Henry did tons of chores and housework while Lulu and I snuggled in bed and I helped her read the words in her new Nintendo game, Fae Farm. Super cute but lots of reading to get started. She’s got the hang of it now and can probably have fun on her own, exploring and crafting.

I am plum worn out now, hoo boy. Time to zone all the way out in front of Fargo, s01e05.

Oh! This morning for breakfast I made a lemon yogurt that’s as good as or better than my favorite lemon yogurt that Trader Joe’s discontinued! Whisk together a tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, then whisk into a half-cup of thick yogurt. I used my homemade whole milk strained-kefir yogurt but storebought Greek yogurt should work fine. Add more lemon or sugar to customize, or some lemon zest if you like it. So good, so sharp and fresh-tasting!

My stomach didn’t bother me at all today and I was able to ate a lot. Sorry I talk so much about what I do or don’t eat. I’m dreadfully, painfully underweight (96 lbs at 5’7”) and I have so many digestion and appetite problems that it’s rather a constant concern. Anyway today I was hungry, or at least interested in food.

Smoothie for breakfast — kefir, banana, pineapple, strawberries, protein powder. Then I read about how to turn a can of garbanzo beans into a crispy snack so I tried it and it worked and they were super-snacky and easy to eat without thinking about it! Here’s what I posted on Mastodon:

Snacky Garbanzo Beans

A can of garbanzos, rinsed, drained, patted very dry. Toss with olive oil, salt, herbs/spices. Roast on baking sheet at about 415° for 20-30 minutes, stirring partway through. Some get crunchy, some get dense and chewy. Delicious!

I used a little paprika. Would be great with onion or garlic powder, chili/lime seasoning, cayenne if you want ‘em spicy.

So I ate a whole can of garbanzos over a few hours, painlessly. So much good nutrition!

Then I ate a ton of tabbouleh, and then Dave brought me a little strawberry milkshake from Burgerville and I drank most of it, and ate a few of his onion rings, which are made of local sweet Walla Walla onions and were incredibly good.

Now I’ll finish my tabbouleh so I can make a fresh batch tomorrow, and maybe make a quesadilla too. Fruit, grains, beans, cheese and plenty of fat all in one day, yay me!

Definitely want more of those onion rings before the very short Walla Walla season ends…

Mom has gone home after a nice visit and the house is quiet again. I read for hours and hours and hours this afternoon, a really excellent book called “The Best of Everything” by Rona Jaffe. The Wikipedia page is disappointingly inadequate, so this blurb from the publisher will have to do: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/296051/the-best-of-everything-by-rona-jaffe/

For a novel published in 1958 (oh god that’s only 11 years before I was born) it is surprisingly frank and modern, and it feels like reading 466 pages of Mad Men’s cousin. I can’t recommend it highly enough, seriously.

Fishcakes:

Amounts don’t really matter here. Use your own judgement. Mix leftover mashed potatoes, a can of UNDRAINED tuna in water (I bet tinned salmon would also be good), some finely-minced onion, an egg, salt, pepper, and enough flour to make a stiff paste. Herbs or spices, as you wish. I put some dill in this batch. Heat up a good lump of butter in your skillet, drop in a big blob of paste (it should sizzle), and pat it down to maybe a scant half-inch thick. Cook on medium-low till golden-brown on one side, flip, cook till golden-brown on the other side. Drain on paper towels. Add more butter to the skillet for each cake. So good! I’m always happy when I end up with a little portion of leftover mashed potatoes AND there’s a can of tuna in the pantry.

Mom was incredibly helpful in organizing my horrible pile of fabric today. I had the mental energy to guide her, and she did all the work. We ended up with two boxes of garbage-scraps, two boxes of scraps big enough for Jayla to make things with, a bundle of goodwill stuff, and two shelves of nicely-folded yardage for me to use in case I ever feel well enough to sew something. I do really want to make a doll for Freyja to grow into, like the one I made for Lulu, and if possible a small quilt for Freyja too. She missed out on 2019, The Year of Keepsake Quilts. I absolutely cannot wrangle large pieces of fabric and I don’t want to piece anything together, but I could hand-quilt the individual 10” squares of the one layer cake I have remaining, which is luckily a very cheerful, colorful set of prints but not babyish, and then join the squares together after the quilting. Maybe. Oof. Sounds ambitious.

Maybe I’ll make polenta for dinner. It’s so much fun cooking for Mom now that her food requirements are so much more flexible, and I think she might eat polenta.

I did this in several stages because I’m tired. Cake one day, wrapped up well and waiting in the fridge. Lemon Goop the next day. The rest of the filling the next day. Then assembled on the fourth day.

Don’t be intimidated! Everything is easy. Just read it all very carefully before you begin.

First make the filling so it can chill:

Kara’s Lemon Cake Filling

Description:
Enough light yummy lemon filling for a big three-layer cake. Lighter than traditional cream cheese frosting; richer than plain whipped cream. You’ll need a lot of lemons! Tip: keep a bag of lemons in the freezer.

Ingredients

Lemon Goop
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/6 cup cornstarch
1 c combined lemon juice and water, half each, more or less. The more lemon, the better.

Whipped Cream/Cream Cheese Frosting
4 oz cream cheese cold (1/2 block)
1/4 c granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 c heavy whipping cream cold
pinch of salt

Directions

Lemon Goop
Whisk all ingredients together in a small saucepan, adding liquid a little at a time to avoid lumps. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cool completely and refrigerate.

Whipped Cream/Cream Cheese Frosting
In stand mixer bowl, using paddle beater, beat cream cheese until soft. Add sugar, salt, and vanilla. Beat until thoroughly mixed. Use a scraper to scrape the bottom and make sure it all mixes together well. Work fast so it stays cold. Now switch to whisk attachment and add heavy cream by drizzling it down the side of the bowl while the machine is running. Beat until very stiff peaks form.

Filling
Now add the Lemon Goop in dollops while beating a little more. Don’t make butter!
Refrigerate until ready to use. Same day if possible.

Lemon Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
6 egg yolks
1/2 c lemon juice
1/4 c water
6 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 cup white sugar

FILLING/FROSTING
One batch of Kara’s Lemon Cake Filling

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar. Add oil, egg yolks, lemon juice, and water. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth.

In a small bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until peaks form. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar, and beat until very stiff and shiny peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain. Turn batter into ungreased 10-inch tube pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 50 minutes (a little dry. try 47?) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Invert cake and cool completely in pan. When cool, loosen edges and shake pan to remove cake.

To Assemble Cake: Slice COLD cake horizontally into 3 equal layers. Spread each layer with 1/3 of filling. Leave a half-inch margin so it doesn’t all squoosh out. Spread remaining filling on top.

Original recipe said to bake for 60 minutes but mine was well-done after 50. Your mileage may vary.

NEW DATA in the Ongoing Saga of the False Alarms. No alarms last night. But I think I forgot to mention that when I did the factory reset, I noticed that the internal clock was set incorrectly. It has a 24-hour clock (so 1pm should display as 13:00) and it was set the opposite way, so it was 12 hours off. As I reset it I thought, in passing, huh, I wonder if I’ll get false alarms in the afternoon now? (All my false alarms always happen between about 11pm and 6am, so logically they should now happen between 11am and 6pm, right?)

Guess what? I got a frickin’ false alarm at 2:30 this afternoon!!! It woke me up from a nap but that’s better than being awoken in the middle of the night. And it absolutely proves that the fault is in the software. 100% proof. IT’S NOT ME. I’ve reported it to my specialty pharmacy nurse who says she’ll pass it along to United Therapeutics, who will of course do nothing about it. But they COULD do something if they wanted to. They have the info. I gave it to them on a silver platter.

I made the world’s best soup for dinner and it was so easy. Ten minutes start to finish.

Bok Choi, Mushroom, Ginger, and Dumpling Soup

Three cups of chicken broth; a thing of crimini mushrooms, halved; a small head of baby bok choi, sliced; a big pile of grated ginger; and a box of 6 frozen soup dumplings (pork and ginger) from Trader Joe’s. Simmer about ten minutes or until the veggies are tender and the dumplings are hot (they’re pre-cooked). All the veggies and the ginger were from my organic veg box. Dave and I WOLFED it down! He said it reminded him of soup he’d had in China!

Took a bath this morning and then made really amazing soup for breakfast and lunch. Based it on a chicken soup recipe but I didn’t want actual chicken in it so I altered it quite a bit. It’s really kind of neat that Dave and I each cook for ourselves most of the time, because I can make small batches of experimental recipes and not worry about anyone else’s likes and dislikes.

Kara’s Noodle Soup

Makes two very hearty servings

Put 5 cups of chicken broth in a saucepan.

Add 2 peeled and sliced carrots, a few inches of sliced leek or celery, and a spoonful of grated ginger (keep your ginger root in the freezer and grate it frozen. No need to peel)

Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer while you make noodles:

Mix a pinch of salt with a cup of flour. Mix in an egg, then add a spoonful of milk at a time and knead well to make a very stiff, smooth dough. Let rest ten minutes, then roll out 1/8 thick with lots of flour and slice into noodles. Drop noodles a few at a time into the soup and simmer for ten minutes.

Mix a spoonful of cornstarch with a little water to the consistency of cream and add to your simmering soup until the broth is the thickness you like. Done!

Start a few potatoes boiling for the mash.

In a small cast iron skillet, saute half a medium onion and whatever veggies you have handy, diced. I’ve used carrots, celery, beets, leeks, green beans, cabbage, peppers, and frozen peas. The peas are a constant — I don’t think it would be right without them — but everything else varies. If all you have is peas and an onion, go for it. I don’t think you can go wrong as long as you have peas!

Get your little skillet nearly full of veggies (they’ll cook down) and add about half a cup of water or broth. I use “Better Than Boullion” beef broth. Add some herbs and a little salt. Turn the heat down, cover, and cook till the veggies are tender but not mushy. Then mix a spoonful of flour with enough water to make a slurry and stir it in to the veggies to thicken the gravy. When thickened, turn off the heat.

Meanwhile keep an eye on the potatoes and, when tender, mash them with LOTS of butter, cream/milk, and cheddar cheese. I dice the cheese instead of grating it. So much easier.

Then dollop the mash over the veggies, stick the skillet into the oven on a tray in case it bubbles over, and broil until the potatoes get golden brown peaks. YUM!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c butter, room temperature
1 c white sugar
1 c packed brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
½ tsp salt
3 c all-purpose flour (note says can sub 1c flour for 1.5 c oats, have not tried)
2 c semisweet chocolate chips (one sack is enough)

Oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Beat butter with all the sugar until smooth.
Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt.
Stir in flour, chocolate chips.
Drop spoonfuls of dough 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake in the preheated oven until edges are nicely browned, about 10 minutes. (12.5 in my oven. Sit and watch!)

We treated ourselves to a new Kitchenaid tilt-head stand mixer for Christmas to replace the crummy bowl-lift model from Costco that we had been using and omg it is SO MUCH BETTER. Plus it’s bright red and shiny. Oh it’s wonderful, so wonderful. I want to mix ALL the THINGS. Mix mix mixxy mix!

And then I sat on the sofa and did embroidery and listened to podcasts, and then I made an actual dinner of polenta with tons of Parmesan stirred in and a chunky sauce with onion, red pepper, and eggplant. I’ve just eaten a healthy bowlful and will have second dinner and possibly third dinner later, heheh.

The difference to my mood and energy that’s made by better sleep plus relief from anxiety is astonishing.

Daylight photos of the 100 Circles sampler!

Oh yeah I wayyyyy overdid it yesterday. But it was so much fun to cook a feast! Next year I’ll make one dish per day starting Monday and just keep everything in the fridge till Thanksgiving.

My Apple Dessert Invention turned out GREAT. See, Dave doesn’t like cinnamon and I much prefer puff pastry to shortcrust, so I wanted to invent something small and apple-y that would fit that brief. Here’s what I did:

Kara’s Apple Dessert Invention 

Peel, core, and chop one big green apple. Cook until tender in a little saucepan with 1 Tbsp butter, 1/8 c packed brown sugar, 1/4 tsp allspice, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp cloves. When tender, sprinkle in about a tsp of flour and cook to thicken. Then chill this mixture. 

When apples are chilled, cut 4 squares of frozen puff pastry (thawed in fridge) about 4 or 5 inches square. Divide the apple mixture evenly among the squares and kind of pull all the corners into the center and pinch closed. 

Put them on a square of baking parchment in a little pan (I used my smallest cast-iron skillet) and bake at 400° until puffy and golden. Yummy!

This is VERY lightly spiced and not very sweet. If you like things sweeter/spicier, taste the apples before you thicken with flour and adjust.

Another note for next Thanksgiving — I won’t bother with turkey. It’s the least interesting part of the whole feast. I’ll just roast a single turkey breast for Dave if he wants meat.

In other news, I’ve locked my twitter account and deleted my “following” list except for eight friends who haven’t migrated to Mastodon yet, so that the Fedifinder tool will still look for them. I haven’t said anything over there since the 17th, so I’m not giving Musk any traffic or ad views. What a colossal prick he is. He fired a whole bunch more engineers the night before Thanksgiving, and now the work visa folks have 60 days to find new jobs or get deported. Over the Christmas and New Years season. I feel so awful for them, god.

So anyway! Yesterday I basically passed out from exhaustion at 8pm. Had a pretty good sleep, if a bit patchy and nightmare-y, and woke up around 6:00am. I’m gonna STAY IN BED today, yessir.

Oh! Bob the Plumber worked for hours yesterday and we have a new water heater and HOT WATER! YAY! I will perhaps have a nice bath today, later on.

Then I was worn out and rested and played games and read Mastodon all afternoon, and then I made killer Chinese cabbage egg drop soup for dinner! I based it on a recipe I found online but made a few changes. Here’s my version:

Napa Cabbage Egg Drop Soup for two

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups chicken stock
napa cabbage, roughly chopped. I used six large leaves
1-2 Tbsp grated ginger root (keep it in the freezer!)
2 eggs, whisked
a FEW DROPS of sesame-chili oil
optional topping: thinly sliced green onions

Directions:
Heat oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté for until softened. Add garlic and sauté for a couple more minutes.
Add in the stock, chopped cabbage, and ginger. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until the cabbage has mostly softened.
Then, while the soup is still simmering, use one hand to continuously stir the soup round and round while you use your other hand to slowly drizzle in the whisked eggs. The eggs will cook instantly in the hot broth. Stir in a couple drops of sesame-chili oil until completely combined. Taste and season with salt, as needed, plus any extra sesame oil, and/or ginger that you think it might need. I added ginger and sesame-chili oil a bit at a time until the soup just started to have a nice kick.
Serve garnished with green onions if you’ve got ‘em.

God it was good. We both absolutely inhaled a large bowl each and there’s still some left over. Dave says it’s the best egg drop soup he’s ever had *heart eyes*

If you keep a ginger root in your freezer, and have chicken bouillon, sesame-chili oil, eggs, onions, and garlic always on hand, all you need to buy is a napa cabbage and you’re good to go!

Still no hot water, but Bob the Plumber is gonna take away the old water heater tomorrow and maybe install a new one on Friday if possible. Fingers crossed.