The City Mouse in the Country

Without getting into much detail, I was sitting in a doctor's office  recently waiting on my appointment browsing through "Bon Appetit" magazine.  There was a recipe that caught my eye, which at the time of this writing; I have not tried.   I'll be sure to include the recipe for Tomato Roasted Onions with Paprika on the recipe links page of this blog.  What caught my attention was not only were they using onion as the main dish, but the ease and simplicity of it as well.  It also feeds into something that I've been thinking about recently (pun intended).  That is the very real threat of food scarcity in the near future due to climate change. We are only a super storm or a drought away from disaster and a few years ago some food and other items disappeared off the shelves due to COVID.  Costs for other foods skyrocketed and came down slowly over time.   This food scarcity issue was mostly a temporary one, but it did serve as a wake up call for most people.  Sadly

Hope is the poor man's bread. Somehow I started watching a video about "Poor Man's bread" that was bread made from various flours in the 1700's and early 1800's.  This popularity of this type of bread has waxed and waned in popularity at times when wheat production faltered for whatever reason. The history of bread is an interesting one and their have been lots of substitutes for wheat bread throughout times of drought or diseases; or when other issues like poor soil and wheat diseases affected production.  Wheat has always been the preferred crop when it came to bread. While wheat farming practices and yields have certainly increased since the late 1700's this most important of crops face new problems in a ever heating world. I started to wonder....could some of these substitutes make sense in today's world?  Or better yet, what about the world of tomorrow?  What would replace wheat bread if the crops failed today? Quick searches for things lik

  As you can see, I've an abundance of apples.  A friend of a friend had a bumper crop...and here we are. We have had them for a few days but up until now have not sure what we were going to do with them.  The lovely Sue I'm sure will find away to make a Dutch Apple pie.  I'm sure she'll find something else as well to do with them. It's what I wanted to do with them that interests me.  I like to experiment in the kitchen and generally am not able to.  Mostly because what interests doesn't interest anyone else (See our recipe page for " Farts of Portingale " and a 2000 + year old chicken dish ) and that I don't really feel comfortable in the kitchen unless it's pretty straightforward.  I had apples, a pretty much non used jar of tahini and free time between now and the new year.  It's rare when Susan and I decide to try some things in the kitchen together It all started with toast.  Sue is normally the one that makes breakfast on the weekend

 I found myself wanting to make cheese the other night.  In particular, paneer cheese.  I've not made cheese in some time and it was for that reason that I decided to stay away from something a bit more complex like my beloved Amish Cup Cheese .  It's so simple that you could have it ready within a few hours. I wanted to make paneer for a couple of reasons but mostly because it's a simple cheese to make; only needing milk and an acid like vinegar or citric acid.  It's also used in a lot of Indian recipes, and I just happened to have a couple of jars of simmering sauces for two well known Indian recipes in my pantry.   Since I've been trying to eat more plant based or vegetarian dishes, paneer can be - and often is - used as a meat substitute.   Well many of these dishes are Indian, paneer can be used in a lot of different dishes as well.   As I've said before I'm more "plant based diet curious" than a vegetarian and there are various shades of &

I'm not a vegan.  I'm not even a vegetarian.   I am, for lack of a better word, "Plant based food curious." Like most people today, I got worried about my health.   A lifetime of bacon and cheesy poofs along with the traditional American hobbies of laying around on the couch pushed me close to the diabetic  range.  Heart disease runs in my family and after seeing what my wife has gone through with her diabetes and losing my mother to a heart attack...I started to seriously think about what I could do to improve my health.  Living through a pandemic didn't help either. The more I learned about diets and where food comes from, the more I realized that I could do lots of little things to help the planet too .  I'm proud to say that generally speaking I go at least two days out of week eating a vegan or vegetarian diet.    My interest in this type of food was sparked by my interest in cheese making , a hobby I picked up during the epidemic.  I read about how s

           Although no one asked for it, I thought it might be fun to do another food review (my blog, my rules).  I figure that eventually we American's are going to have to adapt to a more plant based diet and if I do nothing more than convince two people to try something new...then they can convince two people to try something new...I've done my job as concerned and decent human being.    In some ways we are already moving that way as the sale of plant based food items recently reached a peak.   I think it has dipped currently due to a lot of different reasons, but the market will only rebound in the future.       So yesterday I decided that it was a good day to try and go meatless for the entire day.  I've been trying to incorporate a few more meals per week into my "Meatless regime" and thought I would make some Tasty Bite Bombay Potatoes as a quick late lunch/early dinner.            I found these before in my local grocery store and this is actually the th

    This entire past weekend had been dreary.  We are in the midst of a cold front that has brought a steady soaking, cold and misting rain that soaks into you very bones.  It is a good weekend for making a good and hearty soup and other foods to warm your soul.     While it is not cold, our high was barely above 60 F (16 C), it was cold enough at night for us to start the pellet stove to warm the house and to start thinking about soup.   It particular there was one soup that I came across that got me interested in making it.         Even the name of it, Brie and Cheddar Apple Beer Soup , got my mouth watering.        I had also came across an interesting recipe for Eggnog Cheese , and while not quite ready to tackle that (I don't have a proper press), I certainly thought that I could make my own Eggnog !       Eggnog is one of those things that I would drink all year round, either "leaded" or "unleaded."  Although there are a lot of different ways to make eggno

      My girlfriend and I are trying to lose weight and she is succeeding at it at a much faster pace than I am.   That's okay, our health is NOT a competition.   We are both trying to cut down on sugars.  We are both trying to watch our portions of what we eat.     That's all good.   Were we differ, and it has lead to some conflict, is that I am trying; slowly but surely to move away from a strictly meat diet.   I've been trying to incorporate some more plant based dishes into my life.  I've been attempting to not eat any meat or dairy products at least one day a week, although I am not always successful at this task..   I do have some healthy substitutes in the fridge such as tofu and jackfruit even though I've no clue what to do with them.      I am even thinking how I could use paneer is a substitute for meat like it is in a lot of Indian dishes..  Plus it's a cheese I've not made in a bit.      Where the conflict starts is that even though she has a b

     When I lived in Florida, a friend of mine worked for one of the local news stations, where he was a camera operator and he confirmed what I had always expected.   That TV news was a form of entertainment and that the old adage of " If it bleeds, it leads" was true.        Thus it's important to remember that a lot of what we are seeing on the internet or on the TV news concerning the coming of the so called Brood X Cicada is either not true or inaccurate.  This is not a "once in a lifetime" event but rather part of the bug's mating cycle, occurring every 17 years.       No, they will not eat crops, bite you or your animals nor will they leave questionable stains on your patio furniture.   Yes, they are loud.      What makes Brood X so news worthy however is the mere size of their emergence.   It stretches from upper state New York to as far south as Tennessee and Northern Georgia; to as far west as Illinois.  It's been estimated that there cou