[BakerAunt]

For dinner on Sunday, I made soup, using some frozen turkey/chicken broth, Bob's Red Mill mixture of lentils and split peas, carrots, celery, red bell pepper, garlic, ground turkey, yellow squash, and turnip greens. I seasoned with Penzey's Ozark Seasoning, some ground pepper, and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to tame the greens.

[BakerAunt]

That's what I thought as well, Mike. I plan to roast it the other way, even if it is hard to cut the cap off.

[BakerAunt]

I'm hoping more of the tomatoes from the Gurney's plant will go ahead and ripen. So far, only two have done so.

We are on our third picking of beans from the planting my husband did last spring. We have really enjoyed having them.

My husband has now picked eight of the honey-nut squashes. We may have a couple more. I want him to start picking the large, more butternut squash ones. One is the correct color. Whether the biggest one will ripen in time remains to be seen.

[BakerAunt]

I should add that a lot of the fancy houses being built in our area to replace modest cottages here often have two kitchens, particularly if they carve out the hillside for a walk-out basement. The idea is that it makes entertaining on the lake level easier.

[BakerAunt]

Our house came with a separate apartment over the garage that was used as a rental, so it has a small kitchen, and I do mean small. We had to locate our second refrigerator right outside it. It has an older (no digital electronics) electric stove that is on the verge of too large for the space. I would have liked to have gotten rid of the separating peninsula, but that would have required all new cabinets and the loss of some cabinet space. We remodeled the apartment, which we refer to as The Annex, so that it is an extension of our living space and can double as a more private place for guests. At first, my husband did not want to do anything with the kitchen, but we both hated the orange countertops, not to mention the linoleum walls that had absorbed grease from various renters. We settled on red cedar paneling for the kitchen walls and a light Formica countertop, as well as a new single, as opposed to double sink. It is quite nice as a place to do canning and to roast meats when the other oven is occupied. I have my large kitchen table in the dining area right next to it, and I am looking forward to assembling some complicated projects--maybe pasta making--out there.

For canning, I use a large electric Ball canner, which can set on the counter next to the sink, and then be drained into it from the spigot.

Our house kitchen was part of the remodeling of three years ago. The biggest issue is that because we have a longer than wider house, people come in the back door (front door of house is on the lake), so they walk through the kitchen. As a result, my husband did not want my flour, sugar, etc. sitting on the counters where I have always kept them. I wanted shelves across the back, across from the nook for the washer and dryer, but again, those would be open to people coming in, so I agreed to utility cabinets, which have turned out to be a not-so-great idea, as they are too deep, and have too few shelves to be useful storage, and I have to dig stuff out by taking stuff out. Because the cabinets are so deep, I am not sure more shelves would help.

I do have some wire racks in the Annex where I store some of my specialty pans, but I would have liked more cabinet space in the kitchen--and FULL shelves in all the lower cabinets rather than this half-shelf nonsense. My husband did put two nice long shelves in one open area, and I have my beans and pastas in glass jars arrayed on the lower one, along with my small recipe binders, and my various kitchen tins on the upper one.

We were mostly stuck with this kitchen footprint because we wanted to preserve the downstairs bedroom. We did sacrifice one of the two bedroom closets and the closet that was in the entryway to make space for the washer and dryer, as well as the utility cabinets. We had to keep the footprint of the house, or I would have pushed for a mud room, as there is a lot of stuff piled up next to the door by my husband--yes, he who does not want my flour containers out!

I agree with Aaron about not putting away appliances that get used frequently. My stand mixer stays out, as do my large, medium, and small food processors and the larger bread machine. (The latter was added after the remodel, but there was a nook too small for anything else that holds it nicely, even though I have to move it to use it.

[BakerAunt]

I made yogurt on Saturday.

[BakerAunt]

We arrived home early Friday afternoon from my husband's cousins' family reunion in Michigan. I had nothing in the freezer for dinner, but we had some leftover grilled lamb that one cousin cooked at the reunion that no one wanted to take home, so we did. I used it in a brown and mixed wild rice stir-fry with celery, red bell pepper, small yellow squashes, and a bit of kale. We had microwaved broccoli as well.

I have only had lamb twice before, once some of a roasted leg, and the other time in a creamy sauce served over noodles. The latter was made by a Russian student couple at the church I attended when we lived in Lubbock. I think the grilled lamb was the best, but it is not a meat that I would seek out or invest in learning how to cook, as I can take it or leave it.

[BakerAunt]

We were at my husband's cousins' reunion this week. The two pumpkin pies I took were well received. On Wednesday evening, I put together two pans of cinnamon rolls and parked them in the refrigerator overnight. I baked and glazed them the next morning. About five of the twenty-four made it back home with us, but only because some people had to leave a day early. I have been asked to bake both the pumpkin pies and the cinnamon rolls again.

Because there were so many of us in attendance, my husband, the dog, and I were in a separate little cabin a five-minute walk from the main house. One advantage was that it had its own small kitchen. The little gas stove worked perfectly. I had taken along an oven thermometer, and the oven is accurate. That was not the case with the double oven in the main house, both of which gave the bakers and cooks fits. The food came out delicious, but that was due to their skill.

We stopped by South Bend on the way home today, so that I could do some shopping. I stocked up on our favorite dill pickles at Big Lots, along with some Bob's Red Mill items. I also found a lovely (independent?) grocery store called Fresh Thyme that had BRM whole wheat pastry and BRM pastry flour. I was getting low on pastry flour, so these two five-pound bags should get me through pie season without having to mail order. If the car had not been so packed, I might have bought some of the great fresh fruit and vegetables from local farms. Our other stop was T.J. Maxx for maple syrup, vanilla, pasta, and a few kitchen items.

[BakerAunt]

I just completed baking my second pumpkin pie. Ever since I began baking these pies in my Wolf oven, I have had a spot on the surface of each pie which is small but opens up as it cooks and bubbles. It's about the size of a dime. I never had this issue when baking the pies in a variety of other ovens. It's not the fan because I do not bake pumpkin pies with the convection setting. It happens near the end of the 10-minute initial bake at 425F. After that, I reduce the temperature to 350F for the remaining 11 minutes. My process is the same--parbaked crust and filling heated on the stove before it is put into the pie crust.

Any ideas what might be happening? It does not affect the pie in taste or texture, but I would prefer a top without the spot. Perhaps I should reduce the temperature for the initial 10 minutes from 425F to 400F?

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse--the honey nut squashes are sweet, and they are very much like the butternut squash. I will be more specific after we start eating these. I had trouble finding butternut squashes last year, so I do not have a clear memory of the difference. The honey nuts can range in size. The first two my husband picked are quite small, but some are about double that size.

I've not cooked buttercup squash. I'll have to try one from the farmers' market.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday, I baked my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers.

I am also in the process of baking two pumpkin pies for my husband's cousins' reunion.

Earlier in the day, I premeasured ingredients for two pans of cinnamon rolls, which I will bake there for breakfast one morning, using my older bread machine.

[BakerAunt]

We had leftover pizza.

[BakerAunt]

I made my half-sheet sourdough pan pizza for dinner on Saturday. Instead of cooking up canned tomatoes, or fresh ones, for sauce, I used the rest of a tube of tomato paste, which I mixed with water and 1/4 tsp. garlic powder. I added the usual toppings of Canadian bacon, mozzarella, mushrooms, red bell pepper (from our garden), and green onions, but I also halved cherry tomatoes from our garden and put those on as well. I added black olives to my half, then grated Parmesan over it and baked. The nice thing about the sourdough crust (regular flour, semolina, durum and rye) is that it holds up to lots of topping.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--We do need to have the Health Department test it, so we limit what we are using it for right now.

[BakerAunt]

We had the rest of the beef stew.

The pump for the new well was installed today, and we are now connected to the well. We had to run the water for a while before it was clear. It has been a LONG month.

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