Friday Food: End-of-School Shenanigans

Friday

Short version: Pork chunks in barbecue sauce, roasted potatoes, green beans

Long version: It had been awhile since I'd made roasted potatoes. They sure are good.

Saturday

Short version: Creamy green chili beef and potato stew, carrot sticks

Long version: Miss Amelia gave me some of the green chilies that she buys during the season, roasts herself, and then freezes. I had some stew meat out for dinner, so I browned that, added onion and garlic, then the green chilies, and simmered until the meat was tender. Then I added potato chunks and, at the end, sour cream. I served it with grated cheddar cheese for the top and fresh lime to squeeze in it. Plus some diced green garlic because the gophers have been eating some of A.'s garlic.

Yes, garlic. I didn't think anything ate garlic. It's even used as a natural deterrent for most animals. But apparently those wretched rodents will bite it right off underground. A. is pissed. Those gophers are going to rue the day they targeted his garlic.

Don't worry. He still has 460 plants left. I counted.

I would normally have cooked carrots in the stew, but Charlie still dislikes cooked carrots and I didn't feel like watching him pick through them, so I left them out and just plopped some carrot sticks on everyone's napkins.

Classy.

Sunday

Short version: Mom wants tacos, Mom gets tacos. Plus, frozen cookies.

Long version: I didn't plan my Mother's Day dinner very well. Or, um, at all.

I had some vague idea of having A. make hamburgers, so I took out ground beef. But then I realized I could also have A. make tortillas, which sounded much better. So I made the ground beef into taco meat, and A. and I made more corn tortillas to go with them.

I didn't have any avocados or sour cream, more's the pity, but I did have a little more fresh lime for squeezing. And honestly, the fresh tortillas are all that really matters.

I froze half of one this time to test if freezing will change its texture. (Update: It didn't. Full speed ahead with tortillas making!) My dad is going to make me a wooden tortilla press, so we may shortly become a small-scale tortilla factory here.

I had some no-bake cookies on hand (I used this recipe but added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder to them and reduced the sugar slightly--they were still too sweet) because I made them for Cubby and Charlie to take on their 6-hour bus ride for their field trip. Inexplicably, they did not eat them, and the cookies returned to me definitely the worse for having been tumbling around in backpacks all day. That is, they weren't so much cookies anymore as small chunks somewhat resembling granola. I tossed the baggies of chunks into the freezer along with the extra whole cookies.

Sunday morning it occurred to me that those chocolate-peanut-butter-oat chunks would be fantastic on vanilla ice cream. I asked A. to pick some up at the tiny store in the village when he went for church, but alas, the store's freezer stopped working and there was no ice cream.

So we ate just the whole cookies instead. They're better frozen. Better texture. I still think they would have been best with ice cream, though. But then, what isn't?

Monday

Short version: T-bone steaks, rice, roasted bell peppers/onion/sweet potato, green salad

Long version: Still my lettuce. Still thrilled about it. Oh! And also some arugula that I thinned. Man, I love arugula. I can't imagine it will last long here before it bolts, but I'm going to enjoy it while it does.

Jack's preschool teacher dropped off a big bag of clothes for Poppy and of course, they must be tried on right away. Very stylish, I'm sure you'll agree. 

Tuesday

Short version: A skillet meal comprised of leftover taco meat, leftover rice, and some grated cheese. And steamed broccoli.

Long version: It's meals like these that really make me confident that my children will credit their sophisticated palates to their mother's cooking when they write their foodie memoirs. Ahem.

Wednesday

Short version: Bunless hamburgers, boiled potato chunks, green salad

Long version: Last day of school for Jack! Track and field day for the boys (and me and Poppy as spectators)! 4-H meeting with a bonus origami demonstration by Cubby!

By the time I got home at 5:15 p.m. with four very tired children who were stuffed full of popsicles, cookies, Rice Krispie treats, and more popsicles, I was reeeeeally not into the whole "making of dinner" thing.

Luckily, I had already peeled and cut up the potatoes and left them in a pot of water, plus washed the lettuce (MY LETTUCE STILL, HOORAY), and thawed the meat. So all I had to do was turn on the pot of potatoes to boil, spin the lettuce and make a vinaigrette, and fry the hamburgers.

It's a measure of my fatigue that I didn't even bother with cheese on top of the burgers. Not that anyone wanted to eat actual food anyway, after all the popsicles.

Just as a matter of interest, if you are not aware of the sheer quantity of crap that children haul home from school at the end of the year, please enjoy this graphic visual of the crap times three that got spewed all over our entryway as soon as we walked in the door:

Scattering papers to the four corners of the entryway did keep Poppy entertained while I made dinner, so there's the bright side to this horrific mess.

Thursday

Short version: Disappointing pizza, steak, random things for me, plus peas

Long version: Last day of school for the bigger boys! I had told them they could have school lunch on the last day, because it was pizza. But then they switched it around and had pizza the second-to-last day of school and ham and cheese sandwiches the last day.

Thanks for messing up my attempt to be fun and celebratory, school lunch people.

A. bought asadero cheese for me on Tuesday when he had to venture to a Big City (13,000 people--everything's relative) and I did have a ball of dough in the freezer, that I had put in there last time I made pizza, along with a small bag of extra pizza sauce. So I pulled those out for a celebratory pizza dinner.

This was the first time I had frozen the dough raw--as opposed to par-baked--and I was surprised at how easily it stretched into the pan. Usually I have to make sourdough pizza a thick-crust sort of thing, but this stretched right out into a very thin crust.

The thawed sauce was thin, too. Watery, actually, which I discovered when I was about to put it on the pizza. So I had to quickly reduce that in a skillet on the stove, because watery pizza sauce is no good.

The crust turned out tough and kind of greasy and not very appealing. Charlie agreed. Everyone else had seconds, though, so it wasn't a total waste.

I only had enough for one somewhat small pizza, so I fried an extra steak for A. that wouldn't fit on the pan on Monday. I made a random mixture of leftover hamburger, the last bit of pizza sauce, peas, and cheese for me.

Today is the first day of summer break. Tomorrow is our 5K race. I could use prayers/positive vibes for both of those things, please and thank you.

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

A Mother's Day sans Photos

It's a good thing I don't have an Instagram account. I would be the worst Instagrammer in the (brief) history of that photo-sharing site.

Here it is, Mother's Day, which Hallmark tries to elevate to Major Religious Holiday status for us females charged with keeping small humans alive. And what precious photos do I have of my adorable gap-toothed* children showering me with gifts and cards and breakfast in bed and whatever other cliches are hawked by the advertising industry?

None.

I could have taken a photo of the adorable baby when she woke up at 5:30 this morning, but  I didn't. (A. got up with her, and anyway, I don't want to do anything at 5:30 a.m. except suck coffee.)

I could have taken a photo of the adorable four-year-old who made this tea towel for me at school, but I didn't.

I've already used this to cover my bread dough and freshly-made tortillas. Way to go, preschool teacher, for coming up with a very practical Mother's Day gift.

I could have taken a picture of the nine-year-old who is currently running at the nose, coughing like a habitual smoker, and plastered to the couch, but I didn't. (I did stay home with him from church, though.)

I could have taken a picture of the six-year-old who remarked out of the blue yesterday, "It seems like you're always able to find fault with us," but I didn't. (I also should have replied that that is a mom's special super power, but I didn't do that, either.)

So what did I do? Well, I tried to hide away in the bedroom to read for a little bit while A. had all four kids outside, but they started to trickle in one by one and I hadn't actually locked the door, so pretty soon I had three of the four children rolling around on the bed with me. A. came in to haul them all out and Cubby told me cheerily, "Well, at least you're never lonely."

No. No, I am not. And for that, I am extremely grateful. 

But I still locked the door after that.

Happy Mother's Day to my sisters-in-arms. I hope your day was exactly as you wished it to be.

* Charlie is the only one with a gap at the moment, actually, as he lost his first tooth last week. The second tooth is even now loose and will create an even bigger gap shortly. 

Friday Food: Creative Bread Things, Much Mexican, and Fun with Cast Iron

Friday

Short version: Ribeye steaks, rice, green salad, A.'s stew

Long version: The steaks were pretty small and wouldn't have been enough without the stew. Good thing we still had two big containers of it in the freezer. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Saturday

Short version: Creative flatbreads with bacon and cheese, roasted sweet potatoes/bell pepper/onion, salad

Long version: When I made pizza for my sister, I made a double recipe as usual, but only needed half of it. But I still pre-baked both half-sheet pans full of dough. Then I cut one into quarters--the only way I can fit it into a big zip-top bag--and put it in the freezer.

I would've made a regular pizza, except I didn't have any mozzarella. Or rather, asadero, which is what we use now in place of mozzarella. So instead I just put diced, cooked bacon and grated cheddar on the crust and baked that. It was good.

But then, when is anything with bacon and cheese ever NOT good?

I'm sure you've noted there was nothing even vaguely Mexican about this meal to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, contrary to my usual practice. Ah, just you wait.

Sunday

Short version: Creative tuna stuff, green peas

Long version: I was baking bread--again--so I made the usual round loaf of garlic bread. But then, when I decided to make something with tuna for dinner, I had the idea of making tuna salad--tuna, diced onion and celery, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, dill, and pepper--and mixing in grated cheese and then stuffing the bread with this mixture. So I baked the bread until the center was done, then cut the top off, pulled some of the bread out of the middle, and packed the tuna mixture in there, replaced the top and baked it again until it was all melted.

When it was done, I sliced it into long sandwich fingers, and of course the filling squished out all over the place, but whatever. Everyone liked it.

I added some leftover rice to the rest of the tuna and cheese mixture and baked that in a cast-iron skillet as a kind of casserole. That was also good.

This also happened this day:

Not so good, though my fault for leaving the big package of paper towels on the floor of the dining room until I figured out where to store it.

Monday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, rice, sauteed mushrooms and onion, green beans

Long version: I always use my cast-iron griddle to cook hamburgers, as that's the only way I can cook eight at a time in one pan. The only problem with the griddle is covering the hamburgers when I add cheese, so the cheese melts. My solution to this problem is to squeeze as many cheeseburgers together as I can and cover them with an inverted cast-iron skillet.

Good thing I have such a large collection of cast-iron cookware to choose from.

Tuesday

Short version: Feliz Siete de Mayo! Mexican brisket, pinto beans, homemade corn tortillas. With avocado! And lime!

Long version: Okay! NOW we're ready for our Mexican feast. See, the avocados I bought on Saturday were rock-hard, so I didn't think it was worth it to make the all-out effort for Cinco de Mayo if I didn't even have ripe avocados. So I figured we would celebrate whatever day in May coincided with the ripening avocados.

Thus, Siete de Mayo was the celebratory day.

The brisket was "Mexican" because I dumped salsa verde and tomato salsa over it before I put it in the oven. Very authentic, I'm sure.

This time I made the pinto beans with nothing but salt and a potato. The potato was a small russet, and this is Miss Amelia's trick. It does indeed make the creamiest beans ever. Thank you, Miss Amelia.

And now we come to the tortillas. I have been resisting making my own tortillas for years now. I buy corn tortillas in packs of 60--yes, we eat that many corn tortillas--and I just knew that if I ever made my own I would finally know for sure how inferior the store-bought ones are. Because store food sucks, as I have mentioned before. But I already had the instant masa, so I finally decided I would try it.

I looked at a couple of YouTube videos to see what the texture of the dough should be (this one was the most helpful) and got to it. I used one and a half cups of masa and an equal amount of warm water, plus a teaspoon of salt. I had to add about a tablespoon more masa because it was too sticky, and I could have used a tad less salt, but otherwise it was fine. I kneaded the dough for a couple of minutes in the bowl and then covered the bowl with a wet cloth and let it rest for twenty minutes or so.

I do not have a tortilla press. But I do have a lot of cast-iron skillets. So I put my balls of dough between two pieces of parchment paper and bore down with the bottom of a skillet. It was kind of a pain. At least until I pressed (pun totally intended) A. into service. He has much stronger hands than I, is taller, and has more weight to press down with. He made good tortillas.

I cooked them on my cast-iron griddle pan. There is no fat in the dough and no fat on the griddle. I was certain they would stick like crazy, but they didn't. Not even a little. I did learn that the griddle has to be pretty hot--like about medium-high--for them to get the little brown flecks.

That one in the back left has the proper fleckage.

I also learned that this process will set off half the smoke detectors in the house. At the same time. Even with windows open. So annoying.

Anyway, after we started eating, A. said, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but these are great." And Cubby said, "This was SO WORTH IT."

And what did I say? "Well, I did read they freeze well. So I guess I could just do one really huge batch at once . . ."

I am so crazy.

But they really were so good. Dammit.

Of course there weren't enough and I had to share mine with Jack. But then, I sneaked a couple while I was cooking them, so I guess it all evened out.

Wednesday

Short version: Burritos at the school dinner theater

Long version: The school does this thing every year where the eighth grade students--this year, there are two--pick two of their older family members to interview about their lives and then create a series of highly embellished skits based on their stories. Before this, there's a dinner catered by the (singular) restaurant in the village. So we had flour tortillas with ground beef and pinto beans, plus a variety of toppings, and then both ice cream sandwiches AND cake for dessert.

The boys ate an incredible amount.

The performance was quite impressive, given that it's an entirely original script created every year and that only five students--the entire middle school--play all the parts for a two-hour performance. The problem is the "two-hour" part. It didn't even start until after 7 p.m., which meant it was over at about 9 p.m. This is too late for our early-to-bed family and waaaay too late for poor Poppy, who was up about three hours past her usual bedtime. She made it through, though, and the boys loved watching the skits. They were really funny, actually. And I did not cook or clean up a meal. Win.

Thursday

Short version: Lamb, leftovers, steamed carrots

Long version: Cubby and Charlie went on their school field trip this day, which involved six hours on a bus so they could go to a trampoline park and a museum. They left at 7 a.m. and didn't get home until 6:30 p.m.

They had a wonderful time. Better them than me.

Anyway.

I wasn't sure if they would be eating dinner at home, so the remaining four of us ate at our usual time of 5 p.m. I made the lamb mostly for A., who ate it with leftover rice and carrots. I made tacos for Poppy and Jack with some of the leftover Mexican brisket, and a salad for myself with the same.

When Cubby and Charlie got home, they requested food and got lamb, carrot sticks, and bread and butter.

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

Our Temporary Houseguests

Cubby and Charlie brought home some chicks from school on Monday.

Surprise!

Well, it wasn't a surprise to us, obviously. The chicks started out as fertilized eggs in incubators at the school, and Cubby in particular was keeping us apprised of their progress every day. I had to sign a permission form for Cubby and Charlie to bring some of the chicks home. So we knew they were coming, we just didn't know how many we would be getting.

We ended up getting four. Their names are Little Man, Little Princess, Buttercup, and one other that I can't remember. They were out in A.'s shop while the weather was warm, but as the weather took an abrupt turn to the very-not-warm yesterday, they are currently residing in the children's bathroom.

Poppy in particular was thrilled that the chicks appeared inside our very house.

They will, however, be going back in the shop as soon as it warms up again, because chicks smell. Yuck.

Our long lead time to this exciting event allowed A. to start repairing the old chicken coop at the back of our property. It's just a wood frame with sheet metal over it, and there were quite a few gaps that a hungry fox would have no trouble climbing through.

This being A., of course, he didn't just buy some more sheet metal to patch it up. Instead he decided to fix it with mud and stones. Because that is what A. does.

The nice thing about a project like this is that it doesn't require any power tools and is thus a good project for the children to help with. And they are more than happy to do so.

Do you know of any child that wouldn't enjoy sanctioned mud play?

Of course, some are more helpful than others.

But all enjoy the splashy fruits of their muddy labors.

A. began by just mixing straight dirt and water together--our dirt has enough clay that it will hold together this way after drying thoroughly--before deciding to add a small amount of Portland cement to the mixture to increase its strength and resistance to moisture. He put in an outer course of stones with space to pack in the soil mixture and will keep building in this way until he reaches the roof, I guess.

This is the first course of stones.

This is very heavy work and is going slowly, but even what they've accomplished so far has gone a long way to securing the coop. There are no predators that are going to get through a foot-thick wall of solid stone and mud.

It'll take awhile to get it all done, but in the meantime, the chicks are luxuriating in their bathroom sauna. 

Now we just cross our fingers that we didn't end up with four roosters.

Sunday Family Fun

Because it's not just for Fridays anymore!

Actually, Sunday used to be our dedicated Family Fun Day, many years ago when there were only four of us, and it looks as if we might be returning to that.

Anyway, yesterday we went to . . . can you guess? Yes, another canyon!

This canyon is the one closest to our house. It's only about two miles away, and the accessible part of it is owned by one of our neighbors in the village. Obviously, we asked him if we could look around there, and he kindly said yes.

We parked at his family's old homestead--no one lives there now--off a dirt road and hiked to the canyon. It was only about half a mile to the edge of the canyon. Poppy, of course, got to ride in the pack.

Charlie said wistfully as we were loading her into it, "I sure miss riding in the pack." It's been at least four years since he's ridden in it, but I guess it really leaves a lasting impression.

Just before the canyon, the dry stream bed we were following widened out into a large flat area of stone that would be a waterfall after a really good rain. We haven't had a good rain in awhile, so at the moment it's just the stone with a few shallow pools in the depressions. And what's in those pools?

Tadpoles. Which of course must be caught.

The canyon itself was bigger and deeper than I expected. There was a pool of water at the bottom that our neighbor told us has wild grapes growing all around it in the fall. His mother used to give him and his brother a 25-pound flour sack to fill with grapes every day during the season when they got home from school. She made jelly from them, of course.

I totally want some of those grapes. Bet our neighbor would be happy to let me pick some in exchange for some jelly.

A. and Poppy did some exploring, trying to find a way down, but nothing looked very promising.

Definitely a skeptical baby.

I was there too.

With no hat or sunglasses, because I gave the former to Poppy and the latter got broken by a certain boy who will remain nameless. I was wearing sunscreen, though.

We followed the rim around for a little ways and found a good flat spot on some rocks to have our admittedly lame picnic of crackers and walnuts. From there we could see a piece of old, rusted farm machinery that turned out to be a whole collection of old, rusted farm machinery.

Rusty junk is even more fun than tadpoles.

We headed back shortly after this because it looked as if it might rain. But we'll be back. Who can resist tadpoles and rusty machines? Certainly not this crew.

Friday Food

Friday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, garlic bread, green salad

Long version: The salad was MY LETTUCE, HOORAY.

I am not getting any less enthused about my lettuce, no. And I don't expect I ever will.

Saturday

Short version: Fajitas, sweet potato, green salad

Long version: Skirt steak may have ruined me for any other cut of beef when I make fajitas now.

I had plans to pan-fry the sweet potato and then didn't feel like getting another hot pan going on the stove, so I microwaved it. Lazy, but it does the job.

Sunday

Short version: Tuna patties, pasta, carrot sticks, roasted sweet potatoes/bell peppers/onions

Long version: Look at me, all ambitious and roasting the sweet potatoes this time! I'm patting myself on the back right now.

The tuna patties were three big cans of tuna, bread crumbs, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, two eggs, dried dill weed, and pepper all mixed together then formed into patties, and fried in bacon grease.

I was just thinking the other day that I don't really cook anything I remember eating when I was growing up, but then I went ahead and made the pasta the way my mom often did. That is, after the pasta was cooked--it was this weird "Italian blend" of three different shapes, which is really stupid because the rotini was mushy by the time the penne was cooked--I added butter, cream cheese, garlic powder, and pepper to it and mixed it around until the butter and cream cheese were all melted and evenly distributed. My mom always added Parmesan cheese from a can, too, but all I have is the block of Parmesan and I couldn't be bothered to grate any.

The term "comfort food" is terribly overused, but I must admit this is my comfort food. An immediate time machine ride to when someone else was cooking for me. Ah, the carefree days of youth. And pasta.

Monday

Short version: Pot roast with potatoes and carrots, beets

Long version: I just love using only one pan to cook dinner.

It's just so efficient.

Well, one pan plus aluminum foil for cooking the beets. I bought the beets a few weeks ago intending to use them to dye Easter eggs. Then my virtuous plans were foiled by Miss Amelia's daughter Gabby, who sent the kids an egg-dying kit. So we used that for the eggs and just ate the beets.

Tuesday 

Short version: Beef and vegetable soup, mutton, leftovers

Long version: I used the remaining pot roast and potatoes to make the soup, along with a container of venison stock from last fall that needed to be used; plus carrots; celery; the last bag of chopped zucchini from last summer that REALLY needed to be used; the last quarter of a very old head of cabbage that REALLY, REALLY needed to be used; and some frozen green beans.

Despite the geriatric nature of some of the ingredients, the soup turned out well. Cubby, Jack, Poppy, and I ate the soup with cheddar cheese.

The mutton was a butterflied leg roast that I marinated in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic, and salt, then just fried in bacon grease on my griddle pan. A. ate that with leftover roasted vegetables. Charlie ate it, too, with leftover beets and a piece of bread and butter.

Wednesday

Short version: Meatballs in marinara sauce, garlic bread, green salad

Long version: I had a can of tomatoes in the refrigerator that I needed to use up, so I made a marinara sauce with them and meatballs to go with the marinara, using my proprietary method.

I had to bake bread again, so we had garlic bread again. I used to bake bread every ten days. Now it's more like every six days. Soon it will probably be every other day and then I might as well just give in and open a damn bakery.

The salad was MY LETTUCE again, HOORAY. Also my radishes. The ones I could smuggle past the kids anyway, who will consume every radish I pull out of the ground immediately upon harvesting regardless of dirt.

Thursday

Short version: Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, bread and butter, apple slices, raw grape tomatoes

Long version: I had a more elaborate plan for dinner than this--though still featuring eggs, so not much more elaborate--but then A. was in the middle of a large paper organizing project that required the clear space of the dining room table. So at dinner time, this was what the table looked like:

Yeah.

A. was planning on continuing his work after dinner and didn't want to shift a hundred pounds of paper for the twenty minutes it would take us to eat, so I made the kids food they could eat on the floor. They had egg sandwiches and apple slices on our picnic blanket on the kitchen floor.

Floor picnics are always exciting.

I made scrambled eggs for A. and me, with the additions of some leftover cooked mushrooms, salsa verde, and cheddar cheese. We got to eat at the remaining two clear spaces at the table, because floor picnics are not quite so exciting for us boring adults*.

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

* Appropriately, as I was making this dinner, Charlie randomly charged into the kitchen and announced, "Humans can't get it right. We go from annoying children, to stubborn teenagers, to boring adults." Then he charged right back out again without giving me any time to reply. Not that I was going to argue with that assessment. 

The Very Fancy Lone Survivor

When we were in Tucson for Thanksgiving, we went to a very fancy garden center to buy a fig tree for my brother-in-law's new house. It was a truly impressive establishment that obviously caters to people who have a lot of money to spend on their landscaping. They had everything. 

This was, of course, a torment for people like us, who do not have a lot of money to spend on landscaping but nonetheless covet all the orange trees and fig trees and peonies and everything else for our new, totally un-landscaped house.

We really couldn't be buying a bunch of plants, though, so I consoled myself with a package of Very Fancy Tulip bulbs that were still way more than one ought to spend on tulip bulbs, but at least weren't a fifty-dollar tree.

There were six bulbs in the package. A. planted them in front of the house right next to one of the raised beds that flank the entrance to the driveway.

About three days later, there was an obvious gopher excavation right where he had planted them, and we sadly wrote the Very Fancy Tulips off as victims to the wretched rodents.

Also, A. spent many vindictive minutes flooding the hole and then putting poison in it. Too late for the Very Fancy Tulips, but it made him feel better.

But then, this spring, what should appear? Are those . . . the Very Fancy Tulips?

Yes! Three of the Very Fancy Tulips had survived the gopher incursion and were sending up their leaves. Of those three, only one actually bloomed. But what a bloom it is.

So fancy.

We also have some plain old red tulips left behind by Dale in the raised beds that seem to be flourishing with no care whatsoever--even propagating themselves, which is very unusual for tulips. This caused A. to remark that perhaps these Very Fancy Tulips are a mite too fancy for our admittedly harsh environment.

Nonetheless, we will be carefully transplanting our three remaining Very Fancy Tulips into a less vulnerable position in the hopes that next year we might get all three to bloom.

Hope--and the Very Fancy Tulip--springs eternal.