Food Friday: Quick and Easy Delicious Natural Peanut Butter

Many times since we got the VitaMix I have seen videos on making peanut butter, almond butter, and cashew butter.  Today I saw another peanut butter video and the stars aligned!  (I needed a large container to put some fresh granola into and the peanut container seemed a good size and was almost empty.)   The alignment included going to the store to find another similar container of dry roasted peanuts.  I could not find any what were unsalted so I took what I could get.  After making the peanut butter we have two empty containers which is what I needed for the granola!

To make peanut butter, you need either a high speed blender or a food processor. I used the blender so I cannot tell you about making peanut butter in the food processor.

Place 4 cups dry roasted peanuts and 3 or so deglet noor dates in the blender jar.  (If you want a sweeter peanut butter you can add more dates.  As it happens, 3 of these small dates did not really make any sweetness that I could discern.  No problem. I am not really a sweets person.  Not that I won't eat a nice thick rich brownie if it falls onto my plate, but...I am more of a savory, salty person.  In several ways.  Don't ask.)

Start the blender at 1 and move up to 10 quickly.  You will need to use your tamper to push the peanuts down into the blades.  It takes just about 2 minutes to grind up the peanut butter.  In the VitaMix you feel like you are killing the machine but it really is just smiling there at you when the peanut butter is done.

Here is the creamy delicious peanut butter.  Dear One was not instantly enamored of the idea of homemade peanut butter, but when he had a taste he immediately made himself a peanut butter sandwich. I call that success!

Swan Lake Iris Garden

The entrance to the Swan Lake Iris Garden has been closed for months as city workers were installing a statue or what-have-you and making this entrance safer and better.  The entrance opened up recently.  One day this week when I was driving by on that side of the street, I turned in to stop at the visitor's center and see the swans at the gate.

Here they are!  Magnificent, in my view.  The water spraying part is so lovely also.

While there I chatted with the kind lady at the visitors' center.  She gave me about three pounds of pamphlets and flyers and other paperwork about our town and the larger area. I am so happy with that. I love paper!

As I was noting all the recreational areas nearby I thought I would check them out for amenities.  There are many amenities.  However, there is one particular amenity that absolutely NONE of the recreational area offer.  Can you guess what it is?  One more second and I will tell you.  There is no swimming at any of these beautiful places.  Can you believe it?!! 

Apparently there are no outside swimming holes that are safe from alligators.  Too bad.  I can swim at the YMCA but I am thinking of checking with the neighboring apartment complex and see what their feelings are about letting their neighbors swim in their beautiful pool when no one else is swimming...which, to my view, is just about all the time.  Perhaps in the summer there are swimmers there but neither I nor Dear One (who goes by there every day) have ever seen a person in the pool.  It may not be olympic size but it has at least six lap lanes plus other real estate and is pretty good-sized.

Anyway, back to Swan Lake...the swans in the lake are very busy. All eight kinds of swans in the United States live here.  I am looking forward to seeing babies this spring.  I will have to go back to the VC and ask when they have babies.  Wouldn't that be the coolest to see some swans with little queues of cygnets following after the moms?

Sewing Project: Adult Bib

It annoys me terribly that I spill food on my clothing when I am eating.  Having said that, it has just crossed my mind that I can avoid that unpleasantness by taking only the tiniest amount of food on my fork or spoon.  That might have multiple good results...!  Anyway, before I had that thought, I finally made a bib for myself, and yes, even though it seems silly, I did wear it the other night when eating out with friends.  It did protect my clothing.

This is what I did:

Went to Dollar Tree and purchased a 15" by 25" kitchen towel.

Went to a quilt shop and purchased half a yard of fabric.  They happened to have fabric for $4.00 a yard!!

When in the workroom I folded the towel in half and cut out a semi-circle that I thought would give a big enough hole for my head.  I laid the towel on the fabric and cut a matching piece of fabric then cut the same sized circle out of it.

Next I put right sides together and stitched a 1/4 inch seam in the circle.  After clipping the curves with sharp scissors, being very careful not to cut through the stitching (but not carefully enough not to cut a gash into my off index finger...!  Bled like a stuck pig.  Fortunately Dear One had a bandaid handy...), turn the bib right side out.  Pin the circle well, then topstitch at about 1/4 inch from the edge. Remove the pins before you get to them.  You do NOT want to stitch over the pins.  Sometimes it works fine.  Other times it breaks the needle which is ever so annoying because then you have to find where you hid the little packet of new needles, hoping you still have a needle that fits this particular sewing machine...cannot use the usual universal needles here.

Now, fold in the outside edges all around at about 1/2 inch.  Pin well, then topstitch around the whole thing, and your bib is ready to go out and horrify your friends, or alternatively, delight them that you were smart enough to stop spilling on yourself so they do not have to look away in embarrassment for you.  My friends are not really like that.  They are so supportive and agreeable to just about any wacky thing I do. I love them for this.

Here is the bib, ready to wear. I wore it that very night.  I am thinking of making up a few more.  You will notice that the fabric will hide most spills!

Mending Day!

It was another day at the sewing machine.  A good day.

The soft pants I got for the gym (to keep my skin from touching potentially icky gym equipment!) were way too long.  AND the crotch length was so baggy.  I knew how to shorten pants but the crotch length change, well, I did not know that. So I went to YouTube. 

There were only two videos that I thought would help.  One did help a lot!

The Style Sew Me video was so useful.  I followed her directions and now the pants fit!  So happy.

Go see how she did it but basically:

1. Put on the pants.
2. Pinch out the needed excess and mark.
3. Turn pants wrong side out and match up the crotch seams.
4. Mark the amount you need to remove from the upper part of the seam.
5. Mark a line from that high point to the inseam about 6 inches away.
6. Sew that seam in both directions.
7. Done!

Munchie Monday: Green Juice

Maybe I shared this in the past, but here it is again!  Green Juice by Lenny and Shalva Gale at LifeIsNoYoke which is so good and so easy to make.

We have been having green juice first thing in the morning for a week now.  Part of the reason we made it is because we had some fruit in the refrigerator which was becoming a bit elderly.  I wanted to use it up before it really went bad...! 

This is what we did:

In the blender we put 1 1/2 cups water, 1 apple cored and somewhat chopped, 1 orange peeled and somewhat chopped, 1 lemon slice about 3/4 of an inch thick with peel still on but some of the seeds removed, about 1 inch fresh ginger peeled and cut in half, 2 fresh ripe bananas cut in quarters, a large handful of kale, 1 Tablespoon flaxseed meal and 1 Tablespoon chia seeds, a couple of shakes of red pepper flakes, and 3-4 cups ice.  Put everything into the blender in this order.  Turn on the blender (this is a VitaMix) and quickly increase the speed from 1 to 10 and let it blend for 2 minutes.  It needs that much time to completely liquify the ingredients.  If you don't have a high speed blender, you can still make this but cut up your fruit pretty small and be prepared for it to blend longer.  It will likely need ice cubes when you are ready to drink it if you had to blend longer.

Here it is!  All ready to drink up.  This makes a tall glass for me and a short glass for Dear One (who drinks it but does not love it) plus an additional quart for the next day when we eat get a tall glass.

Our experience is that fresh spinach is MUCH MORE TASTY than the kale in this application!  Eat your kale some other way.

We have now graduated to fresh-from-the-market fruit and will probably include pineapple instead of banana tomorrow since the banana may be beyond the pale by morning.  I am too tired to go downstairs and mush it up and refrigerate it to make banana bread so, this time the banana may "go by".

Food Friday: Quick and Easy Chocolate Covered Cherries

When we were on a ministering visit early this week our sister shared that she and her family always make chocolate covered cherries for Valentine's Day.  Dear One loves chocolate covered cherries so I asked for the recipe.  Which she texted right away.  (It turns out that our household phone on Tools is Dear One's number so he gets a lot of texts intended for me. Some surprises turn out not to be surprises after all...like chocolate covered cherries for Valentine's Day! Well, that phone issue had been the case but we have now changed the number to mine.  Now all the brothers who want Dear One will get me instead...!  Oh well.)

Anyway, I read the recipe but for some reason could not print it out right then...and to make a long story shorter, I made the recipe as best I remembered then went online to see if I had gotten it right.  It was correctly done.  Online the recipe says to leave it in the refrigerator for 5 days so the inside of the chocolate will liquify around the cherry.  As I am writing this, we are still waiting for those five days to expire to try the cherries.

Chocolate Covered Cherries

Start by putting a sieve over a bowl and pour the cherries into the sieve to drain.  Put the drained juice back into the jar and refrigerate to use for other things...maybe add to a smoothie or many other things to give a nice flavor.

In a medium bowl sift 2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar.  Into the sugar add 1/4 cup melted butter and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract.  Start mixing but soon you will need to add a little milk. I think I ended up using 2 Tablespoons milk.  The texture will remind you of modeling clay.

This is after being dipped the first time.  You will notice some of them look dry. This happens because of the chilled cherry balls.  The wet-looking ones have just been dropped and have not had time to dry.

Pinch off a bit of "dough" and flatten it in your palm then add one drained cherry.  Pull the dough up over the cherry to enrobe it completely.  Finish with all the dough then put the cherries into the refrigerator AT LEAST four hours or preferably overnight.

In the morning melt 2 cups dark chocolate chips and 1-2 Tablespoons shortening (not butter, not oil)  in a glass bowl in the microwave in 30-second bursts until melted, stirring after every 30 seconds.  Drop the enrobed cherries into the chocolate  and completely cover then put on a parchment-lined pan.  Put in the refrigerator for several hours, then cover and let sit for 5 days.

NOTE:  These did not really liquify in the middle.  Perhaps a little bit near the cherry but not what I expected.  They really DO taste good.

Basil!!!

The basil is up!!!  I just had to share the good news.  It is not supposed to be up for another week, according to the seed packet. I think those lights make a huge difference. 

Tomorrow I will be able to transplant the second planting of tomato seedlings.  I am going to hope for the best for all these little dearies!

Crafty Business

Today I made a birthday card.  Instead of the usually Gelli print, I decided to make it a window card.  Here it is!

Some time ago I found this window die and made up several windows, then just put them away.  I like how this turned out.  I also like the print behind the window. 

Nifty Craft Tool: Heat Tool Stand

When I went to visit a friend to play with her and her rubber stamps, I came home with the loan of a few fabulous rubber stamps, her heat tool, and her HEAT TOOL STAND!!  This is the handiest gadget to have on your crafting table if you use a heat tool.  I thought I had a heat tool but when I was at her house did not remember where it was to be found.  Since then I have found it.  Now I want a heat tool stand, too!  I may see if I can talk Dear One into making me one, when he has time. Back in the old days I could have gone to my grandfather's shop and made one myself pretty easily and quickly.  He had all the best tools for this sort of project.

If you want to make one,  I believe this is pine.  The bottom piece is 3 1/2 inches wide by 6 1/2 inches long.  The upright is 3 1/2 inches wide at the bottom and narrows to 2 1/2 inches wide at the top and is 5 1/4 inches tall.  The top piece is 2 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 with about a 2 inch circle cut out of it.  There are two counter-sunk very small nails, or maybe even brads,  attaching each horizontal piece to the upright piece.

This is a pattern to scale of the cut outs.  Each square is 1/4 inch.

There you have it.  You woodworkers can make yourself and your friends one of these pretty quickly.

Munchie Monday: Unusual Enchiladas

Our daughter-in-law makes the best enchiladas.  We both love them.  When I made these  today Dear One asked if they were her recipe.  Well, no, though the idea was the same.  Mostly.

As far as I know enchiladas are flour tortillas (with a filling) that are rolled up and placed in a nice glass dish which has enchilada sauce in it.  More sauce is poured over the top and they are cooked at 375 degrees F. for 30-45 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling.

This is how I did it:

Chopped up an 8-ounce container of mushrooms and added them along with a bag of frozen peppers and onions (they had been waiting in the freezer for just such a day!) to a large saucepan and "water sautéed" until they were mostly cooked.

Added three cups of cooked black beans (equivalent to two cans of black beans which are drained and rinsed), one head of cooked-until-mushy cauliflower, 8 ounces tomato paste, 2 Tablespoons lemon juice and 1 solid teaspoonful of Montreal Steak Seasoning.

Stir this stuff all together well and taste to see if you need any more flavorings.  I failed to put in fresh garlic since the head we had was definitely ready for the compost pile so I did not use it.  I put in a teaspoon of granulated garlic.  I wanted to put in more but often some garlic is great, too much garlic is a disaster.

Now that we had the filling, I made the sauce.  A. uses enchilada sauce.  We did not have any so I used a jar of Herdez Salsa Verde, one of my favorite things, and a can of Hunts Garlic and Herb spaghetti sauce.  (Be sure not to knock it until you have tried it! I thought it was pretty good. In fact, I could have just used a spoon and pretended it was soup!)

Finally I put half the sauce in the bottom of a 9 by 13 glass dish then put about 1/3 cup filling into flour tortillas, rolled them up, and put them seam side down in the sauce.  Cover with remaining sauce and bake at 375 degrees F for about 30-45 minutes.  We were pretty hungry so we stopped at 35 minutes and it was fine...i.e. heated through.

Tasted great!

For my final part of the meal I steamed the stuff out of some garden fresh kale that I had harvested moments before and chopped fairly fine.  I steamed it in the Instant Pot for 15 minutes on HIGH.  I loved it.  Dear One had one TINY leaf and choked it down like a good sport.  One of the many reasons I love him.

All in all, it was a great meal. In my opinion.

Food Friday: Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce

Here is another LifeIsNoYoke recipe!  It is so good.  Granted, I don't think I have found a peanut sauce that I did not like, but this one, made with fresh peanuts is really yummy.

Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce

In a VitaMix container place:

1/2 cup peanuts (I used unsalted but roasted peanuts)

3 Tablespoons soy sauce ( I used Braggs Liquid Aminos)

1 Tablespoon rice vinegar (I used the seasoned rice vinegar we had)

1 clove garlic

1 Tablespoon sriracha--though I used only 1 teaspon the first time.

1 Tablespoon grated ginger (I just peeled a big hunk of fresh ginger, chopped it roughly and threw it into the jar)

6 Tablespoons water

Slice of fresh lime with no peel (I can say that if you forget to put the lime slice into the jar even though it is lying on the counter right there in front of you, it is still good sauce)

Blend on high speed for 1 or 2 minutes.

This is a photo of my first batch:

SO GOOD!

If you use this recipe Lenny and Shalva have a request:

Snap a pic and tag #lifeisNOYOKE

LifeIsNoYoke on Youtube

Garden 2020: True Leaves and Real Babies and Maybe Basil

Tonight I took a picture of the tomatoes in their greenhouse, bathed in full spectrum light.  I realized that what I was seeing was a display of true leaves!  And new babies going to town.

Tomorrow I will need to transplant the big plants into pots.  I will also need to move them a little bit away from the light.  It looks like the number of plants started that first day is 10.  There are going to be four in the newly planted seeds once I clip off the second plant in each pellet. 

Another thing for tomorrow:  plant some basil seeds in the remaining peat pellets.  We shall see how they do.

More Garden 2020

Following Gary's at the Rusted Garden's advice, I put aluminum foil all around the inside of the Rubbermaid tote so the plants could get more light.  I also moved it off the kitchen island so the greenhouse is out of the way and I can work in the kitchen!

You can see the foil and the lamp operating.  We ordered a power strip that has a manual timer so the lights will be on 16 hours a day without me having to remember to turn them off or on.  Bonus!!!

This is a close-up of the greenhouse with the foil and lamp.  You can see that some of the pieces of two by fours I collected from dumpsters outside building sites in our neighborhood have come in handy.  After hearing about not only sunshine/full spectrum lights, that the lights should be 2 inches from the plants, I found another piece of that dumpster-dived two by twelve and lifted the tomatoes up.

Garden 2020!

Because the back deck garden did so well, in my opinion, we are going to try again this year but are starting plants ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago I went out to find seeds for this year's garden. I found some Brandywine heirloom tomato seeds. I remember Brandywine tomatoes as being so luscious and flavorful that I had to buy them.  There were several other heirloom tomato plants I wanted to grow but Dear One asked me how many tomatoes we were going to eat.  Good question!  With the raw tomato allergy, it does not make sense to raise lots of them.  Or does it?!  I can dry them. I can turn them into sauce and can them.  OR I can dice them and can our own diced tomatoes.  How good is that?!!  So, I started tomatoes.

On 27 January I planted eight or ten Jiffy peat pellets with 2 seeds in each one after re-hydrating them with water.  On the 31st those little babies pricked through the soil!  I was so thrilled to see them. 

We got a clamp-on shop lamp and put a sunshine lightbulb into it.  After watching a few gardening videos on YouTube by the Rusted Garden, Dear One ordered a different lightbulb for our plants.  Apparently the seedlings need to have specific lights 2 inches away from them as they start growing...so in fact, we were late in putting in the light. Because of this on 4 February I started a few more seeds growing.  These kids came through the soil on the 7th of February!  These little guys have  had their lights at 2 inches above them from the moment they came through the soil. I am going to note the difference in growing.

Here are the seedlings with two seeds per peat pellet in the clear plastic Rubbermaid tote and the lamp clamped on.

Plant wisdom is that you start two seeds in each pellet then, when they are up and growing, you pinch out one of them.  This is very HARD TO DO!!!  Cutting off the life of one dear little plant seems so wrong. But I did it. I did apologize to the plants as I was doing it and thanked them for their service to my soul in coming up and growing so well.

Gary at the Rusted Garden also gives the advice that the tomatoes will do better if you take them out into the sunshine any day the temperature is above 50 degrees.  This will apparently kill any potential mold or other nasties in the "soil" plus will start hardening off the plants from about day one! 

Our little pals have been out several days.  They went out last Friday when we were having big wind.  I went out after 45 minutes and those poor little creatures were lying on their sides, just like trees at the head of a canyon in Utah!!!  I brought them inside and told them they had had enough sun for the day.  Now they are really happy again, and standing straight up.

Munchie Monday: Spring Rolls/Vietnamese Salad Rolls

We had a vegan potluck yesterday. I made Vietnamese Salad Rolls and Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce.  I put up the sauce recipe on Monday.  Today I am showing the Vietnamese Salad Rolls I made.  I should have watched the LifeIsNoYoke video again first because these rolls would have been so much better...i.e. much more tightly rolled, if I had done that!

This was the counter as I set up to make the rolls.

This was the "take" for the day.  I had to not test even one of these before taking them to the potluck!  If I had done the test, there would have been very few left to take and NONE of the sauce left!

#LifeIsNoYoke

Food Friday: Quick and Easy Breakfast

This really is a quick and easy breakfast.  It may seem slightly weird at first but it takes perhaps two days to get into it.

Jane (and Ann) Esselstyn have a YouTube channel with many healthy plant-based recipes.  I really enjoy watching them prepare food that I am confident will help heal my wretched body.  Well, not wretched, really, but the body I have not taken good care of for almost 70 years.

They have had several videos on oatmeal.  We have made some of those recipes.  Now we just use this quick and easy variation on their recipe.

This is what I do, and Dear One buys into it, too! 

Out comes the bowl.  Into it goes a big handful of dry old-fashioned rolled oats.  Next a few shedded mini wheats (NOT the sugary ones for me.  I cannot saw the same for everyone in the family...!) and a big spoonful of Grapenuts.  One small banana is chopped, or half a large banana, and thrown on top with a big handful of fresh blueberries...or frozen ones if we have no fresh ones.  Pour on unsweetened plant milk, stir and eat.  This took perhaps five minutes to prepare.

Yesterday I remembered I wanted to put on some cinnamon and flax meal.  The flax meal was readily at hand but the cinnamon was not...SO I put in some quickly visible homemade pumpkin pie spice.  NOT A BRILLIANT IDEA!!!  It made it very difficult to eat this otherwise healthy quick and easy breakfast.  I did manage to choke it down, but never again!  I think it was the cloves that made it so difficult to eat.

Fun With Paper And Chocolate

Those rosettes I made a while ago were so fun to make.  I made a few extra then made some more. I found a pattern on how to make a "heart rosette" which I tried with small success.

The kind ladies who took me in when we arrived here in South Carolina have a monthly Girls' Night Out.  I have felt so welcome and loved.  Consequently, I want to share the love back to them.

Since it is February and Valentine's Day is coming right up, I decided to lay in a little chocolate and make rosette flowers...with chocolate centers!  On the face of it, this was a great idea.  At least in my opinion.

The idea was to put the rosettes on some sort of stick and put them in a vase to put on the table at the restaurant.  It sort of worked but was not great.

You can see the box they were ready to travel in. You can also see that I made a large rose.  That was such a great idea until I had an issue with hot glue.  MAN, is that stuff HOT!!!  A large blister arose on my index finger.  Dear One recommended popping it!  Can you believe it?!!  Not a chance.  (I scratched my skin several years ago and developed a very bad infection that took heavy duty medicine to kill the thing, so I did not want to take the chance. ) Anyway, the burn, that put an end to the rose project!

Our grandchildren love Dove chocolate so I got a bag of it plus a bag of heart shaped chocolate.  When I got it home and ready to make the rosette flower centers with the chocolate I had a piece of each kind.  It was so awful I wanted to cry.  The Dove chocolate had peanut butter flavoring.  The heart-shaped candy had some nasty strawberry flavoring.  Such a disappointment.  Well, it was now the night before so I went through with it and made the centers, installed them on the rosettes, then attached to the skewers...which would probably have worked better if they were heavier-duty.

Since the chocolate was so bad I stopped at the store on the way to the dinner and got more good Dove dark chocolate and some plain milk chocolate hearts.  The bowl was almost empty when we left after dinner and most everyone was kind enough to take home another of my imperfect projects so all in all it was not a total failure. You can see why I love these ladies!

This picture shows the heart-shaped rosette. I thought they were pretty cute but I used heavy card stock so they were difficult to manage.  Live and learn.

Funny Thing I Saw Today

Today I went to the YMCA to start a new Move Well class for diabetics.  On my way in to the class I noticed (AGAIN!) that the trash bin at the foot of the steps was full. 

The thing that struck me as funny is that every time I go by the bin is full... AND!!! It is full of "bad stuff"...fried chicken boxes, candy wrappers, Coke cans, Little Debbie's wrappers.  It is like people are divesting themselves of the junk before they go inside to help their bodies.  Funny.

Of course, while making this observation, I have to admit that I am not lily white in this respect...!  There have been occasions when I have dropped trash in also....

Tuesday Thoughts

We have a lot of books. (Even after leaving many in Vermont and giving away many more.)  They have been, and many still are, lying in rows on the floor in our bedroom.

This is/are the pile/the rows after we purchased a bookcase for a great deal of money from the furniture store that sold us most of our furniture, which books are remaining after filling the expensive bookcase downstairs.  I have not wanted to spend that money again.  My sister told us about bookcases made of rubber wood that were available on Amazon.  They are less than half what we paid before.

Dear One ordered one of those bookcases which came on Saturday.  We put it together.  Mostly him, but I was a third hand, off and on as needed!

This was a semi-fun project.  At least the anticipation of the end result was certainly wonderful.

There is much left to do to get the books installed in the bookcase but I am so encouraged at the progress we have made.  We have even decided that some of our books can remain in storage for a while...!

In the interest of full disclosure...nearly everything on the bookcase currently is about knitting, sewing, quilting, cooking.  There is still the topic of watercolor, which books will get onto a shelf soon.  Dear One's contributions are on top of the bookcase!

Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Hot Fudge Sauce

Homemade hot fudge sauce is so easy to make and tastes far better than any sauce you can buy at the store. In my opinion.

You need a double boiler to make this but you can figure out one by putting a large bowl on top of a pot of boiling water.

In the top of the double boiler place:

1/4 butter
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

Stir until both are melted.  Add:
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Stir until the sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat.

Add:
3/4 -1 cup heavy whipping cream
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Dash of salt

Stir well then pour over ice cream or whatever else you want to douse with lovely hot fudge sauce.

If you do not use it all, place in a glass jar in the refrigerator then warm up when you want serve it again.  OR...just use a spoon and spoon it right into your mouth...!  It is that good.  In my opinion.