Greetings and salivations,
It looks as though i won't meet any of my OCC 2026 goals today. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen and it occurred to me to write about that instead.
The apple trees are extra productive this year and they are littering the yard with more apples than you can shake a stick at. I've been making a lot of applesauce. I have a few gallons in the freezer and i've been eating fresh applesauce every day.
This morning i made pancakes. I augmented the batter with chocolate flavored Orgain protein powder and a diced pear. Of course i topped the hot pancakes with applesauce. I've been eating this nearly every morning and it still feels like a treat. I haven't gotten tired of it yet.
I filtered a couple of gallons of drinking water to hold me over for the next few days. I also brewed lemonbalm tea. I take a dry half-gallon jar and fill it to the top with dried lemon balm leaves. Then i boil water in the electric tea kettle and pour it in. I let it brew until the water stops being hot. Then i'll pour it through a colander into a pot to filter out the leaves. I pour the collected tea back into the jar and put it in the refrigerator.
Every day, during the heat of the day, i drink ice cold lemonbalm tea, which is quite refreshing.
I started a batch of lentil soup in the crockpot. Early in my adulthood i just dumped a bag of lentils in and started cooking. Later, my mother told me she always sorts through them, and now i do too. I am surprised how often i find little stones in there. Anyhow, i used about a quarter pound of lentils and filled the crockpot about half full of water. I added a handful of dried minced onions and turned it on high heat. Later, i washed, skinned, and diced a rutabaga and a parsnip and dumped them in the crockpot. I also added bay leaves and garlic powder. Once the room started smelling good and the lentils were fully expanded, i added a couple of cans of condensed chicken noodle soup for flavor.
For some reason, condensed soup brings to mind the Readers Digest Condensed Books that used to clog up the shelves in the thrift stores. In my perspective they would take the most banal, pop culture books that i would never read anyway, and then abbreviate them so they could fit 3 titles in the same cover. The very idea offended me. But, as a kid i used to do yard work for an elderly widow who loved them. She said they were more affordable and streamlined. She could read through the condensed version of the book much easier and faster, compared to the normal version. Different strokes for different folks.
For lunch i made a rice and bean bowl. I nuked leftover rice and half a can of yellow eyed beans in the microwave to warm them up. Why half a can? Because of the high sodium content. I put the other half in a little jar in the refrigerator for tomorrow. I topped it with shredded cabbage, carrots, and spinach chiffonade. I dressed it with home-made salad dressing and salted, roasted sunflower seeds. Each salad dressing i make is a culinary snowflake: a unique flavor combination. This one contained olive oil and cider vinegar. I normally use a 50:50 ratio but this time it was more like 25:75 oil to vinegar. I also put in home grown oregano, wasabi powder, and some "IPA seasoning" (hop flavored salt) from my sister.
I used to buy Mexican oregano in the grocery store. I could swear it tasted better than what they sold in the conventional spice aisle. One difference is that the Mexican oregano includes the dried flowers. The oregano plant here is very happy and is constantly taking more space, and needing to be trimmed back. Consequently, i dry out the trimmings and i have enough home grown oregano to supply the entire town. This year i harvested it while it was in bloom, and sure enough, the flowers do improve the flavor. They give it a bolder taste, a little skunky like hops. Good!
Speaking of the Mexican section of the grocery store, i bought some Mexican coconut cookies and ate them with hot, home-made applesauce. It felt a lot like eating apple pie, but with minimal effort. I got shortbread cookies from Dollar Tree, which works out to a comparable price per gram. The Dollar Tree shortbread cookies taste better. I think it's because they're made in India and with real butter.
I made another batch of applesauce today. The yellow plum tree is more productive than usual. I picked a bowl of plums and processed about a quart to put in the freezer. They are little, so not ideal to process by hand. I'll wash them in the colander, then put them in a pot with a little water. I set up a plastic bag for the pits and a rigid yogurt container for the fruits. I pick up one plum at a time. I cut it in half with a paring knife and drop the pitless half in the container. Then i pluck the pit out with the knife and drop it into the plastic bag. Finally, i'll drop the other plum half, sans pit, into the container. There's a certain rhythm to it, and it took me a little over half an hour to do 1 quart. I put the lid on, labeled it, and then double bagged it using twist ties, and put it in the freezer.
How will i use a quart of frozen yellow plums? What i like to do is work them into a batch of rice pudding. I use an Indian recipe where i soak the rice overnight and then run it through a blender with some liquid and fruit, to coarsely grind the softened rice. Then i slowly cook it for a long time. During cooking, the heat extracts the tart flavor from the liquidized plum skins and melds it together with the rice, sugar, and condensed milk (there's that word again) to make a rich, tangy pudding. Delicious!
Tonight for dinner i will likely eat lentil soup and herb bread, ice cold lemonbalm tea, and for dessert perhaps warm applesauce with shortbread cookies.