Friday Food: A Lot of Midweek Desserts

Friday 

Short version: Tuna spaghetti casserole, radishes, concession food

Long version: Homecoming this day at the school we do a sports co-op with. There were volleyball games starting at 2 p.m. and the football game was at 7 p.m. I was hoping to be able to come home in between those two things to eat dinner (and not be sitting on hard bleachers for 8 hours straight). Also, not everyone went to the games, so there needed to be something for them at home.

To that end, I made a casserole in the morning with many of the things we've been getting from commodities and the food boxes the school is now sending home: cream of mushroom soup, canned tuna, spaghetti. I just more or less randomly added things like cream, milk, and cheese to the cream of mushroom soup to make the sauce. I got it just right. Yay, me.

I did end up rushing home in between events, mostly to pick up something the football player forgot. I called ahead and asked the eldest to put the casserole in the oven before I got home. However, the younger two stayed at school to see the last of the varsity volleyball game, so they ate their dinner from the concession stand. 

Homecoming is always nuts.

Saturday

Short version: Beef and bean quesadillas, corn on the cob, bread and butter

Long version: This ended up being a much busier day than I had anticipated, so dinner was more simple than I had anticipated. I had thawed some ground beef, which I used to make taco meat with some of the big pot of black beans I had cooked earlier in the week. That filling went into flour tortillas for quesadillas.

We got the corn on the cob, randomly, from commodities. It didn't quite go with the quesadillas somehow, but I needed to use it and my kids always love corn, so there we go.

The bread and butter is just because floppy store bread with butter on it is the easiest way to butter corn. You just wrap the buttered bread around the hot corn and slide it all around to spread the butter. 

A plate full of starch.

Sunday

Short version: Grilled steaks with herb butter and caramelized onions, fried potatoes, cucumbers, brownies and vanilla ice cream

Long version: I had just a little charcoal left, and this was one of the last really warm days we're going to have, so I decided to grill the steaks I thawed. I really dislike grilling. We just have a charcoal kettle grill, and I find it very difficult to get the heat level right. This time it wasn't quite hot enough, so I had to finish the steaks under the broiler. They still had the taste of grilled meat, it's just annoying to have to use two sources of cooking.

I still have a lot of caramelized onions in the freezer, and they are the youngest boy's favorite with steak. The herb butter is also that boy's preference with steak. I used finely chopped basil, parsley, and green onion for the herb butter, along with a little garlic powder.

I fried the potatoes just because I had a big skillet still on the stove and mostly clean from the after-church crepes. So I used that skillet to fry the potatoes, just putting potato cubes in with tallow, covering until they were soft, and then uncovering to get them crispy.

Monday

Short version: Leftover steak in sauce, herby rice, cucumbers and pickles, leftover brownies

Long version: I had quite a bit of steak left. The consensus was that it had been a bit chewy, even though it was definitely not overcooked. Just the cut of steaks, I guess. So I decided to sort of stew the leftovers to tenderize them. I did this by trimming and slicing the leftover steak into smaller pieces and then simmering it with the leftover caramelized onions, a bit of tomato sauce from an open can, and some chicken stock I had in the refrigerator.

When I went out to the garden to get collard greens for my salad, I was reminded that we have A LOT of leeks that I need to start using. So I pulled one big leek, sliced that thinly, and added that to the steak pan. When everything was tender, I added cream mixed with cornstarch to thicken the sauce. It turned out well.

I used the leftover herb butter in the rice, which handily used up all the leftovers from the night before.

I only cut up one cucumber, so everyone also got pickles spears. Cucumber variety is the spice of life.

Tuesday

Short version: Chicken thighs, mashed potatoes, maple carrots or raw broccoli, stabby cake

Long version: This was the Feast of the Archangels, but in our house, we pretty much just celebrate St. Michael. Sorry, Gabriel and and Raphael.

Anyway, September 29th has traditionally just been Michaelmas, which is St. Michael's feast. And the traditional food for Michaelmas was goose.

I don't have access to a goose to roast, so I make do with chicken. Usually I would make a whole roast chicken, but this year I just cooked chicken thighs. They were on sale when I was at the store the day before, and I also wanted to make something I could share with the teacher at school who was coming home from a hospital stay with her son. A whole roast chicken is harder to split up than a bunch of chicken thighs.

I made this recipe, with about 12 pounds of chicken thighs. The power went off at about 10 a.m. and didn't come back on until almost 1 p.m. I didn't want to open the refrigerator in that time, so I had to wait until we had power again to get the chicken out and get going. This meant it didn't brine as long as it should have, but it was still good.

I really didn't like how much aluminum foil I had to use to make foil packets for all this chicken.

So much trashed foil.

Next time I might try baking it in my giant casserole dish with a lid that I usually use when I make pork shoulder.

Anyway. The chicken came out well.

And there was a lot of it.

That was before putting it under the broiler to get crispy. The smaller pan at the front of the photo went to the teacher, and we had the bigger pan in the back.

Our other St. Michael tradition is the stabby cake. I bake a devil's food cake and then we say the St. Michael prayer and everyone stabs their piece of cake with toothpicks. Because St. Michael is traditionally depicted using a sword to fight the devil. Get it?

This year, I had a bag of chocolate cake mix that came with the food boxes the kids are getting at school. I knew it would be an anemic "chocolate" cake if I just used the mix, so I added some more things to it. Like a full cup more cocoa powder, some molasses, and coffee in place of about half the water called for. 

I never make frosting for the stabby cake, but I did dust it with powdered sugar. And we had some ice cream to go with it. Happy Michaelmas, indeed.

Wednesday

Short version: Enchilada casserole, cucumbers with ranch dip, cupcakes

Long version: I used the rest of the taco meat/beans, plus the package of corn tortillas that came in the school food box, to make the casserole.

Dinner ready to go by 9:13 a.m.

The cake mix I had used the day before would have made two 8-inch layers, but I made a dozen cupcakes with part of it instead. I frosted them with peanut butter frosting. Half of those went to the teacher, and then we had the other half for everyone at home this night. 

Nothing like an unexpected Wednesday cupcake.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I was at a wedding in the late afternoon--for two people I had never met, story to come later--and didn't get home until around 4 p.m. I changed quickly and went to the school for volleyball, where Poppy was cheering. The games were done pretty early, so we got home around 7 p.m. and I have the two children who had been with me leftover mashed potatoes and cheese or a salami sandwich.

The three who had been at home at leftover enchilada casserole, plus canned peaches and cottage cheese.

Refrigerator check:

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

An Adventure in Dyeing (with an "e")

I am speaking here of dyeing clothing a new color. That is why I made the distinction in the title. Otherwise it might be a little concerning.

Nothing to worry about, though! It was just my first experience with clothes dyeing!

The reason I decided to try dyeing clothing with permanent dye was because we have another wedding coming up. This time it's my niece's wedding in Vermont. Two of my children are coming with me*, including Poppy.

This is a fall wedding, which means the colors appropriate for wedding apparel are darker than Poppy typically wears. She didn't have a dress that was formal enough and of a dark enough color for this wedding.

She did, however, have quite a few formal white dresses, thanks to the several First Communion dresses that were passed down to me. Of course, she couldn't wear a white dress to a wedding that is not her own. 

This is what gave me the idea to dye one of the dresses. They were free, so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal if it didn't work.

Accordingly, I asked Poppy what color she wanted--blue--and ordered a bottle of dye.

I dicovered that one of my friends used to dye clothes from thrift stores frequently, and she had several helpful tips for me. The first was to make sure that I got dye appropriate for the dress material. In this case, that was polyester. The dye for natural materials is very different from the dye for man-made materials, so it's important to get the right one.

She also said to get the dress wet before submerging it in the dye, as that will make for a much more even absorption of the dye water. Made sense.

I did not want to be messing around with permanent dye in my kitchen, so I decided to do it outside. This meant I needed nice weather and the time to figure it out. Also, it had to be a day when Poppy would be here to help me. Of course.

I decided this past Saturday that we were going to just go ahead. 

This is when I read the directions on the bottle of dye. 

Yikes.

It's not just dunking the clothing in some colored water and voila. The water has to be kept at a steady 200 degrees for at least 30 minutes. The clothing has to be continuously agitated in that water for the entire time. It's sort of a pain.

I was not anticipating needing to keep the water at a high temperature like that. I still didn't want to have to do this in my kitchen. Luckily, A. had the idea to use the camping stove I gave him for our anniversary, so I could keep the pot of dye water hot. I wanted to set it up somewhere I could just dump the water in the ground when I was done, without having to carry an extremely heavy pot any distance. 

A. helped me set all this up, even building a little wall around the camp stove to make sure the wind didn't extinguish it.

I was a little leery of using a cooking pot to dye clothing, but I didn't see much choice, so I used my pressure cooker/canner, which is the biggest pot I have. It's also stainless steel. I figured that was more likely to scrub clean.

So! Water to 200 degrees on the stove inside (so as not to use up the small fuel canisters from the camp stove), then hauled outside to the camp stove. Per instructions, one teaspoon of dish soap added (more or less), then the dye, and finally, the dress.

We used a broom handle to stir it. Still attached to the broom, so of course the handle is now dyed blue, but it's my outside broom, so it doesn't matter.

Poppy and I took ten-minute turns stirring.

Of course I quoted Macbeth. It was irresistible. 

Poppy noted that this was quite tedious. It was. The instructions said to keep it in the dye until it's just a little darker than the intended color. We kept it in there for forty minutes. After that, there were several rounds of rinsing until the water was clear. This is important so that Poppy doesn't turn blue when she wears it.**

Then I washed it in the pot with a bit of laundry detergent and we hung it up to dry.

It looked more purple when we first hung it up, but it dried more blue.

There were some tiny pearls on the lace detail that took the dye strangely and turned brown. Poppy carefully snipped those off. 

She is very, very pleased with her "new" dress. I was surprised with how well it worked. Although I'm not too motivated to dye clothing regularly, given how much of a process it is, but it was certainly worth it for this event.

* The other two aren't, because one boy is competing at the FFA national convention that weekend in Indianapolis and another had a football game. A. is staying home to manage all of that.

**We did amuse ourselves by saying she could be Smurfette for Halloween if she dyed herself blue.

Snapshots: Rain!

Friday's homecoming football game was slightly delayed because of lightning. Coincidentally, the game the week before was delayed for the same reason. Very cool sky once the storm started to clear, though.

There was a rainbow between the trees, which looks in this sunset photo to be a tongue of fire rising from the ground. Dramatic.

The middle part of this week featured rain, and a lot of it. We have not had significant rain in months. We got 2.5 inches over a couple of days.

The proof is in the rain gauge.

Thankfully, our soil is very absorbent and was also very dry. Since the rain came steadily, rather than in torrents, it soaked in without any flooding or anything.

When I went to pick up the football player on Wednesday evening from the post office, where he's dropped off after practice, Poppy came with me. It was pouring rain. Her best friend was there with her mom, waiting for her brother too. The girls were thrilled to be able to play in the rain.

Our rainstorms are typically thunderstorms, and the accompanying lightning means the kids don't get to play in the rain very often.

Poppy asked for a big blue bow hair tie to be put in her braid for the day they were supposed to have on school colors. I ended up looping her braid up with the bow, which was kind of neat. I always have to take a picture of the back of her head whenever I do anything different with her hair, so she can see how it looks.

This of course did not stay put through recess, but that's okay.

And last, I randomly came across this terrible poem online. I appreciate the sentiment, but the rhyming and meter are really unfortunate.

 "Thou who didst love to give men food, in room or by the sea." In room? Is this referring to the Last Supper, perhaps? Who knows.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.