I Got Spirit, Yes I Do

Okay, that's actually a complete lie. I have no spirit. Never have. I dislike dressing up, cheering at sports events, and coming up with cute ideas for theme days.

Unfortunately, I have to do all of that this week on the boys' behalf.

See, this week, in addition to being the week of Cubby's birthday and Valentine's Day, is also Spirit Week at their school, culminating in the homecoming basketball game tomorrow. So every day has a theme.

Monday was pajama day. Easy enough, although Charlie, being Charlie, elected not to participate.

Tuesday was dress as something that starts with the first letter of your name, or wear the first letter of your name and make words with your friends. Ooookay. Charlie came up with his own idea for this, which didn't make a lot of sense, but since he was willing to do it all himself, I let it ride. Cubby thought of something about ten minutes before the bus came, but it was too late and he ended up just taping his letter to his shirt.

Today is dress as what they want to be when they grow up. Super. As A. remarked, it's like having Halloween twice. And we all know I suck at Halloween.

However. I resolved to at least try.

Jack said he wants to be a construction worker.

Cubby said he wants to be a bush pilot.

Charlie said he wants to be a wild man (a survivalist without a job, that is)*.

So, with the aid of duct tape, construction paper, and various pieces of furs and random items, we have  . . .

I surpassed myself. Although surpassing myself is a pretty low bar.

Tomorrow they're supposed to dress as their school mascot or in team colors, which is fine, but they're also supposed to have mini-floats (made with, like, little wagons or strollers or whatever) for a halftime parade at the basketball game. Cubby made his at school with a classmate. Charlie told me, again, he didn't want to participate. Until this morning, when he decided he did.

So this afternoon, I will summon my fake spirit once again and help him make a float with Poppy's stroller and a "game board theme." Wish me luck.

* I resisted the urge to tell Charlie he doesn't need a costume for that as that's his natural state.

Nine

Happy birthday to Cubby.

More Man than Cub every year.

Oops, I Did It Again

Hey, remember last year when I spent three days baking an absurd variety of treats for Cubby's various birthday celebrations? That was so fun, I decided to do it again!

Not really. But I am going to be doing another crazy baking spree in the next week. This is because of a combination of Cubby's birthday and Valentine's Day. Everyone is supposed to contribute something for Cubby and Charlie's school Valentine's party. I also signed up way back at the beginning of the school year to bring a treat for Jack's class party for Valentine's Day. I have a vague memory of thinking I would be baking that week anyway for Cubby's birthday, so I should just get it all over with at once.

Remind me never to do that again.

Anyway. Here's my oven's schedule for the next five days.

I am currently in the midst of dough preparation for our usual four loaves of sourdough bread, because we're almost out. Again with the excellent timing. That has to be baked tomorrow.

Cubby's birthday is actually on Monday. Tomorrow I have to make Cubby's actual birthday cake. He requested a chocolate cheesecake this year, so I need to make it the day before to give it plenty of time to chill.

Also tomorrow I'll start the sourdough dough for the pizza he wanted for his birthday dinner. What he actually wanted was seafood, but, um, I forgot to get any when we were at the store yesterday, mostly because I was so focused on making sure I had everything for all the sweet treats I'll be making. Not that they would have had anything more exciting than frozen shrimp, but still. I owe him one. Pizza is a good consolation meal, though.

Monday morning I'll bake brownies for his birthday treat for his class. I very slyly suggested this as his treat because I really didn't want to mess around with cupcakes and frosting. He was very happy to bring brownies and they are way easier than cupcakes. And then, of course, I'll bake the pizza.

Tuesday I'll make a batch of Rice Krispie Treats that will go along with the valentines Jack is bringing to school on Wednesday.  He doesn't have school on Thursdays, so his class is having their party the day before.

I had the brilliant idea of making Rice Krispie Treats and then having the boys make valentines that say "Being your friend is a real treat." So clever, right? Yeah, and I'm sure there are like a dozen tutorials for just this thing on Pinterest, but I 'm not on Pinterest and actually thought of it my ownself. I even bought a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make the Rice Krispie Treats all festive. The boys thought this was a great idea when I suggested it.

Of course, that means I have to make Rice Krispie Treats in addition to all the other stuff. Should've kept my clever mouth shut and just bought some Hershey's Kisses or something.

Anyway.

Wednesday morning I'll make the brownies that will be Jack's treat for his class party--again with that festive heart-shaped cookie cutter. Wednesday night I'll make more Rice Krispie Treats for Cubby and Charlie to bring with the valentines for their classmates on Thursday.

Thursday morning I'll make cheesy biscuits for Cubby and Charlie's class party, in an attempt to provide something other than straight sugar to the hyped-up children.

And on Friday? Friday I will wash my apron and hang it up for the foreseeable future, because DAMN, that's a lot of baking. I'm going to be going through a LOT of butter in the next week.

Friday Food: Return of the Squash

Friday

Short version: Sirloin steaks, rice, green salad, steamed sweet potato

Long version: I very rarely cook sweet potatoes in the microwave; I much prefer the texture and taste when they're pan-fried or roasted. However, I spent almost all day outside digging in cold frames for the lettuce, cleaning out coolers, picking up pieces of glass, and various other necessary but tiring tasks. Thus, when 5 p.m. sneaked up on me and I had a hungry, crying baby clutching at my knees, I took the easy way out and nuked that sweet potato.

This is when I discovered that Poppy really likes microwaved sweet potato. She's never been all that enthusiastic about my roasted or pan-fried ones, but she was all about that microwaved one. She ate about half of it while I was making dinner.

She also gnawed a steak bone almost clean and ate about half a cup of rice during dinner, so I guess she was just really hungry.

Saturday

Short version: Pork, mashed potatoes, sauteed cauliflower with garlic, green peas

Long version: Another package of pork loin chops, another opportunity to be completely repetitive. As always, I just chunked the pork up and fried it in bacon grease with a lot of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and the MiL's paprika. I used up the last of that really good paprika this time, though, so maybe next time I'll have to make something different.

Have I mentioned that I never cut up cauliflower before it's cooked? I find it much easier to just cut off the stalk and leaves around the bottom and steam the whole head stem side down in a big pot. It gets less waterlogged this way, as what remains of the stem keeps it out of the water. Also, then you don't have those annoying little bits that always fall off when you're cutting off the florets.

Anyway, once it's almost all the way done, I take the whole thing out and then cut it into chunks. I usually saute it in olive oil with garlic at this point, although sometimes I saute it in coconut oil with curry powder. I wanted curried cauliflower this time, but I thought it would taste weird with the paprika pork.

In any case, it's always good, especially if you don't stir it too much and let the cauliflower get a little brown in the olive oil. Just add the garlic after the cauliflower is pretty much done in the oil, otherwise the garlic will burn and get bitter.

And speaking of mashed potatoes . . . When I was little, my dad referred to the conk-out-anywhere tiredness of children as "falling asleep in the mashed potatoes." As in, "Kristin is so tired she looks like she's about to fall asleep in the mashed potatoes."

Jack fell asleep in the mashed potatoes right on the living room steps. So of course I took a picture.

Sunday

Short version: Italian cube steak, pasta, roasted bell peppers and onions, steamed broccoli, chocolate coconut-flour cookies

Long version: "Italian"=I have tomatoes to use up. I had a can of tomatoes left after using the juice in the soup earlier in the week, so I made a sauce with mashed tomatoes, garlic, Vermouth, basil, and oregano, and baked the browned cube steaks in that. While that was in the oven, I also put in a pan of peppers and onions to roast.

The broccoli was a bag of prepared florets. It was the only kind at the grocery store. I had deep reservations about buying cut-up florets in a sealed bag, but they actually weren't that bad. I disapprove on principal, however, of buying things in plastic bags in general, and only having broccoli florets in particular. I like the stems. How come it's so hard to get the stems anymore?

Anyway.

I do approve of the cookies I made for our traditional homemade Sunday dessert. I used this recipe again, but didn't have any chocolate chips and so added about 1.5 tablespoons of cocoa powder. Also, I used maple syrup instead of honey. They were really good. For coconut flour cookies, that is. The texture is always going to be different than regular cookies, but they still tasted good. I actually liked them better with the cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips.

You may notice this is not a Superbowl sort of meal. That's because A. and I are so profoundly disinterested in football that I didn't even know it was Superbowl Sunday until we went to visit Miss Amelia and she had it on at her house. Her daughter told me who was playing, but I forgot already and I don't actually know who won.

We do have a real football, though. Charlie got it in the Christmas gift exchange at school. So maybe the kids will develop an interest on their own. Then they can play on the six-man football team that is occasionally scraped together with the school in the next village over. Some years. If there are enough players.

And if this one decides to play, they'll have to call it six-person football, thank you very much.

Monday

Short version: Rabbit and chicken with cream gravy, sourdough biscuits, frozen green beans

Long version: The rabbit was one that A. shot in the morning when he saw it near the lettuce beds. Wrong place, wrong time, rabbit. I browned it in butter and olive oil, along with a package of chicken thighs, then put the meat in the oven to finish cooking. In the skillet the meat was browned in, I added four cloves of crushed garlic and a half-pint jar of milk shaken with cornstarch to make the gravy.

I made the biscuits because in the morning I was at the point in bread-making where I take starter out for the next batch, so I figured I might as well take out a little more starter and make some sourdough biscuits. All my butter was frozen, so instead of cutting it in, I just grated it and stirred it in. Either way, it's a pain to incorporate butter.

I decided what our insane school mornings were missing is me trying to grate butter, measure yogurt and milk, and stir together both bread dough and biscuit dough while yelling at Cubby and Charlie to stop shooting their sister with Tinker Toy guns and get their shoes on so they don't miss the bus. So fun.

Those biscuits sure are good, though.

Tuesday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, chicken soup

Long version: I had two chicken thighs left--from which I stripped off a surprisingly large quantity of meat--plus about a cup of gravy. I used these to make soup by adding onion, celery, carrot, potatoes, frozen peas, some venison stock from the freezer, and a bit of thyme. The soup wouldn't have been enough on its own. Thus, cheeseburgers.

Wednesday

Short version: Pot roast, rice, frozen peas

Long version: Long, long ago, in the ancient days before we had children, A. and I took a trip to Corning, New York. There you can visit the Corning Museum of Glass, which we did, and also buy a really, really big stainless-steel saute pan, which I did. I don't remember if this is something I got at a museum-affiliated kitchen store or what, but I think of this trip every time I use this pan because every time, I kick myself for not getting the matching lid.

That's a lot of kicking, because I use this big, straight-sided pan anytime I want to cook something acidic that would be bad for my cast iron skillets. Like this pot roast, which I cooked in tomato juice and which I had to cover with the cast iron lid from my really big cast-iron skillet.

The cast-iron lid fits, but I wish I had a glass or aluminum one. I've been wishing this for, what, 12 years now? Let this be a lesson to you, children: Always buy the matching lid. And perhaps the lesson to me is that I can probably just go on Amazon and get a matching lid for like ten bucks and not get mad at myself every time I make pot roast. Would that qualify as "self-care"?

Thursday

Short version: It's a Skillet Special! Plus pinto beans and the return of the squash.

Long version: Diced leftover pot roast, sauteed onions, mashed canned tomatoes, leftover rice, cumin, chile powder, grated cheddar cheese. There's dinner.

I used some of the liquid from the pot roast in the beans, and that was it besides salt and water. I didn't over-salt them this time. Yay me.

And yes, this was The Squash. The squash I spent a whole week trying to finish before finally giving up and freezing a quart-bag full. There had been enough of an absence for my fondness for squash to return.

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

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

The first time I saw this house and property, I cried.

It wasn't the hideous paneling that reduced me to tears, or the mustard-yellow plastic kitchen counters and avocado-green plastic bathtubs original to the 1970s single-wide trailer. No, bad as those things were (and, in the latter case, still are), it was the glass and metal littering the ground that did it.

The entire back pasture--an area that encompasses approximately half an acre of bare dirt--glittered with broken glass and bristled with old nails.

Meticulous landscaping was not one of Dale's interests.

I walked around this junkyard while Dale showed me the old pig pens and chicken coop, and as I went back to the car to buckle the children in, I literally had tears in my eyes. This was where I was going to raise my children? This junked property that resembled a miniature war-torn city was where my crawling baby would play outside?

And so, I cried. Just a little.

Even at the time, I realized this was ridiculously dramatic*. It was just glass and metal. Nothing a little work couldn't fix.

Or, as it turned out, a lot of work. A lot of stooped, tedious, drawn-out work.

A. conceived of a very clever method for getting up most of the metal. He attached a big roller magnet to a long-handled metal rake. This way, he can rake the dirt, and the nails and so on stick to the magnet. This is still a lot of work, but at least he has a tool to help him.

Perhaps he can launch a line of tools under the Woodchuck Man brand name.

The bits of broken glass, however? There's no tool for that. Nothing for it but to pick each piece up individually. And so, I have.

Thankfully, this is something I can do while the children play outside. Especially now that Poppy is big enough to walk around and mostly entertain herself outside.

Where "entertainment"=climbing up on a cinder block and falling off over and over again. It's like woodchuck step aerobics.

There's a box that stays in the back pasture that I am steadily filling with pieces of glass.

There have been other boxes with glass in them that have already gone to the dump, but this is the most recent.

Yesterday I found a disposable coffee cup blowing around and within 10 minutes had filled it with the junk under the clothesline, so it's not just the pasture that needs some work.

A. has big plans for an orchard and vineyard in that pasture, which would certainly be an improvement over the bare dirt, but first we have to get rid of all the glass and nails. A. sourly remarked that it would have been a lot more fun to be here when all those bottles of beer were being drunk and used for target practice. True. But he's raked almost all of the pasture, and I've picked up most of the glass, so we're getting there.

And I don't feel like crying anymore when I see the back pasture, so big improvements all around. 

* It had been a very long day with the children because A. had been gone all day, so I wasn't at my strongest mentally or emotionally anyway.

The State of the Lettuce

I know you were all consumed with curiosity about how the lettuce is doing. No? Well, you're about to find out anyway.

The lettuce is going to take over the world. As always, I planted too many seeds. In my defense, however, lettuce seeds are tiny and it's almost impossible to drop them singly in an evenly spaced manner.

That said, I think about 100 lettuce plants may be excessive. A., however, won't let me discard a single one of the infant lettuces, and so he's been busily building sunken cold frames for them to be transplanted into.

Using scrap wood and old windows and doors left behind by previous owners in the shed. Our motto: Have junk, will farm.

I used the very first one he made last week to plant out the lettuces still remaining in their original seeding container--the very fancy disposable roasting pan with holes punched in the bottom. They were getting too big for it and I didn't have any more pots.

I am very mean to seedlings. I didn't harden them off or anything, I just filled the cold frame bed with soil and composted manure and planted them right in there. They were a little shocked at being so abruptly cut off from their tropical indoor paradise, but they survived.

Sorry, lettuces. I got no time for plant coddling.

We had several very warm days, and even some nights when it didn't freeze, but it's going to get very cold again so I'm leaving the rest of the potted seedlings inside for now.

In their very classy busted laundry basket.

Those grow lights, incidentally, are the hated fluorescent lights I banished from my kitchen. They hang perfectly across the sides of the laundry basket, though, so the basket doesn't need to be under a window. Thanks for leaving us your crappy lights, Dale! And your crappy windows and doors and old particle board.

Junk-Farmer Salad, here I come.

Friday Food: A Very Random Week

Friday

Short version: Breakfast sausage links, leftover potatoes, green peas

Long version: Cubby and A. were gone this night. They drove over three hours so Cubby could attend a hunter education class and get his hunting license. The class was two days, so they stayed overnight. I had to pack all their food, as the town the class was in only has one restaurant, and it closes at 3 p.m. Their motel room had a refrigerator and microwave, though, so they had leftover taco meat with tortillas and cheese.

I had to take the other kids with me to the tiny store in the village because we were out of basically everything--even cheese, which is pretty much an emergency in our house--so I got a package of the sausage links the boys love. I had some leftover steak and vegetables, because I do not love sausage links.

Saturday

Short version: Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole, frozen green beans

Long version: "Casserole" means an opportunity to exercise my kitchen creativity. Otherwise known as making it all up. This was a good one, though, so I will write it out here so I remember what I did. And then you also have the benefit of one of my dubious "recipes."

You are so welcome.

Okay! So, three pieces of bacon diced and fried to render the fat, then removed from the skillet and most of the fat poured out of the skillet. (And saved! Never throw out bacon fat.) Then three pounds of ground beef browned, one chopped onion, three cloves of garlic (there sure are a lot of threes in here), three (another one!) medium potatoes grated, about a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, some random leftover tomato juice (maybe half a cup), two tomatoes left in a can that I diced up and threw in there, a few tablespoons of ketchup, and a couple of tablespoons of Dijon mustard. I added some water and simmered all of this until the potato shreds were pretty soft, then spread it all in a Pyrex pan. To that I mixed in two eggs beaten with a bit of cream, sprinkled the bacon on top, then four ounces shredded extra-sharp cheese and some fresh ground pepper. Baked at 350 degrees until it was bubbling and the cheese was melted.

Everyone liked this. Charlie--Charlie!--said it was "very good," both he and Jack ate two helpings, and even Poppy ate a shocking amount of it. Winner.

Also, while I was putting this together in the afternoon, I decided it was the perfect time to paint the weird former pass-through right above the kitchen sink that is now boarded over. No sense just standing around while the bacon renders, right?

Besides, this is what it looked like before:

They say you should live with your house for awhile before making any changes. I say living with that institutional fluorescent light and a towel rack meant for a giant for almost two months was about two months too long.

You can see why I was so motivated to do something about that situation, even if that something involved painting in the same kitchen I was cooking in.

Anyway, it looks better now:

The lamp is not actually dented on the right side. Must be a trick of the light. Also, do you like how it highlights the row of knives on my new magnetic strip? A bit demented in several ways.

And I didn't even get any paint in the food! My multi-tasking medal is on its way, I'm sure.

Sunday

Short version: Ribeye steaks, rice, roasted carrots/bell pepper/onion/mushrooms, grape tomatoes, brownies

Long version: Another Sunday, another dessert. I used this recipe for the brownies, and I will totally endorse it. The reason I approve of this recipe is . . . well, there are several reasons. For one, it only requires one bowl. For another, it only calls for cocoa powder, but makes very rich and chocolatey brownies. Hooray for no chopping of chocolate. I HATE chopping chocolate. And lastly, it makes a reasonable quantity of brownies. I do not need a 9x13 pan of brownies. NO ONE needs a 9x13 pan of brownies, unless you're making brownies for a party, I suppose.

Do note, however, that there is no leavener in the recipe, so if cake-like brownies are your thing, this recipe is not for you. These are very dense and more fudgey.

Anyway. They were easy, and good, and I'm going to write that recipe down for future reference. Two of my personal notes: I had to bake them for about 40 minutes before they were done, instead of the 25 minutes suggested in the original recipe. Part of that is my high altitude, though. And despite the recipe stressing to use the best possible cocoa powder, I used Hershey's because that's what I had, and they were still good. I'm sure they'd be better with better cocoa powder, but don't be deterred if you don't have Valrhona or whatever on hand.

That was a lot of words about brownies. All you really need to know is that they were crowd-approved.

And here the crowd is, working on retrieving a tiny Lego piece that fell in the heating vent. They got it in the end, only to eventually lose it for good when I found it one too many times in Poppy's mouth. Stick with the brownies, baby. They taste better and are much less likely to choke you.

Monday

Short version: Pulled pork, leftover rice, carrot and apple slaw

Long version: I didn't have any cabbage, but I did have two green apples that Charlie had asked me to buy at the store. So I just used one grated apple and three grated carrots with my usual coleslaw recipe. It was a bit sweeter than regular coleslaw, but everyone except Cubby really liked it. Yes! Cubby this time, not Charlie! These kids like to keep me guessing.

Tuesday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, garlic bread, roasted sweet potatoes and onions, green salad

Long version: I had to take Jack back to the clinic in the larger village for another try at getting his four-year vaccinations*, so we went to the grocery store while we were there, obviously. And I bought one of those plastic containers of pre-washed organic baby spring mix.

I do not ever buy those plastic containers. The greens never taste very good and always seem to be just on the verge of rotting. Plus, plastic makes me unhappy. It was a moment of weakness, perhaps brought on by the proximity of so many lettuce plants in my house that I can't eat yet. My options for lettuce at the store were romaine--which seems to constantly be the subject of e. coli alerts--iceberg, and this seemingly out of place organic spring mix. It looked completely unwilted, so I took a chance on it. It was okay. Better than iceberg or e. coli, but I really can't wait to have my own lettuce in my backyard.

Now I need to find a use for the plastic container, too. Maybe I'll use it to start my basil seeds.

Wednesday

Short version: Tacos, sick-mom soup

Long version: I started to feel a cold coming on, so of course, I immediately made some soup. Cubby comes by his love of soup from his maternal side. This soup was bacon, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, tomato juice, vermouth, collards, cabbage, potatoes, and chicken stock.

I ate mine just with cheese--extra-sharp cheddar, and thank you, Cracker Barrel, for distributing good cheese so widely that I can even find it at the tiny grocery store near me. The rest of the family was going to get eggs, but then I discovered A. had brought back almost all of the taco meat I had packed for their weekend overnight trip, so they got to have tacos instead. Lucky them.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover soup, grilled cheese sandwiches

Long version: Still sick. All my soup got eaten and it's all gone now, though. Bummer.

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

*  We were only partially successful, as they were out of one of the vaccines he needed. So we have to go back. That's another 120 miles roundtrip. I was very not pleased about this.