Breakfast Magic, Entrance Hall Makeover, and More! Spend the Day with Me!

Hello everyone. I hope you are all doing well. Thank you for joining me on this hot and sultry Thursday morning. I think today is going to be a fun but productive day. Among other things, I need to bring Miss Avery to the dog park and do a little food shopping at local stores. Also, I want to give you an update on the entrance hall in this ancient house. But before we head to the dog park, I need coffee, which is going to be iced this morning. This is coffee that I brewed at four o'clock this morning. I'm an early riser. And then I've let it cool. I need a little cream. And I can bring both the coffee and Avery to the dog park. And we are home from the dog park. Avery didn't play a whole lot, I think because it's so hot outside. But boy, that dog named Caper, she's a golden retriever. I think she's about eight months old. It's always loaded with energy. So now before we head out to the store, I want to have my last jar of overnight oats. I made a big batch of this a few days ago. And now I'm totally hooked on this stuff. It's super delicious, and it gives me a lot of energy. And I'm out of ingredients for overnight oats. So you and I are going to buy more of those ingredients today. And then I will show you my version of overnight oats. And I want to add a banana and some raspberries to this. This is such a great grab and go breakfast. And it's wonderful too, because it involves absolutely no cooking. And I certainly do not want a hot oatmeal on a hot summer morning. Included in this version of overnight oats are chia seeds, plus milk and yogurt and almond butter. Oh, and a little maple syrup. This is so creamy, dreamy, and delicious. I can't wait to make another batch. This, my friends, was good to the last drop. I'm going to put my jar and spoon and lid in the dishwasher. And then we're going to head to the shops. And I have my shopping list right here. See, from Tierra Farm, we need oats, chia seeds, almond butter, and dried fruit. And from the Berry Farm, I just need milk and locally produced yogurt. And I will try not to make any impulse purchases. Tierra Farm is my favorite place to shop. The staff here is super friendly and super knowledgeable. And all of the farm's with you in just a moment. First, we need to visit the Berry Farm in Chatham, New York. Here at the Berry Farm, I'm buying local milk and local yogurt. I'm also picking up some pantry staples that I'm running low on. A very nice thing happened while we were shopping at Tierra Farm. The director there offered to put together a KLJ overnight oats box set that I can share with you. And let me show you what's in the box. I will put a link to this overnight oats gift box in the description below, along with a code for free shipping. Organic chia seeds. These are super high in plant-based protein. Organic very berry mix. This is dried fruit. Unsalted almond butter, which I love to put in overnight oats. Sleep tea to help you sleep while the overnight oats are doing their thing in the refrigerator. Tierra Farm breakfast blend to help you wake up in the morning while you are enjoying your overnight oats. And the star of the show, organic rolled oats. And these are considered gluten-free because Tierra Farm is a gluten-free facility. And now let's use the oats and the chia seeds and the almond butter to make some overnight oats. I love overnight oats so much that I'm going to double my usual recipe. And the recipe will be included with the overnight oats gift box. So I need oats, four cups in this case, four cups of milk, two cups of yogurt, either plain or Greek yogurt will do, maple syrup, six tablespoons or as much as you like, two tablespoons of chia seeds. And the chia seeds will give this overnight oats mixture an almost pudding-like consistency. Unsalted almond butter, as much as you like. I'm also adding a generous teaspoon of ground cinnamon and a pinch of salt. And just stir everything together. Now this mixture looks very liquid, very watery, but magic happens overnight. As the mixture sits in the refrigerator, it thickens up beautifully. I'm going to transfer this mixture to jars and I'm going to add some of the very berry mix to some of the jars. And in other jars I will put maybe some fresh fruit. So I have 16-ounce jars here and I have screw-on lids for these jars, but of course you could put this overnight oatmeal just in a bowl or in any jar. Put some of this very berry dried fruit in the bottom of maybe two jars. I like to use these jars because they allow plenty of room to add fresh bananas and blueberries or strawberries or whatever you like to the top. Now I should mention that overnight oats will stay fresh and wonderful for up to five days when covered and stored in the refrigerator. So now I want to add some blueberries. These are actually from my garden to some of these jars. You could use frozen blueberries here. And I have some of the wonderful strawberry jam that you and I made together. Yes, we made this jam back in June at the height of strawberry season. In you go. Fresh raspberries. You can add banana too but it might turn brown overnight so I would add it the next morning. I want to stir the strawberry jam into my overnight oats. And all we need to do is put lids on the jars. I can link these screw-on leak-proof lids in the description below if you are interested. And I wanted to mention in case I forgot earlier that I will link the Tierra Farm Overnight Oats gift box in the description below and the farm very generously gave me a code for free shipping that I can share with you and that too will be linked in the description. And these go into the refrigerator. I love overnight oats. My spouse loves overnight oats. I think you will love them too. While I'm cleaning up my workstation here, let me give you a quick update on the entrance hall. As I mentioned earlier, our house is celebrating its bicentennial next year. We've already had the ancient floor in the parlor refinished. The floor in the entrance hall has proven a bit of a challenge. Some of the joists beneath the floor had deteriorated which required us to install new joists. And certain boards in the 200 year old floor required partial replacement. Fortunately, our talented contractor John is on the job. Once John has finished shoring up the floor, he will stain and finish the new wood to match the old. And if that isn't possible, we will have to have the entire floor sanded and refinished. Living in an old house does have its challenges. But we love this place and want to help it to survive for another 200 years. So let's see what else is on our list. Oh, we need to check the garlic in the garden to see if it is ready to harvest. That's the garlic that you and I planted together last October. I also want to harvest some of the flowers in the garden because this little arrangement here could use some freshening up. And if we have enough blueberries left in the garden, I think you and I should make a blueberry fold over pie. So let's head outside. Garlic is ready to harvest when the outer leaves turn brown. I'm very happy with this year's rain in the immediate forecast, so I will put the garlic on a mesh table in the herb garden for a couple of days. Afterwards, I will allow the garlic to cure in the well-ventilated garden shed for at least two weeks or until the leaves have completely dried. Now, I don't know if you could see how much I was sweating outside, but it is ferocious out there. Extremely humid. I'll say this about New York summers. They leave you begging for New York winters. And for me personally, winter cannot come quickly enough. So here are the gorgeous madame, I think these are madame butterfly snapdragons that you and I grew together from seed in February. And I will certainly plant these again. The flowers are, I think they're fully double flowers. So they're very different from traditional snapdragons. And I'm just stripping off the lower leaves that would otherwise come in contact with the water in the vase. These are the traditional snapdragons. And a very pretty shade of lemon yellow. And then here are the flowers that you and I arranged the other day. Some of the lavender snapdragons have already faded. So I'm going to retrieve them. We are really going to stuff this vase with colorful snapdragons. Feel free to tell me about the weather in your own neck of the woods. Is it hot and humid? Is it dry and comfortable? Is it dry and uncomfortable? Drop me a note in the comment section below. Besides flowers, I also have some upright yew from my garden in this vase. I never do flower arrangements only with flowers. I always like to add greens. So what do you guys think? Is this working? I rather like it. Well, I think this looks kind of stunning. And we can keep this arrangement right here for now. So we can enjoy it while we move on to another project. I had planned to make a blueberry fold-over pie for afternoon tea today. And then I remembered I have zucchini from the garden that we harvested in the previous episode. So I think we should make zucchini bread. I need grated zucchini. I will link the recipe I'm following in the description box below. I want to weigh this zucchini just to make sure that I have the correct amount. Zero out my scale. I have more than enough zucchini. And I will use the leftover zucchini for a salad tonight. And I have a greased 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan ready to go. Then I need to mix up the dry ingredients in a large bowl. I need all-purpose or plain flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and a whisper of nutmeg. And whisk. And here come the wet ingredients. Vegetable oil. I'm using avocado oil. Sugar. Regular granulated sugar. Packed brown sugar. Two large eggs. Sour cream. Pure vanilla extract. This is the extract that you and I made together about one year ago. And then we need to whisk the wet ingredients together. Then we can whisk in the zucchini. Then we can pour the wet ingredients into the dry. And we can pour this glorious batter. It really is fragrant, into our prepared loaf pan. And while the zucchini bread is baking, I'm going to clean up here and then go practice the piano for at least an hour. smells just heavenly. I'm going to let this cool for a moment. Then we can unmold it, make some tea, and enjoy zucchini bread and tea in the music room. Well, we have certainly had a productive day today. Now, I was going to try some of this sleep tea from Tierra Farm to accompany our zucchini bread, but it's really too early for me to fall asleep. I still have to go to the gym and I have to prepare something for dinner. But I do want to open this jar and have a sniff. This is wonderful. What do I smell that is so wonderful? See, the top says, sleep tea provides the stability that the mind, body, and emotional state need in order to unwind and prepare for a restful night's sleep. That sounds inviting. And what are the ingredients in here? Organic chamomile flowers, organic golu kola leaf, organic orange peel, organic lavender flower. That smells wonderful. Cinnamon bark, organic, organic licorice root, and organic cardamom seed. So I think the lavender and the cardamom give this a beautiful floral scent. I'm going to try this tonight. And I think for our zucchini bread, we will have good old Earl Grey tea. Oh, so smells heavenly. Oh, this looks fantastic. And you can see the shredded zucchini all throughout each slice. Let's head into the nicely air-conditioned music room. Well, the outdoor heat is really getting to me. And I won't pretend that I am not tired. But I think some tea and this zucchini bread will pick me right up. I'm not going to add any milk to this tea because I forgot to bring in milk. And I'm too tired to fetch it. So fragrant. Earl Grey tea really does not require milk, in my opinion. Now let's dig into this zucchini bread. I'm curious about it. I think this might be the best zucchini bread recipe I have ever encountered. The bread is super moist because of the avocado oil and the sour cream. It's super fragrant from the cinnamon and the nutmeg. And it's super delicious with the zucchini, which we harvested right from the garden. And again, I will post the printable recipe in the description box below. One more bite. Amazing. Thank you for spending time with me as we tackled kitchen and garden projects on what is probably the hottest day of summer. Your companionship means the world to me. I do a lot of cooking, gardening, and home decorating videos on this channel. So if any of those topics are of interest to you, I hope you will subscribe. And please be sure to post a comment below because I love reading your thoughts. Until next time, please treat yourself very, very well. And I can't wait to see you again. Be sure to try this zucchini bread, okay? I'll see you next time, friends.