Friday Food: Back to Business

Friday 

Short version: Scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, green salad with ranch dressing, applesauce with cream

Long version: I still have many, many boxes of excess-commodities macaroni and cheese on hand. It occurred to me that perhaps it could be improved by adding egg to it. I had about seven dozen eggs on hand. I looked it up, and it is apparently not unknown to add egg yolks to make it creamier. Okay!

I made three boxes of it and added three egg yolks. It did make it creamier, but is also made it too thick and dry after it sat for a few minutes. I of course neglected to save any of the pasta water when I drained it--always--so I just added a bit of boiling water to it to loosen it up a little.

The egg whites went into the scrambled eggs, which worked out nicely. Even if one boy asked me what the meat part of the meal was. Eggs, I said. "That is NOT meat," he replied.

Nope. You'll survive, though.

And look at me, making a salad! It had some arugula from the garden in it, too, which is always lovely. Arugula bolts very quickly in our hot sun, making it an ephemeral treat, but appreciated while it lasts.

The applesauce was my bribe to get the kids to do their bathroom chores two days early, in advance of overnight guests arriving on Saturday. It worked. 

Saturday

Short version: Beef and bean chili, cornbread

Long version: We had two overnight guests with us, one of whom was diabetic. I needed to make something ahead of time that could just be ready to go whenever we were ready to eat, as there was a lot going on in the afternoon.

Chili worked for all of this. 

Sunday

Short version: Lamb curry, rice, green salad with vinaigrette, butterscotch pudding

Long version: This was the first day in over a week that I actually felt like cooking, as opposed to forcing myself to make food for consumption.

I took out a bag of the lamb we ground when we butchered the wethers and used that to make curry with the curry sludge left from dyeing Easter eggs. It also had potatoes, carrots, and peas in it. I finished it with sour cream, and then some milk and cornstarch because I thought it needed some thickening.

And I made a salad! So many vegetables!

Relative to our previous week's meals, anyway.

Monday

Short version: Leftover curry at home, gas station chicken, and egg salad, on the road

Long version: I went to a track meet in the afternoon. As is my habit, I brought a salad with me to eat on my lap in the car in between events. I didn't make a typical lettuce salad this time, though, instead using two hardboiled eggs and cooked asparagus, plus vinaigrette, to make a kind of egg salad.

This was really good.

The trackster got fried chicken and potato wedges at the gas station we stopped at on the way home. A. gave everyone at home leftover curry.

Tuesday

Short version: Spanish tortilla, still-frozen green beans, sugar cookies

Long version: I made the Spanish tortilla ahead of time so we could eat right after I got home from the last First Communion class with Poppy.

Because it was the last one, I made sugar cookies for the class that looked kind of like the hosts used for communion.

In that they were round and had crosses on them.

I had extra cookies that I frosted with a mixture of heavy cream and powdered sugar and then sprinkled with colored sugar. That's what I gave my family.

Why purple? Why not?

Wednesday

Short version: Meatloaf, baked potatoes, peas, asparagus

Long version: Every part of this meal could be put in the oven before I had to leave for a meeting at 5 p.m. so it was all ready when A. got home from his bus run. It worked out.

Thursday

Short version: Pizzas with ranch dip, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I didn't have much pepperoni left, so one pizza was only lightly pepperoni. The other was just cheese.

Refrigerator check:

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

Notes from a Track Meet

I was sitting on the bleachers at yesterday's varsity track meet, waiting for it to start, when I hear one of the boys from the team sitting next to me say, "Dominic, what's your problem? You got something to say to me?"

Apparently Dominic did. He squared up and then there were these two full-grown man-children punching each other five feet from me.

Their coach apparently wasn't there, nor any other responsible adult. I briefly considered breaking it up myself before deciding that would be a bad idea, both because of their size relative to mine, and because I didn't know them. More importantly, they didn't know me. 

I will get in between my sons when they fight, but they won't hit me. Who knows if those boys would have.

After just a minute their friends pulled them apart. It was lucky for them that neither one of them fell down the bleachers or got hurt in any other way. They were immediately ejected from the premises. I assume their parents were called to come pick them up. What a fun phone call to get as a parent, especially because they were from a school an hour away.

Such a peaceful setting for fisticuffs.

I always hear some interesting names at track meets. At this one, there was a boy named Dino, a name I don't think I've ever heard in real life. There was also a girl whose name, as far as I could tell, was Aoili. I'm sure it's spelled differently, but it was pronounced exactly like the garlic sauce. And I know it was pronounced that way because it was her teammates yelling it as she ran.

Once on the results from a previous track meet, there was a boy whose first name was listed as "Rage." Perhaps it's pronounced differently or it was a typo, but it was startling.

I guess that's all I got today. Happy Tuesday.

Snapshots: Still Sort of Lame

I am slowly getting better from whatever this sinus thing is that's been hanging on. Day by day it's improving, although I'm still not 100% yet. That's the excuse I'm giving for not having particularly impressive photos this week.

I did go in to school and sub half a day for the high school science teacher. Her classroom houses the fish tank, and I don't know how she can sit in there all day with this thing humming and splashing.

It sounded like an overflowing toilet. 

Over the winter, A. bought some watercolor paints and paper at the dollar store and taught himself how to paint.

He mostly does greeting cards with flowers on them. Very handy to have for birthdays and so forth.

My own flowers continue to dwindle down. At home, I just have these purple ones.

Nicely spotlighted by the setting sun.

And at church, all that's left of the altar flowers are a couple of lilies.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.