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  Linking up at Marg at The Intrepid Reader

Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday Salon

Sunday Post

February 2023 - Toronto ON

Sep 2022 - St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador

I had posted in T for Tuesday another coffee shop that had mushroom coffee and everyone asked what the heck is that?

Mushroom coffee is lauded as a healthier alternative to regular coffee, boasting medicinal mushroom extracts and added health benefits.
Although it’s currently a trending coffee blend, this concept is far from new.
According to online sources, mushrooms were used as a coffee substitute in Finland during World War II, when coffee beans weren’t available. There’s also an extensive history of culinary and medicinal use of mushrooms in Asian countries, specifically for Chinese medicine, for their nutritional and health benefits.

Saturday and the weather forecast looked like this on my laptop. We weren't going anywhere so we just got cozy for the day.

Saturday afternoon, after baking, prepping dinner, and cleaning out the vegetable bins, I settled down to embroider and finished The Indian Doctor and went back to London Kills.

Sunday morning is usually my reading morning, reading book blogs and going to the library to bookmark. I usually flip through at least one cookbook and perhaps some magazines.

Monday and the first thing I saw was the devastating news about the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. 

John ran some errands and went to Costco. He commented on how prices had gone up!!

He was going to buy short ribs but there were 3 in the package for $60! Granted this would have been 3 meals for 2 of us but that is still $10 a meal.

I did the math for the ground beef.

Feb 6	Ground beef	OZ	$31
Pkgs	Feeds 2 ppl
6	12	9
3	6	10
2	4	12	Stew/meatloaf/spag sauce =leftovers
	22	$1.41	a meal

22 things to do with one pound of ground beef.

Tuesday morning full moon - known as a snow moon. It is the smallest full moon of the year and is referred to as a micromoon...the opposite of a supermoon. It doesn't appear smaller to the naked eye, but is 14% smaller than a supermoon because of the current position of the moon in its orbit.

I started the condo paperwork for the kitchen reno, I just need a couple of answers from the contractor. I re-used the forms I had done when he did our floors.

John did a Metro run. He picked up a sirloin steak at a great price. But flank steak was $5 a kilo more than at Longo's.

Wednesday I got energetic in the kitchen and cleaned out under the sink. Then I had John empty the stupid little cupboard over the stove, and relocated the onion soup bowls and some Irish stemware. The onion soup bowls went into the cabinet behind the flour along with some other small red dishes. 

I threw out a gazillion wine labels that we don't use and "found" some black chalk labels that I can use.

I baked some scones, see below. That meant afternoon tea.

Thursday was a rainy rainy day, the little snow we had has been washed away. John came in soaked to the skin as he took the subway and bus home.

While John was out I reorganized a drawer in the bar to accommodate the Irish glasses from the kitchen. I found some more small bowls that were put with the others in the kitchen.

I started finished relabeling the spices and baking goods, that meant cleaning out and discarding some things.

It was time to go through all the coffee mugs in the kitchen and move some of them, we do not need a gazillion in the kitchen taking up valuable real estate. 

These made the cull, the others went into the bar.

Grumpy "I Hate Mornings" from Disney, Little Rock AR because it is my favourite colour, New Orleans because John likes this mug for soup or tea, Toronto, Route 66, Las Vegas, Kalamazoo House, and my BFF Friends.

We also kept our normal morning coffee mugs (not pictured).

John used the golf simulator.

Sorted through more photos that were either needing to be scanned or thrown out. I had to look and check if these had already been scanned, probably half had. This took all afternoon as John enjoyed looking through them as well. I have a large pile for shredding.

COOKING

Saturday in the interest of organizing my kitchen cupboards for the upcoming reno, I decided to use up a container of GF bread mix, I had stuck the label from Bob Red Mill's Bread and Flour Mix on top. 

A regular package contains 566 grams, I had 555 grams so I added 11 grams of brown rice flour and made it according to the directions. Since it says "to follow your bread maker instructions for adding" I used wet then dry ingredients topping it off with the yeast. It turned out well although a little crumbly. John said it would be great with soup. 

UPDATE I threw it out on Wednesday as it was like a brick. No harm, no foul, the mix had been in the cupboard for a couple of years.

Note in photo - I have changed the "color" setting to medium toast.

Lemon chicken with rice, green peppers and onions. I didn't love it, John liked it.

Sunday Marinated stuffed flank steak cauli potato mash, honey balsamic vinegar carrots and gravy. I used the stale ends of last week's homemade bread for the stuffing.

Monday I was indecisive about what we would eat, tossing various ideas about. I decided to make lazy tomato soup (from canned juice) with the above mentioned whole grain bread and was a delicious lunch.

Dinner was also indecisive until John mentioned Costco and I decided on rotisserie chicken nachos.

Tuesday chicken sandwiches for lunch. Leftover stuffed flank steak with mashed potatoes and broccolini.

Wednesday the Costco chicken served us well. Dinner Monday, sandwiches lunch Tuesday, chicken salad Wednesday. The bones made soup stock.

I made these scones, from Chef Alina with Cup4Cup flour, a surprise that it made 16, I am so used to gluten free recipes only making 6 or 8. I used about 378 grams of the heavy cream and added frozen blueberries.

This is a classic recipe, no eggs. I baked for about 28 minutes but then added 10 minutes. Did not taste like gluten free at all! I did put them in to get a little more brown than this photo.

Dinner - Mushroom Bolognese spaghetti.

Thursday air fryer Buffalo chicken tenders with bacon apple Caesar salad.

Friday I posted my blueberry breakfast crumb cake.

Steak, baked potato, oven roasted broccolini, mushrooms and tomatoes.

WATCHING

OSCARS 2023

We are going to try and watch as many of the Oscar nominations as we can before the awards, it makes it a lot more fun. We did watch All Quiet Friday evening.

We have already seen:

Elvis - Best picture/Actor

Banshees of Inisherin - Best picture/Actors

Top Gun - Maverick - Best picture

Blonde - Best Actress

Everything Everywhere All At Once - Best picture/Actress

All Quiet on the Western Front - War breaks out in Germany in 1914. Paul Bäumer and his classmates quickly enlist in the army to serve their fatherland. No sooner are they drafted than the first images from the battlefield show them the reality of war. Bleak, grim, grey, sad. Not my favourite for an Oscar.

Jackie watched

The Martha Mitchell Effect - documentary Loved it, another story of Tricky Dicky and Watergate. This woman was vilified by the Republicans.

OTHER

I watched a French series The Perfect Mother on Netflix which was okay.

READING

I finished Dead Cold by Jane Heafield, another new to me author. I really enjoyed this. The plot twists and turns but it all makes sense in the end. It is an intricately plotted police procedural that kept me captivated. I believe there are two more in the series.

Started the next in the series Cold Heart and I think it will also be a good read.

New word to me:

Anhedonia refers to the reduced ability to experience pleasure. It has had an important place in many aspects of psychopathology since it was first described in the previous century, and is still a feature of several types of psychiatric disorders and maladaptive behaviors.

COOKBOOKS

The America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook I skimmed through this on Sunday morning, thinking I might pick up some good ideas/tips. Final thought - good basic book for someone starting out, lots of photos, helpful "what went wrong". Lots of recipes. If you only wanted one cookbook this should definitely be it. But don't expect anything "exotic".

According to the chapter on stocking your fridge/pantry, mine is well stocked.

There is no mention of allergies e.g. gluten.

Under substitutions, for eggs, there is no mention of using bananas, chia seeds or applesauce.

How to Cook Eggs was a lengthy and interesting chapter.

1 - read the recipe carefully. I am so bad at this, I need to do it better.

2 - to keep dry ingredients from flying out of the stand mixer, pile them in the centre of a piece of parchment paper then fold like a funnel and add the ingredients. Maybe be worth giving it a try.

RECIPES - that caught my eye

Modern beef burgundy

Blackbird Bakery Gluten Free 2010

Oh my, just when I thought I knew all the various flours, I learn more. Chestnut, amaranth, 

I have a good GF scone recipe, so am not sure why hers has so many ingredients like gelatin.

I am intrigued by her chia and poppy seed shortbread with pomegranate glaze because John loves shortbread and I have chia seeds and pomegranate juice on hand.

The Homemade Flour Cookbook I skipped to the chapter on gluten free flours.

Milk Street: The World in a Skillet 2022 spectacular photography! It was great to learn the differences between cooking in a skillet and a wok.

Chicken curry with tomatoes and bell peppers I like the idea of coating the chicken in spices before cooking.