Because the city I went to this past week is a hot one, the hotels there tend to have better rates in the summer. That is why I reserved a room at a much nicer hotel than I would usually stay at.
Sunday, August 17, 2025
Snapshots: Away and Home Again
Friday, August 15, 2025
Friday Food: Raising Cane's On the Road
Friday
Short version: Repurposed leftovers, cucumber
Long version: Second day of the county fair and also the second day of a nasty heat wave, which meant little motivation to get in the kitchen for me. Luckily, we had enough of the leftover ground beef/bean/rice skillet from the day before to use as burrito filling. So that is what I did.
I even turned on a burner to make toasted burritos, which I thought was very brave of me. Ahem.
Saturday
Short version: Half-hearted pasta
Long version: Last day of the fair, and another hot one. This is always a long day, and I always bring a cooler of drinks and snacks for the long day sitting at the fair grounds. In the morning, I had made pasta using a quart of meat sauce I found in the freezer, plus grated asadero from the freezer.
I actually used the pasta pot at first to make pudding and then yogurt, because I had almost a gallon of milk to be used promptly.
No one was very hungry when we got home, thanks to all the snacks and the heat, but some of them ate a little pasta before we left for the dance.
Sunday
Short version: Re-sauced pasta, green salad with vinaigrette, chocolate pudding with cream
Long version: The previous day's pasta really needed more sauce. There was a lot of it left, so I made more sauce for it using an entire 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, a couple cloves of garlic, the few collard greens and the parsley I brought home from my fair entries (blended in), and cream.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
The View from the Bench
Right outside our porch door, we have a big wooden bench that A. made some years ago. If I can manage to sneak outside without anyone following me, I can enjoy some peace and the view from the bench*.
I particularly like sitting there as the sun is setting, or even after it has set. The light lingers almost an hour after sunset, because it's so flat here.
* Not that I object to their company (usually), but anywhere my children are immediately becomes less peaceful.
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Snapshots: Heading to the County Fair
I had a couple of errands in town that couldn't wait, and since I was going to the town with the (tiny) dinosaur museum that my two youngest children had been asking to visit again, I took them with me.
Friday, August 8, 2025
Friday Food: First Snickerdoodles
Friday
Short version: Leftover meats, porky rice, pinto beans, raw tomatoes or leftover vegetables, almond cookies, fresh bread and butter
Long version: I had leftover grilled steak, barbecue ribs, and tuna patties that I apportioned out based on preference.
It was fairly cool this day, so I had also decided to cook the half bag of pinto beans that had been in the pantry for awhile. To flavor the beans, I fried pickled onions and garlic in the lard that had rendered out of the ribs I had made the day before, and then simmered the beans with that for a bit.
The rice was cooked in the liquid from the ribs.
The tomatoes were mostly from Poppy's plants in the garden. She generously shared with her brothers, and then A. and I had leftover sauerkraut, carrots, and peas.
The cookies I had made the day before, substituting finely ground almonds for some of the flour.
And bread and butter because I had baked bread in the afternoon and fresh bread is hard to resist.
Saturday
Short version: Green chile bacon cheeseburgers, roasted potatoes, peaches and cream
Long version: I had made hamburger buns the day before when I was baking bread. I made the bacon very last-minute when the rest of the meal was almost done, but it of course was the best part of the meal for my family.
All the males in the family had their cheeseburgers with pureed green chile on top, along with raw onion. Poppy and I declined.
Sunday
Short version: Oven-fried chicken, biscuits, carrot sticks with curry dip, brownies with ice cream
Long version: I hadn't made oven-fried chicken in a very long time, but everyone likes it, so I did. It involves marinating the chicken--I used three breasts and a package of thighs--in yogurt and spices, then coating it in masa and spices before baking on a buttered sheet pan.
Because I had the oven on for that, I made biscuits too. They were just plain baking powder biscuits, and they weren't my best effort. The butter was a little warm when I made them. Oh well. They were still all eaten.
Thursday
Short version: Pork/beans/rice skillet, blue-ribbon brownies
Long version: This was the first day of the county fair. The fair is always incredibly tiring, since it's always brutally hot and we spend hours there. I would typically prepare at least some part of dinner in the morning before we left, but this morning I was busy gathering wildflowers and arranging them to enter into the floriculture contest, and helping Poppy bake the brownies she entered, as well as the cake I entered.
We got home at 3 p.m. I pulled a small bag of cooked pork shoulder from the freezer and made some rice. Then I fried the diced pork in bacon fat. To that I added frozen corn, a can of black beans, salsa, pureed red chile from the freezer, taco spices, grated cheddar cheese, and sour cream.
I counted the salsa and corn as our vegetables.
The brownies were the ones left from the pan Poppy baked. Before we left the fair, we saw that she got a first place ribbon on her brownies. They were very good brownies.
Refrigerator check:
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Summer Reading, and a Minor Announcement
The bigger boys start school this week, and everyone will be in school in two more weeks, so now's a good time to tell you all about the many books I bought this summer, right? Right.
Most of them were for Poppy, who has definitely become a reader.