Snapshots: About that Schoolhouse

Many weeks ago, more than one person asked me about the schoolhouse that I sometimes show in my snapshots. And . . . I never answered.

Mea culpa.

Since I appear to have zero photos to share from this week--I guess my life gets less photo-worthy as the school year goes on--I thought I should get back to that interest in the schoolhouse. So here we go!

This is the schoolhouse. 

Bathed in the lovely light of an early morn. Back when there was still light in the early morn.

As you will have guessed, being the highly intelligent people that you are, it is the old school in our ghost village. It's about a hundred yards from us, down one of the village lanes.

It's a very nice two-story brick structure. I don't know the exact year it was built, but I think around the turn of the twentieth century. Several of our neighbors and acquaintances attended this school. It closed in the mid-1950s, and the students from it began attending one of the other schools in the county, which are ten miles in opposite directions from this school.

Unfortunately, the building was purchased by some guy about twenty years ago who started to tear it down and then stopped. So now it's partially dismantled and falling apart. Literally. The kids heard one of the chimneys collapse a couple of months ago. So it's obviously not safe to be in there, and it's really a shame that it wasn't left intact.

The old gym right next to it, however, is intact, and is a beautifully built stone structure. 

That will be the next building on the tour of our mostly-abandoned village. But probably not soon, given my track record.

Friday Food: Work and Enchiladas

Friday 

Short version: Breakfast tacos, tomato salad, Otter Pops or root beer

Long version: A. took Cubby hunting for elk, which meant an easy dinner for the three kids left at home with me. Cubby is the only one who doesn't like breakfast tacos, so I thought that was a good idea. It's just scrambled eggs in corn tortillas microwaved with cheese, and salsa.

I made the tomato salad because I had half a tomato left from making BLTs for lunch, plus another tomato I had harvested that had a hole in it that was drawing fruit flies. So I just diced those, sprinkled on some onion powder, and added some vinaigrette I had already made.

My parents had left some soda with us when they left, and only one can of root beer was left. So I let the kids choose if they would rather have soda or an Otter Pop (left over from the county parade) after dinner. Two chose the root beer, so they split that, and one had an Otter Pop.

Have an Odin picture, just for fun.

Saturday

Short version: Cheater's pizza, raw green beans, sauteed calabacita/tomatoes/beet greens with chicken sausage

Long version: We got a bag of something labeled "hoagie rolls" from the excess commodities. They were smallish, oblong white-flour rolls. I had a pan of tomatoes in the oven reducing for canning, so I used some of those to make pizza sauce by blending the tomatoes with basil, parsley, and roasted garlic, using my immersion blender.

I cut the rolls in half lengthwise, poured some olive oil on them, and baked them at high heat until they were crisp. Then I spread on the pizza sauce and grated mozzarella from the block we also got from excess commodities this week.

Not as good as my pizza, but not bad.

I still had a few of the unpopular commodities chicken sausages left. I was sauteeing some calabacitas anyway, so I added to that the greens from the two beets I had harvested and roasted along with the tomatoes, some of the pizza sauce, and the chicken sausage diced fine. I sauteed all of that until it was a bit browned, then added some of the extra mozzarella. It was pretty good. Definitely better than eating that sausage on its own.

Sunday

Short version: Beef, mashed potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, St. Michael cake with whipped cream, late-night peaches and cream

Long version: I took out a package of stir-fry beef, but I didn't stir-fry it. Instead I cut it into smaller pieces, browned it in bacon grease, added sauteed onion and garlic, then a quart of beef stock, and simmered it until the meat was tender and most of the liquid was gone. To that I added a bit of mustard, a lot of fresh dill, and some sour cream.

Fresh dill and garlic in the ranch dressing, too. I'm very pleased that some of the dill plants re-seeded in time for another round of dill before the freeze.

The cake was Grandma Bishop's chocolate cake. We traditionally have this on the feast day of St. Michael, and the kids get to stab the cake with toothpicks. It's supposed to be a devil's food cake, because St. Michael defeated Satan and threw him from heaven. The feast day was Thursday, but I forgot, so we were a few days late. I don't think St. Michael will mind too much. The kids didn't. They always enjoy stabbing their cake. And eating it, too.

A. and Cubby returned from their hunt at 8 p.m. (minus an elk), just as the other kids were getting into bed. Of course, dinner had to be provided to the hunters. There was plenty of mashed potatoes and meat left. Since A. doesn't eat cake, I gave him some canned peaches with the whipped cream. And then I gave some peaches to the other three kids while Cubby was eating his cake, because it seemed kind of mean to have them sit there watching him eat his cake while they had nothing.

Monday

Short version: Breakfast tacos, posole, leftovers, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: A cobbled-together after-work meal. The younger kids had the scambled egg breakfast tacos. A. had yet more posole from the never-ending containers in the freezer. Cubby had leftover beef and mashed potatoes when he got home from football practice. 

And all the kids got to have leftover chocolate cake. No more whipped cream, though. Things get pretty barebones on work days.

Tuesday 

Short version: Chicken with curried split peas, rice, raw tomatoes

Long version: I had some chicken still in the freezer from the last rooster we had, so I took that out to thaw while I was at work subbing for the other teacher's aide. When I got home, I just heated the chicken in with the rest of the curried split peas and made some rice.

Wednesday

Short version: Tuna quesadillas, posole, raw green beans

Long version: Third day in a row of work, and my options for leftovers were pretty limited. A. had the last of his posole (not the last in the freezer--just the last of the container I had taken out) and I made some tuna salad. I didn't have any bread, though, so I made some quesadillas with it instead, with just corn tortillas, cheese, and the tuna salad.

This is actually surprisingly good. Like a tuna melt. It's much more appealing on a chilly, rainy night like this one than a pile of cold tuna salad.

Thursday

Short version: Bull enchiladas, arroz de leche

Long version: A. had mentioned that he thought the processed bull meat would be good in enchiladas.  I didn't have enchilada sauce, so I made some with tomatoes, onion, garlic, green chile puree, cumin, and red chile powder. I didn't have enough, though, so I also used the last bit of roasted tomato and garlic sauce in the refrigerator. The basil in it was undetectable at the end.

And then I still didn't have enough sauce for the top, so I used some pureed salsa.

Making enchiladas with corn tortillas is a pain, because you have to fry each individual tortilla in oil so they don't just dissolve into mush when they're baked in sauce. And then the tortillas are dipped in the sauce before being rolled, so your fingers are just a mess the whole time.

It makes a mess of the kitchen, too.

They are good, though. And A. was right: It was a good use for the bull meat. 

I need more sauce next time, though.

I made arroz con leche because I had four cups of milk that the kids informed me was starting to go off. I didn't want to spend the four hours to make our usual baked rice pudding, so I just made a stovetop version with condensed milk and cinnamon.

It was quicker, but I didn't like the method as much. My stove doesn't cook very low, which was probably most of the problem, because I couldn't get the rice cooked all the way without it sticking to the bottom of the pot. And I didn't want to add a bunch more water. It could have been softer, but it was okay. Tasted pretty good, anyway.

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

T.T.: Refrigerator Dill Pickles

This time of year, my refrigerator has several jars of dill pickles in it. I don't actually can cucumber pickles, because they tend to get softer that way. I like how crisp the refrigerator dills are, so I save my pickle canning for dilly beans and use my cucumbers this way.

Refrigerator Dill Pickles (makes 5 quarts)

Ingredients

6 pounds cucumbers

5 heads dill (or 1 1/4 cup fresh dill or 5 tablespoons dried dill weed)*

5 large garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed

4.5 cups water

3.5 cups vinegar of 5% acidity 

1/2 cup salt (canning or kosher)

Method

Line up five clean quart jars. They don't have to be actual canning jars, so you can reuse other jars for this. Wide-mouthed ones are easiest, though.

Heat the water, vinegar, and salt--either in the microwave or in a pot of the stove--until the brine is hot and the salt is dissolved.

Into each jar, drop 1 head of dill (or 1/4 cup fresh dill or 1 tablespoon dried dill weed) and one garlic clove.

Wash your cucumbers and slice off the blossom end, then cut them into whatever shape you like. I usually do spears and then top off the spears with rounds of cucumber to fill the jars all the way. Stuff the cucumbers into each jar until they're almost to the top and cover with the hot brine.

Put on the lids and leave the jars on the counter until they're not hot anymore, then put in the refrigerator. Leave at least a day before eating.

Notes

This makes a very strong, vinegary pickle. If you open a jar and find it too strong, just pour off a bit of the brine, fill with water, shake it up, and leave it in the refrigerator for another day. The extra water will leach out some of the vinegar in the cucumbers and they'll be milder.

These will keep in the refrigerator for months. At least four months, which is as long as we've ever had them before they were all eaten.

You can re-use the brine/dill/garlic one more time after all the pickles are eaten. Just heat the the brine, etc. again and stuff it with cucumbers again. You can only do this once, though, before the water in the cucumbers will water down the brine too much.

You can also eat the pickled garlic. It mellows a lot over time, but will be pretty fiery at first. My children (and A.) fight over this.

 * The head is the starburst of flower buds that form on the top of each dill plant. If you don't have heads of dill, you can use fresh dill weed or dried dill weed. The dill will float around and stick to the pickles, so it's not as aesthetically pleasing, but will still taste good.

Happy pickling!

Snapshots: Fall Is Coming

Thanks to my parents, Poppy's bike has been upgraded from a tricycle to her cousin's old bike with training wheels, so there have been many bike rides down our caliche road.

 

With her faithful attendants, of course.

That road is still providing sunflowers, but not for long.

A. harvested some of the calabazas. There are more, heaven help us all.

We have one gray hen that the other chickens beat up on, so when we locked the chickens in the coop for the heinous crime of pecking at my ripe tomatoes in the garden (off with their heads!), we let her stay out. So now she hangs around the porch with the dogs. Sometimes a little closer than they would like.

Can you see that gray lump in the far right front of the crate? That's the hen. In the crate with poor, long-suffering Odin.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Solar Cooking and Lettuce

Friday 

Short version: All over the place

Long version: Crazy day, with all kinds of things happening. Poppy, A., and I--along with my parents--were at Cubby's football game until 5:15 p.m. We went right from there to the school play. Calvin and Jack were in the play, and Cubby was helping backstage.

Jack and Calvin were given dinner at school before the play. I ate some eggs before we left for the football game. Poppy had a hotdog and A. had a double cheeseburger (minus the bun) with red chile from the concession stand at the game. A. also got Cubby a Frito pie from the concession stand before they left, and he ate that in the car on the way to the play.

After the play there were cookies, brownies, and lemonade. And then everyone was starving when we got home around 8 p.m., so they all had tortillas and cheese before collapsing into their beds.

Saturday

Short version: Brisket, mashed potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette, strawberry/rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream

Long version: I cooked the brisket overnight (with salt, tomatoes, onion, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and a little maple syrup) at the lowest temperature my oven will go, which I think is about 250 degrees. It was in there for about nine hours. I strained off the liquid (and reduced it on the stove) and stuck the meat in the refrigerator until about 3 p.m. Then I sliced it, poured the liquid over it, and put it in a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes, after which I turned it off and left it in there to keep warm while we were at our monthly Saturday Mass.

I also peeled and cut up the potatoes and left them in the pot covered with water, so when we got home at 5 p.m., all I had to do was boil the potatoes, mash them, and make a salad from the garden lettuce I had washed earlier.

I had baked the pie earlier, too. It was the one my parents always get from the lady who owns the house they rent. It's good pie.

Sunday

Short version: Beef and lamb stew, garlic bread, sauteed calabacitas and tomatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, brownies with vanilla ice cream

Long version: My dad made me a solar oven (yay!) and I was so looking forward to trying it out this day. Solar ovens function more or less like a slow cooker, so I took out some stew meat--some lamb from the last ram lamb we butchered, and some beef--to put in there.

And then it was too windy. I didn't want the reflector part of the solar oven to blow over. Boo.

It was, however, quite chilly in the house, so turning on the oven actually was a good idea. I baked some banana bread and muffins at the same time too, to use some overly brown bananas, and raised the temperature of the kitchen from 64 degrees to 71 degrees, which everyone appreciated.

In addition to the meat, the stew was just onion, garlic, tomatoes, vinegar, parsley, and the remaining liquid from the brisket. It was very good. I was going to add some carrots, but it was already slightly sweet from the maple syrup that had been in with the brisket, so I didn't want to sweeten it any more.

Unintentional photo op with some of the ingredients.

I had made the calabacitas separately, and I added them right to my bowl and A.'s, The children had the salad.

And I made the brownies because there wasn't enough ice cream for everyone to have another whole serving, but there was enough for everyone to have a small scoop on a brownie.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: A. had the rest of the leftover stew with calabacitas and some leftover rice. The kids had leftover brisket, rice, and raw tomatoes. I had a salad with some brisket in it.

Tuesday

Short version: Rib steaks, spaghetti with roasted tomato sauce, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: A couple of months ago when A. dug up the beds for the fall cabbages and kohlrabi, he pulled out a few lettuce plants that had gone to seed and shook the seeds out in the beds. The result is lettuce that has formed almost a carpet of greenery around the cabbages. 

I can't really express to you how much lettuce there is in my garden right now. More than I have ever had at one time. It's insane. And fun. 

It makes it really easy to have a salad every night, which is fine with me. It also made it easy for me to bring in huge quantities of lettuce for the school salad bar when the cook mentioned to me on Monday that she wasn't going to have enough lettuce for the week.

This is an old picture A. took. The lettuce now covers all the bare ground in these beds, and I was so happy to be able to pull a bunch up to bring for the salad bar.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover steak and brisket, solar oven curried split peas and rice, raw radishes

Long version: At my request, my dad made me a solar oven. I've wanted a solar oven since before we even moved to New Mexico. I mean, if ever there was a place with strong enough UV to cook food, the high-altitude west is it. And I figured if I could harness the power of the relentless sun to cook my dinner in the summer, I wouldn't be sweating my life away in an 85-degree kitchen in July.

So I sent a YouTube video to my dad showing how one was made that I thought looked useful, and then my dad made his own version.

He just brought it to me this past weekend, and we've juuuuust gotten past the weather for optimum solar cooking. It's cooling down a little and the wind is picking up, plus the daylight hours are definitely waning.

But I really wanted to try out the solar oven before winter really came, and this day was about 80 degrees with clear skies and not too much wind. 

I decided to cook rice and curried split peas first, figuring if it didn't get really hot, I wouldn't have to worry about meat in there.

My dad said the oven got to 275 degrees when he tested it in their driveway in Tucson. I don't have an oven thermometer, but the rice cooked in it in 90 minutes, which is how long it's supposed to take in a slow cooker on low. That's about 200 degrees, so I figured that was about where it was. Not bad, considering it was in the seventies and breezy all day.

I did take the split peas out around 3 p.m. and finished simmering them on the stove, but I think if I had left them another couple of hours, they would have been done. And I do think the oven will work just as I want it to in the heat of summer.

My idea of fun. (You can see Poppy covering her eyes in the reflection. I told her she could burn them if she looked right at the reflector. She obviously took that warning to heart.)

Anyway. I did all of this on Tuesday, but we didn't eat it until the next day. Because it was a work day, and leftovers are the way to go on work days.

Thursday

Short version: Disappointing sausages, pesto bread, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: The commodities lady stopped by with some extra things on Tuesday, including some chicken sausages. They were mozzarella and roasted garlic, and they didn't have any weird ingredients in them, but they were still . . . chicken sausages. As A. said, they weren't really bad, they just would have been way better made with pork.

A. and Jack were the only ones who really ate them. So there was also some leftover curry and spaghetti for those who didn't want the sausage.

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

T.T.: How To Pickle a Toilet

Just kidding. I don't know how you might pickle a toilet, but I do know that vinegar is an excellent option for cleaning one.

I've used vinegar in a spray bottle for cleaning bathrooms for a long time, but I still bought toilet bowl cleaner. We've always lived in places with hard water, so the toilet bowls would get that annoying mineral ring on the inside and would need to be soaked in toilet bowl cleaner before being scrubbed.

Or so I thought.

I was never a big fan of the smell of the toilet bowl cleaner. It was pretty much just a chemical concentrate. And then, I started to notice that even the kind that I had been buying for years was all of a sudden this very virulent blue color. And it stained my toilet bowl.

I tried another brand. It was a violent green color that also stained my toilet bowl.

My sister the veterinarian told me they started making the cleaners that way so you can tell if there's still any of the chemical in the bowl. Presumably so you don't poison any pets that might be drinking from your toilet bowl? 

I don't know. All I know is that it seemed counter-productive to try to clean my toilet only to end up with a stained toilet bowl.

So I tried vinegar. And it worked.

All I do is pour a few glugs of white vinegar in the toilet bowl and let it sit for awhile. Sometimes I only let it sit as long as it takes me to clean the tub, sink, and floor. Sometimes I leave it in there for a couple of hours. The longer it sits, the better it works, obviously. After it sits for however long, I scrub with the toilet bowl brush.

And then my bathroom smells like pickles for a little while. It goes away quickly, though, and it does work. 

I don't know if it would have worked in northern New York, where we had the hardest water of all. But it works here, and that's all I care about.

I don't have a picture of my toilet (you're welcome), but here's one of Cubby standing on top of the toilet in the kids' bathroom.

He was re-positioning a towel rack for me. I knew encouraging his early love of tools would pay off in the end.

Snapshots: An Old-Fashioned Tally

Years ago, when we still lived at Blackrock with its huge garden and I had more time, I used to can a lot. And when the canning season was done, I used to post the tally of all the things I had preserved, along with photos of the shelves full of jars.

It was fun. For me, anyway.

This year, for the first time in many years, I have had both the time and the produce to can again. So I thought it was time to revive the traditional end-of-season tally. It's still not as much as I used to do, but it's really quite a bit when considered all together.

I will probably be adding to this a bit, as I'm still processing tomatoes. But I organized and moved all the full jars into A.'s office, so while they were in transit, I took a photo of them all. 

Here we go . . .

Frozen 

4 gallon bags of peeled and sliced peaches

3 gallon bags of unpeeled peach halves

1 gallon bag of pesto cubes

1 gallon bag of green beans

7 quart bags of shredded calabacita

7 quart bags of roasted tomato sauce

Canned

18 quarts peaches in syrup

7 quarts applesauce

5.5 quarts dilly beans (pickled green beans)

10 pints apricot jam

5.5 pints peach jam (I made a lot more than this, but most of it went to the guy who gave us the peaches)

7 pints tomato puree

8.5 pints sauerkraut

4 pints pickled beets

And now for the photo!

Fruit to the left, vegetables to the right. A total of 64 jars*.

There you have it! My canning season, snapshotted.

* If you actually count the jars in this photo, there are 63. That's because one of the jars of peaches already got eaten. They go fast.