March 2022 Chat Thread

[Bean]

We kicked off March over in the UK with Pancake Day - always a popular one in our house!

[bazookagoof]

For some reason I've always enjoyed homemade pancakes much better than restaurant ones. Also, the first pancakes that are a lighter color always seemed more delicious than the darker-colored ones. Probably just some wiring off in my brain to make me think this way.

I can't remember the last time I had pancakes, either. Have to have been a few years, at least. 

[3piggles]

I should make pancakes. I bought a quarter sheet pan that's magnetic, so it works on the two sync-able stove burners. Otherwise, I didn't have a pan big enough to cook more than a couple of pancakes at a time, so I didn't make them. They can be frozen to eat later, too. I want to make lemon poppyseed pancakes, so hubby gets the fiber he needs to counter to white flour in the pancakes. I have some lemon curd that should be good on them, too I miss national pancake day every year

I love Pickles We all have some Earl and Opal in us

[Bean]

I only make the pancake day crepe style pancakes a couple of times a year (we have a second 'pancake day' on Boxing Day if we're at home), but I make the thicker breakfast pancakes a fair bit. I also like to swap out some of the flour sometimes, and replace it with oats. They taste just as good but just feel like a more substantial breakfast.

I always like the paler ones too, I just tend to prefer things that are a bit under rather than a bit over. And I agree, homemade ones are always the best!

[3piggles]

I made pancakes. I got a recipe from the New York Times food edition. They were awful I definitely have to do more research in to getting fluffy pancakes Vic thought I was making waffles, and got out the waffle maker. I probably should have made waffles instead

[Bean]

Oh no! What was wrong with them?

I got out the waffle maker last week, for the first time in ages. I'd promised my son I'd make them in the school holidays. They were good, but cleaning the waffle maker after is more annoying than cleaning a frying pan after making pancakes!

I've been trying some different stir fry sauce recipes recently. I love stir fries and they're so quick and easy to do. We've found some good ones. I'm working on my vegetarian Pad Thai next.

[3piggles]

The pancakes were rubbery. They didn't taste bad, if you like tasty rubber. I've also been looking at recipes for pancakes made with oat flour, as that's better for diabetics than even all purpose white flour. Oh, can you post the recipe for your oat cakes, Bean? I know I have it. I just can't find it. I have a new recipe app where I'm storing all the recipes I can find, and I'll put it in there. Thanks in advance. I am going to make them

We've talked about the canned biscuits we have in the US, and one nice option is making them into donuts. Just use fingers to flatten out each biscuit, heat half an inch of oil to 325F, and fry each biscuit for about 2 minutes on each side. I dump mine in cinnamon sugar, and they are practically an instant version of donuts (without the holes), zeppole, etc. Even better is that the inexpensive biscuits from Walmart, that didn't make very good biscuits, make great fried dough. It takes about 10 minutes from start to finish, and there are fresh, warm doughs to eat. I made a lemon maple syrup, adding lemon curd to maple syrup, and I would make longer, thinner doughs to dunk in that. Great to have on hand, if someone drops in to visit. Not that anyone does drop in to visit Just have to keep making them, so I'm sure I still can, and eating them before they go bad

Gas prices are increasing. Home heating oil, natural gas and propane prices are also increasing. We are part of a plan that gets us the propane for less per gallon than the company charges, so that's nice. No such program for gas at the pumps for the cars, so I expect the next excuse for price increases for everything will be higher fuel prices for transport vehicles. It's always something. We'll weather this. We always do. I do a lot of shopping on Amazon and can increase that so we only have to go shopping for perishables. We swim twice a week but could reduce that to once a week. We probably won't get down to visit daughter and family, unless we're going to be in the area, anyway. Maybe by next foliage season the prices will have come back down. We don't get any oil from Russia/Ukraine, so this is a stock market-driven knee-jerk reaction to the war. I think it will level off.

Last time gasoline prices reached $4/gal., so many people stopped driving, the states lost millions of dollars in highway tolls. All the big trucks and gas-guzzling SUVs stopped selling, hitting the automotive industry really hard. There are repercussions to high gas prices, and if prices hit $4/gal again, it will happen again. Could kill the Summer and Fall tourist seasons

[Bean]

Mar 7, 2022 19:55:34 GMT 3piggles said:

They didn't taste bad, if you like tasty rubber.

Not my favourite, thanks!

This looks like the same recipe I use for Staffordshire Oatcakes (<-- link). My recipe reminds you just to put the batter in the pan and only to tilt the pan to spread the batter, don't use any implements to spread it out as you might do with a pancake. I do like them made fresh, but always like them best when they're refried (with bacon and ketchup), probably because that's how I grew up having them!

With the oaty pancakes, you soak 1 1/2 cups of oats in 1 cup of milk for about 10 minutes. Then add 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of SR flour and 1 tsp of baking powder. The recipe says to add a pinch of salt and a tsp of sugar too, but I don't often put these in and don't notice a difference. You can beat it by hand or whizz it in the food processor for a smoother batter. They're good, nice and filling!

Pump prices have gone up here too (although we've always had a ton more tax on petrol than you do), it's about £1.60 a litre right now. I think there are about 4.5 litres in a gallon, making it £7.20 a gallon. It's not affected what we're thinking of doing yet, but living in a big city, we don't have far to go for most things anyway, and have good public transport too. I can imagine that rural living means it will have a much bigger impact on pockets.

Mar 7, 2022 19:55:34 GMT 3piggles said:

Just have to keep making them, so I'm sure I still can, and eating them before they go bad

Haha! What great logic!

[3piggles]

Thanks for the recipe. What is SR flour? I'll enter this in my recipe keeper, so I know I have it

Hubby bought strawberries for the guinea pigs, and some are huge, so I've separated those from the rest, and we'll dip them in the lemon maple syrup. I tried one, since there was an odd number of huge strawberries, and I had to even that number. It was fabulous! How to take a healthy snack and make it wonderfully unhealthy, lol

[Bean]

Self raising flour (as opposed to plain flour), so it has a rising agent like baking powder already added to it and is used for cakes etc.

I always see 'all-purpose flour' listed in US recipes, which I think is plain flour? Maybe you're all just happy to add your raising agents separately instead of having someone pre-mix them for you!

[3piggles]

We are, though we do have self-rising flour. I have about 20 different types of flour, and none is self-rising, lol I'll check into using yeast with all purpose flour instead, but would rather use the right thing, at least the first time, just so I know what the result should be. I'm sure there's a ratio of yeast to flour to create self-rising flour.

Snow and colder temperatures today, though temps are far enough above freezing that we should get rain instead of snow. Have to wait and see

We had two raccoons at the feeding station last night. They were pulling all sorts of antics, but mostly eat the corn the squirrels and birds ignore. Hubby got a picture of them. I'll post it, if I can figure out how to get it off his phone I put out extra corn this morning. We're only putting out seed/corn on the berm every other day, until the critters have had a chance to go through all that's out there. A lot fell into the snow, got frozen into the ice, and is not becoming available to eat. They'll have to work for it

[Bean]

I'm not convinced about using yeast in a cake! I think you'd be able to taste it and you'd have to leave it to prove, whereas most recipes are 'mix and bung it in the oven'.

If I've run out of SR flour I just had a heaped teaspoon of baking powder to plain flour (for a 4oz mix) and that works. Some recipes use bicarbonate of soda too, but I tend to stay away from that as I don't like the taste (I don't think baking powder has any taste).

Your racoons sound fun - hope we get to see them too!

[3piggles]

Ah, so SR is basically cake flour? I'll check the cake flour I have and see if that's self-rising. I could add baking powder. That wouldn't be a problem. I'm just not used to working with SR flour, so not used to working without it in this instance. I'll figure it out

I bought some Wondra Flour, which is a precooked flour, very lite, for use in thickening sauces and gravies. It will help make au jus into gravy, when that's what I want, and not have that uncooked flour taste.

Tomorrow should be decently warm at 4 a.m., making going swimming a lot easier on the old bods than it's been for a couple of months. Also have the Soul running, so heated seats to greet me in the morning

I'm liking the daylight starting earlier, so of course we have to spoil that by changing the clocks. Someday we'll stop all this clock changing nonsense! If everyone did it, that would be different, but there's always a city/town that doesn't do it and is on a different time for 6 months. Nothing bad happens to them for not changing the time!

[Bean]

I agree it's nice waking up and it being light.

I was going to say cake flour sounds about right, but googled it and apparently although there are a couple of brands of cake flour that are self rising, most are not and you'd still need to add baking powder or bicarbonate of soda. Cake flour just means that to make the cakes more fluffy, it's very finely milled and has a lower protein count, and it's usually bleached too (which isn't allowed over here!).

Enjoy your swim!

[3piggles]

I will look for self-rising flour. It's possible to get just about anything these days, so I'm sure it's around.

Setting our clocks ahead Saturday PM, so Sunday will be one hour less sleep. Have you changed the clocks in the UK? You don't do them at the same time we do.

[Bean]

We've got a couple of weeks to wait until ours change (it'd be so much easier if we at least did it at the same time). My son was complaining about it yesterday - he loves his sleep and doesn't want to have an hour of it pinched!

[3piggles]

Twice every year we have news segments about lawmakers wanting to stop Daylight Savings Time, but nothing ever comes of it. I don't know why it was started, but we don't need it, and it's not healthy. It takes most people at least a week to get back on the schedule. During that time, they don't perform at school or work, which isn't good for anyone. There are also far too many people with sleep problems. I've gotten an average of 4 hours of sleep per night this past week, and even if I managed to sleep longer tonight, I lose an hour just because someone wants to change the time. I'll probably be up anyway, so I might go to sleep earlier tomorrow night. I doubt it will be a problem until we have to get up at what's biologically 3 a.m. to go swimming on Tuesday. It may be a long, hard swim!

[Bean]

I think most people would happily skip the changes. I mean, a lot of people enjoy the extra hour, but the other end isn't so much fun, especially if you have any sleep issues.

I had a few areas where I'd planted crocuses. They emerged through the grass looking pretty and colourful, but then the squirrels got a taste for them and they were all gone within the week! So future year's displays are likely to be very weak too. Pesky things, there's plenty of bird food they can access, but obviously the crocuses were tastier! They seem to be leaving the daffodils at least.

[bazookagoof]

I switched the clocks & my watch last night before I forgot- when I woke up, it was almost 8! That's unheard of for me, btu then I realized it would technically be almost 7, which is when I usually wake up.

I wish we could just split the difference and move the clock 30 minutes in one direction. I like longer days, but I hate getting up when it's dark. I'd settle for a compromise (which I know will never occur.) 

[3piggles]

I don't like getting up in the dark, which is why I installed plant grow lights over the windows in the bedroom. They come on when I'm supposed to get up, so 4 or 5 a.m. If they hadn't come on at 5 this morning, I would have gone back to sleep. ADHD people are supposed to maintain a sleep schedule to help deal with sleep problems. It doesn't really work, but it does make it easier to get up early, when we have to. The clock by the bed is digital, and not one that's really easy to change. I may look for another one. It has a light that would come on gradually to wake me up. I got it before I got the grow lights. Now, I just want a clock with a face big enough for me to see, and a light that can be use if needed, separate from the clock. Takes up more space, but I think it will be more useful. No hurry. We have 6 months before we have to do this all over again!