Oh me, oh my

The pictures were all taken last Friday evening.

Wow. Today was just not my day for cooking. This morning I got up and started making my blueberry muffins. The flour (whole wheat) had been soaking in yogurt for 24 hours, so I was adding the rest of the ingredients and trying to get them into the oven. Of course, my son woke up before I finished. I added the eggs, the maple syrup, and butter. I spooned the mixture into my paper muffin cups in their muffin tins. I placed the blueberries on top of the muffins per the instructions. I put the muffins into the preheated oven. I then skimmed the recipe to make sure all was well....it wasn't. I had forgotten the baking soda and vanilla. :-( Sooo, I took out the muffins, picked off the blueberries, scraped out the paper cups, and added the other ingredients. I then put the muffins back in the oven...only to realize I had forgotten to put the blueberries back on top. Evan gave me a very worried look as I recounted the story to him before he left for work. :-) The muffins turned out well, for whole wheat muffins. Nathan liked them, so did I. Evan hasn't tried one yet.

I had roasted a deer shoulder in the oven all night at 250 degrees, so this morning I picked off most of the meat then put the bones in the crockpot, added some veggies, and started the stock (it will be ready tomorrow).

Oh, my yogurt-, whey-, cream cheese-making adventure turned out well. Yay for that. I was able to get 1 quart of whey and probably two cups of cream cheese out of half a gallon of milk (which I had gotten for $3), so I only spent $1.50 on all of that! The whey will keep in my fridge for 6 months, and the cream cheese will keep for a month.

Okay, back to my cooking "mis" adventures. Tonight I was making sauerkraut. Yes, sauerkraut. Latin American sauerkraut, to be specific. The recipe calls for cabbage, carrots, onions, oregano, sea salt, whey, and red pepper. Anyhoo, I was pounding the veggies in a big bowl on the floor (with my handy-dandy sycamore stick/limb that I got from MeeMaw and PeePaw's house over ten years ago), and I looked at the recipe and realized that all ingredients were supposed to be pounded together. So, I add the oregano, whey, and red pepper. I then tried to add sea salt. Well, my sea salt was being difficult, so I was "encouraging" it to come out. Then the lid fell off, and half of the contents of the container fell into my bowl. Argh. I picked out as much as I could, but I have no clue how much ended up in there. :-( I finished out the process and packed two quart jars which are now sitting on my counter fermenting (the recipe says to leave them out for three days). I just hope it's okay.

So, those are recent events. I'm sure Nathan did something of note today, but I just can't remember at the moment.