Tuesday in the Kitchen

I know – today is Wednesday . . and it’s getting late on Wednesday but yesterday, there was no stopping spot once I got started.

Vince had been asking for Migas for breakfast so that’s what we had for breakfast Tuesday morning. Of course, they aren’t HARD to make but there’s a lot of chopping and grating to get them ready to go.

Next, I had picked the last of the redbud blossoms from our trees, had those soaking and needed to get that all made into jelly. I put some of it in pints because we’ve been going through the little jelly jars like one per week. I made 3 pints and 7 half pints. That has to last through the year because there are no more redbud blossoms.

Vince needed more museli cereal. I first flake/roll oat groats, which isn’t a fast thing to do, even with the electric flaker, then I roast the oats, then add nuts – whatever I have handy – pecans, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds – that’s what I had yesterday, then I had coconut and once it’s toasted, I take all that out of the oven and let it cool. Then I add a bit of nutmeg, cinnamon and salt and put it in jars. I was hoping to have two half gallon jars but didn’t quite make that much.

Next, I had asparagus that needed to be freeze dried so I removed the scales, cut it into about 3″ pieces, sprayed it with a bit of olive oil, added seasonings and got it in the freeze dryer. I didn’t have enough to fill the freeze dryer and had some potatoes that needed to be used so I peeled those, cubed them, blanched them and added them to trays to fill the freeze dryer.

Next, I had cut green onions in the garden on Friday. I reinstated them, cut them into about 3 or 4″ pieces and freeze dried them.

Once freeze dried, I mashed them down and was able to fit them all into one half gallon jars. I knew if I put them through the blender and made them into a powder, I could get them down to a few tiny jars full.

See those three small jars in the front? That’s the green onion powder.

Then it was time to get dinner going. I had put steaks in the sous vide so I just needed to sear them in a skillet.

Steak, potatoes and asparagus! It was good! I thought I was done and was ready to go downstairs and Vince went to get the mail. I had ordered vanilla beans and they arrived so got those taken care of.

I divided them into three jars, poked them all down and covered them with rum or vodka or brandy.

They will sit in the cool, dark basement for a year or so and then we’ll try them.

Somewhere along the way, I had taken a strawberry rhubarb pie out of the freezer and baked it. Aldi has the BEST strawberry rhubarb pie. They go fast but we got there at the right time and were able to get two of them.

Nothing better than pie with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream!

As we finished eating our pie, Vince said “What time do we have to pick up our Azure Standard order?” Oh, my goodness . . I had totally forgotten and wasn’t even sure I had the energy to go. 5:15 p.m. We had to get up from eating pie, go to the Azure drop location, get our stuff, come home and put it away. Thankfully, I hadn’t ordered much – 25 pounds of soft white wheat, laundry detergent, 5 pounds of Raw Jalapeno Jack cheese and 8 oz. of Parmesan cheese.

Got that done, then remembered that I had eggs that needed to be pre-frozen to go into the freeze dryer when the asparagus and potatoes come out so I cracked and whipped up 6-1/2 dozen eggs. Got those on the four trays and in the freezer to await their turn in the freeze dryer.

By this time, I was so tired but the fridge guy was coming today and the kitchen needed a lot of attention. Took a shower and went to bed!