Outside definitely. Inside, sometimes as well. Heat pumps can’t handle extended temps near zero degrees. We hit zero again on Tuesday morning. The heat pumps couldn’t hack that, so we had the resistive heat running continuously trying to keep it warm around here.
I decided, OK, I need to find something to do to keep us warmer, so I decided to bake and cook. All day. It kept the kitchen warm and made it easier for us to have quick meals the rest of this week.
At one point, I had both ovens going, and the large burner on the stove. Oh, and the dishwasher and the clothes dryer out in the mud room. All together, productive, while making it more comfortable in the house.
I hate heat pumps. Our house, like thousands like it in this area, was built during the moratorium on building using natural gas. Oil burners were also not used, as the price made them prohibitive. Heat pumps cannot take prolonged temperatures below twenty degrees, and we are suffering through the coldest February I can ever remember.
Two more days of this month. Today, even more snow came down. At least we got above freezing yesterday.
As for the cooking, what did I make?
Apple cake. Adapted from the Not Without Salt recipe. I substituted my crock pot spiced apples for the two cups of apples.
I like this recipe so much that I made a recipe card in Pages on my iPad. Since I like the extra spice, I used a pint jar from the freezer since I didn’t have any baking apples around. I also did decrease the sugar from the published recipe, to 1/2 a cup.
I had one oven making this cake, while the other made three things. At the same time. Beets. Chicken. Roasted root vegetables.
I was cleaning out the produce drawer before the CSA came on Wednesday. There are parsnips, celeriac, sunchokes, carrots, sweet potato, turnips, white radish, scallions, yellow onion and a jalapeno in there.
Heavily spiced.
No measuring. More of what I like. Less of the stronger stuff. Olive oil. Mustard. White balsamic. All mixed up in a bowl and dumped on the foil. Roasted at 350 degrees for an hour.
Add to all of this, I was making chicken stock with the bones and skin from the whole chicken. I got a quart of stock, that simmered most of the afternoon.
After all was said and done, we had chicken and root vegetables for dinner Tuesday. The leftovers.
Enough for a few days as a side dish.
Chicken leftovers for me yesterday while my better half went to an amateur radio club dinner. The last piece of chicken breast. Lunch today. The beets will be tomorrow’s salad. The apple cake. Dessert when we are in the mood for dessert. The chicken stock is in the freezer.
Not a bad way to spend a frigid Tuesday.
AnnieRie Unplugged 