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Wholegrain Pizza

Crust:
0.67 c milk
0.25 c vegetable oil
1.25 c flour
0.75 c ground oat flour
1 t baking powder
1 t salt

Topping:
0.75 lb Italian sausage
16 oz pizza sauce
2 c mushroom slices
1 green pepper, sliced
2 c (8 oz) shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 T grated Parmesan cheese

For crust, add milk and oil to combined dry ingredients; stir with fork until mixture forms ball. Turn out onto lightly floured surface; knead about 10 times. With greased fingers, press dough into greased 14-inch round pizza pan. Bake in oven preheated to 425 F for 12 to 14 minutes.

For topping, remove sausage from casing; brown meat. Drain. Add 8 oz pizza sauce; mix well. Spread remaining pizza sauce over partially baked crust; spoon meat mixture over sauce. Top with mushrooms, green pepper, and cheeses. Continue to bake in 425 F oven 10 to 15 minutes.

This is a fast crust because it doesn’t need to rise or rest. I starting making this pizza when I was in high school. From “The Quaker Oats Wholegrain Cookbook.”

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Online toolbox for history and maps

I can’t index the internet, but I can make a list of places I may want to visit again.

History

“Chronicling America: Library Of Congress”. Chroniclingamerica.Loc.Gov, 2022, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/.
“Search America’s historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.”
“Newspaper Navigator”. News-Navigator.Labs.Loc.Gov, 2022, https://news-navigator.labs.loc.gov/search.
Extracted visual data for Chronicling America. Content includes: photographs, illustrations, maps,
comics/cartoons, headlines, and advertisements. Artificial intelligence can be used to refine image search results.

Maps

“Arcanum Maps – The Historical Map Portal.” Arcanum Maps – The Historical Map Portal, maps.arcanum.com, https://maps.arcanum.com/en/. Accessed 28 June 2022.
Primarily features European maps. Viewing maps is free. High resolution downloads available for purchase.
“MZK – Moll Map Collection.” MZK – Moll Map Collection, mapy.mzk.cz, 16 July 2012, https://mapy.mzk.cz/en/.
European maps collected in the 1700s by Bernhard Paul Moll. Czech and German maps are of interest.
GmbH (https://www.klokantech.com/), Klokan Technologies. “Old Maps Online.” Old Maps Online, http://www.oldmapsonline.org, https://www.oldmapsonline.org/. Accessed 28 June 2022.
“OldMapsOnline developed out of a love of history and heritage of old maps. The project began as a collaboration between Klokan Technologies GmbH, Switzerland and The Great Britain Historical GIS Project based at the University of Portsmouth, UK thanks to funding from JISC.” Features map browsing by region selected on a map.
Rumsey, David. “David Rumsey Historical Map Collection| The Collection.” David Rumsey Historical Map Collection| The Collection, http://www.davidrumsey.com, https://www.davidrumsey.com/home. Accessed 28 June 2022.
“The David Rumsey Map Collection was started over 35 years ago and contains more than 150,000 maps. The collection focuses on rare 16th through 21st century maps of North and South America, as well as maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, globes, wall maps, school geographies, pocket maps, books of exploration, maritime charts, and a variety of cartographic materials including pocket, wall, children’s, and manuscript maps. Items range in date from around 1550 to the present.”
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Did you see that?

One of the few downsides to spending time alone outside is that there isn’t someone to confirm a sighting with.

This fall has been exceedingly mild. It reached 67 degrees Fahrenheit today, November 7, 2021. Between 2000 and 2020, the average high for November 7 was 50.5 F and the average low was 32.0 F.

While I was walking along a hay field, I saw a monarch butterfly, flying low as if it were looking for nectar from the red clover that the monarchs love. It wasn’t close enough to see it’s distinct patterns, but the size, movement, and general color said monarch. It won’t find many, if any, sources of nectar.

There are a few johnny jump-ups blooming in the flower bed and the mulch in the back of the pickup truck. A witch hazel is covered with beautiful yellow blossoms. The northern holly berries are beautiful, but lack nectar.

What did you see today?

journeynorth.org

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Bean patties

Bean patties ready for frying

15 oz garbanzo beans, drained
0.75 c fine bread crumbs
1 small carrot, grated
1 clove garlic, crushed
3 T fresh parsley
1 large egg
0.5 t salt
0.25 t cumin
0.125 t cayenne pepper
2 t olive oil

Coarsely mash beans. Add all other ingredients except the oil. Form 4 patties. Heat the oil in a cast iron pan on medium heat. Cook the patties until golden brown, about 4 minutes in each side.

The patties did not crumble during frying or eating.

I used fresh Swiss chard in place of parsley.

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No sweat?

I have a goal of getting to work with no sweat. Actually my goal is a little lower than that. It is getting to work with no stink. I would also like to get more exercise. Fortunately I can buy something to allegedly do both.

I bought a Trek Verve+ Lowstep e-bike. It has an electric motor assist, so my hopes are to get to work with minimal effort (low-stink) and then get the majority of my exercise on my way home. (George will attest to the reality that I don’t care how much I stink at home.) I plan to ride roads to the nearby state trail and then conveniently ride 2-3 blocks to work.

Yesterday was my maiden voyage from home to the state trail. Today I took a slightly different route to meet the trail, which is 5.2 miles one-way. The one-way trip to work is about 15 miles total.

This bike is a pig. It weighs about 50 pounds.

Today’s ride was sunny, about 60 F, with a 10 mph wind. I wore a long sleeve cotton t-shirt covered with a brilliant yellow long sleeve synthetic t-shirt. I wore nylon wind-pants with a cotton liner on my legs. Medium weight socks and run-of-the-mill shoes. I wore my helmet without a liner. My upper body was comfortable to warm. I appreciated the sleeves when I first started out. Once I got heated up my legs were sticky and too warm.

I need to get in shape first. I am still learning the best ways to use the assist and I do get a good workout even with it. I suspect it will be hard to go slowly enough on the way to work not to break a sweat. Not that I’m that fast, but because I usually want to push myself.

Other notes: Saturday George and I walked the Trailbreaker 5k in a celebration of Anne’s walking. The frogs have started to sing. Yesterday the pair of eagles that like to perch on the top of a dead elm were vocalizing. I spotted the first blooming crocus in my flower bed today.

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Snow challenges

Plowed road with snow ridge
Snow ridge built by plow and shovel

We’ve had almost all of the weather that winter has to offer from balmy days to rain to freezing rain to dense and chubby snow flakes to dry and fluffy snow flakes to significant wind chills to blizzards. Astoundingly, I’ve been able to keep the driveway clear with a shovel (and a little help from George and the snow blower). It’s a good challenge to keep up with the county snow plow that keeps our road open and a ridge of snow at the end of the driveway. #shovelvsplow #mailcarrierlove #thankslinemen #electricitykeepsourLPburning

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Getting to Puerto Rico

This is going to be the worst blog post ever. Because who really wants to know the mechanics of our flights?

You are still reading. Wow. Our airline, United, strongly suggested that we postpone our travel for a day because of the bad weather in Chicago. We did and I added a day to our itinerary. The next day our flight was cancelled because of the bad weather in Chicago. We re-booked our flights again. The United website and app were equally unhelpful in these changes. For example, I re-booked part of our trip through Madison without realizing the process was complete because the app just stopped working. While I was on hold for one-half of eternity, speaking directly with an airline representative was the most useful.

There were lots of phone calls because I had scheduled parking at the airport, a rental car, places to stay, and volunteer work. Each change required a call to each vendor, in part because we were so close to our planned travels.

We traveled from Milwaukee to Houston to San Juan. We arrived at the Milwaukee airport very early because of the weather and federal government shutdown. The shutdown required that TSA employees were required to work, but would not be paid until an unknown date. We didn’t know if this would result in long lines or not. In this case it did not. I very much appreciated TSA employees that came to work. The news was noting that passengers were more patient and kinder, knowing the struggles of the security staff. I think this is awesome. I also think that we can be more patient and kind every day.

I used credit card “points” to pay for the car rental. This was great! Extending the car rental for a day (even though I was giving up a day at the time of the change) required actual money. It still was a good value.

Our volunteer site was in the center of Puerto Rico, about 50 miles and 1.5 hours from San Juan. Because of our early arrival in Milwaukee and long layover in Houston, it took us 24 hours to go from home to the worksite.

Our trip home was more compact, but longer than planned because of several delays in the flight from Chicago to Milwaukee, again attributed to the weather. (Our route was San Juan to Chicago to Milwaukee). We arrived in Milwaukee late at night and thankfully spent the night with family before driving home.

Oh, are you still here? My goodness. Find something good to read now.