It's Starting!

 The tomatoes are starting:

We're not at crazy levels yet, but I eagerly anticipate that in a few weeks.

The preserving is starting:

Green beans, basil pesto, and both diced and shredded calabacita (which can be used just like zucchini), all destined for the freezer.

And the third round of lettuce harvesting is starting. The commercial variety A. got--Grand Rapids--has proven to be a trooper in our hot sun.

It's the most wonderful time of the year . . .

Fancy-pants

Poppy recently discovered the bag of dress-up clothes and jewelry my mother left here last time she visited. I had hidden the bag in my closet, intending to save it for a literal rainy (or snowy) day, when indoor distractions are more necessary. 

She found it*, though, and I can't be too annoyed, because just look at this:

She also brushed her own hair just before this, which is why it has so much, ahem, volume.

(Sparkly pants courtesy of my sister-in-law, who sent some of my niece's outgrown things and this pair of pants immediately became the favorites here.)

She actually decided she doesn't like the tiaras, so I might have to wear those myself.

This girl has zero examples of ultra-feminine style. I certainly don't fill that roll, and the only other inhabitants of this household are bucks. If you'll pardon the woodchuck expression. 

So I guess this great desire for sparkly things is just hardwired.

And also hilarious.

* She found it because I had to clear everything out of the closet to investigate the mouse scurryings we were hearing at four in the morning. Which is when I discovered the little cache of nuts the rodent had stolen from the pantry and secreted away in between the folds of a blanket. GROOOOOOSSSSSS.

Sunny

Despite some efforts at planting flowers, I have mostly been unsuccessful thus far in growing anything decorative on this property. Luckily for me and my desire to have flowers on tables, however, there are wild sunflowers growing all along the ditches on our road. I have taken to bringing a few of those inside to put in the old milk bottle that serves as my very fancy vase on the table.

A couple of days ago, I realized that the sun comes in through the kitchen window at just the right angle at about 7:15 every evening to do this:

 Spotlight on the sunflowers (and the ornamental sage).

It reminded me of this. Naturally spotlighted flowers are apparently a theme for me.

I also just realized that today is Sunday. I find all this much more entertaining than is probably warranted.

That's all. Happy Sunday. (Ha.)

Friday Food: So Much Tame Meat

Friday

Short version: Green chili hamburger soup, cheese

Long version: When I took out some of the Sysco ground beef from the chest freezer, I grabbed a container of frozen chicken stock, too. It was cool enough for soup, so I made Miss Amelia's green chili soup.

All it is is the ground beef and chicken stock plus onion, garlic, celery, carrots, and potatoes. And the roasted green chili of course. We have a LOT of green chilis now, because we still had a cup or so of the ones we roasted and froze last fall, and then Miss Amelia has now given me probably four more cups of ones she roasted and froze.

Fine with me. Soup season will be upon us before you know it, and everyone likes this soup.

Random photo break!

I'm not entirely sure what was happening here. She said something about loading cattle, so maybe these are her cowgirl duds?

Saturday

Short version: Pork sirloin chops, curried split peas, rice, garlic bread, roasted green beans, fried cabbage/onions/carrots

Long version: I didn't really intend on making doubles of proteins, starches, and vegetables, but that's what happened. And that meant double the pots and pans to wash. Downer.

Sunday

Short version: Brisket, boiled potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, shortbread

Long version: I cooked the brisket overnight in the oven again. It's the only way to do it in the summer without getting the kitchen to sauna conditions by dinnertime.

Cubby chose the shortbread for our Sunday dessert. "It only has three ingredients! It'll be so easy!" he said.

Yeah, no.

I've made this recipe before, and it was as I remembered it: Sort of dry and difficult to roll out. I added some extra butter and then, after a first failed attempt at rolling, a couple of tablespoons of water. Cubby was very pleased with how it came out, though, and it is nice to have a dessert that can be made with ingredients we always have. Plus, very little sugar.

Monday

Short version: Pork stir-fry, rice

Long version: I had just a few of the sirloin chops left, which are pretty lean, so I cut them up for stir-fry. The vegetables were mostly carrots and frozen green beans, although I did throw in a few banana peppers from the garden.

These carrots Cubby harvested from the garden for me did not go into the stir-fry:

Because the locust-children devoured them shortly after harvest.

Tuesday

Short version: Italian sliders, pasta with Finny's sauce, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: Italian sliders are small hamburgers with meatball seasonings. The ground beef came from a friend of mine. After hearing me complain about how gross ground beef from the store is*, she just up and gave me four pounds of the ground beef they get as part of her husband's compensation as a ranch manager.

Benefit of living in cattle country. 

I gave her some green beans and promised her some sauerkraut when it was done sauering, which seemed to please her, so we were both happy.

Wednesday

Short version: Bunless hamburgers, leftover pasta, frozen green peas

Long version: Dinners are never very complicated on days when we take a trip to the Outside World. It's very tiring to spend three hours running errands with three hours driving thrown in, too.

I had just enough of the good ground beef left to make a hamburger for each of us, and then A. finished the leftover brisket.

Thursday

Short version: Pork chops, rice, sauteed green beans, sauerkraut

Long version: I canned another batch of sauerkraut and saved some to have with our pork chops. Pork and sauerkraut is just so good. Good thing we had all those Megatons. We should have some mega sauerkraut this winter, which I'm sure will come in very handy.

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

* I know. You'd want to be my friend, too, I'm sure.

All Them Lights

Several years ago, A. and I watched a documentary about cowboys in Texas. I think it was cowboys. At any rate, it was definitely about people living in rural Texas. 

I've obviously forgotten almost everything about that documentary except this young guy who said he could never live in a city, because (cue heeeeaavy Texas drawl), "All them lights."

It has become a running joke between A. and me. We say it a lot. And we have a lot of opportunity to say it, given the fact that we live somewhere with almost no outside lights for miles.

In fact, yesterday was the first time in five months that I've seen a traffic light.

Does that seem impossible to you? Yeah. It was kind of surprising to me too when I realized it, but it's definitely true.

See, there are no traffic lights in our county, and, due to the world's descent into craziness, I have not left our county since March. A. has been our designated Outside World representative all that time, since I really had no desire to drive 90 miles just to make my children wear masks and fail to distance themselves from other people.

So we haven't left the county. And honestly, I didn't think much about it until yesterday when we drove to one of the tiny cities so Charlie could get a vaccination for school.

Everyone else came, too. My plan was for A. to watch the kids at the park while they ate their picnic lunch and I went to the grocery store. 

And that is how I found myself driving in actual traffic with actual lights for the first time in half a year.

It took me an hour and a half to get through my shopping--mostly due to the quantity of food I buy at one time--and we discovered that's about the amount of time the children actually want to stay at a playground. We never let them stay that long, so we didn't know that's when they finally reach playground satiety, but they were ready to get in the car by the time I got back to them.

I was ready to get in the car and come home, too. All them lights, you know.

How Does My Garden Grow

Does it seem like all I ever write about is food? Yeah, pretty much.

However!

I used to write more about where my food came from, in the form of somewhat frequent garden updates. I sort of got out of the habit of bringing my camera outside to document the growing things, though. But really, is there anything more entertaining than looking at other people's weedy gardens?*

Of course not. So I took my camera outside to give you a (partial) pictorial tour of our sprawling gardens. Let's go!

The second round of Megaton cabbages are just starting to make heads, nestled in their bed against the house, where they get slightly less sun and slightly more water from roof run-off.

The tomato plants got WAY BIGGER than I expected this year. Much bigger than last year, which means I didn't put in big-enough supports to tie them to. There are a LOT of tomatoes on those nine plants and I am so excited for a glut of tomatoes in a few weeks. Barring any catastrophic hail storms, which is a definite possibility here.

After a complete failure transplanting the Moon and Stars watermelons we started indoors, A. put the rest of the seeds in containers against the house, and now we have three fairly large watermelons growing in there. These siblings might have to get moved apart somehow as they get bigger.

This is the backyard garden. The tomato plants are to the right of where I'm standing, and the cabbages are to the left. In those classy tires are some banana peppers A. bought from a nursery. There are a few lettuces among the peppers, and the various kinds of winter squash are, of course, taking over everything. Next year I am NOT putting ANY squash back here. 

Another planting of winter squash. A. stuck these seeds in the ground against that wall in January, just to see what would happen. You can see what happened. Squash really likes it here. There's also a fig tree in that circle of rocks that has about half a dozen figs on it.

Why, is that more squash? YES, YES IT IS. We put these in to see if squash would grow in our back pasture, where there is no shelter from the brutal sun and wind. And the squash said, "BRING IT ON."

There are some more things I didn't take pictures of: basil, green beans, carrots, asparagus, a volunteer watermelon in the backyard that A. is very enthused about.

And! We just pulled out the old Megaton plantation to make way for new beds of carrots, snow peas, sprouting broccoli, and collards for the fall. We hope.

I might have to bring the camera out again for Round Two. Get excited.

*It's actually probably more entertaining to look at those perfectly mulched and mostly weed-free gardens, but much more relatable to see people growing food in the midst of the encroaching weeds. And I am nothing if not relatable, right? Right.

Friday Food: Sausage to Start, Sausage to End

Friday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, boiled potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: I had a staff meeting at school in the afternoon and needed something quick to cook. Breakfast sausage patties fit the bill.

Saturday

Short version: A variety of meats, rice, raw green beans

Long version: I had just a few uncooked pork country ribs, and then leftover hamburgers and brisket, so those were divided up among the family. Nothing like a smorgasbord of meat to ensure that everyone wants what his brother has.

Sunday

Short version: Fancy steaks, roasted potatoes, roasted green beans, Christmas-in-July cookies

Long version: My parents sent us a variety box of steaks from The Kansas City Steak Company for our anniversary. Since Sunday was our actual anniversary, I made some of the steaks for our celebratory meal. I chose the porterhouse and filet mignon. Two of each, and almost all the meat got eaten. They were really good.

Each box of steaks came with a packet of "Steak Seasoning." The actual spices weren't listed on the packets, but it seemed to be just coarsely ground pepper, salt, and maybe onion powder. In any case, one packet was way more than I needed for the four steaks I cooked, and since there were five boxes (one for each kind of steak), that means I'm going to have a LOT of Steak Seasoning. Luckily, it is also good for roasted potatoes.

The green beans came from our garden. The kids ate theirs raw, as is their habit, but the rest I roasted with olive oil and garlic and man, I just love roasted green beans.

Break for a photo of the food:

And just a few of my rather large cast-iron pan collection.

Miss Amelia called on Saturday to ask if we would take some extra food she was given that she couldn't eat herself and when we went to get it, she gave me two boxes of food. Mostly canned things and dry split peas and rice, but also a bag with different cookies for the children.

Some of the cookies were clearly Christmas cookies, in the shape of bells and gingerbread men and so on. I don't know how one has Christmas cookies in July--maybe they were in her freezer?--but the children didn't care. I tasted one, and they tasted fine, so sure. Christmas in July.

Monday

Short version: Pork steaks, rice, frozen peas

Long version: Nope.

Tuesday

Short version: Ground beef tacos

Long version: The Sysco chub is back!

Wow. That sounded gross. The meat's kind of gross, too, to be honest, but it was fine for taco meat.

I had the best of intentions to make my own tortillas for the first time in awhile, but those good intentions never became reality. As is so often the sad case with good intentions. It's just been too hot lately for tortilla-making to be appealing.

Whatever. The kids ate their store-bought tortillas with nary a word.

Wednesday

Short version: Chicken, rice, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: More of the chicken leg quarters that I separated into thighs and drumsticks.

Have I mentioned how much I loathe separating chicken leg quarters? Breaking the joint, slicing through the flabby skin, keeping a good grasp on the slippery, clammy meat, trying to not get raw chicken juices everywhere . . .

Not my favorite.

Anyway.

I put the chicken to marinate in the morning in olive oil, vinegar, garlic powder, salt, and dried basil. Also in the morning, I made a batch of Finny's sauce. I made it with canned tomatoes and balsamic vinegar in place of the red wine and even with those dubious substitutions, it is still the best tomato sauce ever. My plan was to make something like a non-breaded chicken Parmesan.

But then when dinnertime came I ended up just browning the chicken on the stove and finishing it in a 400-degree oven. And instead of the rest of the fresh homemade pasta from the freezer I was going to cook, I just served leftover rice.

Some nights are like that. But at least I managed to make the ranch dressing, right? Right.

Thursday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, homemade pasta, green salad with ranch dressing, banana muffins

Long version: It was nice to have the sauce already made for the pasta. It made for a very easy meal.

Although the pasta didn't seem to suffer in texture from freezing, it did taste a bit like freezer. Probably because I had it in my small freezer above the refrigerator. It probably would have been better off in the chest freezer. Anyway, once the sauce was on, it wasn't too noticeable. The children certainly didn't notice it.

I made the muffins because when A. went to the post office the previous day he returned with bananas and rice. Not in the mail, but from the lady who runs our post office. People just give us food ALL THE TIME. Must be because of all these kids we have.

The bananas were, curiously, still green on the outside, but pretty mushy on the inside. Cubby really wanted to make banana bread with them, but I made banana muffins instead, so I wouldn't have to have the oven on for an hour to bake the bread.

I used this recipe, but with all-purpose flour instead of whole wheat, and none of the sprinkled stuff on top, and they were good. Definitely not as shockingly sweet as most banana bread/muffin recipes.

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