Friday Food: So Many Herbs

Friday

Short version: Bullburgers on homemade buns, baked beans, coleslaw, rhubarb/strawberry slump with whipped cream

Long version: Well. This meal is new heights of "homemade," even for me. And my bar is pretty high.

The meat was the bull meat we ground. 

I made the hamburger buns with some of the sourdough because I was making bread anyway.

I made the coleslaw with the first cabbage from the garden, with yogurt I had made myself. (I didn't grow the carrots, though. That will have to wait for later in the summer.)

Shredding vegetables makes such a mess.

I made the baked beans from one of those giant cans of Sysco pinto beans.

And the rhubarb of course came from the garden. I actually threw the fruit in last-minute while the bread was baking. It was however much rhubarb I harvested--maybe three cups?--plus a 12-ounce bag of whole frozen strawberries. I added brown sugar, maple syrup, white sugar, vanilla, and a tiny bit of salt and baked that at 400 with the bread for . . . awhile. Maybe thirty minutes. 

There wasn't a ton of fruit after it cooked down, so I decided to stretch it by making slightly sweetened baking powder biscuit dough--this is a recipe I have memorized from long ago, which makes it easy to put together quickly--that I just dropped by spoonfuls on top of the fruit and baked more until the biscuits were brown.

I was informed by one of my cookbooks that this type of fruit dessert is called a grunt or a slump. Neither of those are appealing names, in my opinion, but I suppose slump is slightly less off-putting than grunt. And of course, since I didn't measure anything and thus will never be able to exactly re-create this, A. declared it perfect.

Anyway. It was quite a meal, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Saturday

Short version: Fried fish sandwiches, leftover coleslaw and baked beans.

Long version: I spent allll afternoon at a kids' rodeo in the village.

Thankfully, at an indoor arena out of the sun.

I had already suggested to A. that he could fry the cod fillets he had bought some time ago, so those were thawed. I was planning on making oven fries to go with them, so we could have fish and chips, but by the time I got home after 5 p.m., all I could manage was slicing bread for sandwiches and setting out the leftover side dishes. 

How nice that they were so complementary for fish sandwiches. Very summery.

Sunday

Short version: Goulashy cube steaks, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, asparagus, raw cabbage, baked peaches and rhubarb with cream

Long version: I didn't have a particular plan for the cube steaks I had taken out of the freezer, and then I ended up kind of rushed for preparation time when some friends came over to play for awhile. Just before they got here, I managed to get the cube steaks browned and put in the oven with tomato, onion, and bay leaves. They cooked in there while our friends were here, by which time I had decided what to do with them.

I added lots of chopped parsley and dill, plus paprika, cooked it some more in the oven, and at the end added sour cream to make something like goulash. They were good. Especially with the sauerkraut. I still had a pint and a half of last year's sauerkraut, and I'll be making this year's sauerkraut in a few weeks, so it was time to finish up the old sauerkraut.

I made the mashed potatoes with three large potatoes I baked while the goulash was in the oven. It's somewhat embarrassing that although I've been cooking for three decades now, it just now occurred to me that I can use an already-on oven to bake potatoes to mash rather than using a separate pot to boil them, which also requires peeling and chopping. Because the potatoes aren't in water, I actually prefer the texture of the mashed baked potatoes as well. They're lighter and drier. It wouldn't be worth it to run the oven just to bake potatoes for mashing, but if the oven is on already, might as well use it.

That is also why I made the baked peaches and rhubarb for dessert. I used the last bag of Nick's peaches from the freezer, which wasn't quite enough for everyone, so I added some rhubarb. Plus maple syrup, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and a pinch each of salt and cloves.

Sadly, Nick told me at church this very day that all of the many blossoms on his multiple peach trees got zapped by frost, which means he will have no peaches this year. BOO.

Monday

Short version: Pizza, garden salad with herby dressing, rice pudding

Long version: Who cares about the pizza (one pepperoni and onion, one cheese, if you must know), I made this entire salad with things from the garden: lettuce, beet thinnings, snap peas, asparagus, plus dill, green garlic, and parsley for the dressing. 

It's always fun to see how much the herbs shrink when they get all chopped up.

The starting pile . . .

And the end pile.

I made the rice pudding because it was a chilly, misty day and I had the oven on for several hours to cook a pot of black-eyed peas. The combination of pizza and rice pudding made for a heavy meal, but no one seemed to mind.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover pizza, black-eyed peas, raw cabbage

Long version: Kind of a weird combination of foods, but I had not quite enough pizza for full servings, so I used that more as the fat/starch component, and the black-eyed peas provided more protein.

I guess. Really it was just what I had on hand, and I had spent all day helping A. clean out the complete disaster that was the office/laundry/storage room, so I was tired.

Wednesday

Short version: Sloppy joes on homemade buns, green salad with herby ranch dressing, canned fruit

Long version: Actually, not only were the buns for the sloppy joes homemade, so was the barbecue sauce. Sort of. I ran out of barbecue sauce awhile ago and hadn't gotten anymore, so I used this recipe to make some. It's really just shaking things out of bottles, but it worked okay. I ended up adding more ketchup, some salt, and a little mustard. And no hot sauce.

The family liked it a lot, so I guess I should make up a jar of it to keep in the refrigerator, as the point of barbecue sauce for me is an instant flavor boost.

I stuck one can of pineapple and one can of peaches in the freezer while we eating dinner so they could chill, and then everyone got to choose which they wanted. Satisfying.

Thursday

Short version: Fried pork, rice, leftover black-eyed peas, raw cabbage

Long version: I fried one can of commodities pork with paprika and garlic powder, made some rice, and heated up the black-eyed peas. Done. And tasty.

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

Growing Food: ' Tis the Season To Be Thinning

I only realized this yesterday when I went out to pull some weeds and saw that I needed to thin the beets before the plants got so big that pulling one out might uproot the next one over. 

Of course, it's recommended to snip off the plant you want to remove with scissors at ground level, but I always just pull 'em out when I see it's time. I don't typically have scissors on my person, and apparently am too lazy to go alllll the way inside to get any.

Ahem.

At this very small stage, I only pull plants that are RIGHT next to another one. If there's an inch or two of space there, I'll leave them and thin them later. In this way, I can get a baby carrot/beet/whatever later but still leave room for a full-size plant to grow there.

Since I was pulling the tiny beet plants, I also went ahead and thinned some of the very numerous volunteer lettuce plants carpeting the tomato bed. And THEN, since I had the beginnings of a salad, I prowled around until I found enough things to make a proper salad.

Left to right: Parsley, dill, green garlic (for the salad dressing), snow peas, lettuce, beet thinnings, asparagus.

The lovely thing about thinning these plants is they're all edible, of course. So when I'm pulling them out, I'm really harvesting food. And that, my friends, is what this is all about.

The first entirely garden-grown salad of the year is a glorious thing.

So tell me, my fellow gardeners: Are you harvesting anything from your garden yet?

Snapshots: Plants and Animals

Plants first!

It's very handy to have children who always have a knife on their belts. Whenever I'm working outside and need a knife, I just yell to the nearest boy and he brings me his knife.

In this case, a giant handmade bowie knife that was more than adequate to cut the year's first cabbage.

As to more general plants, all the rain we had for weeks has made everything wonderfully, startlingly GREEN.

It has also made the mosquitoes hatch, but we won't talk about that.

And now for animals.

Cora the New Horse had her trial ride last night. She got all saddled up without any issues--except for the fact that she was not enthused about the bit going into her mouth, but A. got it in the end--and then A. took the maiden voyage. He always does with new horses, figuring if there's going to be a problem, he'd rather it be when he's riding than one of the kids.

Ready to roll.

The first test drive.

In the end, there were no problems except for the fact that, as advertised, Cora is indeed lazy and is disinclined to move without some firm direction from her rider.

This may not be a positive for a working ranch horse, but it made me feel considerably better about my young children riding her. It seems very unlikely she's going to run away with them, since she, well, doesn't like to run.

In fact, we were so reassured by Cora's placidity that we let every child ride her, in descending order of age.

The younger two didn't so much ride as get led around by A., but they were perfectly happy with this.

I don't ride, so while all this equestrianism was happening, I was holding onto Bill the pony so he could graze near the corral and keep an eye on the proceedings.

He was highly dubious of the whole thing, but calmed down enough to eat some weeds in the vineyard pasture next to the corral.

Also dubious of this whole experience were the dogs, who had to be shut away in the porch out of the way so they wouldn't run the fenceline the whole time, barking and distracting Cora.

Not helpful, dogs. Not helpful at all.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Everyone, Meet Cora

Cora, meet everyone.

Yes, we have welcomed yet another animal onto our little sheep ranch, and it's another free horse.

Cora came from the same place as Bill the pony. She was a working ranch horse that was deemed too lazy for regular ranch work, but her placid disposition meant she would be a good kid horse. The kids she was kept for didn't end up riding her, though, so we got a call from the boys' former teacher--from whom we got Bill--asking if we would like to take her.

This was very good timing, as all the children were lamenting the fact that we no longer have a full-size horse to ride.

Her name had been Dottie, which none of us cared for much. When I was talking to the lady about her, it was mentioned that she has a white mark on her rump that looks like a heart. "Corazon" is Spanish for heart, so I suggested calling her Cora. This was met with unanimous approval--something of a miracle in our household of rampant individualists--and so she is now Cora.

You can kind of see the mark there if you look closely.

She hasn't been ridden in about a year, so she'll need some re-training. She does seem quite calm, though, which I appreciate. She didn't even flinch at the dogs barking a foot from her face when she was drinking from the water trough right next to the fence.

The dogs remain alert for any misbehavior.

I went out this morning to find her and Bill just standing there in the corral staring at each other, and she came right over for her hay.

Tucking in.

She's a bit plump, so she'll be on reduced rations and an exercise regimen for awhile until she gets a little more svelte. Luckily, we have four young equestrians who are more than happy to make sure she gets all the exercise she needs. 

No horse on earth will be as safe around children as good old Samson, but I think Cora will do nicely. We're happy to have her, and I hope she'll be happy to be here.

Friday Food: We Made Bullburger

Friday 

Short version: Spaghetti and meatballs, raw kohlrabi, peach/blueberry crisp

Long version: To make the sauce for the meatballs and spaghetti, I used the last quart jar of roasted, pureed tomatoes from last year's garden, a few cubes of frozen green garlic puree from last year, and a few cubes of frozen pesto from last year. That's all. And it was SO GOOD.

The ingredients really do make the difference. Alas for grocery store food. Always so disappointing.

Anyway.

I have never managed to make a crisp with peaches and blueberries that is actually crisp. The topping is inevitably submerged in the juices from the fruits. Also, the filling needed more sugar in it. Not that anyone refused to eat it.

Also, both the peaches (Nick's) and the blueberries (Sysco) came from the freezer as well. I often say I shop my freezers rather than stores. This meal was a good example of that.

Saturday

Short version: T-bone steaks with caramelized onions and herb butter, mashed potatoes, green salad with herby ranch dressing

Long version: Steaks and caramelized onions from the freezer, too. Herbs--parsley and green garlic--from the garden. The salad dressing had the same parsley and green garlic, with the addition of dill.

I love garden season. And my freezers.

Sunday

Short version: Thanksgiving in June

Long version: It all started with a request from one child that I roast the whole chicken A. had bought. While I was getting the chicken out of the freezer, I found the last two bags of pureed squash from the garden last year. I decided to use these to make pumpkin pie for our Sunday dessert. This reminded Poppy of Thanksgiving, and so we decided to make a sort of pared-down Thanksgiving dinner.

So! Roasted chicken and gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing (bread cubes, lots of butter, onion, celery, chicken stock, sage), green salad with herby ranch dressing, and not one, but two pumpkin pies.

I made two because I had enough squash for two, and the pie dough recipe makes two crusts. However, I only have one pie pan, so I used a  cake pan. This is when I discovered why pie pans are shaped the way they are: On a straight-sided pan, the pie dough slips right down to the bottom, leaving nothing on the sides.

Except for that tiny little bit poking out on the side there.

I used a different recipe for the filling this time, which A. declared the best ever in terms of texture. I think next time I'll add more spices to it, though. And of course, I whipped cream to go with it.

The children's favorite part of holiday meals is that I set the food up in a buffet on top of the liquor cabinet, so they can serve themselves. So that is what I did for our Thanksgiving in June, and they were happy.

Monday

Short version: Chicken rice soup, leftover spaghetti, leftover pie

Long version: I used the chicken carcass to make a stock, then pulled about a cup of meat off the carcass after it simmered a few hours. That is what I used--along with rice, mushrooms, onions, carrots, peas, and some finely chopped kohlrabi greens--to make the soup. Those who had soup also had rye crisps and cheese.

Others had leftover spaghetti with diced chicken, and leftover peas.

This worked out well, as there wasn't enough spaghetti for everyone anyway, and not everyone likes soup.

Tuesday

Short version: Shepherd's pie

Long version: I had quite a lot of mashed potatoes leftover from the two nights we had them previously, so I took out a package of ground beef and made some shepherd's pie. I have one child who dislikes cooked carrots, so this time I only used green peas and pureed calabaza for the vegetables in the meat.

The same child dislikes calabaza, but it's indetectable when it's pureed and used in something like this. Sneaky.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: Shepherd's pie for the children, steak and pureed calabaza for A., and a salad with diced chicken for me.

Thursday

Short version: Bull and bean tacos with homemade corn tortillas

Long version: When I organized the chest freezers, I found we only have around a month of meat in there. But that wasn't counting the bull meat that I still-still!--haven't cooked, even though we've had it for over two years now.

The problem with the bull meat is that it's just soooo tough. Even after being pressure-cooked and food-processed, it's still dry. Fine in casseroles, I've found, but still difficult to use.

However!

I actually bought a manual meat grinder five months ago, thinking we would use it to make sausage, since we can't get good sausage here. I hadn't used it yet, though. But now it's summer! I have so much time! I can grind things!

So I took out some bull steaks and the extra fat from the cow we got last year, and enlisted A. to turn the handle.

Grinding.

The grinder part worked pretty well, although we couldn't get it to suction to the counter, so it was all wobbly. 

It definitely ground the meat, though, and that's what I used to make taco meat, along with some pressure-canned beans.

I figured since we had gone to all that work to make the ground beef, I might as well make the tortillas, too. So I did.

The meat was good. It definitely had more texture to it than most ground beef, but it wasn't chewy or anything. Which means we're going to be doing a lot more grinding in the near future.

Oh! And we had the first garden lettuce of the year for the tacos, too.

I also harvested a cabbage and a single asparagus spear, but I didn't use those for the tacos.

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

Growing Food: Adjusting

This has been a highly unusual spring. In the past three weeks, we've gotten at least four inches of rain, which is almost unheard of here on the high plains. As I mentioned in my last post, the older people say it hasn't rained like this in 80 years.

See that line on my bedroom window? That's a worm. It is five feet in the air. When the worms are literally starting to climb the walls, you know that soil is totally saturated. I have never seen such a thing.

This means some adjustments are in order in my garden.

See, our garden is set up above all to maximize water retention. This is necessary because we are typically watering with a hose. That's why we plant everything in trenches or cells. That's why I mulch as much as I can. That's why I tend to space my plants closer than the recommended spacing.

But now these things are starting to be a detriment rather than a benefit.

The semi-permanent lake in the lane on the other side of my garden fence is a good gauge of the wet conditions lately.

It's a good thing I don't have a lot of old hay to mulch with this year, because I definitely don't need it. The only bed that I had mulched--the cabbages--is so wet it has colonies of grubs all around the plants. These are the nasty ones that someone told me turn into june bugs. I do not want them in my garden. And yet, there are literally dozens of them, hiding under the mulch and flourishing in the saturated soil. I even found a little slug in there. A slug! 

I pulled all the mulch off that bed and have spent hours digging around the plants in there, unearthing nests of grubs and squishing them between my fingers*. It's totally disgusting, but the easiest way to get rid of them.

I am certainly not going to be mulching my tomatoes. Even if the volunteer lettuce wasn't in there, it wouldn't do the tomato plants any good. They're in half an inch of standing water every time we get a downpour. Which is almost every day lately. Mulch would just encourage more of the grubs, I'm sure.

Thankfully, our soil is generally pretty loose and seems able to absorb an astonishing quantity of water. Although we could definitely use some sun and heat now, the plants seem to be doing pretty well with all the water getting dumped on them, but it's been a strange year in our High Plains garden for sure. It's a good reminder that gardening requires constant experimentation and adjustment. 

So tell me, my fellow gardeners: How's the garden weather where you are?

*Or, more preferably, getting my sons to do it for me. They relish this task, and will actually aim the grub so that when they pop it with their fingers, goo shoots out at their target. As long as their target isn't me, I don't care.

Snapshots: Me vs. Mud

We have had so much rain. SO much rain. Inches a week. Given that our yearly average is 17 inches, this is really unexpected. The older people say it hasn't rained like this since the 1960s.

We are grateful, of course, because we've had years of drought and all the cattle ranchers here--which is most of the county--have been selling off their cattle and tightening their belts to hold on. Now they can start rebuilding.

I am happy for them, and I am happy for my garden, which prefers rainwater to hose water. But I am not so pleased about the mud.

My new job is mud eradication.

This is what the pasture next door looks like after it dumps half an inch in less than an hour.

And this is the gate we drive out of. (Look at all the green, though! Yay!)

These giant puddles act as a magnet to my children, who love nothing more than grabbing an old feed tub and sailing in these new little lakes. This only ends one way. And that way involves the hose pre-rinse.

The A-frame cover of the mechanic's pit works perfectly for spraying down clothing, I have found.

The other main battlefront is, of course, my house. No photos of that, but I'll just say I've never vacuumed so much in my life. Once a week used to be sufficient. Now it's more like every other day, with sweeping in between.

I am reminded of some things I do not miss about New York. I assume it will dry out again sometime, since this is not actually New York, but maybe this is just my life now.

And now, just to end on a fun note . . .

A sweet potato shaped like a heart. I was delighted by this, and so was Poppy.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.