Friday Food: Many Leftovers

Friday 

Short version: Pintos and rice, cornbread, cucumber salad, apple/pear crisp with vanilla ice cream

Long version: I used the pinto beans I had cooked earlier in the week to make something like red beans--roux, onions, garlic, bell pepper, tomato--and served that over rice.

The cucumber salad was just cucumber with leftover ranch dressing and pickled onions.

I used one quart jar of apples and one of pears for the crisp, leaving me with only one more quart jar of canned apples from last year. I don't think I'm going to have any apples to can this year, unless they come from someone who lives sort of far away. All the fruit here got frosted. Even the apples. Sadness.

Saturday

Short version: Leftovers, summer squash hooray!

Long version: I had enough steak for everyone, as well as enough leftover rice and mashed potatoes to divvy out. Good leftovers make dinner so easy.

The summer squash came from the lady the older boys work for. All I did with it was slice it and cook it in olive oil with garlic, and then a little bit of tomato sauce from the can I had opened for the beans the day before. So good.

Sunday

Short version: Barbecue ribs, American potato salad, coleslaw, pots de creme

Long version: I bought a couple of racks of pork ribs when they were on sale awhile ago, and then A. bought two more when he was at the store about a week ago. So I really needed to cook some ribs.

I first cooked them in a low oven, covered, and rubbed with various spices and brown sugar. I put them in around 6 a.m. and took them out when we got home from church about 9 a.m. At dinnertime, I started a fire in the grill and actually grilled the ribs with barbecue sauce on them.

American potato salad=russet potatoes, mayonnaise, mustard, hard boiled eggs, diced dill pickles.

This coleslaw.

And this pots de creme.

Summer plate.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, cookies

Long version: There were some leftover ribs, quite a lot of leftover potato salad and coleslaw, and also pinto beans and rice. I heated all of this up and let everyone choose their dinners.

Tuesday

Short version: Beef and bean burritos, green salad with ranch dressing, watermelon

Long version: I made slightly less-lazy taco meat with the ground beef and a can of pinto beans by using fresh onion and garlic, plus tomato sauce and spices. As opposed to just dumping salsa in there to serve as the tomato/onion/garlic part.

It looks very labor-intensive, right? Ahem.

Wednesday

Short version: Pizzas, carrot sticks with ranch dip

Long version: The coolest day of the week, which means the day to bake bread. Also the day to steal some of the dough to make pizza. One was pepperoni, one was vegetables. This time the vegetables were pickled onions, bell peppers, and finely diced collard greens.

Thursday

Short version: Different leftovers, butterscotch pudding

Long version: There was enough leftover pizza for all the kids to have some, and then A. and whoever wanted any had corn tortillas with cheese and the taco meat. 

I made the pudding because a child informed me in the morning that the milk was starting to go off. Slightly off is still good enough to make pudding. A nice treat for the end of the second week of school.

Refrigerator check:

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

A Potato Salad Tip

I have always been a big fan of potato salad. The American kind, with mayonnaise and hardboiled eggs in it. I don't use a recipe for it, but I have noticed that recipes for potato salads always recommend an all-purpose potato for potato salads.

In case you're not as interested in potatoes as I am and so don't know what an "all-purpose" potato is . . . there are waxy potatoes, like those red "new" potatoes. And there are floury potatoes, like baking potatoes (also known as russets or Idaho potatoes). All-purpose potatoes are in between the two in texture. The most recognizable kind is Yukon Gold.

The reason all-purpose potatoes are recommended is because they won't fall apart as readily when boiled. 

I don't buy all-purpose potatoes. I don't buy waxy potatoes, either. I only buy russets, because those are what come in the ten-pound bags, and I am all about quantity at this stage of my cooking life.

But! Russets, in my opinion, are actually better than all-purpose potatoes for potato salad because they will more readily absorb the dressing. Potato salad recipes also always tell you to put the dressing on the potatoes when they're warm, because then the potatoes absorb the dressing better and become more flavorful. So why wouldn't you want a potato that absorbs the dressing better?

You do, but you don't want to it to fall apart. Which leads me to my tip: Boil the potatoes whole, with the skins on. Just rinse them quickly, cover them with salted water in a big pot, and bring to a boil, simmering until the biggest potato in the pot is easily pierced with a fork.

(The fork is a better tester than a knife because it's not quite as sharp as a knife. So if a fork slides in easily, you know it's really done. And nothing is worse than an underdone potato.)

After that, drain the potatoes and let them cool down just a few minutes before peeling (a paring knife helps with this) and chopping into your desired size.

Boiling them whole does require a longer cooking time and more heat released into what is probably an already-hot summer kitchen, but it will retain the shape. No crumbling. 

Russet potato salad is the best potato salad.

I also put mustard and vinegar and diced dill pickles in my potato salad, but that's a matter of personal taste preference, so I'll leave that to you.

Just remember: Whole boiled russets and you're good to go.

Snapshots: Multiple Sunflowers

This first photo is one I forgot to post during county fair weekend:

These two are too old to nap anymore. Except during the county fair, which is enough to wipe anyone out.

A. and I both read a lot, although we don't read the same sorts of things. Occasionally my current book and his will get in close enough proximity to each other for me to be amused at how different our tastes are.

Bet you can guess whose is whose. Mine isn't one I would typically choose, but it was given to me by a friend, and it's good enough so far that I'm still reading it. 

In addition to having no cucumbers this year, I also have no summer squash of any kind. The calabacitas that I use in place of zucchini never germinated in the spring, and the very late planting we did manage to get growing is way behind. Luckily, the lady the older boys work for who has been sending cucumbers home with them has added squash to her offerings.

I know the joke is that you can't avoid being gifted squash in the summer by overzealous gardeners, but I was so happy to see this.

A relatively small knife, and a very large squash.

I don't know what kind of squash that is, but it had very small seeds even though it was large, and it was delicious, so it's a good one whatever it is.

This sunflower I found this week looks so much like an actual sun to me.

Something about the pointiness of the petals makes them look like rays.

Poppy found a several more sunflowers on her way home from the post office and thoughtfully brought them home to me, so we have a nice arrangement on the bookcase right now.

Four whole sunflowers! Impressive for this pathetic year of wildflowers.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.