Friday Food: Fishies

Friday 

Short version: A collard salad with leftover pulled pork--and cake--at home, sausages and potatoes at camp

Long version: A. was still gone with the three younger children this night. They were camping, and they cooked the sausages I had sent with them--jalapeno/cheddar and plain smoked beef--on a grate over their fire. They also had potatoes leftover from the meal I had packed for them the night before. The potatoes were in foil so they could be reheated on the fire, too.

The son home with me wasn't feeling well and didn't eat. I manhandled some collards and made a salad with those, the last of the leftover pulled pork, pickled onions, and feta cheese.

I made cake because I had a very small sour cream cake from some leftover batter I had made last time I made that cake. It had been in the freezer since then. It wasn't enough for the whole family, so I figured I would make it for the cake-loving eldest. I used some of the rhubarb I had cut the day before, along with strawberry jam, to layer in the middle of the two pieces I had cut, and then whipped cream over all that.

This is actually the whole cake, although it looks like a half.

He ate it the next day for breakfast. Surprisingly, this sort of cake holds up well in the refrigerator.

Saturday

Short version: Some cottage pie, more collard salad, chocolate chip cookies

Long version: I made a big cottage pie in my 15"x 10" Pyrex dish in the morning when it was cool, not knowing if the rest of the family would be home that night or would camp another night. 

A tip for making a really big pan of this: The mashed potatoes don't spread super well without pulling up the meat underneath, so it's best to make evenly spaced dollops of potato to spread shorter distances, instead of glopping it all in the middle and trying to get it to the edges. 

They ended up coming home, although only two kids were hungry. They had some of the cottage pie. I typically would serve it the next day, but I was presented with many fish instead, which needed to be used pronto. So the rest of the cottage pie stayed in the refrigerator as just extra food all week. The boys loved this. They could just scoop out some to re-heat for lunch or whatever anytime. They'd probably be very happy if I made a casserole in that pan every week. But I probably won't.

I used the rest of the large quantity of ground beef I had taken out to make just some browned ground beef with barbecue sauce, sort of like sloppy joe meat. I put some of that in with my collards, in addition to pickled radishes I had made that day in the jar the pickled onions had been in. I re-used the pickling liquid.

Saturday

Short version: Broiled trout, garlic toast, frozen corn, Mexican wedding cookies

Long version: A. and the children had amazingly good luck fishing their last morning in Colorado. They brought home eight trout.

That's a lot of fish.

Trout don't need to be scaled, which makes them much easier to clean than most fish. A. showed the three fisher-children how to clean them, using one as an example, and then they did the rest.

When your kids can clean fish for you, you really feel like you've arrived as a parent. At least, I think A. did. I don't clean fish at all.

Anyway. I broiled them with a butter/garlic/parsley/lemon juice mixture inside, and then served them with some mayonnaise mixed with lemon juice.

Since the broiler was on anyway, I broiled some garlic bread in there first, which kept warm in the oven as the fish were being broiled.

Dinner.

I had made the Mexican wedding cookies the day before while the oven was on to bake the cottage pie. My family LOOOOOVES these cookies. As cookies go, they're pretty wholesome. There's almost as much nuts as flour, and WAY less sugar than typical cookies. They're sort of involved to make, but much appreciated.

Monday

Short version: Trout patties, rice, Holy's cabbage or raw sauerkraut, leftover cookies

Long version: I had three whole trout left, plus some on children's plates. I used these to make patties the same way I make tuna patties--bread crumbs, egg, mayonnaise, mustard, lots of parsley instead of dill--but these take way longer because of the bones.

Trout are very bony. I of course pulled the flesh off the bones the night before when I was cleaning up after dinner, but then I spent at least half an hour more this night picking through the meat to get out dozens more tiny bones. It was truly a labor of love. I don't even eat fish. The bones were small enough that I wasn't worried about anyone actually choking. They're just unpleasant in the mouth.

They still found a few, because it's impossible to find them all, but I did pretty well.

I pulled the last bag of Holy's cabbage from last summer out of the freezer--I didn't have enough cabbage to make it this year, alas--and then gave the children who aren't into cooked cabbage some of the raw sauerkraut from the jar I keep in the refrigerator.

There were enough Mexican wedding cookies for everyone to have two for dessert. And there was much rejoicing.

Tuesday

Short version: Baked pasta, frozen green peas

Long version: I had taken a container of meat sauce out of the freezer several days prior and then never used it. It needed to be used. It wouldn't have been enough for everyone just over spaghetti, but in a casserole with pasta, pureed calabaza, and grated asadero cheese, it was more than enough.

I actually baked this in the morning when it was cool. At dinnertime, it looked too dry, though, as it had absorbed all the liquid while it sat. So I poured over more sauce made of a small can of tomato sauce, cream, red wine, and more spices, and then kind of chopped that in there and baked it.

It probably needed even more sauce, but it was very popular.

I added some grated Parmesan on top, too. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Wednesday

Short version: A smorgasbord of leftovers, and ice cream

Long version: I had a lot of different leftovers on hand. So I just set them all out and let everyone make their own plates to heat in the microwave.

A non-leftover rotisserie chicken purchased at Walmart this day, cottage pie, rice, one trout patty, sloppy Joe meat, pasta, sauerkraut, and Holy's cabbage.

The children helped me unload the car when I got home from Walmart, so of course they knew I bought ice cream. They saw no need to wait to eat the ice cream. I couldn't think of any reason not to eat it. Thus, ice cream.

Thursday

Short version: Pizzas, carrot sticks with ranch dip, watermelon

Long version: I made one half-sheet-pan pizza with sliced garlic and pepperoni, and a quarter-sheet-pan pizza that was just cheese.

Watermelons are always a crapshoot. This was a really good one. Yay.

Refrigerator check:

Watermelon always crowds the refrigerator.

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

A New Kind of Salad

I remember some years ago, when "seasonal eating" had become a new trend, there were all kinds of recipes for salads that did not involve lettuce. These were meant to be fall or winter salads, when lettuce isn't growing anymore. They included things like shaved celeriac, kale, or radicchio. I remember reading those recipes and thinking, "Yuck. Lettuce salads for me, thanks."

And here I am, eating my words. And no lettuce.

This year in the garden had a confluence of two events that led to this. One is that the grasshoppers ate all the second planting of lettuce that A. planted for me. The other is that A. bought several collard green seedlings in the spring that grew to truly impressive sizes with the rain we've gotten this year.

The grasshoppers are also eating the collards, but the plants are so big that the damage is almost all on the big outer leaves, leaving the smaller interior leaves mostly untouched.

I do not love collard greens cooked, but when I was deprived of my lettuce for the salads I prefer to eat in the summer, I remembered those non-lettuce salads. Specifically, the recipes for "massaged kale."

The massaging part is pretty much breaking down the tough leaves of kale with an acidic dressing with salt--both salt and acid break the leaves down a little--that is then kind of kneaded into the leaves with the hands. The kale is first cut into thin ribbons, which breaks it down some anyway, and is then broken down further by being squeezed with the hands. This makes it softer and easier to eat. 

It's a lot of work, honestly, to make an edible food.

I don't like kale for the very reason that it's so aggresively tough, so I don't grow it. But I did have all those collards, which aren't quite as resistant to eating as kale, but are still pretty rough when raw. And so I tried the same method for the collard greens that is recommended for kale: I sliced it very thin, added a mustard vinaigrette, and kneaded it for a minute with my hands.

It worked. 

So this is what I now use as my lettuce substitute. And that is why my salads now look like this:

Collards, pickled onions, chickpeas, Aunt Belva's pickled beets, and feta cheese.

I had a similar salad one day when I sat down to lunch with the eldest child. For him, I had made bowl of pasta with leftover pasta, some bacon I needed to use, cream cheese, butter, and peas. 

A perfect illustration of the dietary requirements of a 45-year-old woman versus those of a 15-year-old boy.

I still like lettuce salads better, but I'm glad to have figured out a workable substitute for this summer, at least.

Snapshots: A Corporal Work of Mercy

A few months ago, our priest said a funeral Mass for a lady who grew up here and lived here most of her life. She had moved, however, and none of her family was here anymore. Her daughters sent her ashes to our priest and asked him to bury them here, as it was what their mother had wanted.

There was no one at the burial except me and one other lady from church--and the priest, of course--and there was no marker for her grave. Her daughters had a little memorial plaque made for her and sent it just recently to the priest. There was no way to set it in the ground, however.

I had thought I would just have one of the boys make a wooden cross to afix it to or something, but then A. and one boy ended up shaping and chiseling out a stone to put the plaque on. After it was done, we went to the cemetery so A. could set the stone in concrete. 

It is very flat there.

Edited to add: That photo doesn't show the actual grave marker Son made, but I think some of you assumed it was one of the ones in the photo. I figured out how to obscure the personal details of the plaque he was working with, though, so here's the actual marker he made.

Flowers courtesy of Poppy.

My brother and his daughters have started making cards for the children for their birthdays. I love these cards. I got a text from my brother a week or so before the new 13-year-old's birthday asking if the birthday boy was still into tanks.

Well. I mean. Is there such a thing as a boy who grows out of tanks? I don't think so, and replied to that effect. This was the card my brother made.

This is a card made by a 47-year-old boy for a 13-year-old boy. Perfect.

The school supply lists have been posted on the school Facebook page. We still have a month or so before school starts, but I figured I should take advantage of the quiet house while A. was gone with most of the children and sort through what I already had so I could figure out what I needed.

I have a lot of folders.

I found quite a lot of things I forgot I had stashed away. Like boxes of crayons and colored pencils, and a 12-pack of glue sticks. I even found pencil boxes and scissors for everyone. Yay.

This little dude was hanging between the two chains on my bedroom ceiling fan.

I squished him. I don't care if it was Charlotte herself, I will not have a spider suspended above my face while I'm sleeping.

And last, some flowers. Of course.

Some below-the-hill flowers--and berries--A. brought me.

The big bookcase arrangement when I still had hollyhocks.

And the big arrangement without hollyhocks. This is what I'll bring to church tomorrow for the altar. It was better with the hollyhocks. Curses on the hollyhock-eating grasshoppers.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.