Friday Food: Kitchen Work for a Cause

Friday 

Short version: Pollock, mashed potatoes, fancy collard salad, cucumber salad, crepe cake

Long version: I had three bags of Pollock fillets that I got from commodities. At least, I think they were fillets. Maybe they were planks? They were very regular rectangles that looked to have been cut from fillet, anyway. Each bag had eight planks. Two bags would have been enough for this meal, but I decided to cook all of them in anticipation of making a fish pie with leftovers.

To that end, I put all the fish pieces in my biggest Pyrex in the oven, covered with foil, and then on top of those put the leeks I had cooked in chicken stock and cream.

And then they just would.not.get.cooked. 

I had put them in frozen, because that's what the package said to do. The package also said one bag would cook from frozen in twenty minutes. After an hour, they were so far from cooked they were still cold.

At that point I split them up into two Pyrexes in the oven. Still not cooking fast enough given that it was now 6:15 p.m. So I put two-thirds of them in my biggest stainless steel pan on the stove and simmered them until they were done. Which took only about fifteen minutes.

So annoying.

I made the fancy collard salad--fancy meaning it had dried cranberries, toasted pecans, and pickled onion slivers in it--because our priest was joining us for dinner and he actually likes collard salads as much as I do.

The cucumber salad was just cucumbers, pickled onions, and ranch dressing. For those who do not appreciate collard salads.

I made the crepe cake to use the five leftover crepes from the previous Sunday's after church breakfast. I layered them with sweetened whipped cream and rhubarb jam to which I had added some plain mashed strawberries.

Saturday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, beans and rice, carrot sticks, cookies

Long version: Two tubes of Great Value premium breakfast sausage made into thin patties and broiled. 

I took out one quart jar of frozen pinto beans that appeared to have been cooked with a ham bone, given the fat on top of the beans. I added a sauteed onion, garlic, and some tomato sauce to them. Since there was quite a bit of liquid in the beans, I cooked rice right in with the beans, and then I added some leftover cooked rice to it, along with butter. At the last minute, I also dumped in the grease in the sausage pan. 

That's three kinds of fat in the beans and rice. Predictably, my family thought they were the best beans ever.

The cookies were this week's snack cookies: peanut butter, oats, and chocolate chips.

Sunday

Short version: Fish pie, frozen peas, coconut cake

Long version: I used to make this fish pie all the time when we lived on the lake in New York and ate lots of lake trout. It's a good use for leftover fish. In this case, all that leftover Pollock. 

The original recipe came from Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking. That recipe calls for mushrooms and peas in the fish part, which I did not use, and thyme and parsley, which I did use. 

Come to think of it, I didn't actually use the recipe much at all except for the herbs. Instead I just dumped all the saved juices from cooking the fish, which included all the cream and leeks left, into a pan with another sliced leek and simmered that until the leek was soft. Then I thickened it with cornstarch before adding it to the fish.

Creamy. And herby.

I also had almost enough mashed potatoes for the topping on the fish pie. I used some of the instant potato flakes we've been getting from commodities to bulk up the leftover mashed potatoes so there would be enough. 

This really is a surprisingly good use for leftover fish. Even Poppy said, "I don't even like fish, but this is so good."

For the cake, I used one of the bags of yellow cake mix we got from commodities. I made it into a sheet cake and used coconut oil instead of butter in it, plus coconut extract and shredded sweetened coconut. The frosting was more or less a buttercream with a little cream cheese and more coconut extract. And then there was more coconut all over the top.

Everyone LOVED this. I don't know why I've been under the impression that my family doesn't like cake all that much. Maybe because they never actually request it. They certainly eat it with enthusiasm when I make it, though.

Monday

Short version: Sausage, leftover fish pie, cucumbers, leftover cake

Long version: I didn't have quite enough of the fish pie for it to be the main course, but I had enough of it to be a side dish. Which is why I cooked one package of smoked beef sausage. Then there was enough for everyone.

Sausage and leftovers.

No one thought there was enough cake, since there was only enough left for everyone to have one small piece. but a small piece is better than none. That's what I told them, anyway.

Tuesday

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, fried potatoes, pickles, cranberry-pecan bread

Long version: I had made the hamburger buns the day before when I was baking bread, which made this a relatively quick meal to make. The fried potatoes were just a few big potatoes that I peeled and diced before frying in tallow, covered first to get soft, and then uncovered to get crispy.

The bread was this oat and yogurt bread, with extra honey added, as well as pecans and some of the many dried cranberries we've been getting from commodities. It's a good way to use up a lot of the cranberries, and it is a very good bread.

Wednesday

Short version: Low-effort hamburger with baked beans, rice, cucumbers with ranch dip

Long version: I spent all afternoon in the kitchen cooking for a gathering of priests that our priest was hosting the next day. One of the things I made for them was baked beans. I was heartily sick of the kitchen by the time dinner rolled around, so I just browned some ground beef and ladled in some of the baked beans to serve over rice.

I also, handily, still had a jar of the juices from the oven chicken I had made the week before that was more or less similar to barbecue sauce spices. So I put some of that in with the meat, too, to flavor it some more. 

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers or concession food

Long version: On this day I spent all morning in the kitchen, baking for a silent auction at school to benefit one of our high school students who has been in and out of the hospital with a difficult-to-treat condition. I made a coconut cake, crispy rice treats, and cranberry-walnut bread.

The brownies were Poppy's contribution. She got up twenty minutes early so she could make them before school.

The auction was during the volleyball game after school, to which I went and at which Poppy was cheering. The football player met us there after practice, too, so the two kids with me had concession food for dinner. Before I left for the game, I had a salad with some of the leftover meat from the night before in it.

The ones at home had the leftover hamburger/baked beans/rice from the night before. Plus a few crispy rice treats I saved for them.

Refrigerator check:

Ginger ale for the upset stomach that we had in the house this week.

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