Snapshots: Canning/Football Season

Never having been a football fan, I didn't realize that the two seasons coincide. But they sure do.

When I got home from Taos, I found many tomatoes and green beans needing to be harvested and stuffed into jars. So I did that.

With some help from Little Pinkie, of course.

I had planned on canning three quarts of dilly beans, but since I had the giant pot of water boiling already to can the beans, I decided to stick a couple of jars of tomatoes in there, too.

I didn't even peel the tomatoes. The Ball Blue Book does not approve.

A few days later, there were more tomatoes, more green beans, and WOAH CUCUMBERS.

The giant ones were hiding on the other side of the fence behind the calabaza leaves. And that little curly green bean there was all curled around its own stem, like a snake. (There were more green beans, but I sent a bunch to Miss Amelia via the children.) 

Because those were the Armenian cucumbers, they were not at all bitter, despite their size. The skins weren't even tough.

I made them into refrigerator dill pickles, this time with Calvin as my helper.

He proved to have a great talent for jamming those jars absolutely full.

While I was dealing with the giant cucumbers, A. and Jack were helping our neighbor with her garden. That included picking grapes for her. She sent them home with many pounds of grapes. 

I knew the kids would never be able to eat that many grapes, so I suggested A. try making them into wine. They're green Thompson seedless grapes, which are definitely not a wine grape, but A. is always up for an experiment.

All of the children took turns smashing the grapes to release their juices.

And now the top of my woodstove looks like this.

Grapes for eating, grapes fermenting, tomatoes awaiting roasting, and meat defrosting.

The volunteer carrots continue to appear and grow to surprisingly large sizes. These two I pulled from the back garden under the roof's dripline.

Teaspoon for scale.

I didn't can those, though.

And last, football.

Cubby had his first game of the year on Friday, at a school about two hours away. We all went. They lost, but they learned a lot.

I took all of three photos, but one of them is actually an action shot.

The farthest kid in the white who looks as if he's about to hit the ground is Cubby. He's trying to get the ball on a kickoff here. He got knocked to the ground by one of the opposing players, but still managed to crawl to the ball and grab it. And I missed the whole play, because I was taking pictures.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: So Much Fruit

Friday 

Short version: Pork chops, sauteed calabacita/tomato/green onion, snacks and vodka

Long version: This was one of two nights I was in Taos with my brother and sister. We had a late lunch at a Mexican diner when they arrived, so we cooked dinner at our rented condo pretty late. 

Because I am a peasant woman at heart, I travel with food. I had brought a bunch of garden vegetables with me, along with butter. So I sauteed diced calabacita in butter with some diced tomato, and green onion we had bought at the store. The pork chops also came from the store. My brother grilled those.

The snacks we had beforehand consisted of dilly beans I brought with me, plus tortilla chips and sharp cheddar cheese from the store. These accompanied vodka with lime and seltzer.

A very nice dinner, I must say.

The home crew had steaks and leftover spaghetti with tomato sauce.

Saturday

Short version: Tamales, sauteed green beans, peaches and cream, more snacks and vodka

Long version: Taos night #2, and another meal cooked at the condo. We had been walking around all day and were pretty worn out by the time we got back to the condo at 4 p.m. Luckily, we had purchased tamales and peaches at the farmers market in the morning, so it was an easy meal.

I steamed the tamales in a big skillet with a layer of knives and spoons on the bottom to hold the tamales out of the water.

Improvised tamale steamer.

The green beans came from my garden, and all I did with them was saute them in butter.

I also used the last of the tomatoes I brought with me, green onion, cumin I found in a cupboard, and a bit of the brine from the dilly beans to make a salsa for the tamales. What I really needed was some sour cream, because WOAH, those were some spicy tamales. As are all purchased tamales, in my experience.

The peaches were peeled, diced, sweetened with honey I found in the cupboard, and then doused in the heavy cream I had bought for coffee. The peaches could have used another day to fully ripen, but they were still good.

This night's snacks were pickled cucumbers I had made the day before by heating the brine from the dilly beans after all the beans were eaten and then adding the cucumber I had brought with me, sliced. My sister also made guacamole, which we ate with tortilla chips. And more vodka, lime, and selter.

I prepared most of this meal, and let me tell you how easy cooking for only three adults is. It was so much easier than my daily cooking, it didn't feel at all like a chore.

The home crew had man food. More on that momentarily, but first, a directional sign from a truck stop rest room on my way to Taos.

My sons were not amused. (I must admit I rolled my eyes at this, too.)

Sunday

Short version: Lasagna-ish skillet, strawberries and cream

Long version: While I was gone, A. discovered that almost two gallons of milk had soured. Loathe to waste that much milk, he looked up what to do with it, and ended up making two batches of ricotta with the sour milk and a bit of vinegar to separate it. 

You just never know what that man will do. I was very impressed.

The kids loved it and ate it plain, but he made a TON of ricotta. Like five cups. I used some in this meal.

A. made man food the day before, which consisted of ground beef, potatoes (from the garden, yay!), tomatoes, and rooster stock. The kids all liked it, and there was a LOT left over.

Using that as a base, I fried that in butter, then added some canned spaghetti sauce, garlic powder, frozen green peas, and the ricotta cheese A. had made. The end result was like lasagna, but without noodles. It was exceptionally good.

Strawberries were on sale for about the cheapest I'd ever seen at the store I stopped at before coming home. So I bought four pounds. We ate almost two pounds this night, sliced and covered in sugar and heavy cream. Yum.

Monday

Short version: Steak and mushrooms, rice, raw baby carrots, broccoli, watermelon

Long version: It is a tradition at our school that the history teacher grills steaks for every student and employee for lunch on the first day of school. There were about five steaks left over that the school cook had planned to use for something, but never did. 

Week-old cooked steaks can't be served at school, but I have no problem with it. I sliced them and fried them in butter with the mushrooms she also gave me.

The carrots and broccoli came from the school, too. They were left over from the salad bar last week.

The watermelon wasn't from school. It was from the first grocery store I went to in Taos with my brother and sister. I saw watermelons WITH SEEDS and could barely contain my excitement. These are the first real watermelons I've seen all summer, which is why we haven't had any watermelon yet this summer. 

It will probably be the only watermelon we have this year, so I'm very glad it was a good one.

Tuesday

Short version: Improvised pizza, leftover meat, green salad with vinaigrette, baked apples with cream

Long version: I spent most of the day harvesting tomatoes, green beans, and calabacitas in the garden, and then roasting tomatoes, green beans, and calabacitas in the kitchen.

 

The tomatoes, plus a couple of heads of garlic, basil, and balsamic vinegar, became roasted tomato sauce.

I was also making bread this day, so I used some of the dough to make pizza crust. Except I didn't have the pans I needed for stretching out the dough, because the pans had roasted vegetables on them. 

So instead, I just put a lump of dough on my smaller cookie sheet, roughly stretched it out, and then when it was baked, cut it in half longways to make two small pizza crusts. By that time, I had finished roasting the vegetables and could wash one of my big pans to put the crusts on.

I used the roasted tomato sauce for the pizza sauce, and A.'s ricotta cheese, some pre-shredded cheddar from the school cafeteria, and some shredded home cheddar for the cheese. One pizza had some finely diced ham that also came from the school cafeteria.

The lettuce and radishes in the salad were from the cafeteria, too. There really were a LOT of leftovers from the cafeteria last week.

Tomatoes and cucumbers from my garden, though.

And the apples for the baked apples were from the tree next to Rafael's house. A. and the kids picked them while I was gone. This variety doesn't break down enough to make applesauce, but it's okay for baked apple. Peeling and slicing that many small apples is definitely a labor of love, although baked apples are awfully good.

Wednesday

Short version: Taco meat, tortilla chips, watermelon

Long version: I used the rest of the ground beef man food, along with a bunch of sliced tomatoes left from the cafeteria, to make taco meat. I was out of tortillas, but I brought a bag of leftover tortilla chips home with me from Taos, so we used those to scoop up the meat.

And we finished the watermelon. I'm so happy that I found a real watermelon before the summer was over. I had pretty much given up for the year.

Thursday

Short version: T-bone steaks, leftover rice, leftover roasted calabaza and green beans, raw tomatoes, strawberries and cream

Long version: Did I go a little overboard buying fruit in Taos? Yes. Did anyone mind? No.

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

T.T.: Visit Taos

This post is a combination Snapshots/Tip, since the Snapshots have been pretty sad lately, and I just got back from Taos and think you should go there, too. 

Not that I expect you're all going to book your tickets right now. I mean, I've lived in New Mexico for four years and only just now went. But I'm glad I did.

My brother and sister flew into Albuquerque and we all drove to meet in Taos. My drive was through the mountains and featured the best and worst of Western mountain driving.

Best=spectacular views, cool air, wildflowers lining the roadsides, a rushing stream right next to the road.

Worst=switchbacks and getting frighteningly close to the crumbling edge of the road on turns.

Despite the challenges, I enjoyed going slow, windows down, radio on. That's a real roadtrip, in my opinion.

No photos of the mountain drive, as both hands must be on the wheel at all times. This was just before I got to the mountains, when I was stopped for construction. Still got the windows down and the radio on. At this very moment, Ozzy Osbourne's "Mama, I'm Coming Home" was playing. Great song.

Anyway! 

I made it to Taos, where the main drag was all torn up for construction and the traffic was terrible. Taos is meant to be walked, not driven.

Taos, in case you don't know, is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in North America. The Spanish first arrived there in 1540, and were settled there by the very early 1600s. Given that, it's no surprise that the history of Taos is very much Spanish and Catholic. And, later, the artists arrived.

I was more interested in the former than the latter, though, so that's what we spent our time on.

We went to the main Plaza to start our day of walking. It was interesting, and there is certainly a lot to see there, but as the farmers market was currently going, it was mostly a shopping experience. I like farmers markets, but this was almost interchangeable with almost any other large farmers market, and I wanted to see Taos, not booths. 

One of the shops we went into, though, was run by Benedictine monks, and there was a monk working there who told us about the Spanish family chapels that can still be found all over town. Five of the Spanish families that lived near each other would all fund the building of a chapel, and a priest would travel to each in turn to say Mass. Many of these can still be seen, although they aren't open right now, as a Covid holdover. 

We walked to one, though, that was on what used to be the original main plaza. 

I don't have a photo of that chapel, but this is the shrine at Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was also not open. Boo.

The monk also told us about San Francisco de Asis, which is a short drive from the plaza. This is an impressive building. It was built in the 1700s on the site of an earlier church. The parish has been there since the 1500s, I think the sign said.

The building itself is imposing. It's adobe, and the face it presents when you first drive in has no windows, so it looks like a Foreign Legion fortress in the middle of the desert.

The giant buttresses also reinforce that impression.

The front entrance.

The colorful altar.

And the view from the altar to the front door. It's a very long, narrow church, obviously.

We also went to the Martinez Hacienda, which is a museum housed in the Martinez family's very large and old adobe house. It's been preserved and all the rooms set up so it gives an idea of what it looked like and what it was like to live there.

I, of course, was most interested in the kitchen. (That shelf thing on the left with the ladder leaning up against it is actually a long bed, so the sleepers would have the benefit of the heat from the fireplace. Clever.)

We only had one full day, so that was all we managed to fit in. I'm sure there are other things to see in Taos, but that will have to wait for another trip.

Snapshots: World's Biggest Calabaza

I've been harvesting copious quantities of calabacitas from the five plants in the garden, but there are always a few that escape my notice and get to calabaza size before I see them.

Like this beast that was hiding near the fence.

It looks like a reasonable size in the photo . . .

Until I put my hand there for scale. YIKES.

A belated confession: I did not actually take any other new photos this week. Not much better than last week. 

However! By the time you read this, I am probably preparing to come back home from a weekend in Taos with my brother and sister. So next week, I should have some much more exciting snapshots for you.

For now, I will leave you with this one of A. and I on our wedding day many, many years ago.

Nineteen years and a lot of gray hairs ago, to be exact.

There you have it! My life (minimally) snapshotted.

Friday Food: Hangin' in There

Friday 

Short version: Pork chops, rice, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: The pork chops were still frozen in a solid lump when I put them in a skillet with a bit of water, salt, a few Roma tomatoes, and the rest of an onion from Cubby's morning onion omelet. I simmered them until they were tender, and then poured off the liquid. At dinnertime I fried the tender chops in bacon grease with some of A.'s rib rub on them to make them crispy and more flavorful.

I used the strained liquid from the pork for the rice, plus a bunch of butter, and got many compliments. Easy audience.

Saturday

Short version: Fried bottom round steak pieces, garlic bread, raw green beans, summer skillet

Long version: I always get a package of bottom round steaks out intending to make chicken fried steak and . . . then I don't. Too lazy, I guess.

This time I just cut the steaks into small pieces and fried them in butter with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. 

More calabacitas, tomatoes, and garlic? Yup. Until the freeze, anyway.

Sunday

Short version: Meatballs; spaghetti; raw green beans; roasted calabacitas, green beans, and sweet potatoes; chocolate-covered peanut butter balls

Long version: It was too hot to have the oven on for meatballs, but I did it anyway. Mostly because I had made pesto this day, and then used the food processor to also puree some tomatoes and cooked those down on the stove. So the meatballs were baked with some of the tomato/pesto sauce, and the rest went onto the spaghetti with some heavy cream.

Because I roast meatballs at a high temperature in the oven rather than frying/simmering them, I also put a bunch of vegetables to roast at the same time. If they are cooked, they will be eaten. And a couple of the children discovered that they actually really like roasted calabacitas. Hooray. We have PLENTY to roast.

Also tomatoes and green beans in larger quantities.

Monday

Short version: First day of school celebration! With leftovers.

Long version: The first day of school is also a work day for me, and this one was a doozy. I was very glad there were lots of leftovers that just needed to be heated in the microwave.

Meatballs, spaghetti, rice, and roasted vegetables got everyone fed. Hooray.

I also brought home two leftover cinnamon rolls that had been in the office since last week's teacher in-service, so each child had half a cinnamon roll. Who says I don't do anything special to celebrate the first day of school?

Well, I say. But they did appreciate the cinnamon rolls. And I was very proud of myself for not stress-eating the cinnamon rolls or doughnuts that were in the office all day as I ran in and out. It wouldn't have really helped anything, so I'm glad I didn't.

Tuesday

Short version: T-bone steaks, boiled potatoes, sauteed calabacitas, raw tomatoes

Long version: I had a pan on the stove with some bacon grease still in it from breakfast, so I used it to cook some more calabacitas. This time it was just the calabacitas and garlic. No tomatoes. Still good.

I had intended to make an actual tomato salad, but forgot about it until I was actually dishing up dinner. Thus, small tomatoes put directly on children's plates. Fine with them

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, green salad

Long version: One more dinner of cobbled-together leftovers for my second day of work. 

The children had some diced round steak I had fried plain just to cook it and have it on hand. I heated it up with some barbecue sauce for them. They also had bread and butter.

A. had some of the leftover steak, plus three fried eggs and the rest of the boiled potatoes.

I had salad with the last leftover meatball in it.

And when Cubby got home from football, he had the rest of the steak, bread and butter, and some cucumber.

Thursday

Short version: Pot roast, spaghetti with tomato sauce, sauteed calabacitas, raw green beans, calabacita bread

Long version: I cooked the pot roast in the morning, as well as a casserole full of tomatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a clove of garlic. Because I had the food processor out anyway to shred a bunch of calabacitas for freezing, I used the food processor to also puree the tomatoes with basil for a spaghetti sauce.

Pre-puree tomatoes and garlic.

While the oven was on for the pot roast, I also made two loaves of zucchini bread, but with calabacitas*. Of course. It was a nice bit of efficiency that also resulted in a celebratory treat for the children finishing their first week of school.

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

* Other changes from the original recipe: I skip the sugar crust on top, used half white whole wheat flour, and added some walnuts. It's very good.

T.T.: A Modern Switchel Recipe

Cubby started football last week, so of course I bought him a case of Gatorade to bring with him to his three-hour practices.

. . .

If you believed that, you have not been reading here long enough.

I don't like the disposable plastic bottles or the ingredients in Gatorade. But there is no denying that it goes down easy for boys who have been running around a football field in the sun for over three hours. They can't drink too much cold water without getting cramps.

So what to do?

Grandma Post knew!

Grandma Post was the MiL's mother. She was the daughter, wife, and mother of farmers, all of whom spent many, many hours haying in punishing upstate New York heat and humidity every summer. She knew how to keep them hydrated. And how she did it was switchel.

My first experience of switchel was at her house in the summer. She had some in her refrigerator for her son who was running the farm. Switchel is the traditional drink for summer hydration because it can be consumed in larger quantities than plain water. 

The primary reason for that is that it has ginger in it. That's what allows a person who is exerting himself to drink it without getting cramps, as he would with plain water.

The traditional ingredients for switchel are water, vinegar, ginger, a bit of lemon juice, and a sweetener like maple syrup or honey*.

 I made traditional switchel for Cubby last football season, and he really didn't like the vinegar in it. 

He never would have made in on a haying crew.

I suspect the vinegar was mostly a lemon juice stand-in for farmers who didn't have access to fresh lemons, anyway, so now I just use all lemon juice. Not from fresh lemons, though, because I also don't have regular access to fresh lemons. Also, you would have to squeeze a LOT of lemons. The bottled stuff is fine.

All of my switchel ingredients come in bottles actually, but if you have fresh ginger and lemons, knock yourself out.

The resulting drink is pretty much like a slightly gingery lemonade. Very palatable for those of us not raised on traditional switchel, and just as refreshing.

So if you, too, have a child sweating their life away on a field somewhere (or it you yourself are the sweater), give switchel a try. No plastic bottle, no food dye, no strange ingredients. Perfect.

Modern Switchel

Ingredients

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup maple syrup or honey (if using honey, you'll probably need less, but I haven't tried it)

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 quart water (warm if using honey, to dissolve it better)

Method

Add all ingredients to a quart-size canning jar and shake it all up. Either keep the jar cold in the refrigerator, or pour the switchel into a big water bottle filled with ice to take to the football or hay field. Cubby has a 32-ounce insulated water bottle that I fill with ice in the morning before adding the quart of switchel to it, and it's still icy for afternoon practice. 

Although I measured so I could write out a recipe for you, it will probably not surprise you that I don't actually measure anything when I make it myself. I just go by taste. As should you. Start with the measurements if you want, but add more or less sweetener, more or less ginger. You can even try some apple cider vinegar in place of some of the lemon juice if you want it more traditional.

Salud!

* Molasses is also traditional, but the one time I made it with molasses, A. was absolutely horrified and actually spit it out. So I guess it wasn't traditional for his family. Molasses does have a very strong flavor, so unless you're a fan of molasses already, I wouldn't recommend it.

Snapshots: What Have We Here?

What we have is whatever I found that I had already taken pictures of and not yet posted, because I have not done much worth photographing this week, what with working and gimping around on a swollen ankle.

So! Let's see what I found.

Some nice carrots from the garden.

Two cowboys and a dog.

Funny dog photo.

Why do I have this photo of laundry? I think to show how tall the asparagus behind the line will get. 

And . . . yeah, that's all I got. That's my life, snapshotted.

I'll do better next week. I hope.