Meat Week

It’s very possible that you didn’t notice I took a vacation last week. But I did. The most noticeable part was probably the spelling errors and odd punctuation, because while I didn’t really take time off from the blog, Mrs. Fussy did.

But today we are back from Pennsylvania, and I’m putting her back to work. 

The most noticeable part of vacation to me was having my in-laws around to take care of the children for most of the day. Well, that and all the meat. My father-in-law used to do a bit of butchering at the family store, and grew up eating a lot of meat. When the family comes to visit it’s a festive occasion, and festive occasions involve big meaty dinners. I really do forget what it’s like to have meat on the center of the plate for dinner every day.

Honestly, it was fun to eat like this for a little while. But I’m glad to be back home where meat is used more in a supporting role and not as the main event. Here’s a brief recap.

On Christmas day a lack of communication spoiled the plan. There was a ham dinner waiting for us at the farm, but we stopped for Chinese food in State College, PA. There we had a deep fried salt and pepper pork chop (in addition to their house special fried brown rice, but that was decidedly not meat centric).

So the ham was served as sandwiches on Monday, and as snacks for the rest of the week. That evening Mrs. Fussy and I went out for a date and split some surprisingly good chicken wings in an Altoona tavern where the talk did not revolve around tales of who was in jail versus who was out on parole.

Tuesday night we went out for a steak dinner. I got what was pretty moderate, which was an eight ounce tenderloin cooked to a silky rare. Granted it also came with a crabcake on the side, but the less I say about that the better.

Wednesday was more moderate, with a massive lasagna that was made with sausage and ricotta cheese. But at least the noodles were whole grain, and there were a lot of vegetables snuck into the sauce.

Thursday was a giant rib roast. Friday I cooked burgers, knockwurst and hotdogs. Saturday morning was my father-in-law’s famous pancakes with sausage. And Saturday night saw a pork roast with kielbasa and sauerkraut on the side.

Somewhere in there, my mother-in-law made a whole giant chicken for people to peck on that never got really eaten. And then there were all the deviled eggs and pierogies fried in butter. On top of it all were a ton of sweets including pecan pie, chocolate and peanut butter cake, donuts, and chocolates.

At the end of the visit there was a lot of rib roast left, and we took a big hunk of it back home to Albany.

Now that it’s here, we’ll use it in moderation. Last night we each had a couple small slices of beef on top of our heaping plates of whole wheat pasta. I’m not sure what tonight will look like. Maybe I’ll make some kind of Korean style marinade. But once all the meat is gone, it’s going to be refreshing to have a few meatless days in a row.

And I’ll tell you what. As fun as it was to eat all that meat, we’re not going to miss it.