Friday Food: Everyone Fed

Some weeks, that's the best I can do.

Friday 

Short version: Beef soup, pizza, carrots

Long version: I made soup with a bunch of things that needed to be used, including the remaining meat from brisket and pot roast. And since I was making bread, I used some dough to make one pizza, which also used the last bit of shredded mozzarella cheese.

The children ate the carrots before dinner, because that's the best time to get kids to eat vegetables.

Saturday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, bacon, rye crisps, carrot sticks with ranch dip

Long version: A. and Cubby were gone hunting, so it was an easy meal for those of us at home. I gave the kids rye crisps because they had bread with both breakfast and lunch and the rest of their dinner was pretty heavy. Plus, they all like them and thought it was exciting to have crackers with dinner.

Low standards again.

Sunday

Short version: Pork ribs, cornbread, green salad with ranch dressing, peach and dried cherry crisp with whipped cream

Long version: A. bought a package of pork ribs with two racks in it. I put a rub on both of racks and cooked them both in a low oven for several hours. This made everyone very happy.

I don't make cornbread very often, but everyone likes it. I use this recipe, but with several changes. I use half masa and half cornmeal, and plain yogurt for the buttermilk; I don't mess around with that "homemade baking powder" business; and I bake it in a preheated 14-inch cast iron skillet with a tablespoon of butter melted in it.

The crisp was to use up the last of the really bad peaches we got from the excess commodities. They just didn't have much peach flavor, especially when cooked. But they had to be cooked to be edible at all. So I added some dried cherries to them (thanks to JP2 for the idea to use dried fruit with the peaches) and made a crisp topping with oats. 

It was okay, but would have been better with better peaches. Of course. I did manage to use all the peaches, though, which means I will no longer have this highly amusing box in my kitchen.

Last Dance of Flavor, indeed. 

Monday

Short version: Bull 'n' beans, leftover cornbread, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I kept changing my mind about what I would actually make for dinner. In the end, I took out a small amount of the leftover bull meat from when I made enchiladas awhile ago. It was already flavored, but I added some salsa in with it and the half a can of black beans in the pan, plus some sour cream. 

It was quite tasty, but only enough for the children, and a bit in my salad. A. had the last bowl of beef soup and some cheese.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover pork ribs, baked potatoes, chili, carrots, burned cookies

Long version: I made chili for dinner before I realized the children had Frito pie at school for lunch, so I decided to heat up the remaining pork ribs for them instead. I also baked the potatoes (using this trick) while the ribs were heating up.

Continuing our theme for the week, there were only enough ribs for the children, plus a few bits for me. A. had a bowl of the chili. He hadn't had any Frito pie for lunch.

Poppy and I had made peanut butter cookies while I was baking a squash for a few hours. I burned the bottoms of the first batch, and then did the SAME THING with the next pan. Annoying.

So then I spent a tedious ten minutes scraping the bottoms of the cookies with a butter knife to remove the char.

We could call this evidence of failure, but I prefer to see it as a kind of redemption.

Wednesday

Short version: Frito pie

Long version: I didn't have enough chili (sound familiar?) for big bowls for everyone, but I did have enough for Frito pie. Frito pie is very popular here. It's just a pile of Fritos with chili ladled over the top, then topped with any taco toppings you want. It's amazingly good. Not the healthiest option, given the chips, but undeniably tasty.

Thursday

Short version: Quesadillas and radishes

Long version: This evening got crazy. I was subbing for a teacher at school and didn't get home with the kids on the bus until a little after 4:30 p.m. I had to go to our neighbors' at 5 p.m. to meet the brand inspector* for the cow we're buying from them, because A. was still driving other kids home on the bus. So I made quesadillas for the children with flour tortillas, canned refried beans, cheese, and green chili, then left them eating while I went to the neighbors' house a couple of miles away. 

When I got home twenty minutes later, A. was just arriving with the bus. I made him some scrambled eggs and he ate some of the kids' leftover quesadillas before bringing the boys to judo. I also ate a piece of leftover quesadilla before collapsing. I also had some granola later.

Kind of ended this week with a whimper, but at least it did end.

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

* New Mexico is very adamant that every animal sold must have a brand inspection. The brand inspector shows up at the seller's ranch and checks to make sure the brand on the animal matches the brand of the person selling it (all brands are registered with the state), then uses the computer in his truck to print out the official paperwork. I also got the bill of sale from our neighbor, so if we're stopped on our way to the processor, we can prove that we have a right to have this cow.

Changing It Up on Tuesdays

The time has come to end the Tuesday Tips. I just don't like giving advice. Who am I to tell other people what to do? So, I won't.

I can do that, you see, because here if nowhere else, I am Supreme Ruler.

So, what will I do instead? Who knows! I used to write every day--every. single. day--for years with no idea what I would write about the next day. I no longer write every day, but I think I can probably manage one free-wheeling day a week without short-circuiting my brain.  

I think.

It'll be like those free-write assignments from school. Who can say what might come out of my keyboard?

Let's start now, with some fine randomness.

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I overheard one of my sons at school yesterday tell someone, "When I tell people in New York that I live in New Mexico, they always say, 'You live in Mexico?!' And when I tell people here that I'm from New York, they always say, 'Have you been to New York City?'"

It is amusing to me how often people mis-hear "New Mexico" as just "Mexico." It's as if the majority of the country forgets there is a New Mexico. We do generally fly under the radar here, which I actually appreciate.

Just us and the tumbleweeds.

Also amusing is how people outside of New York can't get past the idea that the entirety of the state is not New York City. It's a really big state, and no, none of my children ever made the six-hour drive to New York City. 

I also have to note that I lived in the 50th, 49th, and 48th states* as a kid--in that descending order--and now I live in the 47th. There was a 15-year interruption in my progression there when I lived in New York (the 11th), but I still enjoy the orderliness of this. Which means to keep up the order, next I would have to live in Oklahoma. Stranger things have happened.

* Hawaii, Alaska, and Arizona, respectively.

Snapshots: Breaking News

A very important announcement to start off our Snapshots today: I have a brand-new washing machine.

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus.

Our previous washing machine was purchased used two years ago, and has been dying a slow death for a few months. It finally stopped agitating completely, among other problems, and I declared the time had come for a new machine. A REAL new machine this time. 

But of course, we live a long way from new appliances, so it took a week or so before A. drove the many miles to an appliance store. During that time I was once again doing laundry in the bathtub and re-confirming my belief that I would have been a terrible pioneer woman.

Anyway.

A. did eventually get to the store. He bought a commercial Maytag washing machine, and my socks are once again white. Yay.

Moving on . . .

Samson was waiting at his takeout window for his hay when I went out in the morning.

So was Bill. He has his own window.

A moody walk yesterday morning.

Jasper is invariably cheerful, regardless of the weather.

Those clouds brought snow later in the day.

We ended up with about a quarter inch, which melted fifteen minutes after it stopped because the sun came out. Welcome to New Mexico.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

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?