Tonkatsu Ramen soup with boiled eggs

 I told Esme I was going to write this down because it is different than 'just making the package' but unless I do it while paying close attention, it's hard to tell her what exactly is so different about it. 

Tonkatsu ramen soup : (you can make it with different meat or just vegetables, just adjust to your taste) boil four eggs, then place in cold water unpeeled while chopped up 1 cooked pork chop, and gather up frozen green onions. Set pork chop and green onions to boil in one cup more liquid than the package calls for (in this case, 3 cups when the package asks for 2 cups), add a tablespoon of soy sauce and a shake of ginger-garlic-sugar-sage-black pepper pork seasoning, bring that to a boil and let it continue to heat while peeling the eggs. 

Sometimes I would add frozen green peas, bok choy or shredded frozen cabbage at this point.  I will sometimes put in a shake of furikake flaked seaweed into this - I did tonight.   If using shredded carrot, (we didn't have any tonight) let that boil to a tender state before continuing. I don't use canned carrot in this because it becomes mush and is not tasty in the broth, but some softened shredded carrot is really nice.  

 Break up the noodles and place them into the pan and cook for the required amount of time (4 minutes in this case), add the soup packet and oil packet from the package. Break the boiled eggs in the bowls to expose the yolks - and pour one half of the pot over each bowl of eggs.

chopped up porkchop, green onions, tonkatsu pork chop flavored ramen package

 

Bring 3 cups of water (the package calls for two for the noodles and broth packet, this is one extra to be absorbed into the meat, veggies and eventually eggs) to a boil, add the pork chop, 1 tbsp of soy sauce, green onions and a few shakes of a spicy pork ginger based seasoning.  We make our own, but it has garlic, ginger, sage, black pepper and a few other things in it as well as some sugar.  Do not mix the soup packet or oil packet from the package in yet - that goes in later! 

  

Boil 4 eggs - I try to soft-boil them but the key point is to not overboil them.  I boil four for two bowls, and if one cracks and is lost, three is still enough.  Pour out the hot water after they are boiled enough, refill with cold, let sit until the soup mixture is heated up well and the pork has started to flavor the water.  

  

When the broth is just about ready - break up the noodles into four sections and place them in the broth.  Set the timer for the amount of time the package says the noodles need to cook.  Peel the eggs, but do not chop them up yet. 

 When the noodles are entirely done, open the soup packet and the oil packet and mix them into the soup and noodles.  Break up the eggs to expose the yolks.  Pour half of the soup and noodles over each bowl of eggs.  The soup will mix a bit with the egg yolk and make the broth even richer. 

 

And there is your soup - much more than just the packet, but not so much you have to spend all day making it, like REAL tonkatsu soup would be - one of those told me to boil the pork for five hours to make the broth!  

 

more bits

 It's been another week went by and I'm not even sure where it went.  Did some things this week - gardening, shopping, going to work and the feed store, of course.  About to make some classic banana bread that is sort of between what I make for 'well I'll eat it anyway' banana flan stuff and madeleines with banana in them.

 I made 'mac and cheese' last night with gruyere and mini penne pasta.  Esme said it wasn't that different - just pasta and cheese, right?  And I reminded her that one has to make a bechamel sauce first  with butter, flour and some of the pasta sauce, then add the cheese into it.  Mark says if I can make it with white cheddar and American cheese he'll try it.  

I made a pot of lentil soup first thing  this morning.  It was cold, and my stomach hurt from eating a fast food ice cream yesterday - while finishing up our postal route and things were very early etc.  I told Esme that I had to think 'what did I eat that WAS NOT food, yesterday, and then .. oh yes, that'  So I was up at three am even on my day off, but took a bath and drank more coffee, did the dishes and the laundry - and then my stomach felt better after a bit, enough to cook lentil soup, and then get ready to go for shopping in town.

Frozen grated carrots and ginger from a few months ago, frozen onions, 1 cup or so of lentils, some herbs de provence, some black pepper and salt, and some beet greens - all cooked down and then ran through the blender.  I needed that.  There is enough for a few more lunches, too.

 Now to go throw my floor rugs in the dryer and make that banana bread, before I decide not to as dinner will be coming up - but I've already had the butter and eggs waiting on the counter bringing up to room temperature.  I had poked the butter a half hour ago and it was not ready yet.

Chopped up a bunch of yellow summer squash and red bell peppers and onions (all from the store), harvested a few more strawberries and sorrel leaves, checked on other things.  Have been studying French and Czech lately on duolingo, with some Greek and Lithuanian (and Czech and French) vocabulary on baba dum. 

 The banana bread recipe says :

 2 cups mashed banana (ha, you'll get what I've got, which is two small mashed banana)

1 full stick of butter, softened at room temperature

2 large eggs, brought to room temperature

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 cups flour (that seems a bit excessive, we'll see)

1 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp salt 

2 tsp of vanilla (yea, no, we do one teaspoon, this is strong stuff)

 and it gives no baking time or temperature, so I'll wing it at 375 and watch it for when it turns brown, stick a fork in it and see if it comes out clean 

 

 

 

I've also been playing Mineclonia Minetest, with the Wine Mod and the plant based foods and x farming, 'get comfortable' furniture mod and a few other things - some of the mods clash - Esme says the barrels from the Wine Mod (which also makes cider, beer, rum, coffee liquer etc.) look so out of place.  I like the way the barrels on end make something like cabinets or armoires when stuck on top of the tables.  The get comfortable thing clashes with how I make roofs on my buildings, so I have had to learn a new way to get around it by putting dirt blocks and then placing the stairs on top of the blocks and breaking them back out from underneath.  This has monsters on, and hunger, and the snow biome nearly killed me last night because I fell through the powder snow and didn't know how to get back out with it all falling on me and doing damage -- dig down, and then reach rock, so you can stand on something, and then find a way to get out one direction or the other, always standing on rock and never on snow. Scary though.. like having a whole ceiling of sand and gravel fall on you in original Minecraft.

 One of the other things that has happened is the nearby pillager crew has come out with their bannerman to stare at me.  I put up a two high fence around my area between their huge watchtower and me, and also lined the other side of it with sweetberry bushes, which they will take damage from them.  We'll see if that works. 

 

  

bits

 

 

Mark has been designing this ball track system on his 3D printer.  And I harvested a little bit of sorrel, some kale and more strawberries than I expected tonight.  There is supposed to be a large storm tonight and then another one tomorrow night.  I have been studying French and Czech.

 

Tarragon Cream sauce Pasta

I'm telling Esme about another one of the family recipes that I want to make and show her how to make - and every other recipe I've been finding for it uses white wine in it for reduction in the sauce. And I had to think, ah.. yes, my mother never cooked with that (cooking alcohol) at all, so of course the 'family recipe' that I know doesn't have it, so.. do I try to do it 'correctly' according to the books or do I cook what I know so I don't 'mess it up'? I'm choosing option two, and then maybe we can learn how to make the 'actual French recipe version' later.  Apparently there is a 'boil the onions in white wine' step that I've never done in my life.. and am not sure I want to.  

 This is usually served with chicken breast, but can also be served with eggs.  We didn't have fresh garden tarragon, but I was inspired to make this by the dried tarragon packet I got in our spice sampler.  Tarragon goes bad quickly, much quicker than many spices - and the reason I haven't made it in many years is that it is hard to find it, and then when you do, a little disappointing to throw much of it away later.  I used finely diced zucchini instead of the real chopped tarragon plants that were in a recipe I found - I think maybe it was made with canned green beans at times in our household, my mom canned a lot of green beans every summer.

 We decided to make it with eggs.  It is not an easy dish to make with three burners by yourself - will need to practice again, as one of the burners was an omelette to go with it and that got a bit messy in between - started pasta, then melted butter in a big pan and added finely diced zucchini and sliced sweet onions, cooking them until the onions were translucent, then added a bit more water to make sure there was enough liquid - added a few tablespoons of flour until it began to form a paste with the butter, added some grated cheese (used the last of the gruyere block we had, about 3 by 2 inches) to that to finish making it a full paste (roux), then began to reliquify with half-and-half, then whole milk, until the sauce and melted cheese came to the right consistency, added dried tarragon and lots of black pepper (should have added more salt, I had hoped the butter and cheese was salty enough) and removed from heat as the omelette was getting done to put on the plates and drained the pasta, stirred it into the tarragon cream sauce and added more black pepper and shredded cheese on top of each plate after serving. It's been years, maybe a decade, since I made this dish, but I thought I'd give it a go again to show Esme.

bits

 Madeleine cookies / cakes with ebony carrot powder in them

 

 mullein plant, biennial, first year rosette

 

We are down to 13 chickens, including our two roosters.   We lost another one of our Olive Eggers to old age this morning.  I was confused though, because I was pretty sure we were at 15 with the roosters before losing this one - and Esme and I counted again and again, and only came up with thirteen.  I might have not counted the last one that we lost - although I remember her - or maybe something happened to another one of the Cinnamon queen types and we haven't found any evidence of it yet.  We looked all around in the pen - and didn't see anything.  The one that was gone this morning was just fallen over and right out in the open with no injuries - although she had been getting slower and walking a little hunched for the past few weeks.

 I got some spice samples from a company the other day and I have been trying them out.  Tried some tarragon in our eggs - I always have that go bad before I've used very much of it.  Today, I tried some of the ebony carrot powder, which is a very bright magenta color, in a batch of madeleines - and the purple powder made the dough sort of purplish-grey and the actual cakes a bit of a greenish color. 

 Got the first strawberries today :)  Chopped them up in some sugar and put some in yogurt and a bit on pancakes. 

Studying mostly French with some Portuguese. Been dreaming more in French or pseudo-French, at least.

Been working through the dental plate issues and cooking my own dinners more so I don't have as much problem with things that Mark and Esme can eat but I have trouble with - because when it was already inflamed trying to eat something harder and having it rock was causing more issues... and I am trying hard (very hard) not to sleep on that side for more than an hour or so here and there at night - can't only sleep on the other side, my hips and shoulders won't let me do that, either.

Chicks at two and a half months - new big cage

 

Mark and Esme had put together these fence panels to make a new larger cage for the chickens.  We had needed to go to town and get more chips because I didn't have enough left from cleaning the cage last week to fill the bottom of this up.  We put them in and they are quite happy, especially with their new longer perching stick - but hope it will be warm enough in the garage for them at nights.  They are now two and a half months since we bought them at probably less than a week old.  They have really feathered out and changed colors - originally there were five 'yellow and brown chipmunk' colored ones and one dark grey (maybe not the same breed, we are still uncertain if she got put in that bin by mistake).  So far, it still seems they are all hens, as they were sold to us.  We have the thirteen hens and two roosters out in our big coop outside - but these will need to spend maybe another month or so inside before they are big enough to compete with those out there.

 Charlotte dog still has to watch - she had to be calmed down a little because she got very very excited and was beginning to whine.  Esme petted her ears and then we told her it was time for her to go in the main house.  She has been out there a few times, when we have, to check on them.

  

Esme calming down our blue heeler mix, Charlotte, who thinks all baby chickens should be hers to herd

 

  

 Melody goat and Minion cat

This morning I put some new garden soil in one of the raised beds, and checked on different things.  The strawberries are beginning to have berries on them.  Melody goat and Minion cat were sunning themselves on the edge of the fenced yard - and I interrupted them.  I have kale and beans and beets (growing for the greens) and sweet peas coming up, and have transplanted my summer squash plants out to the bed where a few more and some cucumbers were finally germinating.  I want to get some marigold plants and then some tomatoes and peppers.

 We went through all of our spices today - there were one or two that I had been holding on to that weren't any good.  I threw the tarragon out months ago after it had sat untouched for most of a year - and the starter for cleaning out the rest today was that I had ordered some samples of a place's spices that included tarragon and a few other things.  Out of everything there is now one box of things I rarely use but don't feel need to be thrown away, a box that only I use but not often, a box of things that are mostly only used by me but are used commonly, and a small section of shelf of what Mark and I both use on a regular basis.   

I've been studying mostly French - and started Portuguese from French on my phone.  The last few nights, I've dreamt some in French or been asked to translate some things into French.

 

I'm still having some trouble with the jaw on my left side hurting where they took out teeth years ago, made to pop up again perhaps because the denture plate is causing some pressure and infection in the upper plate area.  It isn't anywhere near as bad as when they first gave me the plate, though - for weeks my face was too painful to touch - all over the cheek and nose etc.  

 

Now, it hurts a little here and there and quite a bit right in that jaw place which has no pressure from the denture plate.  The one thing I can't quite get myself to do is to not sleep on that side - the denture plate is out and in a cup for the night so that it doesn't cut - but with hEDS just the pressure of sleeping hard on that side - and for some reason I do sleep HARD on that side when I do - makes anything else that is wrong with those tissues worse.  

 

I've been taking an ibuprofen or two a day and that helps some - and eating as much anti-inflammatory as I can, along with the fat needed to process it.  I will say here though that I have also lost some weight in the past 6 months, not that I probably didn't need to - but it is noticeable enough I have to wear a belt with these jeans now or I am pulling up the pants all day long.   There are many things I just do not want to even try to eat anymore - which again, isn't all that bad mostly.  I just have to watch it that I don't let that get unhealthy.

Golden Beets and their Greens

Golden Beets : I thought they were just so pretty - even before cutting them up, and they had a long and thick plume of greens attached to them.  They are a bright golden color on the inside (See below).  Also, the leafy tops are more like the Siberian Kale than the darker tops that are on the red beets.   I cut all the green bits off of the stems and chopped it coarsely to put in a freezer bag.  A whole bag of greens AND beets for the price of a bag of spinach.  And the goat and chickens got bits of all the bits I didn't want, so none of it really went to waste.

And I got to show Esme how to prepare them - she says it is interesting to see the process and then how they are cooked.  Of course, then I also show her what vitamins are in them and tell her what foods and/or spices it goes well with.  I've told her that cutting up vegetables seems to be one of my favorite hobbies, which goes well with but does seem to live in a space all of its own beside the gardening and the cooking.  I also said that even though the produce wasn't perfect and the rest of what was on the shelf with it was bordering on sad - I would have been proud of that bunch if I had grown it myself.

Here are the bottoms, scrubbed but not peeled, then sliced somewhat thin, put a bit of water in the bowl so that the pieces were not sitting directly on the bottom, sprinkled olive oil over the top, added spices, and then drizzled some honey over the top.  Covered, in a 400 degree oven for probably a bit over a half hour.  We ate it with mandarin oranges, and she had about five slices on her plate.  I had twice that - and the leftovers in a small quart jar to use up tomorrow.  Mark made hamburgers for her and for himself, and I used up a bit of the sausage and egg rice I had made last night and added curry, ginger paste and green onions to it.

I will add the frozen beet greens to other fried rice and soup type meals just like I do kale and dandelion greens. 

Easter eggs

 Even though Esme has graduated high school, or very close to soon, I asked her to dye a few eggs with me.  Our eggs are already 'Easter Egg' colors, from having Americana chickens, but that just made it a science experiment which brown, green and blue eggs would change what colors.

 The yellow one was nearly purple-brown to start with, and the pink one was a pale green egg.  The left-most green egg was naturally green, and the one on the far right was brown to start with.

 I've done a little work in the garden, mostly checking on things, some sorrel and kale planted, seen beans that are coming up finally again after that freeze killed the other ones etc.  There are some cucumbers and squash plants and I planted another few seeds of zucchini.

Planning on making Esme something we haven't tried before - artichoke hearts, with a little bit of gruyere cheese baked on top - with egg omelets and Mark is making a bit of beef that be bought at the store.  So, waiting for that time to arrive to start making things.  We brought Grandma some chocolate for Easter but we weren't planning on making a full big holiday meal, just sort of a hodgepodge experimental type meal.

The artichoke hearts :  1 can of artichoke hearts, drained, and then put in a glass bread pan with olive oil sprinkled over the top, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, oregano, and then cooked in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes or until the very edges begin to brown - sprinkle with shredded Gruyere cheese and bake longer until the cheese melts well.  Serve with omelet and Italian bread. 

 

I've been playing some more Minetest and working in the research mode to earn a few of the materials as 'creative' or free play items.  I'm sure you can see I've gotten this wood as one finally, and also the colors of stone that the houses are made of, sand and glass.  I've mostly stayed playing this world because the mining distribution has impressed me - and I've even been finding some things like fire opal and pink tourmaline that I have not found before in the years I was playing it.

Studying French mostly, and French from the Spanish interface on the other platform. 

 

Not a bad little village to hang out in, catch fish, rotate the crops etc etc.
 

chicks - 1 month

 

 

They are a month old now - and will need a bigger cage soon  Mark and Esme are deciding what to do for that.  They can't go out with the other chickens until another month or two, because our roosters are very big and all of the big chickens sleep in a pile up on top of the house six feet off the ground.  They are starting to look so much like 'little chickens' now though, roosting and sitting on the ground with their feathers all arranged.  We've heard a few whistles and a cluck - no crowing, but up until that they mostly made little tweety chirp peeping noises, so we've noticed the difference.  'Goose' is the dark gray one, 'Spot' is the white one, 'Stripe' is the golden colored one (who is hiding behind Spot), 'Duck' is in the bottom left, 'Prairie' is in the top left (those two are trying to be twins now, but Prairie' has a silver back) and 'Pheasant' is the one with the yellow cheeks and brown body looking directly at the camera. 

navy bean soup recipe (with measurements)

 Apparently 'eyeballing' and experimenting with ingredients isn't as common as it was when I was learning to cook - so I made this recipe again as an actual recipe with measurements.  I 'scientifically' tested it out- and it worked fine.  Bonus is I now have two quarts of soup to eat this week at work :)

 

 

 Navy Bean Soup (with measurements)

makes two quarts (or two pints and a quart, which is how I put it up for convenience) 

 Note : This recipe was created to make a specific point of how to use dried beans, to have that in my 'cooking arsenal' and know how long it would take to make it correctly.  My daughter had wondered how to cook the beans from dry state, and there are SO many versions out there I wanted something I had done myself to show her a good method.  I use a lot of lentils and split peas, but dried beans do take patience and time to prepare properly.  Navy beans are small and cook up well into soups like this.  Dried beans are a lot cheaper than canned beans, are very available in many places and keep very well.  They keep even better when stored in a cabinet in a tight container like a coffee can, to prevent cabinet fly getting into the plastic bags.  You could use canned beans for this, just figure out what quantity you like and of course, it would make it quicker as the canned beans would already be at the softened state, just heat it up with the vegetables in it until they are done and blend it. 

The Method / Recipe :

In a large pot rinse one cup of navy beans - fresher beans are best, pick out any discolored or bits of other things (stem, gravel whatever, depends on your brand, they're much better about that than they were when I was a kid, as well)

pour out rinse water, add 4 cups of clean water to pot with beans

add 1 tablespoon of distilled white vinegar

Do NOT add salt or oil

put on stove and bring to a rolling boil - let it boil like that stirring for a bit, the beans may rise to the top and become sort of wrinkled

turn off the heat, remove pot from heat, add a lid to the pot, let sit undrained for 1 HOUR

 

After one hour :

add about a tablespoon of olive oil

add rosemary and garlic powder, flake, minced whatever you like 

add some ham or bacon or kielbasa if you want (it helps a lot to add fat but you don't want to overwhelm or add too much saltiness)  I used one round of Canadian bacon that Mark had bought for pizza, cut up very fine

optional : black pepper, ground brown mustard seed and/or celery seed

 

Put pot back on heat and bring back to a boil, stir well.

bring down to a simmer, where it just barely bubbles or not even quite bubbling but close, keep at this heat for 1.5 hours or so, stirring occasionally

remove a bean or two onto a plate and try to mash it with the back of a spoon

if it mashes easily, it is time to continue - if not, stir well and keep at temperature for another half hour, test again - if you had added salt before, it will be very difficult to get this to work well, as the beans may have hardened, so no SALT other than what might have already been in the meat 

 if mashable : add several good handfuls of diced zucchini and another of sliced onion, carrots might work in this or bok choy tops and bottoms - I've done the latter with no real change in taste but have been wondering if I might put carrots in it or if that taste would be too different

I also add some Garlic Parmesan grill seasoning at this point, because it is VERY good, but I know it has salt in it, so I don't add it earlier.

bring pot back to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so until the vegetables are well cooked - I have my veggies in the freezer, so this works well for them

take entire pot off of heat, put on a towel or trivet on a counter, and blend with a stick blender until smooth 

Either serve when cooled with bread and maybe some shredded cheese or : Pour up into two clean glass quart jars or two pints and a quart, leaving about an inch at the top of each jar - place tops on and put in refrigerator after they have cooled on the counter some, using within four to five days.  This will not keep out of the refrigerator, and it is best to use it as soon as you can, but I routinely get four or five days out of it before it is gone.

Another nice variation for serving : add several tablespoons of diced mild green chiles to the pot when rewarming, and then tear up flour tortilla into very small pieces, heat with the soup and it becomes almost a noodle.   

 

Madeleine cookies :

It seems I have to keep putting this recipe back up in multiple places because either I'm spelling it off, or the algorithm just really doesn't like to give it back to me when I ask.  It has went as far as to say that the website doesn't have a recipe for it - when in fact, it probably has about four different ones.  I make this sometimes once a week, but not too much more often than that - and know I've posted the recipe several times over the years although it always does fluctuate some.

What I'm using lately for the Madeleine recipe - also called magdalenas in Catalan

3 large chicken eggs, set out on counter to warm up and beat with 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of white sugar plus 1 softened stick of butter plus 2 tbsp of dark brown sugar - beat together for a total of FIVE minutes - then mix in 1 cup (little more) of white flour (that has come out of the freezer a few minutes beforehand) and 1 tsp of baking powder and less than 1/2 tsp of salt - mix dry ingredients in portions into the wet mixture. 375 preheated oven, each well of the madeleine pan brushed with butter and coated with flour, fill wells up only half way, and remove from oven as soon as the outer bits of the cookie begins to brown in the pan and a finger pressed makes the cookie bounce back - turn out onto plate to prevent it from overcooking in the madeleine pan.  All that bit about pouring in melted butter at one point and/or chilling the dough before baking it -- I tried that time and again, and found it really didn't matter in the end product at least not to me.

 Madeleine cookies

3 large eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract (mixed with the eggs) 

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 tbsp of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup (one stick) of pre-softened butter

1 to 1 and 1/4 cups of all purpose flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp little less of salt

375 degree oven, 10 minutes or less

this recipe should fill 2 madeleine pans, each well about 1/2 full or so 

 

 

 

chicken progression

 Enter the chicken time machine... where we start at four weeks old (today) and go backwards.  Keep your wings and feet inside the vehicle at all times...

 Same type of side-eye, one week later (now above, 3 weeks old below)

   

and a week and a half... 

 

 

about a week in
 

after we had them for four days...

fresh from the big box store (above)

 

we have no pictures of eggs... well, of these chicks as eggs. **ha** 

navy beans cooking method and soup

 Esme saw navy beans in the store the other day and asked me what made them so different - and I said honestly that I thought they cooked up a bit easier than some of the others.  Bought a bag to try - and yes, I can say that they do.  Not as easily as split peas or black eyed peas, but close.  Years ago I had bought something very similar to them, but a bit bigger from the Amish store but I haven't been back there in several years.  I've had a lot of trouble cooking my adzuki beans from scratch - and might have to try this same method on them next.

 The method : rinse and place in a glass jar with water that has been brought to boiling - seal jar, let sit for an hour.  Remove to a pan (do not drain water) and add another quantity of water - bring back to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let cook for at least another hour - should have gotten to mashable state by then.

Did add some olive oil to the water when putting into the pan - did NOT add salt, as it says not to on several cookbook sites.  Did add a pinch of rosemary and cut up a piece of ham to boil with it. 

Now that it has boiled to mashable*, added zucchini and onion and a bit more spice, and will bring that up to heat and then make into soup with my stick blender. 

 *able to mash one on a plate under a spoon - not mashing the whole amount 

an unusual soup and freehanded peanut butter banana bread

 I saw a quite unusual, but interesting soup the other day - some version on 'alubia blanca' stew with white beans, cod, onions, garlic, almonds and boiled egg.  I'm not interested in making that right now, but it got me thinking.

 Mark boiled a dozen eggs yesterday for a project he was working on - and then put them in the fridge for us to use and/or feed to the dogs.

Today we went to grocery shop and upon returning, I wanted to use up a few odds and ends that are still in the fridge now that I have more time to cook today.  I had made quick banana bread yesterday to use up some of the other things - and it had turned out pretty well considering it was freehanded. 

 Last night's banana bread : 

350 degree oven, Mark already had it heated up and on from cooking pork roast

2 small bananas, overripe, mashed

2 eggs, cracked and beaten

1 to 2 large tablespoons of peanut butter 

1/3 of a stick of butter, softened 

(the peanut butter was because I didn't want to open another stick of butter) 

a 1/4 cup of white sugar

about 1 cup of flour, with some salt and baking powder sprinkled on top of it

mixed all that together quite well, baked it for what was about 30 to 35 minutes until the knife came out clean

It didn't rise a lot, but it did bake up clean and taste very good

I had another large slice of it this morning with morning coffee 

 

Today's unusual soup : 

thinly sliced onions fried in butter and then added a bit of cilantro right after the butter began to brown

in a separate blender : 1/3 of a can of black beans and 1/3 of a normal can of tomato sauce

1 large boiled egg, peeled, blended in with the beans and tomato sauce

a handful of almonds

a good dose of "seven spice" (which is basically five-spice plus a few things : cloves, cinnamon, brown mustard seed, fennel seed, coriander seed, black pepper, star anise)

added that well blended mixture to the onions and cilantro along with another cup or so of water and heated up to bubbling, served with a flour tortilla in a bowl

 

We also made the red lentil sauce/soup the other day again and it was very good.  Fresh summer squash and onions with red peppers and a bit of frozen zucchini, and finely ground carrots and frozen ginger put with the red lentils to cook, and then served over a bed of rice beside an egg each. 

 

 

 

some hot dishes

 I've been needing to clean out some of the frozen vegetables in the freezer, and use up some other things - I do this standard sort of 'this is what fried rice could become if you just did it without frying the rice' hotdish thing, and usually I just follow what I've got on hand.  Both of these worked out really well, worth writing down and doing it again.

The past two nights I've done this :

 

Kielbasa : 

 1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

big splash of soy sauce, brown prepared mustard (a small bit), 1 tbsp of brown sugar, splash of balsamic vinegar, dash of pork ginger spice 

red pepper, onion, green pepper, bok choy (shredded tops and chopped bottoms) and small amount of zucchini

about 1/2 cup of cooked rice and potato mixture (leftover) 

frozen kielbasa chopped up into small bits

2 eggs 

I served that beside some chicken dumplings from the freezer case that we had decided to try the other day - but the above mixture was really standout above and beyond the store bought dumplings. 

 

Pork and Bacon : 

I cooked 1 cup of fresh rice in the rice cooker, and then set it aside to cool.

1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

finely chopped pork chop, put in at this early stage and brought to sizzle 

yellow bell pepper, bit of red bell pepper, onion and a larger amount of zucchini 

1/2 to 3/4 cup of tomato sauce

1 to 2 tbsp of birria taco seasoning (guajilio and ancho chiles, claims to have 'adobo' seasoning in it and apple cider vinegar) that I picked up to try at the store the other day (Oh yes, getting more of this at a later date)

brought all the tomato and vegetable and pork combination to a high boil and the mixture began to become sauce-like, cracked and added two eggs 

very very finely cut up two slices of bacon, sprinkled in while the eggs were beginning to have the whites cooked

draw the yolks through the entire mixture after the white has cooked a bit, then let the whole mixture cook for another 30 seconds or so until the tomato sauce thickens with the egg

split the rice onto two plates and pour half the mixture over each plate

 

for my lunch the other day I had put part of a porkchop, carrots, ginger, zucchini, split peas and onion together and made a soup, which was then blended thoroughly and I've been eating at work with curry powder in it - one quart jar of that actually gets me three good bowls of soup, and helps to keep my sinuses from having issues as well

 I've been doing rice and black beans, rice and crowder peas, squash and black beans and so forth for other lunches, always with a good tablespoon of butter in it and curry powder and black pepper. (anti-inflammatory stuff, it works for me)

I'm thinking the rest of my butternut squash, some of the leftover tomato sauce and black beans for my own lunch tomorrow, with a little gouda cheese in it.   

 

 

chocolate chip muffin cookies and beef and red pepper noodles with black pepper sauce

 I made the chocolate chip cookies today again, and I was a bit distracted.  I was watching our cat and goat interact outside the kitchen window, and I forgot all the way to the very end to add the brown sugar!  So, then, I improvised and still ended up with something very good, but they were more like muffins than cookies.

So what happened instead of the regular recipe was :\

375 degree oven preheated with parchment paper on a (non-preheated) flat baking sheet 

1 stick of softened butter, cut into 1/2 cup of white sugar

1 tsp of vanilla extract mixed with one egg, then cut into the butter mixture quickly

1 cup of flour mixed with 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1/2 tsp of salt - folded in

then add one half cup more of flour

and one cup of chocolate chips SHOULD have been next but I realised there is usually 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar in the sugar mixture.. and I hadn't done it.  I had been laughing at our goat and cat outside the window and not paying enough attention *sigh*  So now I have a floury mixture and need to add the sugar...

So, I added one more lightly beaten egg, a splash of milk, and the packed brown sugar all at one time, then added a bit more flour until the mixture was back to the right consistency.  I worried that not adding more baking soda might make it not rise right - but I went for it anyway.

 I added the chocolate chips and  scooped it out onto the parchment paper and then baked for 10-15 minutes just until the bottom edges looked like they were beginning to brown.  Whew, they all turned out great!  And the other cookies were thin and a bit crisp after removing - these were soft and very muffin-like, but not gooey.  And they hardened up a bit after being put on a plate and then into the fridge in a ziploc bag with a paper towel in the bottom of it.

 

Last night I used Mark's leftover beef roast cut up into a noodle recipe I have been looking forward to.  We had stir fry noodles I wanted to use up the second half of the package before too long had went by.

I added olive oil to a pan and put white onions, green onions and red bell pepper in to begin to sautee.  Then I added about a cup of water to that, and some soy sauce and some Allegro Black Pepper marinade, which usually I would use some balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, prepared brown mustard and spices to make something similar - but I've been liking the marinade and it has balsamic vinegar in it, which is probably why.  Let that sautee and bubble for a little bit, added the well chopped meat and stirred thoroughly, remaining sort of 'saucey' even with the meat in it add some water if it absorbs too much, turned the heat down a little - broke and rinsed the stir fry noodles in their package (wet pack), and then put them into the mixture and let that steam off the heat and stirred it a few times - then served it up

 

just a few days ago (above), with names

these are some of the big chickens that have names, the other rooster's name is Beau and he has one eye and no tail feathers (but he does chase after opossums)  Amber and Peach and Speck are all olive-eggers, I think - and the other olive-egger we still have I'm not sure entirely if they are a tiny rooster or not, but they seem to get along okay any way you look at it.  They have long scraggly little tail feathers and are tiny compared to the hens, called 'He-He' after Moana, and never was very 'bright' - once walked to the end of a stick several inches off the ground and thought 'the world ends here' and turned around and started walking the other direction instead of hopping off.  We've been advised that our olive-eggers might have been crossed with Crested Cream Legbar, for the way that they have little tufts of feathers on their head by their combs.

 

We also cleaned out the baby chicks' cage and put all new material in for them.  Our dog Charlotte was so upset, she thought we had thrown the chicks out with the bed litter - but she realized after a few moments of utter despair (she was actually laying stretched out next to the empty, drying cage like it was the end of the world) that they were inside the house in a different cage, and then she was so excited I had to tell her to go elsewhere for a little bit and calm down as she was jumping around smelling and scaring them.  As we put them back in the big cage she had another super-excitement and they were all bouncey and fluttering around but at least they were in the big cage then.  Esme and I finished giving them names, but we'll have to see if we can still tell some of them apart for a while after they finish molting their adult feathers.

a perch stick they haven't learned to use yet

Prairie is the silvery-brown one next to the grey (Goose) in the corner  Duck is the dark brown, Pheasant is the one with the yellow face and brown back,   Goose is still smaller than everyone and is probably not Americauna, but some other breed we'll find out as we go, or a sport from Sapphire Gem crossing that some say happens in this type.  Duck we think is definitely just a sport (odd color, brown in this case) Americauna, but she also walks low to the ground and holds her head close to her shoulders and the name is fitting more and more every day.  Esme says one of the yellows has a spot on the side of their face and the other has a stripe across (somewhere?) and so she has called them Spot and Stripe - but I'm telling those two apart basically because Stripe is one and a half times bigger than everyone else, they've been 'the one in charge of figuring this stuff out' since the beginning, first to use the hanging feeder and to check out the water bottles etc.

We are supposed to have a wild storm and maybe even a dusting of snow tomorrow, then cold temperatures for days... the wind is definitely up out there now.
 

bits

Made madeleines with Esme today - and chocolate chip cookies, yesterday.

 

 

went out in the front garden and did some more of the clearing out - the dandelions are doing very well there, and the bean I planted last week is also getting third leaves on.  I need to also plant some mustard, komatsuna and have ordered another big pack of beet green seeds (the types of dual purpose beets that are good for both) and some Mississippi Silver cowpeas.  I had resisted purchasing any more seeds since the ones I ordered from the preservation center, but I planted almost all the beets I have and if they do not germinate, I wanted some back up.

 This is two Alice Whiting bean plants, germinated about a month ago and finally put out a week ago.

I think this is a sweet pea in the windowsill germinating  I started another tray of beans to germinate, as well, some of the ones from below, kenearly and the dark red ones that I'm not sure what variety they were

 languages : Working on Turkish and French

some photos, melody goat and baby chicks

random photos of Melody asking me if it is dinner time yet

 

 Our elderly tortoiseshell cat, Minion, taking interest in the baby chicks as they are doing a lot more fluttering and running out at times.  They are getting wing and tail feathers and stretching them out to impressive lengths.  It will be a week tomorrow (today, Friday) that we have had them in the brooder.

 

languages: I have been working on French, Japanese and Turkish.   We heard more Turkish spoken in the crime series we are watching and there is also that one manga about the android girl in the post-apocalyptic world that was only available in Turkish so I had went a bit further in it back then to keep understanding words and it was cool to hear a few words in the crime series and say 'hey, I did understand a bit'