Wednesday (09-October-2019) — New Jersey

Home Cooking: Bread and Salsa Verde.

It must be autumn as it is cold and raining outside. Spent the day making Bread and Salsa Verde. I made a Time-lapse video of the time in the kitchen cooking both using a Garmin VIRB-360 camera.

Whole Wheat & Muesli Bread Recipe: Bob’s Red Mill Muesli (1 1/2 cup); Bread Flour (1/2 cup); Whole Wheat Flour (1/2 cup); Sprouted Wheat Flour (1/2 cup); Flax Seed (1/4 cup); sugar (2 tbs); dry milk (1/4 cup); salt (1 tsp); egg (1 large); flax oil (2 tbs); water (1 1/4 cup). Above ingredients added to the Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for Whole Wheat Bread (Rapid) and started. Three hours later, the loaf of bread was removed and allowed to cool. This time the bread stuck to the cooker and was hard to get out. Next time reduce the Muesli by 1/2 cup, and increase the bread flour by 1/2 cup. I like this bread since it is not as dense and heavy as the Rye & Whole Wheat loaves.

Salsa Verde Recipe: First I grilled/blackened husked and washed Tomatillos (2.5 lbs), Red Onion (1 quartered), New Mexico Hatch Chile Peppers (4, cut in half and de-seeded) on a broiler pan. These were placed in a 4 quart Instant Pot pan along with garlic cubes (12, Trader Joe’s), salt (1 tsp), Coriander (1 tsp), Cilantro (fresh, 2 oz, washed and chopped), Apple vinegar (1/4 cup), Lime juice (2 medium, squeezed). Then cooked for 10 minutes at high pressure. After relieving the pressure, the mixture was blended with a hand-held immersion blender. Still a bit too sweet. More vinegar and salt?

Daily Electric Energy Used (52.5 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (12.9 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Cloudy and rainy all day. One load of laundry and two loads in the dishwasher.  Overall a net deficit of 39.6 kWh. Hope to see more sun this month… But the ground is dry causing the deer to keep getting into the fenced wildflower meadows.

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Saturday (17-November-2018) — New Jersey

Home Cooking. Gingerbread Loaf.

Gingerbread Loaf Recipe: Sprouted Wheat Flour (3 cups); Rolled Oatmeal (1 cup); Flax Seed (1/4 cup); Ginger Powder (1 tbs); Crystallized Ginger (1 tbs); Cinnamon Powder (1 tbs); Clove Powder (1 tsp); Nutmeg Powder (1 tsp); dry milk (1/4 cup); salt (1 tsp); egg (1 large); walnut oil (2 tbs); water (1 cup); Maple syrup (1/3 cup). Above ingredients added to Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for Whole Wheat Bread (Rapid) and started. Three hours later, I removed the loaf of bread. It rose to within 2 inches from the top of the pan — and the house smelled of gingerbread. I only let it cool a few minutes before slicing a piece. It was good, but next time I will add even more ginger.

I set up a Garmin VIRB-360 camera to record the bread making process for a time-lapse video. Three versions, a 360 degree panorama, a little planet and a tunnel view. The tunnel view makes my waist look 3 times as large.

Bread Making – Garmin VIRB-360 camera – 360 Panorama, Little Planet and Tunnel View (1080p 24p)

Tuesday (25-September-2018) — New Jersey

Home Cooking. Hearty Whole Grain Rye Bread.

Another day of rain. The weather for the last few weeks is more like Seattle, Washington or Bergen, Norway. I decided to make some hearty whole grain rye bread. I ran out of rye flour, and the new batch I got is the whole grain version from Bob’s Red Mill.

I  set up a Insta360 One camera to take images for a time-lapse video of the process. While in Germany earlier this summer, my brother showed me the Insta360 One camera. I was impressed because it could take 360 degree images, and convert them into “little planet” or “tunnel view” images. I have created these type of images for several years by taking 20 or more images with a high-resolution DSLR or mirrorless digital camera, and then using the AutoPano Giga program to convert the images into a 360 degree view. (Note, I just read on Thom Hogan’s blog that Kolor will no longer be selling the AutoPano Giga program.) The process would take hours of processing, and required fast computers, and lots of memory. The images ended up being very large — often over a gigapixel in size. So I decided to try this new camera. Granted the image size would not be as large, but if only viewed on the internet does it matter? Also I would be able to make time-lapse 360 degree videos. I’ve created three time-lapse videos of the bread making (Panorama, Little Planet, and Tunnel View). Let me know what you think. There are some idiosyncrasies with the Insa360 One camera system that I will talk about later when comparing with other 360 degree camera systems.

Hearty Whole Grain Rye Bread Recipe: Rye Flour (1 cup); Sprouted Wheat Flour (1 cup); Bread Flour (1/2 cup);  Sorghum Flour (1/2 cup) Flax Seed (1/4 cup); Chia Seed (1/4 cup); Dill Seed (1 tbs); Anise Seed (1 tbs); Caraway Seed (1 tbs); Fennel Seed (1 tbs); dry milk (1/4 cup);  cocoa (1 tbs); instant coffee (1 tbs); salt (1 tsp); egg (1 large); flax oil (2 tbs); water (1 1/4 cup); Maple  syrup (1/3 cup). Above ingredients added to Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for Whole Wheat Bread (Rapid) and started. Three hours later, the loaf of bread was removed and allowed to cool.

Bread Making – Insta360 One Camera – 360 Panorama View (1080p 24p)

Bread Making – Insta360 One Camera – Little Planet View (1080p 24p)

Bread Making – Insta360 One Camera – Tunnel View (1080p 24p)

Friday (06-July-2018) — New Jersey

Home Cooking. Hearty Rye & Whole Wheat Bread.

Rather than Maple syrup the special ingredient this time is Spruce Tip syrup from Alaska.

Hearty Rye & Whole Wheat Bread Recipe: Rye Flour (1 cup); Sprouted Wheat Flour (1 cup); Whole Wheat Flour (1 cup);  Flax Seed (1/4 cup); Chia Seed (1 tbs); Dill Seed (1 tbs); Anise Seed (1 tbs); Caraway Seed (1 tbs); Fennel Seed (1 tbs); dry milk (1/4 cup);  cocoa (1 tbs); instant coffee (1 tbs); salt (1 tsp); egg (1 large); flax oil (2 tbs); water (1 1/4 cup); Spruce Tip syrup (1/3 cup). Above ingredients added to Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for Whole Wheat Bread (Rapid) and started. Three hours later, the loaf of bread was removed and allowed to cool.

Hearty Rye & Whole Wheat Bread. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 18 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 18 mm, f/2.8, 1/10 sec). (DAVID J MATHRE)
Hearty Rye & Whole Wheat Bread. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 18 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 18 mm, f/2.8, 1/10 sec). (DAVID J MATHRE)

Saturday (05-May-2018) — New Jersey

Springtime in New Jersey.

An eerie view of moonlight through the fog and tree branches. Seedlings after 2 days — the lettuce has already started to sprout. Weekly bread making.

Moonlight Through Fog. Image taken with a Fuji X-T2 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (David J Mathre)
Moonlight Through Fog. Image taken with a Fuji X-T2 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (David J Mathre)
Seedling Tray Day. Composite of two image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens (David J Mathre)
Seedling Tray Day. Composite of two image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens (David J Mathre)


Hearty Whole Wheat, Rye, and Muesli Bread Recipe: Whole Wheat Flour (1 cup); Sprouted Wheat Flour (1 cup); Rye Flour (1/2 cup); Muesli (1 cup); caraway seed (1 tbs); fennel seed (1 tbs); anise seed (1 tbs), dill seed (1 tbs); dry milk (1/4 cup); salt (1 tsp); instant coffee (1 tbs); cocoa powder (1 tbs); egg (1 large); flax oil (2 tbs); water (1 1/4 cup); maple syrup (1/3 cup). Above ingredients minus the maple syrup added to Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for Whole Wheat Bread (Rapid) and started. Once the unit started mixing the ingredients the molasses was slowly added. Three hours later, the loaf of bread was removed and allowed to cool.