Friday
Short version: Italian sausages and onions, roasted potatoes, tomato salad
Long version: Last time I was at Walmart, I found two kinds of Italian sausage I hadn't seen before, both Walmart store brands. Not Great Value, though. I think it's Marketside. One was the usual mild Italian sausage in links, the other was links with Parmesan and mozzarella in them. Italian sausage is the only kind everyone in my family will eat without complaint, so I'm always on the lookout for it. I bought both to try.
Lots of sausage.
Verdict: Everyone approved of the plain ones. The cheese ones didn't have enough cheese and also had that unfortunate smooth hot dog texture that so many sausages have. Of course there were only two packages of the plain ones, so I couldn't get a lot, but I'll keep looking for it now that I know it's an option.
A Dad plate.
Saturday
Short version: Pork shoulder, cornbread, cucumber pickles, rice pudding
Long version: I was at a birthday party for Poppy's best friend in the afternoon, but before I left, I cooked a pork shoulder for awhile in the oven, along with the rice pudding. That just left the cornbread to make when I got home.
Sunday
Short version: Pork tacos with homemade corn tortillas, refried black beans, pear crisp with vanilla ice cream
Long version: The pork had needed another hour or so in the oven to get really tender, so I stuck it back in while I was baking cookies, just so I could easily get the rest of the meat off the bone. That's what I used for the tacos.
I hadn't made tortillas in awhile because they heat up the kitchen a lot, but it was cool enough to do it without too much discomfort. Poppy actually did all the pressing of the tortillas for me while I took care of cooking them. This made it much easier.
I still make refried beans the way I learned from a very old Rick Bayless PBS program about twenty years ago: lard, garlic, a whole can of black beans (or two), smash thoroughly with a potato masher and simmer--stirring and scraping the pan regularly--until thick. Yum.
While I was considering what to do with the many ripe pears in a box by the woodstove, it occurred to me that I had never heard of a pear pie. I mentioned this to A., who has extensive experience with eating pies, and had also never heard of it. His thought was that pears aren't acidic enough to make good pies.
This seemed reasonable, but I still wanted to experiment with the pears. I wasn't in the mood to make a pie crust, so I made a crisp instead.
A 9"x13" crisp will use up a lot of fruit.
It was good, but not as good as an apple crisp. Because it didn't have as much flavor due to the lack of acidity, as A. correctly theorized.
Monday
Short version: Sausage pizza grilled cheese, carrot slaw, applesauce with cream
Long version: I had several links of sausage left, but not enough for everyone to have plain. I also had just a bit of pizza sauce left that needed to be used, and I almost always have grated asadero cheese in the freezer.
So, I used all those things to make grilled sandwiches.
Mid-assembly, pre-cheese. There was another one on the cutting board.
Four of the five family members were highly enthusiastic about this. The one who wasn't ate it, even if not as enthusiastically.
The carrot slaw was just shredded carrots with the coleslaw dressing I typically use, minus the celery seed. I found to my surprise when I was making the dressing that I was out of mayonnaise. This hardly ever happens, but there I was, with no mayonnaise. I only needed a tablespoon, though, so I just used sour cream instead. It was fine, if not quite as delicious as it would have been with the mayonnaise.*
The applesauce was the last of the jar in the refrigerator, which means we went through a gallon of applesauce in a week. Those seven quarts I canned really won't last that long.
Tuesday
Short version: Daddy burgers, tomato salad
Long version: I had taken out ground beef to thaw for hamburgers, as well as bacon. A. was going to town, and I gave him the option of buying American cheese and bread so he could make his preferred burgers. He makes these on hunting or camping trips over the fire with the kids. These involve frying the bacon, then frying thin beef patties, then adding American cheese and sort of basting the patties with the bacon grease. They are served preferentially on Sara Lee Butter Bread and are served with nothing more than ketchup.
They are very popular with the children. And with me, as I dislike frying hamburgers.
Wednesday
Short version: Pork chops with gravy, mashed potatoes, frozen corn
Long version: Nothing too exciting here, except the gravy was really good because I had both the liquid left from cooking the pork roast AND homemade rooster stock. And cream. Yum.
I feel like this could have been taken in 1985.
I also used those things, plus some of the potatoes, a piece of bacon, and some of the pickled onions in the refrigerator, to make a pureed potato soup for Poppy. She has had a cold and her throat hurt.
Soup in progress.
Lucky for her, I have at least a decade of experience making soup with whatever I find in my kitchen, thanks to her eldest brother and his demand of soup whenever he was sick. Having an immersion blender really helps, too. (Thanks, MiL!)
Thursday
Short version: Burritos with beans and chicharrones, green salad with ranch dressing, ice cream
Long version: Chicharrones are pork rinds. That is, the skin. The ones you might have seen in bags in the chip section of the store are deep-fried. The ones we used were just fried pieces of the skin. They're softer, and A. assures me that is what Mexican restaurants use to make chicharron burritos. I'm gonna take his word for that, since he eats them and I never have.
When I made the pork roast this week, I pulled off the thick layer of skin and fat in preparation for shredding the meat. A. wandered into the kitchen just then and asked me what I was going to do with the skin. I told him I was going to give it to the dogs. He was scandalized by this, and immediately started slicing it into pieces and frying it in lard.
He told me he would make bean burritos with the resulting chicharrones. But then he was busy just before dinner working on our bathroom, and I certainly did not want to interrupt that. So I made the burritos. I had simmered pinto beans most of the morning, mostly to add some needed heat to the house. I pureed those with cheese, and then I spread this mixture in the toasted tortillas before adding the chicharrones.
For the sick girl who still had a sore throat, I made rice in chicken stock and she ate some of that with beans. She's also why we had the ice cream.
Right before I was about to make dinner, I got a surprise text that the first flag football practice was in half an hour. The youngest boy was signed up, but I somehow didn't get put on the group messaging thing until just then, so it was a mad rush to get him out the door and to the practice. I just fed three kids and me, and then A. came back from the drop-off and ate, and I went back to the football field for the pick-up. And then I fed the football player when he got home.
It's a whirlwind life we lead.
Refrigerator check:
Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?
* I considered making mayonnaise, since I have a lot of eggs, but I didn't have any neutral oils, so that wouldn't have worked.
