The Mystery Kitchen

I have a habit of re-using things, especially in my kitchen. I hate to only use a jar or container one time and then throw it away. I keep the plastic jars A.'s instant coffee comes in, the empty containers of cottage cheese and sour cream, any glass jars, ziploc bags if I can easily wash them (so not if they've had anything really greasy or raw meat in them), and of course, canning jars and lids get used over and over again. 

Most of these things end up in my freezer at some point, and I always label things I put in my freezer, on the lid with a permanent marker. Most of my food containers have been labeled more than once. Sometimes so many times I run out of space on the lids or on the bags.

It's kind of funny to track what's been in the containers with that particular lid.

One lid is new and still has the original label. The other one? First it had chicken stock, then ham stock, then pinto beans, and now the jambalaya base I froze last month.

This lid first had pressure-canned pinto beans in 2023, then rooster stock in 2023, then sauerruben in 2024.

What this means is that you can never trust the lid that's on a container to actually tell you what's in that container. That canning jar lid, for instance, is currently on a jar containing pickled radishes and onions. It's not sauerruben.

Likewise, sour cream or cottage cheese containers are just as likely to have leftover baked beans or tomato sauce in them as the dairy products suggested by their labels.

This is why when my sister visits, she always holds up whatever she's taken out of the refrigerator and asks what's really in it. Because it really could be anything, and only I can tell for sure.

So tell me: Do you do this? Or do all your containers tell the truth about their contents?

Snapshots: Roadtrip

I had to go get milk yesterday, which meant a 120-mile drive, roundtrip. 

At least it's 120 miles of no traffic, though.

Poppy asked to come with me and had a great time. She chattered and sang with the music and read her book.

Benji, in case you were curious.

I let her pick out a snack to eat on the way home, so she munched her Pringles and juice (and read the ingredients on them) and finished Benji.

She's a good travel buddy.

At home, the daffodils continue to bloom.

The white ones are starting to open now.

So of course, I have some on my table.

Also, the little peach tree in the garden has flowers on it.

Possible future peach, Lord willin' and the grasshoppers don't eat it.

The row of tulips on the other side of the garden wall are better protected now that I've surrounded them with rocks to keep the dogs off of that spot.

One of the tulip crushers, looking very innocent now that he can't lie down on the flowers anymore.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Little Help from My Friends

Friday 

Short version: Meatless fried rice, canned peaches and cottage cheese

Long version: I had leftover rice in the refrigerator, so I gave A. the choice between fried rice with just eggs, or a Mexican-ish skillet of food with the rice and chili beans.

He chose the fried rice.

It was very cheerful-looking before I added the brown soy sauce.

The peaches were a jar of home-canned peaches. Some ate them on their own, some with cottage cheese.

Saturday

Short version: Oven-barbecued chicken pieces, potatoes, leftover baked beans, raw radishes

Long version: One package of separated chicken leg quarters, which meant I had four drumsticks and four thighs. I coated these in a spice mixture similar to the one we use for ribs--paprika, garlic powder, chili powder, salt, brown sugar--which makes them very tasty and also helps the skin brown nicely, what with the sugar in there.

I only made one pan of them because we had the baked beans, too. And since I had room on the pan, I added some potato chunks to roast on there, too.

The radishes were definitely an afterthought. I wish I had remembered the frozen green beans that really need to be used. 

Sunday

Short version: Creamy chicken soup or leftover fried rice, crispy rice treats

Long version: I used the bones from the night before to make stock, and then soup. With the one chicken thigh that had been left, there was just enough meat for the soup. To that I added celery, carrots, potatoes, peas, sauerruben, and sour cream.

Those who avoid soup had the leftover fried rice.

Monday

Short version: Ravioli lasagna, bread, green salad, chocolate chip cookies

Long version: I did not make any part of this meal. It was given to me by a friend at school. Our family has had a rough couple of weeks, and my friends have been showing their support by giving me food. This was a particularly welcome day for it, as I had no clear idea of what I was going to make for dinner after work and probably would have just cobbled together random unexciting leftovers.

The lasagna was made with ravioli in place of the noodles, which was, as you might imagine, very good.

Complete with baking instructions. And two HUGE loaves of bread.

Tuesday

Short version: Beef 'n' bean quesadillas, raw radishes

Long version: I had some chili beans still in the refrigerator that needed to be used, so I used the last of the beef roast from my other friend, plus the beans, to make the quesadilla filling.

Not exciting, but good enough to fill everyone up.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, cucumbers

Long version: One child had baked beans and bread and butter. Everyone else had the leftover lasagna.

Thursday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, mashed potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: I made the meatballs with ground elk. And, as is so often the case, I made the chocolate pudding because I had milk that was on the verge of going bad. Somehow, the pudding came out slightly grainy this time for unknown reasons. Alas.

Refrigerator check:

Lots of leftovers, but no milk.

In our ongoing milk drama, I forgot to order milk from school this week, and the tiny store closest to us is closed for the weekend already. This means I must venture farther afield for milk. Luckily, A. discovered that the next-closest town to us--60 miles away--has good milk at the dollar store there. I guess they have a different supplier than the grocery store in that town, whose milk is always just about to go off. So it looks as if a trip to the dollar store is on my agenda this weekend. Maybe I can get a new shower curtain rod while I'm there.

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

Twists and Turns

Last weekend, I went down the hill to pick up one son at his friend's house after he stayed there overnight. This friend is the son of one of my friends. Also the brother of Poppy's best friend. So I've been to their house several times.

They live on a giant ranch that employs many cowboys, all of whom live at and are in charge of what are called "camps." Each man--they are all men--manages his own camp on this huge operation, and they all gather and help each other in turn for big events like branding or shipping. 

Because of the size of this ranch, many of the camps are quite remote. A couple of families there that send their children to our school live almost twenty miles from the nearest paved road. Every time they come to school, they first drive forty minutes on a really rough dirt road, and then at least another half hour on the paved road. Getting to town is more like two hours for them.

This house I went to last weekend is comparatively convenient. It's only about half a mile of dirt road, and they're only about a 20-minute drive to the school. It still feels very remote to go to their house, though, because there isn't anything else around it.

I took this photo on the dirt road to their house.

And this is their house compound as I approached it. That building on the right is a barn.

I am often confronted here with the fact that nothing about my life now is at all how I thought it might be when I was younger. I mean, I grew up mostly in suburbs, graduated from a competitive college-prep high school, had a political internship right out of college that turned into a job in state government that I probably could have done indefinitely if I had wanted to (which I emphatically did not).

The path that led from that to this was surprising and circuitous. And I don't regret any of it. This unlikely place feels the most like home to me of anywhere I have lived, which is a lot of places.

I don't think it's that unusual to end up far from where your younger self might have imagined your life to be. It's just interesting to reflect on.

Which leads me to ask: What about your current life would be the most surprising to a younger you?

Snapshots: It's Spring, And I'm Not Sorry

Not sorry that pretty much everything here has been about spring lately, anyway. This post included . . .

The first rhubarb sighting.

The first sighting of . . . something. Poppy planted this, so I'm not sure what it is, but I'm guessing arugula.

Tulip row that the dogs kept lying on until I moved the rocks to keep them off of the flowers.

Garlic.

The green onions apparently survived the winter.

Lots of apricot blossoms. This tree flowers too early and we never get very many fruits from it, but it sure is pretty.

There are still many daffodils in the mechanic's pit garden, and thus, on my table.

Two of the three peonies we planted last year survived. This is the bigger one.

And a much-less-welcome sign of spring: The return of flies in the house. Boo.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

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?

Spring Posting Continues

Hard to resist these photos:

A Seasonal Changing of the Guard

It got very springy outside this week.

Daffodils!

Apricot blossoms!

So I brought some of the spring inside for the table.

Old and new.

It felt very symbolic to throw the old arrangement of dried weeds in the fire.

Of course, the next morning, I woke up to this:

The crocuses and daffodils are under there somewhere.

But I still had this on the table:

A promise of brighter days to come.

I did quite a lot of cleaning this week when I was home by myself.

Pantry after cleaning.

Yucko oven before cleaning.

And better oven after.

And I did some more gardening.

More tomatoes, peppers, and basil started indoors.

I also planted some snow peas outside, which are now patiently awaiting warmth under their blanket of snow.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: All By Myself

Friday 

Short version: Cheese pizzas, ranch dip, raw radishes

Long version: I needed to bake bread, so I decided to do it this day and use some of the dough to make pizzas for our first meatless Friday in Lent. One pizza had pickled onions on it, but they were otherwise just cheese.

Saturday

Short version: Chicken and pasta casserole, Holy's cabbage

Long version: I simmered one big package of chicken leg quarters to make stock, and then stripped the meat and used some of it to make a casserole. It was very like the one I made a couple of weeks ago with canned chicken and canned cream of chicken soup, except this time I used fresh chicken and made my own bechamel to make a cheese sauce. I still used corn and pureed calabaza in it, though.

The resulting casserole was much better than the overly salty canned version. No surprise there.

The cabbage was one of the bags of Holy's cabbage I had made in the summer with garden cabbage and froze. Everyone will eat it, and two of the four children really love it. It's handy to have in the freezer and just microwave as needed.

It did not make for a lovely plate, however.

I don't think even parsley would do much for this food styling.

Sunday

Short version: Meatloaf, baked potatoes, various cabbage preparations, chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: I used ground elk for the meatloaf, which I mostly made because I knew the leftovers would be good cold in the car for A. and the children when they left the next day to drive to Arizona.

There was enough of Holy's cabbage for those who wanted it, and then I also had half a jar of sauerkraut I heated up for others, and the one child who prefers his sauerkraut raw had that from the jar in the refrigerator I've kept there since last summer.

I made the chocolate pudding to use up some milk that was close to its use-by date. There are never any complaints about that.

Monday

Short version: Vodka and soup

Long version: I made some chicken soup to use up a bunch of things in the refrigerator--chicken stock and meat, sauerruben, one and half leftover baked potatoes, some of the milk--so that's what I had for dinner. I could eat soup for dinner and not worry about making anything else, because there was no one else here and I actually like soup and don't need to eat a lot of other things with it.

I even ate it out of a mug, because why not?

I also had a cocktail of peach vodka, lemon juice, and seltzer. I love the peach vodka. It sort of tricks my taste buds into thinking there's something sweet in the drink even though there is no added sugar. 

Can a cocktail be healthy? Sure.

Tuesday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, honey-oat bread

Long version: I made the honey-oat bread to use more of the milk on the verge. Most of it I put in the freezer for when my family gets home, but I did eat a couple of pieces. It's hard to resist. And then I had frozen some meatballs from some of the meatloaf mixture, which I decided to bake while I was making the bread. So I had both for my dinner.

Wednesday

Short version: Salad

Long version: I had the last of some romaine hearts that really needed to be used up, so I made a salad with that, the barbecue meatballs, feta cheese, carrots, radishes, and pickled onions.

Healthier than a cocktail. 

Thursday

Short version: Popcorn and vodka

Long version: I drove to the city this day to do a few errands. Usually I'm in a rush to get home, so I don't do anything extra. This time, however, I had all day. So I went to a midday Mass at a lovely old church there, and then went to lunch at a restaurant recommended by one of my friends. It was a sort of New Mexican diner, I guess. It's in the old part of town and has been there a very long time. It was filled with local families, which is always a good sign. There I ate two stuffed steak and avocado tacos. They were delicious.

Good thing I had all day, because this took all day. I left at 10 a.m. and didn't get home until almost 5 p.m.

By the time I made it home and got everything put away, I still wasn't hungry. So I just made myself a drink--same thing as Monday--and some popcorn later. 

Is this what they call a "girl dinner"?

Refrigerator check:

Lots of dairy is a sign I've been to the store recently.

The rest of the family is coming home tomorrow, so my days of solo dining--and minimal cooking--are done now. Back to the kitchen for me!

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

An Unintentional Lenten Literary Theme

I've been on a roll with good books to read lately. This is not always the case. My reading sort of waxes and wanes. I'll go for awhile not having anything particularly compelling to read and then all of the sudden there are multiple books that I want to read.

Thankfully, I'm in the latter stage at the moment. Want to see? Of course you do!

A. buys a lot of books for the boys, especially the older two, based on things he would have liked to have read himself when he was younger. Or that he wants to read now. I'm not sure where he came across this one, but the title gave me pause.

Hmm.

Based on the title and the fact that I know how inappropriate books about the special forces can be, I thought I'd better vet this one before handing it over to my sons. I read the first half of it, which was actually very entertaining. By the time I got to the author's time in Rhodesia, I sort of lost interest--I'm not really very much for detailed military maneuvers--but I had read enough to know that the author was quite circumspect in what he chose to share about his personal life. I appreciated the delicacy with which he talked around the various situations involving women that are an inevitable part of any soldier's memoirs. Plus, he was very funny. Also a bit crazy, maybe, but in an adventuresome way.

Good job, A.

Next was a book that I bought for my sons, after seeing it on the shelves at the hotel I stayed at in January. I don't have a photo of it, but its title is Cold Sassy Tree, and it's by Olive Ann Burns. I had a copy of it for the longest time. I think it eventually fell apart and I never replaced it, but I thought the boys would like it, so I bought it for them. I re-read it last week and it really is an excellent book. It's set in a small town in Georgia at the turn of the 20th century. I've always loved Southern fiction. The narrator is a 14-year-old boy, and the author nails the character of a teenage boy coming of age. There are some things in it that I had forgotten about that make it maybe not appropriate for my ten-year-old quite yet, but the older two boys really liked it.

Good job, me.

And now for what I'm reading at the moment. 

I didn't plan this, but I apparently have a religious theme for all my books for this start of Lent.

I started reading the Catechism after I finished the Bible. I only read maybe five pages a day. Maybe more, maybe less, depending on what I'm reading about and how interested I am in it.

With God in Russia was written by a Catholic priest about his time as a prisoner in Siberian work camps during World War 2. Our priest loaned it to my older son, thinking he would like it. He did indeed really like it, as did his next-youngest brother. Both of them loved it, in fact, so I thought I'd try it. I was assured by my sons that there was nothing really disturbing in it, and indeed, it is remarkably drama-free considering the drama inherent in the man's situation. It's interesting to read older memoirs like this one (it was published in 1964), because the authors don't try to shock their readers like I feel modern authors do with the more salacious or disturbing parts of their lives. I'm sure this priest saw the absolute worst humanity could be in these situations, but that's not what he focuses on. 

Of course, I'm only about a quarter of the way in, so it could get way worse, but I don't think it will.

And last, the Janette Oke book was one I picked up from the book-sharing shelf at our local post office. I had I think every Janette Oke book when I was in middle school. I loved them. They're Christian fiction, sort of vaguely homesteady--set in Canada during their period of settlement--with some very chaste romance. My equivalent of a "fluff" book, I guess.

What are you reading right now? Anything you'd recommend for my next waning period?

Snapshots: The Spring Setback

We always have to have at least one snowstorm after it starts to feel like spring. That was yesterday.

 

Don't worry; the bulbs will be okay.

We only got a few inches, and we can always use the moisture, so that's fine.

I had just the week before received the new snow boots I ordered to replace my very old ones with a broken zipper.

I didn't know if I would even need to wear them until next winter, but I did.

One of the little girls who rides our bus turned seven last week, and I was given the care of her cupcakes on the bus ride to school. Her mom was very clever and made a number seven out of them.

Cute, but Poppy said there was way too much frosting on them.

I myself care much more about the taste of food than the appearance, which is why my "charcuterie tray" looks like this:

Tasty, but not aesthetic. Pretty much my motto.

And speaking of functional! I discovered something very handy when I made the pecan pie for Fat Tuesday. I prefer to chop the pecans for the pie, which makes for a more homogenous filling that is also easier to cut. Chopping nuts with a knife on a cutting board is annoying, though, because they're always falling off the cutting board. And then I have to wash a cutting board and knife.

However, the pecans can be put in a bowl--I used the bowl I had made the pie crust in--and chopped with the pastry cutter. That I had also used to make the pie crust.

Fewer dishes, and nicely contained.

My very tall eldest son had told me he could no longer easily move his arms in the altar server clothing at church. The biggest cassock (the under-robe part of the outfit) there was also about five inches too short for his six-foot height. So I bought him a new cassock. And it was very large and long.

This was the only place high enough to hang the thing.

It was a bit unnerving having this giant black garment swinging in our kitchen for a couple of days until we brought it to church. It fits well, though, and he's happy to be able to move his arms freely again when he's serving.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.