Friday Food: So Long, Pyrex

Friday 

Short version: Cheesy scalloped potatoes with ham, still-frozen green beans

Long version: I had a whole ham steak left over from the night before. Also a container of heavy cream that had started souring. Also still about thirty pounds of potatoes from excess commodities.

So.

I boiled a bunch of potato slices. I diced the ham. I made a cheese sauce using quite a bit of the soured cream. It was delicious.

Also convenient, as I made this in the morning and then it was ready to just bake until browned when I got home from a trip to town right about dinnertime.

Saturday

Short version: German pot roast, mashed potatoes, asparagus, green peas

Long version: Our elderly neighbor gave us a chuck roast, just because she's only cooking for herself and can't get through her beef before it starts getting freezer burned. We have no such problem.

It's been awhile since we've had beef, since it's been a couple of years since we got a whole cow for the freezer. Our red meat has been elk and lamb. It was nice to have beef again.

I cooked the chuck roast with some chicken stock from the freezer, as well as a whole pint of sauerkraut. The sauce I thickened with some more of that soured cream, plus cornstarch.

The mashed potatoes had yet more of the soured cream in them. It was a lot of cream. 

Sunday

Short version: Japanese food and Cold Stone Creamery on the road, crispy bean tacos and ice cream sandwiches at home

Long version: This was the night I was in Albuquerque with the eldest child before his wisdom teeth extraction. He had the raw fish, I had the sweet noodles, and at home, A. made tacos with corn tortillas and canned refried beans. He fries them in lard, which makes them very popular.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, scrambled eggs

Long version: We had scalloped potatoes and ham, mashed potatoes, and the last of my Japanese food. To this, I added the scrambled eggs. Separately, I mean.

No one liked my restaurant leftovers except A. He was also the only one who would eat the leftover sashimi. So I guess I know not to take my other children to a Japanese restaurant, if such a thing were ever an option.

Tuesday

Short version: Italian sausage, mashed potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: Everyone was very excited that I had brought home the good sausage from Albuquerque. The "good sausage" is Kroger-brand mild Italian sausage. This is the only kind of sausage every one of the children will eat. 

I mostly made mashed potatoes for the recovering wisdom-teeth surgery patient, who was still not up for anything involving any kind of chewing. I made regular mashed potatoes with the potato masher for everyone--finally using up the last of the soured cream--and then took some out for him to add more milk before pureeing it very smooth with my immersion blender. Kind of like a very thick soup. I also squeezed out one of the sausage links for him, frying it and mashing it with the potato masher to break it up into small bits to mix with his mashed potatoes. He was very pleased with this.

I have a lot of lettuce in the garden at the moment, which is always a good thing. I can thank Poppy for this. All the lettuce is in the beds she planted for me way back in March while I was butchering. I can also thank her for making the salad, which she did with already-washed lettuce, grape tomatoes, radishes, and cucumber. I made the vinaigrette, but I really need to teach her to do it. It's not hard, and then she really can make the whole salad.

Wednesday

Short version: Tuna salad sandwiches, raw vegetables and dip, ice cream, and banquet potluck

Long version: I took the basketball player to his end-of-year athletic banquet, which was a potluck. Brisket and mashed potatoes were provided, and then the side dishes and desserts were brought by parents. Boys were assigned a side dish, so I made a bunch of cut-up vegetables--including many-colored grape tomatoes from the fancy Albuquerque grocery store--with ranch dip.

So pretty.

When I make ranch dip, I just make my standard ranch dressing, except I use sour cream instead of yogurt. The sour cream is thicker and makes a less-drippy dip. About half the dip was left when I went to pick up my dishes after the event was over, but not a single vegetable was left. Always gratifying.

I left tuna salad for the ones at home, as well as some of the dip. They also got to have ice cream after dinner, because Dad is fun.

Thursday

Short version: Exploding roasted chicken, potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, baked fruit with sour cream cake and whipped cream

Long version: I roasted the last of the whole chickens I got from excess commodities. I used my biggest Pyrex casserole dish, so that I could fill the rest of the space with the potatoes. But when I took the Pyrex out of the 400-degree oven to put the potatoes in it, I placed the Pyrex on the edge of the sink and the pan straight-up exploded.

It was crazy. I've never seen anything like it. Thankfully, it mostly went into the sink and on the floor right in front of the sink, rather than on me. I'm sure I could have been seriously injured by all the pieces of glass that blew out of that thing.

I've set pans in that exact spot many times without any issue, but maybe there was more water there or something and the hot pan on the cooler water did very bad things. I don't know. There were just a few drops of water, so I really still don't understand how it happened. All I know is that cleaning up that much greasy glass is way not fun.

On the up side, the chicken itself landed in the sink.

With the potato peelings.

When I lifted off that big piece of glass that was on the chicken, the skin came off with it, and then there was no glass in the chicken itself. I checked it very carefully, and then put it back in the oven--in a metal pan, thank you very much--to finish cooking with the potatoes.

Poppy made the salad again. Yay, Poppy.

The cake was one I had made a couple of weeks ago when I had an excess of heavy cream that was souring. I used this recipe, except I doubled it and made twelve muffins and one cake. It was okay, but it had too much baking soda in it. I don't know why modern recipes are so prone to overdoing the baking soda or powder, but it's very unpleasant when you can taste those in the final product.

This wasn't so overwhelming that the end result was inedible, but I thought it would be better to use the cake--which I had frozen for later--with something else to mask that slight bitterness. That is why I used the sweetened fruit left from when A. made the strawberry/rhubarb syrup, in addition to some apricots I had bought on the way to Albuquerque that didn't have much flavor, so I pureed them with peach jam. I used all of this to top the cake, and then added whipped cream.

It was still not as flavorful as it should have been, but no one had any trouble eating it.

Refrigerator check:

Lots of lettuce in that bag on the bottom left, yay!

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

Country Mouse in the City

The eldest child was scheduled for wisdom tooth removal yesterday morning, which is a pretty common event in the teen years these days. I myself remember doing this when I was about his age. The difference for us, of course, is how far we have to drive to do it. The only oral surgeon that takes our insurance is in Albuquerque, which is around 200 miles away.

His appointment was at 9 a.m. I briefly considered just getting up early and leaving at 5 a.m. to drive to Albuquerque. But then I considered how miserable that would be for the fasting patient, as well as for me when I had to turn right around and drive another 200 miles to get home after the surgery.

I got a hotel room for the night before.

The oral surgeon's office was near the balloon park, which is where they have the big Balloon Fiesta that Albuquerque is famous for. I was wondering why the hotel room was almost twice the regular price for Sunday night, figuring there was a graduation or something. I found out when we arrived and saw signs for "Boots in the Park."

It was a country music festival. There were something like twenty different bands playing for the weekend. The eldest child, who is a big country music fan, was incredulous that we were RIGHT THERE and were not going to be able to go see Luke Combs. I did look to see if there were any tickets available, because I actually would have taken him--it's not like we were doing anything else that night--but the only ones left were $500 VIP tickets. Sorry, kid.

The park was only a mile and a half away, though, which meant we could actually hear the music in our hotel room. Son could even identify the songs. So it was kind of like being there, right? Right.

We stayed at a Quality Inn. It wasn't the worst hotel I've ever stayed at, but it wasn't particularly nice, either. That's why this car in the parking lot was so amusing to me.

A Corvette at the Quality Inn? I guess those car payments ARE pretty steep. 

There are a lot of things I might do when I myself have GRWNKDS, but buying a Corvette is not one of them. I hope that person is enjoying it, however.

Since we were in the Big City, we had an overwhelming number of restaurants to choose from for dinner. The son with me is a big fan of sushi and sashimi, which is not something we are often in close proximity to. We were this night, though! Off we went to a Japanese restaurant.

So much raw fish.

I do not care for fish cooked, and certainly not raw, so I got literally the only thing on the menu that didn't have fish in it.

Noodles, vegetables, and beef. It was okay, although way too sweet for me. Kind of like teriyaki.

None of the dessert options were very appealing to me at this place, but I thought that surely, we must be pretty close to a Cold Stone Creamery. My phone informed me that we were only about half a mile from one, so we went there for dessert.

We got back to the hotel around 7 p.m., which is too early to go to bed. I have no interest in TV, but as it was still light outside, I went for a walk.

I think this is the biggest flag I have ever seen. Must be some really patriotic mechanics in that shop.

Albuquerque has nice mountains outside the city, which makes me feel right at home. It reminds me of Tucson, where I lived for seven years.

Then back to the Quality Inn to read for a bit before bed, and listen to the concert through our window. And to the concert-goers as they came back to the hotel in the wee hours, still very hyped up from all the excitement. They were almost certainly drunk, too, which made it quite the party scene.

I always wake up early, usually around 5 a.m., although I didn't actually get up until 6 a.m. when the breakfast stuff was put out in the lobby. 

Unbeatable dining ambiance.

I had some scrambled eggs that were almost certainly mixed up from a powder, as well as cornflakes and coffee.

Breakfast of champions.

I typically drink my coffee and chicory with only a tablespoon of heavy cream. This sort of hotel coffee needs a lot more help than that to make it palatable, though, so I added whole milk and sugar to it. 

It was still early after this. Time for another walk.

A much different scene than my typical morning walk.

Spring comes a lot sooner in Albuquerque than in does at our house, so there were many flowering plants.

I don't know what this is, but it smelled heavenly.

After my walk, we still had about an hour before the surgery. I had discovered that the oral surgeon's office was right near the big grocery store I had been to last time I was in Albuquerque. 

Source of The Good Italian Sausage.

I of course had my coolers in the car, which is why I decided to go grocery shopping right then so we could just go home after the surgery.

Then finally, the actual purpose of this trip.

Awaiting the patient.

Eldest had been referred for extraction of one tooth, but on the advice of the surgeon, ended up getting all four wisdom teeth taken out. So that was pretty much the end of anything fun. But it was a nice city adventure while it lasted.

Snapshots: Flowers, Field Day, and Me

The mechanic's pit bulb garden doesn't currently have any blooms in it for the table--I'm waiting on the lilies at the moment--but there are plenty of wildflowers.

Those white ones are a new one this year. I don't know what they are, but they're pretty.

Unfortunately, they don't last as a cut flower, so I replaced them with a rose from my Mother's Day bush.

The last Wednesday of school is always field day for the elementary kids. The weather is a toss-up this time of year. It could be sunny or rainy, hot or cold, still or windy.

This year we got moderate temperatures, lots of sun, but unfortunate wind.

I managed to keep my floppy Mom hat on, but it was a battle.

Poppy set a school record for the 25-yard dash this year, and also did very well in the long jump.

She may have eaten some sand, too, but it was worth it.

I got a rare selfie with that record-breaking girl on Mother's Day.

She refused to smile for it, however.

And last, the preschool teacher always has a motivational saying as her screen saver. This was this month's.

A good reminder to us all.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.