Steamed Hard Boiled Eggs

On By stefrobrtsIn food4 Comments

I saw an add on TV for an egg steamer, and had a laugh about it because I LOVE the way those gadget commercials always make simple tasks look impossible in order to convince you to buy their gadget. So they were showing these people who were unable to cook eggs without their fancy steamer, which I thought was quite funny. But the idea stuck with me and so I looked it up on the net. Indeed people do steam eggs to hard boil them, and several sites I read suggested the steam makes it easier to peel the eggs. Because our eggs are so fresh, they are very hard to peel, hard enough that I had given up making hard boiled eggs with them!

So I pulled out the steamer and took a few eggs, pierced a little hole in one end (I think that was supposed to keep it from blowing the shell apart, but they did that anyway), and set it to steam for 30 minutes, which is what I read online. I also read to steam them for 10 and let them rest for 20. After 30 minutes I moved them into a bowl of ice water in the fridge for half an hour. Then I pulled them out and sure enough, those shells slipped right off! It was wonderful! And the eggs were perfect, didn’t even have the green ring around the yolk. I did a bunch more and made egg salad for sandwiches, and then had a few left over for Dave to snack on.

I’m so excited to have found an easy way to cook our eggs. And I didn’t need to buy any new gadgets to do it!

Angel Food Cake

On By stefrobrtsIn foodLeave a comment

I have been experimenting with ways to use up lots of eggs, so the first thing that comes to mind is Angel Food Cake, because that uses a dozen egg whites. I made an AFC when I was a teenager, all by myself, and it came out just fine (lucky lucky). So a couple weeks ago I downloaded a Good Eats recipe and gave it a try.

First attempt didn’t turn out so well. Everything looked fine until I got it out of the pan and cut it and then I discovered random gooey blobs inside. The cake around the blobs was good, but the blobs were gross, so I ended up ditching it. I’m sure it’s something I did because I absolutely swear by Alton Brown’s recipes. Sometimes the recipes may not be to my taste, but they always come out.

Second try was today, and I got a recipe off cooks.com and tried it. The order of operations was a little different. It seems that AFC is all about technique, since the ingredients seem to be about the same. This time the cake came out looking good, tasting good, and no gooey blobs, but it’s heavy! More like an Angel Food Brick!

Oh well, since the chix are giving me 6-7 eggs a day now, I’ll be able to try again in a couple days. As for the dozen yolks, I cooked them and threw them back out to the chickens. Hate to see them go to waste, and I don’t know what else to do with yolks by themselves.

Sorry no pics, the camera is Out of Order for a few days.

Made some bread

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized3 Comments


A few years ago Dave gave me a bread machine for Christmas. I enjoyed using it for a while, then tucked it away in the cupboard and hadn’t used it in a couple years. But a week ago we were out of bread and I had bread flour in the pantry, so I pulled out the machine and made a loaf of white bread. It turned out nice, and made some good sandwiches, and the leftovers made a nice stuffing to go with a turkey breast I cooked.

So today I tried a new recipe, Sally Lunn bread. It’s good, kind of sweet.

Mmm, smells like bread. Actually the best part of baking bread is that the whole house smells like bread!

Barclay says, please can’t I have some of that bread?

I do enjoy the simplicity of tossing ingredients into the bread machine and three hours later you have warm bread and the house smells wonderful. Pretty slick!

Spoke to Alki’s Oncologist

On By stefrobrtsIn alki, pets1 Comment

Dr Cyman is Alki’s oncologist, and she has been wonderful through this whole matter. When I talked to her yesterday after a couple days of phone tag she made me feel much better. She’s very matter of fact about dealing with things. When I asked about the other vet seeing cancer cells in Alki’s urine, the Dr basically said ‘maybe he did, maybe it was something else. It doesn’t really matter, we already know she has cancer.’ Well, true. It’s just that every time someone says cancer I freak out a bit more! But she’s right, that’s no surprise. So she said Alki’s blood tests looked pretty good, but she suspects her bladder is irritated, either from an infection or from the cancer. Again, it doesn’t matter, because we’ll do the same thing either way. I’m supposed to keep track of how often she takes piddle breaks for a few days, then we’ll do a round of antibiotics and see if it helps. It might help, it might not. She said ‘if money grew on trees’ we’d try some other things, but I’m glad she realizes we just can’t. Plus she understood that Alki is getting older and not up to a bunch of crazy treatments. So she made me feel a lot better because she’s so calm and matter of fact that we’ll do what we can to make her comfortable in spite of the cancer. Can’t cure the cancer, so we’ll just deal with it.

She did say that Alki is coming up on two years since her diagnosis and that that is spectacular for her. In fact she said she had a meeting with the other oncologists in the area recently, including the dr who did Alki’s pre-surgery diagnosis and the surgeon, and shared her records with them, because it’s really a success story that she is still plugging along and enjoying a good quality of life.

Some days she mopes around a bit and sleeps a lot or pants like something is bothering her. Other days she bounds around like a crazy hyperactive pup. On the good days it’s hard to look at her and think she’s sick. On the bad days I can’t forget it.

It still gives me chills to realize my little buddy has cancer.

Sad news for Alki

On By stefrobrtsIn alki, pets4 Comments

Alki went to the vet yesterday for her checkup and the vet found what he described as ‘sheets of cancer cells’ in her urine. We knew this was coming. The bladder cancer has caused her to strain while peeing, and that has gotten worse recently. It happens so slowly it’s hard to notice, but she does spend quite a bit of time squatting outside. He also said her bladder seemed to be tender, because she didn’t want him feeling around there. The blood tests went to the oncologist. I’m sure we won’t be hearing good news. We’ve been very happy that the cancer treatments gave her an extra year and a half of normal life, and she’s been very happy that whole time. But we knew the cancer would catch up with her eventually. Now we just have to see how this all plays out.

Nothing in Life is free – when you’re a dog

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized3 Comments

I’ve been thinking about this ‘nothing in life is free’ thing that we have been trying on Barclay. Not that i have been trying it too well, if it burdens me, I’m less likely to do it than I am to be lazy and do it my regular way. One of the things I don’t do well is get him on a feeding schedule, mostly because Alki free-feeds, so there is always food down, and he doesn’t care much about his food anyway, so his bowl always has food in it too. I’m supposed to pick it up and not let him have anything until I choose to offer it to him again, but I can’t be the dog food nazi, I have other things to do, so I just leave it down and he’ll come snack when he wants some. In my mind it’s healthier if they don’t develop an obsession with gulping down every kibble the moment it appears. I’ve never had fat dogs, so I must be doing something right.

Plus, Barclay is not that bad, he’s actually pretty darned good, so I might be more devoted to the cause if I really thought he had issues. Basically the more I think about it, the more I think I’m OVER-thinking it. He’s not trying to dominate anyone or rule the house. If anything he is a pretty ‘soft’ dog, who if not eager to please, is certainly eager to stay off the radar, and just likes to have fun.

Today I came home and on purpose played run and chase games with him. He didn’t know it but there were some important lessons hidden in the games, things about responding to his name and running towards me when I call him. He was just having fun running and chasing and fetching and doing all the stuff he enjoys anyway, and needs to do to burn off energy. And I got some exercise too – I was panting by the time we came inside! Running my butt off 🙂

This whole dog training thing is a puzzle. What worked on Alki doesn’t work on Barclay, and what works on Barclay probably won’t work on the next dog. Maybe that’s part of the fun anyway.

Still snowing…

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, chickens, pets, snow3 Comments

Still snowing, but not really sticking. White rain I guess. Sure is pretty to watch.

Night before last when I heard snow was coming again, and the temp had dropped considerably by nightfall, I went out and caught the garden chickens. They were napping on their roost for the night, which made it easier to catch them. Still, big red chicken SCREAMED the whole way, while I tucked her head under my arm to muffle the sound – I’m sure the neighbors thought we were having chicken for dinner! I put them back with the rest of the flock. I don’t think the chicken tractor is warm enough for the chickens to stay out in it in this kind of weather. I may be pampering them, but I wanted them to be in the insulated coop while it was storming out.

Orange Juice

On By stefrobrtsIn food5 Comments

I used to buy Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice, thinking I was getting the closest possible thing to the real stuff, until I read this article:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/02/22/qa_with_alissa_hamilton/?page=full

It’s in interview with the author of a book called “Squeezed: What you don’t know about Orange Juice”. Well, you know that can’t be good. I don’t know if it’s truth or hype, but it was a wake up call to remember to eat food with the least processing whenever possible.

So in my ongoing quest to ‘eat real food, not too much, mostly plants’ (see Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s manifesto), the concept of only eating things Grandma would have recognized as food, I decided to start drinking fresh-squeezed juice for breakfast.

I already had the juicer head for the mixer, I bought it a couple years ago, thinking I would squeeze a bunch of oranges at the beginning of the week to enjoy all week. Well that didn’t work out. But it turns out that just squeezing two oranges for breakfast every morning is fast and easy, in fact I can juice them and have the whole thing cleaned up before my toast pops up. And it tastes really good. Plus now I have oranges around the kitchen, so I’m more likely to grab one for a snack during the day. There are also fresh baked cookies in the kitchen, and since I’m sure Grandma would have recognized those as food, they are also fair game.

I was put off a bit by the fact that the oranges are still sprayed with some unpronouncable chemicals to protect them during shipping. We’ll just have to live with that, I guess, since Oranges are not something we can grow around here.

The Airstream

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream, cats, mighty, pets2 Comments

We have a 1968 Airstream Caravel – that’s a 17ft trailer – which I restored myself over the last 5 years, with help from my friends in the Airstream community. It is my pride and joy, and we don’t get to use it as much as I’d like. All this winter weather is giving me cabin fever – I want to hook up and hit the road! So instead I went out and did some cleaning up, fixed a bad light switch, and just hung out inside with the dog for a bit, letting him get used to it while I read a magazine. He went camping with us a couple times last season, but he has a bit of separation anxiety, so I want him to learn it’s a safe place to be when we’re gone.

Since it’s only 17 ft long, the tour is short. There’s a kitchen down one side…

And a couch that folds out into a bed on the other (in Airstream-speak, that’s called a ‘gaucho’). The bathroom is in the back, and it’s full-service 🙂 That’s a requirement for me when we’re ‘camping’.

And there’s a dinette in the front which folds down into a bed as well, but we use the side bed. It’s actually nice and cozy inside, and never seems cramped. It’s small size is easy to tow and fits into any camping spot. We are forced to keep everything neat and orderly when travelling because there is no room for clutter inside.

Mighty followed me into the trailer, and then I left to play with the dog, and when I came back and opened the door she had a lot to say to me about forgetting her and leaving her locked in there all alone for TEN WHOLE MINUTES!!! Apparently it was quite traumatic. She may require therapy…