Friday Food: Irish Pasta and Spring Cranberries

Friday 

Short version: Feta omelets, yogurt with apricot jam

Long version: For this meatless Friday, I asked A. to make some of his famous omelets. I suggested he use feta cheese in them, and then I also had some green onion and green onion I brought in from the garden. So what this really was was the first garden harvest consumed in 2025.

Momentous omelets. Very yellow, thanks to all the eggs we're getting from the chickens right now.

Saturday

Short version: Brisket tacos, chili beans, chocolate pudding

Long version: The entire reason I made tacos was that I had some masa that needed to be used promptly. And the reason it needed to be used is because it got damp. And the reason it got damp is because the chest freezer in which I store the masa stopped working.

BOOOOO.

Very thankfully, I discovered this when I went out to retrieve masa and cornmeal from that freezer to make cornbread on Thursday. The contents of the freezer were mostly thawed, but there was still some ice in there and everything was still very cold. This was the non-meat freezer, so the fruit, nuts, butter, etc. that I store in there were just transferred into the meat freezer and everything was salvaged.

There was one almost-empty bag of masa that had gotten towards the bottom of the freezer, and the bottom of the bag got a little damp. So I wanted to use that masa up soon. Thus, I made corn tortillas. 

To put inside the corn tortillas, I used the container of brisket that had also been in that freezer, along with a container of chili beans (pinto beans flavored like chili). 

Just like a restaurant.

I made the chocolate pudding because I ended up with excess milk. Like, three gallons to be used within two days. Pudding uses a lot of milk. Especially a double batch of pudding.

Sunday

Short version: Pork, pasta, corn, baked rice pudding

Long version: I didn't really want to cook another pork butt, since we just had one last week, but it was the easiest meat to find in my now-chaotic single chest freezer. And I could bake it a long time with the rice pudding, which I made because it both uses a lot of milk and is the favorite dessert of the child who returned home from an FFA trip with a wicked cold.

The pasta was one package of some shamrock-shaped pasta my mother had sent home with the family when they were in Arizona. It was meant to be for St. Patrick's Day, but I didn't find it until I was cleaning out the van later in the week.

So we had our lucky pasta on a random Sunday.

Some of it was also colored green with spinach powder.

All I added to it was butter, garlic powder, and Parmesan.

This ended up being a very starchy meal. Oh well.

Monday

Short version: Pulled pork sandwiches, raw radishes, canned peaches and cottage cheese

Long version: Lots of pork left to make sandwiches. So that is what I did after work, by adding all the things I use to make barbecue-ish sauce (ketchup, mustard, molasses, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce).

It always makes my family happy when we have peaches after dinner. Knowing how much work goes into canning peaches, it is a marvel to me that I can buy big cans for them for like three dollars are Walmart. They are definitely not that cheap elsewhere, however.

Tuesday

Short version: Meatloaf, butter-swim biscuits, pureed calabaza, cranberry sauce, still-frozen green beans

Long version: It's still hard to find things in the freezer, with everything all thrown together in the one chest freezer. So when I was digging for meat--which ended up being some store-bought ground beef that got hidden under other things--I also pulled out two bags of cranberries I bought on sale after Thanksgiving, and a bag of pureed calabaza.

I was planning on making mashed potatoes, but the extra bag of potatoes I thought I had in A.'s office I did not, in fact, have.

So I made these biscuits instead, as the oven was on anyway to bake the meatloaf. I personally like my plain old baking powder biscuits better--less heavy, crispier, and without the pronounced flavor that comes from buttermilk/yogurt--but these kind as much easier to serve, as no one has to be cutting them and putting butter on them at the table.

This ended up being a much more elaborate meal than I had planned on.

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Many things on a small plate.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I had to take a kid somewhere at 5:30, so I just pulled out the meatloaf, cranberry sauce, pasta, and biscuits, and left it all out for everyone to serve themselves whatever they wanted. I think they mostly ate the meatloaf and biscuits. Which is why I make one and a half of that biscuit recipe. Always good to have leftovers of popular foods.

Thursday

Short version: Pork and potato skillet, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I had quite a bit of pork left, so I chopped it up and fried it with potatoes, spices, and cheese. 

And I had my sous chef prepare the salad for us.

Although she informed me that since she was the one wearing the chef's hat, it was actually I who was serving as sous chef. Noted.

Refrigerator check:

Lotta cheese. And tortillas.

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

A Creature of Habit

I am, for sure, a creature of habit. To a rather ridiculous degree, actually. I remember in college talking with a friend about how I always dried myself off after a shower in the same order--face first, then on down, ending with my feet before I stepped out of the shower--and she totally did not get this. Which left me feeling all confused. Like, do people NOT do this? Do people just dry themselves off all willy nilly?

Does not compute.

Another example of this is breakfast. I eat the same thing every morning: two fried eggs with salsa. On days I run, I add a piece of toast with butter. 

One of the running days, obviously.

I suppose this is the food equivalent of a capsule wardrobe. It removes one more decision that I do not want to have to make on already-busy mornings. Plus, I like it. Why wouldn't I want to eat what I like every morning?

Do you do this? Or are you like my college friend, all wild and free and eating something different every morning?

Snapshots: Successful Delegation

Anyone who has been reading here for a (very) long time may remember how frequently the muddy clothing my family created in New York had to be rinsed in a bucket before I could even put it in the washing machine. I did not enjoy the bucket rinse, and I don't miss it. It's much less common here at our home in the arid high-altitude west.

I do still occassionally have to use the bucket, though, including this past week after a session of work under the project truck left me with two sets of manly clothing covered in dirt and grease.

Out came the bucket. But now, I have an apprentice.

And here she is, jamming a stick into the bucket to agitate the clothing.

She loved this activity, and I loved that I didn't have to do it myself. Happiness all around.

The same girl played a very good April Fool's prank on me. I don't actually like pranks at all, but this one was inoffensive and actually pretty funny.

She set up her American Girl doll as me reading in bed. Perfect.

We woke up to a blizzard yesterday morning.

Complete with 30-mile-an-hour winds blowing in all directions.

Thankfully, I had already brought some spring inside for the table.

Poppy decided we needed to have some spa time since we were stuck inside all day. I declined to do a face mask or makeover, but we did have a little foot spa. We soaked our feet in Epsom salt water with marbles in it, she gave me a foot and hand massage with lotion, and then she painted my toenails for me.

I let her choose the color, too.

And last, I have discovered my medium-sized Pyrex lids fit perfectly on these large cereal bowls the MiL gave us a few years ago.

Handy.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.