Instantaneous Instances » Food

The more raspberries the better

Ryan — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:56:11 +0000

I picked another pound of raspberries in the backyard over the weekend. After soaking them, we spread them out over wax paper and placed them in the freezer. Once frozen, we transfer them to a large freezer Ziplocs. It looks like we’ll be able to fill 3 or 4 of those bags before we’re done!

While picking the berries, I found this moth resting on a leaf. When I got close with my camera, it started fluttering its wings in warning. I slowed the shutter speed of my camera as much as possible to try to capture the movement.

Wall Kitty

Ryan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:04:25 +0000

Our cat Cousteau likes to look at walls. Seriously. He will just zone out inches from a wall, and stare at it for hours. He also likes to get in bags and boxes (what cat doesn’t, though), and I caught him crawling out of the empty dog food bag the other morning, before I took it to the trash bin.

We got a view of both addictions the other day, when he climbed on our table, sat in an empty plastic bag, and stared at the wall. He even allowed me to take pictures.

Today, I got off my lazy butt and baked some bread. I found the recipe on vegweb, as I needed a recipe that didn’t call for milk. Here’s the result:

I made two loaves. This, the first one I baked (only one fits in our awesome little toaster oven at a time), I kneaded and brushed with egg before placing it in the oven. The second I did neither of those. They both turned out well, with the first loaf being denser and more uniform in texture (as expected from kneading), with the nice sheen over the crust from the egg. It will make excellent sandwich bread. The second has a dull-looking crust, and is textured more like a baguette or Italian bread than sandwich bread. Both are delicious, and both are already half gone in the time since Skippy arrived home from work 30 minutes ago.

I purposefully held off cutting into them until she got home, because I would hate to have her come in, smell baked bread, and hear that I ate both loaves by myself. The sacrifices I make for this relationship…

Fall on the Kenai

Ryan — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:55:54 +0000

Two days ago, there was 4 inches of snow on the ground here. Yesterday, the weather turned, and it rained most of the day. Walking around on compacted snow (aka “ice”) with a layer of water on top while carrying buckets of food, water, and poop (not all at once) was exciting. To an outside observer, we must have looked like a couple of special needs kids, randomly flailing around as we walked.

Today, the snow was gone. In its place came rain and gusting winds all morning. This evening, the temperature rose to a balmy 42 degrees F, and the sun came out just in time to set. It’s supposed to rain all weekend, and possibly snow again next week. Such is fall on the Kenai Peninsula, according to our boss. Basically, the weather is like Indiana, only without the random thunderstorms, and better scenery.

In other news, Skippy and I have been craving brownies something fierce. We’d fed the craving a couple of time in the past week, having purchased a mega-pack of Ghiradelli brownies. Even after two batches in 2 weeks, we kept wanting more. Today we decided to put an end to the addiction, and split an entire pan in one sitting.

This was not one of our brightest ideas.

Imagine an extreme sugar rush, combined with the overstuffed feeling you get after a really big meal, and stir in a bit of “haven’t really interacted with anyone else in a couple of weeks” social withdrawal, and you get: me making funny voices and running around the cabin pretending to run into stuff (speaking of special needs…), and Skippy laughing until she abruptly starts to cry. 20 minutes later, we’re out feeding the sled dogs their dinner and cooking salmon in a big vat (described in a previous post).

We’re skipping dinner tonight.

First Raspberry Recipe: Waffles with Raspberry-Coconut Syrup

Ryan — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:03:43 +0000

Make some waffles. I’ve been using Alton Brown’s Basic Waffle Recipe for the past few weeks, and I like it. We don’t keep milk products around so I replace the buttermilk with 2 cups of soy milk and add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar to replicate the consistency and flavor.

Raspberry-Coconut Syrup:

2 cups raspberries
1 cup sugar
4 to 6 Tbs of Noh Coconut Powder
2 Tbs butter/margarine

In a skillet, heat raspberries while mashing them with a wooden spoon. Mix in sugar and butter, bring to a mild boil, stirring frequently. When the syrup has thickened some (3-5 minutes), add coconut powder to taste. Continue boiling until desired consistency.

Sorry, no pictures, we were too busy stuffing our faces!