Friday Food: Snowy Days

Friday 

Short version: Chili/rice skillet, toast

Long version: We had our All Saints Day Mass at 5:30 p.m. and we had to leave early and stay after since I'm Church Lady this month.

That's why we ate early, at around 3:30 p.m. I just heated up leftover rice and chili with cheese for our before-church meal. And then when we got home around 7:15, the kids all had some toast before bed.

Saturday

Short version: Christmas in November

Long version: In an attempt to make a meal that would result in leftovers, I pulled out a whole ham from the freezer and baked that, along with a pan of scalloped potatoes. This is typically what I make for Christmas dinner, but there's no law that says I can't make it other times, I guess.

The worst part of scalloped potatoes is cutting all the potatoes thin. There's really no easy way to do this, but I've decided I'd rather use my knife than the mandolin blade on my cheese grater. I hate that thing.

Anyway. It made a lot of food.

It also made some really awful dishes to scrub, which is the second-worst part of scalloped potatoes.

This was not actually Christmas, however, so our vegetable was just pickled carrots. And I did not make a dessert. Heaven knows there's been enough sugar consumption in our house since Halloween.

Sunday

Short version: Pizza, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: One full half-sheet-pan of pepperoni, one cast iron skillet of cheese.

And no Sunday dessert. The kids had been eating from their personal candy bags all day. They definitely did not need a dessert.

Monday

Short version: Ham and rice skillet

Long version: We actually got home two hours early from school thanks to a snowstorm, so I could have cooked something more involved than my planned leftovers in a skillet+cheese. But I stuck with my plan, which was just to dice leftover ham and fry it in lots of butter, then add leftover rice, frozen peas, some onion powder, and grated cheddar cheese.

This then gave me time to crawl into bed and hibernate for an hour or so while the wind blew snow and sleet against my window. Way better than sitting in my office listening to that and worrying about the state of the roads. Hooray for early release on a snowy afternoon.

Tuesday

Short version: Lamb ribs, baked potatoes, pickled carrots

Long version: We really have very little meat left in our freezer, which is why I'm now unearthing and using things like lamb ribs. I just marinated these in olive oil, vinegar, salt, and garlic powder, and the cooked them covered at a low heat for awhile. 

I didn't even try to cut them into individual pieces, which is only possible with a cleaver and some aggression. A. had cut them into pieces of about four or five ribs each when we were butchering, and I figured that was small enough for everyone to gnaw the meat off.

The potatoes went right in the oven with the ribs. And the pickled carrots are popular with everyone. I guess I should've made a bunch more jars of them when I was dealing with the avalanche of carrots. Next time.

Wednesday

Short version: Sloppy joe sandwiches, potatoes, cucumbers with ranch dip

Long version: I went directly from work to the parish hall to set it up for a funeral reception, which meant I didn't get home until about 5 p.m. Thankfully, I already had some buns I had made when I was baking bread on Sunday, as well as ground beef in the refrigerator. So I made sloppy joe meat with the beef, already-cooked onions from the freezer, and ketchup, vinegar, molasses, and Worcestershire sauce (I don't have any ready-made barbecue sauce on hand at the moment).

There were a few servings of scalloped potatoes left, and one baked potato. So I chopped and fried the baked potato and apportioned out the various potato preparations to bulk up the sandwiches a bit.

The cucumber was the last Armenian cucumber from the garden. Well, except for the several jars of pickled cucumbers in the refrigerator. 

Thursday

Short version: Leftover lamb ribs, hamburgers, baked beans, cornbread, pickles

Long version: There were quite a lot of lamb ribs left over, which I re-heated in the oven while I was baking the cornbread. This time I put some barbecue sauce on them, too, which A. tells me I should always do.

I had just enough ground beef left to make four small hamburgers, so those of us who are not enthused about lamb ribs had those.

I made the baked beans from pinto beans mostly because it was snowing and blowing all day. It seemed like an opportune time to simmer beans for a long time. And then I baked them while the oven was on to bake gingersnaps.

I'm leaning kinda heavily on the pickles-as-vegetable thing lately. These were cucumber pickles.

Refrigerator check:

Pickles on display on the bottom shelf: sauerkraut, carrots, and cucumbers.

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

A Non-political Poll

We have a poll of great import today, and it has nothing to do with the presidential election. It may be divisive, however, so I'm asking everyone to please remain respectful. 

The question at hand: What is the best Halloween treat? 

I am of course thinking about this because we've had the Halloween haul in our house for the past week, and it's always interesting to see what everyone chooses to eat first.

So much to choose from.

One son goes right for the Skittles.

One will allow no one to touch his Reese's.

Another can't choose and eats indiscriminately.

And Poppy? Her favorite was this weird novelty thing that looked like a paint roller and was rolled over the tongue.

A. has a great fondness for popcorn balls, which are a packaged thing I had never seen before moving here. He will also eat all the sour things, chewy things, and generally non-chocolate things that I always considered the garbage candy. He even likes Laffy Taffy, which is sort of inconceivable to me.

As for me, I'm mostly with the Reese's kid--particularly Reese's Pieces, although they are rare--but I do love Hundred Grands, which don't really seem to be a thing anymore. I don't think any of the kids got any this year.

Luckily for me, I seem to be particularly sensitive to chocolate that picks up the taste of other candy, which happens when they're all jumbled around in a bag. The chocolate will taste a bit like the lollipops or whatever, which I find disgusting and which keeps me from eating it. No one else seems to notice this, though, so I guess that's just me.

So tell me: What is your favorite Halloween treat? And bonus question: Do you notice that weird flavor transfer to chocolate in a mixed bag of candy?

Snapshots: First Freeze, Halloween, and All Saints

Our first freeze was Wednesday night, which meant everything remaining in the garden needed to be harvested.

Beets.

The mostly red tomatoes, plus a few peppers.

And the mostly green tomatoes, that will ripen slowly in that box for the next couple of months.

Not pictured is the basil, with which I made quite a bit of pesto for the freezer. The parsley and thyme can survive a light frost, so they're still out there for now, but otherwise, the 2024 garden is done.

Next, Halloween.

I remembered that someone--I think the MiL--had given us a bat cookie cutter, and it seemed like I should use that somehow for Halloween. My bread is not big enough for the width of it, though, so I cut the scrambled eggs with it. It only sort of worked.

Egg bat. If you use a lot of imagination.

I arrived at the school at 3 p.m. for the elementary Halloween party absolutely laden with bags.

Costumes and party offering of cheese and crackers.

The children were not enthused about trick-or-treating this year being in the daylight, but they did greatly enjoy their candy sorting and trading.

One very meticulous child's sorting. I particularly like the Twix laid out in a "T."

November is one of my mayordoma months, which meant I needed to change the altar linens for the feast day of All Saints on November 1. The color for feast days is white, so I went ahead and changed the (fake) flowers, too.

All Saints altar.

Somewhat relatedly, this time of year the rising sun makes some very cool patterns of light on the cross and religious art on a wall of my living room.

May our light shine before all.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Week of Illness

Friday 

Short version: Boneless pork chops, baked pasta, cucumbers, rhubarb/peach cobbler with cream

Long version: I was sick with a cold this day, so I used the low-effort method of throwing everything in the oven at the same time to bake to get dinner on the table.

In that oven were the pork chops I had cut off the pork loin, which I just drizzled with olive oil and spices. I had to put them under the broiler at the end to get them a little browned, and then they were overcooked. Always a danger with lean, boneless pork.

For the pasta, I used some roasted tomato sauce I already had in the refrigerator, heavy cream, the last of some milk left by a child, and a bunch of asadero cheese.

The fruit was frozen. After it had baked awhile, it had reduced so far that I decided to make some sweetened biscuits for the top to stretch it a bit.

Biscuits before baking.

I hadn't sweetened the fruit enough and had to add some more sugar when I was serving it, but it turned out pretty well.

Saturday

Short version: Mom food

Long version: This was the night of the village Halloween celebration. One son was quite sick, and I stayed home with him. He wasn't eating, so I just had to feed myself. That meant I rummaged around in the refrigerator and combined a bunch of things in a skillet:

A leftover pork chop, sauerkraut, roasted carrots, and cooked onions from the freezer.

The rest of the family had baked potatoes with lots of toppings and hot dogs at the party.

Sunday

Short version: Last-harvest pork stir-fry, rice, fresh bread with butter

Long version: I spent much of this afternoon harvesting everything that was left in the garden in anticipation of a freeze on Wednesday night. That included tomatoes, peppers, beets, and green beans. The basil I left until later because I was too tired to make pesto that afternoon.

I used the peppers, green beans, and beet greens in the stir-fry, plus some broccoli my sister had left us, onions, carrots, and pork.

Obligatory beauty shot of the pretty vegetables.

I declared this day to be the beginning of our pre-Halloween sugar fast, which is why I did not make a dessert. I had baked bread just before dinner, though, so everyone got to have a piece of fresh bread still warm from the oven, with butter. Almost as good as dessert, even without the sugar.

Monday

Short version: Tuna salad sandwiches

Long version: I went directly from school/work to a volleyball game with the cheerleader. I made tuna salad in the morning so those at home could have sandwiches. And I made a tuna melt for the cheerleader when we got home. 

No vegetables were consumed. That happens sometimes.

Tuesday

Short version: Chili, tortilla chips

Long version: This was the day I was very ill. I was at least semi-functional by dinnertime, although not at all ready to eat. Both A. and one of the boys had been sick with the same thing and were also not eating. Thankfully, I had a container of chili in the freezer, so all I had to do was heat that up and set it out for the three children who were eating, with some tortilla chips my sister left.

Wednesday

Short version: Hamburgers, rice, pasta with pesto, cucumbers with ranch dressing

Long version: The three of us that had been sick were ready to eat something unchallenging. I figured plain hamburgers and rice would be a good option. 

I stayed home from work and so was able to harvest the rest of the basil and make pesto--with a lot of breaks while stripping the basil leaves, because I was still pretty weak and tired--so I made pasta with pesto for the other children.

Thursday

Short version: Candycandycandy . . . and soup

Long version: This year, due to an event in another village that was starting right around dark, the trick-or-treating in our village mostly happened before dark. So we just stayed after school let out at 4 p.m. and went trick-or-treating. Thus, no dinner before candy time.

Daylight treat gathering.

And then! While we were letting the kids run around in the dark with their friends at the village park to work off some of that sugar, I got a text from our neighbor that Bill the Pony had escaped his pasture and was wandering around by the post office.

Great.

Hop in the car, kids! We have to go home to catch a pony!

Luckily, Bill is pretty amenable to being led with horse food as long as we're bringing him back to his buddy Cora, so it didn't take too long to get him back where he was supposed to be.

One of the children drolly remarked that Bill was playing a trick on us so he would get a treat. I wouldn't put it past him.

Anyway. This meant we didn't get home until about 7:30 p.m., by which time everyone was very ready to eat something not containing sugar.

Good thing I anticipated this. I had made some chicken and rice soup earlier in the day by simmering my bag of frozen chicken bones until there was broth and I could pull off the meat. Then I used already-cooked and frozen onions and some of my many frozen carrots, plus rice, to make a very easy soup.

I had cheese slices left from the cheese and crackers I had brought for the elementary Halloween party, so I melted some cheese in there too (for those who could handle eating cheese) while I was heating the bowls of soup up in the microwave.

Dessert was unnecessary. To say the least.

Refrigerator check:

Lots of eggs, thank goodness. We keep running out now that the chickens aren't laying much.

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

Happy Halloween

A rare Thursday post mostly to show you A.'s pride and joy:

A. calls it The Plumpkin.

This came from some random seeds of a squash that hybridized. Quite obviously one of the parents was the Atlantic Giant A. grew a couple of years ago, because it got bigger than any pumpkin we've ever had. A. was very excited about it, and decided he just had to make it into a jack -o'-lantern to put by our front gate. So he did.

My contribution to the Halloween decorations was on the table, of course.

Orange zinnias, cosmos, and calendulas, plus some buffalo gourds.

A seasonally appropriate breakfast table.

We will of course be trick-or-treating in the village this evening. This year, we'll have an Arab, Jim Corbett, a lumberjack, and a ballerina. My most important job for the costuming is doing a proper ballerina bun for Poppy. It involves rolling her very long hair around a sock, and it's harder than it seems.

Wish me luck, and happy Halloween! Are you doing anything fun?

Mom Down

A thing you probably don't know about me--unless you know me in real life, I mean--is that I always get dressed first thing in the morning. And I do mean dressed, and I do mean always. Jeans, t-shirts (and a sweater if necessary), the zero-drop shoes I wear instead of slippers so I can go outside whenever . . . first thing in the morning. Always.

I do not wander around in pajamas.

The only notable exception to this is when I am very, very sick. In those cases when I can't be more than a few feet from a bathroom lest I risk disaster and spend hours huddled in bed, I will wear the pajama pants my sister gave me probably fifteen years ago, and the fuzzy socks from the same source.

That's what I'm wearing right now.

Sick apparel.

I woke up with the family stomach bug in the middle of the night and spent the next ten hours in a very unhappy state. Bad time to run out of gelatin. After all the jello I've made in the past few weeks, there's no gelatin left for me to make it for myself.

But I do think the very worst of it is over. I am left now with the all-over aches that follow such an episode, along with a headache and general weakness. Which is why I still have my pajama pants and socks on.

Everyone except Poppy has now gotten this wretched illness, and I'm crossing everything I have that she doesn't come down with it at all, but especially right before Halloween. She would be so sad to miss trick-or-treating.

Anyway. That's where I'm at right now: Wallowing in my sick clothes and waiting for my body to recover. 

Snapshots: From the Germy Trenches

This week's cascading illnesses of a cold plus a really nasty stomach bug going through the family have meant a lot of this:

A blanket nest on the floor with a vomit bowl.

Switchel jello. I have made so much jello this week.

But also this:

I spent most of Friday morning dealing with the entirely-too-numerous (and HUGE) carrots.

About 55 pounds pounds of them, actually, now mostly in the freezer, blanched, unblanched, and grated. Plus a couple of quarts of pickled carrots.

Also this week, I finally had my one BLT of the season.

So good.

And I stopped in at church to get some much-needed peace.

All is calm. 

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.