Around the Kisner Homestead – Page 8

Whole Wheat Bread Experiments

I have begun the planning for a Christmas gift for my kids and grandkids. I hope to pull together about 25 of my favorite recipes to make each family a notebook (kind of like the recipe box my mother handed down to me!).

It seems my recipes are always a work in progress!

Unfortunately, I can’t just use copies of many of my recipes, because my stand mixer is larger than the ones my kids have and the quantities of things I make…like my oatmeal bread…won’t fit in their mixers. I’m not sure anyone has tried to make Bert’s chocolate chip cookies either…the volume of his single batch is huge!

So, today I pulled out my Oatmeal Bread recipe, an adapted Whole-Wheat Oatmeal Bread recipe and my basic Whole Wheat Bread recipe to see which ingredients needed to be adjusted.

My original Oatmeal Bread recipe made 3 (sometimes 4) loaves; I have an additional recipe that makes 6+ loaves of bread if I use our huge industrial mixer that Bert uses for his yearly cookie marathon.

I reduced the ingredients from the original Oatmeal Bread recipe to about 2/3 so my kids can make it with their smaller mixers. I took notes as I measured out the flour. I also had a handwritten recipe to make Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread using similar procedures, so I tried to show the additional ingredients if whole wheat flour is used.

Then I wanted to compare the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread to the basic Whole Wheat Bread to see if using the oatmeal made a better loaf.

Here is the basic Whole Wheat Bread recipe. It also needed to be reduced, so you can see my notes. Instead of starting with the rolled oats, this basic recipe started by making a sponge with some flour and the yeast mixture.

The key ingredient when making all whole wheat bread is the addition of Vital Wheat Gluten flour. All-purpose flour has more gluten available because of processing. Whole wheat flour is not as processed so adding this extra powdered gluten makes it possible for the slice of bread to stick together and not crumble like a slice of cornbread.

Here is the package of Vital Wheat Gluten flour:

I ended up making two batches of bread…first the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread and then the basic Whole Wheat Bread.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread:

Basic Whole Wheat Bread:

The Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread slice is on the left. The basic Whole Wheat Bread slice is on the right.

They tasted pretty much the same…EXCEPT…the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread on the left had a much lighter, more spongy texture. I think as long as I had rolled oats available, I would choose to make that one.

The next step is to formalize the recipes and instructions so they are ready for the Christmas notebooks! Next, I’ll move on to some of the cookie recipes…including Bert’s Chocolate Chip cookie recipe. The quantities of the ingredients when Bert uses our industrial mixer are huge…I don’t think anyone has tried to make a smaller batch. I’ll see what I can do!

Preserving a Memory of a Child’s Table and Chairs

Any time I start “downsizing” my space (my house, my sewing supplies, outgrown children’s toys, etc.) I realize the problem isn’t letting go of the item, it’s feeling that the story that goes with the item will be lost. That’s one reason sorting through someone else’s stuff is easier than doing our own…we don’t get bogged down in the “story.”

While I was collecting items for the Auxiliary yard sale two weeks ago, my daughter’s mother-in-law (MIL) wanted to donate a small table and two chairs that were made around 1978 by my son-in-law’s grandfather. It had been used by children and grandchildren and was taking up space in her home.

A special note written on the underside of the table held the memory:

This says, “To STEVE & CHRIS WITH LOVE–PAP PAP”

When I brought the table and chairs home to include them in the yard sale, I remembered how special the table was to her. So, while Steve and Chris had a few memories of the table, their mother had special memories that included memories of her father.

I decided to take some pictures of the table, chairs and message before they were sold at the yard sale.

Setting up a Tea Party

Several years ago, I had made some stuffed dogs honoring my daughter’s dog, Otis, and her mother-in-law’s dog, Max. Luckily, I had made a set for myself. The two dogs were best friends and spent time together.

Here is Otis:

and here is Max:

Here are their stuffed dogs:

Setting up the table, chairs and stuffed dogs worked pretty well:

After I took the picture, I added the inscription from the underside of the table and took another picture:

It certainly wasn’t professional-grade but this picture captured the basics. I sent the .jpg photo to Shutterfly and ordered an 8 x 10 and a few 5 x 7’s. Now, the MIL and Steve and Chris have photos that save the memory, without having to save the actual table. I think the photo accomplished what I was hoping would happen…the memory was saved for them. Consider using photographs to capture memories so downsizing is easier!

Every Diet Has a Power Bowl

While I was sorting books for the yard sale last week, I took the time to look through my cookbooks. I realized I had cookbooks with recipes focused on plants, whole-grains, beans and meat. I’ve found good recipes buried in diet cookbooks for vegans, vegetarians and followers of a Keto diet. When I looked across the covers, I tried to figure out why these particular books appealed to me…no matter what foods I’m focused on.

The most recent book I picked up, Keto Power Bowls by Faith Gorsky, finally struck a chord! It seems most of the books on my shelf showcase a recipe in a bowl!

I’m sure the plain white bowls are necessary to display salad or soup in pictures, but I think I’m attracted to the concept of a meal in a bowl. So, whole grain recipes start with rice in the bowl with steamed vegetables on top, while the Keto Bowl starts with lettuce or cauliflower rice with cooked meat, onion and cheese on top.

What always sucks me in is the bowl concept! I love beautiful bowls! Curious, since my dishes are plain white. I’m always checking out handmade earthenware or ceramic bowls at antique stores or thrift shops. Frequently, they are not dishwasher safe. I’ve tried to restrain myself so I’m not stuck with dishes I have to wash by hand.

I finally went online and found some ceramic bowls for salad or pasta that could be fun. This set, from Amazon, made me smile:

These are a little bigger and deeper than the ones that come with my dishes:

Then I was looking at other choices…for soup…and ordered these (also dishwasher safe):

So, no matter what I feel like putting in the bowls, I can guarantee I will smile each time I use them!

Dogwood Trees: From Flowers to Pumpkins

We have a lovely row of Japanese Dogwood trees across our front yard. Most of the year they are like other deciduous trees with leaves in the spring that grow, turn colors and fall off in the fall.

Along about June, these trees have beautiful white flowers that look gorgeous when they all blossom at the same time.

The blossoms last several weeks and the center of each blossom is the seed pod. They continue to grow all summer and by October they turn a bright orange! Looks like little pumpkins all over the tree!

Just to show you the size of the seed pods, I picked a few.

I first thought I could collect a few and use them as decorations around the house…NOPE! Within a day or two they turned an ugly brown.

Bert also discovered when they fall to the ground and he runs the mower around the trees…they become splattering projectiles. What a mess!

Happy October!

Making French Apple Cake

Fall is definitely the time I see many recipes for apple desserts. I often get inspired to try, one more time, an apple pie, an apple crisp or even an apple cobbler. Unfortunately, I have yet to be successful with any of the standard recipes! I have no trouble cutting up the apples, but for some reason my finished products are runny and the toppings are flavor-less. Bert will eat any of my attempts, but it takes the fun out of it when I am unsuccessful…time after time!

Have I got a great apple recipe for you! I found this on www.allrecipes.com called French Apple Cake. This “cake” was easy to put together and made a nice flavorful dessert. Of course, it called for dark rum, so what do you expect!

Most every recipe I download I usually retype and reformat the instructions to be more like the ones in my Joy of Cooking cookbook. When instructions are given in sentence form, I end up either missing an ingredient or combining things in the wrong order. Here is the way I revised the recipe:

The first time I made this cake, I used a round cake pan. It worked, but once the cake was turned out on to a plate it was hard to cover it to put it in the refrigerator. this time I used a Corning-ware casserole dish that had a snap on plastic lid. Worked much better!

If you follow the recipe above, here are some pictures of the process:

Cut up 3 large apples into very small pieces. Keep covered with water until ready to add to the cake.

Melt a stick of butter and mix into the sugars.

When butter and sugars are mixed, add the 2 eggs and flour mixture. Beat until smooth.

Add 3 Tbsp of rum (optional) and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

Drain and fold in the apples until evenly mixed and transfer the batter to a buttered pan or casserole. Dust the top with sugar.

Bake for 45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

Remove cake from oven and let cool in the pan about 30 minutes.

If you used the cake pan, flip it out onto a pan, remove the parchment paper and flip again.

Top with cinnamon and sugar (or powdered sugar).

Check it out! Apples were perfect, cake made it not runny! Success! Next time I’ll leave out the rum, but Bert liked it!

My favorite way to use apples!

Sweet Potato Success

One surprising and delightful result from our 2023 garden season was our success with growing a sweet potato plant in a big pot. It all started with one lonely sweet potato that was forgotten and had started to sprout on the kitchen table last spring.

Bert planted it in a huge pot by the patio and it wasn’t long before the plant made an appearance.

It survived munching by the wandering bunnies and finally made blossoms.

A few days ago, Bert dumped the whole pot into the wheel barrow. What a surprise! The whole pot was packed with roots and small sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, I was so excited to check it out I forgot to take a picture of it! Impressive!

We worked at ripping the mass of roots apart…and it was a solid mass! Here is what I saved from the roots. There were another two-dozen small sweet potatoes hanging from the roots…they were cute not worth the trouble to save.

Basically, I had one large, ordinary-looking sweet potato (on the right) and about a dozen weird shaped potatoes that I think I can clean up, cut into chunks and boil or roast.

When sliced into rounds they roasted quickly. The skins were thin and helped to make them crunchy!

So, that was a fun addition to the garden this year. Maybe next year we should plant a sweet potato in the fenced garden by the patio so it could spread out! We’ll see!

A Barking Dog to Deter the Deer

We have spent the summer being reminded that we seem to have a neighborhood herd of deer that wander around the backyards, eating fallen birdseed and munching on garden plants. They seem to have little fear of people and cars driving by and don’t even wait until dark to check out the feeders. We do bring them inside at dark. Unfortunately, a few wander too close or try to cross the street in front of our house. We frequently see mangled deer on the side of the road near our front yard. As lovely as they are, we’ve all struggled to find ways to keep them out of our gardens.

Our neighbors have hung shiny pie plates around that wave in the wind. We’ve tried spraying the plants with odd mixtures…which need to be reapplied daily! So far, we’ve been lucky that our garden fence on the hill has kept the plants a little out of reach. We really don’t mind sharing a little bird seed, but they don’t seem to read signs to stay out of the garden! When we saw deer prints inside our garden fence we knew it was time to do something!

Here is a view of our backyards looking from our back patio. The deer move from the upper right by the white shed and amble towards our bird feeders.

They often stand around on the hill by the garden…we can tell by what they leave behind.

Then they amble down the hill to the bird feeders. They clean up any fallen bird seed and drink from the bird bath. In the winter, they leave quite a trail in the snow so we know their path.

We’ve tried to scare them away by yelling or just walking out the back door, but they don’t run far. All they have to do is wait a few hours and we’re asleep. Entertainment value aside, I’m always worried we’re attracting the deer with the feeders and they they are vulnerable to traffic on the road out front.

Bert has been exploring solutions online. He finally ordered a motion-sensitive product that has a recording of a barking dog called, “A Barking Dog!” He attached it to the tree right by the garden and in their pathway. It isn’t really very loud, just has the startle effect. the neighbors could sort of hear it so we explained what we were trying to do. They were fine with it.

At first, we discovered the motion sensor picked up all the tree limbs that were waving in the breeze…continuous barking! Haha! So, Bert set it to be activated only at dark. That helped. We know it works because a neighbor boy walked across our yard after dark and walked by the tree. He was really startled and stood there to try to figure out what was going on. I notice he now skirts our property instead of cutting right through the yard! Guess it works!

Since the box was installed, we have not seen any deer at the feeder in the middle of the night and there is no evidence the deer even tried to get to the feeder…no worn paths in the wet morning dew. I’m not sure if we will leave the box on the tree all winter, but for now it seems to have helped to change their behavior. Hopefully, fewer dead deer on the road too.

2023 Garden Winding Down

While it’s nice to clean up the garden each fall, it’s also kind of sad. It forces us to think about what we chose to grow this year and contemplate changes for next year.

The Delicata squash plants are out. Bert discovered the ground under the plants was covered with bugs, munching on the roots and plant stems. Considering we ended up with two small squashes to eat, I suspect we won’t bother growing them again. The others rotted before we could eat them! I looked for them at the Boalsburg Farmer’s Market and several growers said they don’t do well. I was able to buy 2, but that grower only had 4 for sale.

The tomatoes are finished and Bert cleaned them out. We had a tray of not quite ripe tomatoes on the counter for a week or so. They finally ripened (and some just rotted!) so I cooked them up yesterday. By cooking batches of tomatoes as they ripened, I was able to freeze them; I then had enough to make my pizza sauce. That felt productive!

I finally pulled all the radishes. They will keep well in the fridge and add zing to my salads for a week or two.

The carrots still look good! We’ll leave them in the garden and dig them up as needed. I did pull one bunch just to see how they look and taste. The largest was about 6″ long. Delicious!!

The second planting of green beans are doing very well…lots of flowers and beans quite visible. I should have beans to eat in about a week!

The sweet potato plant in the pot finally has a few flowers. The leaves are starting to wilt. Soon we’ll dump out the pot to see if we actually got more sweet potatoes! (I can’t seem to import the photo…sorry!)

My last project of the gardening season is to make pickle relish. Luckily, I can buy a box of cucumbers at the Amish market. I need to do that soon!

Dehydrating Beans Saves Space

A few days ago, I went to the local Amish farmer’s market to get some sweet corn. I noticed they still had quite a pile of green and yellow beans available. I usually don’t bother to can or freeze plain beans…I prefer them fresh or dehydrated. Dehydrated beans are great in the winter when I’m making vegetable soup. I can add just a handful of dried green beans…they rehydrate in the broth as the soup is cooking.

I thought I’d like to show you how much space (and weight) I save by dehydrating this batch of beans. I filled two sacks of green and yellow beans and brought them home. I snapped them and put them in the fridge while I got the dehydrator ready. The next day, I put each bag on the scales to see the weight I was starting with. The green beans weighed about 3 lbs. 4 oz. The yellow beans weighed about 2 1lb 12 oz…a total of about 6 lbs.

Next, I washed them, blanched them for 4 minutes in boiling water, cooled them in ice water, put them in a bag in the fridge while I did the next batch.

The manual says I should put them in the freezer for 30 minutes, but the fridge worked for me. They dehydrate quicker when they start out cold apparently.

The beans filled all 9 trays of my dehydrator.

The dehydrator sits outside the kitchen door in the garage. It makes noise, has to run for 10-12 hours and is too big to put in the kitchen.

To determine how long to dehydrate the beans, I checked the manual for my dehydrator.

This map shows the general percent of humidity in each region, by season. Pennsylvania is in the green zone in July. The day I dehydrated the beans was damp and rainy so I assumed the time of 11 hours might be more like 12 hours.

The manual describes how to test when the food is dry enough. Vegetables should be brittle.

During the 11 hours, I rotated the trays front to back and from upper levels to the middle several times. The fan is located in the back, so the back of the trays get dry faster than the front edge. After 11 hours, the beans look like this:

Once I determined they were dry enough…because they were brittle when I bent them…I put them in a zip bag and weighed them again. The 6 lbs. of beans now weighed about 9 1/2 oz…a little more than 1/2 lb.

I store dehydrated vegetables in my canning jars, with little packets of oxygen absorbers. They keep the jar sealed on the shelf.

The oxygen absorbers can be purchased at Amazon in several sizes…these are 300cc. I put several in each jar with the beans.

So that 6 lbs. of green and yellow beans are ready for my winter soup. I’ll put about 1/2 cup of dehydrated beans in a pot of soup to start and will add more if needed…depends on the amount of soup I’m making! They need about 30 minutes to reconstitute. Enjoy!

Garden Update August 22, 2023

By now, the third week of August, the garden is not only about the plants but also about the produce. The planters on the patio continue to look healthy as I harvest a crop of lettuce and plant a few more rows of radishes.

Baby Romaine lettuce and new radishes look good!

Black Seeded Simpson lettuce ready to pick:

Raised garden beds, just before harvesting stuff…squash and potato plants have died down; beet leaves had been chomped down by the deer a few weeks ago.