Another October, another Readathon! My opening survey:
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Keystone Heights, again – still. Mostly the master bedroom.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Umm, errr, umm…. my snack situation is a little odd this time around. I have cheese, cheese, and more cheese. So I’m looking forward to CHEESE! And also egg salad and pimento cheese on saltines and celery. Weird, I know. But now I’m reminded that I did not see the fruit chew thingies I ordered when I unpacked the groceries. I wonder if they were out of stock… I should find out.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I’m tired. I’m very tired. Already.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
This is not my first rodeo, er readathon – what I’m doing differently this time is… I have NO PHYSICAL STACK AT ALL. Every book I plan to read is on my Kindle or Libby or Audio. This is a first. I’m not sure I’m going to like it. I need the #pandemic to end. WEAR YOUR MASK and SOCIAL DISTANCE, please.
Dale is a bantam chicken, which means she’s a tiny little girl who lays tiny little eggs. She was our first hen to lay and she’s laid 6 out of 7 days ever since.
Naomi is not a bantam chicken, but she is somewhat small in size and has not been a very good layer. In fact, I’ve not really been sure which eggs were hers since she doesn’t sit in the nest boxes for long and after being there, we do not find eggs. I thought maybe she was the one laying the soft shell eggs – smallish, brownish in color. It seemed likely, just based on the visits to the boxes and the finding of the eggs.
In the last few days, we’ve had multiple cameras in the coop and run, trying to figure out a) who is not laying in the nest boxes b) who is laying the soft shell eggs c) who is laying which brown eggs. We haven’t had much luck with this – Exhibit a is Friday, a six egg day, and we don’t know 100% who laid which eggs – except for Dale and Charlotte, (Charlotte lays the largeish white eggs.) At night, when the girls are closed into their coop, I generally turn all but two of the cameras off to preserve battery and so they aren’t distracted by the light coming on and off due to movement in the coop. A couple nights ago, I forgot to turn off the cam that’s pointed straight at the most popular nest box and we discovered Dale was sleeping in that box.
The day after discovering Dale was sleeping there, we realized that besides the fact that it takes her a couple hours on the nest to lay an egg, and the other girls often disturb her and she has to start all over again… she was spending a good 20 hours on the nest. Maybe more. That’s not ideal and it’s really not ideal when she’s growling at people or chickens who come near the box. That is a broody hen and we do not want a broody hen.
The day after this… Dale did not lay an egg. Another sign that she’s broody is that she would stop laying. And, she did not want to get off of the nest this morning – I had to shoo her off by waving a feed bag aka the cover of the nest box around.
So…I went out and took the lid off the nest box and I put an ice pack in the nest. Cold next and bright light should dissuade her from using the nest. Which it did… but she just moved to the one next to it. So… TW went out there and dunked her in a bucket of cold water to further dissuade her from her broody behavior and added a fan to the coop, pointing directly at the nest.
During this dunking and immediately after, Naomi wandered into the coop and in and out of nest boxes and… plopped herself down in the nest on top of the ice pack, underneath the fan. And… she sat there for awhile, got up and left, came back etc… Dale, DID NOT LEAVE… in fact, TW saw her on the video camera pushing an egg around. Must have been Naomi’s egg because Naomi is the only other hen who has been in the coop today…
So, TW went out there and got the egg – which Dale did not like. And… Naomi returned to the coop, plopped back down on that nest and STAYED… whut? TWO BROODY HENS? Naomi stayed and stayed and stayed and Dale stood right next to her and stared at her and did not move and did not move and when she moved, Naomi growled and pecked her. TWO BROODY HENS!?!
So, we had lunch and we both went outside. TW intended to dunk Naomi and maybe dunk Dale again and we’d put them in Sesame Street without any bedding and see if we could pretend that was a Broody Breaker Box since we don’t happen to have such a box handy.
While TW caught Naomi and dunked her, I filled water bottles and food bowls and put the camera up in Sesame Street and fixed some hardware cloth that had come loose. After the dunking, Naomi went into Sesame Street and TW tried to catch Dale. That did not go well as Dale is broody and only wants the nest and Dale also knows that TW has a bucket of water. While TW was chasing Dale, I was putting random chicken things away and noticed… an egg… on the ground… in Sesame Street. WHUT?
How did Naomi lay that creamy egg in Sesame Street when she had already laid the brown egg that TW had taken away from Dale in the coop an hour earlier???
Does this mean Naomi is NOT broody, she was just annoyed that she was sitting on a cold ass nest trying to lay with a broody Dale watching her every move?
Does this mean that… someone ELSE laid that brown egg that Dale was pushing around? If so – who? And when? And where did Dale find it? Is there a clutch of eggs somewhere that we do not know about?
WHAT is happening?
We never did catch Dale. She flew over the fence, landed on Mr Frank’s fence and sat there til we walked away. Then she got on the ground and wandered over to Sesame Street all on her own (walk of shame?) and there she is … all alone, and in the coop without any bedding much less a nest and THERE IS NO EGG. We know this for sure.
But the mystery remains – WHO laid that brown egg and where was it hiding?
Dale’s Egg
Naomi’s Egg
Mystery Egg
All Three Eggs (Mystery Egg at the top, Dale’s next, Naomi’s at the bottom.)
I was inspired by Kristine Fraser and decided I would also try making Disney World foods at home. Which is awesome because Disney foods but even more awesome because I rarely cook anymore…(I’m skipping the Dole Whip from her list, because that’s not an official recipe, I don’t care what anyone says. Dole Whip is vegan and that recipe isn’t vegan. Also, we have the official Dole Pineapple Frozen Yogurt mix which DOES make more realistic Dole Whip anyway.)
Well… here’s Kristine’s version (and the original) – Kristine’s look much better than the real thing. And speaking of the real thing, we want so much to like the Casey’s Corner corn dog nuggest + plastic cheese but we just don’t. They’re not good, though they are beloved by many.
I honestly didn’t have high hopes for this – deep frying is not my strong suit and deep frying with wet batter is REALLY not my strong suit. And, we have some weird really fine corn meal that is almost like a corn meal flour that didn’t work well for a recipe TW made with it. So… I was skeptical.
I continued to be skeptical as I started dipping the hot dogs (1 cut into a nugget size and one regular size hot dog) into the batter and then into the dutch oven of hot oil.
When they suggest using a jar for the batter, for easier dipping – that should not be a suggestion, it should be a requirement. Once I switched to a jar, things went along better.
BUT important note – the amount of milk in the recipe is NOT enough. I added and added and added and added…. (You know how when you make Jiffy Cornbread, you set the batter aside for a bit so it can thicken up… that’s what kept happening to my batter. It was so thick, I kept losing mini hotdogs in the batter, so I had to keep thinning it with milk.)
Also, the 2″ of oil was not enough or my dutch oven is too darn small (?) – it was really hard to get the whole hot dog into the oil, particularly for the full sized dog. The first few were weird as they really puffed up and didn’t get very browned.
After that… I found a rhythm and a method that worked and it was a success. TW’s mom definitely liked them. TW and I thought they were ok… they need more flavor of some sort but they were certainly as good as any corn dog nugget we’ve had at Casey’s Corner.
I don’t think I’d make these again – not without some changes to the recipe which would make this not the same recipe, eh? Or maybe I’d make them if a kid or a grandkid REALLY needed me to make them. Otherwise… naw, once was enough.
One of the best drinks on property (fight me!) is the Cava del Tequila avocado margarita. I used this recipe and OMG, so good. Important note about the hibiscus salt on the rim. My version (ordered from Amazon) was really coarse salt. The Cava del Tequila version is much finer. Use a finer ground, if possible. Oh… did I get avocado at the grocery yesterday? I think I did! I think another one of these is in my near future. My immediate future, actually. Because why the hell not?
The next two drink recipes are here – the frozen and the on the rocks versions of the Kungaloosh. The Kungaloosh cocktails are from the old Adventurer’s Club way back before Disney Springs became Disney Springs.
The frozen one in particular sounded good to me, so I grabbed some blackberry brandy while I was at the Navy base last month. It’s really pretty much a daiquiri with some blackberry brandy tossed in for a little extra something. It was good. I bought another bottle of daiquiri mix just so I could make this again and finish off that blackberry brandy.
Since I tried the frozen Kungaloosh, it seemed like I should try the on the rocks version, too. So I did. (Is this version still available at Trader Sam’s in Disneyland – or would it be if Trader Sam’s in Disneyland was currently open?) I didn’t have any Malibu so I used some other type of coconut rum that we have lying around (Never buying that stuff again. NEVER. NOT for any reason.)
This was one of the worst drinks on the planet. Possibly due to the horrible coconut rum. I dunno. TW refused to drink it. I added Tampico to it and drink half of it and tossed the rest out. NOT good.
The problem with the pandemic is that I don’t go into grocery stores so I am at the mercy of the grocery store employees who are choosing my order. Sometimes they give me good substitutions, sometimes they don’t even seem to bother trying. I asked for a bakery style loaf of sourdough…. because I need extra thick slices for this recipe for Tonga Toast, (basically it’s the Polynesian Resort version of a stuffed french toast.) Instead, I got a loaf of regular old sliced sourdough. What to do, what to do…
I pondered taking my french bread (unsliced) that is for another meal and using that because I’d be able to cut those slices really large. But, that would leave me a meal short for the week and I just couldn’t wrap my head around a menu change so… I made something up.
I used two slices of the sourdough, put sliced banana in between each, used my hands to dip the whole “sandwich” into the egg mixture, used a big slotted spoon/spatula thing to gently lower the sandwich into the hot oil, used that spoon thingy and another smaller spatula to slowly turn the sandwich over so it could fry the other side and…
WINNER!
I even made the strawberry compote though I made that up too. I used 1/3 of a bag of Schwan’s frozen strawberry/banana mix instead of fresh strawberries.
TW’s mom LOVED it. But TW and I agreed that because the “toast” was not as thick as real Tonga Toast, it was just a LITTLE sweeter than it should have been. TW said a three slice sandwich would have been perfect. She’s right but that would be very hard to manage in the pot of oil. I just really need that whole loaf of sourdough, darn it.
I was inspired by Kristine Fraser and decided I would also try making Disney World foods at home. Which is awesome because Disney foods but even more awesome because I rarely cook anymore…(I’m skipping the Dole Whip from her list, because that’s not an official recipe, I don’t care what anyone says. Dole Whip is vegan and that recipe isn’t vegan. Also, we have the official Dole Pineapple Frozen Yogurt mix which DOES make more realistic Dole Whip anyway.)
(Oops, forgot that Kristine had done this one. You can see her version here.)
You win some and you lose some. Should have quit while you were ahead.
Both ring true when I think back to that fateful day when I decided to make the O’hana Breakfast Bread in the morning and then make the O’hana Bread Pudding (using that Breakfast Bread) at night.
I read a lot of recipes and blog posts about the recipes. I watched several videos (much to TW’s annoyance.) I was fairly confident that if I could get the bread right, then the bread pudding would follow along nicely. That was my theory.
Let’s start, as one should start, at the beginning. The O’hana Breakfast Bread. I ended up with this recipe, (sorry – it’s all the way at the bottom of the page), except I added a light glaze on the top because that bread DOES have a glaze.
I actually made the pineapple coconut filling the night before and left it in the refrigerator. And either I’m really good at draining a can of pineapple or that extra time solved a problem that most people have with their pineapple mixture being super wet and runny and messy. Mine was thick and fabulous. Not a runny, drippy mess.
This recipe – it turned out pretty much perfect and as close to the real thing as I think you can get.
Winning. Super easy.
Then came the O’hana Bread Pudding. I went with this version of the recipe. I followed it to the letter except, I did not flambe’.
It was a catastrophe.
When my bread came out of the oven, it still felt kind of wet and gooey. I should have toasted it longer. Or made this after the bread was less fresh, I think. It did soak up the custard mixture nicely and the custard set pretty well but the darn thing never REALLY came together. Which might have been ok because chunks of bread alongside custard could taste ok… but there were bigger issues.
Just as I poured the rum into the bananas foster, I realized the top of the bread pudding was getting way too dark so I reached down to pull it out and cover it and… I tipped the handle of the pan and boozy hot caramely goo went all OVER my stove and floor and missed the dog and my foot by about 1/2″. I shut off the heat, shut off the oven because burning bread pudding… cleaned the bottom of the gooey pan, shifted to a different burner, covered the bread pudding with foil, brought the damn bananas back to boil and…
I apparently forgot to turn the oven back on.
And, the bananas foster never did thicken up again.
We attempted to eat it – with ice cream and without – it was TOO sweet. That was the biggest problem, really. We possibly could have eaten it if it just had not been that sweet.
I thought I might salvage half the bowl by warming it the next day and not adding bananas foster… but Buster had other ideas and found a way to pull the rest of the bowl onto the floor. He didn’t have any trouble wolfing it down before I got to it. No accounting for taste.
Did I mention I don’t LIKE bread pudding – even when it’s a good bread pudding?
We’re coming up on the end of this year’s Reverse Readathon (reverse because this one starts at night, instead of in the morning) and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The snacks weren’t as good as I’d like – since we don’t go into grocery stores, we’re limited to what is available at the two local shops where we can do curbside pick up. We didn’t get to go to the library and pick out books especially for this readathon because the library is not fully open AND because we don’t go inside places, even if it was.
But, as always, we enjoyed being at home and focusing only on reading. This is especially nice for me since I read A LOT less now than I used to.
Here’s what I’ve read in the last 24 hours:
The Prisoner in the Castle – a Maggie Hope book that has been on my shelf for YEARS. (336 pages.)
The Princess Affair – a lesbian romance e-book that I checked out from the library last night and read on my kindle. (264 pages.)
Two “workbooks” that aren’t workbooks that I forgot I’d bought for JMP. This Is Not a Science Book and This Is Not a Math book. I think they will be the foundation of an art curriculum for next year… stay tuned. (192 pages total.)
I’m about half way through Trop 6000: The Girl Scout Troop That Began in a Shelter. (Thanks Sassymonkey!) (130 pages in… 132 to go and I’m pretty sure I can finish it tonight.)
I’m looking forward to October’s #Readathon.
Updated… oh, there’s a closing survey!
How would you assess your reading overall?
Pretty darn good since I’m out of practice and seem unlikely to get back into practice.
Did you have a stategy, and if so, did you stick to it?
No strategy this go round.
What was your favorite snack?
Hmmm probably the everything french bread with guac.
I was inspired by Kristine Fraser and decided I would also try making Disney World foods at home. Which is awesome because Disney foods but even more awesome because I rarely cook anymore…(I’m skipping the Dole Whip from her list, because that’s not an official recipe, I don’t care what anyone says. Dole Whip is vegan and that recipe isn’t vegan. Also, we have the official Dole Pineapple Frozen Yogurt mix which DOES make more realistic Dole Whip anyway.)
As I’ve already mentioned, Satu’li Canteen is one of my favorite restaurants on property and the Cheeseburger Pods will always be on my plate – even if they did shift them over to the kids’ menu only. (HMPH!) This is the recipe that scared me the most, out of all of the recipes Kristine posted.
I’ve never made bao buns, and that’s what Cheeseburger Pods are. I am not a bread baker, either. I don’t own a steamer basket. This recipe was WAY out of my comfort zone, so I read a ton of recipes and blog posts about making bao buns – both in and out of the Foodie, held my breath, and then…. kept putting off making these. I truly postponed them 6 times before I couldn’t postpone it any longer and I did it.
I DID IT.
They are not beautiful like normal bao buns. I had some issues with them during the steaming process. But, I DID IT. I’m really quite proud of myself. So let me tell youuuuuu (hi Pippin) about it.
Let’s start with the filling – it’s just the cheeseburger spring roll filling that I made a few weeks ago, with some tweaks I mentioned in that post. I added 2 more ounces of velveeta and a wee bit more pickle, but otherwise it’s the same recipe.
I had a wide range of sizes when I separated the dough into rods and pieces so it was a bit of a struggle and my buns were too small, too big, and just right. How to get them all just right is the problem. (Should I find myself on perpetual furlough, I’m going to become a bao bun expert and solve this problem… just sayin’. )
At some point in my research, I read that you can just use cupcake wrappers instead of parchment paper so I did that because who has time to cut out 15 little squares of parchment paper for multiple sized bao buns? Not me – which was a mistake. The wrappers stuck to the buns – badly. Not good. Don’t use cupcake wrappers, ok?
This is where I left Kristine’s instructions behind and moved to these instructions for steaming them in the Instapot. The times for the steam and the pressure cook settings were NOT right for my machine. It wasn’t until much later that TW told me that not all machines are the same size or type so cooking times vary. Hah. Nice to know, now. Times pretty much needed to be doubled for our machine – and even then it just didn’t seem to be consistent. Sometimes I’d vent and NO STEAM came out, on either setting. Other times I’d vent and TONS OF STEAM CAME OUT FOREVER AND EVER. No rhyme or reason as the water level was the same for each attempt. I’d steam for 3 minutes, vent, see that they weren’t “done,” add another cup of water, steam again for 3 minutes, vent, and they’d be done. Except when they weren’t. Same thing happened on pressure cook setting. Shrug. In the end, they all worked and the buns (except for the one I tore apart mid-cooking to see what it looked like.) It just took multiple steamings/pressure cooking rounds. The steam setting made the best dough so if I do this again in the Foodie, that’s the setting I’ll use.
I froze five buns and hope they turn out ok. I’ve eaten three for lunch for the last three days (Reheat one at a time in the microwave for 45 seconds with a damp paper towel over it.)
I LOVE these things. TW’s mom, again, not a huge fan. TW liked them but not as much as I did. She’d like it better if the filling was different. Or if I figured out a better filling to bun ratio. Oh, and she also thinks my filling needs more mustard. I don’t but since I love mustard, I’ll increase it next time. And there WILL be a next time.
One was a winner, one was not. One was really, really NOT… let’s start with the winner. O’hana Wings. Yes, please… all day long. But, I’m a wings fan. TW’s mom is not a wings fan and she said they were “OK.” I didn’t make enough, there were no leftovers. I will make them again and I will double the recipe. I will also try them in the air fryer.
Here’s the recipe. I used frozen wings and cooked from frozen. I did not alternate racks for the ribs because small double oven is small and that’s too much trouble. It was fine. I did have to drain some of the liquid off of the pan (because frozen wings = excess liquid) but that was easy and not an issue.
Here’s the photo of both – and that’s the bad Jiko mac & cheese leftovers there, too.
Now, the Sonny Eclipse, errrr I mean Cosmic Ray’s Green Beans. I’ve never had them but they seemed easy and like something I’d like… I should have gone with my gut and not used the old off brand name of frozen green beans and used canned instead. Those green beans were NOT good. Not at all. I think it was the beans and not the recipe. I’ll try it again with fresh beans or canned. It really should not have been that bad.
One of the easiest Disney food recipes I’ve tried, the Totchos from Woody’s Lunchbox were pretty authentic, from what I remember. I made no changes to the recipe, except I used the air fryer for the potato barrels. But, I wish I had cut the recipe in half because it makes a LOT of chili. I should have frozen that chili but didn’t and … food waste is a sad, sad thing. Don’t be like me. Halve the recipe or be ready to freeze the chili, ok?
It was hard to get a good picture, but here you go. My version. I’d make this again.
