Friday Food: Cook Once, Eat for Days

Friday

Short version: Cheese omelets, fried leftover roasted potatoes for the kids, cucumber slices

Long version: Omelets definitely take more time and effort than just scrambling a bunch of eggs, but omelets are also eaten without complaint by everyone in the family. The same cannot be said for scrambled eggs. 

So, extra effort upfront is sometimes worth it to have a meal in which I am not listening to anyone complaining about the food.

Saturday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, rabbity rice, frozen peas

Long version: I had some rabbit stock left from the week before, with which I made rice. Thus, rabbity rice. Alliterative, amusing, and tasty. 

Somewhat relatedly, Jack's class did a craft last week where they had to come up with a word for each letter in "Easter," and one of his classmates, for the final "e" and "r," chose "eat" and "rabbit."

Look out, Easter Bunny. They're coming for you.

Cubby was required to pick up his room before dinner this day. He enlisted the help of his siblings by promising them a cheese party in his room after dinner for anyone who helped. And he made a poster for the party.

They did have music. Irish jigging music, because what else would you eat at a cheese party? They did not, however, have hot milk. They had water, which of course got spilled on Cubby's floor. And that is why they did not have hot milk.

Sunday

Short version: Meatloaf, leftover rice, cucumber slices, mashed squash

Long version: Sausage is my new secret weapon in meatloaf. Our good ground beef is pretty lean, so the sausage adds some more fat, as well as more flavor. It also seems to help it stay together even without breadcrumbs, which I prefer not to use.

Meatloaf was not actually my plan for dinner. I had cooked a big piece of pork butt and also had the ground beef out. I had thought to have the pork Sunday and form the meatloaves to put in the oven Monday after work, but at the last minute I switched it up.

Wild, crazy, and unpredictable, that's me.

The reason I had so much meat prepared on one day was because I worked on Tuesday this week, too, so I needed three days in a row of easy dinners.

Monday

Short version: Carnitas-style pork, bread and butter, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: And here's the pork! Incidentally, even though it's not Tuesday, here's a tip for you: If you cook any sort of large roast that has fat on it, always save the fat. Particularly with things like pork butt, the fat rendered out of the meat is the best for frying the meat in to reheat it. It tastes like it was just made, instead of like reheated leftovers.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover meatloaf, leftover rice, frozen green beans

Long version: I made three meatloaves, and there were two left over. So there was plenty for this night, as well as for my lunches at work this week. Meatloaf is good that way.

Wednesday

Short version: A melange of meats, sandwiches for the kids, carrot sticks with curry dip

Long version: Some of the leftover pork made into pulled pork sandwiches for the kids. The rest of the pork fried in more rendered fat for A. and me. A. also ate the last of the leftover brisket from awhile ago, and the last piece of leftover meatloaf.

I hadn't made curry dip in awhile (literally just mayonnaise and sweet curry powder), but it really does elevate plain old carrot sticks quite a bit with minimal effort.

Thursday

Short version: Not takeout

Long version: I really, really, really (really) was not into cooking dinner this day. I had taken stew meat out, but never worked up the necessary energy to actually cook it. At 4:45 p.m., I told A. "Get out the takeout menus. I don't want to cook tonight."

"Ha ha," he said. "April Fools'."

Yeah.

Anyway, in the absence of takeout options (of any kind), I put together a low-energy dinner from the freezer and pantry.

First, a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables dumped in a skillet, plus some extra onions from the bag in the freezer, plus a jar of pressure-canned bull meat, plus some extra frozen green beans, finished off with soy sauce, vinegar, ginger powder, and peanut butter.

I also made some rice, so it was just like Chinese takeout. Well, except for the actual cooking of it. And the dishes. It didn't produce nearly as much trash, though.

It didn't look like much, but it tasted good.

Tasty dog food.

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

Let the Games Begin

At 5:30 a.m., Cubby's alarm went off. Shortly thereafter, Cubby appeared, fully dressed. Of course, I asked him why he had set his alarm to go off a full hour before he usually gets up for school.

"It's April Fools'. Now I have a whole hour to get my bag of tricks ready."

My clocks are now set two hours ahead, there's a trip wire across the other boys' bedroom door, and Cubby just asked me which shoes his brothers wear to school.

I expect there to be some retaliation from said brothers today. I just hope they forget about me in all the, ahem, fun.

If you were wondering what my least-favorite day of the year is, now you know: April Fools' Day with a bunch of little boys. 

T.T.: Lean in Close

Should you find yourself with a fussy toddler whose attitude could use a little improving, I have an idea for you. Because, of course, I have had a toddler now for . . . nine years. Straight.

Yikes.

Anyway. Here's what you do.

Tell the child you have a secret to share, but to hear it, they have to lean in and let you whisper it in their ear. And then, when they're waiting expectantly for you to whisper something thrilling, you . . .

Oink like a pig right into their ear.

I have had a 100% success rate getting little kids to laugh at this. In our house, it's known as The Piggie Secret, but feel free to call it whatever you wish.

I have no idea how this started, but we're on child number four and The Piggie Secret is just as popular with her as it was with her brothers before her.

You can cover your ears, but you can never escape The Piggie Secret.

A Snapshot and a Good-bye

My sister's husband died yesterday very unexpectedly. 

He was a good man, and he will be greatly missed.

Good-bye to Uncle Shannon, who will always be The World's Strongest Man to these little boys.

Friday Food: Rabbits and Tongues

Friday 

Short version: Scrambled eggs, leftover pasta with pesto, leftover coleslaw

Long version: Not the most exciting Lenten Friday meal, but it got the job done. And the children never complain about pasta with pesto.

Saturday

Short version: Ram meat, garlic bread, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: I took out a front leg from the ram and cooked it covered in the oven for a few hours with tomato juice from a can of whole tomatoes, garlic, and a bay leaf until it was tender. Then I pulled it into chunks and fried it with a few of the canned tomatoes, mashed up, garlic powder, and salt. It came out really well.

Sunday

Short version: Ground beef tacos, Sprite

Long version: The only notable thing about the tacos is that I made the corn tortillas for them this time. Always a hit.

The Sprite was something Charlie brought home from school. It was a liter bottle, and he decreed that it should be saved for Sunday dessert.

So the children had Sprite on ice for their Sunday dessert. Works for me. No baking involved.

I'm telling you. Those low expectations for children are so key.

Hand over the Sprite and no one gets hurt.

Monday

Short version: Rabbit, rice, frozen peas

Long version: A. decided the time had come to, um, "harvest" the two female rabbits that had failed to have any live babies. They were pretty old, so I put them in the oven with onion, garlic, bay leaves and water in my big Pyrex, then covered it with aluminum foil and cooked that for several hours.

I was trying to avoid having to hack them up to fit in a stock pot, although that's what I should have done, because they weren't even close to tender at 4 p.m.

So I laboriously removed most of the meat from the carcasses, then put that meat in a skillet with the remainder of the liquid from the pan and simmered it, covered, some more. When it was tender enough to eat, I added some more onions I had cooked in a pan that had leftover bacon grease in it from breakfast, thyme, Dijon mustard, and some heavy cream.

Rabbit meat definitely needs lots of help to make it tasty. This was. The children were very enthusiastic about it as well. Well, except for the Serial Complainer who tells me he doesn't like sauces. Super.

Tuesday

Short version: Rabbit and beef soup, cheese

Long version: And NOW I could break the rest of the carcasses up and boil them until the meat was tender. Which is what I did, with celery, onion, and carrot to make a stock. With the meat I picked off the carcass, plus some leftover taco meat, onion, garlic, celery, carrot, potatoes, a few tomatoes from an open can in the refrigerator, green chilis, and the stock, I made soup.

I thought it was really good. The Serial Complainer did not agree. Oh well. He ate the cheese and the potatoes from his soup. He won't starve.

Wednesday

Short version: Brisket, roasted potatoes, very sweet baked beans, Holy's cabbage, mashed squash

Long version: One benefit of waking up early is that I always have time to cook even slow-cooking foods. I put the brisket in at 5 a.m. (with the last of the tomatoes from the can in the refrigerator, some of the chopped onions I had stuck in the freezer, vinegar, bay leaves, salt, pepper) and it was done by noon.

Both of the vegetables came from the freezer. I had several quart bags of cabbage I had just chopped and chucked in the freezer in the summer. No blanching or anything. So I put some of that cabbage in a skillet fully frozen and fried it in butter. It worked fine, which is very nice to know.

The baked beans came from Miss Amelia. She called in the morning to ask A. to come by and get some food that she couldn't eat and didn't want to go to waste. Included in what ended up being three bags of food was a container of baked beans. There was also a container of very sweet deli-style potato salad, so I suspect one of her daughters must have gotten the baked beans at the deli, too. Three of the four children very much enjoyed the beans. The child who didn't said they were too sweet.

He wasn't wrong.

We ran out of dog food this day again, too, because A. inexplicably got a very small bag of it when he last bought it. I guess because he got it at the grocery store rather than the feed store? In any case, we ran out. So I took out a cow tongue for the dogs. Which meant I had a tongue thawing on my counter all day.

If you've always wanted to see what a cow's tongue looks like outside of a cow, this is your lucky day. If the very thought is horrifying to you, you should stop reading now.

Everyone ready? Okay.

Guh-ross.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: Charlie, Jack, and Poppy had leftover taco meat in corn tortillas with cheese, plus some grape tomatoes.

Cubby and I had leftover rabbit and beef soup. Cubby also had some of the very sweet potato salad. And that's a wrap.

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

Thank You!

I appreciate all the kind comments on yesterday's post, and it looks as if Tuesday Tips carry the day. 

And now for your real thank you: an adorable child story. Whee!!!

So. Poppy's hair is now long enough and thick enough that I can do things like put it in ponytails. Or pigtails. 

She also often asks for a bun, mostly because my hair is usually up in a (very, very messy) bun. 

So, we have a singular ponytail. And the plural is pigtails. (Even though both ponies and pigs only have one tail, yes.)

And then we have a singular bun. So what's the plural of that?

Poppy knows, and she told me.

Behold, pigbuns:

The name is almost as cute as the girl.

You'd better believe that I will be calling that hairstyle pigbuns for the rest of my life. And I will be sad when that girl is too big for pigbuns anymore.

T.T.: How To Write a (Very) Long-Running Blog

Just start randomly sending words out into the vast void of the Internet, and before you know it, 14 years will have passed.

Yup. Today is the fourteenth anniversary of this small, generally unknown blog. I know it's trite to say it, but I literally cannot believe it's been 14 years. 

That's a reaallllly long time. It's also 3,091 posts, tens of thousands of words, and hundreds of readers.

That's you! And I appreciate each and every one of you.

So today, on this anniversary, I have a question for you: Do you want me to keep doing the Tuesday Tips? I still feel kind of weird giving advice that no one actually asks for, but if it's helpful to you, I'll continue. 

Otherwise, I'll still post on Tuesdays, but it will be something much more random.

Random is pretty much my modus operandi, so that would be nothing new.

Anyway. Happy Anniversary to Going Country. Might as well shoot for another decade or so, right?