Friday Food: Finger Salad

Friday 

Short version: Scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese from a box, frozen peas

Long version: Talk about a low-effort meatless meal. However. 

Both of my friends with many chickens gave me a lot of eggs this week, so I had about seven dozen eggs in my refrigerator to use. And the lady at the post office asked me to take the rest of the excess commodities things that were sitting in the post office lobby. That included two cases of macaroni and cheese.

Sounds like dinner to me.

Green peas to relieve the overwhelming yellow and orange of this plate.

Saturday

Short version: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, collard greens or still-frozen green beans

Long version: The collard greens were the ones I harvested before our vicious cold in January. Those who do not care for collard greens--that is, everyone under 18 years of age in our house--had the still-frozen green beans.

Sunday

Short version: Chicken and rice burritos, collard greens or still-frozen green beans, baked fruit with cream

Long version: The child with the delicate stomach was ready to start eating some solid food. The least-challenging solid food is rice. I had a container of chicken stock I had taken from the freezer that also had the chicken I had pulled off the bones when I made the stock. I used that to make rice with nothing else except salt added, so it was very plain chicken and rice.

For everyone else, I used that chicken and rice to make burrito filling by adding salsa, pinto beans, frozen corn, spices, and cheese.

The baked fruit was two quart jars of apples and one quart jar of pears, just baked with extra spices. I added a bit of maple syrup, too, when I served it. Plus cream on top, of course.

Monday

Short version: Chicken fried rice, crepe cake

Long version: I used more of the chicken and rice to make the fried rice, which also included onions, frozen green peas, some leftover cooked collards, a small bag of beet greens that had been hanging out in the little freezer for a long time, and a little bit of dandelion greens I picked by the back steps. Plus eggs, of course.

I mostly used the dandelion greens because Poppy is always unhappy to see collard greens in anything, even if she can't taste them. But she does love dandelions. When I told her there were dandelion greens in the fried rice, she was so pleased that she didn't remark on the collard greens. She doesn't love fried rice much, in any case, but she was happy I used some of the dandelion greens.

The many shades of green before the rice went in.

We had quite a few crepes left that A. had made after church on Sunday, and I had made strawberry jam, so I layered a few of the crepes with the jam and whipped cream for a much-appreciated Monday dessert.

Tuesday

Short version: All the leftovers, baked beans, and testing treats

Long version: I got home from First Communion class with Poppy and started pulling everything out of the refrigerator. I had just enough leftovers for everyone. I had some more or less plain ground beef I had cooked just to add to my salads that I used to make sloppy joe sandwiches for two of the children. There wasn't actually quite enough meat for that, but I had made baked beans earlier to use up some of the MANY cans of pinto beans the post office lady asked me to take*. I mixed some of the beans in with the meat for the sandwich filling.

I had a bit of that, too, with a little of the leftover chicken and rice.

The other two children had leftover meatloaf with leftover mashed potatoes mixed with cheese.

A. had meatloaf with some of the chicken rice topped with baked beans.

The older boys had standardized testing this day, and had been grumbling that the little kids always get treats when they have to test, but no one gives the older kids anything. So I had promised them I would make them a treat. I made crispy rice treats. And of course, everyone got a couple, not just those who had to take the PSAT this day.

Wednesday

Short version: Hamburgers and baked beans at home, sandwich and salad on the road

Long version: I went to a track meet in the afternoon. There was ground beef in the refrigerator, which A. used to make hamburgers for the four at home when he got back from his afternoon school bus run.

I brought a salami and cream cheese sandwich for the trackster to eat in the car on the way home. He ate that first, and then spent the rest of the ride home eating from the giant container of honey-roasted peanuts I had bought at the grocery store before going to the track meet. That will certainly replace any calories burned while running.

I had the salad I had brought with me. 

In my lap in the car, as always.

I realized when I got to the track meet and was preparing to eat it before going into the meet that I forgot a fork. Usually I have plastic utensils in my car, but those apparently had all been used and not put back.

Curses.

I spent a minute pondering my options: Hike to the meet and try to get a fork at the concession stand, wait to eat until I got home, or eat salad with my fingers.

I went with the last one. 

I did forgo the dressing, to make it less messy. Thankfully, the pickled beets and onions mixed with the egg yolks made a dressing of a sort. It wasn't too bad, actually, although I'm glad no one saw me.

Thursday

Short version: Baked spaghetti

Long version: This day was very busy, with a trip to Walmart to get the flowers for the Easter altar arrangements, a school event from 4:30-6, and then Maundy Thursday Mass at 7 p.m. I was planning to get a rotisserie chicken at Walmart to help me out with dinner, but they didn't have any. Boooo.

So instead, I used the one can of chicken breast I had in the pantry, plus broken spaghetti, tomato sauce, cooked onions from the freezer, spices, and some of the shredded asadero cheese from the freezer to make a casserole that A. heated up in the oven when he got home. Oh, and I also added some of the chopped collard greens that were in the refrigerator. I blended those into the tomato sauce with my immersion blender so they were indistinguishable from the spices.

Sneaky spaghetti.

That was hot when we got home so anyone who wanted it could eat before we went to church. The kids had eaten a lot of snacks at the school event, so they weren't all that hungry, but they ate some, anyway.

Refrigerator check:

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

* Excess commodities food often gets left in the tiny lobby of our tiny post office, and she really wanted it out of her way. So I ended up with three dozen cans of pinto beans.