Friday Family Fun: Party On, Wayne

Instead of a thrilling descent into a wild canyon or a long drive to the beach this Friday, we drove twenty miles to the park in the next village over for a birthday party. Cubby and Charlie were the ones who were technically invited, but of course we all went. It was at a park; it didn't matter.

They had a wonderful time. A bunch of kids had brought scooters, so there was much scootering on the basketball court. There were hot dogs and chips and lemonade and cupcakes. There were goody bags with a superhero theme. And of course, there was a pinata*. Pinatas are de rigueur--or whatever the Spanish equivalent of that would be--here for children's birthday parties. I have taken note of this for future parties for my own children, assuming I ever actually have one. Wouldn't want to let everyone down.

Our new house was on our way home, so we stopped there to let the kids run wild through the empty rooms. I remember doing this myself many times as a military child. It was always exciting.

Less exciting for the parents, I now know. A. and I spent the whole time wandering around talking about the possibility of installing a dishwasher and how to paint over tacky fake paneling.

Well, I talked about those things. A. mostly talked about how much space there was in the attached shop for his tools and where he could plant garlic.

We have different priorities.

I'm sure I'll talk more at length about the house in the coming weeks, but briefly, it's a 1970s single-wide trailer--heLLO, classy!--with a substantial addition to make it into an actual house. For the past fifteen years or so it has been lived in by an older man living on his own. To say the interior design is dated is being generous.

Now, I am not an interior design person. My eyes glaze over when people start talking about "spaces" and paint colors and accent walls or whatever. But even I, low as my standards are, take issue with this living room.

Even a cute baby in the middle of the floor can't make this room attractive.

The first order of business is going to be closing off that pass-through to the kitchen that Cubby and Charlie spent the whole time leaping off of. The guy who built the addition was a little obsessed with pass-throughs. This one is going to become a partial bookshelf. It can't be a full bookshelf because it would block all the heat that needs to get from the woodstove in the kitchen to the living room.

Jack was totally enamored of the old-school wall phone with extra-long cord. He spent the whole time talking on it (it is not connected), winding it around the baby--who kept crawling after him to grab the cord--and stretching it out to make an obstacle for Cubby and Charlie to jump over.

Wild times in the ugly living room.

Charlie was particularly disappointed that we couldn't just stay in the house from that moment on. Why, he asked me, can't we just move in now?

Why? Because Mommy has to paint over that paneling ASAP. Living with that would surely cause me irrevocable mental anguish. Luckily, our two big Oriental rugs will nicely cover up the hideous brown carpet. 

Anyway.

After an hour at the new house, I remembered that I had sourdough on the counter and it was surely an erupting mess at this point, so we rushed right home.

As I suspected.

So that was the fun yesterday. To be continued with another trip to the new house today so A. can unload all his tools and things from the Honda and the trailer he drove back from New York a few weeks ago. Including . . . the huge chest freezer! Let's hear it for a meat stockpile!

Leaping off of shelves and setting up the chest freezer. It's gonna be a good day.

* Yeah, that should have the Spanish "n" with the little squiggle over the top, but the instructions for doing that in Chrome were like a page long, so . . . no. Sorry. It's a gringo pinata for you.

Friday Food: A Cucumber a Day

A week in which we ate cucumbers every day, and I valiantly soldiered on subduing cucurbits despite losing my sense of taste by Thursday.

Friday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, pinto beans, leftover rice, cucumber/tomato/menonita salad

Long version: I would have been happy just eating pinto beans for dinner, but I made some scrambled eggs in deference to A., who does not eat beans. Cubby and Charlie ate at school before their play, so I only had to scramble nine eggs instead of fifteen.

Saturday

Short version: Ground beef and potatoes, creamy cucumber salad

Long version: I had planned on hamburgers, but the log of ground beef I took out in the morning was not thawed by dinnertime. Luckily, ground beef can be thawed incrementally in the skillet by browning it and flipping it periodically to scrape off the browned and thawed layer from the frozen core.

It can also be thawed in the microwave, but then you have that nasty half-cooked gray meat situation, and that I avoid whenever possible.

Though it can be thawed in the skillet, it cannot be made into hamburgers that way. Thus, I made this thing again with potatoes and paprika and so forth. Forgot tomatoes this time, though. Bummer.

Sunday

Short version: Underwhelming chicken and rice, zucchini, cucumbers

Long version: I was feeling uninspired by the chicken drumsticks and thighs I had taken out to thaw, so I searched for an interesting recipe for chicken and rice. I found this one for arroz con pollo, and made it. Loosely.

I didn't have all the ingredients--namely, bell pepper, beer, and Spanish chorizo (I used the Mexican kind, which isn't cured)--but the taste wasn't the problem. The problem was the method. There wasn't enough liquid. Cooking rice on the stovetop with anything on top of it always results in sticking rice. If you try to stir it, the rice is no longer submerged in the liquid, resulting in some grains that never cook all the way.

I had to add more liquid and cook it about twice as long as the recipe stated, and then it was all kind of gluey. Tasted good, and I'll probably use that combination of flavors again, but I'll cook the rice in the sauce first, brown the chicken, and then add it to finish cooking on top of the rice in the oven. An oven is a much better way to cook the rice than on the stove, which creates the hot spot on the bottom that guarantees sticking.

I didn't use the parchment paper layer right on top of the chicken either, instead making a layer of zucchini on the top.

That layer didn't cook all the way, either. Fail.

The cucumbers were for those who don't eat zucchini. And to keep chipping away at the multiple bags of cucumbers in my crisper drawers. Rafael's been by a lot lately.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, fried eggs, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: Everyone got to choose some combination of leftover potatoes+ground beef, the gluey but tasty chicken and chorizo rice, pinto beans, and fried eggs. Everyone also got the salad.

And then, while I was putting Poppy to bed at 7 p.m., the three boys ate almost an entire loaf of bread with butter, jam, and peanut butter. And then they had apples. So I guess that was Dinner: Round Two.

Tuesday

Short version: Chorizo and ground beef tacos, pickled carrot and cucumber ribbons, pinto beans, pan-fried sweet potatoes, sick-boy soup

Long version: I had some uncooked chorizo left from the other night, so I added it to a small amount of ground beef (a little over a pound, which in our house is not enough) to make taco meat. It still wouldn't have been enough if Cubby hadn't had a sore throat and refused tacos.

For him, I made soup out of chicken broth, mashed-up pinto beans, some of the gluey chorizo rice from the disappointing chicken dish, a little of the taco meat, and sour cream. It was surprisingly good. Cubby ate two bowls, and A. and Jack finished the rest of it.

See? It was serendipity that the rice ended up so gluey; it's the perfect soup thickener. Just remember, kids: Everything happens for a reason.

Someday I'm sure Cubby will appreciate a mother who can make soup appear out of nothing when he suddenly announces he's sick. Sure he will. Because children always appreciate their mothers.

I added ribbons of cucumber to the carrot ribbons for pickling this time, because I can't let an opportunity to use cucumbers pass me by these days. They were good, too.

Look! A cute baby!

It's always the right time for a baby photo.

Wednesday

Short version: Italian sausage, sauteed zucchini and garlic, roasted potatoes, tomato/cucumber/menonita salad

Long version: In New York, with its extensive Italian population and food culture, Italian sausage was a staple of my quick-cooking dinner options. Here? Not so much. I didn't even see any in the refrigerated meat section at the grocery stores I had been to. I was surprised to find some in the freezer section of the very small grocery store in the next village over, and I was excited to have Italian sausage again.

I should have known better. It was not good sausage. There are just some things I have to leave behind in New York forever, I suppose*. Boo.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover sausage and zucchini, scrambled eggs, rice, tomato/cucumber/menonita salad

Long version: Can I go to bed now?

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

* Yes, I could start making my own, but stuffing sausage casings is pretty high up on the list of Kitchen Things I Wish To Avoid.

Real Estate and the Unwell

Yesterday, A., Poppy, Cubby, and I drove two hours to a title company in a (very small) city to close on a house.

A. was the only one who didn't have the current nasty cold that's sweeping the boys' school. That's why Cubby was with us instead of at school. It worked out, though, as he perked up enough to help watch Poppy for me during the hour it took us to actually get everything signed and done.

As a reward, we got him a double cheeseburger at Sonic. He ate the whole thing, and then collapsed for the two-hour drive back home.

I collapsed when we got home, which is why you're getting this brief and not particularly interesting post instead of my usual clever wit.

Ahem.

So. Just signing in today to let you know we bought a house ten miles up the road from our current rental. I'm sure I'll post pictures at some point, but currently all I want to do is hide in my bed.

Wit and pictures later. For now, tissues.

Over and out.

Mystery Solved

One of the things that always amused me about the MiL was her habit of giving me the Latin name of whatever plant we were talking about at the time. I was impressed by it, but it was wasted effort for me, because I would never remember the Latin name. I barely remember the common name most of the time.

I appreciated it nonetheless, however, because that's a sign that the person you're talking to has a very in-depth knowledge of plants. The Latin name is the way real horticulturists differentiate between different varieties of the same general kind of plant, or clarify when there are many plants with a similar common name. And the Latin name is the same in any language.

I am not a horticulturalist, and my knowledge of plants and their Latin names is woefully lacking, but I know the MiL at least is going to be happy I've figured out the Latin name of Rafael's calabacitas.

Here are Rafael's actual calabacitas on my counter, with a pen for scale.

The confusion here came from the fact that calabacita is a Spanish word meaning literally "little squash." That does nothing to clear things up.

The key to solving this admittedly minor mystery was when Rafael referred to them as "Mexican squash." I did a Google search for that, and an image came up that looked like his. I clicked on it and . . . bingo.

Rafael's calabacitas are cucurbita argyrosperma. They are also known as cushaws, silver-seed gourds, and Japanese pie pumpkins.

You can see the confusion.

I found it very interesting that they are apparently cultivated specifically for their seeds in some cases, which are ground up and used like flour. Rafael had mentioned eating the seeds to A., but didn't give any specifics. I'm not sure I'll go to the trouble of making seed flour--seeing as I have other food sources than the limited native ones here--but its good to know.

It seems to be a very versatile squash. As Rafael noted, it's eaten both at the immature stage like zucchini, then when mature as a winter squash. It's used as a medicinal plant, and the seeds can even be used to extract oil. Though I should imagine that last one would be a bit labor-intensive.

So there. I've figured out the official name. Although they'll always be calabacitas to me. Sorry, MiL.

The Communal Bath

The master bathroom at our rental house is rather absurdly large. I could've done with less bathroom and more bedrooms, but it does mean there's plenty of room for a party whenever someone has a bath in there.

Wouldn't want to be lonely, now would we?

Friday Family Drama and Saturday Family Fun

"Hold up," you say. "Saturday Family Fun? What is this 'Saturday' nonsense? And what Friday drama? WHAT KIND OF CRAZINESS IS GOING ON OVER THERE?"

Oh, you didn't say that? I'll explain, anyway.

Charlie and Cubby had school this Friday so they would have the day to prepare for . . .

All the world's a stage, you know. 

That was the school play. And incidentally, that group on the stage there? That is the entire school. Well, except the preschoolers, which is why Jack wasn't in it. But that small group in the photo is all the students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

I still have trouble wrapping my head around that one.

Anyway.

The reason they have a school play at such a tiny school is because of a program through the Missoula Children's Theater that sends two guys around in a pick-up truck crammed with all the costumes and "set" (essentially some decorated sheets and boxes, plus sound equipment) to spend a week at small schools like this one rehearsing and staging a play.

They travel to a new school every week and do this. In all fifty states. How exhausting. But great for the kids, because there is no way there would be any kind of drama program in a school this small otherwise.

The play was something entitled "The Snow Queen," and I couldn't follow the plot at all. That may have been because I spent most of the play chasing around a crawling baby and bored three-year-old. I did know that Cubby was a robber and Charlie was a snow chicken.

Yes, a snow chicken. Like I said, it didn't make a lot of sense.

It was fun anyway, though, and Cubby and Charlie both did very well with their songs and so forth.

So that's why there wasn't a Friday Family Fun adventure.

But we couldn't let a whole weekend go by without some kind of Family Fun, could we? Of course not!

Saturday Family Fun it is; canyon, here we come.

We went to the one closest to our house this time. It happens to be the canyon in which Rafael's ranch is located, and is thus the mythical source of the mysterious calabacitas*.

Rafael had shown A. a swimming hole at the bottom of this canyon, so we told the kids to wear shorts and sandals. We really should have known better.

This isn't a state park or something. There isn't even a real trail to get to the swimming hole. There is, instead, a slightly-more-clear path through the cacti to get to the swimming pool. Luckily, no one fell in a prickly pear. Unluckily, the swimming hole really was a hole and far too deep for the children to safely swim in.

Thus, Cubby tried fishing in it:

Because this boy has never seen a body of water he doesn't want to throw a hook into.

The other three played in some sand nearby:

In the shade, even.

And why was that particular spot so fortuitously shaded? Because I used my very body (and an unneeded-for-swimming towel) to shade them:

I call this "A Portrait of Motherhood."

We were only down there for about fifteen minutes before Poppy insisted on trying to crawl around into the pricker bushes and rocks, so we hiked back up.

Can you see the path? No? That's because there isn't one.

Where the brave van was, as always, waiting for us:

Another good one for my (non-existent) Adventure Van Instagram page.

We drove all the way through the canyon to where it met back up with the paved road and came back home. It was a relatively short adventure this time, but it got everyone out of the house for a couple of hours. 

I'm sure we'll make up for the brevity of this trip with some sort of epic all-day Drive of Dread next Friday, but for a Saturday adventure on a short weekend (as a two-day weekend now seems to us spoiled three-day-weekend people), this was just right.

* I think I've identified them for real, but this post is already too long, so you'll have to wait for the big reveal. Hold on to the edges of those seats now.

Friday Food: Fun Cheese Ahead

Friday

Short version: Non-traditional Cheesy Deezy, steamed broccoli

Long version: Cheesy Deezy (no idea how that's spelled, but who cares) was a staple of A.'s childhood. The MiL made it with three ingredients. I didn't use any of them.

She used a box of macaroni. I used a bag of gluten-free corn penne.

She used mozzarella. I used asadero and menonita cheese. Menonita is named after the Mennonites in northern Mexico who apparently make a cheddar-style cheese. Menonita is supposed to be like cheddar. This wasn't. More like saltier, slightly aged mozzarella. Good, but not cheddar.

She used a jar of marinara sauce. I made a tomato sauce with garlic, thinly sliced collard greens and beet greens from our garden, a drained can of whole tomatoes mashed with my potato masher, dried oregano and basil, and some chicken stock.

I did follow the procedure for assembly, though. That is, mix the cooked pasta (slightly undercooked, because corn pasta is no good at all when it gets overcooked, and I knew it would cook further in the oven) with the sauce and a hell of a lot of grated cheese, then top with more grated cheese. I mixed in the asadero and topped it with the menonita. Then I baked it at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, and finally, I put it under the broiler for just a minute to brown the cheese on top.

It was good. Though I may have to give it a new name that reflects its new ingredients. How about Queso Doble? That means "Double Cheese" in Spanish. Or maybe Queso Divertido ("Fun Cheese").

Or maybe I should forget about being clever and just call it pasta. Probably that.

Hey, guess what? We have a new baby distraction cabinet in this house.

The contents don't make such a satisfying clattering sound as in the one at Blackrock, but they do make a satisfying mess for Mom to trip over while she's cooking. 

Saturday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, bread and butter, sauteed mushrooms and onions, green salad, burned sweet potatoes

Long version: The sweet potatoes burned because they were in the oven with the baking bread in the afternoon when A. called to get directions to a Harbor Freight tool store in Springfield, Missouri. By the time I looked it up online and managed to figure out that the Kansas Expressway is also Missouri State Route 13, the sweet potatoes were burned.

It took awhile. Maps are not my forte.

I ate them anyway. The sweet potatoes, I mean. Not the maps.

Sunday

Short version: Antelope, mashed potatoes, tomatoes with mayonnaise

Long version: The antelope wasn't as good this time because I was lazy. I did not brown it in separate batches, so it kind of bubbled and steamed in the liquid released, rather than really browning. I didn't finely dice any onion, instead just shaking on some garlic powder. I forgot to add chicken stock.

Not my finest cooking moment. Oh well. We ate it. And A. was home! HOORAY! Too bad I didn't welcome him home with a more spectacular meal, but after a week of shingles + solo parenting (or rather, thanks to my parents' well-timed visit, five days), it felt like victory that all the children were still alive and dressed in clean clothing.

Low standards. I am all about them.

But at least the tomatoes were good, because A. drove them all the way across the country from Blackrock. Thanks, MiL.

A Tomato Bowl on the counter makes this crazy tomato lady happy.

Monday

Short version: Sausage Surprise, cucumbers

Long version:

Cubby: What's for dinner?

Me: Uh. Something . . . I am . . . making.

Cubby: What're you making?

Me: Um. A sausage skillet?

Cubby, while I was dishing up dinner: I think we should call this Sausage Surprise.

Cubby, eating his second helping: Can you make Sausage Surprise again?

Sure! And to help me remember what the hell I did, here is Cubby's Sausage Surprise: browned spicy "sage sausage" and ground beef, diced onion, garlic, tomato juice and tomato chunks trimmed from the tomatoes that were starting to rot on the counter, rice cooked in chicken stock, green peas, basil, oregano, vinegar, and grated menonita cheese.

Feel free to use that detailed recipe to create your own Sausage Surprise at home. It really will be a surprise. Perhaps a photo of the completed dish would be helpful?

Surprise! It's dog food.

Tuesday

Short version: Chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted bell pepper and onion, choice of leftover rice or mashed potatoes, tomato/cucumber/menonita cheese salad

Long version: I marinated the chicken--drumsticks and thighs--in yogurt, lemon juice, and garlic, and then roasted it with the vegetables, finishing it under the broiler to get crispy. The rest of it is pretty self-explanatory.

Wednesday

Short version: Antelope tacos, pickled carrots, cucumbers

Long version: I didn't have quite enough antelope meat left over to make a full meal. It needed more cooking to tenderize it anyway, as well as more seasoning, so I decided to make it into taco meat. I made a sauce with onion, garlic, tomato, chicken stock, cumin, and chili powder, then simmered the diced antelope meat in that until it was tender. The boys ate theirs on corn tortillas with cheese, carrots, and lettuce.

A. ate the rest of the leftover Sausage Surprise with some of the antelope meat on top.

I made the pickled carrot strips in the morning out of, well, carrot strips (made with a vegetable peeler) submerged in vinegar, salt, and a bit of sugar. They were really good. I like topping tacos with something crunchy and vinegary. It's a good complement. Usually I make Mexican coleslaw with cabbage, but no one else likes it as much as I do. Everyone liked the carrots.

Thursday

Short version: Roast beef, baked potatoes, roasted calabacitas/carrots/onion, creamy cucumber salad

Long version: I made the roast beef exactly the same way as last time, because it was good that way. It was good again.

The calabacita I cut up for roasting was big enough that A. and I were wondering when they start being called calabazas.

Every time I make cucumber salad with onion, sour cream, vinegar, salt, and sugar, I wonder why I bother eating cucumbers any other way. So good.

Of course, the combination of the cucumber salad and the baked potatoes meant rather a lot of sour cream on the plates. No one complained.

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