I'm catching up on life in general as well as catching up with you.
I'm not ready to deal in reality, so I may not talk much about my family members right now. But a quick update. One, though, looks like she will be okay. This was the possible stroke. Not a heart attack or major stroke, but perhaps a TIA or something else. But she's doing better. Another, I haven't heard yet. The third, cancer was caught relatively early. But the fourth is the saddest one for me. It's my stepmom. Her cancer has spread already. Thank you for prayers.
Let's see, I lost a couple of days of productivity. But you know, that's okay. Today I planted the potatoes. I'm growing both purple fingerling potatoes and a type of white potato that I no longer remember the name. These might be Kennebec, but I'm not sure. I also planted two very wrinkly and sprouting store-bought russet potatoes. At the end of each season I set aside some of my harvest for planting the next year. I keep them in a produce drawer in the spare fridge until just before planting. The purple and white potatoes that I planted today are descendants from seed potatoes that I bought over 15 years ago. I've never had an issue with blight or other diseases that affect home-grown potatoes. If that does happen at some point, I'll buy new seed potatoes and start over. This season, I'm hoping to harvest 30-40 pounds of potatoes.
I also finally got around to baking more bread for the family. I'd been rummaging through our freezers looking for remnants of various quick and yeast breads to tide us over until I baked again. Whatever works, right? My family has been enjoying French bread this winter. It's light and airy qualities have made it a favorite for us. However, my French loaves tend to spread on the baking sheets. So for the past couple of bakings I've put my French bread into loaf pans. The result is a light and airy loaf that can be used for sandwiches and doesn't get lost in the toaster (slices falling over in the toaster slot then hard to get back out). I took a short-cut in greasing the pans today. The one thing I really dislike about baking bread is greasing the pans, especially loaf pans with their inside tight corners. So I use non-stick spray. Since this stuff is not cheap, I reserve it for recipes that specifically call for baking spray or for muffins without paper liners. But, I had much to do today and I decided to make this chore easier.
After we had devoured almost all of the bread scraps salvaged from the freezer, we still had a lone square of cornbread and all of the crusts from making finger sandwiches (from a week ago). With these bits I made a bread pudding to have for dessert Monday. In our house, leftover rice, bread scraps, and leftover cooked pasta is incorporated into a custard-based dessert. All of these different starch-based desserts come together in the same way, I beat an egg with sugar, milk, pinch salt, and vanilla, then pour over the cooked starch that I've spread out in a buttered casserole dish. I bake until a knife inserted comes out clean. These custard and starch desserts have a long history with frugal home-cooks. They can be dressed up with a variety of sauces, like sweetened cream, stewed fruit, English hard sauce, jam, lemon curd, pancake or ice cream syrup, coulis, or simply sliced fresh fruit. Monday afternoon, I made a fruit sauce using blackberries (foraged) and rhubarb (garden) from the freezer, some sugar, water, and almond extract, all simmered on the stove until thick. Delicious and economical. I'm working on keeping food waste to a minimum for the time being. With grocery prices going up and up, I want to make sure we use every last morsel.
That's about it for today. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. And again, thank you for praying for my family. I am so grateful for your prayers. Be back tomorrow!
