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'

Baby chicks and our dog Charlotte

 

Charlotte is still quite happy to have babies - although she whines when we check on them.  They are eating and drinking - the light and heater are keeping it about 80 degrees or a little less during the night and it is warming up during the day.  They are active and seem happy.  We still think we got five Americanas (as ordered) and one of something else.  The Americanas were also supposed to be all hens.  We'll see.

I need to kick myself up and go fix a hose outside and then drag a bag of new dirt to the main garden and put it into the beds there.  There will probably be another frost here before March is out.  I have ordered some seeds from Sandhill Preservation center a week or so ago and they should be getting here sometime... trying to keep my fingers from itching to buy other seeds - I do have some kale and mesclun greens to plant, and have also went and harvested a little bit of dandelion green from that bed I had gotten that started in a few years ago.  None of the italika rossa (italian red-stemmed) dandelions have survived, but the other native ones I put seeds in there from have - and I did that so I would have a clean source to enjoy some of that in the Spring.  I also have two bean plants that I sprouted last week and they need to go out in one of the beds.  They are 'Alice Whiting' green / dry dual-purpose beans I ordered a few years ago and have kept replanting.

 

 

Baby chicks 2026

 

Americana baby chicks, six of them.  Mark got most of the brooder set up with the heat lamp and now they have eaten some food and drank some water.