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Your baking looks great, Mike!
The weather on Saturday was a little cooler with less humidity, so I accomplished a number of cooking projects. I made yogurt. I also made and canned two additional batches of Black Raspberry Jam, with each batch consisting of four 8 oz. jars and one 4 oz. I found a good buy on bone-in chicken breasts at the grocery store this morning, so I roasted those for dinner in the big oven and roasted sweet potato chunks in the small oven. I also roasted asparagus, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes on a sheet pan because there was an Amish lady at the farmers market today who had asparagus, the last, she said, from her garden. I could not resist! I also found some broccoli, which my husband microwaved for himself, as he does not care for asparagus.
I bought some za'atar for a recipe, but since I'm pretty sure Scott cannot eat that spice, it has to be something I make for myself for lunch. Now, I've got to remember what and where that recipe is!
By 8 a.m. Friday morning, Scott and I were driving to the larger of the two woodland properties. I began picking black raspberries while he did some work on a bridge, then helped me pick some more. We had two one- quart baskets that were not quite full and one that was about two-thirds full. In less than two hours we had most of the ripe ones from the patch, and it was starting to get muggy, so we headed home. I also have picked a lot of black raspberries on the terraces. I should have enough for at least two more batches of jam. I had planned to make a batch today, but we had high humidity and thunder, but very little rain, and I seem to recall that humidity can affect the jars sealing, so I have postponed that project until tomorrow.
Dinner was a re-run of last night.
I tried a new recipe, "White Wine-Braised Chicken and Artichokes", a recipe from Thirty Minute Meal Prep, by Robin Miller that was featured in the Washington Post column, "Eat Voraciously," back before I let my subscription end. I halved the recipe, which still gives us enough for tomorrow. I took the option of skinning the chicken thighs. My only change was to delete the oregano in deference to my husband. The other spices were smokey paprika and onion powder. I added about a quarter cup of chicken broth with the wine. My husband thought it was fine, although he did not eat any of the artichokes or the pimento stuffed olives (more for me). My verdict is that the recipe was a bit bland without the oregano, so I may try to think of another spice with which to replace it. The recipe specified canned artichokes. I thought that they were ok, but I wonder if frozen ones would be better. The recipe's great virtue is that it is made in a skillet on the stove top and goes together quickly. The weather is too muggy to turn on the oven. I made mixed brown and wild rice, which was good with the sauce and the artichokes and olives. We also had microwaved frozen peas.
It looks like we are not going to get any of the serviceberries again this year. We had some lovely red ones, but they need to be purple. Last year, the chipmunks cleaned them out. This year, I saw the male cardinal dining on a couple. We do have blueberries on our two small bushes. I ordered a bird net from Gardeners Supply today, so we will try to keep those berries for ourselves.
We have flowering, and a few small green cherry tomatoes on one of the three plants. Unlike Mike, we are not going to have tomatoes by the fourth of July!
Temperatures on Wednesday were only in the upper 80s, but it is extremely muggy, which resulted in a small thunderstorm with rain that we needed. I took the opportunity in the later afternoon to bake Peanut Butter Honeys, which are delicious with iced tea. (I think fondly of Mumpy when I bake my adaptation of her recipe. I wish that she had come to Nebraska Kitchen when the Baking Circle was dismantled.) I also baked Banana Oatmeal Muffins. I ended up with more batter than expected, maybe because I used four bananas rather than three, or maybe because these bananas were more far gone than usual. I ended up with 17 muffins, which meant a pause while I got out a small muffin pan and sprayed five more muffin liners. We, of course, each sampled a muffin for dessert. Well, my husband sampled two, which he had with some of the leftover jam from when I canned.
That meal looks lovely and delicious, Joan.
We had the remaining broccoli and cauliflower salad on some spinach, with most of the rest of the leftover pork scattered on top, in addition to the rest of that non-bacon topping I made. Tomorrow, I will need to cook again--or since the salad was all non-cook, I should say cook for the first time this week, although putting together a salad, even with no stove or oven required, is still cooking as I define it!
We re-ran the broccoli-cauliflower salad from last night but added some of the cut-up pork that was left over, which worked very well. Temperatures reached 92 today, but a thunderstorm this evening gave us some much-welcomed rain and cooled us down a bit.
I'm pleased to report that the lids on my three re-processed jars of jam sealed.
June 23, 2025 at 7:33 pm in reply to: Euro Cuisine Electric Yogurt Maker and Oxo Salad Spinner #46623I used the Oxo salad spinner today to dry the broccoli for my salad. It was love at first spin, even though, as Len notes, salad spinners take up a fair amount of space.
I think that Janie Bakes, who has not been active at Nebraska Kitchen for a while, was the only other yogurt maker. If I recall correctly, she made hers in her oven. I have gone through three yogurt makers. The old-style ones had separate little spots for the jars, while the new ones just put the all on a covered heating surface. Eventually, the wiring inside stops working, especially if someone uses it as much as I do.
For a time, I was not making my own yogurt as I had access to quality yogurt where we lived, and I was not saving money if I did so, although it does cut down on the plastic containers. However, here, I can only get full fat Stonyfield (would like low fat or nonfat) even over in the next town, and most of the other yogurts use starch as thickeners and add sweeteners. So, I pulled out a yogurt maker that I had bought on a whim at Tuesday Morning and not gotten around to using, read up on yogurt making, and here I am. I know that the bread proofer that King Arthur sells can be used to make yogurt, but it is expensive, and I have not felt the need for a bread proofer. I like to have a 6 oz. container of yogurt every morning as part of my breakfast, and I fortify it so that I get a good shot of calcium.
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.
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