While the girls were engaging in medeival battles I was busy in the kitchen making chicken pot pie and bread. I decided that I wanted a chicken pot pie completely from scratch. So I started off by boiling a small chicken with some onions, carrots and celery. I took the chicken out when it was very well done but not falling apart yet, and continued to reduce down the stock. When it got to an OK consistency (not too watery) I strained all the veggies out of it and added some flour (and a little corn starch 'cause it didn't thicken enough with just the flour) and put the chicken meat and veggies back in, with a handful or 4 of frozen peas. I poured it out into a pie plate, and covered it with home made pie crust and baked it for a half hour. All told the pot pie took maybe 2 hours start to finish. Last time I made this I used leftover chicken and previously made stock (actually it came from a can which is why I wanted to experiment yesterday) and it was about 45 minutes start to finish. A frozen Mrs Bud's chicken pot pie takes an hour to cook soI'm going to say that not only nutritionally, but timewise as well, homemade beats out store bought. Now if I had enough forethought to whip up a couple of these, they could be real convenience foods.
While I was making the pot pie I was also trying to make some whole wheat bread. Nothing fancy, just the recipe on the back of the king arthur package. But the day before yesterday I made this bread and it failed to rise. I thought it was 'cause my kitchen was too cold so I moved it onto the back of the pellet stove and it rose a wee bit. I cooked it anyway to feed the geese, but it took a chisel to get it out of the loaf pan. So Yesterday's method I changed a wee bit. I let it rise on the pellet stove and it took off! (the yeast was better I think) And when it came time for the second rise, I decided to try it without a loaf pan - bad mistake. We had a bread pancake. Tasted OK, but it's wider than my knife is long. Round 3 later this morning.
And Lastly, I decided to try a prototype pad for the goods for girls, so I got out a rubber sheet a towel and some PJ pants that the crotch split beyond repair. I made one by layering 2 layers of towel, 2 layers of PJ pant, and one layer of rubber sheet. It's ugly to be sure (but it's just a prototype and I've discovered a better way to turn and a neater place to trim seam allowances) and stiff as a board. I'm trying not to buy anything new for these - would just like to make something out of nothing, so I don't really want to spend $7/yd for PUL. I'll scavenge around and see what I can find for unneeded nylon today and see if I can make a softer pad. Don't use rubber sheets in your pads ladies.
