Radishrain

Things pertaining to life: plants and animals, gardening, cooking, food, botany, zoology, farming, ranching, wildlife, genetics, plant breeding, software, media, etc.

Simple recipes

by Radishrain @ in Life

For as popular as the notion of simplicity is, there sure aren't a lot of simple recipes out there! Simple recipes are totally possible, but they aren't getting enough advertising. One of my goals is to add to the wealth of simple and easy recipes that probably exist somewhere. Ironically, simplicity is not anything like my mantra! I enjoy complexity (if it's useful and fascinating). I do not enjoy convoluted things, however (things that are made overly complicated without a good reason, and no, I don't usually consider cultural tradition a good reason). I mean, if the complexity is reasonably efficient and adds more functionality, that's awesome. If it just makes it harder to understand, or adds more work to create or use, that's not so awesome. If increased complexity makes it faster to use, but increases the learning curve, that can be great, too, if the learning curve isn't too much higher.

Some examples of commonly over-complicated recipes include these:
• Peanut butter balls (All you need is powdered milk, honey, peanut butter, a plate, and a freezer! Really. Who is going to tell you that? Only me, probably. They don't have to be fancy to be good, as nice as fancy things are.)
• Baking powder biscuits
• Pretty much everything

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General Conference talks that interest me particularly

by Radishrain @ in TSA

This thread is for talks from General Conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that I find particularly remarkable, edifying, interesting, helpful, or some such. If you can reply, feel free to reply with your own lists. I may edit this post from time to time:

• https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1975/10/my-heritage-is-choice?lang=eng
• https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1994/05/to-be-healed?lang=eng
• https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1987/05/looking-to-the-savior?lang=eng

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News outlets

by Radishrain @ in Links

Multi-grain biscuits

by Radishrain @ in Life

Because we're staying home, on account of COVID-19, we've dipped into our food storage and ground a bunch of grains and some beans. (We're running out of store-bought bread, although we're no strangers to cooking or baking bread.)

So, I'm trying a similar recipe to the experimental one (a recipe in development, I mean) for biscuits posted at our sister site, except I used baking powder instead of baking soda, I used a heaping tablespoonful of brown sugar, I added two cups of water, and instead of white flour, I used a combination of whole wheat flour, millet, white bean, and cornmeal (from popcorn), all freshly ground. It's by far mostly wheat (mostly a lighter wheat, but there's a little hard red wheat flour mixed in).

The oil I used was avocado oil, although I oiled the baking sheet with extra virgin olive oil (since it's a pretty thick oil); they were slipping as I took them out of the oven (so, I suppose it worked well).

I've never been a believer that biscuits have to be flaky (with that layered look), nor buttery-tasting. They taste just as good (if not better) with biscuits and gravy if they're neither of those things. So, that's one of the reasons I use oil instead of butter or such. (I've never tried to make biscuits flaky.) I'm not sure what these multigrain ones would be like with gravy. Flaky biscuits are nice without gravy, but they're a whole different kind of biscuit, and too much work just to smother it in gravy so that you don't even notice the delectable flakiness and the rich buttery taste. But yeah, I wasn't aiming to make biscuits and gravy here, particularly (I just wanted something simple and decent-tasting to replace or improve upon bread, nutritionally speaking, which wouldn't require yeast or dairy.)

My first observation was that the extra water was unnecessary. Edit: In retrospect, it makes them flatter, which is very nice for some purposes.

My second observation was that it's not rising smoothly as it should with baking powder; I might as well have used baking soda. It's still cooking. I'm curious what the bean flour and cornmeal will do to it.

The flours were all freshly ground in a Wondermill. I prefer the flour to be ground a few days in advance at least for optimal digestion, however, but that's me.

I was tempted to use blended up tomatoes instead of water, but there was no rice in it; so, I decided it was unnecessary. The tomatoes would be to counteract the immediate effects of high mercury in rice, should the rice be high in mercury. Also, they would add lycopene, and hopefully some umami. Not sure how it'll turn out, but I want to try it.

Okay, it's done. I cooked it for about 30 minutes on 375° F.

The taste is quite good, and the texture is fluffy (but you definitely need a plate). I could smell the bean and corn in it (so, it's a good thing that beans and corn go well together—think cornbread and chili).

I ate it unadorned at first. When I tried it with butter, it tasted very different; astonishingly like buttered toast. When I added butter and jam, it tasted sort of like toast with butter and jam on it, but not as much like toast as it did with only butter on the biscuits.

It feels nutritious, as in it gives the stomach a more complete feeling than just plain wheat flour biscuits do. It feels even more nutritious when buttered.

They're a bit crumbly, but not super crumbly. They're not dry like cornbread often is.

I used to avoid using wheat as a base for biscuits when adding other grains (probably a habit of my once being on a gluten-free diet for a few years), but I think I'm converted to it, now—I think it can be better than just plain wheat. I used to do all wheat or no wheat.

If you're curious about my gluten-free diet (and why I'm not on one now), I had issues with gluten, but when I took food grade diatomaceous earth and milk thistle for a good while, and later went on a low rice diet, I no longer had big issues with wheat. I'm thinking the issue was mercury toxicity rather than Celiac disease (rice can be high in mercury, and food grade diatomaceous earth chelates mercury; mercury can block the enzymes needed to digest wheat gluten and milk casein). I only need to take food grade diatomaceous earth on occasion, now, though. The FGDE also seems to help my tolerance to milk, sugar, raw foods, legumes, and pretty much everything; I was tempted to put some in the biscuits, but I forgot (and it's just as well; I seem to be tolerating them well without it).

Here's the recipe I used all in one spot (this isn't a recommended recipe per se, as the appearance could be improved—they look like large, jagged cookies, not that I mind the appearance of cookies—but it is quite good, and a very usable recipe):

3 cups multigrain flour (mostly wheat, with a little millet, corn, and white bean flour; 2 parts millet flour, 2 parts cornmeal, 1 part bean flour, and a whole lot of parts wheat flour)
A heaping tablespoon of brown sugar
1 teaspoon iodized salt
1½ teaspoons baking powder
2 cups water
2 tablespoons avocado oil

Bake on 375° F. for 30 minutes. Grease the pan with extra virgin olive oil.

Here are a couple pictures:

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You could pass these off as vegan_, if you refrain from buttering them (but veganism is not my personal philosophy—although I do believe that animals deserve respect and love).

Starting popcorn early

by Radishrain @ in Life

This might sound crazy at first, but I'm planning to start some glass Gem corn early (like tomatoes) and then transplant it.

I know corn is usually direct-seeded, and that it does well that way, but I have reason to believe it might possibly increase yields in my garden to do it this way, if you're only doing a few plants, anyhow. So, I'm trying it with some Glass Gem corn to see what happens. Of course, it might not have any advantages.

I have tried transplanting Glass Gem corn before (from an outdoor container to the ground, splitting plants up from a single container), with good results. Some of the plants put up multiple stalks. So, that's what got me thinking on this.

I'm planning to try it with Job's tears (it's another grain), too (never grown it before, but I don't want to risk it not germinating in our soil). Some things germinate fine direct-seeded in our soil (like radishes, muskmelons, cucumbers, arugula, milk thistle, and watermelons), but many things don't (like okra, cabbage, carrots, cilantro, etc.)

Ideas of things to do while society is pretty much quarantined

by Radishrain @ in Life

Here are some ideas of things to do for people who are at home due to the pandemic:

* Write (like novels, short stories, poems, journal, life histories, or something)
* Read and/or listen to audiobooks
* Watch shows/movies
* Listen to music
* Play a musical instrument
* Sing
* Garden
* Cook
* Do family history / genealogy and/or index scanned records to help others do it.
* Clean and/or organize things
* Exercise, stretch, etc.
* Write emails/letters to people, IM them, call them, text them, voicemail them, etc.
* Post on forums
* Learn about edible weeds (a high portion of them are edible, even if there are some really dangerous ones)
* Study new plants and animals
* Learn the names of the butterflies and moths in your area (there was a post here relating to that earlier)
* Relax (this is pretty important)
* Mow your lawn (that's what some people in my area seem to be doing)
* Learn the names of the birds in your area.
* Watch plants/animals, listen to birds sing, etc. (it's therapeutic)
* Play board games; digital versions are sometimes great, too (like Catan Classic and Ticket to Ride); also play abstract strategy games like Chess and Arimaa.
* Volunteer for LibriVox.org.
* Write content on a wiki, or other website.
* Do necessities; there's usually some of those to do: shower/bathe, shave, brush your teeth, do laundry, finish your to-do list, etc.
* Think positive thoughts.
* Learn about new kinds of edible plants (not just edible weeds).
* Paint, draw, or do other forms of art.
* Blog or do a website.
* Actually do some of those cool things on Pinterest.
* Bask in the sun.
* Do a seed offer.
* Celebrate somebody's birthday (even if they're not present).
* Learn how to do computer programming, or if you already know how, then make something.
* Prune everything that needs pruning.
* Build something.
* If you have a swimming pool, use it.
* Invent something. Invent lots of things.
* Learn new words in the dictionary, and practice using them in sentences.
* Review old public domain books that don't have any reviews.
* Become a Goodreads librarian.
* Play with a dog, cat, or hamster, should you have one.
* Dig a hole as deep as you can, and if you find clay, try making something with it.
* Light a scented candle.
* Update your tradelists
* Grow sprouts and/or microgreens.
* Shop online (there's lots of cool stuff out there)
* Camp in your backyard.
* Lacto-ferment something.
* Meditate
* Eat whatever leftovers you have. Don't forget about them, now that you have time to think more about it.
* Collect something (not toilet paper, hand sanitizer, or masks, please), such as coins, seeds, stamps, rocks, etc. I collect seeds, cookie cutters, coins, and public domain material that hasn't yet been digitized, and digital materials.
* Press flowers and/or leaves in heavy books. When they're flat and dry, you can tape them onto some paper with clear packaging tape (or some such) and store them for future perusal.
* Teach someone a skill (if you don't live alone).

Try not to irritate people with any of these suggestions: as in, be respectful to them, their space, their time, their focus, their ears, their noses, their allergies, their intolerances, their sensitivities, and so forth. They might want to do the same thing you're spending hours a day everyday doing, for that matter. So, you may have to make schedules, compromise, or take turns.

Getting more iodine in my diet

by Radishrain @ in Other

So, once upon a time, I read a study about how adding extra iodine to the soil can help one get a lot more iodine from the plants that grow. My post isn't about the iodine needs of plants, however. It's just about increasing iodine consumption.

Where does one get the sort of iodine that they used for this, I wonder.

I'm not sure what I first read, but here's an article for you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4993787/

Another alternative might be to swim in the ocean (or just wet your feet in it). There's iodine in the water, and I imagine it can be absorbed through your skin into your bloodstream (much as magnesium sulfate can be).

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Why does Influenza A infect so many bird species?

by Radishrain @ in Life

You know how usually people say a flu just infects a few species of animal? Well, birds comprise many orders of families of genera of species of animals, and pretty much every bird I've checked up on is capable of getting this virus. Why? What birds are immune to it? Do reptiles get it?

Chabacano nectarine

by Radishrain @ in Life

My mom got a Chabacano nectarine tree, today. I don't know anything much about the breed. So, one moment while I search.

Welp, I found nothing, except that Chabacano is a Spanish word for apricot, and for some other stuff. It's not an apricot tree; so, I'm hoping it's not a Spanish word for nectarine, too (I mean, it could just be a translation, rather than the breed name). I don't know if it's freestone or cling.

The tag implies that fresh eating is one of its intended uses, however: "… Sweet, juicy fleshed fruits are favorites for eating fresh." It also says it's cold hardy for -20° to -10° F. (Which is less cold hardy than ideal, but it'll hopefully live its full span.) Average height x width: 12' tall by 12' wide.