Food Friday: Hunger Mountain Garlic Ginger Tofu

Several years ago Sister V and I went on a road trip...maybe for genealogy, maybe for something else.  We ended up at the Hunger Mountain Coop in Montpelier, Vermont around lunch time.  We ordered their Garlic Ginger Tofu and fell in love.  It was so good.

This past week I found the recipe and tried making it.  Despite the fact that I botched it, the tofu was still good.  I say this unreservedly because Dear One kept picking at his bowl of tofu until it was gone!

Hunger Mountain Coop Sesame Ginger Tofu (though there is no sesame in the recipe for some reason...)

2 pounds tofu

4 Tablespoons tamari

5 teaspoons sunflower oil

1/3 cup “tofu spice”

Tofu Spice

3 teaspoons ground ginger

3 teaspoons ground garlic

½ cup nutritional yeast

Cut tofu into cubes and mix in the tamari, sunflower oil, and tofu spice.  Let marinate in refrigerator overnight.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and flip over.  Bake 15 more minutes.

This is the recipe.  Sadly, I failed to follow the recipe. I will make it again soon and actually follow the recipe.

What I did:  I doubled all the ingredients except the tofu.  And here is where I went wrong.  I doubled the tofu spice but I used it all instead of only 1/3 cup.  I did not have tamari but used Braggs Liquid Aminos.  Also, I roasted the tofu for 30 minutes, then did not like what I saw, flipped most of it over, and roasted another 30 minutes.  It really was good, though, as Dear One said, it had too much covering.

Also, I did use a Silpat knock-off on the pan.  Makes clean-up so much easier.

On the subject of Silpat:  I just learned when we were at my sister's house that you actually CAN use soap (I used Dawn) to clean your Silpat!  For the first time in years it is actually not greasy feeling. I do not know where I got the idea you can't wash them with soap (t was probably the same people who said you can't use coarse salt to scrub cast iron pans.  I do that also, when I am in the mood for it or think it is needed), but now I do.

I am so much happier with non-greasy Silpat. 

First "Garden" in South Carolina

When we were at my sister's home in North Carolina we saw her wonderful herb garden.  Immediately I wanted to have one.  Despite the fact that I almost always use dried herbs...!

It  is probably a good idea to build a garden like my sister's but now that I see what we have for soil, I can see it will be several years of soil amendments before we can grow anything.  I think the Friday farmers' markets will be our friend for a while.

Then earlier this week I saw some very nice basil and some rosemary plants at Lowe's garden center.  We had a plastic bin whose lid bit the dust in the trip south that I thought we could turn that into a container garden for our deck.

Dear One was kind enough to drill holes in the bottom and around the sides of that container which was in the recycling pile.  We purchased a bag of small rocks and some supposedly "garden soil" along with those two pots of plants.

This is what we have on our deck now:

This makes me happy!  Even though I planted the plants sort of wonky.  Last night there was a nice rain storm so their very first night they got a nice gentle drink.  We have already had basil in salad and sandwiches.  Well, at least I have.  Dear One is a little leery...but I am certain he will come around.

Wednesday Wonders

Living in the city was a new thing for us when we went to Oregon.  There were big trash bins and recycling bins in the apartment complex. At least once a week big old trucks came and dragged everything off.  When we lived in Vermont we had a compost pile.  We had a recycling bin on the east porch which we took to the recycling center every Saturday.  We had a trash man come to the end of our driveway.  Every two or three weeks we left a bag for him since we did not generate very much actual trash.

Here in South Carolina we have Wednesday trash pick up. Also Wednesday recycling pick up.  We have one bin for each of them.  There are VERY SPECIFIC rules about what can be picked up.

If there is corrugated cardboard to be picked up we need to call the Department of Public Works on Thursday to notify them that we have cardboard to be picked up, place the flattened cardboard ONLY (no paper, no plastic, no styrofoam, no fake wood that was in the box) at the curb BEFORE SEVEN AM, and most likely the cardboard picker-upper will come by sometime during the day as long as the cardboard cowboy comes by earlier and verifies that there is cardboard at the curb.

Today almost the last of our cardboard was taken away.  Yay!

The truck came and picked up a good-sized load from the curb.

And emptied it into the truck!  It will be great when all the cardboard is gone.  Did I say that the bug guy who came the other day told us that cockroaches just love cardboard?!!!  Well, that put an end to my collection of nice bankers' boxes and apple boxes with handles.  We will just get more if we need them at some distant time in the future, and JUST BEFORE we need them loaded!

Knitting for the Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild

While in Portland the kind people at the Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild allowed me to come to one of their meetings when they had Cheryl Brunette, one of my knitting heroes, come to speak. I LOVED listening to Cheryl in person and so enjoyed meeting her and speaking with her personally.  She is such a fabulous woman and a knitting mentor to thousands.

When we were at the meeting one of the people did a show and tell about a neckerchief she had made for the Fort re-enactors.  She invited us at the meeting to make and contribute more of them.  I took the pattern fully intending to make one of them. Immediately I went to several local yarn outlets (you might know I would find some wherever I am...) but they did not have the required yarn.

When I emailed the nice lady at the FVKG and told her I was not going to come through for them after all since I could not find the yarn, she kindly sent me some!  So I started the neckerchief right away.  As you will have noticed, over the last two years I have done a LOT of knitting, but only in fits and starts, and the Knitting Guild project got put away as things became more and more busy in life.

Well, yesterday I was a day I needed to do some sitting so I pulled out the bag with the neckerchief in it.  I did not like the way it looked so I tore it out and started again.  This is what it looks like as of this writing:

The brown is the border and the yellow will be close to the neck.  It is all garter stitch and quite easy to do.  You will notice this semi-nice eyelet border.  That took me a bit to get right but only because my head was in some other place, but when I restarted from scratch, something clicked and it is going together well.  There are about 30 stitches in the yellow section. The brown section stays 20 stitches the whole distance. There needs to be 80 stitches in the yellow section so you can see I have a while to go.

Anyone who wants to knit this themselves can go to Knitty.com and find the pattern.  Here is the link.

Yes, that think that looks like a frayed rag quilt on the floor really is a frayed quilt that I made years ago and used to pad some of our more fragile items in the move.  I am using for a rug under my knitting chair until such time as the couch and loveseat arrive and we make other plans...

Munchie Monday: Sprouted Wheat Sourdough Bread

Well, the sourdough starter was successful!!

This is what the starter looks like tonight after five days of daily feedings.  See the nice bubbles?!  That means the bugs are happy inside the starter.  I guess I can put it in the refrigerator now.

This morning I took a chance on the sourdough starter actually being in good working order because the sprouting wheat needed to be used.  Well, at least I thought it did.  Carolyn Robinson from New Zealand who has a YouTube channel gave me the inspiration.  That coupled with several other videos/speeches on how beneficial sprouted wheat flour is for our bodies as opposed to just regular whole wheat flour...well, I had to try it.

Having tried sprouting the hard white wheat in the past and being unsuccessful, I decided to look at it a different way.  I could only see a few tiny TINY maybe possibly white sprouts on a few grains of wheat, BUT it was all nice and soft looking so I decided it must be sprouted.  I did not dare let it sit out any longer, afraid of having it spoil.

So, I more or less followed Carolyn's plan:  I had put 1 1/2 cups of wheat berries in the quart jar and let them work all week.  This morning I rinsed them one last time and put them in my blender. I put in enough water to come less than one-quarter inch above the sprouts then let it blend until it was all a big old bunch of slurry.

After pouring the slurry into a large glass bowl I added 2 teaspoons of coarse salt, 1 teaspoon of molasses, and about 4 cups of flour.  I think Carolyn used a little less flour but I needed 4 cups...plus I was using white flour here because I did not have any more wheat ground. I will fix that tomorrow...Probably with whole wheat flour I would have needed less flour than the white.

After stirring this until it was well mixed together, I covered it with a clean cloth and let it rise for six hours.  It looked pretty good at 6 hours so I took out our "bun pans", sprayed them, then used the ice cream scoop to portion out the dough into each of the twelve wells, covered them and let them start rising for their next six hours.  About four hours into the rise, the power went out in a big thunderstorm!!  That was going to be a really big bummer if the bread was ready to bake but I could not get the oven started.  NOTE TO SELF:  buy matches so you can start the oven and the burners which all have electric ignition!!  Also lanterns. Also a generator.

After four hours the power came back on.  IMMEDIATELY I started the oven going then put the pans in the oven.  It turned out that they took no hurt at all.  I baked them at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.

These are the rolls:

They are pretty good, if I do say so myself.  We will see how much difference the sprouted wheat made when I check my blood sugar in the morning!  I ate two and a half of these rolls.  With black raspberry all fruit jam on them.  I could probably have stood there and wolfed down another one or two of them but I managed to walk away.

Food Friday: Sort of Sourdough Bread

Today was quite a day.  So busy.  So ready for bed.  So probably a short post this time.

So today I did a bunch of things that wore me down.  I will make a list then put it in my journal, sort of killing two birds with one stone, or in this case, three birds since I am posting it here!

1.  Went through bins and boxes still in garage looking for file folders and the small fan I am sure we brought.  Did not find them.

2.  Brought two loads of boxes and bins upstairs to the workroom.  You now can hardly get around in it. I am hoping the people come of Friday to take away the broken file cabinet. I also hope to get things a bit more organized before they get here.

3. Rinsed and drained the wheat I am trying to sprout.

4.  Added another cup of whole wheat flour and a cup of water to the sourdough starter I am trying to make.

5.  Started that YouTube sourdough bread at 9 AM and told Dear One about it.  He was waiting anxiously at noon and told me that it did not look like it had risen double.  Well, it was not supposed to.

6. At noon I started the oven preheating and put the dutch oven in to preheat at the same time.

7.  35 minutes later I put the dough in the dutch oven and baked it for 35 minutes, removed from oven, took off the cover, then baked 10 more minutes.  Dear One was ready to eat it at that moment.  I let him cut some.  He thought it was bland but he had not put any butter on it.  I buttered a slice and gave it to him. I ate several buttered slices, though most of them were half slices since I gave the other half to Dear One.  By the time I was done my belly was screaming at me.

8.  Made some "Darn Good Sausages" which really were not very good.  Well, no salt in them plus all the spices should have been doubled.  I am going to try a different vegan sausage in a day or two.  I rolled these in egg roll wrappers because I could not find rice papers anywhere in Sumter.  Rats.  They worked ok. I cooked them in the air fryer and they did come out nice and crisp and brown.  Dear One thought they were okay which just about put me on the floor.  He never ceases to surprise me.  I was sure he would hate them.  Their main ingredient is oatmeal.

9.  Learned how to toast English muffins in the air fryer.  (You need to butter them first...)

10.  Made some muscadine grape jam.

The story on the grape jam is that many MANY years ago we had a neighbor in Vermont who was from one of the Carolina's.  She told me about how fabulous muscadine grapes were. I had never heard of them. Well, yesterday I saw some at Piggly Wiggly and bought a package.  Last night I bit into one. OH MY GOODNESS!  I spit it into the garbage disposal.  Today I looked online to see what I could do with those grapes. I found a jam recipe.  I did not really do it like that so some day I may blog about it BUT may I say you cannot go wrong with a cup and a half of sugar added to almost anything...

11.  Made some bean-y sauce from the Engine 2 Diet book by Rip Esselstyn.  Not very good, though it was edible.  Since I like the idea, I will food with it to see if I can make it better.

12.  Went to the Food Lion to get milk for Dear One and found they DO have the Beyond Meat burgers, and are several dollars less than at Price Chopper in West Lebanon!  They taste pretty good.  Sort of the same texture as real burgers and HALF the calories. It is pea protein and other stuff.  Larger Burger King stores have what they call the Impossible Whopper which is these Beyond Burgers as a whopper.  We each had one after Dear One's blood draw yesterday and after we got South Carolina drivers' licenses and number plates.

There some other things I made today but cannot remember them.  Dear One put up a pingpong ball so it would hang down to where we need to stop the car in the garage.  That was a good piece of work.  I was always worrying about whether I would hit the shelving unit in front or leave the back end where the garage door would hit it going down.  Now we don't have to worry as much...

So I am showing all these pictures to prove that I really was so ill-advised as to do all this stuff today.  When will I learn to not run faster than I am able.  When...

Anyway, as I sit here typing I keep scratching my head.  As soon as the bug man left after spraying all around both the outside and inside of the house, I had a small bug jump on my arm.  It took a few tries for me to eradicate it. Then while in the kitchen a flying creature kept dive-bombing me.  So annoying.  And now I feel like there are bugs in my hair. And crawling on my legs, though I cannot see anything in either place... REALLY annoying.  I guess it is time to close up shop for the day and stand in the shower with Dr. Bronner's soap to kill anything that might be there.  If Dr. Bronner's does that!

Food Fail Again

Kim M put a post on Facebook about some wonderful-looking Blueberry Breakfast Cake.  I decided to make it but use the non-dairy options mentioned on the King Arthur Flour website.  After doing blood work at the lab this morning I went shopping for the non-dairy options.  Two stores later I was done in and just bought the dairy options KAF had in the recipe.

A couple of hours ago I took this out of the oven:

Tastes really good!  Thanks, Kim, for bringing it to my attention.  Dear One really liked it!

Then there was the food fail!  While the above cake was cooking I decided to make cauliflower tortillas.  Remember when I made them many months ago, using cassava flour?  Which is what they called for?  Two ingredients: riced cauliflower squeezed very dry then a cup of cassava flour.  Well, and a dab of salt.

Did not find the cassava flour that I was also looking for in the above-mentioned shopping trip.  I had some coconut flour and decided to use that.  The "dough" did not seem very good so I added some all-purpose flour.  That was still not very good so I added some water.  And a little more water.

Eventually I got out the tortilla press and pressed out five tortillas.  A major disaster.  But they tasted okay.

They fell apart before getting into the pan!

Two of them sort of stayed together long enough to get them out of the pan onto a plate.


I guess I will either look in a few more stores for the cassava flour or give up on this project.  Originally I made these to see if they would work for my friend Ashley.  The original ones worked really well.  In fact, so well that Dear One ate them all before we had them in a meal.

Mish Mash of Things Tonight

Life is so good.  I am grateful that we have the opportunity to start a new adventure together at our ages.  So far, so good.  Today we went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and proved that the third time is the charm!!  We had gone to get our South Carolina drivers' licenses the day we closed on the house.  Sadly, there were many different pieces of paper we needed to have (including a visit to the tax assessor's office which cost us a gigantic amount of money for the car...) which we did not have that day.

This morning we went back to DMV with what we thought were all the papers.  Not.  But we went home, found the rest of the needed papers miraculously...and went back this afternoon.  The third girl we dealt was able to take what we had and get our licenses and our car registration completed.  We walked out with South Carolina licenses and a number plate.  And a check book that was sadly depleted.  Again.  We had thought of a vanity plate, but discovered that needs to be something in the future.  I had thought it would be cool to have the number "VT 3678".  Dear One has had 3678 since his first car eons ago.  It is sad to let it go.  Oh well.  Into every life a little rain, etc...and as I write we are having a huge thunderstorm and actual sheets of rain.  Quite beautiful. I did unplug my computer from its power supply, just in case.  If it were Vermont, when the rain was over it would be refreshingly cool. I have not discovered that to happen here.  Well, we have only been here two weeks plus a few days, so that is not a lot to go on.

Anyway, so the urgent business was done when we left DMV. It was a bit hard on the heart.  We had already given up our Vermont number plate when we bought the car in Beaverton.  Today we gave up our Oregon number plates AND our Vermont drivers' licenses.  Sad.  The door to the old life has shut behind us.

 Dear One did not want to continue on with the errands that I felt were necessary to do today so he went home and I headed out again immediately (before I lost energy).  It is just as well because by the time I got back it was supper time...!  He would have hated all the running in and out of stores.  What am I saying?  He would not have done it at all...and would have cut the trip short.  Myself, I prefer to spend all the time necessary to get the job done so I won't have to go out again.  He has different ideas. 

Smartly I had gotten some Tofurky sausages and some 100% whole wheat hot dog buns.  Also some frozen curly fries to cook in the newest (and final!!!) kitchen toy: a Philips air fryer.  The sausages took 45 seconds in the microwave.  The fries took 8 minutes at 375 degrees F.  They were very nice.  Dear One asked how much oil I put on the fries.  Zip.  None.  Not even a splash from a spray bottle.  I did not really like the sausages so one of these days I am going to try some of the "Darn Good Sausages" recipe I found somewhere.  I hope they are good.

When I was at the grocery store (well, when I was at ONE of the grocery stores today--I guess I missed Bi-Lo and Food Lion, but got all the rest) I had a real good mind to get some of the fluffy biscuits in a can to make the air fryer donuts Sister Johnson made at Relief Society shortly before we left our mission.  Those donuts were SO GOOD.  In fact, I made them once in Vermont and put on some homemade maple icing.  They are addictive.  I actually picked up two cans of the fluffy biscuits then put them back. I am having success with eating more healthy food so I didn't dare risk it.  Maybe in three months (I like to do things in three-month spans for some reason...at least I use the Study Plans in Gospel Library and read The Book of Mormon every three months and feel virtuous plus I learn lots every time through...so why not do a new health plan for three months?  We shall see...) well, maybe I will feel strong enough and will have made enough progress that I can afford to buy those biscuits and treat us.  Maybe.

Another thing for today:  I watched several YouTube videos on sprouting wheat and sprouted wheat bread and sprouted wheat flour.  Some of them, though interesting, probably will take longer than I want to give to the project. I am sort of an instant-gratification person in some respects. 

So, as far as the wheat project for today, I went to the garage, found the white winter wheat bucket and brought in a pan full.  I put 1 1/2 cups of it in a quart jar then filled the jar with water, put on the cover then shook it.  Since I cannot find any of the mesh lids I had for just this purpose, I put a Norwex cloth over the top of the jar and secured it with a rubber band from one of the bunches of kale I purchased in the last two weeks (see, saving some things comes in handy!!!) and set it on the counter.  It will need to sit all night.  Tomorrow I will empty it, rinse it, re-cover it, and let it begin sprouting.  It should be sprouted enough in about 36 hours.  At least for this rough kind of bread I plan to make. 

The second part of the wheat project was to grind up the remaining 2 1/2 cups of wheat in the VitaMix then using 1 cup of the resulting flour I started some sour dough as Carolyn did in this video.  This YouTube video is my inspiration for the wheat project.  She seems more or less reasonable to me, so why not?!  To make the sour dough starter I put one cup of the newly ground whole wheat flour in a 4-cup glass measuring bowl and added 1 cup of pineapple juice from a can of pineapple tidbits in their own juice and stirred well.  I covered it with a clean cloth and will leave it until tomorrow night when I will add another cup of flour and pineapple juice.  The third night I will add the flour but plain water.  As I am sitting here I have forgotten if Carolyn adds molasses to the starter. I will have to check. I failed to do that.

Anyway, I feel that I have made progress today and now just have to put the whites going in the washing machine.  It is amazing how fabulous it is to have a washer and dryer in your own home . I am so grateful we are in a position to have this luxury.  When the laundry is going I will feel like I have done enough for today and will become prone and spend a while reading Gerald Lund's "The Coming of the Lord", which, though compiled fifty years ago, still is really interesting reading...

Chit Chat

Here is part of an email I wrote to a dear friend recently.

We have not met any of our neighbors yet but they wave and we wave when we are driving by.  Also same with all the workmen who are putting up more houses on our street and the next street over.  People are very friendly.  I was looking at a cart to put the garden hose on at Lowe's. A man came up behind me and whispered, "You don't want that. It is plastic and will break almost immediately. You want a metal one."  That was so nice since this was a $50 item.  We put it back.  Several other things have happened like that also.

Sitting here in the dining room/office typing, my body and clothes are soaking wet. It was over 100 degrees again today.  We had a little rain around 7:00 PM but it did not do much to cool things off.  My hair is wet to the roots.  I wash my hair and it is wet.  I don't wash my hair and it is wet!

We had some Asian Veggie Burgers on ciabatta buns that I heated in the oven.  Dear One ate his with lettuce and catsup. I had lots of lettuce and several slices of Vidalia onion.  Yummy.  Plus some roasted broccoli and cauliflower that Food Lion was selling on reduced cost since it was not very crisp anymore.  Perfect for roasting. I put on a tiny bit of olive oil then dill, garlic, black pepper, and a pinch of salt.  Really nice.  Roasted at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes.

The ward is pretty big.  I bet there are well over 150 people there for Church on Sunday.  Nice people though I have not done very well "meeting" them. I am afraid I am shyer than I should be.  We did go to the newcomers' potluck last Friday but I don't think we will get to the ward temple night on Friday.  Of course, you don't get to talk with people at the temple.  I am gutless about driving home from there in the dark. I want to go during the day.  Currently you have to make an appointment to go.  We had thought we would go during the day on Friday.  They have sessions at 9, 11, 5:30, and 7:30 I think.  It turns out the the guy from Honeywell who is setting up the electronic system for the house was running late today and had to leave before he was done.  He will come back and set up the security system on Friday.  If it sounds like I know what I am talking about, don't be fooled. I have NO IDEA what it is all about, except Dear One now has an app on his phone so he can turn on and shut off lights from the phone.  Probably he can do more things, I just don't know.

I am sitting right beside the front window as I type.  It is dark out. I would love to know if people can see in with the blinds at the angle I have them (so that I can see out a little bit...), but I know there is a big fat gray barn arachnid on a web over the window and I don't want to go out and maybe get tangled up or even touch the horrid thing.  He is eating bugs so I did not kill him last week when i first saw him.  Or her. He or she will probably bite the dust next week because the home pest control people are going to come and take care of bugs in and around the house.  

The "Welcome to Pest Control" man was at the house yesterday.  For a long time.  Nice man.  Very chatty. Lots of information.  He asked if we had any concerns.  Bob said, "Cockroaches."  The man said that here in SC the people are very snooty about them.  They call them "palmetto bugs" instead of German Brown Cockroaches.  One night the first week we were here Dear One went downstairs to get a drink of water and get his iPad and came back to our room and said, "You are not going to like this...but I saw a big one."  He was right, I did not like it.  The very next morning when I went downstairs and picked up the glass I use for lemon water in the morning, there was a black arachnid in the bottom.  I filled the glass with water, dumped it down the garbage disposal and let it run for a good long time.  That was the end of THAT guy!  

Anyway, the bug guys are coming to clean up the bug problem next week.  The welcome bug man noticed something that I had not: there was a cobweb in the corner of the dining room near the floor. Ick!  Dear One took care of it today.  At least, it is not there now.

Munchie Monday: Easy Instant Pot Black Beans

Everybody has a black bean recipe. I think even I have posted one before.  Today I made black beans in our 3-quart Instant Pot and want to record what I did so I can duplicate the results.  They were really good.  (One big problem with my cooking is that often I don't have a real recipe and cannot make the same thing to come out delicious again.  This gets on Dear One's nerves because on those occasions when he really likes something, he would like to have it again.)

Easy Black Beans

Wash 1 cup dried black beans and put them in the Instant Pot liner bowl.

Add 3 cups water, 1 finely chopped medium sized sweet onion, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, and 1 teaspoon granulated garlic.

Put on lid and cook on HIGH pressure for 35 minutes.  Let pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then quick release.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the beans from the pot.  (This is what I did because I wanted to use the broth for something else.)

Next time I will only use 2 cups of water, but as I said, I wanted the broth.  Also, I think I will only cook them for 25 minutes.

For supper I gave Dear One a small bowl of black beans and a salt shaker.  For myself, I took a large bowl and put in quite a bit of the kale, broccoli, celery, and onion salad I am back to keeping in the refrigerator so I can have it two meals or more a day.  I put probably 1/2 cup of the beans, hot, on the salad along with a chopped tomato.  Since I had made some #LifeIsNOYOKE cashew queso this afternoon, I put on a little more than a tablespoon of that on top, stirred it all up, then spent a good long time chewing it all up.  So good. I had salt on it, too. I don't like to put salt in beans when I am cooking them, superstitiously thinking that they will not soften if there is salt there.  After the fact, though,  salt is good. I have not kicked that habit yet.

Food Friday: Five-Ingredient California Salsa

The other day I opened the cookbook I got from LifeIsNoYoke when I purchased the Ascent 2500 Vita-Mix. There was an easy-looking salsa recipe so I laid in the supplies.  It is stunningly delicious.  I started eating it with a spoon as soon as I took it out of the blender and could have eaten the whole dish.  After it was about half gone I put it back in the refrigerator so there would be some another day.

This is how I made it...which is not far from Lenny's recipe.

California Salsa


6 Roma tomatoes
1/2 peeled onion (used Vidalia since that is what I had in the refrigerator from another recipe)
1 large jalapeño, cored and seeded
1/2 cup cilantro
1 lime, peeled
1 Tablespoon coarse sea salt

Cut 2 tomatoes and the jalapaño into quarters.  Add to the blender jar add remaining ingredients (except the 4 other tomatoes)

Put you blender on variable speed 5 for 15 seconds.  Add the remaining four quartered tomatoes and blend on variable speed 2 for 5 seconds.  Pour into a bowl and dig in.  So delicious.  Of course, I am a real salt and savory taste-budded person so I was in my glory.

It was still a little foamy from blending when I took this picture.  Next time I make it I will try to have self-control, plus I will take a picture when the foam is gone so it looks more appealing.

Tomorrow we will see how wise it was of me to make this when I step on the scales at the crack of dawn.  Since there are virtually no calories in the recipe any major weight change will be a result of the salt...

A Small Mishap

Recently we saw several vehicles who had suffered hail damage.  They were not at all attractive and rust was setting in.  We did not want that to happen to our pretty car so we decided to scrap our box-a-day unpacking plan and see if we could clear out the garage faster.

We worked like fury getting boxes into the house and mostly unpacked.  Well, not really.  We moved some boxes upstairs to the rooms they were going to--our clothes into our closets, Dear One's "stuff" in his "office/TV room" and my good stuff into my workroom.  Well, some of my stuff up there.

We found several boxes of kitchen things and moved them into the kitchen end of the living room. Other boxes came into the living room.  It was not attractive but since there was only my knitting chair in the living room there was plenty of space.  As we emptied apple boxes and bins, we put them into the living room along one wall.

Finally the garage was just about ready for the car.  Except for the food storage.  Dear One said he wanted to move one stack of cases of number 10 cans of beans and other things to sit beside the other stack so it would only be one stack wide.  He was dying from all the work he had done so I said I would be able to help on that project. After all, I am pretty tough.  I thought.

 I took the top box and set it on the ground in position. No sweat.  (Well, not true, I was sweating like a pig in the 98 degree weather with 85 percent humidity.) I took the second box and had it almost in position but it slipped out of my hands, dropped onto the other box, bounced back and hit my leg. Twice.  R-r-r!  I did not swear.  (I didn't even THINK swears, which might mean that I am making progress on some of my personal goals!!) It hurt so that it almost brought tears to my eyes.  That put an end to my offer of help.  I went inside to the cool living room and sat in my knitting chair for a while. Several days later there is still a big lump and don't even THINK of touching it to see if it still hurts...!

The following picture shows you that we actually accomplished our goal.  Since this picture was taken we have made more progress but have not a picture to document it currently.  You can see the offending food storage along the left side of the picture.

So, more work to do, but I still think we may need to have a yard sale.  We will have to have it someplace else. I think I read in the covenants of the HOA that yard sales and other sales are strictly forbidden.  Probably a good thing...

Wednesday Wonders: Baked Sesame Tofu!

The LifeIsNoYoke website has so many good VitaMix recipes.  The Baked Sesame Tofu is one such.  I made this for the potluck last week.  Not many people ate these luscious little chunks of tofu that had been marinated in Bragg's Liquid Aminos, roasted sesame oil, garlic, and ginger, then baked.  Because I like my tofu more chewy than most people I baked them for twice as long as the recipe called for.

Because this is copywritten book that I used, I will give you the link so you can buy it yourself.

To let you know how good this is, and what people missed out on at the social, though in their defense, there was a LOT of really good food there so you had to make choices.  We took the leftovers home.  Yesterday I had a few pieces in a whole wheat tortilla.  Today for lunch I got out the dish of leftovers.  The bottom of the dish was almost completely covered with the little chunks of tasty tofu.  I asked Dear One to serve me some on top of my salad (greens in the bottom of the bowl then some of the Easy Black Bean Salad on top then a spoonful of the leftover rice conglomeration I had made a few days ago).  Dear One gave me two of the little plastic spoonfuls, maybe 6 or 8 pieces.

He did not take any at first but since it was in front of him and he had been fasting for 24 hours, I saw him reach for another piece. And another!  This is how the dish looked at the end of lunch:

Right!  There are only the tiniest crumbs left!  You could have knocked me over with a feather!!! I told him I thought I would season it a little heavier the next time I made it, though I thought it was just about perfect the way it was (which was me exactly following the recipe except for baking twice as long then leaving it to finish cooking in the shut-off oven) and he said, "Yes, it is!"

Can you believe it?!!!  I will probably make more later in the week.

Another Knitting Project

A couple of weeks ago Cheryl Beckerich put out an email asking for test knitters for a pattern she had designed.  Since it was a hat and the date was out almost a month, I thought I could get it completed in plenty of time.

It would seem like a very poor time to agree to do a test knit, but I did need to take breaks during all the unpacking, etc.  Today I was particularly in need of breaks and was able to finish the project.  It really looks pretty icky because of the yarn I chose.  I do think it will be beautiful when I knit it again in a plain yarn.

It is always fun to knit new patterns.  This hat is one that I will send to a charity in the Tualatin Valley Ward.  If I can find the address. I do hope to do so.

Munchie Monday: Easy Black Bean Salad

Lately I have been thinking salad.  Mostly we have been eating green salads but I saw a black bean salad on Forks Over Knives that looked good.

Today I made that salad. I had meant to make it for a potluck supper on Friday night but I had forgotten to get a lime so today I fixed that!  I made a couple of changes as follows:

Easy Black Bean Salad

2 16-ounce cans of black beans--drain and rinse very well
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1 16-ounce package super sweet frozen corn, thawed
1/2 Vidalia onion, finely diced
3 stalks celery, finely diced
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped in the Ninja Express Chopper
1/2 lime, juiced
3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar


Place everything in a large bowl in the order given and gently toss.  Serve.  Does not need salt, surprisingly.

Dear One asked what it was so I delineated the recipe.  He made a face but took a small serving. I had a large serving!  :-) After he had eaten his small serving he served himself another serving, a little larger!  Surprise, surprise!  I really did not expect that from him.  This made me happy.  You can tell it really is good.