I had a couple of errands in town that couldn't wait, and since I was going to the town with the (tiny) dinosaur museum that my two youngest children had been asking to visit again, I took them with me.
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Snapshots: Heading to the County Fair
Friday, August 8, 2025
Friday Food: First Snickerdoodles
Friday
Short version: Leftover meats, porky rice, pinto beans, raw tomatoes or leftover vegetables, almond cookies, fresh bread and butter
Long version: I had leftover grilled steak, barbecue ribs, and tuna patties that I apportioned out based on preference.
It was fairly cool this day, so I had also decided to cook the half bag of pinto beans that had been in the pantry for awhile. To flavor the beans, I fried pickled onions and garlic in the lard that had rendered out of the ribs I had made the day before, and then simmered the beans with that for a bit.
The rice was cooked in the liquid from the ribs.
The tomatoes were mostly from Poppy's plants in the garden. She generously shared with her brothers, and then A. and I had leftover sauerkraut, carrots, and peas.
The cookies I had made the day before, substituting finely ground almonds for some of the flour.
And bread and butter because I had baked bread in the afternoon and fresh bread is hard to resist.
Saturday
Short version: Green chile bacon cheeseburgers, roasted potatoes, peaches and cream
Long version: I had made hamburger buns the day before when I was baking bread. I made the bacon very last-minute when the rest of the meal was almost done, but it of course was the best part of the meal for my family.
All the males in the family had their cheeseburgers with pureed green chile on top, along with raw onion. Poppy and I declined.
Sunday
Short version: Oven-fried chicken, biscuits, carrot sticks with curry dip, brownies with ice cream
Long version: I hadn't made oven-fried chicken in a very long time, but everyone likes it, so I did. It involves marinating the chicken--I used three breasts and a package of thighs--in yogurt and spices, then coating it in masa and spices before baking on a buttered sheet pan.
Because I had the oven on for that, I made biscuits too. They were just plain baking powder biscuits, and they weren't my best effort. The butter was a little warm when I made them. Oh well. They were still all eaten.
Thursday
Short version: Pork/beans/rice skillet, blue-ribbon brownies
Long version: This was the first day of the county fair. The fair is always incredibly tiring, since it's always brutally hot and we spend hours there. I would typically prepare at least some part of dinner in the morning before we left, but this morning I was busy gathering wildflowers and arranging them to enter into the floriculture contest, and helping Poppy bake the brownies she entered, as well as the cake I entered.
We got home at 3 p.m. I pulled a small bag of cooked pork shoulder from the freezer and made some rice. Then I fried the diced pork in bacon fat. To that I added frozen corn, a can of black beans, salsa, pureed red chile from the freezer, taco spices, grated cheddar cheese, and sour cream.
I counted the salsa and corn as our vegetables.
The brownies were the ones left from the pan Poppy baked. Before we left the fair, we saw that she got a first place ribbon on her brownies. They were very good brownies.
Refrigerator check:
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Summer Reading, and a Minor Announcement
The bigger boys start school this week, and everyone will be in school in two more weeks, so now's a good time to tell you all about the many books I bought this summer, right? Right.
Most of them were for Poppy, who has definitely become a reader.
Sunday, August 3, 2025
Snapshots: Home Improvement
Friday, August 1, 2025
Friday Food: Ribs x 2
Friday
Short version: Asian-ish pork ribs, porky rice, green salad with vinaigrette
Long version: A. bought some already-cut pork ribs that were on sale after the Fourth of July. These were convenient to cook and eat, but kind of weird-looking.
Sunday
Short version: Grilled chuck steaks, boiled potatoes, frozen corn, milkshakes or not
Long version: This was what I had been planning on making for our anniversary dinner, except our anniversary was the day before and this is not really a meal that holds very well to accommodate uncertain schedules. So we had our anniversary dinner this day instead.
The steaks were chuck steaks, which are not super tender. I marinated them in a mustard vinaigrette before they were grilled, and A. kept them more on the rare side.
Short version: Tuna/salmon patties, oven fries, frozen peas, peaches and cream
Long version: This was a request of Poppy's. I thought it would be cool enough to run the oven for the fries and all this day, but then it still ended up being almost 80 degrees in the kitchen by the time I was done.
Good dinner, though. Everyone was happy with it. I used two big cans of tuna and the very last can of salmon from excess commodities.
A. bought the peaches in town from a truck on the side of the road. The best place to buy fruit.
Thursday
Short version: Barbecue ribs, cornbread, green salad with vinaigrette
Long version: Didn't we just have ribs? Yup. But this time I finished cooking them in barbecue sauce, so obviously, totally different.
Refrigerator check:
Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
How Good We Have It
Every so often, I will re-read a book called Women's Diaries of the Westword Journey, by Lillian Schlissel. As you might gather from the title, it is a collection of diary entries written by women who migrated west with the wagon trains and so on in the 1800s.
There are many reasons I like to re-read this book, but one of the main reasons is that it reminds me how comparitively easy my life is now.
Those women were cooking over open fires, when it wasn't raining, blowing wind, or otherwise unsuitable for fires.
They were hauling water from streams, when they could get water.
They were walking miles a day, or riding on uncomfortably jouncy and hard wagon seats.
They were sewing all the clothing for themselves and their large families.
They were scrubbing that clothing in streams, if they were lucky.
And they were doing all of this while almost constantly pregnant or nursing a very small baby.
I was contemplating this the other day as I was making Mexican Wedding Cookies. I don't make these cookies often, because they take much more time and effort than most cookies. I have to chop walnuts, grind walnuts (I use my immersion blender), cream butter with my hand mixer, roll the balls individually to bake, and then roll them again individually in powdered sugar.
However, a woman in 1890 making these cookies would have started by cracking and shelling all the walnuts. She would have had to grind the nuts in a molcajete. She would have had to cream the butter by hand with a spoon. She would have had to pulverize the sugar for rolling in a mortar and pestle. She would have had to build a fire in her cookstove and keep it at just the right temperature for baking.
This is a truly unimaginable amount of work to the modern cook. It occurred to me that this is most probably why they were considered wedding cookies, too, because no one would go to so much effort for anything but a very special occasion.
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Snapshots: Twenty-two Years
A. and I celebrated 22 years of marriage yesterday.
Friday, July 25, 2025
Friday Food: Fishies
Friday
Short version: A collard salad with leftover pulled pork--and cake--at home, sausages and potatoes at camp
Long version: A. was still gone with the three younger children this night. They were camping, and they cooked the sausages I had sent with them--jalapeno/cheddar and plain smoked beef--on a grate over their fire. They also had potatoes leftover from the meal I had packed for them the night before. The potatoes were in foil so they could be reheated on the fire, too.
The son home with me wasn't feeling well and didn't eat. I manhandled some collards and made a salad with those, the last of the leftover pulled pork, pickled onions, and feta cheese.
I made cake because I had a very small sour cream cake from some leftover batter I had made last time I made that cake. It had been in the freezer since then. It wasn't enough for the whole family, so I figured I would make it for the cake-loving eldest. I used some of the rhubarb I had cut the day before, along with strawberry jam, to layer in the middle of the two pieces I had cut, and then whipped cream over all that.
Saturday
Short version: Some cottage pie, more collard salad, chocolate chip cookies
Long version: I made a big cottage pie in my 15"x 10" Pyrex dish in the morning when it was cool, not knowing if the rest of the family would be home that night or would camp another night.
They ended up coming home, although only two kids were hungry. They had some of the cottage pie. I typically would serve it the next day, but I was presented with many fish instead, which needed to be used pronto. So the rest of the cottage pie stayed in the refrigerator as just extra food all week. The boys loved this. They could just scoop out some to re-heat for lunch or whatever anytime. They'd probably be very happy if I made a casserole in that pan every week. But I probably won't.
I used the rest of the large quantity of ground beef I had taken out to make just some browned ground beef with barbecue sauce, sort of like sloppy joe meat. I put some of that in with my collards, in addition to pickled radishes I had made that day in the jar the pickled onions had been in. I re-used the pickling liquid.
Saturday
Short version: Broiled trout, garlic toast, frozen corn, Mexican wedding cookies
Long version: A. and the children had amazingly good luck fishing their last morning in Colorado. They brought home eight trout.
When your kids can clean fish for you, you really feel like you've arrived as a parent. At least, I think A. did. I don't clean fish at all.