Friday Food: An Unusual Beginning

Friday 

Short version: Gas station food and snacks

Long version: We went to Cubby's football game a couple of hours away in the afternoon. 

Nice day for some 6-man football.

I had brought a bunch of snacks--cheese, summer sausage, carrot sticks, pistachios, animal crackers, graham crackers--and that all got eaten on the ride there and during the game. So when the game was over at 4:30 p.m., we decided to stop on the way home to get dinner. We didn't drive through any big towns to get there, though, so our options were pretty limited. Our first and closest choice was closed, unfortunately, which led us to the Allsup's gas station.

Allsup's is a somewhat famous convenience store around here. They sell hot food along with standard gas station snack things. So the kids all got either chimichangas or grilled chicken sandwiches, plus chocolate milk.

There were no tables at this gas station, so they ate on the curb, watching the trucks go by.

Fine dining, indeed.

A. finished what the kids didn't eat, and I had some leftover pot roast when we got home.

Saturday

Short version: Leftover chicken nuggets, posole, rice, cucumber and tomato salad, Otter Pops

Long version: The school cook sent me home with a gallon-sized bag of chicken nuggets the previous Wednesday, which I froze. We had our monthly Saturday Mass this day and didn't get home until almost 5:30, so I decided to use the nuggets. 

I re-heated them by frying them in cast-iron skillets of butter, which I suppose improved them, but I think I probably could have thrown them on the kids' plates stone-cold and they still would have been excited about eating chicken nuggets.

I did not share their excitement. I had fried eggs with salsa and half an avocado.

A. had some of his venison and tripe posole from the freezer. There were three half-gallon containers in there, so I figured I'd better start using some of it.

The Otter Pops were from the county fair parade. People on the floats just give our kids handfuls of them, and I throw whichever ones aren't already leaking into the freezer for some other time. This was the time.

Sunday

Short version: Italian steak, spaghetti with roasted tomato sauce, roasted calabacita, carrot sticks, pots de creme

Long version: I used the tenderized bottom round steaks and cooked them like Swiss steak, except I added oregano and a bunch of fresh parsley to the tomato sauce. I only have the parsley because A. started a bunch of seeds, thinking they wouldn't do very well, but they really did. So now I have a LOT of parsley to thin out.

It was really good tomato sauce. Must've been the parsley.

And good tomatoes, of course.

Monday

Short version: Pork stir-fry, rice, cantaloupe

Long version: I had been planning on frying some of the commodities pork after work, but then the school cook gave me about a pound and a half of leftover pork from the cafeteria. It was fairly dry, and didn't have any sauce on it, so I decided to use it for stir-fry.

I used one bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables, and added to that some cooked mushrooms I had in the refrigerator, plus some frozen peas. And the same sauce I always make, which is just soy sauce, vinegar, powdered ginger, and peanut butter.

The cantaloupe came from the commodities lady. It didn't look too promising, but it turned out to be surprisingly good. I mean, if you like cantaloupe. I don't, but other members of the family do.

Tuesday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, fried onions, boiled potato chunks, sauteed or raw green beans

Long version: It had been awhile since I had made cheeseburgers, and I was bummed to see that we don't have very much ground beef left. Need another cow, I guess.

The school cook had given me some leftover American cheese slices, which I used for these cheeseburgers. A. was particularly happy with this. A nostalgic taste, I guess.

Wednesday

Short version: Quesadillas, posole, raw green beans

Long version: I had made taco meat with some of the ground beef the day before, along with half a can of black beans. And someone had left a package of flour tortillas on the counter at school for the taking. So I took them and used them to make quesadillas with the meat and some cheese.

A. finished his posole from the freezer. And I had some of the taco meat with cooked green beans.

Thursday

Short version: Fried rice

Long version: I really needed to make some space in my refrigerator, which means using up leftovers. Therefore, leftover rice, leftover pork stir-fry, and a couple of eggs to make fried rice.

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

T.T.: Roasted Tomato Sauce

For years and years, I made and loved Finny's tomato sauce. She called it The Best Tomato Sauce Ever, and it is. If you ever get a chance to make it just the way she does, you should.

But I don't make it the way she does anymore. There are a couple of minor changes I made so as not to use aluminum foil, but mostly it's different because I don't typically have red wine in the house, and I can't easily get it, either. So when I'm slammed by the tomato harvest that needs to be roasted and frozen pronto, and the nearest red wine is 60 miles away, this is what I do. 

First, I use Romas from my garden. They make the best sauce, because they have much more pulp and much less liquid in them than a slicing tomato. You can use slicing tomatoes, but they will take longer in the oven and yield less.

I cut off the stem end and then slice them longways, laying them on my half-sheet pans as I go until I've filled both pans with a single layer of tomatoes. I do not line my pan with foil or parchment paper, because I would rather scrub a pan than throw something away, but it is easier if they're lined.

After the pans are full, I mound all the tomatoes up in the middle of the pans and douse them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mixmixmix until everything is all coated, then spread them back out in a single layer.

Any recipe that tells me to toss vegetables and oil in a bowl before putting them on a roasting pan is immediately suspect. I do not want to wash an extra bowl for no reason. 

I also put a whole head of garlic right on each pan with the tomatoes. Again, I do not wrap it in foil because I don't want to have to throw the foil away. All I do is wash and rub off the dirt from the outside of the head, but if your garlic is from the store, it will already be clean.

Ready for the oven.

The pans go in a 400-degree oven for about 45 minutes. I scrape and stir the tomatoes around a few times. When they're done, there will be very little liquid in the pan and some char.

I scrape the tomatoes up into a pile while they're still hot, mostly avoiding the black spots but trying to get all the jammy spots of tomato.

After the pans are out of the oven, I let them sit for awhile so they're not burning hot. It's much easier to handle the pans and the tomatoes when they won't burn you on contact.

When they're cooled a bit, I dump the tomatoes into the food processor and scrape the olive oil in there, too. Because the garlic wasn't wrapped, it doesn't squish out of the skins. I can just pull the skins open and pull out the garlic cloves whole. Those go into the food processor, too, along with a handful of fresh basil leaves.

Here is where we come to the biggest difference: The wine. If I had red wine, I would certainly use it, because this sauce is best with it. But it's almost as good with balsamic vinegar, so that's what I use. About two teaspoons.

After everything is in there, it just needs to be pureed, checked to see if it needs more salt or vinegar, and that's it.

Yum.

It makes a very thick, flavorful sauce, and it freezes perfectly in zip-top bags.

With very abbreviated labels.

What really makes this good is the method. The roasting concentrates the flavors and adds some caramelization that doesn't occur on the stovetop. All that garlic is key, too. 

It's best with wine, but the balsamic version is also delicious. I have even made it with cans of whole tomatoes--removed from the juice--dried basil, garlic, and the vinegar, and it's still good.

So even if you can't make it exactly like the original recipe, at least try roasting the tomatoes and garlic and see how you like it.

Snapshots: Canning/Football Season

Never having been a football fan, I didn't realize that the two seasons coincide. But they sure do.

When I got home from Taos, I found many tomatoes and green beans needing to be harvested and stuffed into jars. So I did that.

With some help from Little Pinkie, of course.

I had planned on canning three quarts of dilly beans, but since I had the giant pot of water boiling already to can the beans, I decided to stick a couple of jars of tomatoes in there, too.

I didn't even peel the tomatoes. The Ball Blue Book does not approve.

A few days later, there were more tomatoes, more green beans, and WOAH CUCUMBERS.

The giant ones were hiding on the other side of the fence behind the calabaza leaves. And that little curly green bean there was all curled around its own stem, like a snake. (There were more green beans, but I sent a bunch to Miss Amelia via the children.) 

Because those were the Armenian cucumbers, they were not at all bitter, despite their size. The skins weren't even tough.

I made them into refrigerator dill pickles, this time with Calvin as my helper.

He proved to have a great talent for jamming those jars absolutely full.

While I was dealing with the giant cucumbers, A. and Jack were helping our neighbor with her garden. That included picking grapes for her. She sent them home with many pounds of grapes. 

I knew the kids would never be able to eat that many grapes, so I suggested A. try making them into wine. They're green Thompson seedless grapes, which are definitely not a wine grape, but A. is always up for an experiment.

All of the children took turns smashing the grapes to release their juices.

And now the top of my woodstove looks like this.

Grapes for eating, grapes fermenting, tomatoes awaiting roasting, and meat defrosting.

The volunteer carrots continue to appear and grow to surprisingly large sizes. These two I pulled from the back garden under the roof's dripline.

Teaspoon for scale.

I didn't can those, though.

And last, football.

Cubby had his first game of the year on Friday, at a school about two hours away. We all went. They lost, but they learned a lot.

I took all of three photos, but one of them is actually an action shot.

The farthest kid in the white who looks as if he's about to hit the ground is Cubby. He's trying to get the ball on a kickoff here. He got knocked to the ground by one of the opposing players, but still managed to crawl to the ball and grab it. And I missed the whole play, because I was taking pictures.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: So Much Fruit

Friday 

Short version: Pork chops, sauteed calabacita/tomato/green onion, snacks and vodka

Long version: This was one of two nights I was in Taos with my brother and sister. We had a late lunch at a Mexican diner when they arrived, so we cooked dinner at our rented condo pretty late. 

Because I am a peasant woman at heart, I travel with food. I had brought a bunch of garden vegetables with me, along with butter. So I sauteed diced calabacita in butter with some diced tomato, and green onion we had bought at the store. The pork chops also came from the store. My brother grilled those.

The snacks we had beforehand consisted of dilly beans I brought with me, plus tortilla chips and sharp cheddar cheese from the store. These accompanied vodka with lime and seltzer.

A very nice dinner, I must say.

The home crew had steaks and leftover spaghetti with tomato sauce.

Saturday

Short version: Tamales, sauteed green beans, peaches and cream, more snacks and vodka

Long version: Taos night #2, and another meal cooked at the condo. We had been walking around all day and were pretty worn out by the time we got back to the condo at 4 p.m. Luckily, we had purchased tamales and peaches at the farmers market in the morning, so it was an easy meal.

I steamed the tamales in a big skillet with a layer of knives and spoons on the bottom to hold the tamales out of the water.

Improvised tamale steamer.

The green beans came from my garden, and all I did with them was saute them in butter.

I also used the last of the tomatoes I brought with me, green onion, cumin I found in a cupboard, and a bit of the brine from the dilly beans to make a salsa for the tamales. What I really needed was some sour cream, because WOAH, those were some spicy tamales. As are all purchased tamales, in my experience.

The peaches were peeled, diced, sweetened with honey I found in the cupboard, and then doused in the heavy cream I had bought for coffee. The peaches could have used another day to fully ripen, but they were still good.

This night's snacks were pickled cucumbers I had made the day before by heating the brine from the dilly beans after all the beans were eaten and then adding the cucumber I had brought with me, sliced. My sister also made guacamole, which we ate with tortilla chips. And more vodka, lime, and selter.

I prepared most of this meal, and let me tell you how easy cooking for only three adults is. It was so much easier than my daily cooking, it didn't feel at all like a chore.

The home crew had man food. More on that momentarily, but first, a directional sign from a truck stop rest room on my way to Taos.

My sons were not amused. (I must admit I rolled my eyes at this, too.)

Sunday

Short version: Lasagna-ish skillet, strawberries and cream

Long version: While I was gone, A. discovered that almost two gallons of milk had soured. Loathe to waste that much milk, he looked up what to do with it, and ended up making two batches of ricotta with the sour milk and a bit of vinegar to separate it. 

You just never know what that man will do. I was very impressed.

The kids loved it and ate it plain, but he made a TON of ricotta. Like five cups. I used some in this meal.

A. made man food the day before, which consisted of ground beef, potatoes (from the garden, yay!), tomatoes, and rooster stock. The kids all liked it, and there was a LOT left over.

Using that as a base, I fried that in butter, then added some canned spaghetti sauce, garlic powder, frozen green peas, and the ricotta cheese A. had made. The end result was like lasagna, but without noodles. It was exceptionally good.

Strawberries were on sale for about the cheapest I'd ever seen at the store I stopped at before coming home. So I bought four pounds. We ate almost two pounds this night, sliced and covered in sugar and heavy cream. Yum.

Monday

Short version: Steak and mushrooms, rice, raw baby carrots, broccoli, watermelon

Long version: It is a tradition at our school that the history teacher grills steaks for every student and employee for lunch on the first day of school. There were about five steaks left over that the school cook had planned to use for something, but never did. 

Week-old cooked steaks can't be served at school, but I have no problem with it. I sliced them and fried them in butter with the mushrooms she also gave me.

The carrots and broccoli came from the school, too. They were left over from the salad bar last week.

The watermelon wasn't from school. It was from the first grocery store I went to in Taos with my brother and sister. I saw watermelons WITH SEEDS and could barely contain my excitement. These are the first real watermelons I've seen all summer, which is why we haven't had any watermelon yet this summer. 

It will probably be the only watermelon we have this year, so I'm very glad it was a good one.

Tuesday

Short version: Improvised pizza, leftover meat, green salad with vinaigrette, baked apples with cream

Long version: I spent most of the day harvesting tomatoes, green beans, and calabacitas in the garden, and then roasting tomatoes, green beans, and calabacitas in the kitchen.

 

The tomatoes, plus a couple of heads of garlic, basil, and balsamic vinegar, became roasted tomato sauce.

I was also making bread this day, so I used some of the dough to make pizza crust. Except I didn't have the pans I needed for stretching out the dough, because the pans had roasted vegetables on them. 

So instead, I just put a lump of dough on my smaller cookie sheet, roughly stretched it out, and then when it was baked, cut it in half longways to make two small pizza crusts. By that time, I had finished roasting the vegetables and could wash one of my big pans to put the crusts on.

I used the roasted tomato sauce for the pizza sauce, and A.'s ricotta cheese, some pre-shredded cheddar from the school cafeteria, and some shredded home cheddar for the cheese. One pizza had some finely diced ham that also came from the school cafeteria.

The lettuce and radishes in the salad were from the cafeteria, too. There really were a LOT of leftovers from the cafeteria last week.

Tomatoes and cucumbers from my garden, though.

And the apples for the baked apples were from the tree next to Rafael's house. A. and the kids picked them while I was gone. This variety doesn't break down enough to make applesauce, but it's okay for baked apple. Peeling and slicing that many small apples is definitely a labor of love, although baked apples are awfully good.

Wednesday

Short version: Taco meat, tortilla chips, watermelon

Long version: I used the rest of the ground beef man food, along with a bunch of sliced tomatoes left from the cafeteria, to make taco meat. I was out of tortillas, but I brought a bag of leftover tortilla chips home with me from Taos, so we used those to scoop up the meat.

And we finished the watermelon. I'm so happy that I found a real watermelon before the summer was over. I had pretty much given up for the year.

Thursday

Short version: T-bone steaks, leftover rice, leftover roasted calabaza and green beans, raw tomatoes, strawberries and cream

Long version: Did I go a little overboard buying fruit in Taos? Yes. Did anyone mind? No.

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

T.T.: Visit Taos

This post is a combination Snapshots/Tip, since the Snapshots have been pretty sad lately, and I just got back from Taos and think you should go there, too. 

Not that I expect you're all going to book your tickets right now. I mean, I've lived in New Mexico for four years and only just now went. But I'm glad I did.

My brother and sister flew into Albuquerque and we all drove to meet in Taos. My drive was through the mountains and featured the best and worst of Western mountain driving.

Best=spectacular views, cool air, wildflowers lining the roadsides, a rushing stream right next to the road.

Worst=switchbacks and getting frighteningly close to the crumbling edge of the road on turns.

Despite the challenges, I enjoyed going slow, windows down, radio on. That's a real roadtrip, in my opinion.

No photos of the mountain drive, as both hands must be on the wheel at all times. This was just before I got to the mountains, when I was stopped for construction. Still got the windows down and the radio on. At this very moment, Ozzy Osbourne's "Mama, I'm Coming Home" was playing. Great song.

Anyway! 

I made it to Taos, where the main drag was all torn up for construction and the traffic was terrible. Taos is meant to be walked, not driven.

Taos, in case you don't know, is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in North America. The Spanish first arrived there in 1540, and were settled there by the very early 1600s. Given that, it's no surprise that the history of Taos is very much Spanish and Catholic. And, later, the artists arrived.

I was more interested in the former than the latter, though, so that's what we spent our time on.

We went to the main Plaza to start our day of walking. It was interesting, and there is certainly a lot to see there, but as the farmers market was currently going, it was mostly a shopping experience. I like farmers markets, but this was almost interchangeable with almost any other large farmers market, and I wanted to see Taos, not booths. 

One of the shops we went into, though, was run by Benedictine monks, and there was a monk working there who told us about the Spanish family chapels that can still be found all over town. Five of the Spanish families that lived near each other would all fund the building of a chapel, and a priest would travel to each in turn to say Mass. Many of these can still be seen, although they aren't open right now, as a Covid holdover. 

We walked to one, though, that was on what used to be the original main plaza. 

I don't have a photo of that chapel, but this is the shrine at Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was also not open. Boo.

The monk also told us about San Francisco de Asis, which is a short drive from the plaza. This is an impressive building. It was built in the 1700s on the site of an earlier church. The parish has been there since the 1500s, I think the sign said.

The building itself is imposing. It's adobe, and the face it presents when you first drive in has no windows, so it looks like a Foreign Legion fortress in the middle of the desert.

The giant buttresses also reinforce that impression.

The front entrance.

The colorful altar.

And the view from the altar to the front door. It's a very long, narrow church, obviously.

We also went to the Martinez Hacienda, which is a museum housed in the Martinez family's very large and old adobe house. It's been preserved and all the rooms set up so it gives an idea of what it looked like and what it was like to live there.

I, of course, was most interested in the kitchen. (That shelf thing on the left with the ladder leaning up against it is actually a long bed, so the sleepers would have the benefit of the heat from the fireplace. Clever.)

We only had one full day, so that was all we managed to fit in. I'm sure there are other things to see in Taos, but that will have to wait for another trip.

Snapshots: World's Biggest Calabaza

I've been harvesting copious quantities of calabacitas from the five plants in the garden, but there are always a few that escape my notice and get to calabaza size before I see them.

Like this beast that was hiding near the fence.

It looks like a reasonable size in the photo . . .

Until I put my hand there for scale. YIKES.

A belated confession: I did not actually take any other new photos this week. Not much better than last week. 

However! By the time you read this, I am probably preparing to come back home from a weekend in Taos with my brother and sister. So next week, I should have some much more exciting snapshots for you.

For now, I will leave you with this one of A. and I on our wedding day many, many years ago.

Nineteen years and a lot of gray hairs ago, to be exact.

There you have it! My life (minimally) snapshotted.

Friday Food: Hangin' in There

Friday 

Short version: Pork chops, rice, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: The pork chops were still frozen in a solid lump when I put them in a skillet with a bit of water, salt, a few Roma tomatoes, and the rest of an onion from Cubby's morning onion omelet. I simmered them until they were tender, and then poured off the liquid. At dinnertime I fried the tender chops in bacon grease with some of A.'s rib rub on them to make them crispy and more flavorful.

I used the strained liquid from the pork for the rice, plus a bunch of butter, and got many compliments. Easy audience.

Saturday

Short version: Fried bottom round steak pieces, garlic bread, raw green beans, summer skillet

Long version: I always get a package of bottom round steaks out intending to make chicken fried steak and . . . then I don't. Too lazy, I guess.

This time I just cut the steaks into small pieces and fried them in butter with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. 

More calabacitas, tomatoes, and garlic? Yup. Until the freeze, anyway.

Sunday

Short version: Meatballs; spaghetti; raw green beans; roasted calabacitas, green beans, and sweet potatoes; chocolate-covered peanut butter balls

Long version: It was too hot to have the oven on for meatballs, but I did it anyway. Mostly because I had made pesto this day, and then used the food processor to also puree some tomatoes and cooked those down on the stove. So the meatballs were baked with some of the tomato/pesto sauce, and the rest went onto the spaghetti with some heavy cream.

Because I roast meatballs at a high temperature in the oven rather than frying/simmering them, I also put a bunch of vegetables to roast at the same time. If they are cooked, they will be eaten. And a couple of the children discovered that they actually really like roasted calabacitas. Hooray. We have PLENTY to roast.

Also tomatoes and green beans in larger quantities.

Monday

Short version: First day of school celebration! With leftovers.

Long version: The first day of school is also a work day for me, and this one was a doozy. I was very glad there were lots of leftovers that just needed to be heated in the microwave.

Meatballs, spaghetti, rice, and roasted vegetables got everyone fed. Hooray.

I also brought home two leftover cinnamon rolls that had been in the office since last week's teacher in-service, so each child had half a cinnamon roll. Who says I don't do anything special to celebrate the first day of school?

Well, I say. But they did appreciate the cinnamon rolls. And I was very proud of myself for not stress-eating the cinnamon rolls or doughnuts that were in the office all day as I ran in and out. It wouldn't have really helped anything, so I'm glad I didn't.

Tuesday

Short version: T-bone steaks, boiled potatoes, sauteed calabacitas, raw tomatoes

Long version: I had a pan on the stove with some bacon grease still in it from breakfast, so I used it to cook some more calabacitas. This time it was just the calabacitas and garlic. No tomatoes. Still good.

I had intended to make an actual tomato salad, but forgot about it until I was actually dishing up dinner. Thus, small tomatoes put directly on children's plates. Fine with them

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, green salad

Long version: One more dinner of cobbled-together leftovers for my second day of work. 

The children had some diced round steak I had fried plain just to cook it and have it on hand. I heated it up with some barbecue sauce for them. They also had bread and butter.

A. had some of the leftover steak, plus three fried eggs and the rest of the boiled potatoes.

I had salad with the last leftover meatball in it.

And when Cubby got home from football, he had the rest of the steak, bread and butter, and some cucumber.

Thursday

Short version: Pot roast, spaghetti with tomato sauce, sauteed calabacitas, raw green beans, calabacita bread

Long version: I cooked the pot roast in the morning, as well as a casserole full of tomatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a clove of garlic. Because I had the food processor out anyway to shred a bunch of calabacitas for freezing, I used the food processor to also puree the tomatoes with basil for a spaghetti sauce.

Pre-puree tomatoes and garlic.

While the oven was on for the pot roast, I also made two loaves of zucchini bread, but with calabacitas*. Of course. It was a nice bit of efficiency that also resulted in a celebratory treat for the children finishing their first week of school.

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

* Other changes from the original recipe: I skip the sugar crust on top, used half white whole wheat flour, and added some walnuts. It's very good.