Happy Friday! I’m feeling so good because I just exercised. I regret to inform you that this is a thing. (And I am grateful I have the time and health to be able to exercise! That’s not something everyone has.)
I did one of Alba Avella’s 30-minute yoga power flows on YouTube. It starts slow, and you don’t ever move fast, but I was schvitzing by the end, let me tell you.
And now let me tell you what we ate this week!
SATURDAY
Hot dogs and leftovers
It was pretty great when they started selling a store brand version of those natural casing hot dogs. Damien and I really like hot dogs, but our kids don’t! Isn’t that weird? Is this a generational thing? Anyway we occasionally foist hot dogs on them.
We also had leftover chicken soup with orzo, leftover risotto, and leftover garlic cinnamon roast chicken, from last week.
(I have given up clearing the table for dinner. If people want a table that doesn’t have their crap all over it, they can go right ahead.)
The new refrigerator system is working out really well! It’s simple enough that the kids can clearly tell where things go, but organized enough that it’s really making a difference to me. I’ve also instituted a ruthless throw-away policy for food. I make one attempt to serve it as leftovers, and then it goes in the trash. This has always been the plan, but now it’s a policy.
Anyway, I know it’s only been a little over a week, but that’s more than enough time for a new system to go completely to hell, and that hasn’t happened yet.
SUNDAY
Pulled pork, tater tots, mashed acorn squash, collard greens
Sunday I was gonna do an easy, literally peasy meal of ham, peas, and mashed potatoes, but a kid had a friend over, and it turned out I only had three potatoes in the house. I floated the idea of making soup and muffins, but was informed that being invited over for dinner and then being served soup was not . . . rizzly, or whatever. Very un-totes m’goats. I don’t know what I’m saying.
So I made pulled pork with this nice, easy recipe
Jump to Recipewhich I did in the Instant Pot, but you could also do in the oven or slow cooker, if you give it long enough. I served it with potato rolls, but I just had mine over tater tots with red onions. I do like food that comes in heaps.
For sides, I roasted another acorn squash from the garden, with olive oil and salt, and then mashed it with brown sugar and powdered ginger. And I gathered up one of the last bunches of collard greens from the garden (there’s a lot left, actually, but most of it has been pretty ravaged by slugs) and cooked them on the stovetop, more or less following this recipe, but decreasing the liquid smoke.
Dang, it was a good meal. I think I was the one who ate the collards, and I think only one other person ate the squash, but I expected that, so I don’t make giant vats of food this time. I can learn!
MONDAY
Ham, peas, mashed potatoes
Monday I don’t even remember what happened, but I didn’t get home until like 5 PM. The perfect day for already-cooked ham, frozen peas, and instant mashed potatoes!
It’s such a self-explanatory meal, I don’t have anything to say, except that you can carve up a pre-cooked ham before putting it in the oven, and it heats up much faster.
After dinner, the kids went out back to finally pick pumpkins. I’ve been worried they’re going to get mushy or cracked if they stay on the vine too long, and one of them — the biggest one, sadly — did have a big rotten spot. So the ducks got that one.
We did find fifteen nice intact ones, though, good and orange and decently sized.
There are still about six on the vine, still partially green. This has probably been the most satisfying garden experience I’ve ever had! Most definitely saving the seeds from this batch and doing it again next year.
The last thing to harvest will be dozens of useless gourds. I wouldn’t classify that as “satisfying,” exactly, but it sure is a lot of gourds.
I should probably mention that we have sad news about EJ. He got a foot injury some time ago, and we tried to treat it in various ways, and he kept looking like he was getting better for a while, and keeping up with the group and enjoying life even though he had been supplanted by Coin as the leader; but then he’d lose ground again. This happened a few times, but the other day it became pretty clear that he was at the end of the road, so Damien had to put him down. The kids fed him some peas and stroked his head and said their goodbyes first. Poor EJ. He was my favorite duck. Always an adventurer, but not a monster. I do think it’s better to have just one male in the flock, and Coin has calmed down a bit and is less of an a-hole lately. But we will miss EJ the valiant. He was so dumb, but he was a good boy.
Ah, well.
TUESDAY
Roast beef salad with pears, feta, and candied pecans
Oh, I love this meal. It was either top or bottom round roast that was on sale, so I bought two good-sized hunks. I took one and really crusted it with lots of salt and pepper, and then seared it in very hot oil, along with several cloves of garlic.
Then I covered it with tinfoil and put it in a 350 oven for about forty minutes. We got distracted and it got a little overdone, but it was still yummy.
I sliced it up and served it with salad greens, candied pecans, feta cheese, diced red onion, homemade croutons, and sliced pears.
I’m always surprised at how quick it is to candy nuts. I cannot for the life of me find the recipe I followed, but it was SO simple. Obviously you can get fancy and add all kinds of spices, or do an egg white thing to give the nuts extra texture, but the one I did was just heat up some brown sugar and water in a pan and heat it up until it’s bubbly, add the nuts, and cook and stir them until they’re coated. Maybe there was some butter in there? Then spread them out on parchment paper and let them cool and harden for a few hours.
I added a little chili powder, but it turned out not to be enough to taste.
Anyway they tasted great and it was an unexpected treat to dress up the salad.
Yum yum.
WEDNESDAY
Beef barley soup, pumpkin muffins
Wednesday I used the other hunk of beef and made soup.
Jump to RecipeI forgot to buy mushrooms, and we didn’t have wine in the house, but it still turned out lovely.
While it was simmering, I made a batch of pumpkin muffin batter
Jump to Recipeand was congratulating myself on how well I had distributed the batter into the 24 muffin tins. It came out so tidy and exactly even. See?
Oh wait, this is actually a photo of raw muffins that I foolishly set on a stool while I went to write a quick email, and when I got back, SOMEONE, perhaps someone about the height of a large boxer, had licked the nine most reachable muffins on two sides of the pan.
I think he was mad because I did this to him earlier
He’s not a naughty dog, but he has his limits.
So I just baked the muffins anyway, and threw out the nine with obvious tongue marks on them, because it was easier to remove them when they were baked!
The remaining muffins turned out nice, cozy and tender
and it was a very pleasant meal for a chilly day.
I actually wish I had cut the meat into smaller pieces. I thought I was making it kind of lavish, with big pieces of meat, since I had more meat than I usually do; but it actually would have been better if they had been smaller. Still good! Just less balanced.
Wednesday I also finally got around to making applesauce out of the apples we picked off Marvin.
They’re pretty poor apples, as you can see, because I don’t do even one single thing to take care of this tree. But I usually make a batch of applesauce, by quartering the apples and setting them to simmer in a pot for a few hours with a cup of water or so. Then when they get mushy, I run them (cores and peels and all) through a food mill and add a little cinnamon, and sugar if necessary to the applesauce that comes through.
This year I forgot what I was doing and burned it. Very sad! We’ll have to make applesauce when we go apple picking, because nothing beats homemade applesauce.
THURSDAY
Regular tacos
Thursday Corrie had Cub Scouts at 5:30, so I cooked up some taco meat in the morning and Damien heated it up for the rest of the family while we were out. I was a little annoyed because I couldn’t find cumin, and I know I have cumin. I always have cumin. I was so miffed about not being able to find it that I forgot to add any salt, and that turned out to make much more of a difference than missing cumin! What do you know about that. What an amazing story.
FRIDAY
Waffle iron grilled cheese, tomato soup
I am going to try making the grilled cheese in the waffle iron, but if they don’t like it, I can easily just do the rest on the stovetop as usual.
It will be just canned tomato soup. I think the kids actually prefer it to my homemade tomato soup, which I understand. I enjoy and appreciate more nuanced, sophisticated meals made from scratch with fresh ingredients, but I also very clearly remember being a kid and wanting things to taste exactly the same every single time, and for that taste to be either sweet or salty, and for it not to have any damn chunks in it. Grown ups are always putting chunks of things in food, and it’s tiresome. I mean I remember how tiresome it feels, even as I actively put chunks in food.
I do have a can of those crunchy fried onions if anyone wants to sprinkle them on top of the soup. Crunchy is different from chunky! And I did bring in my big pots of basil, hoping to keep them going over the winter. So perhaps a little sprinkle of little basil leaves. If desired.
When I was little, we had this cookbook of recipes kids could make without help, and the only one I remember is a can of condensed tomato soup heated up without water, but with shredded cheddar cheese that you melt into the soup to make a thick sauce. You pour this over rye toast, and enjoy.
If anyone can think what this cookbook might possibly be, I’d love to know! I can’t remember any other recipes from it, but I think it had stylized pictures of kids with chef’s hats, and possibly a chic black cat, on the cover. Very much in this mode:
It must have been from the 60’s or 70’s. I did spend some time in this searchable collection of vintage cookbooks and didn’t see it, but hoo boy there are some doozies.
And that’s it for the week! Headed to adoration, will pray for all you cheese bags.
Clovey pulled pork
Ingredients
- fatty hunk of pork
- salt and pepper
- oil for browning
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2/3 cup apple juice
- 3 jalapeños with tops removed, seeds and membranes intact
- 1 onion, quartered
- 2 Tbsp cumin
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 tsp ground cloves
Instructions
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Cut pork into hunks. Season heavily with salt and pepper.
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Heat oil in heavy pot and brown pork on all sides.
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Move browned pork into Instant Pot or slow cooker or dutch oven. Add all the other ingredients. Cover and cook slowly for at least six hours.
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When pork is tender, shred.
Beef barley soup (Instant Pot or stovetop)
Makes about a gallon of lovely soup
Ingredients
- olive oil
- 1 medium onion or red onion, diced
- 1 Tbsp minced garlic
- 3-4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
- 2-3 lbs beef, cubed
- 16 oz mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
- 6 cups beef bouillon
- 1 cup merlot or other red wine
- 29 oz canned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
- 1 cup uncooked barley
- salt and pepper
Instructions
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Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened.
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Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.
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Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley.
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If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes.
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Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary.
Pumpkin quick bread or muffins
Makes 2 loaves or 18+ muffins
Ingredients
- 30 oz canned pumpkin puree
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup veg or canola oil
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 3.5 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- oats, wheat germ, turbinado sugar, chopped dates, almonds, raisins, etc. optional
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350. Butter two loaf pans or butter or line 18 muffin tins.
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In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients except for sugar.
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In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just to blend.
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Optional: add toppings or stir-ins of your choice.
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Spoon batter into pans or tins. Bake about 25 minutes for muffins, about 40 minutes for loaves.
