End of the week already! I am getting my preparations in order for the holiday next week. Making my list and doling out chores.
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| Friday |
Usual Friday movie night. We watched The Score (2001), an action-crime drama, my husband's pick. It was good, but suspenseful. I bought the acorn squash at WinCo for 38 cents/lb. I bought 10 squash. So good.
Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza
mashed acorn squash
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| Saturday |
This was the day my daughter baked the turkey-shaped cookies (link here in case you missed them). I spent the day decluttering and starting to clean for Thanksgiving. My husband made dinner. He likes to fry kale in oil until crispy. We each have our own ways to cook our basic foods. That gives us variety even when we're eating the same ingredients day after day.
Saturday
pinto beans
crispy, fried kale
rice and salsa
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| Sunday |
I came across some frozen eggs in one of the freezers. I knew they were there, but didn't know how much I had. I thawed a 6-egg container this weekend to use in dinner. I suggested my husband make pancakes and scrambled eggs with this container. He also chopped up some of that huge kraut cabbage for making slaw. Not pictured -- the blackberry syrup, part of the batches I made in late summer and froze.
Sunday
scrambled eggs
pancakes and homemade blackberry syrup
Cole slaw
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| Monday |
I checked around several stores this month for potatoes and ended up buying 3 bags of russets at Fred Meyer (Kroger), $2.79 each. We love baked potatoes, so I couldn't think of making anything else for dinner. This is a childhood favorite for my kids. It's how I got them to like kale. I normally top these potatoes with bacon bits. I had come across a container of pork cracklins' in the freezer, enough to top all four potatoes. Cracklins' are ham fat that's been diced and rendered until what's left is a pool of liquid fat and tiny browned bits. I strained out the browned bits and add to cornbread or use as bacon bits in soup or whatever. The liquid fat can then be used in cooking. I posted about rendering ham fat for use in cooking, here. Rendering fat is a useful skill to know for when times are lean. It's a way to produce additional cooking fat from scraps that may otherwise be tossed.
Monday
baked potato topped with kale in cheese sauce and cracklins'
crabapple and applesauce mix
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| Tuesday |
Using more frozen then thawed eggs, my daughter made the Yorkshire pudding (and the rest of the dinner). Frozen eggs can be used for making scrambled, in quiches or frittatas, or in baking. For more info on freezing eggs, check this post.
Brussel sprouts leaves are edible! They are thicker and tougher than kale (but not in a stringy way, just more chew). I use them steamed, chopped fine and in quiches, and chopped fine and in soups. It's a way to get one more food item from the garden when it looks like there's nothing left.
Tuesday
meatloaf and gravy
Yorkshire pudding
steamed Brussel sprout leaves
crabapple and applesauce
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| Wednesday |
My other daughter cooked tonight. I had processed another pumpkin this week (using my skin-on cooking/pureeing technique), so there's more puree to use and freeze. Both of my daughters really love pumpkin bread, so this was a natural choice for her to go with soup. The soup used potatoes, celery, carrots, kale, parsley, sage, and garlic all from the garden. It also used frozen turkey from last Thanksgiving, onion, and the liquid from straining cooked pureed pumpkin in place of stock. Very delicious!
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| Wednesday |
turkey and garden vegetable soup
pumpkin spice bread (using aquafaba for half the eggs)
A hard day this week. I made chocolate-covered raisins to help and boost spirits. The raisins make it healthy, right?
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| Thursday |
I took Farhana's suggestion for cooking greens (from the comments on Wednesday). Very tasty -- one daughter even commented on the kale.
Thursday
baked beans and hotdogs
rice with leftover meatloaf gravy
sautéed kale and onions Farhana-style
spiced fig and applesauce
I thought I'd share a photo of my favorite brown transfer ware platter. I have a bunch of different brown patterns that all seem to look good together, despite the differences.
I bought this at Tuesday Morning, a discount store chain that buys up surplus inventory, closeouts, factory overruns, and department store cancellations. You never know what you might find on any given day. Several years ago, my drive to get my daughters from high school took me by Tuesday Morning, so I would stop in occasionally. I found this platter and debated over it for about 2 seconds. I had to have it. I knew it would go with my fall and winter dishes (Friendly Village by Johnson Brothers) and would be the perfect turkey platter for Thanksgiving. When it's not in use, it is displayed on the hutch in the kitchen.
Friends, can I ask you to pray for my sister-in-law? Something terribly tragic happened in her family this week. I don't know how much privacy she or her family would want. So I won't go into any details, except she could use God's arms around her, my brother, my niece and nephew, her brother and his family. This is so fresh and devastating. My heart hurts for her. Thank you.
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.
