A Few Quick Notes 580

-For the past few days we've had close to perfect weather until the evening when, all of a sudden, we've had the pleasure of experiencing brief, but torrential, downpours.  Assuming today's forecast holds we should be in for something similar this evening.

-No matter how many dishes I do every day it seems I am never more than 30 seconds away from a half-sink full of dishes.  How is this possible?

-I just made a batch of pumpkin bran muffins for breakfast.  Because I didn't have quite enough pumpkin puree on hand they aren't quite as tasty as I had hoped they would be.

-Last night Jeannette's brother Alex spent the night with us.  After we had dinner we walked around the downtown area a little to see the sites.  As we neared Parliament Hill we could sense that something was up because we could hear something in the distance.  As we drew nearer we could see that 'what was up' was that an A/V presentation was being projected on the centre block building.

This weird animated gif may give you a very limited sense of what was going on.  Eventually Jeannette figure out that what were watching was the Mosaika: Sound and Light Show.  We ended up staying until the show ended a few minutes later.

(Maybe this photo will help paint a slightly better picture of what was going on.)

-So our plants seem to keep on growing.

When I posted a photo of our balcony plants about a week ago they were this big.

Even though it's only a week later many of the plants have put on a few inches or, at least filled out a little.

Talk about exciting.

-Despite the fact that my family seems to think I working from an absurd premise with my wheat plants, these little guys continue to put on a few inches every few days.  Apparently they aren't allowing the criticism to stunt their growth.

Check'em out now!

We'll definitely have enough for a 1/4 loaf of bread in a few months.

A Few Quick Notes 555

-After a remarkably warm and rainy day yesterday that wiped out our White Christmas snow we are back to wintery sub-zero temperatures.  Overnight we also managed to replace some of the snow that we lost due to yesterday's rain.  Given the current forecast it looks as though we may be able to ride this wintery mix into the new year.  Hurrah.

-Because of some recent holiday baking miscalculations I  recently found myself with an extra litre of buttermilk in my fridge.  Jeannette, as one who seems to have been completely unaware of the existence of buttermilk until a few days ago, has been less than helpful when it comes to suggestions for how to use this stuff before it spoils.

Fortunately I am on the case and actively trying to come up with reasonable uses for this specialty dairy product.

This morning I threw some into some pumpkin bran muffins with positive results.  Actually, I think I am now going to be disappointed with buttermilk-less pumpkin bran muffins.

When I next have to make bread, probably in a few days, I will try to toss some in.

Even with this two projects (one completed and one still in the conceptual stages) I will still probably have between one to two cups of buttermilk left.  Hopefully I can come up with something reasonable in the next few days.

-I am hoping that later today I can finish off the rest of the turkey by preparing a turkey pot-pie.  Once this is taken care of I think I will be through with Christmas leftovers.

Baking misadventures

A few weeks ago some friends were coming over. I thought that having some freshly baked muffins on hand might be nice.

Of course, part way the baking process, at about the time when I realized things were going according to plan, I came to the realization that I had forgotten to add the baking powder.

The resulting muffin shaped dough pucks ended up kind of looking like muffins, at least until their innards were exposed. And while aspects of the flavour were as expected, the overall package was quite disappointing.

Today, while making a scone recipe I have made dozens of times I neglected to add the called-for sugar. Of course I didn't notice this until part way through the first scone.

In retrospect this omission likely explains why the scones looked a little different than normal.

I am really hoping that this will be the final instance of my baking forgetfulness for the foreseeable future.

I have a hard enough time single-handedly eating full batches of baked goods when they are properly prepared that I don't need to give myself additional hurdles, particular if those hurdles make the output less palatable.

A Few Quick Notes 546

-The summer weather that we were recently enjoying seems to have slipped away and been replaced with temperatures in the mid-teens and grey skies and rain. I guess that in at least some ways this is preferable to 30 degree temperatures with high humidity.

-A few days ago Jeannette and I were finally able to make our first harvest from this year's container garden. Earlier this week we picked about 10 Purple Queen beans (basically green beans). In the next few days we should be able to get a strawberry or two and some leaf lettuce. Unfortunately it seems that our cherry tomatoes are still a ways away from being ripe, and our giant pumpkin even further. Our carrots and corn are also just about as far away from a successful harvest. (Why do I keep trying to grow a number of types plants in pots that shouldn't be grown in pots?)

-For breakfast I made another batch of pumpkin bran muffins. I give myself another few months before I have burned myself out on these and I never want to eat them again. And because I now have an open can of pumpkin puree I will have to find a use for the remainder of the can in the coming days.

-I guess I should get on with my day.

Another round two

During my recent hospital stay I had the pleasure of being served a pumpkin bran muffin. Almost as soon as I tasted this muffin I thought about trying to make a batch for myself. Sadly, the hospital didn't include the recipe, or even a list of ingredients, with the muffin.

Perhaps even more frustrating than the hospital's lack of diligence on the recipe front is that the web seems to have been flooded with recipes for pumpkin bran muffins that didn't appear to be what I was looking for (many had too much spice or other aspects that I found displeasing).

Anyway, after looking at about a dozen recipes for pumpkin bran muffins I thought that I had finally found one that would meet all of my needs. Yesterday morning I got up at about 6:00 AM and threw a batch together.

Not long after I took the muffins out of the oven for the first time I realized that I had a somewhat severe problem on my hands. The outer layer had developed a leathery texture. This problem was paired with another problem, the innards of the muffin were still relatively raw and doughy.

Though I did eat two of these muffins, they were basically inedible. The one aspect of the muffins that I did like was the level of spicing, which was minimal and not exclusively cinnamon (there was also a little ginger and nutmeg and there would have been allspice had I had any).

After this relatively disappointing failure I was still left with the better part of an open can of pumpkin puree so it was clear that another batch of these muffins would be in my future, though this time with a somewhat modified recipe.

Maybe it should have been obvious to me from the beginning, but while thinking through my first failure I realized that I might consider modifying the the recipe I normally use for bran muffins to accomodate the addition of pumpkin puree.

When I got down to doing an ingredient-by-ingredient examination of the recipe I determined realized that I would likely only have to make a few modifications the the recipe. The primary change would be exchanging the molasses and some of the milk for the pumpkin puree. I decided that I would also add the spicing component from the first recipe.

In the end the recipe I settled on in as follows:

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
3/4 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup wheat bran
3/4-1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Combine the brown sugar and then add and mix the eggs, pumpkin puree, milk, and bran. Add the baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and flour and mix. Scoop into greased muffin tray (12 large/medium muffins) and bake at 400 F until done (probably between 15 to 20 minutes).

While I am not sure that this will be the definitive pumpkin bran muffin recipe for all time I am certainly pleased with the results and am inclined plan on using it when I next want to make pumpkin bran muffins.