BakerAunt
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Maple Granola is a staple in our house, and as we were about to run out of it, I made more on Sunday after lunch. In the later afternoon, I baked whole wheat sourdough cheese crackers from dough I made six days ago. We have some hot days ahead of us, according to the forecast, so I wanted to get most of the major baking done today.
I bought some pickling cucumbers at the farmers market yesterday, so on Sunday, I made refrigerator pickles using some of the abundant dill in our garden. (We bought a plant, then a volunteer came up.) I cut the cucumbers into spears rather than slices. This morning, we picked blackberries out in our woodlands, but I will start dealing with those tomorrow.
For dinner, we finished most of the black-eyed peas with rice and ham. There is a little left over for me to have for lunch tomorrow.
We picked 15 pounds of blueberries yesterday, which meant making freezer space for them by using some of the six frozen bags we still had for last year, so I used 3 cups of frozen berries to make Blueberry Cobbler on Saturday.
We had large salads with the rest of the roasted turkey breast for dinner on Saturday. We also each had an ear of young sweet corn. Although the kernels were small, the taste was good, especially for the first sweet corn of the season.
We had more of our black-eyed peas with rice and ham tonight, along with some microwaved fresh broccoli. This morning we went to our favorite blueberry farm and picked 15 pounds of blueberries. Tonight, I washed them and will let them dry on paper-toweled lined baking sheets. Tomorrow, I will freeze them.
I have been thinking about Big Lake Judy's Best Ever Molasses Cookies, so I baked a batch on Thursday. We will now have cookies available for teatime.
Congratulations on your first harvest of bell peppers this season, Len.
I made yogurt on Thursday. Last night we had more of the black-eyed peas with rice and ham. Tonight, we had large salads with some of the roasted turkey breast on top.
I found another container of Blueberry Chia Seed Jam in the freezer, so I baked another batch of Rye Blueberry Chia Seed Jam Bars. This time, instead of baking it in an 8 x 8 dish, I baked it in a 7 x 11-inch dish for thinner bars and cut the baking time for both the crust and the assembled bars. One reason I made them thinner was to slow down our eating of them for dessert, so that it will last four nights instead of three. The thinner ones are also easier to cut, but I do like the texture of the thick ones.
That looks very good, Joan.
I had not intended to cook on Tuesday, but when we did our weekly grocery trip to the store in our town, we found a bone-in turkey breast half, marked down as the sell-by date was yesterday. This afternoon, I googled how to roast a bone-n turkey breast half. Every single recipe called for copious amounts of butter. I ended up rubbing it well with olive oil and sprinkling it with Penzey's Northwoods Seasoning from my collection of sample packs. I roasted it on parchment on a rimmed baking sheet. It required an hour and five minutes to reach 165 F in the thickest part. After we let it rest for 15 minutes, Scott cut it up, and we had it with large salads, using spinach and lettuce that I dashed over and bought at the Tuesday night farmers market. We have leftover turkey, so we can alternate it with the black-eyed peas dish, which should last us until the end of the week, which is good because tomorrow, we head to the woods to pick blackberries.
We were worried about our plants while we were out of town this weekend, but it rained, and they did well. There are lots of green cherry tomatoes, and one actually ripened! There are now little cucumbers on those plants, and the beans are starting. The pumpkin plant really liked the rain.
Best wishes to Violet, and I hope your baking goes well, Aaron. What a time to be out of your own kitchen!
I made Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Monday. I will bake them at the end of the week. I had hoped to make the dough before we left for our weekend at the state park, but I ran out of time.
Sunday night's dinner was sandwiches with the rest of the chicken salad. We got home at about 6 p.m. after our weekend at Indiana's Spring Mill Park Inn. The weather was nice enough in the mornings that we were able to hike on Saturday and Sunday. We ate lunch at the Inn's buffet on Saturday, which is the only time I will be eating fried chicken, which is delicious and not greasy. I also recommend the sweet corn kernels and the macaroni and cheese. Don't worry, we did start off with salads. For dessert, I had some excellent cherry cobbler, and a piece of a large sponge cake that was covered in whipped cream, with strawberries and blueberries arranged like a flag.
For dinner on Monday, I made black-eyed peas with ham, sauteed celery, bell pepper, and kale, and rice. We have enough for several meals.
I baked a batch of my oil-based scones in the late afternoon on Thursday. In honor of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and of 4th of July, I made the scones with dried cherries and dried blueberries, with some of the King Arthur sparkling sugar sprinkled on top. I made them with two-thirds whole wheat pastry flour, using up the last of the Bob's Red Mill (they no longer sell it), and mostly using white whole wheat pastry flour that I bought from the same place as I buy my barley flour. After the dough came together, I cut it into eight pieces, and it was easy to shape them into balls by hand. I baked them for just 20 minutes, which works well for oil-based scones. It was very hot again today, but I need the scones for our annual escape the fireworks by going to a state park holiday.
On Thursday, I made yogurt. In the afternoon, I made another batch of Black Raspberry Jam, with a yield of four 8-oz. jars and one 4 oz. That will be the last black raspberry jam of the season. I was hoping for three batches, but the woodland that has a good patch suffered some clearing from a road crew over the spring. The bushes will be back, just not this year. The majority of the berries came from our front north terrace, but we found some in the smaller woodlands as well. Today, I picked three blackberries, the first of the season, so by next week, I will be into blackberry season.
For dinner, we had chicken salad sandwiches again, and I had some raw carrots as well.
The temperature reached 93 F today, again with humidity, but we were out of bread, so I baked three loaves of Whole Wheat Oat Bran Bread. I timed it so that the solar panels would be at peak time. I will freeze two, and I hope that will see us through the current heat spell which is supposed to last until the middle of the month.
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