Gardening and stuff

Still trying to get the ginger potted up and indoors. Weather and a cold have slowed me down, and now I've run out of right-sized pots. L's going to build some tomorrow... We both still are under the weather. I did finish the first row and have put up 11 pots, two of which will be coming into the apartment for the winter. Using that row as a gauge, I'd say I have another 25-30 pots to go, using regular pots. L will be making wood rectangular containers, so about half that number...

The weather should hold for a few more days; hopefully that will be enough. If any of my more, um, enthusiastic(?) friends is interested in helping to get this plants potted, please feel free to come on up!

Stayed home this weekend instead of going to the kung fu seminar we'd signed up for, which turned out to be a good thing, as one of the pipe fittings for the water supply to the chickens failed Saturday. Since we were home, L went to check on the hens sooner than he otherwise would have, and found a small flood. He mucked out most of the wet stuff between Saturday and Sunday while I took over most of getting eggs ready for delivery in-town and to choir practice.

On the plus side of being under the weather, when I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with my ears starting to ache, I headed for the herbal meds first instead of the "modern" ones. Echinacea, Goldenseal, and Elecampagne. Got me through the rest of the night and through today. Guess there's hope for me yet!

An interesting thing happened today. I was perusing the house listings this morning and commented on how wouldn't it be nice if the folks of the place we'd placed a bid on (Apple Valley Road) were to suddenly decide that maybe they would come down to a price we could more comfortably afford... and then this afternoon we got a call from our realtor, who'd gotten a call from their realtor...hmm...

Harvest Cake Recipe

This recipe was adapted by fitzw from one he found online at Recipe.com, and re-named from Pumpkin Muffins to Harvest Cake, mostly I think because he usually bakes it in a 9" x 12" pan. It's just as tasty as muffins though ;)

The original recipe used wheat flour as well as the buckwheat flour, so he simply replaced the wheat with buckwheat. The original recipe also used milk but we subbed rice milk for that for when we were picnicking with friends who couldn't have dairy or soy. And we don't usually have OJ in the house but I sometimes have pear sauce (not this year, alas). Applesauce would probably also work. Oh, and he used eliminated the orange peel because we didn't have that, and you don't need it with pear or apple sauces. If you use orange juice, you may want to add 1/2 tsp. of finely shredded orange peel, as stated in the original recipe.

Ingredients:
1-1/3 cups plus 3/4 cup of buckwheat flour (2-1/12 cups total, or some approximation thereof)
1/4 cup to 1/3 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 slightly beaten eggs
1 cup canned/cooked pumpkin (we've also used Butternut and Hubbard squashes)
1/2 cup rice milk
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup orange juice/pear sauce/applesauce

Directions:
1. Spray/spread nonstick spray/butter/etc. on pan and set pan aside. In a medium bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture; set aside.

2. In another bowl combine the eggs, pumpkin/squash, milk, oil, apple/pear sauce (or OJ and peel). Add the egg mixture all at once to the flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy).

3. Spoon batter into the prepared pan. Bake in a 400F oven for 15-20 minutes for muffins, 20-25 minutes for cake pan, or until light brown. Cool on wire rack for 5 minutes. If making muffins, remove from muffin cups to serve. As a cake, run a knife around the edges, lift the edges gently to loosen the pan's hold on the cake, then put a tray over the top of the pan and flip it out, and cut cake into squares. May be served warm or cold.

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We find this to be very tasty plain, with butter, or with a bit of maple cream.

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NOTE:
Although this turns out very well following the above directions, and has been well-received by both folks who are GF and those who aren't, L mixes the ingredients in a different order when making buckwheat pancakes. He hasn't tried the above using the different order, so we don't know what the results would be. For pancakes he mixes all of the dry ingredients together EXCEPT the buckwheat flour. Then he mixes all the wet ingredients and combines them with the mixed dry ingredients. Only after that does he stir in the buckwheat flour, and then lets the batter sit for about 20 minutes to let the baking soda work. This creates a very fluffy pancake, whereas the usual method of mixing creates a thinner, denser pancake.