Kitchen adventures
* Sunchokes roasted for over an hour at 350°F do have an effect on my digestive system. I've started lacto-ferment pickles with the remainder. I'll dig some more later and will try boiling them "in lemon juice" (whether the blogger meant in water with added lemon juice or lemon juice was unclear, i assume the former).
* I tried this fudge recipe and am disappointed: https://www.food.com/recipe/maple-fudge-102905 The condensed milk flavor seems predominate and the texture is soft and pliable. Not the crystal-crumbliness i think of with fudge. The amount barely covers the bulb of the thermometer so i have no idea if i actually made it to soft ball stage. It seemed like soft balls in the water test, and i was worried i was actually scorching the mixture despite constant stirring. I may have also started stirring before it cooled all the way down to 110°F. I suppose i should try a different recipe.
* I tried to make bread again and it was horrible. I forgot the oat bran which presumably absorbs the moisture. I don't think i forgot the salt but i may have forgotten that as well. So bad that i am feeding it to the wild life. I am tempted to find another Balto-Nordic bread recipe and just start over. (But i'll keep Hans.) As far as the wildlife's opinion, i didn't get a photo on new years eve of the critter(s) who took the bread. There was a later photo of a Chatham rabbit, on New Years Day: a happy first observation of the year.
* I made sourdough waffles with the rye starter and brown rice flour. THAT turned out just fine.
I've spent Monday, Tuesday and (New Years), Wednesday going through digital reminders and ticklers. I'm trying to get back some old habits of recording some details systematically and maintaining to-do lists (as opposed to just adding and adding things and then feeling overwhelmed by the length and never reading the list, which means actually done things linger on the list). This is also a good time to clear out last year's ticklers (if i didn't do so promptly - -i found some lingering from January) and -- i realize -- all the past ten years that start 201*
I've begun dosing Luigi with CBD.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tylik mentioned dosing one of her anxious cats. As Luigi seems helped by the Dasuquin but still walks stiffly and is generally querulous it seems like a possible ease. I don't think i'm ready to trust CBD for anything i complain of, but if i were spending considerable fractions of my day sleeping already....
Meanwhile, Marlowe's litterbox failures and her general insistence have earned her unsupervised outside time. I go fetch her after 5 minutes when i let everyone out at dawn (well, in the dark right now. It's not even nautical twilight). She had been fairly compliant but this morning i had to follow and herd her in. I think she could get out if she really put her mind to it, but i think there's enough inside the orchard to keep her distracted from strategizing an escape. Christine keeps a timer and checks on her in order to not allow too much time to pass without supervision.
Carrie and Edward are doing well. Edward is, on the books, the same age as Luigi (~16-17 years old). We adopted him as a full grown stray in 2009 (the vet estimated 5 years old), and i'm pretty sure he'd wandered around the neighborhood for a year before that as an adult cat. That puts his birth year at most recent as 2007. So he may be as young as 13. He seems so much more hale than Luigi; it's hard to believe they are the same age.
* Sunchokes roasted for over an hour at 350°F do have an effect on my digestive system. I've started lacto-ferment pickles with the remainder. I'll dig some more later and will try boiling them "in lemon juice" (whether the blogger meant in water with added lemon juice or lemon juice was unclear, i assume the former).
* I tried this fudge recipe and am disappointed: https://www.food.com/recipe/maple-fudge-102905 The condensed milk flavor seems predominate and the texture is soft and pliable. Not the crystal-crumbliness i think of with fudge. The amount barely covers the bulb of the thermometer so i have no idea if i actually made it to soft ball stage. It seemed like soft balls in the water test, and i was worried i was actually scorching the mixture despite constant stirring. I may have also started stirring before it cooled all the way down to 110°F. I suppose i should try a different recipe.
* I tried to make bread again and it was horrible. I forgot the oat bran which presumably absorbs the moisture. I don't think i forgot the salt but i may have forgotten that as well. So bad that i am feeding it to the wild life. I am tempted to find another Balto-Nordic bread recipe and just start over. (But i'll keep Hans.) As far as the wildlife's opinion, i didn't get a photo on new years eve of the critter(s) who took the bread. There was a later photo of a Chatham rabbit, on New Years Day: a happy first observation of the year.
* I made sourdough waffles with the rye starter and brown rice flour. THAT turned out just fine.
I've spent Monday, Tuesday and (New Years), Wednesday going through digital reminders and ticklers. I'm trying to get back some old habits of recording some details systematically and maintaining to-do lists (as opposed to just adding and adding things and then feeling overwhelmed by the length and never reading the list, which means actually done things linger on the list). This is also a good time to clear out last year's ticklers (if i didn't do so promptly - -i found some lingering from January) and -- i realize -- all the past ten years that start 201*
I've begun dosing Luigi with CBD.
tylik mentioned dosing one of her anxious cats. As Luigi seems helped by the Dasuquin but still walks stiffly and is generally querulous it seems like a possible ease. I don't think i'm ready to trust CBD for anything i complain of, but if i were spending considerable fractions of my day sleeping already....Meanwhile, Marlowe's litterbox failures and her general insistence have earned her unsupervised outside time. I go fetch her after 5 minutes when i let everyone out at dawn (well, in the dark right now. It's not even nautical twilight). She had been fairly compliant but this morning i had to follow and herd her in. I think she could get out if she really put her mind to it, but i think there's enough inside the orchard to keep her distracted from strategizing an escape. Christine keeps a timer and checks on her in order to not allow too much time to pass without supervision.
Carrie and Edward are doing well. Edward is, on the books, the same age as Luigi (~16-17 years old). We adopted him as a full grown stray in 2009 (the vet estimated 5 years old), and i'm pretty sure he'd wandered around the neighborhood for a year before that as an adult cat. That puts his birth year at most recent as 2007. So he may be as young as 13. He seems so much more hale than Luigi; it's hard to believe they are the same age.