Food Friday!

Last week I was making some veggie burgers.  They turned out well enough that I thought I would do something different with the "dough".  Something I love, but almost never eat, is a good hot dog. (Preferably a Kraut Dog like I used to eat at Der Wiernerschnitzel when I was in college.  They were the expensive dogs and cost a full twenty two cents at that time.)  We had some whole wheat hot dog buns in the freezer.  It occurred to me that we could make "dogs" as well as burgers!

So we did.  It was a  pretty successful project.

It was simply a matter of shaping the dough into a dog instead of a burger.  It worked pretty well, actually.  One of the better recipes which I will have to locate to share.  Any recipe would work if the texture was right, i.e. held together. 

These were baked in the oven on a Silpat-lined cookie sheet.  I did learn that you cannot use a soft silicon pancake turner to lift the burgers and dogs off the pan to flip over! (Half the burger was left on the Silpat.  R-r-r!)  Instead,  it was necessary to use a thin metal spatula, in this case, our offset frosting spatula. That worked perfectly!

Alligator Sighting Again

Last weekend I was in the garden and saw the young people  (J-1 and J-2) a few doors down working on their pond bank.  They were making a round pit with cool-looking bricks.  I thought it was going to be a barbecue pit but they said that, but mainly to be a place to burn stuff and to sit beside and toast marshmallows.  Well, I don't remember if they said that about the marshmallows, but what better thing to do that to make S'mores of a lovely evening.

Well, Ripples came up in conversation.  J-2 said that Ripples was  "right over there by the baby house".  And sure enough, there he was, kind of floating back and forth by the bank that goes up to the house where there are several small children, including one who is REALLY small.  J-1 was concerned about those children.

Eventually Ripples must have seen us because he began crossing the pond towards us.  He was more than halfway across when he stopped.  After a moment he put his snout up out of the water and at the same time lifted his tail and back end up out of the water and did a kind of dance.  After a moment he sunk down into the water and started away from us.

It was quite interesting but very creepy!  I do not know what he had on his mind, but there were three of us out there so I am pretty sure he was not thinking "supper"!  Too much of a hassle with such a crowd pond-side!

Sorry we did not have our cameras out.  It would have been interesting to shoot...  At about 2:45 of this YouTube video has something similar to what we saw.  Both his head and his tail was up.  We did not see any water dancing, but we were not expecting to.

For a Good Laugh...

Just to give everyone a good laugh, I will show you my gardening get-up! 

Remember about those pants last week?  Well, you can see the pants with the zipper installed on the leg so they go over my tall boots meant to fight off reptiles that might want to go for me.  (the small slithery type of reptiles. Not the large, fast,  teethy reptiles...nothing I could wear would protect me from them.)

Also, after the skin issues earlier this year, I have started wearing a hat when I go out in the sun.  It is a good idea.  Looks silly, but, really, what does that matter. If it give people passing by a chuckle, so much the better.  Just as long as I don't scare little children...

This is a good day because I paid attention to the direction of the ribbon on the hat.  You cannot see the ribbon because it is on the left side of my face.  Sometimes I just plop the hat on my head, pull on the headphones so I can continue listening to whatever book I am reading, and out I go. The ribbon is just as likely to be falling down in my face on those occasions.

Also I take my stroller, which is a little rugged driving across the lawn which is made of squares of sod that has been there one year only, but still, I can make my way down to the garden.  Rolling back up the hill increases my heart rate dramatically!  Probably a good thing.

So, there you have it:  garden gear at this point in time.  Dear One does get a good laugh many days.  No problem. I don't mind.  He does not say mean things, so, why worry about a little laugh?!

Recent Kitchen Problems

One thing that I almost always do is save vegetable scraps, peelings, etc in a plastic bag in the freezer.  When I get enough, I turn these leavings into vegetable broth.  The process is carried out in the Instant Pot where I place the scraps, still frozen, in a steamer basket I have for the IP.  I fill the pot with water, set it going for a LONG time, and leave it alone.  When I am on my toes, I add at least bay leaves and sometimes other herbs and spices.

About a month ago I made a big batch of vegetable broth.  There was so much that I put it in a two-quart mason jar and placed it in the top shelf of the refrigerator.  The quart jars were on the second shelf where they easily fit.   They were visible and got used up pretty fast.

As time went by, the half-gallon jar got shuffled to the very back of the top shelf, actually touching the wall of the refrigerator.  A little internal voice asked me if it was possible that touching the wall would freeze the contents and break the jar, but I did not listen.  More tall stuff went into that top shelf and I forgot about the vegetable broth.

Fast forward to a trip to Sam's Club after going to the Dorr Farms for fresh vegetables...all in all a very long exhausting day.

Imagine my surprise, and chagrin, when I opened the refrigerator and noticed there was brown liquid in the bottom of the refrigerator. In an instant I knew that the prompting had been for my benefit those weeks ago!  I did not want to have to deal with that mess, but there was nothing else to do but do it.

First I cleaned up the bottom of the refrigerator, then wiped up the other shelves, then finally came to the top shelf where I found just exactly what I knew I would find.

In case you cannot tell, that is a jar whose contents froze and the poor thing cracked and let out all its juice.  Sad.

That was the trickier part of clean up, but worked just fine. I brought over the trash bin and held it up to the shelf and dragged the jar into the garbage.  I had had enough cleaning at that point and told Dear One there was a mess in the trash that I would take care of.  I certainly did not want him to get cut trying to help me. 

The next day I closed up the bag and carried it out to the rolling garbage bin outside the house and dropped it in, without touching it again. I am confident the nice trash man did not get hurt, either.

No,  I will not be putting glass jars, too full glass jars, up next to the wall in the refrigerator again. I loved that half gallon jar.  It is what I used to make some fabulous sauerkraut.  So sad.  So dumb.

Munchie Monday: Icky Chocolate Chip Cookies!

You know, I never thought there would be a chocolate chip cookie that I did not like.  I was wrong.  Dear One found a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe that he printed for me.  At two different times. Several weeks apart.  Finally I decided to make them.

They were actually pretty awful.  They called for, among other things, almond flour, melted coconut oil, and a lot of maple syrup for sweetening. Those ingredients are not bad on the face of it, but together, the whole was not better than the parts BY A LONG SHOT!!!.  They came out VERY soft and falling apart. Their flavor was rather weird, probably because of the melted coconut oil and maple syrup.

The cookies on this plate are the only ones that held together.

Dear One did not even like them very much!  So I tossed the recipe.  In retrospect I should have saved it in a file of "Never Use This Recipe Again" recipes!

Food Friday: Mexican Cheezy Sauce

Someone named Brandi put up this recipe.  I am pretty sure this is the one that I made, too!

It calls for raw cashews.  If you don't have a high speed blender,  just put them in the refrigerator overnight covered with water. In the morning, drain the cashews and toss into any blender with the other ingredients and go to town.  If you have a high speed blender, just put everything in the jar and blend until smooth.  Brandi has you cook this down a few minutes on the stove.  I do not remember doing that, but it would probably be a good idea to do that!


Easy Vegan Mexican Cheezy Sauce

3/4 cup raw cashews
3/4 cup salsa
3/4 cup water
6 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
2-3 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

We used this for dipping baked corn tortillas that we cut into wedges and then put in the oven for 10-15 minutes at about 350 degrees F.  They need to be watched closely.  We also put some wedges in the air fryer for about five minutes.  Those REALLY needed to be watched closely to avoid "extra color"!

A couple days after the dipping episodes I thought I would try something different.  I cooked up some whole wheat spaghetti that had been sitting in the cupboard for a while, drained it, then dumped the rest of the sauce over it and mixed well. It was really good.  In my opinion.  Dear One thought it was a little spicy.  I don't remember him thinking the dip was spicy but then...memory being what it is, who knows?!

We Have Begun Harvesting the 2020 Garden

There are some real advantages to living in the South.  Our daughter mentioned to me that we must like the long growing season.  Yes, we do!  We had been having kale right along until I ripped up the ones on the porch then moved them to the grow box in the lawn.  We used that spot where the kale had been for the lettuce seedlings we had started.

Also in the grow box we planted a large number of no-name kale plants, which are doing well and turn out not to be curly kale.  They seemed just right to harvest today so I went out and cut a bunch of them.  Also some basil.  ALSO four Sweet 100 tomatoes!

This was so nice to bring into the house.  The tomatoes went onto my breakfast salad and the kale was cooked to death in the Instant Pot for my supper.  Dear One is only a fan of kale chips, not kale any other way,  though if I put a teaspoon of cooked kale on his plate, he will eat it.  But he looks at me when he puts it in his mouth!!!

Last weekend we harvested the wax beans from the porch.  There may be three more beans there but we have had the major harvest from the porch.  They are not prolific producers, sadly.

We do have wax beans in the grow box with lots of blossoms. I hope they produce better.  Maybe two meals instead of one meal!

It is truly wonderful to eat things from your own garden.  You know everything that went into them.  You have total control over what you plant.  The only thing you cannot control is the weather.  When M mentioned how nice it was to have a long growing season, I had to point out that I have heard that many plants die a wretched death in the heat of the summer.  It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

If they all die, then we will plant again in September when things should be a little cooler.  We shall see.

Chocolate Pudding, Plant Style

The Jaroudi Family posted their recipe for Chocolate Pudding Pie on YouTube.  We just made the pudding, not the pie crust.

Chocolate Pudding Pie Filling

By: The Jaroudi Family

Ingredients

3 cups roasted sweet potatoes (without the skins)

2 cups unsweetened non-dairy milk

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

6-10 pitted dates (sweeten to taste)

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a blender then blend until well combined.

(If the blender is having trouble add in 1 tablespoon of extra non-dairy milk at a time.) Chocolate pudding pie filling should be a thick consistency

Refrigerate for 2-3 hours before serving

This is the recipe I was using when I smashed the tamper on our VitaMix, which has now been replaced.

BE SURE TO REFRIGERATE SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE EATING!!! That is really important. Also, it might be a good idea just to serve the pudding in a nice dish without any commentary on what is in it...Dear One ate it all in two evenings. I am pretty sure he would not have been so interested if he knew the ingredient list! Just guessing, but...I do know him rather well at this point. At least in some things...!

Belated Munchie Monday: "The Pinkman"

Lenny and Shalva Gale at Life is No Yoke posted a video on naming their "Pinkman" beverage.  I thought it sounded good. Often I make things, at least the first time, the way the recipe calls for it.  This time I did not.

The Pinkman, PACC-style!


1 grapefruit, peeled
1 apple, cored but skin left on
1 very ripe banana
2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
1 inch knob fresh ginger

Put everything in a blender with 2 cups ice cubes on top.  Blend for at least a minute then serve.

This was really good.

Lenny and Shalva used frozen strawberries and no ice cubes.  We did not have frozen strawberries.  The strawberries we had were not local so I did not trust their sweetness, which is why I put in the very ripe banana.

Dear One sucked his container down really fast.  If I had been nice I would have shared mine with him but was not feeling in the pink and did not get up from my Lazy Boy position.  I sipped on mine for an hour as I listened to Come, Follow Me Insights from Tyler and Taylor at Book of Mormon Central then started Don't Miss This  with Emilie and Dave? (I never remember the boy's name but he has a great sense of humor as he teaches spiritual things.  Love them both.)

Pay Attention Always! Don't Take Chances.

Well, I did it.  I was making a batch of vegan chocolate pudding in the VitaMix.  It was pretty thick with pitted dates and needed tamping, so I took off the small clear cover and tamped it.  When I pulled out the tamper and licked the end (yes, I do that...) I thought Dear One would prefer the pudding a little sweeter since he is very much a sweets kind of guy, so...in I popped a few more dates and turned on the machine again.  They were not immediately leaving the side of the blender jar so I reached in with the tamper without thinking and barely nudged the dates into the mix.

Bad idea.  In a split second (or less!) the tamper was sucked into the vortex and then the blades and then...the end of the tamper.  Wah, wah, wah!  What a dodo bird to take that chance.  I did not even think, as I said.  Oh well.

Broken tamper!

Fortunately VitaMix had some more tampers to sell me.  The new one has arrived.  I will NOT be doing a funny thing again with the tamper. I will ALWAYS have the lid on the blender jar before inserting the tamper.

 Fortunately for us, we have a fairly fine sieve so I strained the pudding through it and removed the tiny pieces of plastic.  Dear One had no trouble swallowing down that pudding!

Lesson learned.  I hope.

Fun Adventures in Happy Land...

So I have mentioned before the alligators. I have also mentioned the water moccasins.

In an effort to avoid unpleasantness if a water moccasin or other snake decides to give me an unpleasant shock, I decided on getting some tall heavy-ish boots, something I have not done once in my whole long life.  Well, they came.  I can wear them though I do have to take several deep breaths while putting them on.  You will know what a baby I am about this claustrophobia for sure by now.

Another thing I did this past week was to get a pair of very thick blue jeans, also something I have not done for many years. I don't like pants.  Same claustro...

Anyway,  the nice people at the jeans store offered me several different ones to try on.  The ones that fit were a lovely light blue.  I thought they would be prone to staining, and since I have NO LUCK at getting stains out of anything, I decided to go with the larger darker blue pants.  They had the plus of having very wide legs which I thought might go better with putting boots on and off. 

I mentioned to the lady that I would get zippers to put in the seams so I could get the pants on and off easily.  That kind lady said, "Hold on a minute," and went into her back room.  She brought out a basket of long zippers and gave me two of them!!!  I consider that a very kind thing to do. She would not take payment for them.

The very day I brought the jeans home  (I think, it WAS last week, after all and memory is not what it could be...) I installed the zippers.  Three of the sides stitched up beautifully.  The fourth one is not as good, but since it works, I am not going to pull the whole zipper out and start again.

Now, on to the adventure.  Yesterday morning I donned boots and jeans and went outside. I pulled the watering hose off the holder and went down to the garden.  I started watering and discovered that buying the larger jeans had its flaws in thinking.  The nice neighbor couple came over to chat about gardens and offered to pick anything up for us at Lowes since they were on their way there.

When they turned and headed out for their shopping trip, I turned back to the watering. In that turn my jeans dropped to the ground.

Can you imagine my red face?!!! 

Now the jeans are on my sewing machine to have the waistband taken in significantly plus Dear One, that kind man, has ordered me a sturdy belt.  I would not like the pants around my ankles in public again.

Fortunately, at least to my knowledge, there is no photo of that faux pas so I cannot share it with you....

Fairly Quick and Easy Face Mask that is COMFORTABLE!

Face masks are a good idea.  If you are out in public you never know when you will walk through a cloud of malignant vapor because you don't know who just walked around the corner having coughed up a storm.  The face masks I made before were not comfortable with the elastic over the ears.  Well, I used elastic from an old pair of underwear which was too wide, for one thing.

Well!!  News Flash!  You can make a face mask that will be easy AND comfortable and will make you want to wear one.  You can even make fashion statements with your new mask/s!!

Our daughter has been making these for family and friends where she lives.  Hers are so much better than mine, but then, I am always in a hurry and don't take as much care as I should.  This is a character flaw to be deplored.  And I do.  Deplore it, that is.  I will turn over a new leaf.  I hope that flip-flopping will be rather soon...  You will notice one iteration of lack of care in the top-stitching.  I couldn't be bothered to change the thread on the sewing machine.  Deplorable.  Truly.  Bad, bad, bad.  When will I learn?

This is what she said:  take a piece of cotton fabric about 6-7 inches by 12 inches. 
Fold it in half  right sides together so you have a piece of fabric about 6 inches by 6 inches. 
Stitch around the three raw edges, leaving an opening for turning. 
Turn right side out then press. 
Press a fold in the middle.  Now press two more folds on either side of that middle fold. 
Pin the folds and stitch 1/4.  inch from the edge to secure the folds.

Cut another piece of the same, or different cotton fabric, that is about 2 1/2- 3 inches wide and an inch longer than your stitched folded mask.  This will become a casing for your straps.
On the short sides of that strip, make a 1/8-1/4 inch seam to close up the raw edge.
Place right sides together  and stitch to make a tube.
Pin one long side of this tube to the back of the previously prepared mask and stitch.
Turn the casing to the front and topstitch down.

Get out an old tee shirt and cut off strips that are about 3/4 inch wide.
Thread one end through a large-eyed needle and draw the tee shirt strip (which you have pulled to make into a more or less round strap) through the casing. Repeat on other side of the mask.
Get a pony bead at a craft store or your child's fun activities basket and thread the two ends of the tee shirt strip through.  Don't try to thread it through with the needle.  Just put the two flat ends of the tee shirt through the bead and pull it through.  Might take a couple tries but is really pretty easy.

Once threaded, put a knot in the ends of the tee shirt strip and try on your new COMFORTABLE mask.  Pull up on the pony bead to get it where you need it.

Our daughter is a pretty smart cookie!

Munchie Monday: Jam on Granola

With all the strawberry jam in the refrigerator the last couple of weeks, I decided to try something new:  using the nearly-sugarless jam on my granola for flavor, fruit, and color.

It worked!!

It does not look so beautiful but it was good enough to eat.  I had just made cashew milk so all combined, it was a nice breakfast...granola, strawberry jam, cashew milk.  What is not to love?!


Making cashew milk is so easy.  Use any blender.  If you have a regular blender, put 1 cup raw cashews in a jar and cover with water.  Refrigerator overnight.  In the morning, drain the water from the cashews and put them in your blender with 3 cups water.  Blend and you have a lovely non-dairy milk that you do not have to strain. (That is one of the biggest draws of cashew milk for me!  The straining out the pulp in almond milk almost takes the joy out of non-dairy milk-making!)

If you have a high speed blend, just put in the jar 1 cup raw cashews and 3 cups water.  Blend for a minute.  Use milk. Quick. Easy. Good.

Food Friday: Quick and Easy Instant Pot Spanish Rice

Dear One has been asking for Spanish Rice.  I happened onto a recipe that used the Instant Pot.  I am all for Instant Pot, so I gave it a try.  The following is my take on the dish.  Below you will see even more changes than what I noted in the recipe!

Instant Pot Spanish Rice

2 cups long grain brown rice, uncooked
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth or water
2 teaspoons Better Than Bouillon
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 finely diced red peppers
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 cup chopped cilantro

Put everything in the Instant Pot.  Stir well.  Cook on HIGH pressure for 25 minutes then let release pressure NATURALLY.

Quick and easy to put together.  No muss, no fuss about timing as long as you set to HIGH pressure.  When it is done releasing pressure it is ready to eat.

Leftover Spanish Rice in a pint widemouth mason jar.  I prefer glass for storing food.  Works great and preserves better than plastic containers.

It was really okay but Dear One felt it was lacking flavor though it was really quite edible as is.  He just thought we could do better.  I probably won't put in the 1 cup of cilantro next time, either, since I did not enjoy that particular flavor as much as I thought I would.

NEXT TIME:  We will put in 1-2 teaspoons chili powder, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, and one onion finely diced (Dear One does NOT like to bite into a cooked onion.  Or a raw one, for that matter.  He does not get all huffy about it, but he does not enjoy them, so why not just chop them finely in that fabulous little Ninja Express chopped my sister gave me?  It works so great.) since onions add a lot of great flavor.  The granulated onion is better than nothing, but does not give a real big pop of flavor.

There will be a next time, maybe even over the weekend.

Easy Flat Crochet Butterfly

Yesterday when I went to the Post Office to mail some envelopes I learned that the Granny Square butterflies I had made were too fat to go through the mail as a regular envelope.  By rights they should have gone through as a package which was going to be mighty pricey for a greeting card.  At least that is what I thought Dear One would have said.  Fortunately the nice lady said she would try to send them as "large envelopes" since she had some of that type already in the mail.

So, since I wanted to send a few more cards I got up early this morning and started looking for flat butterflies.  This is what I found.

Jane from JennyandTeddy had the perfect butterfly, which was especially nice since I had to learn to make a "magic loop"!  That took a few tries but I think I have it down now!

Easy Flat Crochet Butterfly– Yarn scraps or  Lion brand 24/7 cotton

– 3.50mm crochet hook or E/4 US hook size

– Sewing yarn needle

(you can make the butterfly bigger or smaller by using bigger or smaller size crochet hooks

Round1.Make magic ring or adjustable ring and 9sc in ring (9 sts)

Round2.(Sl  st in the first stitch) (in the next stitch make 5dc and chain2 turn 1hdc in next chain stitch from hook and 4dc in the same stitch of 5dc)     then skip1 stitch,( sl st in the next stitch then chain 2 turn make 1hdc in next chain from hook and then 1hdc sl st in the same stitch),( sl st in next stitch and chain 2 then turn 1hdc in the next chain from hook and slst), ( sl st in the next stitch), ( next stitch make 4dc then chain2 and turn make 1 hdc in the next chain  from hook and make 5dc) then in the last stitch make sl st.

Make antenna by make 5 chain then turn and make sl st in each stitch and repeat the other one.

Tie off ends and weave in or just cut, depending on what you will do with the butterfly.

These are the ones I made.  The first one was a disaster and I pulled it out.  Now they look almost like butterflies!

Kale is Really Hard to Kill!

We planted some curly kale starts on our back porch last fall.  We had kale through the winter. A month or so ago I harvested what I thought was the last of the kale and pulled up the four plants that were still in the container on the porch.  (I wanted to use the container for something else..)

Dear One suggested that I not just leave the poor plants lying there on the deck but to try planting them in the raised bed/square foot garden on the lawn.  I had absolutely no thought that anything would come of this but since there was room in the lawn garden I took them down and put them into the Mel's Mix.

There did not seem to be a downside of planting them out there.  They had been lying on the porch for several days drying out, on they way to the compost pile (a thing that is prohibited by our HOA so we don't have one!!! R-r-r!).  There were lots of small started kale plants  from the seeds I had put into pots in the dining room so I put them into the garden as well and turned the former kale container into a lettuce bed.

When I was out in the garden, this is what I found a month later!!!  The plants are NOT dead!  Also the tops are filling out.  We shall see if this amounts to more than tiny little leaves. I will give these plants as much time as they need to grow into good kale!  Such a happy day.

Crocheted Butterflies

Months ago I saw a butterfly being crocheted by a cute young woman somewhere in the United Kingdom. (Online, of course, but I failed to record where and who which is sad.)  I loved that butterfly and immediately made one using worsted weight dishcloth cotton.  Even using that rather ghastly yarn, I loved the butterfly.  My head began whirling and I looked for yarn to make a pile of them for some purpose.

Butterflies in a bottle on my desk.  Nearly full!

Well, I have now finished the first thrust of the project.  I am posting the instructions as I wrote them from her words.  In the UK they call a double crochet a treble crochet, so if you see a "tc" somewhere that I failed to transcribe properly, it really should be "DC".  (When I was crocheting the final butterfly I finally grasped the reason for the "treble crochet":  before you make the stitch you have pulled up 3 strands of yarn over the hook!  Duh!  So obvious!).

For my butterflies, I used a variety of yarns, mostly worsted weight or light worsted.  I think one or two were with some ends of baby yarn.  Just use whatever hook is necessary for the yarn you are using.

Yarn used: Stylecraft Special DK

Hook size: 4mm

ch = Chain

dc=Double crochet

ss = Slip stitch

Ch 6 and insert hook into first chain and ss to create circle.

Ch 3, DC into center circle, ch 2, DC into center circle 7 times, ch 2. Insert hook into third chain from the bottom and join with slip stitch. You should have 8 clusters of 2 double crochet stitches.

Change color if desired connecting new color in double crochet space. (Do this by tying yarn into bottom of stitch then making a simple knot.  Hold the yarn ends with the prior yarn to weave in as you crochet. This is such a smart way to dispose of yarn ends!  A way I have just learned. it would have come in handy when I was working on a Granny Square afghan years ago.)

6 DC into chain 2 space, ss in double crochet space 7 times, 6 DC into ch 2 space, ss into top of original stitch to connect.

Ch 8.

Making the butterfly

Fold the work in half (wrong sides facing) and wrap the chain around the work connecting at the base of the chain with a slip stitch. Tie off.

Take a piece of yarn about 2 inches in length and tie a knot on each end. Slip the yarn under the chain and move into desired place.

You can now sew on a brooch fitting or a safety pin in order to turn into a broach. Or sew on another project!  Or glue to a card as the case may be.

The bottle was needed for storing something else so I pulled a used zipper bag out of the file drawer and now the butterflies are patiently waiting to be used up.

This is a nice way to use up ends-of-skeins.  You could have butterflies hanging all over your house.  Or you could stitch them to your hat.  Or...a myriad of other uses.

Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Delicious Fruit Smoothie

We bought a big basket of strawberries at the Farmers' Market last week and the week before.  Dear One said they were perhaps the best berries he had ever eaten!  The first batch was the better basket...

We have now used all of them!  Two big jars of jam (one of which was chia seed thickened and the other was low-sugar pectin thickened), one serving of strawberry shortcake left, and one quick and easy smoothie.


Quick and Easy Strawberry Smoothie

In a blender place:

1/2 cup soy milk or other non-dairy milk
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup fresh strawberries
1 large frozen banana
6 ice cubes


Blend for about a minute.  Pour into glasses and enjoy.  This made two 8-ounce glasses full.  It took no time at all to put them down the hatch!  So good.  I have not had a smoothie myself for some time.  This one was the best!

We will probably make this again.  There is a farm near us that has pick-your-own berries. I think we will go there this week!  They might have other produce as well.  It is sort of like anticipating Christmas!

Food Friday: Quick and Easy Knock Off Wendy's Frosty!

Today has been pretty hectic.  We both had doctor appointments.  With the same FNP at the same time. (First time ever we went to a medical appointment together. Ever!)  An interesting thing is that the check in lady took our phone number (well, MY phone number since Dear One is not a fan of phone calls for some reason...!) and said we could wait in our car in the parking lot or stay in the waiting room which was full of people socially distancing themselves.  I had butterflies to crochet so we opted for the parking lot and comfort of our car.  All went pretty well.  We both have to go back again...me next week, Dear One in two weeks.  He says he has had more medical appointments in the last two weeks than in most of his life up until this time!  He may be right!


We got home and ate up some leftover shepherd's pie, kale chips for which we bought the kale at the drive-through farmer's market this afternoon, carrot sticks, and strawberries which we also got at the drive through farmers' market.  I will wait until things straighten out before going to the Farmers' Market again. I prefer picking out my own produce....

So, after I finished listening to General Conference I decided a sweet treat was in order.  Brittany of the Jaroudi Family on YouTube had recently posted a Wendy's Frosty made vegan. I thought I would try it.  It worked out very well!

It tasted really delicious.  I ate three or four bites and brought it upstairs to Dear One (you can see how well I held firm on no eating upstairs on the carpeted floors...!!! He had already brought upstairs tortilla chips and fabulous salsa that we got at the Yucatan Restaurant on my birthday...) who has just finished the rest of the jar of it.  It made a pint jar full of yummy frosty treat.

The only thing I would do differently is that I would cut the pitted dates into pieces instead of tossing them in whole.  I didn't really notice if Brittany wanted us to cut them up...!  Anyway, there were a few little chewy bits which did not really take away from the Frosty but did catch my attention.  Next time: chopped up!


Go to The Jaroudi Family but in the meantime so you can see if you have everything--the ingredients are: frozen banana, cocoa powder, pitted dates, water-soaked old-fashioned oatmeal, vanilla, and ice cubes. 

Be sure to do this. You will be glad you did.  Even if you just ate a Baskin Robbins Rocky Road ice cream scoop in a waffle cone...!