Yeah, I’ve tried and tried. I just cannot make good biscuits. Pillsbury frozen biscuits is the best I can do.
My sausage gravy, OTOH…
I have a metric butt-load of doughnuts, so no gravy tomorrow, but maybe Sunday. It all depends on how much I can convince the boys to eat.
It’s… eyebrow raising.
I had a long and strangely lovingly chat with my mom tonight. She’s in pain, we’re gonna work out me coming out there.
S.M. was mapping out how I could fly there for a whole entire friggin’ week, and I was like, “Bitxh I love you but are you trying to kill me?!” Three days tops, then one day staring into the void.
Gawd, what my mom was saying about my dad tonight - and he’s the one I usually get along better with. (“You’re JUST LIKE your father!”) (Sorry?) was not great. He’s not doing okay.
I’ll hafta find out for myself, if I can make it past ICE survive and get home.
This is gonna … yikes.
Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave. It’s my Firday. And it’s 64 degrees Ferret Height(17.778 Centipedes).
An omen from the gods about your trip?
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 72 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 84 with rain/tstorms/apocalypse beginnin’ around two p.m. Poor Precious will be in a tizzy today! No big plans for the day which is fine by both of us. We like bein’ our usual RDOS sloth selves. We shall eat up Thursday’s leftovers for tonight’s sup or whenever we decide to eat 'em.We
On the pronunciation of scone debate, around here gone and cone can sound the same. Or not, dependin’ on who’s talkin’. We don’t need no stinkin’ grammar and pronunciation rules!
shoe three days to be caregiver and one to stare into the void sounds like a good plan to me.
Cat_Glove glad hubs got the gas points situation resolved. Glad y’all got all shorn and purtified for the weekend.
Mollie you have donuts, cake, and tiramisu. Life is good!
MetalMouse happy soccer refereein’/coachin’/assorted other stuff. Glad the weather held out.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah.
Happy Sattidy Y’all!
Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 20c/68f with a predicted high of 23c/72f and cloudy. Weather app says “This is a great fucking day if you fucking burn easily like I do. Fuck the sun.”
Taters I am sure you’ll be very careful with that chainsaw 
I have a friend whose partner won’t allow him to use one unsupervised, mainly because he’s already chopped off three of his own fingers.
I am convinced my weather app has gained some level of sentience and has been listening to conversations in the house. I do live with a Weegie, after all.
For me, it’s always jam first and cream on top. There are arguments over whether people in Devon or Cornwall do it “right”, one has jam then cream, the other does cream then jam. Sometimes also depends how runny your jam is!
doggio Spot looks quite at home there!
Yesterday was a nice quiet day at work, I left on time and got home without incident. As I would have had a long wait at the campus train station, I walked to the other end of campus and caught a bus to Big City Station which actually got me there in time to catch a slightly earlier train.
'im indoors made dinner and we watched a film before I headed off to bed. We bought a new fan so moved one out of the bedroom as it doesn’t do a particularly good job, and replaced that with a different one that’s a bit more powerful. Helped quite a lot with sleep last night although it is a bit noisy so needs to sit on something softer.
The Heritage Centre down at the end of our street had an event on in the late afternoon. They are incredidbly lazy and selfish when it comes to parking so when I got home, the street junctions were all blocked, they’d parked on pavements, on double-yellow lines and had created almost single-lane traffic. Several vehicles, including an ambulance (patient trainsport service, not emergency) turned round and headed back the other way as they weren’t able to get through.
The exciting part was when four police cards, then two ambulances (one on blue lights) came up/down the street, obviously they were hindered by the parking so hopefully that will have been reported back and maybe they might be slightly more considerate in future. I doubt it very much, people who are that lazy and selfish don’t change unless the police start issuing fines!
Today I was up early for a Saturday, tended to the needs of cats and then went to the gym. I am back, need a shower and some lunch, then we are off to do errands this afternoon. Bands at the Giff tonight (normal service has been resumed, metalmouse!) so we have to get ourselves into town by 7.45pm. Better get a move on!
Can you even do that any more? There used to be phone booths around here that the Amish used, but they’re all gone (the phones, not the Amish.)
He’s Irish wolfhound/something else mix (I suspect the something else may be Lab, but I’m not paying for a DNA test.) He looks like a small wolfhound, but his personality is very much like my daughter’s Lab. And he’ll be 2 in October - we got him in September from a rescue group.
Harris Teeter does gas points for their local station. But apart from them not being convenient for my regular shopping routine, they are so much more expensive than Food Lion or Aldi, that the savings on gas would be eaten up by the higher grocery bill, not to mention the extra gas to drive there to shop.
I suppose it’d be gauche to mix the jam and cream together, than put it on the scone? Um, asking for a friend…
Today is pig roast day! It’s also FCD’s MRI of his neck day. When he saw the doc last week talking about his pain, she ordered it up and he actually complied! Or will around noon today.
We started the day in the 60s (I forgot to look at the thermometer when I got up) and we’re headed to mid 80s (ick.) The plan is to go to the marina to put the mattress on our bunk. Then FCD will leave me there with Otis while he goes to Prince Frederick for his scan (about 20 miles to the north.) While at the boat, I’m going to have a go at cleaning and prettying up the deck in our cabin. Pig roast starts around 3, Daughter and her crew are due around 4-ish.
I need to pack ice and some beverages for while I’m working, as well as lunch and supper for Otis. Since I expect the pig roast to be a pig-out, I’ll just take something light for my “lunch” - maybe some fruit? Anyway, it’ll be a marina day.
But first, reading, then shower and dressing.
Happy Saturday!
That may end the debate, as both counties unite in fury against you.
.. until they got home and had some nice scones to calm down afterwards, of course.
On a side note, the cream used for this is clotted cream, it’s extremely thick and not easy to mix with anything. That’s why I normally go for cream first, as it sticks to the scone fine, but can slide off the jam layer if you’re not careful.
Drinkies have been rescheduled for this afternoon, which is sunny and nice for sitting in a pub beer garden ranting about work. Laundry is out on the line and I’ll be heading off shortly. Plan is to wander round some shops for a bit first, as we’re meeting near her place (as it’s a much posher area than near mine, at the seaside with nice cafes and things) and I rarely go out that way, but there is a bus.
Doggio, in your picture, Spot is cleverly adding cat hair to your clothes while you fold them, before you even put them on. Genius, I tell ya!
Good morning Mumpers ~
day starting out nice and quiet; although I never got around to doing the laundry yesterday, will need to as soon as I complete this missive.
Thanks MetalMouse. Yes, Hubs takes care of that weekly; that’s the way we are normally able to get up to 2,000 pts/mth. We generally fill up 3 cars twice a month so the $1 off per gallon comes in very handy. We’re going to a grad party today and Father’s Day BBQ on Sunday.
{{{JtC}}}
BrightTree great that you were able to get your points credited back to you! And wow, you really got a lot done while you were waiting for deliveries. As I age, I find I am less motivated to take care of chores while waiting, particularly in the afternoon. I’m more apt to plop in the lazyboy and watch some boobtube. Now that I have a new working computer, I’ll probably be on the Dope or playing games.
BooFae Yay for transportation working out so well on way home!
FCM Otis is a handsome gent who looks like he’d be a good hiking companion. Enjoy the pig! Yum, loves me some pork; hope there will be ribs at the BBQ.
Good morning.
It’s 54F and mostly clear outside. It’s only supposed to reach around 74°F today, with partly cloudy conditions.
FCM, I hope the pig roast goes well, and that the scan provides some answers for FCD. Love the pic of Otis; he’s a very handsome boy.
Doggio, Spot did look quite comfortable resting atop the washer and dryer.
Mrs. Whats-Her-Face (the original housekeeper), on Father Brown, always said scone like gone. I don’t think I’ve ever had clotted cream.
Shoe, I think three days is a good limit.
No chainsawing occurred yesterday. However, I did spend some time in the garden transplanting, deadheading, and watering. I was going to mow, but once I finished the flowers, I got distracted by other things.
I will, of course, be careful when using the chainsaw. I am respectful of power tools and their capacity to maim.
BrightTree, I’m glad your points were credited back to you. I’ve never tried to do that. I usually gas up at Safeway because it’s less than a mile from my house. I sometimes fuel up at Costco, if the line isn’t too ridiculous and I’m shopping there. I fueled up at Safeway the other day. Seventeen gallons cost me 92 bucks, even with the 60-cent-per-gallon discount. We pay an additional 57 cents per gallon due to the carbon tax, and before that was enacted, there was another 56-cent-per-gallon state tax on top of that. Plus, there’s the federal tax, which is only about 19 cents per gallon. But the state taxes alone add over a dollar a gallon to the cost of gas. Gas is stupidly expensive here, and the carbon tax is not popular.
My son is coming up with Zeus today. I am not sure if they are spending the night. In a bit, I’ll need to head to the grocery store to pick up fixings for the Father’s Day dinner. My husband asked me to make a pasta dish I’ve been making for years, and that is a household favorite. While I’m at the store, I’ll pick up some other things, too.
I guess that’s it for today. Please take care of yourselves.
It seems to work that way for me, but its worth it.
So…cheese. Soft cheese. Soft cheeses can be acid washed or rennet cured. Acid washing refers to using an acid -lemon juice, vinegar, etc. to curdle the milk. I don’t like that method because it leaves a bitter aftertaste. I’ve done blind taste tests on friends and most folks can taste the difference.
So this means you will need to get your hands on some rennet. You can probably find tablets in the grocery store, by the baking or jam making supplies, but the liquid works much better for me.
Calcium chloride is also pretty important, it helps break the fat cell walls so you can extract more of the good stuff.
Dried Mesophilic culture packets are handy to have when playing with milk, but cultured buttermilk works just as well and you can keep it going like sourdough culture, you just have to remember to feed it every time you use some.
You can get all of these things at your local beer and wine making store or you can order them online. You will be using very small amounts and liquid rennet needs to be refridgerated.
While you are shopping, grab a container of Star-san or other restaurant grade sanitizer. I know you keep your kitchen clean, but the wild bacteria on your counters is laughing at your 409, plus you don’t want your food to taste like chemicals.
I like to sanitize everything including the counters and then use a clean tea towel for a work surface. If you can’t find Star-san, put all of your tools in your pot and boil everything for a couple of minutes. (You don’t really need to do this step for something you will be eating within a week, but its best to get into the habit.)
Ingredients:
4 cups whole milk - use pasteurized, you won’t heat it enough to be able to safely use raw milk
2 cups cream
2 drops calcium chloride diluted into two tablespoons of filtered and not-chlorinated water
3 drops rennet diluted into two tablespoons of filtered and not-chlorinated water
Culture for flavor, one packet of Mesophilic culture or three tablespoons cultured buttermilk.
1 teaspoon non-iodized salt - cheese salt is best but canning or kosher salt works as well.
GENTLY heat your milk and cream to 72F. This should take about half an hour on the stove. When the milk is at temp, gently whisk in the calcium chloride using and up and down motion. Next add the rennet and culture, using the same gentle up and down mixing motions.
Cover the pot and leave it to ripen for 24 hours. If your home tends to stay cooler than 72F, wrap the pot in towels and put it near a heat source. After 24 hours, it should be firmly curdled and the edges should be pulling away from the pot. You don’t need to cut it.
Pour the pot into a strainer lined with three or four layers of cheesecloth and let drain for an hour or so. If you drain it into a bowl, the whey can be used for ricotta or fed to chickens. After an hour, tie the corners of the cheesecloth together to make a pouch and hang it over a bowl for 6-8 hours. Temperature doesn’t matter now, but do put it somewhere Ollie safe.
George once chewed his way into a draining bag and got very soft cheese all over the room and himself before puking a trail down the hall, so don’t do that.
After it is done hanging, scrape the cream cheese from the cloth into a bowl then add the salt (salt tells the rennet that it is done working and stops any further fermentation). If you are going to add anything else, like fruit or chives, now is the time to do it. Cover and put in the fridge.
It will firm up after a few hours in the fridge and should last about two weeks. It never has at our home, but that’s because if we have it, we eat it so don’t know what happens after it reaches the week old point.
So I threw Hubs out today (boy, its sure going to be a great day for a motorcycle ride…) so I could get some deep cleaning done. Our housekeepers do a decent job, but they don’t dust the ceiling fans unless or open the closets to sweep the floors so I want to get all of that little annoying stuff done now. I’m running out of time and while Hubs would help if asked, I’m so stinkin’ picky it isn’t funny, so its best that he’s on the other side of the state.
I’ll be back when its time to take a break
When I came to Texas, I found that Kroger was much more expensive than they were in Tennessee, so I rarely shop there anymore. Between that and not driving as much in retirement, I would be spending a dollar to save a penny. VT
Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do KP. Not a whole lot shakin’ at CasaRoja today.
Stay safe and healthy y’all!
Beautiful day today before it gets really hot tomorrow. The weather guessers are promising storms and lower temps early next week, but we shall see. We’re in a pretty bad drought right now and really need the rain.
I ended up getting ramen to-go last night for dinner. It was quite delicious but must have been very salty. My fingers feel puffy and I can’t chug enough water this morning.
Mom has been texting and I can tell she’s bored. So might arrange a late lunch with her and one or two of her friends to get her out of the house for a bit.
I’m not that lazy! 
shoe good luck - it sounds like you’re about to be walking into a minefield of a situation.
boo fae I absolutely loathe people who park like that. A pox and expensive parking tickets on them! Do the police ever start calling out tow trucks or is that not common over there?
JtC fascinating on the cream cheese process!
Heat your oven to 180F
Pour 4 cups of cream into a glass baking dish. Mass is important, be sure the cream is at least an inch and a half deep.
Bake for 12 hours.
Cool on counter for an hour, then cover and put in the fridge for around 12 hours.
There will be a rather questionable looking slightly golden semi-solid floating on white liquid. The bottom of the top piece is what is usually used on scones but I happen to think that the top rind is the best part. The liquid can be used instead of milk for baking.
Its time consuming, but is worth it if you want to impress folks with a fancy brunch.
I am jealous of your yard ignoring husband, mine went out and mowed all of the clover down again last evening. I really do wish he would get bored and start ignoring our yard again. I used to have a small, corded chain saw and it did everything I wanted in our last yard.
Enjoy your visit with your son and give all of the pooches some scritches for me.
Jealous of you too. If I had some clotheslines I’d use them when the weather permitted but Hubs is still in Arizona where they are concerned. Hanging clothes out in the desert sun was a good way to fade and age them, he hasn’t adjusted to the softer sun of his youth.
I’d be happy with a line under the car port but he thinks that would look too redneck. This coming from the man who spatchcocked a turkey with my big garden loppers.
Is it good that he is going or very worrisome? I hope you get some answers.
I saw and marveled at a pay phone last week. I used to know where three were in the area of my last home (two of them also had the option to pay with plastic), this was the first one I’ve seen here.
Is renting a car and driving an option? You would have to be gone from work for longer but you could bypass most citizenship checkpoints that way.
Safe travels no matter what happens.
Do you have a Discount Tire around? If so, I highly recommend them. Their prices and product are good and their service is outstanding.
I hope the THC soda helps the Mrs. I don’t really think it has a lot of pain killing effect, but it does help make it so you don’t care as much.
This is the part that confuses me. Jam is slippery and clotted cream is slick. How come you folks don’t end up with half of it on your laps at every tea?
There is a pizza place in Charleston that does the best white garlic pizza ever and I wish I had never had it because now all pizza, including what I make, is substandard. You just made me remember that they do deliver in their neighborhood, I wonder if I can get one delivered to the hospital after my procedure. I’ll bet that would make me feel much better right away!
Well the timer just went off, time to move laundry around and mop the living room.
Yo ho ho! Sitting in the main salon trying to decide if I want to clean the deck in our cabin. We managed to get the mattress aboard - lucky for us, it’s memory foam so relatively easy to cram thru the companionway hatch. Putting on the sheets, however, brought back memories of having to crawl on the bunk to fit the sheets on the far side of the mattress. Good times. There are a couple of pics on my FB feed.
FCD just left for his scan appointment. I had taken Otis for a walk earlier and he’s crashed on the settee next to me. We got lunch from Roy Roger’s - $7.99 for a single roast beef sammich! Guess I shouldn’t be surprised since I see what beef costs these days.
Maybe I’ll have a go at cleaning the deck. Can’t play on my tablet all day, right?
Saw the Juneteenth parade. 73 degrees out. Off to beg. Maybe try a scratch off, but I only get a dollar or two from them. Cant wait til next month when I get my glasses prescription for my cataract removed eye. Right now I have the lens out but its disconcerting to read so they gave me a .5 contact lens for the unoperated eye. Its easier to read, not sure why.
There are any number of suitable substitutes for buttermilk. Plain yogurt is one (thinned a bit with milk), sour creme is another. A tablespoon (15 ml) of lemon juice or vinegar with a cup of milk and let it sit for about 15 minutes achieves the same result.
The visit with my eldest and his brood was good. We walked over to Sebastian Joe’s Ice Cream for a scoop. Got them out of here before the stormy weather hit, but they still ran into hail on the way home.
Very high winds yesterday. I checked the tomato plant this morning and was happy to see it survived. Trimmed off some dead leaves and shoots.
My daughter is supposed to come over tomorrow, but there is significant road construction going on on I-94 and the normally 40-minute drive is over an hour (if you’re lucky), so she may decide it’s not worth it.
Today is a day of doing nothing. The wife is having dizzy spells again, so I likely won’t see much of her.
Chloé just had a wee beastie beauty and puppy pedicure day. Squeaky is now taking her for a bit of a walk to wear down her claws a bit before her shower.
ETA: Hoo-boy does she need that shower. She’s stinky.
They were on the spreadsheet. I married an engineer who loves her spreadsheets. We determined that it was about a wash with Discount Tire - the tires were cheaper, but the installation and disposal fees more than made up the difference.
Good morning, all!
It’s a dandy day, starting off with 57 ferrets and climbing only to 77. My kinda weather! The day is further enhanced by an early morning bun sighting, as well as confirmation that my cunning efforts to bamboozle the nutty bird to prevent his shitting all over my car have worked! The true test, though, is whether I will be able to park the car back in its usual spot. I’ll leave that for a few more days before finding out.
Shoe, your visits home sound like they’re as fraught as mine are. I love my parents, I really do, and I’m glad they’re still around and enjoying life. But we have such different values. Visits are… let’s just say difficult. I hope you survive yours. No matter what, your parents will be very glad to spend time with you.
Me, too, although your point about runny jam is a good one! All this talk about scones, jam and cream have got me in a mood to have some, too. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how one looks at it), the only jam I currently have in the house is a batch of strawberry that I made last summer. My candy thermometer had shit itself and I overboiled it. It tastes ok, could be used as masonry cement in a pinch, but it’s not scone-worthy. I’ll wait until I’ve made my first batch of blackberry jam in the fall.
Sorry about your thoughtless parking situation. May the constabulary issue penalties as they should. And I hope you have fun tonight!
Yeah, same here with Safeway. Only my Part D insurance designates Safeway’s pharmacy as a preferred provider, so that’s where my prescriptions are filled. They extend points accumulation to pharmacy purchases. This was a particularly expensive one-time prescription, so the points accrued from a single purchase. And then I went and forgot to use them until it was one day too late, just after the price for fuel had shot up to dizzying heights. Thus I was motivated to call and whine. Small victories, small victories!
Enjoy the pig roast, and I hope FCD’s scan turns up nothing dreadful.
Oh, I’m with you, most of the time. F’rinstance, instead of posting here, I should be out going a few rounds on the lawn tractor before it’s too late. Current fire restrictions require that all mowing be done before 10:00 a.m. There’s tomorrow, though. Maybe I’ll get it done then. Or maybe not. 
I know you are, and you’ll be fine. You, FCM and JtC are inspiring me to investigate the wee electric chain saw that my late husband bought to take down some annoying saplings. I just have trouble shaking a memory of a close friend who suffered irreparable injuries from her admittedly stupid use of a chainsaw. It was a full-sized gas powered chain saw, she was tired and annoyed, doing this final chore because her husband wouldn’t. She climbed 20 feet up a ladder leaned against a troublesome tree branch to cut off the end of that same branch – in bed slippers, no less. She was cutting while leaning to the right of the ladder to reach the branch. She cut past the crucial spot and the branch swung back to the left – knocking her off the ladder, chainsaw and all. It was a perfect storm of boneheaded errors that I know you would never do! She was lucky; did a lot of spinal damage and she lost her spleen, but she recovered for the most part. Curiously, her belly button is now an inch further to her left than it used to be. A cautionary tale that haunts me to this day.
Have a wonderful time with your son! May I ask about the pasta dish recipe, if you’re inclined to share?
THANK YOU for sharing this! I have copied and pasted it into a recipe for when I have collected all the necessaries, so your typing efforts have not gone in vain! We have a really good beer and wine supplies shop in town. I’ll stop by there the next time I’m able. Poor GG! It was funny, though. Ollie is clever, but even he would struggle to get where I plan to drain the cheese without opposable thumbs.
I use your same recipe for clotted cream. And I hope you get your pizza while in Charleston. It does sound like the perfect post-op treat!
Enjoy a relaxing day, red!
52, hope the day out with mom is fun and gives her a nice break. You’re a good daughter.
Not much planned for today here, either. I’ve got a bit of weeding to do and there are always chores waiting, so we’ll see what mood strikes. Maybe get that little chainsaw out of storage… I need to compose an email to my Dad first, though, for tomorrow. That will take some time.
Breakfast shortly, and dinner is already worked out due to last night’s leftovers.
Last night, I chopped up Roma tomatoes, a jalapeño, and half of a white onion, and mixtum altagedda with the juice of one lime and some kosher salt. So there’s pico de gallo in the fridge. I’ve just finished mixing the juices of one-each orange, lemon, and lime, and mixed them up with some olive oil, kosher salt, freshly-ground black pepper, cumin, apple cider vinegar, minced jalapeño, cilantro, and a bunch of crushed garlic. Skirt steak is marinating in it, and I’ll make carne asada on the barbie around four of the clock (about five hours from now).