An Alcohol Evolution

Although I have never been a big drinker, I have always liked to drink sometimes. I still do, it's just that "sometimes" has now become "rarely."

The reason for this is mostly because when I have a drink, I want to be able to relax. I do not want to have a drink and then spend the next two hours cooking and cleaning up dinner, for example. I will not get home late from an event and have a drink before bed, either. Pretty much the only time I want to have a cocktail is at 4 p.m. We eat early and I go to bed early, so everything else is correspondingly early as well. 

So the situations in which I actually have a drink are very specific, and therefore very infrequent.

When I do have a drink, it is always a cocktail. I never much liked beer or wine. When I was younger, I liked rum and Coke. Later, I liked gin and tonic. And then for awhile, I preferred Sidecars.

All of those, however, relied on sugar for flavor. I find that now, I don't want any sugar at all in addition to the alcohol when I have a cocktail. That's why I now drink flavored vodka. That way I can have flavor with no sugar (or sugar substitutes, which I uniformly dislike). I always cut it with flavored seltzer, too. My favorite flavored vodka is peach. The lime vodka my sister brought last time she visited was good, too.

This makes a very light drink that is just enough to  be pleasant.

Especially pleasant in an actual cocktail glass.

So tell me: Do you drink? What do you prefer?

Snapshots: A Cameo by Moby Chomper

The very old Jeep that A. bought a few months ago came with all the pieces to enclose the vehicle, and A. got them all put on to protect the interior (such as it is) from rain and snow.

So sporty.

I think we might be in the last years of having a kid small enough to curl up on the heating vent in the kitchen.

Every single kid does this when they're little. It's an instinct.

I made French toast for the kids' after-church breakfast last Sunday and was very gratified that the egg and milk mixture was exactly enough for the pieces of bread I had cut, without having any left over or any bread that was too dry.

So satisfying.

Poppy seems to be susceptible to coughs, and it helps her to breathe in steam under a towel with her face over a bowl of hot water. She doesn't like it much, but it does help. 

This week she was overseen by Moby Chomper, the giant stuffed fish requested and received by the middle son last year at the high school gift exchange. Moby Chomper is going to feature in a fly-fishing demonstration youngest son is helping with at the Christmas talent show, so we needed to get Moby to school. I put him on my chair at the table so he wouldn't get forgotten. From there, he kept an eye on the steaming.

It was very funny.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Double Pudding and Calzones

Friday 

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: There was leftover pasta bake, chicken, and mashed potatoes that I divvied out. My refrigerator was getting a little crowded.

Saturday

Short version: Beefy Spanish rice, butterscotch pudding

Long version: I had some lamb-y rice leftover and then made some more with the rest of the beef stock that resulted from cooking the tongue. I used that, plus ground beef, the last of the pinto beans in the refrigerator, frozen corn, and pureed tomatoes to make something like Spanish rice. Oh, and I added cheese, too. 

I made the pudding because I wanted to get through the last couple of gallons in the refrigerator before I picked up four more gallons at school on Monday. Pudding uses a lot of milk and makes everyone happy. Most of the family loves butterscotch pudding, although I'm not wildly enthused about it. 

I double this recipe and add a bit of molasses to it, because my family likes molasses. 

Sunday

Short version: Lamb roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions; cucumbers with salt and vinegar, chocolate pudding

Long version: This was the last leg of lamb in the freezer. I marinated it, shoved garlic into slits, and put a spice rub on it, so it had lots of flavor. 

There was room enough in the dish with the lamb to cook potatoes, carrots, and onions, so I did that.

Sunday roast.

More pudding to use more milk, but chocolate this time (doubled, with the optional cocoa and half dark chocolate chips, half semi-sweet chips). I did the extra step of sieving the pudding when I was scraping it out of the pot because no matter how careful I am, I always end up scraping out some of the layer of cornstarch, etc. on the bottom of the pot, and that makes little lumps. Half the pleasure of pudding is the smooth texture, so I sieved it this time. Much better.

Monday

Short version: Calzones, raw radishes, cookies

Long version: A mom from school just had her fourth baby, which means she now has four kids under 8 years old.

Been there. That mom needs food.

Her oldest daughter is in Poppy's class, so I asked Poppy what she thought I should make for their family. She thought pizza. Okay. That's what I made for them.

We had pizza not too long ago, so I thought I would try something a little different and make calzones. Pretty much pizza, just wrapped up instead of flat.

Of course, calzones are individual and have to be rolled out, which makes them a bit more time consuming. I also felt like I couldn't get enough filling in them, because they were so bulky before the cheese melted.

They browned nicely, though. And they were certainly large.

I made extra sauce for whoever wanted it, which was everyone except Poppy.

I had also made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the other family, and there were enough for our family, too. We got the ones that I over-baked when I got distracted, but they were still happily dunked in milk and consumed.

Tuesday

Short version: Stuffed pizza

Long version: The general consensus on the calzones was that they needed more sauce and cheese. There were four of them left, and only four people eating this night, which worked out nicely. It also worked out to have leftovers, as I was at First Communion class with Poppy until about 5:30 p.m. 

A. re-heated the calzones in the oven before I got home, and then I topped them with more sauce and cheese, just like pizza. So they were pretty much like a stuffed pizza. Much better.

Wednesday

Short version: Eggs and rice, leftovers

Long version: The younger children had a party at school in the afternoon, at which they filled up on many snacks. I knew they would do this, so I hadn't planned on anything too elaborate for dinner. Also, the eldest was traveling home at dinnertime from an FFA event, so he ate on the road.

There was enough leftover lamb roast, potatoes, and carrots for A. and the middle boy. Poppy and I had fried eggs and rice. The youngest boy wasn't hungry at all and didn't eat dinner.

Thursday

Short version: Spanish tortilla, Snow's clam chowder, raw radishes, chocolate wafer cookies

Long version: I had thought I would be at a basketball game, so I made a Spanish tortilla ahead of time for dinner. I completely filled a 12-inch skillet with the tortilla and wasn't careful enough when I poured the scrambled eggs in with the potatoes and and so on.

Fun.

I didn't end up going to the game, but it was nice to have dinner already made. I did add the clam chowder since I was home and it was rainy and cold.

Refrigerator check:

Pretty empty.

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

A Quick Cookie Tip

I make a lot of cookies. They are my younger children's primary snack at school, which means I make cookies once a week. I have the recipe for chocolate chip cookies memorized because that one uses melted butter and thus requires no creaming with a hand mixer. And THAT means I don't have to have soft butter to start with. Handy. 

I've made those cookies so often that I play pretty fast and loose with the ingredients, usually adding peanut butter in addition to the butter and some oats instead of all flour. I also don't actually measure the salt, baking soda, and chocolate chips, instead just eyeballing those ingredients.

When I make other recipes--peanut butter, gingersnaps, oatmeal--I do more or less follow a recipe, but with one exception: I never, ever mix the wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls. Instead I mix the wet ingredients first--fats, sugars, eggs, vanilla--and then right on top I put the flour and other dry ingredients. 

I'll sort of shallowly mix the dry ingredients right there before incorporating them into the wet ingredients, but I really do not see the point in two bowls. Cookie dough is always thoroughly mixed anyway. It's fine to just stir it all up vigorously in the same bowl.

Wet on the bottom, dry on top.

This saves time and another dish to wash. So feel free to also be a rebel and disregard the "in a separate bowl" instruction if you, like me, are always trying to find more efficient ways to get through kitchen tasks.

Snapshots: A Real-Life Bond Villain

Following a breakfast conversation on Tuesday during which the children all agreed they would be better off without school, Poppy apparently decided to take action on this.

I have no idea where she got the phrasing for this, but she might be a great lawyer one day.

The principal was shown this and told Poppy she'd start looking for a replacement for her, but no promises.

Good thing our principal has a sense of humor.

I was in town on Thursday and saw an interesting truck in the auto parts store parking lot. The tires gave me pause.

I really don't understand when this might be necessary. All I could think about was car-chase scenes in James Bond.

I bought our Thanksgiving turkey while I was in town. It's a large one and would have taken up most of the big cooler. I needed the space for other things and I decided that given the fact it takes days to fully defrost a turkey that big, it would be just fine in the car for the 90 minutes it takes me to get home.

I did wrap it in a towel for some insulation and it was, indeed, not at all thawed when I got home.

Now that I'm not working, I tend to wear the same clothes for a few days in a row. I did decide on Thursday that I should probably wear something cleaner for my trip to town, though, so I put on clean jeans. Unfortunately, I did this BEFORE building the fire, with the predictable result.

I changed out of these before I left the house.

One boy has been asking to go camping for awhile now, but we couldn't find a free weekend with good weather to make it happen. This past week was very warm, however, and finally nothing else going on, so I made plans with his friend's mom for the two boys to camp a short way from their house on a giant ranch. It's below the hill, so it was a bit warmer than at our house.

Heading down in the morning to pick up the camper.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Here Comes the Tongue

Friday 

Short version: Pizzas, carrot sticks with ranch dip, chocolate pudding

Long version: Everything aligned for pizza this day: I had bread dough in process; I had pureed roasted tomatoes in the refrigerator; I had a whole block of asadero waiting to be grated and put in the freezer. That definitely all adds up to pizza.

I didn't have any pepperoni on hand, so one pizza had cooked bacon and pickled onions on it, and the other was just cheese.

I made the chocolate pudding for the sick child with a sore throat. And everyone else, too, of course.

Saturday

Short version: Aged lamb roast, roasted potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing

Long version: We're getting to the forgotten and daunting cuts of meat at the bottom of the freezer now as we prepare to put the whole cull cow we're buying from our neighbor in there. I found a lamb roast labeled 2022 and figured that wasn't getting any younger. Ahem.

This was the afternoon Poppy and I took our drive to the mission church. I knew we wouldn't be getting home until just about dinnertime, so I prepped everything before I left.

I had apparently put a marinade in with the roast before I froze it, so all I did was brown it and leave it in the skillet for roasting. The potatoes I pre-roasted, stopping before they were all the way browned. This meant that all A. had to do was turn the oven on to 400 degrees and put the skillet with the roast in first, then the pan with the potatoes about fifteen minutes later. 

It was all pretty much done when we got home at 5:15 p.m. All I had to make was the salad, which was also easy because the lettuce was already washed and the dressing was the ranch dip from the night before.

We don't have roasts very often, and this was appreciated.

Sunday

Short version: Tacos de lengua, refried beans, chocolate peanut butter balls, cookies

Long version: Continuing my facing down of freezer things I would rather avoid, this was the day I cooked the tongue.

Tongue tastes fine, and there's a lot of meat there due to the size of a cow's tongue, but they are just . . . daunting.

It looks just like what it is.

Tongue is cooked whole slowly to tenderize before the thick covering is peeled off--that's where the taste buds are, which is very much not appealing*--and I chose to do this in my pressure-cooker/canner.

Partially I did this because that's the only pot I have big enough to fit the tongue, but also A. had replaced one of the valves on the top to see if I could get it to hold pressure after it stopped working, and I wanted to test that. I duly brought the pot up to pressure and was delighted to find that it does indeed work again. 

I pressure-cooked the tongue at about 11 pounds pressure for around an hour and a half, in water with chopped garlic, onion tops, and bay leaves. Then I peeled it, cut out the nasty bits, and chopped the remaining meat up.

I made corn tortillas this night on my cast-iron griddle pan, so when I was done with that, I used the hot griddle pan to fry the meat in beef tallow with spices.

We had lettuce, tomato, pickled onions, queso fresco, sour cream, hot sauce, and salsa to top them with, along with the refried beans. 

The tongue was 4.5 pounds uncooked, but I probably only ended up with around two pounds of meat in the end. I had invited our priest and his brother to come for dinner, and there was just enough meat for everyone.

And yes, I did tell them what I was cooking ahead of time. Tacos de lengua are not uncommon here and these are not picky eaters, so they didn't hesitate. Or if they did, they didn't tell me.

The brother doesn't eat gluten, which is why we had the chocolate peanut butter balls. The cookies were this week's snack cookies--peanut butter, oats, chocolate chips--that I had made this day, so I put those out too and everyone could choose their dessert.

Monday

Short version: Potato soup with optional sausage and collards, leftover corn bread

Long version: I had made a very large pot of pureed bacon and potato soup over the weekend for the sick child, figuring if I made a big one I could use up some of the many potatoes I have on hand and freeze some soup for future illness (minus the dairy I added at the end).

This is the soup we had this night. To bulk it up and add some more flavor, I diced and fried a package of andouille sausage, along with some diced collard greens. Those I added to the bowls of the family members who would appreciate them. 

I had made cornbread for our post-church breakfast the day before, and there were just enough pieces of that left for everyone to have one with their soup.

Basketball started this day. Our basketball player is the one person who really dislikes soup. Since he wasn't here at dinnertime anyway, he got to have leftover lamb and pizza when he got home.

Tuesday

Short version: Pasta bake, leftovers

Long version: I had some roasted and pureed tomatoes in the refrigerator, so I used those, a package of loose Italian sausage, some already-cooked onion and roasted garlic from the freezer, heavy cream, grated asadero cheese from the freezer, the fat and some of the broth from when I boiled the tongue, and pasta to make a pasta bake that A. could put in the oven while I was at First Communion class. That way, dinner was ready when I got home at 5:45 p.m.

I also topped this whole casserole of pasta with slices of a cheese mysteriously labeled "melting cheese." It's some kind of Mexican cheese the child with me at the store asked to get. I was curious what it might be, so I did buy it, and it turns out to be pretty much fresh whole milk mozzarella. Good to know. Like fresh mozzarella, it can't be grated easily, which is why I sliced it instead.

Ready for the oven.

A. doesn't appreciate pasta as much as the children do, so he got the last big bowl of potato soup, to which I added more collard greens and some of the cooked Italian sausage. I also made him quesadillas with the last four homemade corn tortillas and the last of the refried beans. Plus cheese, of course.

Wednesday

Short version: Chicken-fried pork chops, milk gravy, mashed potatoes, green peas

Long version: Although it is more work to make pork chops this way--with the egg wash, seasoned flour, and individual browning before baking--they are so appreciated that I do it anyway. I need to remember that it always takes more salt than I think it should, though. And more fat in the pan when I'm browning them. That flour can take a lot of salt and absorb a lot of fat.

Thursday

Short version: Rotisserie chickens and gravy, lamb-y rice, cucumbers with ranch dip, surprising cookies

Long version: I was at Walmart this day and was delighted to find the frozen rotisserie chickens in the meat section. These are four dollars for a whole chicken. I got two and just re-heated them in the oven for dinner. After rinsing out their bags with hot water, I had enough liquid to make some gravy, too. This is definitely the cheapest convenient meat I have ever seen. Almost as cheap as the chicken leg quarters, which are definitely not convenient and are kind of gross to cut up.

I made the rice with some lamb stock I had had in the refrigerator and wanted to use up.

The cookies I found on a clearance rack at Walmart. I always look at this, although most of the "deals" aren't really very good. It's mostly strangely-flavored candies, and they are not cheap enough to be tempting. This time, however, I saw bags of dark chocolate wafer cookies from Austria. I love wafer cookies, but they're usually the most artificially-flavored garbage out there. These, however, were not artificially flavored. They were also only one dollar each because they expire this month. I took a chance and bought four bags.

These were SO GOOD. If you see these, buy them.

Especially if you see them for one dollar.

Refrigerator check:

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

* Ha ha. Appealing, peeling a tongue . . . Insert your own joke here.

Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Tumbleweeds are so iconic of the American West: blowing about on the wide-open spaces, a fixture of western movies, almost as recognizable as the cowboy.

They are also awful.

We live in the land of the tumbleweed, which is actually an invasive plant called a Russian thistle. They grow big, plentiful, and prickly, drying in the ground and then getting uprooted by the wind to blow about and disperse their seeds.

Still firmly rooted and biding their time.

They are wretched plants. They are stiff and sharp, embed their prickers into the sheep's wool, and this year, they are EVERYWHERE.

We must have gotten rain at just the right time for them, because I've never seen so many. Even the one year when they formed a solid four-foot-high bank of tumbleweeds against the garden fence, I don't remember seeing so many in the ground. They're currently still rooted, but in the next month, they'll start blowing free, and then we're really in for it. 

All the dark patches in this field are Russian thistle.

There's really nothing to be done about them at this stage except wait for them to build up against fencing and then pitch-fork them into piles to burn. And hope that next year isn't such a banner year for them.