I'm glad to hear you're back in business with the kefir, SA! Are you still doing well with it?
And the oat scones and peanut butter fudge sound delicious!

I managed to get a bag of flour when I was out shopping, and some milk, so I should be set pretty well baking/cooking wise for a couple of weeks (...if it doesn't matter about veggies ). I'm not too low on regular sugar yet, but I checked and I can substitute powdered sugar for granulated sugar with some tweaking (powdered sugar from Christmas pizzelles), which was good to know!

I'm also trying my hand at orange zest. The orange I zested a couple weeks ago made a horrible mess of my grater (took several washes to get it clean), so I'm trying zesting dried orange peel. I haven't figured out any reason why it won't work in theory, so I guess I'll see if a reason comes about in practice.

Also - we had a family video call earlier, and my mom showed us a small lamb cake she had made. So, I'm having to miss it this year, but it was nice to see someone in the family was able to carry the torch of the Easter lamb cake.

I've been doing quite a bit of baking lately, much more than I had in a long time. I baked some banana bread this past week, and it's already gone along with the snowball cookies I made! So I baked another batch of banana bread today.

I've also made several batches of cranberry walnut biscotti. The last batch I switched the dried lemon peel for dried orange peel. I think much prefer the lemon flavor. The orange was slightly too bland.

I'm also trying my hand at orange zest. The orange I zested a couple weeks ago made a horrible mess of my grater (took several washes to get it clean), so I'm trying zesting dried orange peel. I haven't figured out any reason why it won't work in theory, so I guess I'll see if a reason comes about in practice.

I know what you mean. One of our mini graters has a permanent yellow streak from my trying to grate lemon zest. I've used dried orange peel in recipes calling for zest, and it's worked fine although the fresh zest is softer.

~Wunder

I ended up making a lamb cake for the first time this year (though it came in this kind of mold). I ordered it thinking that it might arrive in time for whenever my family can do a full Easter celebration, but apparently it's made in and shipped from Minnesota, so it actually arrived on time. I made one as a practice cake. It was quite good, though I thought it was perhaps too sweet (at least with the particular frosting recipe I used - though my first piece also happened to be one with a lot of frosting).

I might experiment with it next time, or perhaps try a different recipe for the frosting (the cake itself was quite delicious, but pound cake always is ). Regardless, it was very cute!

*Goes back to lurking in this thread*

What kind vessels do you guys use to make that much kefir on a daily basis, SnowAngel? A couple of 64 oz mason jars, or one big gallon size jar? I am both intrigued and impressed.

Long live the Easter lamb cake tradition, Valia!

And those cranberry walnut biscotti sound lovely, Wunder.

The trouble you and Wunder have been having with zesting citrus... I wonder if it's because the fruit has wax on it? I always have trouble with getting waxy green stuff stuck on my hands when I have to cut up a lot of zucchini, but I don't have this problem when I'm able to get organic zucchini, and organic zucchini aren't waxed but conventional ones are. It might be the same with citrus fruit. Maybe give it a really good scrub with a brush before zesting next time?

Glad that your lamb cake pan showed up on time, Rya — that sounds like a really fun Easter project.

I made a big pot of vegetable soup last week that's a family favorite — it's tomato-based and has lima beans, peas, corn, carrots, quartered brussels sprouts, onions, peppers, and ground chicken, and I usually put Mexican spices in it. You can make it in the middle of the winter and it has such a summery vibe because of all of the produce in it, but everything but the onions is from the freezer case at the store! Usually it's really easy to have all the ingredients for it on hand, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to make it again because supply often isn't keeping up with demand right now at the grocery store. At least I have a little more freezer space.

And those cranberry walnut biscotti sound lovely, Wunder.

They were quite delicious. My mom used to make them, but she says that she'll pass the baton on to me now.

The trouble you and Wunder have been having with zesting citrus... I wonder if it's because the fruit has wax on it? I always have trouble with getting waxy green stuff stuck on my hands when I have to cut up a lot of zucchini, but I don't have this problem when I'm able to get organic zucchini, and organic zucchini aren't waxed but conventional ones are. It might be the same with citrus fruit. Maybe give it a really good scrub with a brush before zesting next time?

We've switched over to organic, so I don't think it's wax as much as it is the shape of the lemon and its thickness. I should also probably invest in an easier-to-hold grater like this. Our upright one works better than the mini one, but it's hard to get the zest that's stuck in the holes.

That vegetable soup sounds lovely, Rose. My mom hasn't made vegetable soup in a while, and we've been searching for a different recipe so that we can use organic ingredients (we used to just use one of those seasoning packet soup mixes). Speaking of soups, I love when we have a seafood boil the week after Thanksgiving because my mom takes the leftover crab and shrimp as well as the leftover fried turkey and makes a yummy seafood turkey gumbo!

Right now, I'm trying to figure out my options for making a birthday cake. I'm thinking either a coconut cake or perhaps a Boston cream pie. I wanted to do a German Chocolate cake, but I'm out of cocoa.

~Wunder

What kind vessels do you guys use to make that much kefir on a daily basis, SnowAngel? A couple of 64 oz mason jars, or one big gallon size jar? I am both intrigued and impressed.

Three quart jars. Our kitchen has quite a few jars on the counter-tops, in addition to the kefir jars we have three 1 gallon jars with kombucha, two quart jars with ginger bug, currently 4 jars of mead, and an ever changing array of jars with fermenting foods (cabbage, apples, etc.).

A couple weeks ago we got most of our food co-op order which arrived sooner than expected, but no wheat until sometime in May. We have plenty of corn, so we've been making cornbread at least once a week. I am trying to find a cornmeal biscuits that doesn't use wheat flour or too much butter (since butter is hard to get enough of right now), I've been unsuccessful thus far. I have a great need to make biscuits and gravy. So I'm leaning toward trying my regular buttermilk biscuit recipe with corn flour in place of wheat.

I'm getting ready to make a batch of marshmallows. Since I last posted here, our Bosch mixer quit working after 18 years, so I am going to use the new mixer for the first time. The last batch I made with almond flavoring and beet powder, very yummy, but the beet powder turned a funny color after a few days. I think I need chocolate marshmallows today.

SnowAngel

Still waiting for the wheat, in the meantime my dad did include in the food co-op order a rather large bucket of peanut butter which we have been enjoying very much. We may not have wheat bread, waffles, or cookies, but we do have oat waffles and cookies, and apple slices.

These are some of our April kitchen creations:
Chocolate Marshmallows
Coffee and marshmallows
Raspberry Danish and Blueberry Danish, these were made by a pair of my siblings. It was well worth using some of the last wheat flour.

SnowAngel

Happy Cinco De Mayo! I made very Tex-Mex tacos for dinner tonight, with all the fixin's. Yum!

I've been watching our rhubarb plant, waiting for it to be big enough to pick some stalks... and a couple days ago I picked enough to make half pint of rhubarb jam.

The recipe I found recommended letting the pieces sit in sugar overnight to release the natural pectin, so I did, and the result is delicious! Super easy, too... cut the rhubarb, soak the rhubarb, pour the resulting juice into the pan, simmer, add the rest, and cook it down into a spreadable consistency.

Almost as easy as apple butter.

I've been watching our rhubarb plant, waiting for it to be big enough to pick some stalks... and a couple days ago I picked enough to make half pint of rhubarb jam.

Sounds yummy! I've never had rhubarb jam although I've had strawberry rhubarb pie.

I've been doing a lot of baking lately. After a disastrous attempt at macarons (they tasted good but did not look very much like macarons), I decided to go back to some normal recipes. Last week, I made some more biscotti. I really like eating them with a cup of Earl Grey tea or cafe au lait.

We had a ton of spotty bananas, so I decided to make some banana nut muffins plus one batch of peach streusel muffins. I ended liking the peach ones the best because they tasted like peach cobbler in muffin form!

~Wunder

We got 350 pounds of wheat this weekend, currently soaking 21 cups in the kitchen. After the wheat sprouts, we will dehydrate it and grind it. I hope to make buttermilk biscuits on Thursday.  

SnowAngel

@snowangel: Sounds lovely! So is that how you get sprouted wheat? I've had sprouted brown rice and sprouted flaxseed before, but I always wondered how it worked.

I recently made my first batch of cinnamon rolls. They turned out pretty yummy although next time I will put waaaay more cinnamon sugar on them. I was really nervous about trying to work with yeast after some pretty bad results, but I think I'm going to keep trying!

I also tried making brown sugar shortbread yesterday. It was really simple to make. The only hard part was to wait for the butter to get to room temperature. I really liked the recipe because I can make the cookie dough ahead of time and leave the dough logs in the refrigerator to bake later. I think they look prettier when you do the slice-and-bake method. Everyone liked them but definitely preferred the pecan shortbread I made during Christmas. Unfortunately, I didn't have any pecans or cinnamon, so I couldn't make the pecan shortbread.

~ Wunder

@snowangel

Buttermilk biscuits sound good!  I’m also curious—what is the wheat-to-flour ratio?  How many pounds of flour do you get per pound of wheat?

@wunderkind_lucy

Those cinnamon rolls look amazing!  Did you put any sort of glaze on them?  Working with yeast makes me nervous, too.

As a side note, I made my first attempt at from-scratch pie with homemade crust in the last few weeks.  It was my first time making pie dough, but it turned out pretty well.  The only hitch was when I went to make the filling, only to find that the evaporated milk had spoiled.  The evaporated milk happened to be one of the essential ingredients, so I had to make a frantic last-minute internet search for alternative recipes .  It all worked out in the end, although the crust was a bit too rich for my liking and the pie was more fudgy than anticipated.   

Posted by: @wunderkind_lucy

@snowangel: Sounds lovely! So is that how you get sprouted wheat? I've had sprouted brown rice and sprouted flaxseed before, but I always wondered how it worked.

@wunderkind_lucy, it's super easy. We soaked ours for nearly 48 hours, rinse and drain, and then into the dehydrator for 24 hours at 110F. Here's what this batch looked like before I put it on the dehydrate trays.

Those are yummy looking cinnamon rolls!

@wanderer-between-worlds, my sisters usually run the mill, so I will have to ask them if they know what the ratio of wheat to flour is. 

I love the heart on your pie. Pie and cinnamon rolls, now I am hungry. It's a good thing I get to make biscuits today!!  

On Tuesday I made cowboy beans (pinto beans, hamburger/onion, salt, chili powder, and liquid smoke) and cornbread. Why do foods with liquid smoke always smell amazing and make me hungry? Seriously, I wasn't a bit hungry until I smelled the liquid smoke.  

SnowAngel

Posted by: @snowangel

On Tuesday I made cowboy beans (pinto beans, hamburger/onion, salt, chili powder, and liquid smoke) and cornbread. Why do foods with liquid smoke always smell amazing and make me hungry? Seriously, I wasn't a bit hungry until I smelled the liquid smoke.  

Oooh. Sounds yummy! I'm not surprised about the yummy smell of liquid smoke. I've not used liquid smoke, but whenever my dad adds a tin of mesquite chips to the charcoal grill, the food always tastes sooo much better!

Posted by: @wanderer-between-worlds

Those cinnamon rolls look amazing!  Did you put any sort of glaze on them?  Working with yeast makes me nervous, too.

Definitely! I made cream cheese frosting to top them. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture! My family prefers cream cheese frosting to the regular vanilla icing.

Speaking of cream cheese frosting, I just recently discovered how to make homemade powdered sugar. Our store had run out (I guess everybody decided to bake during the lockdown! ), and I think I was wanting to make frosting for either the cinnamon rolls or maybe it was for my dad's coconut birthday cake.

To make homemade powdered sugar, I just throw granulated sugar into my blender and blend it at its highest speed. I tried it in our food processor, but the blade wasn't sharp enough. Some people add in a tablespoon of cornstarch/cornflour per 1 cup of sugar. I've made it with and without the cornstarch, and it's been fine. My family actually prefers the homemade version on French toast.

Posted by: @wanderer-between-worlds

As a side note, I made my first attempt at from-scratch pie with homemade crust in the last few weeks.  It was my first time making pie dough, but it turned out pretty well.

It looks great! I usually avoid pie crusts like the plague because my pie crusts always turn out poorly. If I can get away with a graham cracker crust, I usually do. It's great for pumpkin pie, anyway!

I've been wanting to bake some more biscotti, but we always seem to be short on butter.  

~ Wunder