Waffles and more culinary delights

Waffles

2 cups flour, sifted

2 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs, separated

5 tsp butter, melted

2 cups milk

Sift the flour, add baking powder, sugar and salt. Sift again. Beat egg whites until stiff, set aside.

Beat egg yolks, add to milk and add to dry ingredients, only enough to blend. Add melted butter. Fold in egg whites last. 

Cook according to waffle iron instructions.

I put 1/2 cup of batter in the center of my 8" waffle iron.

This made ten waffles. I did not scrape the last half cup of batter out of the bowl.

My only hint is, sift the flour everywhere the recipe says sift the flour. It's as important as beating the egg whites.

The table was lovely, with three plates with waffles, butter, the maple syrup jug. Jim and Lynn had orange juice and milk. I had coffee. No pictures happened.

Lynn said to me to please not be offended, but she had maple syrup once and did not like it. It was too thin and watery and not sweet at all. I forget what she compared it to, but it was not favorable. So, she would use Jim's sugar free syrup.

I put the little jug of warm syrup on the table.

"That sure smells good," she said. She tried a waffle hole full. Instant convert to maple syrup.

I told her it was just maple syrup. You know, the stuff they make in Geauga County every spring. 

I asked where she had maple syrup. "Cracker Barrel," she said.

I did get up an hour early this morning, to commence my cooking duties. I opened the egg carton, and to my surprise, they were every egg color. I did take a picture of a blue egg.

I don't know if you can tell it's blue. I used my egg separator, the fellow with the accommodating nose. It didn't work well. Since I no longer trust myself with the standard, egg shell to egg shell method, I guess a real egg separator will go on the shopping list.

Since I had to go back in the kitchen for the recipe, I took a couple more pictures.

Aren't they pretty. And since I'm mostly proud of my state, here is one last picture:

Black Bonnett Amish Farm Elderberry Jelly is also fabulous, and you can take that from someone who grew elderberries and made jelly for twenty years.

Waffles 'n bacon tomorrow

I invited Lynn and Jim for breakfast tomorrow. I mentioned at one of our weekly trips for breakfast that I make the best waffles in the entire universe. Jim said he makes the best bacon, and so it was on.

My "best waffles in the universe" are from the cookbook of my childhood, long gone. It involves whipping the egg whites until they have peaks, then folding in the batter, slowly, and making the pancakes. 

I have a new waffle iron to try out. I bought it in Wisconsin, so we know it will make fabulous waffles. I do not have a syrup pitcher, so when I added it to my list of "must get", it was time for a run to the thrift store, Abbey Ann's.

I spent nine dollars and change:

There are two pitchers, one for maple syrup and one for Jim's sugarless syrup. Also on my list, an 8" square baking dish, a pie pan, a ten inch lid and two muffin tins.

If I'd just been browsing and found that square baking dish, I would have bought it! It's Pyrex. It has handles and a lid!

A while back I added the cast iron skillet to my small arsenal, and have occasionally regretted not having a lid. Now it has one, and glass, no less. I can keep track of the state of caramelization of my onions. Not for waffles!

Beauty in a discombobulated week

I have a self-inflicted head ache. The worst of it is my own fault. It's a "woman" thing, but in obverse. I cannot gain weight, for the simple reason I don't eat. Not because I lack a cook, but because it's bedtime before I remember I didn't eat lunch or supper.

Last Monday, at the doctor's, I weighed as much in all my clothes, and my shoes, and my purse and phone as I last weighed when I'd checked at home, in my nightgown: 110. On the way home I made an over speed left turn into Schwebel's out of date bakery store. I put $15 of junk food into half the cart. Sort of decent junk food, but nevertheless...

Can you conceive of all the sugar and preservatives! Before bedtime I'd consumed four creme sticks, in addition to lunch and supper. On Tuesday I ate half a carrot cake extra. And the other half on Wednesday. Today, I just picked something. Oh, the sugar high. Oh, the headache!

This morning the scale announced 115. No matter what, all that stuff is out of the freezer and off to cards next Tuesday. I cannot deal with the headache! Nancy's grand kids can look forward to getting off the school bus for at least a week!

Overnight there was steady rain, and the temperature today, and forecast for a week to come, is 78, or 25.5 c's. The wind has been steady though, and I should not have been surprised to find the soil dried out already.

I worked my way along all the plants, watering, and look what came for a short visit. It took me three shots to get it in focus. Fortunately, it was patient.  Such a beauty! I looked it up and found the life cycle of a dragonfly is about six years. Sadly, they have only a couple of months in flying beauty.

At the end of summer the sweet potato vine has bloomed a bit. The mandevilla are as beautiful as ever, and the Gerbera's last buds are in full bloom.

Summer winding down

Hard to see here, but one Mandevilla has reached over and entwined with the other. I really can't tell if the pink reached out for the white, or the other way around.

But, it's very obvious the leaves are beginning to fail, and not for want of watering! That happens at the end of summer.

I finally have a rod of an appropriate length for my dancing glass lady. She is out to enjoy the end of summer.

This Gerbera daisy is among the most prolific I've had. There are three more red flowers to bloom.

And because I have no red Gerbera's for display yet, here are some purple and yellow's. Not Gerbera, but nice nevertheless. You know how I am with remembering the names.

School is back in session  for many, so please drive carefully.

Every day is one day closer to election day. The outcome is a crap shoot. We need to show we are committed to voting, this year and next! Guide young folks to registering. There still are two plus months here in Ohio, to register. 

Old women, hear us roar

I do apologize to those who might be embarrassed raising their voice and demanding attention. I know more than a few of you, too, and probably love all of you, especially for being so nice.

A person who may or may not be out in the audience owes me a substantial sum of money, and has been paying it on time for some time. I cannot tell you how much I dislike being inconvenienced by, oh, going to the bank, for example. Years ago I asked the debtor to deposit the check into my account. I knew it was possible.

My bank happened to me when I bought the house, thirty odd years ago, and has followed me around ever since. This bank has no drive up windows at their banks in Ohio. Most branches are located in supermarkets I don't shop at. In Hudson I can walk up twenty stairs for the back entrance, or park at a head-in angle at the front.

For thirty odd years I have arranged to have few direct transactions with the bank. Now that I move too slowly for most of the world, and use a cane to boot, I prefer to have no direct transactions with the bank.

The debtor stopped direct deposit. I didn't buy the excuse, but no matter, no more deposits. Check would arrive by mail. In the beginning it didn't, but that seems straightened out now, and today I had a check in hand to deposit.

I do all my banking on line. Or thought I did. If I owe you money and you have a mailing address, I pay the bill. If you skip that step, and directly debit, I pay the bill automatically. Deposits never crossed my mind, until today.

I called my bank. No, you cannot deposit a check via your pc. You need to download the app to your phone. Step by step I replicated the instructions given on my pc to my phone.  All you young people have heard me rage over the years, This Is Not Intuitive!

App downloaded, I opened my account. Then everything that is so easy on my keyboard and with my mouse, just went to shit, as usual. No matter how often I tapped buttons, nothing happened. I called the bank, for walk through instructions.

Still, nothing happened. And the wonderful bank lady, who knows me, did not yell back. And then it began to click. I felt the button pulse under my finger and then move on, as it should. Will you believe, that phone knew what to do. 

"Be sure to sign the back of your check first!"

"Find a darker background!"

"Hold the camera over your check!"

And so forth and so on and then boom, my screen exploded in balloons and ribbons and announced First Time! You deposited a check for the first time! Congratulations!

I was as excited as the phone. The bank lady gave me a couple of tips, like don't write VOID on it yet; put a check mark somewhere to indicate you deposited it. Oh, yes, call us any time.

You know I love pictures, but depositing a check with a phone app really is boring, after the first time, so here are recents. It poured all day yesterday. I love the way the mandevillas wrap and wrap around the poles.

The golf course grows more raggedy, and I have not seen the heron in weeks. Scuttlebutt says the Conservancy is closing in on the amount of money the owner wants. Good for the owner; don't give away Mr. Yesberger's trees!

I am still weaving, but oh, so slowly. The first is all the same colors arranged as stripes, and still on the loom. The second is all the same colors, randomly. Each piece will be the front or back of the same shirt. I'll probably hold them up for approval, after they are fulled.