Friday Food: Kristin's Cooking School

Friday 

Short version: Tuna salad, bread, frozen peas or radishes, ice cream

Long version: The children and I went down the hill to swim with our friends this day. We do this every summer, and I know it's a long day that tires everyone out. Me included. I made tuna salad before we left, and then put that on plates with slices of bread. I put butter on the table and let everyone choose whether they wanted to put their tuna on the bread for sandwiches, or eat it separately with bread and butter.

Saturday

Short version: Toasted burritos, corn on the cob, ice cream

Long version: I just made easy taco meat and beans (meaning with salsa and spices) to put in the burritos. I did go to all the effort of frying the burritos in butter, which always makes them better. The corn on the cob was sort of an odd pairing with the burritos, but I had forgotten about it for a couple of days in the refrigerator and wanted to use it.

And then everyone had ice cream. Most of them had both black cherry and butter pecan, although Poppy agreed with me that the black cherry was no bueno. She does love butter pecan, though.

Sunday

Short version: Kristin's Cooking School

Long version: My family all left in the morning for a trip to the mountains to drop the eldest off at an FFA camp before going camping and fishing and then dropping middle son off at the camp a couple of days later.

I spent some time in the kitchen on Saturday making camping food for the travelers. This means things that can either be heated up in the coals of their fire (I wrap it all in aluminum foil), or in a motel microwave if they end up not camping one night.

Barbecue meatballs (with not-pictured boiled potatoes) and Spanish tortilla. They also took the leftover taco meat, flour tortillas, and cheese so they could have more burritos one night. 

This means I was by myself at home. Not for long, though.

Our priest, who is a relatively young guy and has become a pretty good friend, doesn't really know how to cook. I mean, he feeds himself, but certainly not well. His younger brother is living with him this summer before he goes to college, and he also does not know how to cook. He, however, wants to learn. Last time he was at our house, he was looking at my tortilla press and said he'd like to learn how to make tortillas.

This gave me the idea that he could come when I was here without so many people to cook for and learn how to make the tortillas, plus what goes in them. I figured it would be much easier to do this when I wasn't having to make such a large quantity of food, and would actually have the focus to teach someone else.

And then one of their other brothers (there are six brothers in this family) who I also know, happened to be coming into town. He came too, so I ended up feeding four people anyway.

I taught them how to make ranch dip (for the vegetables and tortilla chips I set out before dinner), corn tortillas, taco meat, and refried beans. I actually wrote out the recipe for the ranch dip, and then they were making notes on their phone for what to buy next time they go to the store for the other stuff.  Like lard and garlic and spices, which apparently they don't currently have. What a sad kitchen.

Anyway.

I also made pots de creme for dessert, but I didn't teach that one to them because I made it in the morning before they came.

Monday

Short version: Eggs and fried potatoes, canned peas

Long version: I actually was by myself this night, as you can tell by my dinner. I love fried potatoes with eggs, but rarely eat them. I just microwaved a small potato until it was mostly cooked, then chopped it and fried it in bacon fat before also frying an egg in the pan.

I still have a couple of cans of peas from commodities, and I still like them well enough that I will just eat them plain. There's no denying the power of childhood conditioning.

Although I cook my egg totally hard, breaking the yolk so it cooks all the way through, which is certainly not how my mother did it. So I guess that conditioning didn't stick.

Tuesday

Short version: Taco meat and tortilla chips, green salad, ice cream

Long version: It was almost 100 degrees this day, which made me very thankful that I did not have to feed anyone but myself. And I had leftovers.

The salad was the remainder of the lettuce, tomato, and avocado toppings from Sunday's tacos. Because there was avocado in it, I didn't even need dressing.

I had enough taco meat left over, plus grated cheese, that I just heated that up, added some sour cream, and scooped it up with chips. It would have been healthier to just eat the meat in the salad, but I do love anything eaten with chips.

I also love ice cream, especially when it's hot in the house, which it was. Just not fruit ice cream.

Wednesday

Short version: Salad

Long version: A. returned home with the two youngest children in the afternoon--leaving the older two at FFA camp--but none of them were hungry for dinner. So I just had a salad with a hardboiled egg and some grated cheddar in it and called it good.

Thursday

Short version: Cheeseburger patties, garlic bread, green salad with ranch dressing, watermelon

Long version: I had made the garlic bread and thawed the ground beef the day before, but since no one was hungry, didn't serve them until this day.

The lettuce in the salad is my lettuce, yay! I tried growing a romaine variety this year for the first time, thinking it might not bolt as fast. I am very pleased that it doesn't. The green leaf variety I have in the garden is inedibly bitter by now, but the romaine is okay. It's a little bitter, but certainly not inedible. 

The commodities delivery this month included a LOT of watermelons. There was a whole pallet of them in the bigger village, apparently, and the lady at our post office (where some of the commodities are left for people in our vicinity) kept giving us watermelons when we went there. We ended up with three. And they have seeds. Yay!

Refrigerator check:

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

To Each Her Own

I was at the grocery store with the oldest son last week and I told him he could choose an ice cream flavor. He surveyed the options for a minute before deciding on black cherry.

That was pretty much the last flavor available that I would have chosen. 

These were the small cartons of ice cream, so I also got butter pecan for the rest of the family. All of them like that one, although again, I don't care about it at all. It doesn't actively repel me like black cherry, but I still won't bother eating it.

I did choose one for myself, though: chocolate moose tracks. Chocolate, peanut butter, and more chocolate? That's more like it.

A tale of two ice creams.

A. has always preferred fruit-flavored candies, ice creams, and desserts. I have always preferred chocolate. Preferably with peanut butter. He does not understand this. I likewise do not understand why anyone would eat black cherry ice cream when they could have chocolate moose tracks.

Variety is the spice of life, they say, and I guess that means our lives are plenty spicy.

So tell me: What kind of ice cream do you pick, given the choice?

Snapshots: Granola and a Walk

I had an unfortunate incident with granola this week. I had some in the oven when Poppy came in to tell me about the very boring passage in her children's Bible, in Exodus, that described the Ark of the Covenant in great detail. I told her those details had allowed people to re-create the Ark, and then we got to looking at pictures, and then . . .

Boooo.

Luckily, granola browns--and burns--from the edges in, so I was able to salvage about two-thirds of it from the center.

The actual burned third on the right went to the chickens.

The four pigeons we got from the wagon tramp have been released into the wide world. Every morning I see them take off about sunrise to wheel and glide around our almost-ghost-village.

Resting on the barn roof before their sunrise flight.

And then the dogs and I went down the road to check on the horses' water in the pasture they're currently in.

Hi, Cora.

And Bill.

Milkweed buds have such an interesting shape.

The children and I went down the hill on Friday to go swim with our friends who work on the giant ranch with a pool. It's the only pool in the county, and can only be used by employees of the ranch, so we're very lucky they invite us along. It's one of my children's favorite days of the summer, and I always take the opportunity to get some below-the-hill flowers.

All yellow.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.