A Little Pre Trip Baking and Breaking

Doug noticed that we had some apples in the crisper drawer from earlier this year, and they were still good. Decent enough. I ate one yesterday for breakfast-ish, and he said "I bet there is a good apple banana recipe out there. Maybe you could make that? 

But of course I can. 

I researched some recipes and picked one and started getting it rolling when I realized it called for Buttermilk. 

Huh. Actual Buttermilk. I don't think I've ever made anything with buttermilk but okay? Can I substitute regular milk? no? hummmmmm. But, I can mix in lemon juice or white vinegar with whole milk, okay I can do that. I have no lemons, rats. I have .... no white vinegar? How is that possible. We had every kind of vinegar on earth. Apple cider, red wine, white wine, rice.... but no white vinegar. 

The internet is such a helpful place when it isn't a cesspool of datamining and AI slop. I found a good website (not an AI summary, I went to an actual website) and found out the right mix for using apple cider vinegar. 

I made my mock-buttermilk, and it made me nervous, but, she worked. Now I have 3/4 of a cup of that concoction in the fridge, and maybe I can make something else but. Do I really want to? 

My apple banana bread came out very nice. I'll make that again, with my mystery fake buttermilk. The only problem is I now have 3/4 of a cup of fake buttermilk and no idea what to do with her. Biscuits is too damn hard! 

Geoff had selected a Jose Andrés recipe from a cookbook the other day, and it had a complicated marinade. I set that up yesterday since he was at work, and the recipe said to let it sit for 24 hours. Right then. 

It was about 5:30 and he wasn't home from work yet (weird!) and I had read the instructions saying that it takes the pork 90 minutes to cook. 

So I jumped up and started it into the oven. 

I'm glad I didn't follow these instructions - if I cooked the pork to 90 minutes instead of the 55 that I set the timer for, it would have been small rubber hockey pucks and ruined.

Geoff came in the door as I was taking the pork out of the oven, and taking the temperature - I always cook to temp. It wasn't even like this was some sort of slow cooker/crock pot thing where you HAVE to cook it forever for the roast to "fall apart" when it is ready, Duly noted for future use! 

The pork had braised in the oven in a cup of water in my enameled cast iron pan. I've never done that before so it was kind of cool. Only I ended up spilling the braising liquid on the inside of the oven (oops) so... I hope to clean that up tomorrow. 

For tonight though, no. Not interested in doing any sort of cleaning work! Instead, I had a yap with my friend S, and her son who is too excited about our trip tomorrow. 

I thought then, well,  I'll work a little extra on some tickets and get them out of the way. At about 10pm I broke someone's calendar completely. Ugh. Worse than spilling braising liquid in the stove. 

Luckily, he's in New Mexico, so he was online when I messaged and he said it's no problem. He'll take a look and if he needs my help, I've got one hour open at noon tomorrow, and can give him a hand then. Put the computer away, Chris. Stop working. 

Pack your stuff and get things organized for baking in the morning. 

Digits below.

digits
exercise: 12/12 hours,  easy gentle treadmill run, 30min/2.1 mi.  11k+ by bedtime

blood glucose: 

7:45am: 122
4:30pm: 150
10:30pm: 154

food & meds:

7:45am: jardiance, new meds
11:15am: everything bagel w/ cream cheese and turkey
12:15pm: met+glip
4:30pm: new meds
4:45pm: slab of apple banana bread
5:30pm: oh, another slab of apple banana bread
6:45pm: 2 slices of pork roast w/roasty little potatoes in a reduction marinade that Geoff picked out. And I cooked
7:30pm: met+glip
white wine + diet gingerale