Friday Food: Fish Eyes and Stabby Cake

 

Friday

Short version: Leftover chicken and rice for the adults and Poppy, breakfast sausage links and rice for the boys, cucumbers with ranch dressing

Long version: I had to work, and so there were leftovers. And quick-cooking sausage. The end.

Saturday

Short version: Camp food for campers, mystery food for me

Long version: The children all received fishing poles from my parents, and so then, of course, A. had to take them fishing. The lake he took them to is a couple of hours away, so they went in the afternoon on Saturday, planning to camp that night. They took with them summer sausage, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, blueberry cornmeal muffins, celery sticks, apples, peanut butter, and some cookies Miss Amelia gave me. 

But they actually caught their own dinner.

Proud fisher-people with fish. (It was very windy, as you can tell from Poppy's hair.)

More proud fisher-people with fish.

Incredibly, every single one of the children caught at least one fish, most more than one, for a total of nine trout. They ate some for dinner that night, cooked over their fire, and brought the rest home for the next night.

I don't really love fish (or fishing, or camping, or, um, anything outside other than my garden), so I was fine with missing out. Especially because I got to have something particularly tasty and unusual for me to eat for my own dinner. But instead of telling you all about it, I'm going to let you guess.

I had bacon and mayonnaise in the refrigerator, lettuce and tomato in the garden, and fresh bread from that day's baking. With those, I made my dinner. And I bet you can guess what it was. (Answer at the end.)

Sunday

Short version: Trout, roasted potatoes, green beans, rice pudding

Long version: A. brought home five rainbow trout and cooked them very simply by broiling them whole. He also made a sauce for them out of butter, lemon juice, and fresh dill from the garden. 

When I was looking at the trout on Poppy's plate before dinner (which, since it was entirely whole, was looking back at me), I was thinking, "Gross. That milky white eye and gaping mouth are really unappetizing." 

STOP LOOKING AT ME, FISH.

And what did Poppy do when confronted with the staring, gaping fish?

She ate the eyes. Like, before anything else and completely on purpose. She just dug her tiny fingers right in and popped the eyes out and ate them. 

I shouldn't have been surprised. How could she be otherwise, growing up the way she has? And hey, maybe she's just on the cutting edge of the next foodie trend.

I made the rice pudding for our Sunday dessert because I was prevailed upon to take home four bags of white rice and a lot of raisins from school. They were the latest excess from the commodities program. I don't know about you, but rice and raisins together for me just mean rice pudding. A. was VERY EXCITED that I was making rice pudding, especially when I told him I asked the MiL for her recipe, to make sure it would be just like when he was a boy.

I made a double batch, which took almost four hours to cook in the oven. The oven was on anyway to make brisket and to cook a whole squash, so it didn't matter. The only small issue was that somehow--either because of small children messing with knobs or me accidentally bumping the knob--the oven temperature got set all the way up to 450 degrees in the last half hour the rice pudding was in the oven.

Luckily, I discovered the problem before anything burned, but the rice pudding was more dry than I would have liked. Still delicious, though. 

Monday

Short version: Brisket, bread and butter, celery sticks with curry dip, tomatoes with mayonnaise, mashed squash

Long version: Since we had the trout for dinner on Sunday, I had a whole brisket I had cooked that day just sitting in the refrigerator waiting for me when I got home from work on Monday. Yay. I had already sliced it, so I just heated it up with barbecue sauce.

The celery sticks are a pretty anemic vegetable, but they were left over from the camping trip, so I just threw them on the kids' plates to use them up. I did make them the curry dip (curry powder+mayonnaise) to make the celery sticks more exciting. Or something.

The tomatoes with mayonnaise are just what they sound like: Slices of tomato spread with mayonnaise. Do not try this with store-bought tomatoes. This only works with homegrown--or maybe farmers market--tomatoes. And definitely do not try this with a gross brand of mayonnaise or, Heaven forfend, Miracle Whip*. 

In case you were wondering what is NOT a gross brand of mayonnaise, I recommend Best Foods/Hellman's or Duke's. Duke's is my favorite because it has no sugar at all in it, but it's not nationally available unless you order it online. Which I do.

And speaking of mayonnaise (oh, were you done with that subject? I wasn't!), this is a very funny article about a face-off between Hellman's and Duke's. The author mentions that she used to eat potato-chip-and-mayonnaise sandwiches as a child. I DID, TOO! With the addition of iceberg lettuce, which of course made it much healthier and more wholesome. Ahem.

Tuesday

Short version: Pork steaks with sauerkraut, roasted potatoes, mashed squash, green beans, Satan cake

Long version: Poppy and I started a new batch of sauerkraut this day.

Kneading salt into cabbage will entertain a toddler for quite some time.

I opened one of the jars I had canned last time for this meal. I don't know what it is about sauerkraut that makes pork taste so amazing, but it really does. A lot better than you would think fermented cabbage and salt would be.

I've actually been out of fresh potatoes for a couple of weeks, but I did still have those bags of partially roasted potatoes in the freezer, so that's what I used. 

I made a chocolate cake because it was Michaelmas; that is, the feast day for Saint Michael the Archangel.  The idea is that you make a devil's food cake and then stab it with some form of sword, as Saint Michael did when he cast Satan down into hell.

I did this a couple of years ago, but forgot about it last year. I almost forgot about it this year, too, but I happened to see on our calendar what day it was, and Poppy and I were in the kitchen anyway making sauerkraut and so on, so we made (great-great) Grandma Bishop's chocolate cake, too.

Licking the whisk is another fine Michaelmas tradition.

When I announced after dinner that we would be stabbing our Saint Michael cake (intending to just use toothpicks), Cubby ran off and returned about 90 seconds later with swords he had made out of wooden skewers.

Okay then.

So we said the Saint Michael Prayer (which I must admit is probably my favorite prayer), stabbed the cake, and then ate it. 

Liturgical living at its finest.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork stir-fry, rice

Long version: In the rush of a work morning, I forgot to take anything out of the freezer for dinner. I mentioned this to A. on the bus, and he took out some pork country ribs when he got home from the bus run. I didn't know he did, though, so when I got home it was like one of those cooking shows where the contestants are given a mystery ingredient and 30 minutes to make something palatable.

I cut off the cleanest bits of the ribs, diced them, and made stir-fry with them. The vegetables were a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables that included bell peppers, broccoli, snow peas, and mushrooms. No onions, though, and stir-fry MUST have onions, so I did fry some slices of onion. Otherwise, it was all frozen stuff, which made it very quick.

Thursday

Short version: Pizza pork or eggs, pasta with cream cheese, frozen green peas, mashed squash

Long version: This was the remainder of the pork ribs. I cut them into small pieces, then stewed them with a bunch of diced fresh tomatoes and a cube of garlic scape pesto. I also added more garlic in the form of powder, plus some fresh basil, then covered with shredded asadero cheese at the end.

There wasn't quite enough for all six of us, but Poppy and Charlie elected to have fried eggs instead, so it all worked out.

Oh! The guessing game! I'm sure you guessed, but it was a BLT. Of course. I mean, I'm sure there are other delicious things you can make with bacon, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, and bread, but probably nothing I would want to eat more. Yum.

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

* If you are one of the many people who love Miracle Whip, that's cool. You can have my share.

Bingo! I'm Weird

 

I saw this morning, on a random Twitter account*, this bingo card entitled "Meats I've Eaten."

Not only could I make bingo without any problems, there are only four things on this card that I haven't eaten: boar, gator, snake, and shark. And the only reason I haven't eaten those is because A. has never happened to trap or shoot one. 

However! I don't see squirrel on that card. Or beaver (and let's not forget the tail). Or lamb testicles. So I'm gonna go ahead and give myself full marks for an eclectic carnivorous lifestyle, even if most of it was only because of the man I married.

So how about you? What of those meats have you eaten? Are there any you would absolutely refuse to try?

* I did try to find the original source for this, but as is so often the case on the Internet, it seems to have sprung forth fully formed, like Athena.

Let's Back Up

 

I just realized that this post from last week about what I'm reading right now was post number 3,000 published here.

Yes. Three thousand posts. If I may state the very obvious, that is a LOT of posts.

It's appropriate that a milestone post like that should be about something so utterly random, because that's been the main theme of this blog from the very beginning: random.

So, here's to carrying on. And here's to all of you for reading my personal randomness 3,000 times. Thanks for being here.

Friday Food: Pork, Chicken, and an Old Photo

 

Friday

Short version: Meatballs in marinara sauce, garlic bread, roasted squash/green beans/onions

Long version: My parents arrived for a two-day visit this day, so I guess this is what I consider company food now. Or maybe I'll just say all company is family when they come to our house, so they eat what we usually eat. Or whatever.

I made the meatballs earlier in the day, along with some of Finny's tomato sauce and some extra marinara sauce for the meatballs. Since I didn't make pasta and the meatballs had enough sauce, I didn't end up needing Finny's sauce. 

The squash was a particularly good one from the garden. You know we saved the seeds.

Saturday

Short version: Pork carnitas, leftover rice, tomato and cucumber salad, mashed squash

Long version: I punked out on making tortillas in the tortilla press my dad made me, so I just went with the meat by itself, fried in the rendered lard with salt, paprika, and garlic powder. Way better than it should be. Must be the lard.

Sunday

Short version: Tuna salad sandwiches, tomato salad

Long version: Since my parents were leaving right around noon, we had an early big Sunday dinner in the old-fashioned sense of the word: a roast chicken and onions, baked carrots, pasta with Finny's sauce, cucumbers with ranch dressing. 

That's why we essentially had our lunch for dinner, i.e., tuna salad sandwiches.

Monday

Short version: Leftover carnitas pork, leftover pasta, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: Good leftovers make dinner after a work day much easier. Also tastier.

And now, since I no longer have my phone handy and therefore don't have any current photos, here's an old one of Poppy double-spooning some buckwheat cereal:

My, what round cheeks you have.

Tuesday

Short version: Pork country ribs, mashed potatoes, tomato salad, garlic green beans

Long version: These "ribs" are cut more or less from pork shoulder, which means they do well cooked slowly until tender. So that's what I did in the morning. Then at dinnertime, I just stuck them under the broiler with barbecue sauce.

The tomato salad had asadero cheese in it, which always makes it better. It also had fresh basil in it. I thought the basil was dead after our cold spell, but it turned out it was just very dehydrated. After a flooding, it perked right up and I have fresh basil again. Yay!

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover pork and rice for the adults, chicken patties and leftover mashed potatoes with cheese for the children, cucumbers with ranch dressing

Long version: Another work day, another opportunity to clear out the refrigerator.

Thursday

Short version: Oven-fried chicken, rice with butter, tomato salad, green peas, cookies

Long version: Charlie's teacher is moving at the end of the semester, and until then, she is solo parenting her three kids while teaching, coaching volleyball, and living in a mostly-packed-up house. My immediate response to such a stressful situation is to feed the person. So the four of them came for dinner.

One nice thing about not having easy access to a grocery store is that there's never really any question about what I might serve guests, because I can only cook what I have already. The only meat I had in enough quantity for ten people was chicken. I was out of bread and potatoes, which left me with either pasta or rice for a starch. My vegetable choices were frozen peas, tomatoes, or carrots.

Makes it easy to plan a menu. 

It was far from fancy, but it was tasty, everyone ate it and took seconds, and that poor, exhausted woman did not have to get home at 6:30 p.m. after working all day and be faced with cooking and cleaning up dinner.

The cookies I actually baked for school the next day. This is the only five-day week we have all year, because it's the week that the traveling Missoula theater people come to rehearse and perform a play with the kids. Obviously, that is not happening this year, but we still have to have the Friday school day because it's built into our required number of days in the school year.

Charlie's teacher (the same one who came for dinner) decided to have her class do a very short and simple play of "The Three Pigs" for the other two elementary classes. And I decided that since there was to be a play, however simple, there must be a treat. The Missoula play always involves cookies and punch after the play, so I figured I could at least provide the cookies.

Poppy and I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I forgot to add the salt. 

Yup. Seventy cookies, no salt*.

I remembered I hadn't added it after I took the first batch out of the oven, so I just sprinkled the hot cookies with a bit of salt, and then sprinkled salt over the rest of the cookies after they were in the oven and had spread out, but hadn't set yet. They came out very well, actually. I let our guests preview them for me before I brought them to school. No complaints.

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

* Well, to be precise, I always use salted butter, so there was a minor amount of salt, but definitely not enough.

It's a Going Country Book Club!

 

Okay, not really. Unless any of you are currently reading the same book I am reading. But it's possible! And it's more possible than it normally would be, because I am currently in the middle of three books.

This is very unusual for me. I don't like reading more than one book at a time; it makes me feel too scattered. However, I was given a book by a friend who was interested to hear my reaction to it. That book is The Winner Stands Alone, by Paulo Coelho. He also wrote The Alchemist, which I have not read.

I'm about a quarter of the way through, and so far, my reaction is that I don't love it. It's readable, but the first part of the book definitely reads to me as the author standing on his soapbox (thinly veiled as a fiction novel) and lecturing the reader about the Evils of the Modern World. However, I feel compelled to finish it so I can discuss it with her, and so I plow ahead.

Because I don't really love that book, I am not really too motivated to pick it up consistently. Which is why I'm also reading another book at home. That one is the sixth Anne of Green Gables book, Anne of Ingleside. I think the last time I read the entire series I was about eleven years old, so I don't really remember them. They are relaxing to read. Occasionally boring, but definitely soothing. And that is much appreciated at this particular crazy point in history.

And lastly, I borrowed a book from the library at school to read on my lunch break: A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. I remember this one being very popular several years back, and so far I'm enjoying it well enough to continue. I'm just getting to the Big Event of the book for the narrator--or rather, the first Big Event--so it's so far been all lead-up, but I'm more of a captive audience at work, so I'll read things I wouldn't necessarily choose to read at home. 

Also, I tend to have more of a solid, uninterrupted block of time to read at work, so I can read things that require a bit more concentration. Forty-five minutes to read with no interruptions at home doesn't happen very often. 

So tell me! What are you reading these days? Any recommendations?

Friday Food: The Elk's Last Hurrah

Friday

Short version: Skillet food of leftover taco meat+rice+cheese. And some tomatoes.

Long version: We had school this day to make up for having Monday off for Labor Day--otherwise, it would have been a three-day week because we usually have Fridays off--so I had to work. But I bet you could have guessed that from the skillet meal.

Saturday

Short version: Elk bites, disappointing macaroni and cheese, frozen peas

Long version: Yes! It's the return of the elk! But this was the last bag in the freezer, so it is also the curtain call for the elk.

So I used the cleanest pieces for the elk bites, which were just small slices that I marinated (vinegar, salt, garlic powder, olive oil), then fried in bacon grease with paprika, salt, pepper, and more garlic powder. It had been long enough since we had had elk that all the children were appreciative of it and had second servings.

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder of elk. Or makes the palate grow fonder. Or whatever.

I made the macaroni and cheese with Cubby, using a recipe in a Christopher Kimball cookbook I have. I didn't have the right cheese--only cheap mild cheddar and more of the Velveeta someone gave us. Also, I misread the recipe, resulting in twice as much flour and half as much butter as there should have been.

I am obviously the best person to be teaching Cubby how to cook. Ahem.

The resulting macaroni and cheese was bland and gluey and not particularly appealing, but we had a lot of it. I salvaged most of it for the kids' lunch the next day by frying it in bacon grease and butter and adding more salt and some garlic powder. That made it much more palatable. As you might imagine.

Sunday

Short version: Elk chili, rice, chocolate cake

Long version: Usually when I make chili, I use dried chili powder. This time, however, as I was adding the onions to saute, I decided to chop up the half dozen or so peppers I harvested before our cold snap. I don't actually know what kind of peppers they are. A. bought the plants at a nursery, and they were just labeled "mild chilis." So maybe like Hatch chilis? I don't know.

Anyway, when I tasted them raw, they tasted like green peppers with just a tiny bit of heat. So I chopped them all and put them in the pot. Luckily, I tasted the chili before adding anymore varieties of chili, which is when I discovered that those chilis got pretty spicy when they were cooked. And by the time the elk was done simmering, I was VERY glad I hadn't adding any more heat to it. It was pretty spicy. Enough that some of the kids needed sour cream to tone it down.

A. loved it, though, and declared that I should make it this way from now on. 

Poppy requested the chocolate cake, which Cubby was happy to make. We used (great-great) Grandma Bishop's recipe, which is particularly fun for kids to make because of the step where the buttermilk (we use yogurt) and baking soda are combined. FOAM! It's like those baking soda and vinegar volcanoes.

Anyway, the cake was delicious as always. The kids went to Rafael's ranch in the late afternoon with A. to get Rafael's chickens that he wanted us to take, so Cubby wasn't around to make any frosting. Instead I just dusted it with powdered sugar, which somehow makes it a bit more wholesome. 

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. It was good, though.

And speaking of Cubby! Check out this extremely old photo I found of Cubby when he was a bit younger than Poppy:

Digging ramps in New York. He was into food even then. (Also: Wookit da widdle FACE!)

Monday

Short version: Chili mac, cocoa

Long version: I've read about chili mac before, which is made with macaroni, cheese, and chili. I had both leftover chili and leftover macaroni and cheese, so I decided to combine them. I thought it tasted pretty good, but the children did not approve of this combination. None of them finished their servings, so I made the cocoa, too, to fill things in a little.

Also because I wanted some cocoa myself. Kids are a convenient excuse for making cocoa. (Equal amounts cocoa powder and sugar, a pinch of salt, milk, and a bit of heavy cream.)

Tuesday

Short version: Elk and ground beef tacos

Long version: I took out some ground beef, which I mixed with the remainder of the elk chili, plus some extra green chili and tomatoes, to make taco meat. I did this early in the afternoon because I had a meeting at 4 p.m. 

Good thing I made it earlier, because when I came in the door at 5:30 p.m., the children were past ready to eat. Meat in storebought corn tortillas with cheese, lettuce, and sour cream, and everyone's fed.

I did not give them a vegetable, other than the lettuce. They'll survive.

Wednesday

Short version: Skillet food, carrot sticks

Long version: Wednesday workday means a skillet meal! Leftover taco meat+rice+cheese. 

And with the consumption of this skillet meal, we are officially done with the elk.

It was a big moment. I announced it to the family at large. I feel it was a significant endeavor to cook my way through two hundred pounds of strongly flavored game meat over the course of almost a full year.

I WIN, ELK.

Cubby's next elk tag for his hunt in December is for an antler-less animal, which means if he gets one, it will almost certainly be milder in taste than a bull elk in full rut. Here's hoping.

Thursday

Short version: Pork stir-fry, rice

Long version: This was some of the pork loin that Miss Amelia gave us. When I cut up the steaks a couple of weeks ago, I also chunked some of it up and froze it with a stir-fry marinade (soy sauce, vinegar, garlic powder, ginger powder). That was the meat in it, and then for the vegetables I had all the banana peppers I had harvested before the freezer that didn't quite freeze, plus a couple of not-quite red bell peppers I harvested for the same reason. Also carrots, onions, and a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables that included broccoli, green beans, and mushrooms, but really seemed to mostly be chunks of broccoli stems.

In any case, it was good, and everyone was happy with it.

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

In the Wee Hours

 

Is there anything more tedious than listening to other people talk about how tired they are? Not really. 

But I am, indeed, very tired this morning and I'm going to talk about it. Because the reasons are actually pretty funny.

The plan was to go to sleep early last night. The toddler, however, had other plans. At 8:30 p.m., she was still calling to me from her room to tell me this very important information: "Mommy! 'Rain' and 'Rainbow'! They rhyme!" It wasn't really the time to get into the difference between rhyming and compound words, so I just replied, "Well, no. But rain is the first word in rainbow. Now go to sleep."

So I didn't go to bed until around 9 p.m. Still okay, though, if I could just sleep uninterrupted until at least 5 a.m.

Ah, the optimistically wishful thinking of the tired mother.

At 3 a.m., the same toddler was calling to me from her bed so I could fix her covers.

At 3:45 a.m., that very same toddler was crying in her room. Presumably this was a nightmare because she didn't actually wake up, but did quiet down when I went into her room.

At 4:45 a.m., the five-year-old was demanding to know who put water in his bed. As if one of his brothers would rise from their sound sleep to splash water in his bed while he was sleeping.

Well, actually, I wouldn't put it past them, but this time they were innocent. Turns out, he was just sleeping very heavily with his mouth open and just woke himself up with his own drool.

But that was it for me. I gave up at that point and just got in the shower.

And so now, I am tired. But at least I have plenty of time to drink my coffee before we get on the school bus. 

Plus, I used to get a lot less sleep. Like during this crazy time:

So cute. So exhausting.

Even though I'm tired today, at least I have a reasonable chance of sleeping tonight, which was definitely not the case in the previous decade of my life with newborns and toddlers. So, you know, silver linings.