As Heard in the House

 

Poppy decided it was high time she went camping and fishing again, so she informed A. of this fact.

Me: You're a real outdoors girl, huh, Poppy?

Poppy: Yes. And I'm special.

Me: Yes, you are special.

Poppy: And cute.

Me: Okay, don't overdo it. Vanity is unappealing.

I was in the kitchen preparing to can sauerkraut, which involves first heating the sauerkraut to boiling before putting in the jars. During this process, Cubby came through the kitchen and exclaimed, "What is that SMELL?"

Me: Sauerkraut. Now move on.

Next, A. came in the kitchen and said, "Why does it stink all of the sudden? It smells like the sewage backed up."

Me: No, it's not sewage. It's sauerkraut.

A.: Oh. Well! That's some powerkraut.

And then I spent about two straight minutes laughing to myself in the kitchen. You know next time I cook sauerkraut, I'm going to tell them all we're having sewage for dinner.

Friday Food: Exotic Food From the Outside World

We had visitors from the Outside World for Poppy's birthday on Sunday, and they came bearing food. Lots of food. Lots of food we do not usually have, as you will see. 

Friday

Short version: Pizza, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: My sister came for the weekend and so of course I made pizza. One with just cheese, one with bacon, onion, and a bell pepper from the garden. Yum.

Saturday

Short version: Rooster and rabbit tacos, homemade corn tortillas, pinto beans, roasted squash, guacamole

Long version: My parents came for the weekend, too, and so I made a Mexican feast. 

The rooster was another extra that my friend gave us, and the two rabbits were shot by A. the day before when he saw them hanging around at our house next door. Something has been eating his sprouting saffron crocuses, so he hopes that he took care of that problem by taking care of the rabbits.

I just boiled all the various meats until I could shred them, then added that to the sauce I made from onion, garlic, tomatoes, roasted green chilis, red chili powder, cumin, and paprika, plus some sour cream at the end because neither animal had any fat on it.

I really don't want to be standing over a blazing hot griddle pan for half an hour if the kitchen is at all hot already, so it's been awhile since I've made tortillas. It has definitely cooled down now, though, so tortilla time is here again.

The pinto beans just came from the freezer. I think this was the last jar from the big batch I had split up to freeze some time ago, so I guess it's time to make another big batch.

Our squash, I'm sure I don't need to tell you. And a whole bag of avocados my sister bought cheap at the grocery store because they were very ripe, which made just enough guacamole for all of us.

I do truly love guacamole. There are dozens of ways to make it. Personally, I like very well mashed avocados mixed with a bit of mayonnaise, garlic powder, salt, and quite a bit of lime juice. I'm sure it's not at all traditional, but it sure is good. This time, Jack helped me make it.

First we scoop, then we smash. Perfect for kids.

Sunday

Short version: Birthday stir-fry, chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, Mason jar ice cream

Long version: Poppy chose stir-fry for her birthday dinner. I made it with pork loin chops and a bunch of vegetables, including exotic ones like snow peas and asparagus brought by my parents.

The cake was also Poppy's choice, of course, influenced no doubt by the fact that I asked her what kind of cake she wanted while she was eating a peanut butter ball. I of course made (Great-great) Grandma Bishop's chocolate cake, but I've never made peanut butter frosting before. I used this recipe, and I have no idea why I have never made peanut butter frosting before. I love all things chocolate and peanut butter, so this cake made me as happy as the birthday girl.

You wanna see the latest Ugly Cake? Of course you do.

A vision in brown.

I didn't have any ice cream, but I did have a bunch of heavy cream my sister brought us. So I used that to make vanilla Mason jar ice cream. Not as good as real ice cream, but fine in a pinch.

Monday

Short version: Kid food, adult food, leftover birthday cake

Long version: The kids had frozen chicken patties, leftover rice, and raw sugar snap peas. The adults had scrambled eggs with tomato and cream cheese, leftover rice, and steamed asparagus. And each was happy with his portion, amen.

Tuesday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, roasted potatoes, roasted squash/bell pepper/onion, leftover asparagus

Long version: Some of the varities of winter squash we grew this year are dense and sweet enough that they can be roasted in cubes like sweet potatoes. They're a hell of a lot harder to prep than sweet potatoes, what with their hard skins and big seed cavity that has to be scooped out, but they're also not 60 miles away at a store, so there is that.

Apropros of nothing, I have now turned over the Sunday morning after-church breakfast to Cubby. He loves making pancakes or waffles, Poppy loves helping him, and I love sitting in my chair while he cooks.

Here they are making a type of cornmeal pancake that the children call Fudge Bunnies. There is neither fudge nor bunnies in them. It's a long story.

Wednesday

Short version: Breakfast sausage links, pasta with pesto, boiled green beans, leftover vegetables

Long version: This was the very last of the fresh pesto for the year, made with the plants I pulled out before the freeze last week. I also threw in the last of the shredded asadero cheese from when I made pizza.

While I was boiling the pasta, I tossed in some fancy french green beans my mom brought me. They float at the top of the water while the pasta sinks down, so it works pretty well to cook them together and then just scoop the beans out when they're done. Plus, one less pot to wash. 

Thursday

Short version: Steaks with garlic scape butter, garlic bread, tomato salad, roasted green beans and tomatoes with garlic

Long version: My mom brought us a package of top loin steaks, which were very good. They were made better, though, with the addition of garlic scape pesto mixed with butter. Yum.

I didn't have any fresh basil for the tomato salad, but I did have some of the last of the actually vine-ripened tomatoes. I have a LOT of tomatoes picked green that are turning red, but those aren't quite as good as the ones that ripen on the plant, so I figured I should use some of the last of the best tomatoes for a tomato salad.

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

Down Come the Ceilings

 

When we last left our intrepid house rehabber (is that a word?), he had ripped out a lot of nasty old carpet and some wall paneling, and was steeling himself to pull down ceilings.

There is no way to pull down a ceiling that does not result in a literal rain of filth on top of the puller's head. He got it done, though.

He found some cool stuff while he was doing the demo. Like the original adobe bricks under the plaster in one room:

Circa approximately 1920 he thinks, although it's hard to tell here because adobe building has been in use here for so long and was still used until not long ago.

The house appears to have begun life as a two-room adobe, and then was added on to at different times over the years with different materials. Some walls are stone, some are cinder block, some are more modern two-by-fours. It's an interesting example of the history of the building materials in this area.

The fun (fun?) part over, A. then began the tedious process of shoveling three feet of detritus off the floor and wheelbarrowing it into the dumpster.

He's still working on that. And the dumpster is filling up fast.

Stay tuned for the next installment! Which will probably be A. fixing some of the big cracks in the stone walls. Or maybe gutting the kitchen of the nasty old cabinets, if there's room in the dumpster.

Three

 

Happy birthday to

my girl.

Friday Food: The End of the Tomatoes

Friday

Short version: Pizza, pork, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: A meal that was foreordained by the foods on hand. Dough from the bread I was baking that day plus some of Finny's sauce from a batch I had made to freeze plus asadero cheese from the freezer=pizza. A bit of lettuce in the refrigerator plus a bit of ranch dressing that needed to be used=salad. And the leftover pork for A. and me.

Saturday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, fried tomatoes and onions, leftover coleslaw

Long version: I get 50-pound bags of potatoes from the school Sysco ordering program. The variety of potato in the boxes is not the same every time. Last time, it was a waxy variety of potato. This time, it was nice big russets. That made me happy, because russets make much fluffier, and therefore more delicious, mashed potatoes.

Sunday

Short version: Tuna patties, oven fries, green salad with vinagrette, peanut butter balls

Long version: French fries are also more delicious made with russets. Hooray for russets. 

I much prefer a vinagrette dressing for salads. The rest of my family does not agree, which is why I've been making ranch dressing most frequently lately. I decided to indulge myself with a vinagrette this time, though. Because I am a master of self-care.

Ahem.

Cubby usually chooses and mostly bakes our Sunday desserts now, but I decided on this one. Two reasons: One is that A. can eat it because it doesn't have any flour in it. Two is that we were almost out of eggs, and this doesn't use any.

It also doesn't hurt that it is insanely delicious. It's like a superior version of commercial peanut butter cups. The dipping in chocolate is messy and annoying, but the end result is most definitely worth it. I hadn't made it in a long time, and everyone is now thinking it would be an excellent permanent Sunday dessert. Which would mean this would be our Sunday night face:

The chocolate-smeared face is a sign of great happiness.

Monday

Short version: Leftover pork, chicken patties, rice, mashed squash, frozen peas

Long version: Pork for A. and me, those frozen chicken patties for the kids, and nothing remotely exciting otherwise. Must be a workday.

Tuesday

Short version: Oxtail vegetable soup, grilled cheese

Long version: We're getting pretty low on meat, which means I'm much more motivated to use the packages that have been sitting at the bottom of the refrigerator for a long time. Like the package of oxtail.

It's not really an ox's tail, of course. It's just the tail from the cow we bought almost two years ago. It looks pretty gross, since it's literally just a skinned and partially segmented cow's tail, but it makes excellent stock. All that cartilage, you know.

Anyway.

I browned and simmered the tail in the morning, then did the tedious job of pulling the meat off the bones. It never looks like a lot, but I got over a cup of meat from the tail. Enough for soup. Which is what I made, with the meat, the broth, onion, garlic, tomato, carrots, potatoes, green beans, and peas.

The kids thought it was hilarious we were eating a cow's tail. "Did it have poop on it?" they asked. Har har.

Grilled cheese to fill things in a little. Because a cup of meat in a whole pot of soup may be enough, but it's not a lot.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover soup, scrambled eggs, rice, tomatoes or frozen peas

Long version: Workday. Leftovers and scrambled eggs. The end.

Thursday

Short version: Beef goulash with sauerkraut and carrots, mashed potatoes, mashed squash, frozen peas

Long version: This was the very last package of actual meat from the cow we got two years ago. Now all that's left are nasty organ meats, fat, and soup bones. Time for another cow.

We were anticipating a freeze this night, and I decided it wasn't really worth covering the tomato plants again. So we harvested all the tomatoes, ripe or not.

Poppy and Charlie--who was home from school with a slight sore throat, but was otherwise fine--helped me.

"These aren't plants!" exclaimed Charlie. "This is a jungle." Accurate.

Odin helped, too.

Well, he was willing, but his lack of opposable thumbs made him quite ineffective.

We harvested a lot of tomatoes--most of them green--but I didn't use any of them in the goulash. I elected to open a can of already prepared tomatoes instead of chopping up two cups of fresh tomatoes. Lazy.

I used my own sauerkraut, though! It was the sauerkraut Poppy and I started a couple of weeks ago. I just scooped out a cup or so and then covered the rest up to keep sauering.

Also our squash, of course. Forever.

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

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

 

I'm sure you're familiar with that profound little nugget of wisdom: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

If you aren't familiar with it, now you are. You're welcome! Also, I looked it up to see where it came from, and it's attributed to a (possibly apocryphal) Chinese philospher. 

So there's that.

The particular long journey we're going to talk about now began over a year ago when we bought the abandoned house next door. We only bought it because we didn't want anyone to move in right next door to us. We're real friendly like that.

A. had thought he might someday fix the house up, because it's a hand built adobe and stone house and A. is a self-taught stone mason, but it wasn't high on the list of priorities. 

Cleaning the house out, however, sort of was.

The house had last been lived in by an elderly man who moved out to live with his granddaughter, and quite a lot of the contents of the house were still in there. 

It was a little creepy, to be honest, what with the man's clothes hanging in the closets and personal things like poetry written by the granddaughter still on the walls of her bedroom. It was also disgusting, because all the old blankets and things had made very cozy nests for rodents. 

The kids always wanted to go over there, and they always wanted to take something out to bring home here, and honestly, it was gross and a pain. So we needed to clear it out.

FINALLY, last week, I rented a dumpster.

Here's that very first single step.

It looks like a big dumpster, I know. It is a big dumpster. There was a lot of get rid of.

Last Thursday, A. and I just dove in. 

We began with the detritus in the rooms. Clothing, papers, stuffed animals, blankets, particle-board furniture . . . 

Well. Why don't I let the photos tell that story?

Living room.

Bathroom.

Kitchen (the least cluttered room in the house).

One of the three bedrooms.

It was so gross to be touching all that stuff. My face was set in a permanent expression of disgust the entire time. 

But that was nothing to what came next, as A. started tearing out all the old carpet.

Good thing everyone has plenty of face masks around all the time now.

Getting rid of the carpets made an immediate improvement, because there are few things more filthy than 50-year-old carpeting.

That same bedroom, minus the appalling pink carpet.

The dumpster was filling up rapidly.

We are definitely going to fill this.

A. was on a roll--and also curious to see the actual structure of the house--so he then started pulling off wall paneling. It was the same kind of cheap particle board paneling that was on the walls of the living room in our current house when we bought it. And underneath, we found the same kind of perfectly acceptable walls that definitely did not need to be covered up with that nasty stuff.

In the case of the kitchen, there were actually two layers of paneling.

Right to left: The top layer of horrible grayish paneling, the middle layer of horrible brownish paneling, and the actual wall that was painted an appealingly cheerful yellow.

A. had to stop at this point, because he was exhausted from pulling up and hauling heavy carpets. But the demo was only beginning. 

Stay tuned for when the ceilings came down. Literally.

Friday Food: Turken, Curry, and More Elk

 

Friday

Short version: Choice of stews, garlic bread

Long version: I cleaned out the small freezer over the refrigerator and found . . . MORE ELK! 

I thought I was done with the elk, but it wasn't done with me.

There were two small bags in there. One of pretty gnarly pieces I had trimmed off while making something else and that A. had insisted I save, and one of a rather large and clean chunk that I have no memory of whatsoever.

Anyway, with those, and a container of cooked posole leftover from A.'s last stew (found in the freezer excavation), plus onion, garlic, and tomatoes, I made him more stew. It also had green chilis in it, which I thought would make it really spicy, but didn't. Usually, I think the amount of chili I'm using will be mild, and then it isn't, so obviously, chilis remain a mystery to me.

Anyway.

I added leftover rice to it, too, which made it quite filling.

I also made a curry stew with some curried split peas I had made the day before and to which I added far too much curry powder. So to tone it down, I added a container of beef juices and tomato juices leftover from cooking a brisket (also from the small freezer, yes), potatoes, carrots, green beans, and sour cream. 

Charlie, who is not a fan of curry, had the elk along with A. The rest of us had curry, and everyone had garlic bread.

Saturday

Short version: Brisket, fried potatoes, mashed squash, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: Nothing too exciting here, although making more brisket meant another opportunity to make rice pudding. This time I made it without raisins for Charlie, who doesn't like them, and added the raisins to the bowls of those who wanted them. 

Those bowls were consumed* for breakfast the next day because we've been out of cereal for a few weeks now and there must be a special Sunday breakfast before church. And the special breakfast must be fast, because church is at 8 a.m.

Rice pudding works.

Sunday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, rice, green beans, fruit-filled oat bars

Long version: I make a lot of hamburgers, although I really don't enjoy doing it. And the reason I don't enjoy it is because of this:

Guh-ross.

"But Kristin," you say, "Why don't you just use a spatter guard or lid?" Because I have to fry so many dang hamburgers that I use the cast iron griddle pan that goes across two whole burners. And that means a lot of spattering grease.

The oat bars were Cubby's choice for our Sunday dessert. He likes to go through my old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and find different recipes to make. This one called for quick-cooking oats, which I don't usually have, but Miss Amelia had given me a big container awhile ago. So I was happy to use some of those up. 

The method was to make a crust by cutting butter into the oats and flour and sugar, then putting on a layer of fruit filling and a bit more of the oat mixture on top.

I had some ground almonds and sugar in the freezer that have been hanging around since I made cheesecake for Cubby's birthday in February, so I decided to use that instead of flour so A. could eat this, too. I also added a bit of the last of the coconut flour I wanted to use up to the crust. 

There were a couple of options for the fruit filling, and Cubby chose the apricot one. It was supposed to be apricot and coconut, but we didn't have any coconut. Instead I put in the rest of the coconut flour, which thickened it up nicely.

It came out well, although it was quite sweet. A. ate it with some maple-syrup-sweetened yogurt (in lieu of cream, which we didn't have) and loved it. Everyone except Charlie enjoyed theirs, too. I don't care for coconut flour, so I wasn't wild about that, but with regular flour it would be quite good. 

It's certainly not a recipe I would have chosen myself, so hooray for expanding horizons and all that.

Monday

Short version: Loose meat sandwiches, tomatoes

Long version: Hello, workday dinner! 

I'm down to my last jar of New York State barbecue sauce, so I didn't use it for the ground beef. Instead I just added ketchup, mustard, maple syrup, and vinegar until it approximated the taste of the sauce. No one noticed, so I guess I'll do it that way from now on.

Gratuitous toddler photo!

Yes, shorts in October. And an almost-freeze in early September. Welcome to the high-altitude west.

Tuesday

Short version: Arroz con Turken

Long version: During our very first summer in New Mexico, when we were still in our rental house, A. grew saffron crocuses. From those flowers, he painstakingly harvested a tablespoon of saffron. I used some of it to make paella a year or so ago, and I was waiting until I had a "clean" chicken (that is, not from a store) to make it again.

Then, last month, my friend asked us if we wanted one of her turkens that turned out to be a rooster. Because everywhere we go, we are a magnet for unwanted roosters.

Turkens, incidentally, are bizarre-looking chickens. They get their name because they have no feathers on their necks, like a turkey.

Anyway. 

A. killed it and skinned it, and it's been sitting in the freezer since then.

I decided the time had come to use it, and the saffron. I didn't make the paella this time, though, instead making Arroz con Pollo, which is a very similar dish. It's usually made with bone-in chicken pieces, but it's really hard to cut up home-raised chickens, because their bones and joints are much stronger than a commercial chicken.

I decided to just poach the turken until I could pull the meat off, which also gave me lots of nice stock to use. Then I cooked onion, garlic, one small bell pepper I had in the garden, the saffron, and a bunch of diced tomatoes in with the chicken chunks until the tomato was cooked down, at which point I added the rice and stock. And then frozen green peas at the end.

A. was in raptures over this meal. Cubby was thrilled, too. I was not. And that is because saffron has a distinct flavor of iodine that makes it taste like fish. I don't like fish.

A. and Cubby do, though, and I'm fine with being a plebeian in this case. 

Wednesday

Short version: Various leftovers featuring rice

Long version: A work day is always a good opportunity to use up some leftovers.

A., Poppy, and Jack finished up the elk chili rice stew thing. Cubby and I had the leftover curry stew (with rice added). Charlie had some of the ground beef sandwich meat, but over rice. And no one had a single extra vegetable other than what was in their stew or whatever. 

Just being honest here.

Thursday

Short version: Carnitas-style pork, rice, coleslaw

Long version: Our fall cabbages are much, much smaller than the ones we planted early in the spring. I suspect that's because of the hot weather and the insects that plague the cabbages in late summer. However, even a small cabbage makes quite a bit of coleslaw, so that's what I did.

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

* Perhaps I should have specified that the bowls of rice pudding were consumed, but I trust you are all intelligent enough to infer that we did not eat the actual bowls.