Chunky Granola (with dried fruit)

A change-up with snacks, searching for recipes for apples, found this one from the 15th Anniversary America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook. Chunky Granola with Dried Fruit.

A bit of a slight change to make this recipe work,  utilized Spiced Apple syrup in place of Maple Sryup. (fresh macintosh apple juice, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, sodium citrate.)

Whisk sugar, syrup,vanilla, salt and spices: ginger,Cinnamon,allspice,nutmeg. Then whisk in oil.

Fold in the oats and nuts, I used a concoction of quick and rolled oats.

Press the oat mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment, Cover the end of meat tenderizer with parchment and tamp the mixture onto the sheet to about 1/2 to 3/8 inch thickness like tamping an asphalt coldpatch that was warmed by a drizzled gasoline started fire into a fresh pothole recently formed by a heavy rain in the fall.

 

Bake the oat mixture, 325 degrees, 40-45 mins. let cool and crumble.

A bit overdone at the edges, uniform thickness would be better but it has a mix of  crunchy and softer

Very grainy, not too sweet, could be crumbled and with milk added eaten as a cereal.

Presently drying some apples for addition to the granola.

green red bean chili

A few additions of greens to this chili:

1 can of tomatoes the 28 ounce variety

ground beef, pork or whatever , amount to suit taste

mushrooms

greens :broccoli , kale, bell peppers, what have you

onion

garlic

paprika and/or other seasonings

heat: Serrano

Red beans, soaked at least overnight and then par boiled till slightly firm.

Prepped up and ready to go

brown the beef and saute the onions

add the can of tomatoes

add the prepped ingredients, red beans, simmer

serving suggestion

on corn chip, egg and sour cream

 

 

 

Chicken Vegetable soup

Instead of simmering a bunch of veggies in a pot, cut them small and steep them with broth, sort of a salad and letting the crispness of the veggies remain. Use your favorite broth the stronger the better, bone broth recommended.

Peas and pods from the farmers market

greens from the hydroponic DWC

Prep, Prep ,Prep what you have to offer for the soup, matchstick cut veggies such as sweet peppers, onion, green onions, celery, carrot.  A small addition of hot dried pepper. For extra zip add grated or finely minced ginger and garlic.

Divide the veggies among serving bowl(s), one little trick is to just before steeping: fill your serving bowl(s)  with boiling water, (drained from the noodle prep), empty, and steep soup in the warmed bowl, like tea.

pour in the hot broth…

cover and steep for about 10 minutes

Finally add the noodle and meat to the steeped soup,   cook the noodle of choice beforehand and rinse with cold water, some chicken meat was previously cooked.

presentation, Garnish with a bit of sesame oil, micro greens etc. if desired.

hydroponic update

pictures taken OCT 20

Even at this date the outdoor hydroponic DWC still provides us with tomatoes and also a few flowering brassica leaves and tatsoi leaves for greens. One tomato plant still going. I’ve pinched off growth of the tomatoes since any new flowers won’t have time to develop into fruit outdoors.

flowering brassica

flowering brassica, tomato and tatsoi

some  green tomatoes on the vine

a few each day are harvested as they turn ripe and a few outer leaves of the greens are used for soups and salads

tatsoi does well hydroponically

more greens

meanwhile indoors, using LED lighting seeds are started

using rockwool Grodan cubes, basil and rosemary are started with kale and tatsoi, a bit leggy on the greens, probably should heighten the lighting. These have been transferred to net pots since the picture was taken. Hydroponic works for me, unfortunately there are some who associate hydroponics with only cannabis  growing IMO.

another use for the tomatoes

 

 

 

Spiced Apple Filling for Tarts

Previously I have usually just placed sliced fruit etc. on dough etc. for pastry. The fruit was usually combined with a bit of sugar, spices, cornstarch etc. for body. Similar to a apple pie filling recipe. This filling was used for fruit pizza tart strips if you like gooey sweet type fillings this is for you.

This recipe from an old time cookbook, required you to cook the filling first.

“pare some apples and slice them evenly: for 5 pounds of apples, add 5 ounces currants, 5 ounces raisins, a few blanched almonds, the juice and rind of 2 lemons and a stick of whole cinnamon. Cover with a syrup made from two pounds of sugar, 1 quart of water, let simmer slowly; avoid stirring until apples are cooked through, then drain off the syrup which is cooked down and reduced by half,then add a piece of good butter and pour over the stewed fruit. This make a high grade filling for tarts and pastries.”

The amounts were adjusted, a simple syrup recipe was made first, the apples were quickly sliced with an apple machine, spices adjusted for taste.

Simmer the fruit in the simple syrup, I already know this is going to be very sweet!

The fruit, drained after simmering in the syrup, the cranberries burst when simmering.

The drained syrup cooked till reduced by half, this will give the filling the syrupy consistency when cool.

the filling stored for future use

After setting, the apple picked up a lot of the red color from the syrup from the cranberries.

fruit pizza tart strips

by using your favorite recipe for yeast dough, don’t be limited to the traditional pizza topping

press out the dough on parchment and use granulated sugar sprinkled on the paper to give the bottom crust color and crunch when baking.

add your favorite fruit topping, this recipe is very sweet, I’ll post it in a future posting.

It’s a combination of apples, raisins and cranberries

Bake in a moderate hot oven about 380 degrees

Carefully remove from the parchment, let cool and slice. Easy cleanup when using syrupy type ingredients

When cool, the topping congeals, nice snacks for the day or wrap in parchment and give away to friends and family.

Coffee pairing ?

on the rhode

Rhode Island

Farmers market, Cranston RI.,Wrights Diary Farm North Smithfield RI., Not shown, Sunset Orchid Farm, Scituate, (apples, cider, and pastry)

Getting close to peak foliage, fresh produce available in the city farmers market, coffee and donuts/baked goods  available  for breakfast while you shop on a cool, quickly warming morning.

Fruit from other farms in the North along with fresh baked goods!

 

plenty of space at this farmers market

olive bread,cookies,donuts,apples, cider, peppers and peas

from the diary farm cheeses and pizza strip

spinach pizza strips

mini eclairs

pastry

olive loaf, very tasty

fresh peas (stir fry?) and peppers (stuffed?)

 

 

conflicts of interest

How the perception of laziness conflicts  leisure lifestyle.

Many years ago those who predicted that computers, automation and other advancements would free us from labor and offer us more leisure time, in my opinion were right. This was way back with the proliferation of computers, internet and even those who saw that email was a game changer. The electronic cottage was envisioned.

(I would look up statistics on how the post office evolved to cope with the loss of letter size mail, with the introduction of email, ebilling, and epayment systems, perhaps shifting to be competitive with package delivery.)

The conflict though, is for some to accept the fact that fewer people will be doing  physical work and possibly less travel to procure goods and more travel for pleasure, for example and more free thinking and  embrace it rather than disrupting it. As a side note, doesn’t your cable/ internet provider promote that you now have all the entertainment choices available in high definition wide-screen with digital surround audio seen  from your favorite recliner instead of going to the local theater ?

In technical terms, the less wear and tear you put on a machine the longer it lasts.  Could the same be said about people? It won’t be a fair comparison as the human body has some regenerative  properties but overall some have the lack of foresight to use tools available to them to lessen the physical load. Others in society will welcome the less labor output as they don’t have the same physical resources of others.

On an individual level, if goods and services can be delivered at the same price as one physically going to another location and back using your own resources, you’d already saved resources. Going to a store, or other point of purchase, consumes energy and labor. Could this be shifted to another use? Thinking, creativity, relaxation, social time? Would you use  your total labor output it terms of work hours more efficiently, or reduce the number of work hours you require to get the job done?

If a physically active lifestyle is ingrained in someones mentality, then it may be harder to accept the ideals of others who promote a leisure, less physical labor life and use available saving tools to achieve it. The total physical  labor of a system is decreasing and if the total amount of people able  to work at physically demanding employment decreases at the same rate then the system  would equalize no shift is required.

As far as those who promote a healthy robust activity filled lifestyle the  leisure lifestyle may appear as an ill of society. Years ago seniors were encouraged to “get off your rocker”as a reference to sitting in a rocking chair. Now with a laptop, internet and AI assistants more can be done in less travel and labor output and as I agree physical stagnation could be a problem, it’s not always an evil thing to sit back and relax once and awhile and let the machine do the work.

Truly, laziness is not a factor if one figures better ways to use his/her  labor to achieve a goal rather than avoiding or procrastinating the goal.

 

 

 

shopping

recent prices

coconut curry shrimp

Coconut and coconut milk is something I’ve been incorporating into my meal preparation. Yes, if you look it up there are numerous health claims about what it does but again I try not to get swayed by only by the published health benefits of certain foods. As history proves fads and “new studies” contribute to the sometime misinformation about certain foods and there are surely plenty of healthy types of diets out there to follow. Usually I am open to different types of recipes that provide different types of ingredients, again moderation is the key and often whats proposed to be good for someone may not be your cup of tea. Flavor is a key factor whether it’s a vegan dish or a 1 1/2 inch thick porterhouse steak.

Back to the recipe, as I learn from another blogger some coconut and water is all you need to make a coconut milk type liquid.

prep for saute: ginger,onion, dried hot red pepper,parsley

Let’s make the coconut milk , some shredded coconut, a splash of heavy cream, and water processed in a food processor. The heavy cream gives the fluid some clumps which will cook smooth later.

Saute the prepped ingredients.

Meanwhile since I have frozen shrimp, thaw in water.

Added fresh home-grown hydroponic tomatoes  (I don’t really brag that often)

Cook and mash tomato… you can reinforce  the mix with added ginger and garlic pastes.

Added some habernaro paste, very concentrated

spices, curry powder and cardamom powder

Add the coconut milk mixture, heat to a slight boil, add the shrimp, cook only a few minutes at simmer, cover and turn off heat and set aside so residual heat will finish cooking shrimp.

Serve over rice, garnish with parsley or coriander