"Ban Boring Breakfasts ."

 Thought I would share my progress with "Ban Boring Breakfasts ."  I am doing pretty well.  The first one was corn fritters with leftover corn on the cob.  They were delicious, but next time I would add more peppers and top with sour cream.  

The second one was ricotta orange crepes. For the filling, I just added some orange marmalade and orange zest to ricotta cheese.  After I used it to fill the crepes, I made a sauce of marmalade and orange juice to go over the crepes . This was my favorite. and it was yummy yummy.  Next time I will fill them with ricotta and peaches mixed. 

Then on Sunday, we had salmon with hollandaise sauce and poached eggs.  This morning I followed Flora's suggestion and made a breakfast sandwich using charred sweet bell  peppers, scrambled eggs, and prosciutto on a ciabatta bun.  But I think I'm going to pass on her husband's recipe for making an omelet.   

Next, I have some lamb meatballs in the freezer that I'm going to do something with for a jazzed-up breakfast.   Maybe on a baguette with olive  tapenade and mozzarella.

I had a plan...

 
The other day I was looking forward to my favorite kind of day: a "cookery day."  Before I even got out of bed, I had a plan.  So when I got into the kitchen, I fixed first beets, then rutabagas with olive oil and covered them with foil and put them in the oven to roast. Next I washed the figs and added a little cider and put them on simmer to make a compote for waffles.  While the figs were simmering and the vegetables were roasting, I was going to make a custard to try my new ice cream machine that I recently got at the thrift store.   I poured the custard into the machine and turned it on.   I was instantly aware that I must have done something wrong by the loud noise and the custard that was flying around the kitchen.  I had to stop the machine and get the custard out.  In the process I spilled most of it on the kitchen counter.  

After I cleaned up the mess, I tasted the beets and they were okay. But the rutabagas were pithy and needed to be trashed.   And when I tasted the fig compote, it was too seedy and needed to be sieved.  As I surveyed the disaster zone, I knew I needed a new plan.

The original plan had included me making a batch of crepes and deboning some leftover duck for dinner.  The new plan included soup out of the freezer for dinner, a book on tape, and a nap. It's great to be flexible.

magical, awesome, marvelous, magnification machine

 My magnificent, magical, awesome, marvelous, magnification  machine  arrived yesterday.  I knew from early summer that I was in line to use it.  I had been anxiously awaiting its arrival.  The model is Acrobat  and it's made by Enhanced Vision, which makes a large variety of aids for the vision impaired.  It has a camera that projects on a screen. The screen has great magnification ability.  I'm anxious to start trying to learn all it can do. 

I have it on loan from Lilac City Services for the Blind.  I sing their praises often.  I was curious what other clients used it for and was told that it was used mostly for reading.  Most people  give up trying to use it for handwork.  

It's a specific skill to be able to work with your hands while looking at a screen.  I  figure I have an advantage because I worked with magnification for so many years when I was painting buttons. It has come at the perfect time.  Work in the garden is winding down. and long dark days are looming ahead.

When I meet someone who has been diagnosed with macular or has a friend or family member diagnosed with the disease, I urge them to contact Lilac City Services for the Blind.  If they are not in this area, seek out the resources they do have available.  Invariably the response is that the person in need is not quite ready to get help.  Of course, the time to seek sources is before you need them.  Everything is so much harder if you wait until you need help.

   

I will be posting my progress with my lovely machine as I get used to it. I have high hopes that it's going to change my life.

 

Silly solution to a silly problem

 There are obvious things that you're not going to be able to do when you are losing your sight.  Things like driving a car, threading a needle, reading a book., and hammering a nail.  

But there are lots of little things that never even cross your mind.  Little  things that you will have to struggle with that seem so inconsequential that they seem silly. 

One such thing was was getting toothpaste on my toothbrush.  I either got it to my mouth and there was no toothpaste on it--or there was a great big glob. If there was no toothpaste, it meant I'd dropped it on the counter or in the sink or down on my shoe.  When I tried to clean the sink, there were great globs of toothpaste dried like cement.

I tried  colored toothpaste--to no avail.  I tried switching to a powder and put it in a spoon and dipped my brush in it.  And it was  also a mess. I finally gave up and  went looking for my husband with my toothbrush in hand.  He would adorn my toothbrush with the proper amount of paste.

But I but I always want to do things myself.  So I kept looking for a solution. because my husband  wasn't always there every time.  I want to brush my teeth. And I think I found the solution.  Even though this seems like a silly problem, the solution is even sillier.  I put the toothpaste on my tongue. I can feel how much I've got. Then I just pop my toothbrush over the toothpaste and I'm good to go.  No misses ever.  Very low tech but it works.

I was so eager to share this with Cheryl from the services for the blind. So on her next visit, I brought out the toothpaste and she immediately said, "Oh just put it on your tongue and brush."  So it seems lots of other people struggled with this silly problem, and they all found a solution before me.

Rise and Shine

 On most days for breakfast we have  granola or sometimes oatmeal.  I know it's time for something special when DH laments. " I'm going to get to get my granola going."This translates to me that DH needs attention.

I have some standby breakfast menus on those days.  They include Belgian waffles with pecans,  avocado toast with prosciutto, a cheese omelet, and on a really special day, eggs Benedict.  Nothing too exciting if you've been doing the same things for years and years.   

Lately, I've been listening to an Australian cooking show on TV, and they had a breakfast competition.  I loved the ideas.  One was corn fritters with maple-glazed  bacon-and-eggs. Another was salmon and poached eggs with hollandaise sauce.  Another was lamb meatballs with scrambled eggs.  My favorite was chicken livers and mushrooms on toast.  And why do avocados always have to be on toast?  One of their dishes had avocados and red peppers sliced on top of scrambled eggs.  And sne shredded her potatoes and cooked them in a waffle iron.  

I haven't made crepes for ages and I meant to try Bobby Flay's lemon ricotta pancakes. I'm going to try them all this winter and look for even more unique  breakfast menus.

On days I've fixed a large breakfast, I don't have much interest in fixing a big dinner. We usually just have soup from the freezer.