scrambling

My method of cooking scrambled eggs and omelettes has recently changed, and it's such an improvement that every time I make scrambled eggs I think, "I should put this on the blog." Maybe everyone else already knows this tip, as it's apparently been around for many years, but it was new to me. So here goes.

If you like your fried eggs cooked through, but not dry or browned or crisp in any way - then this method is for you. And me. It's definitely the method for me.

The secret is adding a bit of starch to the eggs. I've experimented with the amount of starch - I'm using potato starch - and have settled on a much smaller amount than the (possibly original) version I've seen online.

Potato starch, salt, and pepper stirred into milk.
Eggs on deck.

Here's what I'm doing: 

for each egg, I mix 1/4 teaspoon potato starch with 1 Tablespoon milk in a small bowl, add seasonings, then beat in the eggs. I melt about 2 teaspoons of butter in a frying pan, then add the egg mixture. The amount of butter probably depends on the size of your pan; mine are the small blue Pyrex with detachable handles, made in the 1930s and 40s. A perfect size for two or three scrambled eggs. A bigger pan is much easier for omelettes.

Apart from the potato starch, everything is traditional scrambling: low/medium heat (on my gas stove, 3.5 on a dial of 10 is just right, and 4 is too hot), moving the eggs frequently as soon as they begin cooking, and taking the pan off the heat just before the eggs are completely done. Really, the only difference is that tiny amount of starch!

But the results have been consistently excellent. Best scrambled eggs I've ever had. Isn't it great when a tiny, simple change improves something you've been doing for years?

Did you know about this little piece of magic? If not, and if you like eggs that are consistently soft and neither runny nor dry, I think it's worth a try.

~~~~~

not quite planting time

It's been too cold to plant. I mean, it's been really cold.

Giant kettle of soup cold.

Stodgy-meal cold.

I've even turned the heat on for the past few nights so Piper won't think Winter is back. Heat on in May! Good gracious.

Despite the weather, watching the spring wildflowers appearing and the trees blooming and beginning to leaf out is endlessly exciting.

Unfortunately, the cold nights and overcast days have meant a struggle for some, like these Solomon's Seal plants you saw earlier:

These greening and fast-moving days make me feel I'm late getting the vegetable garden started, but in fact it is still too cold for the things I intend to plant. That said, between the rainy spells there's plenty of prep work to be done in the gardens before anything is planted. A couple of weeks ago I marked out the six upper rows in the terrace vegetable garden, and my helper rough-dug the rows and reinstalled a section of garden fence we had taken down in the autumn.

This is what the rows look like after the soil is just turned over...I think you can see a few rocks there?

So I have to go over each row, foot by foot, sifting the soil through my fingers and tossing the rocks into a bucket. I got one row done last week, on a day when the rain held off til evening. This row is ready to plant as soon as the weather warms up:

Only five more rows to go!

Then there's a new little experimental raised bed in the works, for a hill of either squash or cukes - something that will grow on a trellis. It doesn't look like much yet:

This little bed is on a stony bit of slope and I am trying to support the downhill edge of the bed with rocks sifted from the planting rows. A first layer of organic material has been piled up around a 5-gallon bucket, and there will be some soil added to the top. The bucket has holes drilled in it near the bottom, and my plan is to use it as a waterer, to help roots find deeper moisture in the summer.

I don't plan to buy much seed this year - maybe just summer squash and pole beans. I've saved seed from some of last year's success stories: the candy roaster squash, suyo long cucumbers, and popcorn. I also have Egyptian "walking onions" and field peas ordered last Autumn. All of the above came from Sow True Seed - the Appalachian seed company I learned about from Tipper at the Blind Pig and the Acorn blog. You may recall that Tipper kindly allowed this Yankee to participate several times in her annual seed-testing project, which has been great fun.

This year, Tipper has become a Sow True Seed affiliate: here is Tipper's brand-new affiliate link to the Sow True Seed online catalog, in case you'd care to visit. I really appreciate what these folks are doing to preserve and distribute heirloom varieties.

~~~

How about you? How are your gardens - or garden plans - or next year's garden plans, for those readers living in the southern hemisphere - coming along?

~~~~~

snow and stew

It's snowing again today.
Dara doesn't mind.

"Forget the snow," he says.
"Are there peanuts in your pocket?"

It has snowed for three of the past four days.

Tiny, tiny flakes. For hours and hours and hours.

Azalea catching snowflakes on her tongue.
(Not really.)
(Well, maybe.)

The total accumulation has been less than two feet (so far), but because it has gone on and on, the plowman has come twice. It's an expense, but after decades of not finding anyone reliable to tackle my challenging driveway, I am thrilled to be on this gentleman's list.

Once I asked him if he hates my driveway.

He was nice enough to say, "It isn't the worst one in town.

It is the second-worst."

I genuinely feel so much better knowing that!

~~~

There's been some Big Kettle cooking going on here.

I make a big pot of something simple,

freeze a couple of servings right away,

and then stretch the rest out over a few days

by adding something else to the pot each day.

It's a sort of Evolving Stew.

This ended up as red beans, rice, smoked ham, and cheddar.

This began as haddock chowder.

Then it became haddock/corn chowder.

And ended up as haddock/corn/broccoli chowder.

It was really good, every time!

I'm trying to always have something good, ready to eat.

It's the only way I will eat properly when I am tired.

And I really prefer good food to snacking.

But if I don't plan ahead a little bit,

and cook multiple servings of something good,

I'll rummage in the cupboard and eat crackers all day.

Or peanuts. Lots of peanuts.

I've been buying 5-pound bags of unsalted peanuts in the shell.

For the goats.

Would you want to look at this sweet, trusting face and say,

"I'm sorry, Betula. I ate all the peanuts."

Do you think you could? Really?

While he's standing patiently in the falling snow?

Let's look at that face one more time.

Right.

Time to make another kettle of stew!

~~~~~

summer cooking and a giveaway

In this hot, muggy weather, I have to make an effort to have good food on hand, ready to eat in almost no time. Otherwise, I fear my healthy diet could deteriorate into nothing but gatorade and potato stix.

I try to cook two or more things at once - minimizing the amount of heat added to the kitchen, and making enough "ready to eat" food to last for several meals and snacks. This week, for example, I put a layer of bacon in a pyrex baking dish, covered it completely with chicken thighs, and added a layer of bacon on top. Then I took a picture:

Probably my first photograph of bacon.
I rarely buy it. Seemed like kind of an event.

I covered the dish for baking in a slow oven. And since the oven was going to be on, it was a good time to fetch in a great big gorgeous straightneck squash - the Very First Harvest from the Very Raised Bed! - slice it the long way and clean out the seeds and core, then put it in a second covered pyrex baking dish with a little water to gently cook the squash without drying it out.

I know why I photographed the squash.
It's beautiful.

All week I've been eating moist, flavorful chicken with little shreds of bacon, along with a variety of "sides"...yellow squash, farro, sauted mushrooms, etc. When I see really fresh mushrooms at the grocery store I buy a package, eat some raw and cook the rest all at once, to add to meals for several days.

I love mushrooms.
I really ought to grow them.
Do any readers grow their own mushrooms?
Please advise!

And, oh, did I mention my first yellow crescent beans of the season? Grown from seeds I saved from last years plants! I wish I had taken a "before" picture but these beans were lightly steamed and in this dish with a little bacony chicken less than 15 minutes after being carried in from the garden.

 Yum.

Of course, another way to cook without generating a lot of heat or using a lot of energy - and to cook in multiple-meal quantities if desired - is to use a crockpot or slow cooker. I find them pretty darned useful. And I think slow cookers are popular both within and outside the US - correct me if I'm wrong about that! - so that's why I'm going to do a little cookbook giveaway:

This is Stephanie O'Dea's first cookbook - I think she has written four now! - and you can Left-Click to embiggen her description below, or here's a link to the Amazon page. But since I know it is important to many people, I just want to point out right now that all the recipes in the book are Gluten Free.

Would you like to put your name in the hat for a shiny new copy of this book? Easy peasy! Leave a comment on this blog post telling me one thing you like to make in a slow cooker. (If you haven't used a slow cooker before, please share a tip for cooking multiple things in the oven, or any other food-related way to save energy - we can use more ideas!)

I will do a random drawing at noon on Monday, the 24th, and will post the winner's name on the blog that night. Please check back. The winner will have three days to contact me with mailing information; if I don't hear back by Thursday night, I will draw another name on Friday.

Anyone, anywhere is very welcome to enter.

Feel free to share the giveaway.

Good luck!

~~~~~

in the mail

Sometimes I forget to pick up my mail.

Last Winter (which seems like last week), the snowplow buried my little letterbox under a massive mountain of sequential accumulations. For months I could only get my mail if I drove into town and picked it up at the Post Office.

Since 95% of my mail is requests for donations, I didn't mind fetching it weekly, after visiting the library or taking my rubbish and recycling to the dump.

But when Spring rolled around (which seems like yesterday), I needed to either repair my home box or formally switch to renting a P.O. Box.

And since lots of things cannot be delivered to a P.O. Box, I opted for (wonky) repair.

Now, I'm getting back into the habit of checking the mail daily, usually after moving goats to the Lower West Side, or weeding the (growing!) perennial bank along the driveway.

And it's a Great Day in Letterbox Land!

Along with a donation request from an antiquarian society...

and this month's electric bill...

I found one of my favorite things:

A Package!

Containing a surprise!!

A wonderful surprise from my bloggyfriend Sandra,

over at Thistle Cove Farm:

It's a special little vented stoneware pot for the microwave! I can hardly wait to try it out. It came with recipes for things like Broccoli Garlic Saute, and a quick way to cook an onion instead of slowly sauteing on the stove (which I don't like to do because it takes so long my entire house becomes filled with a tear-producing miasma for a day or more).

This is exciting stuff!

And look how well it fits in with my decor!

Thanks so much, Sandra - I appreciate the surprise gift and the kind thought behind it. Although we've never (yet) met in person, it seems you know me so well:

:)

~~~~~

once I had a camera

and I took pictures.
All the time.
Sometimes for publication, sometimes for galleries.

Sometimes because I had a camera in my hand.

Here's one:

The view from Loro, Lusitano stallion.  Portugal, 2006.

Now, my little camera is in the hands of the Repair Specialists.

They are Assessing the Failure.

At this point, my biggest concern is that they will press the ON button,

and because the camera will fire up, they will say,

"We have fixed this camera! Send it back."

Because by the time I managed to ship it off, it would turn on again. 

And I thought, "It has fixed itself! Huzzah!"

Then I took a snap and noticed a foggy spot in the frame. 

And I looked into the lens and saw not just condensation, but actual water 

sloshing gently back and forth at the bottom of the lens.

Speaking as a photographer: It was creepy.

By comparison: this water is not creepy.  Maine, 2010.

Well, all I can do now is wait.

And I am sorry there have been no posts,

but apparently I can't string more than 140 characters together
without the spark of images.

Never really noticed it before, because I always have images.

Today, in mild desperation, I went spelunking on a flashdrive,
to find a few snaps to share
so I could write a post, however out of sync.
Welcome to that post!
Stay with me if you can; there's a treat at the end.

~~~

In other repair-related news:

farewell, thousand-dollar breadbox...

and welcome back, my beautiful oven!!!

Here's how it happened:

The appliance store failed to send me a bill for the service call back in February. The outcome of the service call (= non-functional oven) and lack of follow-through from the store (= getting no closer to having a functional oven) was obviously not what I had hoped for. Still, I felt responsible for the cost of a service call, and expected a bill. So when I was in town one day recently, I stopped in at the store, checkbook in hand.

While I quickly reviewed the Sad Story of the Stove for the manager, the service tech happened to overhear me. He asked a question. Then he looked thoughtful. Then he said he wanted to come out again and have another look, "just in case."

And he did. And he tested a different part than what the original error code had told him to check the first time. And got an odd measurement on his metering device. Suddenly, everything fell into place. (For him, not me. I was just pacing back and forth and trying not to hope but actually hoping very, very hard.) This different part was working well below its proper range which made the thermogizmo think the stove was more or less on fire and therefore the fan was on all the time and the failsafe device that keeps an eejit from using the stove when it's already on fire would not let the control panel respond to input.

(Paraphrasing.)

Anyway, the technician replaced the low-functioning part, and I turned on the power, and my oven was working again.

Can you believe it?

Ninety dollars.

Fixed.

(Cue the Hallelujah Chorus!)

I immediately went out and bought gruyere and heavy cream and a head of cauliflower, and made my favorite baked cauliflower dish. It was lovely. No picture, of course. Sorry.

Also no pictures of the subsequent mushroom quiche, bread pudding, or cranberry cake.

But here's a nice snap of some bowls in my kitchen, taken three years ago:

These bowls are white. Like my oven.

~~~

Still with me?

Finally, to wrap up this disjointed and oddly-illustrated post,

I strongly encourage you to click this link

to read a letter written by E.B. White in 1951.

It is in response to a complaint from the ASPCA

regarding the licensing of White's dachshund, Minnie.

I promise you, this letter will make you laugh.

Promise.

~~~~~

three notes

I was looking for my smallest circular needle today and found it

tucked into a project bag, in one of my baskets, already engaged:

Isn't this pretty?

I only wish I could remember what I did there. And why. Probably just a swatch, experimenting with symmetrical shaping. (That sounded all good and purposeful, didn't it? Heh.)

Someday maybe I will get better about making notes while I am fooling around with knitting. Or dyeing. Or cooking, even. When I used to do my own darkroom work, I was very good about writing things down, all the time. Every contact sheet and every test print and every final print carried lightly penciled numbers on the back, so I could tell exactly what the conditions and timing had been for that particular print. If I could keep good notes in the dark, hour after hour, you'd think simply jotting down a few knitting/dyeing/cooking notes once in a while would be pretty simple, wouldn't you?

Yep. I'll work on it.

~~~

Speaking of cooking, here's a fun fact that may be useful.

If you have a large crockpot/slow cooker, but only wish to make

a small amount of something,

you can simply place a smaller container in the crock

and you're good to go!

I've been doing this ever since I picked up a massive old crockpot

at a tag sale. Easy peasy!

This is a 4-cup pyrex container,

sitting on the bottom of a 7-quart crockpot:

This was an experiment with a sort of baked egg dish.

I did not want to risk a dozen eggs on an experiment,

so this was 5 eggs, a splash of milk, some grated cheddar, and a sweet pepper.

It came out pretty well, I think.

Moist and tasty.

Oh, I just realized:

by posting about it here,

I have already made notes about this experiment!

Bonus!!!

~~~

And as a postscript to yesterday's report about Piper in the woods, I have more recent excitement to share. Very early this morning, Piper suddenly exploded into loud barking - the growly, serious barking that means I am out of bed and in my dungarees before I even know what has happened.

Piper was heading for the back door, so I got in front of her and peered out the window into the dim light of dawn. And there I immediately saw the source of Piper's (ongoing, frantic) outrage.

It was a turkey.

A turkey in a tree.

YOU say turkey. I say Bizarre Levitating DeathMonster. 

I appreciate your effort, Piper, but I like wild turkeys.
I fact, I kind of hope this one will stick around and maybe raise a family nearby.
Let's try to make it feel just a little more welcome, shall we?

Hmmmph. Nothing that big should be in a tree, over our heads.
Waiting to swoop down on us because we DIDN'T BARK AT IT.
You know what? Being your bodyguard is no picnic.

~~~~~

puttery kitcheny day

It's a good day for tea.

And puttering in the kitchen.

When it was still quite dark this morning, I saw a little shadow swooping up to the birdfeeder. Then another. Two juncos were breakfasting unusually early. Then I noticed the fine, dense precipitation. It was falling straight down but it was too dark to tell if it was rain or the kind of teeny-tiny snowflakes that couldn't possibly add up to anything but generally do.

I checked the weather report: 1-3 inches accumulation predicted by the end of the day. Hmmm. Pretty sure there was already 3 inches atop the bird feeder, and the sun wasn't up yet.

Sure enough, by the time we went out to feed a couple of hours later, Piper and I stepped out the door into 8 inches of fresh snow. The air was pleasantly warm though: 24F, which feels very warm indeed these days as long as the wind isn't blowing.

At 10 AM, the snow was still falling. The weather report now predicted 3-5 inches total by the end of the day. Step it up, weatherfolk. The sky is way ahead of you.

~~~

While Piper lounged and thawed her iceball leggings by the heater, I baked another fruit-topped teacake.
This one with dates.

I like to think every experiment in the kitchen is an opportunity to learn something. Here's what I learned this morning:
don't bake this particular cake with dates.

Each of those harmless-looking nuggets had the consistency of a very chewy pebble. They reminded me of something, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Pretty sure it wasn't something we think of as edible, though.

~~~

In another kitchen adventure, I tried to "zest" Meyer lemons.
I've never "zested" anything before, and to be honest, I'm not sure I've "zested" anything now. Does anyone know if I took too much of the rind along with the peel? I tried not to, but I just don't know. Please advise!

I also juiced the lemons with my Grammy's old glass juicer, thus justifying the allocation of cupboard space to this tool for another year. Maybe ten.

Some of the juice went straight into a peanut-ginger marinade for the tofu which is in the fridge at this moment, becoming wonderful. (Fingers crossed. This was definitely an experiment, and it is on tonight's menu.)

~~~

Oh, here's an actual Helpful Kitchen Tip!

Two, even. 

Gosh, maybe three!

First: I heard that a good way to cook a tougher piece of beef, is to put it in a pan with a can of peeled tomatoes, cover the pan, and bake (roast? poach?) it in the oven for two or three hours at 325F. Last week, I had a small slab of top round and I had a big can of Pomodoro tomatoes, so...I tried it. And I must say, after 2 hours, that chunk of meat fell apart before I could put a knife to it!

Second: as they worked to tenderize the beef, the tomatoes were reduced to nearly a paste, which soon became the base for a bonus pasta sauce. Very tasty! I've had "meat sauces" that tasted less rich and meaty than those tomatoes.

Third: when I decided to add some of the leftover cooked beef to a lentil stew, I wanted to chopped the pieces "across the grain" so there would be no long, stringy pieces dangling from a soup spoon. And as I was pondering the least-tedious way to orient all those small pieces of meat in order to chop them properly, I had a thought:

 

My super-deluxe kitchen shears! 

By which I mean, the pair of ordinary scissors I keep in the kitchen. One of my most useful kitchen tools, but this is the first time they were put to work smallifying chunks of cooked beef. Worked beautifully, and took next to no time. Snippety snip snip!

~~~

It's late afternoon, and still snowing. I just checked the weather report again, and can tell you with certainty that we are experiencing a 50% chance of light snow.

I hope you are enjoying the weather of your choice, wherever you are! And readers who are craving a good snowfall are very welcome to come on by!

I can offer a nice cup of tea, but - just between us? - 

you'd be wise to pass on the cake.

~~~~~