Six

 

Happy birthday to

laid-back Jack

Friday Food: Another Ridiculous Recipe Debacle

Friday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I had actually taken chicken out to cook, but by the time we finished our very merry Christmas tree decorating, it was already 4 p.m. And I was tired. 

Leftovers it is!

Most people had some of the leftover taco meat with corn tortillas and cheese. Cubby, who is not a big fan of that, lucked out. I had a little tuna salad left from lunch, so I added some bread crumbs and an egg to that and made him a couple of tuna patties. He was very happy.

Saturday

Short version: Chicken, bacon, garlic bread or rice, home-frozen green beans

Long version: I had taken out the last packages of boneless chicken thighs my mom brought me. To cook them, I first fried a few slices of bacon, then added the cut-up chicken into the bacon grease with paprika, salt, and garlic powder. It was very tasty.

I made this meal in two rounds, because A. and Cubby got home late from pheasant hunting. A. got a pheasant.

Which of course found its way to my kitchen to be admired and manhandled by two small children.

Sunday

Short verison: Loaded chicken and potato casserole, green salad with ranch dressing, ice cream with salted caramel sauce

Long version: I first saw the idea for this casserole online somewhere and thought it looked like a good idea for the rest of the boneless chicken thighs. The thighs are cut into bite-size pieces, then mixed with diced potatoes, olive oil, and spices including paprika and garlic powder, both of which I tend to use heavily on a regular basis anyway. 

The original recipe also called for optional hot sauce. Instead, I used some of the MiL's paprika.

The MiL grew the paprika peppers in her garden this summer, dried them, and sent them to me to grind up. When I did that in the food processor, it damn near drove me out of the kitchen. The fine powder swirling around had me coughing non-stop. I don't know what weather conditions caused it, but I'm pretty sure these peppers had much more of the spicy along with the sweet in comparison to the peppers she sent us a couple of years ago.

So I decided to use just a bit of that spicy-sweet paprika for this, along with regular sweet paprika. I could definitely taste a bit of heat, but it was delicious.

The casserole is called "loaded" because it's topped with bacon and cheese at the end of baking. It was, as you might imagine, very tasty, though very heavy.

Also tasty was the salted caramel sauce for the ice cream. Also as you might imagine. I've never made it before, and I used this recipe. It wasn't difficult, although working with caramelizing sugar is kind of annoying. Mostly because it hardens into rock as soon as it cools on spoons or whatever.

Worth it, though.

And hey! Guess what was in that salad? Tomatoes from the garden, still hanging out on top of the microwave.

Never say die, tomatoes. Until we, uh, eat you.

Monday

Short version: Brisket tacos, rice, carrot sticks with ranch dressing

Long version: I put the brisket in the oven overnight on Sunday, and then just stuck it in the refrigerator before I went to work in the morning. When I got home and sliced it, it ended up being not quite enough meat for everyone. That's why I used it for tacos for most of us. I had some pinto beans in the refrigerator, which is an excellent way to stretch meat. 

Charlie and A. don't eat beans, but the rest of us did, and it ended up being just enough meat that way.

Should I start a Thrifty Housewife Hacks blog? Nah. Bet it's already been done.

Tuesday

Short version: Lamb tenderloin, rice, roasted tomatoes and garlic, caramelized onion, green salad with ranch dressing, pumpkin custard with whipped cream and caramel sauce

Long version: This was A.'s birthday, and all he asked for was lamb. Good thing he butchered his own last month. All I had to do was cook it.

I had saved some red wine the last time A. got a box, so I marinated the lamb in that, olive oil, garlic powder and salt, then seared it, sliced it, and put it back in the pan with the rest of the marinade as a sauce.

The tomatoes were just a can of tomatoes that had been languishing in the refrigerator. I stuck them in the oven with a whole head of garlic while I was baking the custard.

And about that custard . . .

Remember I had a LOT of pumpkin pie filling left after our Thanksgiving adventure in pie making? Well, A. said he would just like to have that without the pie crust, instead of a cake. So easy!

Or rather, it would have been, if I coud EVER read and follow a dang recipe correctly.

I won't go into all the details, but it was a classic Kristin Recipe Experience that involved way more eggs and milk than I should have had (and not enough cream, because I was almost out) and then adjusting spices on the fly and . . . well. It was stupid. And I ended up with a crazy quantity of this stuff.

This photo looks like a very shocked custard face. Maybe it was horrified by the hash I made of the baking?

And THEN, I didn't bake it long enough. Even though it was in the oven for almost an hour and a half, the centers were still definitely liquid. So I scooped out around the edges of those where it was more solid. I served it with whipped cream and drizzled over the caramel sauce, and it was actually delicious, but I was still mad about the whole thing. 

Incidentally, later in the week I combined the liquid centers of all those containers and re-baked it all. For TWO HOURS. And THEN it was done. Geez.

Wednesday

Short version: Bacon, scrambled eggs, leftover lamb, leftover rice, home-frozen green beans

Long version: Workday and a random assortment of leftovers and quick-to-cook-foods so I could bake brownies after dinner for Cubby and Charlie to bring to school for their class Christmas parties the next day.

That sentence was almost as long as this day felt.

Thursday

Short version: Carnitas-style pork, pasta, sauteed green beans

Long version: Last day of school before Christmas break! I spent the morning making cupcakes to bring in for Jack's class birthday treat, and the afternoon at the school helping teachers with the class parties and attending a staff meeting, so I knew I would not be into an elaborate dinner. (Am I ever?)

Thus, random chunk of pork chucked into the oven in the morning, then shredded and fried with spices at dinner formed the protein. The pasta was just, uh, pasta, with butter, cream cheese, and garlic powder. Throw some frozen green beans in with the pork and call it done. Because I certainly was.

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

Tuesday Tips: An Attitude Exercise

(You get two posts today, since A.'s birthday happened to fall on a Tuesday. But he got precedence over a random tip. Of course.)

On the days when her brothers are at school, Poppy and I typically go for a walk. We don't get far, because, as anyone who has tried to cover any distance with a toddler knows, the point of a walk is not to actually walk.

Last week, one of her diversions was pausing at a large, dead wild sunflower plant and pulling the seeds off. She would yank some off, throw them in the air to watch them blow away in the wind, and exclaim, "TA DA! Amazin' me!"

The one and only amazin' Poppy.

I was watching her do this and thinking, "If only we could all be so pleased with ourselves all the time."

Bur really, why can't we? Instead of constantly internally criticizing ourselves, why shouldn't we be internally congratulating ourselves?

Like this:

I got the bathroom clean. TA DA! Amazin' me!

I got all the laundry washed, hung on the line, and put away. TA DA! Amazin' me!

I remembered to call about that bank account thing. TA DA! Amazin' me!

I mean, it's not as if there is generally a cheering crowd applauding your toilet-cleaning efforts. So go ahead! Be your own cheering section! It's really surprisingly effective in elevating your mood.

Although, I'm going to leave the audible self-congratulations to the toddlers. That might be a little weird coming from a 40-year-old.

Let's Sing

Today, the one and only woodchuck man turns 40 years old. And that means it is time to sing his one and only song: "The Woodchuck Man Can," sung to the tune of "The Candyman Can."

(There are eight previous versions, but I'm just going to send you back to the most recent one. If you care, you can jump to all the others from that one.)

You ready? Let's go.

Who can fix an old house

Entirely on his own?

Who can butcher a bull down to skin and bones?

The woodchuck man

The woodchuck man can

The woodchuck man can

'Cause he uses what he has and makes it work for him

Who can fix a toilet

With a purple children's toy?

Who can go adventuring with a girl and three young boys?

The woodchuck man

The woodchuck man can

The woodchuck man can

'Cause he uses what he has and makes it work for him

Who can give a haircut

To make the girls look neat?

Who can save a new lamb with his own body heat?

The woodchuck man

The woodchuck man can

The woodchuck man can

'Cause he uses what he has and makes it work for him

Happy birthday to A., the man who brought new meaning to the word "woodchuck."

Sunday Snapshots: The Christmas Tree Expedition

Okay, this is kind of cheating for Sunday Snapshots, because I always post a lot of photos of our Christmas tree adventure. Like here. And here. But I'm gonna do it anyway. Because it's my blog, and I can.

Let's go!

Finding our Christmas tree always involves a dirt road. This year it also involved a faint track going through rangeland.

But . . . where are the trees?

You can just see, if you look closely, a truck ahead of us on the track. We were following a friend, who manages this ranch and gave us permission to cut a tree. He had to lead us to the trees, though, because not only were they nowhere near a paved road, they were about two miles down a dirt road, another mile on this track, and then a few hundred yard hike into a kind of draw where the junipers grow.

So we walked.

Words I actually said to my children, "Okay guys, watch out for cactus and cow patties and look for a good tree." Welcome to a High Plains Christmas experience.

We found a good tree fairly close to the van, actually, but decided to continue our walk to where our friend said there was a dirt tank.

And here it is.

A dirt tank is just a dug-out spot that fills with water when there's rain to create a watering hole for cattle. Obviously, we haven't had much rain lately, so it was dry, but the boys still found some snail shells in it. So that was thrilling.

Poppy was not quite so enamored of the dirt tank and preferred to hang out with me.

Or, sometimes, ON me.

She also required some assistance on the walk back.

This job I am happy to leave to A.

When we got back to the tree we had chosen, A. did his annual fatherly duty of getting his knees wet while he cut down the Christmas tree.

Cubby would have been happy to help, but by now A. and I really just wanted to get home.

After getting home, fortifying ourselves with tuna salad and hot cocoa, and changing into dry pants, A. set the tree up in its rustic bucket on the even more rustic bench, and I commenced my annual duty of stringing lights on a tree while keeping the children out of the box of ornaments.

Then they decorated the tree, and themselves.

Jack is Santa Claus, Poppy is Mrs. Claus, Charlie is an elf working in Santa's workshop, and Cubby is a mad elf because they were fighting about two seconds before I took this photo.

And there it is! The tree is up, it is decorated, and all we have to do now is wait for Christmas.

Friday Food: Hot Dogs To End a Streak

 

Friday

Short version: Cracklin' skillet, green peas, pureed squash

Long version: While I was digging in the non-meat chest freezer for something else, I uncovered one of the packages of beef fat that's been languishing in the bottom of the freezer since we bought the whole cow two years ago.

I thought maybe it was time to pull that out and render it. Two years should be long enough for aging. Ahem.

Pork fat makes cracklin's when it's rendered, which are a lot different than what I ended up with after rendering the beef fat. This fat had been ground for me by the processing place, and what remained after rendering was essentially ground beef with a LOT of fat. 

So I served it for dinner. I mean, I couldn't just THROW IT AWAY, could I? Perish the thought.

All I did was add in some cooked onions I had in the refrigerator, salsa, garlic powder, chili powder, rice, and cheese.

I did not tell the children exactly what they were eating. Charlie took a few bites and said, "For some reason, this tastes like cracklin's."

"Yeah," said Cubby. "I didn't want to mention it, but it does."

Jack said, "Why does it smell like fat?"

Possibly because it's approximately 40% beef tallow?

Anyway.

They all ate it, and both Charlie and Poppy had seconds. Okay.

Saturday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, roasted potatoes, fried onions, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: Nah. I have a picture, though!

Burgers and taters.

Sunday

Short version: Shepherd's pie, pots de creme

Long version: It's been awhile since I've made shepherd's pie, but I really like it. So when I pondered what to do with the rest of the ground beef I had taken out the day before, I decided to go for it.

The meat mixture usually had green peas and corn in it. I had neither, so I used green beans and diced carrots instead. Plus tomato juice, onion, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, a bit of brandy, and thyme. Top with mashed potatoes, dot with butter, bake, and definitely enjoy.

I made the pots de creme for the second Sunday in a row because I wanted to try it with the evaporated milk. The children agreed that they would like to have pots de creme for every Sunday dessert from now on. Probably not, but duly noted.

Monday

Short version: Leftover shepherd's pie, fried leftover pork and potatoes, calabaza

Long version: There wasn't quite enough shepherd's pie for everyone, so A. and I had the leftover pork fried in butter with paprika and garlic powder, plus potatoes.

A. chopped up the gigantic calabaza on Sunday morning before church. It was . . . alarming.

That's a lot of vegetal sustenance right there.

I asked him to do it Sunday morning so we could bring several chunks to church for some of the older people. Every person over the age of 70 here remembers this squash from their youth. No one really grows it anymore, though, so they were all thrilled to get some. We gave away about half of that behemoth. 

I cooked the other half, which yielded approximately two gallons of calabaza, mostly for the freezer. We ate some of it this night, though. About a cup. Just a drop in the squash bucket, you might say.

Tuesday

Short version: Green chili pork casserole, frozen green beans

Long version: I wanted to make a casserole of some kind so I could bring one to our priest when we went to Mass this night. He drives hundreds of miles every week, ministering to a very large parish, and he doesn't have any help doing it, either. He lives alone, and it's a bummer to cook for one person all the time. So whenever we go to church in the other village, where his house is, I try to bring him food.

I hadn't taken any meat out to thaw, though, so in the morning I pulled out a big package of those boneless country ribs and put them in my 9x13 Pyrex pan completely frozen. And then I put about a cup of roasted green chilis on top, also completely frozen. I baked that for about 3 hours at 350 degrees, along with some vinegar, a clove of garlic, and the onions left over from the night I made hamburgers.

When the meat was tender, I chopped it up and mixed it with cooked diced potatoes. The sauce was just the juices and the chilis and everything blended with some cream cheese in the food processor. I had to add some extra water, too, because it was a bit too dry. And then I topped it with grated cheddar.

It still needed more sauce, but it was very tasty. I'll probably make it again, but I need to figure out a way to make more sauce without using any more green chili, lest it get too spicy. Maybe bell peppers.

Wednesday

Short version: Ground beef tacos

Long version: I knew that extra-large pot of taco meat I made and froze last week would come in handy on work nights.

Thursday

Short version: Hot dogs

Long version: There was a school thing at which hot dogs were provided. The children were pleased, and I realized that this meal marked the first time in almost exactly 11 months that I ate a dinner not prepared by me. The last time I ate anything I didn't cook was on January 9, 2020, when we used a gift certificate to the local restaurant.

That restaurant is now closed, and I cooked dinner for 336 days straight. 

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

Tuesday Tips: Pandemic Pots de Creme

Another recipe! What is happening here? Am I turning into a recipe person?

No. But it's sort of hard to spread the gospel of the easiest, most delicious dessert in the world without giving you a recipe. That would just be cruel. And really, if you like chocolate, you need to try this.

"This" is pots de creme. It is, apparently, a very traditional French dessert. Not always chocolate in France, but always chocolate in my kitchen, which is definitely not French. And this is definitely not a traditional pots de creme recipe. I suspect a traditional French cook would not even recognize this, but it's absurdly simple and delicious, so we're running with it.

There are dozens upon dozens of recipes for chocolate pots de creme, which is sort of like a cross between a chocolate mousse and chocolate pudding. It's what I imagine the chocolate river in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory would taste like.

I had never had it nor heard of it, however, until the MiL made it many years ago, using a recipe she got from her MiL.

Her MiL--A.'s grandmother, known as Bae--had a definite dramatic flair and loved a good story. When she and her husband were in their sixties, they left Blackrock to the care of their adult children and spent a couple of winters running a hotel on the Carribean island of Bequia.

I mean, why not, right?

I have no idea where they came up with this plan, but there is no doubt that Bae got many, many stories out of the experience. Some were about eating whale meat. Some were about the sailboat--pleasantly named The Friendship Rose--that brought supplies to Bequia and was the only way to get to the "big town" on the bigger island. And one was about the pots de creme.

Bae claimed she got the recipe from the cook at the hotel. The MiL, however, tells me that the recipe actually came from Bae's copy of Joy of Cooking. It's still in the newer editions, too, although the version Bae made is now listed as a variant of the main recipe.

Apocryphal origin story aside, she did indeed make this recipe a lot on the island for the guests at the hotel. The recipe as written has exactly five ingredients: chocolate chips, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract. In a traditional pots de creme recipe*, the ingredients are combined on the stove top and then baked in a water bath, like a custard.

This recipe, however, is made in a blender (or food processor). The milk is heated very hot, them dumped in a blender with all the rest of the ingredients to be whizzed around until smooth. The hot milk melts the chocolate chips and cooks the egg. The resulting liquid is refrigerated until it's chilled and is solidified a bit. This method is much more to my taste than messing around with a pot on the stove and a water bath in the oven.

Given the problem of supplies on Bequia, I asked A. how his grandmother got milk. He said they used evaporated milk, powdered milk, and shelf-stable milk in cartons. 

I've always made this recipe with whole milk, but I was intrigued by this. What if I could make it with evaporated milk? If I could, then it could be made with almost all pantry ingredients. (The exception being the eggs.)

So I tried it with one of the cans of evaporated milk I keep in the pantry. I always double the original recipe for our larger family, so I was delighted to find that a regular can of evaporated milk is exactly 1.5 cups. Which is exactly the amount needed for a double recipe. 

Serendipity.

We had the evaporated-milk pots de creme Sunday night, and I could not tell a difference in taste or texture from the whole milk version. If anything, it was a little thicker, since, of course, evaporated milk is thicker than whole milk. 

A. thought he could detect a slight difference in mouth feel and taste, but he enthusiastically endorses both versions. As do the children.

So I think you can pretty much use any sort of milk you have on hand. Most recipes online call for cream, too, which I have never tried in this. The versions with cream might be better, but I assure you that you can make this with any kind of milk, and it will be delicious.

Well, maybe not skim milk. That might be too thin. But you can definitely make it with evaporated milk, which pleases me greatly.

So if you bought evaporated milk this spring when the world went crazy and we all went along with it, but now you don't know what to do with that can? Now you know. Make this. You won't be sorry.

Pandemic Pots de Creme (makes enough for six generous servings)

Ingredients

1.5 cups milk or evaporated milk

2 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, dark, or milk, depending on how sweet you like things)

2 eggs

3-4 tablespoons sugar (adjust depending on your preferences and the sweetness of your chocolate)

a pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

Heat the milk until bubbly on the edges, either in the microwave or a pan on the stove. It will probably get a skin on the top. That's okay.

Put all the rest of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend for about ten seconds, just to break the chocolate chips up a bit. This makes it easier for them to get totally melted in the next step. 

Pour the hot milk in all at once and blend until smooth, leaving the round stopper piece off the top of your blender or food processor and covering the top opening with a dish towel. This is an important safety step whenever you're blending any hot liquid. 

Pour the mixture into small bowls or ramekins, then refrigerate at least two hours, until thoroughly chilled.

Serve with cream on top. You can use one of those cans of whipped cream, I guess, if you're sticking to pantry items here. Or you can really go for broke and do like us: Just pour some cream directly on top to make a lake of cream over the chocolate. You get more cream this way, without all that air from whipping to get in the way. 

This must be the least-fancy recipe ever when it comes to ingredients and method, but it yields a very fancy-looking dessert. Even if you don't have cute little ramekins to serve it in. Or even matching bowls.

I, obviously, have neither. And it doesn't matter, because this magic recipe is delicious no matter what it's served in.

I think we could all use a little more liquified chocolate in our lives, right? Well, here you go. Chocolate comfort for a very strange time.

Update #1: I no longer use any of the added sugar in this recipe. It's sweet enough for us without it.

Update #2: I was having trouble for awhile with this not thickening when it was refrigerated, and I finally determined that doubling the recipe was causing the problem. So now, if want to make the quantity as written in this recipe, I do half at a time in the blender. No more problems with thickening.