Friday Food: Dinner Delegating

There were two nights this week that I was not the primary cook. This trend may continue.

Friday

Short version: Cubby's special hamburgers, quesadillas, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: Cubby has a habit of standing right next to me while I'm rushing to get dinner on the table, asking questions and remarking wistfully that he wishes he could make dinner.

Believe me, I would like nothing better, son. The problem is getting from wishing to make dinner and actually being able to make it. In between those two things is a lot of instruction and interfering younger siblings.

However.

In pursuit of the greater good--that is, one day not making every single meal myself--I asked Cubby if he would like to make dinner on Friday night. As expected, he was enthusiastic. I asked him what he wanted to make. "Hamburgers," he said immediately.

"And what else?" I asked.

"Um . . . quesadillas." (He already knows how to make quesadillas.)

"Okay. What vegetable?"

"Vegetable?"

"Yes. Vegetable." I suspect he subscribes to his father's idea of a "balanced" meal. That is, meat and maybe an optional starch. Vegetables don't immediately come to mind. He needed a little coaching on this point. He decided on tomatoes.

So that's what he did. I did a lot of suggesting and unobtrusively flipping quesadillas or hamburgers to avoid burning, but I tried to stay out of his way.

Raw meat action shot.

He ended up adding the remainder of a cucumber to some grape tomatoes and using the last of a jar of previously-made vinaigrette to make a tomato and cucumber salad.

Everyone enjoyed Cubby's meal. He was very proud.

A very goofy photo of the cook and his finished product.

Saturday

Short version: Leftover hamburgers, pasta, steamed carrots, ponudo for A.

Long version: I was lazy and just added butter, garlic powder, pepper, and Parmesan cheese to the pasta. The children were pleased with this. But then, they're always pleased with pasta, lazy or not.

Sunday

Short version: Daddy's roasted duck and potatoes, fried mushrooms and onions, frozen green beans, peanut clusters

Long version: A. bought a duck like two months ago when he happened to see one for a good price at the market. He LOVES duck. I can take it or leave it, so he was in charge of cooking it.

He found a recipe in which the duck is stuffed with cloves of garlic and rosemary--he substituted thyme at my suggestion, because I dislike rosemary and don't have any on hand--and then it's roasted on top of sliced potatoes. So he did that.

I made the mushrooms and onions mostly because I had an open package of mushrooms to use up and an onion that was starting to go bad. And green beans because part of my Motherhood Contract is to provide some kind of vegetable at every dinner. Even if I'm not technically cooking.

It was Sunday, so Jack and I made peanut clusters for dessert. I didn't even use a recipe. I just melted chocolate chips and a bit of coconut oil in the microwave, then mixed in roasted and salted peanuts and dolloped the goop on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

I put this in the refrigerator to firm up. About two minutes after that, Cubby asked if we could call my dad. While I was dialing the phone, Jack asked if he could have a carrot. I asked him to wait a minute, but he decided to help himself. By the time I had my dad on the phone with Cubby approximately ninety seconds later, Jack had the refrigerator door open and Poppy had the tray of still-goopy peanut clusters on the floor.

What a team.

Luckily, she hadn't had time to smear the chocolate all over. The peanut clusters were all still on the parchment paper. They had sort of slid together, but I pushed them roughly back into shape and they were fine.

It was a classic Mom Moment. Kids are fun.

They are also very prone to smearing chocolate all over their faces. Like I said: Fun.

Monday

Short version: Pot roast, carrots, green beans, A.'s Joyful Stew

Long version: Yeah, A.'s stew . . . when he prepared his duck, he found giblets. He asked me what to do with them, and I told him they're usually used to make stock. So he did that. Then he added the bones left after the kids were done eating--they never get all the meat--and simmered it some more. The next day, he added some pigs' feet and then a rabbit that Cubby caught in a snare.

Right at dinnertime, he added the potatoes left from roasting the duck and a couple of the carrots from the pot roast. He said it was Joyful Stew because it was so satisfying. It actually tasted better than you would think, and both Cubby and Jack elected to eat Daddy's stew. Charlie went with the less-exciting pot roast. Poppy ate both.

Tuesday

Short version: A Fat Tuesday feast of smothered pork chops, collard greens, and cornbread

Long version: In the northeast, Shrove Tuesday is celebrated with pancakes. I like pancakes, but I'm not from the northeast. Neither is my mother. She's from New Orleans, and so, in honor of my heritage, I made not-pancakes.

Smothered pork chops=browned pork chops simmered in a sauce of onions, bell pepper, garlic, and tomatoes.

The collard greens came from the last bag of frozen blanched greens from last summer. There's more in the bag. I may make those greens last until I have lettuce from our garden.

Children make almost as much mess with cornbread as they do with rice.

Lovely. A lot easier to sweep up than rice, though.

Wednesday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, stir-fried vegetables in peanut sauce, rice

Long version: Ash Wednesday means no meat and church at 5 p.m. I made the vegetables and rice before we left to pick the boys up from school so when we got home at 6 p.m. with an exhausted baby and three hungry boys, all I had to do was heat everything up and scramble the eggs. Peanut sauce just means I add peanut butter to my standard soy sauce/vinegar/ginger/sugar/cornstarch sauce. The peanut butter makes the sauce way better than you'd think it would.

Thursday

Short version: Ribeye and T-bone steaks, leftover rice, green peas, A.'s leftover Joyful Stew

Long version: Cubby and Jack chose the stew; Charlie, Poppy, and I ate the steak; and A. ate it all.

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

A Plethora of Possibility

Yesterday was an exceedingly boring day. The cold temperatures--it never got above 12 degrees--and the snow meant that Poppy and I didn't go outside. The boys did have school, though there was a two-hour delay and the other bus just didn't run.

The other bus brings the majority of the elementary kids, so Cubby was the only one in his class yesterday, and there was only one other student in Charlie's class.

Anyway. Poppy and I spent a long day inside. She was bored. I was bored. It was cold.*

But there were seed catalogs!

Looking at seed catalogs is an interesting experience now that I find myself with a couple of acres of bare dirt of my own. Blackrock, of course, was already fully planted with many kinds of plants, as the MiL is a very knowledgeable and active gardener.

The last two houses I lived in were rentals. This is the first time I find myself with the responsibility of planning out gardens by myself. Well, by myself with A., of course, who is also pretty knowledgeable about plants.

We could get a climbing rose for the ramada! We could put lilacs by the fence! We could plant sedum around the patio!

One nice thing about starting from nothing is that anything is an improvement. There will be some trial and error, I'm sure (lots of error, probably), but it's fun to do the planning part. Especially when it's 12 degrees outside.

* Even in the house. The living room was 58 degrees. We have to work on the heating situation before next winter.

The Traditional March Snow

For the two years we lived on the Canadian border, we experienced severe winter storms on March 14th. Both years.

Honestly, that sort of thing was one of the reasons we moved.

I was not expecting March 14th to feature heavy snow here in New Mexico. I don't think it will. March 4th, however?

This is pretty severe winter weather for our current location.

It all started with ice on Saturday night, which ensured that the subsequent snow would stick to everything. It dropped into the single digits last night and hasn't been above freezing for 48 hours now.

The big difference here is that it was almost 70 degrees the day before all this started, and it's going to be 70 degrees again on Thursday.

I can take a winter storm in March when I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be seeing winter weather for the next two months.

Friday Food: The Ponudo That Won't Quit

Friday

Short version: Pork chops, not-at-all-baked beans, bread and butter, green salad

Long version: I had a ton of beans left after forgetting to serve the pinto beans I made on Thursday. I thought maybe I could do something different with them by using some of the cooked beans to make baked beans. Except not actually bake them. And I didn't actually follow a recipe (as always), instead just adding in bacon, tomato juice, ketchup, mustard, vinegar, and maple syrup kind of at random.

I think I went too far in the mustard/vinegar direction, though, because they were much more tangy than regular baked beans. I loved this, but the boys weren't as enthused. They ate all their beans, but I think would have been happier with Grandma Brown's.

Then again, Grandma Brown isn't here and I am. Mom's Not-Baked Pickled Beans it is!

Random photo break:

The children eating popcorn at our newly expanded table. Poppy is in my chair, which she likes much better than her boring, safe chair with straps, because in my chair, she might fall off or crawl right up on the table. Excitement abounds.

Saturday

Short version: T-Bone steaks, rice, fried cabbage and onions, frozen green beans

Long version: I am seriously considering not serving rice again until my children are old enough to eat it without half of it ending up on the floor. It is a nightmare to clean up. It sticks to the floor, you see, so it can't be swept up easily. Little bits of it always remain.

Confession: I usually just leave the rice explosion on the floor until the morning, when it's dried and can be swept up completely. Unfortunately, Jack dropped his plate in the kitchen while he was carrying it from the table to the counter, leaving rice all over the exact middle of the kitchen. Couldn't leave that without it getting smashed into the floor, so I had to sweep and get on my hands and knees with a rag to get the stuck bits.

This is when I started to consider a ban on rice.

A. had another bowl of his ponudo. And still didn't finish it. I think it multiplies in the refrigerator, like loaves and fishes. Perhaps we should refer to it as the Miraculous Ponudo.

Sunday

Short version: Hamburgers, spaghetti with Marcella Hazan's Famous Sauce, green peas, coconut cookies with chocolate lentils

Long version: Well, I don't know how famous Marcella Hazan's four-ingredient sauce really is, but it's pretty famous online. I've read about it many times and finally decided to make it, largely because there is no chopping involved. All you do is simmer a can of tomatoes with a peeled onion and butter, then take the onion out and smash down the tomatoes. The fourth ingredient is salt.

Now, I've read at least one of Marcella Hazen's cookbooks. She's militant about using quality ingredients. In fact, I seem to remember in one of her recipes the instruction that if you didn't have the very best tomatoes on hand, not to even bother making the recipe. Given this, I'm pretty sure she would have chastised me severely for the liberties I took with her sauce. I used store-brand canned tomatoes, my onion was starting to go bad so I had to cut part of it away, and I used salted butter instead of unsalted.

It was still surprisingly good. It's not going to become my new favorite sauce--mostly because it doesn't have garlic in it, which doesn't seem right at all--but we enjoyed it.

I made our standard coconut-flour cookies for dessert--using honey instead of maple syrup this time--and proceeded to totally ruin the virtuous nature of these cookies by adding ersatz M&Ms.

Cubby and Charlie each brought home one of those plastic tubes topped with a plastic heart top on Valentine's Day with what I thought were M&Ms inside. So I thought I would use the M&Ms in place of chocolate chips in the cookies. But when I started to open the tubes, I noticed that they were knock-off M&Ms that for inexplicable reasons were called chocolate lentils.

Yes. Chocolate lentils. Is that supposed to be appetizing? If so, it fails miserably.

The candy wasn't particularly appetizing, either, with ingredients such as "natural waxes" and various dyes. I almost threw it away, but I knew Cubby and Charlie would be mad. So I completely ruined our virtuous cookies with luridly colored fake candy.

The original recipe states that the author used "allergen-free mini chocolate chips." I think "chocolate lentils" sounds just as virtuous, don't you? They're (not at all) lentils! Lentils are healthy! Too bad they're gross. I was the only one who thought so, though. Everyone else ate them.

Monday

Short version: Leftover hamburgers, leftover rice, ponudo for A., frozen green beans

Long version: We eat a lot of frozen peas and green beans. This is mostly because every member of the family will eat these. I could expand their palates with broccolini or bok choy, but those things aren't available around here anyway. Know what is available? Frozen green beans and peas. How convenient.

A. finished his ponudo, finally. But only the giant container in the refrigerator. There's another slightly-less giant container still in the freezer. I bet it's multiplying as we speak.

Tuesday

Short version: Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy, buckwheat waffles, frozen peas

Long version: I make buckwheat waffles almost every Sunday morning (buckwheat flour, melted butter and oil, eggs, a small amount of baking soda and salt, yogurt, and milk) and I always eat half a waffle straight from the waffle iron with nothing but butter while I'm cooking them. While I was doing this last time, it occurred to me I could try making a version of chicken and waffles, but with chicken-fried steak.

I ran out of rice, potatoes, and pasta this weekend, so it seemed as good a time as any to try it.

There was much confusion among the children seeing waffles on their plates at dinner. Without maple syrup. And it wasn't Sunday. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?

They liked it, though, especially when I told them they could have a waffle with syrup after they ate their dinners.

Of course, this would normally be a meal laden with wheat flour, but my version was entirely gluten-free. I coated the steak with corn flour, the waffles are made with only buckwheat flour (buckwheat, despite the name, is naturally gluten-free), and the gravy is thickened with cornstarch. Ta da! Totally gluten-free chicken-fried steak and waffles that don't taste gross.

How trendy of me.

Wednesday

Short version: Sirloin steaks, fried bread, pan-fried sweet potatoes, frozen green beans

Long version: I walked in the door at 5:15 p.m. with all four children. We had been at a 4-H meeting. Whee.

Steaks on the griddle pan, bread fried on the pan after the steaks came off, very small pieces of sweet potato pan-fried in olive oil, frozen green beans in the microwave, and we were eating thirty minutes after I got home.

I am still very sincerely grateful that I don't have to do this every evening after working all day. Working women feeding families, I salute you.

Thursday

Short version: Pork chops with leftover cream gravy, garlic bread, green salad

Long version: Let's end with a beauty shot of the garlic bread, shall we?

Beautiful (and tasty) inside and out.

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

Wish Fulfillment by Mom

Charlie's absolute favorite books are the two collections of "Calvin and Hobbes" comics I bought for our cross-country road trip this summer. He loves Calvin and references him and his antics constantly*.

A couple of weeks ago while I was keeping Charlie company during his bath, he said, "You know, there's one way I wish I was like Calvin: He gets to have bubble baths."

Charlie isn't very demanding, and I think it didn't even occur to him to ask why he doesn't get to have bubble baths. The only time my kids have had bubble baths is at my parents' house. Because I am mean and don't feel they need to soak in anything other than water.

However.

Charlie doesn't ask for much and he's a good kid, so I decided to get him some bubble bath. Of course, being the sort of person I am, I couldn't just go to a store and get some Mr. Bubble. I don't want any of my children soaking in a tub of chemicals, but particularly not Poppy. Her eczema is much better, but not all the way gone, so I'm still very careful of her skin. Thus, I bought the fragrance-free, organic, plant-derived stuff on Amazon.

Poppy was very confused by the bubbles. Jack was enthused.

Charlie got to have the first bath. He was getting undressed to get in when he said, "Oh! I was so excited I almost forgot to say thank you!"

You're welcome, Charlie. Just remember this the next time I serve you squash.

* Of course, Calvin is a smart-ass and I've had to have some conversations with Charlie about not wanting to hear Calvin's smart talk coming out of Charlie's mouth. A favorite Calvin quote of both Cubby and Charlie's: "We're obeying the letter of the law, not the spirit."

A Table for the Generations

Some time ago, before we even left northern New York, my dad e-mailed me to let me know that my aunt wanted to find a new home for a dining room table my grandfather had made over fifty years ago. He went on to tell me it came with eight chairs and everything was solid oak. I believe he might have  said that even my children wouldn't be able to break this table.

I think we have a reputation.

Anyway, he asked if I wanted it. Hmmm, let me think on this . . . a free, solid oak table big enough for my somewhat large family and made by my grandfather? YES, PLEEEEEASE.

Of course, we were about to move cross-country, so we weren't going to bring it to New York. The logistics of picking this thing up involved the table getting moved to a different aunt's house in Wisconsin and A. driving a bit out of his way on his cross-country moving-truck journey with Cubby to pick it up there. It added about a day to his trip, but he has never regretted it. Because this table is, indeed, solid.

The chairs are heavy and not easy to knock over, which is also a consideration with my wrecking-ball sons.* There are enough chairs for all of us, with some left over for any visitors. And it has extra leaves, so I can make the table itself even bigger.

It's pretty big even without the leaves in it, so that's the way I left it since we got it.

Big enough for the first dinner at our new house.

It was big enough, but kind of barely. I sit next to Charlie at the table. He had a tendency to get right in my space while we were eating, which drove me crazy. I mean, I love my son, but I do not want him hanging on my arm while I'm trying to eat. And I don't need anything else to make me crazy during our already admittedly crazy-making meals.

I don't know why it took me so long to just put another dang leaf on the table. But yesterday, I did. I put in two, actually, for extra room to move (and get away from Charlie). It took me about five minutes, and now I'm freeeeee.

Look at all that room between the chairs! Hooray!

I also discovered when I was pulling the table apart to slide in the leaves that Grandpa put an actual gear on the track so it would slide easily.

Cool.

There's even one extra leaf if there should come a day that I decide I want even more space. Say, when I have three hulking teenage boys shoveling in food around my table. Ahem.

At the time my grandfather made this table, he himself had three hulking teenage boys, plus two daughters. I like to think he would appreciate that the table he made for them is being put to good use by one of his grandchildren and her rambunctious family.

Thanks, Grandpa. It was the perfect family table then, and it's the perfect family table now.

* Although a couple of them are already getting loose at the joints thanks to said sons dragging them across the floor to climb up to the kitchen cabinets. Sigh.

Edited to Add: I was apparently very off in my guess as to when the table was made. My dad set me straight: "Actually table was made by my Dad while he was a student at Boys Technical High School. Circa 1940. The idea was smart boys, would learn a trade, plumber, electrician etc. My Dad's trade was as a cabinet maker, at the time a high paying position. He finished high school and then started a one year extra apprenticeship at the school, part of the curriculum. Of course while he was in his last apprenticeship. WWII started, and like lot of 19 year olds he was drafted into the Army."

Friday Food: Ponudo on Repeat

Friday

Short version: Hamburger skillet casserole, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: Still sick of the kitchen after a week of baking, but dinner waits for no woman. I walked into the kitchen at 4 p.m. with no clear idea of what I was going to do with the three pounds of ground beef that were sitting in the refrigerator. I ended up with a skillet casserole comprised of beef, onion, garlic, frozen green beans, red wine, a little ketchup, plus sliced potatoes (cooked first in the microwave) on top that in turn had cheese on top of them. Then I shoved it under the broiler to melt and brown the cheese.

This was a popular dish. I don't know why I bother making anything other than casseroles. I don't think I've yet made one that everyone hasn't eaten.

Saturday

Short version: Pork chops, rice, fried onion, sauteed carrots and broccoli, carrot sticks with ranch dressing

Long version: Still sick of the kitchen, still no other option besides cooking. Seasoned pork chops and a sliced onion on the griddle pan (salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika), rice with butter, sliced carrots and broccoli florets cooked in olive oil, and carrot sticks with leftover ranch dressing for the two boys that don't like cooked carrots. Thirty minutes and done.

Certainly nothing exciting, but there were no complaints and everyone was satisfactorily fed. That was pretty much all I was going for.

Break for random happy baby photo:

Less baby and more toddler by the day, though. 

Sunday

Short version: A.'s ponudo returns, plus leftover rice and frozen green beans

Long version: A. used the rest of his tripe and hominy to make another batch of his signature stew, this time with pigs' feet. He had put some pork chops in it, so I fished that out for the children. Cubby and Jack tried the pigs' feet, but in the end elected to go with the less-exotic pork chops.

I can't blame them. I wouldn't even try the pigs' feet. They made A. happy, though. And they certainly made a very gelatinous stock. I had to gouge out the leftovers with some force after it had been chilled.

Monday

Short version: Takeout green chile-hamburger soup and frijoles from Miss Amelia's Homestyle Restaurant

Long version: Miss Amelia called at noon to let me know she had just made a big pot of soup she wanted to share with us. She wanted to let me know early so I wouldn't start my own cooking.

As A. said, "There's a woman who's been where you are." Miss Amelia had five children and I'm pretty sure there were no restaurants around when she had them at home, either.

Anyway, A. went over later in the afternoon--bringing with him a loaf of sourdough bread, which Miss Amelia is luckily very fond of--and returned home with two quart jars of soup and a container of pinto beans. The children and I ate that, while A. had more of his ponudo.

Tuesday

Short version: Swiss steak, boiled potato chunks with butter, green salad

Long version: Browned cube steaks simmered with a sliced onion, a sliced bell pepper, garlic powder, and a can of tomatoes. Does that sound like Swiss steak? Sure. That's what we had, anyway.

Can you guess what A. had? Dingdingding! Yes! More ponudo! And then he had some beef and potatoes.

Wednesday

Short version: Barbecue beef, sourdough biscuits, green peas, baked sweet potato, roasted cauliflower

Long version: I made both an arm roast and some beef ribs by cooking them in a covered roaster for quite awhile at a low heat. Then I sliced the roast, and broiled the ribs to get them a little crispy, adding barbecue sauce on top of both.

I think A. said it best about this when I asked him how the ribs were, "They're okay. I mean, it's meat."

Yeah. Kind of underwhelming.

The biscuits were really good, though, as always.

Thursday

Short version: Tacos, ponudo, forgotten pinto beans, carrots

Long version: I made the taco meat out of the leftover arm roast and used the liquid from the roast in the beans. Which I then forgot to actually serve at dinnertime. I did all this in the morning because I was gone right before dinner delivering doughnuts with Cubby and Charlie. The elementary school students sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts to raise money for an end-of-year trip to a city.

Thankfully, this doughnut selling did not include the preschoolers. Although I bet this face could sell a lot of doughnuts.

Cubby and Charlie sold fourteen dozen between them, and the school as a whole sold an incredible quantity, considering how few people live around here. Everyone in the county is going to be eating doughnuts today. Given that someone had to drive 300 miles roundtrip to pick them up, I hope they all enjoy them.

Anyway. Cubby and Charlie were eating cupcakes to celebrate their hundredth day of school when I got there to pick them up, and Jack took advantage of my absence to beg peanut butter and jelly from his father (as always) so no one was particularly hungry for dinner. They ate, but only because I told them they could each have half a doughnut after dinner. Dessert bribery works every time.

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