Category Archives: Food

2024, Food, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized

Big Moon and Travel Food

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I spent Monday-Thursday in Bismarck attending a behavioral health conference. Husband stayed home, so I was on my own for meals and entertainment.

The business office at my agency arranged for and paid for me to stay at a quite adequate Bismarck hotel, nothing fancy. It had the typical “free” breakfast that was pretty awful, so I grabbed coffee and a pastry at a coffee shop on the way to the conference site. The conference provided quite fatty and sugary snacks at breaks. I walked to a noodle shop near the conference for lunch, and ate grocery store salads, hummus, naan bites, cheese, and fruit in the evenings in my room. Entertainment was just watching Forensic Files until I was ready to fall asleep.

I don’t like to eat in restaurants by myself, and I know that I am pretty spoiled regarding the food I eat at home. I know that in other parts of the country the options for food on the fly are better than in Bismarck. I was so glad to get home on Thursday afternoon and start planning the menu for the weekend. We are having white beans with clams and Spanish chorizo.

I was also in Bismarck during the the recent super moon and eclipse. A friend of ours who lives on the Fort Berthold Reservation was at a sports event in Mandan and took the following photo.

I couldn’t see the moon from my hotel room in Bismarck. I am not much of a star gazer, but I sure wish I could have got a glimpse of this in real life.

What foods do you opt for in food deserts or places like Bismarck? What would you like to view with a telescope? What is the best travel food you ever had?

2024, animals, Food, home, Uncategorized

Peccary Plans Gone Awry

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For my birthday, my dear friend Susan got me a javelina cookie cutter.  Pretty niche gift, right?  You wouldn’t think there would be enough javelina fans in the world who need a cookie cutter, but I’m glad somebody thought this was necessary.

Took me a few weeks but I finally decided last Friday to fire up the oven and make a batch of cookies.  The first aha moment was how large the cookie cutter actually is.  It came packaged in it’s own little box so I didn’t really have it in my brain how large it was until I opened it; it’s a good six inches long.  Basically the size of three medium-sized cookies together.

The second surprise was related to the first.  Being so large, I only got 17 cookies out of the entire recipe; I didn’t roll them too thinly because I was planning on sending a small package to Susan when they were finished. 

The third revelation was also related to one and two.  I didn’t have a tin or tupper that I could fit the cookies into.  This wasn’t an irrevocable problem as the Dollar Tree is ten minutes from my house.

They baked up nicely but there turned out to me one more shock.  Instead of making chocolate icing from scratch, I grabbed a can of chocolate icing that I had in the cabinet.  It was clear almost immediately that this ooey gooey icing, while being quite yummy, was never going to set up nicely for stacking them into a tin and sending them via the postal service.  I considered stopping mid javelinas and making a sturdier icing but I didn’t want to waste the icing I had.  The cookies went straight into the fridge and even after sitting overnight, still too sticky to mail. 

Oh well, best last plans.  Guess I’ll have to do another batch at some point this fall and think it all through a little more.

The cookies are quite nice and very cute.  I even bought a cheap comb at Walgreens to give them that javelina-y look. 

What kind of “out there” cookie cutter would you like to see made?  What kind of icing do you prefer on your cookies?

2024, Family, Food, gardening, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Eating it Up!

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“We need to go grocery shopping.”  “We need groceries.” ” We have to go shopping.”  These are very frequent litanies at our house.  YA occasionally cooks (and she’s fine at it) but she prefers quicker meals.  This means she doesn’t recognize foodstuffs that aren’t already “meals”.  She can open the cabinet, see a can of black beans, a can of corn and a can of Rotel tomatoes sitting next to each other and not see a meal.

In my reality, we hardly have room in the fridge, in the freezer or the cabinets for more food.  But if I say, I can make ________ from the cans in the cabinet or frozen items, she is often not interested.  So we go round and round and neither of us ever “wins”. 

She left for London last Thursday and I decided that I would spend her 12 days out of town eatting only what is in the house.  With the exception of milk, I am not going to purchase any food.  Unfortunately it’s not much of a stretch goal.

However after a few days, I realize that I’m running up against a “quirk” of mine.  My mom was born in 1932 and so her formative years were depression years and she came out of them with a “waste not, want not” attitude.  When I was growing up, we had what she lovingly called “goulash” at least once a week – any leftovers saved up and then lumped together when there was enough for a pot-ful.  I don’t remember any of them being ghastly and will admit that as an adult, I have more than once combined leftovers.

BUT, this waste not/want not that she passed to me has morphed over the years into a strong desire to “finish” things.  When I eat the last slice of bread or heat up the last helping of a dish, it makes me feel good, almost lofty.  This can unfortunately lead me to finishing things when I don’t really need to.  No need to eat three slices of bread because there are only three slices left in the bag… that kind of thing. 

While YA is gone, I’m having to balance my desire to finish things with my desire to eat only stuff that is in the house.  So far so good.   Chips/cheese/salsa.  Made a panzanella with a baguette and shaved parmesan I found in the fridge (and tomatoes and basil from the garden).  11 jars of tomato sauce for the freezer.  Ate the last English muffin from Breadsmith.  Got through the pesto pasta with tomatoes that I made right before she left.  Discovered chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers – smores.  A couple of smoothies so far using lots of frozen fruit.  I harvested the rosemary and it smelled to good that instead of freezing it all, I made a focaccia.

This is all a lot of fun so far.  We’ll see how the next week goes!

How do you feel about leftovers?

2024, Food, gardening, Mysteries

Tomato Time!

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For a couple of years, my tomatoes have struggled and I haven’t had the massive numbers coming off the plants as I’ve had in the past. The same issue (inconsistent watering) came up over and over again when I discussed it with experts and searched on the internet.  But I know my bales and I know myself and my habits and I just couldn’t accept this was the issue.  I did find just a couple of sites that talked about calcium deficiency due to the high nitrogen that is needed in getting the bales conditioned at the beginning of the season.

Ignoring the experts, I changed back to the ammonium sulfate conditioner that I used to use, added some organic calcium-rich Tomato-tone supplement and I really ramped up the egg shells added around the base of each plant.  I’m happy to say that my intuition was correct… with these changes I am now rolling in tomatoes, especially my little cherries. 

That means it’s time to start coming up with tomato recipes. 

I made my favorite pasta/onion/cherry tomato skillet dish.  So so easy and yummy.   Salsa is up next; I have a few hot peppers left to add.   I bought a baguette yesterday for a panzanella salad; I certainly have enough basil for this too. (Made several jars of pesto last week.)  I’m thinking about a nice tomato and corn salad as well.

There will most likely be plenty of tomatoes left after that so I will probably freeze some and maybe make a couple of jars of tomato sauce.  Too many tomatoes is a nice problem to have after the last couple of years!

Can you think of a time that intuition has served you well?

2024, animals, Food, home

Flaming Hot

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You all know I’m of two minds where the squirrels are concerned.  Honestly I don’t mind that when I feed the birds, I’m also feeding the squirrels; I just don’t like when the little rodents get piggy. 

Over the years I thought I had come to some balance – one feeder that I think of as the squirrel feeder and three others that I think of as for the birds.  Two of these feeders have little ledges for the birds can perch on but if a heavier squirrel tries to get on, it pulls down the outer part of the feeder to close up the holes.  The third has very small holes so the squirrels can’t get their noses or paws in.  I was feeling that we had finally achieved equilibrium – until I looked out the window and saw two squirrels shaking the little-holed feeder from side to side so that the seed was spilling out onto the ground.  Aaarrggghhh.

A few days later I was at Gertens to take my terrarium class and I was checking prices in the birdseed section when one of the associates asked me if I was finding what I wanted.  As I was still a bit raw about the squirrels, I made some off-hand remark about something the birds like but the squirrels don’t.  Her eyes lit up and she said “I have just the thing for you”.   She led me over to an section and showed me something called Flaming Hot Feast by the Mr. Bird company.  It has hot sauce in it and this gal explained that birds don’t register capsaicin but squirrels do. 

I was extremely skeptical but since I was still mad I thought I would at least try it.  I bought a small cylinder and because I wasn’t willing to risk more money, I didn’t even buy the cylinder holder; when I got home I jerry-rigged a holder and hung it up on one of the shepherds poles in the backyard.  I was amazed that it lived up to it’s name and hype.  Not only did the squirrels completely ignore it, the birds clearly loved it.  In fact it has led to an explosion of birds on all the feeders.  That first week when YA and I were sitting out back, I counted 35 birds at one point. 

I did eventually go get the cylinder holder and I’ve moved up to the larger cylinder as it’s a better per ounce price.  I also sourced a rain cover.  It’s like a little hat that sits above; rain is the only enemy of Flaming Hot Feast as it washes the “sticky” off and the cylinder kind of melts.  Luckily they sell FHF at Bachmans just down the street so I don’t have to go all the way to St. Paul for it.  I’ve sourced it online and have found it a bit cheaper but to get the better price you have to purchase at least 4 at a time and it hurts my pocketbook to spend that much money on birdseed at one time. Since I had initially jerry-rigged the cylinder holder I thought maybe I should made my own hot sauce for the feeder but knowing myself, this will be much easier.

So the squirrels are still getting fed in my backyard but for now, the birds are benefitting the most, which is more to my liking.  I am sure that with time, the squirrels will figure out a way to get around the Flaming Hot Feast but for the time being I’m happy.

What’s the last thing you “jerry-rigged”?

2024, Family, Food, State Fair

Fair Food Review `24

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Another great year at the Fair.  Five trips for me… six for YA (she did a Grandstand show on Tuesday).  As usual, we had a list of foods that we wanted to try; some of them are new offerings this year and some are our annual favorites.  When we started to work on the list, YA said “where is last year’s list” and was disappointed that I didn’t have it on the computer.  So…  now we have a spreadsheet.  Figures.  What follows is this year’s food review.

New Stuff

  • Cookie Butter Crunch Mini Donuts. Vanilla sugar mini donuts topped w/ cookie butter drizzle and Biscoff crumbles.  Not overwhelmed by the Biscoff taste.  They also dipped the edges of the bucket in the cookie crumbs which was cute but VERY messy.
  • Deep Fried Haloumi Cheese. Cheese wrapped in filo and fried, served with sweet chili sauce.  Cheese had an unusual texture – more like thick cottage cheese.  Very very salty.   Could have been much better.
  • Berries & Cream Nordic Waffle. Such a good idea but the problem with the Nordic Waffle is that to make them flexible enough to fold around different items, they have to be on the soft side of cooked.  Doesn’t take long before they’re a little limp and mushy.
  • Chili Mango Whip. YA tried this, as she’s liked the Whip options before.  This was their mango whip with a  “chamoy and tajin” topping.  She said it was “ok” but a little “fake” tasting.  She didn’t have a better explanation.
  • Patata Frita Focacciawich. Kettle chip flavored ice cream between focaccia bread topped w/ honey butter, kettle chips.  Sounded intriguing and smelled marvelous but the focaccia overpowered everything else and the ice cream on it’s own really didn’t have much kettle chip flavor.
  • Amish Donut. In a surprising turn reversal of roles, YA wanted to try to the Amish donut from Peachey’s – enough to stand in line for almost 45 minutes. (I didn’t not stand in line with her – no way I’m waiting that long for anything, even a donut.)  The donut had a great smell of vanilla and sugar but it was heavy and my three bites sat like lumps in my stomach.  We threw the last 1½ donuts away.  That’s right, VS threw donuts away.

 

Oldies but Goodies

So all the new foods we tried this year were a bust.  Luckily there are plenty of other favorites that don’t disappoint!

  • Cheesy Sriracha Funnel Bites. Hot, cheesy fried bites with green onions and sriracha mayo.  They love me here so I get ranch on the side as well for no extra cost!
  • Roasted Corn. Why does it taste better at the fair?
  • Australian Battered Potatoes. We had them with ranch and cheese this year.
  • Sweet Martha’s Cookies. Most dropped food item at the fair… I always bring a Tupperware but still only get the small serving.  They’re really best the first day.
  • Potato Cheese Crepe. YA’s favorite savory breakfast.
  • Pickle Pizza. I could live without this but YA loves it!
  • Brim’s `Sota Jammy Sammy. Almond butter and Minnesota blueberry jam on grilled cinnamon bread.  Yum-O.
  • Cheese Curds. One day we had the garlic ones, yesterday we had the ranch ones.  We always get the smallest dish.  Too many cheese curds can do us both in.
  • Potato Pierogis. Also another savory breakfast with a tangy horseradish sauce.
  • Hawaiian Shave Ice. What can I say?  Gotta have it every trip!

Guess the spreadsheet will be updated for next year by removing the new foods only!

What’s on the menu for your Labor Day?

2024, Family, Food, home, Kids, Theatre

He Made Me Ice Cream

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I brought a crate of peaches to Brookings, and for some reason, I started thinking about peach ice cream. That led to the memory of a friend of mine telling me about some ice cream she had made with a special ice cream maker she had just bought-a Ninja Creami.

Well, wouldn’t you know that the Brookings Walmart had one of those, so I bought it, and Grandson and I have had the best time this week making ice cream. He assisted in making all the mixes and running the machinery. The mixes were mainly cream and flavorings, but no eggs.

The whole premise of this contraption is that you can make a small amount of ice cream quickly after the mix has been in the freezer over night. The mixes are easy and don’t need to be cooked. Then, you put the container in the machine, which sends a whirly blade into the frozen mixture and tuns it into ice cream or sorbet.

We made lemon sorbet, coffee ice cream, peach ice cream, strawberry ice cream, vanilla ice cream, and mixed berry sorbet. Grandson quickly figured out how to get the thing set up. He was so proud and happy seeing his parents eat the ice cream he had made. He said the coffee ice cream was his favorite.

I remember family members struggling with ice, salt, and noisy electric or hand cranked ice cream makers. Boy, it tasted good, though, but it was quite a production. This was easy. Too easy!

What are your favorite ice creams? Memories of ice cream making? Ever seen the musical She Loves Me?

2024, animals, Food, Kids, State Fair, Weather

Mother Nature – 1. VS & YA – 0.

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I’ve been to the Fair in all kinds of weather.  Granted, no snow but light rain, heavy rain, serious winds, tornado watches and heat.  Lots of heat.  In fact, last year there were five days that were 90 degrees and higher.  I was there for two of those days.  The other three days were no slouches either, temperature wise. 

So on Monday bringing in a forecast of 90, we weren’t too worried.  We took our fans and headed out, getting on the first bus and arriving at the fair at 7:45 a.m.  Got a cold bottle of water right away (along with a crepe and cookies….) before heading to the animal barns.  We thought it would be a good strategy to get the barns done before the day got too crazy.  This was a good strategy but after an hour or so petting cows, lambs, goats and horses in non-air conditioned barns, we were squirming.  At that point it was only 80 degrees but the humidity was 85% and you could feel every percent of that.  We were both dripping.

Walked up to the Pet Pavilion to find that the German Shorthair Pointers were not doing any of their demonstrations.  We did pet the dogs that were there and wandered about looking at a few displays but it was brutal.  I would have been willing to sit in the sun (with my fan and my baseball cap) to watch the dog dock diving, as it didn’t require any movement on my part, but YA didn’t want to.  It was nasty enough that neither of us was too interested in food and we’d filled up the water bottle three times.  YA didn’t even last through one level of the Grandstand, which she normally loves – if there was air in there, you couldn’t tell. 

I wasn’t too happy either and I didn’t want to do anything in particular enough to try to coax YA into it.  So for the first time EVER, we headed back to the bus at noon.  Didn’t even pretend that we might come back so skipped getting our hands stamped on the way back.  When the bus arrived, the folks getting off said “it’s freezing on the bus”.  I said “great”. 

When we got home we lounged in the backyard in the shade, filled up Guinevere’s little pool, soaked our feet and tried not to feel completely defeated.

What do you do when it’s hot hot hot?

2024, Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

Cooking With Gas

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I and my grandson are cooking up a storm while his parents are at work. Yesterday we made Marcella’s tomato sauce, another peach and blackberry crumble, banana bread, and lemon sorbet. Grandson sliced the onion, lemons, and peaches with his special, child friendly knives.

Son and DIL have a gas stove. My, do things cook fast and at much lower temperature settings on a gas stove! It makes rather alarming pops and snaps and clicks. Son and DIL don’t seem to be worried about reported health problems with such a stove. Son, who does most of the cooking in the family, loves his gas stove. I would have one if we were piped for gas. Perhaps in our new house in Luverne.

I remember that my mother was really anxious about the gas stove we had in our last house in Luverne before we moved to a new house in the country with an electric, glass topped stove. We plan to get a new stove and microwave in our current home in October. We have used and abused our current stove and microwave so that a new set will be a selling point.

Gas, electric, wood, or induction for you? Ever cooked with gas? Any good food burning stories?

2024, Business, Family, Food, home, Technology, Uncategorized

The Yeast Of My Worries

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We typically have pretty good luck with orders and deliveries here, that is, until recently. On July 30 I ordered six, 2 oz packages of fresh yeast on Amazon. Husband has a Nordic baking book that uses fresh yeast in the recipes. Since I had thrown out the remainder of a huge shipment of fresh yeast that I had ordered about a year ago (it got too old in the freezer) it was time to order a more manageable amount.

The order was supposed to arrive on August 5. I tried to track it on Amazon as soon as I got notification that it had shipped, but had no luck. The 5th arrived, and still no yeast. I knew it had to be kept cold or it would start to do its yeasty thing and start growing and expanding. I received a notice that it would arrive on the 9th. It didn’t. By this time, I knew something had gone amiss, and finally Amazon said that it was lost and I could have a refund. It was a bit of an ordeal, but I got the refund and ordered more. This time around I have been able to actually track where it is. It is to arrive today or tomorrow.

The most unreliable delivery service seems to be the US Postal Service. UPS, FEDEX, and Speedee Delivery all do a good job. The latter always makes me think of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Husband is excited that the yeast will arrive soon. I worry that it hasn’t been kept cold. We shall see.

What delivery disasters have you encountered? What are your favorite memories of Mr. Rogers or other children’s programming? What are you worrying about these days?