Friday Food: With Cucumber Photos

Friday 

Short version: Boneless pork chops with cream gravy, rice, cucumbers with salt and vinegar

Long version: These were the chops I cut from the whole loin. All I did was fry them and make a gravy in the pan with cream, water, and cornstarch.

I had made chicken stock earlier in the day with the chicken bones from the day before, and I used that stock to cook the rice.

The Armenian cucumber plants are protesting the cooler nights with brown leaves, although we haven't had a frost to actually kill them yet.

Saturday

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, oven fries, pickles

Long version: I was baking bread, so I made some buns. And that's why I made cheeseburgers. This time, I broiled a pan of them rather than frying them on the stove. This allowed me to make ten patties and not get grease all over the stove top. But it also required me to monitor them in the broiler on the floor, which I dislike doing.

There's really no good way to make hamburgers. At least, for the quantity I need to make.

Pickles are a pretty sketchy vegetable, but I have a lot of them, so there you go.

I made a couple more quart jars of pickles with the very last of the dill plants for the year.

Sunday

Short version: Michaelmas chicken, baked potatoes, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, stabby cake with whipped cream

Long version: This was the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, although we really just celebrate it as Michaelmas. Goose is traditional for a Michaelmas feast, but hard to come by. The chicken I roasted was over seven pounds, so I figure it wasn't too far off in size to a medieval goose.

I started making a cake several years ago for my children to stab. It's a devil's food cake, because St. Michael is traditionally depicted stabbing the devil with a sword when he cast him out of heaven. Usually I just make Grandma Bishop's chocolate cake and call it close enough, but this year I used a recipe for an actual devil's food cake. It had more liquid and more cocoa powder. I followed Grandma Bishop's method, though, and poured the hot coffee over the butter to melt it and so on. 

I didn't have any yogurt, so I used sour cream and milk. And I accidentally used a teaspoon of cornstarch instead of baking soda. I realized my mistake in time, however, so the finished cake just had a bit of cornstarch in it. No big deal.

I never make frosting for this cake, mostly because I don't want to haul out the mixer. Sometimes I just dust it with powdered sugar, which I prefer. But my family likes whipped cream more, so this time I made some with my immersion blender.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, cucumbers

Long version: Diced leftover chicken, leftover rice, leftover gravy, all together in a skillet. And cucumbers.

Must be a work day.

I did not serve this cucumber that was hiding near the fence. It went to the chickens.

Tuesday

Short version: Chicken soup, biscuits, oatmeal-raisin cookies

Long version: I spent several hours in the kitchen this day, turning the chicken carcass into a chicken and vegetable soup--I also used the rest of the gravy in it, so it was slightly creamy--making the cookies, assembling a casserole for the next day, and on and on.

I actually ended up having to go somewhere just before dinner and didn't get home until 5 p.m. I was tempted to just slice some bread instead of making biscuits like I had planned, but biscuits don't really take that long and they do make everyone very happy. Especially important when the main course is soup.

Wednesday

Short version: Enchilada casserole, cucumbers with salt and vinegar

Long version: This was the casserole I had put together the day before. I used bull meat in it. I am SO CLOSE to the end of the bull meat. A mere, um, four years after we butchered it. Ahem.

Thursday

Short version: Baked pasta, leftovers, cucumbers with ranch dip, chocolate chip cookies

Long version: I had just a little bit of uncooked ground beef left from the hamburgers--maybe half a pound--so I browned that and added it to the roasted tomato sauce I had made on Saturday while I was baking bread. Then that went into a casserole with pasta, Parmesan, and a bunch of asadero cheese.

It's a good thing I made a whole 9"x13" pan because we ended up with two extra kids here for dinner.

The children had the pasta, along with the cucumbers and ranch dip. And the chocolate chip cookies, which also had some peanut butter in there to replace some of the butter. More protein that way, you see.

A. had the last of the enchilada casserole, plus a bowl of the chicken soup. And then some pasta.

I just had soup.

Refrigerator check:

I have nothing particular to say about this, I guess.

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

Letting Go

When my children were all very young, it was always a big event the first time they could go camping with their dad and not with me. I always expected there to be an early return due to a crying child that first time. Sometimes it happened. Sometimes it didn't.

Now they all camp at least once a year. I don't go, because I don't like camping, but they all do. And they don't need me with them all the time anymore. Dad is just fine.

This year, the two older boys--now 14 (and a half!) and 12--upped the ante. They asked if they could go on a camping trip with just the two of them. No Dad.

We said yes.

The plan was to take them somewhere pretty close just for a night. One of them had a deer hunt in the area closest to our house this past weekend, and I suggested to A. that perhaps this would be the right time for them to do their solo campout. It's only about half an hour away. It was going to be dry and warm. There is cell service there. It seemed like a good opportunity.

So A. loaded their packs, gave them many instructions, and dropped them off.

Small boys, big country.

And then, of course, both A. and I spent some time imagining all the unlikely things that could go wrong in the 15 hours they were there.

Could a mountain lion or bear have attacked them? Could there have been an unexpected storm with lightning strikes? Could someone have fallen in the fire? Could one of them have been bitten by a rattlesnake?

Yes. Any of those things COULD have happened. But none of them did. What it came down to is that those boys are comfortable camping, hiking, and hunting, and we trust them in that environment.

There were several elk that ran by in the stream bed just about twenty feet from their campsite in the middle of the night. This of course woke them up, because elk are huge and it sounded like stampeding horses, but that was pretty much it for excitement.

No deer, either, so the hunt wasn't successful. But the campout was. And I'm sure there will be many more in their future.

Snapshots: Ready for Winter and Holding Onto Summer

A. brought home a cord of cedar that needed to be stacked. It's still a marvel to me that we have children who can do that now.

The three younger ones did all of this in about an hour.

And the oldest took care of the pile by the door and some kindling. He will also be on call to split more kindling as needed.

I had thought about paying them to do this this year, but then they came in and asked if they could have a cookie. So they each got three cookies, one for each face cord of wood in a cord. There are those low standards coming in handy again.

Every year our school gets a visit from the New Mexico mobile museum. It's an RV with displays about different themes every year. This year it was agriculture, so all about crops and so on. There was this little New Mexico kitchen that all the kids loved.

It was pretty neat.

Poppy went for a walk the other day and came home with these things to be displayed.

I have taught her to see the beauty in weeds, which may be my most important legacy.

Meanwhile, on the dining room table . . .

A burst of summer at the start of fall.

Most of the sunflowers are gone now. There's only one good patch still in our ghost village, so those might be the last sunflowers and sage on the table until next year.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Lucky Pork

Friday 

Short version: Early chicken salad sandwiches, chicken and rice skillet, football food

Long version: This was the night I took the three younger children to the very wet football game. I gave them the choice of eating before we left, or bringing their own money for concession food.

They all chose to eat before we left. So they had chicken salad sandwiches, and then I brought beef jerky, dehydrated apples, and peanut butter cookies with us to the game.

At home, I left a skillet of chicken, rice, beans, spices, and cheese.

Saturday

Short version: Pizzas, cucumbers with ranch dip

Long version: One cheese pizza, one with pepperoni and some leftover bacon. The sauce was roasted tomato sauce, which is much superior to a sauce made with just canned tomatoes.

Sunday

Short version: Pork, cornbread, tomato/cucumber/feta salad, disastrous rice pudding

Long version: I cooked a very large pork shoulder, and some of it I shredded and mixed with maple syrup and mustard. Very typical for my kitchen. Standard cornbread, too.

And there they are.

The rice pudding is where it all went wrong.

I don't know why, but this time, the rice pudding, at the very END of the baking, dripped all over the oven. I have never had this happen before, so of course it must happen almost exactly one week after getting a brand-new oven.

If I were trying to find a substance that would wreck an oven more thoroughly, I couldn't have topped this one. The combination of rice starch, sugar, and milk is just impossible to get off the bottom of a hot oven. I turned the oven off right away and scrubbed for some time with baking soda and dish soap before I gave up and just resigned myself to the fact that my new oven is no longer pristine.

Sigh.

Monday

Short version: Leftover pork and pizza, cucumbers with ranch dip, cookies

Long version: This time I fried the some of the pork in its rendered lard. The pizza served as our starch for this meal. As did the cookies (oatmeal/almond/peanut butter/chocolate chip).

Tuesday

Short version: Leftover pork in burritos, more cucumbers, hot cocoa

Long version: I had to substitute this day, so it was lucky I had randomly cooked so much pork on Sunday. This time I just wrapped it in flour or corn tortillas with cheese and salsa. 

Hot cocoa because some people were still hungry. And there is something thrilling about getting hot cocoa--with a marshmallow!--on a random Tuesday night.

In case you're wondering, this is how I make cocoa: A tablespoon (I use an actual spoon, but I think it's close to a measured tablespoon) of sugar per mug of cocoa, plus one more for good health, slightly less than a tablespoon of cocoa powder for each mug, and a pinch of salt for each mug, all put in a pot. Add a bit of cold water and then heat this on the stove until the powders are dissolved. Then use a mug to measure out the milk, adding however many mugs of milk are needed. Heat and stir until as hot as you want it, then add a splash of vanilla. 

Marshmallows if you're feeling indulgent.

Wednesday

Short version: Meatballs, spaghetti, fried potatoes, yet more cucumbers

Long version: All the pork was gone and this is a work day for me, but I did have a bag of meatballs I had stashed in the freezer for just such a night. I took those out before I left for work, along with a bag of roasted tomato sauce. Then when I got home, I just broiled the meatballs and then roasted them with about half the sauce until they were done.

The other half of the sauce went on the spaghetti. I was too lazy to grate Parmesan, so I just added a large amount of butter to it, plus a bit of extra garlic powder and Italian herbs. 

I microwaved a couple of potatoes and then diced them to fry for A., who doesn't eat spaghetti.

Thursday

Short version: Roasted chicken pieces, roasted potatoes, sauteed calabacita/tomato/onion, raw green beans, bread with butter and honey or apple butter

Long version: Chicken leg quarters are always cheap, and so I tend to get those even though I dislike separating the thighs and drumsticks. But that way, A. and I can have the thighs, which we prefer, and the children can have the drumsticks, which they prefer.

There were four of each kind of chicken piece, and all I did with them was liberally spice them with paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a small amount of maple syrup, and then roast them at 425 degrees until they were done.

My favorite summer skillet of vegetables:

It's technically fall on the calendar, but it's still summer in the skillet.

The bread was the after-dinner, serve-yourself-if-you're-still-hungry course. We had gotten a jar of apple butter from some girls at school who had made it from apples they picked at their grandmother's orchard in the mountains. A couple of the kids really liked it and chose it for their bread. The others had the honey.

Refrigerator check:

A bit bare.

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

God Bless the Teachers

Ever since I started working at our school five years ago as an elementary Educational Assistant (what we used to call a teacher's aide), which morphed into librarian, online English tutor, and frequent substitute for both elementary and high school classes, people have been asking me if I'm going to get my teaching license.

No. Nope. Not gonna do it. Louder for the folks in the back? NO, I DO NOT WANT TO BE A TEACHER.

In fact, I started college as an elementary Ed. major and switched to a plain old English degree after one semester because I disliked the education classes so much. It's just not for me. And working at a school has only strengthened my conviction that being a classroom teacher is not a good idea for me.

It has also given me a great gratitude for real teachers. I honestly do not know how they do it, but I'm so, so glad they do.

That said, I'm teaching this week because our 4/5/6 teacher is sick. I was her substitute yesterday, and will be again today. There are only 11 students in her room, but that's one of the bigger groups at our school, and there are unique challenges to dealing with three different classes of students in one room. To say nothing of the individual needs of each student within those three classes.

Personally, I find teaching three different math lessons within two hours to be the most challenging.

So that's where I'll be today: Pretending to be a teacher, and once again mentally thanking all real teachers for their choice to fill such a demanding role.

Or maybe actually thanking all real teachers, because I know at least some of you are real teachers. If you are: Thank you. You are so appreciated.

Also, what's your best classroom management tip? I can use all the help I can get.

Snapshots: Salad and Wet Football

One of my jobs at school is lunch monitor, and part of that is serving the elementary kids at the salad bar (middle school and up can serve themselves). I don't know if this is common in all schools now, but when I was a kid, we certainly never had access to a salad bar like this. 

So much to choose from.

This was a sandwich day, so it also included all the toppings for the sandwiches.

Every kid gets something from the salad bar every day, and it's great they have so many options.

On a less healthy note, my mother sent us home a couple of boxes of hot chocolate packets from our trip to Colorado, and this was a suggestion on one of the boxes.

Is it just me, or does this look like it would be impossible to actually drink with all that junk on the rim? To say nothing of cleaning a chocolate-encrusted mug. No, thanks.

Poppy and I stopped at church on our way back from the dump, and she asked if she could light a candle to say a prayer for A.'s dad, who had surgery a couple of weeks ago.

I love this girl so much.

I had promised to take the children to the home football game on Friday, so they could watch their friends on the JV team play. I still brought them even though there was pretty much a hundred percent chance of rain, for which I feel very virtuous.

Damp Friday night lights.

I also felt virtuous because I shared my umbrella with our priest, who was sitting in front of me on the bleachers without one when it started to pour. My umbrella was not quite big enough to cover us both fully, and my lower back got soaking wet, so I was damp and cold for the entirety of the varsity game. I think covering a priest with your umbrella comes with spiritual rewards, though, right? Right.

Lastly, for those of my family members that were concerned about my lack of dishwasher, rest easy. A. installed our new dishwasher on Wednesday.

Two for two on functioning appliances, hooray!

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Crepe Cake and a Spanish Feast

Friday 

Short version: Chicken Spanish rice, pintos with ham, beef jerky and dried apples

Long version: I had quite a few chicken bones left from previous meals, with which I made stock. To do this, I actually use any uneaten chicken, but also the bones my children have eaten from. They leave behind a lot of meat. 

I used some of that stock, plus the meat I picked off the bones, to make something like Spanish rice. That also used the leftover corn I had cut off the cob.

I had made a big pot of pinto beans with a ham bone from the freezer, mostly to freeze for later, but we ate some of those with the chicken and rice.

All of this was before and after the volleyball game, which was the first cheerleading game of the season. I brought two of the boys along with me and Poppy, and they had some beef jerky and dehydrated apples during the game. I've made quite a few quart jars of dehydrated apples this year, using an old but pristine dehydrator given to me by a friend in the village. It works faster than the sun, but it's also easier to over-dry the apples, and they're drying on plastic racks. So I am conflicted. But still using it.

Saturday

Short version: Salad for me, bedtime cinnamon toast for children

Long version: We had been out and about in the afternoon. I was at a birthday party with Poppy, where she ate enough that she wasn't hungry at dinnertime. A. had been in a city with the boys, and they stuffed themselves at a Mexican restaurant and weren't hungry for dinner, either.

I, however, was hungry for dinner, so I made myself a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, pickled onions, deli salami, and feta cheese.

The children made themselves cinnamon toast before bed. So I guess that was their dinner.

Sunday

Short version: Salisbury steaks and gravy, rice, sauteed calabacitas and tomatoes, leftover corn, crepe cake

Long version: When I was a kid and my parents left us with a babysitter at night, we would usually each get a Hungry Man frozen dinner. I always wanted Salisbury steak, which came with mashed potatoes, corn, and a really gross cherry cobbler thing that I never ate.

I still like Salisbury steak, except now I make it. This time I did the binder with bread crumbs and eggs, so it would stay together. The gravy was just a milk gravy with some diced onion. Very satisfying.

The sauteed calabacitas, tomatoes, onion, and garlic were even more satisfying. Well, to me. The children had the corn.

And now, the cake. 

This was something A. had seen online. He is the crepe cook in our house, you may remember, so he wanted to try it. It's just crepes, whipped cream, and sweetened strawberries, all layered like a trifle in a springform pan and refrigerated for awhile.

He even decorated it all fancy with the (frozen) strawberries.

We served it with more sweetened and mashed strawberries.

Pretty presentation.

There were a couple of things that would probably be changed next time--it needed more fruit and more sweetening--but A. was very pleased with it. And the leftovers actually made for a very nice breakfast for the children to cajole them out of bed on Monday morning. I think we might make something like this whenever we have leftover crepes from the Sunday after-church breakfast.

Monday

Short version: Ms. Rebecca's Spanish* feast, watermelon

Long version: A. did some repair work on our elderly neighbor Ms. Amelia's roof last week, along with one of the boys, and Ms. Amelia's daughter wanted to pay him. A. said she could just pay him for the nails he had to buy, but nothing else, so she asked if he would like some enchiladas or something.

Of course he would.

So this day she brought by an incredible quantity of food: A big pan of beef enchilada casserole, another big pan of Spanish rice, a huge container of pinto beans, and 12 homemade flour tortillas.

So much food.

She works in the cafeteria at a school, so I guess she's accustomed to cooking for a lot of people. 

Oh, and my new range was unexpectedly delivered this day! So the very first thing I used it for was to heat all this up in the oven.

The oven on this one has a window AND a light, which is an upgrade from the previous one.

Tuesday

Short version: Two soups, bean and cheese quesadillas, peanut butter cookies

Long version: It was relatively cool this day, so I decided to get the big bag of chicken carcasses and bones out of the freezer and make stock with it.

And then, with that stock, I made both a chicken/vegetable/rice soup that used the bits of chicken I managed to salvage, as well as the bread-thickened pureed tomato soup my children love so much.

Some left from each.

That tomato soup has very little protein in it, which is why I also made the children the quesadillas. 

These peanut butter cookies.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I went straight from work to two different meetings and didn't get home until after 6 p.m. Thankfully, there were lots of leftovers from Ms. Rebecca's feast, so that's what everyone ate while I was gone.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover soups, grilled cheese sandwiches, ice cream

Long version: This was kind of a seasonally schizophrenic meal. The soup and grilled cheese are fall foods, but the ice cream is summery. This was the last day it was going to be over 80 degrees, so I decided to celebrate the last day of the school week by letting the kids finish off the mint chocolate chip ice cream that's been around for awhile.

They were fine with this.

Refrigerator check:

Thank goodness the tiny store in the village had some milk, otherwise we would have been out for at least a few days.

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

* I know most people would call this Mexican food, but the old Hispanic families here claim the title of Spanish. Their ancestors are in fact the conquistadors, who came here before the United States was even a country, so they are actually of Spanish heritage.