September Sunday

Coda is 10 weeks old now

She is almost eating just regular puppy kibble and our other dog's food mixed together now, compared to giving her some canned puppy food the past few weeks with that.

 I had the day off and spent much of it playing Minetest Asuna

Used up leftovers in the fridge, bacon from a few days ago, hamburger from making pizza last night, and canned tomatoes along with some frozen vegetables and a box of Rice a Roni Stir Fried rice flavor which was made in the rice cooker.  It was a really good flavor. 

Work every other day this week now again.

I have been doing French again, almost exclusively, with very little of anything else. 

The bruise on my arm took three weeks to heal, but I can finally say that yes it has healed up and stopped reopening underneath the surface.  The one on my leg has taken two but it was nowhere near as worrisome as the popped vein in the arm.  I'm sleeping okay but have a lot of sinus issues so up during the night for hours before I can sleep again.  I'm not eating quite as much as I had been when I was doing the walking postal route for two and a half months straight - I've been driving a route for the past week and will through Tuesday - then restaurant again, and we'll see how the next week pans out. 

Mineclonia Minetest with Bees and Wine Mod

 There is a lot to poke around with on this combination - and not all of it actually works.  That makes me wonder more, and keep trying things.  This is writing down some of the things that made me scratch my head to figure them out. 

 I had found out how to make cider, sparkling cider, wheat beer, barley beer, rum and coffee liquer.  I had not yet figured out how to get honey, or how to make it into mead.  I also have, for all it being named 'wine' not found grapes yet anywhere in the world - but I'd like to, and try that out.  It says there is corn, too - and tomatoes, haven't found either of those yet, either.  I've got a little pillager problem on both sides North and South of me in this map but have been cautiously expanding my territory East and West - and now I'm edging North again at one spot to see if I can make it across the sea.  Monsters are on, so I'm having to make safe places and carry enough materials to quickly make a basic house.

A bigger, fancier house - I wouldn't do those stairstep roof quite like that again - it was difficult - and with the 'get comfortable' mod on, it makes it even more difficult to make the stairstep roofs that I do like, like in the below picture.  But, not impossible.  I have just had to use a lot of dirt scaffolding and then break it back out from the inside.

 One of the biggest problems with this combination and survival is that there are two of many things, sugars - one from sugarcane and one from stevia, different flours and uses of wheat, not all that work quite like they should and do in the Asuna mods .. and there are also two honeycombs.  One honeycomb is gotten by shearing a hive (smoke it first and you won't get hit damage, otherwise, take the hit damage) and the other is gotten by catching three bees in a jar and putting them together in a small 'r' formation on the crafting grid.  Both of those make hives by putting three honeycombs across in the center and planks above and below - but they make DIFFERENT hives.

 The hive on the left is made with the hive shearing method.  This is also the type of honeycomb you get out of shearing wild hives.  The hive on the right is made by putting three honeycombs from the 'bee in a jar' method.  And then you have to catch more bees in jars to put them into that hive.  Bee in a jar does not work in the left hive... but it still makes more honey and acts just like a wild hive.

Now, when it comes to making something out of the honeycombs besides hives - you can use the wild type honeycomb in a crafting grid with a piece of string above it to make a candle.  And then you can set the candle somewhere and light it with a flint and steel.  It also makes honeycomb blocks with foursquare, but they are just a building material. I'd really like to see that be more useful, and possibly the honeycomb itself be a foodstuff.

As far as I've seen you can't use either honeycomb as sugar, and neither can be eaten. 

Only the wild bee type honeycomb shows up in your inventory when you are in the fermenting barrel mode from the wine, but I haven't found a recipe with it yet to make mead.  However, the hive on the right (the one from the honeycomb gotten from bee jars) when full can be emptied with a glass bottle, to get a bottle of honey.  That bottled honey can be placed in the below recipe of one drinking glass and one bottle of honey to make honey-mead in the fermenting barrel!  It seemed like it took forever to get that to work out!

honey mead recipe in luanti mineclonia minetest

coffee liquer / liquor recipe in luanti mineclonia minetest

make the glass of rum (bottom left corner) by fermenting sugarcane in the top right and bottom left corners with the empty drinking glasses, and then ferment the rum with the coffee beans

Also discovered : You can dry kelp in the furnace and it becomes a food source. 

I have the 'plant based foods' mod as well - and for some silly reason it does not let the soybeans from the farming redo be made into plant milk - but it will let rice (not the one that grows on silt, but the one obtained from punching grass for random seeds) be made into plant milk.  You place the water filled bucket in the top left corner of the crafting table, and then fill all but the bottom two right squares with uncooked rice.  It turns into a bucket of plant milk.  You can then place the bucket of plant milk in the furnace and it becomes tofu.  But why aren't the soybeans worked into this, since that is the actual way you make tofu?  Make that make sense!  But the tofu can be eaten.  In these mods also cow's milk in a bucket can be put in the furnace to make edible mozzarella cheese.  All of those are correct in giving you back your empty iron bucket.  BUT - beware of the ice cream recipe, because it takes a bucket of milk but does not give you your bucket back.  That's expensive ice cream!

 

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. 

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.   

 

 

Eggs and lentils

 

We finally got the first egg of 2026 - they hadn't laid any, or the opossums had eaten the rare one they had laid, for many months.  We had went all around the fence tightening things and putting bricks up against the fence any place it was loose.  Perhaps that has helped, some.  The day after the first egg I would have been surprised to see even one more, and there were two eggs that day.  We are still looking at getting more chickens, hopefully more like Speck, our golden chicken above - which I've asked the internet and been told that she was probably something crossed with a Crested Cream Legbar, to become the Olive Egger she was sold to us as.  She lays the more blue egg in the bunch, and we've gotten two of those the last two days and a more green one, as well.  

 

We will need to bring the brooder inside, it has sat outside since last summer but it looks in good condition - the lock and door might need to be looked at to see if there is any rust etc.  And we need to fix the footer barrel it used to sit in.  This is the big handmade cage Mark and Esme made from hardware cloth and a plastic 55 gallon barrel for our hamster and rat years ago but has been used as a brooder for two sets of chicks, as well, since then. It still might be a week or more before we actually look to buy chicks, but then we will be ready and not in a hurry one night to make a place for babies.

the first eggs

Esme and I were experimenting with lentils - red lentils a few weeks ago and I had her try some of the brown lentil vegetable mix I made last night.  She said it was nice - and that she couldn't really tell that much of a difference between the two types, spiced up as I had them.

 The recipe last night was :

1 cup of brown lentils, rinsed

2 cups of water

bit of olive oil, celery seed, black pepper 

minced clove of garlic, and a bit of minced ginger

chopped raw carrots from the freezer

bell peppers and onion from the freezer

half a can of diced tomatoes with italian spices

and after it had boiled for a while and was about half-absorbed, I added a teaspoon of paprika

 I served that beside a typical packet of Spanish rice, so she would have something else to eat if she really didn't like the lentils, but that made a nice combination, too - three quarters Spanish rice to 1/4 lentils mix.  The last time I made Biryani spiced red lentils for her with garlic and ginger and carrots - I served it over rice.  That is supposed to make a complete protein, so it is very good practice.

Mark also made two hamburger patties and split the second one in half so we put that with our meal and French bread.  With meat being so expensive I want to make sure Esme learns to cook the way I did in college and can stretch things and keep dry goods like rice and lentils.  Also, it is a good way to add vegetables and she will eat a lot of them prepared this way.

I put the other half of the lentils mix into a clean quart jar and put a lid and a ring on it, and when it was cooled some, I put it in the fridge to blend up into lentil soup for my lunches this week.  I ate the pea soup all last week with extra vegetables and spices each day and it was some of the best soup I've had in a long time. 

I have a few beans coming up in the windowsill to plant outside when the first frost has passed - and I have been upping my levels on the languages in Turkish and Chinese, German and French.  I haven't touched the Lithuanian all week... a break here and there helps to know what you really know.  Just like the German, it's been years since I actually did many lessons, and I had to re-orient my grammar in it which I have had that specific issue with it before. 

simple onigiri with adzuki bean paste

 

Well, we've been iced in all week, and I have this cupboard of dry foods that I eat, but no one else in the house does, or rarely.  These are habits I learned in Fargo, where we had organic health food and Asian market stores.  The onigiri, though, I only learned the full form of in the past few years.

First : the adzuki beans.  One of my local stores had them last year and I was happy!  I bought a bag and have been using it up.  They require at least 12 hours of soaking, and then cooking for a long time, and then pulverizing and cooking some more, and a little bit of brown sugar (and mirin, which I finally found this year, too - the local stores are carrying more oddity things).  They sell the finished thing in the store as 'red bean paste' or 'adzuki bean paste' but that is even sweeter and would be expensive to buy pre-made.

So I spent the morning experimenting, once again, with the bean paste that I rarely make.  I also ended up putting some baking soda in it at one point and being afraid I had done something terribly wrong ala chemistry.  But, no, that worked well.  It just foamed up and looked odd for a few minutes probably with the bit of rice wine vinegar I had in the water during the boiling.  Anyway, it became success.

Once that was turned off, I started the rice - which I'm pretty good at by now.

1 cup of rice, washed - 2 cups of water, bit of olive oil, bit of salt, bit of rice wine vinegar, boil until it is almost dry, but not quite.

Mix in 1/4 cup or LESS of white sugar, and just enough rice wine vinegar on top of that until the sugar is wet, no more - mix while still hot, over and over, scraping the spoon over and over, until the mixture is soft - then add white sesame seeds, and mix one more time. 

 

At the beginning of learning this rice mixture, I just made rice balls out of the rice mixture itself, and added a little bit of seaweed on top of each one - it was still very good, and easy to bring in a lunchbox. 

Here is the pinch point.  The rice will be hot and doing it by hand is possible but your hands will turn red.  When I did that I put some salt on my hand, made the ball, and then put the ball down in the glass plate, salt in hand, repeat etc.  I bought some little onigiri triangular molds last year and have used them a few times.  The trick is to not put too much rice in the first layer - and then add a tiny bit of salt (shio), then a spoon of the bean paste, then another layer of rice, and press the mold together until it is firm.  Press the mold out on the plate and it should look like the onigiri in the picture below, white rice on both sides, with a bit of bean showing in the cross section.  Take a small piece of seaweed and wrap it around the bottom of the triangle so it can be held easily.  Stand the onigiri up and move onto the next.

This can get very messy.  I probably need more practice.  I end up washing and wiping my hands clean every minute or so until I am done - and end up with a stack of nice snacks.

I put some red curry paste, real mayonnaise and wasabi paste on a plate and eat one with a fork - probably not allowed, but I really like the condiments. 

Time-intensive, the materials were harder to find, but NOT expensive.  

Even the onigiri molds were only three dollars - it was just getting them when we were getting something else and then actually using them that is the kicker.

   

dry goods cabinet - with split peas, lentils, rice, noodles, and dried beans.  There are a few cans of sardines and some more curry paste and blocks behind there, as well. 

peanut butter cookies (again)

 1 egg, no milk

 

preheat oven 350 degrees, parchment paper on baking sheet

cream 1/4 c. (half a stick) butter and 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter with 1/2 cup packed brown sugar and 1/4 cup white granulated sugar

mix in 1 large egg and 1 tsp vanilla

combine in separate bowl 1 cup flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt, mix thoroughly to avoid clumps of soda or baking powder

mix dry into wet ingredients just until dry is fully combined

 make small balls not much larger than fifty cent pieces and press down on top with a fork to flatten

 

bake for 13 to 15 minutes, pull out and put onto a cold surface to harden and avoid overburning the bottoms by leaving them on the pan

will be crumbly, but undercooking is also better than overcooking, as they continue to 'cook' for a few minutes after they are out of the oven and overcooked ones get very hard when they cool

 

The New Year's Cake and Parsnip Soup

 Esme and I made the butter almond cake together today.  

 

My haul from the grocery store.  I didn't take any pictures of the cake itself.  We made hopping john of a sort, and I served carrots and the almond cake for Esme, and carrots, the almond cake, greens and some of the acorn squash for grandma and myself.

 I had looked through all of my recipes and found the recipe for galette des rois (king's cake) and decided it was too complicated.  But yesterday, I had decided that I needed to make the cake again, maybe something that I can still eat after this dental work.

 

This is what we made - it was good, a bit like sweetened cornbread.  I can't have corn products, have been avoiding them for years now on my cousin's recommendation with my other connective tissue disorder.   

 

Butter Almond Cake :

 

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened

1 cup white granulated sugar

2 large eggs (at room temperature)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

little less than 3 tsp. baking powder

1.5 cups of general purpose flour

1/2 cup of ground almonds

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until fork comes out clean

cream softened butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla, beat until smooth, mix dry ingredients in another bowl and add half and half with the milk beating until all combined, pour into ceramic dish, bake

 

Hopping John  

 

fry chopped bacon on low until the edges begin to crisp, keep the oil in the pan

pour drained can of black eyed peas into the grease and mix thoroughly while still heating

stir often until it begins to bubble again

put frozen chopped green onions into mixture, heat again until it sizzles and stir until the gravy thickens

 

Parsnip Soup  (a variation on the turnip soup from a while back)

 

peel and chop up into small slivers one large parsnip

put in pot with at least 2 cups (I think it was closer to 4) of water

pour in a bit of olive oil 

add frozen zucchini and onions

garlic parmesan grilling seasoning

black pepper 

 

boil until everything is soft, use a stick blender to make smooth 

add a good pat of good butter on top of each bowl

 

 

 

Christmas Day

 We put together some 3D printed toys Mark had downloaded and printed.

 

Mark made a roast beef cut and potatoes, and we had the pears that I had made yesterday with pudding.  It was a good dinner, and over by 3:30 pm, and everyone opened their gifts.  Esme and Mark got clothing they needed and snacks and Grandma got some snacks and a blanket and socks.  Esme bought Mark a blanket, as well.  I gave Esme a talking penguin toy, a star projector and we all played a card game that I had bought.  I got coffee and spices and socks.  Mark had found more guajilio chiles for me at the store, which I knew they had according to the website but couldn't find them IN the store.  I also considered buying three plus pounds of pears and the gouda cheese as part of my Christmas gift 'splurging' on food that I wanted. 

 Grandma watched a few shows with us, and then I brought her back home. 

 I have work tomorrow and Saturday.  Studying Greek mostly today, and some Catalan.

 

another of the spice mixes I had in my Christmas presents, with pumpkin seeds, a bag of caramel coffee, seaweed snacks and pistachio pudding :)

 

 

Christmas Eve, 9 years with the green owl

 

Oh, I've still studied twenty plus languages, but these are the top tier and I keep at them on Duolingo... not including Latvian and Lithuanian, which are not on 'the green owl'.. but I'd love it if they were added.  I had made a phone profile to force myself to do more Spanish learning (and Catalan, in Spanish) when I was not at home, so I haven't had that for the full 9 years, more like 3?  I often play the 'all languages' version on Ba Ba Dum.  It throws curveballs at me in Albanian and Greek and Turkish and Chinese etc- which I don't have as much practice in beyond basics, as well as the languages I am studying more - and it shows that my Romanian and Spanish vocabularies are very lacking, my Japanese needs work, my Czech is better than expected, and my Lithuanian and French are the best there. It is one of the two places I can practice the Lithuanian, and the other place is BaltoSlav, which has the Latvian to practice.

 It's Christmas Eve, it is 70 degrees out nearly (I am happy about that) and I'm cooking pears in butter and ginger vanilla sauce.  I'll make a cake tomorrow for it maybe.  Mark has another roast to put in the oven with beef broth and rice for tomorrow.  We will bring Grandma down for an early dinner, as she likes to eat early.

1 qt jar of water, mixed with white sugar, vanilla, a few tablespoons of butter and good powdered ginger.  Brown sugar put over the peeled and halved pears with seeds scooped out.  Heat up the quart jar mixture in microwave, pour over the pan of brown sugared pears, then put in oven at 275 (because Mark had a roast in there already) for a few hours, turning every ten to fifteen minutes.  Save all the liquid - it is excellent syrup!

 I even had to go get some more pears - because they are good.  The greenish ones I've put in the freezer for making something else, after washing and cutting them up into chunks.  I bought some gouda cheese to go with it, and more mozzarella which we usually have.

 

The Christmas Tree is ready, with a few things for everyone under it.

I caught up on the Greek and Japanese today, after doing Catalan and Romanian for much of the week.  Now to do some laundry and cleaning.  Mark said the chickens were checking their wristwatches this morning as I had slept in, but I said no they were checking their 'roost watches'.  
 

 I had asked for some spices this year - and this one was one I didn't put under the tree.  Someone had brought it to work for a cookout months ago and I've been looking to see what store around here carried it ever since.  It is excellent with avocado, just as a topping!

Cooking lots of things

 

omelet with bacon and spinach/whole wheat flour / egg mixture fried in the bacon grease

I had another half of the spinach mixture that I fried separately in butter and it turned out much more cohesive - pan difference, I think.  All of them tasted wonderful, but I also think I needed the nutrients and that is why I was drawn to cook it.  The cans of spinach had sat in the cupboard for nearly a year without me getting into them...

1/2 can of spinach (I put the other half in the fridge with the liquid in that)

1 large egg, beaten

I don't know - less than a 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour, it is supposed to be oats in the original recipe but I'm using what I have 

cook 1 slice of chopped bacon on low to medium until bits are crispy - keep all that oil  

cook 1 more egg as an omelet in a separate pan, in tandem that you can add the bacon in at the end (start bacon, gauge when is right, make omelet, add bacon keeping the oil in the other pan)

form large spoon fulls of the spinach mixture and place in the hot oil to cook, turn over, cook until well done.

but : I found that greasing the omelet pan with butter after the omelet was finished and then putting the other half of the spinach egg mixture in that in a layer made a much better finished product - so, have to try that again.  the bacon grease one was all fluffy and dry, but the butter one was a pancake like structure all smooth on both sides.

 

the lasagna without noodles

And today I am using the sweet potato tomato soup (below), the whole wheat pancake (also below) layered in a pan with this other half of the spinach omelet, mashed sweet potato layer and some mozzarella cheese to make a 'lasagna' - put in the toaster oven in a glass pan at 300 degrees.  1/2 pancake, 1/2 omelet laid on top of that, covered in mashed sweet potato, covered in mozarella cheese, other 1/2 of pancake, pour tomato sweet potato soup over it all to drench well and sit in bottom of pan - bake

 

sweet potato and tomato soup that I made yesterday and saved some of.  With the rest of the wheat flour/rice flour pancakes.

chunks of cooked sweet potato

half a can of 'chili fixings' tomato mixture - with onions, garlic and spices but no beans

a handful of onion

a handful of yellow squash, previously cut up and frozen

some 'orange beef stir-fry' seasoning packet that had orange peel and citrus in it and smelled very interesting - about a tablespoon of that

black pepper

water

cook until well-combined and bubbling, let cool just a bit, use the stick mixer to smooth into a consistency 

 

I have some whole wheat flour that is in the freezer, and some brown rice flour, and I've been using both of them up.  This is three eggs well beaten with whole wheat flour added to it, some brown rice flour (much less, just to smooth it out a little) some baking powder and salt, and a little garlic-parmesan grill mixture (I think it has some texturizer in it, because it does things to eggs when cooked with them.. and it tastes good).  Made three tamagoyaki pan sized pancakes with it.  Mark looked at the batter and said he didn't think that would cook up - but I buttered the tamagoyaki pan (a small Japanese omelet pan) and put it on as an even layer, turned it over when I saw bubbles and a nice edge around it, and it cooked up wonderfully.

was this a black plum or a nectarine?  they are related, so it is hard to tell.  It tasted like a VERY mild slightly harder nectarine.  Mark says it doesn't matter - I saw it, I took it home and ate it, so that is all that mattered.

 

 

Update on the teeth : Not where they should be yet, but I'm still wearing them every day and it only hurts a little now to put them in and take them out, but I don't want to wear them much longer than 14 hours or so because my lips and tongue just get irritated - but I missed my fitting appointment because of the holiday - the office cancelled and tried to move it up a few days earlier, but I got this sinus ick and just put it off now until after Thanksgiving.

 

Sinus ick : It's been annoying, especially in the morning after I wake up - but I'm getting throught it.  An allergy medication helped a lot for the first bit but now I'm letting it flow more to get rid of it.  I can smell everything even through it - which is a bit odd - it feels like my sense of smell is cranked UP with this even though it is making it hard to breathe through my nose.  I'm eating good foods and keeping down on the milk and sugar because I know those things make it worse.

 

Languages : studying French and Czech and a little Japanese here and there.  Reading more Japanese cooking things, and watching a lot of little French videos 

 

bits

 bits, without the caps lock on...  still making soup and trying to get things done.  I had my check up appointment for the denture plate and they adjusted it a little - said I'm doing good to have worn them every single day, despite the pain.  

Studying Romanian, Lithuanian, Japanese and did a Spanish lesson today as that was on my to do list for Wednesdays.  I need to water the plants upstairs - as I didn't do it this week at all, so far.  We also need to get animal feeds and propane one day soon.  We will have a bit of a warm spell this week and then on Sunday it will drop to below freezing - so I have to get that washing machine pipe insulated, as well.  We normally turn the valves off when it gets that cold - but that was when they were still insulated in the wall, and during the break and repair, we pulled out all the insulation that had gotten wet.

 So, drab things but they need to be done.

 Today was an absolute mile-a-minute at work - and I could have used to have been twins, since they wanted me in the office to be present during interviews and also I needed to be on the warehouse floor readying orders - so I had to switch off as much as possible to get it all done.

Esme had a good birthday yesterday - I promised not to embarrass her or take pictures -  she had chosen a big kangaroo-pocket hoodie and asked for some game credits.  I found a Minecraft toy she had picked up at the store one time we were shopping and bought one to bring home - it is a fluffy bee, and almost a ball.  I brought her some of the cakes she likes and ice cream.  I also had gotten her an investment bond earlier last month that I had put money away for slowly - not at all big, but as an 18th-birthday something that will be for the future gift, besides the common items.  We can't 'give' her a car, as she can't drive yet!

 

My dinner: I still can't eat hard things or things that require too much 'motion' - because the jaw and gums are still healing underneath this hard plastic plate.  If I soak bread in soup or a cookie in coffee in small pieces I can eat it on the back side of a bottom tooth and the plate without 'rocking' the plate painfully, most of the time.  I am also smashing up bananas, canned peaches and mandarin oranges for fruit and fiber.

Soup :

1/2 can of pureed great northern beans with the aqua faba

 zucchini, red bell pepper

a few chunks of sweet potato

water

olive oil

spicy italian seasoning

 

served with bread, and a rice flour omelet

1 egg beaten, 1 tsp of sugar, 1/4 cup or so of rice flour (brown rice flour in this case), salt, bit of baking powder, some spice mixture, fry in butter in tamagaoyaki pan and serve with a big spoon of peanut butter 

 Mark made pork chop and garlic bread and some of the same sweet potato for him and Esme.  I really am not going to chance the pork chop - tried just a little bit of well cut up hamburger the other night and it was sticking in my throat so I gave it up.   

 Every night I am making about a 3/4 cup of whole milk with strong madras curry powder in it, heated up until it all combines well.  And I am drinking that as the last thing before bed.

The 'beaver moon' was out this morning - and it was large like a coin on the horizon, just a few inches above a field on my turn out towards work - with a little strip of cloud right across the middle of it, so it seemed like Saturn, or a closed eyelid.  It is still large in the sky tonight but it is already waning gibbous. 

 

some bits - anti inflammation diet

 foods : have been doing this for a few years now, was discussing with someone about it, after discussing earlier in the week with family in another state but they are now back to thinking that hEDS is not what their pain is from and they 'no one has ever heard of it' again *sigh* but I've found some good results for myself and I like these foods anyway.  the family members really love sugar and sugary drinks, as well, and 'can't give them up' where I've been drinking mostly black coffee (sometimes a little milk) with a pinch of a tea that has licorice and other herbs in it for several years (for the respiratory benefit) and that in itself is odd to most people.

bell peppers

carrots 

summer and zucchini squash

green peas

green onions

regular onion

beet greens and kale, fresh from the garden or frozen from garden

cucumbers (ground up as a sauce with mayonnaise, served on top of starches, like rice or pizza) 

olive oil, good quality - avoid many other oils

balsamic and rice wine vinegar 

canned beans, lentils or chickpeas 

brown rice, prepared with rice wine vinegar

rice noodles 

white sesame seeds (added to cooked rice)

nori or wakame seaweed

canned mackerel, tuna or sardines

eggs (from our own chickens, high in omegas, dark orange yolks)

peanut butter

olives

bananas 

mayonnaise 

avocado

relish  

naval oranges 

cherries and blueberries (sparingly) 

canned fruits and pineapple juice

licorice tea in small quantities brewed in coffee (for respiratory)

whole milk only

real full-fat butter, only (no margarine or spreads) 

dark chocolate 

ginger, garlic, hot madras curry powder, lots of black pepper

celery seed (usually in lentils, pea soup or rice) 

daily supplement : methyl folate tablet with food at breakfast 

still do eat pizza, pasta, pork chop or pork stir fry, beef - all in moderation with the family at dinner, although I often will make one or more of my own foods and mix with and limit consumption because it is harder to digest some of what the rest of the family wants to eat.

avoiding corn grains and cornstarch

avoiding overeating of sugar

limiting amount of beef when the family has it, I just don't digest it as well, a little is good (especially with horseradish) but definitely have a limit I can feel

definitely no sucralose or artificial sweetener

I used to drink a lot of green tea, but for the past few years it has made me vomit - it might be the brand type changed something or something else changed with me.

Minetest Repixture on Lunati

 I somehow fell into playing Minetest, after of course being very involved with Minecraft until Esme and I could not play different accounts on the same email - so I gave her my account and stopped playing it altogether.  

Minetest is a generic copycat version - and Mark has said I should try it for a while.  The time came up last night and I got it on my computer.

There are several different versions and I tried a few world builders - and the controls seemed messed up on some.  I downloaded Repixture, and it seemed to work for me better.

 

I think I'll call this Horsehead Bay Farm

I already added potato and cotton in another fence

That being said : Their recipe finder leaves a lot to be guessed at - so some of the key elements to survival were hard to figure out.  Plus, you get hungry - and if you don't eat, you start taking damage.  So - finding and being able to make adequate food supplies was pretty important.

I spawned near a village, which meant I could take some bread from their chests and get some wheat seed from their field - and there were a few apple trees nearby.  So I wasn't starving at first - but the pigs were very tough - bit back hard, and I gave up on that. 

Here is what I figured out on the food, crops and cooking.

All that grass that keeps coming up when you hit it?  Keep it - put it on your crafting screen and make fiber from it.  So many recipes need fiber, and sticks - sticks of course come from the wood blocks becoming planks and the planks becoming sticks.  If you're trying a regular minecraft recipe and it doesn't seem to be working (torch, door, pickaxe, bucket etc.) you probably need fiber.

4 wheat makes a flour, the flour has to be baked in a furnace to make bread.  It doesn't require anything else except burning in a furnace.  The furnace was available in the town - and the recipe finder did have a good way to learn how to make one.  I spent a long time with a bucket (also in the recipe finder) and water trying to figure out how to craft bread.  Nowhere does it say anything about how to do anything with the flour - but that was it, burn it in the furnace, it makes bread. Wheat stacks at 60.  I'm pretty sure it can be used to feed sheep - and it can be blocked to make straw bales.

Growing the wheat is time consuming but possible.  8 wheat grow around a single water square.  If you let it grow to maturity you either get back one wheat and a seed or maybe two seeds.  I haven't seen if animals eat the crop yet - I've put fences around the wheat fields by instinct from the original Minecraft game.

I didn't go after the sheep, but when I tried to dye one with a thistle plant it hit it instead and it didn't attack back like the pig did.  I really don't like killing sheep - much better to keep them for wool -  so I am just waiting to finally find some iron and get a pair of shears.  I've seen how to make rope with some dried grass clumps but haven't found enough of those and the regular grass clumps don't dry in the furnace.

The apples come 4 or 8 from a tree, and chop the tree down, and get more saplings.  Plant all the saplings, they grow if you spend enough time near them - and get more apples.  Apples cannot be cooked.  

Oak trees can grow acorns, just like the other trees grow apples.  Acorns are only one food point a piece, but you can make a good sized forest and the acorns do respawn but they take a good while.  Or you can chop down the forest and replant, and get more acorns that way.  Pigs can be fed acorns. Acorns cannot be cooked, or made into flour.

There are also wild skunks running around.  They don't attack - but I bet if you hit one they do something nasty.  Just an instinct.  There is a 'net' that says it is used to catch small animals - and I think maybe it means the skunk.  Haven't tried it yet.  I haven't seen a single chicken in five different biomes and towns.

There is wild asparagus that looks like a tall seaweed thing on the swamp plains with a yellow flower.  It reminded me a lot of sunflowers in the original Minecraft.  It pops when it has the flower on it to be an asparagus and one or two asparagus seeds.  Asparagus can be cooked and gains a food point in the process.  Asparagus stacks at 60. The asparagus  seeds only grow in swamp dirt.  BTW : wheat seeds do NOT grow in swamp dirt.  I made myself two farms with a long road strung between them.

I still need the roads - built of stone or wood planks - because I still get lost otherwise.  I was sure on my first farm which was just wheat and cotton that I wouldn't get lost - set off in a westward direction, haven't found that place since.  Luckily, I found the asparagus and the clams soon after that or I might have starved before I got another farm going.

 Asparagus Farm in the swamp - which was where I found the pig creeper thing

There was also cotton and cotton seed in the village.  I see you can make cotton bales from it - and grow it just like the wheat and asparagus.  You can't eat the cotton.

I was in the highlands and I found a small white bush flower thing that I popped and it was a potato plant. It yields 2 to 4 potatoes, and you can replant them both in swamp dirt and in regular dirt.  It is pretty easy to plant a whole field of potatoes from just finding one bush.  You can cook potatoes to increase them one health point each - from 3! to 4.

Down by the water edge there were small tan and white spotted squares that were clams.  I popped them and was able to eat them raw.  They cannot be cooked.  Sometimes they yield a pearl when you are popping a lot of them.  They respawn.  Four clams will fill you up from starving.

That's what I've found so far - experimented some with the papyrus plants (like sugar cane, but no food value), growing them, making paper and making reed blocks (which can be cooked to make dried reed blocks) which I think are only meant for a building material.  The paper can be used to make maps and books and labels etc etc..  The reed blocks need 'swamp grass clumps' to be used with the papyrus in the recipe.

Got algae blocks out of the water, and 'airgas' plants - haven't figured out what to do with either of them.  Graphite sheets seem to be used in labels and books etc.  Coal can be made into torches and used to burn things (which you can burn sticks, wood, planks, stairs etc etc. as well).  Thistles and Daisy flowers are probably to use with the paint stuff - but I have to find tin first to try that.  I have only mined a bit down from the surface, and haven't found any monsters but I've been bringing torches with me.  The only monster I found on the surface resembled a saddled pig, green with a red saddle - and it blew up like a creeper.  Yikes!  Don't want to meet that one again.  It chased me, too.  And I haven't found iron yet to make a sword!

So here I am bouncing between two farms - and building roads out from them into new biomes.  I've found birch trees, fir trees, oak trees, 'tree' trees (which give the apple saplings) and seen another kind of tree up on a mountain that I haven't gotten to yet.  I took a boat for a short excursion, but didn't want to get lost.

I've been using the large stone arch method over the roads - at every place I think is significant, and at turns in direction - and so far have went very far... but been able to find my way back.  And it looks like the map is only sticks and paper - so maybe I'll make one soon and see what that looks like.

A pretty lagoon

more cooking

I had a full route today, but it wasn't super long.  I came home and we planned on making meatballs that would last us a few weeks, with the grocery items I got the other day, and our chicken eggs.

 

 

I wrote up Mark's recipe at Neurodivergent Cooking : Meatballs to Freeze

It's a fairly normal recipe, but the other version I made isn't.

Fish loaf or Canned mackerel filets with zucchini  Mark called it 'fishloaf' - I thought of it as way of making it something like the meatloaf recipe but using up my canned mackerel out of the cupboard.  Then I served it with my mock sushi-style brown rice, nori seaweed that I like and red chili paste, wasabi and mayonnaise - all on a bed of soy sauce.

 

Package runs tomorrow, and since I didn't sleep well last night, I'm going to crash.

work weekend

 

Getting through the work weekend.  Cooked today when I got home, as today was just packages, but yesterday was a full route and I got home later.  I got groceries on the way home, just to test the vehicle.  It started okay, and I took measurements when I got home (still data geek here).  Mark and Esme made a meatloaf, and then soon after dinner I crashed.  

I took measurements yesterday after making that extra stop, and today after getting home with no stops - and they were about the same.  The battery light is still on, which is why I'm still data-mining to figure out what I can myself about the situation.  There are other reasons it could still be on, and none of them are good.  But it does keep starting and there isn't any big exclamation point saying 'it is clearly this', either.    I'm not quite on edge as I had been about it the other day, but the mouse isn't asleep either (I'm still slightly worried about what in the world is going on).

I could make more bread and more quiche today  - we have lots of eggs, and I have the time.  I don't know if I'll get around to it.

 

Have done my Japanese on two platforms and put laundry in the dryer and am thinking of falling over for a nap.  It is very hot, and I'm not sure how well that will work out. My Japanese is coming along well, but my French is leaking through the cracks while I'm doing work.  The word for this or that in French has sort of just popped up during the day, although a lot of Japanese review has been going on in my 'undercurrent' as well.  It is sort of nice because one of the automatic (automagical?) things that happens then is my brain starts trying to translate between those two languages as well - and make cross-connections, which are very useful later.  I have three more Japanese things to do later today and I might let myself do French on one of those instead or do a French/Japanese translation chart.

Still playing the Stardew valley game in French, a few minutes yesterday before I finally went to sleep.  My little orchard keeper is filling her orchard up with fruit trees one by one.. and keeping up with the other things that happen in the first year of the game.  There are a lot of milestones in that first year, which is perhaps why I keep starting over and playing it again from other directions and with other techniques.  She has to get her chicken coop, and silo, barn and house expansion all saved materials and moneys for, while also growing crops, advancing in the mine killing monsters and mining materials and filling up the community center boxes with all the different things it wants and she has to go and find near and far all over the little world.

starting to fill out the categories

 

I'm starting to put together the categories I want to talk about at : Neurodivergent Cooking  I've got a couple of recipes up, and a couple of ADHD rants, for lack of a better term.

 

The categories I'm going for are : 

Dinner for Two

Red Plate Specials (getting food to the plate for one)

Less Waste

ADHD Hacks and Habits (and rants, apparently... *roll eyes at self*)

Make Ahead Ingredients (nothing there yet)

and Our Farm - animals and garden and etc etc..

 

But I was tired today - I fell over for a nap, and then pushed myself through to use some leftover things to make a dinner for Esme and I (the Dinner for Two category above).  Mark took some pictures of a mantis outside and also ended up being butted by a little goat so much he tried to take some pictures of her, too - and ended up with mostly out of focus nose, except this one.

 

Melody, our little Nigerian dwarf bottle-raised goat, who is more than 3/4 blind (but she can see some light in one eye)

She had just gotten some of the ends of lettuce and tomato - so she was wondering why he was out there now and what other wonderful vegetables he had to be hiding in his hands (she is blind) way up there with the camera.

I made a salad, and a version of fried rice.  I did take pictures and post a step by step.  Even though it is simple - it is still something.  And I was working on that consistency thing, just as much as the use up the leftovers thing.

Recipe post  : Half-Nicoise Salad

Maybe tomorrow after route we'll make something more ambitious - but I suspect that will actually be Friday.  I work the weekend, as well, as usual.  I'm headed to bed now again (it is 8:30 pm) and up early to get Esme to the bus and off to work.

Languages : I did French today, and Japanese.

long day

We went out to help get groceries this morning with Grandma, and to get a few school things for Esme.  Then when we got home, I made a salad, and we turned around and headed out to the farmer's market to sell plants.  So, Esme and I have both had a long day. (above: Lyffan yesterday telling me she had a long day and would I just serve dinner already, please?)

I bought some fine egg noodles and some brown jasmine rice while we were at the store - we had plenty of time to look at the ethnic foods and discuss things.  I used to really like to make some Chinese noodles that were a bit like this with simple olive oil, soy sauce and black pepper on them - we'll see if they taste anything like that.  I had read a recipe for biryani rice (an Indian dish) the other day but hadn't felt like it was really something I could make (yogurt in it, and I tend to not keep it because when I do, I always worry it is going to go 'off').  This rice was on clearance, so I decided to try it.  I'll read up a bit more now that I have some of the rice.  Esme pointed out some dinosaur-bone brownie mix and said she was imaging a birthday party that was all archaeology themed - too bad she doesn't like chocolate that much.  She reminded me she did like hazelnuts, but everything that had hazelnuts also seemed to have chocolate in it.

Not much else to report - working on a few more crochet tote bags, bought a little more yarn for dishcloths, playing my game Stardew Valley some more and working towards some of the new update things, like the fish smoker, which I finally got last night, and the greenhouse (which is a community center reward), also finally got last night.  I did some Hungarian and Japanese today on Duolingo.

more rain and cats and bits

 

 

bit of here and there hobby farm rant - some day I will want to come back and read it all, I know

 

Our elderly tortoiseshell, Minion, does not like the rainy weather at all - and the chill that comes with it.  She also will not stay inside for long unless she is bundled up on top of someone, one of us, or the big Manx boy, Loki.  They curled in the carrier tray for my mail truck today, that I need to get out there - but I also feel it would be good to vacuum the truck or at least clean it a little before I go to the work of carrying this back out there (sans cat) and putting it back in.

I am still hoping to return to the book I was reading - after finishing some Romanian, Czech and a good swath of the remaining Welsh lessons on Duolingo.  We do need to go get some groceries though - and everything has gotten so expensive - this is an example of how a former programmer, who is not that good at calculation, does the shopping list.  Of course, Mark doesn't like it when I do this - because we always spend more than the allotted amounts, but I do it anyway, because I need to feel I have a handle on what the costs are and what we are using.. and then I see how much above that we tend to spend on snacks et al...

Heh, and there is 'American Cheese' and there is 'cheese' .. the type we cut up and add to the pizzas to make them actually stretch out to be a full meal.  

 

budget geekery post trip breakdown by cost 

the meat in that trip will probably last for a long time, as we freeze it and then parcel it out as needed until it is gone - and today, it was fairly gone, one third of the meat was regular price, and the rest of the 2/3 of it was clearance meat that we will freeze and make multiple meals out of

 

When I cook for myself it uses up things that are already in the cupboard not on this list - that only get replenished once in a while, like canned beans, dry split peas, rice, oatmeal etc.. and garden greens and peppers and zucchini (some from garden, some from farmer's market) that I freeze and should use more of but sometimes it sits there forever.  A really common meal for Esme and I is a rice dish, peppers and onions and 'other veg' and a few eggs.  Sometimes I buy a kielbasa and cut it up in the freezer and add it to those meals.  She has gotten to liking a salad of lettuce, tomatoes and black olives with a rice dish on the side maybe in a tortilla.  We were making ramen bowls with soft boiled eggs and extra veg in it for a bit but for summer now we haven't done that in a little while.

We also all eat eggs from our chickens several times a week and I use them for baking, and give extras to dogs, which they enjoy immensely.  We will get a slab of bacon once in a while and cook that up with eggs, or make toasted egg sandwiches for everyone.  Sometimes, I will make pancakes from scratch to go with scrambled eggs.  Pancakes are one thing I have always done well but it takes time to go about it properly.

 

Charlotte

Sweetie

(and Minerva, and Daphne dog, as well...)

The chicken feed is about 15.00 per week or so -we get it from an Amish store now because the goat feed we got from the co-op was bad once, solidified and the goat would not eat it, and then we gave it to the chickens with their chicken feed (which was co-op and seemed okay) but one of them died.. and we couldn't tell if it was the bad feed or what... so we started getting it from this other place, and it smells fresher and everybody eats it with gusto compared to 'oh, yay.... food' from the other supplier.  We supplement the chicken feed with lots of weeds, lespedeza, chickweed, lambs-quarters, clover, dandelion and whatever those huge nettle-looking things are that don't have any spikes... and a bit of the goat's hay (her other food is pellets of alfalfa'/oats which are 10.00 about every two weeks or more.. the dogs have a bag of food that is 35.00 every three weeks or so, but they eat eggs and whatever we happen to be eating they get whatever we don't put up for leftovers).   

blind goat, Melody - with Loki cat, outside beneath a tree in the fenced yard

(we adopted her from a farm because she had gone blind and needed bottle feeding.  The owner could not care for her with all the other animals to take care of, and now she lives here with our dogs and cats and comes inside for pellets and a brush down, sleep on the floor with the dogs a bit, and then go back out to the yard - she has a dog igloo she sleeps in and sometimes the cats join her there for company)

I feed the cats dry food (about 15.00 every three weeks) but they also go through one stack of tuna (1 can every 2 days) because the dry food alone was causing skin problems for our elderly cat.  The 'for cats' wet foods they don't like much, so it isn't worth it to buy it when we can buy a cheap brand of tuna and also have that for our own food if we don't use it for them.  I was feeding them a bit of egg every night as well (Cooked) but the elderly cat got where she left it every time so I make sure she gets the wettest bits of the tuna can and her dry food and that has done much better for her.  I should still make the egg for the two younger kittens though, as they ate it and had no issue.  

The Manxes are siblings, from barn-cat lines, and fixed at a young age, and are inside-outside cats catching mice on the property.  We had hoped that Minion, the elderly tortoiseshell cat (she's 15 now!) would teach them 'the ropes' and she has.  She has a touchy relationship with Lyffan, the female cat, but they do sometimes lick each other's head.. it just ends in hissing and 'go to your side of the room'.. but Minion and Loki (the boy cat) are often curled up together - she uses him as a hot water bottle.

They love to present mice, moles, voles, even grasshoppers to us, and spend a lot of time sitting watching holes or even under the doorway of the garage etc.. I saw Lyffan catching small frogs yesterday, which is funny because her name means 'toad' in Welsh (lyffant, actually).  They are doing well and Loki especially doesn't seem to be lacking for any calories at all.. most often you can find him lying on some patch of floor holding it down, in between mouse hunts outside.  Lyffan goes in her spats, between not wanting to come in except for meals and then running right back outside, to parking herself on Esme's dresser like the Queen of Sheba and spending half the night with her, or with me, as a blanket on my feet..  Esme can pick Lyffan up and walk around with her, something she doesn't like anyone else to do.  She will go from running a little skinny to looking like a round poofball, which follows suit with all the other Manxes we've had before.  The vet said she had an extremely short spine, no tail AT ALL, and sometimes we know that can give them digestive problems, so we keep an eye on that.