These Magic Moments

This evening I gave the boys their usual reminder to go to the bathroom and wash their hands while I was dishing up dinner. And then I hear from the bathroom, "Mommy? You should come see this."

That never means anything good coming from a bathroom.

Sure enough, the recent tummy troubles are still affecting one of my children, and the resulting mess was quite spectacular. His clothes, the floor, inside and outside of the toilet, side of the bathtub . . .

Perhaps the child in question said it best, "It was like a poop gun!"

Yeah. And it was the messiest shot in the east.

Needless to say, dinner was a bit delayed. I can't say I worked up much of an appetite cleaning the bathroom while the soiled boy had a bath.

I just kept reminding myself, "These are the best years of my life." If not the best ten minutes.

Friday Food: Ribeye Is the Alpha and the Omega

My cooking started out pretty lame this week, but it got better. Sort of.

Friday

Short version: Ribeye steaks, boiled potatoes, bell pepper slices

Long version: You know when you intend to make mashed potatoes but then after the potato pieces are boiled you lose the will to do the actual mashing and instead just throw some butter and salt on top of the unmashed pieces and call it good? No? Just me? Okay then.

I cooked some shredded carrots, sliced onion, and diced celery in the pan after the steaks were done, because that was all that I could eat. I didn't actually get to the grocery store that day. Story of my life.

This was also the day we made maple candy in snow, but it's not in the dinner menu because we did it at 10:45 a.m. (It's delicious.)

Saturday

Short version: Chicken, potatoes, peas

Long version: I made it to grocery store! Hooray! So what did I choose for a vegetable with the world at my fingertips (or rather, the limited produce selection in the small village at my fingertips)? Yes, frozen peas. My stomach was feeling a little off. It was a day for frozen peas.

I did, however, have sweet potatoes once again, which was unreasonably exciting for me. Also lucky, as I was not feeling the greatest and pretty much just ate roasted sweet potatoes for dinner.

I bought chicken again because although I really do not like it, the children are always so touchingly happy when we have it for dinner. Particularly when they can each have a drumstick, which is why I bought legs this time and broke them down into thighs and drumsticks. Twisting chicken joints apart is gross.

I just roasted them with garlic powder, salt, and basil on top while the sweet potatoes were roasting. Then I poured some of the chicken juices from the pan in with leftover white potatoes and heated those up for everyone else.

Half-assed, to say the least, but on days when the cook is feeling queasy, it's a victory to have cooked food at all.

Sunday

Short version: Overly-flame-broiled lamb ribs, pan-fried steak, tomato-y rice, sauteed mushrooms, sad salad, leftover beets

Long version: We have a couple of packages of ribs left from last year's rams. A. is the designated rib cook in our house, and he prefers to cook the ribs at least partially on the grill. It was 54 degrees Sunday, so I took a package of ribs out for dinner. A. marinated them in olive oil, garlic, and lots of apple cider vinegar, then covered them and cooked them in a low oven for a couple of hours. He finishes them on the grill to get rid of some of the fat and crisp them up.

Both things were accomplished when the grill caught fire.

I guess enough fat rendered out to cause not only a flare-up, but a straight fire in the area under the grill that catches the grease. A. rescued the ribs, but the fire continued to burn for several minutes even with applications of both baking soda and salt.

Dramatic.

The smallest piece of ribs was pretty much incinerated, but the other two pieces were okay.

This is why the steak--the one left that wouldn't fit in the pan on Friday night--was pan-fried instead of cooked on the grill as I had planned. It did result in a pan to cook the mushrooms in, though, so I guess that's the silver lining.

I had some random tomato juice left from draining a can of whole tomatoes, so I added it to some diced onions cooked in olive oil and cooked the rice in that.

The salad was sad because all I could get at the grocery store was iceberg lettuce. They had romaine lettuce, but apparently that's once again on the naughty list. I cannot tell you how happy I will be when I can grow my own lettuce again. This agri-business lettuce is bad news.

All in all, it was kind of disappointing meal that resulted in far too many dishes.

Monday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, leftover tomato-y rice, steamed broccoli, mediocre sustenance

Long version: I added some cheese when I heated up the tomato-y rice. I expect my Michelin star any day now.

The mediocre sustenance was mine. I had half a can of tuna mixed with leftover curried vegetables and rice. I don't much like canned tuna, but it was edible. Which is pretty much all I can say about my meals these days.

Tuesday

Short version: London broil, boiled potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli, sauteed mushrooms and shallots

Long version: Hey look! I finally managed to make a real meal! Big pat on the back to me!

I did make just boiled potatoes on purpose this time, as opposed to intending but failing to mash them. All the boys have been complaining of tummy troubles this week, so I figured plain potatoes with a little butter would be a little easier on their digestion than mashed potatoes loaded with dairy.

I usually make a sauce for London broil, but instead I just seared it and took it out of the pan to slice, cooked the mushrooms and shallots in the pan, added back the sliced meat and put in a little red wine vinegar. It was surprisingly flavorful all on its own this way. Bonus.

I ate everything except the potatoes with the depressingly anemic iceberg lettuce as a salad.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork chops, chicken-y rice, fried cabbage and onions, cucumbers with salt and vinegar

Long version: So I brown the pork chops on the stove, then put them on a pan in the oven to cook, then put sliced onion in the pork chop pan . . . Wait, have you heard this before? Yeah. You know this drill.

I hope if you've learned anything from my (overly) detailed explanation of how I cook, it's that you should always make something else in a pan that already has grease and flavor in it. No sense wasting it.

I cooked the rice in chicken stock I had made from the leftover chicken bones on Saturday. This was the second pot of rice I made this day, because the boys were STILL having digestive issues and rice is a pretty safe food for that. The chicken broth makes it tasty without having to add a ton of butter. So we ate something like six cups of cooked rice in one day. Impressive.

Thursday

Short version: Ribeye steaks, pasta with tomato-cream sauce, peas

Long version: Yup, ending as we began--with ribeyes. I couldn't possibly have anything else to say about ribeye steaks, could I?

You underestimate me.

This time I cut a chunk of fat off one of the steaks and used it to grease the grill pan before I put the steaks on. It made me feel very pioneer-y. I'm sure the women on the westward journey would have been impressed.

And this time, I actually had steak sauce. It's one of those things I always forget to buy at the store, and then we have steaks but no steak sauce. This disappoints A. every time. I've made homemade steak sauce before, but it's a Heinz 57 copy cat and we prefer A1. And I had it this time! Gold star for me.

I had a couple of partial jars of leftover canned tomatoes and tomato sauce in the refrigerator that really needed to be used up, which meant it was my pasta-loving children's lucky day.

I had a salad. Please read that with the appropriate self-pitying tone. I mean, it was a good salad, but it sure wasn't pasta.

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

Aaaaand, BREAK!

Cubby and Charlie have a particularly late spring break this year. Perhaps the administration at their school was delaying in the hopes that there might be some actual spring weather for the break. If that is the case, they succeeded.

Behold, many pictures of my children outside. In short sleeves. It's a springtime miracle.

Although, yes, that is snow behind Jack. It is still the north country, after all.

Overheard during this porch picnic from Cubby: "Now this is what I call living." I hope he's always so easy to please.

Poppy is withholding judgment on her voluminous sunhat. The finger's pretty good, though.

Tiny retirees on the teeter totter. Someone get these kids a stylist.

Please just ignore my finger in the corner and instead marvel at the sheer energy displayed in this picture. And then imagine that energy in real life, all day, every day. That's life with lots of little boys.

The way I'm standing makes this the least flattering photo of me ever taken, but I'm posting it anyway because the mountains (we went to the Adirondacks today) are so pretty. And I need to get over myself.

It's supposed to start raining tonight and continue for most of the rest of the week, but at least we got a little bit of real spring during spring break. We'll take it.

The Blue Ninja Strikes Again

This morning I discovered that someone turned the temperature-control dial in the refrigerator to "coldest" and partially froze the carrots. And I know who that someone was.

The blue-eyed produce saboteur*.

I'm on to him now, though. No more frosty carrots for me. I will be on my guard from now on for the Blue Ninja and his tricks.

* You know that hashtag "nofilter" on photos? I never have a filter on mine, because I don't know how to use them. So yes, his eyes really are that blue in real life.

Friday Food: The Return of the Ribeye

Yes, I purchased another log of beef for our consumption. Good timing, considering my current diet of meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That is not hyperbole.

Friday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, corn tortillas and cheese, steamed broccoli and carrots

Long version: I'm sure someone out there is thinking (humor me), "But Kristin, don't you ever get sick of cooking three meals a day for five people, seven days a week? Don't you ever just get takeout?"

And the answers, in order, are: Yes, I do, and no, I don't. There are many reasons for this. One is that the options here in the sticks are very limited and at least a ten-mile round trip. Another is that it costs too much to feed the five of us even at a cheap place. And last is that scrambled eggs taste better than anything I can get at a restaurant around here.

So when I don't feel like cooking, I cook anyway, just as minimally as possible. Five minutes to scramble eggs and microwave tortillas and cheese, and we can all eat for less than five dollars. It does still make dishes, though, which I actually get much more sick of than cooking.

Saturday

Short version: Roast chicken, bread cubes, carrots and onions, slothful Harvard beets

Long version: I actually bought a whole chicken at the grocery store, which I never do but which thrilled the children. I was going to roast it over potato cubes, but then I saw the big bag of bread ends I had taken out of the freezer to thaw for making bread crumbs and decided to roast the chicken over that instead. So I spatchcocked the chicken and put it on top of the cubed bread, dousing both in olive oil and Italian herbs.

Instead of becoming like chicken-y croutons, however, the bread cubes got a little too overcooked. At least, the ones that weren't directly under the chicken. The ones under the chicken were delicious. The ones that were more exposed were very . . . crunchy.

They were a noisy affair to eat.

I mostly made the carrots and onions because I had originally put the bread cubes in a smaller pan and then realized it wouldn't hold the chicken, so I had to transfer the bread and chicken to a bigger pan. Then I had an empty oily pan. I figured I might as well use it before I washed it, so I chunked up an onion and a couple of carrots to roast.

Real Harvard beets are made by making a sauce of sugar, vinegar, cornstarch, and butter in a saucepan before adding sliced roasted beets. Slothful Harvard beets are made by randomly sprinkling diced cooked beets with sugar, vinegar, and a chunk of butter and then microwaving it all together. Perhaps not quite as elegant, but certainly tasty.

I think maybe I should call them State University Beets. Because they produce more or less the same result as the Ivy League version with a lot less effort.

Sunday

Short version: They ate ribeye steaks, mashed potatoes, green peas. I ate steak, rice, mushrooms and carrots.

Long version: This was the day I began an elimination diet to see if I can calm down Poppy's latest terrible eczema flare-up. I could eat the steak, but not the potatoes or peas. So I fried shallots, mushrooms, and grated carrot in bacon fat, added rice, and then mixed in diced steak for myself.

Monday

Short version: There is no short version, because we're all eating different things.

Long version: There was one whole ribeye steak left over, so I cut up some of it and added it to the last of some vegetable soup that I couldn't eat (potatoes, beans, and peas) but that I didn't want to throw out. Also a little container of leftover mashed potatoes and another of leftover peas got chucked in there. Waste not, want not! Cubby and Jack ate the Salvage Soup with cheddar cheese.

Charlie has a bit of a delicate digestive system, and after a rough day the day before, it was not going to be happy with a soup full of high-fiber vegetables and beans. So the rest of the steak I cut up and fried in a pan for me and Charlie. He had some leftover rice with his. I had some cabbage cooked in bacon grease and a small microwaved sweet potato with mine.

A. doesn't eat on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays to aid in his digestion. He does drink broth, though, so he had some chicken broth for dinner.

This was the night that I remarked to A., "There are so many special diets in this house, I feel like I'm running a hospital kitchen."

I despise high-maintenance food, and yet, here I am.

Tuesday

Short version: Pork chops, definitely-not-Chinese fried rice, cucumbers with vinegar and salt, roasted sweet potatoes/broccoli/onions

Long version: The only rice I had left was sushi rice. I had made the remainder of the bag earlier in the day. So after I browned the pork chops and had them in the oven to finish cooking--as I always do, because I can't fit all the pork chops we eat in one skillet--I put some diced onion in the skillet to cook, then the rice to fry in the onion/grease/spices. It was tasty, and certainly filling.

We eat a lot of cucumbers when I can get the English cucumbers (the long, small-seeded ones) that are grown in Canada. Only the Canadian-grown ones, though. The ones from Mexico are disgusting, maybe because of the distance they have to travel to get here. The Canadian ones are practically local produce for us. I peel them, slice them into rounds, sprinkle with red wine vinegar and salt, and fight the kids for them. They LOVE these.

Random picture my sister took of me and Jack and Cubby when she was here in January. Just to break up all these wordy words. Check out those stylin' boots. Fashion is ever my watchword.

Wednesday

Short version: Tuna, bacon, fried cornmeal mush blobs, bell pepper strips, nuked birthday cake

Long version: I fried a few pieces of bacon mostly to have the grease to make my dinner, which was half a big can of tuna with chopped bacon, shredded carrot, leftover rice, and some of the leftover roasted broccoli and onions all fried together. It was good, and filling.

I made the boys tuna patties (big can of tuna, bread crumbs, an egg, mayonnaise, mustard, diced shallot).  In the same pan I fried some leftover cornmeal mush from this weekend. If you put the leftover mush in a greased casserole and chill it, you're supposed to be able to cut it into squares and fry them. Except this time I made the mush in the microwave per a recipe from Christopher Kimball and it was still soupy and wet even after being refrigerated. So I beat an egg into the mush and dolloped the mixture into the pan to fry like pancakes. It only sort of worked, but they were still eaten.

Bell pepper strips because I have one that needs to be used up and they only like bell pepper raw.

And Poppy's extra-fancy but unfortunately reappearing half-birthday cake.

Thursday

Short version: Italian sausage, bread and butter, peas

Long version: I think we eat sausage at least once a week. Whatever. Charlie still wasn't eating solid foods, Poppy was fussy, A. wasn't here, and I was tired. Everyone ate a more or less balanced meal. That's a big win for a day like that.

I took the sausage out of the casing for my dinner and cooked it in olive oil with shallots, a shredded carrot, some diced celery, and leftover rice. Are you seeing some repetition in the food I'm eating? Yeah. And I'm eating it three times a day. Variety is not my middle name.

And now I'm down to some carrots, two beets, celery, a few potatoes, and meat. No other vegetables. No fruit. No sweet potatoes. No rice, even. Very little I can actually eat, as a matter of fact. I was supposed to go to the grocery store in the big village yesterday for a big re-stock when I took Poppy in for her six-month check-up. I didn't go anywhere, however, thanks to the vomiting child, so now I have to go to the small store in the little village today with all four children, because there's no school. Yay.

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

All Fun and Games Until Someone Vomits

Yesterday was Poppy's half birthday. I mentioned this to the boys at dinner and said wasn't it too bad I hadn't made a cake to celebrate. Well, a cake for them to celebrate for her, obviously. She's not into cake quite yet.

But wait! With the power of the internet, all is possible!

I got right up from the table and made this chocolate-peanut butter cake in the microwave. The boys were appropriately impressed that I could make a cake that fast. And that the microwave actually cooks things.

Poppy was not quite so impressed. Probably because she was abandoned on the floor while I was making a cake in her honor that she couldn't even eat.

The half-birthday girl and her half-assed cake.

She didn't even get a second-hand benefit from all that cocoa and peanut butter, because of course I didn't eat any of it as it's full of things I'm not eating right now.

Greater love hath no mother than to make cake for her children that she can't even eat.

The boys loved it.

Well, except for Jack, but he never really eats cake. He shared most of his with his brothers.

That photo documents Charlie in a happier time, before he started emptying his stomach of all its contents. Including the cake, which still smelled like peanut butter in the vomit bowl he was using.

Oh, sorry. Were you eating breakfast or something? My bad.

Yes, Charlie was in my room at 1:15 a.m. complaining of a stomach ache, which was shortly followed by the re-appearance of the cake in the vomit bowl I provided to him. He continued to throw up for the following few hours. Somewhere in the middle of it, he remarked wistfully, "That was a delicious cake, though."

Probably better going down than coming up, I bet.

Life in the Fast Lane*

This morning while Poppy and I were downstairs shuffling laundry around, Jack decided to accessorize his boring outfit.

Fabulous.

Poppy was initially skeptical of his choices.

Perhaps purple really isn't his color.

But she approved after due consideration.

Or maybe she coveted that scarf for herself.

Also of note: When I was turning on my phone to take these photos, Poppy spit up yogurt-y grossness all over the screen.

Kids are fun.

* "Life in the Fast Lane" is a song by the Eagles. You may at first think it is not appropriate to life with children, as it's about going out in a drug-fueled crash, but consider the words of the refrain:

Life in the fast lane

Surely make you lose your mind

Life in the fast lane, uh huh

Life in the fast lane

Everything, all the time

Life in the fast lane, uh huh

Seems about right to me.