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Chocolate and Walnut Scones sound divine, Skeptic.
Although it was another very hot day, I pointed out to my husband that the dough for the Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers was made on June 14, so I needed to get the crackers baked, which I did this morning. He is happy, as he ran out several days ago. I prefer not to let the dough go more than a week, with five days being the sweet spot.
Three of my jam jars did not seal correctly, so I re-canned them on Monday morning and will check them tomorrow. I think that it might not be a good idea to have the air conditioner on when I'm doing the actual canning over in the Annex, so I will turn it off when I get to that stage.
I had bought a lovely little head of cauliflower at the farmers market a week ago, and we had some store-bought broccoli in the refrigerator, so I decided to use my broccoli salad recipe and put in the cauliflower as well. That works well. I did not, however, have any turkey bacon to put in the salad, and had no desire to go to the local store, which would be unlikely to carry it. I thought that I remembered reading about a vegan alternative to bacon crumbs in salads, and I found it at the Love and Lemons blog. It called for ½ cup almonds and ½ cup pepitas, which are tossed in 1 Tbs. tamari (I used soy sauce), ½ tsp. maple syrup, which I doubled to 1 tsp., and ¼ tsp. smokey paprika (I used Penzey's Smoked Spanish Style). I think the recipe used whole almonds. The combination gets toasted at 350 F on a parchment lined baking sheet. While the recipe said 10-14 minutes, I did just 8. I would probably extend it to 10 minutes next time. I did not add it to the salad but put it in a separate dish, so that we could sprinkle it over our individual servings. While it does not replace bacon, it gives a satisfactory taste. I may tweak the recipe a little more, as it is nice to be able to make an acceptable substitute with ingredients that I usually have available. We had our broccoli salad with boneless pork ribs that Scott de-fatted and cooked on the stove top.
On these hot days, I like the idea of a hearty salad and some meat without a starchy food.
At 8 a.m. this morning, to beat the heat, I went to our larger woodlands with my husband. While Scott worked on a project there, I began picking black raspberries, and he helped after he finished. At home, I combined what we picked with the ones we had been picking on the terrace (and Scott added a few more). That gave me enough to make and can four (8 oz.) and one (4 oz) jars of jam. I did the canning in the Annex kitchen to keep the heat out of the house, and also because that kitchen allows for a better set-up, which I can leave in place until I finish with the black raspberries and the blackberries that will be ripening soon afterwards. It also has air-conditioning that I ran while I worked out there. Canning equipment will be put away after berry season, as we will have guests in early September, but it will come out again for apple butter, and perhaps applesauce, which I have not yet tried to can.
Dinner tonight was easy: the rest of the farro stir-fry!
Leftover stir-fry was dinner on Saturday. It is too hot even to think about turning on a stove. I made my first pitcher of iced tea for the summer.
I started picking black raspberries on our terrace this week. My husband has also brought me some from the woods. I plan to go out with him EARLY tomorrow, as more on the edge of the woodlands should be ready.
Like where many of you here at Nebraska Kitchen live, our area is about to go into high heat and humidity for the next five days or longer. So, I stayed up late on Friday night and baked Oatmeal Date muffins for breakfast and three loaves of my Whole Wheat Oat Bran Bread. I chose this recipe because it makes three loaves, which will let me freeze two. I still have cracker dough in the refrigerator, so we may have to bite the bullet and use the air conditioning in a day or so.
I made a Vegetable, Chicken, and Farro stir-fry for dinner on Friday. We should have enough for three more meals.
They vendor at our farmers market from whom we bought some cherry tomato and Dester Indiana tomato starts, as well as a dill plant, also had starts for the sugar baby watermelons, but alas, we do not have room to grow them.
We had dinner salads tonight, using some of the leftover roasted chicken breast and the bounty of vegetables, although my husband passed on the bell pepper and green onion. We assembled the salads in small (8-inch) serving bowls.
Those desserts look delicious, Joan. I had the same reaction, a year or so ago, about sumac, as you did, since my husband tells me to beware of the poison sumac in his woods. When I started seeing it pop up in recipes, I too had to go do some research.
On Wednesday, I baked my version of Soft Barley Cookies, adapted from the recipe in King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking to use avocado oil in place of butter and nonfat Greek yogurt in place of sour cream.
Lovely and tasty food, Joan and Len!
I roasted two large bone-in chicken breasts on Wednesday, as storms came through and cooled down temperatures. I had some chicken with a large spinach salad with three different colors of mini-bell peppers, some carrots, mushrooms, green onions, and cherry tomatoes. I used some "salad topping" (a mix of dried cranberries, dried cherries, sunflower seeds, and pecans on top. Scott also had chicken, but he had his with the rest of the broccoli salad. The spinach and the green onions came from last Saturday's farmers market.
Ah, such lovely colors in your dinner, Joan. You are truly eating the rainbow.
We re-ran last night's dinner on this day with temperatures in the upper 80s.
Italian Cook--We usually buy our bananas at the local grocery where they are 69 cents per pound, but 29 cents per pound when they are starting to get a little brown. We prefer the latter. Aldi's sells them for about 49 cents per pound. I do not usually buy them at Kroger, so I have not looked at the price there. So, we are not seeing a shortage of bananas in our area.
At the farmers market on Saturday, a favored vendor had golden beets, with lovely greens tops. Golden beets are my favorite, so I bought the four she had, which is how I found myself on Monday baking my Roasted Beets, Greens, and Greek Cheese flatbread for a late lunch. My husband is not fond of beets, so I make it for myself and do not have to worry about using onions. I adapted this recipe from Ken Haedrich's The Harvest Baker. It was my best rendition of the recipe yet, in part because I cut the baking time from 24 to 20 minutes. I have leftovers for three more lunches.
Dinner on Monday was broccoli salad using fresh broccoli I bought from the farmers market on Saturday. I last made this salad back in October, so it was so good to have it again. I also made pecan meal encrusted pork chops which I baked in the oven. That pecan meal that I bought at Ellis Brothers pecans on our way back from Florida in December continues to get used! I'm so glad that the cashier there told me about using it to coat pork chops.
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