Friday Food: America Food

Friday 

Short version: A patriotic feast

Long version: In honor of Our Great Country, we ate a lot. This is the one day a year that I ask A. to grill. We have a kettle grill, and we had charcoal, but we had no lighter fluid. This meant he had to build a fire with kindling under the charcoal. He did. And then he grilled some beef steaks he had bought at the Mexican market, where they're like half the cost of the stores around us, as well as some marinated ram steaks.

I made American potato salad (with mayonnaise, hard-boiled eggs, dill pickles, etc.), coleslaw, and baked beans as sides. All of this could be done in the morning, which is always handy.

For dessert, we had our traditional flag cake. I made a Bonnie Butter cake this year, along with this buttercream frosting, and then Poppy helped me decorate it.

Multiple people noted there are only 20 blueberry "stars" on this cake. That is why I started saying it's a historic cake from 1817, which is the year the 20th state (Mississippi) was admitted to the Union. So there.

We ate the cake with ice cream. And then we lit the burn pile in the pasture and toasted marshmallows. A glorious Fourth, indeed.

Saturday

Short version: Sausages, leftovers

Long version: I had lots of sides left over, but not a lot of meat. So I cooked a bunch of different sausages--cheddar, andouille, jalapeno-cheddar--to serve with the leftover beans, coleslaw, and potato salad.

There was a little leftover cake, too. Happy Fifth of July.

Sunday

Short version: Primal burritos, Mexican slaw, "healthy" Scotcheroos

Long version: I used some of our primal ground meat mix--elk and beef heart--to make taco meat with already-cooked onion, salsa, and a cube of pureed red chile from the freezer. Then I set out all the toppings, toasted some flour tortillas directly over the burner flame on our propane stove and let everyone make their burritos.

We're about a week from having tomatoes from the garden, so those are from the store, but the green onions are from the garden.

Poppy requested the coleslaw. She liked the vinegar-y slaw my sister made while we were visiting, so I made that for these burritos. I had discovered earlier in the day that while the grasshoppers don't really eat kohlrabi and collards, they do eat cabbages. They had gnawed off the top of the small cabbages left in the garden. So I harvested them, cut off the gnawed tops, and shredded that for the slaw, along with a carrot, some pickled onions, cumin, garlic powder, and vinegar.

I have never made Scotcheroos before, but I had crispy rice cereal, not enough marshmallows to make crispy rice treats, and a disinclination to turn on the oven to make dessert. Scotcheroos are traditionally made with butterscotch chips--hence the name--which I did not have. So I made a recipe for "healthy" Scotcherooos that subbed maple syrup for the butterscotch chips. I did not use brown rice cereal or dairy-free chocolate chips, though.

They were not healthy, but they were delicious. And very filling. I kind of hate the name, though, and it wasn't too appropriate since I didn't use butterscotch chips. I need to come up with something else to call these. Any suggestions?

Monday

Short version: Pork chops, cornbread, sauerkraut and carrots, leftover Scotcheroos

Long version: I had completely forgotten that I bought pork chops on sale a month or so ago. They surfaced when I was digging for something else in the freezer, so I took them out for dinner. All I did was heavily salt and pepper them, then brown them in batches and finish them by broiling them on a sheet pan, with some extra spices on them.

I made the cornbread earlier in the day when I had the oven on to make cookies. My broiler is one of those drawer ones on the bottom, so I re-heated the cornbread by putting it in the main oven while the broiler was on.

The sauerkraut was a jar from last year, rinsed and then sauteed in butter with some frozen shredded carrots.

Tuesday

Short version: Various combined leftovers, cherries

Long version: I made some rice. And then I had one and a half plain sausages left, which I sliced and re-heated with the last of the baked beans and served over some of the rice for the two youngest children. 

To the rest of the rice, I added the leftover primal burrito filling, frozen corn, a cube of frozen green chile puree, salsa, the last of the grated cheese from the burritos, and sour cream. That's what A. and the older two had.

As always, not pretty, but still eaten.

I had a leftover pork chop and some of the sauerkraut and carrots.

We all had cherries. I love cherry season.

Wednesday 

Short version: Oven barbecued chicken, baked potatoes, cabbage things, cherries

Long version: It was really warmer than I would have liked for cooking chicken, which takes at least an hour in the oven. However. It was going to be even hotter the next day, so I decided to make the chicken this night. It was drumsticks and thighs, which I salted, then covered in a spice and brown sugar mixture before roasting.

Potatoes in with the chicken.

The cabbage-y things were the last of the Mexican coleslaw and the last of the sauerkraut and shredded carrots. A couple of kids had raw radishes instead of anything with cabbage.

I bought two bags of on-sale cherries, which is why we had cherries again. Yay.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover brisket and chicken, smashed potatoes, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, banana ice cream

Long version: There were several pieces of chicken left, but not enough for all six of us. So I also took out a bag of the cooked brisket from when I cooked the entire brisket a couple of weeks ago. I heated the chicken and the brisket in the same skillet, using the liquid from cooking the chicken the day before.

Meat medley.

The potatoes were two and a half leftover baked potatoes that I scooped out of the skins and heated up with milk and lots of butter and salt. I roughly mashed them with a fork, but didn't do anything else with it.

I think this is the first time this summer that I've made the fake ice "cream" with frozen bananas. I had four bananas that were past their prime, so I sliced those in the morning just to make the ice cream. Much appreciated by the family on a hot and muggy evening as thunderstorms were moving around us. I don't love it as much as they do, so I just had some cherries. Again.

Refrigerator check:

I finally got the deli drawer slider and replaced it. Again. I think this is the fourth time.

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

A Teaser

When we went to Colorado, A. stayed home to take care of the animals. He also took the opportunity to completely demolish the children's bathroom. There were leaks in the tub, toilet, and sink that were causing the floor to buckle, as well as forming an unwelcome swampy area under the trailer. The toilet only flushed with help from an extra bucket of water, and the bathtub was the original avocado-green plastic fixture from the seventies.

It was way past time to address it, is what I'm saying.

So while we were gone, A. pulled out the toilet, the tub, and the entire floor.

The old tub out the back door, awaiting its trip to the dump.

The new plywood floor. Delightfully solid underfoot.

With a great deal of hard work, he managed to have the floor and toilet installed before we got home. Then we chose some peel and stick vinyl floor tiles to cover the plywood. Since these tiles are going in our 1970s trailer-with-additions, we definitely do not need to worry about resale. So we chose exactly what we wanted.

And what we wanted were Moroccan-style tiles in blue.

We're waiting on the tub and shower fixtures to be delivered this week, and then A. can finish putting in all the plumbing. 

I'll post some pictures when it's done. Stay tuned.

Snapshots: A New Mexican Church

A. has been working on and off on a big masonry job down the hill. On the very last day he was there with two of the boys, the van wouldn't start when they were ready to leave, so I had to go down there and pick them up. 

It's a very cool ranch in a beautiful location.

The van needed a new starter. We were very grateful that it broke down where it did, because it could just be left there rather than having to be towed. A. was able to go to town the very next day, stop at the ranch where the van still was, put the new starter in, and ta da! Fixed van.

Poppy made sure the refrigerator was appropriately decorated for the Fourth of July.

And another child contributed one of his small flags for the middle of the table.

The dark red asiatic lily isn't my favorite color of lily, but it was certainly appropriate for the day.

We had a lot of watermelon still on hand on the Fourth, so I de-seeded some of it, cut it into chunks to freeze, and used it to make an adult slushie with vodka and lemon juice. I was actually not a huge fan of this--too sweet--but it was definitely the right color.

Well, maybe a little more pink than red, but at least close to the right color.

We have several far-flung historic mission churches in our area that no longer have a congregation large enough to justify a weekly Mass, but our priest does travel to them to celebrate Saturday Mass once a month. These are beautiful churches, and I'm very glad they're still maintained.

We used to sometimes go to one that's about forty minutes from our house, but we haven't been in about three years. Poppy didn't remember the church and asked if we could go. So I took her to Mass at the mission church yesterday.

One of the more striking things about this church is that it's in the remnants of a village, itself isolated, but behind the church there is nothing but rangeland. It makes me feel that the church is an island on a sea of grass.

The interior is also quite striking.

I always wonder who did the paintings in these churches. Did they hire professionals when the churches were built? Or was there a very talented local? Probably the former, because almost every church here has incredible decorative painting.

The family that takes care of this church also serves at the Mass. The mother and two teenage daughters are the choir. They truly have lovely voices, and they sing all the parts of the Mass that can be sung, mostly in Latin. Their harmony really sounds angelic, and I love listening to them. This church has a choir loft in the upper back, so we can't see them, only hear them. It's one of my favorite parts of going there, because while we do sing at our church, we don't have a choir or any trained singers like that.

And last, while we were below the hill, Poppy and I stopped to gather some of the below-the-hill wildflowers growing in profusion on the roadside. There are just a few sunflowers that have started blooming up here, but down there, they're in full bloom. There were also some smaller yellow flowers, and some kind of thistle-looking flower (but without the spiky plant) that is purple before opening, and then is a fluffy white with a purple fringe when it opens out fully.

I also added some ornamental sage and grass heads.

I'll bring that arrangement to our church for the altar today. I have to have taller arrangements for that because the altar is so big and the people are kind of far away from it, so anything small is just kind of lost. And yes, Poppy and I will be going to church again. It's a mayordoma month for me.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.