Friday Food: A Spring-y Dessert

Friday 

Short version: Fried potatoes and eggs

Long version: This was the last night I was eating by myself before my family came home from their trip to Arizona. I had some potatoes that came as a side with my tacos when I took myself to lunch in the city the day before. They were like home fries, so I fried them in a pan with eggs, and that was my Lenten Friday meal.

It was very good, too. I do love potatoes and eggs. Potatoes and anything, really.

I had a salad for lunch, so I considered my vegetable needs met for the day.

Saturday

Short version: Meatballs and rice for some

Long version: I wasn't sure exactly when the travelers would arrive home, nor did I know if anyone would be hungry when they did get home. I decided to have food on hand in any case, so I made some of the ground ram meat into a curry, also using some of the greens from the beets I had bought at the store for the purpose of pickling.

I also cooked another bag of dried chickpeas, using some in this and freezing the rest for future use.

In the end, only a couple of kids wanted to eat, so I just gave them leftover barbecue meatballs and some of the rice I had made for the curry. I figured we would just eat the curry the next day.

Sunday

Short version: Ram curry, rice

Long version: Everything was already made. It just needed to be heated up, and some yogurt added to the curry.

Pre-yogurt curry.

Monday

Short version: Not-Irish sausage and onions, penne with pesto, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: It has become our tradition to have pasta with pesto on St. Patrick's Day. Not at all Irish, but certainly green. And always popular with my children.

This also has the benefit of being an easy meal to make on a work day for me, which this was. I had one more package of Italian sausage in the freezer to go with the pasta, and then made the plates extra green with salad.

I suppose if I were really committed, I would have dyed the onions and sausage green, but I'll only go so far.

Tuesday

Short version: Pot roast, leftover pasta, cucumbers with salt and vinegar

Long version: A friend of mine cooked a very large quantity of beef pot roast and brought some for us. We haven't been eating beef lately, since we don't have any right now, and it was nice to have a break from elk and lamb.

The pot roast was just plain, so I pulled it apart and fried it in the last of some tallow rendered from the brisket I made awhile ago, plus some olive oil, and salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover curry, rice, yogurt with apricot jam

Long version: We had quite a lot of the curry left, so I just made some more rice for that. 

The apricot jam for the yogurt was a kind I had made last summer as an experiment with half honey when I was running low on sugar. I really like the flavor of it, but it is more tart than the standard jam I make with all sugar. So when I put it in yogurt--which is pretty tart, too, being homemade and plain--I actually add some maple syrup to it for a bit more sweetness.

I do this for everyone else, that is. I don't usually eat yogurt. I had some of the jam on a rye cracker with cream cheese, though, and that was very good. I love cream cheese and apricot jam together.

Thursday

Short version: Barbecue beef sandwiches, baked beans, green salad with vinaigrette, baked custard

Long version: More of the beef from my friend--it was a lot of beef--shredded and with homemade barbecue sauce.

I mostly baked the beans because I was baking the custard. And I baked the custard because this was the first day of spring, and we now have enough eggs to make custard again. It seemed appropriate.

I made the actual recipe this time, as opposed to a double recipe, so I baked it in my 2-quart baking dish. This happens to be oval. Then, when I was explaining to the children that I had made the custard to celebrate spring, I said maybe I should have used the colored sugar to decorate it.

So I did. And completely inadvertently, I created an Easter egg custard.

Fun.

I am hesitant to create another food tradition in my already-busy kitchen, but it was pretty fun to have this on the vernal equinox.

Refrigerator check:

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