Friday Food: An Ambitious Week

Friday 

Short version: Re-fried Spanish tortilla, football food

Long version: I had quite a lot of Spanish tortilla left from the night before. A. ate a late lunch when he was in town, so he wasn't hungry for dinner, which meant there was enough for the children. To re-heat it, I chunked it up and fried it in butter. 

And then we went to the football game, where all three children with me went to the concession stand with their own money and bought either Frito pie, a cheeseburger, or nachos.

Saturday

Short version: A middle eastern feast, plus upside down pear gingerbread cake with whipped cream

Long version: It all started with the chickpeas. I had cooked a bag of dried chickpeas a few days previously on a day when it was chilly and the house needed the heat from simmering something for awhile. So I had these cooked chickpeas. I also had about a pound and a half of ground beef in the refrigerator.

My first thought was to make a sort of gyro filling with these two things, which would mean I needed pita bread. So I started the sourdough for that in the morning, using a recipe for naan bread. But didn't I say I needed pita bread? Yup, but I made naan bread instead. Such are the inconsistencies in my American kitchen.

The bubbles are fun.

I changed my mind about putting the the chickpeas in with the meat and instead made hummus with them. I had the children skin them for me, and I definitely did not regret making the hummus. I love hummus, and it was so good in the gyro (ish) with the meat.

To the meat I just added some pureed tomatoes I had in the refrigerator, along with any seasonings that seemed right--garlic and onion powder, thyme, oregano, cumin--and chicken stock.

Options for toppings included thinly sliced cucumber, tomato, pickled onions, and a yogurt sauce that was just yogurt, bottled lemon juice, garlic, and salt. Plus the hummus, of course.

Same idea as tacos, just different flavors.

Also similar to tacos, the more you put on it, the better it is.

This was so good. So, so good.

I took Cindi's advice to try this recipe for an upside down pear gingerbread cake. This is a slightly involved cake, what with the pears to prepare, then the caramel for the pears, and then the cake itself, but it was much better than the previous pear upside down cake I tried. Much less sweet and more spicy. It also came out of the pan better.

I notice none of the photos of these sorts of cakes on actual recipe sites show the whole cake, just small pieces. I suspect everyone's upside down cakes are a mess in reality.

I should have baked it about five minutes longer to fully cook the center, but A. loved this, as did the two boys who were home. Poppy wasn't such a fan. I liked it more than that first overly sweet one, but I have concluded I'm just not into cooked fruit on my cakes.

Sunday

Short version: Pizzas, green salad with ranch dressing, leftover cake

Long version: The weather has cooled and we're not running any heat yet, which means that my kitchen is usually somewhere around 65 degrees. This makes for some very slow bread dough rising. So much so that I have to periodically turn my oven on for a few minutes to heat a bit and then put the rising dough in the turned off oven so it will actually rise fast enough to be used for pizza. Which is what I did this day.

One pizza had pepperoni. The other was just cheese.

I stuck the leftover upside down cake in the oven with the pizza, covered with foil, to bake the raw center more. Those who didn't care for the cake had the chocolate peanut butter cookies I had made for this week's school snack.

Monday

Short version: Chicken parmesan, pasta with pesto, green salad with vinaigrette, stabby cake with ice cream

Long version: I had one last package of chicken breasts in the freezer. Last time I thawed chicken breast, I had meant to make chicken parmesan, but then I found I was out of Parmesan cheese. I figured I'd better make it with this last package of chicken breasts, so that is what I did. I did cut the breasts horizontally, though I didn't pound them.

The whole dipping and frying process is quite enough bother without pounding the raw chicken.

The end result was awfully good, though.

This was the Feast of the Archangels, among whom St. Michael is our household favorite. For several years now, I have made a devil's food cake and the children have stabbed it after reciting the St. Michael prayer. 

It's fun. And delicious.

Tuesday

Short version: Re-combined pasta, leftover pizza, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, pear sauce

Long version: After a few days in a row of intensive cooking, I was ready for break. So I pretty much just used leftovers for this meal. I chopped up the few pieces of chicken that were left over and added them to the leftover pasta with pesto, plus some plain pasta I had cooked the day before and not mixed with the pesto. To make it saucier, I added a small can of tomato sauce, a bunch of butter, and some garlic powder.

The pear sauce was some I made last week and that needed to be eaten or frozen. Thus ends 2025 pears. It was a good year for them.

Wednesday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, baked beans, cornbread, apple crisp with vanilla ice cream

Long version: If you've been noticing a lot less meat in my menus, that's because we're waiting on getting a whole cow for our freezer when our neighbor ships her cattle, probably this month. I can't bring myself to buy a lot of store meat, so that's why there have been a lot more meals with beans, cheese, or eggs replacing some or all of the meat.

Luckily, an acquaintance got a bunch of new hens this year and is currently drowning in eggs. She was very happy when I asked if I could buy five dozen a week from her. I am also happy, because her house is on my way to the village, so it's easy for me to stop by and get them. She only asked me for $4/dozen, so now we have a lot of eggs on hand. Some of which I scrambled for dinner this night.

I had cooked pinto beans the day before, just because it was chilly in the house and simmering anything on the stove for a few hours warms the kitchen up a bit. I had just cooked them plain with a ham bone. I used them this day to make baked beans that were not actually baked at all since I cooked them entirely on the stove.

The apple crisp used the last of the fresh apples, thus ending the 2025 apples, too. I did can and freeze a lot for them, though, so it's really just the end of the fresh apples.

Just enough apples for the crisp, and just enough peelings and cores to make another batch of apple vinegar. 

This is the second batch of vinegar I've made, so that's about a gallon of vinegar total this fall. It's not acidic enough for canning or whatever, but it's good for cooking with. I put some in the apple crisp, as a matter of fact.

Thursday

Short version: Macaroni and cheese for a crowd, leftover baked beans, carrot sticks with ranch dip, cookies

Long version: I had some bags of chicken bones/carcasses in the freezer I wanted to get rid of, so I simmered those in the morning and pulled all the meat off in preparation for making chicken tomato corn chowder. My plan was to serve this with biscuits.

Plans changed in the afternoon when I learned I would be feeding two extra children. Also, A. and eldest were going hunting immediately upon getting home. All of these people needed to eat immediately upon entering our house so that I could get all children to flag football practice at 5:30 p.m. and the hunters could eat and bolt.

I did not have enough soup for this. I also did not feel soup was the best plan when feeding a bunch of young kids. Especially young kids who would be hyped up and rushing.

That's why I made a quadruple recipe of this macaroni and cheese, instead. I also heated up the baked beans from the night before and set out carrot sticks and ranch dip. I let everyone serve themselves so they would only take what they might eat.

I made a quick batch of chocolate chip cookies, too. And then in the end, A. had to drive a longer bus route than he had anticipated, so there was no hunting. And one of the anticipated guest children wasn't feeling well and didn't come, so I ended up with only one extra child. 

Anyway. There was lots of food.

Refrigerator check: 

Yes, my deli drawer slider is broken AGAIN. This will be the fifth time I have replaced it in seven years. That flimsy piece of plastic is just no match for the heavy use it endures in our house.

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