Friday Food: Wanna See My Refrigerator?

Friday 

Short version: Salmon patties, German potato salad, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: All the dill in all the things! I still had the bouquet of dill in the refrigerator, so I used some with three cans of salmon we got from the excess commodities to make salmon patties. And then I used some in this potato salad (half the sugar, though, and regular onion). And then some in the ranch dressing.

Saturday

Short version: Halloween party food

Long version: This was the night of the village's Halloween celebration. The (only) restaurant serves a buffet that this year included pulled pork, tortillas, coleslaw, and lots of desserts. So that's what we ate.

I haven't been taking many pictures lately, because I haven't had the phone at home, but I do have this photo of my refrigerator. Someone commented awhile ago that I must have a giant refrigerator. I do not. I have a barebones, old-school box that was here when we moved in. It manages to hold a surprising quantity of food. 

Fitting it all in, however, is very much like Tetris. A game I was always very fond of, as it happens.

Sunday

Short version: Brisket, boiled potatoes, sick-girl soup, green salad with ranch dressing, sub-par peaches and cream

Long version: I had actually cooked this brisket a few days earlier when I already had something planned for dinner that night, figuring I would be glad to have it some night when I didn't have time or really didn't want to cook. Which was this night.

All I needed to do for the brisket was re-heat it in the oven. And it was a good thing I had it, because Poppy woke up sick and asked for soup. So I made some for her with the liquid from the brisket, some of the diced meat, some of the boiled potatoes, some already-cooked and pureed squash, and a bit of the pesto that was still in the refrigerator.

We had gotten a whole flat of peaches from excess commodities, which were unfortunately just like all commercial peaches: gross. They were getting kind of wrinkly and a bit soft, but also were all brownish and dry. A dry peach is a crime against nature. They were also crunchy. Kind of like apples.

So weird.

I still peeled and diced some with sugar so the boys could cover it with cream. With enough sugar and cream, even crunchy peaches will be consumed.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, bean and cheese quesadillas, still-frozen peas, CANDYCANDYCANDY

Long version: This was both a work day for me and Halloween. There was also a volleyball game at school right after the school day was over. So the plan was for everyone to stay at school for the game and have dinner at the concession stand, and then go trick-or-treating while we were still in the village.

Poppy being sick complicated this, however. She didn't go to school and was with A. all day while I was at work. I needed to go home to take care of her instead of staying for the volleyball game, so in the end, only Cubby stayed for the game. The rest of us went home and I made the children quesadillas with the flour tortillas Cubby had picked out at the store, cheese, and some of my pressure-canned pinto beans.

A. and I had leftover brisket, potatoes, and peas.

And then we all went trick-or-treating (even Poppy--she wasn't going to get anyone sick walking around outside, and I couldn't bear to deprive her of all the Halloween fun stuff) and the children ate far too much candy. As is proper on Halloween.

Tuesday

Short version: Green chile beef stew, cheddar cheese, baked peaches and cream

Long version: I had one last package of stew beef in the freezer, so I, uh, made stew. Meat, onions, garlic, beef stock, green chile, carrots and potatoes. I made this because we were at church for All Saint's Day Mass at 5 p.m. and didn't get home until after 6 p.m. Stew is an excellent make-ahead meal.

I peeled and cut up a bunch of the weird hard peaches and cooked those with a bit of honey and lemon juice in the oven while the stew was in there. This softened them, and they were better than the raw form. Of course, they were really just a vehicle for the heavy cream and maple syrup I served them with, but they were at least eaten happily.

Wednesday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, rice, green salad with vinaigrette, applesauce

Long version: Look! It's a work night without leftovers! Not that it was a particularly challenging meal, but I still like to pat myself on the back.

I made the rice for the one child who came home from school with a delicate stomach. I made the rice with rooster stock instead of plain water, because that way it doesn't need a bunch of butter to taste good. Of course, adding butter to the rice cooked in the stock is the best of everything, but just the stock rice is better for iffy stomachs.

The applesauce was also for that child, but I couldn't very well leave the other children out, so they got some, too.

Thursday

Short version: Pot roast, potatoes, frozen green peas, rice pudding

Long version: It appears the theme of my fall kitchen is big pieces of beef cooked a long time in the oven simultaneously with a giant dish of rice pudding. No one has complained yet.

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

T.T.: Balloons

Last week on a rainy, nasty day, I was compelled to have recess indoors while I was at work. One of my duties at school is recess monitor, and I really don't like indoor recesses. The kids seem to become completely hysterical when they're racing around a gym instead of on the playground.  

However, when I brought the youngest class into the gym for their recess first, we discovered that the balloon decorations from the volleyball game the night before had been left up. And the teacher who did the decorating said we were free to take them down to play with them. In fact, she said she would be delighted if we would, because then she wouldn't have to do it.

So then the kids got to run around hysterically with balloons at every recess that day, which was great.

Balloons are the perfect indoor plaything, which is an important thing to remember as most of the world approaches the seasons in which indoor play is more frequent. Balloons are cheap. They are light. No one can get hurt by them or break things (at least, not easily). Multiple children can play with one balloon.

The only rule I have in my house is that they can't be played with in the kitchen, because I don't want any filthy balloons near food, and also they will pop if they land on something hot.

After that day of indoor recesses, the older classes had the most fun of all: They got to pop the balloons for me with pencils. Then they picked up the pieces and threw them away. In this way, everyone was happy. The kids got to play with balloons at every recess; I didn't have to haul around equipment or break up disagreements over basketball games; and the balloons were cleaned up. Yay.

Random photo of our road:

No balloons necessary on a day like this.

Snapshots: Huntin' and Carvin'

Starting with a photo I forgot about: The homecoming bonfire at the school Cubby plays 6-man football for. Which is not the same as the school he actually goes to, because there aren't enough kids to have teams at each school. So the schools twenty miles apart have a sports co-op and combine for teams.

It was a really good bonefire.

Both of the older boys have their hunting licenses, and between their tags and A.'s, there are five hunts this fall, all in four weekends. Thankfully, most of them are close enough that camping isn't required, so there have been a lot of very early mornings getting hunters fed and out the door in the dark.

No luck yet, but lots of quiet contemplation at water holes.

A. had four orange pumpkin-looking squash this year, so each child got one to make a jack-o-lantern.

Scooping out the innards.

Lit with birthday cake candles, because I didn't have tea lights or whatever.

And then used as flashlights. 

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: The Last Harvest

Friday 

Short version: Beef, rice, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: I pressure-canned a bunch of pinto beans in the morning, so I decided to put the pressure canner/cooker to work again before washing it and pressure cooked a lot of beef ribs, ox tail, and soup bones to make stock. And to get those bulky bony things out of the freezer so there's room for the new cow we're getting next month.

I pulled all the meat off those bones and fried some of it in tallow with spices for dinner. 

The rest of dinner was pretty easy, because I had been in the kitchen all day and I was tired.

Saturday

Short version: Barbecue beef, rice, raw green beans or salad

Long version: We were at our monthly Saturday Mass, which meant we didn't get home until 5 p.m. Dinners are always quick on these days. More of the beef, this time just mixed with barbecue sauce. More rice, with butter. And the children had the raw green beans, while A. and I had salad.

Sunday

Short version: End-of-garden-season feast, pots de creme

Long version: With the first freeze forecast for Monday, I spent much of the weekend harvesting and dealing with the last of the things from the garden. That included dill, parsley, basil, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, beets, carrots, and potatoes.

Not necessarily a lot of all of those things, but something is better than nothing.

I had taken out one of the leg roasts from the last ram we had butchered, too, so it ended up being a meal featuring food we grew ourselves. 

So! Roasted lamb with a yogurt sauce. My children pointed out that I did not "grow" the yogurt sauce and suggested yet again that we should get a milk cow. I told them we grew the garlic in it, and that's about as close as we're going to get on that one.

Also the newly-dug potatoes roasted with the lamb; the last green beans roasted in a separate pan; lettuce, tomatoes, beets, and cucumber from the garden; and the dill and garlic in the ranch dressing for the salad.

I made a dill bouquet to keep it fresh for as long as I can.

I also made pesto from the last tiny leaves of the basil plants, as well as some carrot tops to bulk it up a bit. Some of that went into the tomato sauce I made with roasted the ripe tomatoes--there are lots of green ones in boxes that will ripen slowly--with more garlic and then pureed with the beet greens.

I'm ready for the food preservation season to be over now. Bring on eating season.

Monday

Short version: Recombined leftovers, raw kohlrabi

Long version: I had more of the beef that had come off the stock bones, so I chopped that up and fried it with some of the roasted tomato sauce and topped that with shredded mozzarella. 

I had made garlic bread the day before, so there was that, too.

The last kohlrabi of the season. I got four or five from the fall garden. They weren't as big as the ones I grew in the spring, but again, something is better than nothing.

Tuesday

Short version: Dilly beef, bread and butter or rice, green salad with ranch dressing, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Long version: I took out the last package of stir-fry beef, which I braised with some of the beef stock, a bit of liquid from the refrigerator dill pickles, and a lot of dill from the dill bouquet. I added some sour cream at the end, too.

I made the cookies because the oven was on most of the day anyway to cook one of the biggest of the calabazas A. grew. 

He weighed it. It was thirty pounds. That is, to state the obvious, a LOT of squash.

Eight quart bags of pureed squash, to be precise.

Most went into the freezer, although I kept some in the refrigerator for short-term use.

Wednesday

Short version: Spaghetti and meatballs

Long version: One of my many and varied duties at the school is sitting in the preschool room during naptime so the preschool teacher can have a break. This means that I have 30 minutes in a dark room to do nothing but think and try not to fall asleep myself. I'm sure it will surprise none of you that I often think about dinner.

During this thinking time, I had been planning to make the tuna-melt quesadillas I had mentioned awhile ago, but then I suddenly remembered the extra meatballs I had put in the freezer the last time I made them. And the roasted tomato sauce and pesto in the refrigerator.

Serendipity. 

So when I got home, I put the frozen meatballs in the oven to bake with the tomato sauce, made some spaghetti that also got some of the tomato sauce, some of the pesto, and butter, and that was dinner.

So easy. I can see why people buy pre-made stuff.

The tomato sauce had beet greens in it, so I decided that was enough vegetable.

Thursday

Short version: Chili, baked rice pudding

Long version: I had two pint jars of pinto beans that hadn't sealed when I canned beans, the pureed calabaza, and some more tomatoes that had ripened. This, plus two pounds of ground beef and a quart jar of beef stock, became the chili. Oh, and the last of the beet greens that I pureed with the tomatoes so no one could detect them.

I have cracked the code on chili for my family. Everyone eats it and likes it. Hooray.

I was actually cooking a brisket in the oven most of the day (for a later meal), so I made a few other things at the same time, including the rice pudding. My biggest Pyrex had the brisket in it, so I used the 13"x9" Pyrex and made 2.5 times the recipe, using 2.5 quarts of milk, 1/3 cup of rice, and 1/3 cup of sugar. It fit, and was enough for everyone to have seconds. Good to know.

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

T.T.: Finncrisps and Cheese

This is going to be kind of short, but I was reminded of and subsequently purchased online a few boxes of Finncrisp sourdough rye crisps recently. And then my sister brought us good sharp cheddar. This is how I was reacquainted with a most delicious combination: melted sharp cheddar* scooped up with rye crisps.

So good.

The rye crisps are also good for scooping up cottage cheese, or just spread with butter, but scooping up good melted cheddar with them is one of the the small pleasures of life I didn't realize I missed until I had it again. 

So if you ever see rye crisps at your grocery store, you might want to try them. Get some good cheddar while you're at it and raise your rye crisp dripping with melted cheese in my direction. Salud!

 

I don't have a relevant photo for this, so here's another good New Mexico landscape shot for you courtesy of A.

*I just microwave thin slices of cheese in a bowl until melted. I learned of this combination, by the way, from the MiL. Thanks, MiL.

Snapshots: Taciturn

A. took my sister and three of the children to one of our more spectacular canyons last weekend. He took lots of pictures, which I will present mostly without commentary, except to note how lucky we are to live in a place that looks like this.

Did you know there are beavers in New Mexico? If you didn't, you do now. This is a beaver dam.

Fall color. Who's jealous now, Vermont?

The ruins of an unusually large adobe house. Two stories is rare to see.

Faithful companion Jasper seeking shade.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: A Bit Tardy

Apologies to the two of you who are awake early enough to read this at 4:30 a.m. when it usually posts. I worked more this week, and was very tired last night. My slow brain was convinced last night was Wednesday night, apparently, so I had to write most of this in the morning. But here it is!

Friday 

Short version: Spaghetti and meatballs, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: I used the combination of ground beef and bulk sausage again, although slightly less sausage this time. Good meatballs. And a good make-ahead meal to eat early before going to the varsity football game.

Fresh dill and garlic in the ranch dressing, because I still can.

Saturday

Short version: Pot roast with potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, rice pudding

Long version: I'm down to the last couple of boxes of beef from the cow we got last year, and what was in those last boxes was mostly big pieces that need to be slow roasted. So that's what I did. 

And of course, if the oven is on half the day anyway, there might as well be some rice pudding baking in there, too. I was smarter this time and made the full triple recipe instead of fooling myself that a double would be enough. The triple one was finished this night, so that was obviously the right call.

Sunday

Short version: Chicken enchilada casserole, token cake and ice cream

Long version: We got two old hens from our neighbor that weren't laying anymore, and A. butchered them this day. I pressure cooked them and used the meat to make a casserole. My sister was here to help me strip the meat off the carcasses--one of my least-favorite kitchen tasks--so that made it about half as tedious as it usually is.

I had been planning on making tortillas and having soft tacos, but in the end, laziness won out and instead I layered some of the commodities tomato sauce that I had flavored with onion, garlic, cumin, green chile, and chile powder with the meat, corn tortillas, and cheese. It made a very big casserole that was very tasty. Plus, my sister had brought avocados, so we even had guacamole for one of the toppings. Yum.

I had made cupcakes (Grandma Bishop's chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting) for Poppy to bring to school the next day and had enough batter after filling the cupcake papers to make a mini-cake in a two-cup Pyrex. I cut that in quarters and everyone who wanted it had that with a scoop of ice cream from the big tub.

My sister also brought sprinkles with her, per the birthday girl's request, so they were very festive. (The bare cupcakes were for her brothers, who don't really like sprinkles).

The very small class sizes we have are very convenient for things like birthdays. Five cupcakes--Poppy has only four students in her preschool class, plus her teacher--are much more manageable than 25. And it even leaves some left over for her brothers.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: Mostly the enchilada casserole, although A. also had some soup I had made at his request from the steak bones. I had just simmered them to make a stock and pulled the bits of meat off, then added onion, garlic, potatoes, and pureed squash. It wasn't bad.

There were also leftover cupcakes, which is of course the best leftover.

Tuesday

Short version: Birthday pizza, carrot sticks with ranch dip, cake

Long version: Poppy requested "pizza and carrots" for her birthday dinner. I assumed she did not mean together. So one pizza was cheese, one had bacon and finely sliced onion on it.

I have to admit I was too lazy to go ALL THE WAY out to the garden (fifty steps) to get fresh dill for the ranch dip, so I used the dried. Fresh is better, though.

And the traditional Ugly Cake. This one was a repeat of the chocolate cake/peanut butter frosting, with decoration supervised and somewhat implemented by Poppy.

With more sprinkles. Of course.

Wednesday

Short version: Purpose-cooked leftovers, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: While I was in the kitchen the day before, I had cooked a package of tenderized bottom round steaks in chopped tomatoes/onion/garlic just to have on hand for dinner after my work day. I also heated up the leftover pizza, so there was a piece of pizza for everyone and some meat, and then salad.

When Cubby got home from football, he had the meat with leftover spaghetti heated in the juices, plus butter and cream cheese to make a sauce for the spaghetti.

And there was a tiny piece of leftover cake for each child. Four days in a row with cake has to be a record.

Thursday

Short version: Pork and bean tacos, raw green beans

Long version: I subbed at school, so it was another work day for me, but no more leftovers. So when I got home, I opened one of the big cans of commodities ground pork and fried that with some pinto beans I had taken from the freezer, plus onion powder, garlic powder, chile powder, and cumin powder.

All the powders on work days. Because sometimes, chopping onions is just too much effort.

It was good, though. Three children and A. had it in corn tortillas with cheese. Cubby had it with mashed potatoes and cheese when he got home. He doesn't really like the store tortillas.

I had a salad. I think it's going to freeze next week, so I'm still enjoying lettuce while I can.

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