A New Recipe and a Rain Storm

May 31, 2008 - PM - Two posts in one day! You'd think I had nothing else to do... but you would be wrong. I just wanted to share something very specific this evening. Joe and I had a bit of relaxing morning and I decided to try a new pancakes recipe. I found it in a magazine we got called 'Clean Eating' which I highly recommend. So here's the recipe -



Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups Old Fashioned Oats
1 1/4 cups milk
1 large egg
1 tbsp canola oil
1 cup whole wheat baking flour
1 tsp low-sodium baking powder



Instructions:
In a medium bowl, mix oats with milk; let stand 5 minutes. Add egg and oil, then mix. Add dry ingredients and mix until just blended. Cook on hot, nonstick skillet until golden brown. Flip and cook until other side is golden. Optional - Add 1/4 cup fresh blueberries to batter before cooking.


This recipe is totally healthy and absolutely delicious. Plus the oats make them much more firm and easy to flip. So you should try it out.


During and after breakfast we did some reading and then headed over to the house. On the way over, we hashed out some new ideas about flooring, but ended up reconfirming that we are going to shoot for 4" thick concrete floors. Kelly thinks we'll be able to engineer it with wood despite the weight, and it will help immensely with heat retention from the solar windows. When we got to the house, we were only there a few minutes before it started to pour rain -

So we headed back home. We did more reading and discussed the house plans and whatnot. I worked some more on my latest project, which is getting our business and house expenditures all set up in Quicken so we can track what we spend and where.


Dinner was garlic shrimp with cilantro and lime juice over rice, and we cooked and ate while listening to a massive thunder and lightening storm. The weather report called for scattered thunder all day - and all day I waited. We love storms - but finally around 5:30 they hit and hit hard.

The plants seem to have survived the wind and rain pretty well, although the chickens always look a little bit mangled after a rain. I think they're too busy taking advantage of all the worms on the surface to worry about getting a little wet.


Our day ended with some research and lengthy discussion about our roof design. For the passive solar, we need an overhang that will shield the sun in the summer, but let the sun in during the winter. Our calculations lead us to believe that 2.5' would be recommended. We're going to go with 2' since we like to be warm and we can do some extra shading with blinds and trees if necessary. One decision closer to finishing the plans.