What’s for supper? Vol. 436: Not governed by me only

Happy Friday! This was somehow both the fastest and longest week all year. I am going to make a stab at fasting and praying for peace today, especially in Ukraine and Israel, at the Pope’s behest. Don’t forget, you can fast all kinds of ways. It doesn’t have to be like Good Friday; you can fast from sweets, or from TV, or from being a big whiny baby (impossible).  

Also today Elijah is moving out. Our fifth kid to move out. A fine day not to be able to eat one’s feelings, humph.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s artist profile, Our Sunday Visitor magazine is shuttering, as well as several other OSV publications. Of course the Lord will provide, so we are just praying that he provides until he provides, and all will be well. I truly did love writing that art series, and pretty much loved writing my monthly column for them as well, so it’s just a shame. Lots and lots of great writers were there. Although I suppose if we can survive the loss of a picture of a barrel on a sign, we can survive this.

Anyway, this past weekend we saw Benny and Clara in a production of Alice, and they were both great. Here are just two of the roles they played: Clara as the Red Queen, and Benny as Shrunken Alice. 

This is an ensemble that Clara put together with her cousin and a bunch of friends, which is very cool!

SATURDAY
Leftovers and mozzarella sticks? 

On Saturday, two unlikely things happened: One is I found three giant, handmade, high quality pillows with a really neat menagerie pattern for the living room

and the other is that I donated three bags of clothes to the same thrift store. I donated them, I tell you! My usual technique is to sort clothes into bags, then leave them under the dining room table until they get enough macaroni stuck to them, then put them in the back of the minivan and drive around with them for several months until the bag gets stepped on and ripped, and then put them in a second bag and bring them to the thrift store, who politely and reasonably declines; and then I throw them away. BUT NOT THIS TIME. 

The we did the rest of the shopping, and then for supper we had leftovers and, as far as I can recall, mozzarella sticks.

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips

Sunday I absolutely splurged on ground beef. I remember when ground beef was $1.29 a pound. Now it’s $1.29 to smell it, and if you actually want to buy it and take it home, you have to fax proof of income to the loan officer, and they don’t even give out lollipops anymore. We used to be a proper country, with hamburgers, and lollipops!

But before supper, Damien and I went kayaking! First time this summer. Boy is it hard to do all the things you want to do in the summer. But we went, and it was absolutely lovely. We explored this placid little river for about an hour, surrounded by a chorus of buzzing grasshoppers and the splash of irritated turtles as they turned their backs and fled. 

We paddled until we met a beaver dam on either side, and I did not fall in the water while getting out of the kayak OR while getting in. Absolutely gorgeous and perfect afternoon. And then we got ice cream, just us two grown-ups. 

MONDAY
Pizza

On Monday, Benny and Corrie and I dug up our potatoes. This was kind of an experimental crop, which I invested zero doll hairs in. Just shoved a bunch of sprouting potatoes from the supermarket into the ground in the spring, added plenty of compost, and kept it watered.

Wow, it was fun and exciting to dig them up! I had planted at least three kinds of potatoes, and we really didn’t know what we would find. 

I mean, we found potatoes! It was a very pleasant little treasure hunt. Here’s our haul:

They would have gotten bigger if I had left them in the ground longer, of course, but I was very happy with new potatoes. 

Also on Monday, Corrie started some pork butts dry brining for bo ssam. She is the one who is most excited about continuing to cook, and this is a very popular meal, and quite easy (you just have to start well ahead of time). For this first part, you just mix together a cup of salt and a cup of sugar, rub it all over the pork

and wrap it up and let it brine overnight. The salt draws the moisture out of the meat fibers but then back in again, or something? I don’t know how the magic works, but it works. 

Oh, and we had pizza for supper. One plain, one pepperoni, and one with black and kalamata olives, feta, fresh basil, and fresh garlic. 

Kind of ghastly picture, but it was very yummy pizza. 

TUESDAY
Bo ssam, rice, pineapple; world’s biggest s’mores

Tuesday, we double wrapped a pan with heavy tin foil and started the meat cooking in the early afternoon. It needs five or six hours to cook. When it got close to being done, we made a pot of rice and then Corrie made a little sauce  of brown sugar, salt, and cider vinegar and slathered it on the meat.

This caramelizes on top and gives it an extra sweet and tangy punch and a wonderful crackly crust, with impossibly tender fat underneath. It came out spectacular. 

We got it in the oven later than I meant to, and had to turn up the heat a little higher than usual, so I was afraid it might not be shreddy and moist, but it sure was

I cut up a few pineapples and even though I forgot to buy lettuce to wrap the meat it, it was an excellent meal. If not an excellent photo or presentation.

Here’s the recipe we use, although we do only the most basic parts of it. And now Corrie knows how to make another meal! 

Also on Tuesday, we finally had everyone home in the evening, and it was finally finally time to make the world’s biggest s’mores. I had already made two giant graham crackers, two big slabs of marshmallow, and an absurdly thick giant chocolate bar. It was so much work that I couldn’t quite bring myself to make any plans for how to actually . . . make it into s’mores. Pish tush. 

Also, I was afraid the graham crackers were going to be stale as heck since they were almost a week old, but in fact they got really soft. I put them in the oven for a while to firm them up, and it didn’t help at all. So I just lit the propane fire pit and FORGED AHEAD. 

What I ended up doing is putting the marshmallow on a metal baking rack and toasting it over the fire that way. Which meant I couldn’t really flip it and toast both sides, but I did anyway, and of course I got burnt and sticky and all the dumb things you might expect. After a while I just kinda dumped one graham cracker on Corrie, dropped the chocolate on that, flopped the marshmallow on that, smacked the other graham cracker on that, and then topped it with another pan like a clamshell and held both pans over the fire until I thought maybe it was hot. 

Then I carved it into Big Mac-sized pieces and gave them to the understandably skeptical kids.

Who ate as much as they could and then escaped inside to watch TV.  So, this project was a success in that I finished it! I am trying really hard to finish projects instead of abandoning them, and I did finish it. So there. 

WEDNESDAY
Pork fried rice, frozen egg rolls

Wednesday we had a sort of complicated little outing: First I went to buy an off-brand Instant Pot from some lady on Marketplace, and then we went searching for ANCIENT PETROGLYPHS. They are in Bellows Falls, VT, and it seems like they are being deliberately kept on the DL to avoid a lot of tourist fuss? So I will abide by that! You can find them with a little sleuthing.

Not knowing exactly where they were, and spending a lot of time clambering up and down on the slippery boulders of a gorge with a hydroelectric dam nearby

 

made it all the more exciting when we finally found them!

I think I’m gonna write a whole separate post about this, but it was a wonderful experience, very beautiful and moving, somehow. These petroglyphs were carved probably by Abenaki people, several hundred or maybe a few thousand years ago, and nobody really knows why. A signpost for souls in the afterlife? A family portrait? An elaborate doodle? We just don’t know, except that they are clearly faces, and someone knew what they are — just not us. Real Richard Wilbur vibes:

A lark, because I’d been wrong
Burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely, 
Not governed by me only. 

Yeah, that’s what it was. 

I was there with only three of the kids, and everyone really enjoyed it. Then we went to the fabled nearby Dari Joy

where the people are friendly and the ice cream cones are enormous. And then we drove home, and then I remembered we were out of milk, and then I remembered we were out of duck food, and by the time we actually got home, it was late o’clock. 

I made some quick fried rice with the leftover pork 

Jump to Recipe

and heated up some egg rolls. And then I took the leftover s’mores, of which there was about 43 pounds, and cut it into squares, wrapped it in tinfoil, and heated it up in the oven until the chocolate was actually melted.

This is, in fact, probably the best way to make giant s’mores: In the oven. But the whole point of s’mores is that you make them over a fire, so that’s why we did it the dumb way that didn’t really work. 

It was still a mess and still kind of overwhelming! And that’s why people don’t make giant s’mores! I left the pan in the kitchen and it made great food for teenagers to pick at while yacking about whatever. And then I bundled up the tinfoil and dumped it all in the garbage, and that felt great. Better than dropping off used clothes, even. 

THURSDAY
One-pan chicken, brussels sprouts, and new potatoes

Thursday I gave all our lovely homegrown potatoes a good scrub. 

I cut up a bunch of brussels sprouts and put them in two big greased sheet pans with the potatoes, then nestled some chicken thighs in among them, and doused it all with what is meant to be a marinade,

Jump to Recipe

but I forgot about making supper until it was too late to marinate anything, so I just splashed it on top and then added extra garlic powder and salt. (This recipe calls for summer squash and zucchini, but obviously you can improvise.) It came out nice and sharp and garlicky.

The potatoes were delightful. The skins were just tissue-paper thin and the insides were tender as heck. Many of them were only bite-sized or smaller, so I left as many whole as I could, and it was a treat. 

Delicious. 

FRIDAY
Fish tacos, tortilla chips

Just batter-fried fish from frozen, shredded cabbage, avocados, I think maybe jalapeños? and salsa and sour cream. I’ll have to look it up. I do have some non-radioactive shrimp in the freezer, so maybe I’ll stir things up a bit (by cooking shrimp).

And this is our last weekend of summer vacation. The kids are at a magic show at the library, and we are going to squeeze in one last playdate on Saturday and an ocean trip on Sunday, and maybe we can get to the pond on Monday. I’m going to plant some cucumbers in the empty potato bed today and see if I can get a quick harvest before the frost comes.

Yesterday, I had the kids buy TV time by picking apples from Marvin

so I guess I’ll be making some apple sauce soon. Still haven’t picked my first round of corn, so I’m looking forward to that. And the grape vine continues to ramble around everywhere, so I added a new little trellis (well, a bendy stick) and it’s going along with it. 

Some day you’ll be able to pick grapes with your teeth while swimming in the pool. Who knew New Hampshire could be so decadent. 

One thing I do feel good about is that I have practiced yoga every single day this month, and almost every day I lifted weights, too. I made myself a motivational sticker chart, and although I haven’t been getting a lot of gold stars in food, I have been getting lots of flowers in yoga, and birds in weights.

It’s not stupid if it works!

This is your periodic reminder that I have an extremely low-key private exercise group on Facebook, where people just check in and note what exercise they have done, aiming for three workouts or more a week, and we encourage each other and share information about workouts we recommend. I’ll probably be starting another thirty-day challenge in September, so if you want to hop on, this would be a good time. 

I just now took this picture:

even though I just took this one of us a couple days ago:

and then off he went. Dang it. Ah well.