Friday
Short version: Roasted rooster with gravy, scalloped potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette, strawberry shortcake with cream
Long version: I had just been saying to the kids that no one had given us any unwanted roosters lately, and then out of the blue, I get a text from one of the other moms at school that they had a bunch of roosters they weren't going to get around to butchering, and would we like them?
YES.
We picked them up Thursday, and A. and I butchered them this day. We gave two back to the lady who gave them to us (fully prepared for the oven), and I cooked one of them this night. They looked pretty young, so I thought it would be okay to roast one. I did it at fairly low heat at first, which is why I made the scalloped potatoes, too. Also because I had some cream near its use-by date to use up.
Fancy Friday food.
I turned the heat up later to bake cream biscuits, also to use up cream and to use as a base for the strawberries I had gotten on sale at the store the day before.
I used this recipe for the biscuits, and they did not rise at all. I always reduce the amount of leavener in my baked goods because of our altitude, so maybe that was it. Or maybe I didn't wait long enough for the oven to get from 325 degrees to 425 degrees, and the oven was too cool when they went in. Or was it the sugar I added to them, since they were for dessert purposes?
I don't know, but they definitely did not look like the biscuits in the recipe photos. They tasted good, though, and everyone was very happy with their strawberry shortcake.
Saturday
Short version: Personal pizzas, carrot sticks with ranch dip, mint chocolate chip ice cream
Long version: I was home with just the two younger children for dinner this day. Since I had bread dough on hand to make, um, bread, I thought it would be fun for them to use some of it to make their own pizzas. I am not willing to do personal pizzas for six people--too many individual pans to fit in the oven--but it's manageable for just two. Accordingly, I put some dough in a 12-inch skillet for the youngest boy and some in the 8-inch skillet for Poppy, and let them make their pizzas.
Both chose to put pepperoni on them, and the boy also put on some pickled onions.
I do wish I could make pizzas in cast-iron skillets like that all the time. They come out much crispier. However, with the quantities I have to make right now, I'll have to stick to the two half-sheet pans I currently use. Someday . . .
I let them have the last of the ice cream that's been hanging out in the freezer. It wasn't enough for everyone, which is why I hadn't offered it to everyone. It was enough for the two of them, though.
Sunday
Short version: Spaghetti with meat sauce, carrot sticks with ranch dip, messy pear upside-down cake
Long version: I found some tubes of loose Italian sausage on sale at the store last time I was there. This is the only kind of sausage everyone in my family likes, so I got some. That's what I used for the spaghetti sauce, which also had some of the roasted, pureed tomatoes I had made earlier in the week. Sauce made with garden tomatoes really is so much better.
I also used the leftover chicken gravy in the spaghetti sauce. A surprisingly good addition.
The cake was a learning experience. I have never in my life made any sort of upside-down fruit cake, or even eaten one, but A. loves them. I had just a few pears that were ripe, so I found a simple-looking recipe online and made it.
As I was making it, I noted that between the caramel on the bottom of the pan and the sugar in the cake part, there was twice as much sugar as flour. Hmmm. I reduced the sugar in the caramel slightly, but it was, as I expected, extremely sweet.
Also hilariously messy after I dumped it out of the pan.
The barely sweetened whipped cream I served it with helped, and Poppy and A. loved it, at least. Still, I think it would be much better with less sugar, more-tart fruit (and more of it), and maybe some spices. This didn't even have cinnamon or anything in it. Next time.
Monday
Short version: Chicken enchilada casserole, pickled radishes and cucumber, leftover cake, ice cream
Long version: I finally got around to making chicken stock with the rooster carcass this morning. From the bones, I pulled a couple of cups of meat. I added a can of black beans to this and used it to make a casserole with a sauce using the last of the pureed tomatoes in the refrigerator, frozen corn, corn tortillas, and cheese.
I had a half a bag of store radishes in the refrigerator that had been in there too long. I was going to just give everyone radish slices, but then I used the last of some pickled carrot ribbons--that in turn had been
pickled in the same liquid used for onion slivers--and decided to use that pickling liquid one last time. I heated it up, then added the sliced radishes, and, at the last minute, a cucumber that had been sitting on the counter for a couple of days. I thought sure it would be bitter, but it miraculously wasn't. Into the pickling liquid it went with the radishes for five minutes or so while the casserole cooled a bit.
The people that liked it had leftover cake. The other two had the very last of the mint chocolate chip ice cream. Luckily, the ones who like mint chocolate chip ice cream did not like the cake, so it was easy to assign desserts.
Tuesday
Short version: Leftovers, frozen peas, cherries
Long version: I was in town this day and by the time I got all the laundry hung up that I had washed at the laundromat* and put the groceries away, I was not too enthused about cooking the ground beef I had thawed. Luckily, I had enough spaghetti and casserole to feed everyone, so that is what we had.
Wednesday
Short version: Salisbury steaks and gravy, mashed potatoes, tomato salad
Long version: And here's that ground beef I thawed and didn't use the day before. In Salisbury steak, which, when made at home and not in a cafeteria or in a microwave dinner, is actually good.
Cafeteria food made better.
Thursday
Short version: Fair food!
Long version: One of the boys was scheduled to participate this day in a livestock judging event at the New Mexico State Fair. His FFA teacher asked if I wanted to take him, or if she should see if one of the staff members from school could bring him. My first reaction was no thank you on driving 200 miles to the state fair. But then I considered: What if I let the younger two kids skip school and come with us? They've never been to a state fair before, and then it would be more like a fun trip rather than a boring slog for a competition.
So that is what we did. It was a loooong day. We got there are 10 a.m. and didn't leave until 6 p.m. No food can be brought into the fair, and of course, like all fairs, the cost of the food there is extortionate.
We were very lucky that Thursdays happen to be the day of a promotion called "Graze Dayz," wherein most of the major food vendors offer one menu item for five dollars. This enabled me to get the kids their main meals of the day for a relatively reasonable cost. They each had a piece of cheese pizza for lunch, and then they split two bean and cheese burritos for dinner. I just ate whatever was left over. I was so hot and tired, I didn't even really want to eat much.
Portrait of an exhausted mom at the state fair, courtesy of Poppy.
They also finished off the beef jerky, apples, honey roasted peanuts, and Jolly Ranchers I had in the car during the three-hour drive home.
I think the two members of the family at home had cereal and applesauce for dinner, but I'm not sure about that.
Refrigerator check:
Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?
* I have been assured that the control panel for my washing machine has been delivered to the repair place. Now it's just waiting on the repair guy to actually be there to put it in. I am hopeful that this is my last visit to the laundromat, although I'm not counting my washing machines until they're repaired. Or something.
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