Friday Food: Three Meals and Their Leftovers

Friday 

Short version: Giant lasagna, sourdough herb bread, salad, brownies

Long version: My family arrived this day for the weekend to help us celebrate Poppy's First Communion. They all drove, and my mom and sister offered to bring dinner. My sister made the world's largest lasagna.

The beast.

It must have weighed at least eight pounds. We only ate about half of it this night, and then the rest of it disappeared steadily over the next few days for lunches.

My sister's boyfriend brought the bread, which he made with the starter I gave him. My mom made the salad. I made the brownies.

Saturday

Short version: Ground beef tacos on corn tortillas, refried beans, leftover brownies, candy variety

Long version: I used around four pounds of ground beef to make taco meat, and then I took out the refried beans with chicharrones that A. had made a couple of weeks ago and that I froze.

This was the only dinner eaten at my house while my family was here. 

We can squeeze ten people around the table if the people on the ends are okay being cozy.

Poppy and I made a LOT of corn tortillas, enough that I had leftovers even.

The candy was brought by my mother for the children. She asked me to find out what their favorites were. They were Almond Joys, dark chocolate, Twix, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The children generously shared, so we had a bunch of candy on the table for the picking. And leftover brownies.

Sunday

Short version: Ham, scalloped potatoes, cabbage and carrots, corn, green salad with vinaigrette, coconut cake, chocolate pudding

Long version: The ham, potatoes, corn, and coconut cake were all Poppy's requests for her First Communion Day celebratory meal. I added the rest of it.

I have never made--or even eaten, I think--a coconut cake. I used this recipe. I had to buy three different kinds of coconut flavoring for this one (coconut extract, coconut milk, and shredded coconut), separate eggs, make cake flour . . . Suffice to say that I will not be making this often.

Everyone loved it, though, and my sister got a pretty funny picture of me with it.

Cheers to cake!

I made the pudding just because I had five egg yolks left after separating out the whites for the cake.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: One child opted to have the last serving of lasagna, along with some scalloped potatoes. Carb loading. 

Everyone else had ham, potatoes, and corn. 

There were also both pudding and cake left over. O happy day.

Tuesday

Short version: Cinco de Mayo leftovers, plus chips and salsa and not-margaritas

Long version: We always celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Sometimes in a very lame way, but always something. This year, I actually already had leftover taco meat and refried beans, plus some big flour tortillas my sister left with us, so burritos were a no-brainer.

For the adults, I made a frozen cocktail in the blender that was just grapefruit vodka and fresh-squeezed orange juice, plus ice. 

That's my drink on top of The Party Blender.

At A.'s suggestion, we put Los Angeles Azules on to dance around to while we had our drinks and the kids ate chips and salsa.

Wednesday

Short version: Mostly leftovers

Long version: I made some rice and then combined that with more of the taco meat and leftover corn, plus spices, a bit of cheese, and sour cream. A low-effort meal, but whatever. That's the way it is sometimes.

Thursday

Short version: Potato soup, garlic bread, rhubarb pudding with cream

Long version: More leftovers, this time in soup. I took all of the leftover scalloped potatoes and put them in a pot with the last of the leftover ham plus the liquid, some already-cooked onions from the freezer, and then I rinsed out the containers the potatoes and ham had been in so there was some more liquid. After that was all heated, I pureed it with my immersion blender. Easiest soup ever.

I had baked bread earlier in the day, hence the garlic bread. And I had put the rhubarb pudding in when the bread was done, since the oven was already hot. This is the first of the rhubarb I had used this year. Everyone was very appreciative of it.

Refrigerator check:

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