AI Generated Podcast About my Yoghurt Muffins Post

Note: I suggest that you read my recent post about making yoghurt muffins first for context before reading this post.

This past weekend, my brother decided to play around with the Google NotebookLM podcast generator, using my recent post about making yoghurt muffins as the podcast topic source material.

Here are the results: “Podcast 1“, the first one I listened to and chuckled at throughout (see below), and “Podcast 2“, which is longer than the first, and a slightly different approach (again, see below).

As a reference, according to Wikipedia (here’s my archive), NotebookLM is a tool by Google that has an “audio summary” feature has the “ability to condense complex documents into engaging podcasts”. As referenced in the article, some of the generated podcasts have indeed been making the rounds on at least the media local to me; the samples played on the radio had the “voices” of two artificial “hosts”, one male and one female, and appeared to greatly impress the real radio host. The real human host on the radio then proceeded to create their own samples with the tool using local news items as source material, resulting in stunningly … seemingly accurate (or at least faithful to the source material) content and banter between the two artificial “hosts”. The voices — and banter — of the artificial “hosts” that were created sounded so real that the “hosts” did not sound obviously artificial in almost any, let alone many, of the usual ways that usually betray the artificiality or synthetic nature of the voices. “They” seemed to bypass the Uncanny Valley (here’s my archive) as well, if only because they weren’t associated with artificially-created “speaking” faces or other cues that might suggest that “they” were artificial.

To wit: My brother came up with two podcasts: Podcast1, and Podcast2, based on the blog page about the yoghurt muffins: The first podcast was roughly what I would have expected, based on the samples I’d heard on the radio, in the form of “entertaining” banter from the artificial “hosts” about the overall post and subject, while the second podcast followed a play-by-play style review of the post and its pictures.

Especially while listening to the first, I was often incredulously guffawing at how “seriously” they seemed to be taking the subject, to the point of “their” calling me a perfectionist; despite, uhm, seriously having approached mounting the post with its pictures and processing the photos for presentation, as well as of course maintaining my recipe archive, and again of course being fairly serious on a hobby level about my cooking, for the overall cooking project I have always had a certain laid back, “enjoying the fun” pleasure to mounting the posts. Which, I must admit, intentionally include a lot of photos detailing usually every last step and even micro-step. I would estimate that the “hosts” got it better in the second podcast by calling me meticulous.

The end result of the two podcasts is so good that except for the knowledge that it’s totally AI generated, I would actually believe that the podcast was hosted by real people and put together by real people providing real feedback. As such, I have a few responses to some of the “comments” that the “hosts” made:

Shorter Podcast: (audio here)

  • I am flattered in a giggly kind of way that the “hosts” underlined the dirty oven window, which I myself had somewhat sheepishly admitted was the case in the original post;
  • The “hosts” seem to enthusiastically say it’s like a scientific document with no room for error; I would challenge anyone to compare the blog post against the recipe and say that the two are identical. 🙂
  • For the record: I did not lick the spoon. 🙂
  • The “hosts” spoke of how much care I took by freezing them … well, I will go into the “easy” column and say both that baking a half batch or a double batch is roughly as easy as a standard batch, and, that I often try to make recipes that are good for the freezer!
  • And finally … the “hosts”, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, pretty much suggested that I make a blog post on making the morning coffee, which I may just do sometimes in the future. 🙂

Longer Podcast: (audio here)

  • The “hosts” asked what does “easy” mean in my claim that the muffins are easy to make, such as is it the number of ingredients, the technique, or the cleanup? “They” initially conclude “Let’s find out!” “They” then go on to point out that the use of the paper liners, and the reuse of the measuring cup used to measure out the yoghurt to then measure out the oil without cleaning it in between, as examples of the “easy” part.
  • The “hosts” seem to insinuate at a couple of points that the amounts of sugar and oil used are “generous”, while of course continuing to state that the muffins’ crumb would no doubt be rather moist as a result; yet, when discussing the presence of the yoghurt, the “hosts” wondered whether the yoghurt muffins were just an alternative to the bran muffins I make for my mom, but ultimately seemed to decide that it was obviously a “health angle”. I perceived this as a lack of continuity in the “creation” of the podcast. And to be clear, having adopted this recipe was simply meant to be an alternative to the bran muffins I give to my mom, which is clearly stated at the beginning of the post; further, I am not trying to “match” the sweetness of bran muffins.
  • The “hosts” say that the kind of yoghurt I use is not identified, ie. firm yoghurt, stirred yoghurt, or greek yoghurt, etc.; “they” are correct that the tub does not say so, at least in the view in the picture. However, “they” do read into it by saying that this lack of information is part of the “easy” claim by letting people trying the recipe to use what they have on hand. Also, “they” did not pick up on the strawberry on the tub as an example of how the “relatively plain” was intentionally a loose interpretation.
  • The “hosts” say that the kind of oil I used was not identified; again, the photo of the jug plainly says “vegetable oil”, which should tell all bakers that it’s generic vegetable-based cooking oil.

Is this a fun tool? Sure. My brother and I have bandied about ideas — purely in the hypothetical — about using the tool to create large numbers of podcasts that could then be syndicated to AM radio stations for the overnight slot during which a lot of content is often recycled or of what we consider to be of dubious interest.

Making (Simple) (and Relatively) Plain Yoghurt Muffins — Photos

These easy to make muffins are fairly straightforward, tasty, and, despite being labeled as “plain”, the term is used somewhat loosely since the yoghurt used may be any kind of flavoured yoghurt, which will come across lightly but distinctly in the final product. As well, small amounts of fruits or other flavouring agents could be added without substantial changes.

I had originally researched the recipe to allow me to serve a different kind of muffin to my mom, in order to contrast the bran muffins she likes as well; as noted elsewhere, she enjoys the bran muffin recipe I found on the internet more than her own bran muffin recipe.

Note that this yoghurt muffin recipe lends itself well to half batches (one egg only), as well as easy and quick baking in countertop toaster-ovens.

Update 20241008: Using the Google NotebookLM podcast generator, two podcasts were produced about this post, and, I made a blog entry about the podcasts. Podcast1 Podcast2

Making the muffins:

First, the oven was pre-heated to 350F:

Oven preheated to 350F

A tray of muffin moulds, and correspondingly sized paper liners, were taken out:

Muffin moulds and paper liners taken out

The moulds were each lined with paper muffin liners:

Lining moulds with paper muffin liners
Lining moulds with paper muffin liners

The lined baking tray was put aside, and a mixing bowl, a spoon, and a fork were taken out:

Mixing bowl, spoon, and fork taken out

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out:

Flour and measuring cup taken out

The measuring cup was filled with flour:

Measuring cup filled with flour

The flour was transferred to the mixing bowl:

Flour transferred to mixing bowl
Flour transferred to mixing bowl
Flour transferred to mixing bowl

Sugar was taken out, and the measuring cup was taken out again:

Sugar and measuring cup taken out

Sugar was measured out:

Sugar measured out

The sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour:

Sugar transferred to mixing bowl with flour
Sugar transferred to mixing bowl with flour
Sugar transferred to mixing bowl with flour
Sugar transferred to mixing bowl with flour

Baking powder and measuring spoons were taken out:

Baking powder and measuring spoons taken out

Baking powder was measured out:

Baking powder measured out

The baking powder was added to the flour and sugar in the mixing bowl:

Baking powder added to flour and sugar
Baking powder added to flour and sugar
Baking powder added to flour and sugar

Salt and measuring spoons were taken out:

Salt and measuring spoons taken out

Salt was measured out:

Salt measured out

The salt added to the flour, sugar, and baking powder:

Salt added to the flour, sugar, and baking powder
Salt added to the flour, sugar, and baking powder

Using the fork, the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt were thoroughly mixed:

Flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt thoroughly mixed with fork
Flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt thoroughly mixed with fork

A tub of yoghurt and a measuring cup were taken out:

Yoghurt and measuring cup taken out

Yoghurt was measured out:

Yoghurt measured out

The yoghurt was transferred to the bowl with the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt:

Yoghurt transferred to bowl of flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt
Yoghurt transferred to bowl of flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt
Yoghurt transferred to bowl of flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, with spoon added

Vegetable oil was taken out, and the measuring cup used for the yoghurt was reused, without needing to clean it since I’d only just used it moments before for the yoghurt :

Vegetable oil and measuring cup taken out

The vegetable oil was measured out:

Vegetable oil measured out

The vegetable oil was transferred to the bowl with the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and yoghurt:

Vegetable oil transferred to bowl

Eggs were taken out:

Eggs taken out
Eggs taken out
Eggs taken out

The eggs were cracked into the bowl with the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, yoghurt, and vegetable oil:

Eggs cracked into bowl
Eggs cracked into bowl
Eggs cracked into bowl

All the ingredients were mixed together with a spoon:

Ingredients mixed with spoon

… creating a thick paste dough:

Ingredients mixed with spoon

The muffin mould tray prepared earlier was taken out:

Prepared muffin mould tray taken out

The dough was spooned into the paper muffin moulds:

Muffin moulds filled with muffin dough
Muffin moulds filled with muffin dough

The filled muffin tray was placed in the preheated oven:

Filled muffin tray placed in oven

A timer was set to 21 minutes:

Timer set to 21 minutes

Looking through the oven window (which admittedly could use a cleaning!), the muffins began to rise:

Muffins baking and rising
Muffins baking and tops beginning to brown
Muffins baking and tops browning

While the muffins were baking, cooling racks were taken out:

Cooling racks taken out

After the timer ran out and the muffins had baked, the muffins were taken out of the oven, and the tray placed on a cutting board:

Baked muffins taken out of oven

The muffins were transferred from the muffin tray moulds to the cooling racks to cool down:

Freshly baked muffins transferred to the cooling racks

A yummy fresh muffin was served to my mom with another mini-muffin, with the paper linings removed:

Muffins served
Muffins served

… and the rest of the cooled muffins were placed in a sealable freezer bag, to be placed in the freezer:

Cooled muffins placed in a sealable freezer bag

Yummy!

Making Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Squares — Photos

This decadently rich and scrumptious dessert is another relatively new addition to my collection of recipes. Mom loves it!

Making the squares:

Before beginning, some cream cheese was taken out of the fridge and put on the counter to warm up to room temperature:

Cream cheese taken out before beginning in order to soften it

Parchment paper and an 8″ baking pan were taken out:

Parchment paper and baking pan taken out

A parchment paper larger than the baking pan was torn off the roll …

Parchment paper cut off of roll

… and the baking pan was lined with the parchment paper, with a little bit left over the edges of the pan:

Baking pan lined with parchment paper

The pan was put aside for a few moments, and a countertop convection oven was set to 325F and turned on:

Countertop convection oven turned on
Oven set to 325F

Graham cracker crumbs were taken out:

Graham cracker crumbs taken out

A cup and a half of graham cracker crumbs were measured out:

Graham cracker crumbs measured out

The graham cracker crumbs were transferred to a mixing bowl:

Graham cracker crumbs transferred to mixing bowl
Graham cracker crumbs transferred to mixing bowl

Margarine was taken out:

Margarine taken out

Margarine was scooped out of the tub:

Margarine scooped out of tub

The margarine was placed in a bowl, previously placed on the scale and the tare set to zero:

Margarine measured out

The margarine was melted in the microwave oven, 15 seconds at a time:

Microwave oven set to 15 seconds
Margarine being melted 15 seconds at a time in microwave oven

Once fully melted, the margarine was taken out of the microwave oven:

Melted margarine taken out of the microwave oven

The melted margarine was poured over the graham cracker crumbs in the mixing bowl:

Melted margarine poured over graham cracker crumbs
Melted margarine poured over graham cracker crumbs

An electric blender was taken out and used to fully mix the graham cracker crumbs and the melted margarine:

Graham cracker crumbs and melted margarine mixed with electric blender
Graham cracker crumbs and melted margarine mixed with electric blender

The baking pan with the parchment paper lining was brought back and the fully blended graham cracker crumbs and melted margarine were transferred to the baking pan.

Graham cracker mix transferred to baking pan
Graham cracker mix transferred to baking pan

The graham cracker mix was flattened with an egg flipper:

Graham cracker mix flattened with an egg flipper

The baking pan with the graham cracker crust was placed in the pre-heated countertop oven:

Graham cracker crust placed in oven

A timer was set for six minutes:

While the graham cracker crust was baking, a cooling rack was taken out (and placed on my stove):

Cooling rack taken out

After baking for six minutes, the graham cracker crust was taken out of the oven and placed on the cooling rack:

Graham cracker crust placed on cooling rack

Another bowl was placed in the scale and the tare set to zero:

Small bowl placed on scale and scale set to zero

More margarine was taken out and measured out:

Margarine measured out

The mixing bowl had been washed while the graham cracker base was baking, and the margarine was transferred to the mixing bowl:

Margarine transferred to clean mixing bowl
Margarine transferred to clean mixing bowl

Brown sugar and a measuring cup were taken out:

Brown sugar and measuring cup taken out

The brown sugar was measured out:

Brown sugar measured out

The brown sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the margarine:

Brown sugar transferred to mixing bowl

Table sugar and a measuring spoon were taken out:

Sugar and measuring spoon taken out

Table sugar was measured out and poured into the mixing bowl with the brown sugar and margarine:

Table sugar added to mixing bowl
Table sugar added to mixing bowl

Salt was taken out and measured out:

Salt measured out

The salt was added to the mixing bowl with the two kinds of sugar and margarine:

Salt added to mixing bowl

Vanilla extract and a measuring spoon were taken out:

Vanilla extract

The vanilla extract was measured out and added to the mixing bowl with the two kinds of sugar, margarine, and salt:

Vanilla extract added to mixing bowl
Vanilla extract added to mixing bowl

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out:

Flour taken out

The flour was measured out:

Flour measured out

The flour was transferred to the bowl with the two kinds of sugar, margarine, salt, and vanilla extract:

Flour added to mixing bowl
Flour added to mixing bowl

Two kinds of chocolate chips were taken out:

Two kinds of chocolate chips taken out

Half a cup of milk chocolate chips were measured out:

Half a cup of milk chocolate chips measured out

… and half a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips were measured out:

Half a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips measured out

The chocolate chips were added to the mixing bowl with the other ingredients:

Chocolate chips added to mixing bowl
Chocolate chips added to mixing bowl

A hand held electric mixer was taken out and the ingredients mixed to make a powdery dough:

Ingredients mixed with electric mixer
Ingredients mixed with electric mixer

The cookie dough was transferred to another bowl and put aside:

Cookie dough transferred to another bowl
Cookie dough transferred to another bowl and put aside

The package of cream cheese placed on the counter earlier to warm up to room temperature was taken out and opened with a pair of scissors:

Package of cream cheese opened
Package of cream cheese opened

The cream cheese was transferred to the mixing bowl, the latter of which again was washed in between mixing jobs.

Cream cheese placed in mixing bowl

The table sugar was taken out again and measured out:

Sugar measured out

The table sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the cream cheese:

Table sugar placed in mixing bowl
Table sugar placed in mixing bowl

The electric mixer was taken out again to cream the cream cheese and table sugar together:

Creaming cream cheese and sugar
Creaming cream cheese and sugar
Creaming cream cheese and sugar

Eggs were taken out:

Eggs taken out
Last egg taken out

The egg was cracked into the bowl with the cream cheese and sugar:

Egg cracked in bowl with cream cheese and sugar
Egg cracked in bowl with cream cheese and sugar

Vanilla extract was taken out again:

Vanilla extract taken out

The vanilla extract was measured out and was added to the bowl with the cream cheese, sugar, and egg:

Vanilla extract added to bowl
Vanilla extract added to bowl

The egg and vanilla extract were mixed into the cream cheese and sugar:

Egg and vanilla extract mixed into cream cheese and sugar
Egg and vanilla extract mixed into cream cheese and sugar

The now-cooled graham cracker crumb base was taken out:

Cooled graham cracker crumb base taken out

The cream cheese mix was transferred on top of the graham cracker crumb crust:

Cream cheese mix transferred to base

The cream cheese mix was spread evenly over the graham cracker crumb crust:

Cream cheese mix spread evenly over base

The chocolate chip cookie dough was taken out:

Cookie dough taken out

A bit of the cookie dough was picked up in my hand …

Cookie dough picked up

… and the ball of dough was flattened between my two hands:

Cookie dough flattened

The flattened cookie dough was placed on top of the cream cheese mix:

Flattened cookie dough placed on top of cream cheese mix

… and repeated with more cookie dough:

Flattened cookie dough pieces placed on top of cream cheese mix

… until all the cookie dough was used and the whole surface of the cream cheese mix was covered:

Flattened cookie dough pieces fully covering cream cheese mix

The baking pan was placed in the still-hot countertop convection oven:

Baking pan placed in oven

A timer was set for 30 minutes:

Timer set for 30 minutes

After the 30-minute baking period, the baking pan was taken out of the oven and placed on a cooling rack:

Baking pan placed on cooling rack

Once the dessert had cooled enough, it was removed from the baking pan using the edges of the parchment paper:

Dessert removed from baking pan

The dessert was first cut in half:

Dessert cut in half

The dessert was cut into quarters:

Dessert sliced into four strips

The dessert was rotated 90 degrees, and sliced just left of centre (so that it can be cut five ways):

Dessert rotated and sliced left of centre

The slicing of dessert was completed (five slices along this axis), making twenty (20) pieces:

Dessert sliced into 20 pieces

And a yummy piece of dessert was served!

Yummy piece of dessert served

Making Stewed Rhubarb — Photos

I picked up making stewed rhubarb because my mom always liked using the rhubarb grown in her garden to make stewed rhubarb and rhubarb chutney. (Ironically, for this post, and often enough, I use rhubarb purchased from the grocery store!)

Note that this recipe effectively needs to be done over two days, or at least with a pause of several hours (roughly equivalent to a minimum of “overnight” ) between preparing the rhubarb, and beginning to stew the rhurbarb.

Note that I also am using the “packing in mason jars and heat-processing” method to preserve the stewed rhubarb, and to allow for the making of larger amounts of stewed rhubarb at once; once the heat-processed jars have cooled, the stewed rhubarb is ready to eat.

Making the Stewed Rhubarb:

Day one:

After buying some rhubarb at the grocery store, some mise-en-place was done by taking out a cutting board, a mixing bowl, a measuring cup, a kitchen knife, and a kitchen scale:

Cutting board, mixing bowl, measuring cup, kitchen knife, and kitchen scale taken out

To avoid confusion a bit later on, the tare weight of the mixing bowl was measured and noted (instead of using the tare function on the kitchen scale):

Tare weight of bowl measured

The rhubarb purchased earlier was taken out (yes, it is a bit shabby!)

Rhubarb taken out

The elastics and labels were removed from the rhubarb bunches:

Elastics and labels removed

I began to wash and rinse the rhubarb:

Washing and rinsing rhubarb
Washing and rinsing rhubarb

The rinsed rhubarb stalks were brought to the cutting board:

Rhubarb brought to cutting board

The rhubarb stalks were trimmed:

Trimming rhubarb stalks
Trimming rhubarb stalks

The trimmings were placed in a kitchen waste bucket for later disposal in a municipal composting programme:

Trimmings placed in bucket for composting

If the rhubarb isn’t completely fresh, or especially typical (in my experience) for commercial rhubarb purchased at the grocery store, sometimes there is some minor damage to the stalks to be removed:

Stalk damage to be removed

The stalk damage was removed (and while my name can be found on my — this — website in several places, I have blacked it out from my knife, on which I had inscribed my name years ago):

Stalk damage removed

The trimmed rhubarb stalks were piled up …

Trimmed rhubarb

… and the rhubarb stalks were rinsed again to remove the last of the bits:

Rhubarb rinsed again

Some stalks were laid on the cutting board for chopping:

Rhubarb laid out for chopping

The rhubarb stalks were chopped using a slicing motion against the grain:

Rhubarb chopped

As chopped rhubarb started piling up on the chopping board, it was transferred to the mixing bowl:

Chopped rhubarb transferred to mixing bowl

The rest of the rhubarb was chopped, and transferred to the mixing bowl as it was produced:

Chopped rhubarb transferred to mixing bowl

The bowl of chopped rhubarb was placed on the kitchen scale and weighed:

Chopped rhubarb weighed

The weight was noted, to be used in a moment:

Chopped rhubarb weighed

A large pot and wooden mixing spoon were taken out:

Pot and wooden spoon taken out

The chopped rhubarb was transferred to the pot:

Chopped rhubarb transferred to pot
Chopped rhubarb transferred to pot

A calculator app was started, and the net weight of chopped rhubarb was calculated by subtracting the bowl tare weight from the weight of the bowl filled with the chopped rhubarb:

Net weight of chopped rhubarb calculated

Since my recipe is based on the Imperial system, the weight of 0.895kg (above) was converted to pounds, giving a result just barely shy of two pounds of chopped rhubarb:

Rhubarb weight converted to pounds

Next, a multiplication factor for how many “recipe units” was calculated by dividing the weight of the chopped rhubarb by the base amount of three quarters of a pound:

Multiplication factor calculated

The multiplication factor was multiplied by the required amount of sugar and lemon juice for per “recipe unit” of 3/4 lb of chopped rhubarb: Half a cup of sugar, and half an ounce of lemon juice, resulting in 1-1/3 cups of sugar, and 1-1/3 ounces of lemon juice:

Multiplication factor applied to sugar and lemon juice required

Sugar and a measuring cup were taken out:

Sugar and measuring cup taken out
Measures on measuring cup

Sugar was measured out:

Sugar measured out

The sugar was poured onto the chopped rhubarb:

Sugar poured into pot of chopped rhubarb
Sugar poured into pot of chopped rhubarb

The chopped rhubarb and sugar were mixed with the wooden spoon:

Chopped rhubarb and sugar mixed

Lemon juice was measured out:

Lemon juice measured out

Extra sugar was added to the lemon juice:

Extra sugar added to lemon juice

The lemon juice and extra sugar were mixed:

Lemon juice and extra sugar mixed

The lemon juice and sugar mix were added to the chopped rhubarb and sugar:

Lemon juice and sugar added to chopped rhubarb and sugar

The chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice were mixed some more:

Chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice mixed
Chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice mixed

A lid was placed on the pot of rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice:

Lid placed on pot of chopped rhubarb mix

The pot of chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice was placed in a fridge overnight:

Pot of chopped rhubarb mix placed in fridge

Day two:

Early the next morning, I checked on the pot of chopped rhubarb:

Pot of chopped rhubarb checked

As can be sort of be seen above and better in the following photo, a good amount of liquid had been drawn by the sugar from the pieces of chopped rhubarb:

Liquid drawn from chopped rhubarb

The chopped rhubarb was mixed again with a spoon:

Chopped rhubarb mixed

The pot of chopped rhubarb was returned to the fridge until later that evening (after coming home from work.)

That evening, a jar wrench, a jar funnel, tongs, a ladle, and a stainless steel flipper were taken out:

Jar wrench, jar funnel, tongs, ladle, and stainless steel flipper taken out

Mason jars, a few more than I expected to need, and new lids and lid rings, were taken out, but kept aside for the moment:

Mason jars and lids taken out

A pot and trivet were taken out, to act as a boiling water bath soon:

Pot and trivet taken out

The trivet was placed in the bottom of the pot:

Trivet placed in pot

The pot was filled with water:

Pot filled with water
Pot filled with water

The pot of water was placed on a burner on the stove:

Pot of water placed on stove

The stove was turned on:

… and the lid was placed back on the pot:

Lid placed on pot of water

Since I had placed the pot of water on a smaller burner, which proved to be a mistake, I still waited a bit before taking out the pot of chopped rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice, and placing it on the stove:

Pot of Rhubarb, sugar, and lemon juice placed on stove

After waiting a bit more, having gauged the heating up of the pot of water, the burner under the chopped rhubarb mix was turned on:

Burner under chopped rhubarb mix turned on

The lid on the pot of chopped rhubarb mix was removed:

Lid removed from pot of rhubarb mix

As the rhubarb mix was heating up, I of course mixed it to avoid burning:

Rhubarb mix being mixed while heating
Rhubarb mix being mixed while heating

The rhubarb mix began to boil:

Rhubarb mix beginning to boil

At this point, the rhubarb mix was taken off the burner, and since the water bath had not yet reached the boiling point, I brought it forward to the larger burner to bring it to a boil more quickly:

Water bath brought forward to larger burner on stove

Fortunately, it was obvious that the water bath was “hot enough” to dip the (clean) bottle funnel to sanitize it:

Sanitizing bottle funnel

The bottle funnel was placed in the neck of a jar:

Jar funnel placed in neck of jar

The ladle was dipped in the hot water to sanitize it:

Ladle sanitized

I started ladling the boiled rhubarb mix into the jar until it was filled:

Ladling boiled rhubarb mix into jar
Jar filled

A lid and ring were brought to the jar, and screwed onto the jar (oops, I forgot to take a picture of this second part):

Lid brought to filled jar and screwed on

The rest of the boiled rhubarb mix was transferred into jars, and lids were screwed onto the jars:

Filled jars with lids screwed on

At this point, the water in the water bath was finally starting to boil:

Water bath starting to boil

Using the jar wrench, the filled jars were transferred to the water bath:

Filled jars transferred to water bath
Filled jars transferred to water bath

Once the water had come to a rolling boil …

Water bath coming to a rolling boil

… a timer was set to 15 minutes …

Timer set to 15 minutes

… and the lid was placed back on the pot with the water bath and filled jars:

Lid placed on water bath

At this point, the water was boiling so vigorously, that water was splashing out of the pot!

Water splashing out of boiling water bath onto stovetop

After 15 minutes had elapsed, the filled jars were removed from the water bath using the jar wrench:

Removing filled jars with jar wrench

The now heat-processed jars were placed on the the cutting board:

Heat-processed jar placed on cutting board
Heat-processed jars placed on cutting board

Hot water collecting on the jars was soaked up with a towel:

Water on jars soaked up with towel

The jars were moved apart from each other to allow for some ambient cooling for a few moments:

Jars separated to facilitate ambient cooling

Then, the still-warm jars were moved to a fridge to complete cooling.

Jars moved to fridge

At this point, I changed tack a bit and printed out some labels for the jars, modifying another label template I have for my pickled eggs:

Printed labels for jars of stewed rhubarb

Scissors, a hole punch, and some elastics were taken out:

Scissors, hole punch, and elastics taken out

Four labels were cut from the sheet:

Label cut from sheet
Label cut from sheet
Labels cut from sheet

A date code (in this case for 09 August, 2023, the day I filled and processed the jars) was written on the back / inside of each label:

Date code written on backside of label
Date code written on backside of labels

The labels were folded over onto themselves:

Label folded over on itself
Label folded over on themselves

I should note at this point at which the print is more legible, that I live in Montreal, where French predominates, hence the labels are in both English and French. As it happened in the picture above, the folded labels with the English showing were upside down because that’s how I inadvertently happened to flip them over. 🙂

I then picked up the labels, piled them one on another, and crimped the folds:

Labels brought together and folds crimped

A hole was punched through the labels on the end opposite to the fold:

Hole punched through labels
Hole punched through labels

On each individual label, the end near the hole was folded over:

End near hole folded over
Ends near holes folded over

Ah here, the English labels are right side up. 🙂

An elastic was threaded through the hole of a label:

Elastic threaded through hole in label

The elastic was looped into itself, and loosely tightened to allow for it to at once hold the label, as well as have a loop to use to go around a jar’s neck:

Elastic looped into itself

… which was repeated for the other three labels:

Elastics looped into themselves

The following morning, the cooled (and fully sealed) jars were removed from the fridge, and brought to the workspace where the labels were:

Cooled bottles brought out

Labels were looped around the jars:

Label looped around jar
Labels looped around jars

These jars will be kept to be donated to my church’s fall fair, along with a few jars of my pickled eggs! (And, Mom will receive any which don’t sell. 🙂 )

Making Bagel and Cream Cheese Pieces Bites — Photos

This post is a bit of a gratuitous post to pass the time during my holidays, while showing a bit how I leverage freezers as useful tools for day to day cooking and eating, and highlight how, beyond the strictly obvious (or conversely, as an example of the obvious, whichever you prefer 🙂 ), my cooking efforts actually do fit into and serve everyday life — literally!

Yes, the breakfast shown at the end of this post is a very typical daily breakfast for me these days, barring the days, often on weekends or holidays, when I might choose to make other breakfast foods from my collection of recipes (or of course, something else completely.)

Note: I must confess that despite claiming to be a proud Montrealer, for these breakfast bites, I favour a commercial, industrially baked bagel typical of the fluffy, New-York style (here is my archive), instead of Montreal-style bagels (here is my archive).)

Making the Bagel and Cream Cheese Bites:

After coming home from the store and having bought bagels and a cream cheese spread flavoured with “herbs” and roasted garlic, I took out a cutting board:

Cutting board taken out

A bagel slicer, basically a serrated edge attached to a wooden guide, and a table knife, were taken out:

Bagel slicer and knife taken out

A bag of commercially produced bagels, purchased earlier in the day, was taken out:

Bag of bagels taken out

The bag clip was taken off the bag in order to open the bag of bagels:

Bag clip removed from bag

The bagels were taken out of the bag:

Bagels taken out of bag

The empty bag was kept and put aside:

Bag kept and put aside

A bagel was sliced (be careful, some industrially produced bagels may be partly pre-sliced):

Bagel being sliced
Sliced bagel

… and the rest of the bagels were sliced:

Bagels sliced

A 227g (8oz) container of a commercially prepared cream cheese spread, in this case flavoured with “herbs” and roasted garlic, purchased earlier in the day, was taken out:

Flavoured cream cheese spread taken out

The lid was removed from the cream cheese container …

Plastic seal to be removed from container

… and the plastic seal was also removed from the container:

Plastic seal removed from container
Plastic seal removed from container

The knife was used to pick up some of the cream cheese:

Picking up cream cheese with knife
Cream cheese picked up with knife

A couple of bagel halves were placed on the cutting board, and the knife holding the cream cheese was brought to them …

Cream cheese brought to bagel halves

… and cream cheese was spread on one of the bagel halves:

Cream cheese spread on bagel half
Cream cheese spread on bagel half

The two bagel halves were put back together:

Bagel halves joined back together
Bagel halves joined back together

Cream cheese was spread on a few more bagels, and after spreading cream cheese on half of the bagels, the container was about half empty:

I continued to spread cream cheese on the rest of the bagels; I scraped the last of the cream cheese out of the container, and I spread the last of the cream cheese onto the last of the six bagels:

Scraping the last of the cream cheese from the bottom of the container and spread onto last bagel

At this point, all six bagels were filled with cream cheese:

Bagels filled with cream cheese

At this point, a clean knife was taken out, and a bagel was cut at a single point:

… and then the bagel was cut in two other places, resulting in three pieces:

The bagel pieces were placed back in the bag:

Piece of bagel placed in bag
Three bagel pieces placed in bag

… and as I continued cutting up the rest of the bagels, I placed the bagel pieces in the bag:

Half the bagel pieces in the bag

… until all the bagel pieces were in the bag:

All bagel pieces in bag

A tie wrap was taken out:

Tie wrap taken out

The tie wrap was used to seal up the bag again:

Bag sealed with tie wrap

The bag of bagel and cream cheese pieces was placed in the freezer:

Bag of bagel and cream cheese pieces placed in freezer

The next morning, I took out a bagel and cream cheese bite, and defrosted it along with a mini raisin bran muffin, made earlier in the week using my mom’s bran muffin recipe, a pickled egg, some cheese, and some peanut butter scooped from the jar:

Breakfast is served!

Yummy!

Making Beer at Home — Photos

I learned how to make home-made wine during a university microbiology course in 1990, and I quickly picked up the hobby. After many years, I picked up making beer, to the pleasure of many friends over the years at local Canada Day celebrations.

Incidentally, while this page follows the preparation of beer from beer concentrate kits, the process is almost identical for making wine from wine concentrate kits.

The photos shown below cover a period of nine weeks, starting in early March, 2023, through to bottling the beer three weeks later at the very end of March, and taste testing the beer about six weeks after that — nine weeks total — in mid May, 2023. Normally, my “official” answer to “How long does it take to make beer?” is “A minimum of six weeks. Don’t believe the instructions when they say two, or three, or four weeks. Just don’t.” (Wine from kits takes about eight to nine weeks minimum.)

Making the beer:

The following is showing a very detailed progression of making beer using two kinds of beer concentrates, a blonde beer, and a brown ale. The narrative of this page will be primarily following the preparation of the blonde beer.

Day one:

First, a couple of kinds of beer concentrate kits were purchased, for a brown ale, and for a blonde beer.

Two beer concentrate kits purchased

Since beer concentrate kits often do not contain fermentable sugars, 1kg bags of dextrose were also purchased at the same time; in this case, about a bag per batch will be used, to produce a bit less than 5% alc/vol given the amount of beer I will be making (although I am not particular at all on this point beyond not wanting the alcohol content to be significantly different either way.)

Bags of dextrose purchased

Having brought the beer concentrates and dextrose home, the first thing I did was take out a beer from a previously brewed batch of beer:

Beer and glass taken out

The beer was poured into the glass:

Beer poured into glass

… and the beer was enjoyed:

Beer enjoyed

On to making new beer:

The aerator on the tap in the laundry tub was removed:

Aerator removed from tap

A five (imperial) gallon water jug was placed under the tap:

Water jug placed under tap

The water was turned on, and the jug filled with water …

Filling jug with water

While the jug was filling with water, a plastic cloth was laid out on the floor:

Plastic cloth laid out

A fermentation bin was taken out (incidentally, the original bin I bought back in late 1990 when I started making wine):

Fermentation bin taken out

A large stirring spoon, pliers, a large spoon, and a can opener, were taken out:

Tools taken out

The now-filled water container was brought out to the plastic cloth:

Filled water jug brought out

A kettle was filled with water …

Kettle filled with water

… the kettle was plugged in …

Kettle plugged in

… and finally the kettle was turned on:

Kettle turned on
Kettle turned on

A jet washer was taken out …

Jet washer taken out

… and the jet washer was attached to the tap in the laundry tub:

Jet washer attached to tap

The tap was turned on again:

Tap turned on

The aforementioned fermentation bin was brought to the laundry tub …

Fermentation bin brought to laundry tub

… then the fermentation bin was placed over the jet washer …

Fermentation bin placed over jet washer

… and I used a finger to activate the jet washer to rinse out the (previously cleaned) fermentation bin:

Fermentation bin rinsed with jet washer
Rinse water draining from fermentation bin

At this point, I took advantage of the moment to jetwash the emptied beer bottle from earlier:

Beer bottle jetwashed

… which was then placed in the dishwasher along with my other dishes, to clean for future bottling purposes (see later on).

Scissors were taken out:

Scissors taken out

The scissors were used to open a bag of dextrose:

Bag of dextrose cut open

The full contents of a bag of dextrose were poured into the fermentation bin, which was brought back to the plastic cloth:

Dextrose poured into fermentation bin
Dextrose poured into fermentation bin
Dextrose poured in fermentation bin

A can of beer concentrate, for the blonde beer, and the can opener, were taken out.

Beer concentrate and can opener taken out

The plastic top was removed from the can, revealing a yeast packet and the kit’s instructions.

Yeast packet and instructions revealed

The yeast packet was taken out …

Yeast packet taken out

… as were the instructions:

Instructions taken out
Instructions opened up

Note that while I generally follow the instructions, I apply my own fine tuned procedures. 🙂

The can opener was used to open the can of beer concentrate:

Beer concentrate can opened with a can opener
Beer concentrate can opened with a can opener

A spoon was used to remove the top of the can:

Spoon used to open can
Can opened up

… and the top of the can was finally properly removed:

Can top removed from can

The viscous beer concentrate was poured into the fermentation bin:

Beer concentrate poured into fermentation bin

The spoon was used to scrape out the rest of the concentrate from the can:

Beer concentrate scraped out of can
Beer concentrate scraped out of can

The kettle of water, while still hot, was reboiled, and boiling water was poured into the can:

Boiling water poured into beer concentrate can

The hot can was picked up with the pliers …

Can picked up with pliers

The hot water was swirled around in the can to dissolved the last of the concentrate from the can walls, and the water was poured out and into the fermentation bin:

Hot water poured out of can into fermentation bin

The rest of the boiling water was poured into the fermentation bin:

Hot water poured into fermentation bin

The large plastic stirring spoon was quickly rinsed under the tap at the laundry tub:

Plastic spoon rinsed with water

The spoon was brought to the fermentation bin:

Spoon brought to fermentation bin

… and the hot water, beer concentrate, and dextrose were thoroughly mixed:

Hot water, beer concentrate, and dextrose thoroughly mixed

The plastic tap placed on the water jug was removed:

Tap seal removed from water jug

The water in the jug was poured into the fermentation bin with the other ingredients:

Water poured into fermentation bin

At this point, all the ingredients are called wort (pronounced “wurt”), and the wort was mixed with the big plastic spoon:

Wort mixed
Wort mixed

The temperature on the thermometer stuck onto the side of the fermentation bin was checked, and the wort temperature had not yet risen come up to fermentation range (one of the temperature ranges would be highlighted were it the case):

Temperature not yet in range

Despite this, and knowing that the water temperature was below optimum range, as opposed to too warm and dangerous to yeast, the yeast packet was taken out:

Yeast packet taken out

The yeast packet was cut open with scissors:

Yeast packet opened with scissors
Yeast packet opened with scissors

The yeast was pitched into the wort (ie. sprinkled onto the surface of the unfermented beer):

Pitching yeast
Pitching yeast

The wort with the yeast was lightly stirred, in order to moisten the yeast and reactivate it:

Wort and yeast lightly stirred

A plastic shopping bag — in fact, one of the bags I’d received when the beer kits had been purchased earlier in the afternoon — was taken out:

Plastic bag taken out

The bag was partially cut so as to allow it to be used as a cover for the fermentation bin:

Bag cut to make plastic cover

Elastics and paper clips were taken out:

Elastics and paper clips taken out

Elastics were looped together:

Elastics looped together

The ends of the looped elastics were joined together with a paper clip to make a “belt”:

Ends of looped elastics joined together

The plastic bag was placed on top of the fermentation bin, covering the wort:

Wort covered with plastic sheet

The elastic loop was wrapped around the plastic sheet to keep it in place on the top of fermentation bin:

Elastic loop wrapped around plastic sheet

At this point, I had to clear the bar so that I could place the fermentation bin, full of wort, on it:

Bar cleared

A chair was placed beside the bar, so as to help in raising the heavy fermentation bin full of wort:

Chair placed to help lifting the bin full of wort

The heavy fermentation bin full of wort was lifted off the floor and onto the chair, in order to allow me to get a better hold on the bin while lifting it up to the level of the bar:

Fermentation bin full of wort lifted onto chair

The fermentation bin full of wort was then lifted up to the level of the bar:

Fermentation bin full of wort lifted up to bar level

… and finally, the fermentation bin full of wort was moved to the end of the bar, against the wall:

Fermentation bin moved to end of bar

The instructions, principally used as piece of paper on which to identify the type of beer in the fermentation bin, were placed within the elastic loop:

Instructions identifying beer placed in elastic loop

The whole process was repeated for the brown ale beer kit, and producing a second identified fermentation bin filled with wort, placed beside the first bin:

Second fermentation bin filled with wort placed on bar

Day two:

Fourteen hours later (the following morning), I peeked into the fermentation bins, and could see signs of the beginnings of fermentation:

Yeast growth after 14 hours

That evening, after about 27 hours had passed, the wort temperature was checked again, and it was barely up to 68F:

Wort temperature up to 68F

… and, at the same time, I peeked again at the wort, noticing more yeast growth:

Yeast growth after 27 hours

Day three:

After about 39 hours, I peeked once again at the wort, and the yeast was bubbling away:

Yeast growth after 39 hours

Day six:

After six days, secondary fermentors were taken out; in this case, a large five gallon plastic bottle, a one gallon jar, and, just in case, a soda bottle for last little bits:

Secondary fermentors taken out

The jet washer was again installed on the tap in the laundry tub:

Jet washer installed again

The secondary fermentors were rinsed out with the jet washer:

Secondary fermentor rinsed
Secondary fermentor rinsed

Racking equipment — items used to transfer the now-fermenting liquid easily — were taken out: Plastic tubing, a stiff plastic racking cane, a cone shaped holder to hold the racking cane (including this item was an oops, since I wouldn’t be needing it on this day), and a clip to hold the plastic tubing in place on the edge of the secondary fermentor:

Racking equipment taken out

The racking tubes were rinsed with water:

Racking tube rinsed

The secondary fermentors were placed on the floor of the bar next to where the fermenting beer was located:

Secondary fermentors placed on bar floor

The racking tube was placed in the fermentation bin with the fermenting beer, and leading all the way down to the floor where the secondary fermentors were placed:

Racking tube placed in fermentation bin and leading down to secondary fermentors

The flow of liquid beer was started by sucking on the end of the flexible section of the racking tubing (avoiding to leave any spit!), which was then secured in the neck of the secondary fermentor using the black clip, allowing for the flow of beer from above down below:

Beer flow begun and tubing secured to secondary fermentor neck

Here is the neck of the racking tube in the fermentation bin, with beer flowing through down to the secondary fermentor:

Beer flowing out of the fermentation bin

And here’s a photo of the secondary fermentor as it was filling with fermenting beer:

Secondary fermentor filling up

At a certain point when the secondary fermentor was almost full, foam formed up to the top of the secondary fermentor …

Secondary fermentor foaming up
Secondary fermentor foaming up

… and the racking tubing was transferred to the gallon jug:

Racking beer into gallon jug secondary fermentor

At this point, I should explain that during the primary fermentation, the fermentation was sufficiently vigorous to avoid air getting back in, while during secondary fermentation and the following period during which solids drop to the bottom of the secondary fermentor, the rate of gas production is insufficient to protect the beer from oxidation and contamination from the air outside the fermentor.

Therefore, airlocks, plugs for the secondary fermentors which allow gas — in this case, carbon dioxide produced by the yeast fermenting the dextrose into alcohol — to escape the secondary fermentors while keeping air from getting back in, were taken out:

Airlocks taken out

Airlocks were filled with water:

Airlock filled with water
Airlocks filled with water

Water-filled airlocks were fitted onto the now-filled secondary fermentors, which were raised up to the level of the bar:

Airlocks fitted to secondary fermentor
Airlocks fitted to secondary fermentors, and secondary fermentors raised to bar level

At the bottom of the fermentation bin, there was a sediment of dead and dying yeast:

Sediment at bottom of fermentation bin

The fermentation bin was brought to the laundry tub, and the sediment was drained out:

Sediment drained from fermentation bin

The fermentation bin was washed and rinsed with the jetwasher and a rag (not shown):

Fermentation rinsed with jetwasher
Washed and rinsed fermentation bin

The airlock was already bubbling at this point:

Airlock bubbling

The whole process was repeated for the other beer, the brown ale, and at this point, a second set of identified secondary fermentors filled with beer was placed beside the first set of secondary fermentors:

Two sets of secondary fermentors with two kinds of beer

Day nine:

At this point, sediments had formed in the secondary fermentors:

Sediment in secondary fermentor

You should start this now if you haven’t already:

Normally, I have a collection of cleaned and de-labeled beer bottles in storage. Should you not have an adequate number of bottles for bottling your beer — 23 litres requires about 66 or thereabouts 341mL bottles, or equivalent — by now you should begin collecting them.

Normally, I get beer bottles from city streets; as I am walking about in the streets, I am continuously on the lookout for empty beer bottles to reuse for my beer; fortunately for brewers like myself, but in more general terms unfortunately, in the general area where I live, they are far more common and abundant than I might want to admit, and, surprisingly, most are in excellent condition! In the following few pictures, I show the cleaning of larger 1.18 litre bottles, since I use them as well as regular 341 mL bottles for beers I produce sometimes.

Other places to get beer bottles are to buy beer at stores, consume the beer, and then clean the bottles; or, ask friends and family to save beer bottles for you; and, be really nice with the bottle return clerk at the store and politely ask them if you may pay the bottle deposits on empty returned beer bottles.

Hence, an empty bottle was taken out:

Empty beer bottle to be cleaned and delabled

The cap was unscrewed from the bottle, and kept:

Cap removed from bottle

The bottle was inspected for chips, cracks, and any other defects:

Bottle inspected for defects

A plastic bucket was partly filled with water for soaking off the labels:

Bucket filled with water for soaking labels

The bottle was placed in the bucket and filled with water …

Bottle filled with water

Once filled, the bottle was turned over (in order to properly soak the label on the neck), and the bucket was almost fully filled with water:

Bottle turned over and bucket filled with water
Bottle turned over and bucket filled with water

After a while, the label was carefully removed from the bottle:

Label removed from bottle
Label removed from bottle
Label removed from bottle
Label removed from bottle

An old vegetable scraping brush was taken out:

Brush taken out

The brush and partially delabeled bottle were brought together …

Brush used to scrape off vestiges of label from bottle

… and the vestiges of the label were removed …

Vestiges of label partly removed from bottle
Vestiges of label mostly removed from bottle

… including the glue:

Vestiges of label glue scraped off

Yet again, the jet washer was installed onto the tap in the laundry tub:

Jet washer installed

… and the bottle’s interior was rinsed with the jet washer:

Bottle interior jet washed

The bottle’s cap, which for these bottles and cap model can be reused if in good condition, was removed from the soaking water:

Cap removed from soaking water

The cap was jet washed:

Jet washing cap

The bottle and cap were placed in the dishwasher with other dishes, to be washed and sanitized before storing for bottling day:

Bottle and cap placed in dishwasher

After the dishwasher had been run, the clean bottle was taken out, ready to be stored in anticipation of bottling day:

Clean bottle ready for storage

After three weeks:

On bottling day, clean bottles were taken out to bottle the beer:

Clean bottles taken out

The dishwasher had been previously run to clean dishes, and then the clean dishes were all taken out, leaving an empty and clean dishwasher:

Clean and empty dishwasher

Large, 1.18 litre beer bottles were placed in the dishwasher:

Large bottles placed in dishwasher

Small, 341 mL beer bottles were placed in the lower rack of the dishwasher alongside the larger beer bottles …

Small beer bottles placed in dishwasher

… as well in the dishwasher’s upper rack:

Small beer bottles placed in the dishwasher’s upper rack

The dishwasher racks were rolled into the dishwashwer …

Dishwasher racks rolled into dishwasher

The dishswasher door was closed, and the dial set to start running the dishwashwer (without any soaps):

Dishwasher set to operate

At this point, with the dishwasher running, I took out another beer and glass:

Beer and glass taken out

The beer was poured into the glass:

Beer poured into glass

And the beer was enjoyed:

Beer enjoyed

Various supplies and equipment were taken out for bottling, such as more dextrose to mix into the beer (to carbonate the beer once bottled), a racking tube, a large plastic mixing spoon, a measuring cup, a cone used to hold the racking cane in place in the secondary fermentors, a measuring cup to measure out the dextrose, some bottle caps for the smaller bottles, and the bottle capper for securing the caps on the smaller bottles. Missing: Caps used for larger bottles.

Supplies for bottling the beer

The racking tube and cane were rinsed with water:

Racking tube and cane rinsed

The long plastic spoon was rinsed:

Mixing spoon rinsed

The jet washer was installed again:

Jest washer installed

The original fermentation bin was taken out:

Fermentation bin taken out

The fermentation bin was rinsed with the jet washer:

Fermentation bin rinsed with jet washer

The rinsed fermentation bin was brought over to the bar:

Rinsed fermentation bin brought to bar area

Dextrose was measured out:

Dextrose measured out

The dextrose was brought to the fermentation bin:

Dextrose brought to the fermentation bin

The dextrose was poured into the fermentation bin:

Dextrose poured into fermentation bin

The conical cane holder was placed on the racking cane:

Conical cane holder installed on racking cane

The airlock was removed from the secondary fermentor whose beer was going to be racked:

Airlock removed from secondary fermentor

The racking cane was carefully placed in the secondary fermentor whose beer was about to be racked:

Racking cane placed in secondary fermentor

I sucked a bit on the end of the tubing to start the transfer of the beer from the secondary fermentor …

Beer transferring from secondary fermentor

… which allowed for the beer to be siphoned off and transferred to the primary fermentor with the dextrose, which was on the floor of the bar:

Beer transferring to fermentation bin
Beer level in secondary fermentor becoming lower

As the beer was transferring to the fermentation bin at floor level, I stirred the beer a bit to dissolve the dextrose:

Beer stirred to dissolve dextrose

As the beer was being transferred, the level in the secondary fermentor kept on dropping:

Beer level in secondary fermentor becoming lower

Once the liquid had been fully transferred from the secondary fermentor, I transferred the racking tube to the gallon jug:

Racking tube transferred to gallon jug

… until it too was empty:

Both secondary fermentors emptied

The large secondary fermentor was jetwashed …

Secondary fermentor jetwashed

… as was the gallon jug:

Secondary fermentor jetwashed

At this point, the original fermentation bin was filled with the beer, and was thoroughly mixed again:

Fermentation bin filled with beer, and beer mixed

While the beer was still being racked, a section of the bar was cleared again …

Section of bar cleared

… the plastic cloth was placed on the floor beside the cleared section of the bar …

Plastic cloth placed on floor

… and the fermentation bin with the beer was raised up to the bar again, with the racking cane and tubing having been placed in the bucket and draping down to floor level:

Beer raised to level of bar

At this point, the dishwasher had finished operating, so the bottom rack with the large 1.18 litre and some 341 mL bottles were brought downstairs to the bottling area:

Rack of sanitized bottles brought to bottling area

Large 1.18 litre bottles were taken out of the rack and stood upright for filling:

Large bottles stood upright for filling

The racking tube was primed (flow started) and used to fill bottles one by one:

Filling beer bottles
Filling beer bottles
Filling beer bottles
Filled beer bottles

The clean caps were taken out:

Clean caps taken out
Clean caps taken out

… and the bottles were capped, and moved out of the bottling area. And here is my cat helping out with the beer bottling!

Bottles capped and cat helping
All 1.18 bottles capped

Smaller 341 mL and a single 750 mL bottles were taken out of the dishwasher rack and stood upright for bottling:

Regular beer bottles stood upright for bottling

The regular-sized beer bottles were filled with the racking tube:

Regular-sized bottles filled with beer

The filled beer bottles were moved out of the filling area as they were filled:

Regular-sized bottles filled with beer

At this point, the level of beer in the fermentation bin had gotten low, however it still contained several bottles of beer:

Beer still left in fermentation bin

Also at this point, all the bottles from the lower rack of the dishwasher had been filled with beer:

Dishwasher rack empty

The upper rack from the dishwasher was brought down to the bottling area:

Upper rack brought to bottling area

The rest of the beer was bottled, and the uncapped bottles were placed in beer cases in order to facilitate moving them over to where I capped the bottles:

Filled beer bottles placed in beer cases

At this point, I had set up my capping station, and had moved the cases of filled beer bottles there:

Bottle capping station

My beer bottle capper was taken out, along with a wooden booster to accomodate “modern” beer bottles, which are shorter than the tall bottles for which the capper seems to have been designed:

Beer bottle capper with wooden booster

Uncrimped beer bottle caps were placed on bottles one at a time …

Uncrimped beer bottle cap placed on bottle

Bottles with caps were placed in the bottle capper, starting with a tall bottle not needing the wooden booster …

Bottle placed in capper

… and the plunger was pushed down over the cap, in order to crimp it onto the bottle:

Bottle cap crimped

… producing a capped and sealed bottle of beer:

Capped and sealed bottle of beer, showing crimping around edges
Capped and sealed bottle of beer, showing the depressed top of the cap

The wooden booster was placed back on the base of the capper:

Wooden booster placed in capper

The bottles of beer were all capped:

Beer bottles capped

A permanent marker was taken out:

Permanent marker taken out

The tops of the bottles were identified, in this case with “BL” for the blonde beer, and 2023 … for the year 2023. 🙂

Bottle caps identified
Bottle caps identified

The bottles were placed back in beer cases:

Beers placed back in cases

Here are all the bottles of beer of the blonde beer:

All bottles of blonde beer

The bottling process was repeated for the brown ale:

Bottles of blonde beer and brown ale

After nine weeks:

Of course, the beer had to be taste tested, so a bottle of the blonde beer, as well as a glass, were taken out:

Blonde beer and glass taken out

The bottle was held up to the light of a window to check that it had cleared on its own:

Beer checked for clarity

The blonde beer was poured into the glass …

Beer poured into glass

… and the beer was enjoyed:

Beer enjoyed

The beer is now ready to be consumed on … well, poor weather postponed the Canada Day festivities where I live, so it will be ready when Canada Day is rescheduled!

Making Mashed Sweet Potato and Ground Roast Pork Casseroles — Photos

This is a relatively new addition to my collection of recipes, after having looked through an old community cookbook given to me by a neighbour. It is based on a near-identical recipe obviously (and expressly) intended to use up leftovers from a roast pork Sunday dinner; however, after trying the original recipe, which called for the use of brown sugar and apple slices, I decided to omit the sugar, which made the dish too sweet, and the apples, which didn’t suit us, and replaced them with cooked carrots.

This cooking session occurred in early April, 2023; for a variety of reasons, including the sheer number of photos to organize and prepare for this post — I went into overdrive! — it has taken a bit more than three weeks for me to build this blog post. Also, for the sake of the narrative, the photo progression presented here occasionally differs from the precise progression of when the photos were taken, either because of some mise-en-place activities, actual progression of the food preparation, photo shooting (and occasionally its impact on progression), several operations occurring concurrently, and the like.

Preparing the dish:

Firstly, a countertop convection oven was turned on:

Countertop convection oven turned on
Countertop oven turned on
Oven turned on and set to 350F
Countertop oven turned on

A roasting tray was taken out:

Roasting tray taken out

A package of (frozen) pork loin, defrosted prior to the cooking session, was taken out:

Defrosted pork loin taken out

Scissors were taken out to open the vacuum pack sealing the pork:

Scissors taken out

The pork loin’s vacuum pack was cut open:

Packaging cut open

The pork loin, removed from the vacuum pack, was placed in the roasting tray:

Pork placed in roasting tray

Garlic salt was taken out:

Garlic salt taken out

Garlic salt was liberally shaken on top of the pork loin:

Garlic salt shaken onto pork
Garlic salt shaken onto pork

The pork loin was placed in the countertop convection oven:

Pork placed in countertop convection oven

A timer was set for an hour as a reminder for how long to cook the pork loin:

One hour set on timer

A pot was taken out for boiling carrots:

Pot taken out for boiling carrots

A scale was taken out to know roughly measure out the right amount of carrot:

Scale taken out to measure carrots

Carrots were taken out:

Carrots taken out

About a quarter pound of carrot — in this case, a single carrot — was taken out of the bag:

Quarter pound of carrot measured out

The carrot was cleaned and rinsed:

Carrot rinsed

The cleaned carrot was placed on a cutting board:

Cleaned carrot placed on cutting board

The carrot was trimmed:

Carrot trimmed

The carrot was sliced lengthwise:

Carrot sliced lengthwise

… and again sliced a few more times to make carrot spears:

Carrot sliced lengthwise to create spears

The carrot spears were chopped:

Carrots chopped
Carrots chopped

The chopped carrots were transferred to the pot:

Chopped carrots transferred to pot
Chopped carrots transferred to pot

Water was added to the pot of chopped carrots until the carrots were covered:

Water added to pot of carrots
Water added to pot of carrots

Salt was added to the carrots and water:

Salt added to water and carrots

A stove burner was turned on:

Stove burner turned on

The carrots were brought to a boil …

Carrots brought to a boil

Once the carrots were boiled for about ten minutes, the boiling water was drained off:

Boiling water drained from pot

A mixing bowl was taken out in which to transfer the carrots:

Mixing bowl taken out

The boiled carrots were transferred to the mixing bowl:

Boiled carrots transferred to mixing bowl
Boiled carrots transferred to mixing bowl

The carrots were put aside for a bit.

A microwave-safe cooking vessel was taken out, ready for a few moments later when the sweet potatoes would be peeled:

Microwave-safe cooking vessel taken out
Microwave-safe cooking vessel taken out

A bowl was placed on the scale, and the scale set to zero:

Bowl placed on scale, scale set to zero

A bit more than four pounds of sweet potatoes were measured out:

Sweet potatoes taken out

A potato peeler was taken out:

Potato peeler taken out

The sweet potatoes were peeled, with the peels placed in a bucket to keep for later disposal in a municipal composting programme:

Sweet potatoes peeled

Peeled sweet potatoes were placed in the microwave-safe cooking vessel:

Peeled sweet potato placed in cooking vessel
Peeled sweet potato placed in cooking vessel

A kitchen knife was taken out:

Kitchen knife taken out

The sweet potatoes were sliced and quartered:

Sweet potatoes sliced and quartered
Sweet potatoes sliced and quartered

… and placed back in the microwave-safe cooking vessel:

Sweet potato quarters placed in cooking vessel

Water was added to the cooking vessel …

Water added to cooking vessel

… to about a bit below the surface of the sweet potatoes:

Water added to cooking vessel

The vessel was covered …

Sweet potatoes covered

… and placed in the microwave oven:

Sweet potatoes placed in microwave oven

The microwave oven (1200 watts) was set to 18 minutes:

Microwave oven set to eighteen minutes

… and the microwave oven was turned on:

Microwave oven turned on

While the sweet potatoes were cooking, a package of dried gravy mix — turkey gravy, which is what I had on hand, and in a package that makes a cup’s worth of gravy, as called for in the recipe, was taken out:

Gravy mix taken out

The gravy packet was opened and its contents transferred to another pot that was taken out:

Gravy mix added to pot

A measuring cup was taken out:

Measuring cup taken out

A cup of water was measured out:

Water measured out

The water was added to the pot:

Water added to gravy mix

The gravy mix and water were mixed with a spoon:

Gravy mix and water mix

The gravy was put aside, since the time on the roast pork ran out:

Pork taken out of oven

A meat thermometer was taken out …

Meat thermometer taken out

… and stuck into the pork, giving a temperature reading just right for fully cooked pork:

Meat thermometer reading of cooked pork

The pork was removed from the roasting pan:

Pork removed from roasting pan

… and the juices in the roasting pan were drained into the bowl with the cooked carrots

Pork juices drained into bowl with cooked carrots

The roast pork was sliced thickly:

Pork sliced thickly
Pork sliced thickly

The roast pork was cut into cubes:

Pork cut into cubes

A small blender with chopping blades was taken out …

Blender with chopping blades taken out

… and the blender was plugged in:

Blender plugged in

Cubes of roast pork were placed in the blender …

Cubes of pork placed in blender

… and the lid placed on top of the blender:

Blender lid installed

The pork was ground finely without creating a mush:

Pork ground

The chopped pork was transferred to the bowl with the cooked carrots and pork juices:

Ground pork transferred to bowl with carrots
Ground pork transferred to bowl with carrots

Larger bits of pork which did not get ground finely enough were removed from the bowl, to be ground again with more pork cubes:

Larger bits of pork removed from bowl to be reground with the rest of the pork

The rest of the pork was ground and transferred to the mixing bowl.

Returning to the gravy, a burner on the stove was turned on, in this case, the smaller inner part of a larger burner which has two settings:

Stove burner turned on
Gravy being heated

The gravy was constantly mixed while being heated, to avoid burning:

Gravy constantly mixed

Once the gravy came to a boil, the timer was set to a minute …

One minute set on timer once gravy boiling

… while the burner setting was reduced to just about minimum to only allow for simmering:

Stove burner setting reduced

Once the minute ran out, the gravy was poured over the ground pork and carrots:

Gravy poured into bowl with pork and carrots
Gravy poured into bowl with pork and carrots

The gravy, ground pork, and carrots were mixed with the spoon:

Pork, carrots, and gravy mixed

At this point, oven-proof dishes were taken out, for filling:

Oven-proof dishes taken out

The meat mix was spooned into containers to about half full, and spread out evenly:

Meat mix transferred to oven-proof dish
Meat mix transferred to oven-proof dish
Oven-proof dishes filled with meat mix

At this point, I came back to the sweet potatoes, which had long since finished cooking in the microwave oven:

Cooked sweet potatoes taken out of microwave oven

The sweet potatoes were checked with a fork to see if they were properly cooked through, which they were:

Cooked sweet potatoes checked for degree of cooking

The water was drained off of the sweet potatoes:

Cooking water drained

A container of margarine was taken out and opened:

Margarine container taken out
Margarine container opened

A dollop of margarine was taken from the margarine container with a spoon:

Dollop of margarine taken from container

The margarine was added to the sweet potatoes:

Margarine added to sweet potatoes
Margarine added to sweet potatoes

A measuring cup and milk were taken out:

Milk and measuring cup taken out

Milk was measured out:

Milk measured out

The milk was added to the sweet potatoes and margarine:

Milk added to sweet potatoes
Milk added to sweet potatoes

Measuring spoons were taken out:

Salt was taken out:

Salt taken out

Salt was measured out:

Salt measured out

The salt was added to the sweet potatoes:

Salt added to sweet potatoes
Salt added to sweet potatoes

An electric mixer was taken out, to mash the sweet potatoes:

Electric mixer taken out

The electric mixer was plugged in:

Electric mixer plugged in

The sweet potatoes were mashed with the electric mixer:

Mashing sweet potatoes with electric mixer
Mashing sweet potatoes with electric mixer
Sweet potatoes mashed

A plastic icing spreader was taken out:

Plastic icing spreader taken out

Mashed sweet potatoes were picked up with the icing spreader …

Mashed sweet potato picked up with icing spreader

… and, back to the containers with the pork, gravy, and carrots mix, the mashed sweet potatoes were spread on top of the meat mix :

Mashed sweet potatoes spread on top of meat mix
Mashed sweet potatoes spread on top of meat mix
Mashed sweet potatoes spread on top of meat mix
Mashed sweet potatoes spread on top of meat mix

Plastic bags were taken out and identified and dated:

Bags taken out and identified

The dishes were placed in the individual bags:

Dishes placed in bags

And finally, the bagged dishes were placed in the freezer:

Bagged dishes placed in freezer

This tasty dish is now a favourite!

Drying Pineapples — Photos

I bought a food dehydrator in early 1997 while I was still involved as an adult member in Scouting, and began by drying (mostly) various fruits for Scout Troop camping trips; Troop members were eager to test out the results of my efforts. While I am no longer involved in Scouting, I have continued drying fruits; I quickly decided that my favourite by far was dried pineapple, which comes out like candy to me.

A short overview of my very early experiences with drying food, from a Scouting perspective, is at what would have been a blog back in the late 1990’s before blogs were a thing at https://www.malak.ca/super.html#dried.

Drying the pineapples:

I keep an eye out for sales on pineapples, and brought home six pineapples last week:

Six pineapples (one is on its side)

I brought my cutting board, knife, and corer down to the bar area downstairs, where I normally do my fruit drying:

Cutting board, knife, and corer taken out

A bucket for the compostable trimmings was also set out:

Bucket for compostable trimmings taken out

My food dehydrator was of course taken out, with all its extra trays …

Food dehydrator and trays taken out

… and the unit was plugged into an extension cord caddy that was plugged into an outlet in an adjoining room, since the bar has an old outlet that doesn’t accept polarized plugs:

Food dehydrator plugged in

The food dehydrator was set to 135F for drying fruits and vegetables:

Food dehydrator temperature set

Now to the pineapples: The labels and their plastic tags were removed from the pineapples:

Labels removed from pineapples

A pineapple was placed on its side in order to trim off the top:

Pineapple placed on its side

The top of the pineapple was sliced off:

Top of pineapple sliced off
Top of pineapple sliced off

The top of the pineapple was placed in the scraps bucket:

Top of pineapple placed in scraps bucket
Pineapple tops in scraps bucket

The pineapple was rotated so as to slice off the bottom:

Bottom sliced off pineapple
Bottom sliced off pineapple

The bottom of the pineapple was placed in the scraps bucket:

Pineapple bottom placed in scraps bucket
Pineapple bottom placed in scraps bucket

The pineapple is now ready for the rest of the trimming:

Pineapple ready for trimming

I started trimming the skin off the pineapple:

Trimming the skin off the pineapple
Trimming the skin off the pineapple

As part of trimming the skin off the pineapple, sometimes the bottoms have to be trimmed too because of the somewhat rounded shape of pineapples, making it tricky sometimes to trim off the skin in full slices:

Bottoms to be trimmed as well

The trimmed pineapple skins …

Trimmed pineapple skins

… were placed in the scraps bucket:

Pineapple skins placed in scraps bucket
Pineapple skins placed in scraps bucket

The trimmed pineapple was again placed on its side …

Pineapple placed on its side

… and sliced into two halves roughly at its centre, essentially to accommodate the length of my corer, although the resulting slices tend to be of a convenient size as well:

Pineapple cut in half
Two pineapple halves

An apple corer was used to remove the pineapple cores:

Coring half of a pineapple
Coring half of a pineapple
Cored pineapple half

I began slicing pieces off the cored pineapple half, roughly two milimetres thick:

Slicing piece off pineapple
Slicing piece off pineapple

The slices were placed on a drying tray:

Sliced pineapple placed on drying tray

More slices were sliced off the pineapple, to about half of the pineapple half:

Almost half of the half pineapple sliced off

… until the tray was filled:

Tray filled with pineapple slices

The filled tray was placed on the food dehydrator base:

Filled tray placed on dehydrator base

The top of the dehydrator was placed on the tray:

Top placed on the dehydrator

Oh and here’s my cat to help me out:

My cat helping me out

I continued trimming and slicing the pineapples, filling twelve trays; as can be surmised from the following picture, in 2012, I added an additional eight trays to the original four I’d bought in 1997!)

Twelve trays filled with pineapple slices

The twelve trays were filled with a bit more than four and a half of the pineapples I’d purchased, leaving at this point a little less than one and a half pineapples to slice up later as the slices in the dehydrator dried and made space:

One and a half pineapples left after filling twelve trays

At this point, the breaker on the extension cord carrying case decided to trip (in my experience, unusual for a single device with a peak draw of only about 550 watts, although I do suspect that the caddy does have a lower trip level than a normal household circuit breaker):

Tripped breaker

Quickly, a new extension cord was taken out:

New extension cord taken out

… which was plugged into an outlet, and the dehydrator plugged into the new extension cord:

Dehydrator plugged in to new extension cord

Back to the pineapples, the scraps were placed in the scrap bucket, which was ultimately emptied into my municipal compostable waste bin:

Scrap bucket filled with pineapple trimmings

At this point, Mom asked for some mashed pineapple, and got a total of six containers, which were placed in the freezer:

Three of the six containers of mashed pineapple Mom got

After about six hours, here’s what a tray of partly dried pineapple slices looked like, including the size shrinkage:

Tray of partly dried pineapples

The partly dried pineapple slices were shifted around to make space:

Space made on tray

After space was made on all the trays, four trays were emptied:

Four trays of space freed up

… and the first few pineapple slices dried to my liking were removed from the trays. Allowed to completely dry, pineapple will become crispy like potato chips; I like dried pineapple that is still a bit chewy and flexible, while there is still a very small amount of humidity left in the slices. As such, I remove slices when they have a leathery feel, and after the surface of the slices are no longer sticky.

Almost completely dried slices of pineapple

A zipper style sandwich bag was taken out to store the dried pineapple:

Zipper style sandwich bags taken out

… and the dried pineapple slices were stacked and placed in the bag:

Dried pineapple placed in bag

At this point — seven hours in — I finished slicing the rest of the pineapples, spread them on a couple of the emptied trays, and inserted the filled trays back in the dehydrator stack, for a total of ten trays:

Ten trays after seven hours

After nine hours, here’s what the pineapple looked like:

Tray after nine hours

… and a few more slices of dried pineapple were taken out for bagging:

More dried pineapple after nine hours
Collection of dried pineapple after nine hours

… and my dehydrator was down to seven trays after nine hours:

Seven trays after nine hours

After twelve hours, the dehydrator was checked again:

Tray of dried pineapple after twelve hours

… and more dried pineapple was taken out after twelve hours:

Dried pineapple taken out after twelve hours

… and stacked for bagging:

Dried pineapple stacked for bagging after twelve hours

… and bagged:

Dried pineapple after twelve hours

… and after all the shifting around and bagging, I was down to five trays in the dehydrator:

Five trays after twelve hours

At this point, I had gone to bed, but I woke up after a couple of hours at midnight, and checked on the dehydrator, shifting pineapple slices around and removing dried sliced pineapple. Here’s the bagged cumulative production after fourteen hours:

Total production after fourteen hours

… and I was down to four trays after fourteen hours:

Four trays after fourteen hours

Finally, after seventeen hours — in this case, three in the morning! (yes, I had set my alarm) — I emptied the dehydrator and bagged the last of the dried pineapple slices, for a total of five bags of dried pineapple slices, from a bit over five pineapples:

Five sandwich bags of dried pineapple

After a couple of days, I started eating the dried pineapple — yes, like a kid in a candy shop! 🙂

Making a two egg, ham and cheese omelette — Photos

I picked up making omelettes for Mom a few months ago out of the blue, because they’re easy to make, and Mom seemed to appreciate them right off the bat. As of this post’s writing, I don’t have a formal recipe written up, but I imagine I could soon; hence for the moment, this post *is* The recipe can now be found here! 🙂 (20240128)

Making the omelette:

I normally keep ground ham in the freezer, divided into serving sizes in small containers, so I took some out, about 15g to 20g (about half to three quarters of an ounce):

Ground ham taken out from freezer

Should you not have ground ham on hand, here’s how I make the ground ham:

Deli-style sliced “old-fashioned smoked ham”, in this case purchased at the grocery store in the pre-packaged deli meats counter, was taken out:

Deli-style sliced “old fashioned smoked ham”

… and a coffee grinder was taken out:

Coffee grinder taken out

The package was opened up, and a couple of slices of ham were placed in the coffee grinder …

Ham placed in coffee grinder

… the coffee grinder was closed …

Lid placed on coffee grinder

… and the ham was coarsely ground (though not turned to mush!) a few pulses at a time:

Ham being ground
Coarsely ground ham

(… and, the rest of the ham in the package was similarly ground and placed in a couple of containers, divided up into individual serving sizes, and frozen.)

The frozen ham taken out earlier was placed in the microwave oven to defrost it:

Frozen ground ham placed in microwave oven

… and the microwave oven (1100 watts) was set to about 30 seconds, just enough to mostly defrost the ham:

Microwave oven set to 30 seconds (1100 watts)

The microwave oven was turned on:

Chopped ham defrosting in microwave oven

Finally, the defrosted chopped ham was broken up with a fork:

Defrosted chopped ham broken up with fork

The chopped ham was put aside for a few moments.

Again, normally, I keep cheddar cheese sliced off the block in the fridge, so I took some out:

Container of cheddar cheese sliced off block

Should you not have sliced cheese on hand, here’s how I slice the cheese: A block of cheddar cheese and a cheese slicer in the form of a slotted lifter, where were the slot has an edge intended for slicing the likes of cheese off of a block, were taken out; normally we like mild cheddar, but you can choose any kind of cheese you like that will slice, shred, or crumble nicely:

Block of cheddar cheese with cheese slicer

The block of cheese was unwrapped:

Unwrapped block of cheddar cheese with cheese slicer

Cheese was sliced off the block:

Cheese sliced off block

… and as the cheese was sliced, it was placed in a container:

Cheese slices placed in container

The cheese slices which were produced for this demonstration were put away in the fridge, while the cheese slices taken out earlier were put aside on the counter for a few moments.

Back to the omelette, a mixing bowl was taken out:

Mixing bowl taken out

Two eggs were taken out:

Eggs taken out
Eggs taken out
Two eggs taken out

Two eggs were cracked in the mixing bowl:

Eggs cracked in mixing bowl
Eggs cracked in mixing bowl

Milk was taken out, and about an ounce of milk was measured out:

Milk taken out and measured

The milk was added to the eggs:

Milk added to eggs
Milk added to eggs

A bit of salt was added to the eggs and milk:

Salt added to eggs and milk

The mixture was beaten with a fork:

Beating eggs and milk and salt with fork
Ingredients beaten with fork

For this amount of egg mixture, I use a 6 inch / 15 centimetre non-stick frypan:

6 inch / 15 centimetre non-stick frypan

Also, an aluminum pie plate was taken out:

Aluminum pie plate take out

The stove was turned on to a low setting, but, crucially, given that I was using a larger burner and that this burner can be set to only use a smaller, inner circle, I should have only set it to that smaller, inner circle.

Stove set to low setting

Cooking oil, in this case olive oil, was taken out and added to the frypan:

Olive oil added to frypan
Olive oil added to frypan

The olive oil was spread over the cooking surface of the frypan:

Olive oil spread over cooking surface
Olive oil spread over cooking surface

The beaten egg mixture was poured into the frypan:

Egg mixture poured into frypan
Egg mixture poured into frypan
Egg mixture poured into frypan

The aluminum pie plate was placed over the frypan as a means to cook the top of the egg mixture somewhat more quickly:

Pie plate placed on top of frypan

A few slices of the cheese was taken out of the container, about enough just to cover half the surface of the omelette, twice, with a not too thick layer of cheese, especially since there will be two layers (see below):

Cheese taken out of container

The aluminum pie plate was taken off the frypan, revealing that the egg mixture was cooking through:

Aluminum pie plate removed from frypan

About half the cheese slices were placed on half of the omelette (in this case, on the left hand half of the omelette!):

Cheese placed over half omelette

The ground ham was spread over the cheese on the omelette:

Ground ham spread over cheese

The rest of the cheese slices were placed on top of the ground ham:

Cheese placed on top of ham

The aluminum pie plate was again placed on top of the frypan, in order to help melt the cheese and warm the ham:

Aluminum pie plate placed over frypan

A few moments later, the pie plate was removed, and half the omelette was flipped over onto the other half:

Omelette flipped over on itself

A bit of water was drawn from a tap and into a glass …

Water drawn from tap

Some water was poured into the frypan, in order to create some steam:

Water poured into the frypan to create steam

The aluminum pie plate was again placed on top of the frypan to capture the steam to continue cooking the omelette:

Aluminum pie plate placed on top of frypan

The aluminum pie plate was again removed from the frypan, and the omelette cut in two:

Cutting the omelette in two

At this point, the two halves were quickly turned over (oops, I forgot to take a picture) and cooked for another very small moment.

Half the omelette was served on a plate for Mom to have right away, and the other half was placed in a container to place in the fridge, for Mom to have at a later time:

Omelette split in two

Ketchup was added, and the omelette was served to Mom:

Omelette served with ketchup

To my pleasure, Mom yet again found it to be tasty!

Freezer Cooking and Lunches

In mid-2006, my employer at the time was acquired by another company, and my new employers required me – rightfully so – to take some basic training that I should have taken several years earlier. The training was after work hours, two evenings a week, for a few weeks.

Normally, my eating habits were (and still are) such that a given day’s lunch was composed of leftovers from the previous evening’s supper; in fact, normally supper meal plans at the time and still to this day usually intentionally include cooking for one more serving than the meal would call for, so that I would have a lunch the following day.

The training course, however, had the effect of not only requiring me to improvise for my supper plans, such as eating fast food, but also required me to improvise for the following day’s lunch too. My memory of this period is that there was a snowball effect on much of the week’s meals, although it probably was not quite as dramatic as what my mind has woven into my memory.

One of the solutions I came up with — but never quite fully implemented at the time — was the idea of a cooking weekend, targeted at being done at the cottage. My ambition at that point was to stock the freezer with a variety, as well as a large stock, of dishes and prepared meals, including lunches, so that the above situation wouldn’t be a problem moving forward. I had notions that were fairly ambitious, both in terms of the variety of meals to be made during the weekend, as well as the sheer amount of food that I suppose I expected to make over such a hypothetical weekend.

I developed the following planning table:

The table I created with basic plans for such a cooking weekend

As can be seen, one of the goals was to make a number of dishes based on a common ingredient, my spaghetti sauce, which I had begun making in the early 1990’s.

As also can be seen, although there were a few numbers of dishes to produce, overall the list is rather vague in what I would end up with in terms of numbers. Among other things, while I did have rough ideas of how much of most of the items I would make (or at least envisioned making), for instance, I didn’t start planning out the required amounts of each of the ingredients and sub-ingredients needed to make the dishes and components.

Overall, it seemed — and still seems to this day — rather vague and all over the place, and overly ambitious to the point of being daunting. Critically, although I knew that I would be making about seven to eight quarts of my spaghetti sauce, I didn’t plan out its ingredients, determine just how many of each of the other dishes for which it would be used would be produced from the seven to eight quarts, or whether some of the “larger” dishes were to be prepared for their own sake and the freezer, or to be ultimately cooked and divided up into lunch containers. Except as an afterthought, I just about didn’t even insert the making of the spaghetti sauce into the weekend’s already ambitious cooking plans!

Before coming to this last realization, I realized that my plan would only produce two or three servings’ or meals’ worth of each, which might all be eaten in short order.

Unsurprisingly, the planned weekend was never executed, and after a few weeks, my evenings freed up, and my regular lunches returned.

Years later, I realized despite the usefulness of the intentions behind my plans for the cooking weekend, at least for me, it suffered from not only being too ambitious in its own right, but from being even more ambitious than I thought. At the same time, the overall plan suffered from being a bit too wide in its intended scope given what would be a limited amount of base (the spaghetti sauce). As such, the plan was likely to produce — should I accomplish it all in such a weekend — merely an amount of food, especially the lunches, that would be consumed far more quickly than I had hoped.

My spaghetti sauce — and what I do now for tomato sauce based dishes

My spaghetti sauce was a bit of a marathon sauce to make. Based on canned tomatoes, it also included an inordinate variety and amount of chopped vegetables for a spaghetti sauce, and — especially the end product — was not unlike my current vegetable soup recipe, which I have been making since about 2013. I had a prideful joy in making it, partly as a result of it being so chock-full of vegetables, but, to a degree than I didn’t care to admit at the time, also borne of a stubborn pride resulting from it being a showcase of all the vegetables it contained and a desire to show off a certain (naĂŻve) cooking acumen.

My chili recipe recipe from the early 1990’s, which is essentially my spaghetti sauce with the addition of the red kidney beans and the chili powder (image scanned from my church’s cookbook, published in 1996)

However, one of the things I realized in looking at my big cooking weekend, both early on without realizing it, as well as more formally just recently, was that I just wanted to make, say, lasagna, chilli, beef rolls, pasta dishes, or my eggplant dish (as well as a few lunches not involving my sauce). The “without realizing it” part (early on) was overshadowed by the prideful notion that it made sense at the time to want to use my spaghetti sauce to then make all these other dishes.

Except … I have come to realize that the effort to make the sauce to begin with, as well as my pride in wanting to use it, was perhaps core to the difficulty in implementing the cooking weekend. While the dishes were meant to be a showcase to myself for my spaghetti sauce and as well as my cooking in general, I realized that all these dishes were about showcasing the whole dishes, and not so much meant to showcase my spaghetti sauce.

As such, for a long time now, many of the tomato sauce dishes I make call for commercially prepared tomato / spaghetti sauces, as opposed to, specifically, my home-made sauce.

(As a side thought, were to I make spaghetti sauce again, I have a few vague notions about simplifying it somewhat, as well as chopping the vegetables much more finely, to the point of grinding them, instead of the coarse chopping I favoured for the “sauce” in the 1990’s.)

How things have evolved to today:

Despite the fact that the above weekend plan never materialized, I soon took to often planning cooking weekends when I went to the cottage, especially during the off-season (it’s a family cottage, so there always have been occasional scheduling issues which haven’t always allowed me to do what I would like, when I would like. 🙂 )

However, the first thing that should be mentioned, since this post is at least partly predicated on a period of time in which having ready-made lunches handily available in the freezer was essential, but was not the case, is that … I haven’t since planned out cooking weekends dedicated to cooking ready-made lunches for the freezer, or form a cooking club with a few friends in which we fastidiously make a week’s worth (or more) of lunches and other meals every Saturday, or otherwise come up with a systematic method of stocking the freezer with ready-made lunches.

In the intervening years, the principal approach I have taken to rectify unforeseen needs for prepared lunches is to hoard lunches and leftovers in the freezer; in addition to routinely making extra food for the following day’s lunch, I would occasionally also, at random opportunities, zealously make an extra lunch to place in the freezer. As such, my supply of extra lunches at any given time ebbs and swells according to how many lunches I have managed to hoard at that point in time, versus how many I have needed to eat recently. Fortunately, some of my recipes somewhat ease mounting full lunches in the freezer by being pair-able with odds-and-ends leftovers, such as bacon wrapped chicken, meatballs, and stuffed potato skins.

What I do do is plan “big” cooking weekends many times while I am up at the cottage, including quite often during the off season in winter, incidentally without running water. This is done in conjunction with weekend afternoons in the city with similar objectives (including a cook-through-my-collection-of-recipes project I did mostly in 2021, accessible off my home page at https://www.malak.ca ). Depending on my desires and ambitions, I usually concentrate on single projects, per day anyway; during a week over Christmas to New Year’s, for instance, I usually plan for almost as many large cooking projects as there are days – to cook various large cooking projects to fill the freezer.

I had begun large, more focused, cooking weekends not too long after my above planned weekend should have taken place, continuing a certain tradition I had started years earlier of occasionally making large quantities of my recipes, from a then-limited recipe répertoire, typically focusing on large freezer quantities of one, or perhaps two, recipes from my collection.

Therefore, early on — at this point, exactly “when” being lost to the sands of time and the multiple computer upgrades over the years, during which dates of creation, or at least the last edit, have been lost several times over — I had put the following list together. I tried to write down what my aims and guidelines had become. Note that the text of the list has been slightly edited to fit the current narrative:

  • A dish needs to be just as easy to make several units of the recipe as one unit – if not easier, and as such not more difficult to make because it’s in quantity (barring the extra time and labour merely due to extra quantity – taking advantage of economies of scale);
  • A dish needs to be easy to make in large quantities, using a repetitive production line process;
  • A dish must be appropriate for freezing – for instance, my zucchini dish is not appropriate for freezing, although its sauce is appropriate for freezing!
  • A dish should be something that just needs to be defrosted and reheated / cooked in toaster oven or regular oven;
  • A dish should be “convenience food” — the operative notion being “convenient because it’s made in advance and ready to eat” (or brown and serve), not as in “junk food” or like industrially produced, store bought frozen lunches;
  • A dish should not be something at its core easy enough to make any day of the week fresh (looking back, I suppose that this is barring a notion to make multiple units of otherwise easy to make lunches to stock the freezer, were that have been a priority at the time);
  • A cooking project should not just be components for other dishes – ie. projects should be to make full meals, not just cooked hamburgers or burger meat, nor just cooked chicken pieces, etc.

Given that over the years, my objectives have evolved, changed, and widened, I have long since abandoned at least a part of the guideline regarding making meal components or single items, because I now regularly cook large quantities of breakfast sausages for freezing, have in the past cooked whole packages or more of bacon for my mom, and I regularly make bacon wrapped chicken, meatloaf, meatballs, stuffed potato skins, as well as cooked ground beef frozen in ice cube trays to keep in the freezer for other times calling for small amounts of cooked ground beef.

Of course, it would only be appropriate to show a recent planning table for a week’s stay at the cottage over Christmas , 2021 (regular meal planning blocked out):

Yes, there are still a lot of details missing here from this list, such as specific numbers, arguably allowing for somebody besides myself to look at both lists and wonder, beyond the more relaxed pace and the specific list of foods and ingredients to bring, what the difference between this 2021 table and the 2006 table are. However, each entry is based on, normally, the standard amounts in my various recipes, plus often slight excesses. And, according to my notes, I also made stuffed potato skins, bran muffins for my mom twice instead of once, and the chocolate buttercrunch twice, as well as, as intimated in the “bring” list, a container of cheese sliced off of the block for my mom to consume the following week.

These days, my freezers are usually full of many tasty dishes from my collection of recipes, individual servings of many foods both from and beyond my collection of recipes, and various lunches made up of leftovers, some consisting of components from multiple meals and cooking sessions. This is actually served by a certain hoarding instinct; I often fill containers with bits of leftovers from a given meal to freeze, and as possible I add to them with other little bits already in the freezer as they are produced.

And … do I run out of lunches? Usually not! However … managing the freezer is a work in progress and a continuous project, sometimes a daily project beyond simply preparing tomorrows lunch; I sometimes grab opportunities to make a second lunch or portion thereof!