And Now, 46

Today is my birthday. Having a birthday so soon after Christmas has always been challenging. There tends to be traveling at this time, everyone is pretty tired of eating and celebrating, and there's a general feeling of let-down.

It's my own fault, though, as I was born three weeks late*. So I should have been born at the beginning of December, a happy and excited time. Instead, my birthday is two days after Christmas. 

There are some benefits to this, however. When I was kid, I always enjoyed that I never had school on my birthday. I still enjoy this, because getting my own kids up and out the door for school, along with whatever after-school activities are occurring, would be a buzzkill.

I also like that the Christmas decorations are still up on my birthday. 

The view from my chair in the living room. I just now figured out how to do a panoramic photo, so you can see all of my living room. Because I am always learning and growing, ahem.

I always spend the day between Christmas and my birthday cleaning up. It's my birthday gift to myself. I am much happier in an orderly environment, and Christmas festivities have a bad effect on that. 

A. is hunting with two of the boys, so it's going to be a low-key day for us at home. The past two years, I've run a 5K on my birthday, just because I could. The joke I made that turned into a rule for my children is that I have to do it every year in less time than my age in years. Running a 5K in under 46 minutes is not much of a challenge. If I could run at all, that is. This year, thanks to my pinched nerve or whatever, I can't run. 

Instead, Poppy and I are going to do a stretching video to start the recovery from whatever I did to myself. Seems fitting for my mid-forties.

Anyway, happy birthday to me, and feel free to eat some cake in my honor today. Or run a 5K, if you're into that sort of thing.

* Sorry about that extra almost-month of late pregnancy, Mom. That was mean of me.

Friday Food: A. Takes Over

Friday 

Short version: Leftover chickpea curry and rice, ice cream

Long version: It was just the three younger children and me for dinner this night. We really needed to finish up the chicken and chickpea curry that had been in the refrigerator all week. We had had it twice already that week, so I knew it would not be welcomed rapturously. Which is why I bribed the children with the remainder of the ice cream from the previous night's birthday taste test.

That worked well.

Saturday

Short version: Barbecue pork sandwiches, pickled radishes

Long version: I still had quite a bit of pork left from the pork butt I had cooked awhile previously that also really needed to be used. I simmered it in barbecue sauce with the rest for the caramelized onions that had been in the refrigerator and the kids had that in sandwiches. 

The radishes were ones my mother had brought that were also really needed to be used. Obviously a theme in my kitchen this week. I pickled those, though, so they would last a lot longer. And were also very handy for a quick vegetable.

Sunday

Short version: Pork chops, baked potatoes, pickles, gingerbread cake and whipped cream

Long version: I did not make this meal. And the reason I did not make it was that I tore a rather significant muscle in my leg the night before and couldn't walk. At least, I thought that's what I had done. My father was of the opinion that it was a pinched nerve causing the pain. 

Whatever it was, it was debilitating. I couldn't walk or stand up for very long. Or even sit or lie down without pain. It was pretty bad.

I also couldn't put on a sock by myself. Poppy had to help me put on my sick socks.

Thankfully, A. came home this day, so he was able to take over with dinner. I did orchestrate dinner by having Poppy take the package of pork chops out of the freezer to thaw and also bake the potatoes while she was baking the gingerbread cake. She also made the cake, while I sat in the kitchen to read her the recipe and direct her.

Proudly cutting her cake.

The pickles were dill pickles I canned this year, mostly because I wanted to try using grape leaves to keep the pickles crisp when canned. They did keep the pickles mostly crisp, but they also imparted a surprisingly sweet taste to the pickles. It wasn't bad, just unexpected.

Monday

Short version: A.'s smothered burritos, leftover gingerbread cake

Long version: We had some of the skin still in the refrigerator from when I had cooked the pork butt that I saved so A. could make chicharrones. He used that, plus the remainder of the pork chops, flour tortillas, refried beans I pulled from the freezer, cheese, and salsa to make burritos. Then he made a chile sauce with cubes of pureed red chili, onion, beans, and the bones from the pork chops. He left a couple of the burritos plain for Poppy and I, who are not big on spicy things, but he poured the sauce over the rest of them and baked those with more cheese on top.

These were very good, and the chile sauce was a big hit.

Tuesday

Short version: Posadas potluck

Long version: This was the night of our parish Posadas, in which we re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for an inn. This is like a play, with children dressed as Mary and Joseph or shepherds and angels, and the rest of us either following them and singing the song asking for a room at the inn, or inside the house singing the response song that tells them to move on. Until they come to the last one, at which they are invited in.

It's very fun. We do it from a church to the rectory to the parish hall. I was so thankful that I was improved enough this day to limp through the posadas. I would have been sad to miss it.

On the move and very blurry.

There's a potluck in the parish hall afterwards. One family makes a big pot of pozole for the main dish, which is a New Mexican staple involving pork and posole (hominy, a.k.a dried corn kernels). The lady who made it told me that New Mexican pozole is much more plain in general than Mexican pozole, which I did not know. Fewer additions, like fresh corn, cilantro, raw onion, etc. She was kind enough to keep the chiles on the side in the form of a pureed sauce, which meant I could actually eat it. 

Last year, this potluck featured a lot more actual food--most too spicy for me because of all the chiles involved, but much appreciated by the rest of my family--and fewer desserts. This year there were more desserts than real food.

Poppy made our contribution of a double batch of these brownies. They were perfect, and they were all eaten, but if we do this next year, I need to bring an entree, too.

Wednesday

Short version: Pasta, leftover curry, eggnog and molasses cookies

Long version: I got back in the kitchen this day to make our traditional Christmas Eve eggnog, which we eat with Grandma Bishop's molasses cookies. Thankfully, I made the cookies before I hurt myself. They probably wouldn't have been made if I hadn't, as they require a couple of hours in the kitchen. 

The eggnog is much faster. I make it to use the yolks left from our Christmas Day roulade, so I just separate the eggs to make the eggnog and keep the whites in the refrigerator for the next day.

I was much better this day and able to stay on my feet to get some things done, as long as I rested in between. By the end of the day, however, I was getting pretty worn out and my body was starting to ache, which is why dinner came mostly from the freezer. 

I had a quart container of sausage meat sauce from a month or so ago that I combined with pasta and shredded asadero cheese from the freezer for the children's meal.  And then for A. and me, there was enough of the chicken and chickpea curry from a couple of weeks ago. I had frozen the last couple of servings. Surprisingly, all the dairy in it didn't separate at all when it was thawed. 

Thursday

Short version: Ham, scalloped potatoes, peas, sauteed mushrooms, chocolate roulade

Long version: Baking a ham is one of the least labor-intensive main dishes, especially if it's a pre-sliced spiral ham, which this was. Yay.

The potatoes require a bit more work only because they have to be sliced so thinly, but it was still doable.

The most labor-intensive part of this meal is the chocolate roulade. However, I have made it for years, so it's faster than it would be if it were a new recipe to me. 

It didn't crack too much this year.

I'm still forcing myself to go slow and rest, so as not to prolong my recovery or, God forbid, hurt myself further, so I rested both before and after making this. It's really annoying to me that I can't just get things done quickly, but I am so thankful that I can at least do things slowly now. It would have been a real bummer to be flat on my back in bed on Christmas.

Refrigerator check:

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

All Is Hushed

The world is sleeping . . .*

Merry Christmas, one and all.

* From "Still, Still, Still," which we listen to every Christmas Eve right before bed.

On Traditions

It's funny how traditions form. Sometimes they're intentional, but often, they just come from a single event that everyone decides is the way it will be forevermore.

Christmas is prime time for traditions. We have many Christmas traditions--cutting the tree, Grandma Bishop's molasses cookies, Lindt truffles in the stockings--but one of my favorites is Sunday nights in Advent.

Advent is the season of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas in the church calendar. An Advent wreath is used in Catholic churches and many homes to mark the Sundays. It's a circle of four candles--three purple, one pink--one of which is lit for each Sunday. When I was a kid, my mom taught us a song that we sang whenever we lit one of the candles. Now I sing it with my children for our own Advent wreath lighting.

Sundays are also the day I bribe my children to do their bathroom chores with a special dessert, so during Advent, we have dinner, they go do their chores while I get dessert ready to serve, and then we light the candles, sing the song, and eat our dessert by the light of our Advent wreath.

Baked fruit ready to eat and the candles ready to light.

I don't know how many of these traditions will go along with my children to their own homes and families when they're older, but I'm enjoying them now, anyway.

Do you have any favorite family traditions, Christmas or otherwise?

Snapshots: Here It Comes

Christmas approaches, and the whole house shows it. 

Poppy put one of these in every room. Not particularly decorative, but a good message.

I learned this week that our priest has no Christmas decorations. He said that last year, he found a two-foot tree at the rectory and put that on his dining room table. Without ornaments or anything. And that was his decoration. He mentioned that now that his brother is living there too, he should probably decorate a little more.

You think?

I was depressed by the idea of a bare plastic tree being the only "decoration" in a house. The children were scandalized that a priest of all people had no actual Christmas decorations. So we did something about it.

I don't have a lot of decorations myself, which meant I couldn't just give him something extra of mine. I did have some trimmings from the bottom of our tree, though, with which I made this for his door.

 I don't even attempt wreaths. I don't know what you call this, but it looks festive, anyway.

Poppy, meanwhile, set to work making a paper chain and star for the tree. She was home by herself most of this week. Her brothers were at school helping the teachers move into our new school (yay!), but the younger children were kept at home so as to be out of the way. Poppy was not pleased to be home without anyone to play with, so I really appreciated this project that kept her occupied all of one morning.

The internet told me that a two-foot tree would require a chain of 9-12 feet in length. That seemed way too long to me, but by the time Poppy had used all her paper strips, she had a chain 11.5 feet long.

And there's the star, too.

Father sent a picture of his decorated tree for Poppy.

I think this is more like three feet tall, which means it needs another few feet of chain, but oh well.

She was very pleased with this.

Another project I had been saving to do with Poppy and that we did this week was making candles from all the stubs of blessed candles from church. Because they were blessed, they either had to be burned or buried. Or, I decided, made into new candles.

I bought some silicone candle molds and a kit that contained wicks, stickers and frames (I guess that's what you call them) to hold the wicks in place, a pot to melt the wax, and a small spoon to stir the wax.

The spoon was also useful to fish out the wicks from the stubs.

I liked the hexagonal molds.

Getting the cooled candles out of the molds required some effort, but I did it, and now we have new candles.

Fun.

Unusually, we've had clouds in the morning lately, and that has meant some pretty spectacular sunrises.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Birthday-ful Week

Friday 

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, oven fries, green salad with vinaigrette, baked apples and cream

Long version: The younger three children and A. were working down the hill on a masonry job all day, so I knew they would want a very substantial dinner. I was making bread, which is why I made the buns. They make hamburgers much more filling. 

We got two five-pound bags of Granny Smith apples from Rafael. Thus, baked apples.

Saturday

Short version: Chicken and chickpea curry, rice, cheese sandwiches later

Long version: I had made stock with the rooster carcasses from Thursday, and then used the meat I picked off the carcasses to make the curry. I also opened one of the giant cans of chickpeas my sister brought me to supplement the chicken.

That's a lot of chickpeas.

One of the churches in our parish was having a confirmation Mass this night for an adult confirmation candidate, at which our archbishop was presiding. We've never met our archbishop--he's in Santa Fe and doesn't come this far very often--and the kids had never been to a Mass celebrated by a bishop and wanted to go. 

Mass was at 5 p.m. The chuch is 45 minutes away. We ate at 3:30 p.m. I knew the kids would want to eat again when we got home, which they did. Cheese sandwiches at 7 p.m. and then off to bed.

Sunday

Short version: Asian-ish pork, rice, collards, pickled radishes, baked fruit with cream

Long version: Another of the Wow! pack pork butts, this time flavored with soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and maple syrup.

We had a week of two birthdays and class Christmas parties coming up, which is why we just had baked fruit for dessert. Relatively wholesome. I used one quart jar of canned apple slices and one of canned pear slices, with extra cinnamon and cloves added. 

Monday

Short version: Ground beef gyros, malva pudding with custard sauce

Long version: This was A.'s birthday. I had originally thought to make lasagna for him, as he does love Italian-American food, but then I had the other half of that big can of chickpeas in the refrigerator. So instead, I made (a LOT) of hummus with those, sourdough pita bread, yogurt/garlic sauce, and gyro-seasoned ground beef (onions, garlic, oregano, cumin, thyme). We even had tomatoes and cucumbers.

It's always fun watching the pitas puff.

He was extremely happy with this, as I knew he would be.

His original request for his birthday dessert was tiramisu, but he likes it with all the liqueurs, and I didn't think that would be a great family dessert. His second choice was malva pudding.

Malva pudding was a completely new thing to me. It's apparently a common thing in South Africa, and pretty much only there. A. saw it online somewhere and immediately thought he would like it. I think the apricot jam in it was one of the main attractions.

It's not very hard to make. I used this recipe, because it had slightly less sugar than some others I saw. There didn't seem to be a lot of apricot jam in it, and I thought it would be good with more apricot flavor, so I substituted apricot jam for half the brown sugar in the sauce poured over the baked pudding.

The recipe said you can serve it with either custard sauce or ice cream. We had ice cream on hand, but A. wanted to try custard sauce. I used this recipe for the custard sauce, but I only made a half recipe. This was actually more work to make than the pudding itself, but it was also definitely the right call. Warm custard sauce poured over this pudding is perfect.

The pudding itself was very dense and sweet. The apricot wasn't a dominant flavor, but I think the acidity of it did balance out the sugar even if the apricot flavor wasn't noticeable. The texture of the pudding was much like bread pudding. It caramelizes on the outside and is very soft on the inside. It was delicious, but you definitely would not want to eat too much of it. It's very heavy. 

The amount of custard sauce I made was just right for this amount of pudding. My children thought I should have made a double recipe of the pudding, but I think they would have made themselves sick eating more than one serving of such a rich dessert.

In any case, this will certainly be a repeat dessert in our house.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover curry and rice

Long version: First Communion day, in which I get home at 5:45 p.m. and heat up leftovers. The end.

Wednesday

Short version: Birthday steaks, pureed potatoes, carrot sticks with curry dip, pots de creme

Long version: Youngest son's birthday was yesterday, but an away basketball game meant we wouldn't all be home to have his requested dinner and party. So we did it this night. He wanted steak with herb butter and caramelized onions.

I have lots of caramelized onions on hand, as I made a big batch of them with the many pounds of onions I've been working through. I have parsley for herb butter. I did not have steak. We're not getting our cow from the neighbor processed until next month, which meant that I had to buy steaks at the store.

I knew they would be expensive. They were. The least expensive per pound, oddly, were the t-bone steaks, which are some of my favorites. I got three of those. They were very good.

They fit perfectly on my two-burner griddle pan.

This child never wants cake for his birthday, preferring instead something dairy-based for his dessert. This year, that was pots de creme. I made a double batch--which is the full recipe as I posted it here--since it was a birthday. It's just solid enough to hold the candles, thankfully.

Thursday

Short version: Subway on the road, leftovers at home, ice cream variety

Long version: This was the youngest boy's actual birthday. I went to the middle boy's basketball game. Because it was in a town only an hour away that happens to have a Subway, youngest son and Poppy came with me and I got them Subway after the game. Sandwiches are the youngest son's favorite food, so this made him happy.

A. and the eldest had leftover steak and potatoes at home. 

I had the last few bites of Poppy's ham and cheese sandwich, and the crust of a grilled cheese sandwich left over from lunch. Such a cliche of a Mom Dinner.

When we got home at 6:30 p.m., I got out the many flavors of ice cream I had purchased for a birthday taste test.

Eight flavors, to be exact.

I spent several minutes looking over all my options for ice cream at Walmart. Most brands didn't have very many flavors to choose from, I was surprised to find, so in the end, I went with a bunch of the Great Value flavors. 

Everyone got a small spoon to try all of these, and then they could take a small bowl of their favorite. Luckily, everyone had a different favorite, so there were no arguments.

Refrigerator check: 

We need to eat more leftovers.

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

Christmas Tree Hunting

Per tradition, we have cut our Christmas tree for the year. It's also a tradition for me to take photos and post them here so you can come along on the adventure with us. Let's go!

We always go to a friend's ranch to cut our tree, as the good trees don't grow near our house. I have now discovered the best area for the trees, so we walked right to that area and found a tree within about two minutes.

Camouflaged by nearby trees, but I still saw it.

We left the saw there so we could cut it on our way back to the van and went down the hill to the dirt tank to play.

Also a tradition.

This year, the younger children also climbed this tree.

Poppy is in there somewhere.

We brought the dogs with us.

After suitable play time, back to the tree we went.

Sawing away.

At home, the tree was, as always, deposited in a galvanized metal bucket and anchored with rocks before I started putting the lights on.

I discovered to my dismay that of the four strands of lights I had, one of warm white lights only half worked, one of multi-colored lights didn't work at all, one of bright white lights worked all the way, and I had one strand of multi-colored lights that were fully functional.

Sigh.

Luckily, we get small trees and we put them up against a wall, so I didn't really need to wrap the lights all the way around the whole tree. I wound the bright white lights around the trunk, so the branches would soften their glare a bit, and then used the multi-colored strand and the half-working warmer white lights to kind of zig-zag across the front of the tree.

The children added the ornaments, and . . .

Tree!

Now all it needs are presents under it. Only nine days and counting . . .