Diamond wedding, puzzles and chickpeas

Today's my Diamond, sixtieth,Wedding anniversary, if you disregard the detail that Handsome Partner didn't quite make it to the finish line. 

Quite a bit has happened in sixty years, which I'll spare us all, and fast forward. Now is more interesting than then 

 Today the cleaners were expected so I bunched all my errands.

First to the Town Hall,  to chat with the township tax collector, Jesse, and have him officially stamp my Senior Freeze form to prove I really did pay over $7,0000 not a typo, in property tax last year. 

Also to indicate officially, his math,  the State owes me nearly $2,000 back in July when the new fiscal year starts, because of being ancient and having a base real estate annual tax maximum established, some years ago. 

And we discussed Jesse's recent crutch-requiring basketball injury, in detail, amazing how engrossed fit young men are in their health.

Then to the PO, to send off three pairs of gloves to the Glove and Sock Ministry. 

On to the the library to browse the puzzle selection, more and more of which I seem to have done.

Here's the latest. I'm in danger of having to embark on a 1,000 piecer at this rate, if I run out of the 500s.

They've got onto the public puzzle idea, as you see

Just finished this one, another waiting to be unboxed.

Then I checked my email found the cleaners had got their dates mixed, could they come next week instead.. but I did get the errands accomplished, so there's that.

Following on yesterday's attention to the nasal architecture of deer, peregrine falcons and people, here's a gallery showing just what art goes into mammal forms. The physics of it relate to cushioning against stress and pressure as well as the sense of smell.

I carved rubber stamps based on shapes like these in the past, very pleasing for stamping fabrics or paper. 

Pleasing yesterday, too,  was this food first

The idea, like a lot of good ideas, came from Spain on a Fork, a YouTube channel with a very cute guy, with great food ideas,  once you get used to the frenetic windshield -wiper arm movements. 

These are spiced chickpeas, rinsed,  dried completely on a castiron pan, no oil, then doused in the spices you see ranged on the counter, salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, shaken about a couple of minutes and served on top of, he had sweet potato, I didn't, but I had butternut squash cooked, in the freezer.

I used the last of the salmon fritters, but a poached egg would have gone nicely. The highly spiced chickpeas on the bland unseasoned squash, all served hot from the pan,  was a match I'd never have thought of.  But I'll do this again.

Two meals of this, finally seeing off the giant butternut squash from a couple of weeks ago.

You up for a puzzle? I'm pretty sure everyone will know this word, if you can get it.

Happy day everyone, try new things, you might enjoy a little change

More experiments, now that I've rediscovered my coffee mill

I've been grinding up a storm, got all carried away. Years ago I used my coffee grinder to reduce cinnamon sticks, worked fine, and then forgot about it.  But in the recent kitchen overhaul, my tools are coming into use again, because I can see them and I remember to use them.

So since fullsize grain mills are just big grinders, and they make flour just fine, why not use the little coffee mill to make small samples of all sorts of flour.

To date: oat meal into oat flour, green split peas into flour, pearl barley into flour, dried chickpeas into flour.

Next time I buy lentils I plan to make some lentil flour.

This way I have a repertoire of flours for breads and pancakes and thickening for soup and sauces.  And since I like noisy tools, the coffee grinder is just my cup of tea, if you follow me.

Do any blogistas have other ideas for stuff I can grind now I'm in the groove?