[Mike Nolan]

And the rains came! We've had well over an inch in the past hour, but it looks like it'll be over in another half hour or so. Somehow the fireworks shooting continues.

[Mike Nolan]

I think I've got at least one zucchini that will be big enough to pick either tomorrow or Thursday.

One of the spaghetti squash plants I started inside did eventually germinate, so I let it grow for a while and transplanted it yesterday. I also planted a small hill of spaghetti squash seeds, it's kind of late in the season for planting squash seeds, but maybe we'll have a late frost and I can get some spaghetti squash in early October. We have a volunteer melon in one of the flower beds, possibly from last year's melons, it'll be interesting to see how those come out, we didn't enjoy the melons we got last year, but the squirrels did. The Athena melon plants I bought are starting to flower, too.

And I saw a hummingbird today!

[Mike Nolan]

There's rain in the forecast for later this evening, might put a damper on some of the official fireworks celebrations.

[Mike Nolan]

The ribs were fall-apart done, juicy and flavorful, and we had potato salad to go with them. Diane even asked for a second serving of the potato salad, so it was a good batch.

I was reading a site yesterday that talked about the difference between competition ribs and ribs for dinner. Competition judges only take one or two bites of each rib, so it has to be a flavor bomb, but when you make ribs for dinner you want each rib to be one that makes you want another.

These were dinner ribs.

My dry rub consisted of brown sugar, mustard powder, ginger, nutmeg, some chipotle pepper, a little salt, some celery seed and celery salt. I used some mustard to dampen the ribs and hold the rub on, then let the ribs sit in the fridge overnight. 4 hours at 275 in the grill, then I brought them in for the wet wrap in the oven for another half hour.

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight we had burgers on the grill, tomorrow I'm doing ribs on the grill though I may bring them inside for the wrap stage, especially if the air is starting to smell like gunpowder again. (It's that way now but it didn't really get noticeable until after the burgers were off the grill.)

[Mike Nolan]

The cinnamon pretzel (sticks) are a little better today, but still not memorable. If they keep improving, I might actually try this recipe again, hoping to get a less crumbly dough that I can actually shape as pretzels. Maybe more egg or other moisture?

I'm doing a double batch of peanut butter cookies tonight, so I can take a tray of them to the block party following our 4th of July block parade.

[Mike Nolan]

I attempted the cinnamon pretzels today. I did a half-recipe. I was careful to cut everything in half. The recipe said they would be crumbly but that would improve as they warmed up, but even after sitting out for 20-30 minutes they were too crumbly to roll out to the 10" specified length, so I wound up making pretzel sticks that were 4-5 inches long.

They remind me of a shortbread cookie, but not in a good way. They have a sandy mouth feel and I don't think they're sweet enough, though if they were more savory that might help. I even tried some with some cream cheese frosting on them, it didn't help. Maybe they'll improve overnight, but I have my doubts.

European flours are usually softer than US flours, but I doubt minor adjustments in the recipe would salvage them, even making them half as thick, so I probably won't try this recipe again.

[Mike Nolan]

I think we're having melon and salami tonight, and probably salad. (We still have LOTS of lettuce from the Aerogarden and I'll need to pick it again later this week.)

[Mike Nolan]

I'm thinking I might try the cinnamon pretzels in the Classic German Baking book this weekend, probably only a half-recipe because a full recipe makes 64 pretzels.

[Mike Nolan]

I have tiny tomatoes on at least 4 different varieties of tomatoes now, the largest of them isn't quite ping pong ball size yet. It was cool and rainy today, hopefully that means we will have set a bunch of fruit.

There are plenty of zucchini blooms, so it should be a good crop. The variety they sent us for the Urban Soil Health Initiative is called Dunja. I need to keep a close eye on them, I want them in the 8-10 ounce range, not a bowling pin.

I bought a lug of sweet red cherries today, we'll probably make some kind of jam with most of them, but both of us had a cupful at lunch.

[Mike Nolan]

It rained on and off most of the day, but cleared up enough for me to do steaks on the grill tonight, plus a nice salad.

[Mike Nolan]

When our younger son moved to California, it totally changed what we were eating, both in terms of what we ate and how much we fixed at a time. Some things we make more often, some things we do less often. We definitely do take-out a lot more often these days, too.

I'm afraid if I was alone I might eat macaroni and cheese every other day. Even something like tacos is a lot of work just for two people getting all the toppings ready, browning the meat, then putting everything away again. And a Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake would last a long time. (Fortunately, it freezes well.)

Smaller portions of foods are a lot more expensive per serving, too.

[Mike Nolan]

There may be alternatives to vegan butter, which I've always found disappointing. (We have some vegetarian/vegan friends, they're always looking for a better vegan butter.)

I made bagels today, using Hamelman's recipe with a slight modification of his procedure, I left out the bulk rise, shaped them right after kneading and refrigerated them overnight. He also has you put the bagels in an ice water bath after boiling them, that led to an increased baking time. But they came out pretty good, the last batch was badly overproofed and they were wrinkled. These were a little flatter than I was expecting, but the interiors were good. They've got a good shine to them and a satisfying snap in the crust.

Diane said she liked this recipe better than the one I've been using (Reinhart), other than procedure the major difference is Hamelman's uses diastatic malt powder instead of malt syrup.

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[Mike Nolan]

We had some melon with tomato and salami sandwiches, the veg stands are open and they have better melons and tomatoes than the grocery stores do.

[Mike Nolan]

We got 1.25 inches of rain overnight, and there's more in the forecast for the next few days.

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