Friday Food: Lucky Pork

Friday 

Short version: Early chicken salad sandwiches, chicken and rice skillet, football food

Long version: This was the night I took the three younger children to the very wet football game. I gave them the choice of eating before we left, or bringing their own money for concession food.

They all chose to eat before we left. So they had chicken salad sandwiches, and then I brought beef jerky, dehydrated apples, and peanut butter cookies with us to the game.

At home, I left a skillet of chicken, rice, beans, spices, and cheese.

Saturday

Short version: Pizzas, cucumbers with ranch dip

Long version: One cheese pizza, one with pepperoni and some leftover bacon. The sauce was roasted tomato sauce, which is much superior to a sauce made with just canned tomatoes.

Sunday

Short version: Pork, cornbread, tomato/cucumber/feta salad, disastrous rice pudding

Long version: I cooked a very large pork shoulder, and some of it I shredded and mixed with maple syrup and mustard. Very typical for my kitchen. Standard cornbread, too.

And there they are.

The rice pudding is where it all went wrong.

I don't know why, but this time, the rice pudding, at the very END of the baking, dripped all over the oven. I have never had this happen before, so of course it must happen almost exactly one week after getting a brand-new oven.

If I were trying to find a substance that would wreck an oven more thoroughly, I couldn't have topped this one. The combination of rice starch, sugar, and milk is just impossible to get off the bottom of a hot oven. I turned the oven off right away and scrubbed for some time with baking soda and dish soap before I gave up and just resigned myself to the fact that my new oven is no longer pristine.

Sigh.

Monday

Short version: Leftover pork and pizza, cucumbers with ranch dip, cookies

Long version: This time I fried the some of the pork in its rendered lard. The pizza served as our starch for this meal. As did the cookies (oatmeal/almond/peanut butter/chocolate chip).

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover pork in burritos, more cucumbers, hot cocoa

Long version: I had to substitute this day, so it was lucky I had randomly cooked so much pork on Sunday. This time I just wrapped it in flour or corn tortillas with cheese and salsa. 

Hot cocoa because some people were still hungry. And there is something thrilling about getting hot cocoa--with a marshmallow!--on a random Tuesday night.

In case you're wondering, this is how I make cocoa: A tablespoon (I use an actual spoon, but I think it's close to a measured tablespoon) of sugar per mug of cocoa, plus one more for good health, slightly less than a tablespoon of cocoa powder for each mug, and a pinch of salt for each mug, all put in a pot. Add a bit of cold water and then heat this on the stove until the powders are dissolved. Then use a mug to measure out the milk, adding however many mugs of milk are needed. Heat and stir until as hot as you want it, then add a splash of vanilla. 

Marshmallows if you're feeling indulgent.

Wednesday

Short version: Meatballs, spaghetti, fried potatoes, yet more cucumbers

Long version: All the pork was gone and this is a work day for me, but I did have a bag of meatballs I had stashed in the freezer for just such a night. I took those out before I left for work, along with a bag of roasted tomato sauce. Then when I got home, I just broiled the meatballs and then roasted them with about half the sauce until they were done.

The other half of the sauce went on the spaghetti. I was too lazy to grate Parmesan, so I just added a large amount of butter to it, plus a bit of extra garlic powder and Italian herbs. 

I microwaved a couple of potatoes and then diced them to fry for A., who doesn't eat spaghetti.

Thursday

Short version: Roasted chicken pieces, roasted potatoes, sauteed calabacita/tomato/onion, raw green beans, bread with butter and honey or apple butter

Long version: Chicken leg quarters are always cheap, and so I tend to get those even though I dislike separating the thighs and drumsticks. But that way, A. and I can have the thighs, which we prefer, and the children can have the drumsticks, which they prefer.

There were four of each kind of chicken piece, and all I did with them was liberally spice them with paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a small amount of maple syrup, and then roast them at 425 degrees until they were done.

My favorite summer skillet of vegetables:

It's technically fall on the calendar, but it's still summer in the skillet.

The bread was the after-dinner, serve-yourself-if-you're-still-hungry course. We had gotten a jar of apple butter from some girls at school who had made it from apples they picked at their grandmother's orchard in the mountains. A couple of the kids really liked it and chose it for their bread. The others had the honey.

Refrigerator check:

A bit bare.

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

God Bless the Teachers

Ever since I started working at our school five years ago as an elementary Educational Assistant (what we used to call a teacher's aide), which morphed into librarian, online English tutor, and frequent substitute for both elementary and high school classes, people have been asking me if I'm going to get my teaching license.

No. Nope. Not gonna do it. Louder for the folks in the back? NO, I DO NOT WANT TO BE A TEACHER.

In fact, I started college as an elementary Ed. major and switched to a plain old English degree after one semester because I disliked the education classes so much. It's just not for me. And working at a school has only strengthened my conviction that being a classroom teacher is not a good idea for me.

It has also given me a great gratitude for real teachers. I honestly do not know how they do it, but I'm so, so glad they do.

That said, I'm teaching this week because our 4/5/6 teacher is sick. I was her substitute yesterday, and will be again today. There are only 11 students in her room, but that's one of the bigger groups at our school, and there are unique challenges to dealing with three different classes of students in one room. To say nothing of the individual needs of each student within those three classes.

Personally, I find teaching three different math lessons within two hours to be the most challenging.

So that's where I'll be today: Pretending to be a teacher, and once again mentally thanking all real teachers for their choice to fill such a demanding role.

Or maybe actually thanking all real teachers, because I know at least some of you are real teachers. If you are: Thank you. You are so appreciated.

Also, what's your best classroom management tip? I can use all the help I can get.

Snapshots: Salad and Wet Football

One of my jobs at school is lunch monitor, and part of that is serving the elementary kids at the salad bar (middle school and up can serve themselves). I don't know if this is common in all schools now, but when I was a kid, we certainly never had access to a salad bar like this. 

So much to choose from.

This was a sandwich day, so it also included all the toppings for the sandwiches.

Every kid gets something from the salad bar every day, and it's great they have so many options.

On a less healthy note, my mother sent us home a couple of boxes of hot chocolate packets from our trip to Colorado, and this was a suggestion on one of the boxes.

Is it just me, or does this look like it would be impossible to actually drink with all that junk on the rim? To say nothing of cleaning a chocolate-encrusted mug. No, thanks.

Poppy and I stopped at church on our way back from the dump, and she asked if she could light a candle to say a prayer for A.'s dad, who had surgery a couple of weeks ago.

I love this girl so much.

I had promised to take the children to the home football game on Friday, so they could watch their friends on the JV team play. I still brought them even though there was pretty much a hundred percent chance of rain, for which I feel very virtuous.

Damp Friday night lights.

I also felt virtuous because I shared my umbrella with our priest, who was sitting in front of me on the bleachers without one when it started to pour. My umbrella was not quite big enough to cover us both fully, and my lower back got soaking wet, so I was damp and cold for the entirety of the varsity game. I think covering a priest with your umbrella comes with spiritual rewards, though, right? Right.

Lastly, for those of my family members that were concerned about my lack of dishwasher, rest easy. A. installed our new dishwasher on Wednesday.

Two for two on functioning appliances, hooray!

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Crepe Cake and a Spanish Feast

Friday 

Short version: Chicken Spanish rice, pintos with ham, beef jerky and dried apples

Long version: I had quite a few chicken bones left from previous meals, with which I made stock. To do this, I actually use any uneaten chicken, but also the bones my children have eaten from. They leave behind a lot of meat. 

I used some of that stock, plus the meat I picked off the bones, to make something like Spanish rice. That also used the leftover corn I had cut off the cob.

I had made a big pot of pinto beans with a ham bone from the freezer, mostly to freeze for later, but we ate some of those with the chicken and rice.

All of this was before and after the volleyball game, which was the first cheerleading game of the season. I brought two of the boys along with me and Poppy, and they had some beef jerky and dehydrated apples during the game. I've made quite a few quart jars of dehydrated apples this year, using an old but pristine dehydrator given to me by a friend in the village. It works faster than the sun, but it's also easier to over-dry the apples, and they're drying on plastic racks. So I am conflicted. But still using it.

Saturday

Short version: Salad for me, bedtime cinnamon toast for children

Long version: We had been out and about in the afternoon. I was at a birthday party with Poppy, where she ate enough that she wasn't hungry at dinnertime. A. had been in a city with the boys, and they stuffed themselves at a Mexican restaurant and weren't hungry for dinner, either.

I, however, was hungry for dinner, so I made myself a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, pickled onions, deli salami, and feta cheese.

The children made themselves cinnamon toast before bed. So I guess that was their dinner.

Sunday

Short version: Salisbury steaks and gravy, rice, sauteed calabacitas and tomatoes, leftover corn, crepe cake

Long version: When I was a kid and my parents left us with a babysitter at night, we would usually each get a Hungry Man frozen dinner. I always wanted Salisbury steak, which came with mashed potatoes, corn, and a really gross cherry cobbler thing that I never ate.

I still like Salisbury steak, except now I make it. This time I did the binder with bread crumbs and eggs, so it would stay together. The gravy was just a milk gravy with some diced onion. Very satisfying.

The sauteed calabacitas, tomatoes, onion, and garlic were even more satisfying. Well, to me. The children had the corn.

And now, the cake. 

This was something A. had seen online. He is the crepe cook in our house, you may remember, so he wanted to try it. It's just crepes, whipped cream, and sweetened strawberries, all layered like a trifle in a springform pan and refrigerated for awhile.

He even decorated it all fancy with the (frozen) strawberries.

We served it with more sweetened and mashed strawberries.

Pretty presentation.

There were a couple of things that would probably be changed next time--it needed more fruit and more sweetening--but A. was very pleased with it. And the leftovers actually made for a very nice breakfast for the children to cajole them out of bed on Monday morning. I think we might make something like this whenever we have leftover crepes from the Sunday after-church breakfast.

Monday

Short version: Ms. Rebecca's Spanish* feast, watermelon

Long version: A. did some repair work on our elderly neighbor Ms. Amelia's roof last week, along with one of the boys, and Ms. Amelia's daughter wanted to pay him. A. said she could just pay him for the nails he had to buy, but nothing else, so she asked if he would like some enchiladas or something.

Of course he would.

So this day she brought by an incredible quantity of food: A big pan of beef enchilada casserole, another big pan of Spanish rice, a huge container of pinto beans, and 12 homemade flour tortillas.

So much food.

She works in the cafeteria at a school, so I guess she's accustomed to cooking for a lot of people. 

Oh, and my new range was unexpectedly delivered this day! So the very first thing I used it for was to heat all this up in the oven.

The oven on this one has a window AND a light, which is an upgrade from the previous one.

Tuesday

Short version: Two soups, bean and cheese quesadillas, peanut butter cookies

Long version: It was relatively cool this day, so I decided to get the big bag of chicken carcasses and bones out of the freezer and make stock with it.

And then, with that stock, I made both a chicken/vegetable/rice soup that used the bits of chicken I managed to salvage, as well as the bread-thickened pureed tomato soup my children love so much.

Some left from each.

That tomato soup has very little protein in it, which is why I also made the children the quesadillas. 

These peanut butter cookies.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I went straight from work to two different meetings and didn't get home until after 6 p.m. Thankfully, there were lots of leftovers from Ms. Rebecca's feast, so that's what everyone ate while I was gone.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover soups, grilled cheese sandwiches, ice cream

Long version: This was kind of a seasonally schizophrenic meal. The soup and grilled cheese are fall foods, but the ice cream is summery. This was the last day it was going to be over 80 degrees, so I decided to celebrate the last day of the school week by letting the kids finish off the mint chocolate chip ice cream that's been around for awhile.

They were fine with this.

Refrigerator check:

Thank goodness the tiny store in the village had some milk, otherwise we would have been out for at least a few days.

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

* I know most people would call this Mexican food, but the old Hispanic families here claim the title of Spanish. Their ancestors are in fact the conquistadors, who came here before the United States was even a country, so they are actually of Spanish heritage.

A Sub-40 5K, Yay!

Ever since I completed my Couch to 5K program last year--and then ran a solo 5K on my birthday--I've continued running. Well, jogging. Slowly. 

I didn't worry much about my pace, instead just running for thirty minutes every other day. Because I run so slowly, this meant three laps around the interior of my ghost village, so about two miles.

That is a very slow mile pace.

I kind of knew I was just coasting and could certainly be running more, or faster. I wasn't really trying very hard anymore, although I do give myself credit for consistency, I guess.

I decided just a bit ago that I could at least start going around four times, instead of three. So I did that for a couple of weeks, although I didn't increase my pace at all.

And then, when the family was all gone in Tucson a couple of weeks ago, I was in the middle of my four laps when I decided I should really just do all five laps that would constitute a 5K, to see if I could do it faster than my very slow time last year of 43 minutes. 

I had read online that typical "novice" times for a 5K are between 30 minutes and 40 minutes. When I did that spontaneous 5K two weeks ago, I did it in 40 minutes and 9 seconds.

So close!

Last Saturday, I decided to see if I could do my usual four laps in 30 minutes, because I knew that then I really could do the whole five kilometers in less than forty minutes.

I suppose it's not surprising that when I got done with my fourth lap in well under 30 minutes, it seemed pretty dumb to not just do the fifth and final lap to see what my actual time would be.

It was 36 minutes and 38 seconds. 

Sub-40 shoes.

I wasn't even that worn out. I mean, yes, I was tired by the end and had to work a little harder to keep my pace up, but I never got even close to the burning-lungs, feeling-like-throwing-up stage so familiar to me from my younger athletic days. I have no interest in feeling like that anymore.

But even without pushing myself to collapse--or even getting a stitch in my side--I got way under my goal of 40 minutes. 

I could preach some life lessons here about perseverance and so on, but I think I'll just leave it here: I ran a 5K in under 37 minutes, and I am proud of myself.

Snapshots: Harvests

We actually got a decent amount of rhubarb this year.

This harvest of it all went in the freezer, as did the peaches given to us by a neighbor.

A bold table arrangement that does not include any sunflowers.

The first yellow leaves are appearing on the apricot tree by our front door.

A. scythed down the overgrown sunflower patch outside our gate that was encroaching into the road before they could dry and get too hard to cut. Kind of sad, but it was time, and there are plenty more elsewhere.

And last, I took Poppy to her friend's birthday party that had a puppy theme, since they just got a new puppy. Look how cute the marshmallow-paw-print cupcakes were. The "kibble" in the middle was peanut butter cocoa puffs or something on top of a chocolate cake. Clever.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: So Much Store Meat

Friday 

Short version: Leftover soup, cheese, leftover chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: After a seriously choppy night of sleep for various reasons and then waking up for the day at 3 a.m., and THEN going to work for our annual Friday to make up for having Labor Day off . . . I was not in good shape by the time I got home from work.

Thankfully, I had enough of the brisket and rice soup I had made for a sick child left over for everyone to have that for dinner, so all I did was heat that up and slice some cheese to go along with it.

We also had lots of leftover chocolate pudding, which is much more exciting than leftover soup.

I then took to my bed, where I slept for an hour before getting up again. And I still had no trouble going to bed by 9 p.m. and sleeping until six the next morning.

Saturday

Short version: Lamb and chickpeas, rice, cucumber/tomato/feta salad

Long version: I used a bag of lamb shanks to make stock, and then pulled all the meat off the bones when they were tender. I used this meat, along with some of the stock, some pureed tomatoes from the garden, a can of chick peas, lots of garlic, onion, and some yogurt and lemon juice, to make a kind of very thick stew to put over the rice.

It was good. I like the mixture of lamb and chick peas. It's a good way to stretch the meat, sort of like adding pinto beans to taco meat. I still have four pounds of dried chick peas to use, and we have two ram lambs going into the freezer as soon as it gets cold, so you'll be seeing this combination a lot more in the coming months.

Sunday

Short version: Chicken, baked potatoes, leftover corn, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, brownie sundaes

Long version: These were chicken leg quarters that I separated into thighs and drumsticks, coated in a spice mixture, and baked in the oven along with the potatoes.

Or rather, attempted to bake in the oven. After about half an hour, I smelled propane, went to check on the oven, and found that it had barely heated up and was definitely not cooking anything.

I'd been having trouble with the oven igniter that A. had replaced for me awhile ago. He had adjusted it, but then this happened. I assume it's related, but I don't really know. All I know is my oven stopped working.

So I pulled everything out, finished the potatoes in the microwave, and sauteed the chicken in skillets.

Not-baked chicken.

Luckily, the brownies had been baked earlier in the day along with some cookies in what turned out to be the oven's last gasp. We had those with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, cucumbers

Long version: There were leftover lamb and chickpeas, plus two pieces of chicken. I had baked extra potatoes, which I chopped up and fried--in fat rendered from the brisket last week--for the starch. There were also leftover brownies, which was fun.

Tuesday

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, potato chips, corn on the cob, cucumbers, peaches and cream

Long version: I had some buns I had made when I overproofed my dough that came out quite flat and small. They were sort of like English muffins. So I just made the hamburger patties small to fit them. Kind of like sliders, I guess. They were good, in any case.

This was the day I had been in the city and bought corn from the trailer on the side of the road.

And all these peaches came from our tree. We've now gotten peaches from two neighbors, and our peaches are the best of the three we've had this year. Nice to have the best peaches ten feet from my door.

Wednesday

Short version: Pasta with chicken, hamburger patties, cucumbers

Long version: I had bought a rotisserie chicken at Walmart the day before. I do this pretty much every time I go to Walmart, because I'm always leaving the city after lunchtime for my long drive home. So I get a chicken, eat the drumsticks as I drive, and then I have the rest of the chicken for something else later in the week. Good deal for seven dollars.

What I did with it this time was shred one of the breasts and add it to cooked pasta shells with the last of the roasted tomato sauce I made awhile ago, and some Parmesan. The children had that.

I had enough ground beef left to make four more small hamburger patties. I had one bun left, which A. had, along with two more of the patties. One boy had a hamburger patty with his pasta.

Thursday

Short version: Pork and gravy, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, watermelon

Long version: Pork chunks from the whole loin I bought awhile ago, fried, then I added a diced shallot, milk, and cornstarch to make gravy.

Pork chunks, pre-gravy, and potato chunks, pre-mashing.

I also got a seeded watermelon from the produce trailer when I got the corn. The last hurrah for summer, I guess.

Refrigerator check:

Awkwardly full. More eating is in order.

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