Friday Food: Fishing and the Fair

Friday 

Short version: Barbecue bull, boiled potatoes, raw green beans

Long version: I should probably be saving the easy things--like the already-processed bull meat fried with barbecue sauce--for the beginning of the school year, when I have much less time. But, well, I didn't. And there's plenty of bull still in the freezer.

Saturday

Short version: Meatballs, garlic bread, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: I had to bake bread, so while that was in the oven, I also roasted a small pan of tomatoes and a few cloves of garlic. Then I used my immersion blender to puree that with fresh basil and balsamic vinegar, and that was the sauce for the meatballs.

I had a mostly empty bottle of mustard, so I added olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper to that bottle and shook it all up to make a salad dressing. That's what I used for the tomatoes and cucumbers. Yum.

Sunday

Short version: Steak, mashed potatoes, carrot sticks with curry dip, brownies

Long version: I don't know why mashed potatoes seem like a cold weather sort of food, but I certainly don't make them much in the summer. Maybe because all that mashing makes me too hot.

Monday

Short version: Pork, leftover mashed potatoes, tomato and cucumber salad

Long version: Pork country ribs cooked in the morning in the oven (along with some blueberry/oat muffins), then fried in their own rendered fat at dinnertime.

I am very happy it's the season for tomato and cucumber salad. It's one of those things that is really not worth making with the tasteless produce from a grocery store.

Tuesday

Short version: Tuna/rice skillet, apricot popsicles

Long version: We went fishing!

This big lake is an hour from us, but only about fifteen minutes from Cubby's friend's house. He stayed there Monday night, so we took everyone--including his friend--fishing after we picked him up on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the only fish caught was a small catfish, so we had canned fish for dinner instead. I didn't actually plan that, but I'm always wrecked after a fishing expedition, and tuna is easy.

All I did was dump some cooked, frozen rice into a skillet with a bunch of butter and bacon grease and fry that with two cans of drained tuna and some frozen peas. And then mayonnaise and shredded cheese. Sorta white and bland, but serviceable.

Wednesday

Short version: Barbecue stir-fry, fresh bread and butter, carrot/cucumber sticks and raw green beans

Long version: I had taken out beef stir-fry meat, but didn't actually have the motivation (or the appropriate vegetables) to stir-fry. So instead I marinated it in the last of the mustard vinaigrette, fried it in butter, and added barbecue sauce.

This is the time of year when our vegetable is whatever I pull from the garden, usually raw. Although when I start to get calabacitas in greater numbers--like next week--there will be more cooking of vegetables.

Thursday

Short version: Pork tacos, cucumbers, canned peaches

Long version: We spent over five hours at the county fair, watching animals get prepared for showing, viewing the horse show, and running around like maniacs with friends.

Well, that last one was what my kids did. Despite my lack of actually running, I was still totally wiped out when we got home. The fair has that effect.

Maybe I should have taken a break midday like Jack did.

So all I did when we got home was fry a can of commodities pork in butter with garlic powder, chile powder, and cumin, then put that in corn tortillas with cheese.

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

T.T.: De-Shelling Hardboiled Eggs

I really dislike peeling hardboiled eggs. Even when the shells come off easily, the little pointy bits of shell always make my fingers hurt after a couple of eggs. And then, of course, everyone knows those particularly infuriating eggs that refuse to release their shells without half the egg going with them.

So, except for when I'm making deviled eggs, I don't actually shell them. Instead I use a spoon. You can do this for anything in which the eggs are going to be chopped up anyway.

Start by using the edge of a spoon to tap and gently crack all the way around the equator of the egg. Then break it in half and pull the two halves apart. 

Next, use the spoon to scoop the egg out of the shell on one half.

Let the spoon do the work.

Repeat with the other half, using the spoon to scrape off any egg that's sticking to the shell.

And that's it. A shell-less hardboiled egg with no sore fingers or shredded egg sticking to the shell.

Snapshots: Two Inches of Rain!

Behold:

It has been months since we've seen anything like this in our rain gauge.

All that rain filled some of the holes the children have randomly dug in the pasture. And so of course they must play in them.

Just like a wading pool, except mostly mud.

And another good puddle outside the gate that apparently is perfect for lying down in.

All that rain has of course meant that I haven't had to water the garden lately, which I very much appreciate. I'm starting to get some good harvests of summer vegetables from it. 

That's basil in the colandar, which I made into pesto for the freezer, and those big cucumbers became refrigerator dill pickles.

Speaking of the garden, A. built a stone wall in the front of the vegetable garden by the driveway to replace the rotting board fence with peeling paint.

Old nasty fence with the wall behind it (and a LOT of tomatoes in front of it).

And with the boards removed. But posts left so I can put fencing on them next year for green beans.

And finally, I was able to pick the first sunflower for the return of the sunflower and sage table arrangement.

Now we know it's summer. (That greenish yellow thing in the front is a flowering head of dill, which I was using for a contrast to the purple until I had the sunflower.)

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Runny Yogurt for Popsicles

Friday 

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, bread and butter, raw carrots

Long version: I had actually baked the meatballs the day before, when I had the oven on anyway to make bread. So I just re-heated them in a skillet on the stove and added some barbecue sauce to them.

Saturday

Short version: Leftover meatloaf or meatballs, rice, curried split peas, apricot popsicles

Long version: I found a container of curried split peas in the freezer that I figured ought to be used up. Three of the four children eat them, so they go pretty fast.

I made the popsicles mostly because my last batch of yogurt turned out too runny. That happens if I don't have the milk warm enough. Runny yogurt is good for smoothies and popsicles, though. To make these popsicles, I just mixed the yogurt with equal parts apricot jam and a very small amount of heavy cream. The result is delicious, and a lot easier than the chocolate pudding pops that require cooking.

Sunday

Short version: Barbecued pork ribs, rice, green salad with ranch dressing, pots de creme

Long version: A. bought a couple of racks of ribs at the store and cooked one rack this day. That required setting up a grill outside and monitoring them for several hours, so it's not something that happens often. They sure are popular with the children, however.

All that scrap metal the previous owner of our house left behind sure has come in handy.

Since I wasn't cooking the whole dinner, I had lots of time to chop up fresh dill and garlic for the ranch dressing.

Monday

Short version: Pot roast with potatoes and carrots, raw snap peas

Long version: I made a chuck roast in the morning with potatoes and carrots, and then just heated it up at dinnertime.

It's the summer kitchen schedule, for sure.

While I had the oven on in the morning, I also cooked a beet from the garden. I couldn't find any aluminum foil, so I improvised with a larger Pyrex inverted over a smaller one to make a covered dish for the beet.

Looks kind of like a glass mushroom.

Tuesday

Short version: Pot roast skillet, apricot popsicles

Long version: I chopped up the rest of the pot roast, carrots, and potatoes and fried that in butter with some leftover rice and frozen peas. Surprisingly tasty.

The popsicles were in honor of our anniversary. Also, it was hot and I had more runny yogurt to use up.

Wednesday

Short version: Egg 'n' things, canned peaches

Long version: I made a big skillet of scrambled eggs. Some of the family had them with the leftover rice and curried split peas. Some had them with tortillas and cheese. A. had his with the leftover pot roast skillet. 

And then everyone had some of the canned peaches the commodities lady had given us. One of the more popular commodities items in our house, for sure.

Thursday

Short version: Tacos, black beans, etc.

Long version: When A. grilled the pork ribs, he experimented with grilling a couple of pigs' feet, too. They didn't soften enough, though, so he asked me to cook them further in a soup or something. It finally cooled down enough that I could simmer something on the stove for a few hours without turning the kitchen into a sauna. 

So I simmered the pigs' feet in a couple of quarts of rooster stock from the freezer, along with some dried black beans, a bit of leftover onion, and a clove of garlic.

I had also taken out some of A.'s very spicy venison posole that I froze a few months ago, so I added the pigs' feet to that for him.

The kids had the meat in corn tortillas, and the beans if they wanted them. There were chopped lettuce, tomatoes (thanks, garden!) and avocado (thanks, commodities!) as well, but I didn't bother with a separate vegetable.

Oh, and I had the other half of the zucchini bread I made a couple of weeks ago and froze, too, so the kids had that after dinner.

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

T.T.: Marriage (Non-) Advice

Today marks 19 years of marriage for A. and me. Since our anniversary happened to fall this year on a Tuesday, I felt it behooved me to make today's tip about how to have a successful marriage.

Look! Here's a photo of A. and I giving advice on our wedding day! 

We went to a Quaker wedding once after we'd been married for six years or so, in which the bride and groom sat in front of all the guests and invited any guest who wished to stand up and give them advice for their married life. Many people stood up and said many things.

And then I stood up and said they shouldn't listen to any of it.

Okay, so I wasn't that rude. What I actually said was this: Marriages are highly individual, because they are a union of two individual people. No one outside that marriage can ever really know what it's like on the inside of that relationship.

There is no universal advice for such a situation. There can't even be a universal agreement on what constitutes a "successful" marriage.

In marriage, as with so much else in life, every person has to figure out what works for him or her. Except in the case of marriage, it also has to work for the spouse.

That's a pretty tall order, and no one should ever expect that to be easy.

Not easy, no. But rewarding and adventurous and lots of other good things. 

So here's to A., 19 years of adventures, and many more to come.

Not taking yourself too seriously might be a useful piece of advice, actually. We started on our wedding day with a Napolean portrait.

Snapshots: So Long, Lambs

A. brought the four male lambs to the auction a couple of hours away. Our cowboys helped him load them into the cattle trailer.

Okay, so actually the sheepboys loaded them into the Ranger. (That dang-near man-sized child leaning so nonchalantly on the side of the truck is my tiny baby Cubby. Sniff.)

And speaking of that man-child, he and his dad made a forge out of rocks, mud, and a pipe. The pipe is attached to a hairdryer, which heats the forge in the same way hand-operated bellows used to do.

I do not recommend working a forge in full sun when it's 96 degrees out. I mean, unless you enjoy sweating your life away. Cubby seems to.

So far, he's made a flathead screwdriver out of an huge nail and a pair of tongs out of some scrap metal. Next up, a bit for Bill the Pony.

The older boys also made this rather elaborate castle out of mud. It's for their earplugs, naturally.

My garden has entered the domination stage.

These tomatoes are dominating the hollyhocks.

These Romas are trying to dominate A.'s giant climbing tomatoes on the fence.

And the calabaza, as always, is dominating everything.

And last, some walk photos from when I went a different direction.

Another neighboring windmill.

And the old schoolhouse in the first light of day.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Book Talk: High School Fiction Part 2

These are the fiction books I bought for the high school library, most of which I have not read. Yet.

A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee--Despite the above disclaimer, I did read this one already. It's about a young girl who becomes part of a female spy agency in Victorian London. Some of the obvious shoehorning of modern attitudes into a historical setting annoyed me a bit, but I still enjoyed it enough that I'd like to read the other three in the series. And I know 14-year-old me would not have cared a bit about those inconsistencies. 

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

The Wishing Day Trilogy by Lauren Myracle

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver--I have read this before, which is why I bought it for the library. Such a good book.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Cosima by Grazia Deledda--A. recommended this book. It's the story of the author's own growing up in rural Sardinia. I read this one already, too, and it was a fascinating glimpse into a place and culture I knew nothing about.

My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather--I love My Antonia. I haven't read Death Comes for the Archbishop yet, but it's set in New Mexico, so I feel like I have to. And I also felt like we really should have it in our school library. So now we do.

And here is a photo of the actual high school library in progress. It's on the stage in the old gym, because that's the only place there was room.

Dune by Frank Herbert--According to A., the greatest science fiction novel of all time. And so of course, I bought it for the library. I got the next three in the series, as well. There are a bunch more, but A. told me the first four are the best, anyway.

Garden Spells and First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen--These were actually my copies that I donated to the school libary. They're easy to read books, with wonderful characters and a sort of overlay of magic that affects the otherwise ordinary lives of those characters.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristof--A science fiction novel told through a series of documents. Cubby read this and really liked it, although he said it was a little disturbing, because it was such a plausible scenario.

Lost on the Prairie--by MaryLou Driedger

The Luck Uglies trilogy--This was recommended a couple of times by Jody here, and I'm looking forward to reading them.

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forester--Another science fiction recommendation from A. He feels about this the way that Cubby felt about Illuminae.

Moon Moth and Other Stories by Jack Vance--And yet another science fiction recommendation from A. He's read a lot of them.

The Night Gardener by Jonathon Auxier

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

The Professional by W.C. Heinz

True Grit by Charles Portis

We Fed Them Cactus by Fabiola Cabeza de Baca--This is the story of the author's childhood growing up only a couple of hours from my own home in New Mexico. She was raised in the traditional Spanish way, but witnessed the beginning of the homesteader era, as well. It's a fascinating book.

A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat

What would you add to this list of high school fiction? Or have you read any of these and would recommend them?