Friday Food: Full-Fat Yogurt

Friday 

Short version: Fish sandwiches, oven fries, curried split peas, coleslaw

Long version: I actually baked bread while my family was gone the week before, and because it was sort of an extra baking, I used some of it to make hamburger buns. Or rather, fish sandwich buns. I had some fish fillets in the freezer for the sandwiches. The package said there were ten fillets.

I think it was stretching the truth to call all of these ten things "fillets."

There were just enough for the sandwiches, anyway, and I made tartar sauce again, too, which made everyone happy. 

The oven fries were popular too. And the coleslaw, which I haven't made in a long time.

The curried split peas weren't as popular, but I had some to be eaten, so I put them on plates anyway and they duly disappeared.

This ended up being a rather involved meal. Tasty, though.

Saturday

Short version: Curry-marinated chicken, curried split peas, rice, raw bell peppers and radishes

Long version: I marinated some separated chicken leg quarters in yogurt with curry powder, garlic powder, and lemon juice. Marinating is definitely the way to go for bland chicken, but I should not have fried these on the stovetop. Such a splattery mess. Good browning, though.

Sunday

Short version: More chicken, leftover meatloaf, baked potatoes, green salad with vinagrette, Poppy's brownies

Long version: I had more chicken that hadn't fit in the bowl with the marinade, so I re-used the marinade for that. But I baked in the oven this time. Much less messy. And then I could also re-heat the meatloaf in the oven while the chicken and potatoes were baking. I love oven efficiency.

I asked Poppy if she could like to make her special brownies and she was pleased to do so. Everyone else was pleased to eat them. Those have to bake far enough ahead of dinner to cool before being cut, so they couldn't go in the oven with everything else. I hate to use the oven for only one thing, though, so I quickly made a crisp with one quart jar of canned apple slices and one quart jar of canned pear slices that went in the oven with the brownies. That was my bribe to get everyone out of bed on a very cold and dark Monday morning to start school again after spring break.

Monday

Short version: Rib steaks, various leftover starches, cucumber with salt and vinegar, un-staled cookies

Long version: These rib steaks are thicker than I like steaks to be, and they are very hard to fit on the griddle pan, but they are undeniably delicious.

They have to be arranged just so to fit.

I was going to make mashed potatoes to go with the steaks, but then I realized I had several leftover starches that needed to be used: one serving of macaroni and cheese, one baked potato, and enough rice for the three more people. So that is what I divvied out according to preference.

A. got the last serving of crisp, since the children had had theirs for breakfast. For them, I had just enough of the chocolate-chip/oat cookies left that I had made for their road trip. They were slightly stale. Nothing that twenty seconds in the microwave under a damp paper towel couldn't fix, though. I have not been making cookies regularly during Lent--this is the penance I impose on them--so even un-staled cookies were a treat for them.

Tuesday

Short version: Not-Irish pasta with pesto, leftover steak, Italian sausage, cabbage

Long version: Our St. Patrick's Day tradition for dinner is pasta with pesto. Because it's green, you see. And delicious. I didn't have a lot of pesto from the garden basil last year, but what I did have I made sure to save for St. Patrick's Day.

Unusually, I had half a cabbage in the refrigerator that needed to be used. What better day for it, right? Most of it I made into Holy's cabbage, but I did leave a couple of wedges raw for the kids who prefer it that way.

There was one steak from the night before that I couldn't fit on the pan. I left that to A. to cook as he liked, which of course was quite rare. I have a hard time cooking meat rare, so this made him happy.

And that was the extent of our special holiday meal. I thought about making Irish soda bread, but most of my kids don't care for cooked raisins, so I decided not to bother.

Wednesday

Short version: Chicken-fried pork chops with gravy, black-eyed peas, rice, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: It's such a drag to dredge and fry things, but the results are so good. Especially with these thin, oddly-shaped "assorted pork chops."

They have to overlap on the pan when I put them in the oven to finish cooking, which makes them slightly less crispy, but then they're covered with gravy so it's fine in the end.

The black-eyed peas were the ones I froze from our New Year's Day meal. That was quite some time ago now, and I thought it best to get those out of the freezer.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers at home, many things on the road

Long version: Yesterday was A Day. I went running as soon as I got the kids on the school bus so that A. and I could get right to butchering the two wethers (castrated male sheep) he had killed Monday so that I could get in the car and drive an hour and a half to a track meet where I stayed until dark and then drove home. 

All of this meant I didn't get home until 8:30 p.m., at which point I was exhausted and in no frame of mind to finish this post and schedule it to post early this morning as I usually do. In case you were wondering why I was late this morning.

We did eat yesterday, though! There were quite a few leftovers at home for the family here. It looks as if they finished the black-eyed peas, pork, rice, and pasta with pesto.

I stopped at the very small store in the village where the track meet was before going there. As I was looking for balsamic vinegar, I went past the dairy case and happened to spot whole-milk yogurt. Remember the very disappointing non-fat Greek yogurt I bought when I was going to a basketball game awhile ago?

Probably not, because why would you remember something like that, but I did. And it was disappointing, as all non-fat dairy is.

But then I saw this full-fat yogurt that actually had no weird ingredients in it, so I bought one to try before going to the track meet.

In my lap in the car, because that's how I eat when I'm going to sporting events.

It was very good. As I knew it would be. Because of all the fat.

Anyway.

I had brought a salad with me for my dinner, which I ate in the excessive down time that is always involved at track meets while waiting for the next event.

My post-high-jump, pre-800-meter salad. It had both pickled beets and hardboiled eggs pickled in pickled beet liquid, hence the color.

I had brought salami and cream cheese for the trackster to eat in the car on the way home, which he did. He also ate a banana, grapes, and the store-brand version of Cool Ranch Doritos (not as good as the real thing, but okay) I had bought at the store before. And he finished the switchel I had brought for him, because it was HOT out there on that track.

Refrigerator check:

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

Free-style Gardening

A few years ago I did a whole series of posts where I walked you through my gardening season. It started when I planted the seeds for cabbages and kohlrabi inside and ended with the first frost in the fall. I explained all about the seed-starting equipment I use, the grow lights in the bathroom, the milk jugs and rocks I use outside when I transplant the seedlings . . .

So where am I in that process this year? 

I have three tomato seedlings. 

In February, A. and I finally planted the garlic that should have been planted in October. I planted some arugula and lettuce seeds outside that have sprouted. I put some cabbage seeds directly in the ground a few weeks ago in the hopes that they'll just germinate out there and I can put the milk jug greenhouses over them without having to do any transplanting.

While my family was gone last week, I filled a couple of containers with potting soil and stuck in about a dozen basil seeds and a few dozen tomato seeds. I put those behind the woodstove to germinate, and now the tiny tomato seedlings are on the liquor cabinet by the window. Since it's pretty late already, I'm thinking I can transplant those seedlings out when they're still quite small if they go under the milk jugs.

Basically, I'm trying to avoid having to set up the whole light thing in the bathroom, which means a lot fewer plants in the house. 

It will probably also mean a lot fewer plants in the garden, but given the past few years of grasshopper depredation, our ongoing drought, and the overly warm temperatures this winter that are making me think we're going to have a hot summer, I'll probably want a lot fewer plants in the garden.

Gardening is different every year, so we'll see how it goes.

Snapshots: Daffodils!

Let's start with the most exciting thing, shall we?

Yay!

Too bad it's supposed to be twenty degrees tonight. 

So much for the apricots. Happens every year.

The day after my family left on their trip to Tucson, the sprayer on the faucet broke. It got stuck on and sprayed all the way across the kitchen. 

I needed to mop the floor anyway.

I spent some time looking at how everything was connected and thinking maybe I could just disconnect the sprayer to re-engage the faucet. But I thought I'd better check first to see if doing that would just flood under the sink. So I called A.

He just loves to get calls like that when he's away.

He confirmed that I would have a bigger problem on my hands if I just disconnected the sprayer. So I didn't. Instead, I cut the head off of the sprayer, used a clamp to keep the tube from sliding through the hole, and used that as my faucet until A. got home to fix it.

A bit splashy, but it worked surprisingly well.

We actually had another sprayer on hand already, which A. installed the day after he got home. Not without difficulty, of course, because there's always something, but he triumphed in the end.

All better.

One of Poppy's classmates had a birthday party yesterday that I took her to. It included an obstacle course in which the participants carried a small Nerf gun with them to shoot at various targets. It was kind of like a biathlon, I guess.

The last obstacle.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.