Friday Food: Re-imagined Food

Friday 

Short version: Sonic on the road, toasted bean burritos at home

Long version: I was gone until about dinnertime with one kid in town. He got Sonic before we started our drive home. A. used canned refried beans, cheese, and flour tortillas to make toasted burritos for the kids at home.

Saturday

Short version: Pizzas, carrot sticks with ranch dip

Long version: I hadn't made pizza in awhile, but I had a giant blocks of asadero cheese (my mozzarella substitute) in the refrigerator that needed to be shredded and frozen, plus I had dough on hand for baking bread. Sounds like pizza time to me. I even found the very last bag of roasted tomato sauce from last year that had gotten to the bottom of the freezer. To that I added frozen pesto cubes to make the sauce.

I had some pepperoni in the freezer, too, as well as the chopped bell pepper from when my friend had given us salad ingredients. I had frozen the bell pepper for something later. So one pizza was pepperoni, bell pepper, and pickled onion, and one was just cheese.

Pizza time.

Sunday

Short version: Roasted chickens, baked potatoes, asparagus, frozen corn, brownie sundaes

Long version: I got these whole chickens from extra commodities food that was left at school. They were already seasoned, so all I did was drizzle on some olive oil and roast them.

Everything else went in the oven with them, too, which is the easiest way to make dinner.

I totally forgot I was planning on making brownies until about ten minutes before we ate. Luckily, that's about how long it takes to get these brownies in the oven. Then I just delayed dessert long enough for them to cool down a bit before I served them with ice cream and the chocolate syrup I almost always have in the refrigerator.

Monday

Short version: Chicken paprikash, mashed potatoes, Holy's cabbage or sauerkraut

Long version: I had made two chickens specifically to have leftovers. And then I used the leftover chicken to make chicken paprikash. That used up the paprika sludge from dying Easter eggs, plus leftover chicken, onions, garlic, and a bunch of sour cream. 

The mashed potatoes I made with all the leftover baked potatoes, scooped out, re-heated, and pureed.

And the cabbage came from the freezer. Very handy to have. I can actually just microwave it right in the bag for thirty seconds so I can get it out of the bag, then dump it into a bowl and microwave a few more minutes until it's hot. One kid doesn't like it, so he had some of the raw sauerkraut that's been in a jar in the refrigerator since last summer.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I went to the last track meet of the year, leaving a list on the refrigerator of all the available food for dinner. The kids all got their own dinners--mostly mashed potatoes and cheese, but at least one had pizza--and then A. and I finished the pizza when I got home. The trackster ate a green chile cheeseburger, french fries, and a milkshake with his team before we left town.

Wednesday

Short version: Smoked sausage, garlic bread, leftover vegetables

Long version: This particular sausage is some kind of Walmart brand. Not Great Value--some "fancier" brand that's still made by Walmart. It's actually pretty good.

Two packages fit perfectly in a 12-inch skillet.

I had made the garlic bread when I was baking bread a few days earlier, and there was leftover corn and cabbage. This made for an easy after-work meal.

One child had been sick, so for him I made rice in chicken stock and he had a small bowl of that. The one who doesn't like sausage had the rest of the chicken paprikash with the rice.

Thursday

Short version: Not jambalaya or cookies

Long version: I had a lot of rice left, four sausages, and some chicken and chicken stock I had made with the chicken carcasses. Sounds like jambalaya to me. 

I cooked onion, garlic, and celery, then added the jambalaya spices--cumin, chili powder, paprika, a bit of cayenne, Worcestershire sauce--and some tomato sauce before dumping in the diced meats, rice, and just a little stock. Easy and good.

I had made the cookies earlier in the day: chocolate chip with peanut butter added. I didn't make cookies during Lent, and the children are very happy now that I'm making them regularly again. Easter is a joyous season, indeed.

And then no one ate any of it because A. had taken the elementary school on a field trip at which they had pizza. The extra pizza came back to the school, one of the boys snagged an entire pizza, and then the older two boys ate the entire thing on their way home. Poppy had one piece, too. A. had eaten at a Chinese buffet while he was waiting for the children to finish at the museum. So no one was hungry and I saved the jambalaya for the next day.

Well, I ate a scoop of it in chicken stock as a soup, but there's still plenty left.

Refrigerator check:

Jambalaya in the red pot, ready for tomorrow.

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

The Countdown Begins

Many years ago--seven years ago, to be precise--I came up with the idea of counting down to the last day of school with a piece of candy for each child each day as they get on the bus. It was an idea born of desperation to get small children on the bus with a minimum of drama.

I started this tradition when I only had two children in school. We were living in New York at the time, which has school until agonizingly late in the month of June. Now we live in New Mexico where we get out of school in mid-May, and I have four children getting on the bus every day. None of them are very small anymore, either.

But still, every year when we have twelve days left of school, the egg cartons come out and the candy goes in.

Ready for the countdown. 

Come on, summer. 

Snapshots: Back to Walking

One of Poppy's classmates brought his chess set to school, and there was quite a bit of interest in it during recess.

In addition to the boy who brought the set, Poppy and another girl know how to play, which is pretty impressive for a first-grade class.

We got some eggs from our neighbor. One of them was really strange.

First time I've ever seen a wrinkled shell. The egg inside was fine, it just looked kind of creepy.

My dad had a pair of cowboy boots that he bought when I was just a year old. He doesn't have much use for cowboy boots, but they turned out to fit his eldest grandson very well. Those 44-year-old boots put in their first real day of cowboy work at a branding last week.

As my dad said, they finally got their spurs. Literally.

I've had some very irritating and slightly painful swelling in my hands and feet recently, which has meant I do not want to be running. I can walk, though. And when I walk, I can bring my cell phone, which I do not do when I run. That means pictures!

I found some flowers on my walk yesterday that I added to the remaining two roses from the Easter flowers I bought. Plus the decorative alliums that are blooming right now in the mechanic's pit garden.

The obviously-cultivated roses look a bit self-conscious in the midst of the wildflowers.

And at church, I discarded the wilted flowers--which was most of them--and managed to put together one smaller arrangement for the altar.

Last year's Easter flowers lasted a lot longer, but that's okay. They really only needed to last through Easter morning. Anything else is just a bonus.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food

Friday 

Short version: Shrimp or bean burritos

Long version: Last meatless Lenten Friday. I had a couple of small bags of shrimp, which I sauteed in butter with taco spices and lime juice. I also took out the last container of chili beans--pintos spiced like chili--so everyone could choose to have either shrimp or beans in their burritos. Or both.

And I had all the good toppings.

Including, most importantly, avocado. Yum.

Saturday

Short version: Thursday's dinner, revisted

Long version: We had enough of my sister's giant lasagna left over from Thursday to have it again this night. I very much appreciated not having to cook after a busy day of preparing the church for Easter and making a pie for Easter dinner. 

We had a salad again, too, but this time Poppy made it. 

Sunday

Short version: Easter ham, scalloped potatoes, asparagus, maple carrots, strawberry-rhubarb pie, vanilla ice cream, chocolates

Long version: We should, of course, have had lamb for Easter dinner. And I know I have a leg of lamb somewhere in the freezer, but when I was digging in there, I found a spiral-sliced ham first. I considered it a sign and cooked that instead.

The children wanted scalloped potatoes, so that is what I made. Well, my sister and I made. She did all the hard work of peeling and thinly slicing the potatoes. All I did was layer the potatoes with milk, cream, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

The asparagus was from the garden, of course, as was the rhubarb in the pie. The carrots were the blanched carrots I froze in the fall, and the strawberries were frozen store berries.

I didn't get a picture of the dinner buffet. But I got one of the pie!

My sister did the lattice top, as well as the eggs and bunny cut-outs, which is why it's much less ugly than my typical pies.

Monday

Short version: Leftover ham, potatoes, carrots, raw radishes

Long version: Nah.

Tuesday

Short version: Ram and chickpea curry, rice, still-frozen green beans

Long version: I had the curry sludge from dying eggs, plus half a can of tomato sauce in the refrigerator. I also had a container of cooked ground ram from the last time I made chili. I had more meat than I needed, so after I sauteed it with the garlic and onion, I froze some. That's what I used for the curry. 

I also had a container of cooked chickpeas I had taken out of the freezer, thinking I would make hummus to have before Easter dinner. But then I had made deviled eggs, and we had pistachios, so I didn't make hummus. I added the chickpeas to the curry, instead, along with quite a bit of yogurt. 

Tasty, if not particularly attractive.

There were also a few lamb chops left from almost a week earlier, which I heated up for A.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, garlic bread

Long version: We had leftover ham and potatoes, or curry and rice. The garlic bread was just some I had made the day before when I was baking bread, with no particular plan in mind for it. 

Thursday

Short version: Nachos and candy at school, leftover curry and rice at home

Long version: I took the younger two children to the spring crafting event at school.

Many crafts were made.

They had nachos there--chips with queso and meat, plus toppings--and lots of candy.

It was in the old gym, which is why all the photos look green.

Alien nachos.

The older two kids and A. had the leftovers at home.

Refrigerator check:

Blurry and messy. Like life sometimes.

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

Angels Among Us

Some of you may perhaps remember a song by the country band Alabama called "Angels Among Us." From maybe the late 90s? I never cared for the song much. I always thought it was kind of cheesy. It is, but it was what I thought of Saturday night when I met Leroy.

Saturday was a very hard day, for various reasons. I was pretty ready to be done with the day by evening, but I was taking the younger two boys to serve at the Saturday Vigil Mass at the church in the other village we go to sometimes. Mass started at 8 p.m., but they needed to be there early, so we left at 7:15. My low tire indicator light was on, but the town maintenance shop in this village has an air compressor hose on the outside of the building that I have used many times to air up my tires.

There was a truck parked on the other side of the parking lot of the shop when I got there. This will be important later.

It was raining slightly as I pulled up to the shop, hopped out, aired up my tire for a few seconds, and then pulled the air compressor out of my tire to put it back on its hook so I could continue on my way.

Except the valve of my tire got stuck in the air compressor. So when I pulled at it, the valve got ripped out and stayed stuck in the air compressor's chuck. This meant that not only was my tire rapidly deflating, but the air compressor continued to run, with no way to turn it off, as the actual machine was inside the locked building.

There I stood, in the rain, in my church clothes, holding a hissing air compressor and watching my tire go flat.

Not my best moment.

I had my cell phone, so I called A., asking him to bring some pliers to possibly pry the valve out of the air compressor, and also to change my tire. Luckily, we only live ten minutes from this village, so I knew it wouldn't take him long. 

As I was getting off the phone, I saw someone get into the truck on the other side of the parking lot. I went over there and waved down the person who had gotten into the truck, thinking maybe he would have pliers. When he rolled his window down, I asked if he happened to work there.

"Actually, I do," I replied.

THANK YOU, GOD.

This is how I met Leroy. 

He unlocked the shop and turned off the air compressor. I stood there apologizing and explaining while he tried to get the valve out of the air compressor's chuck. This is when I learned his name, that he comes to the shop every morning and evening to feed the feral cats that live there, and that he takes care of his 92-year-old mother. He reassured me that it wasn't my fault that the valve had gotten stuck, telling me the compressor chuck was old and needed to be replaced anyway.

After the compressor had been off for awhile, the pressure came down enough that he was able to remove the valve from the chuck. 

At about this point, A. arrived and I took the boys up to church in the van. They were still in time to serve Mass, and I didn't go back to the Honda. A. told me that Leroy stayed there with him and helped him try to put the valve from the Honda's spare tire on the flat tire. Leroy also found another valve they tried, which didn't fit. And, when the Honda slipped off our jack in the gravel parking lot, Leroy brought out a floor jack from the shop and helped A. change the tire with that.

In the course of our very brief conversation, I had told Leroy that I was going to church. He said he had been watching an Easter Vigil Mass on television before he came to the shop. His elderly mother couldn't really leave the house anymore, so he wouldn't be going to the Easter Vigil at church.

But I went to church, and you'd better believe that I spent much of the two-hour Vigil Mass thanking God for Leroy.

The end.

Easter Photos

Poppy found an intact bird's nest on the ground outside, made an origami bird for it, created a tree for the nest and bird, and left it by the front door.

It seemed a suitably Easter-y decoration, so I didn't move it.

There's always an Easter egg hunt at school the Wednesday before Easter. The high schoolers hide the eggs for the elementary kids to find. This year, there was terrible wind, so all the eggs had to be secured into something so they didn't blow away.

Egg in a bush.

It was also very windy on Holy Thursday when we went to Mass at the other church we sometimes go to, in the village ten miles in the opposite direction. A cat had sheltered itself from the wind in the window well at the end of our pew, and it stayed there the whole time.

Holy cat.

On Easter morning, I had to leave before seven to open up the church and make sure everything was ready, which meant we were not doing any egg finding or baskets before church. My parents had sent Easter cards to all the kids, so I put those at their places at the table, along with my grandmother's tea cups containing Cadbury mini eggs.

Because chocolate for breakfast is an Easter tradition.

Then there was church.

Easter altar.

Then our egg hunt at home. I didn't get a photo of the dyed eggs this year, but we dyed them with paprika, curry powder, and pickled beet juice, and they came out well. Also, the weather had improved, so we could have the egg hunt outside, which is always better.

Next, baskets hidden inside the house.

The only thing I actually bought for these were the books*. My sister and mom provided everything else. Hooray for family.

The weather was nice enough that the children played outside all day, which was really nice. 

We had our Easter dinner around 5:30 p.m. My sister was here, and our priest joined us, so we had a full table for the ham, etc. 

The MiL had sent a box of treats, so I used my grandmother's tea cups again to set out a selection of chocolates to supplement the strawberry-rhubarb pie I had made.

Peeps donated by the guy who runs the tiny store in the village. Alcohol donated by my sister. I did actually buy champagne myself, but it was in the refrigerator.

A good Easter. How was yours?

* This year's books were Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, and Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills: Naked Into the Wilderness.

Snapshots: The Alleluia Flowers

I volunteered to take care of the church again this year for Easter, so I could do the flowers. I didn't order a big arrangement for the altar from a florist this year, though. Instead I intended to go to Walmart and buy a bunch of flowers to make my own.

However.

I ended up having to go to a different town earlier in the week, not the one with the Walmart. I didn't want to have to drive 200 more miles later in the week just to get flowers, so I just bought some at the grocery store in the town I was in on Tuesday.

The selection, as you might imagine, was quite limited. As was the quality. I mean, this is an end-of-the-line, middle-of-nowhere-New-Mexico grocery store, not some upscale fresh market.

Grocery store flowers ready to ride home.

I supplemented those with lilacs, iris leaves, and other found greenery from the village, and decorated the altar.

I used the container from last year's professional arrangement for the main altar flowers. I didn't have that foam stuff that came with it--chickens love to peck things like that apart, alas--so I just stuffed a bunch of twigs in the bottom to form a lattice that I could poke the flower stems into. That worked surprisingly well. It probably helped that the lilac stems are quite thick and twiggy, too.

The inclusion of the lilacs made the arrangements slightly more purple than I would have preferred, but I had to use what I had. And they do make the church smell incredible.

Happiest of Easters to all of you. I hope it's a lovely one.