Friday Food: Accidental Stew

Friday 

Short version: Nachos, raw bell peppers and radishes

Long version: I had quite a bit of the pork taco meat and beans left from the night before, and some of the toppings, too. My first thought was to make burritos with the flour tortillas I also had, but then I remembered the bag of tortilla chips I bought before Christmas and decided to make nachos.

They were really good. I mean, obviously. How could nachos not be good?

Saturday

Short version: Chicken and rice skillet, cucumbers

Long version: I had taken a rooster out of the freezer and cooked it by simply dropping it in water with carrot peelings, onion tops, and bay leaves to simmer until the meat came off easily. It was a fairly small rooster, but there was enough meat on it to make something like this recipe, which relies almost entirely on a ton of caramelized onions for flavor. I still have several bags of commodities onions to use, so I made a pan of caramelized onions and then used that same pan to brown the chicken pieces and cook the rice in the chicken stock. I added a bit of balsamic vinegar, because I knew it would be better with the optional wine but I didn't have any.

I have a really hard time getting rice cooked evenly in a wide skillet, though, every time. Maybe the lid for my biggest skillet doesn't fit tight enough or something, but I always have a layer of crunchy rice on the top. I had to stir it a few times and add more chicken stock, but eventually got it all cooked.

The plethora of onions and the thyme apparently made this taste like turkey stuffing to my family, which was kind of funny. They all liked it, though.

Sunday

Short version: Breakfast sausage and gravy, pinto beans, bread and butter, cucumbers, pumpkin pie with whipped cream or doughnuts

Long version: The "premium" Walmart-brand breakfast sausage is pretty good. I used one of the 12-ounce tubes, which made 5 patties. Then I added some of the leftover caramelized onions to it plus cornstarch and milk to make a gravy.

That would obviously not have been enough for our family, which is why I also took a container of cooked pinto beans out of the freezer. Those I re-heated with more of the caramelized onions, garlic powder, butter, and balsamic vinegar.

I had meant to make cornbread, but I was waiting to see if A. and eldest had eaten in town before I started dinner, and by the time they got home I didn't have time to make the cornbread. So, bread and butter it is.

Not a pretty meal, nor very colorful, but quite tasty.

I made pumpkin pie for Sunday dessert because I always have enough pureed squash to make a double batch of the pumpkin filling when I make pie for Thanksgiving. I freeze half of it for later. I also had a pie crust in the freezer, because the recipe I use makes enough for a double-crust pie and I only used one for the New Year's Day pecan pie. So all I needed to do was add the dairy to the squash mixture, roll out the pie crust, and assemble.

The doughnuts were a box of a dozen Entemann's doughnuts that A. bought when he was at the store. He was going to get ice cream for the children who don't like pumpkin pie, but he didn't have a cooler with him. I have no idea why he went with the box of doughnuts, but he was dismayed to find when he paid for them that they were seven dollars. Coincidentally the same price as a gallon of Walmart ice cream.

They were a fun novelty for the children, anyway, although I do not think he'll be buying them again.

Monday

Short version: Pizzas, carrot sticks and ranch dip, leftover pumpkin pie

Long version: We hadn't had pizza in awhile because A. hadn't been to the one store that carries the big blocks of cheap asadero cheese I use in place of mozzarella. He went the day before, though, and came home with asadero. Thus, pizza.

Only about half the family really likes pumpkin pie, which is why there was some leftover. Not a common fate of desserts in our house.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover pizza, scrambled eggs, leftover beans

Long version: We had enough pizza left over for everyone to have a couple of pieces. I had eldest son put that in the oven to start heating up while I was at First Communion class with Poppy, and then I quickly scrambled some eggs and re-heated the pinto beans when I got home to fill out the plates.

There were a lot of fruits to choose from after dinner, so I didn't bother with a vegetable.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork, cornbread, frozen peas, baked rice pudding

Long version: Yet another of the giant pork butts, cooked until tender and then fried in its own rendered lard with spices. Predictable, yet still tasty.

The rice pudding is also predictable now, as I pretty much always make it when I have the oven on for so long to cook the pork. It feels more efficient to cook two things for a long time. And no one has ever said we're having rice pudding too often, unlike in this poem.

Thursday

Short version: Unexpected chickpea and pork stew

Long version: I did not intend to make this for dinner until I was in the middle of it. I had opened one of the food-service-sized cans of chickpeas my sister had brought me, as well as a similarly sized can of tomato paste, so my thought was to make chickpeas with tomato. To this end, I made a skillet of caramelized onions, most of which I added to the pot of chickpeas and tomatoes. Also a few cloves of garlic and some paprika and chicken stock.

Then I added salt. Way too much salt, as it turned out. 

Dang it.

In the case of too much salt, more of something else is the only solution. This time, that was potatoes, collard greens, more water, and some of the leftover pork to make stew. This ended up being delicious, so it was a happy accident in the end.

Refrigerator check:

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

The Plague of Scent

The other day, I bought trash bags. I am always careful to check that the bags I'm getting are unscented. I find scented trash bags to be disgusting. If trash is going to smell, it will smell, and the scent of lavender or whatever in the trash bags is not going to help that. 

All is well.

I also needed big garbage bags for the dump. I get the biggest ones of these I can find, and the strongest. I detest small bags or big bags that rip whenever I try to pull them out of the big trash can in the shop. Walmart sells big contractor bags, and that is what I got.

I brought them home, took one out to put it in the can and . . . what is that smell? Are these contractor bags SCENTED?

"May contain a light scent" indeed.

I cannot imagine why my "extra-TOUGH" contractor bags "made for professional cleanup jobs" are scented. It's not a nice scent, either. They smell like a porta potty. Maybe that's what contractors expect in their trash bags?

I don't know, but it's gross and I am displeased. 

Thankfully, these bags are only ever outside, so I'm not confronted with their stench in my house, but still. I think that was unnecessary.

Snapshots: Starting with Epiphany

The Wise Men finally made it to the manger scene on Epiphany.

The whole gang's together.

The next day I put away all the Christmas stuff. This includes the tree, which of course had dropped needles all over the rug in the living room. I know better than to try to use the vacuum to clean those up now, though, because one of my least-favorite things is cleaning out a clogged vacuum. And that is exactly what cedar needles will do, every time.

Thus, I picked up all the needles on the rug by hand.

Fun.

We took the church decorations down that afternoon, and I found that the fake tree there also shed needles. I guess there's no such thing as a non-shedding Christmas tree.

Taking the small chili pepper tree off the table meant I had nothing there. I mentioned to Poppy that it was too bad I didn't have anything for the middle of the table, and she ran off to her room to find something for me.

She made this button flower craft at a school event. Perfect.

A couple of days after that . . .

Cold cattle.

Cold road.

We got around two inches of snow Friday morning. Enough for the kids to play in, at least.

One of her brothers gave Poppy two tiny plastic pigs for Christmas. She decided they needed a nice place to rest, so she made them a bed. She sewed a mattress and blanket for it, too.

She also made some troughs and pig food.

I bought a new mattress for A. and me when I was in town last. When we hauled the old memory foam mattress out, the children begged to keep it to play on for awhile. We couldn't get it to the dump right away anyway, so we left it on the porch, where it became the crash pad for many daredevil jumps from the freezer or the trampoline.

And then, inevitably . . .

Jasper was quite pleased to find such a soft, large bed in his territory and immediately moved in.

I made some more candles from the church candle stubs, which means we have a ready supply for the living room.

I thought using two wicks in this larger hexagonal candle would help it burn down evenly.

It did not.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.