Winter is Too Warm…

So we recently replaced our boiler with a cast iron block, ultra efficiency boiler.  Put that in a smaller, heavily insulated house lived in by creatures that mostly prefer cooler temperatures, located in a climate that hasn’t seen more than one decently cold day so far, and you have a problem.  The thermostat kicks on the heater, and it starts efficiently chugging away.  The hot water begins circulating, and gets to the first floor (where the thermostat is located).  The first floor achieves the desired temperature (58 to 60 degrees, depending on time of day) and shuts the system off.  The air bubbles never got pushed around enough to make it to the vents to be released from the system – we have a handful of radiators that haven’t gotten warm at all.  So we were requested to keep the system up around 65 or more for the next two weeks or so, and keep venting.  THEN the boiler people will better be able to tell if there’s another issue that may also be keeping those radiators from heating up or not.  

I’d be more inclined to do this if I’d received a gas bill since the install, but I haven’t.  They installed it in mid November, so theoretically I’ve had a full month of new boiler.  I guess I can always shoot for a comparison in February instead of the first month.  It’d be easier if the gas company kept online user accounts and records I could review and save locally, but they are quite stone age, and I will NOT keep more than a year’s worth of paper bills, I just can’t do it.

In other news, the grain grinder I was so excited to order from Lehman’s, and then let languish in my kitchen, has found a newer, more appreciative home.  A very dear friend who seems to be able to thrive on 28 hour days has discovered it’s the perfect tool to, among other uses, hull his home-grown sun flower seeds to then feed his beautiful chickens.  In exchange, I get leftovers from his garden and harvest, which includes dried garlic bits (like you find in Johnny Carino’s garlic/herb/oil to dip bread into, yeah, that stuff, OMG), and Good Mother Stallard Beans (hello SOUP!).  The beans takes a lot of cultivation, the garlic turns out is a lot easier (but if possible, should be dried in an outside oven or when temps are low enough to vent the house, lest the whole house involuntarily cry with garlicky glee).

In place of the grain grinder, I’ve got the worlds most powerful food processor, which I think I wrote about earlier.  This thing does nut butters – and I can start with whole nuts.  It’s got a dough thing, it slices, it doesn’t dice, though, and it purees (but I’ve discovered a food mill does even better at pureeing some things).  I bet they sell an attachment for whisking, then I could make home made marshmallows. 

Which brings me to my new I-can’t-wait-to-check-this-out-of-the-library obsession.  Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese.  Seems she’s done what I’m making my way through doing, though with some detours to foods I don’t particularly feel the need to make or buy (prosciutto? meh.)  Heard about it on the Splendid Table on NPR, and am now extremely focused on attempting to make my own marshmallows, but I don’t have a stand mixer.  I think I can do with a hand mixer, but some day I will try with the old fashioned kind (now sadly unavailable – at least I got mine!).  I once managed to whip a meringue with just a wire whisk, I’m pretty sure me and egg whites have an understanding, the mayonnaise nightmares were just a disagreement among friends.  Regardless, I believe this book will be a most excellent winter read, to keep me inspired in the kitchen.

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