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[BakerAunt]

Thanks for posting the article link, Mike.

A friend who grew up in Minnesota, who is about ten years older than I, told me that her job in her large family was to bake the bread using a huge pan divided into sections for each loaf.

I have told my husband that on our next extended trip, we are taking the bread machine. Finding a bakery that makes good bread has been impossible in the places we visit, and I hate having to resort to store-bought bread with its lack of taste and texture, even when we buy a wholegrain one.

I wish that more people knew how easy it is to bake your own bread. I think that the emphasis on "artisan" loaves has obscured the simplicity. I noted that the article does not discuss breads that do not stale in two days, in part because they use oil (olive, avocado, canola), dairy, and/or eggs.

[Mike Nolan]

We did have burgers on the grill, using the L'Oven Fresh keto buns (21 carbs but 1 net carb), and the buns were quite good, if I hadn't known they were keto-friendly, I doubt I'd have noticed from the taste or texture. These buns will make summer meal planning easier.

[Mike Nolan]

We have a food bowl outside, but the foxes emptied it overnight, as usual, so Diane went to put some more out this morning and when Jack heard the sound of food hitting the bowl, he came running and has been inside all day except for a brief trip outside while I was out cooking on the grill. He was out on the deck, not sure how long he'd been out there, I tried reviewing the back patio camera but didn't spot when he went out there. I did see the foxes up on the patio heading down towards the deck several times overnight.

I'm OK with his going outside at night, I think he'll show up in the morning, if we're up to see him. (My wife's sister said he showed up at their place around 6:30 AM, but during the summer we're usually not up that early.) We'll see what happens in less pleasant weather.

We left the door open to the kitchen today, he's wandered through it a few times but so far hasn't tried to jump up on the counter. There's not much he'd eat that's out, anyway. (When I was young, we had a female cat that would eat through the plastic wrap on an angel food cake to get to the cake, and could get the cake holder open, too.)

[BakerAunt]

Saturday night's dinner was determined by 1) what I have in the house and 2) what can I make without turning on my big oven. I realized that I could try a new recipe, "Turkey and Sweet Potato Meatloaf," by Julia Turshen, who is covering for the writer of the Washington Post "Eat Voraciously" recipe newsletter while she is on maternity leave. I altered the recipe in that I used the regular 19.2 oz. of 93% fat-free ground turkey rather than the preferred pound of dark. The smallest sweet potato that I had was around 15. 7 oz. I used about 11.2 oz., leaving it unpeeled as specified. (I boiled up peeled chunks of the rest for the dog to have as her "topping," when we eat.) Due to my husband's issues with onion, I replaced the small onion with 2 tsp. dehydrated onion, which I rehydrated and the two cloves of garlic with ¼ tsp. garlic powder. Doing so also saved me the step of sautéing them in olive oil first. Instead of the six large leaves of fresh sage minced, I used a generous ½ tsp. of dried sage. I replaced 1/3 cup of finely chopped fresh parsley with 1 tsp. dried. I replaced 1/3 cup of plain breadcrumbs with ½ cup of quick oats. I added 2 Tbs. flax meal, and then, because the mixture seemed slightly dry, ¼ cup of milk. I baked it in a 7 x 8-inch Emile Henry flat casserole rather than a loaf pan. I learned that trick from my mother who favored flat loaves that filled the dish. I left the temperature at 375 F, even though I used the small convection oven, but I checked it at 50 minutes, and it was done.

My husband and I both like this turkey loaf, so I will put it alongside my other two turkey loaf recipes. We had it with microwaved fresh broccoli as the side.

[chocomouse]

I'm not 100% sold on the peas in a hanging basket idea! I planted late, and peas should be planted very early, when it's still too cold for most plants; they will survive a light frost. Germination was excellent, we'll see about actual product. All the berry crops seem to be wonderful in Vermont this year. I have blossoms on the beans, and will start a 2nd crop whenever this constant rain of the few days stops. I have quite a few tiny tomatoes on my Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, and quite a few little peppers on my New Ace peppers. I'm not sure how the Early Girls are doing, except the plants themselves are big and healthy. We had 4 days last week with temps 96-98* and very little rain for the past few weeks; in Vermont, we usually (used to) get maybe four days in the 90s spread out over the entire summer! Our plants suffered, even with regular deep watering.

Mike, if your raspberries were cut back last fall, they should be putting up new canes by now; ours are about 2 feet tall. We have 50ft of them that we mow down each fall, and they are ready to pick about the end of July; they continue to produce until frost. If you let last fall's new canes grow up, they will produce berries this summer, usually early-mid July in Vermont.

I sort of agree with Diane! I do not like spaghetti squash, not as a squash. I love it as fake, low-carb pasta! I treat it like spaghetti noodles - use marinara, pizza sauce/ingredients, alfredo sauce with veggies; most anything you would serve on pasta is also delicious on spaghetti squash.

[chocomouse]

I never staked my potatoes; they didn't grow tall stems such as tomatoes, peas, etc. I've never seen on any of the gardening blogs I read that gardeners are staking them. I just hoed up dirt around the stem of the plant, without disturbing the dirt that is just above the actual potatoe(s). I no longer grow potatoes.

[Mike Nolan]

Black raspberry season is getting close to over (it's usually only 2-3 weeks long), and the most I've gotten at a time this year was about an ounce and a half, just a small patch on the west side of the yard. But I see the raspberries rebounding on the east side where they got cut back last fall, so hopefully they'll be bearing fruit in another year or two.

I think it's too hot on our deck for peas in a hanging basket. I tried them in the Aerogarden twice, got a small crop the first time, enough for a couple stir fry meals, but they didn't grow well the second time. Not sure I've got a good space for snow peas in the garden this year, but I could try companion planting them with some of the tomatoes, though it may be too late for them until I wait to plant them in September.

I haven't put in any spaghetti squash yet, but I think I will put some in; last year they climbed up the tomato cages and did fairly well, and didn't seem to interfere with the tomatoes. Diane's not that fond of spaghetti squash, but when I pointed out how low carb they were, she thought they might be worth planting again this year. The leeks I put (plants from Johnny's, not seed) are doing well, I've got about 24 of them.

I've got several small tomatoes already, but they're not close to ripening yet. These are on the First Lady II plants, where the average size tomato is around 5 ounces, there's probably some on the 4th of July plants by now as well. My guess is I won't see any ripe tomatoes until mid to late July.

The urban garden project at UNL is in its 2nd year. This year the common crop is sweet corn instead of zucchini. So I've got two rows of sweet corn (one in the amended soil area, one not.) They went in late, I don't know how well they'll do. Sweet corn is kind of high carb, but if it's good, we'll just have to suffer through it. 🙂

I planted a row of dill seed, not much of it came up. I may try re-seeding the half of the row that didn't germinate.

[Mike Nolan]

The plan tonight is burgers on the grill using the L'Oven Fresh keto buns, weather permitting. (Chances of rain in the afternoon/evening.)

[Mike Nolan]

Diane put some cat food out the other night, it was gone by morning, so I put out more yesterday morning. We did see the young foxes eating it yesterday evening, and it was gone by morning, so I put out more earlier today, and around 7PM our prodigal cat, Jack, showed up and was gobbling it down. We let him inside, gave him some more food (including half of the tuna water from tonight's supper) and a few treats, and he started taking a nap. Now he's eating a bit more of the dry food.

He'll go outside for the night, we just can't trust him not to pee on things, and my guess is he'll prefer that anyway. Update: He wanted to out after about 90 minutes of being inside, hopefully we'll see him again soon, possibly tomorrow evening.

He looks skinny, my guess is he hasn't been having much luck hunting in this neighborhood. So, maybe we have a mostly outdoor kitty.

[Mike Nolan]

Victoria's Keto Kitchen has a recipe for keto-friendly 'Bisquick' mix, so I tried making some and then made biscuits with it. Took a bit more liquid than with real Bisquick, and they baked faster (9 minutes vs 12) but they're pretty good. I had one with some butter on it, tasted pretty much like a cream biscuit.

We had them with creamed tuna for supper.

[Mike Nolan]

It is cool here today, so I tried making a keto-friendly biscuit (see baking thread) and some creamed tuna to go on top.

Both were fairly good. I'm still working out the carb count, but it won't be very high.

Update: 1 biscuit with 1 serving of creamed tuna was under 4 carbs.

[chocomouse]

I had to make something for my husband to take to a potluck tonight. Luckily, I had about 2 dozen "Cowboy Cookies" in the freezer -- scooped and frozen, ready to bake. It took me about 45 minutes in the countertop oven. It was 98* here at the time, and I have avoided cooking or baking anything. We have one more day of upper 90s (the 3rd day in a row) and temps should be lower after that.

[BakerAunt]

We spent a little less than two and a half hours at the woodlands early on Wednesday morning, where I picked over 2 quarts of black raspberries, which then came to 3 quarts with my husband helping out at the end after he finished his other tasks. We were fortunate that the clouds kept the heat down a bit. However, the clouds dissipated as we returned home, so it is in the low 90s.

I decided to make an easy dinner that would not require the oven, so I made quinoa salad (Penzey's recipe) with lima beans, corn, lime juice from our limes that I froze last year, and faux feta, so called because it clearly uses cow's milk not goat's milk. However, it is what the store had available. I picked up a rotisserie chicken to go with the salad. The rotisserie chickens now sell at the local store for $8.99; when we moved here seven years ago, they were $5.99, and occasionally there would be leftover ones marked down the next day. That no longer occurs.

[Mike Nolan]

I had an interesting assortment of animals when I was young. I once found 9 frogs that had fallen through the sidewalk grate at the bank, and they let me go downstairs and gather them in a box. So, what do you do with 9 frogs? I put them in the bathtub, of course.

My mother comes home from work, goes into the bathroom, sits down, and there's this leopard frog sitting on the corner of the tub, a foot away, staring at her.

EEEEEEEEEE!

Michael! There's a frog in the bathtub!

No, there are nine of them.

(Notice, though, that she knew which one of us kids to blame!)

Then there was the time someone found a mud puppy (look it up) and it lived in the bathtub for a few days.

And someone I knew had found a crow who got injured and could no longer fly. It lived in our back yard for the rest of the summer but didn't survive the winter. Our momma cat and the crow didn't get along, but neither intimidated the other much. She'd try to sneak up behind him, and he'd turn, spread his wings out 3-4 feet wide and they'd have a standoff for a minute or two.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday, we had a break from the heat with morning rain that gave us 1/10th of an inch. I took advantage of the slight break to make and can four (8 oz.) and one (4 oz.) jars of Black Raspberry Jan, which is our absolute favorite. I used the black raspberries from our terrace (about 3 pints), along with the nearly 2-quarts that I picked at one of our woodlands on Sunday. I had hoped to have enough to make a second batch, but I only had 3 cups of mashed fruit, even after scavenging the bushes on the terrace for today's ripe ones, and I needed another cup. I will go back to the woodlands in the early morning tomorrow and pick more so that I can finish the second batch. I will pick as many additional ones as I can. We have not had a good black raspberry season for several years.

I made a farro stir-fry for Tuesday's dinner by sauteing chopped celery, sliced mushrooms, and grated carrot, then adding the diced leftover maple glazed pork tenderloin, and using half a cup of boiling water to clean out the storage dish in order to incorporate the rest of the glaze. I added just a bit more maple syrup. I would have added red bell pepper if I had had it.