Monday Bouquet: Singular

I left the small jar of sunflowers on the table last week for most of the week. Long enough that they were looking pretty sad when I finally got around to replacing them. That happens when I'm working more.

That's why I only had one new arrangement last week.

Most of the sunflower patches on the side of the road look like this now.

Less flowery, more seedy.

It took some searching, but I did manage to find a couple of very small sunflowers for the replacement arrangement.

Plus sage and dried grass heads.

We anticipate a killing frost anytime in October, so we'll see if I can continue to find a sunflower or two a week until then.

I hope you have a lovely Monday, with or without flowers.

Snapshots: Wood Stacking, Walking, and Blue Sky

We bought two cords of wood for winter this year again, which means I had to mobilize my woodstacking army to get it all stacked in the porch.

In this case, "mobilize" is a euphemism for "bribe with chocolate milk."

Half an hour of stacking for a glass of chocolate milk. Anyone who stacked an extra fifteen minutes got an extra spoonful of syrup in their milk.

I'd never made chocolate milk before, so I used this recipe and made 1/3 of the total amount for the chocolate syrup. It was a hit, and all four children chose to do the extra time to get extra syrup. Twice. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon. Which means I got four kids working for 1.5 hours stacking wood. They got about half of it done. 

One more batch of chocolate syrup today and it should all be stacked.

Let's see what else . . .

The school play was on Friday evening, so I took the chance that everyone would sleep on Saturday morning and went for a walk as soon as it was light enough to see.

Windmill awaiting the sunrise.

The dogs were very excited to finally get an early morning walk.

It's never too early for Jasper the Perpetually-Alert Dog.

And lastly, A. took a single picture with my camera last weekend when he took the older boys fishing in various places across northern New Mexico.

You can tell it's New Mexico because of that blue sky.

And there you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Never Done, Indeed

Friday 

Short version: Chicken salad sandwiches, cucumbers

Long version: A., Cubby, and Calvin weren't home. Cubby had an away game that was seven hours away (that's crazy even for here), and rather than making him come home on the bus that night and not get home until after midnight, A. decided to go and bring him home, stopping to fish in the mountains on the way home. Calvin wanted to go, too, but it was too much driving for the younger two, so they stayed here with me.

They had the sandwiches, made with the last of the leftover chicken breast from Sunday's giant roasted chicken. 

Saturday

Short version: Green chile beef stew, garlic bread

Long version: I wasn't sure if the travelers would be returning this night, so I made something that would keep if they got home late. They ended up staying one more night in the mountains, so it was just the three of us for dinner again.

I was very, very tired and not into making dinner by the afternoon, because I spent the entire day in the kitchen dealing with the 30 or so pounds of apples a very kind lady brought us. She has five apple trees, and had heard from one of the teachers at school that we could use them. She dropped them off on Friday, and I spent Saturday making applesauce and canning it. 

I felt like I would never get out of the kitchen.

The title of this book I'm currently reading seemed particularly apropros.

Sunday

Short version: Beef stir-fry, rice, apple crisp with whipped cream

Long version: The butcher we used this time for the steer we bought from our neighbor was a new place for us, and the first place that ever asked me if I wanted any of the meat cut into stir-fry strips.

Well, YEAH.

I make stir-fry a lot, and if I can get someone else to cut up the meat for me, I am all for it. Especially if I use the bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables--which I usually do nowadays--it makes for a very quick meal.

I didn't make the kids do their bathroom chores this week, so I got to choose the dessert. And I chose apple crisp. I made a big 9x13 one and used up the very last of all those apples. 

I WIN.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: Work day! Which you could probably tell from the leftoveres.

A., Calvin, and Poppy had leftover roast beef, rice, and cucumbers. Jack, Cubby, and I had the hamburger stew. Everyone had the last of the apple crisp.

Tuesday

Short version: Beef ribs, pasta, raw green beans, calabacitas

Long version: There were several packages of ribs at the top of the freezer, so I pulled those out and cooked them a few hours.

Not long enough. They were still a bit tough, so I pulled the meat off, cut it up smaller, and simmered it for awhile with barbecue sauce to get it a bit more tender.

Egg noodles with just butter, salt, and garlic powder. 

And the zucchini-like calabacitas fried in olive oil with onion, tomatoes, and garlic. I love this. It's one of my favorite things in summer, and I can eat it with just about everything.

Wednesday

Short version: Meatloaf, leftover pasta, frozen green peas

Long version: I mixed and formed the meatloaves in the morning so I could put them in when I got home from work. I made them on the smaller side so they would cook faster, but they still took almost an hour. 

On the upside, I did not have to be frying hamburgers or something during that hour, because the baking meatloaves take no hands-on cooking. Always appreciated after work.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers, canned clam chowder

Long version: Cubby had a home football game at 6 p.m., so the rest of us had dinner before we left. A. had the barbecue beef ribs, tomatoes and pickles, and some yogurt. I had leftover meatloaf and coleslaw. The kids had meatloaf, pasta, and coleslaw.

The coleslaw was just a small bowl of this recipe that I made because when I was starting to slice cabbage with the food processor to make sauerkraut, I accidentally put the shredding disc on instead. So I shredded a carrot to go with the accidental shredded cabbage and made some coleslaw.

Cubby had the chowder when he got home. I recently bought a box of six cans of it online for him, because he loves seafood of all kinds, so he's quite happy to eat this soup. And even though it's in a can, it doesn't have any sketchy ingredients. Yay.

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

T.T.: Efficient Food Processing

If you've been reading here a long time--a reeeeally long time, like 12 years--you might remember this post about Rita the Puppy and her nighttime potty issue. The MiL was out of town at the time, which is why I was taking care of Rita. And when the MiL got back, she felt so bad about the inconvenience caused by Rita that she bought me a food processor.

I have mentally thanked Rita many times for that food processor over the years.

However. 

As much as I appreciate having a food processor when it comes time to shred three gallons of cabbage for sauerkraut or whatever, I do not like hauling the thing out and washing its many pieces. Which is why I make sure that I make the most of it when I do.

I never, ever use the food processor for only one thing. A common sequence for me is making breadcrumbs first, then making pesto, then making a marinara sauce. I don't have to even rinse the food processor out in between, because I don't care if small bits of breadcrumbs are in the pesto, or if the pesto is in the marinara.

When doing this, keep in mind that the purpose is to not have to actually wash it in between uses. So the first use should be for a food that doesn't have fat in it, like shredding vegetables, because then it can just be rinsed out and re-used.

Last time I used the food processor, I first used it to shred cabbage and carrots for coleslaw, then I shredded asadero cheese to freeze. I had had shredding the cheese in the back of my mind for a few days, but I waited until I was using the food processor for something else before doing the cheese.

Coleslaw on the left, cheese on the right. And shreds of each all over the counter, because shredding is messy.

I suppose this sort of goes along with my habit of trying to use dishes more than once to save on having to wash so many. So I guess your takeaway from this can be that I'm always looking for ways to reduce dishes. And that efficiency makes me happy.

Monday Bouquets: The Sunflowers Soldier On

The sunflowers are definitely waning. They're smaller, and most of them are in pretty poor condition from insect damage. But I did find some for this week's table flowers.

One with the inevitable sage.

And one with just sunflowers.

I hope you have a lovely Monday, with or without flowers.

Snapshots: Morning Light and Stacked Animals

You know what the boys really love? When A. goes in to wake them, warbling "Morning Has Broken." He has no ear for music, but he makes up for it with volume and dramatic delivery. 

This is a much more pleasant way to start the day.

Much quieter, too.

I almost always take photos of the the road I walk on as I'm walking away from our house. This is what it looks like when I'm on my way home.

Hello, trusty bus.

The trumpet vines that are choking out my green beans by the front fence are annoying, but they put on a nice display for anyone driving by in the morning.

Unfortunately for them, I value food much more than aesthetics, so next year they will be severely curtailed.

We have a metal bunk bed on our covered porch that was left there by the previous owner. I think his nephews used to sleep out there when they visited, maybe? I don't know. It's ugly and weird and I really want to get it out of the porch. * 

The animals, however, find this bed to be very useful. Odin spends almost all his time either under the bed on the ground, or on the lower bunk. The chickens also find it a very comfortable place to lay their eggs. I came out the other day to find Odin under the bed, one chicken on the lower bunk, and yet another chicken on the top bunk.

It was hard to get a photo that showed all three animals, and the best I got was this one where you can just see Odin's paws underneath and the top-bunk chicken's tail.

It was very amusing to me, in any case. 

And there you have it! My life, snapshotted.

* Yes, we have lived here for three years now. We've had more-pressing concerns when it comes to home improvement.

 

Friday Food: So Much Beef

Yeah, I accidentally published this on Thursday night. But that's okay, because I was done cooking for this Friday Food week anyway.

Friday 

Short version: Before, during, and after football food

Long version: Cubby had a home football game at 4 p.m., so we all went. Before we left, the three remaining children had some leftover cream of wheat. Calvin also had some leftover potatoes and pesto. A. had leftover steak, potatoes, and pesto, plus some tortillas and cheese. I had some yogurt.

During the game, we all ate cucumbers, carrot sticks, and raisins.

After the game, we stayed for the first half of the varsity game, and A. bought Cubby a hamburger at the concession stand. The rest of the kids had bread and peanut butter, and yogurt with maple syrup when we got home. 

I had the rest of the steak and potatoes. Cold, because woah it was HOT at that game, and I was not interested in raising my body temperature with hot food.

Saturday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, boiled potatoes, fried mushrooms, coleslaw

Long version: Hamburgers made with the first of the 150 pounds of ground beef* I got from our neighbor's steer. So much better than store ground beef. So, so much better. 

I used some of the small garden potatoes for boiling, and I did not bother peeling them. Too small and irritating. So when we sat down to eat, I announced it was a peel-your-own-potatoes meal, if anyone was offended by the peels.

Not a single child bothered to peel their potatoes. Alrighty then.

I made a half recipe of this coleslaw with the last of some pretty old store cabbage. I have a couple of heads of cabbage in the garden that are going to be ready to harvest soon, so I figured I'd better get rid of the old one first. The coleslaw was delicious. As always.

Sunday

Short version: Giant roasted chicken, roasted potatoes, roasted green beans, leftover broccoli, magic ice cream

Long version: There were two meat chickens left to butcher, and A. grabbed the rooster this time. It really was a giant chicken. We didn't weigh it, but it seriously looked like a young turkey.

Ready for Thanksgiving two months early.

The "magic" ice cream is a recipe from Cubby's ATK cookbook for kids. Calvin chose it for Sunday dessert and helped me make it.

It's ice cream that can be made without an ice cream maker, because instead of churning a custard base, the base is made with condensed milk. I had never tried condensed milk before, but I bought some just for this recipe. 

The recipe also includes a small amount of sour cream, quite a bit of softly whipped heavy cream, and a lot of melted chocolate chips.

I think the chocolate chips took it over the top in terms of sweetness, given the fact that the first ingredient in condensed milk is sugar. We'll try it again sometime (when I have 2.5 cups of cream on hand) minus the chocolate chips and maybe try flavoring it with frozen, unsweetened peaches or something.

Monday

Short version: Leftover chicken, bread and butter, leftover coleslaw, leftover ice cream

Long version: Look at all those leftovers. Must be a workday. I did at least fry the leftover diced chicken breast in olive oil, which makes it much tastier than microwaving or something. I also added lots of paprika, salt, and garlic powder, because that's what I add to almost everything.

Tuesday

Short version: Barbecue bull sandwiches, frozen peas

Long version: When I had the food processor out earlier in the week to make the coleslaw, I decided to experiment with processing the pressure-cooked bull meat, in an effort to further break it up and make it less stringy.

That worked. And that was the meat I mixed with barbecue sauce for the sandwiches. I also topped the meat with cheese, because the bull meat has no fat in it.

I made some buns for the kids while I was making bread earlier in the day. Unfortunately, I baked them too long and the bottoms got a little singed, but nothing a little scraping with a butter knife couldn't fix.

Wednesday

Short version: Ground beef tacos, carrot sticks

Long version: I had some ground beef left from when I made hamburgers earlier in the week, so I cooked the rest of it on Tuesday with salsa and chile powder to make taco meat that I could heat up for dinner when I got home from work. 

Corn tortillas, meat, cheese, and a can of kidney beans I accidentally opened when I was making roasted chickpeas awhile ago, and there's dinner.

Thursday

Short version: Roast beef, roasted potatoes, green beans

Long version: I happened to pull a rump roast out of the freezer, mostly because it was in the box that was on the top of our stuffed-full-of-beef freezers. So I made it into roast beef, with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and dried thyme, and roasted the potatoes along with it. And I made a sauce for it with Dijon mustard and heavy cream.

I put some green beans right on the pan with the beef and potatoes, too, because using only one cooking dish makes me happy.

I needed to get everything out of the pan while I was making the sauce, so I transferred everything to the cutting board.

Insta-worthy! If I, uh, had Instagram.

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

* This may sound like a lot of ground beef to you. It is. My philosophy with the processing of animals is that if I'm going to pay someone to do it, I'm going to have them do as much processing that requires time and equipment as possible. I can make stew meat easily from any of the animals we butcher at home. I cannot (and do not want to) make ground beef. So I get mostly ground beef instead of stew meat and big roasts.