Friday Food: Asparagus, Yay!

Friday 

Short version: Scrambled eggs, garlic bread, still-frozen green beans, baked fruit

Long version: I had actually planned on making a cheese pizza for our meatless Friday, since I was baking bread anyway, but then I was up much of Thursday night with a fever and was not feeling well this day. I still had to bake the bread, but instead of wrestling with pizza dough, I made some of the dough into garlic bread, which I served with scrambled eggs.

While I was baking the bread, I also baked the last bag of peaches from the freezer, along with the remaining cranberry sauce and some peach jam. We had that with cream poured over the top.

Saturday

Short version: Cheeseburger casserole, raw radishes, fruit crisp

Long version: I used a bag of ground elk to make the casserole, along with potatoes, ketchup, mustard, diced dill pickles, onions, a few pieces of diced bacon, pureed calabaza, cheese, milk, cream, and a couple of eggs.

I had over-sweetened the baked fruit the night before, so I added some plain frozen strawberries to it and then topped it with an oat and flour topping.

Sunday

Short version: Mostly-potato soup, leftovers, faux fondue

Long version: I had a quart container of chicken soup in the freezer, without any rice or potatoes in it. Since I was still not feeling well, and a couple of the kids weren't either, I decided to use that. I added to it some diced potatoes and a lot of sour cream. And then to thicken it a bit more, I added some instant potato flakes.

Except I added too much of the flakes and then it was too thick and I had to thin it out more. So it ended up being a very potato-heavy soup. Tasty, though.

A. also had the rest of the leftover meatloaf, and the soup-hater had the last of the cheeseburger casserole.

I hadn't made dessert, so everyone got a little bowl of chocolate chips and coconut oil melted together--maybe a quarter cup of chocolate chips and a quarter teaspoon of coconut oil--into which they dipped marshmallows.

Monday

Short version: Combined cans and boxes

Long version: We had eaten most of the leftovers the night before, which meant I needed to figure something else out for after work. I used two boxes of macaroni and cheese, but only one of the cheese packets for it, plus a can of chicken, two pesto cubes, some garlic powder, and butter to make pasta for the children.

A. had a can of beef stew we got awhile ago from the excess commodities. He used to actually buy canned beef stew when he lived alone, so I knew he'd eat it. He also had bread and butter and cheese.

I had leftover potato soup. Which is also what I had for lunch at work, but oh well. I was too tired to care. 

Tuesday

Short version: Elk tacos, leftover pasta, asparagus, yay!, hot cocoa

Long version: I would normally cook something more substantial on a day off of work, but I spent much of the day running hither and yon, so I just took out a small bag of elk meat that had been cut very thin, like fajita meat, and fried that with spices and canned kidney beans. That was the taco filling.

Some had the tacos, some had the leftover pasta. And then I made the cocoa because it just wasn't a particularly inspiring meal.

Except for the asparagus! I personally always find the first asparagus of the year to be very inspiring.

Happy spring!

Wednesday

Short version: Lamb chops, beans, rice, carrot sticks with curry dip

Long version: I went to the chaotic chest freezer in the morning prepared to do battle to find something that would be easy to cook after work, and what to my wondering eyes should appear as soon as I shifted one box but a bag of lamb chops. Yay.

I wasn't sure the lamb chops would be enough, so I used the half can of kidney beans left from the night before, plus another can, heated up with lots of butter, garlic powder, and a bit of vinegar, to mix with the rice.

Thursday

Short version: GIANT lasagna, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: My sister drove to us from Colorado this day for Easter weekend. She very kindly made a lasagna to bring with her so I wouldn't have to make dinner. She arrived around 3 p.m. with literally the largest lasagna I have ever seen.

The jar you can barely see next to it is a pint jar.

It was delicious. We ate about half of it and can have the other half for dinner on Saturday, so she actually provided two meals for us.

Refrigerator check:

Lots of milk and LOTS of leftover lasagna.

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

About that Church

I post a lot of photos of our church. Partially that's because I'm there a lot in my role as mayordoma. But mostly, it's because I love it.

The very old pump organ that is no longer played.

We go to church in a village about ten miles from our house, in the same village where the children go to school. That's why we go there: Because it is our community church. The Mass is the Mass no matter what building it is in, which is one of the great things about the Catholic church. But I realized when Poppy asked me last week what my favorite church I've ever been in is, that it is, in fact, this tiny church in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico.

New Mexico has no shortage of historic churches. We've been to many of them. And while I can appreciate their history and the faith that built them, I am not really enamored of their aesthetics. They tend to be quite heavily decorated in bright colors, with folk-art statues and paintings. I guess I prefer a more French style, which is also not that uncommon in New Mexico, thanks to the French missionaries that are a part of New Mexico's Catholic history.

The blue ceiling is a classic of the French-style churches.

I also appreciate the cruciform layout of our church, which means the footprint forms a cross. So at the front door of the church, you're standing at the foot of the cross.

From the front looking up the aisle.

This style lends itself to symmetry, which I have always preferred.

I particularly appreciate this because, although the church is fairly old--built I think in the 1920s--it was at some point renovated with truly hideous brown paneling all behind the altar, ugly carpet on the floor, and weird doorways on the altar leading to the sacristy. It was a victim of the 1970s, and it looked it. I've seen pictures, and it was appalling. It was renovated again to its current state in the 1990s, and I am forever grateful to the congregation and priest at that time for making it the way it is now.

The colors in our church are quite muted, which means that when the altar colors are changed, it has more of an impact.

Purple for Lent. (The Lenten altar does not typically include flowers, but there was a funeral this day, hence the flower arrangement on the altar.)

Last year's Easter altar.

Also, something you can't see in the photos is that is completely silent in this church. We have no sound system, no plumbing, nothing except the heater in winter makes any noise. I have grown so accustomed to this that I find it very distracting to be in a church with microphones or water fountains humming and switching on and off.

For that reason especially, this is my favorite church to pray in. I will stop when I'm in the village for something else just to go sit in there. Perfect silence is so rare in our modern world, and so appreciated.

This is a church I am happy to take care of, even if I sometimes find my role as mayordoma to be a lot on top of everything else going on in my life. I will remind myself of this as I clean the church, change the altar linens, buy and arrange flowers, and otherwise prepare the church itself for Easter Sunday.

Waiting on its transformation.

Caring for this building so it can offer to others the same peace I have found there is one of the most important things I do. I am so thankful to have been brought here to this unlikely place so I can do just that.

Snapshots: Flowers and Veils

It's Tulip Time!

And still daffodil time, too.

An animal face-off.

I've had this pepper grinder for about seven years now, and just now saw this little joke on the bottom.

And last, Poppy and I veiled all the statues at church in anticipation of Holy Week. Which means Easter is almost here!

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Irish Pasta and Spring Cranberries

Friday 

Short version: Feta omelets, yogurt with apricot jam

Long version: For this meatless Friday, I asked A. to make some of his famous omelets. I suggested he use feta cheese in them, and then I also had some green onion and green onion I brought in from the garden. So what this really was was the first garden harvest consumed in 2025.

Momentous omelets. Very yellow, thanks to all the eggs we're getting from the chickens right now.

Saturday

Short version: Brisket tacos, chili beans, chocolate pudding

Long version: The entire reason I made tacos was that I had some masa that needed to be used promptly. And the reason it needed to be used is because it got damp. And the reason it got damp is because the chest freezer in which I store the masa stopped working.

BOOOOO.

Very thankfully, I discovered this when I went out to retrieve masa and cornmeal from that freezer to make cornbread on Thursday. The contents of the freezer were mostly thawed, but there was still some ice in there and everything was still very cold. This was the non-meat freezer, so the fruit, nuts, butter, etc. that I store in there were just transferred into the meat freezer and everything was salvaged.

There was one almost-empty bag of masa that had gotten towards the bottom of the freezer, and the bottom of the bag got a little damp. So I wanted to use that masa up soon. Thus, I made corn tortillas. 

To put inside the corn tortillas, I used the container of brisket that had also been in that freezer, along with a container of chili beans (pinto beans flavored like chili). 

Just like a restaurant.

I made the chocolate pudding because I ended up with excess milk. Like, three gallons to be used within two days. Pudding uses a lot of milk. Especially a double batch of pudding.

Sunday

Short version: Pork, pasta, corn, baked rice pudding

Long version: I didn't really want to cook another pork butt, since we just had one last week, but it was the easiest meat to find in my now-chaotic single chest freezer. And I could bake it a long time with the rice pudding, which I made because it both uses a lot of milk and is the favorite dessert of the child who returned home from an FFA trip with a wicked cold.

The pasta was one package of some shamrock-shaped pasta my mother had sent home with the family when they were in Arizona. It was meant to be for St. Patrick's Day, but I didn't find it until I was cleaning out the van later in the week.

So we had our lucky pasta on a random Sunday.

Some of it was also colored green with spinach powder.

All I added to it was butter, garlic powder, and Parmesan.

This ended up being a very starchy meal. Oh well.

Monday

Short version: Pulled pork sandwiches, raw radishes, canned peaches and cottage cheese

Long version: Lots of pork left to make sandwiches. So that is what I did after work, by adding all the things I use to make barbecue-ish sauce (ketchup, mustard, molasses, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce).

It always makes my family happy when we have peaches after dinner. Knowing how much work goes into canning peaches, it is a marvel to me that I can buy big cans of them for like three dollars are Walmart. They are definitely not that cheap elsewhere, however.

Tuesday

Short version: Meatloaf, butter-swim biscuits, pureed calabaza, cranberry sauce, still-frozen green beans

Long version: It's still hard to find things in the freezer, with everything all thrown together in the one chest freezer. So when I was digging for meat--which ended up being some store-bought ground beef that got hidden under other things--I also pulled out two bags of cranberries I bought on sale after Thanksgiving, and a bag of pureed calabaza.

I was planning on making mashed potatoes, but the extra bag of potatoes I thought I had in A.'s office I did not, in fact, have.

So I made these biscuits instead, as the oven was on anyway to bake the meatloaf. I personally like my plain old baking powder biscuits better--less heavy, crispier, and without the pronounced flavor that comes from buttermilk/yogurt--but these kind are much easier to serve, as no one has to be cutting them and putting butter on them at the table.

This ended up being a much more elaborate meal than I had planned on.

Many things on a small plate.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: I had to take a kid somewhere at 5:30, so I just pulled out the meatloaf, cranberry sauce, pasta, and biscuits, and left it all out for everyone to serve themselves whatever they wanted. I think they mostly ate the meatloaf and biscuits. Which is why I make one and a half of that biscuit recipe. Always good to have leftovers of popular foods.

Thursday

Short version: Pork and potato skillet, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I had quite a bit of pork left, so I chopped it up and fried it with potatoes, spices, and cheese. 

And I had my sous chef prepare the salad for us.

Although she informed me that since she was the one wearing the chef's hat, it was actually I who was serving as sous chef. Noted.

Refrigerator check:

Lotta cheese. And tortillas.

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

A Creature of Habit

I am, for sure, a creature of habit. To a rather ridiculous degree, actually. I remember in college talking with a friend about how I always dried myself off after a shower in the same order--face first, then on down, ending with my feet before I stepped out of the shower--and she totally did not get this. Which left me feeling all confused. Like, do people NOT do this? Do people just dry themselves off all willy nilly?

Does not compute.

Another example of this is breakfast. I eat the same thing every morning: two fried eggs with salsa. On days I run, I add a piece of toast with butter. 

One of the running days, obviously.

I suppose this is the food equivalent of a capsule wardrobe. It removes one more decision that I do not want to have to make on already-busy mornings. Plus, I like it. Why wouldn't I want to eat what I like every morning?

Do you do this? Or are you like my college friend, all wild and free and eating something different every morning?

Snapshots: Successful Delegation

Anyone who has been reading here for a (very) long time may remember how frequently the muddy clothing my family created in New York had to be rinsed in a bucket before I could even put it in the washing machine. I did not enjoy the bucket rinse, and I don't miss it. It's much less common here at our home in the arid high-altitude west.

I do still occassionally have to use the bucket, though, including this past week after a session of work under the project truck left me with two sets of manly clothing covered in dirt and grease.

Out came the bucket. But now, I have an apprentice.

And here she is, jamming a stick into the bucket to agitate the clothing.

She loved this activity, and I loved that I didn't have to do it myself. Happiness all around.

The same girl played a very good April Fool's prank on me. I don't actually like pranks at all, but this one was inoffensive and actually pretty funny.

She set up her American Girl doll as me reading in bed. Perfect.

We woke up to a blizzard yesterday morning.

Complete with 30-mile-an-hour winds blowing in all directions.

Thankfully, I had already brought some spring inside for the table.

Poppy decided we needed to have some spa time since we were stuck inside all day. I declined to do a face mask or makeover, but we did have a little foot spa. We soaked our feet in Epsom salt water with marbles in it, she gave me a foot and hand massage with lotion, and then she painted my toenails for me.

I let her choose the color, too.

And last, I have discovered my medium-sized Pyrex lids fit perfectly on these large cereal bowls the MiL gave us a few years ago.

Handy.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Starring Leftovers and Apricot Jam

Friday 

Short version: Spanish tortilla, cucumbers with ranch dip, leftover chocolate pudding

Long version: Meatless Fridays continue, this time with a Spanish tortilla minus the bacon I usually add. And since the one child who dislikes bell peppers wasn't home for dinner, I could add some of the bell peppers that came with the salad my friend gave us. I don't much care for bell peppers in salad, but I like them in Spanish tortilla.

Saturday

Short version: Asian-ish pork butt, porky rice, still-frozen green beans

Long version: I cooked a pork butt this day, but instead of broiling it with barbecue kind of spices or maple syrup and mustard, as I usually do, I instead used brown sugar, soy sauce, and ginger to season it after I had pulled it apart for broiling.

This was very good, and very popular with the family.

I cooked the rice in the juices from cooking the pork butt. 

The green beans were the ones from the garden I froze in the summer. They have a very unpleasant sort of sharp taste, and I think it's because I was lazy and didn't blanch them this year. There's a similar flavor in the carrots I didn't blanch and then froze, so I think I've learned my lesson with blanching. Most people say it's to maintain the texture; I think it makes them taste better. So I will blanch from now on. Amen.

Sunday

Short version: Frito pie, jam tarts

Long version: I made some chili with ground ram, and then I used that to make Frito pie for dinner. Except, of course, with the Walmart store-brand chips, so it was really Crunchy Corn Chip Pie.

The tarts I made with the one pie crust that was in the freezer. I just rolled it out, cut out circles with the top of a wide-mouth jar, put strawberry jam in half and apricot jam in the other half, then crimped them closed and baked.

I inevitably overfill them and have to remove some of the jam.

These were very well-received. Most of the family preferred the apricot ones slightly, but no one refused the strawberry ones, either.

Monday

Short version: Custom beverages, pork and potato skillet, buttered toast

Long version: I came home from work to one child who had an upset stomach, one who had a bad throat, and one who had had a brutal track practice. The bad throat got creamy tea. The bad stomach got switchel. The worn-out trackster got maple milk (just milk with maple syrup).

And then I microwaved some potatoes, chopped them up, and fried them with leftover pork butt, spices, and grated cheddar for the few who were actually eating.

Dinner is served.

The bad stomach started to feel better after dinner and requested toast. And so, of course, his siblings also requested toast. So they all got some toast with butter. We'll call that dessert.

Tuesday

Short version: Jambalaya revisited

Long version: When I made jambalaya for Fat Tuesday, I had enough ingredients to make a double batch. So I made it all except adding the rice, and froze half of the sausage and chicken mixture. That's what I took out of the freezer for dinner this day, along with a container of chicken stock and chicken meat, because the jambalaya mixture didn't have enough stock in it to cook the rice.

I just added the stock to the sausage and chicken and cooked the rice in it. Easy dinner. Also very tasty.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftover ram chili, yogurt with apricot jam

Long version: There was quite a lot of chili left, so those who were eating had it just as chili in a bowl.

I had a salad with some of the leftover pork in it. I didn't have much lettuce washed and didn't want to bother washing more, so my salad was one small lettuce leaf, the pork, some feta cheese, and quite a lot of pickled onions and radishes, with the pickling juice as the dressing. Thanks to the radishes, it was a very pink salad.

I was very hungry, so I ate this as I was getting everyone else's dinner ready. Then I sat down at the table with my dessert/second course, which was a rye cracker with cream cheese and apricot jam. 

Everyone else had yogurt with apricot jam for their dessert/second course. I can never make too much apricot jam in the summer.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover jambalaya or chili, cornbread

Long version: A. got the last of the ram chili. The children who were eating--only two, as one was sick and one was gone-- had the jambalaya. I made the cornbread as a consolation prize for serving leftovers for the fourth night in a row.

Also, the one child who was recovering from his stomach upset could eat the cornbread.

I had another salad, with pretty much the same ingredients as the night before. Except this time I added some pickled beets, which made it extra pink.

My new salad color palette, apparently.

Refrigerator check:

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