Vicky Learns to Cook

When we were young, I never imagined there was an actual reason that my parents or any adults would do hard work knowing that they'd be sore for days later.  They'd laugh it off, and lament about youth being wasted on the young.  Part of the bliss is being ignorant I suppose.  Thinking about the gardening projects, knowing the amount of weeding and pickers and sticks to deal with is daunting. Knowing how sore I'm going to be would be a deterrent, except for one thing - There is real pleasure in accomplishing something hard.  Anyone who does any sport or martial art will tell you, it hurts. But accomplishing a goal is really worth it. It's the same when you build a garden. The work is worth it.  Our online church service today was about identity, and how we tend to tie our identity to things like high school letter jackets or a particular hair do or even things like "I'm a person who eats too much. I just can't control it." Each of these things, when st

I spent some time thinking about building a foodie tour of Michigan.  But how do you go about doing that? I started with looking up the agriculture of the state, what does Michigan grow that we eat? Keep in mind you can grow inedible things like corn for fuel for example.  I knew about the cherries, blueberries and apples because a lot of destinations focus on it like traverse city, grand haven, and anywhere north of grand rapids respectively. And growing in and around Bay City, I knew we grew sugar beets, which is one of two sources for granulated sugar.  We have dairy farms up north so I knew we produce milk, and then of course cream and cheese.  But there is more.  Michigan has wineries, cattle, calves, hogs, chicken eggs, turkeys, asparagus, bell peppers, carrots, pumpkins, snap peas, sweet corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, cranberries, fish like salmon and yellow perch(third favorite), cat fish, chubs (see picture below), lake herring, lake trout (very favorite), walleye (2nd favorit

Now that I've finished the book about sailing on a 2 year excursion, (turns out for the second time!) (Yeah its totally worth reading twice) where one of the recipes in here were conch fritters,  I picked up a book apparently about apples. So what better dessert to make than an apple fritter loaf? (Recipe follows) I'm nearly out of foil, so my base of the fritter loaf has some foil but I'm afraid the loaf may still stick. It has a lot of sugar, as you can imagine. And sugar loves sticking to pans.  What's cool about this recipe is it has layers - batter, apples, and cinnamon brown sugar, repeat, then bake. Pretty simple.  My daughter loves apples so she will be happy when it's done. She even bought apples for it specifically.  After taking a whopping 4 hours to make dinner (chicken enchiladas - a favorite of Hubby and I) and finish my book, I realized when you do what you love (which of course includes eating it) time flies! I did check the gardens this morning and

This morning it was HOT outside. We are not used to that in Michigan! I went for my morning garden walk and everything was looking good, except the potato I planted was moved to the front of the garden with toothy bite marks in it. I'm not saying it was the squirrels, but the birds have beaks, is all I'm saying. And the bunnies would've finished the meal.  thief                                     I went to check the backyard and it was no longer a lake. In fact I could walk all the way to the back now.  I looked up the weather again, and the rain was going to really hold off until like thursday/friday ish.  So I dug up the dirt on the low side and filled in the high side. If I can only plant on one side until next weekend (and paycheck) I wanted those tomatoes in the ground.  They are getting leggy and starting to try to root from their stems.  It looks like it should. Dark soil and healthy green plants. I'm pretty excited about them. I put the cherry tomatoes in front

Today was the day we moved the living room around so I could use the desk.  It's actually an antique, from April  of 1928.  The kind that you need to rub with lemon oil once a month.  The top folds open and it has internal drawers and even an inkwell holder.  I tried with the top down (see below) but since my chair wont go up any more, I'm too short. (5'2"!) I put the top back up and set the laptop down in, which worked out perfectly.  So now, I actually have an office at home! I've had the ability to work from home for decades, but never needed to do anything like this because I preferred to work from the office.  Now that necessity requires that I work from home every day, my hips couldn't take the couch for so many hours at a time.  I still can use the couch with my side table for reading books which makes the whole room useable. I'm pretty excited.  I'm on my second dose of Ibuprofen however because I had to crawl around on the hardwood floor for ho

My daughter's Graduation stuff and the onset of planting my seedlings has got me busier than normal, so I haven't posted lately.  I'm also getting the living room, my main room for writing and working, re-arranged so I can move a real desk up against the window and put a real office chair in front of it. That means a major overhaul of the room.  Daughter loved the camera we got her - it came with so much stuff like a tripod and lenses. I have some pictures below. She also loved having goulash for a meal and cake for dessert :) We went to go get her cap and gown and yearbook but it turns out I read the date wrong and that event is next friday. So that means we went to lunch and then tried out using a masks at Target. She's worn them before but I've been a homebody for a couple months.  I didnt like it much, but it's doable. My mask kept sliding up into my eyelashes, which I didnt expect. I heard later that it was sitting too high on my nose.  And Target...talk ab

I've not ever had any cravings for kale until I had trader joe's cheesy kale chips.  Trips there aren't likely, and I would eat the entire box when I got them, so I haven't been out there in a long while.  But today I got my box of veggies, and kale was in there. Did I intentionally keep it when I customized the box? I can't remember to be honest.  But since there was a miscommunication about yeast vs Nutritional yeast, I have some Nutritional yeast. And I began to to wonder if I had what I needed to make the chips.  I found a recipe by the Minimalist Baker, so I thought I'd give it a try.  Kale unbundled Drying the Kale after destemming and ripping to bite sized pieces Added oil to rub in Ready to go into the oven It's in the oven baking away. I really hope this is as good as TJs.  It's looking good already. For dinner we had baked scallops and purple brussels sprouts, cut in half and roasted.  Next time I'd make them on the stove shredded. There wa

Shhh! Don't tell her.  But since today was my daughter's last day of school, we are starting the graduation ceremonies at home tomorrow with a chocolate chip cookie dough cake, gifts, and her favorite meal - goulash! Chocolate chip cookie dough cake Covered so she can't see  Being the kid of a baker this is a normal sight The fun tee shirt (plus another gift but just in case she sees this... will wait) We finally have a date for picking up her cap and gown, yearbook, and something called a grad bag with a drive through. The school is also doing an online kind of celebration instead of a Senior dinner.  And we are hearing a tentative date for the graduation ceremony where they walk and get their diploma. I'm glad they decided to do it however modified it may be, this summer.  They also have some kind of prom in the works so she can still wear her dress. Hopefully the tailor will be open before then. I don't sew at all (yikes!) Then all that's left to worry about

Rice a roni Low Sodium has been scarce lately, and if you follow my facebook posts, you saw they were gouging price from regularly $1 to $6 on Amazon, per box.  After a month of trying Kroger still didn't have it, so today I tried to make my own.  Now, the reason I care so much is because I grew up on the stuff and it is my comfort food.  I also have a sensitivity to MSG, so while I can tolerate the amount in the low sodium type, I can't eat the regular Rice a roni.  I started with a recipe on the internet, but had to modify it since the recipe calls for chicken bouillon, which anyone who has the sensitivity knows, is loaded with MSG.  The original recipe from Angie of "Big Bear's Wife"  is below.* *Homemade Chicken Rice-A-Roni by Angie Barrett July-23-2012 Ingredients 1 cup raw angel hair pasta broken into 1/2 inch long pieces 1 1/2 cup uncooked long-grain white rice 4 cups chicken broth 2 cup water 4 tablespoons butter or margarine 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt 1/

There's not a lot going on this weekend, to be honest. It's cool and rainy, I made a fabulous meatloaf with mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese sauce.  Meatloaf, cornbread, broccoli with cheese sauce and garlic mashed potatoes But I mean that was the actual highlight of my day. And it's really fine. I'm not killing myself to do "all the things" lately. I'm resting. I'm watching tv on a regular basis. I'm trying new things and saving the good recipes.  I did create an avatar, so that was fun for a few mins :) Me So then for such a yawner of a weekend, I thought I'd list out the tv shows and movies I've got on my list and why. If you're interested in any of them, they're on Netflix.  Currently Watching:   Glee  - it turns out I like musicals and drama Dead to Me - I like suspenseful shows and this one has plenty of suspense, plus Christina Applegate plays a mom of a teen.  Criminal Minds - Mystery and suspense and human behavior! i

Today,  I worked out how to make popsicles.  Partly because I cant get the flavor I want from the store lately and partly because I wanted to learn how to do it.  My first lesson was to use ripe fruit. I could smell the nectarines sitting in the bowl behind me so I thought I'd give it a try. I think i ended up with too much lemon juice, but it worked out pretty good, in spite of that.  Here is the popsicle:  Yeah, it's a bunny. I think I got these around Easter one year. :) Here is the recipe:  Popsicles 6 oz ripe fruit 3.8 oz lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon) 2 Tbsp sugar Instructions Slice the peaches in half, remove the pits, and give them a rough chop. Add the peaches to a food processor or blender, along with the sugar and lemon juice. Puree until smooth. Fill the popsicle molds to the top, and then insert sticks. Freeze until solid. To remove the popsicles, fill a sink with hot water and immerse the mold up to, but not over, the top lip for several seconds, then remove the po

After asking for it for weeks, I finally got my ground bison.  So I made bison burgers with it:  Hello Bison! Recipe: 1 lb ground bison 1/2 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce Salt pepper 1 tbsp breadcrumbs Mixed this together and made 3 patties. Fried 3 mins per side on med low.  Served with caramelized onions.  I also made zucchini fritters:  The Recipe: 3 small zucchini, grated, squeeze out liquid 1 egg salt pepper 1/4 c flour Mix together Fry 1/4 c scoops in olive oil until browned. Flip and continue to brown  Voila, dinner! Hope you get to try it someday! Stay safe, sane and healthy! Vicky

After reading my friend's thread about virtually doing 80 countries in 80 days with her kids during the summer, I did some quick research on foods around the world. Can you guess what is the country with the best food is? Italy of course! I've long suspected.  Now that I got through the breads I wanted to try, as of today, I'm on to sweet breads this weekend. So the baking is taken care of. But finding the list of foods in each country that is deemed "the best" was intriguing. Some of the foods I'd never heard of. Some of the countries I've never heard of! I may have to try foods from around the world myself! Since we planned on spaghetti today, i was looking for an Italian bread. Ciabatta came up but it takes 20 hours to rise! 20 hours! So that wasnt going to work for dinner.  So I looked up 'quick easy italian bread' and that's where I found the 1 hour bread.  Yeah! I had to put that to the test.  The recipe The recipe seemed reasonable. I pu

Today I went over the plan for the gardens. So far the strawberries, blueberries. raspberries,  oregano, and sage are in the garden from last year. The rest are either seedlings or growing from scraps. Except for the rosemary and parsley, who are going to be a bit behind this year. The rosemary seed is still enroute, and the parsley seed was planted yesterday. Crossed fingers! Along the side, next to my Japanese Maple, I have room for some tomatoes, and caraway. The asparagus is still just a nub and I'm hoping this last freeze didn't do anything detrimental.  Most of the things that I grew from scraps will be back here. I needed to separate the tomatoes from the tomatillos last year, so this year I moved them so they aren't right next to each other.  This will be in the raised bed, I got a couple months ago.  So then between today and May 29th (planting day) I need to get 6 more bags of soil for the back. Other than that, I just have to keep the plants that I have alive and

The myriad of cars going to work, going to classes, going to the store on my street have been replaced with a myriad of delivery vans, trucks, and cars on my street.  It's just as busy as it was before, just a lot more strangers stopping on it. Who'd have thought? I'm watching Glee now, which has been a great show, but now that I'm in the 4th season, everything is changing. I like it a little less.  It's art imitating life - when we graduate high school everything, good and bad, changes. And this pandemic, too, will change everything.  I've been afraid of going back to work, going out at all, because I didn't know how to act, how to be safe, how to live my life.  I didn't ask to be put here, at home, only going out once a week to grocery shop, getting 99% of what I need online.  But I'm here. And I'm living it. I've made it so far, 2 months now.  But believe it or not, there was a corporate "return to work" training that set me on t

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there. To celebrate, typically we'd head to Mom's house or she'd come here and we would do something together. Since that's not allowed during this pandemic, I put together a zoom meeting so I could talk to both my parents and my brother and his family. It's been a long time since we all got to talk to each other and see each other. It was really nice. I recommend it if you can swing it. My own family got me dinner from Ventimiglia. I tell you their lasagna is so good, you should try it. They make it all from scratch, even the noodles. I also got cards and hugs which I love. I finalized editing of the Apple Pie video today. You can see it here on my Vicky's Cakes page. :) It's my gift to you.  LINK And here it is on YouTube in case you cannot see it in Facebook LINK I enjoyed the process and learned quite a bit. I have more learning to go, but at least now I can create a basic instructional video. Hope you

I spent quite a lot of time setting up the camera just right. I made the videos. I made the apple pie all the while talking about it, like some kind of pro. The videos need to next be imported, which apparently takes forever? No indication. So while I wait, I'll give you some tips I learned today in my overall cleaning, tai chi, baking, video taking, more baking, cleaning, and making dinner kind of saturday. 1. They say to clean the house top to bottom, but I say, start with the grossest mess first. This makes you feel accomplished and makes you want to keep going until you get to the level called "acceptable" aka " I ran outta time and my back hurts". So it goes: Garbage, Cat litter, Dust, Vacuum, dishes left to soak last night, stove, microwave, breakfast dishes, counters, Ok i'm tired. There was no organizing. (Bathrooms were already wiped down and didn't need cleaning again yet, in case you're wondering.) 2.  Tai Chi is hard, but it's

Today I tried out a rye roll recipe since I had some rye flour, and it was time to continue my education on breads. Turns out when you make a rye bread the rye flour part of it is only 1/3 of the flour or so. The rest is something more light and fluffy. If you are considering making rye bread, there are different grades: White or Light rye : the rye equivalent of all-purpose flour. It's milled from the center (endosperm) of the rye berry, but doesn't include the oily germ at the very center, nor the fiber-rich bran that forms the berry's outer skin. Medium and dark rye : also milled from the center of the rye berry, and neither includes the germ. However, as the miller "scoops" the center out of the berry, and gets closer and closer to the outer bran layer, the color of what s/he mills darkens Pumpernickel : rye version of whole wheat flour, including bran, endosperm, and germ: the entire rye berry. This is what I used. It's pretty flavorful, so I de