Friday Food: Some Travel

Friday 

Short version: Pizzas, kohlrabi

Long version: I was baking bread anyway, so I used some dough to make two pizzas: one cheese, one pepperoni and pickled onion.

I must always make ranch dressing for pizza now, according to my children, so I cut up some of the giant kohlrabi to also dip in the ranch dressing.

Saturday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, mashed potatoes, pureed calabaza, green salad with vinaigrette, brownie ice cream sundaes

Long version: We had two guests with us this night, which is why we had a baked dessert on a Saturday. I had considered making a custard, but that uses too many eggs for this time of year when the chickens aren't laying at all and I'm dependent on store-bought eggs.

No one seemed to mind having the brownie sundaes instead. I heated up some chocolate syrup for them, too, which is always good.

This was the first calabaza I've cooked this year. Actually the first since 2022, since we didn't get any to maturity last year, thanks to the hail. It was good. Our guests even liked it. Most people do, thankfully.

Sunday

Short version: Baked chicken, creamy pasta shells, kohlrabi, leftover brownies or cookies with ice cream

Long version: I separated a package of chicken leg quarters into thighs and drumsticks, four of each. These I salted heavily a couple of hours before cooking, then seasoned liberally with an Italian herb mix, garlic powder, and a little olive oil before baking until they were done.

I had some roasted tomato puree still in the refrigerator, which is what I used for the pasta shells, along with lots of butter, some cream, and more of the Italian herb mix and garlic powder.

Chicken and shells.

Chicken and shells and calabaza. On a plate.

There weren't quite enough brownies left for everyone to have one, but one child chose to have a chocolate chip cookie with her ice cream instead, so that worked out.

Monday

Short version: Baked potatoes, cookies, and hot chocolate at school; sandwiches and leftovers at home

Long version: I had forgotten we were supposed to stay after school for a Bingo for Games event (all the bingo prizes were board games or card games). In the end, only Poppy and I stayed. There were baked potatoes at the event, so we had that. A. made a sandwich for himself and the boy who went home sick with him. Another boy had eaten enough pizza on his FFA trip that he wasn't hungry for dinner. The last boy had leftover chicken and pasta when we got home.

Tuesday

Short version: Pork, baked potatoes, pureed sweet potatoes, cucumber with salt and vinegar, crispy rice treats

Long version: Big ole pork butt cooked until falling apart. Potatoes baked at the same time, both white and sweet.

Funny story about those sweet potatoes. I had bought sweet potatoes several weeks ago, and then I couldn't find them when I got home. I could have sworn they made it out to the car, but they just weren't anywhere. And then, this day when I was digging in the freezer and pulled out a bag with frozen stir-fry vegetables in it . . . there were the sweet potatoes. Frozen solid.

Then arises the question: What happens to sweet potatoes when they're frozen whole and raw?

Not much. I threw them in whole to bake while the pork was in, then scooped out the flesh and pureed it with butter. It was fine.

They probably would have been mushy if I had tried to roast cubes of them or something, but no problem with the puree. Just in case you also find yourself with frozen sweet potatoes some day.

I had made the crispy rice treats as a "Happy Thanksgiving and very early Merry Christmas!" treat for my co-workers. I decided I just do not have the strength to bake bread for all 21 of the staff at school, along with all our neighbors. Every year I had to bake more bread, and it was just too much in an already too-busy month. So this year I gave them all a Thanksgiving treat instead. Crispy rice treats aren't as impressive as a loaf of bread, but they certainly are easier for me. And much appreciated before the avalanche of sugar that is Christmas arrives.

Wednesday

Short version: Fried pork tacos at home and leftover rice pudding at home, sandwiches and stuff on the road

Long version: I left in the afternoon to drive to Albuquerque. We sent the eldest child to New York to visit the MiL, and his flight left early enough on Thursday morning that we had to stay in a hotel on Wednesday night. Because Albuquerque is not really at all close to us.

Poppy wanted to come with us, so the three of us left at 3 p.m. Dinnertime fell while we were still driving, and I didn't want to take the time to stop along the way, so I used the leftover pork to make sandwiches and then threw a bunch of other things in the bag. This included store-brand Fritos, protein bars, beef sticks, grapes, and a few leftover crispy rice treats.

At home, A. used the leftover pork to make tacos for the other two boys. He does this by frying corn tortillas in lard, which makes them very popular with the children.

Daddy Tacos are the best tacos.

Thursday

Short version: Rotisserie chicken, rice, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: Poppy and I stopped at Walmart on our way home. That's where I got the rotisserie chicken. I used the bit of chicken juice in the bottom of the bag, plus cream, garlic powder, salt and pepper, to make a sauce that I warmed the chicken in.

Nothing else fancy about this meal, which was exactly what I was going for after 24 hours of away-from-home food. And a lot of hours of driving.

The MiL sent me a picture of the chicken and dumplings she had made for the traveler when he finally made it to her house. So we know what he had for dinner, too. The MiL is committed to the world knowing our family's every dinner*, which of course I appreciate.

Refrigerator check: 

Quite obvious I've just been to a store.

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

* I got curious and checked to see how long I've been doing this every-Friday food report: There are 364 of these posts. Which means I have posted it every Friday--I've never missed one--for almost eight years now. That's . . . kind of crazy. But fun! For me, anyway.

Resistance Training

When I go to Walmart for my infrequent grocery shopping, I end up with a completely full cart every time. As I wheel it around the store, filling it with twenty-five pounds of flour, five gallons of milk, ten pounds of cheese, ten pounds of ground beef, and on and on, the cart gets progressively heavier and harder to manage.

By the time I reach the produce department at the end, the cart is so heavy and unwieldy that I can't even turn it without going around to the front and hauling it around to face the direction I need to go. It's also quite difficult to get going again from a full stop and requires some real effort to keep under control so I don't let it get away from me and mow down one of the many senior citizens that like to stop and chat next to the bananas.

This could be classified as a weapon.

Last time I was there and struggling with this behemoth, I was wondering--with some envy--why no one else seemed to be having to expend so much effort just to get around the store. There was a lady in front of me in one aisle whose cart was just as full as mine, but she was pushing it with only one hand. In contrast to me, with both hands on the handle and my legs and core fully engaged in shoving this great weight through the store.

And then I realized that her cart mostly had packaged things in it. Things like cookies, crackers, and bread.

Light things.

And what's in my cart? Meat, dairy, vegetables. Things with very high proportions of water weight. And in great quantity. I don't know how much the contents of my carts end up weighing, but it's got to be over a hundred pounds.

This is why by the time I do make it to produce, I just park the cart and leave it there while I take my purse with me to gather the last few things. I suppose it's possible someone might try to walk off with it, but none of it has been paid for yet. And whoever tried would probably injure themselves trying to make off with it. 

This Walmart actually has a pick-up option, so I suppose I could order everything online and then just sit in my car while it was loaded for me, but then how would I get my workout in? 

Snapshots: Changing Seasons (and Decorations)

As soon as we change back to Standard Time in November, plunging us back into blackness at dinnertime, I put up my Time Change Lights.

They look a lot like Christmas lights, except it's not Christmas, so that's not what they are. (And I don't know why my camera changes the lighting all photos so much. These are much more yellow in real life.)

I wind them around the decorative iron divider between the kitchen and dining room. They brighten that area up considerably. That's also where the woodstove is located, so it becomes an oasis of warmth and light in the middle of the house.

The heart of the home, you might even say.

Anyway.

The younger kids went to our elderly neighbor Ms. Amelia's house to stack firewood for her, and she sent them home with this truly bizarre Cheetos product called Bag of Bones. They're cinnamon/sugar flavored corn crisps, I guess? Cheeto texture, but definitely not Cheeto flavor. Very weird.

Also, they're in the shape of, well, bones. The boys just crammed them into their mouths. Poppy made this.

Cheeto skeleton.

The Halloween decorations have been taken down, and the Thanksgiving decorations--such as they are--have been put up.

The flock of turkeys in the living room.

And the bonus turkeys, which include two one-eyed turkeys. I call these the Odin turkeys.

I made the 90-mile drive to Walmart on Tuesday.

Still lots of snow, but thankfully not on the road.

I had been charged with buying deodorant for the boys. They told me what kind they wanted, and that is why I actually bought something that looked like this:

Hmmm.

I must note that when I got home and showed this to A., he said, "That's cool." So I guess Old Spice knows what they're doing.

I had a busy morning in the kitchen on Thursday.

Cookies, chocolate syrup, and Yorkshire Jane's green tomato chutney.

Also Aunt Belva's pickled beets, chicken broth, and pureed roasted tomatoes.

There are still some tomatoes in the box of ripening ones, but that's it for fresh garden produce.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.