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On Sunday, I roasted and pureed a Winter Frost squash. I am planning to use it for a curried soup later in the week. I learned on Wednesday, at a routine dental cleaning, that one of my molars has died, and I did not know or feel it (had a crown). So, on Monday, we drive to South Bend where I have an appointment with an endodontist for a root canal. I do not know how much I will feel like chewing after the procedure, so the squash is there for a quick soup.
Sunday dinner is Lentil-Turkey-Vegetable soup. I began by sauteing chopped carrots and celery in olive oil, then adding ground turkey to brown, before adding some minced garlic, and sliced mushrooms. I then add homemade turkey/chicken stock from the freezer, 1 Tbs. rehydrated dried onion, 2 cups rinsed Bob’s Red Mill Vegi-Soup blend (split green and yellow peas, brown and red lentils, and some barley), and 1 Tbs. of Penzey’s Ozark Seasoning. After 45 minutes, I added chopped yellow squash, and near the end, I added some kale leaves. It will be a warm soup for several additional nights. After an unseasonably warm autumn, this week our area will see temperatures near freezing overnight.
On Saturday afternoon, I baked three loaves of my adaptation of Grandma A’ Ranch Hand Bread. One will get sliced at lunch tomorrow. The other two go into the freezer for later.
I have been working, off and on, to develop a non-butter maple cookie over the past two years. I want a cookie that I can imprint with the Nordic Ware Halloween designs (or other cookie stamps). I baked my recipe again on Friday, but this time replaced the canola oil with avocado oil and added a tablespoon of milk powder. I also mixed the dry and wet ingredients as if I were making a pie crust, and that resulted--perhaps along with the avocado oil--in more of a shortbread texture, which I like. My recipe made eighteen cookies, so I made six of each design (pumpkin, cat, spider).
We had a threat of frost earlier this week, so my husband picked any tomatoes that seemed ready, as well as our second hybrid spaghetti squash-pumpkin. (I need to cut one of those open and see if it is edible, and if so, for what.) Oh, my husband also found two more green beans! They will go into the soup that I am contemplating for this weekend.
I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Thursday. I will bake the crackers next week.
Chicken Enchiladas sound very good Len.
For Thursday’s dinner, I made my adaptation of the Ensalada de Quinoa from the Bob’s Red Mill site and roasted chicken thighs to go with it. We have enough for two more meals.
For lunch on Tuesday, and into the week, I made tomato soup—much better than the canned soup—and had it with a tuna sandwich.
Tuesday’s dinner was Crispy Oven Fish and Chips with Dill Tartar Sauce (recipe that I recently posted here at Nebraska Kitchen) with microwaved mixed vegetables.
Monday was a day for baking. It had rained all night, and it rained most of the day--nearly 3 inches. I had some zucchini that needed to be used, so I baked my adaptation of the squash bread in Ken Haedrich’s The Harvest Baker. I also baked my variation of the Shipyard Galley’s Zucchini Muffins that was featured in a King Arthur email years ago. I added some of my stash of cinnamon chips to both, as I need to use these up. I will freeze the four loaves of zucchini bread (baked it in a 4-loaf Nordic Ware Bundt pan). I made six of the muffins as large ones, and I will freeze those as well. I made the rest as 12 regular-sized muffins in Halloween papers for us to have for breakfasts this week. I baked the larger muffins a little too long, and the bottoms are slightly scorched, although they were not done when the smaller muffins came out. I should have checked them again after another two or three minutes rather than waiting five minutes.
For dinner on Monday, I made my sourdough pan pizza with the usual toppings. The tomato sauce was made from tomatoes from our garden, and the red bell pepper was grown in our garden.
Italian Cook--I have a Cuisinart hand mixer, and I am pleased with it. Hand mixers are more powerful than they once were. Mine also has a whisk attachment, which is handy for whipped cream. There were two "kneading" beaters, but my experience is that the mixer really cannot do dough. I bought my mixer about 11 1/2 years ago, and the company honored the warranty when I had a beater issue within two years and replaced the mixer. (I did have to pay the cost of mailing it back to them, but it was worth it.) My Cuisinart replaced a less powerful Kitchen Aid hand mixer, but I keep the KA one as a back-up.
That bread looks wonderful, Mike.
I pulled out my Nordic Ware Autumn Wreath pan on Saturday evening and baked my adaptation of the Pumpkin Chocolate Harvest Cake recipe that came with the pan. I substitute in some whole wheat pastry flour, use my homemade pumpkin puree, replace 2/3 cup butter with ½ cup oil, delete the water, add some milk powder, use 2 whole eggs, and cut the salt in half. I also use a mixing method that works better for oil cakes. I baked in the evening so that there would be no temptation to slice it until tomorrow, and the flavors have time to meld.
Saturday night dinner is leftover Tarragon Chicken with Rice and Mushrooms and microwaved fresh broccoli.
On Friday, I baked my adaptation of Skeptic’s Pumpkin Biscotti. (Adaptation consists of using white whole wheat flour, reducing the sugar to 2/3 cup, cutting the cloves to 1/8 tsp., and adding 3 Tbs. milk powder.) I am grateful to Skeptic every time I bake this recipe, which is frequently.
For Friday’s dinner, I made Tarragon Chicken with Mushrooms and Rice, a recipe that I adapted from one at “The Splendid Table.” We also had microwaved frozen peas.
I had 3 cups of potato water left from the potatoes I cooked on Sunday, so I decided to make a soup for me for lunch that I can eat for the rest of the week. I proceeded as in the story of “Stone Soup,” by putting in whatever I could find in the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. I sauteed onion, celery, carrot, red bell pepper, and 2 cloves minced garlic, added the potato water, then added 2 cups of great northern beans that I had cooked and frozen a while back and about 1/3 cup black-eyed pea broth I had stuck in the freezer as well. I found a can of tomatoes with hatch chilis in the pantry to add. I added ½ tsp. chili powder and about ¼ tsp. cayenne (rather old cayenne), and a ½ tsp. Penzey’s Salsa & Pico. When it boiled, I stirred in ½ cup of bulgur, then let it simmer for 12 minutes covered. Given the ingredients, it is clearly a soup for me, since the onion, tomatoes, and great northern beans—not to mention the spices—make it unsuitable for my husband, who prefers his usual lunch sandwich anyway. The flavor is good, and the soup is nice on a cool day. The spices clear my head.
I am renewing my efforts to eat more vegetables and fruits, and include more beans, since my cholesterol numbers are stubbornly refusing to budge lower. (I also think that the frosting on that cake I had on each of three days before my doctor’s appointment made the numbers worse this time—it was made of butter, cream cheese, and white chocolate. I should have known better.) If diet and exercise cannot get the number down, I may have to take the statin.
The Arlo and Janis comic strip is doing a story line on the shortages--particularly Christmas items:
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