Friday Food: Unusually Succint

Friday 

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, boiled potatoes, carrot sticks with curry dip

Long version: I made extra of the cheeseburgers and potatoes so A. could take them the next night for his camping night in the mountains on his elk hunt.

He saw six bull elk crashing into each other at the top of the mountain, but no cows (females). His tag was for cows. So no elk this year. He enjoyed the burgers and potatoes, though.

Saturday

Short version: Personal pizzas, pickled radishes, carrot sticks, green chili hamburger soup

Long version: A. was in the mountains and Cubby was on a school field trip, leaving just me and the younger three children for dinner. I was making bread again, and I had just enough leftover pizza sauce and asadero cheese to make a pizza for each of the three. They were pleased with this. 

I made the soup with the remaining pound or so of ground beef that hadn't been used for the cheeseburgers, as well as the leftover boiled potatoes, a scoop of the squash I had roasted while making bread, and the last of the cream gravy I had brought home from the school cafeteria, plus onion, garlic, green chile, carrots, peas, tomatoes, and two containers of beef stock from the freezer. That's what I ate.

Did I also eat some pizza from the children's "personal" pizzas. Well, yes. I'm not made of stone, you know. They didn't even finish all of it, anyway, so there was enough for them to share with me.

Sunday

Short version: Beef pot roast with tomatoes and garlic, roasted carrots, rice, frozen green peas

Long version: Chuck roasts make the best pot roasts. Gotta have that fat.

No homemade dessert this week, because I told the kids their two pieces of Halloween candy every night the week before took the place of the Sunday dessert. Then I asked them if they wanted to stop getting the candy every night in exchange for having a homemade dessert the following Sunday. All of them but Poppy did, so I put their candy bags into the general candy bowl (they each got a quart-size zip-top bag that they could fill with their favorite candies and keep separate to choose from). 

The remaining candy in that bowl will go into the freezer next week to be used as bribes for haircuts or for Easter baskets or whatever until next Halloween, at which point whatever remains will be thrown out in anticipation of yet more candy coming in. 

That's my Halloween candy system, in case you were curious.

Random photo break!

This little dump truck is no match for the numerous apricot leaves. It blends nicely, though.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, cafeteria rolls

Long version: Hello, Monday leftovers! Cubby, Jack, and I had the leftover soup. A. had some of that, too, plus some leftover pot roast. 

Calvin and Poppy had pot roast and peas. 

All the children had some of the dinner rolls I brought home from the school lunch leftovers. They were very soft, and quite sweet, so of course they all loved them.

Tuesday

Short version: Shepherd's pie, squash

Long version: Shepherd's pie is one of those things that the children reliably take seconds on, so anytime I want to be sure they'll all eat a reasonable meal, I make it. 

Same squash I had put in the soup on Saturday. It's handy to have in the refrigerator as a ready-to-go vegetable/starch substitute.

I think we need a photo here, yes?

Poppy the Mummy. Amazingly, she actually enjoyed this game.

Wednesday

Short version: Must be leftovers

Long version: Yes, it was a workday, so yes, it was leftovers. Poppy, A., and I had leftover pot roast with squash and carrots. Poppy and A. also had rice.

The rest had leftover shepherd's pie.

Thursday

Short version: Beef stir-fry, rice, oranges

Long version: I sure love having the already-prepped beef for stir-fry. With a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables--my last bag, so it's definitely time to re-stock on that--it makes for as close to a fast-food meal as I ever get.

The oranges came from my most recent Sysco order through the school. I've been waiting to order oranges until I thought it was really orange-harvesting time in California. Because an out-of-season orange is a very sad thing.

These were not quite in-season yet. I'll try again next month.

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

T.T.: A Pistachio Trick

Last month I bought a four-pound bag of pistachios in the shell. Yes, that is a lot of pistachios, but all of my children love them, so we've eaten them all already.

Pistachios are delicious, but as you're going along happily pulling shells apart and popping the nuts in your mouth, you inevitably come to the dreaded Barely Cracked Pistachio Shell.

Frustrating pistachio on the top, properly cracked pistachio on the bottom.

A pistachio shell that isn't already almost half pulled apart is a real pain to get open. Quite literally a pain, as the prying hurts fingers and can break fingernails.

Luckily, I have a sister who is smarter than a pistachio.

While she was here, she showed my children a trick for opening the frustrating pistachio shells using another half of a shell. I didn't know this trick myself, and I was delighted.

What you do is, you get half a shell from a pistachio you've already eaten and slide the narrow edge of that half-shell into the small gap on the pistachio you want to open.

Half-shell wedged in and ready for action.

Then--and I don't have a picture of this because it's impossible to do one-handed--you twist that wedged-in half shell about a quarter turn. This cracks open that small crack much further, so it can then be opened easily.

So! The next time you encounter a pistachio that is quite literally a tough nut to crack, you know what to do. And so do I, thanks to my clever sister.

Monday Bouquets: The Last Survivors

We have a contender for the longest-lived cut flower:

Carnations in the home stretch.

Those three are the only flowers left from the bunch my sister brought me over two weeks ago. Impressive longevity.

I hope you have a lovely Monday, with or without flowers.

Snapshots: I Fail at Photos Again

I regret to inform you that I did not get a photo of all the children in their Halloween costumes. Again. 

I do have a couple of individual ones. Poppy was Superdancer. She did this costume all by herself, and it included a superhero cape and mask, a tutu, and a tiara. Because that's the sort of thing that makes sense when you have three older brothers and are the sole sister.

 

Superdancer minus the mask, and plus my mother.

I have one picture of part of Calvin's costume, taken by my sister when she was here. He wanted to be a barrel of toxic waste (yup), so she helped him make a barrel out of cardboard.

The final version included black pants, shirt, and gloves, and little pieces of green paper taped all over him to be the toxic waste.

The only photos I have of Jack the Construction Worker and Cubby the Steel Mill Worker are from the costume contest at the village celebration, and I couldn't figure out how to crop out the other children. So I guess you'll just have to use your imagination on those. There were hard hats and jumpsuits and they were actually really good costumes.

Anyway. Let's see what else we have.

I was greatly amused that this guy showed up in my kitchen on Halloween day.

I'm into natural materials in decorating, but I did remove him eventually.

We only have one tree that makes good leaves in the fall, but that's enough to make a pretty good leaf pile.

Poppy the Squirrel in her leaf nest, stocked with rock-acorns for the winter.

We've changed out the Halloween window decorations (provided by my sister) for the Thanksgiving window decorations (also provided by my sister).

We'll close out with a couple of the obligatory Photos From an Early Morning Walk.

O give me a home where the canines roam . . .

And some dramatic clouds over the rising sun.

And there you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Night Out

Friday 

Short version: Beef stir-fry, rice, strawberry-rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream

Long version: I had pulled out a couple of packages of beef rump roast, forgetting that I had told the butcher to cut those into steaks and pound them, as for chicken-fried steak.

I didn't have any desire to chicken-fry the meat, though, so instead I cut it into strips, marinated those, and used them with mushrooms, carrots, onions, and frozen green beans to make stir-fry. It was good.

The pie is the Village Piemaker pie that is always left for my parents by the owner of the lodgings they always rent while they're here. Also good.

Saturday

Short version: Dinner out

Long version: This was the night of the village Halloween party, at which there is food provided by the local restaurant (singular). So everyone had baked potatoes and chili and enchilada casserole and a LOT of desserts.

Sunday

Short version: Pickled radish appetizer, beef, guacamole, tortilla chips, still-frozen green beans, foraged dessert

Long version: My mom brought a very large bag of very spicy radishes with her. They were too spicy for me and a couple of the children, so I sliced a bunch of them and put them into some leftover brine I had saved from making refrigerator dill pickles with the summer's cucumbers. I just warmed the brine in the microwave and added a very small amount of sugar to offset the spice a bit, then put the sliced radishes in for a day or so. 

Pickling is magic: fiery radishes went in, delicious pickles with no hint of fire came out. 

Perhaps it all leached out into the rather fiery-looking liquid.

Everyone loved them, and they ate all the radishes in the jar.

The beef was more of the tenderized rump steaks that I cut into pieces. This time I just fried them in tallow and added salt, chile powder, cumin, and a small amount of vinegar to make something like taco meat. Yum.

And of course, because this was Halloween, the children had to go door-to-door to beg for their dessert. They did not return empty handed.

Jack sorting the night's takings. Is there anything better when you're a kid than being surrounded by candy?

Monday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, leftovers, carrot sticks with ranch dressing

Long version: The cook at school makes a hot breakfast for the children on Monday mornings, which this week was scrambled eggs and sausage, plus biscuits and cream gravy. She sent me home with the leftover eggs and sausage, as well as quite a bit of gravy. 

I had actually taken breakfast sausage out to thaw for dinner, so anyone who wanted it had the gravy on that. A. ate the leftover eggs and sausage. 

There was also leftover rice and some lentils I had pulled out the freezer.

Tuesday

Short version: Roast beef; tomatoes, onions, and green beans; frankenmacaroni; squash

Long version: I used the rest of the cream gravy--which is really just a very thick white sauce with lots of pepper--as a base to make the macaroni. To the gravy I added some heavy cream and water to thin it out a bit, then shredded cheese, some pureed calabaza, two pieces of bacon left from breakfast broken into small pieces, onion powder, and a tiny bit of mustard.

It really needed more cheese, but I was running kind of low. It was still fine, though, and Cubby ate three helpings.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, carrot sticks with ranch dip

Long version: "What do we need?" 

"LEFTOVERS!"

"When do we need them?"

"WEDNESDAYS!"

Sorry for the lapse into cheering. But we did indeed have leftovers, because it was indeed Wednesday, a.k.a., one of my work days.

Leftover sausage and roast beef, macaroni and cheese, and carrot sticks for the kids. Leftover roast beef and squash for A. and me. 

Plus leftover Halloween candy, because the kids each get to choose two pieces after dinner every night for the week after Halloween.

Thursday

Short version: Pizza, scrambled eggs, frozen peas

Long version: I was making bread, so I figured it was time for a beef break. That's why I stole some dough to make pizza.

It was just one (half-sheet pan) pizza, with asadero cheese and bacon. But! I did have quite a few tomatoes on hand, because one of the intersting and somewhat frustating things about gardening here is that I get more tomatoes after the growing season than I do during it. These are all the green tomatoes I stripped off the plant before the colder temperatures settled in at night, and those green tomatoes have been slowly ripening ever since.

So while I was baking bread, I roasted a pan of tomatoes with a head of garlic, and then pureed that in the food processor with dried basil and a bit of balsamic vinegar to make the pizza sauce. So good.

The scrambled eggs were for A. and me. I fried some tomatoes and arugula (from summer plants that bolted and seeded and re-grew for the fall) in bacon grease, then added the eggs and a bit of feta cheese. We had a couple of pieces of pizza each, too, because pizza is hard to resist, but we mostly had the eggs.

You can tell the garden is mostly done for the season when frozen green peas and beans become more prevalent in these posts.

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

Remote Living: Halloween

I'm sure someone out there is wondering how a family with children handles Halloween a hundred miles from anywhere. The answer, as with so many other things, is we drive.

A little, anyway.

Our children do go trick-or-treating. In pre-COVID years, all the kids from the school would actually ride on a flatbed trailer and go all together. This is in the same village where our kids go to school, which is ten miles away from our house.

Starting last year, though, the separate groups went on their own, and we are the only ones who make our kids walk.

Yup. We're those parents.

It is, in our defense, a pretty small village. But definitely not as small as the number of inhabitants (less than 100) would indicate. 

We visited exactly nine houses this year. Two of those houses were ones we stopped at in the car on the way in to the village, but the other seven were the ones we walked to. It took us a little over an hour to get to those seven houses.

The village is surprisingly spread out, and also more than half of the houses are unoccupied. So it takes a lot of walking to get to the houses that give out candy.

But! Lest you are imagining the kids sadly trudging between houses only to come home with exactly nine fun-size Snickers, please feast your eyes on Jack's haul.

Not too shabby.

So few kids trick-or-treat in our village--this year there were exactly 13 kids, which is a pleasingly appropriate number--that at each house, they get handfuls of candy. Or they get offered a full bowl and are told to help themselves. And then they get some more thrown in their bags. So their actual take from those nine houses is pretty good.

Most kids on the surrounding ranches go to larger towns for trick-or-treating, and they no doubt get more candy. But I don't really think kids need much more than ours get going around that tiny village. And they LOVE running through the darkened streets. That village is just as exciting for them to trick-or-treat around as a densely populated suburb or city street. A lot safer, too.

Superdancer's pile made her plenty happy.

So there you go! Halloween in the sticks: still plenty of Fun Dip to go around.

T.T.: For Clean Brownies, Use Plastic

Short and sweet* today: If you make brownies or another soft kind of bar cookie for an event, and therefore care about the presentation, cut them with a plastic knife. Like the kind you get at a fast food restaurant.

Or filch from a drawer of plastic cutlery at school for teachers. If you, like me, find yourself a hundred miles from the nearest fast food restaurant.

Something about the ultra-smooth plastic slips right through the brownies without pulling at all and making a bunch of crumbs.

Of course, if you're just cutting brownies for your feral children, who don't care in the least if their brownies have ragged edges, stick with metal. But for a clean cut, plastic is the way to go. 

This is probably the only time you will ever see me endorse anything plastic, but when it works, it works.

* Did I use this phrase deliberately for the pun? Maybe.