Buns, Ferns and Goals - It Was a Very Busy "Day Off"

The day has finally come - swimming pool reservations are no longer required because the outdoor pool is now open. That gives us an additional lane, and the water exercise people generally stay in the diving well section (which is off to the side of the main pool). It will be this way (except for days with thunderstorms and lightning) until after Labor Day. For those from other countries who read my posts, Labor Day is the first Monday of September. So, it's a brave new world of swimming beginning today, and I'll be diving into it again on Tuesday. (Of course, I'm hearing thunder from outside, so the outdoor pool may not be open this morning after all.) 

In this photo, you can see the length of the swimming lanes, and 
also, the diving well in the short L towards the upper middle 
of the photo at the end of the pool. The water exercise 
folks usually are in the diving well, leaving all six lanes 
of the pool open for lane swimmers. 

I went through my phone and deleted all of my "Reserve Swim Time" alarms. I'm as ready as I can be for the outdoor pool, and hopefully I'll be up to the challenge of an Olympic sized pool length. I'm a "casual" swimmer, not a competitive one, and I'll have people sharing the pool who might be a lot faster than I am. I'm not super slow, but I'm also not an 18-year-old speed demon in the water. I'm sticking to my Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday schedule, and we usually don't get a lot of extra people in the pool for the 5:00 am time on weekdays. I'll have to wait and see. 

I seasoned the top of my buns with "Everything But the 
Bagel" seasoning. I probably should have done an 
egg wash as well, but thought about it a bit too late. 
If the recipe is good, I'll make it again and make 
it even better, but I'm pretty happy with how these 
turned out (so far ... I haven't eaten one yet). 

Yesterday was a lovely day, until the afternoon when it got cloudy and started to rain. I, however, was busy in the kitchen. We're having hamburgers on at least one of our two weekend days (Sunday and Memorial Day) and I wanted a bun for my burger. Some hunting through recipes brought me to one called (Pillowy-Soft!) Gluten Free, Paleo & Keto Burger Buns (link here if you are interested in the recipe) and after reading it through carefully, I decided this one held possibilities. There were a few ingredients I didn't have at home, so I added Whey Protein Isolate, Xhanthan Gum, a six-pack of eggs and coconut cream to my shopping list and headed out. 

I'm hoping the buns end up looking and tasting 
as good as the photo promises. I've missed having 
bread. I eat grain-free bread almost every day 
for breakfast, or a grain-free bagel, but I haven't 
actually made a bread that I've kneaded and 
baked for decades. It was a lot of fun to play 
with flour, eggs, yeast and heat again. 

My afternoon was spent making six yeasted hamburger buns and I think they turned out really nice. I'm not sure how they'll taste, but I'm going to try one for my lunch today to test it out. The yeast proofed really well, the buns doubled in size while they were proofing after being formed and put onto the baking sheet, and everything seemed to bake well. The rolls give the right hollow tone when I knock their bottoms, so I think they're baked through completely. 

When DH and I wandered the garden in the early morning, 
this was our upper back yard. I thought I'd share a little of my 
fern heaven with all of you. The upper yard consists of 
ferns and trees. I have one tomato plant behind me to 
the right, and the sidewalk along the west side of 
the house is also behind to the right. The ferns right 
now are almost shoulder high, certainly higher than my 
waist. They extend to my left, and all the way to the 
corner of the fencing in the middle of the photo. 

It was really fun to make bread again, even though it was a totally different type of bread from what I used to make. I'm pretty sure that if/when I make this recipe again, it'll be a bit easier for me, now that I've done it once. When I was in college, I made two loaves of whole wheat bread for myself and my three roommates every week. Kneading the bread was a wonderful way to get rid of extra tension, and it was a good recipe - very popular. But I haven't done much with making home-made bread since I moved up here, so my skill set is lacking a bit. Still, I'm happy with the look of them. 

The Taylor Digital Kitchen Scale got 4-5 stars 
ratings in a lot of reviews, and was on sale for 
a bit under $20. I needed something to weigh 
small numbers of gram weights for my recipe, 
so it was worth the purchase price. It worked 
great, and is now in my cupboard next to 
my Krups analog scale. 

I didn't get a chance to do much else besides kitchen stuff yesterday, though. I made up a batch of Ogre Juice and did the hamburger buns, that's about it. I did take a quick run to Target for a digital kitchen scale. I have an excellent Krups analog scale that I've used for more than 50 years, but it wasn't accurate enough for bread measurements in grams, so I bought a kitchen scale for just under $20. I think it was a good purchase - it worked well with the burger buns. I also picked up a splash guard sheet for my oven at the same time. It might help DH when he bakes frozen pizza. 

The Colorado Avalanche beat the St Louis Blues 
to advance to the Conference Finals against 
Edmonton. The winning goal was scored in the 
final 5 seconds of regulation play. Here's 
a link if you're interested in seeing that goal. 
It's a good one! 

https://youtu.be/K9cPykH7cTw

So, I'm out of here. The Colorado Avalanche won their game against St Louis last night, so they're progressing into the Conference Final! I'm thrilled to still have one horse in this year's race - LOL. (DH just woke up, got up, and came downstairs to congratulate me, then headed back up to bed.) Score! I'm delighted! Have an excellent weekend and I'll be back on Tuesday (with a quick post on Monday for Memorial Day). Live well, be kind, and Slava Ukraini.