Dumpster Diving Success!

For several days we have been driving by one of the construction dumpsters in the neighborhood.  There were several sturdy-looking chairs on top.  A couple mornings ago I woke up shortly after 6 AM, a novelty lately, and decided to "go for a walk".

When I got to the dumpster the chairs were still there so I loaded two of them onto my stroller and walked home.  And went straight to the garden!  After unloading the chairs I set them up beside the garden tower facing each other.  I had become concerned that our lovely sweet potato plants did not have enough room to grow.  Moving the second layer of the tower seemed like a good idea.

One concern was that with all the dirt and wood chips in that bin would make it necessary to awaken Dear One to help move it from the big blue bin.  As it turned out, I was able to move the bin with no trouble!

Only one more issue popped up:  where the second story bin had been located was a big empty hole in the bottom bin.  No problem!  We still had some soil makings from the raised bed/square foot garden patch.  After mixing up a batch I installed it in the bin and rearranged the sweet potato runners.  Now I am happy.  Well, I was happy before, but now I think the potatoes will be happier.  I think Heavenly Father was happy with our progress because He had a lovely soaking rain come in later in the day!

Many years ago I learned about dumpster diving/picking up other people's trash from my next-younger brother.  One day he had taken a trailer load of junk from the farm over to the dump across the valley.  This is something he was often called on to do as a 16-year-old tractor driver.  Daddy would send him off on this project.  On the occasion I am mentioning, he came home with a trailer full of plastic flowers and funeral displays that one of the cemeteries in town had brought to the dump at the end of the season.  My brother proceeded to bring all these items upstairs to his bedroom where he decorated the way he wanted.  It was really a disaster because old plastic flowers that have been out in the sun all spring and summer are not in good shape, plus they smell terrible.  When Mother came upstairs to see what the issue was, my brother had to remove them all. Including sweeping up broken shards of disintegrating plastic. He was disappointed.  The rest of the family was not.  At this time I learned that one person's junk is another person's treasure.  I have kept that in mind all these years, and often benefit from other people's junk!

One final note on dumpster diving:  There had been at least one more chair in the construction dumpsters (two metal dumpsters were beside each other with some plastic dumpsters bottom side up next to them...)plus there was a very long piece of 1 by 4 inch lumber.  I decided that I needed those as well. 

Yesterday morning I woke up around 6 AM again but this time decided to wait until later in the morning to go to the dumpsters.  One thing led to another and I did not get there during the day.  In the afternoon I needed to go help someone remove stuff from that home and on the way back drove by the dumpsters.  WHAT!!!  No dumpsters.  They had been removed. I gather the construction is now complete. Here is an example of when the Spirit moves, it is good practice to act immediately.  Sad.  Now I will have to actually purchase the lumber I need for a small project.

Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Summer Squash For Breakfast

When we (the ladies and I) went to the Flowers Produce Farm last week I discovered crookneck summer squash!  In the past I have turned up my nose at these squashly treats but not any more!

The table under the tent had cantaloupe (something I don't think I will ever eat...), okra, jalapeños, yellow crookneck squash, cucumbers, peeled medium-sized onions, and lots and lots of tomatoes, both nice fat green ones and fully ripe red ones. 

With a few small squashes in hand, I made a perfect breakfast treat: water-sautéed squash and bell peppers.  What I used:

2 small yellow crookneck squash
1 small sweet onion
1/2 green bell pepper
2 small yellow bell peppers

Start heating a heavy skillet over medium heat.  Finely chop all vegetables.  When the skillet is hot, add the onion dice and stir for 1-2 minutes then add the squash and pepper dice.  Stir for a while.  If the vegetables seem to be sticking, add a tablespoon or two of water or vegetable broth.

Cook until everything is nice and soft.  (Or if you like tender crisp, stop cooking sooner!)

Serve with a tiny sprinkling of salt if you want.  This tastes very good.

The squash is on the right.  The food on the left is mashed potatoes with cauliflower bisque on top...also a delicious taste treat.

Food Friday: Oil Free Hashed Browns

Today we had the quickest, easiest hashed brown potatoes for breakfast.  They were cooked in the air fryer.

Shred or grate one russet potato and spread in air frier basket.

Air fry at 375 degrees F. for 15 minutes.

This is all that is left after Dear One ate all he wanted.  He considered these leftovers to be burned!  Next time I will only cook them for 10 minutes, then check them.  It is so much easier to cook more than to cook less...!

Tiny Tennis Shoes

We have a new baby coming to the neighborhood.  Since I learned about this upcoming birth I wanted to make a gift of some nature.  This is what I made:

These Tiny Tennis Shoes are about the cutest little things.  I love them.  They were pretty easy to knit.  I found the pattern years ago and made up a pair for some other little child.  Now I notice there is a charge for the pattern.  If you like the bootees, it is probably worth the money.

Using the Dehydrator: Kale Powder

We had a lot of some nondescript kale in the garden.  It was getting out of hand so I remembered that I had thought to use the dehydrator with excess food so here was the first opportunity.

I love this dehydrator!  There are nine shelves.

In this case I filled the shelves and set the machine going for 20 hours, which was really overkill.

After the kale was dry I put it into a bowl.

With the dried kale in the bowl I scrunched it all up, then put it into the food processor to turn it into a powder.

This was the first batch of dried kale.  After a second batch the jar is about half full.
Now I can add kale to soups and all sorts of things and it will be more or less invisible.

Fun stuff!

The Patriotic Cape

Here is a picture of the patriotic cape with its Dorset button closure.

A little word of explanation:  I had some Super Saver Red Heart yarn in red, in white, and in blue, so I decided to put them together and make this cape. I did not have a recipient in mind, just wanted to give it a try with the correct sized needles for a change.  I did actually order some new ChiaoGoo stainless steel circular needles in US 15, 32-inch.  They worked beautifully.

As it happens I learned through this project that carrying three strands of the Super Saver yarn was painful to my hands and fingers and decided I will not do that again.  Also you will notice that the fronts seem to be knitted in different patterns.  This is true.  I thought perhaps some of the hand discomfort would be alleviated if I did not do the basketweave stitch, so I stopped that and continued on in garter stitch.  It only helped marginally.

This is a cape meant to cover your shoulders and upper body as you sit in your chair I think, because it is not very long.  You can see this by the cape's position on the rocking chair.

The Dorset buttons were made with large thick curtain rings as the base. I am pretty happy with them generally, and especially with the third one I made where I actually turned the stitches to the back as you are supposed to do after filling the ring with the buttonhole stitches. I do not know why I did not do that to the first two.

Anyway, I am glad this is a "finished object" and can go into my to-be-gifted box now.  It took longer than I had thought it would but learning what I did about the Super Saver yarn held together was good to know.  It will make a difference on future project. I think I will stick with natural fibers when at all possible.

Munchie Monday: Dr. Greger's Fudgy Brownies

Dear One loves sweets.  Loves them!  I found a recipe in multiple places online, plus in Dr. Greger's book, for Fudge-y Brownies.  I made it for Father's Day.

Dr. Greger's Brownies

1 cup walnuts
1 1/2 cups pitted dates
1/2 cup almond butter
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/3 cups chopped pecans


In a food processor place the walnuts and dates and spin until they are finely ground.  Add the almond butter and process until completely combined.  Add the cocoa and blend again until very smooth.

Press into an 8 by 8 pan then press the chopped pecans into the top for decoration.  Refrigerator for an hour then cut up and enjoy.

These are really nice.  I am not a date fan but the cocoa in them makes them taste nice and fudge-y.  Still, I am not eating a lot of them...just breaking off one-inch chunks and let it sort of melt on my tongue.  They are richer than I like, if I am honest.  I do not believe we will have trouble getting rid of them, however!

You will probably recognize that we did not have any pecans so I just chopped more walnuts for the topping.

Food Friday: Cauliflower Bisque

Last night I happened to watch a Chef AJ program with a woman named Esther Loveridge.  Esther is 76 years old.   She has lost 155 pounds since age 73 eating plants and no oils, salt, or refined sugar.  Very inspirational.  Esther has a Facebook page called Esther's Nutritional Journey.  I am already hooked!!

Esther demonstrated several recipes.  The one I was most interested in was Cauliflower Bisque, a recipe that Chef AJ had posted some months ago.  I knew we had all the ingredients in the house so this morning, before going out to water the garden, I put all the ingredients into the 8-quart Instant Pot.

Cauliflower Bisque

 In the Instant Pot put in a 2-pound cauliflower head, 2 pounds sweet potatoes, 1 whole large onion, 8 cloves garlic, 6 cups water, 2 Tablespoons dill weed, and 2 Tablespoons no-salt seasoning.  I used Mrs. Dash Herb and Garlic since I cannot get too much garlic.

Set the IP to HIGH and the time for 10 minutes.  Because the pot was so full, it took quite a while to get to pressure.  By the time it was done cooking, I had moved on to other things and did not get back to the bisque for a couple of hours.

Now add 3 cups unflavored unsweetened almond milk, 1/4 cup nutritional yeast, and 1/4 cup Dijon mustard.  Use an immersion blender to make the bisque smooth.

Since I had not had breakfast by this time, I filled a mug with the bisque and gave it a try.  It needed salt.  Well, I am trying not to eat too much salt, but I wanted to make this stuff work.  After all, we had 4 1/2 quarts of it!!  And no room in the freezer so-- it will be my food for the foreseeable future.

Well, with a scant sprinkle of Adobo Seasoning with Garlic and Cumin, I was able to drink down a mug and a half.  The great part of it is that it has virtually no calories.  None.  So great.

DIY Project Success!

Several months ago Dear One ordered a nice table that we would have to put together ourselves.  It was a long but more or less okay project.  Every time I wanted to use the table I have hauled in either the sewing machine table chair or Dear One's desk chair. 

On Monday we received a wonderful gift from our son and daughter-in-law that took them about eight hours to build.  Sadly, it did not arrive in the same condition as when they put it in the box.  We need to put part of it together again.  It would be handy if we had TWO chairs that we could put in there without dismantling our other rooms.  I mentioned that Monday night.  Today, shortly after midday, UPS arrived with a box holding the parts of two matching chairs for the table!  Is that the coolest or what?!

Now we can get working on the building project!

Dear One has opened the box...

The cross pieces have been screwed together.

Real progress on the chair.

First chair on its way upstairs...these chairs are really heavy!

Mouse Project Disasters

The mouse project seemed like such a great idea.  I had some fine yarn that looked rather mouse-y and I had some Brittany size 1 needles which I thought would be perfect.

The mouse was on the back burner until a few other more urgent projects were completed but finally came to the top of the pile.  All seemed to be well until I was binding off the body.

One needle snapped.  Rats!  I put some tape on it and continued.  A second needle snapped.  That ended that part of the project.

This is where we are right now:

Now I need to see if I can find the metal needles I had years ago.  We shall see.  This project is back on hold for now...Sadly, because I think it would be rather cute.  This is not the same mouse the K showed me from Facebook.

New Handwork Project! Dorset Buttons!

The patriotic cape was done but needed buttons. I did not feel like trying several stores to find enough of the expensive large buttons.  What to do?  Well, I remembered hearing about Dorset buttons.  I actually think I might have tried them many years ago with no success.  Now we have YouTube!

The video I went back to several times was Gina-B Silkworks.  

Following her directions I made one button.  It was okay so I installed it on the cape.  Being more or less successful I made a second one and also sewed it on the cape.  Dear One thought (when I asked him!) that there should probably be three buttons, so I made another one.

This one I am rather happy with!  I remembered to push the knots at the outside of the button to the back and worked as many back stitches as I had time for.  This button is WAY better than the other two, but since the cape is just a sample, I am going to leave those other buttons on until I have finished a few other projects, then I will take them off and re-do them.

This is a fun project.  I used a large snap-together curtain ring and worsted weight yarn, the blue from the cape.

Munchie Monday: Pretty Tasty Potato Salad!

This is a quick and easy recipe if you are prepared!  Well, you need to make the sauce ahead and you need to cook the potatoes ahead and chill them.  Also it is handy to have chopped vegetables in the refrigerator then you can just throw it all together just before eating.

Make up the Whole Food Nacho Sauce and put it in the refrigerator...which recipe I posted on 8 June.

Scrub and chop as many small potatoes as you want. We had just gotten some new red potatoes from the farm which I cut in quarters and pressure cooked for 20 minutes.  It turned out they did not need that long but I have been having issues with potatoes cooking to the softness I like so this batch got the whole treatment! Potato salad potatoes should be less soft, which I forgot.  Still, they worked.

Chop half a sweet onion, one medium cucumber, 3 stalks celery, and one bunch scallions.

Chop a few Kalamata olives for the saltiness and flavor they bring.

In a large bowl, place all ingredients and mix in as much of the Nacho Sauce as seems good to you.  Cover and put in refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.  (Flavors improve when they marry a few minutes...)

Enjoy a nice serving of deliciousness.  It is summer!

Another thing you can do to soup this salad up a little more:  sprinkle with smoked paprika.

Food Friday: Especially Quick and Easy Chili

In keeping with the idea of keeping things simple, Dear One and I were out yesterday.  We needed to go to the farm to get some fresh produce, not too much since we are beginning to have our own.  On the way home we stopped at Big Lots.  I had put out the suggestion that a shower caddy would be very convenient.  I don't know about anyone else,  but I deplore the shampoo bottle dropping off the narrow little shelf that came with this shower and hitting my little toe with a resounding crash.  Very unpleasant!  So we made the stop.

Dear One was thinking there might be some snack he would like.  He ALWAYS wants a snack (or two) in the evening while watching Netflix.  Always.  While I was looking for a shower caddy (which I found almost immediately) he found some snacks.

We also found some Bear Creek Darn Good Chili mix.  The angel sister who is the shift coordinator at the temple on our day always brings fabulous soup to share.  She starts with Bear Creek then adds other thing to make a truly superior soup.  That being our experience, we decided on the various vegetarian options of Bear Creek mixes.

Last night for supper I looked at the package and did not want to spend the time hovering over the pot on the stove.  I decided to give it a try in the Instant Pot.  IT WORKED!!


Darn Good Chili, Quick and Easy

Put one can tomato paste in the bottom of your Instant Pot inner liner.  Slowly stir in 7 cups water until the paste is more or less not paste anymore.  Stir in the Bear Creak Darn Good Chili packet and set the pressure to HIGH for 20 minutes.  (I had watched a YouTube video on a nice older portly gentleman and his friend reviewing the soup they made on the stove.  The directions called for 10 minute apparently and the beans were crunchy.  Not good.)

After 20 minutes we let the Pot decrease pressure naturally, mainly because we were both doing other things at that time.  When we got to serve the chili, we both felt is was excellent.  In fact,  it was good enough that Dear One asked for more for his supper tonight!  A big plus.

This picture is not very good but the chili really is!

So, quick and easy made yesterday much simpler, and made me happy to boot!  Try it.

Thursday Thoughts: Simple

A dear friend and former senior missionary in the Oregon Portland Mission often sends me heartening thoughts in the format of a picture with text across it.  The one I just read has really caught my attention.

Keep Life Simple 

In the picture was included a beautiful flower.  Since I don't know where it came from I decided I better not potentially infringe on copyright so I have not included the picture.  The message is clear, though!

I do not know about you, but so often the complications of life are of my own making.  It is now time to get into the "Keep Life Simple" mode.  I think perhaps with a simple plan each day, more will actually be accomplished.

What do you think?

What a Great Meal!

This morning I went out to the garden to water the poor curling-up plants. I did not get out there yesterday and boy, did they ever let me know.  While out there, I picked some produce.

Apparently it is important for plants to get regular amounts of water as you can tell by looking at these guys.  Even though they are pretty ugly, I will have no problem eating around the bad spots.

A few minutes ago I had a sliced Brandywine tomato, garden lettuce which was already in the refrigerator, and nacho sauce sandwich on Ezekiel 4:9 bread.  I have discovered that Ezekiel bread does not give me as much trouble as regular bread, which I have pretty much stopped eating.

That sandwich was superior!  I hope to have many more this summer!

Middle of the Night Knitting Again

Last night I could not sleep. At all.  Finally I got out of bed and dragged into Dear One's office/tv room/my auxiliary work room! (That last is somewhat to Dear One's consternation, but...well, that is where the comfy chair is.

We have a baby being born soon a few houses down from us.  The brave girl is planning a home birth.  Good for her.  My sister did that and was successful.  In fact, my sister herself was a home birth, though not  on purpose.  The roads were so bad/muddy that our mother could not get to the hospital so a neighbor came over.  Good thing, too, because my sister was a blue baby.  A. V. L. was able to suck the gook out of her throat and saved her life.  I am so grateful.  I cannot imagine life without my sister in it.

Anyway, I had started knitting a pair of Tiny Tennis Shoes for the new baby-to-be down the street. They are two-color shoes. I had nearly finished the second sole when I realized that the blue upper yarn was not any where in sight. I went through all the yarn in the workroom, our bedroom just in case, and the workroom closet.  NO BLUE YARN ANYWHERE.  So, since that baby will be here very soon I started a different project.

Going to Ravelry I found a pretty simple four-needle baby sock pattern and downloaded it.   I had recently gotten some sock yarn from Schachenmayr designed by Arne and Carlos, knitting heroes of mine, so I started in on those baby socks, the ribbed ones, not the cabled cuffs!  Too late in the game for that.  I worked until 2:00 AM and tried again on sleeping.  This is the result:

This is the point where I had just knitted the heel flap.

This is the yarn I used:

The knitting needles are Brittany wood needles in US size 1...a vastly different experience from the US size 15's I used for the sleeve slot cape I just finished yesterday!

Before breakfast (well, around 11:00 AM!) I finished this sock.

Directly after breakfast/lunch (veggie burgers, french fries with the nacho sauce I made yesterday and used for dipping, garden lettuce, sweet potato) I went back upstairs. 

Just now I have finished steaming the socks.

I think they are pretty cute.

NEWSFLASH:  I had just, and I mean JUST, finished knitting the second sock when I glanced to my right for some reason.  This is what I saw:

When I opened the door to see why there was a bag peeking out from Dear One's closet door, THERE was the blue yarn I had searched all over creation to find last night!

Now on to the Tiny Tennis Shoes!

Munchie Monday: Whole Food Nacho Sauce

We are always looking for substitutes for our formerly dairy-heavy eating.  Jill Dalton at Whole Food Plant Based Cooking Show has made a winner, in my opinion. Dear One was agitating for lunch even though it was only around 1:30 PM, so I said fine.  I knew we had some leftover chili in the refrigerator so...I made this sauce and baked some corn tortillas to go along with the chili, which I also doctored up a bit and boiled the heck out of in case it had been waiting too long to be eaten...

Whole Food Nacho Sauce

1 cup raw cashews
A handful of raisins, probably about 3 Tablespoons
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 Tablespoon dried onions, probably a little less than that, actually
2-3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons Braggs Liquid Aminos
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 cup water

Blend all these ingredients for at least one minute, until completely creamy.  It is supposed to be nacho cheese sauce.  All the vegans say nutritional yeast makes things taste cheese-y.  It does not.  Do not believe it. You will feel much better about using nutritional yeast for a cheese substitute when you knock your expectations down to the ground.  "Nooch" has its own taste which sometimes adds to the flavor of a dish and sometimes not.  In this case, the combination of ingredients, at least the way I put them together, is just delicious.  I think this sauce could go on just about anything...well, maybe not cake, but who eats cake, anyway?

To make the tortilla chips that went with the sauce, I pre-heated the oven to 400 degrees F then put half a dozen corn tortillas right on the rack and cooked them for 5 minutes, checked them, then cooked another 2 minutes.  They could probably have cooked another minute or two but I did not want them to burn.  By the time I had broken them up and gotten them to the table, they were crispy so the extra oven time was unnecessary.

Food Friday: G-BOMBS Plus Meal

When I was reading a Dr. Joel Furhman book, whose title escapes me at the moment, but it might have been The End of Diabetes this time,  I first learned about G-BOMBS.  I thought that idea was a good one.

G-BOMBS is short for:
Greens
Beans
Onions
Mushrooms
Berries
Seeds

All these foods are great for fighting cancer as well as so many other chronic diseases.  I decided to make a meal with G-BOMBS and see if I could get Dear One to eat it.

When I made this I very carefully wrote down the "recipe".  I thought I put it in my Day One journal, but I do not find it there...so this is my memory of what I put in the pan:

1 red onion, finely diced

8 white mushrooms, peeled and VERY FINELY chopped

1 red bell pepper and 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped

1 can red beans in chili sauce

1 cup brown rice cooked in Instant pot with 1 cup water for 28 minutes on HIGH then release pressure naturally (yes, I use the same amount of water as rice when cooking in the Instant Pot and it comes out perfectly.  I just about always cook on HIGH for 28 minutes and release pressure naturally.  Sometimes I add a little miso paste to the water for flavor.)

1 bunch of kale fresh from the garden, washed, de-stemmed, finely chopped then put in the Instant Pot on top of the rice and water.  Yes, it is going to be cooked to heck but that is my aim.  I want it as invisible as possible for obvious reasons!

1 heaping Tablespoon chopped garlic

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

While the rice and kale were cooking, I water sautéed the onions, peppers, and mushrooms until they were very tender.  At that point I tossed in the garlic and spices for about two minutes.  

Added the can of beans with liquid and stirred well.  Added in the cooked rice and kale and mixed until well conglomerated.  (Be sure the heat is on low.)  Covered the pan and let simmer for 5-10 minutes for flavors to mix.  Passed a little salt at the table for those who love salt.

We had blackberries for dessert.  The only G-BOMB we did not have was seeds but we could have thrown in some pumpkin or sunflower seeds in either the meal or on the berries...but we did not.  Also, I knew Dear One would take the peanut butter jar and a sleeve of crackers up to the "man cave" sometime during the evening.

All in all, it was a successful meal.

Garden Tower!

Recently I have been watching Robbie and Gary Gardening on YouTube.  Robbie is so interesting and has such great (to me) ideas.  She does a lot of container gardening.  She also has hundreds of hummingbirds visit her every day!  I like that.

Anyway, I more or less followed her idea in making a garden towel.

The bottom bucket has broken-up bits of a tree branch that fell down across the road and was blown onto our lawn. I was happy to use it for the bottom layer.  After that we put some wood chips that had already started to compost over at B C Mulch and More.  Those people are so nice.  We did buy some wonderful compost from them for our Mel's Mix for the raised bed/square foot garden but it is almost $30 a bucket.  Worth it, but still, if we can be patient we can enjoy compost from the wood chips.

After the wood chips we put in some potting soil from Lowes.  Next came the second blue tub where we put in wood chips then dirt.  Finally the white bucket which has pretty big holes in it.  Actually there are pretty big holes in the bottoms of all three buckets.  I am looking forward to worms and microbes finding there way inside to turn everything into wonderful food for the plants.

Oh, and under the largest bucket is a big tub of wood chips.  My idea is to slide the bucket along next year, in hopes that there will be some soil underneath by then.

The white bucket is for our kitchen waste.  We cannot have a compost pile in our back yard but a bucket...?  Anyway, if a few months it might turn into compost.  We shall see.

In the big bucket you can barely see the two little sweet potato plants J-1 brought over on the weekend.

Can you tell I am pretty happy with the way the garden is going?!  I did ask Dear One how he felt about me putting in a raft of garden towers.  His instant response:  "NO!"  Okay.  We will see how the one does. I am optimistic.

Garden 2020: Our First Zucchini!

Today I went out to water the sweet potato plants (I had just learned that they need watering every day for the first two weeks then every other day for a week, then less frequently!) and decided to give all the plants a drink.

This is what I found in the zucchini patch!!!

Okay, so you can barely see it. AND it is probably only 3 inches long, BUT IT IS A ZUCCHINI!!!  Our first one.  The plants seem to have taken off once I put that pine straw mulch around it.  Truly,  in about three days the plants were more than double in size.  Of course, Heavenly Father was watering them rather heavily for a whole week, so it is little wonder they are so happy.  I just need to keep it up!

Paper Crafting Fun With A Die!

Recently I started making plans to increase the number and complexity of paper crafting dies in my collection.  Twice in the past  I have given most of them away.  Now I am wishing I had more...but only because I binge-watch various YouTube channels where the crafters do magnificent work.  Since I make birthday cards each month, I have been thinking I need more dies for cut outs...particularly the ones that are intricate and cover most or all of an A2 card.

Oh, my goodness, there are some pretty dies out there!  Altenew and Lawn Fawn and Sizzix and Hero Arts, and so many more!  My favorites are the butterflies and flowers dies plus anything hearts.  I think the "cover plates" are just fabulous.  Well, it is nice to dream and it will be nice when my coffers are refilled at some point in the future!

WELL...I just started reading a book called "The Year of Less".  Too bad, because this being the first of the month is a good time to make changes in my own life.  I am thinking, though have not actually acted yet, that I should go to all those websites that have shopping carts partly filled with wonderful dies, and delete the carts.  Rats.  It really is a good idea.  There are some things I would like to do in the somewhat distant future that will require funds.  In order to have them at my disposal, now seems a good time to "go with less".  We shall see. I will let you know if I am successful.

In the meantime,  I did find one "all over" die hidden away in a box, and used it to make this card.  The Gelli print was the first part, then the die cut, then gluing it all together.  I am pretty happy with the card.  And the envelope, though they do not match.  I was out at Michaels today for some necessities and started to pick up some more 180-sheet paper pads to put in my shopping cart when I remembered "go with less"...so I put them back.  So, envelopes will continue to be the paper we currently have.  Oh well.

This card rather appeals to me.  Plus I love the little star confetti that is now available!

Munchie Monday: Burgers Again

The recipe that was the basis for the Burger Dogs I made last week is from EmilieEats though I made a fair number of changes.


Black Bean Quinoa Veggie Burgers

Makes about 8

2 Tablespoons flax meal (ground flax seeds)
1/2 cup dry (uncooked) quinoa
1 onion, finely diced
1 bell pepper, finely diced
1 jalapeño, seeded and with membranes removed, then very finely chopped
1 can drained and rinsed black beans
1 cup finely chopped kale or other green (or use whatever cooked vegetables you have in the refrigerator.  We used an unpopular Mexican cauliflower dish that I mashed up in good shape so it was unrecognizable...)
1 teaspoon (or less) salt
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Dash of cayenne, if you dare
1/2 cup oat flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine the flaxmeal and 5 Tablespoons of water in a bowl and mix well.  Let sit while you do following steps.
In a small saucepan over high heat add 1 cup water and 1/2 cup dry quinoa (any color).  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and let simmer until water is absorbed and quinoa is tender.  This takes about 15 minutes.  (I used the Instant Pot and place 1/2 cup dry quinoa and 3/4 cup water in a bowl which I set on the trivet in the bottom of the Instant Pot which had 1 cup of water in the inner liner bowl.  I set the timer to ONE minute on HIGH pressure and when it was done, let the Instant Pot reduce pressure naturally for 10 minutes.)

In a skillet over medium heat, water (or broth) sauté the onion for about 5 minutes then add the bell peppers and jalapeño.  Cook for 3-5 minutes then add your greens for one minute or so.

In a large bowl place the beans and mash up somewhat, though I mashed quite a lot so there were very few whole beans visible.  Add the cooked vegetables, the cooked quinoa, the oat flour, and all the spices.  Stir with a long-handled wooden spoon until very well combined.  If you waited until things were cool, you could squish everything up with your very clean hands.  You can stir in more oat flour if things do not seem to hold together.

Taste the "batter" to see if you need to make additions to the seasonings.  Everything is already cooked so it will not hurt to taste it.

Shape into 8 patties (or in our case, 5 patties and 3 burger dogs!) and place on Silpat or parchment covered baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes then, using a VERY thin-bladed spatula, carefully flip over the burgers and bake an additional 20 minutes.  Or longer.  It depends on how crispy you want them to be.  I wanted them crispy enough that I could pick them up and dip into hummus or some other sauce so they cooked about an hour all together.