Friday Food: Hamburger Helper and Heart

Note: I have been informed that comments aren't working today. I couldn't even post a comment myself. Unfortunately, I don't know why this is happening or how to fix it, so I guess we should all just cross our fingers that Blogger fixes it. I'm sorry!

Newer note: Comments are working again, yay! Thanks, Blogger!

Friday 

Short version: Fish sandwiches, fried potatoes, carrot sticks

Long version: I had some trouble with this meal only because I didn't want to run the oven for the amount of time it would have taken to get the breaded fish fillets and potatoes crispy. I experimented with par-cooking the potatoes in the microwave first, to reduce the amount of time they would need to be in the oven, but it didn't make enough difference to be worth it.

In the end, I took the potatoes out of the oven and fried them on the stove to get them mostly crispy. They weren't as uniformly browned as they would have been in the oven, but good enough.

Not all the way crispy yet, but in progress.

I fried the fish fillets on the stovetop, and while they did get browned on the outside and thawed, they weren't as crispy as they could have been. They were fine for the sandwiches, though.

I made tartar sauce for the sandwiches, too, which makes everyone in my family happy.

Saturday

Short version: Confetti rice, watermelon

Long version: I thawed one package of smoked beef sausage and made rice with the chicken stock I had taken out of the freezer. Those two things, plus diced onion, garlic, bell pepper, frozen corn (I was going to use peas, but I found the corn first), collard greens, one of the many small cans of cream of chicken soup we got from commodities, and cream made up dinner.

One boy came into the kitchen just before dinner and looked into the skillet and asked what I called what was in there. 

Mom's Made-Up Meal? Nah, not catchy enough. Confetti rice sounded better.

This was okay, but needed more flavor.

Sunday

Short version: Hamburger gravy, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, lazy fondue

Long version: Hamburger gravy is pretty much just like the hamburger steaks I make with gravy, except I just cooked the meat loose and then made the gravy in the pan with it. The children told me they like the hamburger steaks better, but that the hamburger gravy is okay too.

Lazy fondue is what I make for Sunday dessert when I really don't want to make a dessert. I had looked at some no-bake things, and man, those are more work than just baking something. Too many layers and beating things and chilling and on and on and on.

Much easier to just microwave some chocolate chips with coconut oil until melted for dipping marshmallows.

Monday

Short version: Sirloin steaks, leftover confetti rice, green salad with tartar sauce dressing, peanut butter cookies

Long version: I re-heated the rice in the skillet after I had fried the steaks, which gave it some more flavor. 

Tartar sauce works well as a salad dressing. At least, homemade tartar sauce does.

I forgot when I was making the peanut butter cookies in the morning that this is one of the few cookie recipes I don't double, and I put in double the number of eggs needed. Then I needed to add more of everything else, so I ended up with a LOT of cookies. No one minded.

Tuesday

Short version: Accidental hamburger helper, green peas, canned peaches

Long version: I started feeling a cold coming on the night before that was fully operational by this afternoon. Luckily, I had quite a bit of hamburger gravy left. I cooked some pasta and then made a sauce with another of those small cans of cream of chicken soup, heavy cream, milk, tomato sauce, and grated cheddar cheese, into which I added the meat to heat up. Then I dumped all of that over the cooked pasta.

And that is how I accidentally made something almost exactly like hamburger helper.

So as not to infringe on copywrite, perhaps I should call it Assisted Ground Beef.

I was a bit abashed that the football player got dropped off from an unusually short practice with his friend who needed to wait for his mom to come get him and he ended up eating with us. Hamburger helper--even a homemade version--is not the most stellar of meals to offer a guest, but luckily, post-football teenage boys are hungry enough that they'll eat anything.

Wednesday

Short version: Heart stir-fry with rice, brownies

Long version: I was staring into the chest freezer on Tuesday night, trying to decide what meat to take out for dinner this night, when Poppy wandered over and suggested I use the package of cow heart. 

Okay. At least someone made the decision for me.

I regretted this the next day, when I still wasn't feeling well from the cold I had, and was staring down a thawed heart. 

However. 

I was in the kitchen anyway, cooking for a teacher at our school who just got home after a two-week hospital stay with her son, so I went ahead and more or less made our dinner while I was making pasta and brownies for them.

First I had to trim the heart. It has a kind of membrane around the outside that needs to be removed.

Trimmed piece on the left, untrimmed piece on the right.

I had thought I might just fry slices of it, but there really wasn't a ton of meat. Also, heart meat is very lean and free of cartilage or anything, which makes it perfect for stir-fry. So that's what I used it for. I cut it all up into small pieces and put those in a marinade of soy sauce, oil, vinegar, ginger, and garlic powder.

I tend to do okay in the mornings when I'm sick and then go straight downhill in the afternoons, so I decided to do as much of the rest of the stir-fry as I could while I was still in the kitchen in the morning. Accordingly, I chopped and fried the onions, carrots, and collard greens that were going in the stir-fry. Then at dinnertime, I added garlic and frozen peas, plus the meat, and made the sauce.

Stir-fry, by the way, is an excellent use for the no-salt, no-sugar peanut butter we're been getting from commodities lately.

I made a double recipe of the brownies for the teacher so we could have some too. I carefully packaged up the nicely cut ones for her, leaving a container of the crumbly ones for us. And then I grabbed the wrong one when I brought her her food, so she ended up with crumbly brownies and we had the pretty ones. Oops.

Oh well, they all taste the same.

Thursday

Short version: Spanish tortilla

Long version: It's funny that I've been going through a period of having so many excess eggs on hand. Usually that happens in the spring, but here I am in September with eight dozen eggs in my refrigerator. I used 18 in the Spanish tortilla, which just had bacon, onion, spices, cheese, and some of the tomato sauce from the open can in the refrigerator. Besides the potatoes that are always in it, of course.

I made this in the morning so it would be ready when everyone got home from school. I went to the volleyball game after school with Poppy, which is why I needed something for everyone else to just grab when they got home.

Refrigerator check:

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

A Steak Memory

Poppy's best friend comes home with her from school every Monday to play until her mom comes to pick her up after football practice. This works out very well for the girls, who are in different grades and would otherwise not see each other much.

This means that her friend eats dinner with us every Monday. Last night, we had steak. Before dinner, I asked her friend if she likes her steak more well-done or more rare. She said more well-done, and she accordingly got one of the thinner pieces that wasn't very red.

As I was choosing her piece of steak, I remembered when I was a guest at dinner at one of my best friend's houses, in high school. Her dad was grilling steak, and he asked me how I liked it. Well-done, I replied. The steak he gave me was SO FAR from well-done. It was, in fact, very bloody. 

Her dad was from Texas, which is probably why he considered a steak that was bleeding all over the plate to be well-done. Or maybe he was trying to teach me a lesson, since people who like their steaks rare tend to feel disdain for those of us who do not.

I of course ate the steak to be polite, but I didn't enjoy it.

Most of my family likes their steak pretty rare, which requires some deliberate attention on my part so I don't overcook it. Poppy agrees with me, though, and doesn't like bloody meat, so I usually cook one piece a little more for us.

We never all agree, as usual.

So tell me! How do you like your steak?

 

Snapshots: Some Misadventures

First, take a look at the fruit on this can of raspberry-lime Polar seltzer A. brought home.

Those raspberries look awfully grape-like to me.

I went into school to sub for just the afternoon. I was taking over for what used to be S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, art, and math), and is now M.A.S.H. (music, art, Spanish, and health). 

I was reminded during the quiet prep period between classes how much I hate ticking clocks.

Ticktickticktick...haaaate.

I did like this sign outside the preschool room, though.

A. drove my Honda to town on Friday and had an unfortunate run-in--literally--with a wild turkey.

You should've seen the turkey. (It's dead.)

Odin had an unfortunate run-in of his own, with a dog that lives up by the post office. This very large dog is not usually out, but she was one day last week, and she beat up Odin pretty good. He had a wound on his shoulder that I was watching, hoping it would heal on its own. But of course, dogs are always licking at things, and that was making it worse, not better.

We don't have one of those cone collars that vets use to keep dogs from licking at wounds, so we had to improvise. After putting on the wound dressing liquid and a gauze pad, we wrapped it all up around his belly with vet wrap. And then topped it all off by putting a t-shirt on him.

A picture of a dejected dog.

Odin is not enjoying his experience with dog clothing. I do not think I will be buying him any cute little sweaters for the winter.

And last, this week's flowers.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.