More misadventures in buckwheat
It started out very promising.
I repeated yesterday's stunning (to me) breakfast hash, but was inspired to try sprinkling some cinnamon on there was well. It was amazing; I was totally floored at how well the flavors melded together.
I took a midday shopping trip to a farmers market and two or three other stores in the area to scope out options for the future. I still had three dollars of my budget left to spend; and for $2 at the farmers market I wound up getting the cutest, tiniest little bear of local honey:
and some scallions at the store, for $.75.
At dinnertime, I wanted to see what else turmeric and cinnamon could do together, so I tried it on chicken.
And as the carb, I thought, let's give savory non-porridge buckwheat a try. So, I toasted up some buckwheat:
and set it boiling in a pan.
Boy, did it turn quickly to mush. It was horrifying. I thought it would be like rice: if you put the right amount of water and just boil, simmer, cover, fluff, it turns into rice; if you put more liquid, and some milk, and stir the whole time with the lid off, it becomes porridge. Apparently, cracked buckwheat... only becomes porridge.
Then began the desperate attempts to save this frankly disgusting mass of congealed buckwheat, which has absolutely none of the appeal of a similar quantity of oatmeal. I eventually put a majority of the relevant ingredients I have into the buckwheat. Salt, pepper, vinegar, cinnamon, a little milk (then thought with vinegar that might not be a good idea but too late), turmeric, even, not that I wanted another turmeric dish, but if it helped... I even poured half of my tiny bear of honey... wait, get this, it is buckwheat honey (from bees, I presume, that fed on buckwheat, poor bees), so I eventually wound up with buckwheat squared. Oh joy! Soy sauce was my last resort, but I eventually dumped a bunch of that in there too, more than a little hopeless in this exercise of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It wound up barely palatable. It was much better than plain buckwheat, but naturally it was also rather confused. By the time I was done it was over-salted and over-vinegared and probably over-cinnamonned. And basically still gross. I can't lie, I did eat one bowl worth of the massive quantity it made... then threw the rest out.
pre-turmeric but post-everything else
The chicken fared better, but in the end it was a disappointing experiment. The turmeric and cinnamon combo, besides overstaying its welcome from the unappealing bowl next to it on the table, just didn't the same magic to my chicken that it did to the potatoes in the morning. A included some cut up scallion, which was new to me, and I can't say that they way I prepared it really added anything that I liked. Wednesday and Thursday's chicken was absolutely delicious. Today... meh. The onions were the best part. Everything was also under-oiled because I was rationing butter to be able to use plenty tomorrow.
Live and learn. This too shall pass. I am fed, anyway, and ready to come back a little better tomorrow.