Friday Food: Birthday Oreos

Friday

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, oven fries, green peas

Long version: The first thing I made from the beef I had picked up at the butcher the day before was hamburgers. I was making bread, too, so I made buns for those.

Poppy requested the oven fries and green peas.

Saturday

Short version: Pork stir-fry, porky rice

Long version: I was home with just two boys this night, one of whom requested stir-fry. I had lots of leftover pork from the most recent pork shoulder, as well as enough fresh vegetables, so I made that. 

Obligatory vegetable beauty shot.

Carrots take a lot longer to get cooked all the way, so I always cook them separately.

In stir-fry, I prefer them in these short sticks, rather than coins.

I still had quite a bit of the liquid left from cooking the pork shoulder, too. I used some of that to cook the rice.

Sunday

Short version: Steaks with caramelized onions and garlic herb butter, mashed potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette, many Oreos

Long version: The cow we had butchered was quite fat, and the steaks were very well-marbled, much to A.'s delight.

The one boy who only considers steak properly served if it is accompanied with caramelized onions and herb butter was in luck: There was another box of dozens of onions left on Main Street for the taking. So I took some.

Okay, so I actually took a lot. And now there are onion skins all over the back floor of my car.

I made one whole bag into a pan of caramelized onions.

Also lucky for that boy is the immortal parsley still hanging on in the garden.

It's mostly the parsley right next to the wall that has survived. Hooray for micro-climates.

The eldest boy's birthday* was Wednesday, so of course, I needed to come up with a taste-test thing for him. So far this year, we've done root beer, Pringles, and ice cream. For this boy, who has a great love for Oreos, I wanted to find different flavors of Oreos. For months, I looked every time I was at Walmart for interesting flavors to buy and never saw any. And then all of a sudden right after the new year, there were lots of different flavors.

I bought seven different kinds and we tried them all.

Reese's peanut butter, "loaded" with crushed cookies in the creme part, tiramisu, dark chocolate creme, mint, golden, and lemon-flavored golden.

Unsurprisingly, every member of the family had a different favorite kind. I myself liked the ones with the dark chocolate creme in the middle.

And then we had literally hundreds of Oreos to plow through the rest of the week. The children rose to the occasion nobly.

Monday

Short version: Many leftovers

Long version: We were at a basketball game after school and didn't get home until a little after 5 p.m. Luckily, there were lots of leftovers to choose from. A. had steak and mashed potatoes. Two children had stir-fry. I fried the rest of the leftover pork, diced, with some of the leftover garlic herb butter and the rest of the leftover rice, then added frozen green peas to it, for the other two children.

I even had two hamburger buns left. Those I just cut in half, spread with the herb butter, and microwaved to melt the butter and make the buns soft. These were the children's favorite part of this meal.

And there were, of course, leftover Oreos. Of all kinds.

Tuesday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, cornbread, raw bell peppers and radishes. And more Oreos.

Long version: I baked the meatballs and cornbread right before I left at 3:30 p.m. to bring Poppy to her First Communion class. I had left them covered with foil and asked eldest son to put them in the oven at 5:30 p.m. to re-heat. 

Teamwork is the name of the Tuesday-night dinner game.

Wednesday

Short version: Birthday lasagna, raw radishes, chocolate cheesecake

Long version: This was the new 16-year-old's birthday dinner request. I'm not sure he could have picked a heavier meal. Thankfully, his birthday was on the one day I didn't have anything going on right before dinner. Although I did make the cheesecake the day before anyway, and lasagna is a good make-ahead meal, so it would have been okay if I wasn't home.

Anyway.

I sort of use this recipe for lasagna now (minus the mushrooms), which is how I learned that a pound of lasagna noodles will actually fill a 10"x15" pan perfectly. Since that is the size pan I'm usually using, that works out nicely. I use both ground beef and loose Italian sausage, and I don't actually follow any recipe for the sauce. 

A 10"x15" pan full of lasagna weighs approximately a ton. Or at least, that's what it feels like. (Many pans of crispy rice treats in the background of this photo for Valentine's Day treats at school the next day.)

This year, the birthday boy requested a chocolate cheesecake. I make 3/4 of this recipe. I've never made a cheesecake that didn't crack, but this was the worst one yet.

It looked the worst like this, immediately after baking. When it cooled and sunk down a bit, it wasn't quite as bad.

My reign as Queen of the Ugly Cakes continues. But, as always, it tasted good. And there were Oreos in the crust, so we didn't miss a night having them. In case you were worried.

Thursday

Short version: Ham and rice casserole, leftover lasagna, leftover cheesecake, crispy rice treats

Long version: I had been planning to just have leftover lasagna for dinner, but then we ended up having a guest with us at dinner who doesn't eat gluten or much dairy. I was at a basketball game in the late afternoon and got home just in time for dinner, so I made the casserole ahead and just had A. put it in the oven for me with the leftover lasagna for half an hour or so before I got home.

The casserole was the rest of the ham from the freezer, diced, plus rice I made with the rest of the liquid from cooking the pork shoulder awhile ago. Also the remainder of the caramelized onions that were in the refrigerator, heavy cream, eggs, and grated cheddar cheese. Oh, and some frozen peas.

Ready to bake.

Refrigerator check:

A. forgot to get the Sysco milk Thursday afternoon, so there's lots of room in here for now.

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

* If you've been reading here from almost the beginning of this blog, I am sure it will be astonishing to you (as it is to me) that our tiny Cubby is now 16 years old. He is also over six feet tall. Craziness.

When Money Can Buy Happiness

At least, when a little money can buy a little happiness. Like this . . .

One of the extremely irritating places to me in my house is the pass-through. This is a spot where there were windows in the original trailer that became, well, glassless windows that lead into the added-on living room. 

There is a shelf there, and that is where our landline phone lives. Also the pencil sharpener, pens and pencils, tape, stapler, calculators, etc. It's basically like an office desk, which I do not have. 

That stuff was always all over the place on that shelf. Calculators spread out all around the phone, random pads of paper, pencils that had fallen out of the repurposed honey jars . . . It was a mess. All the time. And it drove me crazy.

Finally, and why this took me so long I do not know, I bought an organizer for this spot. I knew what I wanted to put in it already, so I looked for one that had the appropriate number and size of compartments. 

It cost me $25 and fifteen minutes to go from this:

Yuck.

To this:

Yay!

Of course, keeping it that way will require constant vigilance to put things away as they get taken out, but at least now I have somewhere to put them that is not just the general location of the shelf. And that is $25 very well spent.

Snapshots: Driving and Messes

Starting right off with a candle . . .

This one looked like a mushroom as it started to burn down, much to my amusement.

I spent much of Thursday driving. I was already planning on going to a basketball game, but then the meat processor called to tell us we could pick up our beef. This was not on the way to the game, at all, but rather directly to the east of the game. 

Our house is sort of the point of a triangle between the two towns I was going to, so I went first to the northeast to pick up the beef.

Over 100 miles of this . . .

To pick up this. I covered it with two sleeping bags to keep it frozen for the next six hours until I got home.

Then another 90 miles of this, due west.

And then about 60 more miles of driving after the game, but it was dark and I didn't take a picture.

I drove around 300 miles this day and never went through a town bigger than 3,000 people. The American West really does have some very empty places.

It's been warm the past few days, and I didn't even start the woodstove yesterday. It was nice to have a break from the mess.

Constantly sweeping up bark under the wood holder in the dining room.

And ashes from cleaning out the stove every couple of days.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.