Friday Food: Some Failures

Friday

Short version: Tuna melts, carrot sticks, gritty fudge

Long version: The only children home with me were Cubby and Poppy, as A. had taken the other two to a judo tournament. The children at home implored me to make tuna melts for dinner. I was happy to oblige with such an easy dinner.

I had a salad with fried eggs and pecans in it.

I made the fudge because I had half a can of evaporated milk left from making the pralines. I've never made fudge before, and I don't have a candy thermometer, and I also didn't have the chocolate chips called for in the recipe I used. I substituted cocoa powder and butter. I don't know if it was that, or my lack of thermometer (and expertise), but it turned out very gritty. Tasted okay, but the texture was not creamy.

The kids ate it anyway, of course.

Saturday

Short version: Ground beef and bean chili, cornbread, improvised chocolate cookies

Our monthly Saturday Mass was this day, and that means we don't get home until about 5 p.m. I made the chili ahead of time, obviously.

I mostly made the cornbread ahead of time, too, by mixing up the wet and dry ingredients separately, and then combining them when we got home. I used this recipe for the first time. It was okay, although a little gritty. I think it would have been better with half cornmeal and half masa (the finely ground nixtamalized cornmeal used for tortillas).

Anyway, it was convenient to have it all ready to go when we got home, and also convenient to have on hand when A. got home with the other two around 7 p.m.

The cookies were pretty much completely made up. I needed to fill the cookie jar, and still didn't have any chocolate chips. So I had the idea to melt the gritty fudge and use that to make chocolate cookies. I also added some peanut butter and walnuts.

They didn't come out particularly well. Sort of stodgy and with not enough chocolate flavor. So I melted more fudge and kind of frosted the top of the cookies with that, which helped.

Oddly, after sitting for a day in the cookie jar, the cookies were much improved and actually pretty good. They got more moist somehow. I don't know how that works, but I'm glad it did.

Salvage cookies.

Sunday

Short version: Pizzas, green salad with vinaigrette, supposedly-maple/mocha custard

Long version: One cheese pizza, one with bacon and onion. 

And now, the custard.

Cubby got me a book at a library discard sale that is a collection of recipes from the lady behind the Storey books (the ones that are all about raising animals and other homesteading kinds of things). He got it for me over a year ago, and I had never made any of the recipes in it. So I decided to try one.

It was a custard recipe that used maple syrup as the sweetener and main flavoring agent, with the addition of a small amount of cocoa powder and coffee. It looked interesting, so I made it.

When we tasted it, however, it was oddly flavorless. Definitely needed more sweet, and I think also a bit more salt. When I thought about it, though, I couldn't remember actually adding the maple syrup. 

Yeah. I forgot the maple syrup in a maple custard. 

I added syrup to everyone's bowls and stirred it in, which of course improved it quite a lot. Since it didn't actually have any sweetener in it at all to start with. 

Sigh.

Monday

Short version: Bunless hamburgers, leftover hot dogs, leftover pizza, bread and butter, frozen green beans

Long version: I had a few cooked hamburgers left from the ones I made the night before just for me, so I wouldn't have to eat pizza.* And then there was enough uncooked ground beef to make a few more hamburgers. In the pan with the cooking hamburgers, I also put in some of the hot dogs left from the school lunch. 

One kid wanted hot dogs, the rest wanted hamburgers. A. got both. Everyone got one slice of leftover pizza, and then bread and butter if they were still hungry.

Tuesday

Short version: Meatloaf, baked potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, sauerkraut, raw cabbage

Long version: If I actually cook, it's because I'm not at work. Funny how that works. (Ha.)

The kids ate the raw cabbage, as is their preference. A. and I prefer it cooked, so we ate the sauerkraut. I still have at least half a dozen pints of sauerkraut. I just need to remember it's there.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover meatloaf and hot dogs, fried potatoes, raw cabbage . . . again

Long version: Well, at least I cooked the potatoes even though it was a work day. I baked extra potatoes so I could use them this day. Which I did, by chopping them and frying them in butter and olive oil.

So energetic of me.

Want to see where I work?

The view from my desk. Although this is misleading, as my desk is just kind of stuck in a corner of a room that is used for a lot of other things, and I'm only at my desk for about half an hour out of the whole day. I move around a lot, which is nice, actually. I wouldn't want to stare at this all day.

Thursday

Short version: Steaks, rice, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I did work this day, too--subbing--but it was an early release day. Good thing, as the MiL arrived for a visit, and although I'm sure she wouldn't have made any disparaging comments about leftovers, it's not really the welcome dinner anyone hopes for. Steaks are better.

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

* Not that I don't want to eat pizza. It's just that I shouldn't.

Growing Food: The Nopes

I have grown quite a wide variety of different vegetables in gardens over the years. Although it's always fun to experiment, now, as an older and wiser (and more tired) gardener, I have less patience to devote to things that are a consistent challenge or that I just don't like that much. 

I'm going for maximum food for minimum effort, true, but I also have no interest in having bushels of kale on hand, even though it's easy to grow, prolific, and long-producing. I just don't like kale much. So I don't grow it. Along with these things . . .

Swiss chard--I feel about swiss chard the way I feel about kale: I should like it, but I don't.

Ground cherries--I got a free packet of these with a seed order years ago and finally tried them a couple of years ago. I really wasn't fond of the flavor. Off the list and out of the garden.

Mushrooms--I actually really wish I could grow mushrooms, but it's way too dry here. I just don't have the perseverance necessary to keep an inoculated log damp in this climate. I can barely keep the drought-hardy plants watered.

This sun is no friend to mushrooms.

Broccoli--I do love broccoli from the garden. I do NOT love the cabbage worms that are inevitably in the broccoli from the garden. Even soaking in salt water won't get them all. They hide in the florets so well you don't see them until they're floating in the steaming water. Gross. After one too many meals featuring worms, I gave up. Actually, the breaking point was probably the time A. found a cabbage worm in his broccoli, and, to the delight of our toddler sons at the time, ate it.* Kind of ruined garden broccoli for me.

Onions--I never succeeded in getting onions of any reasonable size from the garden. And there are few things more irritating than having to peel and chop a dozen tiny onions just to have enough for a recipe. Give me those baseball-sized store onions every time. Although I am going to try some green onions this year. I like them in my salads, and they're stupid expensive (and perishable) to buy.

Celery--I never grew this myself, but I remember the MiL growing it a couple of years, and it was always much greener, tougher, and more bitter than store celery. I suspect the issue was lack of water. Since that issue is much more of a problem here than New York, I'm not even going to attempt celery in my High Plains garden.

Of course, the great thing about growing a garden is that you can grow whatever you want (and have the patience for). So while I think it's worth it to devote a bed to space-hogging kohlrabi and will persevere with watering beets, you might think those are a total waste of space and time.

So tell me, my fellow gardeners! What vegetables have you banished from your garden, and why?

* And then remarked drolly, "The worm tasted better than the broccoli." Such a card, that A.

Snapshots: Let's See . . .

A whole bunch of random shots this week. 

Cubby invented a game using the money from our old Game of Life. There were countries and revolutions and invasions and it all sounded very complicated and aggressive. But they all played it for hours, so I guess it was a hit. 

Oh, and the GIANT box in the background of this photo was a spaceship Cubby made. Unrelated to the game, but also very popular this day.

Popular with the children, anyway. Not so popular with me, as it made it somewhat difficult to get to my chair in the far corner of the room.

Cubby also finished the knife that I showed you on his birthday.

Styled after a Mexican fighting knife, which was in turn based on a Bowie knife. And if you know what any of that means, you would love it at my house.

How about something less combative now? Yes. 

Let's check in on the famous windmill.

Standing tall at sunrise.

We are at the dead, dry, brown part of the year when I start to really yearn for any hint of color on my morning walks. Unfortunately, we're still a few months out from any wildflowers, so all I got is dead sunflower heads.

They do glow nicely in the light from the rising sun, at least.

And last, back to combat! 

A. took the two younger boys to the state judo championships in Colorado this weekend. It was their very first tournament. They both fought well, and, more importantly to me, didn't get injured.

I was home with the other two children, so I don't have any photos of the battle at the Colorado dojo (as A. kept calling it), so here's one of their judo gis drying on the line.

Getting these washed and dried takes considerable planning, because they're incredibly thick and take forever to dry, even on a sunny day.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Pralines for Fat Tuesday

Friday 

Short version: Ribeye steak, bread and butter, Holy's cabbage, raw cabbage, sauteed green beans, peanut butter cookies

Long version: Although I much prefer the butter-saturated sweetness and softness of Holy's cabbage, my children mostly prefer cabbage raw. So much so, in fact, that they asked for seconds on the raw cabbage after they finished their dinners.

I obliged, and they munched on that while watching the final battle scene in the epic movie El Cid with their father. 

It was pretty funny.

Peanut butter cookies courtesy of Calvin's snow-day assignments. We didn't go to school Thursday due to the weather, but the kids hadn't brought their computers home. So their teachers sent them assignments that could be done without their actual books, and one of those for Calvin was to make something in line with their food science unit, to be presented on Monday.

Well, if that isn't an assignment tailor-made for making and bringing in cookies for a presentation, I don't know what is.

He chose peanut butter cookies, so we made these. He documented the whole thing with photos, including one of all the ingredients.

He's a food blogger in the making.

The funnest part of this recipe is gently squishing the cookies right after they come out the oven. 

Saturday

Short version: Steak, bunless hamburgers, mashed potatoes, pureed calabaza, still-frozen green beans, sick-boy rice

Long version: I had one ribeye steak left, which I cooked for A. I also had one 2-pound package of ground beef thawed. I made that into seven hamburgers for the children and me. They had the frozen green beans. A. and I had the calabaza (from the freezer).

When Cubby returned around 7 p.m. from an overnight FFA trip*, I learned he had been sick the whole time and was still feeling pretty bad. So I made him some rice with chicken stock, because he hadn't eaten all day but wasn't sure he could stomach anything else. Bummer. The rice helped, though.

Sunday

Short version: Bacon-cheeseburger casserole, green salad with ranch dressing, baked peaches and cream

Long version: I had made the original version of this totally improvised casserole some years ago. Even with my own description, I didn't exactly re-create it, but it was still eaten with enjoyment.

I didn't actually eat the casserole, instead saving a small bowl of the meat before I added everything else to it. I put that meat in my own salad, along with roasted carrots, diced pickled beets, and a vinaigrette. The salad for everyone else just had shredded carrots and ranch dressing in theirs.

Very often what my dinner looks like.

The peaches were a bag of peach halves--thanks, Nick!--with the skins still on, plus the very last of some frozen peaches I bought from Sysco, uh, maybe three years ago? Past time to use those up, for sure. And their flavor definitely needed the boost from Nick's peaches.

Frozen peaches will lose their skins very readily when they thaw. Just like tomatoes, the skins will slip right off. So that's what I did. To the peaches, I added the remainder of the powdered sugar/milk dip I used for the Valentine's Oreos, a bit of honey water left from rinsing out the empty honey jar, maple syrup, cinnamon, and a pinch each of ginger and cloves. I baked that for around an hour, let it cool a bit, and served it with heavy cream poured right over it in the bowls.

It was really good. Some of the children thought it was even better than baked apples, which is high praise indeed.

Monday

Short version: Leftover fried rice

Long version: I had made this fried rice for lunch the day before with leftover rice, leftover hamburgers, onion, cabbage, carrots, and a can of commodities green beans.

It was not the most popular dinner I have ever served my children, but they ate it anyway.

Tuesday

Short version: Fat Tuesday grillades, rice, pureed calabaza, carrot sticks, pralines

Long version: I realized sometime in the morning that it was actually Fat Tuesday which, as a granddaughter of New Orleans, it is my duty to observe. Absent copious alcoholic drinks and over-the-top parades, my only option for celebrating is in my kitchen.

So I took out a couple of packages of cube steaks to make grillades. I don't typically keep grits in my kitchen, so we had it with rice.

And then . . . pralines. 

I have never before made pralines. I'm not a big consumer of candy, so I'm not very motivated to make it. For this reason, I do not have a candy thermometer. It is, of course, possible to make candy without a thermometer, it's just a little more nerve-wracking.

However.

Because of a sewage issue at school, we were doing a virtual day of school. Getting my sons through virtual schooling is always a challenge, and I find bribery to be very helpful in encouraging productivity. So I told them that if they finished all their work, I would make pralines.

They did, so I did.

I used this recipe, plus a couple of supplemental websites that both told me and showed me how to figure out "soft ball" stage without a thermometer. They turned out very well. I think I nailed the texture, which is very much like maple candy. Tastes a lot like maple candy, as well.

Definitely not a photogenic dessert, but very tasty.

Calabaza and carrot sticks are not at all traditional in New Orleans, but then, I don't live in New Orleans, and I had calabaza and carrots on hand. So there you go.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover fish sticks, rice, raw cabbage

Long version: We got home around 6 p.m. from Ash Wednesday Mass, so a fast dinner was called for. Luckily, the school cook had given me all the fish sticks left from the school lunch. I couldn't believe how excited my children were to have leftover fish sticks for dinner. Apparently, they're fish-stick deprived.

I had some leftover mashed potatoes with cheese, because I'm not excited about fish sticks ever.

Thursday

Short version: Spaghetti with meat sauce, leftovers, cottage cheese

Long version: I was at school all day, subbing for another teacher, and I didn't really know what I was going to make for dinner even when I managed to haul myself out of my chair at 5 p.m. to go into the kitchen.

There was enough of the cheeseburger casserole for A. to have that, so he did. I found a container of meat sauce in the freezer and quickly thawed that so the kids could have that over spaghetti.

I had the cottage cheese, with lots of pepper and a couple of rye crisps.

Everyone fed. The end.

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

* He went to the state finals for the speech competition, and ended up getting 4th place for his speech on the uses of horses in agriculture. Yay, Cubby!

Growing Food: Succession Planting

I think this topic definitely falls in the "do as I say, not as I do" category.

Succession planting is a very simple concept: You stagger your planting times of seeds, one after another, so that you (theoretically) end up with a longer time period in which to harvest. This means you don't end up with, say, bushels of lettuce all at once before it bolts. Or maybe ten cabbages that need to be cut at the same time.

This is a really good idea. I heartily endorse it. I even try to do it occasionally. I mean, look at my cabbages! I just transplanted some of the big plants to different pots so I can use the shallow container to start more seeds.

So proud of myself.

Typically, however, I am not very good about succession planting. Part of it is that I'm just not the sort of person who plots out my garden in any detail. I suspect a dedicated list-maker would fare better at this, because that sort of person would happily create a schedule for planting and follow it.

I, being a rebel by nature (ha), dislike lists and planning in that way. So I just do it when I think about it.

The other reason is that I haven't had a lot of luck with it when I have actually managed to plant things in succession. My experience has been that the things that are planted first sometimes lag, and the things that are planted later grow faster, so that I end up with simultaneous harvests anyway.

I still try, though, with some things. Like the above cabbages.

So! Fellow gardeners: Tell me your own experiences with succession planting. Do you do it? If you do, how does it work for you?

Snapshots: Snow!

The five or so inches of snow we got a few days ago is the first measurable precipitation we've gotten in . . . actually, I don't know. Months, for sure.

A very welcome sight.

Also very cold.

The cold temperatures that came along with the storm meant that we spent a few days working hard to make sure all the animals had liquid water.

For the chickens, it's easiest to give them a smaller amount of water in something like a plastic bucket. 

Empty ice cream tubs are perfect.

The advantage of that is its flexibility. Even when it's frozen solid, I can just put a bit of liquid water in it to loosen up the sides, then sort of flex the sides and pop out the big chunk of ice before re-filling. Much better than a big bucket of water.

Things I never thought I would need to know . . .

And finally, the last basketball game of the season on Thursday included a parent appreciation presentation, at which I was given a small bag of treats--promptly devoured by the young children with me--and a rose. Which means I have a flower on my table once again. It's been awhile.

A brave display of color in the midst of drab late winter.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Here Comes the Za'atar

Friday 

Short version: Ground beef fried rice, chocolate pudding

Long version: I had maybe a half pound of ground beef in the refrigerator that needed to be used. I fried it in a skillet with onion, cabbage, carrots, and a can of commodities green beans in the afternoon--plus garlic powder, soy sauce, ginger, and vinegar.

I used part of that at dinner to make the fried rice, by simply adding some of the leftover chicken-stock rice from the night before, and two whole eggs scrambled with two egg whites leftover from making the custard the day before.

This was eaten very enthusiastically by the children, which is always gratifying when I'm serving something totally improvised and intended to just use up random things.

I made the chocolate pudding because there were more children with sore throats. Of course. 

Fortunately, I happened to look at the recipe for Cubby's birthday chocolate cheesecake while I was heating the milk and cornstarch for the pudding. I realized that if I used all the chocolate chips required for a double recipe of the pudding (I always make a double recipe), I wouldn't have enough for his birthday cake. 

Whoops. That was a close one.

So I used a substitution I found online for half the chocolate chips that involved cocoa powder, sugar, and butter. That worked just fine, and I will probably do that from now on. Chocolate chips are a lot harder for me to get and keep in stock than those three ingredients, so from now on I think I'll save the chocolate chips for actual cookies or whatever when they're not being melted.

Saturday

Short version: Birthday shrimp, sausage, oven fries, green salad with ranch dressing, chocolate cheesecake

Long version: This was Cubby's birthday dinner request. The sausage was the boudin I brought home from Texas.

I used this recipe for the cheesecake, as I always do.

And it cracked, as it always does.

Sunday

Short version: Za'atar ground beef with yogurt sauce and hummus, more shrimp, leftover rice, carrot sticks

Long version: This whole dinner started with the hummus I had left over from the staff party. I made the ground beef with onion and za'atar, which is a middle eastern spice blend based on sumac that has a slightly sour flavor. One child didn't like the za'atar, but everyone else did. It was really good served over the leftover chicken stock rice with hummus and yogurt sauce (drained plain yogurt, lemon, garlic, salt, pepper) on top.

I didn't make a dessert, because I had made a dessert for the three previous nights and we still had ginger snaps.

Monday

Short version: Salmon chowder, ploughman's lunch

Long version: I had made the salmon chowder over the weekend for the sicklings and there was quite a bit left over. None of the children were notably enthusiastic about it, but they ate it, along with their bread, cheese, and pickled green beans. Which is what we now call a ploughman's lunch.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftovers, scrambled eggs, rye crisps, still-frozen green beans

Long version: A. finished the salmon chowder, along with some cheese and rye crisps. The eggs were for the children. They were pretty full from their Valentine's Day party and treats at school, so they didn't need a big dinner.

This was not a special Valentine's Day dinner--at all--but I did find some leftover buckwheat pancakes in the refrigerator in the morning that I made festive with my heart-shaped cookie cutter.

The eye rolling from my sons when I set these in front of them was the most amusing part of my day.

Wednesday

Short version: Bunless hamburgers, potatoes, carrot sticks and ranch dip

Long version: The potatoes were actually the parts of the potatoes left when I cut off the ends to carve hearts for stamping valentines. I had peeled and boiled the rest of the potatoes, not having any particular plan for them, just not wanting to throw them away. I figured I'd find a way to use the cooked potatoes. And I did, by throwing them in the pan with the hamburgers and frying them.

Waste not, want not, right?

I actually had the fortitude to fry hamburgers because school ended early due to the snow that fell all morning.

A 12:30 dismissal time leaves lots of time to play in the snow.

We reeeeally needed the precipitation, so yay for snow.

Thursday

Short version: A late conglomeration of foods

Long version: I was at Cubby's last basketball game with the younger two children. A. took Calvin to judo. All of us got home around the same time, about 7 :15 p.m. I had taken out three steaks to thaw, but hadn't actually cooked anything, and didn't really feel like cooking the steaks at that late hour. 

There were, however, leftover hamburgers and boudin sausage. So the boys all had one or both of those, and then everyone but one child had a cheese sandwich. A. actually cooked one of the steaks for himself, and also finished the hummus with some tortilla chips.

I ate half a leftover hamburger and a few tortilla chip crumbs while I loaded the dishwasher. Because all I wanted to do was get the children to bed so I could go to bed myself.

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