A Saturday in December

I know! A rare post on a Saturday. This is not one of my typical posting days, but who says Tuesday is now the only day I can be random?

It is cold, and windy, and generally inhospitable. This means that we have all been inside all day. And A. was gone much of the day retrieving our beef from the processor in Oklahoma (yay!).

As a means of distraction--and also because one child asked about the Christmas stockings--we pulled out our (very minimal) Christmas decorations today and put them up. Of course, this required putting on some Christmas carols. 

I'm partial to crooners singing classic Christmas carols, although one child requested Jeff Foxworthy's "12 Redneck Days of Christmas."

Later, Ritchie, our beloved UPS delivery man, brought us some boxes that included the bulk oats I ordered, some stocking stuffers, and a DVD of "Mickey's Christmas Carol." We have a tradition of watching one Christmas movie for every weekend of Advent, so I immediately put this one on.

I guess all of this inspired a very Christmas-y feeling in the children, because when I announced that I was retiring to the bedroom for one hour and that any further questions were to be directed to A., they all went into the living room to listen to YouTube Christmas music. 

I don't know what else they're doing in there, but I can hear "Last Christmas" through the door. 

I'm feeling very much in the Christmas spirit, and I guess my children are, too.

Friday Food: In Which We Demolish a Turkey

Friday 

Short version: Leftovers, of course

Long version: Isn't the day after Thanksgiving the National Day of Leftovers? No? Well, that's what we had, anyway, federal holiday or no.

Saturday

Short version: Brisket, rice, pureed calabaza, more leftovers, canned peaches

Long version: There had been a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers, for both lunch and dinner, so I thought everyone would appreciate a turkey break. I made the brisket, rice, and calabaza, and then half the children chose turkey and various other leftovers anyway. Okay.

I ate the brisket, because I don't even like turkey freshly cooked, much less as a leftover.

The canned peaches were commercial canned peaches, not mine. We've been getting a lot of peaches from the excess commodities lately, so I put three cans in the refrigerator to chill and everyone finally got a pretty big serving of peaches. 

Sunday

Short version: Turkey enchilada casserole, peach and blueberry crisp with maple yogurt

Long version: I broke down the last of the turkey this day--six people can take care of a 22-pound turkey in five days, apparently--and used some of it to make a really big enchilada casserole. 

I didn't serve a separate vegetable, but there were lettuce and tomato. It was still my lettuce, that's been sitting in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks now, and my tomatoes, that have been slowly ripening in a box on the floor of the kitchen for over a month.

The crisp was made with a gallon bag of Nick's peaches that I had cut in half and pitted, but weren't peeled. When they thaw, the skins come right off. Of course, frozen peaches don't hold their shape when they're thawed, but who cares when they taste that good? The blueberries were a five-pound bag of Sysco blueberries that I've had for at least a year. I really need to finish them up.

We finally got a delivery of wood this day, late in the afternoon. 

The exciting moment when it all comes crashing out of the dump truck is the best part.

The boys got about half of it stacked in the hour or so before it got dark and I called them in to eat. 

Monday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I brought home some chicken tacos from the school lunch. A. had some of the turkey and rice soup I had made the day before, along with a couple of tacos. Calvin had the other two tacos, plus some of the leftover enchilada casserole.

Jack and Poppy had the casserole. And Cubby had the last scoop of the casserole mixed with some of the soup, to make a kind of taco turkey soup.

I had the lettuce and tomatoes left over from the night before's casserole topping with some leftover brisket.

Tuesday

Short version: Chuck eye steaks, boiled potato chunks, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: The very last of the garden lettuce that's been hanging out in the refrigerator for at least two weeks. Ditto the dill, which has been in a jar of water that long. I also used a couple of the long-ripening tomatoes from the box on the floor.

Garden produce really is the best. I will miss mine until spring.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers, frozen peas, sleep

Long version: I had a headache building all afternoon at work, and by the time dinner came around at 6 p.m., the headache was a migraine, I was sick to my stomach, and all I could do was crawl into bed.

Luckily, I had already put everything in the oven for dinner. "Everything" was leftover "fish planks" (like sticks, but wider) from the school lunch, leftover brisket, leftover boiled potatoes, and the peas. By the time A. got home with Cubby, all he had to do was take it all out of the oven and let the children serve themselves.

There was also leftover chocolate cake from the school cafeteria, which of course was finished off with no problem.

I, meanwhile, slept off and on from 5:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m., got up briefly to put on my pajamas and brush my teeth, and went back to bed until 5:30 the following morning. I woke up all better, and very happy to see that A. had cleaned up the kitchen along with feeding the children, helping with homework, and getting them all to bed.

The old-fashioned but excellent word "helpmate" comes to mind.

Thursday

Short version: Beef tri tip, spaghetti with roasted tomato sauce, leftover peas, pureed squash

Long version: The beef was a pretty small, narrow piece that I just seared, sliced thin, and then returned to the pan to cook a bit more. Then I put some of the roasted tomato sauce and butter on it.

The tomato sauce for both the spaghetti and the meat was a bag of my own sauce from the freezer. I always feel like I shouldn't start using it too early, but then, I suppose there's also no point in hoarding it.

Peas for the children, squash for the adults. That's usually the way it goes in our house.

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

A Short Rant About Lights

One of my favorite things to put up in the winter are the small white lights that I wind around the decorative iron thing that separates our kitchen from the dining room. 

Light in the darkness.

The lights I use were actually left here by the previous owner of the house, so I have no idea how old they are. 

But I know they must be pretty old, because they don't hurt my eyes.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed that non-colored twinkle lights now really are white. They're a glaring, stark, absolutely terrible white. The older ones are more yellow. They glow, they don't glare.

One of the strands I had stopped working last year, so I tried buying a new string online. I specifically searched for "warm" white lights. When I plugged them in, however, they were very far from "warm." They were awful.

So now I guess I'll just have to use my last remaining strand until it dies and then I won't have lights anymore. Or maybe by then there will have been a revolution and the people will once again demand lights that aren't an assault to the eyes.

Snapshots: Courtesy of A.

When A. goes places and brings the cell phone, he often takes photos, usually of things I would probably not have thought to photograph.

From a quail-hunting excursion.

A very impressive WPA-built wall of hand-cut stone surrounding the old school in a town we go to sometimes for groceries.

Adventure Van hauls cattle. Well, a single cow, anyway, to the butcher.

He repaired our neighbor's crumbling chimney.

Good view from the roof.

There you have it! A.'s life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Turkey for the Feast

Friday 

Short version: Beef and rice soup, ham and cheese sliders, raspberry jello

Long version: I woke up in the morning fully intending to stay out of the kitchen, but once I woke up a little more, I realized I had several kitchen tasks to do that I hadn't gotten to during my week of cooking at school every day. One of those tasks was using up the last chunk of pot roast before it went bad. That's what I used for the soup.

I made the sliders with the leftover rolls from the cafeteria, which were pretty dry after being re-heated once already. So I put some of the leftover grated cheese and ham from the school salad bar in them and doused them in melted butter before covering them and baking them until they were hot. These were, unsurprisingly, a hit with the children.

Ditto the jello. Cubby chose this when we were at the store the day before, and, determined to have enough jello for once, he got five boxes and made them all. This filled a 13"x9" Pyrex almost all the way to the top, and made a LOT of jello. They were very excited. But I didn't let them eat it all in one night, because I'm a party pooper like that.

Saturday

Short version: Divide and conquer

Long version: This was the second day of Cubby's basketball tournament an hour away, and he had a game at 9 a.m., followed by another at 7 p.m. Which meant he was sitting there waiting for his next game almost all day. I took pity on him and went to the high school the tournament was held at around noon. I took him to lunch at a restaurant in town, where he got some GIANT stuffed sopapillas (stuffed with green chiles, cheese, and beef), and I got a BLT.

Then we cruised around Family Dollar for awhile before sitting in the parking lot in the van for about two hours. When we went to a gas station to fill up around 4 p.m. before returning for the second game, I got a Snickers ice cream bar and he got a Twix ice cream bar. The ice cream bar, in addition to some pecans I brought with me and ate during the game, was my dinner.

At home, A. fed the other children bean and cheese quesadillas and leftover jello. Cubby got to have some of the jello, too, when we got home around 9:30 p.m.

Sunday

Short version: Ribeye steaks, chicken stock rice, creamed spinach, raw cucumbers, lazy chocolate fondue

Long version: One of the things I had to do in the school kitchen before finishing for the week was figure out what to do with the perishable things that wouldn't last until we got back to school after a ten-day break. And one of those things was a big bag of spinach for the salad bar. I gave some to teachers and staff, and brought some home with me. That's what I made the creamed spinach from.

I hadn't made a Sunday dessert, so I microwaved some chocolate chips with a bit of coconut oil until it was all melted, put a dollop of that in a small bowl for each child, and gave them each two marshmallows to dip in it. That's fondue, right? Sure. 

Monday

Short version: Italian steaks, spaghetti with tomato sauce, raw cucumber

Long version: Last package of tenderized bottom round steaks. I browned them and then braised them in the oven for awhile in onion, tomato, basil, garlic, oregano.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and a bunch of butter. I almost always add butter to pasta that just has a marinara sauce on it. I find it smooths out the acidity a bit. Plus, my skinny kids can use all the calories they can get.

Tuesday

Short version: Leftovers, Ms. Rebecca's green chile soup, baked beans, fresh bread

Long version: Leftovers on a non-work day, yes. I had made the baked beans earlier in the day while I was baking the squash for our pumpkin pie, because it occurred to me this would be an excellent use for the GIANT cans of Sysco pinto beans we got from the school when we shut down for COVID originally. Which was, um, over two years ago. Really past time to use those beans. But what do you do with a 6.75-pound can of beans?

You make a huge casserole of baked beans. At least, that's what I did.

So many baked beans.

I was taught to make real Boston baked beans by the MiL--bean pot, salt pork, a whole onion--but I don't make them that way anymore. I use diced onion, bits of bacon, mustard, ketchup, maple syrup, vinegar and bake it in a casserole. 

The younger kids all had some of the leftover Italian steak and spaghetti, and then they also had baked beans and fresh bread with butter.

A. and Cubby had the green chile soup, which was made by our neighbor Ms. Amelia's daughter, Ms. Rebecca. It's a hamburger and potato soup, similar to the one I make somewhat frequently, except she uses a lot more green chile in it, so it's pretty spicy.

Wednesday

Short version: Salmon chowder, green chile soup, crackers

Long version: We have been getting SO much canned salmon from the excess commodities lately. Every time the lady stops by, she seems to have a case of it. I think I have at least ten cans right now. It was a dozen, but I used two of them in this chowder.

I've never made salmon chowder before, so I looked at a couple of recipes before I started tossing things into the pot. I ended up with one onion sauteed in bacon grease, two quarts of rooster stock, garlic powder, celery seed, paprika, diced potatoes, some potato flakes to thicken it without flour, a can of corn (another plentiful commodities item lately), the two cans of salmon, and half and half.

Three of the four children loved it. The fourth child ate the corn and potatoes out of it.

A. had some more of Ms. Rebecca's green chile soup. He was of the opinion that it was slightly too salty and spicy, and that both of those things could be remedied with the addition of some squash. This is what I always add to chili, and really, any soup or stew that has chiles of any kind in it is always improved by the addition of pureed squash. It thickens, slightly sweetens, and balances the flavor of the chiles. I happened to have some squash left from the one I had cooked and pureed for our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, so I put that in the soup and A. was very happy.

Thursday

Short version: The whole Thanksgiving shebang, plus homemade Squirt

Long version: In our house, that's turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing (because I don't stuff the turkey with it), cranberry sauce, green beans with bacon and onion, corn, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

The only differences this year were the corn--some of the canned corn from commodities--and the cranberry sauce. I usually make mashed cranberry sauce with the whole cranberries (plus water, sugar, and a little orange juice). This year Cubby decided he wanted more of a jelly, so he put some of the cranberries through a sieve.

Food shots!

This is Jack's plate, but they all looked pretty much the same. And every boy ate two plates' full. It was impressive.

Squash pie.

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

O, Happy Day

Yesterday we had a beautiful day. Sunny, warm, and perfect for drying clothes on the line and digging the volunteer potatoes from the colcannon bed.

Not bad, given we had harvested some twice previously.

My helpers and I got the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie made yesterday, too.

Cranberry sauce in progress. (Jack helped mash these later, but I didn't get a picture of him.)

Pie crust.

Pie filling. (He's drizzling the molasses into the squash from high up. More fun that way.)

This morning I woke up to howling winds, freezing temperatures, and the probability of snow. The woodstove will be the place to be today. Until, that is, it's time to load plates and sit down for the feast.

I was irresistibly moved to change the words to the slightly comical mealtime prayer:

Good food, 

Good heat, 

Good kids, 

Let's eat.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I hope you have a delicious day full of good things.

An Unexpected Hit

I was a military child, which meant we moved every few years for most of my childhood. And every time we moved, I would roll up the change that accumulated in what my parents called The Penny Jar. 

Anyone else remember rolling up change in those little paper tubes you would get at the bank? I found it very satisfying as a child to count out the appropriate number of coins and make those neat little rolls that could be exchanged for paper money.

I haven't done that for a lot of years, because our bank in New York had a machine we could dump our change into and it would count it and give us a receipt to be redeemed with the bank teller.

Here, however, we have no such convenient machine. But we do have an old peanut butter jar on A.'s dresser that has been steadily filling with change and needed to be emptied.

So last time I was at the bank, I got some of the coin papers. And last weekend, I sat down and started filling them. I only did one myself before the children started trickling in and asking if they could do it, too.

So they did. And every single one loved it, just as I did as a child.

I'm not a homeschooling parent, but if I were, this would be an excellent school activity. They have to identify all the coins and know what each is worth, plus figure out how many quarters go into a roll that's worth $10. Also, since my method of counting out the coins is making stacks of ten until I get to the amount needed, it's a sort of introduction to multiplication. 

Although the second grader in my house rolled my eyes when I pointed that out. Not so into math, that one.

The one kid who's really into guns loved tamping down the coins with a pencil, pretending he was loading his musket in the Revolution. 

The only downside is that four kids counting out loud and asking for help when they couldn't get their tubes folded over or whatever is VERY chaotic.

But we got it done!

 

The children were all appropriately impressed by how much money was hiding in plain sight in that old peanut butter jar.

So if you, too, have a large collection of change and a bunch of children, go ahead and get some coin wrappers and let them go to town. Free (educational!) entertainment that actually results in money in hand. Doesn't get much better than that.