Baby Rhubarb – Far from ‘home’

In Fall of 2013, I moved the rhubarb crowns from under the propane tank of my new ‘home’ to a dry garden bed with rescued from mowing operations, Irises

In Summer of 2015, I quit harvesting from the first transplant who put up a seed stalk…

In Summer of 2016, I did the same on another transplant that put forth a seed stalk –

In Summer of 2019, I had one baby rhubarb, about 2 feet away from the 2015 stalk

This spring, of 2020?

Another Baby Rhubarb, about 4 feet from the 2016 stalk and 5 feet away from the 2015 one…

Moral of the story?

Mother Nature cares not about my understanding of distance, time or clumsy operations – She finds the way forth!

StarDate – Something…..Check In

Once I wasn’t keeping track of the days for ‘sourdough starter’ operations, I once more lost track of the time – but – sigh – at this point?

I am reminded I can, left to me own devices, blissfully go through one day of challenges, achievements, failures, try-try-again on one front or another, in ‘my world’ and often, navigate it best while I just ‘pretend the rest of the world is hunky dory ‘ and does not care if I’m alive, well, kicking, working, or playing here – –

That all said, I find connecting via phone/text/online/trying to keep up in groups/news feeds a lil more taxing in frustration levels every day – so I’m back to taking a day (or several) off in between times – – just cuz…it’s in me own mental health operations to do so –

But, yes, I have a whole ALBUM of songs that work for me to ‘deep focus’ work to – OR Chillax to, when I’m rather discombobulated from an external world that swirls around me, or the swirling pool I thought I could wade in….and ran right into – the unexpected riptide/undertow – 😀

Just so you, too, might listen to a ‘re-discovered’ fave Or a new ‘chill the you-know-what-out’ soundtrack – here ya go:

That’s it – that’s all I’ve got to share – anything else would be a 50,000 word long post that rambled on and on, back and forth through history – from past ‘errors/lessons once learned’ to ‘okey-dokey, why are you surprised, cuz ya known, in 1348 (3414 BC, 1780 AD, etc.) such and such happened that rather echos today” non-expert commentary/opinions – – 😀

G’night – sleep tight – May you and yours be blessed by grace in all it’s manifestations and forms of arrival.

StarDate 10 – Kitchen Experiments Update

The sourdough starter …’started’ 10 days ago has been trucking right along and earning it’s keep as I go along on ‘using sourdough starter discard’ for various recipes –

Some I have ‘followed’ for such things – some are ‘done in modification of tried/true recipes’ – Win some, fail some, but none have yet been inedible or given us food poisoning….

That said…um, yeah, we poured out a shot or two volume portions for the two ‘2-litre sized hard sodas/let it go for awhile with burping of CO2 built up to prevent explosions, overall” experiments were taste/palate for ABV (alchohol by volume) experiential, subjective taste tests today –

Peach/Mango wins for ‘knock your socks off ABV” –

Crap! Burned my throat like a shot of whiskey or some other libations done in my younger years – yes, I remember the sensation – and didn’t ‘taste much’ expect the “WHOO! That has a kick!” immediate reaction – then about 10 minutes later, thinking “Dudette, DO NOT EVER DO THAT AGAIN on empty stomach or not mixed with ice/water, SOMETHING!” –

Strawberry/Raspberry wins for taste

Um, it tastes better, has more flavor – and not knock one on their immediate/shortly thereafter butt (my personal take on it).

Seeing as how I have a better hope in hell of growing strawberries/raspberries here, than I do of growing peaches/mangos – I guess you already know what I might run experiments on to see how various time/ratios might ramp the ‘kick your butt’ factor up on the strawberry/raspberry formula and various ‘just give me booze – I could use the ‘tranquilizing/numb the muscle/bone pain effects…please’ fronts – LOL

BOTH WON on consistency/texture…given no 2nd racking, no filtering of yeast leavings..etc…

Seriously, for long time followers here and those who know my whole ‘take on the matter’ – you just KNEW I wasn’t going to filter out the pulp, try for the perfectly aged, clear mix, etc… right?

Cuz of all the research into how many vitamins and nutrients and other goodies are in the fiber, yeast/fermentation leavings – and how we miss out on that stuff striving for the perfectly store bought, clear concoction that never varies in color/thickness etc…

Why yes, I prepared the ‘mash’ (? I think that is what you call it – LOL) but I just pureed it with a stick blender and dumped it all in –

Didn’t filter it or anything – just left it all in –

I ‘burped’ the ‘jugs’ this a.m. We shook them up to ‘mix’, then slowly opened (long burp), poured out a wee dram for each of us to try, and –

Well?

So far, so good just keeping it all together – If you want liquid nutrition of preserved thingees that keeps all of it together, it works –

If you want knock you on the butt and/or ‘burns my throat, think it’s good alkey-hall for getting loopey-looed’ I have that too – BUT – early days –

Seriously – I did very simply, in recycled/washed, 2 liter pop bottles – a sauce pan and sugar/yeast –

That said, got my grains to sprouting activities going again –

Cuz ya know, there is a recipe in Wild Fermentations on how to make “Bouza” (Egyptian Beer) from sourdough/loves and water + time –

And, haven’t gotten ‘hops’ established on the place, nor am I spending funds to order in equipment or boxed/canned additives to be a ‘beer brew master’ – but, I ALSO here those facilities in Mexico that produce the fave beer of the man-child have been shut down for awhile – so who knows how long I might have to come up with a ‘doable/okay, can live with the substitution’ recipe for beer?

Not long, perhaps – so tired -tonight – on so many fronts – but still, small gains made in some areas, everyday – LOL

Hope this finds you and yours well. Reposting initial project picture, cuz too tired and working on multiple fronts – community, work and homestead ways to think of/or want to go take current pictures! 😀

P.S. – The Sima? Still not touching/opening it -It had a longer, more precisely stated overall, ‘leave it the f!! alone, will ya?” instructions across all the recipes I looked at – 😀

StarDate 8 – Kitchen Experiments

So…um…well, I started off good this a.m. Made muffin tin sized mini-Italian meatloaf recipe, with cheesy/garlic smashed tators on top, and took a ‘swing’ at modifying my inherited dinner roll recipe to using sourdough, eggs, oil (sans milk and butter) …

Mini-meatloafs did fine, even with adjusted on fly ingredients to put in more veggies, less panko crumbs (RATIONING! for such store bought things like crumbs/panko – PUHLEASE let me find a way to not shop in-store or online – PUHLEASE!)

The modified dinner roll recipe from sourdough starter discard? Um…well – forgot to check on it sooner than my usual “meh – check in evening/tomorrow morning’ for rise/punch down I’m used to on no-knead, slow rise fronts and …

It raised faster than anything before, just thought to check it (almost bed time…) and lost some that spewed out over the bowl – still pliant and responsive after ‘punch down/fold over’ operations, so guess, unless I walk into a mess in the morning, I’ll shape to rise/bake first thing in the a.m.

Soda/Hard Soda Ferments

Strawberry/Raspberry one is trucking right along and still needs ‘burbed’ a few times during the day to keep plastic recycled pop bottle from exploding –

Peach/mango recipe slowing down and I’ve now combined back together in one bottle – and added a smidge of sugar in case the yeast were starving….taste testing is set for tomorrow night so we can assess ingredients, time, etc., but didn’t want to swig made-by-mistake-cooking vinegar – so, as usual, flying by the seat of my pants on some fronts and winging it as I go with my best WAG given months/years of READING about it, before actually DOING it –

The Sima?

Well…um…it bubbled the airlock right along about 1/2 – 1 day in, then ramped, up, then slowed, and I thought, “oxygen – it needs oxygen, right?” so I spent one day doing the ‘twist’ of the bucket on the floor, then the next day doing kettle-style Tai Chi moves with the bucket and on third-4th day, pulled the airlock out, barely, shoved right back in and then ‘did the twist’ or country swing with it again –

Who knows what it will turn out like, at this point?

Another day computer bound –

Not really held hostage, but, um, got into staying up late, so no longer waking up on me own around 2am-5am – nope, waking up when the sun has been saying ‘rise and shine, sleepy head’ for an hour or more, which is just about the time my email explodes, I do client work, log into social media to assist in getting local word out and well – yup, another day not spent primarily in garden or kitchen activities/dreams –

I’m getting slower at multi-tasking numerous things, the older I get – I would LIKE to think it’s because I’m focused on what I’m doing “right now” and lose track of time, but alas, I usually dive into so much ‘awareness/focus’ on the now, that ANY and I say ANY newbie to being a time management guru personage would just shake their head and yell at me,

You are seriously in need of time management, prioritizing help!

We’ll see – thus far, individuals, friends, family & mother nature seem to forgive me such things – not so much in other arenas where the clock, calendar and ‘just in time’ marketing things that seem to drive so much of online world, seem to take precedence….

And so…I sign off tonight with one lone picture of the NOW patted down ‘holy carramba!” sourdough dinner rolls in process.

(I did take pics of the dough after too long a rise, and the made hours ago lunch/supper/quick breakfast tomorrow mini-meatloafs, however, wouldn’t ya know? The camera now takes pics without warning me the SD card isn’t back in it from the computer I used to download/optimize pics….sigh – more learning/settings, reminders to me, to-do – LOL)

Hope this finds you & yours well!

Stardate 6- Breakfast Crepes

With the Sourdough Starter really taking off and my ability to save 1 cup discard from it each day, I saved both yesterday’s and this morning’s discard and made a variation of crepes, morphed into breakfast burritos without the salsa/spices.

I was trying to go for the ‘McGriddle’ taste, but without the sticky syrup portion I figured I’d end up getting by putting in mixture, so I used maple syrup in the crepes – even doubling/tripling the syrup didn’t really make it ‘shine through’ in taste, but they turned out okay without being super sweet.

I did remember to take pictures –

While resizing/optimizing, I realized,

“Wow! When was the last time I deep cleaned my toaster oven?!?

My shame is now public, and not sure if I’ll share with my mom, or just send her the recipe without the pictures – for she would be sorely disappointed in the state of my oven…”

That said, here is Breakfast Crepes fixed using a toaster oven and griddle/skillet since someone recently commented on my lack of kitchen equipment and how did that work? So figured I’d show & tell, in all it’s ‘baked on’ glory.

I do have plenty of cast iron tools, and a neighbor makes the cool handle covers for them, so it’s easier to move back and forth between oven, stove top and counter now that I have one handle cover for each skillet – 🙂

P.S. I store and use dehydrated foods as part of my usual grocery pantry and my neighbor’s chickens are going to town on laying right now, so not really rationing on the ‘eggs’ at this point!

I encourage all to get creative with the filling – you could use creme cheese and fruits or veggies, carnivore filling of seasoned meats, etc. A reduction of the sweetener, increasing the salt and/or adding a variety of spices could turn these crepes into a variety of flavors:)

Sourdough Crepes

• 2 cups sourdough starter (discard)
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup coconut or avocado oil (liquid)
• 2 to 4 TBS of maple syrup (honey, sugar, dependent up on taste)
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Mix all together into thin batter.
2. Pour on hot griddle, to appx 4-5” diameter
3. Cook on first side until top is bubbled and set
4. Turn once – cook 30 seconds on 2nd side (keeps crepe pliable)
5. Cover stack of crepes to keep warm

If you tilt the skillet, JUST RIGHT! right after pouring the batter on, you can see the little ‘fractals’ spread out and form at the edge in pretty patterns. Resource list at bottom of the page on Fractals – They fascinate me!

Filling

Spoon mixture onto crepes and roll up

• 1/2 lb of breakfast sausage
• 1 cup shredded potatoes (or rehydrated hashbrowns)
• 1 TBS minced onion (rehydrated)
• 3 TBS of butter (in thirds)
• 5 eggs (mine are medium sized – adjust up or down for size)
• 1 tsp salt (halved)
• 1 tsp pepper (halved)
• 1 TBS cream or milk
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese (optional)

1. Crumble sausage in oven safe skillet and bake in oven at 350º
2. Pre-Heat Griddle and melt 1 TBS of butter on griddle
3. Spread Hash browns on griddle, sprinkle 1/2 tsp salt & 1/2 tsp pepper on top.
4. Dot 1 TBS of butter on top of the hash browns
5. Cook on one side until browned, turn, and cook on other side until browned.
6. Remove Hash browns to bowl.
7. Remove sausage skillet from oven to stovetop and, if not fully cooked, finish cooking to doneness
8. Remove sausage to bowl with hash browns
9. Mix 5 eggs, remaining salt & pepper, cream/milk & stir in cheese
10. Add remaining butter to skillet, scramble the eggs while cooking with whisk or spatula.
11. When done, mix the hash brown and sausage mixture into the eggs.
12. Roll apps 2 TBS of mixture up in each crepe.
13. Serve warm, keep warm in buffet/crock pot or roll in foil and refrigerate/freeze

Makes 10 filling crepes. I ate 2 and man-child ate 3 and we each have supper for today, as well – 🙂

In other news….

Several people are either talking about their adjusted or implemented exercise routines due to being in isolation or not working their normal style of job…

I will report in that I think, I did maybe 5 minutes akin to the…um..what do you call them? Kettle Ball? Mixed with Tai Chi moves?

All I know is I briefly removed the air lock on the batch of Sima (to oxygenate some) put it back in and then rather swung back and forth, front to back with each hand a few times holding the bucket, to give it a ‘good stir’ – it had slowed down on bubbling the airlock, so thought it might need a shake – …..

Think we’ll taste the hard soda tonight or tomorrow – fermenting/CO2 build up is slowing daily – 🙂

Hope this finds you and your well!

Resources on Fractals

Nova – Hunting the Hidden Dimension

The Secret Life of Chaos

On Amazon Prime Video – The Secret Life of Chaos