Issues with Beans

I did a little more dry-pack canning last week. If you can call 26 cans of sugar, 9 cans of pinto beans (more on that later), 2 cans of rice, macaroni (can't remember how many), and 56 cans of wheat "a little." It took me 3 hours to get it done and like a dummy, I failed to eat lunch before I got started so midway through the process I had to either stop or drop and the friendly helper-guy asked if I was all right. Next time, remind me to eat first!

So here's my question. If you were dry-pack canning pinto beans, and you saw rocks in with the beans, would you have an issue with that? It was the first item I started with, and the friendly helper-guy was helping and he poured some of the beans into the cans. As I was looking at the beans going in there, I saw a couple that looked different than the rest. Let's sing! "One of these things is not like the other- one of these things just doesn't belong."
So anyway, after Friendly Helper-guy left, I examined more closely what I was putting into my cans. Beans, yes. And-- little rocks. Does anyone know why there would be little rocks mixed in with the beans? Do they grow near rocks? These were about the size of my little fingernail. So, fairly little, but if you bite one, you're going to break your tooth. Now for some of us, that's not so much of a problem as for others, but who wants a broken tooth if you can avoid it?
Do I call the cannery and tell them they're selling beans with a bonus? Do I take my 9 cans of beans back and say sorry, I don't like the bonus in the beans? Do I just fish out the rocks before I cook the beans (which in reality may never get cooked but just sit on my shelf looking abundantly well-stocked?) or do I just forget I even saw the rocks and ignore it altogether?

What do you think?

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. If you ever come over for dinner and we're having beans...uh-huh.

What is it? Oh! Oh! I know!

This is growing in my garden space. I didn't know what it was. Do you know?

I asked one person, and her guess was catnip.
Well, from the looks of that picture, it's not catnip.
Then she guessed something else that had the word wort or wart in it, but I don't remember what she said, however, it makes me not want to touch the stuff without gloves!
I asked someone else and she guessed basil.
That's not it either. I looked up a picture of thyme. That's not it, but evidently there used to be some back there...but it's dead now.
I wanted to know if it's something I should keep or rip out to make room for the zucchini I really want to plant. I think this is what it is!

What do you think? Yeah? It's sage. Good job, Joette, or should I say, Sue Flay! I'm pretty sure you guessed sage, didn't you? So I've got some sage growing great guns. I had thyme, but it looks dead. All I'd have been missing would have been parsley and rosemary. Then we could all sing about it. I'll be Simon, you can be Garfunkel. Besides, Art sang on that one, not Paul, and I don't think you want to hear me sing, so that's another reason I dibs Paul. That, and the hair.
I also want some tomatoes. How long does it take for tomatoes to grow? Where's the farmer when you need him/her?
Speaking of farmer...Agnes sings The Farmer in the Dell now. She just learned it. Too cute! She calls me on the phone and she says "Hello? How are you today? You-want-come-my-house?"
Then, with a little prompting from her mom, she'll sing me a song. Her favorite song to sing is Happy Birthday. If we get her started on that one, she'll sing it over and over and over and (you get the idea). I was going to add a recent picture of Agnes, but the Costco photo center is under renovation and won't be available until later today. Sadness. No picture.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mother's birthday. Happy Birthday to you (pretend Agnes is singing it, then it will be cuter)!

This is the cake I made for her because she doesn't like chocolate. How does one not like chocolate?


Hawaiian Dessert
TOH '95; pg. 223 (TOH means Taste of Home, if you needed to know, and that's their picture of the dessert. Question- at what point does a cake become dessert instead of just a cake with pudding?)

1 pkg. (18¼ oz) yellow cake mix
3 pkg. (3.4 oz each) instant vanilla pudding
4 cups cold milk
1½ tsp coconut extract
1 pkg. (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, well drained
2 cups whipping cream, whipped and sweetened
(or 8 oz. Cool Whip)
2 cups flaked coconut, toasted

Mix cake batter according to package directions.
Pour into two greased 13x9x2 inch baking pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the cakes test done. Cool completely. In a large mixing bowl, combine pudding mixes, milk and coconut extract; beat for 2 minutes. Add the cream cheese and beat well. Stir in pineapple. Spread over the cooled cakes. Top with whipped cream; sprinkle with coconut. Chill for at least 2 hours.
Prepared dessert can be covered and frozen for up to 1 month.

Okay, that's the way the recipe reads.

This what it looks like when you don't have a professional making it and taking its picture (again...lighting issues. "They" say you're not supposed to use your flash when taking food pictures. I guess food with red eye is unsightly, so no flash).
I put all the batter in a 13x9x2 inch baking pan. When it was cooled, I split it in half. I guess I didn't want to wash a second pan, and I wanted my cake to be bigger-taller-more caloric. Tell me why it starts with vanilla pudding and adds coconut extract rather than just using coconut pudding and forgetting about the extract? Besides, that stuff is expensive! So if I make it again, I'm going that route. Maybe this recipe is so old that they didn't make coconut pudding then. After splitting the cake, I poured half of the pudding mixture between the cakes and poured the rest on top, and put the Cool Whip on top of the pudding mixture. Oh, and I also used a large box of pudding and a small box of pudding and then decreased my milk by 1/2 cup. It was more cost effective that way and it made plenty. You can also cut the toasted coconut by half as the 2 cups worth was meant to cover both cakes.
Everyone said they liked it, so either they lied to spare my tender feelings, or you should try it unless you actually prefer chocolate, unlike some people.

My Mother's Birthday Dinner

Dinner went great. Everything was ready when my guests arrived. The only thing is that I forgot to take pictures when the food was ready, so instead of nothing, I took pictures of the leftovers. Sorry for the blurriness of the picture. Lighting was an issue as well as the lame camera still being broken. Gotta get that fixed.
Here's the first recipe I'm sharing with you. I think it got the most raves, at least from Cheryl.

Ambrosia Fruit Salad

TOH June/July 2008 pg. 45

Serves 6

2 cups cubed fresh pineapple

2 large navel oranges, peeled and sectioned

1 ½ cups green grapes

1 cup miniature marshmallows

1 large banana, sliced

½ cup flaked coconut

¼ cup chopped almonds

1 (6 oz) container vanilla yogurt

In a large serving bowl, combine the first seven ingredients’ gently fold in yogurt. Chill until serving.

I used canned pineapple tidbits (drained) and one can of mandarin oranges (drained). I added fresh strawberries, sliced. Colorful and tasty.

Perhaps a few fresh blueberries would also be a good addition.

I'll be sharing more recipes with you through the week of the other things that were on the table. In the mean time, the CCC quest continues. Thanks for your input SJ.

The Madness Continues

I just found a website called Cookie Madness and perhaps I can find what I'm looking for there. I'll check it out and get back to you.

I tried these on Friday and I give them a thumbs down. They were too cakey. I'm looking for non-cakey. I used the basic Nestle recipe with the high-altitude directions which added 1/4 cup flour, decreased the sugars to 2/3 cup each and I boosted the vanilla to 1 T (because can you ever have enough vanilla?) and of course I did not add the nuts. Yuck. Oh, and I melted the butter because she said to (sorry SJ I did not read your comment on melting vs softening butter until Saturday morning, and yes, I have had a scale for about a month now), and she also said to add 2 T milk. Well, somewhere in all that, I was really hoping this was the one I was looking for but sadly, it was not. In fact, I baked five cookies and quit (yes, I know...you only see four cookies in the picture. I had to taste one while they were still warm) leaving the remaining dough in my fridge.

Maybe I'll just eat the dough. It tasted better than the cookie.
Perhaps in all my searching, it just might lead me back to where I was before I started all this. Back to Yaeling's recipe. Perhaps I had "the truth" from the very beginning and didn't know it. But I still have a few more possibilities up my sleeve in my recipe box waiting for their chance at stardom.
I'm making dinner today for my mother because it is her birthday in 2 days. If anything turns out and gets rave reviews, I'll let you know.

Here's a CCC recipe for you!

On my quest to find the ultimate CCC, I found this. It was titled "Why Engineers Don't Write Cookbooks"

"Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

1. 532.35 cm3 gluten
2. 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3
3. 4.9 cm3 refined halite
4. 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride
5. 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11
6. 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11
7. 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde
8. Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein
9. 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao
10. 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)

To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation. In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogenous. To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1.
Additionally, add ingredients nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.
Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium."

Hope you found that amusing.

Also in my quest to find the ultimate CCC, I've found a site that talks about the Nestle CCC with modifications. Since Grandma Nell said that that's their fave, I'm giving it a go (with the modifications). And as for SJ's suggestions, I have the Alton Brown's "The Chewy" somewhere and I believe I've tried it, and I looked up the Lebowitz recipe and I don't think I can get any mesquite flour around these here parts.

Stay tuned for the results of the modified Nestle experiment!