Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

There are quite a few people on the reddit r/keto channel who have been on a keto diet for 10 years or longer, many of them on a much stricter keto diet than we are following.

Once we reach our goal weights (at least another 20 pounds for me), we may relax it further, although many people report that after following a keto diet for a long time, their body doesn't react well when going back to a SAD diet.

Currently I'm aiming for 40-50 carbs a day and 1000-1200 calories, my 7 day average is 912 calories and 41 carbs, with 59% of calories from fat, 24% from protein, and 18% from carbs. (Doesn't add up to 100 due to rounding issues, I assume.) I'm using Nutritionix for tracking, and working on a full review of it.

[chocomouse]

Mike, I do have lots of daffodils (but very few tulips) since the deer and small critters don't eat daffodils or their bulbs. Cayenne pepper has not deterred them from the bird seed in winter or other small seedlings in summer. Last summer a (or several?) chipmunk picked most all of my cherry tomatoes on the deck. It then peeled the tomato, left the peels in another pot, sat there and ate the tomato, not 5 feet away from where I was sitting. Now, my husband has made a wire cage, with 1/2" holes, to go over the cherry tomato pot and plant; he is still figuring out the top for it so I can easily remove it to reach down inside to pick the tomatoes. I will try to find my photo of the pot full of peels and post it later. No critters seem to bother the salad or paste tomatoes I have put in the in-ground garden in the back yard. I'm able to plant them outside the electric fence, as a sort of "first line of defense" against raiding varmints.

[Mike Nolan]

Cayenne pepper is said to discourage chipmunks, as are daffodils. You might try the cayenne pepper now and think about planting an outside border of daffodils next season. Daffodils are also supposed to discourage deer because of the lycorine in them.

We had a problem with raccoons (probably) pooping in a corner of the deck, but I started sprinkling ground black pepper in that area every few days and they moved to pooping somewhere else. Not sure where, but at least it wasn't on the deck or patio.

[BakerAunt]

I won't be trapping them.

I'm not sure why we have so many, but we have one of the few mostly natural areas left along our road, and with so many people taking out trees to build their "dream homes" (in which they will spend just a few weeks in the summer), we may be having more move into our yard. They never bothered the garden before.

[Mike Nolan]

We had mozzarella crust pizzas for supper, plus a blueberry muffin. (The recipe still needs tweaking, but it is getting better, this one was a little stiff and needed more buttermilk, and possibly more butter/allolose.)

[chocomouse]

About 18 years ago, I became desperate to get rid of the chipmunks living in our stone walls, stone steps, stone everything and eating my veggies, bulbs, etc. I filled a 5 gallon bucket about 2/3 full of water, added a wood slat for a ramp up the outside (just as Len described!), and tossed in 5-6 sunflower seeds. One day my 6 year old grand-daughter was visiting and asked why I had the bucket of water sitting in the middle of the flowerbed. I replied, not wanting to give out too much information, "It's for the chipmunks." Her response was "Oh, I didn't know chipmunks could swim." I dropped the conversation at that point. They don't swim. And they can't climb straight-up wet, slippery bucket walls. They drown. But they love sunflower seeds. Once we got the population down a bit, our cat managed the rest of them pretty well.

[RiversideLen]

BA, you might consider setting a trap. There's a guy on YouTube, Shawn Woods, who tests mouse and rat traps (he has thousands) but I think some of them can be applied to chipmunks as well. I'm thinking about a trap called the Dizzy Dunker. It can be used as a kill or a live catch trap. You need to supple your own bucket. It consists of a ramp (so the critter can climb up) and a dunking device that fits on top of the bucket. You bait the wheel of the dunker, the critter climbs up and steps on the wheel to get the bait and then gets dunked to the bottom of the bucket. You can have water in the bucket for a kill trap or no water for a live catch trap.

You can get the device on Amazon, he has a link to it on his channel.

[BakerAunt]

Our chipmunks are getting more intrusive. They ate some of the beans off the plants in the garden. We have it fenced, but chipmunks are great climbers. They just climb around the chicken wire that keeps out the rabbits, and then they eat what is only just starting to develop on the plants.

Other than their eating the unripe cranberries off of my husband's bog pot or the squash seed we were germinating last year (these are now in cages until they get past that stage), we have not had wholesale garden pilfering before.

Any suggestions? We love getting crops of beans.

[Mike Nolan]

Azure Standard has barley flour, it might be worth seeing if they've got a dropoff point near you.

They have an interesting business model, every two weeks or so they pack up orders into semis (including refrigerated/frozen items) and transport them to the local dropoff sites,where volunteers help unload the truck and then the customers load their orders into their vehicles.

Their flours tend to be whole grain and very finely ground, I got some semolina from them but it would be more accurate to call it whole grain durum flour as semolina is generally coarsely ground endosperm. I've also gotten rye berries and tapioca flour from them.

For us, the dropoff point is a nearby shopping center parking lot.

[BakerAunt]

Thank you, Joan. He is having to work to increase how wide he can open his mouth on the side where they operated.

On Wednesday, I tried a recipe for Rieska (Finnish Flat Barley Bread) from the 2nd edition of Bernard Clayton, Jr.'s New Complete Book of Breads (pp. 176-177). I had happened to see the recipe when I was baking the Barley Orange Bread a week or two ago and glanced at the page next to it. It calls for a cup of evaporated milk (or half and half), and I had 2/3 cup to use up, so I added 1% milk to make up the difference. It's a very soft dough, indeed, more like a thick batter. I used a spatula to make it into two 8-inch circles on parchment and baked 13 minutes, turning halfway. I baked it to go with my lunch of Beans and Greens, but I ended up having one with lunch and the other, with strawberry jam, with my tea. My husband and I both like the taste of barley. I order it in 8 lb. bags from Jacob's Grainery in Washington state, as Bob's Red Mill ceased carrying barley flour three or four years ago. I'm always looking for ways to use more barley flour.

[BakerAunt]

For dinner on Tuesday, I used as a base a recipe for Asparagus, Goat Cheese, and Lemon Pasta from Smitten Kitchen. Instead of asparagus (not a favorite of my husband), I used red bell pepper, mushrooms, and spinach, to which I added the leftover chicken breast meat from Sunday's dinner. I kept the same seasoning of tarragon but omitted the lemon in deference to my husband. I also added dried shallots, which was recommended by a commentator on the original recipe. I used cavatappi pasta. The recipe called for 5 oz. of goat cheese, but it is sold in 4 oz. logs, so I used 4 oz. When I make it again, I might cut the pasta back from a pound to ¾ of a pound and increase the spinach from 4 oz. to 6 oz.

Earlier today, I cooked some baby lima beans. I froze half and will use the other half to make a dish to have for lunches the rest of the week.

[Mike Nolan]

We've got chocolate mint that we put in 27 years ago that is still all over the place!

There was some catnip on the east side of the lot two years ago, but I couldn't find any last night when I took Jack for a walk. (We're trying to leash-train him, and he's not sure about that but doesn't really struggle to get out of the harness.)

[BakerAunt]

Baked Pumpkin Spice Doughnuts with Maple Glaze

Marliss Desens adapted this recipe (with the spelling Donuts) from one that GIR (manufacturer of kitchen utensils) sent in an email. It is the BEST I have found.

1 cup AP flour Maple Glaze
1 cup whole wheat flour 2 Tbs. maple syrup
2 Tbs. milk powder (optional) 1 Tbs. milk
1 Tbs. flax meal (optional) ¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder 1 ½ cups powdered sugar (sift after measuring)
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon Or
½ tsp. nutmeg (I grate fresh Brown Butter Cinnamon Sugar Coating
¼ tsp. ginger ½ cup sugar
¼ tsp. cloves 1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt 1 stick unsalted butter

¾ cup sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
½ cup canola oil
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease two standard doughnut pans (total of 12 doughnuts).

Whisk together the first eleven ingredients in a small bowl. In a large bowl, mix the granulated and the light brown sugar with the canola oil and beat with hand mixer. Beat in eggs, then the pumpkin puree. Put away the hand mixer and stir the dry ingredients into the wet ones, until just combined. Do not overmix or doughnuts will be tough.

The easiest way to distribute the batter into the doughnut pans is to use a small silicone spoonula to place three blobs of thick batter around each ring. Once the batter has been divided into the pans, smooth the batter into round rings. If you wish, use a piping bag, but I think the spoonula makes less mess.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until a tester inserted in a doughnut comes out clean. Remove from oven, let cool briefly, then use a plastic spatula to gently dislodge and move to racks.

While doughnuts cool, make one of the two toppings. For the maple glaze, combine sifted powdered sugar with syrup, milk, and salt in a shallow bowl. When doughnuts are cool enough to handle, dip tops in the glaze, then return to wire rack over a pan or waxed paper to catch the drips. For the browned butter-cinnamon topping, melt butter in sauce pan over medium heat. Stir constantly and swirl to prevent burning as it foams and sizzles. When it turns golden with brownish specks, it should have a rich and nutty aroma. Remove from stove, and carefully pour into a shallow heat-proof bowl. Set aside to cool. In another shallow bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon. Either dip the doughnuts into the browned butter, then into the cinnamon sugar, or brush the doughnuts with the browned butter and then dip into cinnamon sugar.

What I changed: I used half whole wheat flour. I reduced the granulated sugar to ¾ cup. I added milk powder and flax meal to enhance nutrition. I use homemade pumpkin puree rather than canned. I deleted 1 tsp. vanilla in the batter because it is not needed; save this expensive ingredient for when it can shine. I have not tried the browed butter topping.

[Mike Nolan]

We had another lahvosh to use up, so we had another lahvosh pizza, half tonight, the other half probably tomorrow night. I put artichoke hearts, mushrooms, tomato slices (water pressed out), ham, mozzarella cheese, romano cheese and cream cheese on it. It was great.

I also had a salad.

[chocomouse]

That all sounds very promising BakerAunt! Fun cooking and eating later this summer. I love gardening experiments. I have snow peas and cukes plant seeds growing in hanging baskets off the deck. So far, they're looking healthy. In the deck planters, green beans looking good, about 6" tall now. Beets and 2nd planting of bok choi and Little Gem lettuce just sprouting. The "old" lettuce and spinach is still producing well. The cherry tomato has blossoms, and I am plotting ways to stop Chippy from devouring them. In the main garden, with the electric fence, we have 6 Early Girl tomatoes (Celebrity, which is my go-to, is sold out in this area) and 6 Amish paste tomatoes, 6 each bell peppers, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, plus 4 hills each of summer squash, zucchini, Delicata, Spaghetti, Butternut and Buttercup squash. The bobcat was back in the yard this morning; thankfully, I believe he is carnivorous. My blueberries, raspberries and blackberries are loaded with blossoms and/or young fruit. Only two of our three apple trees had blossoms, which is still better than last year after the 17* frost on May 24. Today it was 85* and we watered everything.