Font Size:     

Category: cooking/baking

Fri. Nov. 29, 2024 – Slightly less red Friday

Cold but clear. Warming later but IDK how much. Funny thing is that at the beginning of the week the forecast was for warming. Cooling happened. Oh well, that’s why I no longer pay much attention.

Thursday was a lot of cooking, some great smells and even better tastes, sitting around watching tv, and the smallest bit of work… and only because it enabled cooking.

I made bread in the machine. Had to hit one of my “bread kit” buckets for sugar. The buckets have 10 pounds of flour, 5 pounds sugar, yeast packets, and a liter of peanut oil. I realized I should add some salt to them too. Add water and there are several variations on bread that can be made from the bucket. I’ve got buckets of the bulk ingredients and salt, oil, and yeast in other places, but the “kit” bucket puts them conveniently together. Oh, there is a pound of corn meal in there too, for variety. Yeast was from 2022 but worked fine.

All the milk for cooking was LaLa UHT full fat milk in shelf stable half liter cartons. I keep them in the fridge for even better life. They are a great choice to have milk on hand in places where you don’t use enough to keep fresh around, or don’t have fresh. I have the single serving box milks too, but they tend to age out before we use them. They won’t kill you, but the taste changes and they get chunky like tapioca if you let them get more than a few months past ‘best by’.

———————-
Plan for today is to put up the Christmas lights and some decorations, and then maybe do some of the other stuff on the list. The attic work gets pushed to another day.

We’re headed home on Saturday, without much time to do more than pack up and secure the house. I don’t think I’ll get into the bigger projects in the attic without an extra day of wiggle room. I’d love to stay until late Sunday like normal, but wife and kids have stuff to do in Houston, and I have an auction pickup Saturday afternoon- ham radio stuff for me and for my swapmeet in March.

“Plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable” or something very close to that was said by a very successful General. I’m going to go with it.

Do some planning. Use some preps. And do some stacking. Maybe there will be a sale!

nick

Read the comments: 28 Comments

Thur. Nov. 28, 2024 – Thanksgiving Day

Cool and damp with a small chance of rain today. We’ll see. Most of the local weather goes around us here. Yesterday turned out very nice, with moderate temps and not too much sun.

It was a good day for working and I did get stuff done. I spent some of the afternoon doing meatspace things, building relationships. Getting a feel for people. Trying to become an insider, rather than an interloper. This is not an easy process. It takes a lot of time. And a lot of work.

Speaking of work, I think I’ll try to not do to much of it today. This is a great time to be mindful of what we have to be thankful for. And there is a lot. Time together, and time to get our stuff together.

Thank you all for continuing to come around and participate in this shared endeavor. Thank you Barbara for your continued support. Thank you Rick for all you do.

Count your blessings today, and give thanks.

nick

Read the comments: 55 Comments

Wed. Nov. 27, 2024 – progress is being made, albeit slowly

Cool, even cold this morning, warming later, then cold again. Another beautiful day, if a bit on the chilly side.

Got the walls in the dockhouse buttoned up. Still need to buy and install the trim, but at least the walls are closed.

For every new receptacle I put in two duplex outlets. I flip one upside down so that no matter how the flat plug is built, you should be able to plug in and have the cord point down. I do quad boxes because if you need a receptacle, you probably need more than one…and I’m doing the work anyway…

Today I’ll clean up my mess, put the room mostly back together, and move onto the next thing on the list. Not sure what that will be, but I’ll do something.

I should probably start brining the turkey, if we’re going to brine it…

Time to do the ten thousand things.

And stacking. Can’t forget about that.

nick

Read the comments: 47 Comments

Mon. Nov. 25, 2024 – a week off… sorta

Should be cool and clear again today. Other than the crazy wind, yesterday was very nice, staying in the 70s most of the day. The sun was very hot, but the wind kept me cool. Today is supposed to be a little warmer, and without the wind.

I slept in,but not as late as some times when we’re up here. I was up and productive anyway. Although daytime reading is like daytime drinking… once you start, you won’t get much else done.

I got the speakers hooked up on the dock, did more of the electrical work, and started on finishing closing up the walls in the dockhouse. Then I ran out of daylight.

Had a nice fire and chat on the patio instead of my usual time alone on the dock with my radio and tiny fire.

Today I’ll keep working on getting the dockhouse back together from the flood damage. After that we’ll see about some networking or some other stuff on the list. There’s plenty on the list, but if it’s nice out, I might shift stuff around a bit to take advantage of the weather.

—————-

The turkey is defrosting in the fridge, and we’re debating whether to brine it and bake, or brine and smoke… or maybe some other technique will jump out at us. Dunno, brining seems to be a common denominator, so maybe I’ll start with that. I generally cook at home, and my wife does most of the cooking when we’re up here. Thanksgiving will take both of us though. And maybe the kids will get involved with something other than just the baking. Maybe.

—————–

Meanwhile the world continues to race headlong towards global conflict. Make your preparations. Learn what you need to know. Meet the people around you. Stack.

nick

Read the comments: 50 Comments

Fri. July 26, 2024 – not feeling the love…

Hot and humid, raining? Maybe. Rained all day yesterday, so why not today too? I’ve got things to do and would like to use the pickup truck, but don’t want everything to get wet… The rain did cool it down yesterday which was nice. Started at 72F and ended at 78F.

Got through a whole day without hearing about issues with my hobby website. Guess I did finally get the DNS fixed and everything critical working right. If it’s not, I’ll hear about it. Didn’t get a lot else done except auction stuff. I did get two small woodworking projects knocked out. That gets the pieces out of my office and the pile of stuff needing attention. It feels like work but it is really work avoidance.

The new fridge is nice and cold, but as it was wet and raining, I didn’t move it into the garage. I have the fridge and freezer on riser stands to make the tops level, and to raise them so it’s a bit easier to get into the back and bottom of the fridge. The new fridge is taller but narrower than the old one. I’ll need to remake the riser for it if I want them to match. I’ll delay that for a day or two and hope for dryer weather. I need to pick up some 2x4s or hit the piles of fence wood…

———-
Got a quote from a facebook guy to connect the whole house gennie. Keep in mind it’s 10 feet from the electrical service and the gas service. $3000. $700 for the gas line, and the rest for the electrical work. Yeah, I don’t think so. At least not yet.

———-
Today I’ve got pickups all over town, east side, west side, south side… and tomorrow, north side. I got some good stuff for the house and the BOL, and even some hobby stuff. I’m definitely shirking getting the house back together though.

———
Dinner last night was a pork loin roast (frozen in 2023), sauteed zucchini with cheese sauce (fresh from store), and shelf stable sourdough bread. Ate about 2 pounds of the roast… For dessert, white chocolate macademia nut cookies, from mix with a best by of 9-21. All the cookies got eaten too. Tonight will be a nice chuck roast in the slow cooker, and another loaf of bread.

Stack some food and the means to cook it. And practice. Yum.

nick

Read the comments: 37 Comments

Mon. Jun. 17, 2024 – at the BOL where there is work to do

Hot again, with a chance of rain. It was hot and clear yesterday, but cooler in the shade with a nice cooling breeze off the lake. We are very fortunate to be on the downwind side of the lake, and the breeze comes into our cove and up the hill past the house. That side is cool in the shade. The other side of the house doesn’t get that breeze and is stifling.

I had a nice breakfast with the family, then got to work. I knocked out a couple of easy and quick things to get started. One was adding a screen to the garage door opening. It’s not a complete seal, but if it blocks 90% of the bugs it’s totally worth it. It attaches with velcro to the bottom of the door, and has straps to the side rails. There is a seam held together with magnets in the middle that works very well.

I unloaded the truck, moved some things around, but I have some more to do today. The youngest child ran the pressure washer most of the afternoon, cleaning the driveway, a rug, and the side patio. She likes it, it’s “so satisfying” to see the dirt blown away. She was in shade for most of the work, and the mist is very cooling. Eldest child was mostly doing cleaning inside but also brushed all the spider webs off the outside of the house.

I spent the late afternoon and early evening running the string trimmer doing all the edging and cleanup that I’ve been in too big of a hurry to do the last three times I cut the lawn. The clean edges make a huge difference in the appearance of the property.

Spent some time floating in the lake to cool down and even did some fishing around dusk. Didn’t catch anything though.

Today my wife will be working remotely using the Starlink, while I do more cleaning and organizing. I think I’ll concentrate on the garage and shed. They may go home tonight, and I might stay until Tuesday morning. Mostly it will depend on if the weather is nice. Wife wants to stay up if it’s nice. The forecast has a chance of rain, but we’ll see. This area is outside the local forecast areas, and the lake and geography means we don’t get the same weather as surrounding towns anyway.

I’ve got a generator carb to clean before I put it away, and lots of tree limb stuff to do if I run out of motivation or parts, or decide to switch it up and work on other parts of the list.

Stacks provided a lovely Father’s Day dinner, kerosene for the lantern, cleaning supplies for the rug, and gas for the pressure washer and trimmer… They’ll help you too. Stack it up…

nick

Read the comments: 59 Comments

Thur. May 9, 2024 – time keeps on slippin’ into the future…

Warm. Damp. Supposed to get into the 90s, with overcast but no rain. Pretty much how yesterday went. Muggy. Grey. Too warm. The heavy rain got into my Ranger and the carpet and floor mats got wet. I can’t get them to dry because the humidity has been so high.

I did my home stuff, then did a pickup. It was too far away for what I got, but I wasn’t paying attention when the auction closed and didn’t win the second item that would have make it worth while. That’s a bummer.

Made it to my client’s house and did some troubleshooting. Gear failure. Same mode as 4 or more other times. Don’t know what to do to prevent it that we haven’t already done. We’ll replace the gear again, and see what happens.

Picked up the kid and there had been another fight at her school. That’s about 4 in the last couple of days. We finally got a vague note from the Principal about how they don’t tolerate safety risks, but they actually do as the kids involved are still in school. The video is at least as dramatic as any viral school fight video. Principal doesn’t want the kids sharing the video around… yeah, that’ll stop. Our cops were there, and they did break the fights up, but kinda too little too late. D1 doesn’t have any clue to the root causes, but now there is retaliation for the earlier fights happening. So much fun. Mostly invaders fighting, with a couple of white boys involved too. Girls throwing vicious punches too, not the clutching and hair pulling you normally see. It will be nice when school is out for the summer.

While waiting for dinner to cook I started assembling one of the 3D printers. It’s a small Creality filament machine. I got it together and was just about to turn it on and start the alignment and checkout when dinner was ready. I’ll try to find some time today to get it finished. I’ll try to find some time today to do a bunch of stuff that has been pushed back. Hey, it could happen…

I should prioritize, but it seems that grabbing little bits of the various tasks when I can is about the best I can manage at the moment.

Do what you can. Stack some food this week, and some ways to cook it. Or learn to like the taste of bugs…

nick

Read the comments: 123 Comments

Tues. May 6 (or 7), 2024 – hopefully the rain has passed, for a bit anyway…

Warmish, still damp, and possibly clearing to a nice day. Yesterday was a mixed bag, but I didn’t get any more rain during the day. Some other places might have.

As I was driving around I did see that the local bayous are at higher than normal levels. I crossed the San Jac river in the middle of the bridge and couldn’t see down to see what it looked like though. Google gave me flood warnings when I navigated to my auction pickup in Kingwood (north and east, where all the flooding starts to show up as you head out of Houston proper.) I didn’t see many signs of flooding though.

One of my auctioneers did show me a picture of his car flooded to the door handles in Porter.

I did my two pickups, and headed home.

Before and after that I did a bit of stuff around the house. Some more poking at the All in One PC. I ordered more RAM because it was a cheap upgrade and it should be usable for basic tasks. It’s less responsive now that windows had a chance to update, win10 has a LOT of bloat over the years, but it’s still very usable for web and normal tasks. If it had a touch screen it would be perfect for a media center/ music steaming GUI in the garage or dockhouse. Or I might put it on the shelf with the 3D printers to manage those machines, if they need a handy computer nearby…or I could plug my SDR radio dongle into it and have that running in my office. I could still clone the drive to an SSD to get better performance too. That is probably the single best and cheapest way to extend the life of an old machine that is feeling slow.

There is a lot of life left in old, cheap machines. And I like the idea of one machine per task.

Today I’ve got a couple more pickups to do. Kid has an ortho appointment in the morning, and that will get me out and about, while disrupting my routine at the same time. Other kid doesn’t have sports team practice this week, so I’m on deck to do an early pickup for her. Lots of poking at things around the house to do too. Even if the weather is nice, I bet I don’t get out in it much.

On the plus side, my back and neck have been better this week and last. Small mercies.

Oh, almost forgot. Data point. Dinner last night included boxed potatoes (betty crocker au gratin in various flavors) with a best by of 2021 and 2022. I had to open 8 boxes to find two that didn’t have little black bugs INSIDE the sealed plastic bag with the potato slices. Those bugs must have been there the whole time, but only get numerous enough to see in a few years?? The two I made that were “sans bugs” were still tasty and the powdered cheese in the foil pouch was still good. Wife and kids both commented that they liked the potato casserole dish (I did add a few tablespoons of bacon crumbles). Main meat was a sirloin cap roast (picanha roast) from 2021 or ’22. Even a two pounder is thin enough to defrost quickly and cook in less than an hour. That gave me time to cook the potatoes and some instant ‘tube’ biscuits too.

My storage conditions are the suxx, and I expect the ‘breakage’. I’m actually surprised I don’t lose more stored food.

Which is where the stacking comes in. You never really know when you’ll be stuck with what you’ve got. I’d rather have too much, than too little and I’m willing to lose a bit to ensure that. You may feel differently- preferring a more precise FIFO plan, with an exact amount of stored food, and a strict rotation to keep it fresh. That’s cool if it works for you. Whatever you do, stack SOMETHING.. and keep stacking as you use it.

nick

Read the comments: 96 Comments

Fri. Apr. 26, 2024 – wow, this week blazed by…

Warm and humid, overcast, possibly clearing later, or possibly raining. No one knows. We did get a little dusting of moisture from the sky yesterday afternoon. Just an occasional spot hitting my face as I walked across the parking lot, or unloaded stuff at home. The national forecast has us possibly getting rain today and this weekend.

I’m really hoping for no rain at the BOL, as we’ll be there and so will 5 of D2’s friends. It’ll be pretty crowded and intense if we’re all in the house all weekend…The forecast looks like the BOL is right on the edge of the weather, and at home that almost always means we don’t get the bad stuff.

Yesterday I mostly did domestic bliss in the morning, and shopped and cooked in the afternoon and evening… which was fine as dinner was a success, with everything coming out as planned. Even got to use my cast iron to sear the seafood, and if my “winging it” sauce was a little bit salty, it still tasted nice and worked well with the scallops.

I ended up getting my wife an OLED nintendo Switch. I went for an “amazon renewed” version in white as I saved $60 which is a significant percentage… I hope I don’t live to regret that, but it looks great so far.

Now that the anniversary stuff is out of the way, I can do a couple of pickups today, then load up for the BOL. Me, D1, and the dog are headed up today to make sure everything is ready for D2 and her friends. We’ll do her birthday when we get back, with just family. I need to giftwrap her presents today, so they’re ready.

I should also hit Lowes while I’m out and get a few more plumbing things for the irrigation system, which might not be working again. This time I’m going to change the angle of the intake pipe, and try to make it float, so the end can’t get stuck down in the silty lakebed. Some McGivering might be in order.

All in all, my day looks pretty ordinary. You’d never know I was a subversive threat to the nation, just because I want honest government, and more self reliance, while opposing immigration, and decrying the increase in crime and criminality. Why I’ve even started a garden without registering it.

The world is getting crazier by the day, and the violence is already getting started for the summer. BLM had some good ol’ new fashioned whitey hate, and race rioting, this summer seems to be going with the old standby of Jew hatred, along with two-faced P-islam…shouting that they’re the religion of peace and if you don’t believe them, they’ll kill you. Coming soon to a city near you.

Get your stacks built. Learn some skills. Meet with likeminded people. It’ll be getting a lot worse before it starts getting better.

n

Read the comments: 62 Comments

Thur. Apr. 11, 2024 – Just ‘cuz they say it, doesn’t mean it’s true…

Cooler, clear, and still damp. But should be nice later. It cleared out yesterday and turned into a nice day. Sunny, a bit gusty, and low 70s. More of that would be nice.

I spent most of yesterday at home. Did some domestic bliss, and will do more today. Put a pot roast in the slow cooker, and fixins in the bread machine and ended up with a fine dinner 6 hours later. And for not much effort. I tried to test the goodwill bread maker, but I’m obviously missing something about how it works. When I hit “start” I got a 6 hour timer. Should have been about 3 1/2 hours, so I dumped the bucket into my tried and true maker, and proceeded. I should d/l the manual and try again. I made “honey french” instead of my usual “old fashioned oatmeal” bread, and it came out great. Could have used a bit more salt, but other than that, soft airy inside, crunchy outside.

I also hit Costco for gas and groceries. Gas was $2.99, so 32c cheaper than Chevron. That makes a difference in an Expedition. Maybe not so much in a Geo Metro. Spent $400 at Costco and didn’t even overflow the cart. Two bales of Charmin, not on sale. It’s definitely not going on sale with the old frequency as I’m running out before the next sale. I have backup at the offsite location, so I am letting the home supply get low, hoping for the sale to stock up. Didn’t work this month so I sucked it up and paid the $30 per bale. Worse, it feels like there are fewer rolls now. I’ll have to check against the deep storage at some point. USED to be $18 on sale.

Between Costco and HEB, I spent about $800 this week on groceries and sundries. That would have been a HUGE week back in the Trump era.

I found the bin of medical supplies I was looking for. It didn’t have the stuff I needed in it. I’ll have to do some more organizing of medical preps at some point. I need to sort, label, and separate home and away kits. My two main home medical bags need to be refreshed too. I built them when the kids were little, and that was some time ago now…

There’s always more to do.

My auctioneer waved me off as they’ve been working on an in-home estate sale this week. I’ll just stack the bins and have more for next week I guess. I didn’t win anything in the last couple of days’ auctions either so I find myself without any pickup pressure today. I still have a couple of things to pickup, but I won’t be rushing all over the place.

Plan for the day is continue cleaning the house and putting stuff away, as well as processing auction wins, and outgoing auction stuff. Maybe plant some stuff in the garden if the soil isn’t too muddy, and I don’t run out of daylight. The water feature pond pump needs to be fixed or replaced soon too. The thing is getting stagnant. It’s part of the house and yard that I’ve been neglecting in favor of the BOL. Too much to do, not enough time or motivation.

All I can do is keep plugging away. At least I don’t have livestock making demands on my time too. Oh, I do have the kids, and they do need an hour or more of ferrying around every day, and it’s right in my most productive part of the day too. Oh well. I’ll miss it when it’s gone, I’m sure of that. Time is flying by as it is.

———————————————————————————————–

Stack, organize, refresh, build, renew, network, upskill, downsize, and monetize… while you can.

nick

Read the comments: 74 Comments
// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // end of file archive.php // -------------------------------------------------------------------------------