Good Call, A.

Yesterday we went to a . . . town, let's call it (smaller than a city, bigger than a village) so Poppy could get her 18-month vaccinations.

We also went to the lake beach there and had a very summer-vacation kind of day for the kids. I forgot my phone, though, so I didn't get any photos and anyway, that's not the point of this post.

We stopped at the gas station on our way out of town and A. decided to go in to get some liquor. We were out, and this is the closest place to get any. When he got back to the car, he had a box of wine for him and a bottle of Tanqueray for me.

The Tanqueray was very unexpected. We do not generally buy top-shelf liquor. I mean, we don't buy total swill, either, just usually something more mid-range than Tanqueray.

When I expressed my surprise at the Very Fancy Gin Purchase, he said, "Well, they only had two kinds of gin: Tanqueray and Crystal Palace, which you've probably never heard of unless you live under a bridge."

Right. Thanks for the Tanqueray, A.

(Though I must admit to a bit of curiosity as to what Crystal Palace gin tastes like. I'm imagining rubbing alcohol.)

Friday Food: A Week of Eggs and Pasta

We don't usually have pasta regularly, but we sure did this week. The children approved.

Friday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, pasta, sauteed garlic scapes, green salad

Long version: We were on our way to the post office this morning when a neighbor (neighbor in the loose sense--they live about four miles away) I've met only once stopped me and asked if I could use some eggs. She has 16 laying hens and it's just her and her husband at their house. She said she had seven dozen eggs in her refrigerator and really needed to get some out of there. I told her I would be happy to take some.

She brought me four dozen. A. was at that very moment in the larger town with a shopping list that included three dozen eggs. So then I ended up with seven dozen eggs in my refrigerator. We're more able to handle that than an elderly couple living alone, though. I started by making scrambled eggs.

The eggs I got from our neighbor are quite obviously from free-range hens. The difference in color compared to store eggs is quite startling.

Three neighbor eggs; three store eggs. I bet you can tell which is which.

This is actually the second harvest of garlic scapes from A.'s extra-large garlic planting. My favorite way to cook them is to chop them into short lengths and saute them in olive oil with nothing else but salt. I usually cover them, too, to get them pretty soft, and then I let them brown just a bit. The result tastes kind of like those very garlicky green beans you sometimes get at Chinese buffets, but better.

The pasta just had butter, salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese, and a little garlic powder. The pasta with the scapes and the eggs was a surprisingly excellent combination.

Saturday

Short version: Beef stir-fry, rice

Long version: I used cube steak for this, which I cut into chunks and marinated in soy sauce, vinegar, oil, garlic powder, ginger, and a little sugar. Then I made the stir-fry with various vegetables and a sauce made of the same ingredients as the marinade, plus peanut butter.

I really love stir-fry.

Sunday

Short version: Cubby's special oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green salad, maple custard

Long version: The MiL gave Cubby a cookbook, which he is enthused about using. Unfortunately, many of the recipes call for ingredients we don't usually have on hand, and of course, it's not so easy for us to get ingredients. However, I did ask A. to get some cornflakes for the recipe for oven-fried chicken. Despite the fact that buying cornflakes to coat chicken is not something I would normally endorse.

It's not my cookbook, though, and Cubby thought that it looked like a good recipe. It was a bit involved, with a buttermilk marinade--we used yogurt instead--and coating with the crushed cornflakes. Crushing the cornflakes was Cubby's favorite part.

The enormous rolling pin my dad made me was maybe overkill, but Cubby sure enjoyed it.

It was tasty chicken, and everyone liked it.

Cubby also made mashed potatoes and a green salad with shaved carrot ribbons and a mustard vinaigrette. He did not use his cookbook for those, however. It didn't have a recipe for mashed potatoes, but I managed to instruct him in how to make them anyway.

 I made the custard, mostly to use more eggs. Six more eggs down.

Monday

Short version: Lamb, pasta with pesto, roasted bell pepper/onion/broccoli, green salad

Long version: The recipe for Cubby's chicken called for a ton of marinade. It used up an entire quart jar of yogurt, and there was a lot left of the marinade after we did the chicken. It seemed a terrible waste to throw it away, so I left it in the refrigerator and used it to marinate a package of lamb the next day. Then I just baked the lamb in the oven while the vegetables were roasting and finished it under the broiler to get browned. It was very tasty.

The pesto was a garlic scape pesto. It also had some of the beet green thinnings and some lamb's quarters along with the olive oil, walnuts, and Parmesan cheese. The children were very excited to have pesto again, even though without basil I don't think it's much of a pesto. It was very good, though.

Also this day I received a shipment of the maple syrup I order by the gallon from Vermont, and this is what the jug looked like when it arrived:

The postal service must have dropped it from a speeding truck and run it over to make this happen.

The entire gallon leaked out and all over the box the jug was in, as well as in the additional packaging the USPS enclosed the original box in to get it to me along with their apology for the state it arrived in. It was a horrific mess.

The maple syrup company is sending me another gallon. They asked me to send a photo of the damaged jug so they could submit a claim to the USPS, and they remarked that they have never seen such extensive damage to one of their jugs in shipping. Lucky me.

Tuesday

Short version: Sirloin steaks with pesto, roasted potatoes (both white and sweet), frozen green beans

Long version: Leftover garlic scape pasta is excellent with steak. Unsurprisingly.

I was going to make another salad, but the night before as Charlie was finishing his salad, he remarked quite calmly, "I don't really prefer salad with my dinner."

Since he stated this preference without complaining in the slightest, I rewarded him by not serving salad again. Funny how my ears work so much better when the voice I'm hearing isn't whining.

Unrelated baby photo:

Cubby picked this outfit for Poppy. Adorable as the floral shorts are, they are totally impractical for our rocky, sticker-y terrain. Poor girl's knees took a hit, for sure.

Wednesday

Short version: Customized bacon and scrambled eggs, green salad

Long version: I made the bacon and eggs and then let everyone choose how they wanted to eat it. Charlie and Jack went with corn tortillas for breakfast tacos--Jack with cheese, Charlie without--and A. and Cubby chose Sunday sandwiches. Sunday sandwiches were a tradition of A.'s childhood. If he went to church, the MIL would make him a sandwich of bacon, egg, and cheese. A. said that since we go to church every Sunday, we're allowed to have Sunday sandwiches during the week.

Poppy had a tortilla and cheese and some eggs. She didn't get to choose. I chose the least-messy option for her. Sucks being one sometimes.

Thursday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, baked potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes/bell pepper/onion, green salad

Long version: In deference to Charlie's stated aversion to salad, I've been giving him mostly the tomatoes from the salad. And in deference to Jack's dislike of baked potatoes (seriously--WHO dislikes baked potatoes?), he had sweet potatoes.

So I started this week with seven dozen eggs, and I currently have two and a half dozen left. We went through a lot of eggs this week.

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

Future EMTs

This morning while we were outside, Poppy climbed to the top of the fence and before I could reach her to pull her down, fell backwards. It was a fairly bad fall, about four feet, and would have been much worse had she landed on the log that was just behind her or the hoe that was a couple of feet away.

All of the boys were in the vicinity when it happened--though none, unfortunately, thought to get her down before she fell, apparently. They immediately started running around shrieking that Poppy needed a hospital and then dashed into the house to set one up.

By the time I got inside a few minutes later with a completely calm and uninjured Poppy, her hospital bed was waiting for her and she graciously submitted to the tender ministrations of her brothers.

First they tucked her in securely.

It wouldn't do for the patient to catch a chill.

They all clustered around to minister to her.

She made herself appropriately pathetic for this.

They brought her her water bottle and fed her peanuts.

Peanuts are best for rapid convalescence, obviously.

They decided she needed to be transported to a different hospital and put her on the stretcher to go to the couch.

Amazingly, she thought this was fun.

Shortly after her transfer to the couch hospital she made a full recovery and resumed her typical role as target in all their chasing games. But it was a nice, caring interlude while it lasted.

Friday Food: Making It Up As I Go

Friday

Short version: Beef bourguignon, bread and butter, frozen peas

Long version: Finally used the stew meat that had been sitting in the refrigerator for three days. Very unusually, we had some red wine on hand, so I decided to make beef bourguignon using a recipe in a cookbook I bought many years ago by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin called Jacques and Julia Cooking at Home. And when I say I used the recipe, I mean I quickly looked at it to see which ingredients they used and in what order. And then used what I had and took it from there.

One thing I did not change was the entire head of garlic included with the simmering meat. One thing I did change? Straining the vegetables out of the meat. We ate it all, and it was all delicious. Hard to go wrong with an entire bottle of wine and a whole head of garlic.

Saturday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, rice, green salad

Long version: We have entered into a very happy season for me: Perpetual Lettuce Season. There is a large bag of washed and dried homegrown lettuce in the refrigerator at all times now, which makes having a vegetable for dinner much easier.

This is actually my lunch salad. Those are also much easier with the large bag of prepped lettuce always on hand. Hooray.

Sunday

Short version: Lamb, bread and butter, carrots

Long version: I was sick most of this day, but I still had to bake the bread I had started the day before. Sourdough bread dough has no mercy. I had taken out a package of lamb the day before to thaw, so A. made a marinade for that with some of his green garlic a few hours before dinner, then fried it on the griddle pan. Slices of fresh bread with butter, raw carrots, and everyone's fed even if Mom spent the day hiding in bed.

We win.

Monday

Short version: Catfish, sirloin steaks, rice, frozen green beans

Long version: A. took the boys fishing with Rafael at this fishing spot we'd been to before. Despite many bites, Cubby was the only one who caught anything. He got a medium-sized catfish, which A. filleted and I fried in bacon grease. Cubby loves fish but rarely gets it in our land-locked rural home, so this was a great treat for him.

Tuesday

Short version: Found-food skillet, leftover beef bourguignon, green salad

Long version: After A. made some beef jerky, I ended up with a couple of bones from the piece he had cut the meat from. So I made some stock, and when that was done, I pulled the remaining little bits of meat off the bones. To this I added the last bit of leftover lamb and green garlic diced up, three tomatoes languishing in a can in the refrigerator, onion, garlic, cumin, chili powder, leftover rice, some lamb's quarters Jack presented me with, and some cheddar cheese the children had abandoned during their afternoon snack because Poppy had dumped sand on it.

She wasn't sorry, either.

I rinsed the sandy cheese off and stuck it in the refrigerator, figuring I could find a use for it. I mean, I could have thrown it away, but it was like a cup of cheese! That's a lot of cheese! Cheese is expensive!

Anyway. I did find a use for it, and it turned out fine. The children ate the skillet stuff. A. and I ate the last of the beef bourguignon.

Wednesday

Short version: Green chili hamburger soup, bread and butter, cheese

Long version: I had all that beef stock on hand, so I made a variation on Miss Amelia's green chili soup. She uses onion, garlic, carrots, celery, ground beef, and potatoes in hers. Plus the green chili, of course. I was out of potatoes so I used rice instead, and I added in some of the beet greens I had thinned earlier in the day. It's really the green chili that makes it taste good, anyway, and I used the last of the frozen green chilies Miss Amelia gave me, so it was the same soup in spirit if not in fact.

The cheese had no unfortunate run-ins with sand and thus didn't need to be melted to be palatable.

I was going to make cornbread to go with dinner--and Cubby was going to help me--but we ran out of time and had bread and butter instead.

It's okay, though, because Cubby made blueberry muffins for breakfast this morning, so he got his kitchen time in.

Jack was happy to enjoy the fruits of Cubby's labors.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover green chili soup, homemade tortillas, pinto beans

Long version: Yup, still with the tortillas. Now that I've done it half a dozen times, I've mostly figured it out: 2 cups masa, 1.5 cups warm water, a sprinkling of salt. I press them with one of the metal pasta bowls the MiL gave me. I learned that it's much easier to use than a heavier skillet. I can grip it better, and also twist it a little while I'm pressing to make the tortillas thinner. Still not as easy as an actual tortilla press, but until I get the one my dad is making me, the bowl works fine.

I have also found that turning on the ceiling fan in the kitchen will keep the smoke detectors from going off. This was a very important discovery.

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

The Accidental Mason

Although masonry is something of a family institution for us at this point, it is not an activity that I have personally engaged in. Until now.

Rocks are something we have in great abundance here. Not only are there nice white limestone rocks in the ground at various spots on our property, but there are larger ones that just litter the roadsides. It looks as if when they spread the caliche on the roads here, they push aside the larger rocks in favor of smoothing out the smaller ones. Thus, every non-paved road is lined on either side with the rejected larger rocks. A. picks these up whenever he has his trailer out and brings them home.

So then we have free building material.

Now, I'm not going to start fussing around with mortar or Portland cement and all that stuff, but if I need a border for my newly-created flower bed so it doesn't get trampled by rampaging children? I have rocks.

We won't talk about the fact that the actual flowers didn't come up in the flower bed. Let's just focus on the nice border, shall we?

Or when A. plants some olive trees and doesn't want them to be trampled by those same rampaging children? More rocks.

No, we do not live in quite a warm enough climate for olives, but A. has a plan for protecting them in the winter. Fingers crossed.

Or when A. plants a row of tiny peach seedlings* that will definitely get trampled if not protected and could also use a little shelter from the relentless wind? Rocks to the rescue.

Please ignore the carpet of weeds, thank you.

I did all of those small enclosures myself, and I can see the appeal of stonework. It's very satisfying to fit all the pieces together. Kind of like a puzzle.

That said, my hands are definitely too weak--and my child-free time too limited--for any sort of large stone project. So I'll leave the chicken coop to A. and continue with my little protective rings. 

* At least, we think they're peach seedlings. A. planted about 90 unlabeled pots with various kinds of stone fruit pits, apple seeds, and who knows what else, so it's going to be a bit of a surprise. They're almost definitely a stone fruit, though.

Friday Food: Plan Bs All Over the Place

Friday

Short version: Swiss steak, rice, frozen green beans

Long version: I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between Swiss steak and grillades, but I'm guessing it's the roux. That is, with the roux, it's grillades. Without the roux, I'm calling it Swiss steak. These days, I'm usually too lazy and pressed for time to make a roux, so I guess I make Swiss steak with my cube steak now.

I added some bell pepper this time, too. Is that still Swiss steak? Hell if I know. I'm gonna just call it Kristin steak, okay?

Saturday

Short version: Buckwheat pancakes, bacon, still-frozen peas

Long version: This was not my plan for dinner. I had taken out two big arm roasts to make pot roast, but they didn't thaw in time. Plan B was pancakes. The kids were very happy with this plan.

This right here is a griddle pan full of my children's dreams coming true.

I gave them the peas, still frozen in a bowl, to eat while I was cooking pancakes. I considered this their vegetable. It would have been too weird to serve a salad with pancakes, anyway.

Sunday

Short version: Pot roast, potatoes, carrots, leftover rice, green peas

Long version: I found when I went to peel potatoes that I only had two left. Okay, then! Potatoes for the adults; leftover rice for the children. Happiness all around.

The greatest happiness was thanks to A. replacing my broken kitchen sink faucet with a spare faucet he found on the (non-functioning) sink in his shop. It was a perfect fit, and has the benefit of being made of metal rather than the dreaded plastic.

Okay, so it's maybe a little crooked, but it was free and it's metal and I will take it, thank you.

Monday

Short version: Tacos, pinto beans

Long version: Yes, I made the corn tortillas myself again. You may recall my prediction that this would happen if I once tried making homemade tortillas. It did.

When I made the pot roast, I purposely didn't use any particular seasonings--just onion, garlic, a can of tomatoes, and a bay leaf--so that I could re-purpose the inevitable leftovers. Thus, to make the taco filling, I just fried some cumin and chili powder in oil, added the diced leftover meat and the remaining sauce, plus a little water, and simmered until thick.

I didn't have a potato for the pinto beans this time (sorry, Miss Amelia), so it was literally just beans, water, and salt. They were still good.

I had both sour cream and avocado this time, so those with the beans and the homemade tortillas made me very happy.

And that is why I do crazy things like make my own tortillas.

I sneaked away to make the tortillas while this was happening:

Hooray for literacy. And pretend literacy.

Tuesday

Short version: Beef and vegetable soup, cheese, garlic bread, cheese omelet

Long version: Once again, this was not my plan for dinner. Once again, my plan was derailed by the incredibly slow defrosting of meat here.

I don't know what it is about this climate--lack of humidity? altitude?--but frozen stuff takes FOREVER to thaw here. If it's something easily thaw-able like ground beef, I can take it out in the morning and get it defrosted in time to cook it by completely unwrapping the meat and putting it in our oven, which has a pilot light that makes a tiny bit of heat. But a lot of stuff just won't thaw if I don't take it out the night before. Like the arm roast from Saturday. Or the stew meat this day.

Anyway.

I still had some of the pot roast left, so I used that to make a beef and vegetable soup. The only unusual vegetable addition this time was the lamb's quarters I asked A. to grab from our excessively weedy back pasture. Might as well get some benefit from that terrible mess.

The omelet was to supplement A.'s soup and also provide something other than soup for the one soup-averse child. That child had still-frozen green beans to fulfill his vegetable requirement. And this made him happy.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork chunks, roasted potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes/onion/bell pepper, green salad

Long version: No stew again this day because we spent the morning at a friend's ranch watching calves get branded (and vaccinated, tagged, castrated, and de-horned).

It was a very Western scene.

The cows and calves weren't having much fun, but my kids sure were.

Better than a playground.

We stayed for lunch and didn't get home until early afternoon, at which point I was kind of exhausted and definitely in no mood to prepare stew.

So instead I thawed some pork steaks, chunked 'em up, and fried them in bacon grease with paprika, diced onion, and some of A.'s garlic that he pulled up.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover pork and fried potatoes, frozen peas

Long version: The stew meat once again stayed unloved and unprepared in the refrigerator, this time because we took the boys to the dentist 90 miles away. This of course turned into an all-day excursion that involved a stop at a nursery where I was planning on getting some annuals for the front flower bed. I was most definitely NOT going to get any more tomato plants. 

I got four Juliet tomato plants. A. got a fig tree. We cannot be trusted at nurseries.

Anyway.

By the time we got home at 3:30 p.m. and A. and I had prepared a couple of troughs to plant the tomatoes and a dozen sweet pepper plants that unexpectedly germinated from seeds I took out of grocery-store mini bell peppers and stuck in a random container of potting soil, it was almost 5 p.m. 

I hadn't thawed any meat, but there was quite a bit of pork left from the night before. So I peeled and diced several potatoes, fried those in some bacon fat and butter until they were soft, then added the leftover pork and more paprika, salt, and garlic powder.

Then I went out and planted all the seedlings. I am going to have a shitload of bell peppers if those plants all produce.

I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, so tomorrow is Stew Day. As it is promised, so shall it be done.

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

Race Day

Okay! The Big 5K!

Excitement ran high on Friday in anticipation of the big race. I had our registration confirmation printed out; a plan for snacks to pack that night; a good idea of what the weather was going to be (cloudy, 45 degrees, and a slight chance of rain--lovely); and a scheduled wake-up time of 4 a.m. so we could be there to register by 7:45 a.m.

And then A. got sick.

He insisted he could still go, but there was no way I was going to be waking him up 4 a.m. to drive two and a half hours and wrangle children in a crowd. Also no way I could take all four children with me to run three miles. Also no way I was going to leave the two youngest with their sick father.

So we didn't go. It was disappointing.

Well, Cubby and I were disappointed. I'm not sure anyone else really cared very much.

In any case, A. slept 14 hours on Friday night, rested all day Saturday, and was mostly recovered by Sunday.

And so, on Sunday, we had our very own 5K race.

I made a sign.

"1st Annual" might be ambitious, as it seems unlikely there will be more, but you never know. Anyway, it sounds more official.

I printed out numbers for the participants. I promised that everyone who completed the race would get hot cocoa with marshmallows and a bacon and egg sandwich.

After church, everyone got their numbers pinned on, lined up at the starting line--our gate--and I got one picture before I started the stopwatch feature on my cell phone.

Game faces: ON.

There are no pictures after that because I didn't want to interrupt the all-important race clock to switch to camera mode.

A. did a half-mile loop with Jack and Poppy in the pack, so they could complete their promised 1K race. I ran one of the mile loops with Cubby and Charlie--or rather, behind Cubby and Charlie--before we came up on A. with the other two. Jack had decided he wanted to do the longer loop. I had to send A. back to the house to check the time for Cubby and Charlie when they finished. I told him I would look out for Jack.

Jack ran about another quarter mile with me and Cubby--Charlie was way ahead of us--before falling, scraping his hand, and wailing he wanted to go home and get an ice cube. Cubby went on ahead and I hauled a crying Jack the remaining half-mile home to get him his ice cube.

So I officially scratched on the race.

That's okay, though, because that meant I was on hand to put up the finish-line ribbon. Which was a roll of paper towels stretched out across the road for Cubby and Charlie to run through at their big finish. The wind kept trying the rip the paper towels before they got to them, but Jack and I managed to have at least a short length intact for the exciting moment.

And that was it. Everyone came in and had their cocoa and sandwiches. It was, admittedly, definitely lacking in the excitement of a real race with the cheering crowds and official clock and everything, but on the other hand, we didn't have to drive five hours or get up insanely early.

We have a tentative plan to try to do a 5K when we're in New York this summer, but if that doesn't happen, we did run a 5K with the kids as promised. Just not exactly the way it was promised.