A very bean heavy meal tonight. Waxbeans and broadbeans from the garden. Tofu scramble seasoned with soy sauce, tumeric (mostly for colour), chili flakes, and a cooking wine that’s proooobably too strong to sell in Swedish stores. The broadbean shells were a bit too tough on the larger beans so I removed them and pan fried until crispy. I only burned them a tiny bit. I tossed them with salt and smoked paprika. They’re not pretty, but so good!
Oh, and jasmine rice under it all.
After Monday’s white bean slow cook, it was time for black beans yesterday. I cooked 2 lbs in my crockpot for about 7.5 hours. I bagged up 3 2-cup bags for the freezer, then used the rest for a simple black bean soup, where I used up some ingredients around the house. It made enough for dinner last night, lunch today, and I froze the rest for a future dinner.
I topped mine with my favorite vegan sour cream and homemade pickled red onions. Jim used shredded cheddar and tortilla chips.
When it comes to cooking, I’m like a mad scientist. Except instead of exclaiming “IT’S ALIVE” I say “IT’S EDIBLE”, 
Buckwheat pancakes (seriously, where have these been my whole life? Oh my they are good). 1:2 ratio of flour to buckwheat.
Topped with rhubarb, blueberry, fresh ginger, coconut oil sauce.
Just guessing on the rhubarb and blueberries, about 1/2 c. rhubarb, 1/3-1/2 c. blueberries.
1/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh ginger
a pinch of salt
2 Tbls. sugar
1 tsp. coconut oil
Now, I use ginger in sweets like I use garlic in savories, so you can imagine I didn’t use half a teaspoon of ginger, heh.
My word, this is all so good. Oh, I’ve got so many ideas. hoohoo! so many ideas. I’m going to try and have at least three recipes before I make a dedicated post on the buckwheat pancakes…
looks at my empty plate: “when did I finish it off? 
”.
Edit:
I’ve got an idea tomorrow. I put up the excess pumpkin puree into the ice cube tray and froze them, so I’m going to make buckwheat & pumpkin seed pancakes…and something with pumpkin…something…Ooh! a pumpkin spice…something…
. I’m sure it’ll come to me, 
Just whipped this up, since it’ll need to chill to use it on the pancakes.
Golly gee whillikers, that’s tasty.
A true pumpkin spice sauce on buckwheat pancakes. and I’ll have to hunt down some non-syrup pancake sauces to get an idea as to what and how to make it thin, but not runny.
So far what I have: (I bet as is, it would be good as a topping on ice cream).
2 ice cubes of pumpkin puree
about 3mm sliver of butter
1 Tbls. Sugar
5 milk jug capfuls of milk.
a pinch of ginger
large pinch of clove
large pinch of nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
odd weigh to measure, , but it did work,
While watching a guy named Adam Ragusea on youtube on non-flour based white sauces…I gave a couple of things a try…And thus in a very high pitched and bewildered voice…
what?
What?
WHAT?
Both made with a pinch each of ginger, nutmeg, and clove, with about 1/4 tsp. salt. with almond milk, and one tablespoon butter. (both sauted til golden brown)
the left one (rice flour white)…would be good in a gravy.
the right one…
…the right one…amaranth flour…tastes like…my sense of taste has to be…it just has to have gone bad…it tastes like pudding, or ice cream…
what?
What?
WHAT?
Anyway, letting them chill and see what happens…But that can’t be right with the amaranth…it just can’t be…
…if true, hoo hoo, I’ve got idears…so…many…ideas…
Amaranth flour is sweet, so I can see how it tastes like pudding or ice cream. I bet it will be delicious cold!
Ok! After chilling the flavor returns to being quite strong…However, after the first few tastes it starts settling down again.
It is nutty. Creamy. A little grainy, but not like corn meal. Almost chalky, but not an over powering chalkiness. There is a pretty strong browning flavor from sauteing it til mustard color, but it kind of works.
Hmm! Also, I can almost swear it has a bit of an egginess to it as well. Like with a custard.
The after taste…Smooth, sort of slimy, but only a tad bit, and does not last long. Some granules are fairly large, but that’s to be expected with a tiny grain ground to flour.
The rice one is much much stronger. The graininess/chalkiness is a bit more pronounced than with the amaranth one.
I think I’ll just have to play around with it. Make stuff and see what happens. I think nuts, coconuts, things like those would be best for the amaranth. I’ll have to try something with the almond butter and pumpkin seeds and see what happens. (As those are what I have on hand…).
Welp, I think this is the last food related stuff I’ll put a lot of effort into for the next few days (Need to get working on the finishing touches of my niece’s arch)…So mental note to self: Pick this back up and try things out.
Oh yeah, forgot…
The thickening properties of the amaranth and rice are very different. The amaranth one was still smooth, where as the rice one was a lot thicker and had deep cracks within it. So the rice one, would probably be better with smaller amounts, and amaranth perfect at the 1:1 ration of fats/oils to flour ratoi when making a roux.
First experiment is done and scarfed.
A little runnier than I wanted, but not bad. not bad at all…buuurp.
1 tbls. butter
1Tbls. amaranth flour
Saute til mustard brown.
blend in
1 c. almond milk
1 Tbls. Almond butter
1+1/2 Tbls. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla.
oh you can bet I’ll make this again, .
Now let’s see if the pumpkin one is chilled.
Ok, it’s done and scarfed, too. Messed up on it, though. I wanted to try and get more flavor out of the pumpkin seeds, so I tried sauteing them in with the butter and amaranth…burnt punk’n seeds. 
. Flavor wise, other than that, not too bad.
I put in 1+1/2 Tbls. of amaranth flour, so I guess for one cup milk, I need about 2 Tbls…Meh, more experimenting in my future, heh.
Now, texture wise, it is fairly grainy/chalky, but for a boy who remembers Pepto Bismol from the early 80’s, and loved it, that’s not a deal breaker, heh. (I say early 80’s because the last time I tried pepto it tasted heavily watered down, 
, not at all how I remembered it).
I’ve got a crockpot full of Potato Soup, with Italian Sausage, and kale from our CSA. The whole house smells wonderful.
I have to set up something for dinner tonight. I feel like I just did that LAST night! I was also thinking of doing a crockpot soup, too.
It’s definitely crock pot soup season!
The best part of crockpot soup season? The ability to make a huge batch, and freeze portions of it for later, so by making dinner today, you have 2 extra random nights covered.
Funny story: I tend to keep rolls, bread or naan in the freezer, along with the frozen portions of soup. Frequently snagged off the Manager’s Special rack at the grocery store, so I end up with fancy bread or French rolls, etc. Every Saturday I make a meal plan for the week, so I can also create a grocery list, and go shopping as early as possible on Sunday. I write things out on a Meal Plan Notepad, so Jim can see what I’m planning each day. I had written down “Frozen Soup + Rolls”. But my handwriting had been hurried, and the plus sign was a bit big, and the R in rolls wasn’t capitalized, and had been squished in close to the plus… So Jim asked what the heck “Frozen Soup Trolls” was. Now I just write down Frozen Soup Trolls on the nights we’re eating out of the freezer.
ha ha and they said meal planning was no fun…
I used to be so on the ball with meal planning and then I fell off the wagon. I’m climbing back up for Fall. I bet if I had soup trolls this whole time I never would’ve wandered off.
Mr. Imma made delicious pumpkin soup on Sunday! But he refuses to eat soup for dinner for some reason, so we’ve just been eating it for lunch. I always try to meal plan but the second I my life gets busy, the first thing to go wrong is meal planning.
Haha…I follow a very similar meal planning process to Jennie. Once the weather gets cooler, soup (and rolls!) is usually on the menu once a week. I couldn’t step foot in the food store without a list based on weekly meals. I’d be lost!
We usually have our groceries delivered and whenever we’re super busy, I just order what I always do. And then I keep my fingers and toes crossed hoping that we’ll actually be bothered to cook those meals and not have a sandwich for dinner, or take-out, or a bag of Doritos … We used to do the last one more often when we were much younger, out of sheer exhaustion. Now we just don’t keep those snacks around so we can’t eat them at inappropriate moments. Back in those days we could eat anything without gaining a pound, but those days are long gone.
Are you me? I think you’re me. 
I keep a list of EveRytHiNG
Oh right! You celebrated Thanksgiving this past weekend. My favorite meal ever. Give me all the stuffing please.
