the oven was on at a lower heat. Still good, though.

Sunday

Short version: Meatballs, pasta with pesto, green salad with vinaigrette, chocolate-covered frozen bananas, marshmallows with chocolate

Long version: The tomato sauce I had made the day before went on the meatballs. 

I wasn't planning on making a Sunday dessert, since we had had dessert the previous two days. However, I had some of the chocolate shell left from my sister making the cake pops. And I had several elderly bananas that I had frozen in chunks.

I used to make chocolate-covered banana pieces somewhat frequently, especially in the summer, but I hadn't done it in awhile. So I did. And then I let the kids finish the last of the chocolate shell with the marshmallows, just so it wouldn't be hanging around.

Monday

Short version: Lots of leftovers

Long version: One child had pasta with pesto and the last three meatballs. 

One child was sick and just had some of the soup I had made on Sunday with the leftover sausage, mostly to be my work lunches, but it came in handy as a cold descended upon us.

The other two children had the last of the pork in corn tortillas with cheese. Not homemade tortillas. It was a work day.

A. had the last two slices of roast pork, and I microwaved and fried a potato for him, too.

Tuesday

Short version: Leg of lamb; roasted potatoes, onions, and carrots; cucumbers with salt and vinegar; lemon jello; oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Long version: Only if you raise and butcher your own sheep will you just casually pull out a leg of lamb to roast on a random Tuesday. I just coated it in olive oil and spices and put it in the oven at high heat until it was done.

Meat 'n' veg.

The vegetables went in after the meat had been in for awhile. I should have put them in earlier, because I did have to cover them with foil for the last ten minutes or so while the meat rested, to make sure they were soft enough.

I made the jello for a sick child. And the cookies for everyone else.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork burritos or scrambled eggs and pasta with pesto, corn on the cob, tomato/cucumber salad, cookies

Long version: I had frozen the rest of the taco-spiced pork for a future meal. That didn't turn out to be very far in the future, as I was kinda stumped on dinner for after work and ended up just pulling that bag of pork out of the freezer in the morning.

I did toast the kids' burritos in a pan, which I feel is very ambitious of me for a workday. Especially as I was starting to feel the first symptoms of the family cold.

The child who had stayed home from school with said cold said his throat hurt too much for toasted burritos. So for him, I scrambled eggs and added that to the last of the pasta with pesto. I ended up eating that, too.

Corn on the cob brought by my sister. The dressing on the tomato and cucumber salad was actually made by Poppy. She will occasionally go out into the garden and gather things to make me a salad. She did that this past weekend--green beans, tomatoes, basil, and parsley--and then made ranch dressing for it. Her ranch dressing included sour cream and milk, dill and mayonnaise, but no garlic powder. It was pretty good, actually. Good enough that I saved the extra and actually used it.

Thursday

Short version: Lamb curry, rice, cookies, switchel jello

Long version: The leg roast from Tuesday had quite a bit of meat left on it, and just like with the pork roast, the best way to get it off is to simmer it in liquid. I had plans to cook some split peas to add to the curry to thicken it and bulk it up, but then I felt pretty rotten with the cold, so I just put the lamb bone in a pot with some tomatoes and onion ends and simmered that until I could easily get the meat off. Then I chopped all the meat and heated it with already-cooked diced onion from the freezer, frozen peas, the rest of the lamb, onions, and carrots from the roast, some more tomatoes, curry powder, garlic powder, and heavy cream. 

I also cooked the rice in some of the lamb broth from cooking the lamb bone more.

The most recently ill child came down not with a cold, but with a wicked stomach bug. This child is also the one who loves switchel, so I decided to make him some jello with switchel instead of the lemonade I typically use. It worked very well, and he appreciated having that when he finally felt able to put something besides water in his stomach.

Of note this week in food: I stopped by church on Tuesday and saw outside our parish hall a big bin with dozens of bags of giant carrots.

So many carrots.

There were more carrots in that bin than there are people in the village. So of course I brought a bunch home.

So many carrots in my kitchen.

My plan to blanch and freeze a bunch of them got derailed by my cold, which is why my refrigerator looks like this:

Literal trash bags of carrots.

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

Halloween Spirit

My sister just left yesterday after her annual trip to see us for Poppy's birthday. It's a very convenient time for her to come, because it's just before Halloween, and my sister loves Halloween.

She always brings some decorations with her and helps the children put them up.

These lights are little bats and ghosts.

Ghost light close-up.

She also always helps them with their costumes.

I am not a good costume person, so her help is much appreciated. This year, she helped one son sew a robe so he can be an Arab.

It turned out very well, especially considering he started with just a torn sheet. Still to come: A traditional sword (made from cardboard, thankfully).

I appreciate the spirit she brings to the house for Halloween because, while I have many good qualities, I cannot count enthusiasm for decorations and costumes among them.

How about you? Are you a decorating-for-holidays sort of person, or nah?

Snapshots: Just Captions

Happy cosmos peeking through the fence.

And on the table with the breakfast candles.

Poppy decided to wear her tutu under her dress one day, to create a petticoat effect.

Cocoa and fried Spanish omelet for breakfast.

And the vast New Mexico sky at the football field.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.