Friday Food: So Many Plan Bs

Friday 

Short version: Leftover cottage pie

Long version: Another trip to town--and a bad night's sleep--wiped me out. When I got home I just asked A. to heat up the rest of the cottage pie for dinner. He did, everyone ate, the end.

Saturday

Short version: Spanish tortilla, apple slices

Long version: Poppy requested the Spanish tortilla kind of out of the blue. I had a lot of eggs on hand and was going to be at the volleyball game with a couple of kids in the afternoon, so it seemed like an opportune time to make this in the morning to have on hand.

I used quite a lot of tomatoes in it, since I have quite a lot of tomatoes at the moment.

I had meant to serve cucumbers, but the ones I pulled from my garden were inedibly bitter. This year I tried again planting pickling cucumbers along with the Armenian cucumbers that are actually a variety of muskmelon. I think the grasshoppers ate all the Armenian cucumbers vines, though, because all I have are pickling cucumbers. And they are always bitter. I probably don't water enough or consistently enough, but it's still annoying.

Anyway. I had stashed some of Rafael's apples in the refrigerator, so we had those instead.

Sunday

Short version: Pork or lamb ribs, cheesy mashed potatoes, corn, chocolate-covered peanut butter balls

Long version: I had one rack of pork spareribs, which is not enough for everyone. That's why I also took out a bag of lamb ribs. Only two members of the family actually like the lamb ribs. This way there was enough for everyone without everyone having to eat lamb ribs.

I had polled the children earlier to see if they would rather have potatoes in some form, or macaroni and cheese. Of course they didn't agree, but eventually compromised on cheesy mashed potatoes. The only time I add cheese to mashed potatoes is when I re-heat leftover mashed potatoes, but I indulged them anyway. All I did was stir in some grated cheddar after mashing the potatoes with the milk, butter, and sour cream.

This recipe for peanut butter balls. I hadn't made them in awhile and forgot that I definitely do not need a full cup of chocolate chips to coat the peanut butter balls. Maybe 2/3 of a cup. I always add a bit of coconut oil to the chocolate chips to thin it a bit, and I used dark chocolate chips this time. That's a good idea, because the peanut butter mixture is very sweet.

Monday

Short version: Tuna Mac, green salad with vinaigrette, marshmallows with leftover chocolate shell

Long version: My plan for this night had been pizza, but then it was much cooler in the house than it has been and my bread dough took way too long to rise. It wasn't ready in time to make pizza crust, so I had to figure out something else for dinner.

I made this recipe (times six), and then added frozen peas and a big can of tuna. This made a LOT of tuna mac.

It almost completely filled my biggest casserole dish.

I re-heated the chocolate from the night before and let the kids dip marshmallows in it, just to get it out of the refrigerator before I forgot about it. A Labor Day treat, I suppose.

Tuesday

Short version: Cottage pie, pickles or tomatoes with mayonnaise, crepe cake

Long version: Again not what I had planned to make. I had taken chicken breasts out to thaw, but then I saw that the children were having barbecue chicken for lunch at school. I had quite a lot of the cheesy mashed potatoes left, and I had also made such a large quantity of the meat mixture for the cottage pie last week that I had frozen some of it.

I actually heated the meat and potatoes separately before combining them in the casserole dish, and then I stuck it under the broiler with bits of butter on top to get crispy. It came out well.

The kids got dill pickles. A. got sliced tomatoes with mayonnaise on them. This sounds kind of weird, but the mayonnaise gets a little diluted with the tomato juices and makes a kind of dressing for them. So good.

The crepe cake was just because I had four crepes left from the ones A. made after church on Sunday. I layered them with a mixture of strawberry jam and currant jelly, plus whipped cream.

Not the prettiest, but much appreciated after a return to the dreaded school after a four-day weekend.

Wednesday

Short version: Chicken in tomato-cream sauce, rice, frozen peas, experimental apple crisp with cream

Long version: Third night in a row I didn't make what I had planned, again because of the school lunch. I had been thinking I would make chicken parmesan and spaghetti. Then I saw the school lunch for the day was spaghetti with meat sauce.

Yet another plan B.

I did have a lot of roasted and pureed tomatoes on hand I wanted to use. So I first browned and cooked the chicken breasts in olive oil and butter--the butter helps them brown much better--then when they were cooked, I took them out and added some pickled onion slivers and a couple of cloves of garlic. After those had cooked for a bit, I added some of the pureed tomatoes and a little cream. I sliced the chicken before putting it back in the sauce, just so more of the surface area would be saucy.

The sauce was good, but the chicken was still a bit bland. As is often the case with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Which is why I don't typically buy them.

A. and I had been to the coffee shop in one of the nearby villages in the morning after Mass, and the lady who runs it asked us if we would pick some of the abundant pears and apples from her trees in the village.

Would we? OF COURSE we would.

The apples were Granny Smiths. I cooked some of them in a skillet--the same one I had reduced tomatoes in earlier--with water, maple syrup, cinnamon, cloves, and a bit of apple cider vinegar. I was going to give these to the children for breakfast in the morning, but then I decided to make a crisp with them for dessert instead.

The apples were already cooked, so I thought I would try cooking the topping--flour, oats, sugar, spices--on the apples in the microwave before putting it under the broiler to get more crispy.

I microwaved the crisp for about seven minutes before broiling it, and everyone told me it was the best crisp ever. Okay. I think it was because the ratio of apples to topping skewed heavily to the topping this time, but it's good to know that method works. A much better way to make a crisp when I don't want to run the oven for an hour.

Thursday

Short version: Leftovers, corn on the cob

Long version: The children had the leftover tuna mac. I used the rest of the chicken for A. and me, but I chopped it up more and made more sauce for it with more tomato puree, some sauerruben, paprika, and sour cream to make a kind of chicken paprikash. A. had his with leftover rice.

I got the corn at the grocery store while I was in town. I haven't been going to the town with the produce truck, unfortunately, so I have to rely on the produce at the grocery store. Luckily, this store has pretty good produce.

Refrigerator check:

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

Twice-pickled

This has not been a good year for cucumbers. For the past several years, I have grown Armenian cucumbers. These are not cucumbers at all botanically, but rather a variety of muskmelon. I don't like them quite as much as real cucumbers--they have a faint taste of muskmelon that is detectable when eating the Armenian cucumbers raw--but they have the great advantage of never getting bitter. Even when they grow to huge sizes, they're never bitter. This was a frequent problem I had with true cucumbers. Also, the Armenian cucumbers make excellent refrigerator pickles, which is my main use for cucumbers.

This year, I planted the Armenian cucumbers, and then I decided to try again with pickling cucumbers. I noticed early in the summer that the grasshoppers had eaten only the cucumber vines that were already climbing. They had left the vines still low on the ground. I think it was the Armenian cucumber vines they ate, because I have zero Armenian cucumbers.

I am getting some cucumbers, but they are almost all bitter. Predictably. So I haven't made any pickles from them.

However! One of the former teachers at school showed up to the county fair with lots of cucumbers and mentioned she's been getting great quantities. So I texted her to ask if she would be willing to sell me some cucumbers so I could make pickles. She responded that she wouldn't sell them, but she'd be happy to take some pickles.

Thus, the year's first refrigerator dills have been stowed away.

We already ate one of the pint jars of dill pickles. Rather than throw away the pickling liquid, however, I re-heated it in the microwave and used it to pickle some carrot ribbons.

I do this a lot with the liquid from the pickled onion slivers I almost always have in the refrigerator now. When I finish the onions the first time, I either re-heat the liquid and pickle more onions, or I pickle (store) radish slices.

Pickle trio.

This way I always have some kind of pickle on hand. I only use the pickling liquid once more before dumping it, but at least I get more than one use out of it. I was dismayed to see a gallon of white vinegar priced at over four dollars last week at the store, so I feel like the less of it I have to use, the better. 

Didn't vinegar used to be cheap? I feel like even the gallon of vinegar was like two or three dollars not too long ago. But maybe I'm misremembering.

Anyway. We have pickles, and that makes everyone happy.

Snapshots: Come Walk With Me

We haven't checked in on the horses in awhile. I wonder what they're up to . . .

Grazing, as usual.

This is what it looks like in our almost-ghost village.

Dead trucks.

Dead roads to nowhere.

When I was in town on Friday, I parked next to a truck almost as old as the one in the above photo, although this one was still on the road.

Barely. How does one do this to a truck?

It's green-chile-roasting season in New Mexico. You can buy giant sacks of green chiles in the grocery store and bring them right out to the parking lot to be roasted.

The chile-roasting area at this store is cordoned off by upside-down shopping carts.

I didn't do anything too interesting with flowers this week. I'm pretty much in "all sunflowers, all the time" right now. This is what I did for the altar today.

More apricot branches, more sunflowers, and kochia seed heads.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Beans x 2

Friday

Short version: Magic beans, leftover rice, cucumber and tomato salad

Long version: I reeeeally did not want to make dinner. I was in town in the afternoon and didn't get home until 4:30 p.m. I had nothing prepared for dinner, and was so hot and sleepy in the car on the way home that I really considered just telling everyone to make themselves a cheese sandwich for dinner.

By the time I got all the laundry hung up that I had brought home from the laundromat* and put away all the groceries, I was awake again. So I made dinner.

I had six barbecue meatballs left, and quite a bit of rice. I had thought to stretch the meatballs with beans, and the barbecue sauce the meatballs were cooked in is very similar to the ingredients in baked beans. So that's pretty much what I made. 

I sauteed onion in bacon grease, added the chopped up meatballs, then one can of rinsed kidney beans and one of black beans, and then molasses, ketchup, and vinegar, and simmered it all together while I made the salad. This messy mixture was served either on or over rice, according to preference.

A slightly blurry photo that still conveys the sloppiness of this meal. Tasty, though.

Saturday

Short version: Pork chops, macaroni and cheese, frozen peas, ice cream

Long version: I used one big package of sirloin chops for this meal, first browning each one individually and then broiling them on a big pan all to finish cooking. This is an annoying way to cook them, but I do it this way because I have to cook so many that I would have to use two big skillets.

I very, very rarely make macaroni and cheese. I'm not sure why it came to me to make it this day, but I did. Poppy helped me. We used this recipe, except we used half Parmesan and half cheddar. This was, unsurprisingly, very popular.

Ice cream just because I wanted to get the last of the mint chocolate chip out of the freezer.

Sunday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: We were at our parish potluck in the late afternoon. I brought coleslaw and some Crispy Rice Treats that Poppy helped me make. No one was particularly hungry for dinner, although a couple of boys had leftover mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese at some point before bed.

Monday

Short version: More leftovers, and sausage

Long version: I had far too many containers of random things taking up space in the refrigerator. Therefore, I put together plates for everyone with leftover rice, macaroni and cheese, or mashed potatoes, plus the rest of the magic beans, some sausage I cooked, and either coleslaw or Holy's cabbage.

Tuesday

Short version: Ram curry, rice

Long version: It was cool enough this day to cook dried split peas and then simmer some ram pieces I had saved for stew. These I just simmered until I could pull the meat off. That meat was then combined with some of the split peas, pureed tomatoes from the ones I had roasted the day before, onion, garlic, some carrots I harvested from the garden a few weeks ago that had gotten a bit bendy, curry powder, diced potatoes, and cream at the end.

The rice was cooked in some of the broth that resulted from simmering the meat.

I forgot that the older boys wouldn't be home for dinner, so I really should have made something simpler. However, this gave me the opportunity to freeze some of the curry--before I added the potatoes and cream--to have something prepared for later.

I had some of the ram meat in a collard salad.

Hers 'n' his dinners.

Wednesday

Short version: Pintos and sausage, leftover rice, cornbread, cucumbers

Long version: I am once again reminded that my family is very picky about sausage. There was a lot left after Monday's meal, but I knew most of the family would not want to eat it plain. That's why I thawed a quart of frozen, cooked pinto beans and added the diced sausage to that. I also made a roux and added onion and tomato, so it was very much like red beans, but with sausage instead of ham.

The cornbread was not at all soft this time--I used almost half a cup less milk--which made it much more popular.

Thursday

Short version: Cottage pie

Long version: I typically use frozen corn and frozen peas as the vegetables in my cottage pie, since a couple of my children have a great aversion to cooked carrots in anything. Annoyingly, I found I'm out of frozen peas, but while I was searching for them, I found the last cup or so of green beans from last year's garden. I chopped those up and used them instead.

This year's green beans have produced a total of five beans, so it's not looking like I'll be freezing any this year. Or even really eating any.

Refrigerator check:

Now that school has started, I can get the Sysco milk again. Yay.

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

* Yup, still waiting on a "control panel" for my washing machine. We're at one month and counting of tub laundry and laundromats. The repair place told me the part will be there at the end of next week. I certainly hope so. 

Project Vehicles

A few days ago, a friend texted me to ask if we would like to buy the old Jeep they had in their shed. It is an OLD Jeep--1965, I think?--and the engine had seized several years ago, so it was just sitting there. They really wanted to get it out of their shed, and remembered my eldest son's interest in it when he saw it last year during a trip to their house to pick peaches.

These vehicles are relatively rare, and they were selling it very cheaply. A. couldn't say yes fast enough to that. 

We towed it home yesterday.

So jaunty.

Unusually, this Jeep has actual metal doors, a hard top, and a metal back, so that when all those pieces are on, it will be a fully enclosed vehicle. A lot of these just have canvas or plastic or whatever for the top and sides.

Obviously, this is going to be a lot of work to get in working order. The middle son is very enamored of it, though, so by the time he's old enough to drive in three years, it should be ready to go. Not that you can go very far in it--I doubt it would go any faster than 50 miles per hour--but I guess it would be good for hunting or whatever.

In the meantime, A. and the eldest continue to work on the brown truck.

There it is. It's definitely brown. It's a 1982 4X4 Dodge Ram, for those who care. And yes, I had to ask A. what it is.

This is waiting on I think a carburetor--but don't quote me on that--and then it should be running. This son can actually get his provisional license in just a few months, so it's good this one is almost ready to go down the road.

Getting a driver's license in our house apparently means you must be willing to work on a vehicle several decades older than you. 

I'll stick with my new(ish) Honda, though, thank you.

One of these things is not like the other . . .

Snapshots: Toilet Legends

A couple of random kitchen shots this week . . .

When I make my collard salads, I put just a little bit of maple syrup in the dressing. The collards can use the sweetness. Last time I was preparing the collards, there was just a tiny bit of maple syrup in the syrup pourer*, so I just took off the top and was very pleased to find that the upended pourer fit perfectly in the salad dressing jar to drain out.

Drip drip.

The quantities of food I purchase these days come in very large containers. These would be awkward to cook with regularly, so I spend a lot of time decanting from giant containers into more-manageable ones. As I did with the molasses I got this week.

Between gingersnaps and homemade barbecue sauce, I go through more molasses than your average person.

I took a picture of my cart of groceries this week, just because there weren't very many--I'm anticipating a much bigger stock-up trip to Walmart soon--and I was betting with myself that it would still be more than a hundred dollars.

It was, but mostly because I bought alcohol. Without that, it would have been ninety dollars.

This was right next to the front door of the fancy hotel I stayed in last week.

Correctly identified by the son with me as the Virgin of Guadalupe. That's Juan Diego kneeling.

Having something like that outside a random hotel is so New Mexico.

I purchased a new toilet this week to replace the one in the adults' bathroom. The box was one of the more intriguing things I've seen in awhile.

There's a lot going on here.

The scatalogical motto I can see, but why did a toilet maker name their company after a Roman statesman? Then I looked it up and discovered that Cato is said to have met with an Egyptian king while on the toilet, to convey disrespect. Oooookay.

We don't yet know what a "destroyer flush" is, but I guess we'll see when A. installs the toilet.

And last, flowers!

I used apricot branches in this week's altar arrangement. I felt like the background needed to be darker and more solid to show up better on the altar.

It looks better from farther away, so I think it will work.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

 

* I actually bought one of these maple syrup dispensers like they have at diners. We use maple syrup a lot, and these really are the best and least-messy way to pour it.

Friday Food: Experimental Dutch Pie

Friday 

Short version: Ram chops, leftover chicken, rice, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I had actually cooked these ram chops the day before when I had grilled pork chops and chicken, just because there was still a lot of heat still in the coals and I had the ram chops mostly thawed already. I only seasoned them with salt when they were on the grill, so to re-heat them, I put them in a skillet with barbecue sauce.

Saturday

Short version: Pizzas with ranch dip, apple crisp with cream

Long version: Bread baking day, on which I almost always steal some of the dough to make something else. This time, that something was two half-sheet-pan pizzas: one just cheese, one with pepperoni and pickled onions.

I had to leave just before the pizzas were ready to take out of the oven to pick up a child, so I left A. to take them out and serve them. This is why there was no vegetable.

I spent literally an hour and a half peeling, coring, and slicing apples to make two apples crisps and one pan of baked apples. I ended up with an actual blister on my right index finger from the paring knife*, but I figured I'm just working on developing my apple callous. A worthwhile callous to have.

The smaller crisp was for my friend who watched our three children when I was out of town and A. had to do something for work.

I over-processed the topping in the food processor, and I almost scorched them when I stuck them under the broiler at the end, but they were still delicious.

That much butter, sugar, and spices will cover a multitude of mistakes.

Sunday

Short version: Ground beef and bean burritos, cucumbers, cake

Long version: I had more ambitious plans for the ground beef I thawed--meatloaf, which is, yes, not all that ambitious--but then it was hot and I didn't want to run the oven. So instead I made the quick 'n' lazy burrito filling of beef+canned beans+salsa+spices.

The cake was actually the Bonnie Butter cake I entered into the fair. The judges only taste a very small bit, and then we pick it up at the end. I stuck in the freezer to use later, which I did this night by layering it with strawberry jam and whipped cream. This cake makes a superior shortcake, although I thought this combination was a little too sweet. It needed less sugar in the whipped cream, and probably something a bit more tart with the strawberries, like rhubarb. 

Monday

Short version: Chicken, corn bread, tomato salad, ice cream

Long version: I found frozen fancy organic, free-range chicken breasts on deep discount at the store awhile ago, so I bought several packages for the freezer. I used two of them this night. This is a lot of chicken. Ten pieces, to be precise.

I went to the effort of pounding them thinner with my rolling pin, figuring they would cook faster that way. They were all salted and seasoned with garlic powder and paprika before being browned in a skillet and then finished in the oven with barbecue sauce while the cornbread was baking.

Two seared, eight to go.

A few minutes into eating, A. asked me where I got the chicken. This always means there's something wrong with it. He told me it tasted strongly of bleach or detergent. One child agreed it tasted funny. The rest of us had no idea what he was talking about. I didn't taste anything off--except that I oversalted them--even when I tasted his piece.

He insisted that no one should eat it, though, so we didn't. I did not throw it out, however, instead waiting to see if any of us had a bad reaction to it. No one did, and A. later realized that he had used his nasal spray for allergies just before dinner, so that was probably interfering with his sense of taste.

I also added a bit too much milk to the cornbread, so it was too soft. Overall, not the most successful meal. That's the way it goes sometimes.

The tomato salad was really good, though. As was the ice cream I let everyone have as a reward for getting through the first day of school.

Tuesday

Short version: Re-combined leftovers, cheese quesadillas, radishes, big oatmeal-raisin cookies

Long version: There was a lot of the too-soft cornbread left, which I crumbled up and fried in lard before adding to it the rest of the taco meat, plus the rest of the grated cheese left from the burrito toppings. This looked like it might not be enough for everyone, which is why I quickly made a couple of quesadillas with flour tortillas.

Another of my very photogenic offerings.

I made the cookies for the younger children's school snacks. When I make oatmeal-raisin cookies, I always make at least one really big cookie for everyone. A. remembers these from his childhood, and for some reason, even those who are not fans of raisin cookies will eat them in a giant form. I make them about the size of hamburger patties when I form them. They spread when they bake, so they end up being very large cookies, indeed.

Wednesday

Short version: More leftovers

Long version: I'm not even working, and here I am serving leftovers like I'm coming home from a long day. Mostly that's because I do not waste food, so yes, leftovers will still feature in my kitchen even if I have the time to make something new every day.

This time a couple of people had the leftover taco meat+cornbread, to which I added some of the rice I had made, and everyone else had the leftover chicken, plus some rice.

A. tried the chicken again to see if it really was the allergy spray, and we all watched avidly as he took a bite. "Tastes like chicken," he said. Alrighty then.

I had one my collard salads that repel the rest of my family so much:

With chicken, tomatoes, feta, and apple.

Thursday

Short version: Barbecue meatballs, mashed potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, Dutch apple pie with whipped cream

Long version: I have never made a Dutch apple pie before. It's an apple pie with a pie crust on the bottom, and a kind of streusel on the top. Half my family loves pie and half loves crisp, so I thought this might be a good compromise. I kind of used this recipe, except I didn't use the pie crust recipe and I didn't measure anything for the apple filling.

I baked the meatballs in the morning while the pie was baking.

Dinner and dessert.

I should have made the potatoes earlier and just re-heated them at dinner time as well, so I wasn't boiling a big pot of potatoes and water when it was already hot in the kitchen, but I didn't. Oh well.

The pie was delicious. I liked it way better than regular apple pie. I don't often take the trouble to make pie because it is an investment of time, particularly apple pies that require all the peeling, coring, and slicing of apples. These apples needed to be cooked even longer than the hour the pie was baking--this is common with the varieties of apples we tend to get here, which are very firm and somewhat dry--so if I make it again, I'll par-cook the apples before making the filling.

It would have been better with ice cream, but the only ice cream I had on hand was mint chocolate chip. With apple pie? No, thank you.

Refrigerator check:

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

* I had done the same thing the previous two days as I worked on getting apple slices in the freezer, so it's really more like six hours of working with a paring knife that will raise a blister, I guess.