Journal, Day 308: Back Online

31 this morning, felt colder. Some clear skies and sun today in between clouds, but no precipation. We've had little flurries here and there for days it seems. I like them.

The internet is all fixed! The repairman came as scheduled yesterday and found that not only did my dish have an issue, but the modem had got fried too. Apparently water got into the something-or-other on the satellite dish, and that shorted out the modem. So new modem, and all is well. Fortunately I pay monthly on my bill for any repair work or this would have been pricey.

I spent the morning yesterday in the kitchen, cooking and listening to the inauguration. I was surprised to find myself close to tears as I listened. It seems that for many of us, yesterday was the release of 4 years of stress. It was comforting to hear people speaking civilly, not crowing about themselves and not denigrating others. Now if only that can continue. We need an end to the hate and vitriol that has plagued us for the past 4 years. I have to admit, however, that I don't hold out hope that this will happen any time soon. There are too many angry people, and too many who have decided that maybe violence is the way to get what they want. So while yesterday was uplifting and hopeful, I still worry about what may come next. I don't think we've seen the last of the para-military groups.

I know people are as disappointed and unhappy as I was after the last election, and will be making that known. That's okay. That's normal. But let us all hope that it stays verbal, and not turn to violent action.

But enough of politics. I've been a little housebody lately, just cleaning and sorting and cooking. It's wonderful to have time for these simple things--even though they wear me out! Yesterday I made noodles again, a double batch so I'd have plenty to store away for later use. 

I'm trying to use as many eggs as I can since our hens are laying like crazy.  I've made quiche and deviled eggs too, and bread that calls for eggs in the recipe. Still, they do pile up so we give away quite a few.

This is honey oatmeal bread; another batch is rising as I write. I think it's our favorite. And below is the turkey broth I canned last Thursday. It is totally tasty. Can't wait to make soup with it.

My garden seeds arrived, and the new greenhouse is on the way. It seems incredible to be thinking about gardens already, but here we are. I'll be seeding lettuce and cabbages in less than a month. How the time does fly. Have you ordered seeds yet? 

Larry managed to unclog the septic line, thank goodness; now we wait to be sure that's all there was to the problem. A stinky job! I'n fortunate to have a man who tackles such things without complaint. Now he's found a leak in the drain from the sink, so that's on the list to be dealt with next.

I'm back to painting too, and have almost finished a little table and a small dresser with mirror. No photos as they're in the back room and I can't get a good picture there, but maybe tomorrow I'll be able to.

I was so glad to hear from my cousin Julie in England that Aunt Grace has had her first Covid vaccine. Aunt Grace is 99 1/2, and still in good health overall. I had hoped to be able to go to England this summer for her 100th birthday, but it may have to be a Zoom visit if the virus is still on the loose.

That's about the news that isn't, to quote Garrison Keillor. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Covid Journal, Day 52: A Cooking Kind of Day

49 and raining this morning. It never did warm up, just rained and stayed in the low 50's all day. I picked a little bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley yesterday evening and they have brightened up the kitchen today. I did some string-trimming and weeding yesterday evening, and my goodness did I get muddy! But at least I feel better about making a dent in it.

Today I cooked--and baked. We needed bread and cookies. Well, who really needs cookies? But they're nice with coffee for mid-morning break. So I made Snickerdoodles, one of our favorites. Our son Derek stopped by this evening with his daughter Hannah, so half the cookies went home with them.

The bread was a disappointment--it rose beautifully for the first rising, but the second time in the pans it rose nicely at first, then sank. What's up with that? The last batch did the same thing. This is a little different recipe than the one I usually use, and I don't think I'll try it again.

Dinner was turkey-rice soup and garden salad. The turkey meat was leftover from the turkey I roasted a couple weeks ago. I picked the meat from the bones and froze it so we have lots of turkey for a variety of uses. The rice was free rice given away at a local thrift last winter, and I used leftover broth from a recipe I made the other day and some veggies to round out the soup. It was delicious, and there's enough that we'll be eating it for several days.

Then after dinner I made noodles. It's been a while since I've made them and we were out, so I made a double batch. Now we'll have plenty! Noodles keep well after they're dried, and stored in a plastic bag or glass jar. They're so easy to make--eggs, salt, water, and flour. I mix them in the KitchenAid mixer, then knead a little, cut the dough into 5 parts, roll out on the kitchen table, then run through the pasta machine to make the noodles. I have a cool little wood rack to dry them on. It does take some time to make homemade noodles, but it's worth it for the marvelous rich flavor. Here's the recipe I use:

4 large eggs (7/8 cup eggs)
2 tablespoons water
3 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place eggs, water, flour and salt in the KitchenAid® Stand Mixer bowl. With the flat beater, mix on Speed 2 for 30 seconds or until combined.

Exchange flat beater for dough hook. Turn to Speed 2 and knead 2 minutes. Remove dough from bowl and hand-knead for 1 to 2 minutes.

Cover dough with mixer bowl or plastic wrap and let rest 10 minutes. Then cut into 5 sections, and roll out each section to desired thickness. Then you can cut the noodles by hand, or run them through the pasta machine to cut to desired width and thickness. Hang on the drying rack for 24 hours or until brittle and dry, or toss into boiling, salted water if you want to cook them immediately.

That was pretty much my day except for the usual housework and ebay packing, and the nice visit with our son and granddaughter--at a safe distance, of course (sadly). On such a dreary day, cooking seems comforting somehow. Larry loaded all the finished furniture projects in the van so tomorrow we'll go to the antique mall and restock our booths. The other mall will be re-opening soon so we'll be heading there too to take in some new things in preparation for the first day open. A small step back to normalcy, I suppose, although I'm quite happy to just go on as we have been for the last two months.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Noodle Day

Larry wasn't feeling well today--he's been working hard on several different things and I think it's catching up with him. It could be a cold trying to catch hold, so I decided on that time-honored tradition of making chicken noodle soup for him.

Except I had no chicken and no noodles. But I did have turkey frozen from Thanksgiving that needed to be used up, and I had eggs and flour.

So it turned into a noodle-making day. I can make noodles in less time than it takes to get to town to the store anyway.

An hour later, the noodles were hanging to dry and the soup was underway. And when it was done, a grateful husband ate a good bowl or two before heading off for a nap.

He's feeling better this evening, so you see? It works! I have plenty left over for more soup too.

I used my Kitchenaid mixer to mix the ingredients (4 eggs, 2 tablespoons of water and 1 1/2 cups of flour), then kneaded by hand for a few minutes, then let it rest 10 minutes before cutting into 5 sections and rolling each one out to go through the pasta machine. So easy. And so good.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Noodling Around

It's been cold all day, a bite in the air that makes me happy to stay inside. I intended to paint furniture today, but Larry had a project that needed my painting space, so I occupied myself in the kitchen.

 Since the house was chilly this morning, I decided to bake a cake. It's been a while since I made yellow cake but that was what I had in mind. And chocolate sour cream frosting because I had some sour cream that needed to be used up. The cake came out well, the only problem being to be careful to eat only a little of it each day.

I followed that up with jam-making. We put lots of berries in the freezer last summer because my storytelling schedule left little time to make jam and I knew I could do it in winter. Today was another batch of mixed berry; this one is strawberry-blackberry. Yesterday I put up some black beans too, just to have them in stock for Larry who loves beans. Canning them is cost efficient for us because of our free gas and abundance of jars; I don't know if it would be worthwhile if we had to use an electric stove and buy new jars.

About three years ago (or maybe longer) I bought a pasta machine. And put it in a cabinet where it's been ever since, but today I got it out and put it to use. What was I waiting for?

Recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook

The recipe is simple, the machine easy to use and clean, and now I have a nice stock of noodles for use whenever I need them. I noticed at the store the other day that egg noodles cost almost twice as much as other pastas for some reason so making my own since we have plenty of eggs is a no-brainer.

Now the noodles are drying,

and the jars of newly put-up food are ready to go out to the cellar. It's been a productive day all-around.

Noodle-making has made me think of noodlehead stories. Have you ever heard of them? A noodlehead, to put it politely, is a simpleton. They can be easily fooled into doing things not always for their own good. Sometimes they find complex solutions to a simple problem, solutions that cause them no end of trouble and work.

One of my favorites of this story genre is of the nine men who were working together and had to cross a river. When they got across one suggested they count themselves. He counted only eight, because he forgot to count himself. Each of the others counted too, making the same mistake but no one could figure out who was missing. Finally, to solve the problem, they each stuck their nose into a muddy place and then counted the indentations. Sure enough there were nine, and how relieved they were to know than none of them had drowned.

Another favorite: A man from the city was walking along a country road. He came upon a barn that had apparently just been built. Two farmers were busily cutting notches into the brand new doorframe.

"Pardon me, fellas," the stranger said, "what are those notches for?"

"Well," said one of the farmers, "the door is too short for my mule. His ears hit the top of the door and he won't go in. So I'm cutting these notches for his ears."

The stranger studied the situation for a moment. "But wouldn't it just be easier to dig out the dirt under the door? Then your mule could go in easily and you would not have to ruin that nice doorframe."

The farmers looked at the man and shook their heads slowly. "No, that's all right. We'll just do it this way."

The stranger continued down the road, and when he was out of hearing, one of the farmers said to the other, "Isn't that just like a city boy. He don't know nothin'. Why, it's the mule's ears that are too long, not his legs!"

And one more: A man decided to go on a journey. Each night as he went to bed he would place his shoes in the direction he was going so that he would not be confused and go back where he came from when he woke in the morning.

He told a friend about this ploy, and that night his friend decided to play a joke on the man. He crept into the room where the traveler was sleeping and turned his shoes back toward home. In the morning the traveler woke refreshed and slipping on his shoes, commenced his day's walk--but back to where he had just been. After some time he arrived in a village that looked familiar.

"Why," he said, "this looks just like my own village! And this street is just like my street. How extraordinary! And look! There is a house just like mine! To think that such a long way as I have traveled, there is a place just like my home!"

He walked up to his house and raised his hand to knock at the door, when suddenly the door opened.

"Amazing!" he shouted. "A woman lives here who looks exactly like my own dear wife!"

There are many more of these silly stories, sometimes called numbskull stories. They are different than the "wise fool" stories like the Men of Chelm, the Hodja stories or the Jack Tales because in these tales, unlike the noodlehead stories, the men's seeming stupidity is really disguised cleverness.

There are some days when I feel like a noodlehead myself, but today is not one of them, thank goodness!




Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.