Morning Kitchen Activities

This morning I got the buckwheat milled before the radon man arrived. In fact, I got breakfast cooked and served and Vince was almost finished eating by the time he arrived. I’m not sure Vince liked the buckwheat pancakes. He won’t usually say anything at the time but later he may say “I like regular pancakes better”. I did like them. They tasted a bit earthy and because there was cinnamon in them, they reminded me of a snickerdoodle but that could also be because I’m working with that linen called Snickerdoodle and I had that on my mind. I do think the pancakes tasted somewhat like snickerdoodles though. They were easy to make . . how hard can pancakes be? I liked them as much or better than I like every day pancakes.

Then I made a tray of granola. A while back we decided to start eating granola in place of cereal. We mix it with milk and add fruit. We will add sliced bananas, chopped apples, dried cherries or cranberries to our bowls. Vince will add raisins and I will not look at his bowl because I think they look like dog ticks. For the granola I simply use old fashioned oats that I buy from Azure Standard, nuts, which can be pumpkin seeds, pecans, almonds, walnuts – whatever we happen to have around. A bit of sweetener is added – raw local honey or maple syrup. For oil, I’ll either use coconut oil, grapeseed oil or a mix of butter and olive oil. I’ll add cinnamon or nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice and a bit of salt. Then bake it at 350 for 10 minutes, stir it and bake it 10 more minutes, stir it and bake it 10 more minutes, then leave it out to cool completely before putting it in jars. Since I usually make just enough for the week, I don’t even bother to vacuum seal the jars.

Today I added pecans and slivered almonds. I added cinnamon and used grapeseed oil with a little melted butter and maple syrup for the sweetener. I never measure anything so I can’t give you exact amounts. I start out with 5 cups of oats and that will fill two quart jars. Today I was emptying a bag of oats and only had a little over 4 cups and didn’t want to open another bag so the jars aren’t full. By the time we have eggs one or two days a week, pancakes one day, a breakfast casserole one day, we always have enough granola from this amount of granola to last us through the week, and still provides enough for a bit of snacking.

Next I vacuum sealed the Frico base I stuck in the freezer yesterday.

The first thing I do, before even getting the containers out of the freezer, is to make and label the bags. The quicker I can get the frozen contents in the bag and get the bags sealed, before there’s any melting, the easier it will be to get a good seal.

This is my big dough container. I put about 1 to 1-1/2″ of warm water in the bottom and stick one of these containers in there. I leave it for a couple of minutes, pull it out, wipe the water away, take the lid off, stick the container inside the vacuum seal bag and dump the contents of the container into the bag, remove the container. That’s the easy way to get the contents into the bag without getting the edges of the bag greasy, which results in a poor or no seal.

Four nice and neat packages of Fricot that only needs potatoes, a bit more simmering and thickening if needed and we’ll have Fricot for at least four meals.

In the freezers, there’s a metal basket that pulls out at the bottom . . I think one freezer doesn’t have a pull out drawer but that’s where I put most of the food that’s ready to pull out, heat .and eat

That’s about it . . there’s been a good bit of snuggling in the chair with Oscar. He’s being so good today. The radon man is out there and I don’t think Oscar has barked once. He’s growing up and, in fact, surprising me every day at how much better his behavior has become. Last night he was sitting on Vince’s lap and Vince said “This dog is happy so long as he’s on someone’s lap!” I said “Just a few months ago, did you think this was going to happen ever?” Nope .. neither of us did.