Scones and Mince Pies Baked with Oatmeal, Pressed Barley, and Roasted Peanuts

It's too cold...
I've been doing pretty well lately with posting my records on the same day, but yesterday, perhaps due to the onset of this cold, I felt unwell and it ended up crossing over into the next day.
I don't think it was that cold during the day, but it hit suddenly at night, didn't it... Even though it sounded like sleet when it started falling, it probably didn't turn into snow (I checked occasionally, but nothing had accumulated), but when I went to look at the grass a little while ago, it was covered in thick frost and ice. This is impossible.

So, here is a one-day late record.

Freed from the need to use up pancake mix, I was finally able to think for myself and bake by combining ingredients again.
I've had too much wheat lately, so I decided to bake with oatmeal, pressed barley, and roasted peanuts to make it a bit healthier. The ratio is roughly 5:4:1.

Everything was going pretty well [up until] the shaping stage. The mysterious viscosity and elasticity of pancake mix were gone, the dough was easy to handle, and I was able to create a base that didn't stick and had edges that stood up on their own. The mincemeat consisted of dates, raisins, mandarin oranges, domestic lemons, kumquats pickled in brown sugar, walnuts, cranberries, and goji berries.

However... when I looked at the finished product, the edges had broken and collapsed like a flower. I was surprised.

Since there is no wheat, there is little gluten, making it brittle, so it probably couldn't maintain its shape when it baked and the moisture evaporated.
The scones were stable in shape, so there was no problem.

The accompaniment was soy milk Caspian Sea yogurt (H5N1 avian influenza countermeasuresalready heated) with Steuben grape jam and a strawberry milk base I wanted to open. I had completely forgotten it existed.

I thought I'd use it instead of strawberry jam, but it had too much moisture and wouldn't stabilize, so I decided to soak dates in it.

In the momentum of opening the bottle, I opened various other things too. It takes strength for me to open things, so I can't really get moving unless I have the strength to open them.

Now then. My recent favorite mysterious cake. I took the leftover scone dough, added more whey, baked it, and then sandwiched and layered it with Caspian Sea yogurt, chestnut rakugan and sweet potato kinton

On top, I placed large lima beans and black beans.

I consider it a relatively healthy cake.
Even when I boil beans, I find myself eating them with other things like this more often than eating them on their own. The same goes for the sweet potato kinton.

Oh, right, the previous day's ozoni (New Year's soup) was magically transformed into a medicinal dish for kidney deficiency by adding wood ear mushrooms, goji berries, and mekabu seaweed. By the way, I also cut up the kombu and shiitake mushrooms used for the dashi and ate them as ingredients. It's actually quite delicious.
The mochi (dumplings) made from stockpiled alpha-rice were green this time because I ground up wakame seaweed with them in the mill.

Even though it's New Year's, it's just a normal day. In the past, it was painful for me as a homebody because libraries and shops were closed and there was nowhere to go, but now, since there are so many 'no-guard zombies' forcing infection everywhere, I can't go anywhere anyway, so the pain of New Year's has relatively lessened. Is that good or bad...
Since it's an event I never had any attachment to anyway, I'm fine with just eating the kind of food that feels like it fits the season.

Even though it's mochi, it feels a bit different, but oh well.

I like chestnuts. The one on the left has nothing to do with New Year's, but I picked it up while I was at it. The one on the right is the chestnut kinton that Kanyodo releases every year around this time. I bought it at the end of the year, but the price has gone up again compared to last year. I'm pretty sure it was 540 yen last year, but it's 600 yen now.
I wonder what will happen with the hanabiramochi. I went in the evening, so they were already sold out.

I wouldn't want to be forced into infection by Massospora zombies, but I really want to eat some hanabiramochi. Since it's a semi-fresh confection, I have to go buy it while it's still in season...